Proverbs 4:18; Isa. 60:18-22, The Best is Yet to Be!
February 17, Proverbs 4:18; Isa. 60:18-22
Eph. 3:18-19; Rev. 7:13-17 “So that thy youth is renewed like the eagle’s” (Ps. 103:5)
The Best is Yet to Be!
The perfect day, and what a day of rejoicing that will be! “As the sun climbs the heavens, shining brighter and brighter, from the first faint glimmer of dawn till he reaches his meridian height and appears to stand there firm and motionless; so is the path of the righteous. His sun standeth still at last in the heavens, and hasteth not to go down for the whole everlasting day” (Perowne). Then shalt the righteous (the just) shine forth as the sun in the Kingdom of their Father (Mt. 13:43; Rev. 21:23-27). What a truly glorious culmination for the just!
- It’s Knowing that a Perfect Day is coming, but not here, not yet. The word perfect is only once so treated. It means firm or prepared, and suggests the firm or prepared day. The just are not only converted and commanded but also completed, for they eagerly await that perfect day (Heb. 6:1). There must be progression here; there will be perfection there. The just will be completed when Christ appears on That Day. Then they shall see Him and know Him for they shall be like Him (1 Jn. 3:2). There will be no flaws in Heaven. There are spots on the disc of the brightest sun that ever shone, but there will be none of the spotless robes that have been made white in the blood of the Lamb. No cloud of error shall be in that sky, or a cold blast in its winds. There will be perfect knowledge, free from all error; perfect love, free from all defect; perfect purpose, free from all self-will; perfect wellbeing, free from all suffering and sorrow (Rev. 21:1-7).
- It’s Going through to shine forth like the sun in the Heavenly Kingdom. As some approach the end of their time on earth, the remaining years are little more than a “backwater” with life passing them by. They admit they are just “killing time” and “waiting to die” but secretly fearing death. The Bible pictures growing old, for the believer, as the final transformation into the image of Christ. True, the outward man is perishing, but the inward man is being renewed day by day (2 Cor. 3:18; 4:15-18). Recall how John Bunyan brings Christian and Hopeful over the River, for “you must go through, or you cannot come at the Gate. Then they took courage, and the Enemy was after that as still as a stone, until they were gone over… Now while they were drawing towards the Gate, behold a company of the Heavenly Host came out to meet them; to whom it was said, ‘These are the men that have loved our Lord when they were in the world… and He hath sent us to fetch them, that they may go in and look their Redeemer in the face with joy.’ Then the Heavenly Host gave a great shout, saying, ‘Blessed are they that are called to the Marriage Supper of the Lamb.’ This they did with shouting and sound of Trumpet, and thus they came up to the Gate.” Through! And the city has no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of the God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof. And they shall bring the glory and honour of the nations into it (Rev. 21:23-27)
Thought: “He has lived ill who knows not how to die well” (Thomas Fuller)
Prayer: That Paul’s “to live is Christ, and to die is gain” be true of me.