Revelation 7:14

Revelation 7:14

We owe very little debt to those who take this out of the grand signification, and say that it belongs to the "multitudes" of Constantine, or the "Constantine age." I would far rather keep to the simple ideas of my childhood, and see in it nothing but a beautiful description of the saints in heaven. Now of all these beautiful words perhaps the most important, certainly the most instructive, is the word "therefore." For this is what we want to know, not, Are they happy? or, What do they? All that we may leave. There is no doubt about that. But why are they there? How did they come there? This is the question which concerns us.

I. And so I ask, Where in the sentence does "therefore" come? I observe that it comes after two things: "tribulation" and "washing," but directly and strictly only after "washing." We might disconnect the latter part of the sentence from the "tribulation," but we could not separate it from the "washing." The order might be that the "tribulation" leads to the "washing," and the "washing" leads to the glory. But it could not be the "tribulation" without the "washing," though it might be the "washing" without the "tribulation." Never think that affliction takes anybody to heaven. It very often conducts further from it. Affliction may lead to the fountain, and the fountain is in the road to the throne. If you go to the fountain, you will at last find yourself before the throne. But "tribulation," whatever it be, saves no one. Only "the washing the robes and making them white in the blood of the Lamb" ever does that.

II. It is very easy to misunderstand that word "tribulation." It sounds like something so very severe. But what I wish to point out is this: that the text does not say that the experience of saints must be very bitter, or the pain very intense. The word used is "friction," the rubbing which goes to make the fine polish or the exquisite edge. And it amounts to this: "These are they which came out of the refining processes of great friction." And what Christian has not friction? the friction of his two natures clashing; the friction of his besetting sins; the friction of some character in the world with whom he has to do; the friction of some daily duty; the friction of a constant uneasiness; the friction of some weary trial, some continual sore. If there be no more, there is that. And that at least must be. It may not be of many sorts, or it may not be of great importance; but we have it twice in St. Paul's exhortation to the Churches of Asia Minor and the elder's testimony to St. John "We must through much friction" it is the same word "We must through much friction enter into the kingdom of God." It may be a comfort to some who have no overwhelming griefs, but who have abundance of wearing, harassing vexations, that even in that they may fulfil the condition.

III. But if the "tribulation" be the inevitable accompaniment, the cleansing is the essential and the primary cause of all saintship. For then has the "tribulation" done its work, when it has humbled and emptied the heart to such a sinking sense of sin as drives it to the fountain of the cross of Jesus. "They washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb." In the great temple of nature and truth; in the holy places of His handiwork; in the holiest of holies, in His Church, by day, after our feeble power, and by night, when we glorify God by our resting; in the sunshine of the consciousness of saints and the shadows of pain and impotence, we serve God; and this service of ours goes up acceptably through the very same perfume and the same incense of Jesus which makes the service of angels acceptable. And He who is present there is present here; and they know that we have Him, and we know that they have Him. They are perfect reflectors; we are imperfect reflectors. And these, the service, and the presence, and the image, are to be for ever and for ever; and they make "the communion of the saints."

J. Vaughan, Sermons,14th series, p. 101.