No longer will there be any curse. Maria Sandberg, Glimpses of Heaven,
1880. No longer will there be any curse. Revelation 22.3. Our beautiful world, filled with
the wonderful works of God, bears evident traces that it is not
what it was created at first. It bears everywhere the marks
of a great change, which change is accounted for in the Bible
by the fall of Adam. God made everything very good,
but man sinned, and the curse came upon himself and the whole
creation. Though still beautiful, yet how
much is its beauty marred and defaced? Now thorns and thistles
spring up Where once were only lovely flowers and sweet fruits.
The wild beasts of the forest, though still beautiful in outward
form, now possess violent and ferocious dispositions, and the
beasts of burden groan under the tyranny of man. Man himself
is subject to labor and toil, to sorrow and sickness and death,
even his most innocent enjoyments are marred by sin. But thanks
be to God, the promise of deliverance from the curse sounds in our
ears in this blessed Scripture. No longer will there be any curse. Where, then, is this land of
blessing and perfection? It is that paradise which Christ
has gone to prepare for His people, that rest which remains for the
people of God. Here on earth, even our very
blessings are mixed with signs of the curse. but there shall
be no more curse in our heavenly home, no more toil and labor,
no more weariness and faintness, no more hunger or thirst, no
more bitter cold or burning heat, no more disappointment no more
sorrow, no more pain, no more sickness, no more death. In heaven there shall be no more
curse, but all will be the perfection of bliss. Who can conceive the
happiness of such a state? For this the whole creation groans
and travails in pain, eagerly waiting for its consummation. Let us then, who have such exceedingly
great and precious promises, when sighing under the effects
of the curse, in any of its forms, gladly turn our thoughts to meditate
on heaven's glorious realities. And when admiring the beautiful
works of God, which still exist to show us what they once were,
let us also turn our thoughts to the greater beauty and glory
of our paradise above.