DWELLERS, OR SOJOURNERS?
By Cyrus Simmons
To A casual reader this interrogation seems unimportant. Let us see if the Lord makes a difference between those who dwell and those who sojourn on this earth. To Abraham God said: “Lift up now thine eyes, and look from the place where thou art northward, and southward, and eastward, and westward; for all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed forever.” Gen. 13:14, 15. Paul shows that God intended not only that Abraham should have as much of the promised land as his eye could measure, but that he should be “heir of the world.” Rom. 4:13. If the whole world was given to us, we would naturally think we had a right to dwell on it. How was it with Abraham? “By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise.” Heb. 11:9. When Sarah, his wife, died, tho living at the same time in the land given by God, he did not own enough of it to bury his dead. He confessed: “I am a stranger and a sojourner with you: give me a possession of a burying-place with you, that I may bury my dead out of my sight.” Gen. 23:4. Abraham and those who sprang from him, who were as multitudinous as the stars in the sky, and as innumerable as the sand which is by the seashore, “all died in faith, not having received the promises [altho they lived in the promised land], but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.” Heb. 11:13. The world of which Abraham is the heir, and the land promised to him and his seed, must necessarily mean the new earth, since Abraham and those who sprang from him did not recognize this earth to be the fulfilment of the inheritable promises; but during their sojourn here they disclaimed to be dwellers when they confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. Abraham “looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God.” Heb. 11:10. In fact, all his children now “desire a better country, that is, a heavenly.” Heb. 11:16. Who are his children? By what means is one able to trace his lineage back to father Abraham?—“If ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.” Gal. 3:29. To be Christ’s we have to be the children of God, we have to be righteous. It follows as an unanswerable conclusion that the righteous, or those who, through Christ, claim relationship with Abraham, will have to confess that they too are “strangers and pilgrims on the earth.” They too will be looking for the fulfilment of God’s promises; they will be looking for that “city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God;” and, for that very reason, “God is not ashamed to be called their God.” Why?—Because they take him at his word; they believe what he says. We can see why the “children of light” will be waiting and watching for Christ to come again and receive them unto himself; that they may live in the mansions prepared for them in that very city for which they are looking. Believing in this glorious inheritance, “ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day [the day of the Lord] should overtake you as a thief.” 1 Thess. 5:4. On the contrary, it is the very day “the children of light” will be looking for; and so rejoiced will they be when it does come that they will exclaim, “Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him.” Isa. 25:9. But to those who dwell upon the earth, who do not believe in God’s promises, who want to live here and are not endeavoring to live hereafter, the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night: “For as a snare shall it come on all them that dwell on the face of the whole earth.” Luke 21:35. CYRUS SIMMONS.