A great voice from heaven saying unto them, Come up hither.
The voice from heaven
I. We shall regard it, first, As a summons sent at the appointed hour to every saint. When the time shall come, fixed by irreversible decree, there shall be heard “a great voice from heaven” to every believer in Christ, saying, “Come up hither.”
1. This should be to us--each one of us, if we be in Christ--the subject of very joyful anticipation. To some Christians it will be not only joyful in anticipation, but it will be intensely delightful when it arrives.
2. To change the note a moment; while this should be the subject of joyous anticipation, it should also be the object of patient waiting. God knows best when it is time for us to be bidden to “Come up hither.” We must not wish to antedate the period of our departure. I would not wish to die while there is more work to do or more souls to win.
3. As this “Come up hither” should excite joyous anticipation, tempered by patient waiting, so it should always be to us a matter of absolute certainty as to its ultimate reception. I can understand a man being in doubt about his interest in Christ, but I cannot understand a man’s resting content to be in these doubts.
4. I think very often, besides joyfully anticipating, patiently waiting, and being confidently assured of it, the Christian should delightfully contemplate it.
II. We will take the text this time, not as a summons to depart, but as whisper from the skies to the believer’s heart, The Father seems to say this to every adopted child. Nor will your Father and my Father ever be content till every oneof His children shall be in the many mansions above. And Jesus whispers this in your ear. “I will that they also whom Thou hast given Me be with Me where I elm, that they may behold My glory.” Jesus beckons thee to the skies, believer. Lay not fast hold upon the things of earth.
III. These words may be used as a loving invitation to unconverted persons. There are many spirit voices which cry to them, “Come up hither; come up to heaven.”
1. God our Father calls thee. Sinner, thou hast many troubles of late; business goes amiss. Dost thou not know, sinner, this is thy Father saying, “Come up hither”? Thy portion is not here; seek thou another and a better land.
2. But more, the Lord Jesus Christ has also beckoned to you to come. Thou hast heard that He made a way to heaven. Is not a road an invitation to a traveller to walk therein?
3. The Spirit of God strives with thee and cries, “Come up hither.” The Spirit of God wrote this book; and wherefore was this book written? Hear the words of Scripture, “These are written that ye might believe,” etc.
4. Moreover, does not thy conscience say the same?
5. And, last of all, the spirit of your friends departed cry from heaven to you to-night--that voice which I would you could hear, “Come up hither.” I adjure you, ye sons of saints in glory; I adjure you, daughter of immortal mothers; despise not now the voice of those who speak from heaven to you. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Voices from heaven
And we, too, hear voices from heaven, saying unto us, “Come up hither.” Did we not, how grovelling our desires, our pursuits, our very natures would be!
1. There is, first, a voice even from the lower and material heaven, calling on our souls, and urging them to ascend. The stars of the firmament, and the sun, and the moon, speak as well as shine. They “utter forth a glorious voice”; a voice which not only declares the glory of God, but exhorts the spirit of man. Come up hither! Come up into the vast domains of space, and count our numbers, and compute our size, and bathe in our brightness, and learn what we can tell you of height and of depth, of splendour and of power. Stay not always below. Breathe not always in mist and vapours. Regard not earth so exclusively and solong, as to rest in the conclusion that earth is all.
2. We do not stop, however, but only begin with these works, all bright and eloquent as they are. They introduce us to Him who made them; to Him from whose fountain they draw their light, and of whose voice their own is but an echo. God delegates not to His creatures, but reserves as His own right, the highest converse with His likeness, the human soul. He is the Father of spirits, and He will speak Himself to His children. And from the heaven where He dwelleth He says to them, Come up hither. Come up into the spiritual dwelling-place of your Creator, and birthplace of your own souls. Remain not so constantly in your temporal residence, as to forget the way to that abode where My children are to live for ever. Come up hither by faith now, that hereafter you may come in by sight. Come up by hope, that when hope shall disappear, it may be Swallowed up in fruition. Come up by charity and good works done in the body, that when your bodies are resolved into dust, your souls may be prepared for that happy and holy kingdom into which sin and impurity cannot enter. Come up hither by the exercises of piety and the strength of Divine love. Come, and see My face, and be to Me as sons.
3. But there is another to whom we are dear, even His own Son, who dwells with His Father; and He also calls us from the same heaven, saying unto us, Come up hither l Here are the mansions which I have been preparing for My disciples. Cause not My labour for you to be vain. I earned My reward, that ye might share it with Me. I would not lose one soul that I once bled to redeem. Come up hither. There is room for you, and for all.
4. And now we hear other great voices from heaven, saying unto us, Come up hither! They are the voices of “the glorious company of the apostles,” “the goodly fellowship of the prophets,” “the noble army of martyrs,” the innumerable multitude of saints and sealed servants of God, which no man can number, of all nations and kindreds and people and tongues. Come up hither I they cry, and witness our joys, and be encouraged by our success.
5. There are few to whom I am speaking who do not hear other voices yet, which, though not more animating than the last, are, by the provision of God, nearer to the listening ear, and dearer to the soul. There are few who do not number in their families those whose places are vacant at the table and the hearth, but who are not reckoned as lost but only gone before. And when the business of daily life is for a while suspended, and its cares are put to rest--nay, often in the midst of the world’s unheeded tumult--their voices float down clearly and distinctly from heaven, and say to their own, Come up hither! Our infirmities are relieved; our strength is renewed; our fears and doubts are flown away; our sins are forgiven. Hearken to us, and be comforted! Come to us, when your journey is done! (F. W. P. Greenwood, D. D.)
The great voice from heaven
No argument is needed to show that the word “up” is used in a figurative and not in a literal sense, What heaven is we do not know. The truth is that between physical and moral relations there is often a close analogy. The physical world in which we live is the type of the world to which we are going; the conditions of being, the relations of matter in which we are practised here--motion, rest, distance, nearness, weight, buoyancy, power, resistance, birth, life, growth, death--all these are physical ideas; yet we cannot talk about spiritual or heavenly things without employing these terms; and they were meant to be used by us in this way. Of course the essential excellence of heaven consists in the moral purity and perfection of which it is the home. And between moral purity and perfection and physical elevation there seems to be a constant and, perhaps, a necessary relation. Perhaps the human mind is so constituted that it will associate these ideas. The fact is worth noting, because we are not always aware that when we seem to be speaking in the soberest prose we are often using words poetically. We talk of the higher life, meaning, of course, the purer and better life; we describe one whom we know as possessing a lofty spirit, as governed by an elevated purpose, as having a high standard of conduct. The analogy between physical height and moral excellence is most clear and vivid. We go down into cellars and dungeons, into caverns and morasses, into sloughs and pitfalls, into floods and depths of ocean. A great part of our physical discomforts and dangers are encountered in going down. We go up to solid footing, to pure air, to wide prospects; many of our more pleasurable sensations are the result of ascending. The voice from heaven which says, “Come up hither,” means to us a great deal. It means, Come up out of the fens and quagmires, out of the cellars and the dungeons, out of the miasma and the darkness--up to the heights where the sun always shines, where the air is always pure and sweet, where the eye sweeps a wide horizon that girdles fertile plains and shining lakes and winding rivers and glorious summits. “It is only a figure, then,” somebody may say. That is as if one should stoop to pick up a pebble and should exclaim, as he held it in his hand, “Only a diamond!” How much more rich and precious is the figure than any mere literalism could be! We conceive of heaven rightly both as a state of being and as a place of residence. Holding, then, both these conceptions of heaven in our thought, let us listen to the great voice out of heaven saying unto us, “Come up hither!” Heaven as a state is not beyond the reach of those who dwell upon the earth. Heaven came down to earth when Christ came. It had always been coming, indeed; but there was more of it here when He came than ever before. The announcement of the Saviour’s coming by the Forerunner--what was it? “The kingdom of heaven is at hand.” There is a life that springs from the earth and that clings to the earth; a life whose central motive is appetite or passion, or some form of selfishness a little more refined; a life that is ruled by material ideas and forces; a life whose maxims and methods are all earthly and sordid. There is another life that has its inspiration in heaven, and that lifts us up toward heaven; a life whose central motive is love; whose source is the indwelling of God’s spirit in the soul; a life that enthrones the nobler faculties and makes the grosset nature serve the higher; that holds the appetites in check, and subordinates material things to spiritual; a life whose joy is found in giving rather than in getting. These two realms of experience--the upper and the lower--lie close together, and bothof them invite us by motives of their own. There is that in us which responds to the solicitations of the realm of sense, and there is that in us which answers to the call from the spiritual realm. Unhappily many of us, I fear, spend most of our days down below. Our affections are set on things on the earth, rather than on the things above. Now and then we make an excursion into the heavenly realm, but we do not stay there long. (W. Gladden, D. D.)
