IV. Another view of heaven is, that it is A PLACE OF COMPLETE VICTORY AND GLORIOUS TRIUMPH. This is the battlefield; there is the triumphal procession. This is the land of the sword and the spear; that in the land of the wreath and the crown. This is the land of the garment rolled in blood and of the dust of the fight; that is the land of the trumpet’s joyful sound—that is the place of the white robe and of the shout of conquest. O, what a thrill of joy shall shoot through the hearts of all the blessed when their conquests shall be complete in heaven, when death itself, the last of foes, shall be slain—when Satan shall be dragged captive at the chariot wheels of Christ—when he shall have overthrown sin and trampled corruption as the mire of the streets—when the great shout of universal victory shall rise from the hearts of all the redeemed! What a moment of pleasure shall that be! O, dear brethren, you and I have foretastes of even that. We know what conquests, what souls’ battles we have even here. Did you never struggle against an evil heart, and at last overcome it? O, with what joy did you lift your eyes to heaven, the tears flowing down your cheeks, and say, “Lord, I bless thee that I have been able to overcome that sin.” Did you ever have a strong temptation, and did you wrestle hard with it, and know what it was to sing with great joy, “My feet slipped; but thy mercy held me up?” Have you, like Bunyan’s Christian’, fought with old Apollyon, and have you seen him flap his dragon-wings and fly away? There you had a foretaste of heaven; you had just a guess of what the ultimate victory will be. In the death of that one Philistine you had the destruction of the whole army. That Goliath who fell beneath your sling and stone was but one out of the multitude who must yield their bodies to the fowls of heaven. God gives you partial triumphs that they may be the earnest of ultimate and complete victory. Go on and conquer, and let each conquest, though a harder one and more strenuously contested, be to you as a grape of Eshcol, a foretaste of the joys of heaven!
V. Furthermore, without doubt one of the best views we can ever give of heaven is, that it is A STATE OF COMPLETE ACCEPTANCE WITH GOD, recognized and felt in the conscience. I suppose that a great part of the joy of the blessed saints consists in a knowledge that there is nothing in them to which God is hostile; that their peace with God has not any thing to mar it; that they are so completely in union with the principles and thoughts of the Most High; that his love is set on them; that their love is set on him; that they are one with God in every respect. Well, beloved, and have we not enjoyed a sense of acceptance here below? Blotted and blurred by many doubts and fears, yet there have been moments when we have known ourselves as well accepted as we shall know ourselves to be even when we stand before the throne. There have been bright days with some of us, when we could “set to our seal” that God was true; and, when afterward, feeling that the Lord knoweth them that are his, we could say, “And I know that I am his too.” Then have we known the meaning of Dr. Watts when he sang,—
“When I can say, ‘My God is mine;’
When I can feel thy glories shine;
I tread the world beneath my feet,
And all that earth calls good or great.
While such a scene of sacred joys
Our raptured eyes and souls employs,
Here we could sit, and gaze away
A long, an everlasting day.”
We had such a clear view of the perfection of Christ’s righteousness that we felt that God had accepted us, and we could not be otherwise than happy; we had such a sense of the efficacy of the blood of Christ, we felt sure that our sins were all pardoned, and that they never could be mentioned unto us in mercy for ever. And, beloved, though I have spoken of other joys, let me say, this is the cream of all of them, to know ourselves accepted in God’s sight. O! to feel that I, a guilty worm, am now received in my Father’s bosom; that I, a lost prodigal, am now feasting at his table with delight; that I, who once heard the voice of his anger, now listen to the notes of his love. This is joy—this is joy worth worlds. What more can they know up there than that? And were it not that our sense of it were so imperfect, we might bring heaven down to earth, and might at least dwell in the suburbs of the celestial city, if we could not be privileged to go within the gates. So you see, again, we can have bunches of the grapes of Eshcol in that sense. Seeing that heaven is a state of acceptance, we, too, can know and feel that acceptance, and rejoice in it.
VI. And, again, heaven is A STATE OF GREAT AND GLORIOUS MANIFESTATIONS. You look forward to your experience in heaven, you sing,—
“Then shall I see, and hear, and know
All I desired or wished below;
and every power find a sweet employ
In that eternal world of joy.”
You are now looking at it darkly through a glass: there you shall see face to face Christ looks down on the Bible, and the Bible is his looking-glass. You look into it, and see the face of Christ as in a mirror darkly; but soon you shall look upon himself and see him face to face. You expect heaven as a place of peculiar manifestations. You believe that there he will unvail his face to you; that—
“Millions of years your wondering eyes
Shall o’er your Saviour’s beauties rove.”
“This article originally appeared here at Bible Bulletin Board.”
