Playing with monkeys and parrots!
(Thomas Watson, "The Christian's Charter")
"You will fill me with joy in Your presence, with eternal pleasures at Your right hand!" Psalm 16:11
Eternity is the highest link of the saint's happiness! The believer shall be forever bathing in the pure and pleasant fountain of bliss! There is neither intermission nor expiration--in the joys of Heaven! When once God has set His plants in the celestial paradise--He will never again pluck them up! You may sooner separate light from the sun--than a glorified saint from Jesus Christ. O eternity, eternity! what a never-failing spring of delight will that be!
The glory of Heaven is infinitely satisfying! There is neither lack, nor excess. This cannot be properly said of anything but Heaven. You who look to the world for satisfaction--remember what the creature says,"It is not in me!" Heaven alone, is commensurate to the vast desires of the soul. Here the Christian cries out in a divine ecstasy, "I have enough, my Savior, I have enough!" O eternity, eternity! what a never-failing spring of delight will that be!
"You feed them from the abundance of Your own house, letting them drink from Your rivers of delight!" Psalm 36:8. Not drops--but rivers! These alone can quench the thirst. Every day in Heaven, shall be a feast! There is no lack at this feast! Here is soul-satisfaction! O the glory of this Paradise! It is more than we can ever imagine! There is:
unspotted purity,
unstained honor,
unparalleled beauty!
There will God give us infinitely more than we would ever dare to ask or hope! Is not this enough? What more could we ask for! A man could ask for million of worlds--but in Heaven God will give us more than we can ask--nay, more than we can ever imagine! We could imagine--
what if all the dust of the earth were turned to silver;
what if every stone were a wedge of gold;
what if every flower were a ruby;
what if every blade of grass were a pearl;
what if every sand in the sea were a diamond!
Yet all this is nothing--compared to the glory of Heaven! It is as impossible for any man in his deepest thoughts, to comprehend glory--as it would be for him to measure the Heavens with a ruler; or drain the oceans with a thimble. O incomparable place!
But why do I expatiate? These things are unspeakable and full of glory! Had I as many tongues as hairs on my head, I could never sufficiently set forth the beauty and resplendency of this blissful inheritance! Such is the excellence of this celestial paradise, that if the angels would take up their brushes to delineate it in its colors, they would but stain and eclipse the glory of it! I have given you only the dark shadow the picture--and that but crudely and imperfectly!
How should we be inflamed with desire to taste of those rare and sweet delicacies, which are above at God's right hand! O what madness is it for men to spin out their time, and tire out their strength--in pursuing the vanities of this world! Who would, for the indulging of a lust--forfeit so glorious an inheritance! Lay the whole world in scales with Heaven--it is lighter than vanity!
It is reported of Caesar, that traveling through a certain city, as he passed along, he saw some of the women playing with monkeys and parrots; at which sight he said, "What! have they no children to play with!"
"You will fill me with joy in Your presence, with eternal pleasures at Your right hand!" Psalm 16:11
Eternity is the highest link of the saint's happiness! The believer shall be forever bathing in the pure and pleasant fountain of bliss! There is neither intermission nor expiration--in the joys of Heaven! When once God has set His plants in the celestial paradise--He will never again pluck them up! You may sooner separate light from the sun--than a glorified saint from Jesus Christ. O eternity, eternity! what a never-failing spring of delight will that be!
The glory of Heaven is infinitely satisfying! There is neither lack, nor excess. This cannot be properly said of anything but Heaven. You who look to the world for satisfaction--remember what the creature says,"It is not in me!" Heaven alone, is commensurate to the vast desires of the soul. Here the Christian cries out in a divine ecstasy, "I have enough, my Savior, I have enough!" O eternity, eternity! what a never-failing spring of delight will that be!
"You feed them from the abundance of Your own house, letting them drink from Your rivers of delight!" Psalm 36:8. Not drops--but rivers! These alone can quench the thirst. Every day in Heaven, shall be a feast! There is no lack at this feast! Here is soul-satisfaction! O the glory of this Paradise! It is more than we can ever imagine! There is:
unspotted purity,
unstained honor,
unparalleled beauty!
There will God give us infinitely more than we would ever dare to ask or hope! Is not this enough? What more could we ask for! A man could ask for million of worlds--but in Heaven God will give us more than we can ask--nay, more than we can ever imagine! We could imagine--
what if all the dust of the earth were turned to silver;
what if every stone were a wedge of gold;
what if every flower were a ruby;
what if every blade of grass were a pearl;
what if every sand in the sea were a diamond!
Yet all this is nothing--compared to the glory of Heaven! It is as impossible for any man in his deepest thoughts, to comprehend glory--as it would be for him to measure the Heavens with a ruler; or drain the oceans with a thimble. O incomparable place!
But why do I expatiate? These things are unspeakable and full of glory! Had I as many tongues as hairs on my head, I could never sufficiently set forth the beauty and resplendency of this blissful inheritance! Such is the excellence of this celestial paradise, that if the angels would take up their brushes to delineate it in its colors, they would but stain and eclipse the glory of it! I have given you only the dark shadow the picture--and that but crudely and imperfectly!
How should we be inflamed with desire to taste of those rare and sweet delicacies, which are above at God's right hand! O what madness is it for men to spin out their time, and tire out their strength--in pursuing the vanities of this world! Who would, for the indulging of a lust--forfeit so glorious an inheritance! Lay the whole world in scales with Heaven--it is lighter than vanity!
It is reported of Caesar, that traveling through a certain city, as he passed along, he saw some of the women playing with monkeys and parrots; at which sight he said, "What! have they no children to play with!"
So I say, when I see men toying with these earthly and beggarly vanities, "What! are there not more glorious and sublime things to mind!"
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