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- D.L. Moody - Heaven: Its Hope
"Heaven: Its Hope" by D.L. Moody
 Like all the other wonderful works of God, this Book bears the sure
stamp of its author. It is like Him. Though man plants the seeds,
God makes the flowers, and they are perfect and beautiful like
Himself. Men wrote what is in the Bible, but the work is God's. The
more refined, as a rule, people are, the fonder they are of the
flowers, and the better they are, as a rule, the more they love the
Bible.
The fondness for flowers refines people, and the love of the Bible
makes them better. All that is in the Bible about God, about man,
about redemption, and about a future state, agrees with our own
ideas of right, with our reasonable fears and with our personal
experiences. All the historical things are told in the way that we
know the world had of looking at them when they were written. What
the Bible tells about heaven is not half so strategic as what
Professor Proctor tells about the hosts of stars that are beyond the
range of any telescope - yet people very often think that science is
all fact, and that religion is only fancy.
A great, many persons think that Jupiter and many more of the stars
around us are inhabited, who cannot bring themselves to believe that
there is a life beyond this earth for immortal souls. The true
Christian puts faith before reason, and believes that reason always
goes wrong when faith is set aside. If people would but read their
Bibles more, and study what there is to be found there about Heaven,
they would not be as worldly minded as they are. They would not have
their hearts set upon things down here, but would seek the
imperishable things above.
EARTH THE HOME OF SIN
It seems perfectly reasonable that God should have given us a
glimpse of the future, for we are constantly losing some of our
friends by death, and the first thought that comes to us is, "where
have they gone?" When a loved one is taken away from us, how that
thought comes up before us! How we wonder if we will ever see them
again, and where and when it will be! Then it is that we turn to
this blessed Book, for there is no other book in all the world that
can give us the slightest comfort; no other book that can tell us
where the loved ones have gone.
Not long ago I met an old friend, and as I took him by the hand and
asked after his family, the tears came trickling down his cheeks as
he said:
"I haven't any now."
"What," I said, is your wife dead? "
"Yes sir."
"And all your children, too?"
"Yes, all gone," he said, "and I am left here desolate and alone."
Would any one take from that man the hope, that he will meet his
dear ones again? Would any one persuade. him that there. is not a
future where the lost will be found? No, we need not forget our dear
loved ones; but we ,fly cling forever to the enduring hope that
there will be a time when we can meet unfettered, and be blest in
that land of everlasting suns, where the soul drinks from the
living, streams of love that roll by Gods high throne. In our inmost
hearts there are none of us but have questionings of the future.
"Tell me, my secret soul,
0, tell me, Hope and Faith,
Is there no resting place,
From sorrow, sin and death?
Is there no happy spot
Where mortals may be blest,
Where grief may find a balm,
And weariness a rest?
Faith, Hope and Love - best boons to mortals given -
Waved their bright wings, and whispered:
Yes, in heaven"
There are men who say that there is no heaven. I was once talking
with a man who said he thought there was nothing to justify us in
believing in any other heaven than we know here on earth. If this is
heaven, it is a very strange one - this world of sickness, and
sorrow, and sin. I pity from the depths of my heart the man or woman
who has that idea.
This world that so many think is heaven, is the home of sin, a
hospital of sorrow, a place that has nothing in it to satisfy the
soul. Men go all over it and then want to get out of it. The more
one sees of the world the less they think of it. People soon grow
tired of the best pleasures it has to offer. Some one has said that
the world is a stormy sea, whose every wave is strewed with the
wrecks of mortals that perish in it. Every time we breathe some one
is dying. We all know that we are going to stay here but a very
little while. Our life is but a vapor. It is just a mere shadow. We
meet one another, as some one has said, salute one another, and pass
on and are gone. And another has said, it is just inch of time, and
then eternal ages roll on; and it seems to me that it is perfectly
reasonable that we should study this book, to find out where we are
going, and where our friends are who have gone on before. The
longest time man has to live, has no more proportion to eternity
than a drop of dew has to the ocean.
CITIES OF THE PAST
Look at the cities of the past. There is Babylon. It was founded by
a woman named Semiramis, who had two millions of men at work for
years building it. It is nothing but dust now. Nearly a thousand
years ago, some historian wrote that the ruins of Nebuchadnezzar's
palace were still standing, but men were afraid to go near them
because they were full of scorpions and snakes. That's the Sort of
ruin that greatness often comes to in our own day. Nineveh is gone.
Its towers and bastions have fallen. The traveler who tries to see
Carthage, can't see much of it. Corinth, once the seat of luxury and
art, is only a shapeless mass. Ephesus long the metropolis of Asia,
the Paris of that day, was crowded with buildings as large as the
capitol at Washington. I am told it looks more like a neglected
graveyard now than anything else. Granada is now the housing place
of lions and jackals. It was once very grand, with its twelve gates
and towers. The Alhambra, the palace of the Mohammedan kings, was
situated there. Probably the animals play with the monarchs' bones.
Little pieces of the once grand and beautiful cities of Herculanaeum
and Pompeii are now being sold in the shops for relics. Jerusalem,
once one of the grandest cities of the universe, is but a shadow of
itself. Thebes - for thousands of years, up almost to the coming of
Christ, the largest and wealthiest city of the world - is now a mass
of decay. Very little of Athens and many more of the proud cities of
olden times, remain to tell the story of their downfall. God drives
His plowshare through cities, and they are upheaved like furrows in
the field. "Behold," says Isaiah, "the nations are as a drop of a
bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the balance; behold, he
taketh up the isles as a very little thing. All nations before him
are as nothing, and they are counted to him less than nothing, and
vanity."
See how Antioch has fallen! When Paul preached there it was a superb
metropolis. A wide street, over three miles long, stretching across
the entire city, was ornamented with rows of columns and covered
galleries, and at every corner stood carved statues to commemorate
their great men, whose names even we have never heard. These are
never heard of now, but the poor preaching tent-maker who came into
its portals, stands out as the grandest character in all history.
The finest specimens of Grecian art decorated the shrines of the
temples, and the baths and the aqueducts were such as are never
approached in elegance now. Men then, as now, were seeking honors
and wealth and mighty names, and seeking to enshrine their names and
records in perishable clay. Within the walls, we are told, were
enclosed mountains over seven hundred feet high, and rocky
precipices and deep ravines gave wild and picturesque character to
the, city of which no modern city gives us an example, These heights
were fortified in a marvelous manner, which gave to them strange
startling effects. The vast population of this brilliant city,
combining all the art and cultivation of Greece with the levity, the
luxury and the superstition of Asia, was as intent on pleasure as
the population of any of our great cities are to-day. They had their
shows, their games, their races and dances, their sorcerers,
puzzlers, buffoons and miracle-workers, and the whole people sought
constantly in the theatres and processions, for something to
stimulate and gratify the most corrupt desires of the soul.
This is pretty much what we find the masses of the people in our
great cities doing now. The place was even worse than Athens, for
the so-called worship they indulged in was not only idolatrous, but
had mixed up with it the grossest passions to which man descends. It
was here that Paul it came to preach the glad tidings of Christ; it
was here that his converts were first called Christians, as a
nickname; the first time the name, was ever used, all followers of
Christ before time having been called "saints " or "brethren." As
has been well said, out of that spring at Antioch, a mighty stream
has flowed to water the world. Astarte, the "Queen of Heaven," whom
they worshipped; Diana, Apollo, the Pharisee and Sadusee, are no
more, but the despised Christians yet live. Yet that Heathen City,
which would not take Christianity to its heart and keep it, fell.
Cities that have not the refining and restraining influences of
Christianity well established in them, seldom do amount to much in
the long ran. They grow dim in the light of ages. Few of our great
cities in this country are a hundred years old as yet. For nearly a
thousand years this city prospered; yet it fell.
I do not think that it is wrong for us to think and talk about
heaven. I like to locate, heaven, and find out all I about it. I
expect to live there through all eternity If I was going to dwell in
any place in this country, if I was going to make it my home, I
would want to inquire about the place, about its climate, about the
neighbors I would have, and about everything in fact, that I could
learn concerning it. If any of you were going to emigrate, that
would be the way you would feel. Well, we are all going to emigrate
in a very little while to a country that is very far away. We are
going to spend eternity in another world a grand and glorious world
where God reigns. Is it riot natural, then, that we should look and
listen and try to find out who is already there, and what is the
route to take? Soon after I was converted, an infidel asked me one
day why I looked up when I prayed. He said that heaven was no more
above as than below us; that heaven was everywhere. Well, I was
greatly bewildered, and the next time I prayed, it seemed almost as
if I was praying into the air. Since then I have become better
acquainted with the Bible, and I have come to see that heaven is
above us; that it is upward and not downward. The spirit of God is
everywhere, but God is in heaven, and heaven is above our heads. It
does not matter what part of the globe we may stand upon, heaven, is
above us.
In 17th chapter of Genesis it says that God went up from Abraham;
and in the 3d chapter of John, that he came down from heaven. So, in
the 1st chapter of Acts we find that Christ went up into heaven (not
down), and a cloud received him out of sight, Thus we see heaven is
up. The very arrangement of the firmament about the earth declares
the, seat of God's glory to be above us. Job says, "Let not God
regard it from above," and we find the Psalmist declaring, "the Lord
is high above nations, and His glory above the heavens."
Again in Deuteronomy, we find, "who shall go up for us to heaven?"
Thus, all through scripture we find that we are given the location
of heaven as upward and beyond the firmament. This firmament, with
its many bright worlds scattered through, is so vast that heaven
must be an extensive realm. Yet this need not surpass us.
It is not for short-sighted man to inquire why God made heaven so
extensive that its lights along the way can be seen from any part or
side of this little world.
In the 51st chapter of the prophecy of Jeremiah we are told that: He
hath made the earth by his power; he hath established the world by
his wisdom, and hath stretched out the heaven by his understanding.
Yet, how little we really know of that power, or wisdom or
understanding! As it says in the 26th chapter of Job: Lo, these are
parts of his ways: but how little a portion is heard of him? But the
thunder of his power, who can understand?
This is the word of God. As we find in the 42nd chapter of Isaiah:
Thus saith God the Lord, he that created the heavens and stretched
them out; he that spread forth the earth, and that which cometh out
of it; he that giveth bread unto the people upon it, and spirit to
them that walk within. The discernment of God's power, the messages
of heaven, do not always come in great things. We read in the 19th
chapter of the first book of Kings:
"And behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind rent
the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the Lord; but
the Lord was not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; but
the Lord was not in the earthquake: and after the earthquake a fire;
but the Lord was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small
voice."
It is as a still small voice that God speaks to His children.
Some people are trying to find out just how far heaven is away.
There is one thing we know about it; that is, that it is not so far
away but that God can hear us when we pray. I do not believe there
has ever been a tear shed for sin since Adam's fall in Eden to the
present time, but God has witnessed that. He is not too far from
this earth for us to go to Him; and if there is a sigh that comes
from a burdened heart to-day, God will hear that sigh. If there is a
cry coming up from a heart broken on account of sin, God will hear
that cry, He is not so far away, heaven is not so far away, as to be
inaccessible to the smallest child. In the 7th chapter and 14th
verse of 2nd Chronicles, we read:
"If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves,
and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then
will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sins, and will heal,
their land,"
When I was in Dublin, they were telling me about a father who had
lost a little boy, and he had not thought about the future, he bad
been so entirely taken up with this world and its affairs; but when
that little boy his only child, died, that father's heart was
broken, and every night when he got home from work, they would find
him with his tallow candle and his Bible in his room, and he was
hunting up all that he could find there about heaven. And someone
asked him what he was doing, and he said he was trying to find out
where his child had gone, and I think he was a reasonable man. I
suppose there is not a man or woman but has dear ones that are gone.
Shall we close this book to-day? Or shall we look into it to try to
find where the loved ones are? I was reading, some time ago, and
account of a father, a minister, who had lost a child. He had gone
to a great many funerals, offering comfort to others in sorrow, but
now the iron had entered his own soul, and a brother minister had
come to officiate and preach the funeral sermon; and after the
minister got through speaking, the father got up, and standing right
at the head of the coffin, looking at the face of that loved child
that was gone, he said that a few years ago, when he had first come
into that parish, as he used to look over the river he took no
interest in the people over there, because they were all strangers
to him and there were none over there that belonged to his parish.
But, he said , a few years ago a young man came into his home, and
married his daughter, and she went over the river to live, and when
that child went over there, he became suddenly interested in the
inhabitants, and every morning as he would get up he would look out
of the window and look over there at her home. But now, said he,
another child has been taken. She has gone over another river, and
heaven seems dearer and nearer to me than it ever has before.
My friends, let us believe this good old Book, that heaven is not a
myth, and let us be prepared to follow the dear ones who have gone
before. There, and there alone, can we find the peace we seek for.
SEEKING A BETTER COUNTRY
What has been, and is now, one of the strongest feelings in the
human heart? Is it not to find some better place, some lovelier
spot, than we have now? It is for this that men are seeking
everywhere; and yet, they can have it, if they will; but instead of
looking down, they must look up to find it. As men grow in
knowledge, they vie with each other more and more to make their
homes attractive, but the brightest home on earth is but an empty
barn, compared with the mansions that are in the skies.
What is it that we look for at the decline and close of life? Is it
not some sheltered place, some quiet spot, where if we cannot have
constant rest, we may at least have a foretaste of what it is to be.
What was it that led Columbus, not knowing what would be his fate,
across the unsailed western seas, if it was not the hope of finding
a better country? This is was that sustained the hearts of the
Pilgrim Fathers, driven from their native land by persecution, as
they faced an iron-bound, savage coast, with an unexplored territory
beyond. They were cheered and upheld by the hope of reaching a free
and fruitful country, where they could be at rest and worship God in
peace.
Somewhat similar is the Christian's hope of heaven, only it is not
an undiscovered country, and in attractions cannot be compared with
anything we know on earth. Perhaps nothing but the shortness of our
range of sight keeps us from seeing the celestial gates all open to
us, and nothing but the deafness of our ears, prevents our hearing
the joyful ringing of the bells of heaven. There are constant sounds
around us that we cannot hear, and the sky is studded with bright
worlds that our eyes have never seen. Little as we know about this
bright and radiant land, there are glimpses of its beauty that come
to us now and then.
"We may not know how sweet its balmy air,
How bright and fair its flowers;
We may not hear the songs that echo there,
Through these enchanted bowers.
The city's shining towers we may not see
With our dim earthly vision,
For death, the silent warder, keeps the key
That opes the gates elysian.
But sometimes when adown the western sky
A fiery sunset lingers,
Its golden gate swings inward noiselessly,
Unlocked by unseen fingers.
And while they stand a moment half ajar,
Gleams from the inner glory
Stream brightly through the azure vault afar,
And half reveal the story."
It is said by travelers, that in climbing the Alps the houses of far
distant villages can be seen with great distinctness, so that
sometimes the number of panes of glass in a church window can be
counted. The distance looks so short that the place seems almost at
hand, but after hours and hours of climbing, it looks no nearer yet.
This is because of the clearness of the atmosphere. By perseverance,
however, the place is reached at last, and the tired traveler finds
rest. So sometimes we dwell in high altitudes of grace; heaven seems
very near, and the hills of Beulah are in full view. At other times
the clouds and fogs that come through suffering and sin, cut off our
sight. We are just as near heaven in the one case as we are in the
other, and we are just as sure of gaining it if we only keep in the
path that Christ has trod.
I have read that on the shores of the Adriatic sea, the wives of
fishermen, whose husbands have gone far out upon the deep, are in
the habit of going down to the seashore at night and singing with
their sweet voices the first verse of some beautiful hymn, After
they have sung it they listen until they hear brought on the wind,
across the sea, the second verse sung by their brave husbands as
they are tossed by the gale-and both are happy. Perhaps, if we would
listen, we too might hear on this sea-tossed world of ours, some
sound, some. whisper, borne from afar to tell us there is a heaven
which is our home; and when we sing our hymns upon the shores of
earth, perhaps we may hear their sweet echoes breaking in music upon
the sands of time, and cheering the hearts of those who are pilgrims
and strangers along the way. Yet we need to look up-out, beyond this
low earth, and to build higher in our thoughts and actions, even
here.
You know, when a man is going up in a balloon, he takes in sand as a
ballast, and when he wants to mount a little higher, he throws out a
little of the ballast, and then he will mount a little higher; he
throws out a little more ballast, and he mounts still higher; and
the higher he gets the more he throws out-and so the nearer we get
to God the more we have to throw out of the things of this world.
Let go of them; do not let us first set our hearts and affections on
them, but do what the Master tells us_lay up for ourselves treasures
in heaven. In England I was told of a lady who bad been bedridden
for years. She was one of those saints that God polishes up for the
kingdom; for I believe that there are a good many saints in this
world that we never hear about; we never see their names heralded
through the press; they live very near the Master; they live very
near heaven; and I think it takes a great deal more grace to suffer
God's will than it does to do God's will; and if a person lies on a
bed of sickness, and suffers cheerfully, it is just as acceptable to
God as if they went out and worked in his vineyard.
Now, it was One of those saints, and a lady, who said that for a
long time she used to have a great deal of pleasure in watching a
bird that came to make its nest near her window. One year it came to
make its nest, and it began to make it so low she was afraid
something would happen to the young; and every day that she saw that
bird busy at work making its nest, she kept saying, "O bird, build
higher!" She could that the bird was going to come to grief and
disappointment. At last the bird got its nest done,, and laid its
eggs and hatched its young; and every morning the lady looked out to
see if the nest was there, and she saw the old bird bringing food
for the little ones, and she took a great deal of pleasure in
looking at it. But one morning she woke up and she looked out and
she saw nothing but feathers scattered all around, and she said,
"Ah, the cat has got the old bird and all its young." It would have
been a mercy to have torn that nest down. That is what God does for
us very often just snatches things away before it is to late. Now, I
think that is what we want to say to church people_that if you build
for time you will be disappointed. God says: Build up yonder. It is
a good deal better to have life in Christ and God than any where
else. I would rather have my life hid with Christ in God than be in
Eden as Adam was. Adam might have remained in Paradise for 16,000
years, and then fallen, but if ours is hid in Christ, how safe!
Dwight L. Moody
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