Are you young? Does all around and before you seem bright, and cheerful, and happy? Do you secretly think in your own mind that I take too gloomy a view of the world? Take care. You will not say so by and by. Be wise betimes. Learn to moderate your expectations. Depend on it, the less you expect from people and things here below the happier you will be.
Are you prosperous in the world? Have death, and sickness, and disappointment, and poverty, and family troubles, passed over your door up to this time, and not come in? Are you secretly saying to yourself, "Nothing can hurt me much. I shall die quietly in my bed, and see no sorrow." Take care. You are not yet in harbour. A sudden storm of unexpected trouble may make you change your note. Set not your affection on things below. Hold them with a very loose hand, and be ready to surrender them at a moment's notice. Use your prosperity well while you have it; but lean not all your weight on it, lest it break suddenly and pierce your hand.
Have you a happy home? Are you going to spend Christmas round a family hearth, where sickness, and death, and poverty, and partings, and quarrellings, have never yet been seen? Be thankful for it: oh, be thankful for it! A really happy Christian home is the nearest approach to heaven on earth. But take care. This state of things will not last for ever. It must have an end; and if you are wise, you will never forget that—"the time is short: it remaineth, that both they that have wives be as though they had none; and they that weep, as though they wept not; and they that rejoice, as though they rejoiced not; and they that buy, as though they possessed not; and they that use this world, as not abusing it; for the fashion of this world passeth away." (1 Cor. vii. 29—31.)
II. The second thought that I will offer you is this: I will show you what Christ is, even in this life, to true Christians.
Heaven, beyond doubt, is the final home in which a true Christian will dwell at last. Towards that he is daily travelling: nearer to that he is daily coming. "We know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." (2 Cor. v. 1.) Body and soul united once more, renewed, beautified, and perfected, will live for ever in the Father's great house in heaven. To that home we have not yet come. We are not yet in heaven.
But is there meanwhile no home for our souls? Is there no spiritual dwelling-place to which we may continually repair in this desolate world, and, repairing to it, find rest and peace? Thank God, there is no difficulty in finding an answer to that question. There is a home provided for all labouring and heavy-laden souls, and that home is Christ. To know Christ by faith, to live the life of faith in Him, to abide in Him daily by faith, to flee to Him in every storm of conscience, to use Him as our refuge in every day of trouble, to employ Him as our Priest, Confessor, Absolver, and spiritual Director, every morning and evening in our lives,—this is to be at home spiritually, even before we die. To all sinners of mankind who by faith use Christ in this fashion, Christ is in the highest sense a dwelling-place. They can say with truth, "We are pilgrims and strangers on earth, and yet we have a home."
Of all the emblems and figures under which Christ is set before man, I know few more cheering and comforting than the one before us. Home is one of the sweetest, tenderest words in the English language. Home is the place with which our pleasantest thoughts are closely bound up. All that the best and happiest home is to its inmates, that Christ is to the soul that believes on Him. In the midst of a dying, changing, disappointing world, a true Christian has always something which no power on earth can take away. Morning, noon, and night, he has near him a living Refuge,—a living home for his soul. You may rob him of life, and liberty, and money; you may take from him health, and lands, and house, and friends; but, do what you will, you cannot rob him of his home. Like those humblest of God's creatures which carry their shells on their backs, wherever they are, so the Christian, wherever he goes, carries his home. No wonder that holy Baxter sings,—
"What if in prison I must dwell,
May I not then converse with Thee?
Save me from sin, Thy wrath, and hell,—
Call me Thy child, and I am free!"
(a) No home like Christ! In Him there is room for all, and room for all sorts. None are unwelcome guests and visitors, and none are refused admission. The door is always on the latch, and never bolted. The best robe, the fatted calf, the ring, the shoes are always ready for all comers. What though in time past you have been the vilest of the vile, a servant of sin, an enemy of all righteousness, a Pharisee of Pharisees, a Sadducee of Sadducees, a publican of publicans? It matters nothing: there is yet hope. All may be pardoned, forgiven, and forgotten. There is a home and refuge where your soul may be admitted this very day. That home is Christ. "Come unto Me," He cries: "Knock, and it shall be opened unto you." (Matt. xi. 28; vii. 7.)
(b) No home like Christ! In Him there is boundless and unwearied mercy for all, even after admission. None are rejected and cast forth again after probation, because they are too weak and bad to stay. Oh, no! Whom He receives, them He always keeps. Where He begins, there He makes a good end. Whom He admits, them He at once fully justifies. Whom He justifies, them He also sanctifies. Whom He sanctifies, them He also glorifies. No hopeless characters are ever sent away from His house. No men or women are ever found too bad to heal and renew. Nothing is too hard for Him to do who made the world out of nothing. He who is Himself the Home, hath said it, and will stand to it: "Him that cometh unto Me, I will in no wise cast out." (John vi. 37.)