3)
And I
heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with
men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself
shall be with them, and be their God.
4)
And God
shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death,
neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the
former things are passed away.
5)
And he
that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And he said unto
me, Write: for these words are true and faithful.
6)
And he
said unto me, It is done. I am Alpha and Omega, the
beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of
the water of life freely.
7)
He that
overcometh shall inherit all things; and I will be
his God, and he shall be my son.
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have an obligation as saints of God to accept that all that the Lord has
promised in His Word is done. Before
they come, all problems, situations and circumstances are solved, worked out
and "handled." Why? Because the Lord was aware of them, made a way
for us to bear them and prepared us for them before they were ever allowed to come.
Recognizing
all that the Lord has already done is a requirement
for "a positive confession." You see, we will have confidence in
nothing if we do not see that all has been provided for us. This is the only
way to look at this life that we must live in the flesh with any type of
positive outlook.
No
doubt, it is distressing to some to see that we are examining the book of
Revelation. You see, too many look at it as an almost non-understandable book. Basically,
this is because it consists of past, present and future. Because of this, it is
difficult for some to tell when the time changes. Under these circumstances,
many find it hard to keep events "straight."
John
was sent to the Isle of Patmos from
In
verse three, the words "is with" denotes the present. It is a fact
that God is presently "tabernacling" with
men. He makes Himself available to us,
through us so that we might get the
help that we need. But ,
if we never come to know Who He is, we will never be able to take full
advantage of our benefits in Him.
In
verse four of our text, we are informed of all that shall be ours at the end of
a victorious walk with the Lord. However, not only
will the Lord give rest from tears in the future, if we understand what the
Lord has done; why He died, we will
find no need to cry, now. If we are saved yet crying, we do so because we won't
turn our situation over into the hands of the Lord. Any sorrowing the saint of God does is of his own choice, for all that comes to us belongs to the Lord
because it is allowed by the Lord.
The
Lord wastes time in nothing. We can
stand assured that if the Lord finds it necessary that we endure something, He does so that another might be benefited. If
one would ever be of use to the Lord, he will have to be trained. So,
the one who aspires to greatness should stop crying over his situations, accept
his victory in them and go ahead and grow into the man that the Lord requires.
"Training"
accomplishes a two-fold purpose, at least. The first is accomplished in our
enduring our trials and tests before others that they might know, recognize and
accept that the God Who came down to Man is, indeed, an overcoming, victorious,
righteous, holy, omniscient and omnipotent God. You see, the only way that people will be won to the
Lord is that we must be able to tell others what we know to be true of the Lord--not what we "think,"
"believe," or "feel."
The
word speaks of us as not having "...any more pain" because too many
of us do experience pain. Now, this is not an inevitability,
but rather, an issue of failure to trust God. If we trusted Him, we would
entrust our troubles to Him and in so
doing, would find that all was worked out before we ever gave it to Him.
There
is nothing from before salvation that should have any bearing on our walk after salvation. At the very instant of
salvation, all of the "former things" are passed away. The Lord so graciously does this that we might be
unencumbered in our walk with Him.
The only concern that
we have after salvation is that we agree with whatever the Lord says. If He
says that we are healed, we are to walk in victory. Each of us, as individuals,
must determine within ourselves that whatever needed to be done for us has
already been done. We need to remind ourselves that He is the Alpha to Omega, the Beginning to the Ending, the First to
the Last, the "A" to "Z" and everything in-between. My determination must be that if the
Lord says that it is done, I say that "it" is done. Whatever it is
that I am willing to turn over to the Lord, whether sickness, finances or
family—if I am willing to turn that
situation over to the Lord—"it is done!" n