No Continuing City

If we look behind us, we have to say: Time is as an ever rolling stream. Year after year passes, and we are hardly conscious of the telling and destructive blows of time. The passing years begin to gray our hair, sap our strength, and whittle down our life span. Within us and around us is demonstrated this frank and apparent truth proclaimed by the psalmist, “All our days are passed away in Thy wrath; we spend our years as a tale that is told” (Ps. 90:9).

How blessed is it therefore to stand on the Rock of Ages, the Lord Jesus Christ, especially when the year of our Lord 1986 has already begun! What a wonder it is to find security and pardon in His forgiveness, and to know by grace: “For here have we no continuing city, but we seek one to come.”

During the past year all our thoughts and deeds have been recorded in Cod’s great book of history. God keeps accurate records. His book records all details, motives, passions and desires as well as words and deeds. All men are included in this ledger. None are overlooked. On the Last Day, when all the world is assembled before His throne, He will open the book and judge all men from that record. Is there any one of our readers who can look back and say, “I can enter the new year without pleading for pardon”? I think not. From the world we might expect this, for the world does not realize the wickedness of sin (are we by nature any better?), nor the divine wrath of Cod revealed from heaven “against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness” (Rom. 1:18).

If the Lord will print in our hearts: “For here have we no continuing city,” the result will be to learn by the light of heaven what it means: “Ye are the salt of the earth; but if the salt have lost his savor, wherewith shall it be salted” (Matt. 5:13). At the beginning of this year we must bow our heads in shame.

We need divine pardon, not only for the sins of the past year, but for all the days of our life, even the few days of this month January. May the Lord give in our hearts a sincere confessing of our sins every day of our life.

Time is as an ever rolling stream. Year after year passes, and we are hardly conscious of the telling and destructive blows of time.

The Almighty Cod has a second book, called the Lamb’s Book of Life. In that book He has inscribed all the names of those who come unto Christ by soul-saving faith and trust only in His merits. Do you know if your name is written in that book? The Holy Spirit has to teach us this, so that we might learn to understand: “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose” (Rom. 8:28). Then, if this year may be unusually rough, remember even on the darkest day that the sun shines in all its glory and splendor above the clouds. Even when there is a prolonged period of cloudy days, the sun keeps on rising and setting as Cod has ordained. Likewise, when taught by grace that we don’t have a continuing city here, God’s dear Son, Jesus Christ, will shine brightly with the rays of light and comfort even in the darkest days of trial. Oh, it is such a miracle if we may learn to understand: “God is our Refuge and Strength, a very present help in trouble” (Ps. 46).

No continuing city, but a blessing from heaven when it becomes thus: “I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help.” Then the Lord will give an insight into what follows in our text: “But we seek one to come.” The year that has passed by reminds us again how vain our life really is and how quickly it can come to an end. It is but a handbreadth, a vapor that appears briefly, like the fading flower; yes, a short story indeed!

We are reminded also that with the swift passing of time, change and decay are ever present, too. In this year some of you will experience for the first time what it means to feel the infirmities of passing years. Others may have to endure their first major operation. Still others may be touched by some prolonged illness. And some of us will be called out of this world, and our lifeless bodies will be laid to rest in the grave, there to decay into dust and ashes. And then, yes, for many who have sinned, “the glory has departed.” We all have to die and appear before the judgment seat of Christ. It is true what the poet says when he so aptly describes this sinful life:

Swift to its close ebbs out life’s little day;

Earth’s joys grow dim, its glory pass away;

Change and decay in all around I see.

O Thou, who changest not, abide with me.

Dear reader, may God give earnest prayers to His throne because only in Christ can we find safety. We have to learn that our bodies grow old; they are subject to disease; they shall become quiet and cold in death; they shall decay into dust. But when Christ shall call out loudly on the Resurrection Day, as He once called Lazarus, His friend, out of the tomb, if we have experienced by grace: “For here we have no continuing city, but we seek one to come,” then our bodies shall live again and be changed like unto His glorious body. Even before this glorious event the souls of His children will ascend on high to be with Christ. He declares of His people: “Because I live, ye shall live also.”

It is Cod’s electing grace if we may say with Paul: “For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain” (Phil. 1:21), and “having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ, which is far better.”

If we may lose all our rights, He will care for us in life and death, and make it true: “Jesus Christ, the same yesterday and today and forever” (Heb. 13:8).

The words of our text had special significance for the Hebrew Christians to whom they were first addressed. They all thought of the city of Jerusalem as the center of their national and spiritual life. But within a few years that proud city would be destroyed. The heavy walls, the stately buildings, the beautiful temple—all would be in ruin under the onslaught of the Roman army. That can also happen to our cities if the Lord looses the powers of darkness as righteous judgment upon your and my sins.

But the text does not stop here. Rather it continues: “We seek one to come.” In that city, “Cod shall wipe away all tears from their eyes, and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain, for the former things are passed away” (Rev. 21:4). God’s child may have to go through many sorrows and disappointments. Moses, for example, experienced that. But by grace he might look for a city which had foundations, whose Builder and Maker is God.

In His Word and in our text the Lord warns us against becoming too closely bound to this world, for we are admonished to keep ourselves “unspotted from the world.” It is evident that this is a work of grace!

Do we become so involved with the luxuries and comforts of this life and so attached to our home, its furnishings, and its upkeep that we neglect to seek that city which is to come? If so, may God give repentance and reminders that here we have no continuing city.

If God brings a sinner to conversion, He can give by the light of the Holy Spirit that faith which Christ has earned on the cross. That is so necessary shall it be well for us in 1986, and also in the day of eternity. Then God’s people might have more desire to honor Him by word and deed, as we read in the following verse: “By Him therefore let us offer the sacrifices of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to His name.”

The Lord Jesus, the Savior of sinners, came down from the glory of heaven to live in meekness and poverty on earth, obeying the will of His Father. He left His heavenly Father’s throne and was born as a small infant, and thus opened for them the way into that eternal city of God! And if we would seek as the poorest of all to enter that eternal city of glory, then our only-hope is in Christ Jesus. There is no other way. May the Lord give us to beg for true conversion. Then we may have a blessed 1986.

Rev. A. W. Verhoef is pastor of the Netherlands Reformed Congregation of Chilliwack, British Columbia.

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