2 Samuel 23:4

A Morning Without Clouds

A morning without clouds. 2 Samuel 23:4.

Our text is taken from the last song that King David wrote. He was looking forward to the time when Jesus would come to reign on the earth, and he said that His rule would be like “a morning without clouds” Jesus would be like the morning sun lighting up all the sky, and bringing gladness and light where before there was sadness and darkness.

But I want you to take the words in a different sense this morning I want you to take them as your very own text; for life is like a day from sunrise to sunset, and you are in “the morning of life.” And the best thing I could wish for you is that it may be “a morning without clouds.”

Have you ever risen early on a fine spring morning in the country? As the dawn breaks the little birds burst into song. Then the sun rises and floods the world with gladness. The earth is refreshed with her sleep and the air is pure and sweet. There is something abroad that makes you feel as if you could dance and sing with joy.

The three things that strike you about such a morning are its purity, its beauty, and its gladness. And those are just the three things that the morning of life should be pure, and beautiful, and glad.

1. First of all, the morning of life should be pure. It is sin that darkens our sky and makes things gloomy. You have sometimes seen a beautiful, bright morning quickly clouded over; and many a morning of life that has promised brightly has been darkened ere long with the black thunder-clouds of sin.

Now it is not easy to keep pure, for even in life's morning the clouds of wicked thoughts and evil tempers and bad desires are ready to rise on our horizon. As yet they are tiny little cloudlets, but the only way to keep them from rising up and shadowing our life is to let Jesus, the Sun of Righteousness, shine into our hearts. He alone can keep those clouds away so that all our day may be bright, and that at evening time there may be light.

God has given you each a life, pure and fresh from Him. Some older people would give all they possess just to be standing where you stand full in the morning sunlight. Oh, boys and girls, realize the value of your gift before it is too late! Never stoop to anything that is mean, or base, or dishonorable. Ask God always to keep your souls like a pure, fresh, cloudless morning.

2. Secondly, the morning of life should be beautiful. It is said that if you want to see the Alps at their best you must rise at four in the morning. Then the glorious snow-crowned peaks shine out in all their grandeur, free from the mists that often shroud them later. What makes the morning so beautiful? It is the light of the sun the dawn after darkness.

Our morning of life should be beautiful too, but it will be truly beautiful only if the Sun of Righteousness shines in our hearts. He will make all the graces grow the graces of love, and unselfishness, and kindness.

In a school in one of our great cities there was an annual flower show, at which prizes were awarded. And in the slums of this same great city lived a little crippled girl to whom someone had given a small geranium. Day by day she watched and tended her plant, and day by day the plant grew more beautiful. And when the day of the flower show came, the little cripple's geranium easily carried off the prize. When the judges asked her the secret of its beauty she told them that she had always kept it in the sun's rays, moving it as the sun travelled on.

It is the sun that gives beauty and strength to the flowers, and it is the Sun of Righteousness who gives beauty and strength to our lives.

3. Lastly, the “morning of life” should be glad.

When Robert Louis Stevenson was a small boy he was very delicate. Sometimes he was kept in the house all winter, and many were the weary sleepless nights that he spent longing for the dawn. For the boy had a great horror of the dark, and conjured up all sorts of imaginary terrors. He always looked forward to the time when the carts came in, for he knew that when they rattled past the daybreak was not far away, and that in an hour or two the light would stream through the blind. Oh, the gladness of the morning after the long dark night!

And childhood is the glad time of life, bright and free from care. Be happy, boys and girls, just as happy as ever you can. But I want to tell you one thing a very sure thing. Your morning will never be truly happy unless Christ has some part in it. For the same thing makes life glad that makes it pure and beautiful Jesus Himself, the Sun of Righteousness, shining in our hearts.

There is just one thing more I want to say share your gladness. You have strong bodies and happy homes, but there are other children whose morning is clouded clouded by sickness, or want, or ignorance. There are suffering children in our hospitals, there are starving children in our slums, there are heathen children in far countries who have never heard of Jesus.

Now I think the grown-up people should look after the grown-ups who are in trouble, and I think the children should look after the children. And the best way to show our thankfulness for being so happy ourselves is to try to make others happy. Let us give our dollars, and our toys, and our prayers, and our time, to help some of the children whose morning is not “a morning without clouds.”