Prophecy drives us out of the world; Christ in glory draws us out of the world. I have the word of prophecy as a candle, a light shining in a dark place. It is God’s candle to show me what is going on around. But I have to do with the bright and heavenly side as my own heart’s portion.
One has aptly expressed this in the following well-known lines:
This world is a wilderness wide!
We have nothing to seek, nor to choose;
We’ve no thought in the waste to abide;
We have naught to regret, nor to lose.
The Lord is Himself gone before;
He has marked out the path that we tread;
It’s as sure as the love we adore,
We have nothing to fear, nor to dread.
There is but that one in the waste,
Which His footsteps have marked as His own,
And we follow in diligent haste
To the seats where He’s put on His crown.
For the path where our Saviour is gone
Has led up to His Father and God,
To the place where He’s now on the throne,
And His strength shall be ours on the road.
And with Him shall our rest be on high,
When in holiness bright we sit down,
In the joy of His love ever nigh,
In the peace that His presence shall crown.
’Tis the treasure we’ve found in His love
That has made us now pilgrims below,
And ‘tis there, when we reach Him above,
As were known, all His fullness we’ll know.