Revelation 7:9-17 — He Will Wipe Away Every Tear

FRANK EDWARDS: "The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want." Sixteen steps ago we started with that line, written by David, who had kept sheep as a boy in the hills of Judah. Today we hear where it ends. Picture a throne, and around it a crowd no one can count, from every nation and tribe and people and tongue, dressed in white, holding palm branches, all shouting at once. At the center of the throne is a Lamb. And we are going to walk the psalm through this scene one last time, line by line, and find every line in it. LINDA BROWN: Welcome to Dig Deeper. I'm Linda Brown, here with Frank Edwards, and this is step sixteen, the last step of our sixteen steps with Psalm 23. Last time a shepherd went after one lost sheep until he found it. Today we end in the last book of the Bible. Revelation chapter seven, verses nine to seventeen. After this I looked and saw a multitude too large to count, from every nation and tribe and people and tongue, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and holding palm branches in their hands. And they cried out in a loud voice: "Salvation to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!" And all the angels stood around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures. And they fell facedown before the throne and worshiped God, saying, "Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanks and honor and power and strength be to our God forever and ever! Amen." Then one of the elders addressed me: "These in white robes," he asked, "who are they, and where have they come from?" "Sir," I answered, "you know." So he replied, "These are the ones who have come out of the great tribulation; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. For this reason, they are before the throne of God and serve Him day and night in His temple; and the One seated on the throne will spread His tabernacle over them. 'Never again will they hunger, and never will they thirst; nor will the sun beat down upon them, nor any scorching heat.' For the Lamb in the center of the throne will be their shepherd. 'He will lead them to springs of living water,' and 'God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.'" FRANK EDWARDS: Start with the man who saw it. John calls himself "your brother and partner in the tribulation and kingdom and perseverance that are in Jesus," and says he was "on the island of Patmos because of the word of God and my testimony about Jesus." He was an exile writing to small churches under pressure. A chapter before this, the souls of those killed for their faith cry out, "How long, O Lord, holy and true, until You judge those who dwell upon the earth and avenge our blood?" Revelation 7 is part of the answer. LINDA BROWN: Revelation is full of symbols, and not every detail is easy. Some people avoid the book entirely for that reason. Is this one of the hard scenes? FRANK EDWARDS: Some details here have been debated for centuries, like how the hundred and forty-four thousand just before this relate to the crowd no one can count. But what this scene is for is clear. It shows God's people complete, safe, and home. So let us take the psalm a line at a time. LINDA BROWN: Then the first line, the one we have said together every step of this series. "The LORD is my shepherd." FRANK EDWARDS: In Revelation 7:17, "the Lamb in the center of the throne will be their shepherd." The Greek verb is "will shepherd them," and it is the same verb the Greek translation of Psalm 23 uses in its first line: the Lord shepherds me. The psalm and the last book of the Bible meet in one word. And the Shepherd is a Lamb. Earlier John saw him: "a Lamb who appeared to have been slain, standing in the center of the throne." The one at the center of heaven still bears the marks of the cross. LINDA BROWN: "I shall not want." In the passage that becomes "Never again will they hunger, and never will they thirst." FRANK EDWARDS: The elder is quoting Isaiah 49: "They will not hunger or thirst, nor will scorching heat or sun beat down on them." On step three we stayed with "I shall not want" among people who lacked a shepherd. Here it means lacking nothing at all, ever again. LINDA BROWN: Isaiah's next words are, "For He who has compassion on them will guide them and lead them beside springs of water." That sounds like verse two. "He leads me beside quiet waters." FRANK EDWARDS: Closer than it sounds. On step four we heard that "leads" in Psalm 23:2 is nahal, the gentle leading toward water, at the pace of the weakest animal. In Isaiah 49, "lead them beside springs of water" uses that same verb. Revelation takes it one step further: "He will lead them to springs of living water." LINDA BROWN: Living water is water that moves, from a spring rather than a cistern. Jeremiah 2 has God calling himself "the fountain of living water," and grieving that his people dug "broken cisterns that cannot hold water." FRANK EDWARDS: And Jesus stood up at the Feast of Tabernacles in John 7 and called out, "If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink." The quiet waters of the psalm lead here, to the source. Revelation 22 shows "a river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb." LINDA BROWN: "He restores my soul." Is that line in the scene too? FRANK EDWARDS: In the last words: "God will wipe away every tear from their eyes." Isaiah 25 promised it: "He will swallow up death forever. The Lord GOD will wipe away the tears from every face." Look who does it. Not an angel. God himself, with his own hand. Every grief the soul has known is gathered up. On step four we heard that "restores" means brought back. This is the soul brought home for good. LINDA BROWN: "He guides me in the paths of righteousness." Where is righteousness here? FRANK EDWARDS: In the robes. "They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb." No laundry works that way, and the paradox is deliberate. Isaiah 1 says, "Though your sins are like scarlet, they will be as white as snow." On step eleven we heard Jesus at the table: "This is My blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many." Here are the many. And on step twelve, "through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous." The paths of righteousness end in robes the sheep could never have whitened themselves. LINDA BROWN: Then the valley. "Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death." FRANK EDWARDS: "These are the ones who have come out of the great tribulation." Tribulation means pressure, crushing distress. Jesus told his disciples, "In the world you will have tribulation. But take courage; I have overcome the world!" On step eight we heard that the psalm says "through," not "into." This crowd was not spared the valley. They came out of it. LINDA BROWN: "I will fear no evil, for You are with me." What does "with me" look like here? FRANK EDWARDS: "The One seated on the throne will spread His tabernacle over them." Literally, he will pitch his tent over them. In the wilderness, "the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle." John's Gospel uses the same verb for Jesus: "The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us." In the valley David said, "You are with me." Here God's presence is a shelter spread over every one of them. LINDA BROWN: The palm branches fit that, don't they? Many readers hear the Feast of Tabernacles in them. FRANK EDWARDS: At that autumn festival Israel lived for a week in shelters made of branches, remembering the wilderness, and the Law said to take "the branches of palm trees" and "rejoice before the LORD your God for seven days." John does not name the feast, so it is an echo rather than a statement. But the details fit: branches, God's tent spread over them, and no more hunger or thirst in a wilderness. LINDA BROWN: "You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies." Where are the enemies in this scene? FRANK EDWARDS: Nowhere. That is the point. On step eleven the table was set with the betrayer at it. Here there is no enemy left, "nor will the sun beat down upon them, nor any scorching heat." Nothing can reach them. And on step nine we heard the angel in Revelation 19: "Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb." The table of verse five becomes a wedding feast. LINDA BROWN: "My cup overflows." Their first words are not about themselves at all. "Salvation to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!" FRANK EDWARDS: The overflowing cup becomes overflowing praise. The angels answer with seven words heaped up: "Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanks and honor and power and strength be to our God forever and ever!" No one in that crowd boasts. Every one of them is there because of what someone else did. LINDA BROWN: "Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life." Last time we heard that means pursue. FRANK EDWARDS: And here is what the pursuit gathered. "A multitude too large to count, from every nation and tribe and people and tongue." God told Abraham to "count the stars, if you are able," and then, "So shall your offspring be." Two chapters earlier the choir sings to the Lamb, "by Your blood You purchased for God those from every tribe and tongue and people and nation." Jesus said there would be "one flock and one shepherd." The chase is over. Every lost sheep he went after is home. LINDA BROWN: And the last line. "I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever." FRANK EDWARDS: "They are before the throne of God and serve Him day and night in His temple." The house of the LORD, forever. Ezekiel 37 says it in God's voice: "My dwelling place will be with them; I will be their God, and they will be My people." And Revelation 21: "Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man, and He will dwell with them." David's last line is their life. LINDA BROWN: Sixteen steps, and every one of them is in this scene. A shepherd boy who went after his lamb into a lion's mouth. A crowd fed on the green grass. "It is I" on the dark water. Two tables, Herod's and the Lord's. The Shepherd struck and the sheep scattered. The cry from the cross, the empty tomb, and the shepherd who went after the one. FRANK EDWARDS: All of it was the Lamb becoming the Shepherd of this crowd. And the crowd is still being gathered. The Bible's last invitation is Revelation 22: "let the one who is thirsty come, and the one who desires the water of life drink freely." Freely means it costs the one who comes nothing. It cost the Lamb everything. Hear the elder once more, and then the whole psalm. "For the Lamb in the center of the throne will be their shepherd." The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside quiet waters. He restores my soul; He guides me in the paths of righteousness for the sake of His name. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever. [long pause] LINDA BROWN: For a way to take this into an ordinary week, the Apply This Today section in the app picks it up one last time. And if you have walked all sixteen steps, there are other plans waiting in the app whenever you are ready for the next one. FRANK EDWARDS: Dig Deeper is a free app, and you can find it at dig deeper dot A I. LINDA BROWN: Thanks for listening, and for walking all sixteen steps of Psalm 23.