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OR,
"GOOD WORDS"
CONCERNING THE BETTER COUNTRY.
No. I.
"There remaineth therefore a
rest to the people of God."
—Heb. iv. 9.
"Chime on, ye bells! again
begin
And ring the Sabbath morning in.
The labourer's week-day work is done,
The rest begun
Which Christ has for His people won!"
From the German.
How sweet the music of this
heavenly chime floating across the waters of death from the towers of the
new Jerusalem!
Pilgrim, faint under
thy long and arduous pilgrimage, hear it! It is rest. Soldier,
carrying still upon thee the blood and dust of battle, hear it! It is
REST. Voyager, tossed on the waves of sin and sorrow, driven hither
and thither on the world's heaving ocean of vicissitude, hear it! The
haven is in sight; the very waves that are breaking on the shore seem to
murmur—"So giveth He His beloved REST." It is the long-drawn sigh
of existence at last answered. The toil and travail of earth's protracted
week-day is at an end. The calm of its unbroken Sabbath is begun. Man,
weary man, has found at last the long-sought-for rest in the bosom
of his God!
This Heavenly Rest is a
rest from sin.
Sin is the great disturber of the moral universe. The world—the soul—was
once like an AEolian harp; every passing zephyr woke it into melody. Now
it is tuneless, unstrung; its notes dissonant and harsh. Not till the
Sabbatic morning of heaven dawn will the old harmonies be restored.
Glorious anticipation ! perfect and entire emancipation, not only from all
temptation without, but from all bias to evil within. No latent principle
of corruption —no depressing consciousness of inherent sin—no germinating
seeds or roots that can develop themselves into fruit—no languid frames—no
guilty fears and apprehensions—no sorrowful estrangements from that Love
whose smile is heaven;—a rest from Satan's deceitful wiles and insidious
snares, these no longer either felt or feared. What more can be needed? A
rest from sin, and a rest in God. As the needle in the
compass, after many tremulous vibrations, at last settles in steady repose
in the direction of its pole, so the redeemed spirit —all its tremblings,
and faintings, and fitful aberrations at an end—shall remain, with its
refined energies, its ennobled powers and purified aspirations,
undeviatingly fixed and centred on Jehovah Himself. Its eternal motto will
be—"This is my rest for ever."
Heaven will be a Rest
from all doubt and error.
Here, how much there is of darkness and uncertainty! The volume of the
Divine ways is a mysterious volume. As the breath dims the window-pane in
looking out on the fairest landscape, so the breath on the windows of
sense and sight often obscures the glory of the moral landscape, causing
us to exclaim —''Now we see through a glass darkly!" The material
world around us, and the spiritual world within us, are full of enigmas
which we cannot solve: much more may we expect marvels and mysteries in
the ways and dealings of God —"deep," great deep "judgments!"
But then all will be
cleared. "In Thy light," O Lord, "shall we see light." The
day will then break, and the looming murky shadows shall for ever flee
away. Doctrinal difficulties will be explained, apparent inconsistencies
removed, withering doubts for ever silenced. No more impeachments of the
Divine veracity, or questionings of the Divine procedure. Looking down
from the summit of the everlasting hills on the mazy windings of the
earthly pilgrimage, every ransomed tongue will have the one confession—"He
hath done all things well."
The Rest of Heaven will
be a rest from sorrow and suffering.
This is a weeping world. Deny it who may; it has its smiles, but it has as
often its tears.
Ye who have the cup of its
joys fullest, be thankful while it is yours. But carry it with trembling.
The head that is now planning its golden projects may to-morrow be laid on
the pillow of sickness, with the dim night-lamp for weary months its
companion. The joyous circle, now uninvaded by the King of Terrors, may
to-morrow be speaking of their "loved and lost." The towering fabric of
human happiness, which is now rapidly uprearing, may, in the twinkling of
an eye, become a mass of ruins.
But if "weeping endure for
the night," "joy cometh in the morning." Yet a little while, mourning
believer! and you will shed your last tear, heave your last pang. Once
enter that peaceful haven, and not one wave of trouble shall ever
afterwards roll. The very fountain of your tears will be dried. Your
remembrance of all the tribulations of the nether world will be like the
visions of some unquiet dream of an earthly night, which the gladsome
sunshine of morning has dispelled, the confused memories of which are all
that remain. "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." (Rev. xxi. 4.)
Here our trials are needed.
The angel has to come down "to trouble the waters," in order to make us
sensible of his presence. It is when the pool is disturbed we see most of
our God. But in heaven, though the Great Angel will be ever present, there
will be no more waters to trouble. It is "a sea of glass." The last ripple
of the last murmuring billow will break upon the shores of Jordan, and
THEN, "immediately, there will be a great calm."
The Rest of Heaven is a
rest which "remaineth."
Nothing is permanent here. The best of earthly joys are evanescent. Like
the bubble rising to the surface of the stream, which glitters for a
moment in the sunshine in its rainbow hues, then it is gone, and the place
thai knew it, knows it no more? But the rest above is eternal—no foe can
invade it, no storms can disturb it. It is the rest of a final home, over
the portals of which is written, "Ye shall go no more out."
Reader, pitch not your
tabernacle here! Yours now is, or ought to be, a tent or nomad
life. The Christian is an Arab in the present probation state. He
has no fixed abode. His dwelling is constructed not of stones or enduring
material. The rope, and the canvas, and the wooden pins, all indicate "the
pilgrim and stranger on the earth." It is a wilderness rest. He must be
content with wilderness provision. If you have many sources of earthly
happiness, sit loosely to them. Let these rills draw you only nearer the
fountain-head. Let these gifts only unite you closer to the Giver. " He
gave them," says Richard Baxter, "to be refreshments in thy journey; and
wouldst thou dwell in thy inn, and go no further?" Soon He Himself — your
"exceeding joy"—will supersede them. The rill will be no longer needed
when you have the fountain-head; the starlight when you have sunlight;
creature comforts when you have the Infinite presence. "There remaineth
a rest!" Listen to this, child of suffering and sorrow! Thou who art
beaten about now with "a great fight of afflictions," thou wilt soon be at
home, soon with God, and nothing then, evermore, to break the trance of
thy bliss ! Every time the sounding line is let down, the response is, "Nearer
shore!" Sainted ones in that spirit-world, like the birds which greet
the earthly voyager as he approaches land, are hovering around thee,
telling that thy Home is at hand— that soon thou shalt furl thy sails, and
reach the desired haven. "My little bark," says one who has now realised
her glowing anticipations, "is riding serenely through the storm, and soon
I shall drop my anchor in the still waters of eternal rest and glory."
[Mrs Winslow's Life.]
The joys of the Heavenly
Rest will be enhanced by contrast.
This is one beauteous element in the contemplation of future bliss, which
angels know nothing of —the joy of contrast. These Blessed Beings never
knew what it was to sin or to suffer. These glorious Vessels, launched on
the "summer seas of eternity," never knew what it was to wrestle with the
tempest, or, like the shipwrecked apostle, "to be nights and days on the
deep" of trial.
The blind man exults in the
boon of restored sight in a way which others cannot experience who have
never known its loss. The sick man appreciates the return of vigorous
health in a way which others can know nothing of who have never felt its
privation. The labourer enjoys his nightly repose all the more by contrast
with the hours of toil which preceded it. The soldier, after years of
suffering and privation, appreciates the music of that word home as he
never could have done unless he had undergone the terrible discipline of
trench, and night-watch, and battle-field.
Will it not be the same
with the believer in entering on his Best? Will not his former experience
of suffering, and sin, and sorrow, enhance all his new-born joys? It is
said of saints, that they will be "equal to the angels." In this
respect they will be superior! The angel never knew what it was to
have an eye dimmed with tears, or to be covered with the soil of conflict.
He never can know the exquisite beauty of that Bible picture {none
but the weeping pilgrim of earth can understand or experience it) where,
as the climax or consummation of heavenly bliss, God is represented as ''
wiping away all tears from their eyes!" Beautiful thought! The weary ones
from the pilgrim-valley seated by the calm river of life, bathing their
temples—laving their wounds—ungirding their armour;—the dust of battle for
ever washed away;—and listening to the proclamation from the inner
sanctuary—the soft strain stealing down from the Sabbath-bells of glory—"The
days of your mourning are ended!"
Christian, has this
glorious rest the place in your thoughts it ought to occupy? Are you
delighting to have frequent Pisgah-glimpses of this Land of Promise ? Are
you living as the inheritor and heir of such a blessed immortality,
"declaring plainly" that "you seek a better country?"
How sad, how strange that
the eye of faith should be dimmed to these glorious realities by the
fugitive and passing things of sense. Grovellers that we are! with all
this wealth of glory within reach—with these deathless spirits claiming to
outlive all time—that we should suffer the seen and the temporal to
eclipse the splendours of eternal day! "Reader, look to thyself, and
resolve the question; ask conscience, and suffer it to tell thee truly
that thou put thine eternal rest before thine eyes as the great business
thou hast to do in this world. Hast thou watched and laboured with all thy
might that no man take thy crown" [Baxter.]
Sit no longer cowering in
darkness when light is streaming from your Lather's windows and inviting
you upwards. A few more rolling suns—. a few more swings of Time's
pendulum—and the world's curfew bell will toll, announcing the Sabbath of
eternity has come. Seek rest in Christ now. Flee to the crevices of the
Bock of Ages now, if you would nestle for ever in the golden eaves of the
eternal temple. Be ever sitting on the edge of your nest, pluming yourself
for flight—so that when death comes, "with wings like a dove" —the
celestial plumage of faith, and hope, and love —you may soar upwards to
the Sabbath of your God, and be at rest for ever! |
