Heaven Near, though Hidden.
Note:
I. The division between earth and heaven. The fact that earth and heaven are divided by so wide a gulf seems to me one of the strangest facts in our experience, though long habit prevents the strangeness from striking us so much. We should have expected the very opposite. Allowing that men are unfit to enter heaven, yet it would have seemed most natural that we should have had the full evidence about it which direct communication could have given. Comparatively few cross the Atlantic to America, yet, though we may never see it, we require no act of faith to realise its existence and condition; but the world of heaven, the home of God, is so far removed beyond the range of our knowledge that we have need of faith to be convinced even that it exists, of faith which, though based on reason, sometimes fails. If only we could identify heaven with some distant star, that would be a handle for our confidence as we caught its glimmer in the night; but even such a satisfaction is withheld. Where heaven is, where God is, even that God is, we cannot demonstrate by our reason. God has so cut us off in space, in our little island world, from the rest of His dominions that we cannot cross the ocean or read or hear of others reaching His eternal shore.
II. The connection between earth and heaven. One point of connection between the two which at least helps to make heaven seem nearer to us is that life in heaven, just as much as our life here, is proceeding now. We think of heaven too much as a future state; we should remember that to countless multitudes it is a present state. Heaven is not a dim and distant promised vision merely which God may not call into existence for unknown ages yet; heaven is an actual, living world, whose inhabitants are conscious at this moment of life and joy. Its worship is ascending now to God. His servants there are busy with their noble work; their bliss is a present feeling arising from the presence of God now.
III. The door is set open between earth and heaven. The division is maintained between the two in order that our discipline may not cease. But sometimes the door is opened that our faith may not fail. That has happened "in those sundry times and divers manners when God spake unto the fathers by the prophets." The revelations they received of God and of man's destiny were glimpses through a door opened in heaven, and were exceptions to the seclusion which God maintains; to them He broke the silence. A door was set open in heaven also when the Son of God passed through. And whenever a Christian pilgrim reaches his journey's end, then, too, it may be said that the door between earth and heaven is set open to let the wanderer pass into his home.
T. M. Herbert, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xxv., p. 395.
References: Revelation 4:1. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. xv., No. 887; H. J. Wilmot-Buxton, The Life of Duty,vol. ii., p. 1; Homilist,2nd series, vol. ii., p. 367; A. P. Peabody, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xii., p. 70; Talmage, Ibid.,vol. xiv., p. 202.