_HEAVEN._
"Therefore are they before the throne of God."--Revelation vii. 15.
Let us think of Heaven this morning. The verses of which the text is a
fragment will help us to do so.
The hope of heaven is the crowning hope of the Christian. It ought at
all times to be an important element in his joy. All the pleasant
things of earth should be made brighter by the reflected light of the
world beyond the grave. It is common, however, for us to live in a
sort of unconsciousness of this. Within proper limits this is not to
be complained of. For our duties are _here_, and we are not fitted for
there by "looking too eagerly beyond." Besides, earth is the
training-school for heaven, and unless we would enter into heaven as
into "a vast abrupt," obviously our present duty is by all means to
cultivate that life which shall fit us for it.
There are, however, certain lulls in the rush of life which seem to
draw us to the contemplation of the future. We find them sometimes in
seasons of repose, but more especially in seasons of sorrow, and more
especially still in seasons of bereavement.
I am not anxious to form an argument this morning. I have little
disposition to _argue_ about heaven. But I want to express some
thoughts, disjointed perhaps, but I trust suggestive, and each one
carrying its message to our weary hearts.
What may we know? We often ask this question with hope that is
tremulous--or it may be with tremulousness that is hopeful. What may
we know? Certainly not all that we sometimes wish to know; but then we
sometimes wish to know things the knowledge of which would be useless,
or curious, or beyond our reach until we can see with tearless eyes,
and realise with sinless hearts. There are certain aspects under which
heaven seems to be altogether visionary. Where is it? We are not told.
What are the dimensions and outlines of it? We do not know. It is
described under a great variety of material figures. We read of its
gates of pearl, its walls of jasper, its streets of gold, its river of
the water of life, its tree of life; but we know that these
descriptions symbolise the spiritual. Not that they are mere riddles,
however. Some of their truth may be confidently guessed. There is one
important fact of which we cannot be in doubt. Heaven is the place in
which will be developed and perfected a certain character--certain
moral and spiritual qualifications. Heaven is where perfect goodness
is, just as on earth happiness is where godliness and Christlikeness
are. We may, therefore, put heaven where we will, and think about it
almost as we please, provided we put the right sort of character
there, and remember what sort of discipline here must prepare for it.
This is the essential point in the revelations of this book: "There
shall in no wise enter into it anything that defileth, neither
whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie: but they which are
written in the Lamb's book of life." There _must_ be a heaven for the
good.
I shall not stop to point out what a wreck our common Christianity
would be if there were no future life of blessedness for the
Christian. In contemplating such a possibility, the apostle Paul
exclaims: "If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all
men most miserable." _We_: for we have expected heaven; the fair
vision has been put before us as a great hope, and we lose in
proportion to what we thought we had gained. _We_: for we have
prepared for it, through a life--in many instances a _long_ life--of
self discipline, of loyalty to God, of the mortification of sin, of
the cultivation of goodness. _We_: for we have suffered for it,
sometimes directly through ills endured for Christ's sake, and always
indirectly by the sacrifice of that which the world distinctively
calls its own, and on which it sets its supreme regard. Our
Christianity has promised this heaven to us; and the promise has
enhanced many an earthly joy, and charmed away many an earthly sorrow.
No heaven? Then we have been shamefully deceived--miserably
disappointed; and there is no hope for us any more! But no! The words
of the great consolation are sounding still, and we can trust them:
"Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in
me. In my Father's house are many mansions: _if it were not so, I
would have told you_. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and
prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto
myself; that where I am there ye may be also."
It is one of the characteristic glories of the Bible that it meets the
renewed heart's desires in regard to the future, by revealing, not
only the fact of the future, but also some of its resplendent
mysteries; so that, after taking man through the several stages of his
progress on earth, it conducts him at last to the heaven of his hopes,
the home of the good. Perhaps no Scripture disclosure of Heaven is
more wonderful, more complete, more entrancing than the one we have in
the vision of the apostle John as recorded in the verses before us.
True, it is put before us, like the other revelations of this book, in
poetical and pictorial form. Nevertheless, the spiritual teaching is
sufficiently plain. Let us seek the help of that good Spirit by whom
John was inspired, whilst we try to learn something of that which is
revealed to us in this chapter. In the light of it we see an
innumerable multitude of persons who, having travelled this world in
trial and in sorrow, are now before the throne of God, safe in the
heaven of the redeemed.
So we see, at the very beginning, that the Heaven which is here
presented to our view is no solitary place. It is not peopled merely
by a few. John says he saw "a great multitude whom no man could
number." In the Old Testament a similar phrase is used to denote
Israel, the representative of the Church of later times. The
numberless stars of heaven, and the sands on the seashore are the
parallels of the idea we find here. The Church on earth, sometimes not
unfitly described as "a garden walled around," and as "a little
flock," is not, in this sense, the representation of the Church in
heaven. We see, further, that the heavenly territory embraces the
representatives of every earthly human condition: they gather from all
ages and all climes of the world--from all "nations and kindreds, and
peoples, and tongues." In this great fact we have the basis of the
theory of our mission work, and our hope of its ultimate success.
We see, again, that the relation of the saints to Christ in heaven is
essentially the same as that of the saints on earth. They stand before
the throne and before the Lamb, and cry with a loud voice: "Salvation
to our God which sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb."
They sing the Lamb in hymns above,
And we in hymns below.
Self-confidence, self-righteousness, self-exaltation have no place
_there_. All the glory of salvation, all the glory of heaven, is due
to God and to the Lamb from first to last. Every step of the way,
right on to its termination, has been arranged by His wisdom and
accomplished by His grace.
With these facts before us, there ought to be no strangeness connected
with our conception of Heaven. Its inhabitants are our friends
transferred, and the elements of its perfected life and joy are the
same as we are, in our measure, familiar with in the imperfect state
through which we are now passing. Perhaps the most comprehensive, and
most spiritually attractive and influential idea of it is that of
_entire satisfaction_. In this aspect of it, it meets the demands of
our experience, fulfils our hope, and draws us upward. Satisfaction!
How beautiful the thought! To the weary and the heavy laden it comes
as rest. To the aspiring it comes as a sphere of boundless
opportunity. To the sad and troubled, it is "a land of pure delight."
To those who groan under present spiritual short comings and
frailties, it is the home of the spirits of the just made perfect. We
are often staggered at the faults of Christians; they will be "without
fault" there. Here our faults dissociate us more or less from our
brethren; faultlessness there will make the union complete. Here
darkness, there light; here sowing, there the harvest; here a
wilderness, there the garden of the Lord. Heaven contains all our
ideals of the true, the beautiful and the good; and one day we shall
realise them! The description which we have before us warrants all
this, and much more. How much more? The redeemed in Heaven live a life
of immunity from suffering. No hunger; no thirst; no oppression from
the heat of the sun. No faintness; no pangs. John seems, from the form
of expression he uses, to have beheld them as they were "coming out of
great tribulation." Whatever may be the prophetic reference in these
words, we may understand them as having some meaning appropriate to
all the redeemed. All life, with its varied experience may be called
(and that too in no fanciful sense) a tribulation; in this sense at
least, that it is a probation, a trial, a testing-time in view of the
great awards of the future. From this all come, gradually,
successively, one by one, passing from the school of earth to the home
of heaven. Trial is the common discipline of the good, and it comes in
many forms;--sometimes in the form of bodily pain and sickness;
sometimes in the form of trouble, disappointment, loss in the
household and in the social circle; sometimes in the form of
persecution; often in the form of a struggle with temptation
springing up from within or from without; often, it may be, in the
form of conflict with doubt. Sorrow, trial, tribulation--from all this
the redeemed in heaven have emerged. But they have not only escaped
from evil; they have risen into a perfect blessedness--the blessedness
which comes from the satisfaction of every want. They not only hunger
no more, neither thirst any more; but the Lamb that is in the midst of
the throne feeds them, and leads them to living fountains of waters.
Their blessedness is all the richer because not only are all their
tears wiped away, but wiped away by the hand of infinite gentleness
and love--the hand of the Best Beloved in all the universe! Well may
they be glad! Well may they sing loud ecstatic songs of praise to
their Redeemer. Well may they serve Him day and night in His
temple--perfected powers rejoicing evermore in a perfect consecration.
They are a company living, dwelling, at the very centre of joy: no
care upon them, no labour weighing them down; their Lord in the midst
of them, their satisfaction complete.
The contrast between their condition on earth and in heaven is full of
wonder to us as we muse upon it. How was the change wrought? What
must we learn concerning this from what is here revealed?
They were prepared _here_ for the state beyond. The life of heaven is
the continuation and the result of the earthly life. "They washed
their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb," and they
"came up out of great tribulation." Here we have the process of the
cleansing, "the great tribulation" being comprehensive of the whole
discipline by which God purifies human souls. Here we have also the
purifying element, "the blood of the Lamb," the atoning power to wash
out all stains, the stimulating power to inspire to all holiness. And
we also have the final result--"white raiment." So, doctrinally, the
"robes" stand for the whole character, the tribulation for the process
of purification; "the blood of the Lamb," for the cleansing element in
its justifying and sanctifying effects. Their holiness is not merely
passive. There is a righteousness which is imputed; but there is also
a righteousness which is acquired--acquired in the might of the
Saviour, and through the influences of His Spirit. Those who do not
aspire to the latter have no hope from the former, except a hope which
must make them ashamed. But inasmuch as both aspects of salvation are
to be referred to the Lamb, they give to Him the glory. It is all His
from beginning to end. "They have washed their robes and made them
white in the blood of the Lamb." Thus their salvation was effected on
earth. Heaven has introduced no new moral element into their
condition. Heaven is essentially the full realisation of what a
Christian expects and hopes this side the grave. It is the inheritance
of the man who has the kingdom of God _within_ him.
There is one part of the description which requires a little
explanation, and all the more so as it bears upon the aspects given to
us of heavenly blessedness. The redeemed are represented as standing
before the throne with palms in their hands. Many explain this by the
heathen use of the palm as the emblem of victory, and they quote the
declaration: "In all these things we are more than conquerors through
Him that loved us." I would rather, with some, refer this emblem to a
much sweeter and holier reminiscence. The figure seems to be taken
from the Feast of Tabernacles, which commemorated two things--God's
care for, and protection of, Israel during their wanderings in the
wilderness, and His continued Providence in the supply of the fruits
of the earth in their season. It was held at the close of the year's
out-door labours, and with it the season of rest began. And so with
the ransomed above, the troubles of the wilderness are ended, and the
harvest-home has come.
Such is the heaven to which God has removed our dead. May we not with
thankfulness leave them there? Must we not feel that by death, they
have made a glorious exchange? In their case, it would be wrong to
call death by hard names. It is the message which comes to the child
at school to go home. I know that we often fail to apprehend this.
Bound by time and sense, we want to build our homes here, and our
structures have one after another to be overthrown that we may the
better learn to think of "the city which hath foundations, whose
builder and maker is God." Heaven is best seen by the graves of those
we have loved; and not till earth becomes poor to us is Heaven felt to
be rich. There our loved ones are in raiment white and clean, and they
are happy. Let it be our constant endeavour to rejoin them there. The
same blood still atones; the same all-holy Spirit still purifies; the
same process of trial leads to the same issue. For ourselves, we
should ever keep in mind the connection between discipline here and
glory hereafter. Present darkness may be interpreted by future light.
Even now, the sanctified effects of trial are such as to suggest to us
what its final issues will be. It subdues us, makes us gentle, reveals
us to ourselves, reveals God to us, spiritualises us; so that we may
well be more anxious to have our troubles blessed by God than to have
them taken away. As the discipline of earth is fashioning us for
heaven, so our conceptions of heaven are continually re-acting upon
us, and moulding our life.
One thought more. The seer beholds the immense multitude of the
redeemed. The angel asks him who they are; but he does not know them.
Many of them perhaps are persons whom he had known on earth; but they
are so changed that he does not recognise them now. He used to know
them by their imperfect Christian virtues; but now they are "without
fault." And so they seem strange to him, just as sometimes even here
the transformations of virtue and of joy make us say of well-known
faces that we hardly recognise them again. A hint of this we often see
in the faces of the dead; so like, yet so unlike. Is there any doubt,
then, as to our recognising them at the last? None. We may, perhaps,
fail to identify them at once, but they will not be strangers to us
long. We shall look upon them with opened and purified eyes, and shall
know them, even as the disciples on the mount knew Moses and Elias,
notwithstanding the glory. Oh, it will be good for us to be there!
Good for us to remain there for ever!
Read: "These are they who _are coming_"--not "who came." They began to
come with Abel; and the procession is not yet closed. Among the last
are those over the loss of whom we are weeping now. Let us brush away
our tears; for at least we may say to ourselves this--
One sweetly solemn thought
Comes to me o'er and o'er:
I'm nearer my home to-day
Than I've ever been before!
Nearer my Father's house,
Where the many mansions be;
Nearer the great white Throne;
Nearer the jasper sea!
Nearer the bound of life,
Where I lay my burden down!
Nearer leaving my cross!
Nearer wearing my crown!