We must face today as children of tomorrow. We must meet the uncertainties of this world with the certainty of the world to come. To the pure in heart nothing really bad can happen. He may die, but what is death to a Christian? Not death but sin should be our great fear. Without doubt the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the earth and the works that are therein shall be burned up. Sooner or later that will come. But what of it? Do not we, according to His promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness?1
——
We have come to a wretched emphasis in the Christian Church, so that when we talk about the future, we talk about “eschatology” instead of heaven.
Once more I repeat that Christians are living too much in the “present now”—and the anticipation of better things to come has almost died out of the Church of Christ.
We find ourselves so well-situated now that we don’t really need any tomorrow’s heaven. We don’t need to hope—we have everything well enough now.2
——
The merits of Jesus are enough! We are going to heaven on the merits of another—there is no question about that. We will get in because another went out on our behalf. We will live because another died. We will be with God because another was rejected from the presence of God in the terror of the crucifixion. We go to heaven on the merits of another.3
——
There are many legal reasons why I should not go to heaven. There are governmental reasons why I should not go to heaven. I believe that a holy God must run His universe according to holy law—and I do not belong there because I have broken every one of those holy laws in some way. Therefore, there has to be a redemption, a justification of some kind if I am to have God and He is to have me.
Thank God, it has been done! The New Testament language is plain as can be—in Jesus Christ and through His death and resurrection every legal hindrance has been met and taken away. There is nothing to stop you except yourself—no reason why we cannot enter into all the depths of the fullness of God!4
——
If there is grief in heaven, I think it must come from the fact that we want God’s gifts, but we don’t want God Himself as our environment.5
——
Heaven is the world of God’s obedient children. Whatever else we may say of its pearly gates, its golden streets and its jasper walls, heaven is heaven because it is the world of obedient children. Heaven is heaven because children of the Most High God find they are in their normal sphere as obedient moral beings.6
——
When the followers of Jesus Christ lose their interest in heaven they will no longer be happy Christians, and when they are no longer happy Christians they cannot be a powerful force in a sad and sinful world. It may be said with certainty that Christians who have lost their enthusiasm about the Savior’s promises of heaven-to-come have also stopped being effective in Christian life and witness in this world.7
——
It is hard indeed to focus attention upon a better world to come when a more comfortable one than this can hardly be imagined. As long as science can make us so cozy in this present world it is admittedly hard to work up much pleasurable anticipation of a new world order even if it is God who has promised it.8
——
Ours is the age in which Christ has been explained, humanized, demoted. Many professing Christians no longer expect Him to usher in a new order. They are not at all sure that He is able to do so; or if He does, it will be with the help of art, education, science and technology—that is, with the help of man.9
——
He is longsuffering and waits patiently to be gracious, but after a while the friendly invitation of the gospel is withdrawn. The effort to persuade the incorrigible sinner is discontinued, death fixes the status of the man who loved his sins and he is sent to the place of the rejected where there is for him no further hope. That is hell, and it may be well we know so little about it. What we do know is sufficiently terrifying.10