A Home
“Heaven is called a kingdom for its immense greatness, and a city because of its great beauty and population. It is full of inhabitants of all nations, where are many angels, and an infinite number of the just, even as many as have died since the death of Abel. And thither shall repair all such as shall die in Christ to the end of the world; and after the general judgment shall there remain forever invested in their glorious bodies. How happy will it be to live with such persons,”
JEREMY TAYLOR.
HE Epistle to the Hebrews, eleventh chapter, speaking of Old Testament Saints says:
“These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country.” The Revised Version changes this so that it reads: “For they that say such things make it manifest that they are seeking after a country of their own.” Dean AIford, in his Commentary, translates it thus, “That
they seek after a home.” ‘The English word “country,” does not give the idea strong enough. The word is defined, one’s native country, one’s fatherland, one’s own country. Heaven is our home, our fatherland. Here we are foreigners, pilgrims and strangers. The heart of a stranger, the loneliness and longing of a stranger, the efforts and weariness of the pilgrims, should be ours. The heart-sighing, the exiled yearnings, should declare to all plainly that we are not at home, that we are not native to these skies, but heaven-born, seeking the heavenly country.
Heaven ought to draw and engage us. Heaven ought to so fill our hearts and hands, our manner and our conversation, our character and our features, that all would see that we are foreigners, strangers to this world, natives of a nobler clime, fairer than this. Out of tune, out of harmony, out of course; we must be with this world. The very atmosphere of the world should be chilling to us and noxious, its suns eclipsed and its companionship dull and insipid. Heaven is our native land and home to us, and death to us is not the dying hour, but the birth hour. Heaven should kindle desire, and like a magnet draw us upward to the skies. Duty, inexorable duty, fealty to God, alone, should hold us here.
A beautiful, gifted young woman once said that she had not seen one minute for several years wherein she desired to live one moment longer for the sake of any other good in life but doing good, living to God and doing what might be to His glory.
Paul was brought into a strait between desire and duty. Christ and heaven had his heart, but duty kept him in exile. ‘“For me to live is Christ but to die is gain. But if I live in the flesh this is the fruit of my labor: yet what I shall choose I wot not. For I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart and be with Christ which is far better. Nevertheless to abide in the flesh is more needful for you. And having this confidence, I know that I shall abide and continue with you all for your furtherance and joy of faith.” With Paul it was as it ever should be. Duty retires desire, and teaches it to wait till the glad hour of its fruition.
Of those ancient believers spoken of in Hebrews 11, we discover that they all were pilgrims and strangers on the earth with heavenly longings and heavenly seeking. Alas, for the hearts which are settled here! Heaven to them is a strange, an alien, a far-off land! A background these had. They had left the earthland and refused to go back to it. They had transferred their home and their home-land to the better and heavenly country. God noted their fidelity, heard their sighing, and noted seeking. He was not ashamed of them and built for them a city. It is God-built. That assures its location, its glory, its eternity, and its bliss.
In writing to the Corinthians of the Christian attitude to heaven, Paul says, as we have it in the Revised Version, “We are willing rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord.” Here we have one of the strongest, sweetest, most attractive symbols of heaven. Whatever there is in that place we call home — sacred, dear, restful, delightful, full of holy feelings and deathless ties, all these are predicted in a form ten thousand fold stronger and sweeter of heaven.
At home in heaven! What welcome! What satisfaction! What rest to tired feet, and tired hearts! What a sense of security and confidence! The home feelings in full opulence of richest wealth! Nowhere on earth’s green, glad soil will the home feeling be so profound, so satisfying, so restful, and so happifying as in heaven. It is not only to be realized as home when we get there, but all along the way the home feeling is to draw and bind us to that heavenly world. ‘The homesickness for heaven is to alienate us from earth, make us sick at heart and beget pinings for home.
With deep spiritual insight and the soundest spiritual philosophy did one of Scotland’s most gifted and saintly preachers say after visiting a beautiful Manse: “The Manse is altogether too sweet. Other men could hardly live there without saying, this is my rest. I don’t think ministers’ manses should ever be so beautiful.”
This is not splenetic, nor overdrawn, but the assertion of a great principle to guard against a great peril. Great earthly attachments lessen heavenly attachments. ‘The heart which indulges itself in great earthly loves will have less for heaven. God’s great work and often His most afflictive and chastening work is to unfasten our hearts from earth and fasten them to heaven, to break up and desolate the earthly home that we may seek a home in heaven.
My heavenly home is bright and fair:
Nor pain nor death can enter there;
Its glittering towers the sun outshine;
That heavenly mansion shall be mine.
Let others seek a home below,
Which flames devour, or waves o’erflow,
Be mine the happier lot to own
A heavenly mansion near the throne. — Williiam Hunter.