The multitude has come out of the ‘great tribulation’. They have experienced the hail and heat from fire descending from Heaven,1 water that was undrinkable2 and the sun scorching the earth.3 Their tears have flowed during the persecutions. But now that is past. The Lamb breaks the scroll’s seals4 and in His wrath5—the wrath of God and of the Lamb, sends His judgments out over the world. This Lamb is also the One who will lead His sheep through those circumstances and bring them to green pastures.6 He will be with them in all their troubles; He will deliver and honour them.7 He will ensure that they arrive safely at His throne. He is the good Shepherd.8 He hides them in the shelter of His sacred tent and sets them high and safely upon a rock.9 They will neither hunger nor thirst, nor will the desert heat or the sun beat down on them. He who has compassion on them will guide them and lead them beside springs of water.10 The great, good Shepherd takes care of His sheep Himself.11 He brings them to the water of life.12 He dries their tears. The Lord comforts His own just like a loving mother lovingly takes her crying child in her arms, and wipes its tears away.13 “As a mother comforts her child, so will I comfort you,” says the Lord.14 What comfort in trials and in (the great) tribulation; what a prospect of what things will be like after the tribulation!
John is able to comfort the Church and the Israel of God (Galatians 6:16). Time and time again, when he has to speak of the terrors of the last days in this phase of world history. Persevere! Don’t give up! Never give in! God is in control! God is directing history. The return of the Jewish people to Israel is the greatest sign of hope the modern world has ever seen. The Lord God does not abandon the works that His hands started. The Church, Israel, the nations, indeed Creation itself, will come to the glorious goal to which He has destined them—through the painful process of our purification, ‘refined in the fire’, Revelation 3:18. Personally and on a global scale. Also Israel will be refined, Zechariah 13:9. A painful process. Like birth pangs, birth pains. But labour pains will eventually lead to the birth and the joy of a new-born baby.
The weeds must be thrown into the fire, the good grain winnowed, and threshed with an old-fashioned threshing tool so that the chaff is separated from the wheat. The harvest must come. The wheat must ripen. The end will be glorious, however!
• All sixteen references to the Temple in the Book of Revelation use a Greek word that points to the innermost Sanctuary rather than to the total Temple complex. The Temple refers to the place where God will make His Holy Name dwell, where He spreads out His tent. In the desert it is His Tent, His Tabernacle.15
• ‘Wiping away tears’ made a huge impression upon Isaiah himself. He speaks about it in several places, for example in Isaiah 25:8, 35:10, 51:11 and 65:19, where everlasting joy and happiness will take the place of tears. Also for Israel: “The Lord God will wipe away all tears and take away forever all insults and mockery against His land [Israel] and people [the Jewish people]”, Isaiah 25:8 (TLB). Death will then also be destroyed. Pictures of the Glory of the Kingdom of Heaven on earth and of the Glory of the Heavenly realms themselves are interwoven.
Bible References:
1.Revelation 8:7–8 2.Revelation 8:10–11 3.Revelation 16:8–9 4.Revelation 5 and 6 5.Revelation 6:16–17 6.Psalm 23 7.Psalm 91:15 8.John 10:1–30 9.Psalm 27:5 10.Isaiah 49:10 11.Ezekiel 34 12.Revelation 22:1–5 13.Isaiah 49:15 14.Isaiah 66:13 15.Leviticus 26:11–12 and Exodus 40:34-38
