Nearer Heaven by J. Bates

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jul 2, 1872

Nearer Heaven

By J. Bates

The simple fact of our time getting shorter each day does not imply that we are getting also nearer Heaven. As time is flying, it may carry us on its wings nearer hell than Heaven. The true and only reliable rule by which to judge upon this point is, whether we are getting nearer holiness. If we are growing in conformity to the divine likeness and nature; if we are dying daily to sin and living unto God; if we are realizing more and more of the love of Christ within us; if we are rising higher in spirituality of affection and thought; if we are delighting ourselves more heartily in the service of God; then we are, indeed, getting nearer Heaven. Heaven is perfection in holiness, according to the will of God, and as we approach this we approach Heaven.

Let us distinctly and vividly understand this. There is a danger lest we think too much of Heaven as a place of beauty, of pleasure, of glory, of great society, without thinking of it as a place of spotless purity; and all those features of Heaven are arising out of this. Let us, then, press on toward purity, through the blood of the Lamb; and in the proportion we do this we shall get nearer Heaven.—Rev. J. Bates.