I want to quote
once again Vos’s conclusion, for it is our destination, it is where Vos has
been taking us in his message in Hebrews Chapter 11 on Heavenly – Mindedness,
what do you “see” in these paragraphs?
“Finally the
highest thing that can be spoken about this city is that it is the city of our
God, that He is in the midst of it. Traced to its ultimate root
heavenly-mindedness is the thirst of the soul after God, the living God. The
patriarchs looked not for some city in general, but for a city whose builder
and maker was God.
“It is
characteristic of faith that it not merely desires the perfect but desires the
perfect as a work and gift of God. A heaven that was not illumined by the light
of God, and not a place for closest embrace of Him, would be less than heaven.
God as builder and maker thereof has put the better part of Himself into his
work. Therefore those who enter the city are in God. The thought is none other
than that of the seer in the Apocalypse:
“I saw no
temple therein: for the Lord God, the Almighty and the Lamb are the temple
thereof. And that city has no need of the sun, neither of the moon to shine
upon it, for the glory of God lightens it, and the throne of God and the Lamb
are therein: and his servants shall do Him service, and they shall see his
face, and his name shall be on their foreheads.”
“And the
faith is the faith of the Psalmist, who spoke: “Whom have I in heaven but Thee,
and there is none upon earth that I desire beside Thee.” Here it is impossible
for us to tell how truly and to what extent our relation to God is a relation
of pure, disinterested love in which we seek Him for his own sake. There, when
all want and sin-frailty shall have slipped away from us, we shall be able to
tell.
“It was
because God discerned in the souls of the patriarchs, underneath all else, this
personal love, this homesickness for Himself, that He caused to be recorded
about them the greatest thing that can be spoken of any man: that God is not
ashamed to be called their God, and that He has prepared for them the city of
their desire.” G. Vos
We have come to
the two concluding paragraphs of Vos’s message; in the penultimate paragraph
Vos quotes Psalm 73:25, “Whom have I in heaven but You? And besides You, I desire
nothing on earth.” May I ask you to read this verse in your Bible? May I ask
you to read this psalm in your Bible? What is the story of Psalm 73? What part
does verse 25 play in this psalm? Is this psalm, and this particular verse, woven
into the fabric of your life, or is this the first time you’ve considered Psalm
73?
Vos has spoken
to us about living a heavenly – minded life, a life which looks not at the
things that are “seen,” but rather the things of God which are unseen. The psalmist
allows himself to be drawn into the things that are “seen,” he looks at the
visible world around him and despairs, until he comes into the sanctuary of God
(verse 17) and then his eyes are opened once again to the invisible and
understanding is renewed within him, and he realizes that he had been like a
beast before the Lord in his perception of the world around him. O but what
assurance he expresses in, “Nevertheless I am continually with You; You have
taken hold of my right hand. With Your counsel You will guide me, and afterward
receive me to glory” (verses 23 – 24). Even when we live in beastly understanding,
our God will not forsake us. Let us listen to the LORD in Psalm 32:8 – 9:
“I will instruct
you and teach you in the Way which you should go; I will counsel you with My
eye upon you. Do not be as the horse or as the mule which have no understanding,
whose trappings include bit and bridle to hold them in check, otherwise they
will not come near to you.”
We will return
to Psalm 73:25 in our next post in this series. In the meantime, what do you
see in this psalm?
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