Are there not twelve hours in the day?
--What does this sentence mean here, following John 11:7-8? Why was it introduced? I do not know that we who are living easy and comfortable lives can quite solve that question. But many a patriot and confessor who has been concealing himself from the anger of those whom he wished to bless has learned its meaning and felt its support. If he had tried to rush forth into danger, merely in obedience to some instinct or passion of his own, he was walking in the night and was sure to stumble. If he heard a voice in his conscience bidding him go and do some work for God--go and aid some suffering friend--he would be walking in a track of light; it signified not what enemies might be awaiting him, what stones might be cast at him, he could move on fearlessly and safely. The sun was in the heavens--the stones would miss till his hour was come. If it was come, the sooner they struck the better. (F. D. Maurice, M. A.)
Twelve hours in the day
I. THE PREDESTINATION OF LIFE. God has marked out beforehand the length of the life. This was true of the life of Christ. He was in daylight till the twelfth hour. He could not die. His time was not yet come. It is true of us. God knows exactly the length of our “day,” and therefore of our “hour.” The day shall run its course, whether the season be winter or summer, whether the hour be thirty minutes or sixty. This is a call to confidence. Be not afraid to go at the summons of duty, in spite of snare, terror, accident or infection. The day will have its twelve hours.
II. THE COMPLETENESS OF LIFE. We speak of a child or young man’s life as prematurely closed. Isaiah speaks of the longevity of the time when a child shall die hundred years old. Certainly there have been children whose little life has been well completed--their innocence and death testifying powerfully for Christ. Their day has had its twelve hours, though the constituent hour was less than a year. We must cast away the common measurement of time. Christ’s life was a short one, and how large a part was spent in preparation? No time is less wasted than that given to preparation. Christ’s three years of speech had in them the whole virtue, for the world, of two eternities. Christ’s thirty years of listening were not the prelude only, but the condition of the three. Each life, the shortest not least, is complete. Man’s work depends not on his longevity. Many a young man sleeping in the churchyard sends forth the fragrance of a perpetual sanctity. Use well your time, longer or shorter, and the hours shall be twelve, and the component hour shall have its constituent moments sure.
III. THE UNITY OF LIFE. We would fain divorce hour from hour, and never recognize their bearing upon each other and the day. And it is true that repentance severs one part of the day from another, and make old age--and therefore eternity--diverse from the boyhood. It is also true that a Christian does well to take his years, months, days, one by one and to live each as if it were the only one. Nevertheless, we cannot disguise the unity of this being. We may wish we had not done that wicked thing, fallen into that evil habit, but it is there: we cannot cut off the entail. God sees the day as one: and when He writes an epitaph He does so in one of two lines. “He did that which was good.” “He did that which was evil”--the identification is complete, the character one.
IV. THE DISTRIBUTION OF LIFE. God sees it in its unity. He bids us see it in its manifoldness; in its variety of opportunity and capability of good. Where is the moment which might not contribute something? Economize. Give up some fragment to God. (Dean Vaughan.)
The twelve hours of the day; or, lifetime and life’s duty in their indissoluble unity
I. THE CERTAINTY OF LIFE WITHIN THE BOUNDS OF DUTY.
II. THE SACREDNESS OF DUTY WITHIN THE BOUNDS OF LIFE. (J. P.Lange, D. D.)
Life the golden opportunity
I. THE WISDOM OF KNOWING OUR OPPORTUNITY. This chiefly depends on
1. Our walking.
2. Our working while it is light.
II. THE DANGER OF NEGLECTING IT
1. For vain amusements.
2. In the eager pursuit of trifles. (R. Cecil, M. A.)
God takes care of His workers
The Rev. T. Charles had a remarkable escape in one of his journeys to Liverpool. His saddlebag was by mistake put into a different boat from that in which he intended to go. This made it necessary for him to change his boat, even after he had taken his seat in it. The boat in which he meant to go went to the bottom, and all in it were drowned. Thus did God in a wonderful way preserve His servant--“immortal till his work was done.” God had a great work for this His servant, and He supported and preserved him till it was completed.
The providential care of life
When I was stationed in Swanson, in the year 1836, I was appointed delegate to the district meeting held at St. Ives, Cornwall. One Captain Gribble offered me a passage in his vessel. I accepted the offer, and said, “When are you going out?” He replied, “We have got our cargo, and shall go tomorrow if the wind is fair.” I went to the dock on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday; the wind was still against him. He then advised me to take the packet to Bristol, as he said it was quite uncertain when he should be able to go to sea. I took the packet on the Thursday morning. We had a very rough passage; through mercy we arrived safe in Bristol next morning. I arrived at Hayle between one and two o’clock on Sunday morning. I then walked to St. Ives, a distance of five miles. I went to Mr. Driffield’s. When he saw me he said, “Is Joseph yet alive?” I answered, “Yes.” He further said, “We were informed you were coming with a sailing vessel, and it appears she is lost, for some of the wreck is come on shore. We have gone through the stationing and left you without a station.” I was given to understand that on the morning I left for Bristol the vessel went out. The wind was fair, but after being a few hours at sea all went to the bottom, captain and crew. What a providence it appears that the vessel could not go out until I was gone! (J. Hibbs.)
The contemplated journey
I. OPPOSED BY THE DISCIPLES as
1. Dangerous (John 11:8).
2. Unnecessary (John 11:12-13). Hence
3. Imprudent, if not also
4. Wrong.
II. JUSTIFIED BY JESUS. As
1. Imperative, being undertaken at the call of His Father.
2. Safe, since He could not stumble in the path of duty.
3. Merciful, inasmuch as He went to comfort the sisters and raise Lazarus.
4. Profitable, even for those who were so strongly against it. (T. Whitelaw, D. D.)
Light and loyalty
The disciples were amazed when Jesus proposed to go to Bethany, and remonstrated with Him. Christ takes this opportunity of explaining the great principle on which He worked. “I walk in God’s light which shines upon My path during the time He has fixed for My ministry. Wherever that light shines, I go, regardless of everything but it. Do you the same, My disciples. Your path of duty will be clear. Without that light you will be as men walking in the dark and meeting disaster.” We are thus led up to the question of the simplicity of duty. Somehow duty has come to be to many a complicated matter. That it presents problems every one of us knows, but does the problem lie in the duty or in us? Do we not complicate the problem by adding factors of our own. The oculist says that there is a blind spot in every eye: possibly when we think duty obscure we have brought the duty into line with the blind spot. As a matter of precept, duty being a thing of universal obligation must be simple. To make it a matter of subtle casuistry or painful research would limit it. And men stumble none the less because of this simplicity. Christ does not put the blame of stumbling on the law or on the complication of duty. It is not the geological structure of the stone that makes men stumble, but darkness or blindness. And so morally. Our Lord asserts elsewhere that “the lamp of the body is the eye: When thine eye is single thy whole body is full of light,” etc. When a man sees two trees when there is only one, or prismatic colours in a house that is white, we do not blame the tree etc., but the man’s vision, A sound moral vision recognizes duty under every shape. Hence the truth of our text is that the recognition of duty, and the practical solution of its problems, lie in the principle of loyalty to Christ. A Divinely enlightened conscience and an obedient will, not only push, but lead. See this illustrated here. Going to Bethany involved a question of duty for Christ. To one who had no thought but to do the Father’s will, the case was simple. But the disciples, in their natural timidity, put another element into the question, which complicated it--personal safety. If Jesus entertained the suggestion, He would have been diverted from the plain duty. A new question would have been raised which God had not raised. God’s commission said nothing about danger--only “Go.” If He meant to do right the decision presented no difficulty; if He meant to save Himself, He would have walked in darkness. Is not singleness of purpose an element of all heroism? Was there ever a great general whose thought was divided between victory and personal safety? The men who have moved society have seen nothing but the end to be won. When a physician enters on his profession, he does so with the knowledge that he must ignore contagion. That makes his duty very simple--to relieve disease wherever he finds it. The moment he begins to think about exposure to fever, etc., his usefulness is over. Luther at Worms had a terrible danger to face, but a very easy question to solve; but his inability to do anything but the one right thing (“I can do no otherwise”) carried the Reformation, and this singleness is the very essence of Christianity. Its first law is, treat self, as though it were not “Follow Me.” It is not always easy to follow Christ; but the way at least is plain. A greater difficulty arises when the question becomes one of compromising between Christ and self. The only way in which self can be adjusted to the Cross is by being nailed to’ it. Duty is a fixed fact. It does not adjust itself to us. There is a nebulous mass in the depths of space. The problem before the astronomer may be difficult to work out, but its nature is simple. He is to resolve that mist into its component stars. If he is bent on bringing the facts discovered by his telescope into harmony with some theory of his own, he complicates his task at once: or let the glass be cracked or the mirror dirty, and his observation only results in guess work. But, with an unprejudiced mind and a good telescope, his eye penetrates the veil and brings back tidings which enrich the records of science. So when men look at duty with loyal and obedient hearts, its lines come out sharply. Let self put a film over the spirit, duty remains unchanged, but the man sees only a mist. When the engineer decided that his railroad had to go through Mont Cenis, he had a difficult task but a simple one; and in addressing himself wholly to that solution of his problem, he at once got rid of a thousand questions as to other routes, etc. No one ever had so clear a perception of the hardness of His mission as Christ. And yet the closest study reveals not a shadow of hesitation. He goes to the Cross saying, “The Scripture must be fulfilled.” He comes back from the dead with, “Thus it behoved Christ to suffer.” His motto was, “My meat is to do the will of Him that sent Me, etc.” He admitted no question of stoning or crucifying, and hence it is that His life while it is the most tremendous tragedy in history is the most purely simple. Suppose duty costs popularity, etc., Christ does not promise that the man who walks in the light shall have an easy walk. He promises that he shall not stumble: but Christ did not stumble because He was crucified, nor Stephen because stoned, nor Paul because beheaded. The stumbling would have been in Christ accepting Satan’s offer, in Stephen’s keeping silence, in Paul making terms with Nero or the Jewish leader. Popularity, etc., won by evasion of duty are not gains.
Better that Christ should have gone than that the world should have lost the lesson of the Resurrection. Better all that agony than that the world should have missed a Saviour. But this steadfast light giving principle is not a mere matter of human resolve. Christ is in the soul as an inspiration and not merely before the eye as an example. And remember that though Christ in setting you on that well-lighted track of duty does not allow you to take account of the hardness, He takes account of it. You cannot live a life so hard that Christ has not lived a harder. His word is “Follow Me.” Do that and you cannot go wrong. (M. R. Vincent, D. D.)
If a man walk in the day, he stumbleth not
Oriental streets
are not as safe as Occidental streets, nor are Oriental roads as safe as Occidental roads. Setting aside all other differences, both streets and roads are in a chronic state of disrepair. The streets are narrow, and not too clean; the roads are often composed of nothing more than loose stones lying upon each other as chance sets them. The consequence is that it is a work of strategy to thread one’s way through Oriental streets, avoiding at the same time the filth of the street and the crowding of burdened donkeys or camels, and a work of art to ride or walk over an Oriental road without coming occasionally to the ground, or having one’s flesh torn by the thorns on either side. This is during the day; but at night the difficulty is increased a hundred fold; thus it is that “if a man walk in the night, he stumbleth.” Jesus felt that He was walking in the day, because He saw the danger, and knew how to avoid it. (S. S. Times.)
The walk of duty
It is a walk
I. of LIGHT. “Walk in the day.” The man who, from proper motives and with a single eye, pursues his mission in life, moves in open day. No dark cloud shadows his path, no haze hangs over him, he knows what he is about. His course lies clearly before him, and he sees the goal
II. Of SAFETY. “Stumbleth not.” He who moves within the bounds of duty makes no false steps, for the will of God enlightens him. But he who walks outside the limits of his vocation will err in what he does, since, not the will of God, but his own pleasure is his guide.
III. THAT MUST BE PURSUED. Though Christ was warned of the probable consequences He felt that He had to go. (D. Thomas, D. D.)