The passing of the years awakens in our hearts the cry permanence. Our nature is keyed, .not to the temporal, but
to the eternal. And as we see the leaves falling before the autumn winds or littering the forest glade down which
we walk in the short winter days, as the changes of the natural world compel us to remember the still greater ones
which are ever carrying us out of the familiar world of our past into one as strange and undiscovered as the new
world to which Columbus sailed, there arises up within us a passionate desire for a home which death cannot invade;
friendships which time cannot impair; chaplets of never-withering flowers; and a condition of existence which is
impervious to change.
This permanence for which we wait seems promised in the words with which the shepherd minstrel closes the psalm,
which are simple as the words "home" and, "mother," and quite as full of meaning. The course
of the psalm is as full of change as life itself. Every sentence is a word-picture, painting in strong and vivid
outlines some new scene in our earthly pilgrimage. But here the troubled stream, broken over many a stone, driven
to and fro in many a sinuous bend, seems to fall into the great deep of the ocean, eternity, the music of whose
waves, as they break on the shores of time, is always in the same sweet monotone, "For ever."
No doubt the changes of our mortal life are all needed to fit us for the changeless. Time is the necessary vestibule
or robing-room for eternity. Earth is the training-house for the real life which awaits us when the last lesson
is learned and the school-bell rings. But all that is, and has been, and shall be, is just completing our character,
adding finishing touches to our symmetry; and all shall be forgotten, as a dream of the night, when once we have
entered on that eternity, which is permanent in the sense of never taking from us any of our true possessions,
except to complete them; or in the same way that the seed is taken away, when from it is developed a higher and
ever higher growth.
But better than the thought of permanence is the thought that heaven is a HOME, it is "the house of the Lord,"
which is the nearest approach possible in the Old Testament to the words of Jesus: "In my Father's house are
many mansions."
What a magic power there is in that word "home!" It will draw the wanderer from the ends of the earth.
It will nerve sailor and soldier and explorer to heroic endurance.
It will melt with its dear memories the hardened criminal. It will bring a film of tears over the eyes of the man
of the world. What will not a charwoman do or bear if only she can keep her little home together?
"Be it ever so humble,
There's no place like home."
And what is our great Christmas festival but the festival of home? Homes which have sprung into existence at the
summons of One who was homeless fitly celebrate their anniversary on His natal day.
And what is it that makes the idea of home so fond? Not the mere locality, or the bricks and mortar; the gardens
where childhood used to hide; the furniture which is associated with tender memories,- any of which the sight of
it will immediately educe. No; it is not these that make home. These, without the beloved forms which used to occupy
them, would be a solitude in which the survivor would find it impossible to remain. We find our home where father,
mother, brothers, and sisters, the wife, and children are; where the presence of the stranger throws no shadow
over the unrestrained play of family life.
Now let us turn our thoughts to that heaven of which we know comparatively so little, except that our Good Shepherd
is gone thither; and see what light is thrown upon it by the comparison instituted here between it and home. It
is surely home in the sense of its happy social life. We shall be as free in the presence of God as children are
in the presence of the father and mother whom they tenderly love. We shall know each other as well, and converse
with each other as freely, as we have done with the merry throng of bright young hearts with whom we have sauntered
in the woodlands gathering wild-flowers; or have gathered around the blazing fire, when the Yule log crackled and
the Christmas glee was at its height. Think of the large family of noble children of all ages, from the little
child of six up to the young man just beginning his professional or city life in the great metropolis, all gathering
to spend a time together in the ancestral hall, standing amid its far-reaching grounds; and you will have some
faint conception of what the home-going will be, when, amid the welcoming shouts and songs of angel harps, the
last child reaches the Father's house, and the whole family in heaven and earth is gathered in the Father's house
for ever and for ever. Never again to part! Never again to go out! Never again to break up the long, happy, and
glorious home festival!
These words may be read by lonely ones in all parts of the world, over whom there steals at times a strange homesickness:
"Oh for the touch of a vanished hand,
And the sound of a voice that is still!"
"Oh, to be little children again, and to have others providing for our comfort and our joy, instead of having
to fend for ourselves, and to be the source of all to others!" And mingling with such natural back-yearnings
there may be the tears of recent bereavement; the thought of graves so new that the flowers have not had time to
root themselves in the fresh soil.
Come, it will not do for us to indulge thoughts like these! They unfit us for the stern realities of life. They
unnerve us. Let us not dwell on them. If the paradise of the past is lost, so that an angel stands with drawn sword
forbidding our return, there is another and a better paradise before us, at whose gates beckoning angels stand,
the paradise of our Father's home. Let us not think of separation, but of reunion. In olden days the crews of outgoing
vessels, till they reached the line, used to toast Friends behind,' but as soon as they had passed it, they began
to toast Friends before. Let Us set our thoughts on the friends before us, who, thank God, are those whom "we
have loved long since and lost awhile."
Blessed are the homesick, for they shall reach home.
There is great certainty in these words. The psalmist has no doubt that he will be there. Yet he had been a wandering
sheep; his record by no means stainless; his temper rather that of a man of war and blood than that of peace and
gentleness and love, which would befit the meek denizen of heaven. How should he come there? And what made him
so sure? He doubtless felt that the Good Shepherd could not be there while the sheep was bleating piteously without.
"Where I am, there ye shall be also." And we have a yet more sure word of promise to which we may joyfully
take heed as to a light which shines in a dark place.
Because we have trusted Christ and are one with Him; because we have received into our hearts the germ of eternal
life, which carries with it heaven in embryo; because we have the earnest of our inheritance already in the presence
and witness of the Holy Ghost; because God's promise and oath assure us of our eternal blessedness, two things
which make disappointment impossible, for all these reasons and others the humblest, most timid, and weakest believer
that reads these lines may dare affirm, "I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever."
There seems to have been a sense in which David enjoyed heaven before he got there. To him the Lord's house was
not simply a thing in the future, but a possibility for the present. In another psalm he talks of dwelling in the
secret place of the Most High, and in yet another he employs the noble words, "One thing have I desired of
the Lord, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold
the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in His temple." The French version of Dr. Segond is so beautiful that
I am compelled to quote it also: "Je demande a l'Eternel une chose, que je desire ardernment. Je voudrais
habiter route ma vie dans la mai-san de' l'Eternel, pour contempler la magnificence de, l' Eternel et pour admirer
son temple" (Psa 27:4). But this man was full of royal business; he could not literally dwell in the sacred
courts, for which he pined more than hart ever panted for water brooks, or doves for their cotes.
Yet can we doubt that his fervent prayer was answered, and that the fixed purpose of his heart reached its ideal?
There was, no doubt, a sense in which, whether at home in the palace of Mount Zion, or away in the desolate wastes
beyond Jordan, he did dwell in the house of the Lord, beholding His beauty and inquiring His will. What is. the
house of God but the presence of God, habitually recognised by the loving and believing spirit; all-encompassing,
all enveloping, all-pervasive, like the genial atmosphere of spring?
Why should not we also begin to live in the house of God, in this hallowed and blessed sense? Our heaven may thus
date, not from the moment in which we first "enter the gates of the city," but from that in which we
first wash our robes and make them white in the blood of the Lamb. Always and everywhere we may find our dwelling-place
in God,. who has been the home and refuge and abiding place of His people in all generations. Always and everywhere
we may retreat into Him from the windy storm and tempest. Always and everywhere we may make His nature not only
our fortress and strong tower, but our oratory, our temple. May the Holy Spirit make real to each of us this possibility
of living in the house of the Lord hourly and daily; where all tears are wiped as soon as shed; whither cares cannot
invade; and where the Good Shepherd leads His flocks ever into green pastures, so that they cannot hunger; and
beside still waters, so that they cannot thirst; and in cool, deep glens, so that the sun cannot smite by day,
nor the moon by night! Heaven before we reach heaven!
Let us see to it that we live on this heavenly level. There are many possible levels on which we may elect to live.
That, for instance, of the church to which we belong, or the Christian society in which we mix. The conventional
level of doing what others do, and being content with an average mediocrity. This, however, ill becomes those who
follow on to apprehend that for which Jesus Christ once apprehended them.
But there are two other levels which especially claim our thought, and between which we must make our choice: there
is the level of our standing in Jesus Christ, and there is the level of our experience or emotional life. According
to the first we have already passed through death to the resurrection and ascension side, and are already seated
in the golden light which beats around the throne of Jesus. According to the other, which fluctuates with every'
atmospheric or physical change, we are now lifted on the crest of the billow into the sunny air, and anon flung,
weary and broken, on the sand, from which the waves have ebbed, leaving us beyond their reach.
The one is the level on which God means us to live. The other is that which we have selected for ourselves, and
a sorry change it is! What wonder that we are so disappointed and disheartened! We have put the bitter for the
sweet; the temporal for the eternal; the fluctuating and transient for God's unmoved and unmovable foundation,
which is changeless as His love.
It is a serious question for each one to ask, "What is the level of my life? Is it mine, or my neighbour's,
or God's? Am I living as a risen and ascended one, behind whom is sin and death, while above is the uncreated light
of eternity?" Alas! so many of us are levelling our appreciation of our standing down to the lowness of our
experience, instead of seeking to level our experience and practice up to the height of our standing in Jesus!
Now faith, when in proper exercise, does two things. First, it reckons that a position belongs to it which we do
not feel, but which it dares to claim on the warrant of God's Word. Second, it lays hold on the power of God to
make that position a reality in daily and hourly experience.
We do not always feel that we are where the burning words of the apostle declare us to be. In Romans 6., Ephesians
2., and Colossians 3., he affirms that we are risen and enthroned, regnant with Jesus, while His foes and ours
are beneath our feet. But faith lays hold of these clear teachings of the Word of God and dares to call feeling
a liar, while it holds God's Word as truth. Yea, and faith goes further. Constantly it lays hold on the almighty
power of God, the power that raised Jesus from the grave of Joseph to set Him at the right hand of the Majesty
in the heavens. And in the might of that power it walks across the unstable wave and climbs the steeps of air,
and holds its own, its position as on the throne, against all the assaults of hell. It is impossible to live the
ascension or heavenly life, which is certainly ours, without ascension and divine power. But that is within the
reach of an appropriating faith (Eph 1:19).
It is very needful for us to invoke the aid of the Holy Spirit to maintain us ever in this attitude of surrender
and faith, drawing down into our lives God's constant grace. He is the Spirit of memory, who preserves us in a
continual state of recollection, and who prompts us at the hour of temptation, "bringing all things to our
remembrance."
And if only we live thus, life will pass on happily and usefully. Its stay will shape itself into a psalm, like
that which David, the shepherd and king, sang centuries ago. It may begin with the tale of the shepherd's care
for a lost and truant sheep. But it will not stay ever on that level; it will mount and soar and sing near heaven's
gate; it will spend its days on the level of those shining table lands where God Himself is Sun; and it will finally
pass into that holy and glorious home circle, each inhabitant of which may affirm, without the least shadow of
presumption or of fear, "I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever."