These, and the like notices of heaven scattered through the Word, it is blessed to take up and ponder. And, as one has said, "The Holy Ghost, who is called the earnest of our inheritance, acts upon these notices, and makes them living to our souls." And it is these notices and attractions which make us, in a divine sense, strangers and pilgrims here. Abraham, it has been observed, became a stranger in the earth, not from any sorrow or pressure in Mesopotamia, for we read of none such, but because "the God of glory" had spoken in the language of "promise" to him. He was drawn out from kindred and home and country by something before him, and not urged or driven out by anything behind. This was heavenly strangership here. Is it thus, beloved, or are we desiring that it may be thus, with our souls? Are we pondering the prospect, and following out the distant glimpses of it, with fixed and interested hearts? These are the present questions for the stirring and guiding of our souls. The search will lead to humbling and rebuke, but it will be an excellent oil. And, as if to give us full ease of heart in the enjoyment of this our future heaven, the Lord has taught us to know that we are in some sense _wanted_ there, however unimportant we may deem ourselves. For each is to be a vessel of the glory, as we have already said; of larger or smaller quantity it may be, but still each is a _needed_ vessel in that house of glory. We commonly think how necessary the Lord is to us. True indeed. We shall celebrate the fact that we owe everything to Him throughout eternity. But it is also a truth (to the praise of the riches of grace be it spoken) that we are necessary to Him. "The woman is the glory of the man." Not in the same way, surely. He is necessary to us for _life_ as well as for joy, for _salvation_ as well as for glory; but we are important, of course, only to His joy and glory; as it is written, "That we should be to the praise of His glory;" and again, "That in the ages to come He might shew the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us through Christ Jesus." Eph. ii 7. The Lord God consulted for Adam’s joy when He purposed in Himself to form Eve. Eve, we may know full well, was abundantly happy in Adam; but still the concern of the Lord was about Adam being happy in Eve. So it is even now in the dispensation of the Gospel. The true Adam is still consulted for. "The kingdom of heaven is like unto a certain king, which made a marriage for his _son_." And so will it be still in the dispensation or age of the glory. It is called "the marriage of the Lamb"--not, as once observed to me, the marriage of the Church or of the Lamb’s wife, but _of the Lamb_, as though _the Lamb_ were the One chiefly interested in that joy.