Last Updated on : November 23, 2014 | |||
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What Is A
Heavenly Country?
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WHEN men call themselves "strangers and pilgrims", they plainly indicate that they are seeking a country where they will be at home. This was the position of the forefathers of the Israelites, as shown by Heb. 11:13-16. What were they looking for? Was it the country by the Euphrates from which Abraham came? In that case they could have gone back. What they desired was "a better country, that is, a heavenly". Their desire was based on the promise of God, who had called Abraham from Ur "to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance" (Heb. 11:8). When he reached Canaan, God said: "All the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed after thee" (Gen. 13:15). That promise was never fulfilled in the lifetime of Abraham, or Isaac, or Jacob: yet all these men lived in the faith that God's promises could not fail: they "saw them afar off". They had found the land, but not a home: it was not the place but the conditions which must change before it could be their country. They looked for a new order of things--"a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God". Such a city will not decay or be destroyed, as happens to men's cities: and the assurance is given that God in His purpose "has prepared for them a city". It will be "heavenly" not because it is in heaven, but because its origin is from Heaven, and not from man. The new order in which that city will be founded is the Kingdom of God on earth, and some of the statements in Scripture about it are given below. 1. The Kingdom of God is to be set up in Palestine.
2. When the Kingdom of God is so set up in Palestine, the country is to be made glorious.
3. When Palestine is thus restored to more than its ancient glory and prosperity, the glory of God will be manifested in it, and His law established in it as at a centre from which it will flow out to all the world.
4. The temple of God will be in it, re-built on a scale of grandeur that will be suitable for the worship of all nations.
5. The people in it will be all righteous; and the nations of the Gentiles who gather to it from year to year will also learn and perform the will of God, causing the earth to be filled with glory and joy.
6. It will be an age of light and peace and love; the rulers immortal; the subjects enlightened and obedient; evil restrained; death among men diminished; men everywhere blessed in Abraham and his seed.
Jesus taught his disciples to pray: "Thy kingdom come: Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven". This prayer will be answered when the heavenly country desired by the fathers, promised to them in the days when they lived in it as strangers, will be manifested in the earth in the way and under the circumstances set forth in the foregoing testimonies of the Scriptures of truth.
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