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.… In one word did our Lord upon the Cross sum up the whole of man's salvation and His own eternal purpose for our redemption, "It is finished." In one word doth He here, revealing Himself as He sitteth upon His. throne in glory, sum up the whole of time, "It is done." This one great word, in a manner, stood over against, and carries on and enlarges the other. "It is done." What a Word is that! As it sounds, what a world of busy restlessness it seems to cut off at once. Well may it! For it is the end of the whole world itself, of all but God. We are, mostly, ever looking forward, and this "Voice turns us round at once, and bids us look back. We are, too often, living in an earthly future; then, all of earth will he past and "done." Now men are looking on; and hope is as that glass which enlarges things distant; look back, and all shrivels and contracts into a speck, and can no longer fill eye Or heart. The past preacheth stern truth, if we will but hear. It is real It has come to an end; and so in it we may see things as they shall be in the end. "Call no man happy before his death," said once a wise heathen We judge of things as they tend to. wards their end; contain, in a manner, their end in themselves, secure it. Wall. laid schemes ye call those which in every step look to, advance towards, their end. Worldly wisdom is that which gains its end. And shall not Divine wisdom be that which gains its own unending end, the end of all ends, the Everlasting God? This, then, can be the .only measure of the value of things in time, what shall be their value when time itself is gone? Even a heathen wast taught of God to say, "The whole life of the wise is a thinking on death." That only is wise to be done which in death ye shall wish ye had done. Seasons of sorrow or sickness or approaching death have shown persons a whole life in different colours from what it worse before; how what before seemed "grace" was but "nature"; how seeming zeal for God was but natural activity, how love of human praise had robbed men of the praise of God; how what they thought pleasing to God was only pleasing self; how one subtle self-pleasing sin has cankered a whole life of seeming grace. Wherever, then, we may be in the course heavenwards, morning by morning let us place before ourselves that morning which has no evening, and purpose we to do that and that only which we shall wish we had done when we shall see it in the light of 'that morning, when in the brightness of His presence every plea of self-love which now clouds our eyes shall melt away. (E. B. Pusey, D. D.) 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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