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The Acts of the Apostles
will I grant to sit with Me in My throne, even as I also overcame, and
am set down with My Father in His throne.”
Verse 7
;
3:5, 21
.
John saw the mercy, the tenderness, and the love of God blending
with His holiness, justice, and power. He saw sinners finding a Father
in Him of whom their sins had made them afraid. And looking beyond
the culmination of the great conflict, he beheld upon Zion “them that
had gotten the victory ... stand on the sea of glass, having the harps
of God,” and singing “the song of Moses” and the Lamb.
Revelation
15:2, 3
.
The Saviour is presented before John under the symbols of “the
Lion of the tribe of Judah” and of “a Lamb as it had been slain.”
Revelation 5:5, 6
. These symbols represent the union of omnipotent
power and self-sacrificing love. The Lion of Judah, so terrible to
the rejectors of His grace, will be the Lamb of God to the obedient
and faithful. The pillar of fire that speaks terror and wrath to the
transgressor of God’s law is a token of light and mercy and deliverance
to those who have kept His commandments. The arm strong to smite
the rebellious will be strong to deliver the loyal. Everyone who is
faithful will be saved. “He shall send His angels with a great sound of
a trumpet, and they shall gather together His elect from the four winds,
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from one end of heaven to the other.”
Matthew 24:31
.
In comparison with the millions of the world, God’s people will
be, as they have ever been, a little flock; but if they stand for the truth
as revealed in His word, God will be their refuge. They stand under
the broad shield of Omnipotence. God is always a majority. When the
sound of the last trump shall penetrate the prison house of the dead,
and the righteous shall come forth with triumph, exclaiming, “O death,
where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?” (
1 Corinthians
15:55
)—standing then with God, with Christ, with the angels, and
with the loyal and true of all ages, the children of God will be far in
the majority.
Christ’s true disciples follow Him through sore conflicts, enduring
self-denial and experiencing bitter disappointment; but this teaches
them the guilt and woe of sin, and they are led to look upon it with
abhorrence. Partakers of Christ’s sufferings, they are destined to be
partakers of His glory. In holy vision the prophet saw the ultimate
triumph of God’s remnant church. He writes: