Feeds:
Posts
Comments

The “Rest” of Heaven by Richard Baxter

January 17, 2010 by ADMIN

Let us draw near and see from the pure fountain of the Scriptures what excellencies the saints’ everlasting rest affords.  May the Lord hide us in the clefts of the rock and cover us with the hands of indulgent grace while we approach to take this view.  And may we put off from our feet the shoes of irreverence and fleshly thoughts while we stand upon this holy ground.  These truths are like jewels in the Christian’s heavenly crown:

Heaven Will Be a Seasonable Rest. A further excellency is this: it will be unto us a seasonable rest. He who expects the fruit of His vineyard in season and makes His people as trees planted by the waters, fruitful in their season, He will also give them the crown in season.  He that will have the words of joy spoken to the weary in season will sure cause that time of joy to appear in His perfect time.

They who knew the season of grace and did repent and believe in season shall also, if they faint not, reap in season.  If God will not miss the season of common mercies, even to His enemies, but will give both the former and the latter rain in their season, and the appointed weeks of harvest in its season, and by inviolable covenant has established day and night in their seasons, then sure, the harvest of the saints and their day of gladness shall not miss its season.

He who has given the stork, the crane, and the swallow to know their appointed time will surely keep His time appointed.  When we have had in this world a long night of sad darkness, will not the day breaking and the rising of the Sun of Righteousness be then seasonable?  When we have endured a hard winter in this cold climate will not the reviving spring be then seasonable?  When we have sailed (as Paul) slowly many days, and much time spent, and sailing now grown more dangerous; and when neither sun nor stars in many days appear, and no small tempest comes on us and all hope that we shall be saved is almost taken away—do you think that the haven of rest is not seasonable then?

When we have passed a long and tedious journey and that through no small dangers, is not home then seasonable?  When we have had a long and perilous war, and have lived in the midst of furious enemies, and have been forced to stand on a perpetual watch, and received from them many a wound, would not a peace with victory be now seasonable?  When we have been captivated in many years’ imprisonment, and insulted over by scornful foes, and suffered many pinching wants, and hardly enjoyed bare necessaries, would not a full deliverance to a most plentiful state, even from this prison to a throne, be now seasonable?

Surely, a man would think, who looks upon the face of the world, that rest should seem seasonable to all men.  Some of us are languishing under continual weakness and groaning under most grievous pains, crying in the morning.  “Would God it were evening!” and in the evening, “Would God it were morning!”—weary of going, weary of sitting, weary of standing, weary of lying, weary of eating, weary of speaking, weary of walking, weary of our very friends, weary of ourselves.  Oh! how often has this been mine own case!  And is not rest yet seasonable?  Some are complaining under the pressure of the times; weary of their taxes, weary of their dwellings, weary of crime, weary of their fears and dangers, weary of their poverty and wants.  And is not rest yet seasonable?

Where can you go and into what company can you come, where the voice of complaining does not show that men live in a continual weariness—but especially the saints, who are most weary of that which the world cannot feel?  What godly society can you fall into, but you shall hear by their moans that something ails them?  Some are weary because of a blind mind, doubting the way they walk, unsettled in almost all their thoughts.  Some are weary because of a hard heart, some because of pride, some because of passion—and some from all these and much more.  Some are weary because of their daily doubtings and fear concerning their spiritual estate; some because of a shortage of spiritual joys; and some because of the sense of God’s wrath.  And is not rest now seasonable?

When a poor Christian has desired and prayed and waited for deliverance many a year, is it not then seasonable?  When he is ready almost to give up, and saith, “I am afraid I shall not reach the end, and my faith and patience will not hold out,” is not this a fit season for rest?  If the voice of the king were seasonable to Daniel, early in the morning calling him from his den, that he might advance him to more than former dignity, then surely that morning voice of Christ our King, calling us from our terrors among lions, to possess his rest among His saints, should be to us a very seasonable voice.

Now we are often grudging that we have not a greater share of comforts; that our deliverances are not more speedy and eminent; that the world prospers more than we; that our prayers are not presently answered.  But our portion is kept to a fitter season.  When the winter comes we shall have our harvest.  We grudge that we do not find a Canaan in the wilderness or cities of rest in Noah’s Ark and the songs of Zion in a strange land; that we have not a harbor in the main ocean, or find not our home in the middle way, and are not crowned in the midst of the fight, and have not our rest in the heat of the day, and have not our inheritance before we are at age, and have not heaven before we leave the earth: and would not all this be very unreasonable?

I confess, in regard of the church’s service, the removing of the saints may sometimes appear to us unseasonable.  I must confess it is one of my saddest thoughts, to reckon up the useful instruments, whom God has lately called out of His vineyard, when the loiterers are many, and the harvest great and very many congregations desolate, and the people as sheep without shepherds, and yet the laborers called from their work, especially when a door of liberty and opportunity is open.  We cannot but lament so sore a judgment, and think the removal, in regard of the church, unseasonable.

But whatever it is to those that are left behind; yet the saints’ departure, to themselves, is usually seasonable.

Heaven Will Be a Suitable Rest. A further excellency of this rest is this: as it will be seasonable, so a suitable rest, suited to the natures, to the desires, and to the necessity of the saints.

To their natures. If suitableness concur not with excellency, the best things may be bad to us; for it is that which makes things good in themselves to be good to us.  In our choice of friends, we often pass by the more excellent, to choose the more suitable.  Every good agrees not with every nature.  To live in a free and open air, under the warming rays of the sun, is excellent to man because suitable; but the fish, which is of another nature does rather choose another element; and that which is to us so excellent would quickly be to it destructive.

In heaven, suitableness and excellency will finally be conjoined.  The new nature of saints suits their spirits to this rest; and indeed their holiness is nothing else but a spark taken from this element, and by the Spirit of Christ kindled in their hearts, the flame whereof, as mindful of its own divine original, ever mounts the soul aloft, and tends to the place from whence it comes.  It works toward its own center, and makes us restless, till there we rest.  Gold and earthly glory, temporal crowns and kingdoms, could not make a rest for saints.  As they were not redeemed with so low a price, so neither are they endued with so low a nature.  As God will have from them a spiritual worship, suitable to His own spiritual being, so will He provide them a spiritual rest, suitable to His people’s spiritual nature.  As spirits have not fleshly substances, so neither delight they in fleshly pleasures; these are too gross and vile for them.  A heaven of the knowledge of God and His Christ; a delightful contentment in that mutual love; an everlasting rejoicing in the fruition of our God; a perpetual singing of His high praises; this is heaven for a saint, a spiritual rest suitable to a spiritual nature.  Were not our own nature in some sort divine, the enjoyment of the true divine nature could not be to us a suitable rest.

It is suitable also to the desires of the saints.  As their natures, so will be their desires; and as their desires, so will be their rest.  Indeed, we have now a mixed nature; and from contrary principles, do arise contrary desires; as they are flesh, they have desires of flesh; and as so they have sinful desires.  These are not the desires that this rest is suited to for they will accompany them to their rest.  But it is the desires of our renewed natures, and those which the Christian will ordinarily own which this rest is suited to.  While our desires remain uncorrupted and misguided, it is a far greater mercy to deny them, yea, to destroy them, than to satisfy them; but those which are spiritual are of His own planting, and He will surely water them and give the increase.  Is it so great a work to raise them in us, and shall they after all this vanish and fail?

He quickened our hungering and thirsting for righteousness, so that He might make us happy in a full satisfaction.  Christian, this is a rest after your own heart.  It contains all that your heart can wish; that which you long for, pray for, labor for, there you shall find it all.  You would rather have God in Christ than all the world.  There you shall have Him!  What would you not give for assurance of His love?  There you shall have assurance beyond suspicion.  Nay, your desires cannot now extend to the height of what you shall there obtain.

The rest is very suitable to the saints’ necessities also as well as to their natures and desires.  It contains whatsoever they truly wanted.  It was Christ and perfected holiness which they most needed, and with these shall they here be principally supplied.  The rain which Elijah’s prayer procured was not more seasonable, after the three years’ drought, than this rest will be to this thirsty soul.

Heaven Will Be Perfect in Every Way. Another excellency of our rest will be this, that it will be absolutely perfect and complete; and this both in the sincerity and universality of it.  We shall then have joy without sorrow, and rest without weariness.  As there is no mixture of corruption with our graces, so no mixture of sufferings with our solace.  There are none of those waves in that harbor, which now so toss us up and down.  There will be a universal perfecting of all our parts and powers, and a universal removal of all our evils.  And though the positive part be the sweetest, and that which draws the other after it, even as the rising of the sun excludes the darkness; yet is not the negative part to be slighted, even our freedom, from so many and great calamities.

Heaven excludes nothing more directly than sin; whether original and of nature, or actual and of behavior.  For there enters nothing that defiles, nor that works abomination, nor that makes a lie.  When they are there, the saints are saints indeed.  He that will wash them with His heart-blood, rather than suffer them to enter unclean, will now perfectly see to that; He who has undertaken to present them to His Father, “not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but perfectly holy, and without blemish,” will now most certainly perform His undertaking.

I know if it were offered to your choice, you wouldst rather choose to be freed from sin than to be made heir of all the world. Wait till then, and you shall have that desire: your hard heart, those vile thoughts that lay down and rose up with you, which accompanied you to every duty, which you could no more leave behind you than you could leave yourself behind, shall now be left behind forever. They might accompany you to death, but they cannot proceed a step farther.

Your understanding shall nevermore be troubled with darkness.  Ignorance and error are inconsistent with this light.  Now you walk like a man in the twilight, always afraid of being out of the way; but then will all this darkness be dispelled, and our blind understandings fully opened, and we shall have no more doubts of our way.  We shall know which was the right side, and which the wrong; which was the truth, and which the error.  What would we not give to see all dark Scriptures made plain, to see all seeming contradictions reconciled!  When glory has taken the veil from our eyes, all this will be known in a moment; we shall then see clearly into all the controversies about doctrine or discipline that now perplex us.  The poorest Christian is presently there a more perfect divine than any is here.

When our ignorance is perfectly healed, then we shall be settled, resolved men; then shall our reproach be taken from us, and we shall never change our judgments more. Oh! that happy, approaching day, when error shall vanish away forever; when our understanding shall be filled with God Himself, whose light will leave no darkness in us!  His face shall be the Scripture, where we shall read the truth; and Himself, instead of teachers and counsels, to perfect our understandings, and acquaint us with Himself, who is the perfect truth.  No more error, no more scandal to others, no more disquiet to our own spirits, no more mistaking zeal for falsehood; because our understandings have no more sin.  Many a godly man has been a means to deceive and pervert his brethren, and when he sees his own error, cannot again tell how to undeceive them; but there we shall all conspire in one truth, as being one in Him who is that truth.

And as we shall rest from all the sin of our understandings, so of our wills, affection, and conversation. We shall no more retain this rebelling principle, which is still withdrawing us from God.  Doubtless, we shall no more be oppressed with the power of our corruptions, nor vexed with their presence; no pride, passion, slothfulness, senselessness, shall enter with us; no strangeness to God, and the things of God; no coldness of affections, nor imperfection in our love; no uneven walking, nor grieving of the Spirit; no scandalous action, or unholy living.  We shall rest from all these forever.  Then shall our understandings receive light from the face of God, as the full moon from the open sun, where there is no earth to interpose between them; then shall our wills correspond to the divine will, as face answers to face in a glass; and the same, His will shall be our law and rule from which we shall never swerve again.

Heaven Is a Rest from Suffering. Heaven is a perfect rest from suffering. When the cause is gone, the effect ceases.   Our sufferings were but the consequences of our sinning, and here they both shall cease together.

We shall rest from all our perplexing doubts and fears.  It shall no more be said that doubts are like the thistle, a bad weed, but growing in good ground; they shall now be weeded out, and trouble the gracious soul no more.  No more need of so many sermons, books, and signs to resolve the poor doubting soul.  The full fruition of love itself will resolve all doubts forever.

We shall rest from all that sense of God’s displeasure, which was our greatest torment, whether manifested mediately or immediately.  Sorrowful complaints will be turned into admiring thankfulness.  All sense of God’s displeasure will be swallowed up in that ocean of infinite love when sense shall convince us that fury dwells not in God (cf. Isa. 27:4).  Though for a little moment He hides His face, yet with everlasting compassion will He receive and embrace us.

We shall rest from all the temptations of Satan whereby he continually disturbs our peace.  What a grief is it to a Christian, though he yield not to the temptation, yet to be still solicited to deny his Lord.  That such a thought should be cast into his heart; that he can set about nothing that is good, but Satan is still dissuading him from it, distracting him in it, or discouraging him after it!  What a torment as well as a temptation is it to have such horrid motions made to his soul!

Here we are too prone to entertain cruel thoughts of God, undervaluing thoughts of Christ, unbelieving thoughts of Scripture, injurious thoughts of Providence.  We are so easily tempted to turn to present things, to play with the baits of sin, to venture on the delights of the flesh, and to consider atheism itself!  We know the treachery of our own hearts that they are as tinder and gunpowder, ready to take fire, as soon as one of these sparks shall fall upon them.  How the poor Christian lives in continual disquietness, to feel these motions!  But more that his heart should be the soil for this seed and the too-fruitful mother of such an offspring.  And, most of all, he is disquieted by the fear that they will at last prevail and these cursed motions should procure his consent.

But here is our comfort; as we now stand not by our own strength and shall not be charged with any of this; so when the day of our deliverance comes, we shall fully rest from these temptations.  Satan is then bound up; the time of tempting is done.  Now we do walk among his snares and are in danger of being circumvented with his methods and wiles; but then we are quite above his snares, and out of the hearing of his enticing charms.  He has power here to tempt us in the wilderness, but he enters not into the Holy City.  There will be no more work for Satan then.

We shall rest also from all our temptations which we now undergo from the world and the flesh, as well as Satan; and that is a number inexpressible, and a weight, were it not that we are beholden to supporting grace, utterly intolerable.  Every sense is a snare; every member a snare; every creature a snare; every mercy a snare; and every duty a snare to us.  We can scarce open our eyes, but we are in danger.  If we behold them above us, we are in danger of envy; if below us, we are in danger of contempt.  If we see sumptuous buildings, pleasant habitations, honor and riches we are in danger to be drawn away with covetous desires; if the rags and beggary of others, we are in danger of self-applauding thoughts and unmercifulness.  If we see beauty, it is a bait to lust; if deformity, loathing and disdain.

We can scarcely hear a word spoken but contains to us a matter of temptation.  How soon do slanderous reports, vain jests, wanton speeches, by that passage creep into the heart!  How strong and prevalent a temptation is our appetite and how constant and strong a watch does it require!  Have we comeliness and beauty?  What fuel for pride.  Are we deformed?  What occasion of repining!  Have we strength of reason, and gifts of learning?  How hard it is not to be puffed up!  To seek ourselves; to hunt after applause; to despise our brethren; to dislike the simplicity that is in Christ.  Both in the matter and manner of Scripture, in doctrine, in discipline, in worship, and in the saints; to affect a pompous, specious, fleshly service of God, and to exalt reason above faith.  Are we unlearned and of shallow heads and slender parts?  How apt then to despise what we have not and to undervalue that which we do not know; and to err with confidence, because of our ignorance.  Conceitedness and pride become a zealous enemy to truth and a leading troubler of the church’s peace, under pretenses of truth and holiness.  Are we men of eminence and in place of authority?  How strong is our temptation to slight our brethren, to abuse our trust, to seek ourselves, to stand upon our honor and privileges; to forget ourselves, our poor brethren, and the public good.  How hard it is to devote our power to His glory from whom we have received it!  How prone we are to make our wills our law and to cut out all the enjoyments of others, both religious and civil, by the cursed rules and model of our own interest and policy!  Are we inferiors and subject?  How prone to judge at others’ pre-eminence, and to take liberty to bring all their actions to the bar of our incompetent judgment; and to censure and slander them, and murmur at their proceedings!  Are we rich and not too much exalted?  Are we poor and not discontented, and make our worldly necessities a pretense for robbing God of all His service?

But forever blessed be omnipotent love which saves us out of all these and makes our straits but the advantages of the glory of His saving grace.  In heaven the danger and trouble is over; there is nothing but what will advance our joy.

As we rest from the temptations, so also from all the abuses and persecutions which we suffer at the hands of wicked men.  We shall be scorned, derided, imprisoned, banished, and butchered by them no more.  The prayers of the souls under the altar will then be answered and God will avenge their blood on these that dwell on the earth.  This is the time for crowning with thorns, buffeting, spitting on; that will be the time for crowning with glory.

Now we must be hated of all men for Christ’s name’s sake, and the gospel; then will Christ be admired in His saints that were thus hated.  Now because we are not of the world, therefore doth the world hate us; then, because we are not of the world, therefore will the world admire us.  Now, as they hated Christ, they will also hate us; then, as they will honor Christ, so will they also honor us.  When their flood of persecution is dried up, and the church called out of the wilderness, and the New Jerusalem come down from heaven, and mercy and justice are fully glorified, then shall we feel their fury no more.  We leave all this behind us when once we enter the City of our Rest: the names of Lollard, Huguenots, Roundheads are not there used; the inquisition of Spain is there condemned; the statute of the Six Articles is there repealed.  There are no Bishops’ or Chancellor’s Courts; no visitations nor High Commission judgments; no censures to loss of members, perpetual imprisonment, or banishment.  Christ is not there clothed in a mock robe and blindfolded.  Nor is truth clothed in the robes of error and smitten for that which it most directly contradicts.  Nor is a schismatic wounded, and a saint found bleeding; nor our friends smite us, mistaking us for their enemies.  There is none of all this blind, mad work there.

Till then possess your souls in patience; bind all reproaches as a crown to our heads; esteem them greater riches than the world’s treasures; account it a matter of joy when you fall into tribulation.  You have seen in these days that our God can deliver us; but this is nothing to our final conquest.  He will recompense tribulation to them that trouble you; and to you who are troubled rest with Christ.

We shall then also rest from our sad divisions, and unchristian quarrels with one another.  There is no contention, because none of this pride, ignorance, or other corruption.  Paul and Barnabas are now fully reconciled.  There they are, not every man conceited of his own understanding and in love with the issue of his own brain, but all admiring the divine perfection, and in love with God and one another.  Luther and Zwingli will be agreed.  There shall be a full reconciliation between Calvinists and Lutherans; Remonstrants and Contra-remonstrants; Conformists and Nonconformists.  Antinomians and Legalists are terms there not known: Presbyterians and Independents are perfectly agreed.  There is no discipline erected by state policy, nor any disordered popular rule; no government but that of Christ!

And is it not shame that our course is now so contrary?  Is it not enough that all the world is against us, but we must also be against one another?  Did I ever think to have heard Christians so to reproach and scorn Christians; and men professing the fear of God to make so little conscience of censuring, vilifying, slandering and disgracing one another?  Alas!  Once discernment has been perverted and error has possessed the supreme faculty, where will men go and what will they do?  Nay!  What will they not do?  Oh, what a potent instrument for Satan is a misguided conscience!  Today they may be orthodox, unanimous, and joined in love, and perhaps within a few weeks will be divided, and at bitter enmity, through their doting about questions that tend not to edify.

Oh happy day of the rest of the saints in glory when as there is one God, one Christ, one Spirit, so we shall have one judgment, one heart, one church, one employment forever!  When there will be no more circumcision and uncircumcision, Jew and Gentile, Anabaptist, Paedobaptist, Brownist, Separatist, Independent, Presbyterian, Episcopal: but Christ is All in All.  We shall not there scruple our communion, nor any of the ordinances of divine worship.  There will not be one for singing and another against it.  But even those who have jarred in discord shall all conjoin in blessed concord and make one melodious choir.

We shall then rest from all the sorrowful hours and sad thoughts we now undergo, by participating with our brethren in their calamities.  Alas!  If we had nothing upon ourselves to trouble us, yet what heart could lay aside sorrows that live in the sound of the church’s sufferings?  The church on earth is a mere hospital.  Whichever way we go, we hear complaining, and into whatsoever corner we cast our eyes, we behold objects of pity and grief.  Who weeps not when all these bleed?  As now our friends’ distresses are our distresses, so then our friends’ deliverance will be part of our own deliverance.  How much more comfortable to see them perfected than now to see them wounded, weak, sick and afflicted?  Our day of rest will free both them and us from all this.

Oh, the sad and heart-piercing spectacles that my eyes have seen in four years’ space!  In this fight [The English Civil War], scarce a month, scarce a week, without the sight or noise of blood.  Surely there is none of this in heaven.  Our black raiment and mourning attire will then be turned into the white robes and garments of gladness.  How hardly can my heart now hold when I think of such, and such, and such a dear Christian friend slain or departed!  How glad must the same heart needs be when I see them all alive and glorified!

But a far greater grief it is to our spirits, to see the spiritual miseries of our brethren; to see our dearest and most intimate friends to be turned aside from the truth of Christ; to see many near us in the flesh continue their neglect of Christ and their souls.  Oh, what continual sorrows do all these sad sights and thoughts fill our hearts with from day to day!  And will it not be a blessed day when we shall rest from all these?  What heart is not wounded to think on Germany’s long desolations [from the Hundred Years Wars–wars between the Catholics and Protestants after the Reformation]?  Look on England’s four years’ blood, a flourishing land almost made ruined!  Look to Scotland, look to Ireland; look almost everywhere!  Blessed be that approaching day, when our eyes shall behold no more such sights nor our ears hear any more such tidings!

We shall rest also from all our personal sufferings, whether natural or ordinary, or extraordinary, from the afflicting hand of God.  And though this may seem a small thing to those who live in continual ease, and abound in all kind of prosperity, yet, to the daily afflicted soul, it should make all thoughts of heaven delightful.  As all our senses are the inlets of sin, so are they become the inlets of our sorrow.  Grief creeps in at our eyes, at our ears, and almost everywhere.  Fears do devour us, and darken our delights, as the frosts nip the tender buds, our cares consume us, and feed upon our spirits, as the scorching sun withers the delicate flowers.  What tender pieces are these dusty bodies!  What brittle glasses do we bear about us; and how many thousand dangers are they hurried through, and how hardly cured if once cracked!

Whatever it is to the sound and healthful, to such as myself this rest should be acceptable, who in ten or twelve years’ time have scarce had a whole day free from some sorrow.  Oh, the weary nights and days; oh, the unserviceable, languishing weakness; oh, the restless working vapors; oh, the tedious, nauseous medicines, beside the daily expectation of worse!  Will it not be desirable to rest from all these?  Oh, the blessed tranquility of that region where there is nothing but sweet continued peace!  Our lives will be but one joy, as our time will be changed into one eternity.  For it shall come to pass, that in that day the Lord shall give us rest from our sorrow, and our fear, and from the hard bondage wherein we served.  The poor man shall no more be tired with his incessant labors: no more use of the plough, or flail, or scythe, or sickle; no stooping of the servant to the master, or the tenant to the landlord; no hunger, or thirst, or cold, or nakedness; no pinching frosts or scorching heats.  No more parting of friends asunder, nor voice of lamentation heard in our dwellings; no more breaches nor disproportion will be in our friendship, nor any trouble accompanying our relations.

Then shall the “the ransomed of the Lord … return, and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads: they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away” (Isa. 35:10).  Hold out then a little longer, oh, my soul; bear with the infirmities of thine earthly tabernacle.  It will be thus but a little while; the sound of our Redeemer’s feet are even at the door and your own deliverance nearer than many others.  And you who have often cried shall then feel that God and joy fill all your soul.  The fruition of heaven, with your freedom from all these sorrows, will more sincerely and feelingly make you know, and to His eternal praise acknowledge, that you live.

We shall rest also from all the trouble and pain of duty.  The conscientious magistrate now cries out, “Oh, the burden that lies upon me!”  The conscientious parents, who know the preciousness of their children’s souls and the constant pains required to their godly education, cry out, “Oh, the burden!”  The conscientious minister when he reads his charge and views his pattern; when he has tried awhile what it is to study, and pray and preach; to go from house to house, and from neighbor to neighbor, and to beseech them night and day with tears, and, after all, be hated and persecuted for so doing—no wonder if he cries out, “Oh, the burden!”

And seldom does a minister live to see the ripeness of his people.  But one sows and plants, another waters, and a third reaps and receives the increase.  To inform the old ignorant sinner, to convince the stubborn and worldly wise, to persuade a willful, resolved wretch, to prick a stony heart to the quick, to make a rock to weep and tremble, to set forth Christ according to our necessity and His excellency, to comfort the soul whom God dejects, to clear up dark and difficult truths, to oppose with convincing arguments all gainsayers, to credit the gospel with exemplary conversations, when multitudes do but watch for our halting.  Oh, who is sufficient for these things?  So that every conscientious Christian cries out, “Oh, the burden!  Oh, my weakness that makes it so burdensome!”  But our eternal rest will ease us of the burden.

Lastly, we shall rest from all those sad affections which necessarily accompany our absence from God.  We shall no more look into our cabinet and miss our treasure; look into our hearts and miss our Christ; nor no more seek Him from ordinance to ordinance, and inquire for our God of those we meet.  Our heart will not lie in our knee, nor our souls be breathed out in our request, but all conclude in a most full and blessed fruition.

Heaven Is an Eternal Rest. The last jewel in our crown and blessed attribute of this rest is that it is an eternal rest. This is the crown of our crown without which all were comparatively little or nothing.  The very thought of once leaving it would else embitter all our joys; and the more would it pierce us because of the singular excellencies which we must forsake.

Mortality is the disgrace of all sublunary delights.  It makes our present life of little value—were it not for the reference it has to God and eternity—to think that we must shortly lay it down.  Surely, were it not for eternity, I should think man a silly piece; and all his life and honor but contemptible; a vain shadow.  I can value nothing that shall have an end, except as it leads to that which has no end; or as it comes from that love which has neither beginning nor end.

What do I say when I talk of eternity?  Can my shallow thoughts conceive at all what that most high expression contains?  To be eternally blessed, and so blessed!  Why, surely this, if anything, is the resemblance of God: eternity is a piece of infiniteness.  Oh, then, my soul, let go thy dreams of present pleasures and loose thy hold of earth and flesh.  Fear not to enter that estate where thou shalt ever after cease thy fears.  Sit down and think about this eternity.  Study frequently, study thoroughly, this one word: eternity. And when you have learned thoroughly that one word, you will never look on books again!  What! live, and never die?  Rejoice, and ever rejoice!  Oh, what sweet words are those, never and ever.

Oh, that the gracious soul would believingly study this word everlasting.  That should revive him in his deepest agony!  Must I, Lord, thus live forever?  Then will I also love forever.  Must my joys be immortal; and shall not my thanks be also immortal?  Surely, if I shall never lose my glory, I will also never cease Thy praises.  If Thou wilt both perfect and perpetuate me and my glory, as I shall be Thine, and not my own, so shall my glory be Thy glory.  And as all did take their spring from Thee, so shall all devolve into Thee again; and as Thy glory was Thine ultimate end in my glory, so shall it also be mine when Thou hast crowned me with that glory which has no end.  And unto Thee, “eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honor and glory forever and ever.  Amen.” (1 Tim. 1:17).

Posted in Richard Baxter |

Many Mansions by Jonathan Edwards

January 17, 2010 by ADMIN

In My Father’s house are many mansions. John 14:2

In these words may be observed two things,

1. The thing described, viz. Christ’s Father’s house. Christ spoke to his disciples in the foregoing chapter as one that was about to leave them.  He told them, John 13:31, “Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in him,” and then goes to giving of them counsel to live in unity and love one another, as one that was going from them.  By which they seemed somewhat surprised and hardly knew what to make of it.  And one of them, Peter, asked him where he was going, John 13:36, “Simon Peter said unto him, Lord whither goest thou?”  Christ did not directly answer and tell him where he was going, but he signifies where in these words afterwards; in John 14:12, he tells them plainly that he was going to his Father.

2. We may observe the description given of it that in it there are many mansions. The disciples seemed very sorrowful at the news of Christ’s going away, but Christ comforts them that in his Father’s house there was not only room for him, but room for them too; there were many mansions.  There was not only a mansion there for him, but there were mansions enough for them all.  There was room enough in heaven for them.  When the disciples perceived that Christ was going away, they manifested a great desire to go with him, particularly Peter.  Peter in the latter part of the foregoing chapter (John 13:36-38) asked him [if] he might follow him.  Christ told him that whither he went he could not follow him now, but that he should follow him afterwards.  But Peter, not content with Christ, seemed to have a great mind to follow him now.  “Lord,” says he, “why cannot I follow thee now?”  So that the disciples had a great mind still to be with Christ, and Christ in the words, of the text, intimates that they shall be with him.  Christ signifies to them that he was going home to his Father’s house, and he encourages them that they shall be with him there in due time for there were many mansions there.  There was a mansion provided not only for him, but for them all; and not only for them, but for all that should ever believe in him to the end of the world.  And though he went before, he only went to prepare a place for them that should follow.

The text is a plain sentence; ’tis therefore needless to press any doctrine in other words from it: so that I shall build my discourse on the words of the text.  There are two propositions contained in the words:

I. That heaven is God’s house, and

II. That in this house of God there are many mansions.

Proposition I.  Heaven is God’s house. A house of public worship is a house where God’s people meet from time to time to attend on God’s ordinances and that is set apart for that and is called God’s house.  The temple of Solomon was called God’s house.  God was represented as dwelling there.  There he has his throne in the holy of holies, even the mercy seat over the ark and between the cherubims.

Sometimes the whole universe is represented in Scripture as God’s house, built with various stories one above another: Amos 9:6, “It is he that buildeth his stories in the heaven;” and Psa. 104:3, “Who layeth the beams of his chambers in the waters.”  But the highest heaven is especially represented in Scripture as the house of God.  As to other parts of the creation, God hath appointed them to inferior uses; but this part he has reserved for himself for his own abode.

We are told that the heavens are the Lord’s, but the earth he hath given to the sons of men.  God, though he is everywhere present, is represented both in Old Testament and New as being in heaven in a special and peculiar manner.  Heaven is the temple of God.  Thus, we read of God’s temple in heaven, Rev. 15:5.  Solomon’s temple was [only] a type of heaven.  The apostle Paul in his epistle to the Hebrews does from time to time call heaven the holy of holies, as being the antitype not only of the temple of Solomon, but of the most holy place in that temple, which was the place of God’s most immediate residence: Heb. 9:12, “He entered in once into the holy place;” verse 24, “For Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true, but into heaven itself.”

Houses where assemblies [of] Christians worship God are, in some respects, figures of this house of God above.  When God is worshipped in them in spirit and truth, they become the outworks of heaven and as it were its gates.  As in houses of public worship here there are assemblies of Christians meeting to worship God; so in heaven there is a glorious assembly, or Church, continually worshipping God: Heb. 12:22, 23, “But ye are come unto mount Zion, [and unto] the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn, that are written in heaven.”

Heaven is represented in Scripture as God’s dwelling-house; Psa. 113:5, “Who is like [unto] the Lord our God, who dwelleth on high,” and Psa. 123:1, “Unto thee I lift up mine eyes, O thou that dwellest in the heavens.”  Heaven is God’s palace.  ’Tis the house of the great King of the universe; there he has his throne, which is therefore represented as his house or temple; Psa. 11:4, “The Lord is in his holy temple; the Lord’s throne is in heaven.”

Heaven is the house where God dwells with his family.  God is represented in Scripture as having a family; and though some of this family are now on earth, yet in so being they are abroad and not at home, but all going home: Eph. 3:15, “Of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named.”  Heaven is the place that God has built for himself and his children.  God has many children and the place designed for them is heaven.  Therefore the saints, being the children of God, are said to be of the household of God, Eph. 2:19: “Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the household of God.”  God is represented as a householder or head of a family and heaven is his house.  Heaven is the house not only where God hath his throne, but also where he doth, as it were, keep his table, where his children sit down with him at his table and where they are feasted in a royal manner becoming the children of so great a King: Luke 22:30, “That ye may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom;” Mat. 26:29, “But I say unto you, I will not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom.”

God is the King of kings and heaven is the place where he keeps his court. There are his angels and archangels, as the nobles of his court, do attend upon him.

Proposition II. There are many mansions in the house of God.  By many mansions is meant many seats or places of abode.  As it is a king’s palace, there are many mansions.  Kings’s houses are wont to be built very large, with many stately rooms and apartments.  So there are many mansions in God’s house.

When this is spoken of heaven, it is chiefly to be understood in a figurative sense, and the following things seem to be taught us in it.

First, there is room in this house of God for great numbers. There is room in heaven for a vast multitude, yea, room enough for all mankind that are or ever shall be; Luke 14:22, “Lord it is done as thou hast commanded, and yet there is room.”

It is not with the heavenly temple as it often is with houses of public worship in this world, that they fill up and become too small and scanty for those that would meet in them, so that there is not convenient room for all.  There is room enough in our heavenly Father’s house.  This is partly what Christ intended in the words of the text, as is evident from the occasion of his speaking them.  The disciples manifested a great desire to be where Christ was, and Christ therefore, to encourage them that it should be as they desired, tells them that in his Father’s house where he was going were many mansions, i.e., room enough for them.

There is mercy enough in God to admit an innumerable multitude into heaven.  There is mercy enough for all; and there is merit enough in Christ to purchase heavenly happiness for millions of millions, for all men that ever were, are, or shall be.  And there is a sufficiency in the fountain of heaven’s happiness to supply and fill and satisfy all.  And there is in all respects enough for the happiness of all.

Second, there are sufficient and suitable accommodations for all the different sorts of persons that are in the world: for great and small, for high and low, rich and poor, wise and unwise, bond and free, persons of all nations and all conditions and circumstances, for those that have been great sinners as well as for the moral, for weak saints and those that are babes in Christ, as well as for those that are stronger and more grown in grace.  There is in heaven a sufficiency for the happiness of every sort; there is a convenient accommodation for every creature that will hearken to the calls of the Gospel.  None that will come to Christ (let his condition be what it will) need to fear that Christ will provide a place suitable for him in heaven.

This seems to be another thing implied in Christ’s words.  The disciples were persons of very different condition from Christ: he was their Master, and they were his disciples; he was their Lord, and they were the servants; he was their Guide, and they were the followers; he was their Captain, and they the soldiers; he was the Shepherd, and they the sheep; [he was, as it were, the] Father, [and they the] children; he was the glorious, holy Son of God, and they were the poor, sinful, corrupt men.  But yet, though they were in such different circumstances from him, yet Christ encourages them that there shall not only be room in heaven for him, but for them too; for there were many mansions there.  There was not only a mansion to accommodate the Lord, but the disciples also; not only the head, but the members; not only the Son of God, but those that are naturally poor, sinful, corrupt men: as in a king’s palace there is not only a mansion or room of state built for the king himself and for his eldest son and heir, but there are many rooms, mansions for all his numerous household, children, attendants and servants.

Third, it is further implied that heaven is a house that was actually built and prepared for a great multitude. When God made heaven in the beginning of the world, he intended it for an everlasting dwelling-place for a vast and innumerable multitude.  When heaven was made, it was intended and prepared for all those particular persons that God had from eternity designed to save: Mat. 25:34, “Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.”  And that is a very great and innumerable multitude: Rev. 7:9, “After this I beheld, and, lo, a great multitude which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and peoples, and tongues, stood before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes.”  Heaven being built designedly for these was built accordingly; it was built so as most conveniently to accommodate all this multitude: as a house that is built for a great family is built large and with many rooms in it; as a palace that is built for a great king that keeps a great court with many attendants is built exceeding great with a great many apartments; and as an house of public worship that is built for a great congregation is built very large with many seats in it.

Fourth, when it is said, “In my father’s house are many mansions,” it is meant that there are seats of various dignity and different degrees and circumstances of honor and happiness.  There are many mansions in God’s house because heaven is intended for various degrees of honor and blessedness.  Some are designed to sit in higher places there than others; some are designed to be advanced to higher degrees of honor and glory than others are; and, therefore, there are various mansions, and some more honorable mansions and seats, in heaven than others.  Though they are all seats of exceeding honor and blessedness, yet some are more so than others.

Thus a palace is built.  Though every part of the palace is magnificent as becomes the palace of a king, yet there are many apartments of various honor, and some are more stately and costly than others, according to the degree of dignity.  There is one apartment that is the king’s presence-chamber; there are other apartments for the next heir to the crown; there are others for other children; and others for their attendants and the great officers of the household: one for the high steward, and another for the chamberlain, and others for meaner officers and servants.

Another image of this was in Solomon’s temple.  There were many mansions of different degrees of honor and dignity.  There was the holy of holies where the ark was that was the place of God’s immediate residence, where the high priest alone might come; and there was another apartment called the holy place, where the other priests might come; and next to that was the inner court of the temple, where the Levites were admitted: and there they had many chambers or mansions built for lodging-rooms for the priests; and next to that was the court of Israel where the people of Israel might come; and next to that was the court of the Gentiles where the Gentiles, those that were called the “Proselytes of the Gate,” might come.  And we have an image of this in houses built for the worship of Christian assemblies.  In such houses of God, there are many seats of different honor and dignity, from the most honorable to the most inferior of the congregation.

Not that we are to understand the words of Christ so much in a literal sense, as that every saint in heaven was to have a certain seat or room or place of abode where he was to be locally fixed.  ’Tis not the design of the Scriptures to inform us much about the external circumstances of heaven or the state of heaven locally considered; but we are to understand what Christ says chiefly in a spiritual sense.  Persons shall be set in different degrees of honor and glory in heaven, as is abundantly manifested in Scripture: which may fitly be represented to our imaginations by there being different seats of honor, as it was in the temple, as it is in kings’ courts.  Some seats shall be nearer the throne than others.  Some shall sit next to Christ in glory: Mat. 20:23, “To sit on my right hand and on my left, is not mine to give, but it shall be given to them for whom it is prepared of my Father.”

Christ has doubtless respect to these different degrees of glory in the text.  When he was going to heaven and the disciples were sorrowful at the thoughts of parting with their Lord, he lets them know that there are seats or mansions of various degrees of honor in his Father’s house, that there was not only one for him, who was the Head of the Church and the elder brother, but also for them that were his disciples and younger brethren.

Christ also may probably have respect not only to different degrees of glory in heaven but different circumstances. Though the employment and happiness of all the heavenly assembly shall in the general be the same, yet ’tis not improbable that there may be circumstantial difference.  We know what their employment [is] in general, but not in particular.  We know not how one may be employed to subserve and promote the happiness of another, and all to help one another.  Some may there be set in one place for one office or employment, and others [in] another, as ’tis in the Church on earth.  God hath set every one in the body as it hath pleased him; one is the eye, another the ear, another the head, etc.  But because God has not been pleased expressly to reveal how it shall be in this respect, therefore I shall not insist upon it, but pass to make some IMPROVEMENT of what has been offered.

I. Here is encouragement for sinners that are concerned and exercised for the salvation of their souls, such as are afraid that they shall never go to heaven or be admitted to any place of abode there, and are sensible that they are hitherto in a doleful state and condition in that they are out of Christ, and so have no right to any inheritance in heaven, but are in danger of going to hell and having their place of eternal abode fixed there.  You may be encouraged by what has been said, earnestly to seek heaven; for there are many mansions there.  There is room enough there.  Let your case be what it will, there is suitable provision there for you.  And if you come to Christ, you need not fear that he will prepare a place for you.  He’ll see to it that you shall be well accommodated in heaven.

But II. I would improve this doctrine in a twofold exhortation.

First, let all be hence exhorted earnestly to seek that they may be admitted to a mansion in heaven. You have heard that this is God’s house; it is his temple.  If David, when he was in the wilderness of Judah and in the land of Geshur and of the Philistines, so longed that he might again return into the land of Israel that he might have a place in the house of God here on earth, and prized a place there so much, though it was but that of a door-keeper, how great a happiness will it be to have a place in this heavenly temple of God!  If they are looked upon as enjoying a high privilege that have a seat appointed them in kings’ courts or in apartments in kings’ palaces, especially those that have an abode there in the quality of the king’s children, then how great a privilege will it be to have an apartment or mansion assigned to us in God’s heavenly palace, and to have a place there as his children!  How great is their glory and honor that are admitted to be of the household of God!

And seeing there are many mansions there, mansions enough for us all, our folly will be the greater if we neglect to seek a place in heaven, having our minds foolishly taken up about the worthless, fading things of this world.  Here consider three things:

1. How little a while you can have any mansion or place of abode in this world. Now you have a dwelling amongst the living.  You have a house or mansion of your own, or at least one that is at present for your use, and now you have a seat in the house of God; but how little a while will this continue!  In a very little while and the place that now knows you in this world will know you no more.  The habitation you have here will be empty of you; you will be carried dead out of it, or shall die at a distance from it, and never enter into it any more, or into any other abode in this world.  Your mansion or place of abode in this world, however convenient or commodious it may be, is but as a tent that shall soon be taken down, but a lodge in a garden of cucumbers.  Your stay is as it were but for a night.  Your body itself is but a house of clay which will quickly molder and tumble down, and you shall have no other habitation here in this world but the grave.

Thus God in his providence is putting you in mind by the repeated instances of death that have been in the town within the two weeks past, both in one house: in which death he has shown his dominion over old and young.  The son was taken away first before the father, being in his full strength and flower of his days; and the father, who was then well and having no appearance of approaching death, followed in a few days: and their habitation and their seat in the house of God in this world will know them no more.

Take warning by these warnings of Providence to improve your time that you may have a mansion in heaven. We have a house of worship newly created amongst us which now you have a seat in, and probably are pleased with the ornaments of it; and though you have a place in so comely a house, yet you know not how little a while you shall have a place in this house of God.  Here are a couple snatched away by death that had met in it but a few times, that have been snatched out of it before it was fully finished and never will have any more a seat in it.  You know not how soon you may follow, and then of great importance will it be to you to have a seat in God’s house above.  Both of the persons lately deceased were much on their death-beds warning others to improve their precious time.  The first of them was much in expressing his sense of the vast importance of an interest in Christ, as I was a witness, and was earnest in calling on others to improve their time, to be thorough, to get an interest in Christ, and seemed very desirous that young people might receive council and warning from him, as the words of a dying man, to do their utmost to make sure of conversion; and a little before he died left a request to me that I would warn the young people in his room.  God had been warning of you in his death and the death of his father that so soon followed.  The words of dying persons should be of special weight with us, for then they are in circumstances wherein they are most capable to look on things as they are and judge aright of them, — between both worlds as it were.  Still that we must all be in.

Let our young people, therefore, take warning from hence, and don’t be such fools as to neglect seeking a place and mansion in heaven.  Young persons are especially apt to be taken with the pleasing things of this world.  You are now, it may be, much pleased with hopes of your future circumstances in this world; [and you are now, it may be, much] pleased with the ornaments of that house of worship that you with others have a place in.  But, alas, do you not too little consider how soon you may be taken away from all these things, and no more forever have any part in any mansion or house or enjoyment or happiness under the sun?  Therefore let it be your main care to secure an everlasting habitation for hereafter.

2. Consider when you die, if you have no mansion in the house of God in heaven, you must have your place of abode in the habitation of devils. There is no middle place between them, and when you go hence, you must go to one or the other of these.  Some have a mansion prepared for them in heaven from the foundation [of the world]; others are sent away as cursed into everlasting burnings prepared for the [devil and his angels].  Consider how miserable those must be that shall have their habitation with devils to all eternity.  Devils are foul spirits; God’s great enemies.  Their habitation is the blackness of darkness; a place of the utmost filthiness, abomination, darkness, disgrace and torment.  O, how would you rather ten thousand times have no place of abode at all, have no being, than to have a place [with devils]?

3. If you die unconverted, you will have the worse place in hell for having had a seat or place in God’s house in this world. As there are many mansions, places of different degrees of honor in heaven, so there are various abodes and places or degrees of torment and misery in hell; and those will have the worst place there that [dying unconverted, have had the best place in God’s house here].  Solomon speaks of a peculiarly awful sight that he had seen, that of a wicked man buried that had gone [from the place of the holy], Eccl. 8:10.  Such as have had a seat in God’s house, have been in a sense exalted up to heaven, set on the gate of heaven, if they die unconverted, shall be cast down to hell.

Second, the second exhortation that I would offer from what has been said is to seek a high place in heaven. Seeing there are many mansions of different degrees of honor and dignity in heaven, let us seek to obtain a mansion of distinguished glory.  ’Tis revealed to us that there are different degrees of glory to that end that we might seek after the higher degrees.  God offered high degrees of glory to that end, that we might seek them by eminent holiness and good works: 2 Cor. 9:6, “He that sows sparingly shall reap also sparingly; and he that soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully.”  It is not becoming persons to be over anxious about an high seat in God’s house in this world, for that is the honor that is of men.  But we can’t too earnestly seek after an high seat in God’s house above, by seeking eminent holiness, for that is the honor that is of God.

’Tis very little worth the while for us to pursue after honor in this world, where the greatest honor is but a bubble and will soon vanish away, and death will level all.  Some have more stately houses than others, and some are in higher office than others, and some are richer than others and have higher seats in the meeting-house than others; but all graves are upon a level.  One rotting, putrefying corpse is as ignoble as another; the worms are as bold with one carcass as another.

But the mansions in God’s house above are everlasting mansions.  Those that have seats allotted them there, whether of greater or lesser dignity, whether nearer or further from the throne, will hold them to all eternity.  This is promised; Rev. 3:12, “Him that overcometh I will make him a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out.”  If it be worth the while to desire and seek high seats in the meeting-house, where you are one day in a week, and where you shall never come but few days in all; if it be worth the while much to prize one seat above another in the house of worship only because it is the pew or seat that is ranked first in number, and to be seen here for a few days, how will it be worth the while to seek an high mansion in God’s temple and in that glorious place that is the everlasting habitation of God and all his children!  You that are pleased with your seats in this house because you are seated high or in a place that is looked upon honorable by those that sit round about, and because many can behold you, consider how short a time you will enjoy this pleasure.  And if there be any that are not suited in their seats because they are too low for them, let them consider that it is but a very little while before it will [be] all one to you whether you have sat high or low here.  But it will be of infinite and everlasting concern to you where your seat is in another world.  Let your great concern be while in this world so to improve your opportunities in God’s house in this world, whether you sit high or low, as that you may have a distinguished and glorious mansion in God’s house in heaven, where you may be fixed in your place in that glorious assembly in an everlasting rest.

Let the main thing that we prize in God’s house be, not the outward ornaments of it, or a high seat in it, but the Word of God and his ordinances in it.  And spend your time here in seeking Christ that he may prepare a place for you in his Father’s house, that when he comes again to this world, he may take you to himself, that where he is, there you may be also.

Dated December 25, 1737. The Sabbath after the seating of the New Meeting House.

Posted in Jonathan Edwards |

Heaven Above, And Heaven Below by Charles Spurgeon

January 17, 2010 by ADMIN

“They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat. For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters.” — Revelation 7:16, 17

“They shall not hunger nor thirst; neither shall the heat nor sun smite them for he that hath mercy on them shall lead them, even by the springs of water shall he guide them.” — Isaiah 49:10

Jordan is a very narrow stream.  It made a sort of boundary for Canaan; but it hardly sufficed to divide it from the rest of the world, since a part of the possessions of Israel was on the eastern side of it.  Those who saw the Red Sea divided, and all Israel marching through its depths, must have thought it a small thing for the Jordan to be dried up and for the people to pass through it to Canaan.  The greatest barrier between believers and heaven has been safely passed.  In the day when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, we passed through our Red Sea and the Egyptians of our sins were drowned.  Great was the marvel of mercy!  To enter fully into our eternal inheritance we have only to cross the narrow stream of death.

I start by reminding you of this because we are very apt to imagine that we must endure a kind of purgatory while we are on earth, and then, if we are believers, we may break loose into heaven after we have shuffled off this mortal coil.  But it is not so.  Heaven must be in us before we can be in heaven; and while we are yet in the wilderness, we may spy out the land and may eat of the clusters of Eshcol.  There is no such gulf between earth and heaven as gloomy thoughts suggest.  Our dreams should not be of an abyss, but of a ladder whose foot is on the earth, but whose top is in glory. There would not be one hundredth part so much difference between earth and heaven if we did not live so far below our privileges.  We live on the ground when we might rise as on the wings of eagles.  We are all too conscious of this body.  Oh, that we were oftener where Paul was when he said, “Whether in the body or out of the body, I cannot tell: God knoweth!”  If not caught up into Paradise, yet may our daily life be as the garden of the Lord.

Listen a while, ye children of God; for I speak to you, and not to others.  To unbelievers, what can I say?  They know nothing of spiritual things and will not believe them though a man should show them unto them. They are spiritually blind and dead: the Lord quicken and enlighten them!   But to you that are begotten again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, I speak with joy.  Think of what you are by grace, and remember that what you will be in glory is already outlined and foreshadowed in your life in Christ.  Being born from above, you are the same men that will be in heaven.  You have within you the divine life — the same life which is to enjoy eternal immortality.  “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life:” it is your possession now.  As the quickened ones of the Holy Spirit, the life which is to last on for ever has begun in you.

At this moment you are already, in many respects, the same as you ever will be.  I might almost repeat this passage in the Revelation concerning some of you at this very hour: “What are these? and whence came they? These are they that came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.”  I might even go on to say, “Therefore are they before the throne of God,” — for you abide in close communion with the King — “and serve him day and night in his temple: and he that sitteth on the throne shall dwell among them.”  I am straining no point when I thus speak of the sanctified.

Beloved, you are now “elect according to the foreknowledge of God” and you are “the called according to his purpose.”  Already you are as much forgiven as you will be when you stand without fault before the throne of God. The Lord Jesus has washed you whiter than snow and none can lay aught to your charge.  You are as completely justified by the righteousness of Christ as you ever can be; you are covered with his righteousness and heaven itself cannot provide a robe more spotless.  “Beloved, now are we the sons of God.”  “He hath made us accepted in the Beloved.”  Today we have the spirit of adoption and enjoy access to the throne of the heavenly grace; yea, and today by faith we are raised up in Christ and made to sit in the heavenlies in him.  We are now united to Christ, now indwelt by the Holy Ghost: are not these great things, and heavenly things?  The Lord hath brought us out of darkness into his marvelous light.  Although we may, from one point of view, lament the dimness of the day, yet, as compared with our former darkness, the light is marvelous; and, best of all, it is the same light which is to brighten from dawn into mid-day.  What is grace but the morning twilight of glory?

Look ye, beloved: the inheritance that is to be yours tomorrow, is, in very truth, yours today; for in Christ Jesus you have received the inheritance, and you have the earnest of it in the present possession of the Holy Spirit who dwells in you.  It has been well said that all the streets of the New Jerusalem begin here.  See, here is the High Street of Peace, which leads to the central palace of God; and now we set our foot on it.  “Being justified by faith, we have peace with God.”  The heavenly street of Victory, where are the palms and the harps, surely we are at the lower end of it here; for “this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.”  Everything that is to be ours in the home country is, in measure, ours at this moment.  As sleeps the oak within the acorn, so slumbereth heaven within the first cry of “Abba, Father!”  Ay, and the hallelujahs of eternity lie hidden within the groans of penitence.  “God be merciful to me a sinner” has in its bowels the endless “We praise thee, O Lord.”  O saints, little do you know how much you have in what you have!

If I could bring believers consciously nearer to the state of glory by their more complete enjoyment of the privileges of the state of grace, I should be exceeding glad.  Beloved, you will never have a better God: and “this God is our God forever and ever.” Delight yourselves in him this day.  The richest saint in glory has no greater possession than his God: and even I also can say, in the words of the psalm, “Yea, mine own God is he.”

Despite your tribulation, take full delight in God your exceeding joy this morning and be happy in him.  They in heaven are shepherded by the Lamb of God, and so are you: he still carrieth the lambs in his bosom and doth gently lead those that are with young.  Even here he makes us to lie down in green pastures: what would we have more?  With such a God, and such a Savior, all you can want is that indwelling Spirit who shall help you to realize your God and to rejoice in your Savior; and you have this also, for the Spirit of God dwelleth with you and is in you: “know ye not that ye are the temple of God?”  God the Holy Ghost is not far away, neither have we to entreat his influence, as though it were rays from a far-off star; for he abides in his people evermore.  I will not say that heavenly perfection is not far superior to the highest state that we ever reach on earth; but the difference lies more in our own failure than in the nature of things.  Grace, if realized to its full, would brighten off into glory.  When the Holy Spirit fully possesses our being, and we yield ourselves to his power, our weakness is strength and our infirmity is to be gloried in.  Then is it true that on earth God is with us; and there is but a step between us and heaven, where we are with God.

Thus I have conducted you to my two texts, which I have put together as an illustration of what I would teach.  In the New Testament text, we have the heavenly state above; and in the Old Testament text, we have the state of the Lord’s flock while on the way to their eternal rest.  Very singular, to my mind, is the sameness of the description of the flock in the fold, and the flock feeding in the ways. The verses are almost word for word the same.  When John would describe the white-robed host, he can say no more of them than Isaiah said of the pilgrim band, led by the God of mercy.

I. First, LET US CONSIDER THE HEAVENLY STATE ABOVE.

The beloved John tells us what he heard and saw.  The first part of the description assures us of the supply of every need.  “They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more.”  In heaven no need is unsatisfied and no desire ungratified.  They can have no want as to their bodies, for they are as the angels of God.  Children of poverty, your straitness of bread will soon be ended and your care shall end in plenty.  The worst hunger is that of the heart and this will be unknown above.  There is a ravenous hunger, fierce as a wolf, which possesses some men: all the world cannot satisfy their greed.  A thousand worlds would be scarce a mouthful for their lust.

Now, in heaven there are no sinful and selfish desires.  The ravening of covetousness or of ambition enters not the sacred gate.  In glory there are no desires which should not be, and those desires which should be are all so tempered or so fulfilled that they can never become the cause of sorrow or pain, for, “they shall hunger no more.”

Even the saints need love, fellowship, rest: they have all these in union with God, in the communion of saints, and in the rest of Jesus.  The unrenewed man is always thirsting; but Christ can stay this even now, for he saith, “He that drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst.”  Be you sure, then, that from the golden cup of glory we shall drink that which will quench all thirst forever.  There is not in all the golden streets of heaven a single person who is desiring what he may not have, or wanting what he cannot obtain, or even wishing for that which he has not to his hand.  O happy state!  Their mouth is satisfied with good things; they are filled with all the fullness of God.

And as there is in heaven a supply for every need, so is there the removal of every ill.  Thus saith the Spirit, “Neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat.”  We are such poor creatures that excess of good soon becomes evil to us.  I love the sun: if you had ever seen it shining in the clear blue heavens, you would not wonder that I speak with emphasis.  Life, joy, and health stream from it in lands where it is enough of pleasure to bask in its beams.  But too much of the sun overpowers us; his warmth makes men faint, his stroke destroys them.  Too great a blessing may prove too heavy a cargo for the ship of life.  Hence we need guarding from dangers which, at the first sight, look as if they were not perilous.  In the beatific state, if these bodies of flesh and blood were still our dwelling-place, we could not live under the celestial conditions.  Even here, too much of spiritual joy may prostrate a man and cast him into a swoon.  I would like to die of the disease; but still, a sickness cometh upon one to whom heavenly things are revealed in great measure and enjoyed with special vividness.  One of the saints cried out in an agony of delight, “Hold, Lord, hold! Remember I am but an earthen vessel, and can contain no more!”  The Lord has to limit his revelations because we cannot bear them now.  I have heard of one who looked upon the sun imprudently, and was blinded by the light.  The very sunlight of divine revelation, favor, and fellowship could readily prove too much for our feeble vision, heart, and brain.  Therefore, in the glorious state flesh and blood shall be removed and the raised body shall be strengthened to endure that fierce light which beats about the throne of Deity.  As for us, as we now are, we might well cry, “Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire?”  But when the redemption of the body has come about and the soul has been strengthened with all might, we shall be able to be at home with our God, who is a consuming fire.  “Neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat.”  May God grant us to enjoy the anticipation of that happy period when we shall behold his face, when his secret shall be with us, and we shall know even as we are known!  Oh, for that day when we shall enter into the Holiest and shall stand before the presence of his glory; and yet, so far from being afraid, [we] shall be filled with exceeding joy!

But, further, the description of the heavenly life has this conspicuous feature — the leading of the Lamb.  “The Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them.”  It is heaven to be personally shepherded by him who is the Great Sacrifice.  In this present state we have earthly shepherds; and when God graciously feeds us by men after his own heart, whom he himself instructs, we prize them much.  Those whom the Lord ordains to feed his flock we love, and their faith we follow, for the Lord makes them of great service to us; but still, they are only underlings, and we do not forget their imperfections and their dependence upon their Lord. But in the glory-land “that Great Shepherd of the sheep” will himself personally minister to us. Those dear lips that are as lilies, dropping sweet-smelling myrrh, shall speak directly to each one of our hearts.  We shall hear his voice, we shall behold his face, we shall be fed by his hand, we shall follow at his heel.  How gloriously will he “stand and feed!”  How restfully shall we lie down in green pastures!  He shall feed us in his dearest character.  As the Lamb, he revealed his greatest love, and as the Lamb will he lead and feed us forever.  The Revised Version wisely renders the passage, “The Lamb in the midst of the throne shall be their shepherd.”  We are never fed so sweetly by our Lord himself as when he reveals to us most clearly his character as the sacrifice for sin.  The atoning sacrifice is the center of the sun of infinite love, the light of light. There is no truth like it for the revelation of God.  Christ in his wounds and bloody sweat is Christ indeed.  “Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree.”  With this truth before us, his flesh is meat indeed and his blood is drink indeed.  In heaven, we shall know him far better than we do now as the Lamb slain from before the foundation of the world, the Lamb of God’s Passover, “the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.”  That deep peace, that eternally unbroken rest which we shall derive from a sight of the Great Sacrifice will be a chief ingredient in the bliss of heaven.  “The Lamb shall feed them.”

Though we shall see our Lord as a Lamb, it will not be in a state of humiliation, but in a condition of power and honor.  “The Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them.”  Heaven will largely consist of expanded views of King Jesus and nearer beholdings of the glory which follows upon his sacrificial grief.  Ah, brethren, how little do we know his glory!  We scarce know who he is that has befriended us.  We hold the doctrine of his Deity tenaciously, but in heaven we shall perceive his Godhead in its truth so far as the finite can apprehend the infinite.  We have known his friendship to us, but then we shall behold the King in his beauty in his own halls, and our eyes shall look into his royal countenance and his face, which outshineth the sun, shall beam ineffable affection upon each one of us.  Then shall we find our heaven in his glory.  We ask no thrones; his throne is ours.  The enthroned Lamb himself is all the heaven we desire.

Then the last point of the description is full of meaning.  The drinking at the fountain is the secret of the ineffable bliss.  “The Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and lead them unto living fountains of waters.”  We are compelled to thirst at times, like the poor flock of slaughter which we see driven through our London streets; and, alas, we stop at the very puddles by the way and would refresh ourselves at them, if we could!  This will never happen to us when we reach the land where flows the river of the water of life.  There the sheep drink of no stagnant waters or bitter wells, but they are satisfied from living fountains of waters.  Comfort is measurably to be found in the streams of providential mercies, and therefore they are to be received with gratitude but yet common blessings are unfilling things to souls quickened by grace.  Corn can fill the barn but not the heart.  Of the wells of earth, we may say, “Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again;” but when we go beyond temporal supplies and live upon God himself, then the soul receives a draught of far truer and more enduring refreshment; even as our Lord Jesus said to the woman at the well, “He that drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.”  In heaven, the happy ones live not on bread, which is the staff of life, but on God, who is life itself.  The second cause is passed over, and the first cause alone is seen.

In the home country, souls have no need of the means of grace, for they have reached the God of grace.  The means of grace are like conduit-pipes which bring down the living water to us: but we have found them fail us; and at times we have used them in so faulty a way that the water has lost its freshness or has even been made to taste of the pipe through which it flowed.  Fruit is best when gathered fresh from the garden: the fingering of the market destroys the bloom.  We have too much of this in our ministries.  Brethren, we shall soon drink living water at the well-head and gather the golden fruit from him who is “as the apple tree among the trees of the wood.”  We shall have no need of baptisms and breakings of bread, nor of churches and pastors.  We shall not need the golden chalices or the earthen vessels which now serve our turn so well, but we shall come to the river’s source and drink our full.  “He shall lead them unto living fountains of water.”

At times, we know what it is to come to the pits and find no water; then we try to live on happy memories.  We sing and sigh; or sigh and sing —

“What peaceful hours I once enjoyed,

How sweet their memory still!

But they have left an aching void

The world can never fill.”

A cake made of memories will do for a bite now and then, but it makes poor daily bread.  We want the present enjoyment of God.  We need still to go to the fountain for new supplies; for water which standeth long in the pitcher loses its cool and refreshing excellence.  Happy is the man that is not living upon the memories of what he used to enjoy but is even now in the banqueting-house!  The present and perpetual renewal of first love and first delight in God is heaven.

Heaven is to know the substance and the secret of the divine life – not to hold a cup, but to drink of the living water.  The doctrine is precious, but it is far better to know the thing about which the doctrine speaks.  The doctrine is the silver of silver, but the blessing itself is the apple of gold.  Blessed are they that are always fed on the substance of the truth, the verity of verities, the essence of essential things.  “He shall lead them unto fountains.”  There the eternal source is unveiled: they not only receive the mercy, but they see how it comes and whence it flows: they not only drink, but they drink with their eye upon the glorious Well-head.  Did you ever see a boy on a hot day lie down, when he has been thirsty, and put his mouth down to the top of the water at the brim of the well?  How he draws up the cool refreshment!  Drink away, poor child!  He has no fear that he will drink the well dry, nor have we.  How pleasant it is to take from the inexhaustible!  That which we drink is all the sweeter because of the measureless remainder.   Enough is not enough: but when we have God for our all in all, then are we content.  When I am near to God and dwell in the overflowing of his love, I feel like the cattle on a burning summer’s day when they take to the brook which ripples around them up to their knees, and there they stand, filled, cooled, and sweetly refreshed.  O my God, in thee I feel that I have not only all that I can contain, but all that containeth me.  In thee I live and move with perfect content.

Such is heaven!  We shall have bliss within and bliss around us: we ourselves drinking at the source and dwelling by the well forever.  The fact is that heaven is God fully enjoyed.  The evil that God hates will be wholly cast out; the capacity which God gives will be enlarged and prepared for full fruition and our whole being will be taken up with God, the ever-blessed, from whom we came and to whom it will be heaven to return.  Who knoweth God knoweth heaven.  The source of all things is our fountain of living waters.

Thus I could occupy all the morning with my first [point]; but I must not tarry, or I shall miss my aim, which is to show you that, even here, we may outline glory and, in the wilderness, we may have the pattern of things in the heavens.  This you will see by carefully referring to the second text.

II. LET US CONSIDER THE HEAVENLY STATE BELOW.

I think I have heard you saying, “Ah! this is all about heaven; but we have not yet come to it.  We are still wrestling here below.”  Well, well; if we cannot go to heaven at once, heaven can come to us.  The words which I will now read refer to the days of earth, the times when the sheep feed in the ways and come from the north and from the south at the call of the shepherd.  “They shall not hunger nor thirst; neither shall the heat nor sun smite them: for he that hath mercy on them shall lead them, even by the springs of water shall he guide them.”

Look at the former passage and at this.  The whole description is the same.  When I noticed this parallel, I stood amazed.  John, thou art a great artist; I entreat thee, paint me a picture of heaven!  Isaiah, thou also hast a great soul; draw me a picture of the life of the saintly ones on earth when their Lord is with them!  I have both pictures.  They are masterpieces.  I look at them and they are so much alike that I wonder if there be not some mistake.  Surely they are depicting the same thing.  The forms, the lights and shades, the touches and the tones are not only alike, but identical.  Amazed, I cry, “Which is heaven, and which is the heavenly life on earth?”  The artists know their own work and by their instruction I will be led.  Isaiah painted our Lord’s sheep in his presence on the way to heaven, and John drew the same flock in the glory with the Lamb; and the fact that the pictures are so much alike is full of suggestive teaching.  Here are the same ideas in the same words.  Brethren, may you and I as fully believe and enjoy the second passage as we hope to realize and enjoy the first Scripture when we get home to heaven.

First, here is a promise that every want shall he supplied.  “They shall not hunger nor thirst.”  If we are the Lord’s people and are trusting in him, this shall be true in every possible sense.  Literally, “your bread shall be given you, your water shall be sure.”  You shall have no anxious thought concerning what you shall eat and what you shall drink.  But, mark you, if you should know the trials of poverty and should be greatly tried and brought very low in temporal things, yet the Lord’s presence and sensible consolations shall so sustain you that spiritually and inwardly you shall know neither hunger nor thirst.  Many saints have found riches in poverty, ease in labor, rest in pain, and delight in affliction.  Our Lord can so adapt our minds to our circumstances that the bitter is sweet, and the burden is light.  Paul speaks of the saints “as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing.”  Note well that the sorrow has an “as” connected with it, but the rejoicing is a fact.  “They shall not hunger nor thirst.”  If you live in God, you shall have no ungratified desire.  “Delight thyself also in the Lord, and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart.”  There may be many things that you would like to have and you may never have them; but then you will prefer to be without them, saying, “Nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt.”  If Christ be with you, you will be so happy in him that wanton, wandering wishes will be like the birds which may fly over your head but dare not make their nests in your hair.  You will be without a peevish craving, or a pining ambition, or a passing care.  “Oh,” says a believer, “I wish I could reach that state.”  You may reach it: you are on the way to it.  Only love Christ more and be more like him, and you shall be satisfied with favor, and sing, “All my springs are in thee;” “My soul, wait thou only upon God; for my expectation is from him.”

I do not mean that the saints find a full content in this world’s goods, but that they find such content in God that with them or without them they live in wealth.  A man’s life consisteth not in the abundance of that which he possesseth; and many a man who has had next to nothing that could be seen with eyes or handled with hands has been a very millionaire for true wealth in possessing the kingdom of the Most High.  The Lord has brought some of us into that state in which we have all things in him, and it is true to us, “They shall not hunger nor thirst.”

Then, next, there is such a thing as having every evil removed from you while yet in this wilderness.  “Neither shall the heat nor sun smite them.”  Suppose God favors you with prosperity; if you live near to God you will not be rendered proud or worldly-minded by your prosperity.  Suppose you should become popular because of your usefulness; you will not be puffed up if Christ Jesus is your continual leader and shepherd.  If you live near to him, you will be lowly.  If your days are spent in sunlight and you go from joy to joy, still no sunstroke shall smite you.  If still you dwell in God and your heart is full of Christ and you are led as a sheep by him, no measure of heat shall overpower you.  It is a mistake to think that our safety or our danger is according to our circumstances; our safety or our danger is according to our nearness to God, or our distance from him. A man who is near to God can stand on the pinnacle of the temple and the devil may tempt him to throw himself down, and he will be firm as the temple itself.  A man that is without God may be in the safest part of the road and traverse a level way and yet he will stumble.  It is not the road, but the Lord that keepeth the pilgrim’s foot.  O heir of heaven, commit thou thy way unto God and make him thine all in all: rise above the creature into the Creator and then shalt thou hunger no more, neither thirst any more, neither shall the heat nor the sun smite thee.

Further, it is said that on earth we may enjoy the leading of the Lord.  See how it is put: “For he that hath mercy on them shall lead them.”  Here we have not quite the same words as in the Revelation, for there we read, “The Lamb that is in the midst of the throne shall lead them.”  Yet the sense is but another shade of the same meaning.  Oh, but that is a sweet, sweet name, is it not?  “He that hath mercy on them.”  He has saved them and so has had mercy on them.  Yes, that is very precious, but the word is sweeter still — “He that hath mercy on them,” he that is always having mercy on them, he that follows them with mercy all the days of their lives, he that continually pardons, upholds, supplies, strengthens, and thus daily loadeth them with benefits: “He that hath mercy on them shall lead them.”

Do you know, beloved friends, what it is to be led of the Lord?  Many are led by their own tastes and fancies.  They will go wrong.  Others are led by their own judgments.  But these are not infallible, and they may go wrong.  More are led by other people; these may go right, but it is far from likely that they will.  He that is led of God, he is the happy man, he shall not err.  He shall be conducted providentially in a right way to the city of habitations.  “Commit your way unto the Lord: trust also in him, and he will bring it to pass.”  It may be a rough way, but it must be a right way if we follow the track of the Lord’s feet.  The true believer shall be led by the Spirit of God in sacred matters: “He will guide you into all truth.”  He that hath mercy on us in other things will have mercy on us by teaching us to profit.  We shall each one sing, “He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.”  We shall be led into duty and through struggles; we shall be led to happy attainments and gracious enjoyments; we shall go from strength to strength.

In the case of the gracious soul, earth becomes like heaven, because he walks with God.  He that hath mercy on him visits him, communes with him, and manifests himself to him.  A shepherd goeth before his flock and the true sheep follow him.  Blessed are they who follow the Lamb whithersoever he goes.  They have a love for their Lord and therefore they only want to know which way he would have them go, and they feel drawn along it by the cords of love and the bands of a man.  If they can get a glance from their Lord’s eye it suffices them: as it is written, “I will guide thee with mine eye.”  Every day they stand anxiously attentive to do the King’s commandment, be it what it may.  They yield themselves and their members to him to be instruments of righteousness, vessels fit for the Master’s use.  Beloved, this is heaven below.  If you have ever tried it, you know it is so.  If you have never fully tried it, try it now, and you will find a new joy in it.  Jesus says to you, “Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; and ye shall find rest unto your souls.”

I do not know anything more delightful than to be such a fool, as the world will call you, as to yield your intellect to the teaching of the Lord and to be so weak that you cannot judge but accept his will; and [to be] so incapable that even to will and to do must be wrought in you of the Lord.   Oh, to be so unselfed as to take anything from Christ far more gladly than you would choose of your own accord!  If your Lord puts his hand into the bitter box, you will think the potion sweet; and if he scourge, you will thank him for being so kind as to think of you at all.  When you get to that point, that you are as a sheep to whom God himself is the Shepherd, it is well with you. Then you will realize, even in the pastures of the wilderness, how the rain from heaven drops upon the inheritance of the Lord and refreshes it when it is weary.  “The peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.”  God give you to know it, dear friends!  I can speak experimentally [by personal experience] of it: it is not only the antepast [foretaste] of heaven, but a part of the banquet itself.

But now the last touch is the drinking at the springhead.  We were not surprised to find in our description of heaven that the Lamb led them to the fountains of waters; but we are delighted to find that, here below, “even by the springs of water shall he guide them.”  Beloved, covet earnestly this drinking at the springs.  It is not all who profess to be Christians who will know what I am talking about this morning: they will think I have got into the way of the mystics and am dreaming of things unpractical.  I will not argue with them; let me speak to those who understand me.

Beloved in the Lord, you can even now live upon God himself and there is no living comparable to it. You can get beyond all the cisterns and come to the river of the water of life, even as they do in heaven.  To live by second causes is a very secondary life: to live on the First Cause is the first of living.  I exhort you to do this with regard to the inspired Word.  This is a day of man’s opinions, views, judgments, criticisms.  Leave them all – good, bad, and indifferent – and come to this Book which is the pure fount of inspiration undefiled.  When you study the Word of God, live upon it as his Word.  I am not going to defend it; it needs no defense.  I am not going to argue about its inspiration; if you know the Lord aright, his Word is inspired to you, if to no one else.  You know not only that it was inspired when it was written, but that it is inspired still; moreover, its inspiration affects you in a way in which no other writings can ever touch you.  It breathes upon you; it breathes life into you and makes you to speak words for God which prove to be words from God to other souls.  Oh, it is wonderful, if you read the word of God in a little company, morning by morning — simply read it and pray over it, what an effect it may have upon all who listen!  I speak what I do know.  If you read the inspired words themselves and look up to him who spoke them, their spiritual effect will be the witness of their inspiration.  This is a miracle-working Book: it may be opposed, but never conquered; it may be buried under unbelief, but it must rise again.  Blessed are they to whom the Word is meat and drink.  They quit the cistern of man for the fountain of God, and they do well.  “By the springs of water shall he guide them.”

Yet I would exhort you not even to tarry at the letter of God’s word, but believingly and humbly advance to drink from the Holy Ghost himself.  He will not teach you anything which is not in the Bible, but he will take of the things of Christ and will show them unto you.  A truth may be like a jewel in the Word of God, and yet we may not see its brilliance until the Holy Spirit holds it up in the light and bids us mark its luster.  The Spirit of God brings up the pearl from the deeps of revelation and sets it where its radiance is perceived by the believing eye.  We are such poor scholars that we learn little from the Book till “the Interpreter, one of a thousand,” opens our heart to the Word and opens the Word to our heart.  The Holy Ghost who revealed truth in the Book must also personally reveal it to the individual.  If ever you get a hold of truth in that way, you will never give it up.  A man who has learned truth from one minister may unlearn it from another minister, but he that has been taught it of the Holy Ghost has a treasure which no man taketh from him.

Beloved, we would exhort you to drink of the springs of living water while you are here. Be often going back to fundamental doctrines.  Especially get back to the consideration of covenant engagements.  Whence come all the deeds of mercy from God our Father and from our Lord Jesus Christ?  Come they not from eternal purposes and from that covenant, “ordered in all things, and sure,” made or ever the earth was, between the Father and the ever-blessed Son?  Get you often to the well of the covenant.  I know of nothing that can make you so happy as to know in your very soul how the Father pledged himself by oath to the Son, and the Son pledged himself to the eternal Father concerning the great mystery of our redemption.  Eternal love and covenant faithfulness: these are ancient wells.  Do not hesitate to drink deep at the fountain of electing love.  The Lord himself chose you, having loved you with an everlasting love.  Everything comes to the saints “according as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world.”  The Philistines have stopped this well full many a time, but they cannot prevent its waters bubbling up from among the stones which they have cast into it.  There it stands.  “I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee.”  Get back to the love that had no cause but the First Cause, to the love that knows no change, to the love that knows no limit, no hesitancy, no diminution, the love that stands, like the Godhead itself, eternal and immovable.  Drink from eternal springs; and if you do so, your life will be more and more “as the days of heaven upon the earth.”  God grant us to get away from the deceitful brooks to “the deep which lieth under,” and with joy may we draw water.

Christ’s presence and fountain drinking — give me these two things and I ask no more.  The Lamb to feed me and the fountain to supply me: these are enough.  Lord, whom have I in heaven but thee?  Come poverty, come sickness, come shame, come casting out by brethren; yea, come death itself, nothing can I want, and nothing can harm me if the Lamb be my Shepherd and the Lord my fountain.

Before another Sunday, some of us may be in heaven.  Before this month has finished, some of us may know infinitely more about the eternal world than the whole assembly of divines could tell us.  Others of us may have to linger here a while.  Yet are we not in banishment.  Here we dwell with the King for his work.  We will endeavor to keep close to our Master, and if we may serve him and see his face, we will not grudge the glorified their fuller joys.

You that know nothing about these things, God grant you spiritual sense to know that you do not know and then give you further grace to pray to him, “Lord, lead me to the living fountains.”  There is an inner life, there is a heavenly secret, and there is a surpassing joy; some of us know it: we wish that you, also, had it.  Cry for it.  Jesus can give it you at once.  Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shall live forever.  The new birth goes with faith in Christ.  May he give it you this morning and may you begin to be heavenly here, that you may be fit for heaven hereafter.  The Lord bless you, dear friends, for Jesus’ sake!  Amen.

Posted in C. H. Spurgeon |

Affliction and Glory by A. W. Pink

January 17, 2010 by ADMIN

“For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory” (2 Corinthians 4:17).

These words supply us with a reason why we should not faint under trials nor be overwhelmed by misfortunes.  They teach us to look at the trials of time in the light of eternity.  They affirm that the present buffetings of the Christian exercise a beneficent effect on the inner man.  If these truths were firmly grasped by faith they would mitigate much of the bitterness of our sorrows. “For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.”  This verse sets forth a striking and glorious antithesis, as it contrasts our future state with our present.  Here there is “affliction;” there “glory.”  Here there is a “light affliction;” there a “might of glory.”  In our affliction, there is both levity and brevity; it is a light affliction, and it is but for a moment; in our future glory, there is solidity and eternity!  To discover the preciousness of this contrast let us consider, separately, each member, but in the inverse order of mention.

1. “A far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.”

It is a significant thing that the Hebrew word for “glory,” kabod, also means “weight.”  When weight is added to the value of gold or precious stones this increases their worth.  Heaven’s happiness cannot be told out in the words of earth; figurative expressions are best calculated to convey some imperfect views to us.  Here in our text one term is piled up on top of another.  That which awaits the believer is “glory,” and when we say that a thing is glorious we have reached the limits of human language to express that which is excellent and perfect.  But the “glory” awaiting us is weighted, yea it is “far more exceeding” weighty than anything terrestrial and temporal; its value defies computation; its transcendent excellency is beyond verbal description.  Moreover, this wondrous glory awaiting us is not evanescent and temporal, but Divine and eternal; for “eternal” it could not be unless it were Divine.  The great and blessed God is going to give us that which is worthy of Himself, yea that which is like Himself, infinite and everlasting.

2. “Our light affliction, which is but for a moment.”

a. “Affliction” is the common lot of human existence: “Man is born unto trouble as the sparks fly upward” (Job 5:7).  This is part of the entail of sin.  It is not meet that a fallen creature should be perfectly happy in his sins.  Nor are the children of God exempted; “Through much tribulation we must enter into the kingdom of God” (Acts 14:22).  By a hard and rugged road does God lead us to glory and immortality.

b. Our affliction is “light.” Afflictions are not light in themselves for oft times they are heavy and grievous; but they are light comparatively!  They are light when compared with what we really deserve.  They are light when compared with the sufferings of the Lord Jesus.  But perhaps their real lightness is best seen by comparing them with the weight of glory which is awaiting us.  As said the same apostle in another place, “For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us” (Romans 8:18).

c. “Which is but for a moment.” Should our afflictions continue throughout a whole lifetime, and that life be equal in duration to Methuselah’s, yet is it momentary if compared with the eternity which is before us.  At most our affliction is but for this present life, which is as a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away.  O that God would enable us to examine our trials in their true perspective.

3. Note now the connection between the two.

Our light affliction, which is but for a moment, “worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.”  The present is influencing the future.  It is not for us to reason and philosophize about this, but to take God at His Word and believe it.  Experience, feelings, observation of others, may seem to deny this fact.  Oft times afflictions appear only to sour us and make us more rebellious and discontented.  But let it be remembered that afflictions are not sent by God for the purpose of purifying the flesh: they are designed for the benefit of the “new man.”  Moreover, afflictions help to prepare us for the glory hereafter.  Affliction draws away our heart from the love of the world; it makes us long more for the time when we shall be translated from this scene of sin and sorrow; it will enable us to appreciate (by way of contrast) the things which God had prepared for them that love Him.

Here then is what faith is invited to do: to place in one scale the present affliction, in the other, the eternal glory.  Are they worthy to be compared?  No, indeed.  One second of glory will more than counterbalance a whole lifetime of suffering.  What are years of toil, of sickness, of battling against poverty, of persecution, yea, of a martyr’s death, when weighed over against the pleasures at God’s right hand, which are for evermore!  One breath of Paradise will extinguish all the adverse winds of earth.  One day in the Father’s House will more than counterbalance the years we have spent in this dreary wilderness.  May God grant unto us that faith which will enable us to anticipatively lay hold of the future and live in the present enjoyment of it.

Posted in A. W. Pink |

Theme Study: Heaven by Jim & Debbie Ehrhard

January 17, 2010 by ADMIN

Preface to the Study

In our last issue, we presented a number of articles on “The Death of a Believer.”  A believer’s death is precious for many reasons, but one of the greatest reasons is found in the Apostle Paul’s statement, “For me to live is Christ and to die is gain.”  Paul understood that the believer has the best of both worlds and that God’s best can never be taken from him.  If he lived, he did so in the grace and power of the Lord.  Nothing in this world could ever take away the love of Christ, not even death itself (Romans 8:38-39).  But, while living in this world is truly a great joy for the believer because he has Christ, death means something even better – Christ’s presence and eternal fellowship with the Father.

The doctrine of heaven provides the foundation for the believer’s joy in this world and his hope for the world to come.  A right view of heaven helps the believer loosen his grip on this world, knowing that he has a far better inheritance in heaven (Hebrews 10:32-34).  A right view of heaven causes the believer to rejoice over the death of loved ones who die in the Lord.   A right view of heaven enables the believer to face all things even death itself, knowing that to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord!

We hope this issue may help you to “set your hearts on things above, not on things on the earth” (Colossians 3:2).  We pray that, as you read about the glories of heaven, the things of earth will grow strangely dim, and that your desire will be that many others may join you in His eternal kingdom.  We hope the articles contained in this issue will help you to be “heavenly-minded” and to look forward to the joy of being “forever with the Lord!”  To God be the Glory, alone and forever!

By His Grace, Jim & Debbie

Posted in Uncategorized |

« Newer Posts - Older Posts »