SUNDAY READING

Te Aroha News, Volume XVI, Issue 22217, 24 March 1900, Page 3

SUNDAY READING

The. Sea of Glass , Bev. iv 6. The Bottomless Bit , Bev. xx 3. [By Truth. The Apostle John saw in panoramic view both the future place of the lost, and the future place of the redeemed, and brings out in a most vivid and distinctive manner their characteristics. The redeemed are pictured as standing, upon of Glass,’ while the lofc- are cast into a bottomless pit. In the one picture we have a steadfast standing place, in the other no standing place at all —only a fathomless void. The sea of glass before the throne is a symbal of ihe purity r vastness, and endurance of the peace and jpv which the redeemed enjoy. As tne sea is the greatest feature of this Garth, so a spa of glass is the great feature of the celestial scenery upon which this priviledged seer gazes, entranced through the door opened in Heaven. JBbt how different is the earthly sea from the heavenly. The of earth is ever restless and troubled. There is sorrow always and moaning on its bosom. It is the cause and the emblem of storm and change and disaster. The billowy sea is the grandest image of the calamities of life—those blind capricious forces that perpetually threaten human happiness. They are pitiless and irresistable, ever peeling forth the music of destruction On the other hand the sea of heaven represents in a higher degree the ideas of vastness and fullness, coupled with fixity and eternal repose. A sea of glass, whose crystal pavement stretches far away into the shining distance ( before the throne, as if the vast expanse of lib shoreless ocean, unruffled by a breath, had been fixed and frozen to everlasting permanence. No storm breods over its charmed stillness, no wav* rises or fal's on its eternal e dm. It mirrows in its transparent surface the glory of heaven, the reflections of the Great White Throne, and the seven lamps of fire always burning Mature it, mingling with the golden of the celestiul city in the x-yry stall in depth, give ttam an opallion lus're of transcendant beauty Oh 1 what an image of stainless purity and continuance endurance is that Sea of Glass ! Fixedness because of its purity, steadfast because it is chrysiallin in its purity. It is a symbol of thellteadfastness of our salvation, safely coupled with so ndness and immutability—an everlas‘ing salvation. ‘ Wehave not believed cunningly devised fables, but the words of Truth and soberness. Our redemption ! is not a dream or a fancy, not a mere . hope or expectation. -It is a substnn 1 tial, assured reality. The foundation of God standeth sure. The covenant of God is ordered in all things and i sure. The paths of philosophy are traced in the sh fling sands of time; P but the way of life is upon a rock that "never changes. The wo ; d Truth iudien'es its stabibty. It ernes from Jc he same root as a tree, and suggests the*image nf a huge nrk, deop’y rooted in Ihe soil, with its massive tiunk and . wide spreading branch s defying all the storms of heaven. It is built upon the immutability and immortality of God, hence it is easi r for heaven and earth to paa? away than for one tittle of the truth to fail. Our Lord said tha f 'He that heureth His words and d'-eth them, is like a man that huildeth upon a rock. And now the ultima’e condition of those who build their trust in God is pictured as a ‘ Sea of Gl iss,’ which affords firm and unchangeable f oting for evermore. What a suggestive and satisfying symbol of the things that belong to our peace, of the subs'antial realities -*bf heaven ! Oh I how scripture does the heart by tilling us of the ’ golden streets of the celestial city of this Sea of G 1 ass before the throne all images of solid realities, far more fixed and lasting than any of the things of time and sence. And how different is the symbol chosen— Divinely chosen—to picture to us the state-of the lost! It is called a bottomless pit. What a dreadful conception ! To find no where a rest for the sole of the foot! It is a symbol of the ever reality of falsehood, of the whole kingdom of darkness ruled over by the father of lies. The world of evil seeks to establish itself upon many foundations, but something is always coming -down in it in some corner. What is evil can no mere resist the Y law of retribution which precipitates it doom than a falling stone can resist the force of gravation. It is the tendency of all falsehood to become bottomless. Sin cannot .find a standing. It sinks ever lower and lower. The man jjyho enters upon a course of sin has the feeling of one who has fallen into the sea and cannot swim. He is in an element that cannot hold him up " and in which he must sink deeper and deeper to his doom. Into the bottomless pit fall those who are without God and without hope, who sink below the everlasting arms that are continually underneath all those who put their trust in God—who have repented and Have believed the gospel—however low they have sunk. Bottomless Pit! Endless sin and endless punishment seem here to he connected. For evem in this world repeats itself, and goes on impelled by its own impetus, so that it can never stop of its awn accord. If we step on the dowuward course it is ever more and more down wasd by the fatal gravitation of sin. Peter denied our Lord thrice. The first sin prepared the way for the

second, the second for the third. Who that has ever been surprised info wrong has not also experienced this second or third surprise following. Our sin can only he slopped in this life by the grace of God leading us to repentance and forgiving us. The Divine mercy has interposed harriers in the way to keep us from falling into this bottomless abyss of sin. And at every stage we are arrested by preventing mercies which form a thorny hedge to sting us back. But after death tl ose interpositions of mercy and grace are removed, so that he that is unjust shkll remain unjust and he who is filthy will remain filthy. There will be nothing to check their career of filthiness and unjustness—nothing to make them clean any more. Will you, dear reader, not now flee to the Almighty arms that are waiting and widening to snotch you from the fearful pit and the bottomless abyss, and so set your feet firm npon the Rock of Ages here, and finally sure and steadfast upon that Sea of Glass before the Throne ?