1 Chronicles 16:37

As every day’s work required.

Daily service

That was the law. Not as yesterday’s work required, not as to-morrow’s work might require, but as every day’s work required within its own twelve hours or twenty-four. That was order. The men had been singing. A musical man cannot be disorderly; he would refute his own song, he would annihilate his own music. “As every day’s work required”--morning by morning; now much, now more; now not quite so much; now a little variety; but every day had its duty; every morning had its opportunity. That is the secret of success. For want of knowing such a secret and applying it many men are without bread to-day. “As every day’s work required.” There is only one time--Now. “Now is the accepted time, now is the day of salvation.” Now is God’s great opportunity given to us all. Yesterday is gone, to-morrow is unborn, to-day is now, and the golden portal rolls back to let us into the larger liberty. Things are not to be done at any time. That is where so many people go into confusion. To so many people there is no regular time; that is the reason of failure, that is the leak. They were going to do this, but they forgot. What I a man forgetting? He was going to do this at ten o’clock, but he was busy at that moment, and now he will do it in the afternoon. Never ask if you can do this to-morrow; no man has a right to promise you that liberty. The great secret of successful life is discipline, promptitude, military obedience--now! altogether! the best I can; as every day requires. That was the way that Jesus Christ lived. In that apparently coldly ethical doctrine there is a great evangelical gospel; the Son of God is hidden in that disciplinary prose: “I must work the works of Him that sent Me”: are there not twelve hours in the day? I must work while the light lasts; the night cometh wherein no man can work: I must not postpone Monday’s duties to be done in Tuesday’s light.” How is it possible for you to do so much? we say to this great king of labour, and that great leader of civilisation; and he makes answer, Only by doing the day’s work within the day. There are a great many persons who have out-of-the-way places in which they store things to be attended to some time; the fact being that there is no peace in that household, no music, no deep content; there is always something tugging at the conscience and reminding the memory of the arrears. Never have any arrears. What does a well-spent day mean? It means Sabbath every night, satisfaction; it is finished, it is enough; I have told my tale, I have woven my thread, there is nothing more to be done to-day; then comes the sleep of the labouring man, and that is sweet. The lazy man cannot sleep, he can only snore. Only he who works, works for God, with God, in the spirit of Christ, can sleep, and God will make up all that is due to him whilst he is sleeping. Secondly, let us enlarge the meaning of the word “day.” The term “day” is one of the most flexible terms in Holy Scripture, in poetry, and in general experience. “In six days the Lord made heaven and earth.” I have no doubt of it; but I do not know what “day” means. We speak of “our day”: does it mean from eight o’clock in the morning until eight o’clock in the evening? Is the word “day” there a term of clock-time, or does it relate to centuries, eras, epochs? We say, “Our little systems have their day”; does that mean a chronometer day, or a larger and variable period? Evidently it means the latter. So the text may be expanded without a change of word. “As every day’s work required”--as the time needed, as the exigency demanded, as the epoch called for, as the century required. You are fully aware that every day, in the larger sense of age, epoch, or era, has its own peculiar revelation and its own peculiar truth and special and even unique duty and obligation. We cannot go back upon the centuries and fit the expired aeons into the framework of the immediate day in which we are breathing. The apostle did not hesitate to speak of “the present truth,” the truth of this particular day, with all its thrill and pulse and feverishness; the present truth, precisely adapted and suited to the immediate intellectual and spiritual condition of the times. We read of men who fell asleep after serving their generation--“and having served his generation, he fell on sleep.” And he serves the next generation best who serves the present generation well. Your influence will not be cut off, it will run on when you are no longer visible; it will be a memory, an inspiration, an enthusiasm, an ever-recurring poem, lifting life’s prose into nobler music. We must catch the very spirit and genius of the time; our question should be, What will the people hear? Not in any grovelling or degrading sense, but, What is the supreme necessity of the human heart just at this hot moment? What is it, then, that covers and sanctifies all days?--the little day of twenty-four hours or twelve, and the great day of long centuries and piled millenniums? That permanent and all-sovereign quantity or force is Jesus Christ. It is said of Him, He is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever. He describes Himself as He that is and was and is to come--Alpha, new as the dawn; Omega, venerable as the sunset of millenniums. He abides in the Church, He is ever on the throne, He gives the order of the day, He has a message for every morning. If we could lay hold of that great truth we should have a united Church at once. So much for working on the broader scale; so much for working within day, meaning century, age, epoch. We are not all working in the same way or all doing precisely the same kind of work. If the Church would but believe this she might have summer all the year round. We will compare one man with another; it would seem as if there were no escape from this lunacy. We think that unless a man shall begin where we expect him to begin, and continue as we expect him to continue, and conclude as we expect he will conclude, that such man is wrong. Never forget that that man could criticise you if he thought it worth while to stoop so low. Day--day--day--in its usual sense it means so short a space of time. Take short views of life. Mayhap I am speaking to some one who is worrying himself about the day after to-morrow. Where is that day? Who has seen it? What will it be like? Who told you about it? What rights have you in it? To-day is thy limitation. He who works well to-day shall have holiday to-morrow--holiday in the sense of renewed strength, increased vigour, and power to deal with the problems and handle the difficulties of life. You are wondering who will live in your house two years after you are dead. Why should you trouble yourself about two years after? You will not be there to see, why trouble about it now? To-morrow is with God; to-morrow is lingering by the lakes of heaven; to-morrow has not yet left the eternal throne. Why fret and worry and tear thyself about to-morrow? It may be the brightest day that ever shone upon thee; and if thou wouldst make it so, to-day be up and doing, and to-morrow thou shalt have joy in thy Lord. (J. Parker, D. D.)