The Great and Crowning Bliss of Heaven!

The character of Christ is not enough studied by His redeemed people. It is looked at with too much of a passing glance, so that we get only hasty and superficial views, which consequently have but a faint and passing influence upon our heart and lives. We must study it, gazing upon it, pondering over it, tracing out its developing lines and beauties until our soul becomes fired by His excellencies, and is changed into His image! 

Angels who see Christ in His heavenly glory, and who know something of His divine excellencies, must wonder at the lack of enthusiasm in professing Christians concerning the loveliness of Christ. They are amazed that we look upon Him with so cold an eye; speak of Him with so tame a tongue; love Him with such a lukewarm heart; and labor for Him with such a drudging heavy spirit. It is our privilege to love this altogether lovely One, and we lose a rich and precious employment when we fail to do it. 

There is no higher pleasure for a redeemed soul, than contemplating the glories of Jesus! There is no surer evidence of a gracious state, than a thirsting after deeper knowledge of Jesus, and a more thorough conformity to His likeness! The great and crowning bliss of Heaven consists not in its seraphic melodies; not in its gorgeous displays of almighty power, not in its exemption from sorrow and sighing, not in its ceaseless round of high intellectual joys, but in seeing the unveiled Christ with undimmed eyes; in studying the loveliness of the ever present Redeemer with unfettered mind; in daily discovering and admiring new points of His beauty; and in having our souls, through all eternity, made the receptacles of the light, the joy, the peace, the holiness, the love, and the wisdom of Him who is "the chief among ten thousand, and the one altogether lovely One!" 

[William Bacon Stevens] 

Song of Solomon 5:10 ...  My beloved is white and ruddy, the chiefest among ten thousand.

Song of Solomom 5:16 ...  His mouth is most sweet: yea, he is altogether lovely. This is my beloved, and this is my friend, O daughters of Jerusalem.

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Modern Science and The Bible Disagree

What if science, as at present understood, and the Bible, do not agree? Shall we be troubled thereat? I think not. I rejoice to know that what is termed modern science and the Bible do not agree. I would be sorry if they did agree! Modern science is changeable, the Bible is unchangeable! The science of today is not the science of last year and will not be the science of the next year. The Bible of today, is the Bible of all the Christian centuries; and will be a thousand years hence, just what it was nearly eighteen hundred years ago, when the canon of Scripture was closed! 

Mark the changes which have taken place along the whole line of sciences since the beginning of this nineteenth century. What a catastrophe then would it have been, had it been proved that the Bible and science as known at the beginning of this century, fully agreed; that all the assertions of the Bible could be squared with the facts of science as then understood! The great tidal waves of science which have rolled over the world since, would have left the Bible stranded and ruined! And just so now, could it be made clear today that every truth in the Bible accords with the received theories of science what would become of the Bible fifty years hence, when science will have moved on with even more rapid strides, and left behind more wrecks of theories and more stranded speculations? 

In the meanwhile, the Bible stands still in the solitary grandeur of its own perfection! It waits, as the ages roll on, for confirmation and acceptance. It was said by one of old, "God is patient, because He is eternal;" and the Bible, as the book of the God of truth, has this attribute of its divine Author. Its strength is to sit still. It does not go out hastily to meet a half-formed science, and embrace it as an ally, lest it should turn into a foe. It calmly tarries in the consciousness of its own truth, as the advances of science come nearer and nearer; and every advance of true science does bring it nearer to the Bible. The opposition to that Bible, comes only from a class whose utterances, Paul has justly characterized as "the profane and vain babblings and oppositions of science falsely so called." (1 Timothy 6:20) 

 These differences between science and Scripture cannot be settled, because science is not settled. And science will never be settled, so long as there is an undiscovered fact in nature, or an inquiring mind in man! 

[William Bacon Stevens] 

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 Psalm 119:89 ... For ever, O Lord, thy word is settled in heaven.

 Isaiah 40:8 ...  The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall stand for ever. ❤

One Thing You Lack!

He who searched the heart, knew what the one thing lacking was; and hence put His probing finger on the defect, and made the young man see himself in a truer light than he had ever seen himself before. What was the result? "At this, the man's face fell." What did he do? "He went away sad." Why? "Because he had great wealth." 

The one thing which he lacked was a willingness to give up his besetting sin! That besetting sin was covetousness. He preferred to keep his possessions, rather than give them to the poor; he preferred the treasure on earth, to the treasure in Heaven; he preferred ease, to taking up a cross; he preferred the following of his own will, to following Jesus. This most instructive case shows us how near, how very near, a person may be to the kingdom of Heaven and yet fall short of it! 

They may lack but one thing: the giving up of a besetting sin; the willingness to make a personal sacrifice for Christ; the refusal to take up some cross; the drawing back from a full following of Jesus. Some one single sin, some one single difficulty may thus obstruct the soul's entrance into Heaven and prevent one from becoming an altogether Christian. 

One sin deliberately persisted in, will certainly keep your soul out of Heaven! One known duty deliberately disregarded, will surely secure your condemnation! And a refusal to take up a cross and bear it after Jesus, must result in being only an almost Christian, and so fail of eternal life! 

[William Bacon Stevens] 

Mark 10:21-22 ... Then Jesus beholding him loved him, and said unto him, One thing thou lackest: go thy way, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, take up the cross, and follow me.  And he was sad at that saying, and went away grieved: for he had great possessions.

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Songs in the Night Season

The night is proverbially a time of festivity and song. The cares and business of the day are then over; the taxed mind and the wearied muscles seek relaxation; the stillness of the evening invites to those pleasures which cannot be enjoyed amidst the bustle and din of business; and the darkness calling off the mind from the outdoor duties and gaieties turns it to those domestic or social or festive gatherings, where the gladness of the heart testifies its existence by singing and the voice of melody.

But the vast majority of these songs are earth-born, and designed only for earthly ends. The bacchanalian chorus, the moonlight serenade, the orchestral concert, the parlor melody, the love-lorn ditty, and the trumpet-rousing strains of martial music  are each of terrestrial birth; and though they may deeply affect the heart, rousing it to wildest joy or sinking it to pensive sadness yet are they evanescent, and soon are among the things of a forgotten past.

No such songs, though sung with unrivaled art, though swelling with delicious melody, though rich in tones of "linked sweetness long drawn out," satisfy the soul. Who that has listened to the most rapturous songs, to those which in our imagination come nearest to angelic harmony has not, as its last cadence fell on the ear, and its last echo died away, felt a pang of sorrow that such tones must die as fast as they are uttered? that, with a soul fitted to enjoy such vocal richness, we can obtain it so seldom and so briefly? And to all this, has there not often been joined the wish: Oh! that there were songs that would never cease to thrill! Oh! that there were voices that would never lose their tone and melody by age! Oh! that there were places where we might ever abide, and listen at will to the treasured melodies of tongue and harp in their loftiest manifestation!

There are such places, there are such voices, there are such songs. Yet when I tell you of them, the very hearts that profess most to desire them will turn away with scornful looks, and perhaps deride them as the outbursts of hot-brained enthusiasm or of canting hypocrisy. But sneer as you may curl your lip until it becomes rigid with scorn mock until you have exhausted the vocabulary of calumny, and defame until you are startled by your own blasphemy; I tell you in a freedom that invites investigation, and with a boldness that challenges denial, that the religion of Jesus Christ furnishes such songs, tunes such voices, and opens such places of perpetual and sublimest melody; for the mansions of glory forever resound with saintly voices singing the songs of Moses and the Lamb.

 

[William Bacon Stevens]

 

 

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Job 35:10 ... But none saith, Where is God my maker, who giveth songs in the night;

 

 

Exodus 15:1 ...  Then sang Moses and the children of Israel this song unto the Lord, and spake, saying, I will sing unto the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously: the horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea.

 

 

Psalm 42:8 ... Yet the Lord will command his lovingkindness in the day time, and in the night his song shall be with me, and my prayer unto the God of my life.

 

 

Revelation 15:3 ... And they sing the song of Moses the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, Great and marvellous are thy works, Lord God Almighty; just and true are thy ways, thou King of saints. ❤ 

God's Ownership of Souls

The right of a man to any property is ever subject to the modifications or changes to which all human legislation is liable, and which at times, have overturned all human government. There is, then, no absolute and unqualified right of man to any property which may not be interfered with, or destroyed; for there is nothing stable this side of Heaven. Such is the weakness and insecurity of human rights to human possessions.

You may say a man has a right to do what he will with his property; for example, he may give it away, or keep it, as he will. Not so! With his rights are interlaced the rights of others, and the rights of God. Human laws and divine laws have thrown their meshes around each man, and he cannot act irrespective of the will of the law, or of the will of God, without violating his obligations to both. He must adjust his rights to the rights of others, and to the claims of God and hence his will is fettered, and can never act in an absolute and independent manner.

So also of man's control over himself, or others. He can never act as he will. His control is always a control under law, limited by statutes, human or divine. He cannot do what he will with his person, if it interferes with the rights of other persons; his line of duty is prescribed by many legal limitations, ever keeping in check his will and ever guiding his every step.

But when we turn from the rights of man to the rights of God, what a contrast! God's right of property in these souls is not derived, as man's is but original; His, not by conveyance from another but by right of creation. He made man out of dust; He made the dust out of which man was made; and, having made man in his physical being, He then breathed into him "the breath of life," and "man became a living soul." Here, then, is the absolute and unqualified right of God, by virtue of the act of creation to the souls of men. There is no right behind this right; it is the primordial right of the Creator to the creature which he has made by the word of His power.

 

[William Bacon Stevens]

 

 

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Genesis 2:7 ... And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.

 

 

Ezekiel 18:4 ... Behold, all souls are mine; as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is mine: the soul that sinneth, it shall die.

 

 

Isaiah 43:21 ...  This people have I formed for myself; they shall shew forth my praise. ❤

The Law of Spritual Growth

The man who is content to pass along with an aimless existence; or, only seeking daily supplies for daily needs, never looking hopefully into the future, and never seeking to excel, does injustice to his higher nature, and grovels on a plane but little elevated above the demands of animal existence.

No aim can so call out all the powers of the human mind, and soul--as the aim after God-likeness. For what is godliness? Is it not God-likeness? a seeking to be like God? Yet the question at once arises, How can man be like God?  God is infinite; man is finite.  God fills immensity; man stands on a few feet of a little world. God inhabits eternity; man has his breath in his nostrils, flourishing like the grass today, and tomorrow cut down and withered.

Yet with all this disparity, the Bible exhorts us to set the Lord always before us, and to grow up into His likeness. What may be termed the physical attributes of God, those which pertain to Him as Maker of all things, Ruler over suns and systems, the Upholder of the universe; these, man can neither comprehend nor copy, they are beyond his reach, and of them it is, that the Bible asks, "Who by searching can find out God?"

It is God's moral qualities that we are to copy and emulate. These are revealed to us in His holy Word; and though these, like the other attributes of God, are infinite, yet they are held up before us as patterns for us to admire and copy.
 

 

[William Bacon Stevens]

 

 

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1 Timothy 4:7 ... But refuse profane and old wives' fables, and exercise thyself rather unto godliness.

 

 

1 Corinthians 2:16 ... For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? but we have the mind of Christ.

 

 

2 Peter 3:18 ... But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and for ever. Amen. ❤

Life's Sunset

As calmly sinks the setting sun

To realms of gold in gorgeous skies;

When day and all its toils are done;

In glorious peace the good man dies.

As glow the stars when darkness falls,
To cheer the close of fading day,
So, brightening hopes, when death appalls
From Heaven gleam to light his way.

As peaceful clouds along the sky
Retain the glories of the sun.
In memory bright are floating by
His deeds of love in meekness done.

He dies! — as passed the dreary night.
The sun 'mid streams of light appears;
So, passed the valley, a holier light
Bespeaks the glorious crown he wears.

You, who art enthroned on high!
To me Your saving grace be given
To live, and like the good man die;
Like him, be crowned of you in Heaven!

[William Bacon Stevens]

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James 1:12 ... Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him.


Isaiah 25:8 ... He will swallow up death in victory; and the Lord God will wipe away tears from off all faces; and the rebuke of his people shall he take away from off all the earth: for the Lord hath spoken it.


Revelation 7:17 ... For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters: and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.❤