"Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world."--Matt.
xxviii. 20.
The Abiding Presence.
Such were "the words of Jesus" when He was just about to ascend to Heaven. The mediatorial throne was in view--the harps of glory were sounding in His ears; but all His thoughts are on the pilgrim Church He is to leave behind. His last words and benedictions are for _them_. "I go," He seems to say, "to Heaven, to my purchased crown--to the fellowship of angels--to the presence of my Father; _but_, nevertheless, "Lo! I am with _you_ alway, even unto the end of the world.""
How faithfully did the Apostles, to whom this promise was first addressed, experience its reality! Hear the testimony of the beloved disciple who had once leant on his Divine Master"s bosom--who "had heard, and seen, and looked upon Him." That glorified bosom was now hid from his sight; but does he speak of an absent Lord, and of His fellowship only as among the holy memories of the past? No! with rejoicing emphasis he can exclaim--"Truly our fellowship IS with ...
_Jesus Christ_."
Amid so much that is fugitive here, how the heart clings to this a.s.surance of the abiding presence of the Saviour! Our best earthly friends--a few weeks may estrange them;--centuries have rolled on--Christ is still the same. How blessed to think, that if I am indeed a child of G.o.d, there is not the lonely instant I am without His guardianship! When the beams of the morning visit my chamber, the brighter beams of a brighter Sun are shining upon me. When the shadows of evening are gathering around, "it is not night, if He, the unsetting "Sun of my soul," is near." His is no fitful companionship--present in prosperity, gone in adversity. He never changes. He is always the same,--in sickness and solitude, in joy and in sorrow, in life and in death. Not more faithfully did the pillar-cloud and column of fire of old precede Israel, till the last murmuring ripple of Jordan fell on their ears on the sh.o.r.es of Canaan, than does the presence and love of Jesus abide with His people. Has His word of promise ever proved false?
Let the great cloud of witnesses now in glory testify. "Not one thing hath failed of all that the Lord our G.o.d hath spoken." _This_ "word of the Lord is tried"--"having loved His own, which were in the world, He loved them _unto the end_."
Believer! art thou troubled and tempted? Do dark providences and severe afflictions seem to belie the truth and reality of this gracious a.s.surance? Art thou ready, with Gideon, to say, "If the Lord be indeed with us, why has all this befallen us?" Be a.s.sured He has some faithful end in view. By the removal of prized and cherished earthly props and refuges, He would unfold more of his own tenderness. Amid the wreck and ruin of earthly joys, which, it may be, the grave has hidden from your sight, One nearer, dearer, tenderer still, would have you say of Himself, "_The Lord liveth_; and blessed be my Rock; and let the G.o.d of my salvation be exalted." "Thanks be to G.o.d, who _always_ maketh us to triumph in Christ." Yes! and never more so than when, stripped of all competing objects of creature affection, we are left, like the disciples on the mount, with "_Jesus only_!"
"THESE THINGS HAVE I SPOKEN UNTO YOU, THAT IN ME YE MIGHT HAVE PEACE."
26TH DAY.
"Remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how He said"--
"I am the resurrection and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet he shall live."--John. xi. 25.
The Resurrection and Life.
What a voice is this breaking over a world which for six thousand years has been a dormitory of sin and death! For four thousand of these years, heathendom could descry no light through the bars of the grave; her oracles were dumb on the great doctrine of a future state, and more especially regarding the body"s resurrection. Even the Jewish Church, under the Old Testament dispensation, seemed to enjoy little more than fitful and uncertain glimmerings, like men groping in the dark. It required death"s great Abolisher to show, to a benighted world, the luminous "path of life." With Him rested the "bringing in of a better hope"--the unfolding of "the mystery which had been hid from ages and generations." Marvellous disclosure! that this mortal frame, decomposed and resolved into its original dust, shall yet start from its ashes, remodelled and reconstructed--"a glorified body!" Not like "the earthly tabernacle" (a mere shifting and moveable _tent_, as the word denotes), but incorruptible--immortal! The beauteous transformation of the insect from its chrysalis state--the buried seed springing up from its tiny grave to the full-eared corn or gorgeous flower--these are nature"s mute utterances as to the possibility of this great truth, which required the unfoldings of "a more sure word of prophecy." But the Gospel has fully revealed what Reason, in her loftiest imaginings, could not have dreamt of. Jesus "hath brought life and immortality to light." He, the Bright and Morning Star, hath "turned the shadow of death into the morning." He gives, in His own resurrection, the earnest of that of His people;--He is the first-fruits of the immortal harvest yet to be gathered into the garner of Heaven.
Precious truth! This "word of Jesus" spans like a celestial rainbow the entrance to the dark valley. Death is robbed of its sting. In the case of every child of G.o.d, the grave holds in custody precious, because redeemed, dust. Talk of it not, as being committed to a dishonoured tomb!--it is locked up, rather, in the casket, of G.o.d until the day "when He maketh up His jewels," when it will be fashioned in deathless beauty like unto the glorified body of the Redeemer. Angels, meanwhile, are commissioned to keep watch over it, till the trump of the archangel shall proclaim the great "Easter of creation." They are the "reapers,"
waiting for the world"s great "Harvest Home," when Jesus Himself shall come again--not as He once did, humiliated and in sorrow, but rejoicing in the thought of bringing back all His sheaves with him.
Afflicted and bereaved Christian!--thou who mayest be mourning in bitterness those who are not--rejoice through thy tears in these hopes "full of immortality." The silver cord is only "loosed," not broken.
Perchance, as thou standest in the chamber of death, or by the brink of the grave,--in the depths of that awful solitude and silence which reigns around, this may be thy plaintive and mournful soliloquy--"Shall the dust praise Thee?" Yes, it _shall_! This very dust that hears now unheeded thy footsteps, and unmoved thy tears, shall through eternity praise its redeeming G.o.d--it shall proclaim His truth!
"LORD, TO WHOM SHALL WE GO BUT UNTO THEE, THOU HAST THE _WORDS_ OF _ETERNAL LIFE_."
27TH DAY.
"Remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how He said"--
"A little while, and ye shall not see me; and again, a little while, and ye shall see me, because I go to the Father."--John xvi. 16.
The Little While.
Long seem the moments when we are separated from the friend we love. An absent brother--how his return is looked and longed for! The "Elder Brother"--the "Living Kinsman"--sends a message to His waiting Church and people--a word of solace, telling that _soon_ ("a little while,") and He will be back again, never again to leave them.
There are indeed blessed moments of communion which the believer enjoys with His beloved Lord _now_; but how fitful and transient! To-day, life is a brief Emmaus journey--the soul happy in the presence and love of an unseen Saviour. To-morrow, He is _gone_; and the bereft spirit is led to interrogate itself in plaintive sorrow,--"Where is now thy G.o.d?" Even when there is no such experience of darkness and depression, how much there is in the world around to fill the believer with sadness! His Lord rejected and disowned--His love set at nought--His providences slighted--His name blasphemed--His creation groaning and travailing in pain--disunion, too, among His people--His loving heart wounded in the house of His friends!
But "yet a little while," and all this mystery of iniquity will be finished. The absent Brother"s footfall will soon be heard,--no longer "as a wayfaring man who turneth aside to tarry for a night," but to receive His people into the permanent "mansions" His love has been preparing, and from which they shall go no more out. Oh, blessed day!
when creation will put on her Easter robes--when her Lord, so long dishonoured, will be enthroned amid the hosannahs of a rejoicing universe--angels lauding Him--saints crowning Him--sin, the dark plague-spot on His universe, extinguished for ever--death swallowed up in eternal victory!
And it is but "a little while!" "Yet a little while," we elsewhere read, "and He that shall come, will come, and will not tarry" (literally, "a little while as may be.") "He will stay not a moment longer," says Goodwin, "than He hath despatched all our business in Heaven for us."
With what joy will He send His mission-Angel with the announcement, "the little while is at an end;" and to issue the invitation to the great festival of glory, "Come! for all things are ready!"
Child of sorrow! think often of this "_little while_." "The days of thy mourning will soon be ended." There is a limit set to thy suffering time,--"After that ye have suffered a WHILE." Every wave is numbered between you and the haven; and then when that haven is reached, oh, what an apocalypse of glory!--the "little while" of time merged into the great and unending "while of eternity!"--to be _for ever with the Lord_--the same unchanged and unchanging Saviour!
"A little while, and ye _shall_ see me!" Would that the eye of faith might be kept more intently fixed on "that glorious appearing!" How the world, with its guilty fascinations, tries to dim and obscure this blessed hope! How the heart is p.r.o.ne to throw out its fibres here, and get them rooted in some perishable object! Reader! seek to dwell more habitually on this the grand consummation of all thy dearest wishes.
"Stand on the edge of your nest, pluming your wings for flight." Like the mother of Sisera, be looking for the expected chariot.
"HE IS FAITHFUL THAT PROMISED."
28TH DAY.
"Remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how He said"--
"Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see G.o.d."--Matt. v.
8.
The Beatific Vision.
Here Is Heaven! This "word of Jesus" represents the future state of the glorified to consist not in locality, but in character; the essence of its bliss is the full vision and fruition of G.o.d. Our attention is called from all vague and indefinite theories about the _circ.u.mstantials_ of future happiness. The one grand object of contemplation--the "glory which excelleth," is _the sight of G.o.d Himself_! The one grand practical lesson enforced on His people, is the cultivation of that purity of heart without which none could _see_, or (even could we suppose it possible to be admitted to _see_ Him) none could _enjoy_ G.o.d! "The kingdom of Heaven cometh not with observation ... the kingdom of G.o.d is _within_ you."
Reader, hast thou attained any of this heart-purity and heart-preparation? It has been beautifully said that "the openings of the streets of heaven are on earth." Even here we may enjoy, in the possession of holiness, some foretaste of coming bliss. Who has not felt that the happiest moments of their lives were those of close walking with G.o.d--nearness to the mercy-seat--when self was surrendered, and the eye was directed to the glory of Jesus, with most single, unwavering, undivided aim? What will Heaven be, but the entire surrender of the soul to Him, without any bias to evil, without the fear of corruption within echoing to temptation without; every thought brought into captivity to the obedience of Christ; no contrariety to His mind; all in blessed unison with His will; the whole _being_ impregnated with holiness--the intellect purified and enn.o.bled, consecrating all its powers to His service--memory, a holy repository of pure and hallowed recollections--the affections, without one competing rival, purged from all the dross of earthliness--the love of G.o.d, the one supreme animating pa.s.sion--the glory of G.o.d, the motive principle interfused through every thought, and feeling, and action of the life immortal; in one word, the heart a pellucid fountain; no sediment to dim its purity, "no angel of sorrow" to come and trouble the pool! The long night of life over, and _this_ the glory of the eternal morrow which succeeds it! "I shall be satisfied when I awake, with _Thy_ likeness."
Yes, this is Heaven, subjectively and objectively--_purity of heart_ and "_G.o.d all in all_!" Much, doubtless, there may and will be of a subordinate kind, to intensify the bliss of the redeemed; communion with saints and angels; re-admission into the society of death-divided friends: but all these will fade before the great central glory, "G.o.d Himself shall be with them, and be their G.o.d; they shall _see his face_!" Believers have been aptly called _heliotropes_--turning their faces as the sunflower towards the Sun of Righteousness, and hanging their leaves in sadness and sorrow, when that Sun is away. It will be in heaven the emblem is complete. _There_, every flower in the heavenly garden will be turned G.o.dwards, bathing its tints of loveliness in the glory that excelleth! Reader, may it be yours, when o"er-canopied by that cloudless sky, to know all the marvels contained in these few glowing words, "We shall be like Him, for we shall see him as He is."
"AND EVERY MAN THAT HATH THIS HOPE IN HIM PURIFIETH HIMSELF EVEN AS HE IS PURE."
29TH DAY.
"Remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how He said"--
"In my Father"s house are many mansions."--John xiv. 2.