He has not given you up. I beseech you therefore
hear him. It would be a sad thing for you to say no to him at the last
and have him take you at your word, and if he has not given you up I am
persuaded that there is some one else in the world deeply concerned for
your soul.

THE APPROVAL OF THE SPIRIT

TEXT: "_Yea, saith the Spirit._"--Rev. 14:31.

The world has had many notable galleries of art in which we have been
enabled to study the beautiful landscape, to consider deeds of heroism
which have made the past illustrious, in which we have also read the
stories of saintly lives; but surpassing all these is the gallery of
art in which we find the text. Humanly speaking John is the artist
while he is an exile on the Island of Patmos in the Aegean Sea. The
words he uses and the figures he presents are suggested by his
surroundings, and it would be difficult to imagine anything more
uplifting than the book of Revelation if it be properly studied and
understood. When John speaks of the Son of Man he describes his voice
as the sound of many waters--undoubtedly suggested by the waves of the
sea breaking at his feet. Locked in by the sea on this lonely island
he gives to us this Revelation for which every Christian should
devoutly thank God. His eyes are opened in an unusual way and before
him as in panoramic vision the past, the present and the future move
quickly, and he makes a record of all the things that he beholds. His
body is on Patmos but as a matter of fact he seems to be walking the
streets of the heavenly city and gives to us a picture of those things
which no mortal eye hath yet beheld. He describes the risen Christ.
It is a new picture, for as he beholds him his head and his hair are
white like wool, as white as snow; and yet it is an old picture he
gives, for he is presented as the Lamb that has been slain, with the
marks of his suffering still upon him, and these help to make his glory
the greater, and if possible to increase the power and sweetness of the
angels' music. He presents to us a revelation of the glorified church
and of the four and twenty elders falling down at the feet of Jesus,
casting their crowns before him and giving him all adoration and
praise. He cheers us with a knowledge of the doom of Satan, for in the
closing part of the book he presents him to us as bound, cast into the
pit and held as a prisoner for a thousand years, while in every other
part of the Bible he is see