--And surely most of us do believe that? For is it
not our notion that, when the Lord Jesus ascended up to heaven, He
went away a great distance off, perhaps millions of miles beyond the
stars; and that He will not come back again till the last--which, for
aught we know, and as we rather expect, may not happen for hundreds
or thousands of years to come? Is not that most people's notion,
rich as well as poor? And if that is not believing that our Lord
delays His coming, what is?
But, you may answer, the Creed says plainly, that He ascended into
heaven and sits at the right hand of God. Ah! my friends, those
great words of the Creed which you take into your lips every Sunday,
mean the very opposite to what most people fancy. They do not say,
"The Lord Jesus has left this poor earth to itself and its misery:"
but they say, "Lo, He is with you, even to the end of the world."
True, He is ascended into heaven. And how far off is heaven?--for so
far off is the Lord Jesus, and no farther. Not so far off, my
friends, after all, if you knew where to find it. Truly said the
great and good poet, now gone home to his reward:
Heaven lies about us in our infancy.
And if we lose sight of it as we grow up to be men and women, it is
not because heaven goes farther off, but because we grow less
heavenly.
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