Category Archives: heaven

October 19: The Believer’s Sweet Sleep

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“But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who are asleep, that you sorrow not, even as others which have no hope.” 1 Thessalonians 4:13

It is a magnificent and expressive image this by which Christianity presents to the bereaved mind the departure of brethren in Christ. They are not dead, they are asleep.

The question instantly arises—What is it which, in the experience of the believer, has so materially changed the aspect of death? What is it that invests this solemn, this fearful crisis of our being with so softened and mitigated a character? What is it that throws around the pillow of the expiring saint an air of repose so sacred, so peaceful, and serene? The ATONEMENT of the Son of God alone supplies the answer. The influence of His death, and the power of His resurrection, have changed, in the case of all believers in Christ, the entire character and aspect of death.

The Savior, by dying, conquered death. Plucking his pale crown from his brow, hurling him from his towering throne, snapping in twain his proud scepter, and with His own blood washing away the venom of his dart. Lo! Death is no more the “king of terrors” to those who believe. Entering within his gloomy palace—there slumbering awhile—then returning victorious the “Resurrection and the Life”—henceforward to the Christian to depart is not to die, but—to sleep!

And what is that sleep? No unconsciousness of the soul is it! No intermediate state of dreamy insensibility—of cold, silent torpidity of spirit, waiting the voice of the archangel and the trumpet of God to dissolve its slumber. The believer sleeps; but it is the sleep of the body, and not of the soul. “Absent from the body,” in the full, unclouded, unimpaired consciousness, intelligence, and joyousness of the spirit, he is “present with the Lord.”

Death to him is but a change of place; not of state. As the natural sleep of the body is not the extinction, nor even the momentary suspension, of the soul’s intellectual faculties—for who has not experienced that some of the profoundest thoughts and most sublime soarings of the imagination have been those which have played around the pillow of midnight slumber, like gleams of summer lightning upon the lurid night?—so, in like manner, when death has sealed in profound unconsciousness the material senses, the immaterial and the immortal is expatiating amid the glories and the wonders of the spiritual world, as it springs from star to star and from sun to sun—and thus sleep becomes the gentle and expressive emblem of the Christian’s death. They “sleep in Jesus,” who is the “Resurrection and the Life;” how, then, can it be possible that the soul is unconscious, since it is in union—personal, changeless union—with Him who, in His office as Mediator, has said, “Because I live, you shall live also”?

The death-sleep of the believer is a season of complete bodily and mental repose. How precious is this prospect to the child of God! lighting up even the grim visage of the last foe with a smile of pleasantness. We naturally attach the idea of rest to sleep. What a rest remains even in the grave for the people of God! “There the wicked cease from troubling, and there the weary be at rest.” Who so wearied as the believer in Jesus?

With him the world is a toilsome desert—life a scene of conflict and of trial—the travel to heaven a pilgrimage arduous, self-denying, and lonely. We have to contend with principalities and powers, to conflict with foes visible and invisible, to subdue indwelling sin, and repel outward temptation. Then there are the “many afflictions” which belong to the “righteous,” the trials peculiar and sore with which the Lord in love tries His people.

In the midst of all this, and superadded as an element of weariness yet more potent, there is often the drooping of faith, the chill of love, the obscured evidences, the beclouded hope, the withdrawment of the Divine presence, the suspension of the sensible comforts and consolations of the Holy Spirit; all conspiring to make this a weary land.

Thus the soul of the believer is frequently cast down within him because of the way. But “the sleep of a laboring man is sweet;” and such is the sleep in Jesus of the believer, the Christian laborer. In view of this truth, how chastened and cheered should be our sorrow when visiting the graves of the holy dead. Not a wavelet disturbs their calm repose. No painful sufferings, no convulsive throes, no affrighting dreams; no mental wanderings, no confused sounds, no fantastic fancies disturb their peaceful slumber. The world is rushing on, as before, in turmoil, sin, and conflict—the war-cry, the martial music, the sigh of sorrow, and the wail of agony are heard—but not a spent echo mars their placid rest.

The body reposes in the tomb, the soul in the Paradise of God, and over their graves is heard a voice, saying, “Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth; yes, says the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors; and their works do follow them.”

September 28: Now Crowned With Glory

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“But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor.” Hebrews 2:9

There was an honoring, but not a glorifying of our humanity, when the Son of God assumed it. Its union with the Deity—its fullness of the Spirit—its spotless holiness—its deep knowledge of, and intimate fellowship with, God—conspired to invest it with a dignity and honor such as no creature had ever before, or ever shall again attain. But not until its ascension into heaven was it glorified.

Oh, through what humiliation did it pass, what indignity did it endure, when below! What sinless weaknesses, imperfections, and frailties clung to it! It hungered, it thirsted, it labored, it sorrowed, it wept, it suffered, it bled, it died! “The poor man’s scorn, the rich man’s ridicule,” what indignities did it endure!

It was scourged, it was bruised, it was mocked, it was smitten, it was spit upon, it was nailed to the tree, it was pierced, it was slain! Oh, what eye, but that of faith, can, through all this degradation, behold the person of the incarnate God?

But now “we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor.” Even after His resurrection, it must be acknowledged that a change, approximating to that state of glory, had already passed over Him. So spiritualized was He, that even His disciples, when they saw Him, knew Him not. What, then, must be the glory that encircles Him now that He has passed within His kingdom, and is exalted at the right hand of God, “far above all heavens, that He might fill all things”!

John, during his banishment at Patmos, was favored with a view of His glorified humanity, and thus describes its dazzling appearance—”I saw seven golden candlesticks; and in the midst of the seven candlesticks one like unto the Son of man, clothed with a garment down to the foot, and girt about the breasts with a golden girdle. His head and His hairs were white like wool, as white as snow; and His eyes were as a flame of fire, and His feet like unto fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace; and His voice as the sound of many waters. And He had in His right hand seven stars; and out of His mouth went a sharp two-edged sword; and His countenance was as the sun shines in his strength. And when I saw Him, I fell at His feet as dead. And He laid His right hand upon me, saying unto me, Fear not; I am the first and the last: I am He that lives, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death.”

Sublime description of the “glory and honor” which now crown the exalted humanity of our adorable Redeemer! Did the awe-stricken and prostrate evangelist entertain any doubt of the glorious person who thus appeared to him? that doubt must all have vanished the moment he felt the “right hand” of Jesus laid upon Him, and heard His own familiar voice saying unto him, “Fear not.” Oh, what a tangible evidence and what a near view did he now have of the exalted and glorified humanity of his Lord! At that instant he saw Him to be divine, and he felt Him to be human!

Yes! the very tabernacle of flesh in which He dwelt, the identical robe of humanity that He wore, He carried up with Him into heaven, and sat down with it upon the throne. There it is, highly exalted. There it is, above angels, and higher than saints, in close affinity and eternal union with the Godhead. There it is, bathing itself in the “fullness of joy,” and drinking deeply of the satisfying “pleasures” which are at God’s “right hand for evermore.”

Oh, what must be the holy delight which the human soul of Jesus now experiences! Sin presses upon it no more; sorrow beclouds it no more; the hidings of God’s face distress it no more; infirmity clings to it no more: it exults in the beams of God’s unveiled glory, and it swims in the ocean of His ineffable love. If the vision upon Mount Tabor was so glorious—if the splendors there encircling that form which yet had not passed through the scenes of the crucifixion, the resurrection, and the ascension, were so overpowering—if the attractions of that spot were so great, and the ecstasy of that moment was so ravishing—what, oh, what must be the glory, the joy, the bliss of heaven, where we shall no longer see Him “through a glass darkly,” but “as He is,” and “face to face”!

September 18: Holy Holy Holy

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“In the year that king Uzziah died I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple. Above it stood the Seraphim: each one had six wings; with twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly. And one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory. And the posts of the door moved at the voice of him that cried, and the house was filled with smoke. Then said I, Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips; and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.” Isaiah 6:1-5

What an august revelation of the glory of Christ’s Godhead was this which broke upon the view of the lowly prophet! How instructive is each particular of His beatific vision! Mark the profound humility of the seraphim—they veiled with their wings their faces and their feet. They were in the presence of Jesus. They saw the King in His beauty, and covered themselves.

But the effect of this view of our Lord’s divine glory upon the mind of the prophet is still more impressive: “Then said I, Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips…for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.” What prostrated his soul thus low in the dust?

What filled him with this self-abasement? What overwhelmed him with this keen sense of his vileness? Oh, it was the unclouded view he had of the essential glory of the Son of God! And thus will it ever be. The beaming forth of Christ’s glory in the soul reveals its hidden evil; the knowledge of this evil lays the believer low before God with the confession, “I abhor myself. Woe is me! for I am undone.”

Beloved, let this truth be ever present to your mind, that as we increasingly see glory in Christ, we shall increasingly see that there is no glory in ourselves. Jesus is the Sun which reveals the pollutions and defilements which are within. The chambers of abomination are all closed until Christ shines in upon the soul. Oh, then it is these deep-seated and long-veiled deformities are revealed; and we, no longer gazing with a complacent eye upon self, sink in the dust before God, overwhelmed with shame, and covered with confusion of face. Holy posture!

Blessed spectacle!—a soul prostrate before the glory of the incarnate God! All high and lofty views of its own false glory annihilated by clear and close views of the true glory of Jesus. As when the sun appears, all the lesser lights vanish into darkness, so when Jesus rises in noontide glory upon the soul, all other glory retires, and He alone fixes the eye and fills the mind. “With twain they covered their faces, and with twain they covered their feet.” Their own perfections and beauty were not to be seen in the presence of the glory of the Lord.

How much more profound should be the humility and self-abasement of man! Have we covered ourselves—not with the pure wings of the holy cherubim, but with sackcloth and ashes before the Lord? Have we sought to veil—not our beauties, for beauty we have none—but our innumerable and flagrant deformities, even the “spots upon our feasts of charity,” the sins of our best and holiest things; and, renouncing all self-glory, have we sunk, as into nothing before God?

Oh, we are yet strangers to the vision of Christ’s glory, if we have not. If the constellation of human gifts and attainments, distinctions and usefulness, on which unsanctified and unmortified self so delights to gaze, have not retired into oblivion, the Sun of Righteousness has yet to rise upon our souls with healing in His wings.

September 15: The Rocky & Peaceful Shores

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“That by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us: which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which enters into that within the veil; where the forerunner is for us entered, even Jesus.” Hebrews 6:17-19

THE hope of heaven fostered by an unrenewed mind is baseless and illusory. There exists not a single element of goodness in its nature. It is the conception of a mind at enmity with God. It is the delusion of a heart in covenant with death, and in agreement with hell. It is the treacherous beacon that decoys the too confiding but deluded voyager to the rock-bound shore. Unscriptural, unreal, and baseless, it must eventually cover its possessor with shame and confusion of face.

But not such is the believer’s hope. Begotten with his second nature—the in-breathing of the Spirit of God—an element of renewed mind, and based upon the atonement of the Savior, it must be essentially a good hope. Cleansed from moral impurity, not in the laver of baptism, but with the blood of Christ; justified, not by the ritual of Moses, but by the righteousness of the incarnate God; sanctified, not by sacramental grace, falsely so called, but by the in-being of the Holy Spirit—the believer’s hope of heaven is as well founded as the throne of the Eternal.

Moreover it is “a good hope through grace.” The first and the last lesson we learn in our Christian course is, that “by grace we are saved.” Lord! do You require of me one thought of stainless purity, one throb of perfect love, one deed of unsullied holiness, upon which shall hinge my everlasting happiness? Then am I lost forever!

But since You have provided a righteousness that justifies me from all things, that frees me from all condemnation—and since this righteousness is Your free, unpurchased gift, the bestowment of sovereign grace—I clasp to my trembling yet believing heart the joyous hope this truth inspires. It is a blessed hope. “Looking for that blessed hope.”

Its object is most blessed. The heaven it compasses is that blissful place where the holy ones who have fled from our embrace are reposing in the bosom of the Savior. They are the blessed dead. The day of their death was to them better than the day of their birth. The one was the introduction to all sorrow, the other is a translation to all joy. Blessed hope! the hope of being forever with the Lord.

No more to grieve the Spirit that so often and so soothingly comforted our hearts; no more to wound the gentle bosom that so often pillowed our head. No more to journey in darkness, nor bend as a bruised reed before each blast of temptation. To be a pillar in the temple of God, to go no more out forever. And what a sanctifying hope is it! This, to the spiritual mind, is its most acceptable and elevating feature. “Every man that has this hope in him purifies himself even as He is pure.” It detaches from earth, and allures to heaven. Never does it glow more brightly in the soul, nor kindle around the path a luster more heavenly, than when it strengthens in the believer a growing conformity of character to that heaven towards which it soars. It is, in a word, a sure hope.

Shall the worm undermine it? shall the tempest shake it? shall the waters extinguish it? Never. It saves us. It keeps, preserves, and sustains us amid the perils and depressions of our earthly pilgrimage. And having borne us through the flood, it will not fail us when the last surge lands us upon the shore of eternity.

July 30: Arise And Come Away With Me

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“And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there you may be also.” John 14:3

When heart and flesh are fast failing, and the trembling feet descend into the dark valley of the shadow of death, to whom shall we then look but unto Jesus? The world is now receding, and all creatures are fading upon the sight; one object alone remains, arrests and fixes the believer’s eye–it is Jesus, the Savior; it is Emmanuel, the Incarnate and now-present God; it is the Captain of our salvation, the Conqueror of death, and the Spoiler of the grave; it is our friend, our brother, our Joseph, our Joshua, loving and faithful, and present to the last.

Jesus is there to confront death again, and vanquish him with his own weapons. Jesus is there to remind His departing one that the grave can wear no gloom, and can boast of no victory, since He himself passed through its portal, rose and revived, and lives for evermore.

Sick one! in your languishing, look to Jesus! Departing one! in your death-struggles, look to Jesus! Are you guilty?–Jesus is righteous. Are you a sinner?–Jesus is a Savior. Are you fearful, and do you tremble?–the Shepherd of the flock is with you, and no one shall pluck His sheep out of His hands. How fully, how suitably, does the gospel now meet your case!

In your bodily weakness and mental confusion, two truths are, perhaps, all that you can now dwell upon–your sinfulness and Christ’s redemption, your emptiness and Christ’s sufficiency. Enough! you need no more; God requires no more. In your felt weakness, in your conscious unworthiness, amid the swelling of the cold waters, raise your eye and fix it upon Jesus, and all will be well.

Hear the words of your Savior calling you from the bright world of glory to which He bids you come, “Arise, my love, my fair one! and come away.” Believer! look to Him–lean upon Him–cleave to Him–labor for Him–suffer for Him–and, if need be, die for Him. Thus loving and trusting, living and dying, for “Jesus only.”

July 13: Crown Him Lord Of All

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“I have glorified you on the earth: I have finished the work which you gave me to do. And now, O Father, glorify me with your own self, with the glory which I had with you before the world was.” John 17:4-5

His work being finished, the great atonement made, and salvation eternally secured to all the covenant seed, it was fit that the Son of God should return back to glory. Heaven was His original and proper place. He was but a stranger and a sojourner here. His mission accomplished, earth, which had once attracted Him to its bosom, attracted Him no longer.

As the field of His labors, and the scene of His humiliation, and the theater of His conflict, He had willingly bent His steps towards it. His labors now finished, His humiliation now passed, His battle now fought, and His victory won, He as readily hastened from all below. Oh, what stronger ties, what more powerful allurements, had earth than heaven for Jesus? All to Him had been toil and suffering, trial and sorrow. Wearisome had been His pilgrimage, laborious His life, humiliating its every scene, and painful its every incident.

Creatures the best and the fondest had disappointed Him, sources of created good the most promising had failed Him, and the hour of His deepest necessity and woe found Him treading the wine-press alone, forsaken by man, deserted by God! An atmosphere of sin had enveloped Him on every side; forms of suffering and pollution each moment flitted before His eye, and sounds of blasphemy and woe fell at each step upon His ear. At whatever point He turned, He saw His Father’s name dishonored, His Spirit grieved. His own dignity outraged, His teaching despised, His Gospel rejected, and His authority trampled under-foot, by men swearing allegiance to another and a rival sovereign.

What greater, sweeter, and holier attractions, then, had earth than heaven for Jesus? His resurrection from the dead was His preparative for glory. Leaving the garments of mortality in the forsaken tomb, He wrapped around Him the robe of immortality, and, poised upon the wing, awaited but the signal for His heavenly flight.

All that now remained for Him to accomplish was to authenticate the fact of His risen life, place His Church in a position to receive the promised Spirit, breathe His parting blessing, and then ascend to glory. Heaven was His home, loved and longed for! How sweet to Him were its recollections! how hallowed its associations, heightened by their contrast with the scene from which He was now retiring!

There, no curse; there, no sorrow; there, no suffering; there, no tears; there, no indignity, awaited Him. All was one expanse of glory, all one pavilion of happiness! Bright was the landscape stretched before His view; redolent the breezes, and soft the music that floated from its fields and bowers.

But far above all the glory suggested by the most splendid material imagery, rose, in spiritual and surpassing grandeur, the seat, the altar, and the throne which, as Prophet, Priest, and King, He sighed to occupy. A more perfect investiture of Him in these offices, a more complete establishment of His mediatorial dominion, awaited Him.

All power in heaven and on earth was to be placed in His hands: and all things were to be put in subjection under Him; and all beings, from the loftiest angel in heaven to the lowest creature on earth, were to acknowledge His government, submit to His sovereignty, worship, and “crown Him Lord of all.”

July 8: Sojourners & Strangers

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“For here have we no continuing city, but we seek one to come.” Hebrews 13:14

The true believer in Jesus is a traveler. He is journeying to a city of habitation, to the mount of God–and, blessed be God, he will soon be there!

The apostle Peter dedicates his pastoral letter to the “strangers scattered” abroad–the people of God dispersed over the face of the earth. Such is the Church of Christ. It is sometimes incorrectly called “the visible Church.” The idea is unscriptural. Visible churches there may be, but a visible Church there is none. The saints of God are “strangers and pilgrims” scattered abroad. Here on earth they have no permanent abode, no certain resting-place.

The Church is in the wilderness, journeying through it. The present is called the “time of our sojourning.” We are but wayfarers at an inn, abiding only for a night. “Here we have no continuing city.” We are strangers and sojourners, as all our fathers were. But this, beloved, is the reconciling, animating thought–we are journeying to the dwelling of God. We are on our way to the good land which the Lord our God has promised us; to the kingdom and the mansion which Jesus has gone to take possession of and to prepare for us.

In a word–and this image is the climax of the blissful prospect–we are hastening to our “Father’s house,” the home of the whole family in heaven and in earth, the residence of Christ, the dwelling-place of God.

To this each believer in Jesus is journeying. The road is difficult, the desert is tedious–sometimes perilous from its smoothness, or painful from it roughness; its difficultness now wearying, its intricacy now embarrassing. But who will complain of the path that conducts him to his home? Who would yield to the sensation of fatigue, who is journeying to an eternal rest?

Much of the disquietude and repining of spirit peculiar to the pilgrimage of the saints arises from the faint conceptions which the mind forms of the coming glory. We think too faintly and too seldom of heaven. The eye is bent downwards, and seldom do we “lift up our heads” in prospect of the “redemption that draws near.”

And yet how much there is in the thought of glory, in the anticipation of heaven–its nature and associations–calculated to stimulate, to cheer, and to allure us onwards! It is the place where we shall be sinless; it is the residence where we shall see God; it is the mansion where we shall be housed with Christ; it is the home where we shall dwell with all the saints; it is the point at which are collecting all the holy of earth, some of whom have already left our embrace for its holier and happier regions, and whom we shall meet again.

Why, then, should we be cast down because of the difficulty of the way, or for one moment lose sight of the glory that awaits us, or cease to strive for the fitness essential to its enjoyment? In a little while–oh, how short the journey!–and we shall be there. Then we shall realize, to their fullest extent, the beauty and the sweetness of the description so often read and pondered with tears of hope– “You have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to thousands of angels in joyful assembly. You have come to the assembly of God’s firstborn children, whose names are written in heaven.

You have come to God himself, who is the judge of all people. And you have come to the spirits of the redeemed in heaven who have now been made perfect. You have come to Jesus, the one who mediates the new covenant between God and people, and to the sprinkled blood, which graciously forgives instead of crying out for vengeance as the blood of Abel did.” O my soul! will you not stretch every nerve, endure every privation, and relinquish every weight, thus to reach this glorious city of God?

June 23: Our Downward Tendency

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“That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection.” Philippians 3:10

Of the downward tendency of our hearts we are, alas! but too conscious. We need an antagonistic principle- something to counteract the overworking influence of an ungodly world. Where shall we meet with it?

We answer, in the power of Christ’s resurrection, felt, realized, and experienced in the soul. This is the argument of Paul: “You are a risen people, risen in union with Christ. If this be so, then seek after heavenly mindedness, setting your affections on things above.” What a heaven-attracting power, then, has this glorious truth! What is Christ? He is alive. Where is Christ? He is in heaven, at the right hand of God, as my head- my representative- my forerunner- my treasure- my all. Then, let me rise!

Shall not my affections soar to their best beloved? Shall not my heart be where its treasure is? Shall I set my mind upon things on the earth, when my Lord rose out of the earth, and ascended above the earth, and bids me rise and follow Him in faith, in spirit, and in love, until He calls me to come away to Him entirely, that I may be ever with Him and behold His glory?

If I am indeed risen with Christ, then let me evidence it by my increasing spiritual-mindedness. Christ, who is my life, is in heaven- why should I needlessly be buried in the earth? Why allow- as I appear to do- that there is an object upon earth whose claims to my love are paramount, whose beauty to my eye is greater, whose attraction to my soul is stronger, than my risen, ascended, and glorified Lord? Is there upon earth one who loves me as Jesus loves me? Is there one who has done for me what Jesus has done? Is there one who is doing for me now what Jesus is doing? Is there one who is to me such a friend, such a brother, such a counselor as Jesus? No, not one!

Then, why should not my thoughts be more with Him? Why should not my heart cling closer to Him? Why this vagrancy of mind, this truancy of affection, this wandering of desire; why this forgetfulness, coldness, and cleaving to earth, when my Lord is risen, and I am professedly risen with Him?

Oh, to feel more sensibly, more deeply; more constantly the power of His resurrection! Lord! I detect my heart settling down on creature things- objects of sense and sin. My business is a snare- my domestic blessings are a snare- my friendships are a snare- my position is a snare- the too fond opinion which others entertain of me is a snare- my grace, my gifts, my usefulness, through the corruption of my heart, are snares.

Lord, place beneath my soul the mighty lever of Your resurrection, and lift me towards Yourself! Oh, let me feel the earth-severing, the heaven-attracting power of Your resurrection-life! Having been buried with You by baptism into death, sincerely would I now rise with You, like as You were raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father; that I might walk with You in newness of life, until I reach You in the realms of glory.

June 1: Dwelling In The Land Of The Living

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“And the inhabitant shall not say, I am sick: the people that dwell therein shall be forgiven their iniquity.” Isaiah 33:24

Let the Christian invalid be cheered with the prospect of before long arriving at this land of light and love, of rest and holiness. The moment the spirit is “absent from the body, and present with, the Lord,” it treads those balmy shores, where health breathes in the air, flows in the waters, and sparkles in the sunbeams. There is no sickness in heaven, for “the people that dwell therein shall be forgiven their iniquity;” and this accounts for the absence of all physical malady.

There is no sickness in heaven, because there is no sin. But the more full enjoyment of this blessing is reserved for the new earth, upon which the “holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband,” will dwell. Then it is that “God shall wipe away all tears front their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.”

Christian sufferer! you are nearing this land- a few more days of languishing and pain, a few more nights of weary wakefulness, and you are there! Don’t you see, through the chinks of the “earthly house of this tabernacle,” “a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens”? Don’t you see the “city which has foundations, whose maker and builder is God”? It has “no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine on it: for the glory of God does enlighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof. . . The gates of it shall not be shut at all by day: for there is no night there.” Soon you will exchange this hospital for your Father’s house, and as you cross the threshold, the last pang is inflicted, the last sigh is heaved, and the last tear is brushed from your eye.

Then, at the resurrection of the just, comes the new body. “It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption: it is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory: it is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.” All this blessedness and glory Jesus has procured for you. All this blessedness and glory awaits you; and into its full possession and experience Jesus will soon bring you. Animated with such a prospect, and cheered with such a hope, patiently endure the prolonged sickness, the protracted suffering, exclaiming in the spirit and language of Jesus, “O my Father, if this cup may not pass from me, except I drink it, Your will be done!”

May 20: He That Lives

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“I am he that lives, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore.” Revelation 1:18

Let the Christian reader fully believe this one truth- that Jesus is alive again, and it will afford to his soul greater confirmation of the veracity of God’s character, of the truth of His word, and of the perfection and all-sufficiency of Christ’s work, than all other truths beside. Is Jesus alive at the right hand of God?- then the debt is paid, and justice is satisfied. Is Jesus alive at the right hand of God?- then the Father is well pleased in the work of His Son, and He “rests in His love, and rejoices over His Church with singing.” Is Jesus alive?- then every promise shall be fulfilled, and all the blessings of the everlasting covenant shall be freely bestowed, and I, a poor worthless sinner, yet resting upon His atoning work, shall live also.

May the Holy Spirit lead you into the full belief- the belief of the heart as of the judgment- of this glorious truth. It is the keystone of the temple; press it as you will, the more you lean upon it, the stronger you will find it- the more you rest upon it, the firmer will grow your hope. Only receive it in simple faith; Jesus is alive- alive for you- all you need in this valley of tears is here; all your temporal mercies are secured to you here; all your spiritual blessings are laid up for you here.

Such is the great charter, such the immense untold blessings it contains, that, come how you will, come when you will, and “ask what you will, it shall be granted to you by the Father,” because Jesus is at His right hand. Well may we take up the dauntless challenge of the apostle, “Who is he that condemns? It is Christ that died; yes, rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us.”

Your salvation is complete, your heaven secure, and all victory, happiness, and glory bound up in this one great fact. Then may we not again exclaim with Paul, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which, according to His abundant mercy, has begotten us again unto a lively hope, by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.”