1. Contrast of Heaven and Earth

A contrast between heaven and earth might be drawn; and that would throw heaven out into bright relief, in contrast with earth and its history.
The history of the earth is the history of sin, and of man's failure upon it; but, amid all the failure here below, When did heaven above prove itself unmindful of the failed ones that looked up to it? Or, baffled as to wisdom, power, or intelligence, of how to show its wealth, and befriend the failed ones that seek to it? This is saying too little; in every way too little. For heaven, not only has made known that there is One in it, able and willing to help the seekers; but that One, has been altogether before the seekers, in proffering aid, and in displaying resources, ready for help in time of need. Yea! and more too. For in the unfolding of the doctrine of salvation, - the doctrine of God, the God of Heaven, being a Savior-God - the tale does not begin outside of Eden, after the door was closed upon the guilty, rebel man; - but, when the whole tale is told, we find that, somehow or the other, he that brought in ruin upon earth, had showed himself ere ever Eden's garden was planted.
The Book of Genesis, gives us the genesis of man, and of the earth; but there was one before them, a liar and a murderer from the beginning, who, if he found in Eden an occasion to do mischief, found, in that very mischief he did, in the midst of that very ruin which he occasioned, that he himself was entangled and trapped; - for the seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent's head. This brought out the priority and the preeminence of heaven, as to good, in its contrast with earth; and something of a length and depth about the ways of heaven, which goes altogether beyond the bounds of earth.
Man would not stand in the light that shined in paradise. Man kept not his first estate there. But, if man was to be driven out, God would first give him a word, spoken to Satan, about the seed of the woman bruising the serpent's head, ere he was driven out. Outside of Eden, we see, in Cain and Abel, man under a new phase; and what the goodness of God, in those circumstances, was; and in the fresh blessing of Seth, as a line of hope.
But man declined and failed still more; the judgment of the deluge swept away the wicked; and Noah, the man of the new earth, received a covenant of providential mercies.
Man sinks again, until idolatry is spread abroad, and Abram is called out, to walk with God as a stranger and pilgrim. The God of Heaven shows His grace in various ways to Abraham and to Lot, to Isaac and to Jacob; yet, alas! each character among them, is one of less perfect conformity to the mind of heaven, than the preceding one. Joseph is now found in Egypt. The slavery of Israel follows; for the God of heaven was preparing for Himself a redemption, to be accomplished in Israel, even as He had shown a call and gifts in the case of Abraham. The senselessness of flesh, appears but too soon; and the law of righteousness is given, to teach Israel what there is, and what there is not in the flesh. This goes on, with various modifications, until there are but a few left, and they poor and feeble. Messiah is born. One appears, whose predicted corning had raised hopes in many hearts. He spreads out all His readiness to take up the whole burden of the nation, in its fallen state, and to bear the whole responsibility Himself. But He is slain with wicked hands. Raised again from the dead, He lingered, forty days, in the haunts of His days of humiliation, and goes up to heaven, thence to send down a message of mercy, and the power of the Holy Ghost, beginning at Jerusalem.
Judea, Samaria, the Gentiles hear the word of the grace of the Lord and Messiah. Then Saul of Tarsus is raised up, to witness to the personal association of the heavenly people, with the Son of God, as such, in heaven; not merely as Lord and Christ, but as Son of God.
The Word spreads out. Churches are formed every-where. Declension sets in. God moves the chosen servants of His Son, to give the analysis of the evil, and heaven's judgments upon it in the epistles. And in the Apocalypse it is shown out afresh, that, fail as the candlesticks may, the Lamb is on the throne, and all sure in Him - for God and His people.
The apostasy of Israel, the declension of the churches, the final apostasy, as to governmental power, may now be maturing; but faith knows that Jesus will yet be King in Zion,- that the Church will be the bride of the Lamb on high,- and that the Gentiles, extern and intern, shall yet be forced to bow the knee to the Nazarene:
When the Lord rises up from the right hand of God, the heavenly places will be purged; the Church established there - there to reign a thousand years with Christ; but the heaving of the earth, when the heavens are cleansed, will issue in a reign of righteousness, over Jew and Gentile, during a thousand years; and then Satan, let loose once more from the pit, will show what man is; and then shall follow the judgment and the new heavens, and the new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness.
It is a contrast, and no mistake; and, however rapidly we may run the eye through the points of the history in which the contrasts stand forth, heaven is found to be always the resource for man, because God is there; and more than that, for the plan and purpose of the God of heaven to give blessing, is evident from first to last. The God of heaven will put down Satan; put him down by means of the seed of that very woman whom he, Satan, first entangled; and so put him down, so break all his power and rule, as that all the weak ones, once the children of wrath, even as others, who cleave to this seed of the woman, they shall share, either in heaven above or earth beneath, the glory that belongs to Him as the Redeemer.