Is it possible for us to know anything whatever of our heavenly home?
Is there power in human intellect to fly into the land of the hereafter,
where God’s people rest eternally? Our inquiry is met at the outset by
what seems a positive denial: “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither
have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared
for them that love Him.” If we paused here, we might give up all idea of
beholding from hence that “goodly land and Lebanon;” but we do not
pause, for, like the apostle, we go on with the text, and we add, “But
God hath revealed them unto us by His Spirit.” It is possible to look
within the veil; God’s Spirit can turn it aside for a moment, and bid
us take a glimpse, though it be a distant one, at that unutterable
glory. There are “Pisgahs” even now on the earth, from the top of which
the celestial Canaan can be beheld; there are hallowed hours in which
the mists and clouds are swept away, and the sun shineth in his
strength, and our eye, being freed from its natural dimness, beholds
something of that land which is very far off, and sees a little of the
joy and blessedness which is reserved for the people of God hereafter.
By the Holy Spirit there is given to them, even now, in seasons of
blissful communion, such experiences, joys, and feelings, as seem to
bring heaven down to them, and make them able to realize, in some faint
measure, what heaven itself must be.