Revelation 21:5-8 And he that sat on the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And he said to me, Write: for these words are true and faithful.… The great hindrance to our full belief of all such words as these lies in the very grandeur of the truth to be believed. We turn from the mighty inheritance promised to the Christian conqueror to survey our own fives; and because amidst their poverty and insignificance, their low earthly tendencies and deep spiritual infirmities, we can discover no traces of a battle whose results will be so sublime, we find the promise hard to be believed. But yet the very position of this promise at the end of the last book of God's revelation, shows that it is simply the natural and necessary result of redemption, and therefore belongs with all its greatness to every redeemed man. It is not an end to be sought by the greatest souls alone, but is the birthright of every faithful man. And the lowest, poorest Christian on earth may see, by looking beneath the outward things of life into life's spiritual meaning, that he is actually fighting a battle, which, if he do but fight out faithfully, will render him an heir of all that God can give, or immortality bestow. I. WHY DOES OUR SONSHIP DEMAND A CONFLICT? We must begin by laying down two facts, which prepare the way for the answer, and avoid two errors into which we are prone to fall. 1. The struggle is not to become sons of God; it results from our being so already. The grace by which God makes us feel that we are His sons — that we could not have made ourselves such — gives rise to a conflict in the soul. The power of the Holy Spirit acting on our nature creates at once s spiritual war. The faith that closes the weary effort to make ourselves God's children, in the belief that we are such, creates at once a deep life-long struggle. The love that flows into our hearts from God witnessing to our adoption, transforms our hearts into fields of battle. 2. The conflict rising from sonship is not created by any outward circumstances, but by the state of the soul itself, in all conditions of life and ages of time. Take the first moment in which a man hears God's voice, and becomes conscious of the Divine summons, and you will see how the battle begins. Aroused, perhaps, by trial, sorrow, the sense of life's vanity, he sets out as a pilgrim of the eternal. In the first dim twilight of spiritual life there comes to him the voice of God. At once it seems to isolate him; he feels alone with God and his sin; he discovers the awfulness of individuality. Then commence the first clashings of the spiritual war of which his soul is the battle-field. The earthly and the heavenly, the human and the Divine, the selfish and the holy, conflict in one loud storm of emotion. II. WHY MUST THE CONFLICT BE PEPETUAL? Is there no earthly state in which it will cease? Can we achieve the victory only on the heavenly side of the grave? I answer, it must be long as life, because the old war between the two natures manifests itself in three forms, from which there is no escape. 1. The spirit pants for the invisible — the flesh or the visible world. Is it not manifest that there can be no pause, no safety no repose, till God crowns us as victors in His heaven? 3. The spirit lives in God — the flesh creates temptation to oppose Him. If it be true that all life's circumstances — solitude or companionship, wealth or poverty, joy or sorrow, ease or labour, are filled with temptations, through the shadowy power of the carnal, where can there be a pause in the battle but on the deathless side of the grave? 3. The tendency of the flesh is to be a creature of circumstances: that of the spirit is to be their king. Carnal men move in masses, are swayed by every influence, lose their individuality, and become slaves to the spirit of the world. All spiritual men have found that this loneliness, this separation with God, formed part of their life-struggle. And this, too, is an undying form of our battle as sons of God. "Worship success, gold, power," is the cry of the carnal. "Worship God and measure life by heavenly laws," is the voice of the spiritual. Translate your commonplace toils into this meaning, and they become transfigured. You, in your obscure sphere of work, if you are true to heavenly laws, are in spirit a great warrior. You are taking a part in the spiritual battle of the ages, and if faithful unto death, the full glory of perfected sonship will be yours. "He that overcometh shall be My son." III. THE INHERITANCE OF THE CONQUEROR. "He shall inherit all things." The very conquest of the carnal nature brings us so near to God that all things become our own. 1. Our struggles become our possessions. 2. Inheriting God, we inherit all things. (E. L. Hull, B. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And he said unto me, Write: for these words are true and faithful. |
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