Visions of a Glorious Future
Picture: Visions of a Glorious Future2TC 352.1
In the darkest days of the long conflict with evil, the people of God have been given revelations of Jehovah’s eternal plan. He has permitted them to look beyond the trials of the present to the triumphs of the future, when the redeemed will possess the Promised Land. Today the controversy of the ages is rapidly coming to a close, and the promised blessings will soon arrive. Despised, persecuted, and forsaken, God’s children in every age have looked forward to the time when He will fulfill His assurance, “I will make you an eternal excellence, a joy of many generations.” Isaiah 60:15.2TC 352.2
The church will triumph, but not without severe conflict. “The bread of adversity,” “the water of affliction” (Isaiah 30:20), these are common to all of us; but none will be overwhelmed if they put their trust in the One mighty to deliver. “Thus says the Lord, who created you, ... ‘I have called you by your name; you are Mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, nor shall the flame scorch you. For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.’” Isaiah 43:1-3.2TC 353.1
There is forgiveness with God; there is acceptance full and free through the merits of Jesus, our crucified and risen Lord. “I, even I, am He who blots out your transgressions for My own sake; and I will not remember your sins.” “You shall know that I, the Lord, am your Savior.” Verse 25; 60:16.2TC 353.2
“No weapon formed against you shall prosper,
And every tongue which rises against you in judgment
You shall condemn.
This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord,
And their righteousness is from Me,”
Says the Lord. Isaiah 54:172TC 353.3
Wearing the armor of Christ’s righteousness, the church is to enter on her final conflict. She is to go out into all the world, conquering and to conquer. The darkest hour of the struggle comes just before the day of final deliverance. When “the blast of the terrible ones is as a storm against the wall,” God will be to His church “a refuge from the storm.” Isaiah 25:4.2TC 353.4
The word of the Lord to His faithful ones is, “Come, My people, enter your chambers, and shut your doors behind you; hide yourself, as it were, for a little moment, until the indignation is past. For behold, the Lord comes out of His place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity.” Isaiah 26:20, 21.2TC 353.5
Human Pride Will Be Laid Low
In visions of the great judgment day, God gave His inspired messengers glimpses of the distress of those unprepared to meet their Lord. “Behold, the Lord makes the earth empty and makes it waste, distorts its surface and scatters abroad its inhabitants.” “Because they have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant.” Isaiah 24:1, 5.2TC 354.1
“The loftiness of man shall be bowed down, and the haughtiness of men shall be brought low; the Lord alone will be exalted in that day.” “In that day a man will cast away his idols of silver and his idols of gold, which they made, each for himself to worship, to the moles and bats, to go into the clefts of the rocks, and the crags of the rugged rocks, from the terror of the Lord and the glory of His majesty, when He arises to shake the earth mightily.” Isaiah 2:17, 20, 21.2TC 354.2
Of those times when human pride will be laid low, Jeremiah testifies: “Alas! For that day is great, so that none is like it; and it is the time of Jacob’s trouble, but he shall be saved out of it.” Jeremiah 30:7.2TC 354.3
The day of wrath to God’s enemies is the day of final deliverance to His church. The Lord “will swallow up death forever, and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces; the rebuke of His people He will take away from all the earth; for the Lord has spoken.” Isaiah 25:8. And as the prophet sees the Lord descending from heaven with all the holy angels to gather the remnant church from among the nations of earth, he hears the elated cry:2TC 354.4
“Behold, this is our God;
We have waited for Him, and He will save us.
This is the Lord;
We have waited for Him;
We will be glad and rejoice in His salvation.” Verse 92TC 354.5
The Resurrection From the Dead
The voice of the Son of God calls the sleeping saints out from the prison house of death. “Your dead shall live; together with My dead body they shall arise. Awake and sing, you who dwell in dust.” Isaiah 26:19.2TC 355.1
Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened,
And the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped.
Then the lame shall leap like a deer,
And the tongue of the dumb sing. Isaiah 35:5, 62TC 355.2
In the prophet’s visions, those who have triumphed over sin and the grave are now seen as happy in the presence of their Maker, talking freely with Him as Adam and Eve talked with God in the beginning. “I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and joy in My people; the voice of weeping shall no longer be heard in her, nor the voice of crying.” “The inhabitant will not say, ‘I am sick’; the people who dwell in it will be forgiven their iniquity.” Isaiah 65:19; 33:24.2TC 355.3
Waters shall burst forth in the wilderness,
And streams in the desert.
The parched ground shall become a pool,
And the thirsty land springs of water.2TC 355.4
“Speak comfort to Jerusalem, and cry out to her, that her warfare is ended, that her iniquity is pardoned; for she has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins.” Isaiah 35:6, 7; 40:2.2TC 355.5
“Violence shall no longer be heard in your land,
Neither wasting nor destruction within your borders;
But you shall call your walls Salvation,
And your gates Praise.”
“Your people shall all be righteous;
They shall inherit the land forever,
The branch of My planting,2TC 355.6
The work of My hands,
That I may be glorified.” Isaiah 60:18, 212TC 356.1
The prophet caught the sound of music there, such music and song as no mortal ear has heard or mind imagined outside of visions from God. “Joy and gladness will be found in it, thanksgiving and the voice of melody.” Isaiah 51:3. “Both the singers and the players on instruments say, ‘All my springs are in you.’” Psalm 87:7.2TC 356.2
What Life Will Be Like in the New Earth
In the earth made new, the redeemed will engage in the activities and pleasures that brought happiness to Adam and Eve in the beginning. They will live the Eden life, the life in garden and field. “They shall build houses and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit. They shall not build and another inhabit; they shall not plant and another eat; for as the days of a tree, so shall be the days of My people, and My elect shall long enjoy the work of their hands.” Isaiah 65:21, 22. They will develop every power, increase every capability, engage in the grandest activities, and realize their highest ambitions.2TC 356.3
The prophets to whom God revealed these scenes longed to understand their full meaning, inquiring “about the person or time that the Spirit of Christ within them indicated. ... They were serving not themselves but you, in regard to the things that have now been announced to you.” 1 Peter 1:11, 12, NRSV.2TC 356.4
Struggling friend, we are still in the shadows and turmoil of earthly activities, but soon our Savior will appear. Soon we will see Him who is the focus of our hopes of eternal life. And in His presence the trials of this life will seem like nothing. The former things “shall not be remembered or come to mind.” “Therefore do not cast away your confidence, which has great reward. For you have need of endurance, so that after you have done the will of God, you may receive the promise: ‘For yet a little while, and He who is coming will come and will not tarry.’” Isaiah 65:17; Hebrews 10:35-37.2TC 356.5
Look up, and let your faith continually increase. Let this faith guide you along the narrow path that leads through the gates of the city into the wide, limitless future of glory. “Therefore be patient, brethren, until the coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, waiting patiently for it until it receives the early and latter rain. You also be patient. Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand.” James 5:7, 8.2TC 357.1
The nations of the saved will know no other law than the law of heaven. All will be a happy, united family. The morning stars will sing together, and the sons of God will shout for joy, while God and Christ will unite in proclaiming, “There shall be no more sin, neither shall there be any more death.”2TC 357.2
“‘From one New Moon to another, and from one Sabbath to another, all flesh shall come to worship before Me,’ says the Lord.” “For the Lord will comfort Zion, He will comfort all her waste places; He will make her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the Lord.”2TC 357.3
“As the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you.” Isaiah 66:23; 51:3; 62:5.2TC 357.4
