John 11:9

LIFE AND WORK

‘Jesus answered, Are there not twelve hours in the day? If any man walk in the day, he stumbleth not, because he seeth the light of this world.’

John 11:9

God has marked out beforehand the length of the life. This was true, first and foremost, of the life of Christ. His day had its twelve hours. In the way in which He walked, He was in daylight till the twelfth hour. It is true of us. God knows exactly the length of our day, and therefore of our hour. Is not this an encouragement—a call to confidence?

I. The completeness of life.—We must cast away the common measurement of time. Christ’s life on earth was a short life. His hour was but of the length of two or three years. God counts not, but weighs the hours. 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, they were the condition of the three.

II. The unity of life.—God sees the day as one; when God writes an epitaph He does so in one line, in one of two lines. ‘He did that which was evil,’ or, ‘He did that which was good.’ The identification is complete, and the character is one, not two, and not ambiguous. There were twelve hours in the man’s day, but the day was one.

III. The distribution of life.—God sees it in its unity; He bids us see it rather in its manifoldness; in its variety of opportunity and in its capacity and capability of good. Economise—determine to economise time. Give up something, some fragment, some particle of one of these twelve hours, to God and Christ, to thy soul and eternity.

—Dean Vaughan.

Illustration

‘Father, I know that all my life

Is portion’d out for me;

And the changes that are sure to come

I do not fear to see:

But I ask thee for a present mind,

Intent on pleasing Thee.

I would not have the restless will

That hurries to and fro,

Seeking for some great thing to do,

Or secret thing to know;

I would be treated as a child,

And guided where I go.

So I ask Thee for the daily strength,

To none that ask denied,

And a mind to blend with outward life

While keeping at Thy side;

Content to fill a little space,

If Thou be glorified.

In a service which Thy love appoints

There are no bonds for me,

For my inmost heart is taught the truth

That makes Thy children free;

And a life of self-renouncing love

Is a life of liberty.’