l how
unlike we are to it. The law for Christian progress is that the sense of
unworthiness increases in the precise degree in which the worthiness
increases. The same man that said, 'Of whom (sinners) I am chief,' said
to the same reader, 'I have kept the faith, henceforth there is laid up
for me a crown of righteousness.' And so the two things are not
contradictory but complementary. On the one side 'worthy' has nothing to
do with the outflow of Christ's love to us; on the other side we are to
'walk worthy of the vocation wherewith we are called.'

II. And now, let us turn to the other thought, the Christian heaven and
the life that is worthy of it.

Some of you, I have no doubt, would think that that was a tremendous
heresy if there were not Scriptural words to buttress it. Let us see
what it means. My text out of the Revelation says, 'They shall walk with
Me in white, for they are worthy.' And the same voice that spake these,
to some of us, astounding, words, said, when He was here on earth, 'They
which shall be counted worthy to attain to the life of the resurrection
from the dead,' etc. The text brings out very clearly the continuity and
congruity between the life on earth and the life in heaven. Who is it of
whom it is said that 'they are worthy' to 'walk in white'? It is the
'few names even in Sardis which have not defiled their garments.' You
see the connection; clean robes here and shining robes hereafter; the
two go together, and you cannot separate them. And no belief that
salvation, in its incipient germ here, and salvation in its fulness
hereafter, are the results 'not of works of righteousness which we have
done, but of His mercy,' is to be allowed to interfere with that other
truth that they who are worthy attain to the Kingdom.

I must not be diverted from my main purpose, tempting as the theme would
be, to say more than just a sentence about what is included in that
great promise, 'They shall walk with Me in white' And if I do touch
upon it at all, it is only in order to bring out more clearly that the
very nature of the heavenly reward demands this worthiness which the
text lays down as the condition of possessing it. 'They shall
walk'--activity on an external world. That opens a great door, but
perhaps we had better be contented just with looking in. 'They shall
walk'--progress; 'with me'--union with Jesus Christ; 'in
white'--resplendent purity of character. Now take these four
things--activity on