Heaven, Our Home

In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. JOHN 14:2

Moody spoke about heaven the way a traveller speaks about home. He wrote a book on it, Heaven, gathered from addresses in which he asked where heaven is, who lives there and how to get there, and the subject runs through nearly everything else he preached. He had buried people he loved, and he had sat beside thousands of the dying, in hospitals during the war and in the homes of his congregations. Heaven was not a pious ornament to him. It was the place where the broken circle would be made whole.

What makes heaven attractive

Moody had a clear answer to the question of what makes heaven desirable, and it was not the furniture. In the opening chapter of The Way to God he asks whether it is the pearly gates or the golden streets. No, he says. He tells of a little girl in Brooklyn who, after her mother’s death, ran from room to room of the house calling for her, and, when she could not find her, asked to be taken back to the neighbours’. The house without the mother was not home. “So what makes heaven attractive is the thought that we shall see Christ who has loved us and given Himself for us.”

Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is. 1 JOHN 3:2

That is the centre of Moody’s hope. Heaven is where Christ is. He found it in the last of the eight I wills of Christ, from the prayer in the upper room.

Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me: for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world. JOHN 17:24

The broken circle

Moody was at his tenderest when he spoke of heaven to the bereaved. When we lay our little children in the grave, he says in the same sermon, it is in sorrow but not without hope; the happy circle broken on earth will be completed again. Christ gave three specimens of His power over death, as a tradesman puts his best goods in the window: Jairus’s daughter, the widow’s son at Nain, and Lazarus. They were given so that every doubt might be swept from our hearts.

And God 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. REVELATION 21:4

Of that country he said simply that death is banished from it. Sickness and pain and sorrow do not come there. God’s family will all be together.

An enemy made a friend

Moody confessed that as a boy in Northfield death had terrified him. When someone died in the village the bell would toll out his age, and young Dwight would count the strokes, and shudder when the number was close to his own. In his sermon on the word gospel, he says that the gospel took that enemy out of his path. If a man is in Christ, he says, let death come. To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.

O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? 1 CORINTHIANS 15:55

And he loved to tell of the thief on the cross, condemned in the morning by men as too vile for earth and received in the evening as fit for heaven. “Christ was not ashamed to walk down the crystal pavement of heaven with him.”

He died as he had preached. Those at his bedside in December 1899 remembered him saying that earth was receding and heaven opening, that this was his triumph and his coronation day. Months before, he is remembered to have told an audience that when they read in the papers that Moody was dead, they should not believe it, for he would be more alive than ever.

Only by the new birth

Moody never spoke of heaven without speaking of the way there. In the chapter on the new birth in The Way to God, he says that you may see many beautiful countries, rivers, crowns and mansions in this world, but you will never see the river that flows from the throne of God, or the crown of life, or the mansions Christ has gone to prepare, unless you are born again. Heaven, he said repeatedly, is for those whom God has made fit for it.

Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me. JOHN 14:6

The coming King

Moody’s hope of heaven was joined to a lively expectation of Christ’s return. He believed that the Lord might come at any moment, that the world would not be converted before He came, and that the church’s task until then was to rescue as many as possible. In his sermon on Noah he says that the time is coming again when God will deal with the world in judgement. He is remembered for comparing the world to a wrecked vessel, and saying that God had given him a lifeboat and told him to save all he could.

Watch therefore: for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come. MATTHEW 24:42

This expectation gave Moody’s preaching an edge that no one could miss, and it is a biblical expectation. The New Testament does teach that Christ will return, suddenly, and that we are to live ready. But the lifeboat picture needs careful handling. It can suggest that the world God made is only a wreck to be abandoned, and that caring for the poor, for justice, for good work and good learning is so much rearranging of deckchairs. Moody himself did not act that way: he built schools, raised relief for his burned-out city, and cared deeply for the education of the poor. His practice was wider than his picture. The better picture is the one Scripture gives: not a wreck to be abandoned, but a creation that groans, waiting for its redemption.

Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. ROMANS 8:21

FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

1. What would make heaven heaven for you? If the honest answer is not Christ, what does that reveal?

2. Is there someone you have lost in the Lord? Read 1 Thessalonians 4:13–18 and give thanks for the circle that will be completed.

3. Are you afraid of death? Take 1 Corinthians 15:54–57 and read it aloud until the fear is answered.

4. Moody’s lifeboat picture gave him urgency. How would your week change if you believed Christ might return before it ended?

5. Ask whether your hope of heaven has made you careless of this world. Do one concrete good this week for a neighbour’s body as well as his soul.

A PRAYER

Lord Jesus, You have gone to prepare a place for me, and You have prayed that I may be with You where You are.

Thank You that heaven is not only golden streets but Your presence, and that I shall see You as You are.

Take away my fear of death, and comfort me with the hope of the broken circle made whole.

Keep me ready for Your coming, faithful in this world You made, and longing for the day when I shall be at home with You. Amen.