Everything That Could Be Desired, Furnished with a Lavish Hand
Not a Sorrow Ever to Enter It — The Only Home
Really Worth Striving For
By TYLER E. BOWEN
WHEN Jesus comes, He comes to take His earthly children to their new home. That home is a city prepared for them in heaven. It is a real place. It is theirs. It was made for them. It has been planned by their elder Brother, who lived thirty-three years among them on earth. He has built for them that city up there. It is finally to become the capital of their earthly home, a thousand years and more hence. It has foundations, gates, streets, and mansions. It is large, — 375 miles on each side, — with three principal avenues running each way across it, each street 375 miles long without a break. These streets are made of pure gold. Gold is lavishly used, and without doubt it adorns the palaces within the beautiful walls inclosing the city. A river will flow through it — a river of life.
WRECKAGE FROM THE TYPHOON IN SHANGHAI, CHINA
The vines Adam and Eve once trained into their bower home are there. Trees adorn the place. Among them is the tree of life, transplanted by God from Eden itself. Adam's home, we understand, just as it was when he was driven from it, is within this city which God has built. After the fall, in order that there should be no immortal sinner, angels guarded the tree of life, until just before the Flood, when — so we believe — God transplanted the Garden of Eden to heaven.
Beautiful and enriched as only God and loving angels could make it, this home for the saved is almost ready for occupancy. There may be some finishing touches yet to be made, or it may be all done, finished and in waiting. However that may be, we have reason to believe that work has been going on upon it for about two thousand years; for Jesus said, "I go to prepare a place for you."
Upon the foundation stones are inscribed the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb. Over the door arches are engraved the names of twelve sons, or immediate descendants, of the patriarch Jacob.
THE CITY PREPARED FOR EARTH
Everything goes to show that this city is constructed for this earth. Its very associations belong here. This being so, it will be brought down here. The word of God says so. "And I saw a new heaven and a new earth. . . . And I John saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven. . . . And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself shall be with them, and be their God." Rev. 21: 1-3.
Yes, God Himself shall be there, for the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it.
PEOPLE OF BAD HABITS NOT ADMITTED
Into this real city, built of all manner of precious materials — gold, and silver, and pearls, and such like — a very carefully selected company shall enter. There shall be no red light sections in the city. No saloons will occupy choice corner lots. No covetous, dishonest schemers will be able to procure locations in the business centers. No novel writers nor novel readers shall be there. No tobacco stores, nor places where cigarettes are sold, will be there. For it is written, "And 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." Rev. 21: 27.
NO SABBATH BREAKING THERE
During the untold centuries, marked off by the revolutions of the earth upon its axis and around the sun, with the moon making its monthly circuits, thus measuring off the day, the night, the week, the month, the year, the Sabbath of the Lord shall be kept within these holy palaces.
The prophet Isaiah wrote: "For as the new heavens and the new earth, which I will make, shall remain before Me, saith the Lord, so shall your seed and your name remain. And it shall come to pass, that from one new moon to another, and from one Sabbath to another, shall all flesh come to worship before Me, saith the Lord." Isa. 66: 22, 23.
STREET OF CANTON, CHINA, DURING THE FLOOD
The Sabbath controversy will then have been settled. This Sabbath referred to as being kept week by week is God's Sabbath, not man's. All the inhabitants of the city worship together upon that day. It will be the same Sabbath God made back there in Eden, upon which He Himself rested; and in this city of which we are speaking, the same day will be observed that God blessed and set apart for the Sabbath in the beginning. He has blessed no other day, nor commanded3us to keep any other; consequently the Sabbath to be observed in that new earth will be the seventh day. All who pass through those gates will be willing to obey God and join heartily in worshiping Him upon the day He Himself chose in Eden for the Sabbath. There will be no policemen in that city to enforce Sunday laws. All this will be done away with the passing of the old earth, and of the old heaven encircling it.
The Bible makes plain that had the Sabbath been observed as God intended that it should be, the Jerusalem of David’s time, with the temple erected by Solomon within it, need not have been destroyed, but could have been built up to be the capital of the whole earth, and that it might have stood forever. See Jer. 17: 19-27.
A BEAUTIFUL COUNTRY ROUND ABOUT THE ROYAL CITY
Moreover, outside this wonderful city there will be homes — real homes — in which the redeemed of the Lord will peacefully dwell. “They shall build houses, and inhabit them, and they shall plant vineyards, and eat the fruit of them. They shall not build, and another inhabit; they shall not plant, and another eat: for as the days of a tree [evidently the tree of life is here meant] are the days of My people, and Mine elect shall long enjoy the work of their hands.” Isa. 65: 21, 22.
NO LAND SET OFF FOR HOSPITALS OR GRAVEYARDS
There will be no hospitals there. The services of the physician and the nurse will not be needed any more; for no inhabitant will say, “I am sick.” Death, sorrow, crying, and pain will have been destroyed in the day of the burning up of the old earth and her evil works.
Think, dear reader, of the infinite pains God is taking for us. How thoughtful to prepare such a home as this — a real home, as much so as this one in which we now live; like it, with only that left out which annoys and causes us sorrow; a place not so different that we should feel strange in it, but our old home fixed up; the same sun to shine upon it, although its light will not then be needed in the city, for the Son of God Himself shall furnish the light thereof; the same moon we now behold to shine on eternally; rivers and fields, gardens and vineyards, of our own; friends long lost, restored to each other. Surely our loving Father has omitted nothing that might contribute to the happiness of the nations of the saved, who shall bring their “glory and honor” into it.
Shall we cling to the perishable things we now see, thinking thus to retain our habitations here? Can we not believe what God says of His purpose concerning this old sin-cursed, blood-soaked earth, and also believe Him when He tells us of His purpose to create a new home for us? Within the reach of such an inheritance as this, shall we, like Esau, despise our heirship to it, and sell our birthright in it for a mess of pottage?
Let us not be so foolish as this, but count all else loss, that we may win Christ, and so become joint heirs with Him to this eternal home.
“We have heard from the bright, the holy land —
We have heard, and our hearts are glad;
For we were a lonely pilgrim band,
And weary, and worn, and sad.
They tell us the saints have a dwelling there,
No longer are homeless ones;
And we know that the goodly land is fair,
Where life’s pure river runs.
“They say green fields are waving there,
That never a blight shall know,
And the deserts wild are blooming fair,
And the roses of Sharon grow.
There are lovely birds in the bowers green;
Their songs are blithe and sweet;
And their warblings, gushing ever new,
The angels’ harpings greet.
“The King of that country, He is fair;
He’s the joy and light of the place;
In His beauty we shall behold Him there,
And bask in His smiling face.
We’ll be there, we’ll be there in a little while.
We’ll join the pure and the blest.
We’ll have the palm, the robe, the crown,
And forever be at rest.”
