"WHERE THE ROSES NEVER FADE"

The pink roses on our white picket fence this spring have been absolutely beautiful! However, they are now losing their color and are slowing fading into a pale white shade that denote they are dying. I have walked near them and around them several times, enjoying their radiant color. It seems that this year, perhaps, because of my age, I am very sorry to watch the blooms fall from the vines. There is a song that can be found in some of the old hymnals that we used to sing years ago, “Where The Roses Never Fade”. Here is the first stanza: “I am going to a city where the streets with gold are laid, Where the tree of life is blooming, And the roses never fade.” Now, the chorus: “Here they bloom for a season, So their beauty is decayed; I am going to a city Where the roses never fade.” Of course, we know that there will not be literal ‘roses’ in heaven; however, we can understand one lesson to be learn in this song, and that is, like the roses, we ‘bloom’ for a season and eventually, we all will ‘fade away’. In 1 Peter 1:24, 25, we read, “All flesh is as grass, And all the glory of man as the flower of the grass. The grass withers, And its flower falls away, But the word of the Lord endures forever.” In Psalm 90, the author writes of the brevity of man’s life on this earth, “You carry them away like a flood; They are like a sleep. In the morning they are like grass which grows up: In the morning it flourishes and grows up, In the evening it is cut down and withers” (vs.5,6). In verses 9 and 10, the writer emphasizes the certainty of death, “For all our days have passed away in Your wrath; We finish our years like a sigh. The days of our lives are seventy years; And if by reason of strength they are eighty years, Yet their boast is only labor and sorrow; For it is soon cut off, and we fly away.” The positive side of the lyrics of the song, “Where The Roses Never Fade”, there is a place where “God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away” (Revelation 21:4). Though we do not read of ‘roses’ in this place prepared for those whose names are written in “the Lamb’s Book of Life” (Revelation 21:27); we do read that “the street of the city was pure gold, like transparent glass” (21:21); and, there is “a pure river of life, clear as crystal, proceeding from the throne of God and of the Lamb”. John also mentions the“tree of life” (22:2)being in “the holy city, New Jerusalem” (21:2). The aged apostle John, in highly symbolic language, as found in the book of Revelation, was describing the beauties of “the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 1:11), where Jesus has gone to prepare a place for all who have “washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb” (John 14:1-3;Revelation 7:14). Our finite mind cannot comprehend eternity, and the fact there will no longer be death that brings so much sorrow to the hearts of mankind when loved ones depart from this life. However, our mortal, natural bodies will be changed into spiritual bodies, suitable for eternity (1 Corinthians 15:50-57). It is in the blood of our Savior Jesus Christ that our sins are washed away, and by which we have been redeemed (Revelation 1:5; Ephesians 1:7). If you are a pentinet believer, “Why are you waiting? Arise and be baptized, and wash away your sins, calling on the name of the Lord?” (Acts 22:16). It should be the desire of everyone to go to that “Pearly White City” when life has ended for us on this earth. Question, is your name written in “the Book of Life” (Revelation 20:15)