十二月十九日[mp3_embed playlst=”/downloading/audio/evening/12/1219.mp3″]
经文: 海也不再有了。（启示录二十一：1）
当我们想到将失去那荣美的古老海洋时，几乎就快乐不起来。新天新地中若没有大海，没有闪烁的波浪，没有细沙的海滩，没有海的迷人处，真是令人难以想像。没有海的物质世界就像缺少宝石的戒指，不再珍贵。但是必有其属灵意义，在新天地中没有分隔。海将民族国家彼此分割。深水如同牢狱的墙，将拔摩岛上的约翰和他的弟兄、他的工作隔离了。在将要来的世界中，不再有这样的阻隔。在我们和许多弟兄姊妹之间也有翻腾波涛之海洋，今晚我们只能以祈祷来纪念他们。但是在将来的世界中，在蒙救赎的家庭中每一位都可以毫无拦阻地彼此相交。也就是不再有海了。海也是变化的象微。海潮有时涨有时落，有时平静如镜，有时波涛汹涌，有时喃喃细语，有时惊涛怒吼，总不会长久不变的。地球只有其不一贯性上是恒定的。但是在天国中，一切扰人之变化，一切教我门希望破灭，喜乐湮没有的暴风浪都不存在了。玻璃海发出荣耀的光辉，没有波浪将它破坏。在乐园的平静岸上不再有暴风怒吼。不久我们将到那快乐之地，届时不再有分离、变化和风暴，耶稣就要带我们到那里去。
Evening, December 19
Scripture: “And there was no more sea.”(Revelation 21:1)
Scarcely could we rejoice at the thought of losing the glorious old ocean: the new heavens and the new earth are none the fairer to our imagination, if, indeed, literally there is to be no great and wide sea, with its gleaming waves and shelly shores. Is not the text to be read as a metaphor, tinged with the prejudice with which the Oriental mind universally regarded the sea in the olden times? A real physical world without a sea it is mournful to imagine, it would be an iron ring without the sapphire which made it precious. There must be a spiritual meaning here. In the new dispensation there will be no division－the sea separates nations and sunders peoples from each other. To John in Patmos the deep waters were like prison walls, shutting him out from his brethren and his work: there shall be no such barriers in the world to come. Leagues of rolling billows lie between us and many a kinsman whom to-night we prayerfully remember, but in the bright world to which we go there shall be unbroken fellowship for all the redeemed family. In this sense there shall be no more sea. The sea is the emblem of change; with its ebbs and flows, its glassy smoothness and its mountainous billows, its gentle murmurs and its tumultuous roarings, it is never long the same. Slave of the fickle winds and the changeful moon, its instability is proverbial. In this mortal state we have too much of this; earth is constant only in her inconstancy, but in the heavenly state all mournful change shall be unknown, and with it all fear of storm to wreck our hopes and drown our joys. The sea of glass glows with a glory unbroken by a wave. No tempest howls along the peaceful shores of paradise. Soon shall we reach that happy land where partings, and changes, and storms shall be ended! Jesus will waft us there. Are we in him or not? This is the grand question.
