"Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself shall be with them, and be their God " (Rev. 21:3).

This is the eternal state ; the fulfilment of God's desires, and the fruit of His labors. Therefore in this we see God's heart manifested. He finds His satisfaction in the midst of His people, a people who have their all in God.

But if this is the end of God's purposes, it was in His heart from the beginning. "While as yet He had not made the earth . . . My delights were with the sons of men," are the words of God the Son. Thus in anticipation God's heart was occupied with men, the only creature made in His image-who could have communion with Him.

When the first man is formed, the Creator has such pleasure in him that He brings to Adam every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air, "to see what he would call them." God seeking him in the garden at the time of man's failure, and His promise of reconciliation through the woman's Seed, reveal His purposes of love and grace.

Though man was now estranged by sin, we may trace God's pleasure in men, in such, of course, as were cleansed by virtue of the promised sacrifice. " Enoch walked with God:and he was not; for God took him."

Blessed and wonderful companionship, in days when God as yet had been so little revealed, and when "the wickedness of man was great in the earth." " Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord." Abraham was "the friend of God,"so that God said, "Shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do ?" Jacob was made "a prince with God." "The Lord spake unto Moses, face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend." Daniel was a "man greatly beloved."

Thus God delights in His people, but only one man does He call a "man after His own heart." And why was David this, with his glaring sins, more than Abraham the man of faith ? or Joseph, that spotless character and type of Christ ? or Moses, the Christ-like mediator? or Elijah, God's hand and mouthpiece among an apostate people ? It was because David pre-eminently shared the desire of God's heart, that man should be for God, and God for man:as we read in the Psalms, " As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after Thee, O God. My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God:when shall I come and appear before God ? " And again he says, "A day in Thy courts is better than a thousand [in any other place]:I would choose rather to sit at the threshold [margin] in the house of my God than to dwell in the tents of wickedness " (Ps. Ixxxiv. 10). David also was the one who brought the ark back to Jerusalem with great rejoicing, and he longed to build a house for God, who had so long dwelt within curtains. This he was not permitted to do, but he showed his love and zeal in the great stores of cedar and gold, silver and brass, which he gathered for its building. David's desires are thus so in line with God's, that when God is manifested in the flesh, he is "the Son of David," and for the same reason, David's writings, more than any others, are prophetically the words of Christ Himself.

But God was not satisfied that a few individuals should enter into His mind; He sought in Israel to have a people among whom He could dwell. "If therefore ye will obey My voice indeed, and keep My covenant, then shall ye be a peculiar treasure unto Me above all people." He even desired them to build Him a tabernacle, that He might dwell in the midst of them. He labored through Moses and the prophets to bind the people to Himself, but man's perverseness compelled Him to say, "All day long I have stretched forth My hands unto a disobedient and gainsaying people."

But we come to the perfect expression of God's heart, and what do we see ? God and man are no longer separated. The Son of God is the Man Christ Jesus. As man, He says, "My meat is to do the will of Him that sent Me." As Saviour-God He came to seek and save that which was lost; and transform them into worshipers, who worship in spirit and in truth. But the) most striking and wonderful proof of God's love for men is the Cross of Christ. In order to reconcile sinners to Himself He gave His Son, His only Son, whom He loved. Oh, what a shame that our hearts do not always glow in full return for such love !

But though Christ must return to the Father, (to prepare a place for His own) the companionship of God with man has not been broken. At one of the last meetings with His apostles, "He breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost." And after He had gone up, a true Man, to the right hand of the Majesty on High, the Holy Spirit descends to dwell in every true disciple. What an evidence of the value and power of Christ's work, when God the Spirit can dwell in failing men by virtue of that washing which has made us clean every whit ! In this way God has already accomplished, in a spiritual from, the purposes of His heart. "Ye are the temple of the living God ; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people" (2 Cor. 6:16).

May we fear to grieve this holy Guest, by whom we are sealed, and who would lead us on to better acquaintance with Christ.

But though the Spirit is with us now, we are not home as yet; but we look on to the time when, with our own eyes, we shall see His face; when, free from sin within us, we shall gather round the throne of God, and spend the long eternal day praising and serving Him. Then shall the purpose of God be accomplished, " Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself shall be with them, and be their God." A.