How wide will the door be thrown open for our reception! What divine entertainment we shall receive! what safety from peril! what succor in difficulty! what comfort in trouble! what white raiment! what heavenly food! O that we valued the tessera more, that we sought more frequent interviews with our heavenly Friend, that we more habitually resorted as invited guests to Jesus, and dwelt in Him as the home of our souls! We shall never find the door closed against us; we shall never be received reluctantly; He will never allow us to think that we are intruders. Jesus is never ashamed of His poor relations, nor treats them coldly because they need His help. The greater our distress, the more shall we prove His liberality and tender sympathy.
And as regards this stone, as well as the hidden manna, we can look beyond the present life. A day is coming when we shall be compelled to leave the homes of earth, however endeared. We must embrace for the last time the friends united to us as our own souls. Tho we have traveled along the road many a year together, we must now separate, and go alone. They may accompany us to the river side, but we must cross it by ourselves. What cheering voice will greet us then? What kind roof will receive us then? What loving friend will welcome us then?
But we shall not have left our best treasure behind us! No! we shall carry the white stone with us; and with this we shall look for no inferior abode, but with unhesitating step shall advance at once right up to the palace of the Great King. We present the tessera; the "new name" is legible upon it; the angelic guards recognize the symbol; the everlasting gates lift up their heads; and the voice of Jesus Himself invites us to enter, saying, "Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom!"
Such is the welcome that every soul shall experience to whom the promise is fulfilled: "I will give him a white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth, saving he that receiveth it."
II. The condition annexed to the promise, "To him that overcometh!"
A great war is going on between the Church and the powers of darkness. It is not an affair of strategy between two vast armies, wherein skilful maneuvers determine the issue, many on either side never coming into actual combat; but every Christian has to fight hand to hand with the enemy. We cannot be lost in the crowd. We may not stand in the middle of the hollow square, without sharing the perils of the outer rank. Every Christian must not only occupy his post in the grand army, but must personally grapple with the foe.
Before conversion there was no fighting. The devil's suggestions and the heart's inclination were allied. Then we did the enemy's bidding, or were lulled to sleep by his intoxicating cup. But when light shone into the soul, and we strove to escape, the struggle began. God, as our Creator and Redeemer, justly demands our obedience and love. Whatever interferes with these claims, is an enemy summoning us to battle. The world of frivolity is our foe. How numerous and insinuating are its temptations—the more perilous because of the difficulty of defining them!
Moreover, lawful pleasures and necessary cares become dangerous when they cease to be subordinate to the love of God. The enjoyments He bestows and the labors He appoints are calculated to minister to godliness,—and yet they may be perverted to idolatry by our forgetting Him on whom our highest thoughts should be fixt. What danger is there that things in themselves holy and beautiful may thus become pernicious and destructive!
The flesh, too, furnished its contingent to the army of our foes. Not that any of our natural appetites, being divinely bestowed, can have in them the nature of sin. No! the flesh, as God made it, is pure and holy. But those instincts, which, regulated by the revealed will of their Author, are "holiness to the Lord," may, by unhallowed gratification, become those "fleshly lusts which war against the soul." As we carry about with us these animal propensities, there is necessity for constant vigilence lest our own nature, being abused, should become our destroyer.
Inbred depravity lurks in the heart of even the true believer. Tho dethroned, it is not completely expelled. With what selfishness, covetousness, vanity, hastiness of temper, uncharitableness, have we not to contend! Who has not some sin which most easily besets him? How varied are the forms of unbelief! Spiritual pride, too, corrupts our very graces, piety itself furnishing an occasion of evil, so that when we have conquered some temptation or performed some duty, our victory is often tarnished, our holy things corrupted, by our falling into the snare of self-complacency.