Welcome to the City of God

[Thompson, Darryl]

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Ellen G. White Estate, Devotional for November 3
Visit us at http://www.whiteestate.org
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Welcome to the City of God

His lord said unto him, Well done, good and faithful servant; thou hast
been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many
things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord. Matt. 25:23. 


With unutterable love, Jesus welcomes His faithful ones to the joy of
their Lord. The Savior's joy is in seeing, in the kingdom of glory, the
souls that have been saved by His agony and humiliation. And the
redeemed will be sharers in His joy, as they behold, among the blessed,
those who have been won to Christ through their prayers, their labors,
and their loving sacrifice. As they gather about the great white throne,
gladness unspeakable will fill their hearts, when they behold those whom
they have won for Christ, and see that one has gained others, and these
still others, all brought into the haven of rest, there to lay their
crowns at Jesus' feet and praise Him through the endless cycles of
eternity. 

As the ransomed ones are welcomed to the City of God, there rings out
upon the air an exultant cry of adoration. The two Adams are about to
meet. The Son of God is standing with outstretched arms to receive the
father of our race--the being whom He created, who sinned against his
Maker, and for whose sin the marks of the crucifixion are borne upon the
Savior's form. As Adam discerns the prints of the cruel nails, he does
not fall upon the bosom of his Lord, but in humiliation casts himself at
His feet, crying: "Worthy, worthy is the Lamb that was slain!" Tenderly
the Savior lifts him up and bids him look once more upon the Eden home
from which he has so long been exiled. 

After his expulsion from Eden, Adam's life on earth was filled with
sorrow. Every dying leaf, every victim of sacrifice, every blight upon
the fair face of nature, every stain upon man's purity, was a fresh
reminder of his sin. . . . With patient humility he bore, for nearly a
thousand years, the penalty of transgression. Faithfully did he repent
of his sin and trust in the merits of the promised Savior, and he died
in the hope of a resurrection. The Son of God redeemed man's failure and
fall; and now, through the work of the atonement, Adam is reinstated in
his first dominion. 

>From Maranatha - Page 315