“Therefore are they before the throne of God.”—Revelation vii. 15.

Let us think of Heaven this morning. The verses of which the text is a fragment will help us to do so.

The hope of heaven is the crowning hope of the Christian. It ought at all times to be an important element in his joy. All the pleasant things of earth should be made brighter by the reflected light of the world beyond the grave. It is common, however, for us to live in a sort of unconsciousness of this. Within proper limits this is not to be complained of. For our duties are here, and we are not fitted for there by “looking too eagerly beyond.” Besides, earth is the training-school for heaven, and unless we would enter into heaven as into “a vast abrupt,” obviously our present duty is by all means to cultivate that life which shall fit us for it. There are, however, certain lulls in the rush of life which seem to draw us to the contemplation of the future. We find them sometimes in seasons of repose, but more especially in seasons of sorrow, and more especially still in seasons of bereavement.

I am not anxious to form an argument this morning. I have little disposition to argue about heaven. But I want to express some thoughts, disjointed perhaps, but I trust suggestive, and each one carrying its message to our weary hearts.

What may we know? We often ask this question with hope that is tremulous—or it may be with tremulousness that is hopeful. What may we know? Certainly not all that we sometimes wish to know; but then we sometimes wish to know things the knowledge of which would be useless, or curious, or beyond our reach until we can see with tearless eyes, and realise with sinless hearts. There are certain aspects under which heaven seems to be altogether visionary. Where is it? We are not told. What are the dimensions and outlines of it? We do not know. It is described under a great variety of material figures. We read of its gates of pearl, its walls of jasper, its streets of gold, its river of the water of life, its tree of life; but we know that these descriptions symbolise the spiritual. Not that they are mere riddles, however. Some of their truth may be confidently guessed. There is one important fact of which we cannot be in doubt. Heaven is the place in which will be developed and perfected a certain character—certain moral and spiritual qualifications. Heaven is where perfect goodness is, just as on earth happiness is where godliness and Christlikeness are. We may, therefore, put heaven where we will, and think about it almost as we please, provided we put the right sort of character there, and remember what sort of discipline here must prepare for it. This is the essential point in the revelations of this book: “There shall in no wise enter into it anything that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie: but they which are written in the Lamb’s book of life.” There must be a heaven for the good.

I shall not stop to point out what a wreck our common Christianity would be if there were no future life of blessedness for the Christian. In contemplating such a possibility, the apostle Paul exclaims: “If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.” We: for we have expected heaven; the fair vision has been put before us as a great hope, and we lose in proportion to what we thought we had gained. We: for we have prepared for it, through a life—in many instances a long life—of self discipline, of loyalty to God, of the mortification of sin, of the cultivation of goodness. We: for we have suffered for it, sometimes directly through ills endured for Christ’s sake, and always indirectly by the sacrifice of that which the world distinctively calls its own, and on which it sets its supreme regard. Our Christianity has promised this heaven to us; and the promise has enhanced many an earthly joy, and charmed away many an earthly sorrow. No heaven? Then we have been shamefully deceived—miserably disappointed; and there is no hope for us any more! But no! The words of the great consolation are sounding still, and we can trust them: “Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am there ye may be also.”

It is one of the characteristic glories of the Bible that it meets the renewed heart’s desires in regard to the future, by revealing, not only the fact of the future, but also some of its resplendent mysteries; so that, after taking man through the several stages of his progress on earth, it conducts him at last to the heaven of his hopes, the home of the good. Perhaps no Scripture disclosure of Heaven is more wonderful, more complete, more entrancing than the one we have in the vision of the apostle John as recorded in the verses before us. True, it is put before us, like the other revelations of this book, in poetical and pictorial form. Nevertheless, the spiritual teaching is sufficiently plain. Let us seek the help of that good Spirit by whom John was inspired, whilst we try to learn something of that which is revealed to us in this chapter. In the light of it we see an innumerable multitude of persons who, having travelled this world in trial and in sorrow, are now before the throne of God, safe in the heaven of the redeemed.

So we see, at the very beginning, that the Heaven which is here presented to our view is no solitary place. It is not peopled merely by a few. John says he saw “a great multitude whom no man could number.” In the Old Testament a similar phrase is used to denote Israel, the representative of the Church of later times. The numberless stars of heaven, and the sands on the seashore are the parallels of the idea we find here. The Church on earth, sometimes not unfitly described as “a garden walled around,” and as “a little flock,” is not, in this sense, the representation of the Church in heaven. We see, further, that the heavenly territory embraces the representatives of every earthly human condition: they gather from all ages and all climes of the world—from all “nations and kindreds, and peoples, and tongues.” In this great fact we have the basis of the theory of our mission work, and our hope of its ultimate success.

We see, again, that the relation of the saints to Christ in heaven is essentially the same as that of the saints on earth. They stand before the throne and before the Lamb, and cry with a loud voice: “Salvation to our God which sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb.”

Self-confidence, self-righteousness, self-exaltation have no place there. All the glory of salvation, all the glory of heaven, is due to God and to the Lamb from first to last. Every step of the way, right on to its termination, has been arranged by His wisdom and accomplished by His grace.

With these facts before us, there ought to be no strangeness connected with our conception of Heaven. Its inhabitants are our friends transferred, and the elements of its perfected life and joy are the same as we are, in our measure, familiar with in the imperfect state through which we are now passing. Perhaps the most comprehensive, and most spiritually attractive and influential idea of it is that of entire satisfaction. In this aspect of it, it meets the demands of our experience, fulfils our hope, and draws us upward. Satisfaction! How beautiful the thought! To the weary and the heavy laden it comes as rest. To the aspiring it comes as a sphere of boundless opportunity. To the sad and troubled, it is “a land of pure delight.” To those who groan under present spiritual short comings and frailties, it is the home of the spirits of the just made perfect. We are often staggered at the faults of Christians; they will be “without fault” there. Here our faults dissociate us more or less from our brethren; faultlessness there will make the union complete. Here darkness, there light; here sowing, there the harvest; here a wilderness, there the garden of the Lord. Heaven contains all our ideals of the true, the beautiful and the good; and one day we shall realise them! The description which we have before us warrants all this, and much more. How much more? The redeemed in Heaven live a life of immunity from suffering. No hunger; no thirst; no oppression from the heat of the sun. No faintness; no pangs. John seems, from the form of expression he uses, to have beheld them as they were “coming out of great tribulation.” Whatever may be the prophetic reference in these words, we may understand them as having some meaning appropriate to all the redeemed. All life, with its varied experience may be called (and that too in no fanciful sense) a tribulation; in this sense at least, that it is a probation, a trial, a testing-time in view of the great awards of the future. From this all come, gradually, successively, one by one, passing from the school of earth to the home of heaven. Trial is the common discipline of the good, and it comes in many forms;—sometimes in the form of bodily pain and sickness; sometimes in the form of trouble, disappointment, loss in the household and in the social circle; sometimes in the form of persecution; often in the form of a struggle with temptation springing up from within or from without; often, it may be, in the form of conflict with doubt. Sorrow, trial, tribulation—from all this the redeemed in heaven have emerged. But they have not only escaped from evil; they have risen into a perfect blessedness—the blessedness which comes from the satisfaction of every want. They not only hunger no more, neither thirst any more; but the Lamb that is in the midst of the throne feeds them, and leads them to living fountains of waters. Their blessedness is all the richer because not only are all their tears wiped away, but wiped away by the hand of infinite gentleness and love—the hand of the Best Beloved in all the universe! Well may they be glad! Well may they sing loud ecstatic songs of praise to their Redeemer. Well may they serve Him day and night in His temple—perfected powers rejoicing evermore in a perfect consecration. They are a company living, dwelling, at the very centre of joy: no care upon them, no labour weighing them down; their Lord in the midst of them, their satisfaction complete.

The contrast between their condition on earth and in heaven is full of wonder to us as we muse upon it. How was the change wrought? What must we learn concerning this from what is here revealed?

They were prepared here for the state beyond. The life of heaven is the continuation and the result of the earthly life. “They washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb,” and they “came up out of great tribulation.” Here we have the process of the cleansing, “the great tribulation” being comprehensive of the whole discipline by which God purifies human souls. Here we have also the purifying element, “the blood of the Lamb,” the atoning power to wash out all stains, the stimulating power to inspire to all holiness. And we also have the final result—“white raiment.” So, doctrinally, the “robes” stand for the whole character, the tribulation for the process of purification; “the blood of the Lamb,” for the cleansing element in its justifying and sanctifying effects. Their holiness is not merely passive. There is a righteousness which is imputed; but there is also a righteousness which is acquired—acquired in the might of the Saviour, and through the influences of His Spirit. Those who do not aspire to the latter have no hope from the former, except a hope which must make them ashamed. But inasmuch as both aspects of salvation are to be referred to the Lamb, they give to Him the glory. It is all His from beginning to end. “They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.” Thus their salvation was effected on earth. Heaven has introduced no new moral element into their condition. Heaven is essentially the full realisation of what a Christian expects and hopes this side the grave. It is the inheritance of the man who has the kingdom of God within him.

There is one part of the description which requires a little explanation, and all the more so as it bears upon the aspects given to us of heavenly blessedness. The redeemed are represented as standing before the throne with palms in their hands. Many explain this by the heathen use of the palm as the emblem of victory, and they quote the declaration: “In all these things we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us.” I would rather, with some, refer this emblem to a much sweeter and holier reminiscence. The figure seems to be taken from the Feast of Tabernacles, which commemorated two things—God’s care for, and protection of, Israel during their wanderings in the wilderness, and His continued Providence in the supply of the fruits of the earth in their season. It was held at the close of the year’s out-door labours, and with it the season of rest began. And so with the ransomed above, the troubles of the wilderness are ended, and the harvest-home has come.

Such is the heaven to which God has removed our dead. May we not with thankfulness leave them there? Must we not feel that by death, they have made a glorious exchange? In their case, it would be wrong to call death by hard names. It is the message which comes to the child at school to go home. I know that we often fail to apprehend this. Bound by time and sense, we want to build our homes here, and our structures have one after another to be overthrown that we may the better learn to think of “the city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God.” Heaven is best seen by the graves of those we have loved; and not till earth becomes poor to us is Heaven felt to be rich. There our loved ones are in raiment white and clean, and they are happy. Let it be our constant endeavour to rejoin them there. The same blood still atones; the same all-holy Spirit still purifies; the same process of trial leads to the same issue. For ourselves, we should ever keep in mind the connection between discipline here and glory hereafter. Present darkness may be interpreted by future light. Even now, the sanctified effects of trial are such as to suggest to us what its final issues will be. It subdues us, makes us gentle, reveals us to ourselves, reveals God to us, spiritualises us; so that we may well be more anxious to have our troubles blessed by God than to have them taken away. As the discipline of earth is fashioning us for heaven, so our conceptions of heaven are continually re-acting upon us, and moulding our life.

One thought more. The seer beholds the immense multitude of the redeemed. The angel asks him who they are; but he does not know them. Many of them perhaps are persons whom he had known on earth; but they are so changed that he does not recognise them now. He used to know them by their imperfect Christian virtues; but now they are “without fault.” And so they seem strange to him, just as sometimes even here the transformations of virtue and of joy make us say of well-known faces that we hardly recognise them again. A hint of this we often see in the faces of the dead; so like, yet so unlike. Is there any doubt, then, as to our recognising them at the last? None. We may, perhaps, fail to identify them at once, but they will not be strangers to us long. We shall look upon them with opened and purified eyes, and shall know them, even as the disciples on the mount knew Moses and Elias, notwithstanding the glory. Oh, it will be good for us to be there! Good for us to remain there for ever!

Read: “These are they who are coming”—not “who came.” They began to come with Abel; and the procession is not yet closed. Among the last are those over the loss of whom we are weeping now. Let us brush away our tears; for at least we may say to ourselves this—