THE HAPPY HOME IN VIEW
"In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have
told you. I go to prepare a place for you." John 14:2
"There are many rooms in my Father's home, and I am going to prepare a place
for you. If this were not so, I would tell you plainly." John 14:2
"As when the weary traveler gains
The height of some o'er-looking hill,
His heart revives, if cross the plains
He eyes his home, though distant still.
While he surveys the much loved spot,
He slights the space that lies between;
His past fatigues are now forgot,
Because his journey's end is seen.
Thus when the Christian pilgrim views
By faith, his mansion in the skies,
The sight his fainting strength renews,
And wings his speed to reach the prize.
The thought of home his spirit cheers,
No more he grieves for troubles past;
Nor any future trial fears,
So he may safe arrive at last.
'Tis there he says I am to dwell
With Jesus, in the realms of day;
Then I shall bid my cares farewell,
And he will wipe my tears away.
Jesus, on you our hope depends,
To lead us on to your abode;
Assured our home will make amends
For all our toil while on the road." John Newton
Christ has not only manifested his love to a lost world in his incarnation,
sufferings, and death, but also in going to prepare a place, a happy home,
for those whose salvation he has accomplished. Said the blessed Redeemer, to
his sorrowful disciples, when he was about to leave the world, "I go to
prepare a place for you."
Christ has manifested most amazing love to believers, in preparing for their
eternal abode, mansions of glory, a house not made with hands, eternal in
the heavens; a city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God.
Heaven is a prepared place for believers; prepared by Christ in his infinite
love. The love of Christ will make heaven a glorious, happy abode indeed.
Oh! what a happy home will heaven be. There all the redeemed shall finally
assemble, to spend one eternal day in the glorious presence of Emmanuel. Who
can fully describe the joys of the Christian's happy home? Feeble mortals
could not comprehend the description if it should be given.
What human mind can conceive of the unspeakable blessedness which awaits the
child of God in that upper and better world, his happy home! Dear believer,
to know what heaven really is, you must put off mortality. "No eye has seen,
no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined what God has prepared for those
who love him."
Is not your happy home always in view? Do you not long for the approach of
that joyful day, which will introduce you into the mansions of glory, and
bring you to your endless, happy home? How short is the space that lies
between you and glory! The time, how short! Already is the night far spent.
The day is at hand; that blessed day which will bring each weary Christian
traveler home, and seat him in his Father's house; that house not made with
hands, in which there are many mansions.
The map of heaven is laid wide open for your inspection. Often obtain a
glimpse of the happy land. Be always looking heavenward and homeward. Let
heaven be always in your eye, and the earth under your feet, and in a little
while God shall wipe away all tears; you will reach your journey's end; then
faith shall be turned into vision; hope, into fruition; and you will be
fully satisfied with the goodness of God's house.
As you now survey the glories of your happy home, does not your heart exult
at the prospect? And is not the thought of HOME at all times refreshing?
What name is more endearing than home, sweet home; around which so many
hallowed associations cluster? Christian, heaven is your only true home.
Here on earth, you have no continuing city nor place of abode. The divine
command is, "Arise, and depart; for this is not your rest." "There remains
therefore a rest for the people of God." God has provided a better home for
you, than this polluted world. O, remember that you are a stranger and
pilgrim on earth. Let your course be onward in the Christian's journey.
Quicken your pace on the road to glory. Your happy home will not be always
in view; it will soon be in possession!
Reader, are you pressing upward to the Christian's happy home? Is heaven the
home which you expect to reach? Do you long to arrive at those everlasting
mansions in the sky? Then let the hope of eternal glory elevate your
affections above all sublunary objects. "Since you have been raised to new
life with Christ, set your sights on the realities of heaven, where Christ
sits at God's right hand in the place of honor and power. Let heaven fill
your thoughts. Do not think only about things down here on earth. For you
died when Christ died, and your real life is hidden with Christ in God. And
when Christ, who is your real life, is revealed to the whole world, you will
share in all his glory."
The ultimate object of Christ's mediatorial work is to bring sinners to
glory- to God's house- to the happy home; there they are to live; there to
reign forever; there to be ever with the Lord. God will bring all his dear
children home to glory. Then he will receive them, and be a father unto
them, and they will be his sons and daughters. They will be forever with
their kind heavenly Father- with their blessed elder Brother- with prophets
and apostles- with saints and angels- with one another. What a happy
meeting! What blessed society will the saints enjoy! Then they will have
gained the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. They will
receive those crowns of glory which fade not away. They shall be kings and
priests unto God. They shall serve him day and night in his temple above.
Blest abode! Delightful employment! that of praising God! Happy they who are
to spend eternity in such a home; contrasted with the glories of which, this
earth is darkness itself!
Christian, soon shall the interposing veil of mortality be drawn aside, and
you will behold the glories of that land which no mortal pen can now
describe. But is heaven soon to be your happy home? Are you there to reign
with Jesus, in the realms of everlasting day? there to behold the uncreated
glory of Emmanuel? Then how trifling should the transient concerns of earth
appear to you! You should smile at "the frowns of time". The angry tempest
will soon be over. The swelling waves of life's ocean will soon rise no
more. You will soon have reached the desired haven of eternal rest, the
blessed shores of immortality, the happy home; and that home will more than
compensate for all the toil of the way.
"Soon will you reach the blest abode.
Where happy pilgrims ever reign;
Soon shall you see the face of God,
And all the bliss of heaven obtain."
Live with your happy home always in view. Let the glories of a coming
eternity revive your drooping spirits, amid life's trials and life's
conflicts. The road to glory is but a short one. A moment of that
intervenes, and then eternal ages commence to roll away. After this present
brief moment has passed, you will enter upon a state of endless felicity.
Arrived at your happy home, you will take up an everlasting song of praise;
you will celebrate the victories of redeeming love, through one unending
day.
You have overcome, through the blood of the Lamb. You have been more than a
conqueror, through him who loved you. And now you shall stand a monument of
God's love, and mercy, and grace; you shall be made a pillar in his glorious
temple above, where there shall be no more going out. You shall live with
Christ, and praise him throughout the endless ages of eternity. You shall
behold Emmanuel in his unveiled glory. You shall praise him for that
unbounded love, which has obtained for you immortal bliss.
O, Christian! the love of Christ has procured that unfailing wreath of
glory, which will one day be entwined around your brow; that radiant diadem
which you will forever wear. The love of Christ has prepared a happy home
for your reception, when this sublunary scene shall have vanished from your
mortal vision. All the happiness you enjoy in time; all the glory that will
crown you through eternity, flow from the love of Christ. Make him your
boast in time, your all in all; and may he be formed in you, the hope of
glory.
Happy are they who have fled for refuge to the world's Redeemer. He will
carry them to glory! Reader, may this precious Savior be yours; in life, in
death, and in eternity. Conducted by the Captain of your salvation, you will
also reach the Christian's happy home, and realize the joys of a blessed
immortality.
What glorious prospects are presented to the eye of faith, the spiritual
vision of the Christian! He views the never-ending glories of the heavenly
kingdom; and in that view he loses the sight of terrestrial grandeur. He
quickly glides over the narrow stream of time; until he finds himself
sailing on the vast unbounded ocean of eternity, an eternity of blessedness.
He lifts his eyes to the hills, from where comes his help; those everlasting
hills which tower aloft, beyond the swellings of Jordan; beyond the valley
of the shadow or death. He expects soon to reach the heights of Zion. "They
will continue to grow stronger, and each of them will appear before God in
Zion."
In the mean time, O my soul, meditate upon the glories of your happy home.
What must be the feelings of the Christian, when he views all heaven as his
own; when he can claim all the delights of the celestial paradise as his,
and looks upon the world to come as his eternal happy home!
Come, Christian, survey the happy land, your everlasting home. Life is fast
hastening away. The oscillating tides of time are bearing you onward and
homeward. Every wave of life's tempestuous ocean is only wafting you to the
happy shores of a blessed eternity. Then look beyond this poor dying world!
Look at that eternal home which Christ has prepared for you! View the
celestial city, irradiated by the glory of God and the Lamb! See the pearly
gates, the golden streets, the shining inhabitants of the New Jerusalem! The
uncreated glory of God will enlighten that city of everlasting habitation,
which the love of Christ has prepared. What a blessed habitation has Christ
prepared for believers! What a glorious inheritance has he promised them!
Come, my soul, and survey it.
"My soul, on Pisgah's mount ascend,
Where Moses once admiring stood;
There view the promised land extend
Beyond the swelling Jordan's flood.
By faith survey the landscape o'er
Where living waters gently flow;
Till earth usurp your love no more;
Till all your kindling passions glow.
In that blessed region of delight,
The saints no sin nor sorrow feel,
Eternal day excludes the night,
And all possess the spirit's seal.
The ransomed soul in glory clad,
Shines brighter than meridian sun;
The weary pilgrim, now so sad,
There finds his toilsome journey done."
O my soul, rise and soar aloft to the heavenly Canaan! Mount up as upon
eagles' wings, and behold the king in his beauty, and the land that is afar
off. Leave the world to those who seek their pleasures and happiness in its
perishing enjoyments, and set your affections on things above, where Christ
sits at the right hand of God. How the world recedes from your view, as you
obtain a glimpse of the heavenly land! The short lived pleasures of earth,
and the transient show of sublunary magnificence, no longer fascinate the
mind, as it gains a Pisgah view of the Christian's endless happy home, the
glories of which baffle all description!
The love of Christ is most illustriously manifested to believers, in his
going to prepare such a home for them. O matchless love! that Jesus has not
only died for sinners, but has gone to prepare mansions above, where they
shall reign with him in eternal glory! Hasten on, O joyful day, when the
redeemed of the Lord shall come to Zion with songs; when ransomed sinners
shall commence to celebrate the wonders of redeeming love in mansions of
glory!
Look forward, Christian reader, to the consummation of your bliss. With joy,
anticipate the glories of the resurrection morning; a morning that will dawn
upon the glorified saint, without a single cloud to darken his beatific
vision, or obscure the glorious rays of the Sun of righteousness, that shall
arise with healing in his beams, and forever gladden the hearts of millions
of happy saints! What a happy day will that be, when all the children of God
shall reach their everlasting home; those mansions in the skies, where all
are perfectly blessed in the full enjoyment of God through eternity!
Dear believer, in humble confidence in God, wait with patience until the
coming of the Lord Jesus; until you are brought into the full possession of
the heavenly inheritance. "All honor to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ, for it is by his boundless mercy that God has given us the privilege
of being born again. Now we live with a wonderful expectation because Jesus
Christ rose again from the dead. For God has reserved a priceless
inheritance for his children. It is kept in heaven for you, pure and
undefiled, beyond the reach of change and decay. And God, in his mighty
power, will protect you until you receive this salvation, because you are
trusting him. It will be revealed on the last day for all to see."
Blessed Jesus! keep me by your almighty power through faith unto salvation.
Spiritualize my affections– elevate my views to the world of glory. Wean my
heart from the fleeting enjoyments of this mortal life, this perishing
earth. Satisfy me with your goodness and mercy; visit me with your
salvation, and at last bring me home to yourself in glory.
"Then let my soul forever raise
The incense of adoring praise;
And join the heavenly choirs above,
In sweetest songs of grateful love."
Reader! look beyond this sublunary scene of changing mortality. "All, all on
earth is shadow; all beyond is substance. How solid all, where change shall
be no more!"
Soar aloft on the wings of faith, and roam in imagination through the
myriads of ages that lie beyond the precincts of time; and in those regions
of immortality prepared for the just, may you realize the joys of endless
life, of an immortal existence, and of an inheritance before which the
splendor of a thousand worlds fades; which will endure when this earth and
all her terrestrial glory shall have passed away, and when the sun shall
have cast his last rays, and the stars have set in endless night!
"Life's theater as yet is shut; and death,
Strong death alone, can heave the massy bar,
This gross impediment of clay remove.
And spring to life, The life of gods;
oh transport! and of man."
"And now, all glory to God, who is able to keep you from stumbling, and who
will bring you into his glorious presence innocent of sin and with great
joy. All glory to him, who alone is God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our
Lord. Yes, glory, majesty, power, and authority belong to him, in the
beginning, now, and forevermore. Amen." Jude 1:24-25