Their pattern, which was shewed thee in the mount.
Heaven’s teaching on earth’s duties
I. That nothing is too trivial for God to notice.
II. That we should speak to God about ordinary work, even in our seasons of highest spiritual communion.
III. That even slight deviations from God’s directions are forbidden.
IV. That what we are called upon to do has far more depending upon it than we suppose. (A. Rowland, LL. B.)
Purpose in life; a lesson to the young
I. The necessity of a deliberate purpose in life. When an architect, or builder, or engineer, undertakes the construction of a house, the first thing he does is to get perfect his plans, and to be sure they are correct, so that he knows well what the future house, or bridge, or railway, will be like. If he went at his work in a haphazard manner, it would end in failure and disappointment. So with life.
II. This purpose of life should be formed on the model shown us by God.
1. The highest life is the holiest life, for it is nearest to the model set us by God.
2. The plan by which we are to mould our temporal concerns is already given us. Look at Mount Sinai for laws to obey; at the Mount of Olives for loving directions: at the Mount of Transfiguration for anticipation, hope of glory; at Mount Calvary for forgiven sin. (Homilist.)
The pattern in the mount
I. Moses did his work from a plan, and did not get his plan from his work. Reality is prior to the show of itself. There are no planless seeds. A far-reaching plan is the best one. Calculation is better than caprice. We are wiser in the long reach of thought than in the short reach. We are lost in the woods because we have no room for a long look. You say life is short. Better live on the short arc of a long circle than describe a little circle with the same line. Immediate results are meagre results. Plan solidifies. Power is measurable by purpose. Shiftlessness is a name for aimlessness. To-morrow depends on to-day, but to-day depends on to-morrow also. Past and present sustain each other. Plan gives moral safeguard. Adam fell because he had nothing to do, and the first act in the redemptive scheme was to set him to work. Satan recruits his ranks from the vagrants. The apostles were working men. The drifting boat drifts down stream. Young aimlessness is the beginning of old iniquity. Employment is a subsidiary means of conversion. Character, purpose and apprenticeship are not far apart.
II. Moses brought down his pattern from the mount. There is a celestial way of doing earthly things. Earthly success is a quotation from overhead. Our ideals are from patterns in the mount. There is something in them we never put into them. Whence are our ideals? We have never seen a perfect thing. What do we mean by using the word? We must go with Moses to the mount for the answer. In nothing do men have so much faith as in their ideals, and there is nothing which it is so hard to explain. We do not make laws, but find them. We cannot enact truth any more than gravity. There may be a myth about Sinai, but it is one we were bound to invent if it never was reality. The problem of life is to make the ideal real. Once it was done in Galilee. The two meet in Jesus. (C. H. Parkhurst, D. D.).