555. Thirty Minutes in Heaven

Thirty Minutes in Heaven

Rev_8:1 : ’93There was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour.’94

The busiest place in the universe is heaven. It is the centre from which all good influences start; it is the goal at which all good results arrive. The Bible represents it as active with wheels, and wings, and orchestras, and processions mounted or charioted. But my text describes a space when the wheels ceased to roll and the trumpets to sound and the voices to chant. The riders on the white horses reined in their chargers. The doxologies were hushed and the processions halted. The hand of arrest was upon all the splendors. ’93Stop, heaven!’94 cried an omnipotent voice, and it stopped. For thirty minutes everything celestial thing stood still. ’93There was silence in heaven for the space of half an hour.’94

From all we can learn it is the only time heaven ever stopped. It does not stop as other cities for the night, for there is no night there. It does not stop for a plague, for the inhabitant never says: ’93I am sick.’94 It does not stop for bankruptcies, for its inhabitants never fail. It does not stop for impassable streets, for there are no fallen snows nor sweeping freshets. What, then, stopped it for thirty minutes? Grotius and Professor Stuart think it was at the time of the destruction of Jerusalem. Mr. Lord thinks it was in the year 311, between the close of the Diocletian persecution and the beginning of the wars by which Constantine gained the throne. But that was all a guess, though a learned and brilliant guess. I do not know when it was, and I do not care when it was, but of the fact that such an interregnum of sound took place, I am certain. ’93There was silence in heaven for the space of half an hour.’94

And, first of all, we may learn that God and all heaven then honored silence. The longest and widest dominion that ever existed is that over which stillness was queen. For an eternity there had not been a sound. World making was a later day occupation. For unimaginable ages it was a mute universe. God was the only being, and as there was no one to speak to, there was no utterance. But that silence has all been broken up into worlds and it has become a noisy universe. Worlds in upheaval, worlds in congelation, worlds in conflagration, worlds in revolution.

If geologists are right (and I believe they are), there has not been a moment of silence since this world began its travels, and the crashing and the splitting and the uproar and the hubbub are ever in progress. But when among the supernals a voice cried, ’93Hush!’94 and for half an hour heaven was still, silence was honored. The full power of silence many of us have yet to learn. We are told that when Christ was arraigned ’93He answered not a word.’94 That silence was louder than any thunder that ever shook the world. Oftentimes, when we are assailed and misrepresented, the mightiest thing to say is to say nothing, and the mightiest thing to do, is to do nothing. Those people who are always rushing into print to get themselves set right accomplish nothing but their own chagrin. Silence! Do right and leave the results with God. Among the grandest lessons the world has ever learned are the lessons of patience taught by those who endured uncomplainingly personal or domestic or political injustice, stranger than any bitter or sarcastic or revengeful answer was the patient silence.

The famous Dr. Morrison, of Chelsea, achieved as much by his silent patience as by his pen and tongue. He had asthma that for twenty-five years brought him out of his couch at two o’92clock each morning. His four sons and daughters dead. The remaining child by sunstroke made insane. The afflicted man once said: ’93At this moment there is not an inch of my body that is not filled with agony.’94 Yet he was cheerful, triumphant, silent. Those who were in his presence said they felt as though they were in the gates of heaven. Oh, the power of patient silence! ‘c6schylus, the immortal poet, was condemned to death for writing something that offended the people. All the pleas in his behalf were of no avail, until his brother uncovered the arm of the prisoner and showed that his hand had been shot off at Salamis. That silent plea liberated him. The loudest thing on earth is silence if it be of the right kind and at the right time. There was a quaint old hymn spelled in the old style, and once sung in the churches:

The race is not forever got

By him who fastest runs,

Nor the Battel by those peopell

That shoot with the longest guns.

My friends, the tossing sea of Galilee seemed most to offend Christ by the amount of noise it made, for he said to it: ’93Be still!’94 Heaven has been crowning kings and queens unto God for many centuries, yet heaven never stopped a moment for any such occurrence, but it stopped thirty minutes for the coronation of silence. ’93There was silence in heaven for the space of half an hour.’94

Learn also from my text that heaven must be an eventful and active place, from the fact that it could afford only thirty minutes of recess. There have been events on earth and in heaven that seemed to demand a whole day or whole week or whole year for celestial consideration. If Grotius was right and this silence occurred at the time of the destruction of Jerusalem, that scene was so awful and so prolonged that the inhabitants of heaven could not have done justice to it in many weeks. After fearful besiegement of the two fortresses of Jerusalem’97Antonio and Hippicus’97had been going on for a long while, a Roman soldier mounted on the shoulder of another soldier hurled into the window of the temple a firebrand, and the temple was all aflame, and after covering many sacrifices to the holiness of God, the building itself became a sacrifice to the rage of man. The hunger of the people in that city during the besiegement was so great that as some outlaws were passing a doorway and inhaled the odors of food, they burst open the door, threatening the mother of the household with death unless she gave them some food, and she took them aside and showed them that it was her own child she was cooking for the ghastly repast. Six hundred priests were destroyed on Mount Zion because the temple being gone there was nothing for them to do. Six thousand people in one cloister were consumed. There were one million one hundred thousand dead, according to Josephus. Grotius thinks that this was the cause of silence in heaven for half an hour. If Mr. Lord was right and this silence was during the Diocletian persecutions, by which eight hundred and forty-four thousand Christians suffered death from sword and fire, and banishment and exposure, why did not heaven listen throughout at least one of those awful years? No! Thirty minutes! The fact is that the celestial programme is so crowded with spectacle that it can afford only one recess in all eternity and that for a short space. While there are great choruses in which all heaven can join, each soul there has a story of divine mercy peculiar to itself, and it must be a solo. How can heaven get through with all its recitatives, with all its cantatas, with all its grand marches, with all its victories? Eternity is too short to utter all the praise.

In my text heaven spared thirty minutes, but it will never again spare one minute. In worship in earthly churches where there are many to take part, we have to counsel brevity but how will heaven get on rapidly enough to let one hundred and forty-four thousand get through each with his own story, and then one hundred and forty-four million and then one hundred and forty-four billion and then one hundred and forty-four trillion. Not only are all the triumphs of the past to be commemorated, but all the triumphs to come. Not only what we now know of God but what we will know of him after everlasting study of the Deific. If my text had said there was silence in heaven for thirty days, I would not have been startled at the announcement, but it indicates thirty minutes. Why, there will be so many friends to hunt up; so many of the greatly good and useful that we will want to see; so many of the inscrutable things of earth we will need explained; so many exciting earthly experiences we will want to talk over, and all the other spirits and all the ages will want the same, that there will be no more opportunity for cessation. How busy we will be kept in having pointed out to us the heroes and heroines that the world never fully appreciated’97the yellow-fever and cholera doctors who died, not flying from their posts; the female nurses who faced pestilence in the lazarettos; the railroad engineers who stayed at their places in order to save the train though they themselves perished. Hubert Goffin, the master-miner, who landing from the bucket at the bottom of the mine, just as he heard the waters rush in, and when one jerk of the rope would have lifted him into safety, put a blind miner who wanted to go to his sick child in the bucket and jerked the rope for him to be pulled up, crying: ’93Tell them the water has burst in and we are probably lost; but we will seek refuge at the other end of the right gallery;’94 and then giving the command to the other miners till they digged themselves so near out that the people from the outside could come to their rescue. The multitudes of men and women who got no crown on earth, we will want to see when they get their crown in heaven. I tell you heaven will have no more half hours to spare.

Besides that, heaven is full of children. They are in the vast majority. No child on earth who amounts to anything can be kept quiet half an hour, and how are you going to keep five hundred million of them quiet half an hour. You know heaven is much more of a place than it was when that recess of thirty minutes occurred. Its population has quadrupled, sextupled, centupled. Heaven has more on hand, more of rapture, more of knowledge, more of intercommunication, more of worship. There is not so much difference between Brooklyn seventy-five years ago, when there were a few houses down on the East River and the village reached up only to Sands Street, as compared with what this great city is now’97yea, not so much difference between New York when Canal Street was far up-town and now when Canal Street is far down-town, than there is a difference between what heaven was when my text was written and what heaven is now. The most thrilling place we have ever been in is stupid compared with that, and, if we now have no time to spare, we will then have no eternity to spare. Silence in heaven only half an hour!

My subject also impresses me with the immortality of a half-hour. That half-hour mentioned in my text is more widely known than any other period in the calendar of heaven. None of the whole hours of heaven are measured off, none of the years, none of the centuries. Of the millions of ages past, and the millions of ages to come, not one is especially measured off in the Bible. But the half-hour of my text is made immortal. The only part of eternity that was ever measured by earthly timepiece was measured by the minute-hand of my text. Oh, the half-hours! They decide everything. I am not asking what you will do with the years or months or days of your life, but what of the half-hours. Tell me the history of your half-hours, and I will tell you the story of your whole life on earth and the story of your whole life in eternity. The right or wrong things you can think in thirty minutes, the right or wrong things you can say in thirty minutes, the right or wrong things you can do in thirty minutes are glorious or baleful, inspiring or desperate. Look out for the fragments of time. They are pieces of eternity. It was the half-hours between shoeing horses that made Elihu Burritt the learned blacksmith, the half-hours between professional calls as a physician that made Abercrombie the Christian philosopher, the half-hours between his duties as schoolmaster that made Salmon P. Chase Chief-Justice, the half-hours between shoe-lasts that made Henry Wilson Vice-President of the United States, the half-hours between canal-boats that made James A. Garfield President. The half-hour a day for good books or bad books; the half-hour a day for prayer or indolence; the half-hour a day for helping others or blasting others; the half-hour before you go to business, and the half-hour after your return from business; that makes the difference between the scholar and the ignoramus, between the Christian and the infidel, between the saint and the demon, between triumph and catastrophe, between heaven and hell. The most tremendous things of your life and mine were certain half-hours. The half-hour when in the parsonage of a country minister I resolved to become a Christian then and there; the half-hour when I decided to become a preacher of the Gospel; the half-hour when I first realized that my son was dead; the half-hour when I stood on the top of my house in Oxford Street and saw our church burn; the half-hour in which I entered Jerusalem; the half-hour in which I stopped on Mount Calvary; the half-hour in which I stood on Mars’92 Hill; the half-hour in which the dedicatory prayer of this temple was made; and about ten or fifteen other half-hours, are the chief times of my life. You may forget the name of the exact years or most of the important events of your existence, but those half-hours, like the half-hour of my text, will be immortal. I do not query what you will do with the twentieth century, I do not query what you will do with 1892, but what will you do with the next half-hour? Upon that hinges your destiny. And during that some of you will receive the Gospel and make complete surrender, and during that others of you will make final and fatal rejection of the full and free and urgent and impassioned offer of life eternal. Oh, that the next half-hour might be the most glorious thirty minutes of your earthly existence! Far back in history a great geographer stood with a sailor, looking at a globe that represented our planet, and he pointed to a place on the globe where he thought there was an undiscovered continent. The undiscovered continent was America. The geographer who pointed where he thought there was a new world was Martin Behaim, and the sailor to whom he showed it was Columbus. This last was not satisfied till he had picked that gem out of the sea and set it in the crown of the world’92s geography. O ye who have been sailing up and down the rough seas of sorrow and sin, let me point out to you another continent, yea, another world, that you may yourselves find, a rapturous world, and that is the world a half-hour of which we now study. Oh, set sail for it! Here is the ship and here are the compasses. In other words, make this half-hour, beginning at twenty minutes of twelve by my watch, the grandest half-hour of your life, and become a Christian. Pray for a regenerated spirit. Louis XIV, while walking in the garden at Versailles met Mansard, the great architect, and the architect took off his hat before the king. ’93Put on your hat,’94 said the king, ’93for the evening is damp and cold.’94 And Mansard, the architect, the rest of the evening kept on his hat. The dukes and marquises standing with bare heads before the king expressed their surprise at Mansard, but the king said: ’93I can make a duke or a marquis, but only God can make a Mansard.’94 And I say to you, my hearers, only God by his convicting and converting grace can make a Christian, but he is ready this very half-hour to accomplish it.

Again, my text suggests a way of studying heaven so that we can better understand it. The word ’93eternity’94 that we handle so much is an immeasurable word. Knowing that we could not understand that word, the Bible uses, it only once. We say, ’93For ever and ever: ’93But, how long is ’93For ever and ever?’94 I am glad that my text puts under our eye heaven for thirty minutes. As when you would see a great picture, you put a sheet of paper into a scroll and look through it, or join your forefinger to your thumb and look through the circle between, and the picture becomes more intense, so this masterpiece of heaven by St. John is more impressive when we take only thirty minutes of it at a time. Now, we have something that we can come nearer to grasping and it is a quiet heaven. When we discourse about the multitudes of heaven, it must be almost a nervous shock to those who have all their lives been crowded by many people, and who want a quiet heaven. For the last thirty-five years I have been much of the time in crowds and under public scrutiny and amid excitements, and I have sometimes thought for a few weeks after I reach heaven I would like to go down in some quiet part of the realm, with a few friends, and for a little while try comparative solitude. Then, there are those whose hearing is so delicate that they get no satisfaction when you describe the crash of the eternal orchestra, and they feel like saying, as a good woman in Hudson, N. Y., said, after hearing me speak of the mighty chorus of heaven: ’93That must be a great heaven, but what will become of my poor head?’94 Yes, this half-hour of my text is a still experience. ’93There was silence in heaven for half an hour.’94

You will find the inhabitants all at home. Enter the King’92s palace and take only a glimpse, for we have only thirty minutes for all heaven. ’93Is that Jesus?’94 ’93Yes.’94 Just under the hair along his forehead is the mark of a wound made by a bunch of twisted brambles, and his foot on the throne has on the round of his instep another mark of a wound made by a spike, and a scar on the palm of the right hand, and a scar on the palm of the left hand. But, what a countenance! What a smile! What a grandeur! What a loveliness! What an overwhelming look of kindness and grace! Why, he looks as if he had redeemed a world! But, come on, for our time is short. Do you see that row of palaces? That is the Apostolic Row. Do you see that long reach of architectural glories? That is Martyr Row. Do you see that immense structure? That is the biggest house in heaven; that is ’93the House of Many Mansions.’94 Do you see that wall? Shade your eyes against its burning splendor, for that is the wall of heaven, jasper at the bottom, and amethyst at the top. See this river rolling through the heart of the great metropolis? That is the river concerning which those who once lived on the banks of the Hudson or the Alabama or the Rhine or the Shannon, say: ’93We never saw the like of this for clarity and sheen.’94 That is the chief river of heaven’97so bright, so wide, so deep. But you ask: ’93Where are the asylums for the old?’94 I answer: ’93The inhabitants are all young.’94 ’93Where are the hospitals for the lame?’94 ’93They are all agile.’94 ’93Where are the infirmaries for the blind and deaf?’94 ’93They all see and hear.’94 ’93Where are the almshouses for the poor?’94 ’93They are all multi-millionaires.’94 ’93Where are the inebriate asylums?’94 ’93Why, there are no saloons.’94 ’93Where are the graveyards?’94 ’93Why they never die.’94 Pass down those boulevards of gold and amber and sapphire and see those interminable streets built by the Architect of the universe into homes, over the threshold of which sorrow never steps, and out of whose windows, faces, once pale with earthly sickness, now look rubicund with immortal health. ’93Oh, let me go in and see them?’94 you say. No, you cannot go in. There are those there who would never consent to let you come out again. You say: ’93Let me stay here in this place where they never sin, where they never suffer, where they never part.’94 No, no! Our time is short, our thirty minutes are almost gone. Come on! We must get back to earth before this half-hour of heavenly silence breaks up, for in your mortal state you cannot endure the pomp and splendor and resonance when this half-hour of silence is ended. The day will come when you can see heaven in full blast, but not now. I am now only showing you heaven at the dullest half-hour of all the eternities. Come on! There is something in the celestial appearance which makes me think that the half-hour of silence will soon be over. Yonder are the white horses being hitched to chariots, and yonder are seraphs fingering harps as if about to strike them into symphony, and yonder are conquerors taking down from the blue halls of heaven the trumpets of victory. Remember, we are mortal yet, and cannot endure the full roll of heavenly harmonies and cannot endure even the silent heaven for more than half an hour. Hark! the clock in the tower of heaven begins to strike, and the half-hour is ended. Descend! Come back! Come down! till your work is done. Shoulder a little longer your burdens. Fight a little longer your battles. Weep a little longer your griefs. And then take heaven not in its dullest half-hour, but in its mightiest pomp, and, instead of taking it for thirty minutes, take it world without end.

But how will you spend the first half-hour of your heavenly citizenship after you have gone in to stay? After your prostration before the throne in worship of him who made it possible for you to get there at all, I think the rest of your first half-hour in heaven will be passed in receiving your reward if you have been faithful. I have a strangely beautiful book containing the pictures of the medals struck by the English Government in honor of great battles; these medals pinned over the heart of the returned heroes of the army, on great occasions, the royal family present, and the royal bands playing; the Crimean medal, the Legion of Honor, the Victoria Cross, the Waterloo medal. In your first half-hour in heaven in some way you will be honored for the earthly struggles in which you won the day. Stand up before all the Royal House of heaven and receive the insignia while you are announced as victor over the droughts and freshets of the farm field, victor over the temptations of the stock exchange, victor over professional allurements, victor over domestic infelicities, victor over mechanic’92s shop, victor over the storehouse, victor over home worriments, victor over physical distresses, victor over hereditary depressions, victor over sin and death and hell. Take the badge that celebrates those victories through our Lord Jesus Christ. Take it in the presence of all the galleries, saintly, angelic, and Divine! While all heaven chants: ’93These are they who came out of great tribulation and had their robes washed and made white in the blood of the Lamb.’94

Thy saints in all this glorious war

Shall conquer though they die;

They see the triumph from afar

And seize it with their eye.

Autor: T. De Witt Talmage