Author’s Corner

Heaven

Our existence on this earth and the number of days allotted to each of us depends on the sovereignty of God. He gives and takes according to His will.

Speaking of the idea of the sovereignty of God in the existence of each of our lives, Spurgeon says: “Our presence on earth in this day of grace was a matter altogether beyond our control….The continuance of life is equally determined by God. He who fixed our birth has measured the interval between the cradle and the grave, and it shall not be a day longer or a day shorter than the divine decree. How many times your lungs shall heave and your pulses beat have been fixed by the eternal calculator from of old. What reflections ought to arise out of this! How willing we should be to labour on, even if we be weary, since God appoints our day and will not over-weary us, for he is no hard taskmaster. How glad we ought to be even to suffer if the Lord so ordains….The Lord’s time is best: to a hair’s breadth thy span of life is rightly measured. God ordains all: therefore peace, restless spirit, and let the Lord have his way.”

Furthermore: “It were a sad sentence if we were bound over to dwell in this poor world for ever.” Therefore, we can take hope in the fact that “we are immortal till our work is done.”

In a sermon preached with a special emphasis on death, Spurgeon elaborates: “He has ordained the hour in which I must expire. A thousand angels cannot keep me from the grave an instant when that hour has struck. Nor could legions of spirits cast me into the pit before the appointed time….

“All our times are in his hand. The means, the way I shall die, how long I shall be in dying, the sickness and in what place I shall be seized with the contagion, all these are ordained.”

Spurgeon uses a simple illustration: “Take another – one used of old by that mighty preacher, Chrysostom – there is an old house, a straight and narrow cottage, and the inhabitant of it often shivers with the cold in winter, and is greatly oppressed by the heat of summer; it is ill adapted to his wants, the windows are too small and very dark, he cannot keep his treasure safely therein; he is often a prisoner; and when I have passed by his house I have heard him sighing at the window: ‘Oh, wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death.’ The good master comes, the landlord of the house, he speaks to the tenant, and he bids him come away, ‘I am about to pull down thy old house,’ saith he, ‘and I would not have thee here while I am pulling it stone from stone, lest thou be hurt and injured. Come away with me and live in my palace, while I am pulling thy old house to pieces.’ He does so, and every stone of the old house is thrown down; it is levelled with the ground, and even the foundations are dug up. Another is built: it is of costly slabs of marble, the windows thereof are pure and clear, all its gates are of agate, and all its borders of precious stones, while all the foundations thereof are of chrysolite, and the roof thereof is of jasper. And now the master of the house speaks to the old inhabitant, ‘Come back, and I will show thee the house which I have built for thee.’ O what joy, when that inhabitant shall enter and find it so well adapted to his wants, where every power shall have full range, where he shall see God out of its windows, not as through a glass, darkly, but face to face, where he could invite even Christ himself to come up and sup with him, and not feel that the house is beneath the dignity of the Son of Man. You know the parable, you know how your old house, this clay body, is to be pulled down, how your spirit is to dwell in heaven for a little while without a body, and how afterwards you are to enter into a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens, a mansion which is holy, incorruptible, and undefiled, and which shall never decay.”

And what will we be like in Heaven? “Personality will be maintained. I do not doubt but what you will know Isaiah in heaven; and you will recognize the great preachers of the ancient Christian church; you will be able to speak with Chrysostom, and will talk with Whitefield. It may be you shall have for your companions those who were your companions here; those with whom you took sweet counsel, and walked to the house of God, shall be there with you, and you shall know them, and with transporting joy you shall there together tell your former trials and ancient triumphs, and the glories you are alike made to share.”

Continues Spurgeon: “In this world we have had some good wine of sweet company….Some of you can remember golden names that were very dear to you in the days of your youth – of men and women with whom you used to go up to God’s house and take sweet counsel….and you have friends still left, to whom you look up with some degree of reverence, while they look upon you with intense affection. There are some men that are comforters to your soul, and when you talk to them you feel that their heart answers to your heart, and that you can enjoy union and communion with them. But beloved, the good wine is kept till the last. All the fellowship with the saints that we have had here, is as nothing compared with what we are to enjoy in the world to come. How sweet it is for us to recollect, that in heaven we shall be in the company of the best men, the noblest men, the most mighty men, the most honourable and the most renowned. We shall sit with Moses, and talk with him of all his life of wonders; we shall walk with Joseph, and we shall hear from him of the grace that kept him in his hour of peril; I doubt not you and I shall have the privilege of sitting by the side of David, and hearing him recount the perils and the deliverances through which he passed. The saints of heaven make but one communion; they are not divided into separate classes; we shall be allowed to walk through all the glorious ranks, and hold fellowship with all of them; nor need we doubt but that we shall be able to know them all. There are many reasons which I could not now enumerate, for it would occupy me too much time, that seem to my mind to settle the point, that in heaven we shall know even as we are known, and shall perfectly know each other; and that indeed, makes us long to be there.”

Not only will we know each other in Heaven but we will know. Our questions will be answered. “Up in heaven, too, we shall see our life as a whole, and we shall see God’s dealings with us on earth as a whole. A great many matters which now appear mysterious and complex, concerning which we can only walk by faith, for our reason is baffled, will be so clear to us as to excite our joyous songs in heaven. ‘Now I see why I was laid aside when I wanted to be busy in God’s work: now I see why that dear child, whom I hoped to have had spared to me as a stay for my old age, was taken away; now I understand why my business was suffered to fail; now I comprehend why that foul mouth was allowed to be opened against me; now I comprehend why I was assailed with inward fears, and was suffered to go tremblingly all my days.’ Such will be our confessions when the day dawns and the shadows flee away. Then we shall say and sing: ‘He hath dealt wondrously with us.’ We shall feel that the best was done for us that even Eternal Wisdom could devise, and we shall bless the name of the Lord.”

The triumph of the grave, however, is that “we must not make a mistake by imagining that the soul sleeps….‘To-day shalt thou be with me in Paradise,’ is the whisper of Christ to every dying saint.”

Furthermore, “the soul forgets not, and we have no reason to believe that the glorified are ignorant of what is going on below.”

Indeed, “in a few minutes I shall know more of heaven than an assembly of divines could teach me….Worms devour the clay, but angels welcome the soul. There is general mourning wherever the good man was known; but mark ye, it is only in the dark that this sorrow reigns. Up there in the light, what are they doing? That spirit as it left the body found not itself alone. Angels had come to meet it. Angelic spirits clasped the disembodied spirit in their arms, and bore it upward beyond the stars – beyond where the angel in the sun keeps his everlasting watch – beyond, beyond this lower sky immeasurable leagues. Lo! the pearly gates appear, and the azure light of the city of bejeweled walls! The spirit asketh, ‘Is yonder city the fair Jerusalem where they need no candle, neither light of the sun?’ He shall see for himself ere long, for they are nearing the Holy City, and it is time for the cherub-bearers to begin their choral. The music breaks from the lips of those that convey the saint to heaven – ‘Lift up your heads, O ye gates, and be ye lifted up ye everlasting doors, that the blood-bought of the King of glory may come in!’ The gates of pearl give way, the joyous crowds of heaven welcome their brother to the seats of immortality. But what next, I cannot tell. In vain the fancy strives to paint it. Jesus is there, and the spirit is in his arms.”

Still, some Christians fear that Heaven will be dull. However, in a sermon preached in the Metropolitan Tabernacle on Lord’s Day morning, February 7, 1892, in connection with Spurgeon’s own death, the Reverend A.T. Pierson offers the opposite view: “When a saint of God falls asleep as to his body, and enters into the presence of his Lord, as to his spirit for evermore, the labours, the toils, the vexations of this world, he leaves behind him; but he carries with him into immortality his service. He goes to carry on his work for God, for that is as immortal as God himself. He goes where no limitations exist, where no vexations and hindrances circumscribe his activity, where ‘they rest not,’ because they are never tired nor fatigued; where, as they wait on the Lord, they renew their strength, mount up with wings as eagles, run and are never weary, walk and never faint. The tireless and endless activity of a redeemed soul partakes of the tireless energy of an untiring God. Let us not suppose, for a moment, that when a man who has spent his life in seeking to serve God, who has stored his mind with all manner of accumulations, and, with the tension of persistent effort, sought to acquire and achieve all that is possible for his Master; who has laid the foundation-stone of great institutions, has scattered abroad throughout the world the testimony of his faith and his courage for his Master’s sake – let us not suppose for a moment that, when such a man falls, as we say, at the blow of death, his service ceases. God is a better…economist, housekeeper, than that. He is no such wasteful keeper of his eternal house. When a saint departs to be with Christ, instead of leaving service behind, he enters of a new sphere of service, where, instead of sacrificing acquisitions and attainments, he rather finds an absolutely perfect scope for the exercise of them all; instead of ceasing to work for his Master, he rather begins his work anew in the tirelessness of celestial energy.”1

Therefore, “You must not think that, when you have done working here, you Sunday-school teachers, and those of us who preach and teach, that the Master will say, ‘I have discharged you from my service. Go and sit on a heavenly mount, and sing yourselves away for ever and ever.’ Not a bit of it. I am but learning how to preach now; I shall be able to preach by-and-by. You are only learning to teach now; you will be able to teach by-and-by. Yes, to angels, and principalities, and powers, you shall make known the manifold wisdom of God. I sometimes aspire to the thought of a congregation of angels and archangels, who shall sit and wonder, as I tell what God has done for me; and I shall be to them an everlasting monument of the grace of God to an unworthy wretch, upon whom he looked with infinite compassion, and saved with a wonderful salvation. All those stars, those worlds of light, who knows how many of them are inhabited? I believe there are regions beyond our imagination to which every child of God shall become an everlasting illumination, a living example of the love of God in Christ Jesus. The people in those far distant lands could not see Calvary as this world has seen it; but they shall hear of it from the redeemed. Remember how the Lord will say, ‘Well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things.’…the man who has been a faithful and wise steward of God here, will be called of God to more eminent service hereafter. If he serve his Master well, when his Master comes, he will promote him to still higher service. Do you not know how it used to be in the Spartan army? Here is a man who has fought well, and been a splendid soldier. He is covered with wounds on his breast. The next time that there is a war, they say, ‘Poor fellow, we will reward him! He shall lead the way in the first battle. He fought so well before, when he met one hundred with a little troop behind him; now he shall meet ten thousand with a larger troop.’ ‘Oh!’ say you, ‘that is giving him more work.’ That is God’s way of rewarding his people, and a blessed thing it is for the industrious servant. His rest is in serving God with all his might. This shall be our heaven, not to go there to roost, but to be always on the wing; for ever flying, and for ever resting at the same time. ‘They do his commandments, hearkening unto the voice of his word.’ ‘His servants shall serve him: and they shall see his face.’ These two things blended together make a noble ambition for every Christian.”2

And for those who are left? In a sermon preached on Sunday morning, December 22, 1861, at the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Spurgeon spoke of the death of Prince Albert, husband of Queen Victoria of England. Said Spurgeon: “And this, too, shall be our best comfort. God hath done it. What! shall we weep for what God hath done? Shall we sorrow when the Master hath taken away what was his own? ‘The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord.’ The gardener had a choice flower in his beds. One morning he missed it. He had tended it so carefully that he looked upon it with the affection of a father to a child, and he hastily ran through the garden and sought out one of the servants, for he thought surely an enemy had plucked it, and he said to him, ‘Who plucked that rose?’ And the servant said, ‘I saw the master walking through the garden early this morning, when the sun was rising, and I saw him bear it away in his hand.’ Then he that tended the rose said, ‘It is well; let him be blessed; it was his own; for him I held it; for him I nursed it; and if he hath taken it, it is well.’ So be it with your hearts. Feel that it is for the best that you have lost your friend, or that your best relation has departed. God has done it.”3

In speaking of what happens in the process of dying and consequent resurrection of the body, we can be comforted by our Lord’s gentle treatment of us. Using the example of a child, Spurgeon says: “The child has to go to bed, but it does not cry if mother is going upstairs with it. It is quite dark; but what of that? The mother’s eyes are lamps to the child. It is very lonely and still. Not so; the mother’s arms are the child’s company, and her voice is its music. O Lord, when the hour comes for me to go to bed, I know that thou wilt take me there, and speak lovingly into my ear; therefore I cannot fear, but will even look forward to that hour of thy manifested love.”

Further, we need not fear the deaths of loved ones:

Why should it be thought a thing incredible with you, that God should raise the dead?’ – Acts 26: 8 (KJV)

“Concerning the souls of our believing friends who have departed this life we suffer no distress, we feel sure that they are where Jesus is, and behold his glory, according to our Lord’s own memorable prayer….

“We do then really in very truth believe that the very body which is put into the grave will rise again, and we mean this literally, and as we utter it. We are not using the language of metaphor, or talking of a myth; we believe that, in actual fact, the bodies of the dead will rise again from the tomb.”

But some man will say, How are the dead raised up? and with what body do they come; Thou fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die: and that which thou sowest, thou sowest not that body that shall be, but bare grain, it may chance of wheat, or of some other grain: but God giveth it a body as it hath pleased him, and to every seed his own body. – 1 Cor. 15: 35-38 (KJV)4

It is one thing to view Heaven as safe. It is another to think about our own passage into Heaven. As J. Sidlow Baxter once said, “I don’t fear death, but I don’t look forward to the process.”

While not every Christian dies the same, and many, like Martin Luther, reportedly die with something less than joy, enough Christians have had remarkable deathbed experiences to encourage us all:

Stephen, the first Christian martyr, at the moment when stones hurled by God-haters were taking his life, cried out, “Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing at the right hand of God.” Jesus seems to have stood up to honor and receive the imperial spirit of this first martyr to His gracious cause….D. L. Moody, that saint of God, who preached the love and kindness of God until he had two continents at the cross, cried out when dying, “If this is death, there is no valley. This is glorious. I have been within the gates, and saw the children, Dwight and Irene. Earth is receding, heaven is approaching, God is calling me, this is to be my coronation day.”5

Spurgeon, also, is very reassuring on this point:

Jordan is a very narrow stream. It made a sort of boundary for Canaan; but it hardly sufficed to divide it from the rest of the world, since a part of the possessions of Israel was on the eastern side of it. Those who saw the Red Sea divided, and all Israel marching through its depths, must have thought it a small thing for the Jordan to be dried up, and for the people to pass through it to Canaan. The greatest barrier between believers and heaven has been safely passed. In the day when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, we passed through our Red Sea, and the Egyptians of our sins were drowned. Great was the marvel of mercy! To enter fully into our eternal inheritance, we have only to cross the narrow stream of death; and scarcely that, for the kingdom of heaven lieth on this side of the river as well as on the other.
I start by reminding you of this, because we are very apt to imagine that we must endure a kind of purgatory while we are on earth, and then, if we are believers, we may break loose into heaven after we have shuffled off this mortal coil. But it is not so. Heaven must be in us before we can be in heaven; and while we are yet in the wilderness, we may spy out the land, and may eat of the clusters of Eshcol. There is no such gulf between earth and heaven as gloomy thoughts suggest. Our dreams should not be of an abyss, but of a ladder whose foot is on the earth, but whose top is in glory. There would not be one hundredth part so much difference between earth and heaven if we did not live so far below our privileges. We live on the ground, when we might rise as on the wings of eagles. We are all too conscious of this body. Oh, that we were oftener where Paul was when he said, “Whether in the body or out of the body, I cannot tell: God knoweth”! If not caught up into Paradise, yet may our daily life be as the garden of the Lord.6

Emphasizing the validity of Heaven as a real place, in her book Legacy of a Pack Rat, the late Ruth Bell Graham gives us a glimpse of heaven’s reality as viewed through a crack in earth’s spiritual ceiling:

The room was quiet and semidarkened. The elderly lady lying against the pillows listened as her son, Robert [Armistead], talked of the family, her friends, and other things of interest to her.
She looked forward to his daily visits. Madison, where he lived, was not far from Nashville, and Robert spent as much time as he could with his mother, knowing, as ill as she was, each visit might be his last. As he talked, his eyes took in every detail of her loved face, every line – and there were more lines than curves now – the white hair; the tired, still-loving eyes. When time came to leave, he kissed her gently on her forehead, assuring her he would be back the next day.
Arriving back at his home in Madison, he found Robin, his seventeen-year-old, was ill with a strange fever. The next few days his time was completely taken up between his son and his mother.
He did not tell his mother of Robin’s illness. He was her oldest grandson – the pride and joy of her life.
Then, suddenly, Robin was gone. His death shocked the whole community as well as his family. The whole thing had happened so quickly. And seventeen is too young to die.
As soon as the funeral was over, Mr. Armistead hurried to his mother’s bedside, praying nothing in his manner would betray the fact he had just buried his firstborn. It would be more than his mother could take in her condition.
The doctor was in the room as he entered. His mother was lying with her eyes closed.
“She’s in a coma,” the doctor said gently. He knew something of the strain this man had been under, his faithful visits to his mother, the death of his son, the funeral from which he had just come….
The doctor put his hand on Mr. Armistead’s shoulder in wordless sympathy. “Just sit beside her,” he said, “she might come to….” And he left them together.
Mr. Armistead’s heart was heavy as he sat in the gathering twilight.
He lit the lamp on the bedside table, and the shadows receded.
Soon she opened her eyes, and smiling in recognition, she put her hand on her son’s knee.
“Bob…” she said his name lovingly – and drifted into a coma again.
Quietly Mr. Armistead sat on, his hand over hers, his eyes never leaving her face. After a while there was a slight movement on the pillow.
His mother’s eyes were open and there was a far-off look in them, as if she were seeing beyond the room. A look of wonder passed over her face.
“I see Jesus,” she exclaimed, adding, “Why there’s Father…and there’s Mother…”
And then,
“And there’s Robby! I didn’t know Robby had died….” Her hand patted her son’s knee gently.
“Poor Bob…” she said softly, and was gone.7

But those of us who still remain on earth can once again be encouraged by Spurgeon when he says:

“I think I have heard you saying, ‘Ah! this is all about heaven; but we have not yet come to it. We are still wrestling here below.’ Well, well; if we cannot go to heaven at once, heaven can come to us….It is a mistake to think that our safety or our danger is according to our circumstances; our safety or our danger is according to our nearness to God, or our distance from him. A man who is near to God can stand on the pinnacle of the temple, and the devil may tempt him to throw himself down, and yet he will be firm as the temple itself. A man that is without God may be in the safest part of the road, and traverse a level way, and yet he will stumble. It is not the road, but the Lord that keepeth the pilgrim’s foot. O heir of heaven, commit thou thy way unto God, and make him thine all in all, and rise above the creature into the Creator, and then shalt thou hunger no more, neither thirst any more, neither shall the heat nor the sun smite thee.”8
— Elizabeth R. Skoglund

Footnotes

  1. Spurgeon quotes from Elizabeth R. Skoglund, Bright Days, Dark Nights: With Charles Spurgeon in Triumph Over Emotional Pain (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2000), 195, 203-08.
  2. Charles Spurgeon, 1889
  3. Skoglund, Bright Days, 209-210.
  4. Skoglund, Bright Days, 200-201.
  5. Earle F. Wilde, Heaven (Kansas City: Nazarene Publishing House, 1931), 10-11.
  6. Spurgeon, 1890.
  7. Ruth Bell Graham quoted in Elizabeth R. Skoglund, Life on the Line (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House Books, 1992), 207-208.
  8. Spurgeon, 1890.

 

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For more of Elizabeth Skoglund’s writing, please visit her Books page or read her online material available on the eBooks and eArticles pages.