Mies in Early Church History^ 150.
REVELATION vii. 9, 10 175
2. But the vastness is the outcome of faith much more than of sight. In another place St. John states the impression which the physical eye receives : " We are of God, and the lohole ivorld lieth in wickedness." The eye of faith is the eye of that God who invited Abraham to go out into the evening and count the number of the stars. It is the eye of that Christ of God who planted the mustard seed which grew into a great tree.
^ As their praise was erst not of men but of God, so now their number is known not to men but to God. " So many as the stars of the sky in multitude, and as the sand which is by the seashore innumerable." "I beheld," says St. John: and you with your eyes, I with mine (please God !) shall yet behold.^
3. The text is an answer at last to the question, " Are there few that be saved ? " Were we to answer that question by sight we should probably answer it quite otherwise, our judgment being formed partly from the state of our own heart, and partly from what we see around us. With our own heart we cannot be too stern. To it Christ's answer is addressed, " Strive ye to enter in." With our neighbour we cannot perhaps be too lenient. In any case our neighbour has a right to ask, " Who made thee a judge or a divider over us ? " We do not know enough to form a judgment.
Who made the heart, 'tis He alone
Decidedly can try us; \ He knows each chord, its various tone,
Each spring, its various bias. Then at the balance let's be mute,
We never can adjust it ; What's done we partly may compute,
But know not what's resisted.^
II It is recorded of Daniel Webster that he was travelling in a then uninhabited part of Western America which is now covered by great and populous cities. As he and a friend were exploring that vast solitude, Webster suddenly lowered his head and seemed to listen. , " What are you doing ? " inquired his friend.
" / am listening for the tramp of the zoming millions ! " replied Webster, his face aglow with confider/ ^b in the future greatness of his country. h\
1 Christina G. Rossetti, The Face of the Deepf^l. * Robert Burns.
176 THE REDEEMED
II.
The Variety.
1. The variety is as great as the number. What a distance St. John has travelled ! It is a long way for his feet from the shores of Galilee to the isle that is called Patmos ; but how much farther for his heart, from his hope for the seed of Abraham to this assurance of all nations and tongues ! There is nothing that some men seem so sure about as the limitation of our Lord's outlook. It is true He was not sent in His lifetime on earth but to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. But it was Christ, and not St. Paul, that enabled St. John to see the variety of the redeemed.
2. Every nation, and every variety of individual in every nation, every variety of gift and ministry — singers in choirs, nurses and doctors, visitors of the sick, priests, prophets, pastors, missioners, Bible-women, mothers, daughters — " I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto me." These are of the redeemed now. They do not need to wait for death to find their place in St. John's majestic vision. " For all the saints who from their labours rest" — yes, certainly, for Livingstone and Gordon and Shaftesbury, for Lawrence and Martyn and Duff and Grenfell — but also for the saints who are still bearing the burden and heat of the day. 0 blessed union, fellowship Divine ! " Next to the presence of God and the Lamb," says Hort, " the highest blessing is the presence of them who follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth."
3. What an encouragement it is to the missionary ! " Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts." We are only now realizing that the gospel of Jesus Christ is the communication of the l(|)ve of God to the hearts of men; that Christianity is a spiritual power and impulse stirring all that is great and noble in the soul, not only making righteousness a dream, but also making it a dream realized in hearts transformed into the image of God. Christianity is indigenous in every land and among every race be ^use Christianity is the love of God out- flowing to men — and tha , primal feeling of love every race knows.
REVELATION vii. 9, 10 177
But it is only in this last generation that we have realized it. In times of strife Christianity was thought of as a system which put iron in the blood. When we pierced down to the heart of Christianity, felt its throb again, realized that it was the love of God shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, then the way opened out for the sending of the gospel to the heathen world, and the nations were moved at its approach, as if they, too, were prepared for its coming.