Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2128
“They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat. For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters.” Revelation 7:16,17.
“They shall not hunger nor thirst, neither shall the heat nor sun smite them: for He that has mercy on them shall lead them, even by the springs of water shall He guide them.”
Isaiah 49:10.
JORDAN is a very narrow stream. It made a sort of boundary for Canaan but it hardly sufficed to divide it from the rest of the world since a part of the possessions of Israel was on the eastern side of it. Those who saw the Red Sea divided and all Israel marching through its depths must have thought it no small thing for the Jordan to be dried up and for the people to pass through it to Canaan. The greatest barrier between Believers and Heaven has been safely passed. In the day when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ we passed through our Red Sea and the Egyptians of our sins were drowned. Great was the marvel of mercy! To enter fully into our eternal inheritance we have only to cross the narrow stream of Death—and scarcely that—for the kingdom of Heaven is on this side of the river as well as on the other.
I begin by reminding you of this because we are very apt to imagine that we must endure a kind of purgatory while we are on earth and then, if we are Believers, we may break loose into Heaven after we have shuffled off this mortal coil. But it is not so. Heaven must be in us before we can be in Heaven—and while we are yet in the wilderness we may spy out the land—and may eat of the clusters of Eshcol.
There is no such gulf between earth and Heaven as gloomy thoughts suggest. Our dreams should not be of an abyss, but of a ladder whose foot is on the earth and whose top is in Glory. There would not be one hundredth part so much difference between earth and Heaven if we did not live so far below our privileges. We live on the ground, when we might rise as on the wings of eagles! We are all too conscious of this body. Oh, that we were more often where Paul was when he said, “Whether in the body or out of the body, I cannot tell: God knows”! If not caught up into Paradise, yet may our daily life be as the garden of the Lord.
Listen a while, you children of God, for I speak to you and not to others. To unbelievers, what can I say? They know nothing of spiritual things and will not believe them though a man should show them to them! They are spiritually blind and dead—may the Lord quicken and enlighten them! But to you that are begotten again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead I speak with joy! Think of what you are by Divine Grace and remember that what you will be in Glory is already outlined and foreshadowed in your life in Christ! Being born from above, you are the same men that will be in Heaven! You have within you the Divine life—the same life which is to enjoy eternal immortality!
“He that believes on the Son has everlasting life”—it is your possession now. As the quickened ones of the Holy Spirit, the life which is to last on forever has begun in you. At this moment you are already, in many respects, the same as you always will be. I might almost repeat this passage in Revelation concerning some of you at this very hour—“What are these? And from where did they come? These are they that came out of great tribulation and have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.”
I might even go on to say, “Therefore are they before the Throne of God”—for you abide in close communion with the King—“and serve Him day and night in His temple: and He that sits on the Throne shall dwell among them.” I am straining no point when I thus speak of the sanctified. Beloved, you are now, “elect according to the foreknowledge of
God,” and you are, “the called according to His purpose.” Already you are as much forgiven as you will be when you stand without fault before the Throne of God. The Lord Jesus has washed you whiter than snow and none can lay anything to your charge. You are as completely justified by the righteousness of Christ as you ever can be—you are covered with His righteousness—and Heaven itself cannot provide a robe more spotless!
“Beloved, now are we the sons of God.” “He has made us accepted in the Beloved.” Today we have the spirit of adoption and enjoy access to the Throne of the heavenly Grace. Yes, and today by faith we are raised up in Christ and made to sit in the heavenlies in Him. We are now united to Christ, now indwelt by the Holy Spirit—are not these great things and heavenly things? The Lord has brought us out of darkness into His marvelous light! Although we may, from one point of view, lament the dimness of the day, yet, as compared with our former darkness, the light is marvelous and, best of all, it is the same light which is to brighten from dawn into midday!