Ezra 3:4 They kept also the feast of tabernacles, as it is written, and offered the daily burnt offerings by number, according to the custom… As the circuits of the earth round the sun gives the year and the seasons, and the revolutions of the moon round the earth our months, so the revolving of our earth on its axis marks out as the condition of human life that it should be divided into days and nights, and these are constituted alternate seasons of labour and repose. So life as a time for work resolves itself into a thing of days (Psalm 104:23). I. LIFE BEING MADE UP OF DAYS, THE CHARACTER AND COMPLEXION OF LIFE WILL DEPEND ON THE IMPROVE MENT OF DAYS AS THEY SUCCESSIVELY PASS BY. It is more easy to feel the importance of life as a whole, than to be duly impressed with the value of its smaller divisions. If the mind be set on improving life, its distribution into days offers to us many advantages for attaining this end. 1. A day is more easily brought within the grasp of the mind and planned for. 2. There is less difficulty in reviewing it and judging of its character. 3. Every day a new beginning is made and opportunity afforded for correcting to-day by the experience of yesterday. 4. Who can calculate the advantage of the freshness derived from sleep and the new vigour thus imported into life? (1) Physically. (2) Mentally. (3) Morally. The will is endued with new vigour as a manrises to a new day of life and activity. II. THE DUTY WHICH EVERY DAY REQUIRES. Every day has its appropriate duty. 1. Some duties daily should terminate directly upon God. Such are prayer and praise. Who can tell what our needs may be, what accidents may happen, what decisions we may be called to take and what moral risks may be encountered? Daily petitions should therefore be offered. And how meet it is to mingle with daily petitioning thanksgiving for daily mercies. "Blessed be the Lord who daily leadeth us with benefits." 2. There is all the life-work. (1) The culture of the mind. (2) The business of each one's station. (3) Some direct service for the kingdom of Christ. This serves to hallow the day and to connect time the more distinctly with eternity. 3. Then there is the bearing of the burdens of the day. III. THE WORK OF EACH DAY IS TO BE DONE, WITH ONLY A MODERATE THOUGHTFULNESS, YET WITHOUT PRESUMPTION AS TO THE MORROW AND DAYS TO COME. Christ discountenanced anxious forecasting as to the possibilities of the future. God is to be trusted to lay upon us burdens as He sees that we have strength, or as He will give strength to sustain them. Still less should there be presumption as to the future. Act as "in the living present," "as the matter of every day requires." "To-morrow," exclaimed a powerful French preacher once, "is the devil's word; God's word is to-day." "To-day, if ye will hear His voice, harden not your hearts." (E. T. Prust.) Parallel Verses KJV: They kept also the feast of tabernacles, as it is written, and offered the daily burnt offerings by number, according to the custom, as the duty of every day required; |
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