Longing For Heaven’s Rest

Longing for Heaven’s Rest

Excerpted from “Heavenly Rest”

Sermon #133, May 24, 1857

If you’ve ever felt as if you were made for more than what this world has to offer, you’re right. Even the best moments from our past and our present are merely hints of the future God has in store for us.

Let all who take refuge in you rejoice; let them ever sing for joy, and spread your protection over them, that those who love your name may exult in you. Psalm 5:11

Spurgeon • The Christian has some rest here, but nothing compared with the rest which is to come (Hebrews 4:9).

There is the rest experienced by the church. When the believer joins the church of God and becomes united with fellow believers, he may expect to rest. The good old writer of Pilgrim’s Progress says that when the weary pilgrims were once admitted to the House Beautiful, they were shown to sleep in a chamber called Peace.

The church member at the Lord’s Table has a sweet enjoyment of rest in fellowship with the saints, but up there in Heaven, the rest of church fellowship far surpasses anything that is known here. For there are no divisions there, no angry words at the church meetings, no harsh thoughts of one another, no bickering about doctrine, no fighting about practice.

There is, again, a rest of faith which a Christian enjoys—a sweet rest. Many of us have known it. We have known what it is, when the billows of trouble have run high, to hide ourselves in the breast of Christ and feel secure. We have cast our anchor deep into the rocks of God’s promise, we have gone to sleep in our chamber and have not feared the tempest, we have looked at tribulation and have smiled at it, we have looked at death himself and have laughed him to scorn.

In the midst of defamation, reproach, slander and contempt, we have said, “I shall not be moved, for God is on my side.” But the rest up there is better still—more unruffled, more sweet, more perfectly calm, more enduring, and more lasting than even the rest of faith.

And again, the Christian sometimes has the blessed rest of communion. There are happy moments when he puts his head on the Savior’s breast—when, like John, he feels that he is close to the Savior’s heart, and there he sleeps. God “gives to his beloved sleep” (Psalm 127:2)—not the sleep of unconsciousness, but the sleep of joy.

Happy, happy, happy are the dreams we have had on the couch of communion! Blessed have been the times when, like the spouse in Solomon’s song, we could say of Christ, “His left hand is under my head, and his right hand embraces me!” (Song of Solomon 2:6).

When we shall have plunged into a very bath of joy, we shall have found the delights even of Communion on Earth to have been but the dipping of the finger in the cup, but the dipping of the bread in the dish, whereas Heaven itself shall be the participation of the whole of the joy and not the mere foretaste of it.

Here we sometimes enter into the doorway of happiness; there we shall go into the presence chamber of the King! Here we look over the hedge and see the flowers in Heaven’s garden; there we shall walk between the flower beds of delight. We shall pluck fresh flowers at each step.

Here we just look and see the sunlight of Heaven in the distance, like the lamps of the thousand-gated cities shining far away. There we shall see them in all their blaze of splendor. Here we listen to the whisperings of Heaven’s melody, borne by winds from afar. But there, entranced amid the grand melodies of the blessed, we shall join in the everlasting hallelujah to the great Messiah, the God, the I AM.

Alcorn • I’ve never been to Heaven, yet I miss it. Eden’s in my blood. The best things of life are souvenirs from Eden, appetizers of the New Earth. There are just enough of them to keep us going but never enough to make us satisfied with the world as it is or ourselves as we are. We live between Eden and the New Earth, pulled toward what we once were and what we yet will be.

As Spurgeon puts it, “Here we listen to the whisperings of Heaven’s melody, borne by winds from afar.” But there’s a place Christ is preparing for us. Do you hear the final sounds of construction? Are you ready to live there with Jesus forever?

In Eden, God came down to Earth, the home of humanity, whenever he wished (Genesis 3:8). On the New Earth, God and mankind will be able to come to each other whenever they wish. We will not have to leave home to visit God, nor will God leave home to visit us. God and mankind will live together forever in the same home—the New Earth.

God declares this truth in Scripture: “I will put my dwelling place among you, and I will not abhor you. I will walk among you and be your God, and you will be my people” (Leviticus 26:11-12, NIV). “I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people” (2 Corinthians 6:16, NIV).

Desire is a signpost pointing to Heaven. Every longing for better health is a longing for the perfect bodies we’ll have on the New Earth. Every longing for romance is a longing for the ultimate romance with Christ. Every thirst for beauty is a thirst for Christ. Every taste of joy is but a foretaste of a greater and more vibrant joy than can be found on Earth now.

That’s why we need to spend our lives cultivating our love for Heaven. That’s why we need to meditate on what Scripture says about Heaven and to read books, have Bible studies, teach classes, and preach sermons on it. We need to talk to our children about Heaven. When we’re camping, hiking, or driving or when we’re at a museum, a sporting event, or a theme park, we need to talk about what we see around us as signposts of the New Earth.

When we think of Heaven as unearthly, our present lives seem unspiritual, as if they don’t matter. When we grasp the reality of the New Earth, however, our present, earthly lives suddenly do matter. Conversations with loved ones matter. The taste of food matters. Work, leisure, creativity, and intellectual stimulation matter. Rivers and trees and flowers matter. Laughter matters. Service matters. Why? Because they are eternal.

Life on Earth matters, not because it’s the only life we have, but precisely because it isn’t—it’s the beginning of a life that will continue without end on a renewed Earth. Understanding Heaven doesn’t just tell us what to do, but why. What God tells us about our future enables us to interpret our past and serve him in our present.