The grass withereth, and the flower falleth."
"Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return," is the doom of flesh and blood sealed to every mortal as a consequence of sin. No wonder the grave is sad and lonely to the contemplation of those who have no hope of aught of life or love beyond it. It is sad to think how many have no higher claim to life and happiness than mere fleshly, bodily existence. But our Lord hath "brought life and immortality to light," and
"The good Spirit of the Lord
Reveals a heaven to come;
The beams of glory in his Word
Allure and guide us home."
"Beloved, now are we the children of God, and it is not yet made manifest what we shall be;" but we know that we have the promise of "an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away."
Brethren, this inheritance which Peter talks of—what do you think about it? Is it something extraneous to the man, something outside of him? Or is it something intrinsic to the man in his renewed state, something internal, something inside of him? I, for one, believe that man's eternal and blissful inheritance, which Peter and John and Paul describe in such glowing terms, is in the man himself, in his adaptation to the bliss-inspiring garniture of heaven. It is "Christ in him the hope of glory."
This exalted and blissful state of man redeemed is what Peter calls his "inheritance which is incorruptible." Think of it, Brethren. No more sin to bewail; no more sickness to suffer; no more death to dread! It is also "undefiled." No more "filthiness of the flesh;" "neither idolatry, nor adultery, nor whatsoever loveth and maketh a lie." And "that fadeth not away." The luster of the eye; the bloom of the cheek; the facial expressions of beauty and love, purity and truth, know nothing of decay in the amaranthine bowers of spotless purity.
We often wonder about heaven. But I will tell you, Brethren, what I believe about it. I do believe in my very soul that every Christian man, after the death of his body, finds himself in the very heaven he takes with him from this world; and that every man's heaven is the love and the truth that abound in his mind and heart. If his heart is filled with love to God and to his brother, and his mind stored with the truth of God as revealed in his Son Jesus Christ, that man's heaven is in him. Do you remember, Brethren, that when Jesus was on earth he said that he was also at the same time in heaven? Now let me show you this. He says to Nicodemus: "No man hath ascended to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven." John 3:13.