John 11:9

John 11:9

I. The first and most obvious thought which the text presents to us is that of the predestination of life. 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. The day shall run its course, whether the season be winter or summer, whether the hour be of thirty minutes or sixty. It is an encouragement a call to confidence. Be not afraid to go hither or thither at the summons of duty. Be not afraid of snare or terror, of accident or infection. Thy day has its twelve hours. Thou wilt neither add thereto, nor diminish from them.

II. It is a second, and perhaps a less obvious thought, the completeness of life. We must cast away, as Christians, 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.

III. A third thought, lying not far from the last, is that of 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," and his mother's name was this or, that; the indentification 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.

IV. 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. Do it in the name of God; do it for thy soul's health's sake; it shall not lose its reward.

C. J. Vaughan, Temple Sermons,p. 145.