COMING HOME
06-21-02

Shepherds say that sheep which have spent the summer in the high country anticipate their homecoming. Even though they travel through difficult terrain, sudden storms that make them cold and wet, and face the dangers of predators they sense in the flock an excitement and enthusiasm as they come nearer and nearer to the shepherd's fold. There is something about going home that excites us all. No matter how little or how long one has been away, to sit in one’s own chair or to sleep in one’s own bed is a great pleasure after having traveled.

For some, there will be another homecoming which will far exceed the joys of any homecoming previously experienced. That is the homecoming which will occur after the final judgment. It is the homecoming when all who are faithful to Him will go home to be with God for eternity. Imagine going home – not to a comfortable chair or bed – but to a place where there is no sorrow, pain, death, nor tears. It will be a home of indescribable beauty where the presence of God illuminates everything, a place where there is no night nor anything which defiles. God gave us a picture of such a home through the Lord’s revelation to John (cf. Revelation 21).

Though God desires for every human being who ever lived to come home to Him, such will not be the case. Jesus said, "Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven" (Matthew 7:21 NKJV). Some will choose not to heed the commands of God and thus will forfeit any chance of going home to God. Others will die in their sins, never having heard the gospel of Christ, and thus will not be permitted to go home. Ignorance is not an excuse with God. The apostle Paul told those at Athens, "Therefore, since we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, something shaped by art and man's devising. Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent, because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead" (Acts 17:29-31 NKJV).

The last stanza of John Howard Payne’s poem Home Sweet Home is "To thee I'll return, overburdened with care; The heart's dearest solace will smile on me there; No more from that cottage again will I roam; Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home. Home, home, sweet, sweet, home! There's no place like home, oh, there's no place like home!" There is nothing which can compare to the home which is waiting for God’s faithful children. If I may borrow the words of the writer of the epistle to the Hebrews, "Let us therefore be diligent to enter that rest," (Hebrews 4:11).