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The Hope of Glory

"To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory: Whom we preach, warning every man, and teaching every man in all wisdom; that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus." Colossians 1:27-28

Christ is that hope of glory. The ground of our hope is Christ, the word of God, or the gospel revelation, declaring the nature and methods of obtaining heaven. The evidence of our hope is Christ in our heart, or the sanctification of the soul, and its preparation for heavenly glory.

E. M. Bounds says, "The favorite Bible word for heaven is "glory" which seems so especially suited to describe heaven. It means splendor, brightness, magnificence, excellence, pre-eminence, dignity, majesty in the sense of absolute perfection, a most glorious, a most exalted state, a glorious condition of blessedness."

A BIRDS-EYE VIEW OF HEAVEN

1.     HEAVEN WIL BE OUR ETERNAL HOME

Heaven is the eternal destiny and final resting place of all true Christians. We will be gathered together with the rest of our spiritual family throughout history, to live forever in our Father's home. We belong there because we are His family. We will live in the eternal city in the very presence of God.

2.     WE WILL LIVE IN A MANSION

"In my Father's house are many mansions… I go and prepare a place for you…" (John 14:2-3) Every child of God will have his own home in that great city. This world with all its glorious mansions and rich homes cannot compare to the architecture of the master carpenter. Whatever our reward, it will be a place of incomparable beauty and luxury. We will no doubt entertain saints and angels alike, and perhaps even Christ the King.

3.     THERE IS NO PAIN OR SORROW IN HEAVEN

There will be no physical, mental or emotional pain in Heaven. There will be no sorrow or tears there. There will be no regrets. Nobody will miss Earth. There will be no sad memories. There will be no worries. There will be no fatigue or fear, or any other negative emotion. There will be no death in Heaven nor will anyone grow old, life is eternal in Heaven. There will be love beyond our earthly understanding, pure, holy and completely unselfish. Conflicts shall have ceased, and all its enemies shall have been destroyed

4.     THERE IS GREAT PLEASURE AND JOY IN HEAVEN

Heaven is the place of exquisite pleasures which we do not even know about yet. There will be perfect peace and an overflowing joy. There will be great rest. Even work in Heaven will be pleasurable. "In thy presence is fullness of joy, at your right hand are pleasures forevermore" (Psalms 16:11).

What we consider fun and pleasurable now will be non-existent in heaven, all earthly thinking, values and desires will be completely changed in His presence. God Himself will be the source of Heaven's joy and pleasure. We will truly enjoy God to the fullest, even to overflowing. It is pure and perfect joy.

5.     HEAVEN IS A PLACE OF HOLINESS

There is no sin in Heaven. That alone would make it a wonderful place. We will never fear men again, nor will we ever have to endure, "the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars…" (Revelation 21:8) All sin is left outside.

Christians are completely sinless, not only legally but experientially long before entering that city. There will never be a "Fall Number 2". We will be made holy and pure without fear of temptation and backsliding. The holiness of God will be revealed there and will transform everything and everyone there into living conduits of His holiness. Heaven is alive and pulsating with holiness because we will be in His very presence for ever more.

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Also by
A. W. Tozer

Excerpts from "The Deeper Life"
By A. W. Tozer

No Revivival without Reformation

Wherever Christians meet these days one word is sure to be heard constantly repeated" that word is revival. ...

So strongly is the breeze blowing for revival that scarcely anyone appears to have the discernment or the courage to turn around and lean into the wind, even though the truth may easily lie in that direction. Religion has its vogues very much as do philosophy, politics and women's fashions. Historically the major world religions have had their periods of decline and recovery, and those recoveries are bluntly called revivals by the annalists.

Let us not forget that in some lands Islam is now enjoying a revival, and the latest report from Japan indicates that after a brief eclipse following World War II Shintoism is making a remarkable come-back....

A religion, even popular Christianity, could enjoy a boom altogether divorced from the transforming power of the Holy Spirit and so leave the church of the next generation worse off than it would have been if the boom had never occurred. I believe that the imperative need of the day is not simply revival, but a radical reformation that will go to the root of our moral and spiritual maladies and deal with causes rather than with consequences, with the disease rather than with symptoms.

It is my considered opinion that under the present circumstances we do not want revival at all. A widespread revival of the kind of Christianity we know today in America might prove to be a moral tragedy from which we would not recover in a hundred years.

Here are my reasons. A generation ago, as a reaction from Higher Criticism and its offspring, Modernism, there arose in Protestantism a powerful movement in defense of the historic Christian faith. This, for obvious reasons, came to be known as Fundamentalism. It was a more or less spontaneous movement without much organization, but its purpose wherever it appeared was the same: to stay 'the rising tide of negation' in Christian theology and to restate and defend the basic doctrines of New Testament Christianity....

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Directions Against Sinful Desires and Discontent
By Richard Baxter

How sinful desires may be known, you may gather from the discoveries of sinful love: as,

•   When you desire that which is forbidden you.
•   Or that which will do you no good, upon a misconceit that it is better or more needful than it is.
•   Or when you desire it too eagerly, and must needs have it, or else you will be impatient or discontented, and cannot quietly be ruled and disposed of by God, but are murmuring at his providence and your lot.
•   Or when you desire it too hastily, and cannot stay God's time.
•   Or else too greedily as to the measure, being not content with God's allowance, but must needs have more than he thinks fit for you.
•   Or specially when your desires are perverse, preferring lesser things before greater; desiring bodily and transitory things more than the mercies for your souls which will be everlasting.
•   When you desire any thing ultimately and merely for the flesh, without referring it to God, it is a sin. Even your daily bread, and all your comforts, must be desired but as provender for your horse, that he may the better go his journey, even as provision for your bodies, to fit them to the better and more cheerful service of your souls and God.
•   Much more when your desires are for wicked ends, (as to serve your lust, or pride, or covetousness, or revenge,) they are wicked desires.
•   And when they are injurious to others.

Direct. I   Be well acquainted with your own condition, and consider what it is that you have most need of; and then you will find that you have so much grace and mercy to desire for your souls, without which you are lost for ever, and that you have a Christ to desire, and an endless life with God to desire, that it will quench all your thirst after the things below. This, if any thing, will make you wiser, when you see you have greater things to mind.

A man that is in present danger of his life, will not he solicitous for pins or trinkets: and the hopes of a lordship or a kingdom will cure the desire of little things: a man that needeth a physician for the dropsy or consumption, will scarce long for children's balls or tops. And methinks a man that is going to heaven or hell, should have somewhat greater than worldly things to long for.

Oh what a vain and doting thing is a carnal mind; that hath pardon, and grace, and Christ and heaven, and God, to think of, and that with speed before it be too late; and can forget them all, or not regard them, and eagerly long for some little inconsiderable trifle; as if they said, I must needs taste of such a dish before I die; I must needs have such a house, or a child, or friend, before I go to another world O study what need thy distressed soul hath of a Christ, and of peace with God, and preparation for eternity, and what need thy darkened mind hath of more knowledge, and thy dead and carnal heart of more life, and tenderness, and love to God, and communion with him; feel these as thou hast cause, and the eagerness of thy carnal desires will be gone.

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Thomas Watson

The Great Commandment
By Thomas Watson

"Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with ALL thy heart."

God will have the whole heart. We must not divide our love between Him and sin. The true mother would not have the child divided, nor will God have the heart divided; it must be the whole heart. We must love God for Himself, for His own intrinsic excellencies. We must love Him for His loveliness. It is a harlot's love to love the portion more than the person. Hypocrites love God because He gives them corn and wine: we must love God for Himself; for those shining perfections which are in Him.

Love to God must be active in its sphere. Love is an industrious affection; it sets the head studying for God, hands working, feet running in the ways of His commandments. It is called the labor of love. 1 Thess. 1:1-3 Mary Magdalene loved Christ, and poured her ointments on Him. We think we never do enough for the person whom we love. If we love God, our desire will be after Him. "The desire of our soul is to thy name." Isa. 26:8. He who loves God, breathes after communion with Him. "My soul thirsts for the living God." Psa 42:2. Persons in love desire to be often conferring together. He who loves God, desires to be much in His presence.

He who loves God cannot find contentment in any thing without Him. Lovers faint away if they have not a sight of the object loved. A gracious soul can do without health, but cannot do without God, who is the health of His countenance. Psa. 43:5. If God should say to a soul that entirely loves Him, "Take thy ease, swim in pleasure, solace thyself in the delights of the world; but thou shalt not enjoy My presence:" this would not content it. Nay, if God should say, "I will let thee be taken up to heaven, but I will retire into another room, and thou shalt not see my face;" it would not content the soul. It is hell to be without God. The philosopher says there can be no golden joy in the soul without God's sweet presence and influence.

He who loves God, weeps bitterly for His absence. Mary comes weeping, "They have taken away my Lord." John 20:13. One cries, "My health is gone" another, "My estate is gone" but he who is a lover of God, cries out, "My God is gone! I cannot enjoy Him whom I love." If Rachel mourned greatly for the loss of her children, what can shadow out the sorrow of that Christian who has lost God's sweets presence? Let us be persuaded to love God with all our heart and might. O let us take our love off from other things, and place it upon God. Love is the heart of Christianity, the fat of the offering; it is the grace which Christ inquires most after. "Simon lovest thou me?" John 21:15.

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Andrew Murray

Andrew Murray   (1828-1917)
"The Apostle Of Abiding Love"

"One day I was talking with a missionary," writes Andrew Murray, "and he said to me, ‘Brother, remember that when God puts a desire into your heart, He will fulfill it.’ That helped me; I thought of it a hundred times. I want to say the same to you who are plunging about and struggling in the quagmire of helplessness and doubt. The desire that God puts into your heart He will fulfill.

"If any are saying that God has not a place for them, let them trust God, and wait, and He will help you and show you what is your place. I have learnt to place myself before God every day, as a vessel to be filled with His Holy Spirit. He has filled me with the blessed assurance that He, as the everlasting God, has guaranteed His work in me. If there is one lesson that I am learning day by day, it is this; that it is God who worketh all in all. Oh, that I could help any brother or sister to realize this!"

One of four children born to Andrew, Sr. and Maria Murray, Andrew Murray was raised in what was considered then the most remote corner of the world, Graaff-Reinet (near the Cape), South Africa. It was here, after his formal education in Scotland and three years of theological study in college in Holland, that Andrew Murray returned as a missionary and minister.

Murray's first appointment was to Bloemfontein, a remote and unattractive territory of nearly fifty thousand square miles and twelve thousand people beyond the Orange River. Even at this early stage of ministry, he already showed signs of becoming a noted author. The deeper Christian life was a favorite subject for Murray. He told how God was committed to revealing more of Himself to those who would seek Him.

As a preacher, he consistently drew large crowds and led many to trust Christ as their Savior. But Murray's life was not without testing. As a young man, an enduring sickness left him weak and exhausted. Later at the prime of his ministry, a severe illness resulted in his absence from the pulpit for two years. But God used each trial to remove all that hindered his devotion to Christ.

Murray wrote, "That awful pride and self complacency which have hither to ruled in my heart." He fought an insidious battle with pride, but God had the victory.

"I had never learnt with all my theology that obedience was possible," writes Murray. "My justification was as clear as noonday. I knew the hour in which I received from God the joy of pardon. I remember in my little room at Bloemfontein how I used to sit and think, What is the matter? Here I am, knowing that God has justified me in the blood of Christ, but I have no power for service. My thoughts, my words, my actions, my unfaithfulness, everything troubled me."

Murray's daughter wrote of her father, "It was after the ‘time of silence’ [in sickness] when God came so near to father and he saw more clearly the meaning of a life of full surrender and simple faith. He began to show in all relationships that constant tenderness and unruffled lovingkindness and unselfish thought for others which increasingly characterized his life from that point. At the same time he lost nothing of his strength and determination."

When revival came to Cape Town, Andrew Murray was hesitant. He didn't want to be swept away in the heart of emotion. But Murray quickly realized that God was working in South Africa the same way He was in America. The result was an even deeper knowledge of the things of God. He writes in The Secret Of Adoration, "Take time. Give God time to reveal Himself to you. Give yourself time to be silent and quiet before Him, waiting to receive, through the Spirit, the assurance of His presence with you, His power working in you.

"Take time to read His Word as in His presence, that from it you may know what He asks of you and what He promises you. Let the Word create around you, create within you a holy atmosphere, a holy heavenly light, in which your soul will be refreshed and strengthened for the work of daily life."

Friends share how the Murray home was always filled with activity. He and his wife, Emma, had nine children, and there was an endless stream of visitors and friends. In 1873, Andrew helped to establish the Huguenot Seminary, a school where young women could be trained for educational work. Girls from all over the country began arriving. When classes opened, the building was too small for all who had enrolled and a wing had to be added.

He also served as the first president of the Young Men's Christian Fellowship (YMCA). Not only was he the author of over two hundred and forty books, he was also a man of great prayer. Through his private devotion with the Savior, he learned that laughter and fellowship were two of life's most important activities.

He often prayed, "May not a single moment of my life be spent outside the light, love, and joy of God's presence and may not a moment without the entire surrender of my self as a vessel for Him to fill full of His Spirit and His love."

Abiding in Christ was the cornerstone to Andrew Murray's life and ministry. He writes: "Abide in Jesus: your life in Him will lead you to that fellowship with God in which the only true knowledge of God is to be had. His love, His power, His infinite glory will, as you abide in Jesus, be so revealed as it hath not entered into the heart of man to conceive."

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The Imitation of Christ
By Thomas À Kempis

Avoiding Rash Judgment
By Thomas À Kempis

TURN your attention upon yourself and beware of judging the deeds of other men, for in judging others a man labors vainly, often makes mistakes, and easily sins; whereas, in judging and taking stock of himself he does something that is always profitable.

We frequently judge that things are as we wish them to be, for through personal feeling true perspective is easily lost.

If God were the sole object of our desire, we should not be disturbed so easily by opposition to our opinions. But often something lurks within or happens from without to draw us along with it.

Many, unawares, seek themselves in the things they do. They seem even to enjoy peace of mind when things happen according to their wish and liking, but if otherwise than they desire, they are soon disturbed and saddened. Differences of feeling and opinion often divide friends and acquaintances, even those who are religious and devout.

An old habit is hard to break, and no one is willing to be led farther than he can see.

If you rely more upon your intelligence or industry than upon the virtue of submission to Jesus Christ, you will hardly, and in any case slowly, become an enlightened man. God wants us to be completely subject to Him and, through ardent love, to rise above all human wisdom.

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Great Hymns

"Others May, You May Not"   — Author Unknown

If God has called you to be really like Christ in all your spirit, He will draw you into a life of crucifixion and humility and put on you such demands of obedience, that He will not allow you to follow other Christians, and in many ways He will seem to let other good people do things which He will not let you do.

Others can brag on themselves, and their work, on their success, on their writings, but the Holy Spirit will not allow you to do any such thing, and if you begin it, He will lead you into some deep mortification that will make you despise yourself and all your good works.

The Lord will let others be honored and put forward, and keep you hid away in obscurity because He wants to produce some choice fragrant fruit for His glory, which can be produced only in the shade.

Others will be allowed to succeed in making money, but it is likely God will keep you poor because he wants you to have something far better than gold and that is a helpless dependence on Him; that He may have the privilege of supplying your needs day by day - out of an unseen treasury.

God will let others be great, but He will keep you small. He will let others do a great work for Him and get credit for it, but He will make you work and toil on without knowing how much you are doing; and then to make your work still more precious, He will let others get the credit for the work you have done, and this will make your reward ten times greater when He comes.

The Holy Spirit will put strict watch over you, with a jealous love, and will rebuke you for little words and feelings, or for wasting your time, which other Christians never seem distressed over.

So make up your mind that God is an infinite Sovereign, and has a right to do what He pleases with His own, and He will not explain to you a thousand things which may puzzle you in His dealing with you. He will wrap you up in a jealous love, and let other people say and do many things that you cannot do or say.

Settle it forever, that you are to deal directly with the Holy Spirit, and that He is to have the privilege of tying your tongue, or chaining your hand, or closing your eyes, in ways that others are not dealt with.

Now, when you are so possessed with the Living God that you are, in your secret heart, pleased and delighted over this particular personal, private, jealous guardianship and management of the Holy Spirit over your life, you will have found the vestibule of heaven.

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"If you want the Kingdom speeded, go out and speed it yourselves. Only obedience rationalizes prayer. Only Missions can redeem your intercessions from insincerity."   William Carey

"The invasion of the Church by the world is a menace to the extension of Christ's Kingdom. In all ages conformity to the world by Christians has resulted in lack of spiritual life and a consequent lack of spiritual vision and enterprise. A secularized or self-centered Church can never evangelize the world."   John R. Mott

"There is need of a great revival of spiritual life, of truly fervent devotion to our Lord Jesus, of entire consecration to His service. It is only in a church in which this spirit of revival has at least begun, that there is any hope of radical change in the relation of the majority of our Christian people to mission work."   Andrew Murray

"Whenever, in any century, whether in a single heart or in a company of believers, there has been a fresh effusion of the Spirit, there has followed inevitably a fresh endeavor in the work of evangelizing the world."   A. J. Gordon

"Raymund Lull sought in vain for the sympathy of popes and prelates in his heroic missionary project, and finally had to go forth as a solitary and unsupported herald of the cross among the Muslims. Today this man's grace and apostleship are so fully recognized that historians of missions ask not whether he heard the voice of the Holy Spirit, but whether he was not almost the only one who heard it, in that dreary and unspiritual age."   A. J. Gordon

"The Revival of 1859 helped to lay the foundations of the modem international and interdenominational missionary structure…Every revival of religion in the homelands is felt within a decade in the foreign mission-fields, and the records of missionary enterprises and the pages of missionary biography following I860 are full of clearest evidence of the stimulating effect of the Revival throughout the world."   J. Edwin Orr

"The astonishing missionary advance at the close of the eighteenth century and the onset of the nineteenth was a direct consequence of the Evangelical Awakening."   A. Skevington Wood

"Repentance unto life is a saving grace, whereby a sinner, out of a true sense of his sin, and apprehension of the mercy of God in Christ, doth, with grief and hatred of his sin, turn from it unto God, with full purpose of, and endeavor after new obedience."   The Westminster Shorter Catechism

"If missions languish, it is because the whole life of godliness is feeble. The command to go everywhere and preach to everybody is not obeyed, until the will is lost by self-surrender in the will of God. There is little right giving because there is little right living, and because of the lack of sympathetic contact with God in holiness of heart, there is a lack of effectual contact with him at the Throne of Grace. Living, praying, giving and going will always be found together, and a low standard in one means a general debility in the whole spiritual being."   Arthur T. Pierson

"Oh, for closest communion with God, till soul and body, head, face, and heart -shine with Divine brilliancy! But oh! for a holy ignorance of our shining!"   Robert Murray M'Cheyne

"Compassion costs. It is easy enough to argue, criticize and condemn, but redemption is costly, and comfort draws from the deep. Brains can argue, but It takes heart to comfort."   Samuel Chadwick

"How careful we should be lest we misrepresent a real work of grace because of some things which occasionally may accompany it! When Whitefield was once preaching in Boston, the place was so packed that the gallery was thought to be giving way, and there was a panic in which several persons were trampled to death. But it would be unfair and unreasonable to blame the revival for this… We do not despise the great river because of the sticks and straws that may occasionally float on its surface."   William Alexander McKay (1890)

"In every revival there is a reemphasis of the Church's missionary character. Men return to Calvary, and the world is seen afresh through the eyes of Christ. The infinite compassion of Christ fills the heart, and the passion evoked by Calvary demands the whole wide world as the fruit of His sacrifice."   John Shearer

"Some people do not like to hear much of repentance; but I think it is so necessary that if I should die in the pulpit, I would desire to die preaching repentance, and if out of the pulpit I would desire to die practicing it."   Matthew Henry

"Depend upon it, if you are bent on prayer, the devil will not leave you alone. He will molest you, tantalize you, block you, and will surely find some hindrances, big or little or both. And we sometimes fail because we are ignorant of his devices…I do not think he minds our praying about things if we leave it at that. What he minds, and opposes steadily, is the prayer that prays on until it is prayed through, assured of the answer."   Mary Warburton Booth

"How we have prayed for a Revival - we did not care whether it was old-fashioned or not - what we asked for was that it should be such that would cleanse and revive His children and set them on fire to win others."   Mary Warburton Booth

"I myself, for instance, am not especially gifted, and am shy by nature, but my gracious and merciful God and Father inclined Himself to me, and when I was weak in faith He strengthened me while I was still young. He taught me in my helplessness to rest on Him, and to pray even about little things in which another might have felt able to help himself."   James Hudson Taylor

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