3323. The Believer’s Glad Prospects

A Sermon Published On Thursday, October 10, 1912.

Until the day breaks, and the shadows flee away, turn, my beloved, and be like a roe or a young hart on the mountains of Bether. {So 2:17}

For other sermons on this text:

   {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 2477, “Darkness Before the Dawn” 2478}

   {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 3185, “Song of My Beloved, A” 3186}

   {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 3307, “Over the Mountains” 3309}

   {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 3323, “Believer’s Glad Prospects, The” 3325}

   Exposition on So 2:1-3:5 {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 2485, “Love’s Vigilance Rewarded” 2486 @@ "Exposition"}

1. Without a sentence of introduction, I invite you, beloved, to see herein,

2. I. A BLESSED TIME ANTICIPATED HERE! — a time when the day shall break, and the shadows shall flee away.

3. It is not every man who can count on such a time as that, for to some there is no prospect of the day breaking. They are in the shade now, and that shade will grow darker and darker with them until, in the hour of death, their sun will go down for ever in a tenfold night — a night ungladdened by a solitary star — a night that shall never have an ending — a night of gloom more terrible than imagination itself could picture. I fear there are some in this place for whom we might utter such forebodings. The world is dark enough for them now, but they have no hope of the Lord as though it would be brightness for them. Conscience tells them — and if conscience is not enlightened enough to do so, the Word of God tells them — that the day of the Lord shall be darkness, and not light, for them. But, for every soul in this house that believes in Jesus, there is the delightful anticipation of the hour spoken of in the text, when the day shall break, and the shadows shall flee away.

4. Let us take each expression and muse on it. “Until the day breaks.” In a certain sense the Christian is now in the light, for he is a child of light, and he walks in the light, and he may walk in the light as God is in the light, and so have fellowship with the Father, and feel that the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanses us from all sin. But Paul, in some passages, calls this present state darkness. “For,” he says, “the night is far spent, the day is at hand,” meaning by it this present state of life for the believer, which is far spent, and the daylight, the glorious daylight of eternity, is near at hand. “The daybreak.” Why, this represents for most of us, probably, the moment of death. For as many as shall be alive and remain at the coming of the Lord, it represents the coming of the Lord, and the glory of his people.

5. “The daybreak!” It is the hour of joy. During the night the earth seems sad; she has covered herself with sackcloth, her eyes are full of the drops of the night. There is silence over the plain: the woods do not send out their grateful music. There is only heard the hooting of the owl, with, perhaps, now and then a stray note from the nightingale as though she remembered the day. Night is the time of the world’s gloom, but daybreak is the time of her festival. Then her splendour is abroad. Then —

   Morn, her rosy step in the eastern clime

   Advancing, sows the earth with orient pearl.

Ten thousand winged songsters of the grove, waking up from their slumber, begin to pour out incessant streams of music. Every creature, beholding the light of the sun, wakes itself up and is full of joy. Such will the daybreak be for us. This is not our time of fullest joy. We who are in this tabernacle groan, being burdened. We have trials without; we have conflicts within. The daybreak is coming, when we who are not of the night, nor of darkness, though compelled to pass through it, shall emerge into our proper element, the light, and our spirits shall bathe themselves in all that they can desire, being satisfied with favour, and full of the blessing of the Lord. “I shall be satisfied,” says David, “when I awake in your likeness.” We are looking for a time of ineffable delight. All the attempts that have ever been made to describe the joy and glory of heaven have necessarily been failures, and if we were to attempt it again we should fall far below what God has revealed to us by his Spirit, for eye has not seen, nor ear heard, what he has prepared for those who love him. Thank God, our joy is coming nearer every time the tick of the clock is heard. Behold, on flying wings it comes. Every day of winter’s sorrow or of summer’s joy brings it nearer. We said last Sabbath evening, “Now is our salvation nearer than when we believed”; and we often sing —

   We nightly pitch our moving tent

   A day’s march nearer home.

This is one of the best consolations of the present, that we are getting nearer to the daybreak.

6. “The daybreak!” it is a summons to activity. The creatures waking up prepare themselves for their day’s work. All nature is astir. She was lethargic before, as it were; frost-bitten under the raven wing of night, but now that the bright beams of the sun have brought the light, they have also brought restoration to vitality. Now the workman girds up his loins, and goes out to his labour. Ah! brothers and sisters, those of us who are helped to do most for God on earth are not satisfied with what we can do. This seems to be a world of trying rather than of accomplishing. We are straining to be able to serve God. I feel myself constantly, if I can imagine such an experience, like the chick within the shell — chipping it, wanting to get out of it, doing all it can; indeed, not doing all it can — but doing something, and desiring to do more, feeling its circle to be circumscribed, and itself to be cribbed, cabined, and confined. But what a glorious thing it will be when the young eaglets hatch themselves, and leave the nest, and try their wings! Such is happiness we are looking forward to — the daybreak; that we shall serve God day and night in his temple without any weariness, that we shall serve him without any sin, that we shall adore him without any wandering thoughts, that we shall be dedicated to him without anything that can stir the jealousy of his holy mind. Then we shall advance in the path of duty with as straight a persistency, and as divine a perseverance, as the thunderbolt when it is launched from the hand of the Almighty. We shall neither turn to the right hand nor to the left. We shall be swift as seraphs: and strong as cherubs in the course of service, and that service shall be for us the heaven of our delight. Oh! we may well long for the daybreak, because it will help his servants to serve him.

7. “The daybreak!” is it not likewise the time of clear discovery? At night we peep around; we make out the forms of the mountains; we can trace by the moonbeams the course of the rivers, and we may know something, more or less according to the measure of our discernment, or the inferences we may draw of what there is all around us. Still, the night is the time of gloom. Nor can all the candles and lamps that men kindle turn night into day. So here; this is the time of our ignorance. We know something of the truth as God has taught us, and blessed be his name, it is such dear knowledge that we would not give it up for all the world; but still, we only see as in a mirror dimly; we have not yet come to the face to face vision. We read like children spell at school — syllable by syllable, and we do not quite understand what we read. We are like a boy when he first begins to spell out his Horace; he does not comprehend the elegance of the style or the poetry of the language, but just spells it out, and sees something of the literal meaning, and that is all that he can get. Ah! I suppose that the greatest divine who ever lived did not know so much before he died as a child knows when he has been in heaven for five minutes. All that we are able to discover here seems to be little indeed. We know in part, we prophesy in part; when what is perfect is come, then what is in part shall be done away with. The daybreak no sooner comes to the world than you discern everything in its natural hue and its just proportion. You see colour where before everything was black, you perceive the beauty of the landscape; the mountain rises before you; the river rolls on mightily towards the sea; even the tiny flowers challenge your notice; you see everything on earth, for by the sun God has painted all the world with the colours of the rainbow. And oh! what a glorious discovery our admission into the next world will bring to us!

   Then shall we see, and hear, and know,

   All we desired or wished below;

   And every power find sweet employ,

   In that eternal world of joy.

8. I often get confused over doctrines that puzzle me. I see this to be true, and that to be true, but, how to reconcile the two I do not know; then the thought of the daybreak comes in so comfortingly. “What you do not know now, you shall know hereafter.” Here it is not good for us to know everything. In some respects it is the glory of God to conceal himself, and he may well say to us — “I have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.” But there it will be the glory of God to reveal himself, and it will also be to our benefit, our minds being then fortified and strengthened to receive what we could not comprehend here below. Perhaps the glare of the divine light, if it comes to us here, even though tempered by the Mediator himself, might be too much for these poor eyes of ours. All the prophets, or nearly all of them, when they had visions from God, fell flat on their faces, and John himself, though he had leaned on Jesus’ bosom when he saw the Master in Patmos, writes these very instructive words — “When I saw him I fell at his feet as dead.” Now, the Lord has work for us to do, and he does not want us to be always lying at his feet as dead. Consequently, he withholds from us the full radiance of his glory. But there, we shall be able to endure much, and there we shall be privileged to enjoy much.

   These eyes shall see him in that day,

   The Christ who died for me;

   And all my rising bones shall say,

   “Lord, who is like to thee?”

So, you see, we look forward to a time of perfect joy, of wonderful activity, and of full discovery.

9. What a blessing that we are able to look forward to this, and to talk about it as a matter of certainty. “Until the day breaks.” Why, there are dear aged brothers and sisters here who, in the providence of God, cannot be with us for very long, and how are they accustomed to speak of their departure? I hear them speak constantly with holy confidence, and not at all with any reluctance. There have been some people so foolish as not to like to be thought old; some who have seemed to regret altogether that the grey hairs were apparent on their heads. But I do not find it so among the Lord’s people with whom I associate. I find them thankful that this life is not all their portion, blessing God that they do not expect to be here for ever, and longing for evening to undress so that they may rest with God, with holy expectation anticipating the blissful moment when the day shall break. And we who are younger need not think, because we still have strength in our loins, that we shall therefore live long. Oh, how many younger than ourselves have we seen taken away during the past year! Some of our fathers will outlive us; our fathers will follow us to the tomb, for youth does not preserve man. Well, we too will join with the reverend seigneurs, and we will anticipate the daybreak, and talk with them about it tonight.

10. The other expression of the text is instructive too — “Until the day breaks, and the shadows flee away.” What are these shadows? They are of many kinds. They abound. This is the valley of shadows. Surely every man walks in a vain show, and disturbs himself in vain. We have some shadows that are precious. There are the shadows of the ordinances — Baptism and the Lord’s Supper. I speak of them with the highest reverence; yet they are only shadows in themselves, and we need them because we are in the shadow-land. He who is immersed in water is not, therefore, buried with Christ: the burial with Christ is the reality, the burial in water is only the shadow. He who eats and drinks at the table of the Master does not, therefore, eat his flesh and drink his blood: the bread and the wine, though they look substantial, are only the shadows. The real flesh and blood of Jesus — these are the inner substance, and only to faith is it given to feed on these celestial viands. These things are only intended to last until the day breaks, for note, “As often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you show the Lord’s death until he comes.” Then when he comes the day breaks, and the shadow, even that blessed shadow, must flee away.

11. We have other shadows that we shall be more glad to lose — shadows of frightful things which haunt especially the timid, nervous, and faint-hearted people of God. Some of the Lord’s people spend their lives in fighting shadows. They make troubles. They sit down and imagine disasters which cannot occur. They bind heavy burdens, and put them on their own shoulders — burdens which God never intended them to bear, and burdens which, in fact, do not exist; and some of them even create actual trouble by foolish anxiety to escape from an imaginary trouble. Well, poor trembler, poor Mr. Fearing, and you, Miss Much-Afraid, and Miss Despondency, the shadows will flee away soon. Though you generally go halting to heaven, with weak hands and feeble knees, and as many sighs as breaths, and as many tears as minutes, there is an end coming to all these, and you shall be as merry as any of them eventually. You shall be as near the eternal throne as the Apostles themselves, and have as much of the divine love and enjoyment as the strongest believers in Christ ever had. Be of good courage. Strive against those fears now. They weaken you; they dishonour our Master. Repent of ever having indulged them, for they are wicked; still, let this encourage you, they shall all flee away at the daybreak. Do not, therefore, dread dying when with that comes the daybreak. Expect it, even long for it, since then the shadows which oppress you from morning until night shall flee away.

12. So, too, those doubts and fears which are made of sterner stuff, the deeper shadows and heavier glooms, shall all flee away. There may be some men who never have a doubt about their acceptance in Christ, but, I am afraid I cannot count myself as one of them. For the most part I know whom I have believed, and I am persuaded that he is able to keep what I have committed to him until that day; but when it comes to close heart-work sometimes, and self-examination, I cannot give up Cowper’s hymn —

   ’Tis a point I long to know,

      Oft it causes anxious thought,

   “Do I love the Lord or no?

      Am I his, or am I not?”

   If I love, why am I thus?

      Why this cold and lifeless frame?

   Hardly, sure, could they be worse

      Who have never known his name.

Not that it is of any use having such a hymn as that in the hymn-book, for you never ought to sing it. It is not a thing to sing, but to groan out all alone, before our God. I think most of us are compelled to do that sometimes. Well, blessed be God, at the daybreak all these fears will be gone. We shall never be able then to doubt our interest in Christ, because we shall be with him where he is, and shall behold his glory. We shall never then have any fear lest after having preached to others we ourselves should be cast away. We shall not be afraid lest we should be shipwrecked, for though it may be only on boards and broken pieces, yet we shall then have come safely to land: all these fears will have vanished for ever.

13. May not these shadows represent to some of us that daily sense of sin which comes over us, and drives us to the cross? Oh! the sombre shadow which a tender conscience feels under a sense of sin! Some men do not have any such tenderness; they can make a profession, and be easy in living inconsistent lives. Not so a heart that lives near to Christ, the more pure it is, the more it mourns over its spots. If you are in the dark you will not see the mire on your garments, but the brighter the light the more you will see every spot, and the more you will mourn over it. I believe that the more sanctified a man becomes by the work of the Holy Spirit within, the more heavy the burden of sin becomes to him. It is not that he has more sin, but that he feels what he has more; and in the light of the love of Christ, which he enjoys in the secret places of communion, he sees more of the abomination of sin, and hence is more humbled under it. Oh! but it shall all flee away presently. They are without fault before the throne of God. He shall present us, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing. Oh! what a blessed presentation! At the daybreak, truly, the shadows will flee away.

14. Do you not think that the text might have an even more extensive meaning, and take in everything here below? Things terrestrial, after all, are only shadows. The things which are seen are temporal; only the things which are not seen are eternal. The things which are seen, all these things which are all around us, are only shadowy things; they are passing before us, and they will soon be gone, like the dissolving view {a} on the sheet. But the eternal things that men think are so shadowy and dreamy, these are the only realities, since they will last for ever. Well, the shadows will flee away: that means this poor flesh-and-blood body, full of sickness, which declines as the shadow; that house, those lands. Oh, you rich men! your shadows will all flee away. If you are believers you will not be sorry for that. And, oh, you poor people! your one room, cold and cheerless; the toil of every day; the needle, the long time stitching for very little — are all shadows, and very dark shadows, and they seem very real to you now, — well, they will soon be over — so soon! They will flee away, and all will be gone, and —

   Leaving all you loved below,

   Up to your Father you will go.

15. We will not tarry longer on these two causes, “Until the day breaks” — we expect a daybreak — “and the shadow flees away”; — we expect that shadows will flee away. We know they will; we rejoice that they will. Here we sit, looking out into the future, not knowing what may befall us, but singing to our souls this song — “Until the day breaks, and the shadows flee away.”

16. II. But while the time of joyful release is anticipated, there is also, A PRAYER PRESENTED. “Until the day breaks, and the shadows flee away, turn, my beloved, and be like a roe or a young hart on the mountains of Bether.”

17. Until heaven shall come to us, and we to heaven, sweet Lord Jesus be with us; let us have your company. But a difficulty arises. There is so much between us and Christ to keep him away. Hence the prayer, “Come, Lord, be like some hart or roe — like the antelope of the Alps, that leaps from crag to crag — come over all these mountains of division, and come to us when we cannot come to you.”

18. Remember, beloved, that our sins were once like these mountains of Bether. Christ has come over them. Our daily sins sometimes seem to our unbelief to be mountains of separation. Christ will come over these. He will bring us again to the cleansing fountain; he will give us the kiss of reconciliation; he will imprint the seal of peace on our foreheads. He will kiss us with the kisses of his lips, and he will send us away rejoicing that he has come over the mountains.

19. One great mountain that separates us from our Lord is our lack of sight of him. You know it is not easy to love one you never saw, to love one you have heard of, but have not seen at all. But faith gets over this difficulty with regard to Christ, for faith has a pictorial power, and it pictures Christ; faith has a comprehending power, and it grasps Christ; faith has an appropriating power, and it claims Christ; faith has a power of wing that takes the spirit right away to Christ in holy imagination, and sacred vision, and blessed meditation, and so it overcomes the difficulty; but it still is a difficulty, and hence the delightful power and force of the expression of the apostle — “Whom, having not seen, we love; in whom, though now we do not see him, yet believing, we rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory.” The prayer is, then, “Oh! Saviour, not only come over my sin, but come over this great difficulty, that I never saw you, never heard your voice, and never touched your hand; yet, come to me over these separating mountains, and make yourself real to my spirit every day I live.”

20. Ah, brothers and sisters, there are many mountains. I shall not mention them all, but I will name one more, and that is the mountain of our natural coldness, lethargy, and indifference, and, piled on the top of these, are our cares and our worldliness. I wish I could keep my heart red-hot for Christ, but everything seems chilled. You cannot even live in God’s service as I do, but what, in serving Christ, himself, you get as Martha did, encumbered with much serving. Oh! that the heart were always on the mountain with Christ — indeed, I will not say that — if it were even in the garden, as long as it would only be with him, in Gethsemane, or in Tabor, it would matter little as long as we could be with him. But we have many things to do, and many things to think of, more often than we need, and then we get away from Christ, and then we cannot get back again as quickly as we want and so we have to sing, with Dr. Watts, —

   Our souls can neither fly nor go

   To reach eternal joys.

Well, then, he comes to us. He kindles a flame of sacred love, and that kindles ours. Oh! great Lord, until the day breaks often come in this way to us; until the shadows flee away; oh! come to our hearts again and again, leaping over the mountains, and revealing yourself to us.

21. Here is a blessed thing to think about all the year round. Do not ask the Lord to take away the shadows; do not ask that you may feel this world to be a bright place for your hearts; but turn your thoughts to this — “Lord, whether it is bright or not to my soul, come to me; oh! come to me; be near me; let me walk in the conscious enjoyment of your daily presence; I leave everything else to your will; only stay near me!” Do you ask, now, when may this prayer be used? I think it is a very delightful prayer every night when we go to bed. “Lord, until the day breaks, and the shadows flee away literally in the morning, come and stay with me.”

   If in the night I wakeful lie,

   My soul with heavenly thoughts supply.

If I toss to and fro on my bed, may I have to say, as your Spouse did, “By night, on my bed, I sought him whom my soul loves.” May I cry with the psalmist, “When I awake I am still with you.” I think you may put your head on the pillow each night very delightfully with that as your prayer.

22. Then you may pray this prayer whenever any trouble has happened to you. Now you may say, “Lord, I see the day has not broke with me yet; the shadows have not fled away; there is this heavy loss in business; there is that dear child ill; there is the wife sickening; there is this disease in my own body. But, Lord, until this trouble is removed, come near, come near, and even nearer.” If there is one child in the family the mother cares most about, it is the one who is the most sickly. You are sitting here tonight, and you are thinking about one of your children, but it is not about the one who is twenty-one, and grown up, it is the little one you left in the cradle. The more helpless he is, the more thought you give him, and so God considers you, poor, helpless, troubled ones. Pray, then, as you are entering into the cloud, “Lord Jesus, remain with me in the thick and dark night, until the day breaks, and the shadows flee away.”

23. This prayer will do whenever the affairs of the Church of God or of the nation seem to be in a bad state. There are times with every church when it does not prosper as we could desire; there are times in this nation when we see error very rife, and true religion at a discount. Well, then, Christian, instead of your fretting yourself about the ark of the Lord, which you can no more keep right than Uzza could, say, “Lord, I wish to walk with you”; I will say as Joshua did, “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord”; “Only come, be near to my heart, and keep my heart near to you.”

24. And what a blessed petition this would be when we are coming to die. We feel within ourselves that the machinery of life must come to a stop. There are certain indications which denote that the last mortal strife is drawing near. Oh! now to bow the knee at the bedside, or if unable through weakness or faintness to do that, to support one’s self up on the bed and say, “Until the day breaks, so near now to these poor failing eyes, until the shadows flee away, and this poor, crumbling body is changed for glory and immortality; come, my beloved, be like a roe or a young hart on the mountains of Bether.” It would be blessed to fall asleep in Jesus with that prayer on one’s lips! Well, you are sure to die with it on your lips if you always live with it on your lips. If it is always in your heart, it will be in your heart at the last. So I commend it to you for daily use and for every special crisis. May the Lord make it to be a blessing to your souls.

25. Only, again I say, I wish with all my heart — it is my heart’s desire and prayer — that all of you may have a daybreak to look forward to. It is so sad a thing that so many live as if they were to always live here. They live as if they were to die like dogs, and there would be as much an end of them as of the young bull that is struck with the pole-axe in the slaughter-house. But, since you will live for ever, I must again remind you that there remains for you nothing but a fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation. Would you have a daybreak? Jesus Christ is the sun. Trust him. He has told us that he who believes and is baptized shall be saved. To believe is to trust. Now, leaving all your sins — it is time you left them; now, abhorring all those things in which you once took delight — and you may well abhor them, for they are damnable; they are serpents; fair are their scales but deadly are their fangs — leaving all these, come to Jesus. He died for sinners, for the very worst of sinners, and whoever trusts him shall have everlasting life.

26. Oh! that you just now might end your service for the devil, and immediately begin your service for the Lord Jesus. May the Master grant it by the power of his Holy Spirit, and his shall be the praise!

{a} Dissolving views: Pictures produced on a screen by a magic lantern, one picture being caused gradually to disappear while another gradually appears on the same field. OED.

Exposition By C. H. Spurgeon {Re 7}

1. And after these things I saw four angels standing on the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth, that the wind should not blow on the earth, nor on the sea, nor on any tree.

Observe that God has servants always ready for his work. There were winds to be restrained. “And I saw four angels,” — mighty spiritual beings — who had power over the air. These winds were to be restrained until all God’s people were safely sealed; and you may depend on it that no calamity shall happen to destroy the people of God, they must first be saved. There shall be no deluge until there is the ark; there shall be no Romans to destroy Jerusalem until there is a little city in the mountains to which the disciples may flee. God will protect his own. The dead calm, the perfect tranquillity which prevailed while the angels restrained the winds is described in these words. The wind did not appear to blow on land, or sea, or tree, not a ripple broke the surface of the waters, not a leaf stirred on the bough, everything is quiet until God’s people are secured.

2, 3. And I saw another angel ascending from the east, having the seal of the living God: and he cried with a loud voice to the four angels, to whom it was given to harm the earth and the sea, saying, “Do not harm the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, until we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads.”

See how other things are protected for the sake of God’s people. The earth and the sea and even the trees, have a cordon of safety all around them while God’s people are being secured. When the Lord Jesus put to sea on the Galilean lake, we read that there were with him many other little boats, and when the calm came for his boat they were in the calm, too. And so it is a good thing if you are not in the Church, yet to have some kind of connection with it; a great thing for the age to have the Church of God in it, for God will take care of a nation often for the sake of his people. Just as he would have spared Sodom had there been righteous men found in it, so he spares nations for the sake of his saints.

4. And I heard the number of those who were sealed: and there were sealed a hundred and forty and four thousand of all the tribes of the children of Israel.

Now we are going to read their names. I hope you will not say it is tiresome to read them. Remember he who wrote this Book is their Father, and children’s names are not wearisome to their own father. Remember, he who fills this Book bought them with his blood, and wore them on his breast-plate as the great High Priest of Israel; bearing all these names on his heart, inscribed on the palms of his hands. We need not be weary of hearing names which Christ has worn on his breast.

5-8. Of the tribe of Judah were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Reuben were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Gad were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Asher were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Naphtali were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Manasseh were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Simeon were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Levi were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Issachar were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Zebulun were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Joseph were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Benjamin were sealed twelve thousand.

Judah stands first and Benjamin stands last: they were joined together, but here they are as widely separated as they can be, yet they stand in an equal position; and the day shall come when first and last shall join together again in the equal blessing of the Most High. Where is Dan? Not mentioned here. See, there is nothing without a mystery. We shall never understand all the things of God. It seemed simple enough to bless the twelve tribes, and yet there is one missing.

9. After this I beheld, and, lo, a great multitude, whom no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palm branches in their hands;

This is the great gathering of the Gentile multitude redeemed by blood, numbered by God, never to be numbered by men, being like the sand on the sea-shore, innumerable. Of all colours they shall be, and they will look to us on earth if we could see them, to be a motley group, and if we heard them speak it would seem to be a strange jargon. Many are the languages of earth, but one is the speech of heaven. All hearts are alike in the kingdom of the Most High, whatever the colour of the skin. Do you know, that entrance of our Lord into Jerusalem seems to me to be the pattern we have here before us, only this is its fulfilment. Here are the crowds that gathered around him, the twelve disciples lead the way, and here are the multitudes with the palm branches in their hands scattering them in the pathway of their king.

10. And cried with a loud voice, saying, “Salvation to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.”

In Jerusalem they cried Hosanna, which was “Save, Lord,” but now they have risen a little higher, and they sing, “Salvation to our God.” It is the same melody but it is pitched in a loftier key, and there are more to sing it; and they are not now conducting a prince to his throne, but they are looking up to the king on his throne, reigning there.

11. And all the angels stood all around the throne, and around the elders and the four beasts, and fell before the throne on their faces, and worshipped God,

Not some of the angels, nor many angels, nor even an innumerable company of angels, but all the angels; they shall all gather on that august occasion around the throne of God and the Lamb.

12. Saying, “Amen: Blessing, and glory, and wisdom, and thanksgiving, and honour, and power, and might, be to our God for ever and ever. Amen.”

What a deep, sonorous Amen that will be! What a mighty volume of sound! How full and rich, how hearty! Oh, that our ears may be there to hear it, and our tongues to swell it.

13. And one of the elders answered, saying to me, “Who are these who are arrayed in white robes? And where did they come from?”

“And I said to him, ‘Sir, you know.’” You see the question was asked by an angel; as an answer, one of the elders answered. Whom did he answer? Why, John; and what John’s heart was enquiring. He was saying to himself, “Who are these?” And one of the elders was responsive to his heart’s enquiry, and put the same enquiry into words on his behalf.

14, 15. And I said to him, “Sir, you know.” And he said to me, “These are those who came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Therefore they are before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple: and he who sits on the throne shall dwell among them.

Shall “tabernacle over them,” that is the exact word, as though he were a pavilion, a canopy over them.

16, 17. They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more, neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat. For the Lamb who is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them to living fountains of waters: and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.”

It looks almost as if they might have a tear in their eye when they first come there; certainly they shall never be sure of being without a tear until they have crossed the pearly threshold; but then he shall wipe away the very tear, there shall be no possibility of weeping there. May our eyes behold that sinless and sorrowless land, and its Eternal Lord!

C. H. Spurgeon’s Useful Books at Reduced Prices.

The Salt-Cellars. Being a Collection of Proverbs, together with Homely Notes on them. By C. H. Spurgeon. “These three things go to the making of a proverb: Shortness, Sense, and Salt.” In 2 vols., cloth gilt, published at each, offered at 2s. 6d. each; Morocco, 7s. 6d. each.

“For many years I have published a Sheet Almanac, intended to be hung up in workshops and kitchens. This has been known as ‘John Ploughman’s Almanac,’ and has had a large sale. It has promoted temperance, thrift, kindness to animals, and a regard for religion, among working people. The placing of a proverb for every day for twenty years has cost me great labour, and I feel that I cannot afford to lose the large collection of sentences which I have brought together; yet lost they would be, if left to die with the ephermeral sheet. Hence these two volumes. They do not profess to be a complete collection of proverbs, but only a few out of many thousands.” — Extract from Preface.