'Then Solomon offered burnt offerings unto the Lord ... Even after a
certain rate every day.'--(A.V.)
'Then Solomon offered burnt offerings unto the Lord, even as the duty
of every day required it.'--2 Chron. viii. 12-13 (R. V.).
This is a description of the elaborate provision, in accordance with
the commandment of Moses, which Solomon made for the worship in his
new Temple. The writer is enlarging on the precise accordance of the
ritual with the regulations laid down in the law. He expresses, by the
phrase which we have taken as our text, not only the accordance of the
worship with the commandment, but its unbroken continuity, and also
the variety in it, according to the regulations for different days.
For the verse runs on, 'on the Sabbaths, and on the new moons, and on
the solemn feasts, three times in the year, even in the Feast of
unleavened bread, and in the Feast of weeks, and in the Feast of
Tabernacles.' There were, then, these characteristics in the ritual of
Solomon's Temple, precise compliance with the Divine commandment,
unbroken continuity, and beautiful flexibility and variety of method.
But passing altogether from the original application of the words, I
venture to do now what I very seldom do, and that is, to take this
verse as a kind of motto. 'Even according as the duty of every day
required'; the phrase may suggest three thoughts: that each day has
its own work, its own worship, and its own supplies, 'even as the duty
of every day required.'
Each day has its own work.
Of course there is a great uniformity in our lives, and many of us who
are set down to one continuous occupation can tell twelve months
before what, in all probability, we shall be doing at each hour of
each day in the week. But for all that, there is a certain individual
physiognomy about each new day as it comes to us; and the oldest, most
habitual, and therefore in some degree easiest and least stimulating,
work has its own special characteristics as it comes again to us day
by day for the hundredth time.
So there are three pieces of practical wisdom that I would suggest,
and one is--be content to take your work in little bits as it comes.
There is a great deal of practical wisdom in taking short views of
things, for although we have often to look ahead, yet it is better on
the whole that a man should, as far as he can, confine his
anticipations to the day that is passing, and leave the day that is
coming to look after itself. Take short views and be content to let
each day prescribe its tasks, and you have gone a long way to make all
your days quiet and peaceful. For it is far more the anticipation of
difficulties than the realisation of them that wears and wearies us.
If a man says to himself, 'This sorrow that I am carrying, or this
work that I have to do, is going to last for many days to come,' his
heart will fail. If he said to himself, 'It will be no worse to-morrow
than it is at this moment, and I can live through it, for am I not
living through it at this moment, and getting power to endure or do at
this moment? and to-morrow will probably be like today,' things would
not be so difficult.
You remember the homely old parable of the clock on the stair that
gave up ticking altogether because it began to calculate how many
thousands of seconds there are in the year, and that twice that number
of times it would have to wag backwards and forwards. The lesson that
it learned was--tick one tick and never mind the next. You will be
able to do it when the time to do it comes. Let us act 'as the duty of
every day requireth.' 'Sufficient for the day is the work thereof.'
Then there is another piece of advice from this thought of each day
having its own work, and that is--keep your ears open, and your eyes
too, to learn the lesson of what the day's work is. There is generally
abundance of direction for us if only we are content with the
one-step-at-a-time direction, which we get, and if another condition
is fulfilled, if we try to suppress our own wishes and the noisy
babble of our own yelping inclinations, and take the whip to them
until they cease their barking, that we may hear what God says. It is
not because He does not speak, but because we are too anxious to have
our own way to listen quietly to His voice, that we make most of our
blunders as to what the duty of every day requires. If we will be
still and listen, and stand in the attitude of the boy-prophet before
the glimmering lamp in the sacred place, saying, 'Speak, Lord! for Thy
servant heareth,' we shall get sufficient instruction for our next
step.
Another piece of practical wisdom that I would suggest is that if
every day has its own work, we should buckle ourselves to do the day's
work before night falls and not leave any over for to-morrow, which
will be quite full enough. 'Do the duty that lies nearest thee,' was
the preaching of one of our sages, and it is wholesome advice. For
when we do that duty, the doing of it has a wonderful power of opening
up further steps, and showing us more clearly what is the next duty.
Only let us be sure of this, that no moment comes from God which has
not in it boundless possibilities; and that no moment comes from God
which has not in it stringent obligations. We neither avail ourselves
of the one, nor discharge the other, unless we come, morning by
morning, to the new day that is dawning upon us, with some fresh
consciousness of the large issues that may be wrapped in its unseen
hours, and the great things for Him that we may do ere its evening
falls.
Each day has its tasks, and if we do not do the tasks of each day in
its day, we shall fling away life. If a man had L. 100,000 for a
fortune, and turned it all into halfpence, and tossed them out of the
window, he could soon get rid of his whole fortune. And if you fling
away your moments or live without the consciousness of their solemn
possibilities and mystic awfulness, you will find at the last that you
have made 'ducks and drakes' of your years, and have flung them away
in moments without knowing what you were doing, and without
possibility of recovery. 'Take care of the pence, the pounds will take
care of themselves.' Take care of the days, and the years will show a
fair record.
Secondly, we have here the suggestion that every day has its own
worship.
As I remarked at the beginning of my observations, the chronicler
dwells, with a certain kind of satisfaction, in accordance with the
tone of his whole writings, upon the external ritual of the Temple;
and points out its entire conformity with the divine precept, and the
unbroken continuity of worship day after day, year in year out, and
the variation of the characteristics of that worship according as the
day was more or less ritually important. From his words we may deduce
a very needful though obvious and commonplace lesson. What we want is
every-day religion, and that every-day religion is the only thing that
will enable us to do what the duty of every day requires. But that
every-day religion which will be our best ally, and power for the
discharge of the obligations that each moment brings with it, must
have its points of support, as it were, in special moments and methods
of worship.
So, then, take that first thought: What we want is a religion that
will go all through our lives. A great many of you keep your religion
where you keep your best clothes: putting it on on Sunday and locking
it away on the Sunday night in a wardrobe because it is not the dress
that you go to work in. And some of you keep your religion in your
pew, and lock it up in the little box where you put your hymn-books
and your Bibles, which you read only once a week, devoting yourselves
to ledgers or novels and newspapers for the rest of your time. We want
a religion that will go all through our life; and if there is anything
in our life that will not stand its presence, the sooner we get rid of
that element the better. A mountain road has generally a living
brooklet leaping and flashing by the side of it. So our lives will be
dusty and dead and cold and poor and prosaic unless that river runs
along by the roadside and makes music for us as it flows. Take your
religion wherever you go. If you cannot take it in to any scenes or
company, stop you outside.
There is nothing that will help a man to do his day's work so much as
the realisation of Christ's Presence. And that realisation, along with
its certain results, devotion of heart to Him and submission of will
to His commandment, and desire to shape our lives to be like His, will
make us masters of all circumstances and strong enough for the hardest
work that God can lay upon us.
There is nothing so sure to make life beautiful, and noble, and pure,
and peaceful, and strong as this--the application to its monotonous
trifles of religious principles. If you do not do little things as
Christian men and women, and under the influence of Christian
principle, pray _what_ are you going to do under the influence of
Christian principle? If you are keeping your religion to influence the
crises of your lives, and are content to let the trifles be ruled by
the devil or the world and yourselves, you will find out, when you
come to the end, that there were perhaps three or four crises in your
experience, and that all the rest of life was made of trifles, and
that when the crises came you could not lay your hand on the religious
principle that would have enabled you to deal with them. The sword had
got so rusty in its scabbard because it had never been drawn for long
years, that it could not be readily drawn in the moment of sudden
peril; and if you could have drawn it, you would have found its edge
blunted. Use your religion on the trifles, or you will not be able to
make much of it in the crises. 'He that is faithful in that which is
least is faithful also in much.' The worship of every day is the
preparation for the work of that day.
Further, that worship, that religion, wearing its common, modest suit
of workaday clothes, must also, if there is to be any power in it,
have a certain variety in its methods. 'Solomon offered burnt
offerings ... on the Sabbaths, on the new moons,' which had a little
more ceremonial than the Sabbaths, 'and on the solemn feasts three
times in a year,' which had still more ceremonial than the new moons,
'even in the Feast of unleavened bread, and in the Feast of weeks, and
in the Feast of tabernacles.' These were spring-tides when the sea of
worship rose beyond its usual level, and they kept it from stagnating.
We, too, if we wish to have this every-day religion running with any
strength of scour and current through our lives, will need to have
moments when it touches high-water mark, else it will not flush the
foulness out of our hearts and our lives.
Lastly, take the other suggestion, that every day has its own
supplies.
That does not lie in the text properly, but for the sake of
completeness I add it. Every day has its own supplies. The manna fell
every day, and was gathered and consumed on the day on which it fell.
God gives us strength measured accurately by the needs of the day. You
will get as much as you require, and if ever you do not get as much as
you require, which is very often the case with Christian people, that
is not because God did not send enough manna, but because their
_omer_ was not ready to catch it as it fell. The day's supply is
measured by the day's need. Suppose an Israelite had sat in his tent
and said, 'I am not going out to gather,' would he have had any in his
empty vessel? Certainly not. The manna lay all around the tent, but
each man had to go out and gather it. God makes no mistakes in His
weights and measures. He gives us each sufficient strength to do His
will and to walk in His ways; and if we do not do His will or walk in
His ways, or if we find our burden too heavy, our sorrows too sharp,
our loneliness too dreary, our difficulties too great, it is not
because 'the Lord's hand is shortened that it cannot' supply, but
because our hands are so slack that they will not take the sufficiency
which He gives. In the midst of abundance we are starving. We let the
water run idly through the open sluice instead of driving the wheels
of life.
My friend! God's measure of supply is correct. If we were more
faithful and humble, and if we understood better and felt more how
deep is our need and how little is our strength, we should more
continually be able to rejoice that He has given, and we have
received, 'even as the duty of every day required.'