“Every Tear Wiped Away”
Revelation 21:1-7
“Now I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. Also there was no more sea. Then I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, "Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people. God Himself will be with them and be their God. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away." Then He who sat on the throne said, "Behold, I make all things new." And He said to me, "Write, for these words are true and faithful." And He said to me, "It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. I will give of the fountain of the water of life freely to him who thirsts. He who overcomes shall inherit all things, and I will be his God and he shall be My son.”
Revelation chapters 19-20 give us a good idea of what will happen at the very end of time. To summarize, in Rev. 19, we learned that Jesus comes back to planet earth with His saints, destroys the wicked and cast the Antichrist and the false prophet into the lake of fire. In Rev. 20, Satan is bound and, in his absence, Christ rules and reigns with His saints on earth for a thousand years. At the end of this time, Satan is released from his prison for a short period of time to try one last time to destroy Christ and His saints. God destroys his army, and he is also cast into the lake of fire. Rev. 20 ends with a detailed description of the Great White Throne Judgment of all the unsaved, the dead, of all the ages of humanity, as they meet their final doom in the lake of fire.
I believe that the believers and saints of all the ages will be spectators of this terrible judgment of the lost. We will watch and listen to God pronounce their final sentence to an eternity in everlasting punishment called the second death. We no doubt will weep, when we see many of our loved ones who rejected Christ, cast into the lake of fire. We will regret that we didn’t give more for missions, pray more for missionaries, or even go ourselves to tell the untold millions who never heard of Jesus. We will be sorry that we didn’t love and care for those that we crossed paths with, and take the opportunity to share with them the wonderful story of Jesus.
That is how Revelation 20 ends! A sad event and time indeed! But thank God it doesn’t end there. We still have chapters 21 and 22 that give us the “unveiling” of a new age that is eternal. God doesn’t leave us in the dark about our final destiny as His people.
Both creation itself and our conscience tell us and reveal to us that there is a God. A divine Designer behind the design. But to know specifically about Him and His plan for us we need a specific revelation. That’s why God gave us the Bible! The entire Bible is a revelation of who God is, who we are, and what is His divine plan for us. The first book of the Bible is called Genesis, which means the Book of Beginnings. Only from this revelation do we really know the origin of the universe, the earth and mankind! I guarantee you they will not find it on Mars, in science, or anywhere else for that matter.
I think it is also very interesting that the last book of the Bible is called Revelation! The wise man, Solomon tells us in Ecclesiastes 3:11, “He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also He has put eternity in their hearts…”. Eternity is in our hearts! There is something inside us that tells us that death does not end it all. There is something after death! Both pagan and religious beliefs have lots of ideas of what that might be. But only the Bible and Jesus give us very specific revelation about heaven and eternity.
So, when I read Revelation 21-22, I believe and know that I have something very definite and special to look forward to! I know that I will join millions of believers, who at the White Throne Judgment will have many regrets and tears! But almost immediately, in Revelation 21:1-6, in contrast to the close of chapter 20, I am told that there will be a “new heaven and a new earth”, the “former things will pass away”, and that God Himself will “wipe away every tear”.
My friend, what a time that will be! But it should be our desire today, to have as few regrets and tears as possible, as we live every moment of every day for the Lord Jesus Christ telling others of His love and grace!
God bless!
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