I was thinking recently of some of the majestic things that I have been allowed to witness.  I've seen some of the best runners in the world run races at speeds that I can't quite comprehend.  In one corner of my hometown I saw a morning fog gliding over the perfectly still surface of a slow river, whose dark waters were almost completely covered a hundred feet overhead by the branches of the cypress trees whose roots lined and even overreached the bank.  I've driven the length of Tennessee in the summertime, through some of the most beautiful places I've ever seen.  I've watched footage of Brooks Robinson and Ozzie Smith taking a silly game and playing it at a level that it had never been played before.  All of the majesty that we've seen in this world excites, awes and changes us.  And, if we are willing to understand, it declares the glory of its creator.  These works will pass away, though. The works that God has created on the earth and in man will be distorted and perverted by a depraved world that seeks to silence the Lord by any means.  In 1 Peter 4:12-19, the Bible teaches that evil will increase in the world and that His church will be tried and persecuted.  As we see these trials increasing, it can be easy to worry.  It can be easy to question how any of God's saints will live to see the day when He calls us out of this world.  Remember that the majesty that we have seen here is not even comparable to what is still to come.  Remember what has been spoken by Him whose Word and authority are final.

"...I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no one could number, of all nations, tribes, peoples, and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, saying, 'Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!' And all the angels stood around the throne and the elders and the four living creatures, and fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, saying:  'Amen!  Blessing and glory and wisdom, thanksgiving and honor and power and might, be to our God forever and ever.  Amen.'  Then one of the elders answered, saying to me, 'Who are these arrayed in white robes, and where did they come from?'  And I said to him, 'Sir, you know.'  So he said to me, 'These are the ones who come out of the great tribulation, and washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb."-Revelation 7:9-14