The Life of Duty, v. 2: A year's plain sermons on the Gospels or EpistlesWilmot-Buxton, H. J. (Harry John)
Religion
The Life of Duty, v. 2: A year's plain sermons on the Gospels or Epistles
Wilmot-Buxton, H. J. (Harry John)
Bible. Epistles -- Commentaries; Bible. Gospels -- Commentaries; Sermons, English
Now, there are many people who never think of Heaven at all, and many
who think of it in a wrong way. When we were baptised, the door was
opened for us in Heaven, and Jesus said to us, "Behold, I set before
you an open door." From that day we were permitted to look with the
eye of faith upon those good things which pass man's understanding.
But some of us would not look up. We were like travellers going along
a muddy road on a starlight night, and who look down on the foul, dirty
path, and never upwards to the bright sky above. My brother, turn your
eyes from this world's dirty ways, look away from your selfish work,
and your selfish pleasure, look up from the things which are seen and
are temporal, from the fashion of this world which passeth away, and
gaze through the open door of Revelation at the things which shall be
hereafter. I said that many people never think of Heaven at all.
These are they who love this world too well to think of the world to
come, they are of the earth, earthy. "As is the earthy, such are they
that are earthy, and as is the Heavenly, such also are they that are
Heavenly."
I said, too, that many think of Heaven in a wrong way, as did the lady
of fashion, who fancied Heaven would be like the London season, only
better, as there would be no disagreeable people. Now, if we are to
think rightly of Heaven, we must do as S. John did. He heard a voice
saying, "Come up hither, and I will show the things which shall be
hereafter. And immediately he was in the Spirit." We must ask for the
Holy Spirit to lift our hearts and minds to Heaven; we must try to go
up higher in our thoughts, words, and works; we must try to get above
the world, above ourselves, so shall we be able to look, though with
bowed head and shaded eyes, through the open door. Let us reverently
do so now, and see what we can learn of the things which shall be
hereafter. First, I think we learn that Heaven and earth are not, as
some people fancy, two very different places, very far apart. The
Church of Christ is one family, bound together by _one_ faith, _one_
Baptism, _one_ hope, acknowledging one God and Father of us all. This
family has one Home; here in earth it dwells in a lower chamber, after
death it passes into a higher room of God's great House. The Apostle,
speaking of the Church, says, "Ye _are_ come, (not ye _will_ come,)
unto Mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the Heavenly
Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the general
assembly and Church of the firstborn which are written in Heaven, and
to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect,
and to Jesus the Mediator of the New Covenant, and to the blood of
sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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