There are honest-hearted people scattered in all cultures and kinds of religious faith who will gladly open their hearts to Jesus when they hear His message clearly. He says, "Other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear My voice; and there shall be one fold, and one Shepherd" (John 10:16).
That's the grand final ingathering of souls that Revelation 18:1-4 speaks of--when a message lightens the earth with glory, and God's people now in "Babylon" hear the Voice from heaven that says with authority, "Come out of her, My people." That Voice has been nearly silenced through a period of three centuries, but "the Scripture cannot be broken" and God's word must be fulfilled (John 10:35). The Voice will yet be heard. Isaiah describes the Loud Cry ingathering: "'Lift up your eyes, look around and see; all these gather together and come to you. As I live,' says the LORD, 'you shall surely clothe yourselves with them all as an ornament. ...'" (Isa. 49:18, NJKV).
Jesus pleads with His Father that these "other sheep" become one, that is, united (John 17:21). Now they are scattered; some keep the seventh day, many keep the first; what will bring them into "one"?
It will be the cross on which the Lord was crucified; they will understand in unison what He accomplished. Today, they are divided in that vision: some see that the cross was meant only to make an offer to the world, that Christ's sacrifice does us no good unless and until we decide to believe and receive the offer.
Others believe that all the good we have ever known is the purchase of that sacrifice; that it proclaims that Jesus became our "last Adam," reversed the judicial condemnation that the first Adam put on the human race, and by virtue of His sacrifice Christ pronounced on "all men" a "judicial ... verdict of acquittal" (Rom. 5:16, REB); that He "tasted death for every man" (Heb. 2:9); that He earned the title "Savior of the world" (John 4:42); that He gave Himself to "every man" and will save every soul who will let Him do so and will stop resisting Him.
As time goes on, the Holy Spirit will deepen convictions of truth in people's hearts; and truth always unites--it never divides honest people.
From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: February 1, 2007.Copyright © 2010 by Robert J. Wieland.
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