WRITTEN ON THE OCCASION
OF THE WORLD’S FAIR HELD
IN CHICAGO IN 1893
THERE they are, the united effort of man. What a length! what a height! what a breadth! Filled with this world’s glory—the works of man, thronged with earth’s wondering multitudes from every nation under the sun! Such are these mighty buildings, whose builder and maker is man.
But what are these compared with that Jasper City, whose builder and maker is God? As to its size we are lost in amazement, 1,500 miles high, 1,500 miles broad, 1,500 miles in length! “The city lieth foursquare, and the length is as large as the breadth: and he measured the city with the reed, 12,000 furlongs. The length, and the breadth, and the height of it are equal,” (Rev. 21). Man’s buildings filled with his glory after all, only just look over the tops of the trees; but think of God’s building—1,500 miles high. “Having the glory of God: and her light was like unto a stone most precious, even like a jasper stone, clear as crystal.”
The space the holy city contains is astounding; ah! the space of millions, and millions of man’s vast palaces would be found in the glorious building of God. This may give you some idea of the vast dimensions of the great city—the Holy Jerusalem. Suppose the whole human race was assembled within its jasper walls: take an average of 600 millions on the face of the earth, and suppose they were changed every 30 years for 6,000 years, this would give the total of the human race, if all were raised together, a vast multitude numbering 120,000 millions. There would be a space for each, measuring more than 535 yards high, 535 yards broad, 535 yards long. If you doubt this, take out your pencil, and carry out the cube of the city—1,500 miles. Ah! to look down from this heavenly city, man’s massive buildings appear but a speck on this dark world! Why, the height of man’s palaces seems as nothing, even to the space of one of the 120,000 millions! What will it be to be there—no visitors in the Jasper City—heaven is our home! My reader may visit man’s great buildings to return home and die; but in the city of which I speak, there shall be no death there. Does my reader remember the words that Jesus spoke the night on which He gave Himself up freely to die for His people’s sins? “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. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also,” (John 14:2, 32In 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. 3And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also. (John 14:2‑3)). He died for poor sinners that He might prepare a place for us in the Holy Jasper City of God. Ah! there was no way to the city for us, but through the darkness and death of the cross. Had we never sinned, surely it would have been wonderful to prepare such a place for us. But to prepare such a place for sinners, rebels, enemies—and to die to prepare them for such a place, and to bring them there—I ask, was ever love like this? and was ever madness like that which rejects and despises that love! What an effort many will make to see the world’s fair, if it is only for one short day! But, oh! think of a coming eternity in the glory of that Jasper City of holiness and light.
There is no middle place. It is but a very little while and you will be either in the heavenly Jerusalem—that great and holy city of jasper and transparent gold in the light and glory of God, where no cloud of darkness shall ever be again; or eternally shut out where no ray of light or hope shall ever come. I feel pressed to speak thus plainly, for God hath said, “There shall in no wise enter into it anything that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie: but they which are written in the Lamb’s book of life,” (Rev. 21:2727And there shall in no wise enter into it any thing that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie: but they which are written in the Lamb's book of life. (Revelation 21:27)).