Health on All Beneath Its Shade
Ities on earth should more and more strive after purity. JI am glad that more attention is being paid to cleanliness. Too long has the age of filth made the crowded populations the prey of disease and death. Up yonder in heaven the sanitary measures are perfection, for “there shall by no means enter into it anything that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination or maketh a lie.” There every inhabitant is without fault before the throne of God, having neither spot nor wrinkle. There everything is healthy, everything holy, and the thrice Holy One Himself is there in their midst. As for the necessities under which glorified beings may be placed, we know but very little about them, but certainly if they need to drink there is the river of the water of life, clear as crystal, and if they require to eat there are abundant fruits ripening each month upon that wondrous tree. All that saints can possibly need or desire will be abundantly supplied. No pining want or grim anxiety shall tempt them to ask the question, “What shall we eat, or what shall we drink, or wherewithal shall we be clothed?” “They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat. For the Lamb which is in the midst - of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters.”
* Rev. xxii.
Nor is there merely provision made for bare necessities, their love of beauty is considered. The city itself shines “like a stone most precious, even like a jasper stone, clear as crystal”; and her glorious foundations are garnished with all manner of precious stones, insomuch that her light, as seen afar by the nations, gladdens;them and attracts them to her. A city whose streets are lined with trees laden with luscious fruits must be lovely beyond all expression. They said of the earthly Jerusalem, “Beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth is Mount Zion”; but what shall we say of thee, O Jerusalem above? Ziona! Ziona! Our happy home where our Father dwells, where Jesus manifests His love, whither so many of our brethren have wended their happy way, to which our steps are evermore directed: blessed are the men that stand in thy streets and worship within thy gates! When shall we also behold thy brightness and drink of the river of thy pleasures? Thus in all respects the new Jerusalem is furnished, even with medicine it is supplied, and though we might suppose it to be no more needed, yet it is a joy to perceive that it is there to prevent all maladies in those whom aforetime it hashealed. Leaves for health are plentiful above, and hence the inhabitant shall no more say, “I am sick.”
As everything good is present nothing ill is there. One of the worst ills that can ever happen to a man is sickness, for, if he be suffering from disease, his gold is cold and cheerless metal; if he be languishing, the light is dark in his tabernacle; if he pine away with pain, he cannot enjoy his food; neither is beauty any longer fair to him. But there can be no sickness in
heaven, because the tree of life bestows immortal health on all beneath its shade; its leaves exhale a balmy influence, fostering the vigour of immortality. Sickness and suffering are banished by. this tree of life. “There shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain, for the former things are passed away.” As want is banished, as darkness is unknown, as infirmity is shut out, as anxiety and doubt and fear and dread are far away, so will all bodily and spiritual disease be for ever removed.
It is in heaven that there grows the tree which is not only health to heaven, but which brings healing to the nations here below. Heaven is the abode of Jesus, and Jesus is the tree of life. If any man would be healed of the guilt of sin he must look to the eternal merits of the Lamb slain from before the foundation of the world, who is now upon the throne of God. If any man would be saved from daily temptation and trial he must look to our Advocate in glory who intercedes for us, and pleads that, when sifted as wheat, our faith may not fail. If any one of us would be saved from spiritual death we must look to Jesus, for He lives at the right hand of the Father, for because He lives we shall live also. “He is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by Him, seeing He ever liveth to make intercession for them.” I say that Jesus Christ, my Lord and Master, is in heaven, and is there comparable to a tree planted in the very centre of the city: under His broad shadow the redeemed delight to sit, and His leaves as they are wafted down to earth bring health with them. If we would be healed, we must gather those leaves and apply them to the wounds and bruises of our souls, and we shall surely recover.
All the nations are sick. Leaves are provided for their healing, which would be superfluous if they did not require to be healed. We have in our time heard great talk about discovering pure, unsophisticated tribes, beautiful in native innocence, untainted with the vices of civilization; but it has turned out to be all talk. Travellers have penetrated into the heart of Africa, and they have found these naked innocents, but they have turned out to be “hateful and hating one another.’ Voyagers have landed upon lovely islets of the sea, and found unsophisticated innocents eating each other! They have gone into the backwoods and discovered
“The poor Indian, whose untutored mind Sees God in clouds, and hears Him in the wind.”
But they have found him cunning as a fox and cruel as a wolf. Though Pope tells us that the true God is
“Father of all in every age,
In every clime adored,
By saint, by savage, and by sage,
Jehovah, Jove, or Lord,”
yet we find neither sages nor savages so worshipping unless the Gospel has instructed them. No, the savage nations have been found so morally sick that their customs have shocked humanity, and men have turned from them with horror. Alas, poor human nature, even apart from the many evil inventions ot civilization, thy disease is terrible!
Neither have nations been delivered from the dread malady of sin by refinement and culture. They tell us a great deal about the wonderful perfection of the ancient Greeks, and certainly they did understand how to draw the human form, and for delineating physical grace and beauty we cannot rival their sculptors; but when we come to look at the Greek moral form, how graceless and uncomely! The ordinary morals of a Greek were too horrible to be described, and when Paul felt it absolutely needful to speak to them he was obliged to write that terrible first chapter of Romans, which no man can read without a blush, or close without a sigh that such an indictment was too sadly just. God forbid that the filthiness which the ancients tolerated should ever be revived among us! Their very sages were not clear from unmentionable crimes. The Hindoos and Chinese, those polished nations of modern times, do they excel? Is it not a fact that India reeks with lasciviousness which will not endure to be thought upon? Ah, Lord God, thou knowest! All the nations need healing, our own among them; if you doubt it, open your eyes and ears. Do not iniquities abound? Are not profanities to be heard in our very streets? Go to the West End and see its fashionable sin, or to the East End and see its more open wickedness; or stay on this side the Thames and mark the degradation of thousands. Evidence overwhelming will come before you to show that our nation needs healing, if you traverse the streets beneath the pale light of the moon, or even pass the doors of those haunts of gaiety which have of late been so enormously multiplied.
There is but one cure for the nations — the leaves of
the tree. There grows no healing herb but the one plant of renown. There is one sacred fountain, to wash therein is health, — there is but one, it was opened upon Calvary. There is one great Physician who lays His hands on men and they are restored: there is but one. Those who pretend that their hands can minister salvation, and that drops of water from their fingers can bring regeneration, are accursed. No, there is no balm in Gilead, there is no physician there; the balm is at the Cross, the Physician is at the right hand of God.
Jesus is pictured as a blessed tree whose leaves heal the nations. Now, the point is that the very leaves are healing, from which I gather that the least thing about Christ is healing.