Are You Seeking the Eternal City? Or Are You Satisfied With This Temporal City and All of Its Trinkets? This Is Also One Point of Augustine's "City of God." A Point to Ponder!
- Dr. Roger D Duke
- 1 hour ago
- 2 min read
A Daily Devotional for Monday May 19. 2025
From the Pen of John Bunyan
Seek the Eternal City
“For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come”
Hebrews 13: 14.
“Strive to enter in.” The reason why Christ added these words, “to enter in,” is obvious. To wit, because there is no true and lasting happiness on this side of heaven. I say, none that is both true and lasting, I mean, as to our sense and feeling as there shall [be]; “For here have we no continuing city, but we seek one to come” (Hebrews 13: 14). The heaven is within, strive therefore to enter in. Glory is within, strive therefore to enter in. Mount Zion is within, strive therefore to enter in. And to make up all, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and that glorious Redeemer, is within, strive therefore to enter in.
“Strive to enter in.” “For without are dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie.” Without are also the devils, and hell, and death, and all damned souls. Without is howling, weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth; yea, without are all the miseries, sorrows, and plagues that an infinite God can in justice and power inflict upon an evil and wicked generation.
But you . . . [might ask], “[S]hould we try our graces [to strive]?” Would you have us run into temptation, to try if they be sound or rotten? Answer. You need not run into [toward] trials. God hath ordained that enough of them shall overtake you to prove your graces either rotten or sound before the day of your death. If you have a sufficiency of grace to withstand. I say, you shall have trials enough [to] overtake you, to prove your grace sound or rotten. To wit, whether your graces be such as will carry thee in at the gates of heaven or no.
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