Let not your heart be troubled.
This clause is the true heading to the whole consolatory discourse, for it flows on in one channel of love and ends at last with the words, “Be of good cheer.”
Let not your heart be troubled
We may well feel glad that God’s people of old were men of like passions with ourselves. It is not the will of God that His people should “be troubled” in heart; hence these blessed words.
I. LET US TASTE OF THE BITTER WATERS.
1. Jesus was to die. It had finally dawned on them that they were to be left like sheep without a shepherd, and they were inconsolable.
2. He was to be betrayed by one of their own number. This pierced the hearts of the faithful. Of this bitter water the faithful at this hour are also made to drink. Reputed ministers under the banner of “advanced thought” make war upon those eternal truths for which confessors contended and martyrs bled, and the saints in past ages have been sustained in their dying hours.
3. Peter’s denial was to cause another pang to the faithful.
II. LET US DRINK OF THE SWEET WATERS, TO REFRESH US. Our Master indicates the true means of comfort under every sort of disquietude.
1. “Believe” not only My doctrine but in Me--a personal, living, ever-present, omnipotent Saviour.
2. Though He was going from them, He was only going to His Father’s house.
3. A great many would follow Him to the Father’s house.
4. “I go to prepare a place for you,” not only “many mansions” for our spirits, but an ultimate place of our risen bodies. We are apt to entertain cloudy ideas of the ultimate inheritance of the saints. Christ went away in body--not as a disembodied spirit, but as One who had eaten with His disciples, and whose body had been handled by them. His body needed a place.
5. The promise of His sure return--“If I go,” etc.
6. And then He will “receive” us. It will be
(1) A courtly reception.
(2) A marriage reception.
7. He will place us eternally where He is that we may be with Him. Can we not now, once for all, dismiss every fear in prospect of the endless bliss reserved for us? (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Let not your hearts be troubled
The disciples had been like lambs carried in the bosom of a loving shepherd. They were now about to be left by Him, and would be among the wolves and the terrors of the snowstorm. Frequently after conversion God, who tempers the wind to the shorn lamb, gives a period of repose; but for all of us there will come a time of trouble. Albeit that bark so lately launched upon a glassy sea has all her streamers flying, and rejoices in a favourable wind, let her captain remember that the sea is treacherous and that the stoutest vessel may find it more than difficult to outride a hurricane. But without due trial where would be our experience, and without the experience where increase of faith and triumph of love? We have each
1. A share of home trials.
2. Trials arising from the Church of God. In the best-ordered Church it must needs be that offences come.
3. Worst of all are soul troubles. Note that the advice of the text is
I. TIMELY AND WISE. There is no need to say, “Let not your heart be troubled,” when you are not in affliction. When all things go well with you, you will need, “Let not your heart be exalted.” Now, it is the easiest thing in times of difficulty to let the heart be troubled, to give up and drift with the stream. Our Lord bids us pluck up heart, and here is the wisdom of His advice, namely
1. That a troubled heart will not help us in our difficulties or out of them. In time of drought lamentations have never brought showers. A man whose business was declining never multiplied his customers by unbelief. It is a dark night, but the darkness of your heart will not light a candle for you.
2. A doubting, fretful spirit takes from us the joys we have. You have not all you could wish, but you have still more than you deserve, and far more than some others; health perhaps, God certainly. There are flowers that bloom in winter if we have but grace to see them.
3. A troubled heart makes that which is bad worse. It magnifies, aggravates, caricatures. Unbelief makes out our difficulties to be most gigantic, and then it leads us to suppose that never soul had such difficulties before. But think of Baxter, Calvin, the martyrs, St. Paul, Christ.
4. A troubled heart is most dishonourable to God. It makes the Christian suspect eternal faithfulness and to doubt unchangeable love. Is this a little thing? The mischief of the Christian Church at large is a want of holy confidence in God. When once an army is demoralized by a want of spirit and the soldier assured that he cannot win the day, then the conclusion is that every man had better take care of himself and fly. But as long as we do not lose heart we have not lost the day.
II. PRACTICABLE. “Let not your heart be troubled.” “Oh,” says somebody, “that’s easy to say but hard to do.” Here’s a man who has fallen into a deep ditch, and you say to him, “Don’t be troubled about it.” “Ah,” says he, “that’s very pretty for you that are standing up there, but how am I to be at ease while up to my neck in mire?” But if Jesus says it our heart need not be troubled.
1. He indicates that our resort must be to faith. If in thy worst times thou wouldst keep thy head above water, the swimming belt must be faith. In the olden times how were men kept from perishing but by faith (Hebrews 11:1-40)? There is nothing which it cannot do, but what can you do if you do not trust your God? and surely it ought not to be difficult for a child to believe his father.
2. The Saviour goes on to say, “You believe in God”; exercise that same faith with regard to the case in hand. The case in hand was this--could they rest upon One who was about to be crucified? “You have believed God about other things, exercise that same faith about this.” You have believed God concerning pardon, believe God about the child, the wife, the money.
3. It ought to be a great deal easier for us to live above heart trouble than it was to the apostles.
(1) You have experience.
(2) You have received the Holy Spirit.
(3) You have the whole of Scripture, which they had not.
III. PRECIOUS. Remember that the loving advice
1. Came from Jesus. The mother says to the child, “Do not cry, child; be patient.” That sounds very differently from what it would have done if the schoolmaster or a stranger had spoken. His own face was towards the Cross, He was about to be troubled as never man was troubled. It is as if He wanted to monopolize all tears.
2. It points to Jesus. If you want comfort you must hear Jesus say, “Believe also in Me.” No place for a child’s aching head like its mother’s bosom. No shadow of a great rock in this weary land like our Saviour’s love consciously overshadowing us.
3. It speaks of Jesus. “In My Father’s house,” etc. Jesus is here seen in action. Think of all He said and did, and what He is doing for us now.
4. It hints that we are to be with Jesus forever. “An hour with my God,” says the hymn, “will make up for it all.” So it will; but what will an eternity with our God be? (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Trouble not
The words are
I. NOT SENTIMENTAL. They are not spoken by one who wishes to silence sorrow by superficial kindliness. Christ does not say we are to disarm ourselves of prudence and energy; but He does say where all these work torture and misery you are faithless. There is a Providence that goes before you. Your Heavenly Father knoweth what things you have need of. There is more than sorrow in this world. Sin is here, but even over it we triumph by a salvation which makes a redeemed life the most glorious life of all. From the lips of Christ this is a reasonable comfort, because He is able to make all grace abound towards us, and because sorrow goes forth as His angel to make us meet for the inheritance of the saints in light.
II. NOT EXHAUSTIBLE. This comfort is not exhaustible in time; nor can you exhaust its adaptation to the variety and speciality of personal sorrow. Does not Christ know your sorrow? We could gain no true comfort if Christ were merely a figure in history. If Christ had not risen the words are exhaustible. But Christ Himself has said, “I am He that liveth,” etc. The value even of an earthly friend is in the inexhaustibility of sympathy. But at the best human friendship is shallow, but it is different with Christ’s. His passeth knowledge. He who changes not and abideth always says, “Let not your heart be troubled.”
III. NOT LIMITABLE. These are words of consolation for all the brothers and sisters of Jesus.
1. No little community has any special privilege of excommunicating, nor has any large one.
2. All through the ranges of experience, as well as through all the ages of time, Christ bids us take these words of comfort. First of all they should be applied to the heaviest sorrows. Here at Christ’s Cross the most burdened may find release.
IV. NOT ALONE TEMPORAL. They do not simply relate to this time world or to our human and spiritual experiences here. Christ was comforting men concerning the rest that remaineth. And the spirit of man had never been so comforted before. He knew that hearts like ours would grasp every promise concerning the blessed dead. So these words should be taken up into the highest sphere to comfort us concerning those who sleep in Jesus that we sorrow not as those without hope, remembering that the risen Christ went back whence He came, to prepare a place for us.
V. NOT ALONE RETROSPECTIVE. Christ does not say, “Do not trouble about past sins, they are forgiven you.” No. He looks forward and comforts them in relation to their earthly future here and their home hereafter. And yet what did He see in the near perspective for many of them? On the edge of the horizon stand their crosses in the grey light of tomorrow. “The time cometh that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service.” Still He says, “Do not trouble.” Let us take Christ at His word as they did. (W. M. Statham.)
Christ’s cure for trouble
I. THE SORE OF THE WORLD IS TROUBLE AND ITS CURE IN FAITH. The seat of trouble is not in anything outside of us. It is the passions. Work, wakefulness, losses, bereavements, life’s burdens and battles are not troubles. They are discipline. While the passions are in right and healthful play all these things may befall a man, and yet he may be wholly untroubled. On the other hand, a man may be surrounded by all that can minister to his comfort and dignity, and yet be troubled. In the latter case the man’s passions are tossed about as the sea is when a tempest is on it; in the other case, they are serene as the lake in the fastnesses of a mountain.
1. The cause of all our trouble is the want of harmony between our wills and God’s will. Let them accord, and then nothing in heaven or earth or hell can trouble us. But when we beat ourselves against the barriers erected by Omnipotence for our safety and good, then there is trouble.
2. Our trouble arises from our want of faith in the rightfulness and paramount authority of God’s law. Men would not fight against God’s law of morals if they could perceive that the law is perfectly good and right. Men have an impression that the law of God is a kind of Procrustes’ bed, cutting long men short and stretching short men long for arbitrary reasons, and not that every regulation is for man’s sake and that of other creatures. And because men do not believe that the law of God is good they do not believe it is paramount. The origin of the trouble of every heart from the beginning is to be found in this failure of faith in God. It was so with Adam and Eve. There was no trouble while they trusted their Heavenly Father. You cannot seduce a man into wrong-doing until you shake his faith in God. It is this fundamental principle of which Jesus seems to have thought. This seems to me to mean two things
(1) That belief in God is necessary to belief in Jesus. Jesus, then, is something more than a mere extraordinary specimen of humanity.
(2) Simple belief in God has never cured trouble. It might have kept all trouble from the human heart if originally persevered in. But after sin had come into the world something else was necessary. And for this we can appeal to every man’s experience. Do you not often feel that you would be freer and happier if God would throw His laws away, or still better, cease to exist? The fact is, that until we came to distinguish between creatures and children, our belief in God can produce no agreeable feelings toward Him.
(a) We must hare some distinct evidence of His loving us. Of such love Jesus is the Demonstration. Belief in Jesus is belief in God incarnating Himself; putting Himself thus into most complete sympathy with us, making us feel that if any disasters should happen to us He would be the Person who most should feel it. This breaks down the opposition of our hearts to God.
(b) Jesus declares Himself the Governor of the world. Providence is in the hands of my Brother. He manages the universe for the purposes of the atonement. Why should my heart be troubled? Is not the King of eternity my Friend?
(3) Christ is my Leader through all places, narrow and dark and frightful, or large and wealthy and seductive. If I believe this and yield my heart to it, how my troubles disappear! Without Jesus, my heart is like the Galilean lake, night-bound and storm-lashed; when He says “Peace,” there is a great calm.
II. THEN FROM HIMSELF AS FROM A CENTRE HE SWEEPS THE UNIVERSE OF SPACE AND DURATION, AND FOLDS IT ALL DOWN UPON EVERY TRUSTING HEART AS A MEASURELESS BENEDICTION.
1. “In My Father’s house are many mansions.” How this takes the vagueness out of our ideas of God! How our recently constructed scientific instruments enlarge and deepen this saying of Jesus! It is to be noticed that our intellects gravitate toward a common centre. There, in that centre, we seem to feel must be the chief place of God. There is an unhealthy fear of God which is not humble reverence. Men dread to think of Him. In our catechisms we put Him just as far away from our children as we can. Jesus does no such thing. God is a Person. He has a house and a household. He makes homes for His children. Why, then, should I be troubled that I am to die? My removal will be like the progress of a prince from castle to castle of his father’s dominions. In each I shall find new work and new delights.
2. One of the phases of man’s unbelief is that he does not seem to have space and time enough to carry forward to completion the grand projects of his intellect. But if you will believe in Jesus, this trouble shall disappear. In the boundless field of the universe, in the perpetual cycles of eternity, you shall find space and time enough to do all that you desire now or may desire hereafter.
3. Another thing Jesus utters to be a heart cure: “If it were not so, I would have told you.” He will not only correct our thoughts of God, He will not let us have a false hope. Those men loved Him, and in some blind way had believed in Him. He knew that they had aspirations higher than the Temple and wider than the spangled tent that spread all night above the Holy Land. He would not go away and leave them cherishing a fond delusion. He would tell them if the things they hoped were an idle dream. In this there ought to be a happy lesson for every earnest heart. There is a gloomy infidelity in us which says of happiest things that they are “too good to be true.” If you have any hope for eternity, and Jesus Christ has not contradicted it, you may reasonably indulge it. See what a field that flings open to us. This is comforting, but grandly vague.
4. He goes further and tells us that He departs in order to “prepare a place for us.” This meets another phase of trouble. Our wills conflict with the will of God because we never feel at home totally suited in our surroundings on earth. Think how much is necessary for perfect comfort. There must be a suitable physique, agreeable in all the particulars of size, beauty, and health. There must be perfectly-fitting clothes; a collar too tight, a boot too small breaks one’s comfort. Then our house must be in everything complete; nay, it must be an elastic house, expanding or shrinking to our wants at different times. When the residence is complete, there is the absence of the beloved or the presence of an unpleasant neighbourhood. It is not an unamiable discontentedness in human nature which makes us dissatisfied or unsatisfied: it is the inability of this present world, with all its resources, to fill the soul; and this argues the soul’s greatness. Jesus says, “I go to prepare a place for you.” He knows what is in us and what we need about us. He is putting all His resources to the work of fitting up for us mansions in the spiritual world. Our place will be complete. How that abates our troubles! There shall be nothing wanting in the place when Jesus pronounces it ready.
5. “Ready?” Then when it is ready we must go to it. There is to be a removal. But still there is something to try one in any change of residence, but Christ says, “I will come for you and take you,” and that “unto Myself.” (C. F. Deems, LL. D.)
Trouble and its cordial
I. GOD’S MOST FAITHFUL SERVANTS ARE SUBJECT TO TROUBLES OF HEART.
1. What troubles?
(1) Inward, arising from
(a) Sin (Psalms 51:4-8).
(b) Corruption (Romans 7:24).
(2) Outward, which are
(a) Spiritual: Christ’s absence.
(b) Temporal: outward afflictions (Lamentations 1:4).
2. The reason.
(1) Weakness of faith.
(2) Imperfection of other graces.
II. FAITH IN GOD AND CHRIST IS THE BEST CORDIAL TO A TROUBLED HEART.
1. It is the surest and most infallible (Matthew 11:28).
2. The strongest (Isaiah 59:1).
3. The pleasantest (1 Peter 1:8).
4. The readiest (Psalms 46:1).
5. The most suitable (Isaiah 43:2-3).
6. The most constant (Hebrews 13:5).
7. The most universal.
III. APPLY THIS to
1. Temporal troubles. Art thou troubled with
(1) Poverty?
(a) Faith is the best riches (James 2:5).
(b) It will turn thy very poverty into a blessing (Romans 8:28).
(2) Disgrace?
(a) By faith thou mayest see the emptiness of honour (Psalms 42:11).
(b) Faith will procure thee honour (Hebrews 1:14; 1 Samuel 2:30).
(3) Sickness and pains.? By faith
(a) Thou mayest see God’s love in them (Hebrews 12:6).
(b) Thou mayest get good by them (Psalms 119:71).
(c) Thou mayest receive more comfort in them than in health.
(4) Losses and crosses?
(a) Faith will show thee from whence they came (Job 1:21).
(b) Why (Hebrews 12:10).
(c) And so turn them to thy gain (2 Corinthians 4:17).
(5) Fears of death? Faith will show thee
(a) That the sting is out (1 Corinthians 15:55).
(b) That death is but the entrance of life.
(c) And so turn thy fears into hopes (Philippians 1:23).
2. In spiritual troubles. Art thou troubled
(1) For thy sins?
(a) God is merciful (Psalms 103:8; Isaiah 43:25).
(b) Christ is all-sufficient (1 John 2:1).
(2) With thy lusts?
(a) God is almighty.
(b) Christ will send His Spirit (chap. 16:7).
(c) Faith conquers them (1 John 5:4).
(3) With desertions? If thou believest
(a) God will never forsake thee wholly (John 13:1; Hebrews 13:5).
(b) Christ will pray that thy faith fail not (Luke 22:31-32).
(Bp. Beveridge.)
Christ’s word to the troubled
This is a discourse showing the disciple his refuge from trouble. The refuge
I. OF FAITH. “Believe in God: believe also in Me,” etc. Three grand truths are at the basis of Christianity: God, Christ, Immortality. They are the antidotes to atheism, the helplessness of guilt, and the hopelessness of death.
II. OF LOVE. A personal relation to Christ, He is the way of God to man and of man to God; the truth, about all the soul needs to know and which natural theology fails to answer; and the life, eternal and blissful.
III. OF HOPE. Here was a personal bereavement. He was about to withdraw, and the loss was the more inconsolable because He was the object of faith and love. But He compensates this loss by the promise of the Holy Ghost, through whom they should do greater works, by whom God is manifest in the believer, etc., and who should abide with them forever. And He promises that He will personally intercede for believers above, while the Spirit intercedes in them below. And so He who goes away actually does not leave them orphans, but comes to them, dwells in them, manifests Himself to them, and is seen by them. And so this part of the discourse ends as it began, with peace. Peace
1. For the mind harassed with doubt, by establishing the certainties of faith.
2. For the heart harassed with unsatisfied cravings, by establishing it upon God. (A. T. Pierson, D. D.)
Christ’s remedy for a troubled heart
I. THE TROUBLED HEART. Trouble in estate is bad, but heart trouble is worst. The mariner cares not for the howling tempest, but matters are serious when the sea gains entrance. Causes.
1. Unpardoned sin.
(1) We cannot ignore it.
(2) Dare not excuse it.
(3) Are unable to expiate it.
2. Separation from beloved friends.
(1) By absence;
(2) by death.
3. Persecution.
4. Disappointed hopes. So the disciples have trials. Sometimes from a clear sky the thunder peals; from richest verdure the venomous serpent hisses.
II. THE QUIET HEART.
1. We acknowledge the authority of the decalogue; but our Lord’s command is equally binding.
2. This is the purpose of God. Every apparent discord leads up to the final harmony.
3. The quiet heart is the best learner, worker, warrior.
4. The quiet heart is a mirror of heaven.
III. HOW CAN THE TROUBLED HEART BE MADE INTO THE QUIET HEART.
1. The old belief in God. The Jews had fallen into polytheism, but the captivity cured them. Christ points to the old well of comfort--a firm belief in one ever-living God.
(1) God will smite all wrong.
(2) He will bring forth the righteous as the sun.
2. The new belief in Christ. Inferentially a proof of Christ’s Divinity.
(1) As the great atoning Substitute. There is nothing in the new philosophy to calm the troubled heart.
(2) As our sympathizing Brother and High Priest.
(3) As alive forever more.
(4) As our Representative and Forerunner--“I go to prepare a place,” etc.
We need not shrink from “Worlds unknown.” He has made them well known; “brought life and immortality to light,” and will come again and receive us unto Himself. (W. Andersen, LL. D.)
Christ comforting
There was some good in the disciples’ trouble.
1. There was natural trouble at the departure of such a friend. For we are flesh, not steel; and in that sense, Christ was troubled Himself to show the truth of His manhood. Nay, trouble is the seasoning of all heavenly comforts; there were no comforts if there were no trouble; and therefore this natural trouble was not disallowed by Christ.
2. There was likewise something spiritually good in this trouble. They loved their Master, who they saw was going away. They were right in this principle, that all comfort depends on the presence of Christ. For as all heavenly light, and heat, and influence come from the sun, so all heavenly comforts must come to us from Christ’s presence. Their error was in tying all comfort to a bodily presence; as if it were necessary for the sun to come down and abide upon the earth, to bestow its heat and influence.
I. THE BEST CHRISTIANS ARE SUBJECT TO BE TROUBLED MORE THAN SHOULD BE. Christ was troubled, but His trouble was like the shaking of clear water in a crystal glass. There was no mud in the bottom. But our trouble is of another kind, and apt to be inordinate (1 Samuel 1:13; Isaiah 38:14; Psalms 77:3; John 2:2).
1. God permits us to be troubled
(1) For conformity to our Head.
(2) That we may be known to ourselves; that we may discern where our weakness lieth, and so be better instructed to seek Him in whom our strength lieth.
(3) For the preventing of spiritual sins.
(4) In regard of others, that we maybe pitiful.
2. But how shall we know that our hearts are more troubled than they should be? We may sin in being overmuch troubled at things for which it is a sin not to be troubled. If they had not been at all affected with the absence of Christ, it had been a sin, and no less than stupidity; yet it was their sin to be overmuch troubled. A trouble is sinful when it hinders us in duties; or from duty, when the soul is like an instrument out of tune, or a limb out of joint. Naturally, affections should be helps to duty, they being the winds that carry the soul on, and the spiritual wings of the soul. But then they must be regulated and ordered at the command of a spiritual understanding. Now, besides the hurt that is in such affections themselves, Satan loves to fish in these troubled waters (Ephesians 4:26). That was Saul’s case (1 Samuel 16:23).
3. We should not yield to excess of trouble. And the reasons are:
(1) We wrong our ownselves. We make actions difficult unto us. The wheels of the soul are thereby taken off (Nehemiah 8:10).
(2) We do dishonour to God, mistaking His goodness, murmuring at tits providence, wronging His graciousness and nursing a rebellious pride.
(3) We dishonour Christ, and the love of God in Christ; for it is as if we had not in Him a sufficient remedy for that great malady.
(4) Christ hath forbidden it, “Let not,” etc.
II. THE WAYS WHEREBY WE MUST LABOUR TO COMFORT OUR HEARTS.
1. There must be a due search into the heart of the grounds of our trouble; for often Christians are troubled, they cannot tell wherefore; as children that will complain they know not why. See if there be not some Achan in the camp.
2. And when you have found out your sin give it vent by confession of it to God, and in some cases to others.
3. And when we have done so, consider what promises, and comforts, in that Word of God are fitted to that condition. And therefore we ought to be skilful in the Word of God, that we may store up comforts beforehand.
4. When we have these promises, let us labour to understand them thoroughly, and then to digest them in our affections, and so make them our own, and then to walk in the strength and comfort of them.
5. Labour likewise to have them fresh in memory. It is a great defect of Christians that they forget their consolation (Hebrews 12:5).
6. Labour to keep unspotted consciences.
7. And because there can be no more comfort than there is care of duty, therefore, together with innocency, let us be careful of all duties in all our several relations.
8. But above all let us labour for a spirit of faith. “You believe in God,” etc. How cloth faith in Christ ease the soul in trouble?
(1) It banishes troubles, and brings in comfort, because it is an emptying grace. It empties us of ourselves, and so makes us cleave to another, and thereby becomes a grace of union. It makes us one with the fountain of comfort, and by its repeated acts derives fresh comfort.
(2) It establishes the heart.
(3) It stirs up such graces as comfort the soul, as hope in all good things promised. “In My Father’s house are many mansions.” (R. Sibbes, D. D.)
Christ comforting the disciples
I. THE HEROIC ATTITUDE CHRIST ASSUMES. He had just dismissed Judas, knew what was transpiring outside, and what would follow. And yet He sat amongst His disciples perfectly composed, and was able to counsel deliberate composure in the prospect of affliction. This was not from any insensibility to pain, nor superiority to it (John 11:33; John 12:27; John 13:21). Itwas a wonderful manifestation of spiritual strength, and as an example was more forcible than even His counsel for the production of a like spirit.
II. THE HEROIC SPIRIT CHRIST COMMANDS HIS DISCIPLES TO CULTIVATE. They were in a grievous plight. They had been drawn into fellowship with Christ. He had led them step by step, and they had learned to lean upon Him utterly. And now He was about to be taken from them by a cruel death, and leave them exposed to persecution for His sake. An hour ago there had been a strife among them which of them should be greatest. How vain all these ambitions seemed now! And yet our Lord counsels calmness. Then
1. It is possible to overmaster trouble, however hard the lot in life may be.
2. It is important to overmaster it; a troubled heart is our agitated medium and cannot see things clearly, and our enfeebled agent impotent to do them adequately.
III. THE SECRET OF A HEROIC SPIRIT WHICH CHRIST COMMUNICATED TO THEM.
1. Faith in God. The Old Testament saints found in this a panacea for all their cares. “Thou wilt keep Him in perfect peace,” etc., There were resources in Omnipotence which they felt to be equal to all human exigency (Isaiah 26:3-4). Something of this the disciples knew.
2. Our Lord argues from the Father to Himself, and particularly recommends them to have such faith in Him as they have in God.
3. The advantage of this two-fold trust. Although the disciples had a certain faith in God, it left them far from satisfied with it. Hence Philip’s request. God was more or less remote from and incomprehensible to them; but Christ brought them near. “He that hath seen Me,” etc. This sufficed. (W. Roberts.)
Grounds of comfort
I. HEAVEN IS SURE (John 14:2-3).
II. THERE IS A CERTAIN WAY TO HEAVEN (John 14:4-11).
III. CHRIST’S WORK DOES NOT CEASE WITH CHRIST’S DEPARTURE (John 14:12-14).
IV. THE HELP OF THE SPIRIT IS VOUCHSAFED in the absence of Christ (John 14:15-17).
V. CHRIST’S ABSENCE IS ONLY TEMPORARY (John 14:18-24).
VI. THE SPIRIT WILL TEACH THE DISCIPLES, and supply their want of understanding when left alone (John 14:25-26).
VII. THE LEGACY OF PEACE to cheer in the Master’s absence (John 14:27). (Prof. Hengstenberg.)
Sources of Christian comfort
There is a class of words the meaning of which is known to all, and without consulting a dictionary most people know what the word “trouble” means. The man who should attempt to construct a theory of life and leave trouble out of the account would be no philosopher. How to deal with it, and not how to ignore it, becomes the great problem. From both ancients and moderns proposals of alleviation and help are forthcoming. But He who boldly cries, “Let not your heart be troubled” must possess infallible antidotes. What are they? Faith and Hope directed to their proper objects. We propose, then, to examine
I. THE GROUNDS ON WHICH CHRIST SOLICITS OUR FAITH. Relief comes by belief. To be able in some overpowering grief to throw the weight of one’s care upon another and to trust wholly in that other’s help is an eminently satisfying process; while the trustless soul is without the least gleam of comfort. In these times of daring denial and of timid doubt it is well to be reminded that in the great crises of life--poverty, bereavement, affliction--denial is mockery and doubt is impotence, and that only an honest andhearty belief will secure sufficient solace. Christ solicits our faith on the ground of
1. A prior acknowledgment of the Divine. “Ye believe in God.” Christ desires nothing contrary to already existing and inborn Godward conceptions of the soul, but merely that we enlarge those conceptions so as to include Him.
2. The defectiveness of our belief apart from Him. “Ye believe in God;” yes, but that is inadequate, it needs supplementing. The most anxious moments of humanity have been spent in searchings after such a view of God as would enable man to approach Him without dread. Humanity’s great longing has waited until Christ for its complete satisfaction. He has extracted from the thought of God all that is calculated to give pain and introduced everything calculated to give comfort. “God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself.”
3. His personality. Trust must repose on a person to be trust at all. Christian apologists often begin with the proofs of superhuman skill and power, and so lead up to the central object of Christian faith. But Christ asked for immediate trust in Himself, for with that would come a hearty belief in all He said and did.
II. THE MOTIVES BY WHICH HE ENCOURAGES OUR HOPE. By “two immutable things,” Christ intends us to have “strong consolation.” Hope is as important a contribution to comfort as faith; the two together, exercised rightly, never fail. Without a future what is the present worth? An English nobleman once asked himself why there should be a future existence, and answered, “Because, on any other hypothesis, the world would be a piece of magnificent nonsense.”
1. Christ, implying human immortality, reveals heaven. He bids the troubled be comforted by directing their hope to the positive existence of an absolutely untroubled state. Heaven is rendered attractive to us as much by its exemptions as by its possessions (Revelation 21:4). Christ does present also a positive view. Heaven is a home. “In My Father’s house!” A house is not necessarily a home, but a father’s house always is, or ought to be. A happy earthly home is the nearest approach to an adequate conception of the life of heaven. “My Father’s house” is a happier home than the happiest of earthly ones.
2. Hope is encouraged by the variety of heavenly enjoyments. “Many mansions,” many methods of enjoyment, various fields of occupation, unexhausted resources of interest and pleasure. An endless uniformity of type would be fatal to perfect happiness.
3. Hope is further encouraged by Christ’s guarantee of its realization. “If it were not so I would have told you,” etc. What security this! He could not countenance a delusion. Conclusion: We read of a Roman army, when eagerly engaged in battle with their country’s enemies, being unconscious of an earthquake which made the ground beneath their feet to tremble; and so will a high faith in God and Christ, and a holy hope of immortality and heaven, cause the true Christian to be insensible to the tossings to and fro of the life that now is. (W. Brooks.)
The Christian not afraid of unseen dangers
General Sherman is reported to have said: “One difference between General Grant and myself is this: I am not afraid of dangers that I can see, but he is not afraid of dangers that he cannot see.” Any good soldier of Jesus Christ has a right to absolute confidence as he goes forward, even in the dark. For the Saviour says to him, Whatever comes, “Let not your heart be troubled.”
Men seem unwilling to be without trouble
Men do not avail themselves of the riches of God’s grace. They love to nurse their cares, and seem as uneasy without some fret as an old friar would be without his hair girdle.
They are commanded to cast their cares upon the Lord; but, even when they attempt it, they do not fail to catch them up again, and think it meritorious to walk burdened. They take God’s ticket to heaven, and then put their baggage on their shoulders, and tramp, tramp, the whole way there afoot.
Christ will relieve our troubles
I heard of a man who was walking along the high road, with a pack on his back: he was growing weary, and was, therefore, glad when a gentleman came along in a chaise, and asked him to take a seat with him. The gentleman noticed that he kept his pack strapped to his shoulders, and so he said, “Why do you not put your pack down?” “Why, sir,” said the traveller, “I did not venture, to intrude. It was very kind of you to take me up, and I could not expect you to carry my pack as well.” “Why,” said his friend, “do you not see that whether your pack is on your back, or off your back, I have to carry it?” My hearer, it is so with your trouble: whether you care, or do not care, it is the Lord who must care for you. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
The consolation of the gospel unique
In this I say the gospel differs sharply from the most cultivated pagan thought of the age in which it appeared in the world. When Seneca is trying to console a lady who is suffering agonies of mind under a severe bereavement, he can only suggest to her that she had better try as soon as possible to forget her trouble. She has, he says, good examples around her in the birds and in the beasts. They too love their relations, but after a momentary spasm when they lose them they take life easily again; and in doing this they show man an example which he would do well to imitate. As if the mental pain which means to man so much more than to the beast, precisely because he is man and not beast, could be conjured out of him by a philosophy which talks incessantly of his dignity and can only make him comfortable, if at all, at the cost of forgetting it! (Canon Liddon.)
Religion has many comforts
Why should you carry troubles and sorrows unhealed? There is no bodily wound for which some herb doth not grow, and heavenly plants are more medicinal. Bind up your hearts in them, and they shall give you not only healing, but leave with you the perfume of the blessed gardens where they grew. Thus it may be that sorrows shall turn to riches; for heart troubles, in God’s husbandry, are not wounds, but the putting in of the spade before the planting of seeds. (H. W.Beecher.)
Glimpses of our heavenly home
I. THE TROUBLE IN THE HEART OF THE DISCIPLES. The trouble
1. Of agonized ignorance and blank bewilderment. Long before, Jesus had dropped hints of a mysterious journey that He had to take. As the time went on, He spoke of it more frequently, and in terms more and more darkly suggestive of horror. This had not seemed to trouble their heart at first; they regarded His language as metaphorical Probably they had the impression that first some great battle had to be fought, or some unknown trial to be gone through; that would last three days. So just before, Peter asks, “Whither goest thou?”
2. Of bereaved love. “Do I love the Lord, or no?” was not a question in any heart there. Jesus had poured upon them all the very essence of kindness, and had received them into the very sanctuary of His heart. Naturally, it was this mighty love that made bereavement of its object so intolerable. Christ had not yet left them; but love may feel a bereavement before it is bereaved.
3. From the thought of having no share in the last passion of their Lord. “Why cannot I follow Thee now?” Love said then, as love says now, “Give me some work to do; some cross to carry; some block to lay nay head upon.” It is impossible to stand idly by while Christ gives and suffers all.
II. THE ANTIDOTE.
1. A peculiar, most tranquillizing revelation of the heaven to which He is going--“a place.” Along with other elements of comfort, our nature needs this. We have been told that this is a doctrine of Materialism, and that heaven is in character rather than in condition. This is only a half-truth, and we want the whole. “Heaven is principle,” said Confucius; but a house to live in must be built of something besides principle. Heaven is for the complete man, body and soul; and a body asks for a place, understanding that heaven is at least a place, we are ready to ask a thousand questions about it as such; and one of the first will be, “Where is it in the map of the universe?” In times not a few has this been made a question of astronomy, and to suggest the possibility of some central heaven amongst the stars. Well, the inquiry must start from our own solar system. This, with its circle of at least 5,000,000,000 miles in diameter, is but a speck in the creation. Its stars burn and roll round the sun, their centre. The sun, carrying all these his satellites with him, is moving round another centre, with its system; that, about another; that, about another; and where is the fixed ultimate centre round which all the other centres are wheeling and moving? The only One who could have settled this question was silent about it. He says nothing of its whereabouts, of its beauty, of its music, except in signs that are manifestly but hieroglyphic. He knew that the most exact precision of statement and the most dazzling magic of description would leave the greatest as well as the least of mortals as much in the dark as ever. Therefore Christ, aiming at our spiritual profit rather than at our scientific enlightenment, leaves for future solution all problems that have only to do with place.
2. That the heavenly place is His home and theirs. He has just addressed them in the language of family affection as His “little children.” With this word of love still in the air, He proceeds to speak of heaven as “My Father’s house.” A little child looks upon his father’s house as his own, and so would Christ have us look upon heaven. Even on earth, a father’s house is his child’s home; and the dearest place to the best man, woman, child, is home. “Home, sweet home.” Earth is one of My Father’s battlefields, farms, foundries, factories, roads that He travels on; but heaven is our “Father’s house,” and therefore the home of all His family.
3. That in that home are many mansions, i.e., settled abodes; the same word as in John 14:23. Emphasis resting on the idea of permanence. Jesus was speaking to the sad thoughts then stirring in the hearts of His mourners on account of the shortness of the time they had spent with Him, and which seemed, in the review, only like a dream. “What does this lack to make it perfect?” asked an old Roman of his companion, as they were together looking on some imperial show; and the answer was, “Permanence.” “Permanence adds bliss to bliss.” In the word “many,” He spoke to the thoughts of the company. When one of the disciples, on the notice of His near departure, asked if he might go with Him, the virtual answer was “No.” This refusal to the “one” was a blow to “the many.” If the happiness of going with the Lord is not to be given even to Peter, what is to become of the many? We had all expected that we should go with Him into His kingdom. If these happy dreams of ours are all to melt into misery, why were we not informed of this before? Before now, on some festive day, when a man has asked his friends to his house, he has been forced to ask only a few, because, though his heart was large enough for many, his house was not. Before now, in the straits of some war, some iron captain has spared the lives of only a few prisoners, simply on the ground of lacking room to accommodate the many. God has room in His purpose, in His heart, in His house, for all His captives. By the miracle of His grace He first changes all His captives into children, then welcomes them all home. No limitation is suggested by the indefinite plural, “many.” “Many” simply stands for all the children, “a great multitude which no man can number,” “and yet there is room!”
4. That He is going “to prepare a place” for them. While man is asleep in the night, the sun goes before him, that he may prepare the day for him to wake in. Thus he prepares light for him to see by, power for him to work with, and the spirit of gladness. So does Christ prepare heaven for the heirs of heaven. There can be no heaven without the revelation of God, and there can be no revelation of God without Christ. He prepares heaven for them, not only by preparing their right to the place, but by preparing their fitness for it. “Why cannot I go with Thee now?” asked Peter; and the saying, “I go to prepare a place for you,” is an answer to this “Why?” Christ was going to prepare a place for them; first, by His Cross; next, by the Spirit, who would change their hearts and train their natures for the rank they would inherit, as well as for the work they had to do.
5. That He would come again, and receive them unto Himself. Dying may be regarded as a mode in which Christ comes for His people, one by one. Death is not coming; death is not a person, only a door, to which Christ, the sovereign Lord who has at His girdle the keys of death and the unseen state, comes. (C. Stanford, D. D.)
Ye believe in God, believe also in Me
Belief in Christ
I. WHAT IS IT TO BELIEVE? Faith includes two things.
1. The submission of the reason to all Christ has revealed.
2. The trust of the heart in all He has promised. Both of these are difficult duties. To receive as true what we cannot understand, on God’s testimony is declared to be irrational. But remember that faith is rational, and that the testimony of God is informing. To trust that we shall be pardoned, saved, preserved, is equally difficult for unbelieving hearts.
II. THE OBJECT OF FAITH IS CHRIST--i.e., the things to which we are to assent are truths concerning Christ, and these things in which we are to trust are His promises. This is the only form in which we can exercise faith in God. If we believe not God, as seen, how can we believe in Him as not seen.
III. WHAT ARE WE TO BELIEVE CONCERNING CHRIST AND WHAT ARE THE PROMISES WHICH WE ARE TO TRUST?
1. We must believe that He is the Way, i.e., that He brings us to God. We are separated from God
(1) By our ignorance. Christ brings us near to God as an object of knowledge. He is the Loges or Revealer. He is God in our nature.
(2) By our guilt. Christ brings us near to God by reconciliation through His blood. He atones for our sins. Through Him we are able to draw near to God with hope of acceptance.
(3) By our enmity. Christ, by revealing the knowledge of God, and reconciling us to Him, removes our enmity.
2. That He is the Truth, i.e
(1) That He is real; the true God; true Prophet, Priest, King.
(2) That in Him is all truth and excellence.
3. That He is the Life--the source of universal, intellectual, spiritual and eternal life. It is not we that live, but Christ that lives in us.
IV. WHAT PROMISES ARE WE TO TRUST TO? The promises of the Spirit.
1. That His presence is permanent and internal.
2. That He will reveal Christ.
3. That He will be our Paraclete. (C. Hodge, D. D.)
Believe also in Me
1. It might have been urged that the disciples are addressed by our Lord as already believing, not in God only, but in Himself. But the Bible, and He who speaks therein, is truer to nature and experience than many who profess to interpret it. Are there not many in Christian Churches needing still the voice which shall say, Believer, believe; Christian, come to Christ; disciple of three or of thirty years, still, as for the first time, behold Him!
2. There are those, even among Christian people who confide to us, in the tone of sincere and humble regret--“I cannot see why a Saviour was needed. If I, being evil, know how to forgive, how much more shall a Father in heaven accept the first sigh and bestow the unpurchased grace? Is it not enough if I believe in God my Father? Why must I be encumbered with a revelation of sacrifice which rather repels me than reassures? I believe in God--why must I believe also in Christ?” Let us endeavour to answer this question.
I. Now, someone might say, Look at the saints of the Old Testament. What grace, of reverence, of affiance, of holy aspiration, was lacking in the patriarch Abraham, or to the poet-king of the Psalms? Christ was not manifested when those thoughts of eternal fulness glowed and throbbed in the big heart of David. We venture to dispute the very fact taken for granted. Abraham, “saw Christ’s day,” and walked in the light of it. David was reared amidst promises which made Christ a household word in Israel, and sacrifices which brought to the very senses the need and hope of propitiation.
II. Or you might speak of men who, in this century, have not only led good lives, but have had pious feelings, and done beneficent works, without realizing what we should call the fulness of the Christian faith--avowed Unitarians, e.g. But it is only truth to remember that men thus dispensing with Christ are yet unspeakably indebted to Him. The very idea of God as our Father comes from His revelation.
III. Still, you might say, having made this great revelation, may not Christ Himself disappear? Having taught that God is our Father, must He remain in sight to confuse or divide our allegiance? Believing in God by Christ’s help, why go on further to believe in Christ? Now, it is an obvious answer, and surely a just one. We cannot take Christ by halves. If Christ said one thing from God, He said all things: we must look to see what He said, and not, after catching one isolated word, presume to declare that one word all.
IV. Observe, too, how the particular truth received, no less than the accompanying doctrines objected to, runs up into matters which we can neither dispute as facts, nor yet, apart from God, settle. Sin--you see it, you feel it; all religions pre-suppose it. Evidently sin has made a great rent and breach in God’s work. Listen to this new Teacher, crying in the hearing of the dislocated and disorganized creation, “When ye pray, say, Our Father.” Yes, we say, something within tells me that I had a Father once--but long, long have I lost Him. Tell me the processes by which it has been recovered--the marvellous mystery of restored sonship and reawakened love. Shall we accept the bare fact, and ask nothing as to the proofs and the instrumentalities? Shall we let Christ say, “God is your Father,” and never question Him once as to anything further? They who believe the mighty intelligence must hearken what the same Lord bus to say concerning it. May it be, perhaps, that there was that in the Divine holiness which made sin a fatal bar to man’s acceptance, except on some condition which God only can perform? Shall we dare, we the guilty and helpless ones, to say that, with nothing but poor human tears and cries and paltry efforts, the stain of sin can be wiped out? Shall we dare to repose upon a feeble bureau analogy, and rest the whole weight of eternity upon the impulses and instincts (not always, even here, prevailing) of family love and parental tenderness? What if there lurked in the background of Deity an obstacle which Calvary alone could take away? It was, no doubt, with special reference to His sacrifice and its consequences that Christ spoke of His disciples, in the text, as having (in some sense) still to believe. They knew Him for the Messiah; what they had still to learn, still to believe in, was the death as itself the life. It is, indeed, the crucial test of faith. He who believes in Christ’s atonement believes Christ; believes that He came from God, and came with a message.
V. But, although we thus stand upon the dignity of the Cross as a mystery, we do find, as a matter of experience, that no man dispenses with it without being a definite loser in some feature of the Christian character.
1. There is often a feeble sense of the sinfulness of sin. A man cannot really see Himself a sinner, and not cry out for a Saviour.
2. There is often a want of true tenderness towards sinners. Benevolence there may be; but the discovery of unworthiness in the object of the philanthropy is often the death blow of charity. Or, again, there may be an easiness of good nature ready enough to see excuses: there will not be that unique combination, which was in the cross itself, and which is in the true family of the Crucified--tenderness towards the sinner, with displeasure against the sin.
VI. God, in arranging that we should receive this greatest of His gifts--reconciliation through His Son--has given a charm and pathos to the gospel which it could not otherwise have possessed. What possession do you not value tenfold if it is yours through love? That book, that trinket, why is it dear to you? It was the keepsake of a loving friend. And do you not think that God was appealing, perhaps, to some such instinct of your nature, when He would not only send word to you that you were pardoned, but bid you to receive the blessing through the willing self-gift of One who, sharing every emotion of God’s love for the self-ruined one, came Himself to plead, and at last to die, because thus He could effectually “roll away the great stone” sin, move the obdurate, and win back the lost? Conclusion: Try the charge, “Believe also in me.” Lean your whole weight of guilt, of sin, of weakness, of sorrow, upon Jesus Christ and Him crucified. See whether, in proportion as you trust Christ more, you become not, in yourself, happier, holier, stronger, gentler. Thus, in time, you shall have a witness within. You life shall be one echo to the sweet persuasive expostulation,” Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God; believe also in Me.” (Dean Vaughan.)
Faith in God one with faith in Christ
We get a more true and appropriate meaning if we keep both clauses in the imperative, “Believe in God, believe also in me.”
I. CHRIST HERE POINTS TO HIMSELF AS THE OBJECT OF PRECISELY THE SAME RELIGIOUS TRUST WHICH IS TO BE GIVEN TO GOD.
1. It is only our familiarity with these words that blinds us to their wonderfulness. Try to hear them for the first time, and to remember the circumstances. Here is a man amongst a handful of friends, within four-and-twenty hours of a shameful death, that to all appearance was the annihilation of all His claims and hopes. And He says, “Trust in God, and trust in Me!”
2. What is it that Christ offers us? A very low and inadequate interpretation is, “Believe that God is, that I am.” But it is scarcely less so to suppose that the mere assent of the understanding to His teaching is all that Christ is asking for. Faith grasps not a doctrine, but a heart. The trust which Christ requires is entire committal to Him in all my relations and for all my needs.
3. Further, note that this believing in Him is precisely the same thing which He bids us render to God. The two clauses in the original bring out that idea even more vividly--“Believe in God, in Me also believe.” And so He here proposes Himself as the worthy and adequate recipient of all that makes up religion in its deepest sense. That tone is the uniform characteristic of our Lord’s teaching. What did He think of Himself Who stood up before the world, and with arms outstretched, like that great white Christ in Thorwaldsen’s lovely statue, said to all the troop of languid and burdened ones crowding at His feet:--“Come unto Me all ye that are weary,” etc. That surely is a Divine prerogative. What did He think of
Himself Who said, “All men should honour the Son even as they honour the Father”? You cannot eliminate the fact that Christ claimed as His own the emotions of the heart, to which only God has a right and which only God can satisfy.
4. We have to take that into account if we would estimate the character of Jesus Christ as a teacher and as a man. What separates Him from all other teachers is not the clearness or the tenderness with which He reiterated the truths about the Father’s love, and morality and goodness; but the peculiarity of His call to the world is, Believe in Me. And if He said that, why, then, one of two things. Either He was wrong, and then He was a crazy enthusiast, only acquitted of blasphemy because convicted of insanity; or else He was “God, manifest in the flesh.”
II. FAITH IN CHRIST AND FAITH IN GOD ARE NOT TWO, BUT ONE. These two clauses on the surface present juxtaposition. Looked at more closely they present interpretation and identity.
1. What is the underlying truth that is here? How comes it that these two objects blend into one, like two figures in a stereoscope?
(1) This, that Jesus Christ Himself Divine, is the Divine Revealer of God. There is no real knowledge of the real God outside of Jesus. He showing us a Father, has brought a God to our hearts that we can love, and of whom we can be sure. Very significant is it that Christianity alone puts the very heart of religion in the act of trust. Other religions put it in dread worship, service, and the like.
(2) On the other hand, the truth that underlies this is that Jesus is Divine. The light shines through a window, but the light and the glass that make it visible have nothing in common with one another. The Godhead shines through Christ, but He is not a mere transparent medium. It is Himself that He is showing us when He is showing us God. “He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father.” And because He is Himself Divine and the Divine Revealer, therefore the faith that grasps Him is inseparably one with the faith that grasps God. Men could look upon a Moses, an Isaiah, or a Paul, and in them recognize the irradiation of the Divinity that imparted itself through them, but the medium was forgotten in proportion as that which it revealed was behind. You cannot forget Christ in order to see God more clearly, but to behold Him is to behold God.
2. And if that be true, these two things follow.
(1) One is that all imperfect revelation of God is prophetic of and leads up towards the perfect revelation in Jesus Christ (Hebrews 1:1-3). And in like manner all the imperfect faith that, laying hold of other fragmentary means of knowing God, has tremulously tried to trust Him, finds its climax and consummate flower in the full-blossomed faith that lays hold upon Jesus Christ.
(2) That without faith in Christ such faith in God as is possible is feeble, incomplete, and will not long last. Historically a pure theism is all but impotent. There is only one example of it on a large scale in the world, and that is a kind of bastard Christianity--Mohammedanism; and we all know what good that is as a religion. The God that men know outside of Jesus Christ is a poor, nebulous thing; an idea, not a reality. It has little power to restrain. It has less power to inspire and impel. It has still less to comfort; it has least of all to satisfy the heart.
III. THIS TRUST IN CHRIST IS THE SECRET OF A QUIET HEART.
1. It is no use saying to men, “Let not your hearts be troubled,” unless you finish the verse. The state of man is like that of some of those sunny islands in southern seas, around which there often rave the wildest cyclones, and which carry in their bosoms, beneath all their riotous luxuriance of verdant beauty, hidden fires, which ever and anon shake the solid earth and spread destruction. And where is the “rest” to come from? All other defences are weak and poor. We have heard about “pills against earthquakes.” That is what the comforts which the world supplies may fairly be likened to. Unless we trust we are, and shall be, “troubled.”
2. If we trust we may be quiet. To cast a burden off myself on other’s shoulders is always a rest. But trust in Jesus Christ brings infinitude on my side. Submission is repose. When we cease to kick against the pricks they cease to stick and wound us. Trust opens the heart, like the windows of the Ark, tossing upon the black and fatal flood, for the entrance of the peaceful dove with the olive branch in its mouth. But “the wicked is like the troubled sea which cannot rest.” (A. Maclaren, D. D.)
Faith in God
1. Why should it have been needful to give such a command as this to any intelligent person? In one sense all men believe in God. We acknowledge and recognize a power which passes all control, measurement, or thought. We recognize an authority to which we are responsible. As the moral nature is cultivated, we recognize a moral order in the universe, a law of righteousness, and therefore a Lawgiver and a Judge. In the time of calamity or death all men call upon God. Why, then, teach men to believe in God, and command it? and especially the disciples who had been trained under the ancient system.
2. Of course the answer is that belief may be real and yet wholly ineffective. You see the vapour issuing from the kettle and disappearing through the air. It is steam power, but not enough to drive the train. You step upon the beach and find the little puddles of water, but there is not enough to float the boat and keep alive the fish. So belief may be real in the mind and yet be entirely insufficient for any useful and inspiring purpose. The master would have us carry our belief in God to a point where it shall involve every spiritual force within us. Believe to the roots of your nature; with all your strength and life: and your heart shall not be troubled. What is it thus to believe in God? It is to affirm
I. HIS ABSOLUTE ORIGINAL PERSONALITY OF EXISTENCE. And yet this it is not easy for us to do. If we search into our thoughts we shall find very often that He is to us rather a force without affection, intelligence, and life. So multitudes of men conceive of God, and scientific investigation often comes in to encourage this tendency of thought. On the other hand, the Scripture everywhere manifests to us God as a person. Our own personal constitution reflects and demonstrates that personality. As impossible as that the clod of the valley should generate a human soul, as that the blossoming branch of the tree should bring forth living intelligence; so impossible is it that personality in you and me should come from impersonal forces and mechanical laws. We see the indications of it in His works, where intelligent contrivances present themselves to us in the adjustment of force to force, in the relations of one object to another; and in Christ, who said, “I and My Father are one.” And this is to be affirmed, with all energy of conviction, and intensity of feeling, as the absolute and everlasting truth.
II. HIS PRESENCE WITH US in every hour and every place. Amazing! Yes, God is amazing in every attribute. The soul is amazing because it has something of God within it. Even natural theology affirms this; for it would imply Divine imperfection if God were not everywhere. The recognition of a moral order in the universe implies that; for otherwise the administration of that order would be necessarily imperfect. The constitution of the universe implies that, since otherwise there would be parts of the universe self-supporting and independent of God. His omnipresence shines throughout the whole Scriptures. There are times in spiritual experience when we feel it. But you say, We do not see Him I Do we see the air, magnetism, the productive force in nature, music, fragrance, the voice of a friend? We see the result.
III. HIS CHARACTER OF PERFECT HOLINESS AND PERFECT TENDERNESS. Undoubtedly there is much to perplex us in the prevalence of sin, and the long delay of punishment. These facts disturb our impression of the Divine holiness. And yet we do not doubt the sun when for a time obscured by cloud. The holiness of God must be recognized by anyone who would for a moment feel safe in the universe. If God were otherwise than holy, what could restrain any arbitrary exercise of His power? He could not properly be worshipped except He were holy. Worship mere power, and it demoralizes and demonizes. Worship intellect, and it degrades the moral nature. Worship can only be offered to absolute and sovereign purity of character; and that must be God’s character, or else let every harp on high be silent and every heart on earth be dumb. God’s holiness shines upon us through His law in our own reason and conscience and in the person of Christ. But then, with this holiness is united tenderness; and it is that which it seems harder still to recognize, for we associate with absolute justice absolute sovereignty rather than absolute tenderness: and yet there is in His Word the declaration of His tenderness. There is a reflection of that tenderness in our own hearts. Whence did these tender loves within us spring? It is idle to say they are transmitted. From whence did they come to our parents? We see them illustrated most perfectly in Christ, whose mission it was to so reveal the Father that we might not be afraid of His holiness.
IV. AFFECTIONATE SOLICITUDE FOR EVERY ONE WHO SEEKS HIM. And this is the most difficult. He is so infinite and we are so weak. Yet even here we find instruction from those who are nearest to Him in spirit and character. We get our clearest view of it from Christ, again, always so welcoming to all who sought Him, so tender towards those who trusted and loved Him. Conclusion: If thus we believe in God, then
1. There is peace for us and in us. We shall no more be afraid of any real harm while we are affiliated with God in spirit.
2. There is power, the power which sent forth the disciples on their errands of love.
3. Creation reveals its mystery of majesty and loveliness to us, and redemption its higher glories both of majesty and beauty.
4. We anticipate the promises and the provisions of grace.
5. We are assured of the victory of righteousness in the world. (R. S.Storrs, D. D.)
Belief in God emotional as well as intellectual
Truth that touches a man not merely through a cold perception, but through some warm feeling, is the kind of truth the Scripture teaches to constitute belief. It may be intellectually conceived, but no moral nor social truth is ever presented so as to be believed, unless it be presented in such a way as to carry sympathy and feeling with it; and that is not the case with all kinds of truth. Physical, scientific truths, do not touch the feelings, and do not need to. Arithmetic deals with truths that have no relation directly except with the understanding. They never come with desire, sorrow, pity, or emotion of any sort. But all truths that relate to dispositions in men, to moral duties--they never stop with the understanding, but touch the feeling as well. A man cannot be said to believe a moral truth unless he believes it so that it carries some emotion with it. And, in this respect, it makes a great difference what a man believes. (H. W. Beecher.)
Belief in God based on the knowledge of His character
A banknote is tendered to me--it is a promise to pay, but by whom? The Oriental Bank Corporation. I should not have it; that institution has lost its character. I could not trust it. Another note is handed to me; this bears the name of the Bank of England. Ah! that is a different matter. I know that bank has a name for solvency and stability. So, without any hesitation, I take the note just for what it stands. I do not ask for any discount off its amount, as I might if there was a shade of suspicion attaching to its name. I just take it for what it appears on its face to be worth, so confident am I that it will be paid to the full in the sterling coin of the realm. So a knowledge of the character of God will lead us to be fully persuaded “that what He hath promised He will be able also to perform.” (John K. Shaw.)
Belief in God inextinguishable
Whatever men may scientifically agree to believe in, there is in men of noble nature something which science can neither illumine nor darken. When Tyndall was walking among the clouds during a sunset upon the Alps his companion said to him, “can you behold such a sublime scene as this and not feel that there is a God?” “Oh,” said he, “I feel it. I feel it as much as any man can feel it; and I rejoice in it, if you do not tell me I can prove it.” The moment you undertake to bring the evidence with which he dealt with matter to the ineffable and the hereafter, then, he says, “I am agnostic. I don’t know. It isn’t true;” but the moment you leave the mind under the gracious influence of such a scene it rises above the sphere of doubt or proof, and he says, “I accept it.” (H. W.Beecher.)
Belief in God encouraging
When menaced by Indian war and domestic rebellion, when distrustful of those around him, and apprehensive of disgrace at court, Columbus sank for a time into complete despondency. In this hour of gloom, when abandoned to despair, he heard in the night a voice addressing him in words of comfort, “O man of little faith! why art thou cast down? Fear nothing, I will provide for thee. The seven years of the term of gold are not expired; in that, and in all other things, I will take care of thee.” (Washington Irving.)
Belief in God should inspire confidence
In a small town there lived the widow of a preacher, a God-fearing woman, who in days of trouble used to say to her children and friends, “Fear not, God lives.” Her trials were sometimes great, but she strove to bear all with cheerfulness and patience. One day her difficulty was greater than she could bear, and she sat down with a feeling of hopelessness, and allowed her tears to flow unchecked. Her little son saw her weeping; he put his little hand in hers, and said, while he looked into her face sorrowfully, “Mother, is God dead?” “No, my son,” she said, taking him on her lap. “I thank thee for thy question. He ever liveth; He is near to help in all trouble; He will help us.” She wiped away her tears and continued her work. She sought and found help in Jesus. (Der Glaubensbote.)
Belief in God stimulating
The late Professor Agassiz once said to a friend, “I will frankly tell you that my experience in prolonged scientific investigations convinces me that a belief in God--a God who is behind and within the chaos of vanishing points of human knowledge--adds a wonderful stimulus to the man who attempts to penetrate into the regions of the unknown. Of myself, I may say that I never make the preparations for penetrating into some small province of nature hitherto undiscovered without breathing a prayer to the Being who hides His secrets from me only to allure me graciously on to the unfolding of them.”
The revealing power of faith
Christian faith is like a grand cathedral with divinely pictured windows. Standing without you see no glory, nor can possibly imagine any; standing within, every ray of light reveals a harmony of unspeakable splendour. (Bp. Porteous.)
Believing in Jesus is laying hold of Him
A vessel is wrecked: one after another of her crew is swept away, and disappears. As she heaves to and fro, it seems as if every moment she would break up, and send her shivering passengers down into the deep. There is the cabin boy, thinking of his mother and his home, and praying, though scarcely hoping to be saved, when a plank floats past. Eagerly he lays hold of it, rests his whole weight upon it; and, while others perish, he is safe. That describes you. As you are just about to go down, the plank floats along, comes near you--within reach, within arm’s length. That plank is Christ. Lay hold of Him, rest yourself upon Him. He can bear your whole weight--the whole weight of your sins, which would have sank you to perdition--the whole weight of your soul. Try Him; and, like a sailor who tried Him, you’ll be able joyfully to say even in dying, “The plank bears, the plank bears!” (J. H. Wilson.)
Believing is looking to Jesus
Believing on Jesus is looking to Him for salvation. You see that poor widow with a young family, weeping as if her heart would break. When I ask her what ails her, she tells me she is behind with her rent, and her landlord threatens to turn her to the door, unless she can pay her debt, and find security for the next six months. So I tell her to dry her tears, and do her best to work for her children, and just look to me for her rent. How full of joy she is all at once! How cheerfully she works! and, though she has not a penny laid past for the term, she has no fear; and when asked, Why? she says,” I am looking to him, for he bade me; and I know he will not fail me. What he promised is just as sure as if I had it in my hand.” Now, believing on Jesus is something like this. If I might so speak, it is the heart’s look to Jesus--a single glance, indeed, at first, and yet a constant looking to Him ever after. (J. H. Wilson.)
Believing is trusting in Jesus
There is a boy whose father was buried yesterday. Today he is wearing his father’s gold watch. Some wicked lads are trying to take it from him. He is struggling to keep it; but they are too strong for him. He is just about to lose it, when I come up, and say, “Give it to me, my boy, and I’ll keep it safe for you.” For a moment he looks at me with doubtful eye; but as I say to him, “Trust me!” and he sees that I am earnest and sincere, he hands it over to me, and I prevent him from being robbed. That is just what the apostle Paul says of himself. He had, as you have, something far more precious than a gold watch--an immortal soul; and he was afraid of losing it: he could not keep it himself. Jesus said, “Give it to Me,” and he gave it to Him; and then you hear him saying rejoicingly, “I know whom I have believed” (which is the same thing as whom I have trusted), “and am persuaded that He will keep that which I have committed to Him against that day.” (J. H. Wilson.)
The comfort of believing in Christ
“What do you do without a mother to tell all your troubles to?” asked a child who had a mother, of one who had none. “Mother told me whom to go to before she died,” answered the little orphan. “I go to the Lord Jesus: He was mother’s friend, and He’s mine.” “Jesus Christ is in the sky. He is away off, and He has a great many things to attend to in heaven. It is not likely He can stop to mind you.” “I do not know anything about that,” said the orphan. “All I know, He says He will; and that’s enough for me.”
Untroubled faith
What the Caliph Omar is reported to have written to Amru, his general commanding in Egypt, has a grand moral. If those books contradicted the Koran, they were false, and ought to be destroyed. If they agreed with the Koran, they were of no use, and might well be spared. One book was enough for Mohammedans. So, when Sir Walter Scott lay dying, he said to his son-in-law one day, “Lockhart, read to me.” “What book shall it be?” said Lockhart. “Why do you ask? there is but one,” said Scott. Now, if this Book itself were in danger of being destroyed, and I might have only one chapter out of it, I rather think it would be this which Scott asked to be read to him. Probably no single chapter is read so much to the dying, over the dead. It was the Speaker who was about to die. His hearers were about to be launched into a lifelong service, and their last necessity was absolute, child-like faith.
I. LET NOT YOUR HEART BE TROUBLED. Certainly they were troubled. And they had reason to be. Many times over Judas betrays his Lord, and hangs himself. Many times over Peter denies his Lord and repents. Many times over the Lord Himself is crucified, and buried, rises and goes away and comes again unseen. It is the same old story always; and always with the old refrain: “Let not your heart be troubled.”
1. Today, as related to heathen peoples and religions, the Judas Iscariot of Christianity is Christendom itself. At first, Christianity had behind it only the incomparable personality and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. If Christendom were only Christian really, how much longer would China probably be Confucian? or India Brahmanic? These are painful questions. But let not your heart be troubled. Inside of Christendom I see another betrayal of Christianity, which also is very painful. We behold a Christian civilization, incontestably and immensely superior to any heathen pattern. By and by this Christian civilization forgets its Christian parentage; or denies it, and claims for itself another pedigree. Scholarly men analyze and compare the great historic religions, allowing little preeminence to Christianity. Then after a while the conclusion is reached that we really need no religion at all, only science. Take your sop, Judas, and be gone. As for the eleven, let not their hearts be troubled.
2. Peter’s denial of the Lord also repeats itself. Scandals and offences are sure to come. Good men are tempted, stumble and fall. Let not your heart be troubled. Peter denied his Master with an oath. Whole communions apostatize. Verily, powers of darkness are busy; and the night is long. But let not your heart be troubled. The morning cometh. Peter repented.
3. As for what Christ said about going away and coming again, changing the economy from flesh to spirit, from sight to faith, it seems strange to us that His apostles should have been so staggered by it. Those apostles, for three years had been under marvellous tuition; and we wonder they got so little out of it. The day of Pentecost had not yet come. By and by men will be looking back and wondering that we so poorly understood the gospel, overlaying it, some of us with ritual, others with dogma. We have much to be ashamed of. But let not your heart be troubled. More Pentecosts than one have come already. And more are yet to come.
II. BELIEVE IN GOD.
1. Commanded belief implies always the possibility of honest unbelief. Such unbelief has increased greatly of late. Partly, it seems like a reaction against outward authority, and traditional opinions, or against a superstitious theism. Partly it is sheer science, clear-eyed and dispassionate, unable to help multiplying second causes.
2. I have no fear of any very long reign of Atheism. In the poor, apathetic Orient, there may be morality enough to conserve society, with little or no religion, as in China. But not in Europe and America, fall of vitality, greedy, rich and restless. With us, irreligion today is immorality tomorrow, and after that the deluge.
3. Much of what passes for belie! in God is mere scholastic assent to the proposition that God exists. Or the attributes most emphasized are those pertaining rather to the Divine essence. What we need is a vivid sense of the personality of God. He must come very close, and be very real, to us, in our whole experience of life. Mankind must be His offspring; and human history, from first to last, the working out of His own eternal and righteous purposes. “We are but two,” said Abu Bakr to Mohammed as they were flying, hunted, from Mecca to Medina. “Nay,” answered Mohammed, “we are three; God is with us.” And so belief in God is not mere assent, nor mere conviction, but absolute personal trust, submission, and service.
4. You and I know very well what troubles us in thinking of God--sin. But if He had no hatred of sin, how much worse it would be for us. We might be in the power of evil spirits stronger than we are, from whose hideous tyranny we should feel it a mercy to be delivered over to the righteous judgment of a pure and holy God. You say you are afraid of God. But what human imagination can picture the horrors of a universe given over to the rioting of evil unrestrained? Thank God for His holiness. Though He slay us, we had better trust in Him.
III. BELIEVE ALSO IN ME.
1. In me, not as a second rival object of trust, but as God manifest in the flesh, rounded out and historic. This takes us back into bewildering depths. Sin is a tremendous mystery. But for sin, however, we might never have known, in this world, the sublime Triunity of God. Triunity, as we have to study it, is the whole Godhead, dealing with the problem of moral evil.
2. “Believe also in Me.” The work of atonement is done, was done centuries ago in time, ages ago in eternity. God in Christ now stands pledged to the forgiveness of sin on the condition of repentance.
3. “Believe also in Me.” Human history is God’s judgment day. Nations are rising and falling. Human history is also God’s day of grace. The kingdom began in an upper chamber. From then till now the kingdom has steadily advanced. The steady progress of Christianity has no parallel in the history of any other religion. The problem demands solution. And only one is possible. But for the magnetism of the felt divinity of Christ, Christianity could not have started at all as it did, or continued as it has. It stands today the old solid bulwark of liberty and order against license and chaos. (R. D.Hitchcock, D. D.)
In My Father’s house are many mansions
The Father’s house
I. CHRIST SITS AND DISCOVERS HEAVEN TO US.
1. Its nature. His home. “This is not your rest.”
2. Its extent. “Many mansions.” “Yet there is room.”
3. Its reality. “If it were not so I would have told you.” Christ knew it--came from it--went to it. Stephen saw its open door and its glory when his breath was being beaten out of his body.
II. CHRIST ASCENDS AND PREPARES HEAVEN FOR US. “I go to prepare a place for you.” He prepares heaven for us
1. By making it accessible. The angel with the flaming sword no longer guards the tree of life, and the veil of the Temple no longer hinders man’s approach to God.
2. By gathering its people. Heaven becomes richer to us as Christians die. It is daily more home-like.
3. By supplying its blessings. Who knows so well as He the kind of heaven that will meet our needs? Yes, and He prepares it all.
III. CHRIST RETURNS AND ENTERS HEAVEN WITH US. “If I go,” etc. This applies to
1. All the journey of life. “My presence shall go with thee and I will give thee rest.”
2. All the labours of life. “Go ye into all the world and preach, etc.…and lo I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.”
3. All the trials of life. “When thou passeth through the waters I will be with thee,” etc.
4. The close of life. He is there with the dying saint.
IV. CHRIST ABIDES AND BECOMES HEAVEN TO US. “That where I am there ye may be also.” This was Paul’s idea of heaven--having a desire to depart and to be with Christ. (W. H. Burton.)
My Father’s house
The very term changed the whole character and aspect of Hades. The invisible became visible in the form of the most benign and beautiful of all the institutions that lend charm and joy to life. My Father’s house! then for the first time men dared to think of death as a going home. It seems a vast, awful world, this invisible which stretches out to the infinite all round us; the trembling soul may well shudder as it goes forth to meet its destiny. But the thought “My Father’s house,” dissipates all dread. Be it what it may, and where it may, this vast unknown, it is filled with that nameless benediction, a Father’s presence and lit with the light of a Father’s smile. It is this sense of a loving Presence, meeting us at life’s outer gate, and bringing us into a bright home full of light and beauty and living joy, which, for the Christian, has so utterly dissipated the terror; and this made death seem to St. Francis a sister to take him by the hand and conduct him home. It is the activity, the animation, the joyful tasks, the abounding interest, of the life of the invisible world unveiled by Christ, which is the characteristic revelation of the gospel. It is not a world of shades, but a world of sons in strong immortal forms, instinct with energy, rich in faculty, busy with the tasks that occupy the angels; a world glad with work and bright with song. (J. B. Brown, B. A.)
My Father’s house magnificent
A New Zealand chief who visited England was remarkable for the deep spirituality of his mind and his constant delight in the word of God. One day he was taken to see a beautiful mansion near London. The gentleman who took him expected to see him greatly astonished and charmed with its magnificence, but it seemed to excite little or no admiration in his mind. Wondering how this could be, he began to point out to him its grandeur. Tamahana heard all silently, then, looking round, said, “My Father’s house is finer than this.” “Your father’s house!” thought the gentleman, who knew that his father’s home was but a poor mud cottage. But Tamahana went on to speak in his own touching strain of the “many mansions” of the redeemed. (W. Baxendale.)
Entering the Father’s house
It was the quaint saying of a dying man, who exclaimed: “I have no fear of going home. God’s finger is on the latch, and I am ready for Him to open the door. It is but the entrance to my Father’s house.
The house of many mansions
From these words we learn
I. The MAGNITUDE of heaven. Christ’s going away would naturally seem to them pure loss. Death, as a natural event, always seems so. But Christ says death is not a closing so much as an opening--not a going away so much as a coming home. It is the passing of a pilgrim from one mansion to another, from the winter to the summer residence, from one of the outlying provinces up nearer the central home. This is not a chance expression, far less a mere figure of speech. There are many others. “The third heavens”; Christ has “passed through all heavens”; “heaven, even the heaven of heavens,” a place evidently of inconceivable grandeur, for even that cannot contain the infinite presence of God. This idea of immense capacity is a real relief from some of the more popular conceptions of the future life, as that of a temple, etc. The population of this world is something tremendous. It has been yielding immense numbers to heaven in every age. Thus “a great multitude which no man can number,” has been passing, and will pass, in ceaseless procession. And we cannot help wondering how they are all to be provided for!
II. Out of the idea of vastness arises that of an endless VARIETY. The variety existing in God’s works here is one of the principal charms of the natural world. So as there are “many mansions,” the adorning of them will be very various. One will not be as another. We do not go to heaven to lose our natural tastes, our sinless preferences, but rather to have all these gratified in a far higher degree. Otherwise heaven would be plainer, poorer, and less interesting than earth. And unless our own nature were pressed down into some kind of mechanical exactness and shape, weariness would ensue. There would be a sighing for the lost seasons of the earth, its withered flowers, its light and shade, its many countries, and its encircling seas. But no! There will be places, pursuits, and enjoyments for all.
III. Then, lest this vastness and variety should seem too large to our thought, we have also in these words a sweet assurance as to the HOMELINESS of heaven.
IV. REALITY. ‘‘If it were not so, I would have told you.” This life in itself is shadowy enough. We speak of “long days,” and of “long years.” But when the awakened immortal soul looks at those spaces of time in the light of its own eternity, how short and shadowy they seem I In those times we feel that everything depends on the reality and permanence of the future life! No man who has not long been untrue to himself and to his God can be pleased with the thought of annihilation. But who can tell him firmly where lies the realm of life, or whether anywhere? He asks philosophy, and she answers, “I see something like it, but I cannot surely tell. It may be land or it may be cloud.” He asks his own reason, and the instincts of his heart, and they answer “yes” today and “no” tomorrow, according to the mood, and the aspects of outward life. Then, turning to Jesus Christ, he asks by his sorrow, by his hopes, by all the struggling instincts that will not die, by that upward look in which the soul is “seeking a city with foundations,” whether such a city is builded--whether such a life is secure. And the answer is here. Conclusion: The love of heaven has been derided by some as a selfish passion. No doubt heaven may be represented and desired by the mind as a place of escape from conflict, of mere ignoble rest. But if we take it just as it is projected to our view in the Scriptures--in its relations to earthly labour, and suffering, and desire; and as the place where our higher toils and nobler enjoyments shall begin:--then the desire of heaven is the noblest and purest passion we cherish. (A. Raleigh, D. D.)
Many mansions
Sorrow needs simple words for its consolation; and simple words are the best clothing for the largest truths. Note in these words
I. THE “FATHER’S HOUSE,” AND ITS AMPLE ROOM. There is only one other occasion in which our Lord used this expression: “Make not My Father’s house a house of merchandise.” Its courts, its many chambers, its ample porches, with room for thronging worshippers, represented in some poor way the wide sweep and space of that higher house.
1. How sweet and familiar this conception of heaven!
(1) There is something awful, even to the best souls, in the thought even of the glories beyond. But how it is all softened when we say, “My Father’s house.” Most of us have left behind us the sweet security which used to be ours when we lived as children in a father’s house here. But we may all look forward to the renewal, in far nobler form, of these early days, where the shyest and timidest child shall feel at ease and secure.
(2) And consider how this conception suggests answers to so many of our questions about the relationship of the inmates to one another. Are they to dwell isolated in their several mansions? Surely if He be the Father, and Heaven be His house, the relation of the redeemed to one another must have in it more than all the sweet familiarity and unrestrained frankness which subsists in the families of earth.
(3) But, further, this great and tender name has its deepest meaning in a spiritual state of which the essential elements are the loving manifestation of God as Father, the perfect consciousness of sonship, the happy union of all the children in one great family, and the derivation of all their blessedness from their elder Brother.
2. The ample room in this great house.
(1) There was room where Christ went for eleven poor men. But Christ’s prescient eye looked down the ages, and some glow of satisfaction flitted across His sorrow as He saw from afar the result of the impending travail of His soul in the multitudes by whom God’s heavenly house should yet be filled. Perhaps that upper room, like the most of the roof chambers in Jewish houses, was open to the skies, and whilst He spoke the innumerable lights that blaze in that clear heaven shone down upon them, and He may have pointed to these as He spoke. Ah! brethren, if we could only widen our measurement of the walls of the New Jerusalem to that of the “golden rod which the man, that is, the angel” applied to it, we should understand how much bigger it is than any of these poor communities on earth. If we would lay to heart, as we ought to do, the deep meaning of that indefinite “many” in my text it would rebuke our narrowness.
(2) That one word may also be used to heighten our own confidence as to our own poor selves. A chamber in the great temple waits for each of us, and the question is, Shall we occupy it or shall we not? The old rabbis said that, however many the throngs of worshippers who came up to Jerusalem at the Passover, the streets and the courts were never crowded. And so it is with that great city. There are throngs, but no crowds. Each finds a place in the ample sweep of the Father’s house, like some of the great palaces that barbaric Eastern kings used to build, in whose courts armies might encamp, and the chambers of which were counted by the thousand.
(3) There is only another occasion in this Gospel in which the word here translated “mansions” is employed--“We will come and make our abode with Him.” Our mansion is in God; God’s dwelling place is in us. When prodigal children go away from the father’s house sometimes a heartbroken parent will keep the boy’s room just as it used to be when he was young and pure, and will hope and weary through long days for him to come back and occupy it again. God is keeping a room for you in His house; do you see that you fill it.
II. THE SUFFICIENCY OF CHRIST’S REVELATION FOR OUR NEEDS. “If it were not so, I would have told you.”
1. He sets Himself forward in very august fashion as being the Revealer and the Opener of that house for us. There is a singular tone about all our Lord’s few references to the future--a tone of decisiveness. He stands like one on a mountain top, looking down into the valleys beyond, and telling His comrades in the plain behind Him what He sees. He speaks of that unseen world always as one who had been in it, and who was reporting experiences, and not giving forth opinions. Very remarkable, therefore, is it that with this tone there should be such reticence in Christ’s references to the future. But my text suggests to us that we have got as much as we need, and, for the rest, if we needed to have heard it, He would have told us. Let the gaps remain. The gaps are part of the revelation, and we know enough for faith and hope.
2. May we not widen the application of that thought to other matters? In times like the present, of doubt and unrest, it is a great piece of Christian wisdom to recognize the limitations of our knowledge and the sufficiency of the fragments that we have. What do we get a revelation for? To solve theological puzzles and dogmatic difficulties; to inflate us with the pride of quasi-omniscience: or to present to us God in Christ for faith, for love, for obedience, for imitation? Surely the latter, and for such purposes we have enough. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)
Many mansions
I. HEAVEN IS GOD’S HOUSE.
1. God is infinite (Psalms 147:5).
2. Therefore, not comprehended, or included anywhere (Isaiah 66:1).
3. But is present everywhere (Psalms 139:7).
4. But yet in some places unveils Himself, and discovers His glory more than in others.
5. Where God is pleased to reveal Himself most, is called His house. He has a two-fold house.
(1) A house of grace.
(a) The Church in general (Mark 3:35).
(b) A believer’s heart in particular (Isaiah 57:15; Revelation 3:20).
(2) A house of glory, where He manifests most clearly the glory (1 Corinthians 13:12) of His power, goodness, mercy, wisdom.
6. Hence, observe that they who come to heaven
(1) Dwell with God, and so with the fountain of light (Psalms 104:2): Psalms 36:9), love, joy (Psalms 16:11).
(2) And so are secure from enemies.
(3) And enjoy true happiness (Psalms 16:11; Psalms 17:15).
II. IT IS CHRIST’S FATHER’S HOUSE. And this adds great comfort; for
1. We may be sure of entertainment, though not for our own, yet for Christ’s sake.
2. We shall dwell with Christ (verse 3).
3. In Christ: it is our Father’s house too (chap. 20:17).
III. THESE MANSIONS ARE CONVENIENT AND SUITABLE
1. For our natures and capacities (2 Peter 1:4).
2. For our wants and necessities: being
(1) Void of all troubles
(a) Spiritual: as of the sense of God’s displeasure (Ezekiel 16:42); doubts about our estate; Satan’s temptations (1 Peter 5:8); the delusions of this world; our own corruptions Ephesians 5:27; Hebrews 4:10).
(b) Temporal (Revelation 7:17); for here is no want in our estates (Psalms 34:9; Psalms 84:11), no crosses in our enjoyments, no disgrace upon our names (Psalms 119:39), no sickness in our bodies (Mark 12:25), no cares in our minds (Mt Philippians 4:6), no death (Revelation 21:4).
2. Furnished with all delightsome furniture.
(1) For our souls.
(a) Our understandings.
(b) Our wills and affections (Psalms 16:11).
(2) For our bodies (Philippians 3:21), robes (Revelation 6:11), crowns (James 1:12; 2 Timothy 4:8), thrones (Luke 22:30), banquets (Isaiah 25:6; Romans 14:17; Revelation 7:17), the most pleasing objects (1 Corinthians 13:12), the most celestial melodies Revelation 4:8-11).
3. They are everlasting (Matthew 25:46; Romans 6:23; 2 Corinthians 5:1).
IV. IN HEAVEN THERE ARE MANY MANSIONS.
1. What is the purport of this expression? Not distinct cells, but
(1) That there is room enough for many.
(2) That many shall be saved (Revelation 7:9; James 2:5); but not irrespectively (1 Corinthians 1:26-28).
2. Whether in these mansions will there be degrees of glory?
(1) Negatively. All shall be alike in respect of
(a) Their freedom from evil (Revelation 21:4).
(b) God’s love.
(c) Duration.
(d) Their capacities, i.e., everyone shall enjoy as much as he is capable of (Psalms 16:11).
(2) Positively. One will be more capable, and so enjoy more than another. This appears
(a) From Scripture (1 Corinthians 15:41-42; Mt
19:28).
(b) There are degrees of torments in hell (Luke 12:47-48; Matthew 11:21-22; Romans 2:9).
(c) There are degrees of angelical glory (1 Thessalonians 4:16; Jude 1:9).
(d) There are degrees of grace and good works here (Ro 2 Corinthians 5:10; Luke 19:16-18).
3. There are many mansions. Then
(1) Despair not of room for you there.
(2) Labour to have one of them. There are degrees in glory--then strive to be eminent in grace that you may be eminent in glory (Matthew 15:28). (Bp. Beveridge.)
The heavenly home
The text is suggested of
I. PERMANENCE.
1. “All things change, and we with them.” The earth and sun and stars are moving from their old forms into new, but their slow, stern cycles seem to us changeless when we think of ourselves. Let anyone who has advanced but a short way in life look round. Old times are away, old interests, old aims: the haunts, the friends, the faces of our youth, where are they? Gone, or so changed that we dare not think to recall them. And we are changing within. If we could keep up the life and freshness there it would be less sad. There is compensation for this, if we will seek it. If we have a home in God through Christ, it brings in something better than youthful brightness. But here, too, there is frequently change. The anchor of our hope seems to lose its hold, our sense of pardon and peace may be broken, and the face of God, if seen at all, may look dim and distant.
2. It is from such changes that the promise of Christ carries us to a fixed place of abode. The permanence of the dwelling shall ensure permanence in all that belongs to the dwellers in it. There must be, indeed, the change of progress: it is the permanence not of death but of life; and so the changes of decay, of loss, of bereavement, of the unretiring past, these are gone with the last great change, which ends the perishing and opens the eternal. There shall be no wavering of faith, no waning of hope, no chill of love. Here, change at every step leaves some lost good behind it; there change shall take all its good things forward into fuller possession, and thus become a growing performance. The way to be sure of a permanent home is to keep fast hold of Him who is the same yesterday, today, and forever.
II. EXTENT. Our present life is related to it as that of childhood to manhood. Let us think of the dwelling of the child, where it looks from its little window on the few houses or fields which make up its world, and then let us compare it with what the man knows of his present world residence, when he has surveyed with his eye or his mind the breadth of the earth with its oceans and lands that stretch over continents by Alps and Andes. There enter at the wicket gate Christiana and also the children, many Ready-to-halts and Feeble-minds, and far-off pilgrims, for whom we can find no names, but who are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life. Infants are carried through the door sleeping; and it is not for us to say by what far-off rays in dark nights, by what doubtful paths amid many imperfections, hearts have been yearning to this home. The notices of Rahab and Ruth, of Ittai and Naaman, of the wise men of the East, and the Greeks who came up to the Passover, of the Ethiopian eunuch and the devout Cornelius, are hints for the enlargement of our hopes about many who had the same yearning in their hearts, though they did not see the walls of any earthly Jerusalem. And, if we believe the Bible, there are long eras to run, when the flow shall be toward God more than it ever has been away from Him. And then there is to be a gathering together of all things in Christ, and the holy angels have relations to Him which will give them their share in His home. When we think of this, how the extent of the heavenly world grows I and the discoveries of science may help us to extend our hopes.
III. VARIETY. In all God’s works the many means the manifold.
IV. UNITY. These abodes of the future, manifold as they are, have walls around, and an over-arching roof, which make them one house, and that house a home. The chambers of a house have their communication with one another, and the heavenly world, wide as it is, shall have a unity of fellowship. In the present world the children of God are far apart, separated by the emergencies of life, by death, by misunderstandings and prejudices, by chills of heart and jealousies; and they rear their many little mansions, forgetful of the one house. The word of the Saviour promises a reversal of this long, sad history. Conclusion:
1. Something is needed to secure all this, and our Lord teaches us to carry to the thought of heaven a filial heart. It is “the Father’s” house. This is needed to make it a home in any sense; needed to give the heart rest either on earth or in heaven. Men who inquire into the facts and laws of the world, and find no God in it, have made themselves homeless. Men who have found human affection, but no God beneath it, have found only the shadow of a home. It is to teach us this that God has made a father’s love the bond of a true human household. If it were possible to enter heaven and find no Father there, heaven would be the grave of hope.
2. Our Lord has taught us to connect heaven with the thought of Himself--“My” Father’s house. Heaven is the house of Christ’s Father.
(1) It is as when a palace has been raised with all its rooms and their furniture complete, but it is dark or dimly seen by lights carried from place to place. The sun arises, and by the central dome the light is poured into all the corridors and chambers, and by the windows there are prospects over hill and valley and river. Christ is the sun of this house.
(2) If we think of its mansions, and wonder where the final resting place shall be, it is where Christ takes up His dwelling, “that they may be with Me where I am.”
(3) If we think of its extent and variety, our imagination might be bewildered, and our soul chilled by boundless fields of knowledge, which stir the intellect and famish the heart; but where He is, knowledge becomes the wisdom of love--the daylight softened; and a heart beats in the universe which throbs to its remotest and minutest fibre; for “in Him is life, and the life is the light of men.”
(4) If we think of heaven in its unity of fellowship, it is in Him that it is maintained and felt. “That they all may be one, as Thou, Father, art in Me,” etc.
(5) And if we think of a Father in heaven, it is Christ who has revealed Him. “No man hath seen God at any time,” etc.
(6) But beyond all this, it is Christ’s Father’s house because He alone is the way and the door to it. (J. Ker, D. D.)
Home in heaven
I. A DESCRIPTION OF HEAVEN.
1. A house, not a tent, put up today, and taken down to morrow; but the home we come to at the end of all our travels; fitted up for rest, security and enjoyment.
2. God’s own house. Not merely the place where His people are to dwell, but the place where He Himself dwells, and enjoys His unutterable happiness and rest. It is not simply, “the kingdom”--it is “the palace of the great King.” What, therefore, we may ask, may we not expect in heaven? We do not go there as strangers or foreigners; we go to the richest house in the universe as the children of the owner of it. The very best things it can afford will be ours. The astonished prodigal had the best provisions, and the best robe, brought forth for him, when he got home.
3. A house with “many mansions” in it, large, spacious, having many rooms, fitted up for the reception of many guests.
II. AN ASSURANCE OF ITS TRUTH.
1. Here is greatness. He speaks of heaven as none other: like One who had been familiar with it.
2. Here, too, is His love; “If it were not so, He would have told them.” They had left all to follow Him, with some earthly expectations, perhaps, but yet chiefly in the expectation of a future recompense.
III. THE END OF OUR LORD’S DEPARTURE TO THE HEAVEN HE HAS BEEN DESCRIBING. And here is love again. Had we been asked what He was going to heaven for, we should have said--To get away from this evil world; to enter into His joy, etc. But He says, No; “I go there to prepare a place for you.” He left His Father’s house for us; He now returns to it for us. By this we must understand, not His creating heaven for us, or enlarging or adorning it, but removing out of the way all things which would prevent our entering into it. He goes there to prove our title to it; to show, in His wounded hands and pierced side, that He has paid for us its stipulated price. He goes to claim it on our behalf; to take possession of it in our name and stead. Hence He is said to have entered it as our Forerunner.
IV. THE WAY IN WHICH CHRIST WILL PUT US IN POSSESSION OF THE HEAVEN HE HAS PREPARED FOR US. “He will send death to us,” you may say, “to summon us to His kingdom.” No: “I will come again, and receive you unto Myself, that where I am, there ye may be also.” It does not satisfy Him to snatch us from destruction, to open heaven for us, to bring us into the way to it, to make us meet for it; He will come Himself, and take us to it. And when we are there, He will not say--“There is the door of My Father’s house open for you; you may now enter in;” He will not leave angels to welcome us, or our holy ministers and friends, who have gone before, to receive us; He Himself will come like a parent to his door to receive there his long expected and beloved child. He seems to regard this as the very summit of the heavenly happiness. And so every real believer feels that nothing higher can be promised him, than that he should “be ever with his Lord.” (C. Bradley, M. A.)
Heaven the Christian’s home
It is impossible wholly to estimate the value of the gospel. It is not only that it brings the knowledge of salvation to us; but it makes revelations that no other book on earth ever made with reference to a future state of existence.
I. You find in the text, then, first, the idea of COMFORT. You will remark that it was Christ’s intention, by this description of heaven, to administer comfort to the disciples. Then mark the consolations of religion, and the consolatory hope of heaven, belong to a certain class--to those that believe in God and believe also in Christ. But now, what is the comfort that the idea of a father’s house, or home, conveys to the mind? First of all, Christ speaks of His Father’s house, and therefore we call it our Father’s house--just because he says, “My Father and your Father, my God and your God.” Of all the ideas of comfort that we can form, “home” conveys the sweetest.
1. Now the first thing that strikes us here is a wonder certainly--but it is the truth--that we shall feel perfectly at home in our Father’s house. When we think of our own weakness and sinfulness here, and then think of the glory of God, the glory of Christ, the glory of angels, and the glory of the spirits of just men made perfect, it requires no slight effort of mind to fancy that we shall be at home there: but we shall.
2. To constitute a home there must be familiarity and confidence. We can talk with the folks at home with a confidence that we cannot use towards strangers. Now imagine yourself in familiar conversation, in love, with patriarchs, and with prophets, and with Christ Himself--for He will be there. It requires an elevation of faith and confidence, and spirituality of mind.
3. But, of course, this supposes another thing with regard to home--that it is all love there. Here we are strangers--it may be, perhaps, surrounded by enemies; there all is love. Evil tempers, crabbed dispositions, restless fretfulness, that even some good men manifest, will not be there. There will be perfect love; and everyone will wear a cheerful countenance; and it will be a glorious home. Well, that is what you are to think about; that is what it will be. Don’t let your hearts be troubled. If troubles come, think of your home, as a stranger does who has long journeyed, and not had a very comfortable berth to rest in at night.
II. In the second place, we have the idea of PERMANENCE. There is a permanence about heaven that we can well understand, if we cannot fully comprehend.
1. The first thing is this, that when we get there nobody can turn us out again.
2. Then you will further observe, that as to this permanence, there will be ample sources of joy for us throughout eternity.
III. The third idea in our text is PREPARATION. Observe it is prepared for us, and the preparation is made by Christ Himself. And you will notice that preparation made for us testifies to the kindness and love of Him who prepares it.
1. Now whilst this shows the love of Christ to His people, the simple fact of His going to prepare a place for us you see involves too His knowledge of our love to Him. It is really as though He had said, “Heaven won’t be a complete home to Me till you are there, and I am sure it will not be to you till I am there; we must be together.”
2. But, moreover, this preparation shows the adaptation of our present state to that home that He is gone to prepare for us. “He that hath wrought us for the self-same thing is God, who bath also given us the earnest of the Spirit.”
IV. But in the next place we have the idea of RECEPTION. “I will come again and receive you unto Myself, that where I am there ye may be also.” You immediately catch the idea of home here. The reception one will meet with from wife and children is one of the delightful anticipations of returning home. The moment the spirit is out of the body the first object on which it will fix its sight is Christ, with smiles on His face and glory on His brow. For, mark you, Christ would not trust the safety of one of His redeemed spirits in the hands of all the angels of heaven. He will be there Himself to take care of it. We do not know what death is: He does. Observe, there is a two-fold reception which Christ will give us--first, that which we may call our personal reception in heaven; and next that public, glorious reception that He will give us at the last great day, when He shall come a second time without sin unto salvation.
V. Now, in the last place, here is CERTAINTY. “If it were not so, I would have told you.”
1. Christ is already there in possession.
2. Next, Christ says He would have told us if there had been no heaven. Further, our hopes of heaven should guard us against two evils that we are subject to. The first is that which Christ has set before you. Don’t be unduly troubled about earthly things. Then, on the other hand, do not be too delighted with earthly things. (J. Carter.)
Heaven--home
Someone asked a Scotchman if he was on his way to heaven. “Why, man,” he said, “I live there.” He was only a pilgrim here. Heaven was his home. (D. L. Moody.)
Heaven--home
Death came unexpectedly to a man of wealth, as it almost always does; and he sent out for his lawyer to draw his will. He went on willing away his property; and when he came to his wife and child, he said he wanted his wife and child to have the home. The little child didn’t understand what death was. She was standing near, and she said, “Papa, have you got a home in that land you are going to?” The arrow reached that heart; but it was too late. He saw his mistake. He had got no home beyond the grave.
Heaven--home
“Home”--oh, how sweet is that word! What beautiful and tender associations cluster thick around it! Compared with it, house, mansion, palace, are cold, heartless terms. But “home!” that word quickens the pulse, warms the heart, stirs the soul to its depths, makes age feel young again, rouses apathy into energy, sustains the sailor in his midnight watch, inspires the soldier with courage on the field of battle, and imparts patient endurance to the worn-down sons of toil. The thought of it has proved a sevenfold shield to virtue: the very name of it has been a spell to call back the wanderer from the paths of vice. And far away, where myrtles bloom and palm trees wave, and the ocean sleeps upon coral strands, to the exile’s fond fancy it clothes the naked rock, or stormy shore, or barren moor, or wild highland mountain, with charms he weeps to think of, and longs once more to see. Grace sanctifies these lovely affections, and imparts a sacredness to the homes of earth by making them types of heaven. As a home the believer delights to think of it. Thus, when lately bending over a dying saint, and expressing our sorrow to see him lay so low, with the radiant countenance rather of one who had just left heaven than of one about to enter it, he raised and clasped his hands, and exclaimed in ecstasy, “I am going home.” (T. Guthrie.)
Heaven, our home
In our last dreadful war the Federals and the Confederates were encamped on opposite sides of the Rappahannock, and one morning the brass band of the Northern troops played the national air, and all the Northern troops cheered and cheered. Then, on the opposite side of the Rappahannock, the brass band of the Confederates played “My Maryland” and “Dixie,” and then all the Southern troops cheered and cheered. But after a while one of the bands struck up “Home, Sweet Home,” and the band on the opposite side of the river took up the strain, and when the tune was done the Confederates and the Federals all together united, as the tears rolled down their cheeks, in one great “Huzza! huzza!” Well, my friends, heaven comes very near today. It is only a stream that divides us--the narrow stream of death; and the voices there and the voices here seem to commingle, and we join trumpets and hosannahs and hallelujahs, and the chorus of the united song of earth and heaven is, “Home, Sweet Home.” (T. De Witt Talmage, D. D.)
A good home to go to
Mr. Mead, an aged Christian, when asked how he did, answered, “I am going home as fast as I can, as every honest man ought to do when his day’s work is over, and I bless God I have a good home to go to.”
Nearing home
It was stormy from shore to shore, without a single fair day. But the place to which we were going was my home; there was my family; there was my church; there were my friends, who were as dear to me as my own life. And I lay perfectly happy in the midst of sickness and nausea. All that the boat could do to me could not keep down the exultation and joy which rose up in me. For every single hour was carrying me nearer and nearer to the spot where was all that I loved in the world. It was deep, dark midnight when we ran into Halifax. I could see nothing. Yet the moment we came into still water I rose from my berth and got up on deck. And as I sat near the smoke stack while they were unloading the cargo, upon the wharf I saw the shadow of a person, apparently, going backward and forward near me. At last the thought occurred to me, “Am I watched?” Just then the person addressed me, saying, “Is this Mr. Beecher?” “It is,” I replied. “I have a telegram for you from your wife.” I had not realized that I had struck the continent where my family were. There, in the middle of the night, and in darkness, the intelligence that I had a telegram from home--I cannot tell you what a thrill it sent through me! We are all sailing home; and by and by, when we are not thinking of it, some shadowy thing (men call it death), at midnight, will pass by, and will call us by name, and will say, “I have a message for you from home; God waits for you.” Are they worthy of anything but pity who are not able to bear the hardships of the voyage? It will not be long before you, and I, and every one of us will hear the messenger sent to bring us back to heaven. It is pleasant to me to think that we are wanted there. I am thankful to think that God loves in such a way that He yearns for me--yes, a great deal more than I do for Him. (H. W. Beecher.)
Diverted from thoughts of home
Why do we not go home? Why are we like a silly child, that when his father sends him forth, and bids him hie him home again, every flower that he meets with in the field, every sign he sees in the street, every companion that meets him in the way, stops him, and hinders him from repairing to his father? So it is with us for the most part: every trifle, every profit, every bauble, every matter of pleasure, every delight, is enough to divert and turn aside our thoughts from death, from home, from heaven, from our God; and we are taken up and lose ourselves, I know not where. (R. Sibbes, D. D.)
Heaven
I. THE UNIVERSAL HEAVEN OF THE GOOD--“Father’s house.” It is a scene of
1. Family life. It is the “Father’s house.”
(1) It is a large family. “An innumerable company of angels,” “thrones, principalities,” etc.
(2) A holy family. All are pure, free from selfishness, from error and sin.
(3) A harmonious family. Though mixed and of vast gradations they are all united in thought, sympathy, and aim.
(4) An undying family.
(5) An ever-increasing family.
2. Undoubted reality. “If it were not so, I would have told you.” It is no poet’s dream, no fictitious realm.
(1) He is too intelligent to be mistaken. He knows every part of the universe.
(2) He is too truthful to misrepresent. In Him there is no motive to deceive.
(3) He is too kind to delude.
II. THE SPECIAL HEAVEN OF CHRIST’S DISCIPLES. “I go to prepare a place for you.” (D. Thomas, D. D.)
The holy habitation of heaven
I. HEAVEN IS THE HOUSE OF OUR FATHER AND UNITES ALL THE ASSOCIATIONS OF FILIAL HAPPINESS AND REVERENT DEVOTION. The relationship of family is supposed by the scheme of our redemption. Sin is alienating; but we are made nigh by the blood of Christ, and our consequent fellowship is with the Father and His Son Jesus Christ. A childlike title and a child-like temper are the results: “Now are we the sons of God,” and home is the abode of children. Touching are the thoughts of home: what is the home of heaven?
1. Quiet and repose. We are wanderers on earth. “Without are fightings, within are fears.” But soon shall we toil no more. The days of our mourning shall be ended. We shall come to our Father’s house in peace.
2. Confidence. Look at the home-born child. When danger threatens, home is the bulwark: when affliction weeps, this is the asylum. It is this assuredness which is the secret of all earthly satisfaction and peace. Yet is it not always to be cherished, it may not be invariably justified. Suspicion coils like a serpent about each flower of existence; or, like a lurking poison, taints all its springs. But with what strictest security does all the happiness of heaven rise on our view! Nothing maketh a lie. Thieves do not break through and steal. There is no more death.
3. Concord. Nevertheless a house may be divided against itself. But the inhabitants of that house are “made perfect in one.” They have one heart. They see eye to eye. If we too much forget to ask each other while here below, “Have we not all one Father?”--the remembrance of that truth will ever be vivid and efficacious in our “Father’s house.”
4. Sympathy.
5. Improvement. This is the true sphere of education. But during our moral state, however matured our powers and enlarged our attainments, we “speak as a child,” etc. In heaven we “shall put away childish things.” In that light we shall see light.
6. Content and happiness.
7. But it is not only our Father’s house in the associations of a home, it is the consecrated receptacle of His worship. And these ideas are not incompatible. For, to the Christian’s perception and taste, what can make heaven more delightful, in addition to its illustration as a home, than that this home shall be devoted, with the family which fills it, to the high praises of our Father in heaven? The votary is the child! The child is the votary! Pilgrim never touched more reverently the dreadful shrine: son never more joyously bounded upon the paternal threshold. With this double intention, of resting in a home and of ministering in a sanctuary, he exclaims: “I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”
II. IN THIS HOUSE OF HOME AND TEMPLE THERE ARE MANY MANSIONS. And thus are we taught that the greatest amplitude consists with the strictest unity, that though the mansions are numerous the house is one. And thus, also, we learn that there is no monotony in that blessed state. There is order in the harmony of difference, and the distribution of the mansions completes the identity of the house. Meditating, then, on this multiform glory, what do we ascertain of the blessed immortals?
1. The immensity of their number. Heaven once suffered a vast depopulation. The influence of the catastrophe we cannot determine. There was a strange vacancy amidst those groves: untrodden paths and ungathered fruits. But that heaven might not always remain thus diminished, it was arranged that beings who had themselves lapsed, and whom a most stupendous salvation should rescue from all their guilt and rebelliousness and ruin, should constitute an incomputable augmentation over the deficiency and loss. There was a wonder in heaven. Meek and humble, there bent before the Divine Majesty a solitary human spirit. It sung, but it was a lonely song. It gazed, but its eye rested upon nothing like itself. Up from this world another and another sprung. He the solitary was set in a family. The question of preponderance, in the number of the saved over that of the lost, might now be properly argued.
(1) The proportion of infant death, the certainty of infant salvation, furnish us with most pleasant grounds on which to rest the argument.
(2) The design of punishment comprehends warning, and we may presume without irreverence, this purpose being revealed, that the good of the majority is sought, and that they who perish form a very inferior proportion to those who are saved.
(3) There are certain implications concerning these ratios which we cannot overlook. Sometimes they are equal. “Five of them were wise and five were foolish.” In other instances there is an encouraging difference. Two of the servants, among three, are “good and faithful:” the third alone is “wicked and unprofitable.” Still higher is placed that relative state: “the wedding is furnished with guests,” all duly apparelled and royally approved, and only one is without the qualifying badge.
(4) Christianity, as the reign of grace, asserts its purpose and pledges its supremacy. “Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound.” Shall sin predominate and proclaim more victims than this grace can enumerate subjects?
(5) Models of prayer are instituted for us. “Let all the people praise Thee.” “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” These anticipations are, then, assured possibilities: we are taught to seek them with believing expectation.
(6) A glorious sequel to our earth’s dark history is foretold. “The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our God and of His Christ.”
2. The inequality of their glory. Where there are rewards, there must be differences. They suppose adaptation and adjustment to every form and habit of excellence. “He which soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly,” etc. This man has been like a continued sigh and aspiration and panting after holiness. That man, truly sincere, has pursued a far less devoted course. These could not enjoy the same portion. Nor is there a supposeable alternative, save that all were forcibly, mechanically, conformed to one standard. There would be, then, a necessity to lower as well as to raise, to repress as well as to expand. The first process would be unjust, however the second might be gracious. The speed of a zealous life would give no advantage in the immortal race. Yet if these inequalities exist, some think they must engender envy. Is it necessarily thus even in this imperfect state of ours? Charity envieth not, etc. In heaven nothing is loved but holiness, and the highest holiness is loved the most.
3. The diversity of their character. The modifications of the regenerated soul are not fewer and less notable than those of the soul unrenewed. And who does not rejoice in this difference of mental powers and habits, this diversity of gifts and graces, during the earthly exhibition? In heaven our nature has not perished: our being is only fulfilled. All of it is brought out and glorified. What pleasure to search through these “many mansions” and to find every form of worth and might, every species of intellectual activity and spiritual perfection, all endlessly, as actually, Variegated, multiplied, and combined!
4. The transition of their employment. One investigation, unchequered and unrelieved, strains the mind. One enjoyment, unvaried, and undiverted, cloys. The glorified spirit may, therefore, not only find its mansion, but be free of the many mansions. Thus may it renew its youth and recreate its immortality. Now shall it offer praise. It bends in adoring contemplation. It sees the King in His beauty. It exercises itself in the research of wonder and mystery. It cultivates communion with all other heavenly spirits. What may not angels, who have ministered to the heirs of salvation, tell of their knowledge and their experience? What saints are there, and we shall recognize them. And are we not then to be still more filled with the love of God, more delineated with the image of Christ, more imbued with love for all saints? and then each effort brings its repose. “They rest not,” and in that ceaselessness of activity is their rest.
6. The regularity of their arrangement. In this “great house,” every “vessel,” all “sanctified and meet for the Master’s use,” has its valuation and its function. There is the mansion
(1) Of the patriarchs, their thoughts still full of sacrifice.
(2) Of the prophets, singing still as in their choir!
(3) Of the apostles, pointing still to the atoning Lamb!
(4) Of the martyrs, as new baptised from the flames!
(5) Of faithful ministers, discriminating among the throng those who are their glory and their crown!
(6) Of pious parents, their solicitudes fulfilled and their prayers answered in the conversion of their offspring!
(7) Of self-sacrificing missionaries, as on set thrones, surrounded by their converts. “Yet there is room.” But there is in these orders nothing repulsive, arrogant, or humiliating; all is one; one happy family!
6. The series of their progression. The tendencies and yearnings of the human mind are towards an indefinite life and advancement. These keep us restless and dissatisfied while we are in our sins: these excite us to follow on to know the Lord, when we receive the grace of God. If there was a point in our existence beyond which we could learn nothing further and enjoy nothing more, that would be the limit of well-being. Our misery, instead of being lessened by what we had acquired, would be unspeakably aggravated. It would be like an ascent to some everlasting hill to gaze for first and for last our full of the glorious land, not then to die amidst the rapture, but to be doomed to life beneath the sudden fall of an endless night. The stretch for these progressions is the duration of eternity! (R. W. Hamilton, D. D.)
Variety in heaven
A mother was standing by the dying bed of her little child. She tried to lead the child’s thoughts to heaven, and told her of how the city was of pure gold, of dazzling brightness. But the little one shuddered, and cried that the light would hurt her eyes. Then the mother told her of the choirs of angels, and the songs before the throne, and the child answered that the noise would make her headache. At last the mother took the moaning child to her breast, and as she nestled there, she said, “if heaven is like this, I am ready to go there.” For some there will be an existence of dazzling brightness, an existence full of grandeur and glory, like the sound of a mighty anthem; others, those who loved much, shall find, like St. John, their greatest joy in resting on the bosom of their Lord. (H. J. W. Buxton, M. A.)
Recognition in heaven
Not long ago I stood by the death bed of a little girl. Every fibre of her body and soul recoiled from the thought of death. “Don’t let me die,” she said; “don’t let me die. Hold me fast. Oh, I can’t go.” “Jenny,” I said, “you have two brothers in the other world, and there are thousands of tender-hearted people over there who will love you and take care of you.” But she cried out again despairingly, “Don’t let me go; they are strangers over there.” But even as she was pleading her little hands relaxed their clinging hold from my waist and lifted themselves eagerly aloft. Her face was turned upwards; but it was her eyes that told the story. They were filled with the light of Divine recognition. They saw something plainly that we could not see; and they grew brighter and brighter. “Mamma,” she said, “mamma, they are not strangers; I’m not afraid.” Her form relapsed upon the pillows, and she was gone. (Helen Williams.)
Not dead, but gone home
We lament for the dead, because we ourselves dread death. The physical instinct, wisely given for the preservation of life, is controlled but not destroyed by faith. Afflicted believers, your sorrows are only the discomforts of a journey, each stage of which, however rough the road and wild the weather, brings you nearer home. The darkness is only that of the tunnel through which you are hurrying, and the speck of light at the end is nearing and brightening as you speed onward to the eternal sunshine. Our Lord speaks of heaven as home--“My Father’s house.” What a contrast to the gorgeous imageryemployed by servants is this sublimely simple familiarity of the Son l Inspired men are overawed by the distant vision of the celestial city, with its pearly gates and streets of gold; as if a poor cottager, after visiting a royal palace, tried to describe the unimagined splendours of a place which members of the royal family simply knew as home. This was in harmony with His high claims of Deity! The disciples were not to be troubled on His account. Although betrayed, condemned, crucified, He was going home. They were not to be troubled for Him; and because of their intimate union with Him, they were not to be troubled for themselves. If heaven is Christ’s home, it is ours also. We are “joint heirs with Jesus Christ.” What hallowed associations are suggested by the word! Love makes home.
1. Home promises rest. There the wearied limbs or wearied brain repose after the day’s toil. “Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord; they rest from their labours.”
2. Home suggests fidelity. We may suspect deceit and treachery outside, but we can cast off all reserve, all distrust at home.
3. Home suggests sympathy. There may be enmity outside, avowed or concealed, and even friends may sometimes prove forgetful, selfish, and unkind; but true home is the palace of love, “where hearts are of each other sure.” But the purest of earthly homes are but faint types of that above. There every heart is wholly true to every other, being wholly true to God.
4. It is a permanent home; mansions, not movable tents, but an enduring habitation. “We know that when this earthly tabernacle is dissolved we have a building of God.” How unlike the uncertainty of earthly things! The lake, reflecting from its unruffled surface the sky and stars, may, in one short hour, be wild with storms. The stream, which oft refreshed us, suddenly becomes dry. The fairest flowers droop even as we gaze on them. The loveliest homes are quickly broken up. No locks and bolts can shut out sickness and death.
5. And there is abundance of supply. There are “many mansions.” The Father’s house is large enough for all His children--vast as His own heart.
6. Number implies variety. The mansions are not uniform, though all are perfect. They are prepared for dwellers of varied capacity--for children and young men, for babes in Christ and for those of full age.
7. These hopes are not visionary. “If it were not so, I would have told you.” The disciples had forsaken all to follow Him. They loved their Lord, and knew He loved them. Could such love perish? They expected a kingdom; and as it was not to be earthly, it must be heavenly. Would Christ allow them to serve Him as they did, on false expectations? He did contradict their expectation of a temporal kingdom--would He not have contradicted this heavenly hope had it also been unfounded? O believer, your hope is no idle dream! That city does glow with splendour. “If it were not so, I would have told you.” St. Paul says, “We are of good courage, and are willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be at home with the Lord” (R.V.) Death is only the migration of the soul from the fleshly tabernacle to the house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. We will not weep for them as dead. Is it death to reach home after the toilsome journey, to wear the crown after the fierce fight, to serve in the presence of the King, where there is fulness of joy? The funeral was only that of frailty, sorrow, and sin. A Christian in that coffin, in that grave? No! he is at home in the Father’s house. (N. Hall.)
Room for all saved sinners in heaven
There was a poor man who had been a long while burdened in spirit. One night he dreamed that he stood at the gates of heaven, longing to enter; but he are not, and could not, for sin had shut him out. At length he saw approaching the pearly gates a company of men who came on singing, dressed in white robes. So he stepped up to one of them, and said, “Who are you?” And they replied, “We are the goodly fellowship of the prophets.” He said, “Alas! I cannot enter with you.” And he watched them until they had passed the gates, and he heard outside the voice of song as they were received with welcome. Cast down and troubled, he watched until he saw another company approach, and they came with music and rejoicing. He said to them, “Who are you?” and they replied, “We are the noble army of martyrs.” He said, “I cannot go with you; and when he heard the shouts a second time ascending from within the gates, his heart was heavy within him at the thought that it was not possible for him to enter there. Then came a third company, and he detected in the van the apostles, and after them there came mighty preachers and confessors of the Word. He said in his heart, “Alas! I cannot go with you, for I am no preacher, and I have done nothing for my Master.” His heart was ready to break, for they entered and were lost to his sight; and he heard the triumphant acclamations as the Master said, “Well done, enter into the joy of your Lord.” But as he waited, he saw a greater company approaching. He marked in the forefront Saul of Tarsus, Mary Magdalene, the thief that died upon the cross; and they came streaming on. So he said to one of them, “Who are ye?” And they replied, “We are a company of sinners whom no man can number, saved by blood, through the rich, free, sovereign grace of God.” Indeed, all the companies might have said the same, and the dream would have been more complete. But as this poor man, with the tears in his eyes, heard this word, he said, “Thank God, I can go with you, for I am a sinner like you, and like you I will trust in the merit of Him that died on Calvary.” So he joined their ranks, and was about to enter, but he said in his heart, “When we come there shall be no songs; they will admit us, but it will be in silence, for we bring no honour to God; we have done nothing for Him.” But to his surprise the acclaim was louder, the music was more melodious, and the shouts of acclamation were louder far, while they said, “Here are they who come to complete the number of the host whom Jesus bought with blood.” (C. H.Spurgeon.)
The parting consolation
Let us consider
I. THE TRUTH DECLARED. Consider the Father’s house
1. In its majesty and greatness. It is the abode of the great King; where He holds His court, surrounded by all the angels and sons of light.
2. In the right which our Lord here supposes we have to it, But how shall guilty and polluted man hope for admission there? His right is, it is Christ’s Father’s house. We go there by the invitation of the Lord of glory; we go there by the bidding of Him who is the Heir. “Ye are Christ’s.” “Heirs of God and joint heirs with Him.”
3. In the vastness of its dimensions. Christ, who will “bring many sons into glory,” hath for these sons many prepared and furnished mansions. Christ’s mansions, like Christ’s heart, will be found to be full and large, and ready to embrace every humble, penitent and believing soul.
4. In its everlastingness. “Hitherto ye have dwelt in tabernacles; then ye shall enter into the everlasting mansions,” into “a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.”
5. In its unfailing certainty. “If it were not so, I would have told you.”
II. THE PURPOSE AVOWED. To “prepare a place.” Were not those bright walls built before the birth of time? Did not the turrets of those everlasting mansions glitter before the first sun rose upon the hills? Yes, but these mansions were prepared for men who knew no sin. Our Lord says, “I am going, so that when these seats are sprinkled with My sacrificial blood, and when your hearts are sprinkled with that blood too, He that sanctifieth and they that are sanctified, being all one, may sit down together, and I go to keep possession, to preserve the place in continual readiness for your arrival.”
III. THE ASSURANCE GIVEN. “I will come again,” etc. See how large and full is the love of Christ. After having shown us the house, and opened the house, and prepared the house, will He then leave us to ourselves to come afterwards? No; He says--“I will come and fetch you. Will forsake the companionship of these immortals that now surround Me, ‘and I will come and receive you unto Myself.’”
IV. THE CONSUMMATION TO BE ATTAINED. “That where I am, there ye may be also.” (D. Moore, M. A.)
If it were not so, I would have told you
Christ’s appeal to His disciples’ confidence
We are eager for certainty, for reality. In the hour of a bitter loss the heart refuses fictitious comfort, for sorrow makes men wonderfully real.
I. CHRIST ANNOUNCES HIS KNOWLEDGE OF THE FACTS. These are remarkable words in many aspects, but particularly so in that they imply a full knowledge of the secrets of another world. It was just the truth we should suppose a good, loving, tender God would be anxious to make known to the myriads of His children who were treading every hour the sad pathway of death.
II. CHRIST APPEALS TO HIS KNOWN CHARACTER. He knew that the disciples to whom He spoke could not point to any incident in His intercourse with them which would justify a doubt of His perfect truthfulness. Further, Christ was not only truthful, but He was too good to deceive them. It is possible for a man to be sternly, rigidly true, and yet not be good in the large sense of that word. We have known men who would scorn to utter a lie or to draw a false picture, but they were not kind, gentle, compassionate, sympathizing men.
III. CHRIST SEEKS THE CONFIDENCE OF HIS DISCIPLES. If I speak to any doubter who has long struggled in the midst of perplexities, these words are for you. Could He deceive any soul, however humble, on a matter of such supreme importance? (W. Braden.)
The silence of Scripture
1. A familiar proverb says “Speech is silvern, but silence is golden.” Thoughts are often best expressed by silent acts than words. A grasp of the hand, a glance of the eye may stir us more than a trumpet peal. Christ looked at Peter.
2. Written revelation has its necessary limitations. Only essential truths are given. Much is left to inference. But silence is a source of pain and in no subject more than the future life.
I. LET US SEE THIS RETICENCE OF SCRIPTURE AS CARRIED INTO OTHER TRUTHS.
1. God’s sovereignty and man’s responsibility. We can deny neither; history proves both. For their reconciliation we must wait.
2. The Resurrection. Reason is staggered and asks, “How are the dead raised?” We cannot explain the process. But God’s power is adequate. The darkness is not with God but with us.
3. The proofs of the existence of a personal God, The Bible simply assumes His existence. But we know that our watch must have had a maker. This we believe without referring to our ignorance of him. There must have been a Maker of the eye, whether we know Him or not.
II. FROM THIS THEME WE LEARN HOW TO INTERPRET GOD’S SILENCE.
1. It is God’s glory to conceal a matter.
2. Secret things belong to Him; things revealed to us and to our children.
3. We are to walk by faith not by sight.
4. We are indeed to dig and toil for truth, yet ever remember that there are depths we cannot now fathom.
5. All true science is humble, and the language of our faith should be, “Even so, Father, for so seemeth it good in Thy sight.” (D. Murdoch, D. D.)
Inferences from the silence of Christ
This is an appeal of Christ to His own truthfulness and love. He could not allow His disciples to remain victims of delusion. He had often wounded them by telling painful truths, and had their expectation of an immortal life been a mistaken one, He would most certainly have contradicted it. Our text, then, enunciates a grand principle. Christ made it a main part of His work to expose Jewish error. Whenever, therefore, He refrained from contradicting any deeply rooted belief, we have an argument for its truth. Apply this to
I. THE DOCTRINE OF OUR LORD’S DEITY. Christ was worshipped over and over again during His earthly ministry. We know that Peter (Acts 10:26) and the angel (Revelation 22:9) shrunk from such homage; but Jesus never did. When His enemies accused Him of making Himself equal with God He did not repel the charge. Meek and lowly as He was, He accepted all the worship men offered, Had He not been Divine would He not have told us?
II. THE AUTHENTICITY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. This the destructive criticism of our time denies. Now remember that to the Jews were “committed the oracles of God,” and they were conspicuously faithful to their trust. But Christ never questioned the purity and integrity of the ancient scriptures. He held them in the deepest reverence, referred to all classes of facts recorded in them, set His seal to minor incidents, encouraged the people to search them, declared that they could not be broken, and that not one jot or tittle should fail. What a gulf between Christ’s criticism and that of the modem school! Had the latter been correct, how is it that He, “the Truth,” did not tell the world so? We need not fear, therefore, any of the lower or higher criticism of our day.
III. THE PERPETUITY OF THE SABBATH LAW. That the weekly Day of Rest was not a mere Jewish institution is proved from its position in the Decalogue, and from the design of God in appointing it. And had it been abrogated, or if it was to have no place in the Christian code of ethics, would not Jesus have told us? He often had to deal with the question of Sabbath observance, and to correct the rabbinical interpretations of the Fourth Commandment; but never did He drop a single word to countenance the idea that the Sabbath law was not to remain in force. On the contrary, He claimed to be Lord of the Sabbath. He found the Sabbath a standing Divine ordinance, and left it such only freshened with the dew of His blessing.
IV. MAN’S HOPE OF IMMORTALITY. Thoughtful men in every age have cherished this. Socrates held the doctrine, but admitted that a good deal could be said against it. In the oldest scriptures we find deep yearnings, and over against them hopes very distinct and definite (Job 14:14-15; Job 19:25-27). We learn from what our Lord said to the Sadducees, that the doctrine was from the beginning part of the faith of God’s ancient people; and one of the purposes for which He came was to tell men that this was a reasonable hope. In the text He assumed that the disciples cherished it, and in words of deepest tenderness tells them that they are right. (C. Jerden, LL. B.)
Man’s hope of immortality uncontradicted by God
I. OUR POSITION TO GOD IS SIMILAR TO THAT IN WHICH THE DISCIPLES STOOD TO CHRIST--We are looking to Him for the fulfilment of hopes which reach beyond our present life.
1. It cannot be questioned that there is a deep and wide testimony in man’s nature to the existence of a God and of a future life.
(1) There is a dim token of a nature which seeks more than earth, in the manner in which earthly things are often pursued. The world cannot fill man’s soul, because it is greater than the world. The magnet in his heart can never rest till it points to its pole star.
(2) In his thirst for truth, in his faith in it, in his search after it as single and sovereign, there is a token of man’s origin and destiny.
(3) We all know men who have aims, more or less exalted, for which they are ready to give time and labour and endless anxiety without even any hope that they themselves shall see the result. In this stretch of man’s soul beyond self there is a look of his nature beyond earthly limits.
(4) We can perceive the same in the conception men have of an ideal of perfection, in their struggle to realize it, and in their deep lamentation over the imperfect and impure around them. The only sphere in which this yearning can be realized is immortality.
(5) It is discerned in all the religions which man has made for himself. We can see also, that, as religions rise in their perception of moral excellence, they become clear on this question. We have a right to say, further, that this hope is one of its greatest living forces. No one can read these parting words of Christ or the utterances of such men as Paul and John, without seeing that, wherever their religion goes, the conviction of an immortality goes with it as an all-pervading thought. Its martyrdoms and its missionary efforts are everywhere based upon it. It remains yet to be shown that any view of man, as possessed of a mere earthly life, will lead to the suffering and labour which the gospel has called forth in the cause of humanity. I know that it is the fashion of some to speak of the hope of immortality as selfish. But it is surely worthy of consideration, that the religion which of all others is most disinterested in its morality, which founds its motives on love, is that one also which looks most clearly and steadily into an eternal life, and that its central act is a sacrifice unto death, which becomes the spring and birth of numberless immortalities.
2. If in these hopes and aspirations men were deceived, and were appealing to the Author of their being, so widely and so constantly, for the fulfilment of what He never intends to bestow, then--in some distinct way or other--by some voice from heaven, or some prevailing voice of reason in their own hearts--we might justly conclude that He would act on this principle--“If it were not so, I would have told you.”
II. THE SAME CONSIDERATIONS WHICH WOULD HAVE LED CHRIST TO UNDECEIVE HIS DISCIPLES, HAD THEY BEEN IN ERROR, APPLY TO GOD IN HIS POSITION TO US.
1. Those which lie in God’s own character.
(1) His truthfulness. A genuine nature will shun not merely active falsehood, but silent connivance with it.
(2) His justice. It would have impelled Christ to undeceive His disciples, had He known their hopes to be vain. For these hopes they were exposing themselves to hardship and scorn, and were ready to suffer a cruel and untimely death. It was right that the terms should be before them, and that Christ should not accept their services and sufferings on a false presumption. If Divine equity can have the law of the universe move on amid a perpetual delusion, and be subserved by it, then God’s justice is something else than the image of it which He has formed within us.
(3) His goodness. If this life were indeed all, would not that goodness bring man’s wishes within the circle of his brief existence, and not suffer him to tantalize himself with the lights and shadows, the hopes and fears, of an eternity which shall never dawn!
2. Those which lie in the relation which exists between God and His human creatures.
(1) That of Teacher. Christ had led His disciples to look to Him for instruction in all the great interests of life. He would have convinced them that the desire was unreasonable, or He would have carefully guarded against exciting it.
(2) A higher relation is the drawing out of the heart’s affections. Christ’s words and conduct bound the disciples to Him irrevocably. Now, let us suppose for an instant, that, by some strange arrangement, immortality was for Him but not for them. Then the love had failed, not on the part of earth but heaven--not the mortal friend but the immortal Master would have been guilty of cold forgetfulness. And, if He meant never to meet its desire, would He not be allowing a love to spring up in the human heart, stronger and truer than His own, for man’s would be perpetually struggling to overpass death, while God’s would coldly yield to it?
(3) This relation of affection rises into the higher one of fellowship. The bond between Christ and His disciples, of mutual converse and appeal, finds its counterpart in the bond between God and many souls of men in this world. It is as strong a necessity--it is a stronger--for some men to speak to God, than it is for others to speak to their fellow creatures. Whence has come this spontaneous recourse to prayer, which withstands all arguments? If it is not God’s heart meeting man, it is man’s heart meeting God, and seeking a fellowship with his Maker, which cannot but be of His Maker’s prompting. And when, in the trust and joy of this fellowship, the soul looks forward to its continuance, can we believe that God would permit it, in this, to be forever deceived? Conclusion: Note
1. That God has contradicted this hope in the lower creatures, that is, He has not suffered it to spring up.
2. He has contradicted prevalent falsities in human nature in various ways. Apart from supernatural utterance, there is the progress of reason, the growth of conscience, the rise of the soul’s highest life, which make superstitions and immoralities that have covered whole ages and nations to pine and die. In these ways He tells man what is false; but here it is in proportion as the soul grows and sin dies, that this hope increases, and it is strongest when we find our highest intuitions answered in the light and life of God. (J. Ker, D. D.)
I go to prepare a place for you
The Forerunner
1. What Divine simplicity and depth are in these words! The emblem is homely, the thing meant is transcendent.
2. Not less wonderful is the blending of majesty and lowliness. The office which He takes upon Himself is that of an inferior and a servant. And yet the discharge of it, in the present case, implies His authority over every corner of the universe.
3. Nor can we fail to notice the blending of another pair of opposites, His certainty of His impending death, and His certainty, notwithstanding and thereby, of His continual work and His final return.
I. THE DEPARTURE. Our Lord’s going away from that little group was a journey in two stages. Calvary was the first; Olivet was the second. He means by the phrase the whole continuous process.
1. He prepares a place for us by His death. The High Priest of old once a year was privileged to pass into the holiest, because he bore in his hand the blood of the sacrifice. But in our New Testament system the path into the holiest is made possible for every foot, because Jesus has died. And as the communion upon earth, so the perfecting of the communion in the heavens. Old legends tell us of magic gates that resisted all attempts to force them, but upon which, if one drop of a certain blood fell, they flew open. And so, by His death, Christ has opened the gates and made the heaven of perfect purity a dwelling place for sinful men.
2. He prepares a place for us by His entrance into and His dwelling in the heavenly places.
(1) If Christ had not ascended, would there have been “a place” at all? He has gone with a human body, which must be somewhere. And we may even say that His ascending up on high has made a place where His servants are.
(2) But apart from that we may see that Christ’s presence in the heavens is needful to make heaven a heaven for poor human souls. It is from Him and through Him that there come to men, whether on earth or in the heavens, all that they know, all that they hope, all that they enjoy of the wisdom, love, beauty, peace, power, which flow from God. The very glories of all that lies beyond the veil would have an aspect appalling and bewildering to us, unless our Brother were there. Like some poor savages brought into a great city, or rustics into the presence of a king and his court, what should we do unless we saw standing there our Kinsman, to whom we can turn, and who makes it possible for us to feel that that is home?
3. Not only did He go to prepare a place, but He is continuously preparing it for us all through the ages. We have to think of a double form of the work of Christ.
(1) Past in His earthly life, and present in His exaltation.
(2) Present with and in us here, and for us there.
(3) In the heavens--His priestly intercession and His preparing a place for us.
II. THE RETURN. The purpose of our Lord’s departure, as set forth by Himself here, guarantees for us His coming back again. He who went away as the Forerunner has not done His work until He comes back, and, as Guide, leads those for whom He had prepared the place to the place which He had prepared for them. That return, like the departure, may be considered as in two stages
1. The main meaning is that final and personal coming which stands at the end of history. And He will come as He went, a visible Manhood, only throned amongst the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. This return ought to be the prominent subject of Christian aspiration and desire. We have a double witness to bear. One half stretches backwards to the Cross and proclaims “Christ has come”; the other reaches onwards to the Throne and proclaims “Christ will come.”
2. But Scripture knows of many comings of the Lord preliminary to, and in principle one with, His second coming. For nations, all great crises of their history are “comings of the Lord,” the Judge. And in reference to individuals, we see in each single death a true coming of the Lord. Beyond all secondary causes, deeper than disease or accident, lies the loving will of Him who is the Lord of life and of death. Death stands amidst the ranks of the “ministering spirits sent forth to minister to them that shall be heirs of salvation.” Whensoever a Christian man lies down to die, Christ says, “Come!” and he comes. How that thought should hallow the death chamber as with the print of the Master’s feet! How it should quiet our hearts and dry our tears! With Him for our companion the lonely road will not be dreary. The dying martyr beneath the city wall lifted up his face to the heavens and said, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit!” It was the echo of the Master’s promise: “I will come again and receive you to Myself.”
III. THE PERFECTED UNION. The departure and the return are stages in the process, which is perfected by complete union--“that where I am there ye may be also.” Christ is Heaven. To be with Him is to behold His glory. And to behold His glory, as John tells us in his epistle, is to be like Him. So Christ’s presence means the communication to us of all the lustre of His radiance, of all the whiteness of His purity, of all the depth of His blessedness, and of a share in His wondrous dominion. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)
The prepared place
There are two remarkable things about Christ’s statement.
1. That the Master should prepare for the servant. But this is in keeping with Christ’s whole method.
2. That the Divine Christ should ever have occasion to prepare anything. Can He who fills eternity have anything to arrange for His servants? The answer is, that Christ accommodates Himself to our way of thinking. There are some things which the Master only can do. We can do one hundred and fifty little things, and double that, and get the notion that we can do anything. But go and prepare summer! You have seen half a hundred: try and make the fifty-first! If the servant cannot prepare the summer, how can he prepare heaven? The text gives three comforting and inspiring views of the Christian’s position and destiny
I. HE IS THE OBJECT OF CHRIST’S ZEALOUS AND TENDER CARE “For you;” and Paul catching his Master’s tone said, “All things are yours.” Yet we hang our heads and cry as though we had nothing unless we could lace our fingers round it, not knowing that a man’s life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth. Wherever you find Christ you find Him working for His people. There is a beautiful necessity of love about this arrangement. For if He were to fail here--in training and sanctifying the Church--He would fail altogether. What if He has made countless millions of stars? Can they talk to Him? If He does not get us--poor, broken things--right into His heaven He has failed. This is the one work He set Himself to do.
II. CHRISTIANS ARE TO BE ETERNALLY HIS JOY. As for these heavens, He will one day dismiss them. He makes some things for the time being; but when we read of the place prepared for believers we have the idea of never-ending fellowship. All true life is in the heart. Love alone is immortal. God is love. Love it is which binds Christ and Christians. If we love Him we shall be with Him forever.
III. Seeing that all this is so, THE CHRISTIAN IS ENTITLED TO LOOK AT THE PRESENT THROUGH THE FUTURE. The Christian is not to be troubled, because in His Father’s house are many mansions. When you are weary of the present, look forward into the future. Conclusion: If Christ is gone to prepare a place for us, then
1. The place will be worthy of Himself. Send a poor creature, and the place will be prepared according to the capacity and resources of the messenger? What kind of place will He prepare, who has all things at command?
2. Christ is waiting for His guests. Bad man! God has prepared nothing for you. There is a place--but it was prepared, not for you, but for the devil and his angels. That is the only place He has to put you in. (J. Parker, D. D.)
Christ preparing a place for us
I. WE HAVE NO RIGHT TO HEAVEN BY NATURE (Ephesians 2:3).
II. NEITHER CAN WE HAVE RIGHT BUT BY CHRIST (Acts 4:12).
III. THIS TITLE CHRIST PURCHASED FOR US BY HIS DEATH (Mt Ruth 3:9; Ruth 3:12; Ruth 4:1).
IV. Having purchased it, HE GOES TO TAKE POSSESSION OF IT AND HAVE IT SURRENDERED TO HIM FOR OUR USE. (Hebrews 6:20).
V. Having taken possession of it in our names, HE PREPARES IT.
1. By getting us actually admitted or entitled to it; pleading (1 John 2:1)
(1) That our sins are pardoned (Isaiah 53:5-6).
(2) Our persons justified (2 Corinthians 5:21).
(3) Our lusts subdued (Romans 6:14).
2. By preparing us for it, by
(1) Enlightening our minds (John 3:8).
(2) Rectifying our wills.
3. Regulating our affections. (Bp. Beveridge.)
Christ gone to prepare a place for us
In the days before the railway showered its sparks upon the darkness of the wilderness, people put out on foot, or in slow cumbrous waggons, from our Eastern homes, and in the wild thickets of the far West sought to clear for their families a home. Ofttimes leaving their tender little ones in the New England village, with blanket, and gun, and axe, they dared the forest, terrible with bear’s bark, and panther’s scream, and the war whoop cry of scalping savages. After awhile the trees were felled, and the underbrush was burned, and the farm was cleared, and the house was built. Then word came back here, saying that everything was ready. The family would get into the waggon and start on at a slow pace for a very long journey. After awhile, some evening tide, the shout of recognition was heard, and by the fire of the great black log the newly-arrived would recount the exciting experiences of the way. Well, my friends, we are all about to become emigrants to a far country. This is no place for us to stay. Our Older Brother, Jesus, Him of the scarred brow and the blistered feet, has gone ahead to build our mansion and to clear the way for us, and He sends a letter back, saying He has it all ready; and I break the seal of that letter and read to you these words: “I go to prepare a place for you.” I might put it in another shape. A young man resolves to build a home for himself. He has pledged himself in one of the purest of earthly attachments. He toils no more for himself than for the one who will share with him the results of his industrious accumulation. After awhile the fortune is made, the house is built, the right hands are joined, the blessing is invoked, the joy is consummated. So Jesus, the lover of our souls, has been toiling to make a place for us. He is fitting up our mansion. He is gathering around it everything that can possibly enchant the soul, and after awhile he will say: “It is all ready now,” and He will reach down His hand and take up to His fair residence “the Church, which is the Lamb’s wife.” “I go to prepare a place for you.” (T. De Witt Talmage, D. D.)
Christ gone to prepare a place for us
I was visiting a friend some years ago, who had just built a new house. It was beautiful, useful. He took me upstairs. It had wardrobes, toilet glasses, books, and paintings. It was furnished grandly. And the father turned to me, and said, “This room is for our daughter. She is in Europe, she does not know we are arranging it. Her mother and I have fixed up everything we could think of for her. As soon as the house is fully finished, we are going to Europe to bring her back; and we are going to bring her upstairs, and open the door and say, ‘Daughter, this is yours.’ And I thought of the joy it would give her, and I thought, how kind these parents are! Just then I turned away and thought, That is what Jesus is doing for me. He says He is going away to prepare a place for me: he will come again, and receive me unto Himself. Then I thought, This father and mother are rich: but they have not all treasures, there are a great many things they do not know how to get. But Jesus, who is furnishing my mansion in glory, has everything. He has undertaken to furnish a place for me, and I shall be with Him forever. (C. S.Robinson, D. D.)
Heaven adapted to us by Christ
In the works of God I know nothing more beautiful than the perfect skill with which He suits His creatures to their condition. He gives wings to birds, fins to the fish, sails to the thistle seed, a lamp to light the glowworm, great roots to moor the majestic cedar, and to the aspiring ivy a thousand hands to climb the wall. Nor is the wisdom thus conspicuous in nature less remarkable and adorable as exhibited in the arrangements of the Kingdom of Grace. He forms a holy people for a holy state. He fits heaven for the redeemed, and the redeemed for heaven. (J. Guthrie, D. D.)
Christ preparing heaven for the believer
It was customary for travellers in those old days to send some of their party on in advance to find lodging and make arrangements for them in some great city. Many a time one or other of the disciples had been sent before His face into every place whither He Himself should come. Christ here takes that office on Himself. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)
If I go … I will come again and receive you unto Myself
Christ’s coming and our future fellowship with Him
I. THE DEATH OF A BELIEVER IS CHRIST’S COMING. At death their Saviour comes to fetch them away from this strange land; and thus
1. To rescue them from its numerous snares.
2. To deliver them from its multiplied sorrows. These are often owing
(1) To the conduct of its inhabitants. By far the greater part live in open rebellion against God.
(2) To the influence of worldly things on the mind.
(3) To the strength of sin that dwelleth in us.
(4) The temptations of Satan.
3. And He will thus show
(1) The strength of His affection.
(2) The tenderness of His sympathy.
II. HOW TO REGARD THE FUTURE BLESSEDNESS OF THOSE WHO BELIEVE IN JESUS. It is for them to be with Christ. (John 17:24). In that blessed land will the Saviour have all His followers dwell, because
1. They are united to Him (Hebrews 2:14-15).
2. They bear His image. They now seek and pray to resemble Him.
(1) In humility and meekness.
(2) In purity of heart and life.
(3) In uprightness and sincerity.
3. They delight in fellowship with Him. And as they are formed to this heavenly temper, now so in glory they will be received to this unspeakable felicity. They will there enjoy it
(1) Without suspicion. How often, through the strength of unbelief, does this find an entrance into the pious mind!
(2) Without interruption. Here it is indeed enjoyed, but how transient the season of enjoyment.
(3) Without end. There bliss will be no longer measured, as here, by days, or months, or years.
4. They may then be made perfect
(1) As a body. The Church is the body of Christ. It is a whole body, and not one of its members will be lost or overlooked in the great assembly of the whole.
(2) As a family. (J. Dorrington.)
Jesus comes
“He drew very near,” solemnly uttered a youthful believer within a few hours of death. “Who drew near?” anxiously inquired a friend who was present, fearful to hear her pronounce the word “death.” “Jesus,” she replied, with an unutterable earnestness of expression. “I felt just now as if He stood close beside me.” Soon after she was asked by her sister if she would like her to pray with her. She gladly assented. But while she prayed the countenance of the dying one changed, the expression of supplication was succeeded by one of adoring contemplation--it would have been rapture but for its perfect calm. A kind of glow suffused her features, then faded gradually away, and before that prayer was ended she was gone. Her “amen” to it was her first hallelujah in heaven. Jesus had “come again” and received her unto Himself. (New Testament Anecdotes.)
Christ will corse again
A minister once entered an almshouse of which an aged couple were the inmates. Beside a little round table sat the husband, and as he was very deaf his visitor shouted in his ear, “Well, Wisby, what are you doing?” “Waiting, sir.” “For what?” “For the appearing of my Lord.” “And what makes you wish for His appearing?” “Because I expect great things then.”
The saint’s best days to come
A young girl of fifteen, a bright, laughter loving girl, was suddenly cast upon a bed of suffering. Completely paralysed on one side and nearly blind, she heard the family doctor say to her friends, who surrounded her, “She has seen her best days, poor child!” “Oh no, doctor,” she exclaimed, “my best days are yet to come, when I see the King in His beauty.”
Death brings Christ and the soul together
very affecting account is given of the death of Williams of Wern. He had lost his wife some time before, and he and his daughter were dying together in different rooms of the same house. As he said to her one day, “We appear to be running, with contending footsteps, to be first at the goal.” They spent much time in talking together of death and heaven, and being “absent from the body, and present with the Lord.” Every morning as soon as he was up found him by the bedside of his daughter. “Well, Eliza, how are you this morning?” “Very weak, father.” “Ah!” said he, “we are both on the racecourse. Which of us, do you think, will get to the end first?” “Oh, I shall, father.” “Perhaps,” he said, “it is best that it should be so, for I am more able to bear the blow. But do you long to see the end of the journey?” “Oh, from my heart!” she replied. “But why?” “Because I shall see many of my old friends, and my mother: and above all, I shall see Jesus.” “Ah well, then,” he said, “tell them I am coming! Tell them I am coming!” She died first. He followed shortly after, in the fifty-ninth year of his age. With Christ--heaven:--A little negro boy, when on his death bed, was visited by a missionary, to whom he spoke of the happiness he felt, and the longing desire he had to be with Jesus. “I am going to heaven soon; and then I shall see Jesus, and be with Him forever,” said the little fellow. “But,” rejoined the missionary, “if Jesus were to leave heaven, what would you do?” “I would follow him,” replied the boy. “But suppose,” said the missionary, “Jesus went to hell: what would you do then?” In an instant, with an intelligent look and a smile on his countenance, he replied, “Ah, massa! there is no hell where Jesus is.” (S. M. Haughton.)
Christ the supreme attraction of heaven
Have you heard of the poor Chinaman in London? Walking along the streets of the metropolis in the fog and the drizzling rain, he was well-nigh breaking his heart with longing for his native land. One day, however, the sun rose brighter than usual, drove the clouds before him, and lifted the fog. Thereupon the little Chinaman cheered up amazingly. “Why, what is the matter with you today? what is the cause of your rejoicing?” asked an acquaintance. “What is the cause indeed,” replied the poor foreigner in broken English, pointing with his finger to the sky. “Don’t you see there? that is China’s sun?” and with the word he was dancing on the pavement like a delighted schoolboy. Everything else was strange to him--the streets, the inhabitants, the sceneries, and even the stars. The only thing he beheld in England that he had seen at home was the sun; and he felt comforted under the face of the same sun. Thus, when we go to eternity, things will appear very strange--the city with its golden streets, the inhabitants with palms in their hands, the sceneries “ever decked in living green.” But the same Sun shines there as here, and under its shining we shall feel all fear and tremor depart. The Sun of earth is the Sun of heaven, the Sun of Cardiff is the Sun of the New Jerusalem. (J. Cynddylan Jones, D. D.)
Acquaintances in heaven
“When I was a boy,” said a minister, “I thought of heaven as a great shining city, with vast walls and domes and spires, and with nobody in it except white tenuous angels, who were strangers to me. By and by my little brother died, and I thought of a great city with walls, and domes, and spires, and a flock of cold, unknown angels, and one little fellow that I was acquainted with. He was the only one I knew at that time. Then another brother died, and there were two that I knew. Then my acquaintances began to die, and the flock continually grew; but it was not until I had sent one of my little children to his grandparent--God--that I began to think I had a little in myself. A second went, a third went, a fourth went; and by that time I had so many acquaintances in heaven that I did not see any more walls and domes and spires. I began to think of the residents of the Celestial city; and now there are so many of my acquaintances gone there that it sometimes seems to me that I know more in heaven than I do on earth.”