Chapter XXIII
Believe me, I find heaven a city hard to be won. The righteous will scarcely he saved. Make sure to yourself that ye are above ordinary professions.
Salvation y salvation is our only one necessary thing. Be greedy of grace. Remember that judgment and eternity are before you. Let this be your desire, let your thoughts dwell much on that blessedness which abideth you in the other world.
—Samuel Rutherford.
Solicit heaven then, that thou may est be strengthened with all might by the Spirit in the imer man. In that thy strength is so little and the service so great, ply Heaven the harder and fetch dovjn a daily influx of divine help. Run to Him in every difficulty, and repose thyself on Him in every duty. Draw strength from Him that thou mayest declare His sufficiency. Blessed is the man, O Lord, whose strength is in thee.
—Alleine.
The future of man will be divinely glorious and divinely illustrious. He is to share the place of Jesus, where Jesus and his followers are to be. This is the specific teaching of Jesus. “I go to prepare a place for you,” said Jesus; “and if I go and prepare a place for you, I come again, and will receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may he also.” In his sacerdotal prayer Jesus said: “Father, that which thou hast given me, I will that, where I am, they also may be with me; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me.” The statement in the Apocalypse is very exalted, very strong, and very clear: “He that overcometh, I will give to him to sit down with me in my throne, as I also overcame, and sat down with my Father in his throne.”
Jesus must have the place of greatest dignity, of highest honor in the universe. God has awarded this to him without question or limitation — a name above every name, a place above every place. Jesus calls it paradise, a place of ineffable beauty, God-adorned and exuberant in its divine embellishments — untold beauty to fascinate the eye and ravish and intoxicate the heart. The divine word is that Jesus will shepherd all the blessed flock of that thrice-blessed land. With them Jesus will be, and for them Jesus will be. The honor, dignity, power, and glory bestowed on him will be theirs. They are joint heirs with him of all God’s most generous inheritance. Rich indeed, surpassing rich, shall be the saints in that large, exhaustless, immortal store.
“I am fully persuaded of this as of a most necessary and infallible truth: that as it is appointed unto all men once to die, so it is determined that all men shall rise from death, that the souls separated from our bodies are in the hands of God and live, that the bodies dissolved into dust or scattered into ashes shall be recollected in themselves and reunited to their souls, that the same flesh which lived before shall be revived, that the same numerical bodies which did fall shall rise, that this resuscitation shall be universal, no man excepted, no flesh left in the grave, that all the just shall be raised to a resurrection of life, and all the unjust to a resurrection of damnation; that this shall be performed at the last day when the trump shall sound, and this I believe the resurrection of the body.”
With what acclamations will saints, rising from the dead, applaud the Redeemer! How will the heaven of heavens resound his praises forever! ‘’Thanks be to God” will be the burden of their song; and angels will join in the chorus and declare their consent with a loud Amen! Hallelujah! 172 .■y»
K?h