Your ShelfYour Projects

A Hope in Heaven

13%

Publishing Committee · Battle Creek, Mich. · Dec 31, 1857

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 11, No. 8.

Read the full edition

A Hope in Heaven

By Sarah A. Hallock

From Sister Hallock.

BRO. SMITH: I feel grateful to my kind, loving Saviour, that by his grace I am what I am; that the light of his glorious gospel now illumines this once benighted heart of mine, and that through his blood and the word of my testimony I may overcome this world and its haughty prince, the great hater of all that is good.
How sadly has this once lovely earth been desolated by this same enemy, and through his influence, man, one of the noblest works of God, has fallen far below the smallest of those works, and were it not that hope points upward to the throne of a crucified, yet risen and exalted Redeemer, how dark and cheerless would be his earthly abode; but now how sweet is the promise, "To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne."
I do feel in my heart that this world is not my abiding place, that I have here no continuing city, but I seek one to come, "a city that hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God." I am glad that I have not been left to worship at the shrine of my own imagination, to center my hopes upon a mere fanciful idea "beyond the bounds of time and space," which, according to modern theology, an ideal God has prepared for our immortal(?) ideas when our mortal bodies die. I praise the Lord that I have a faith and hope that reach forward to a heaven that is, to a God that is, and to a Saviour that is, and who is about to appear the second time without sin unto salvation unto those that look for him.
O what a glorious hope the faithful christian has. With what confidence, yet with what humility, does he rely upon his Father's promises, and by faith bring near the consummation of all his hopes. Unmoved, he bears the scoffs of the ungodly world around. He listens fearlessly to the low mutterings of the pent up earthquake that will soon break forth, rending kingdoms and distracting nations; for through the telescope of faith he looks into the future, and with joy beholds the chariot wheels that bear his beloved King, whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and whom all dominions shall serve and obey; and he can at least say, Now is coming "salvation and strength, and the kingdom of our God and the power of his Christ."
O let the christian's hope be mine, his faith be mine, his God and his reward be mine.
In hope of eternal life when Jesus comes. SARAH A. HALLOCK. Ulysses, Penn., Dec. 11th, 1857.