Now, this Book of Proverbs, as I have said in the great collection of
popular sayings which makes the bulk of it, has no enthusiasm, no
poetry, no mysticism. It has religion, and it has a very pure and
lofty morality, but, for the most part, it deals with maxims of
worldly prudence, and sometimes with cynical ones, and represents, on
the whole, the wisdom of the market-place, and the 'man in the
street.' But now and then, as I have said, we hear strains of a higher
mood. My text, of course, might be watered down and narrowed so as to
point only to sequels to deeds realised in this life. And then it
would be teaching us simply the very much needed lessons that even in
this life, 'Whatever a man soweth that shall he also reap.' But it
seems to me that we are entitled to see here, as in one or two other
places in the Book of Proverbs, a dim anticipation of a future life
beyond the grave. I need not trouble you with quoting parallel
passages which are sown thinly up and down the book, but I venture to
take the words in the wider sense to which I have referred.
Now, the question comes to be, where did the coiners of Proverbs,
whose main interest was in the obvious maxims of a prudential
morality, get this conviction? They did not get it from any lofty
experience of communion with God, like that which in the seventy-third
Psalm marks the very high-water mark of Old Testament faith in regard
to a future life, where the Psalmist finds himself so completely
blessed and well in present fellowship with God, that he must needs
postulate its eternal continuance, and just because he has made God
the portion of his heart, and is holding fellowship with Him, is sure
that nothing can intervene to break that sweet communion. They did not
get it from any clear definite revelation, such as we have in the
resurrection of Jesus Christ, which has made that future life far more
than an inference for us, but they got it from thinking over the facts
of this present life as they appeared to them, looked at from the
standpoint of a belief in God, and in righteousness. And so they
represent to us the impression that is made upon a man's mind, if he
has the 'eye that hath kept watch o'er man's mortality,' that is made
by the facts of this earthly life--viz. that it is so full of
onward-looking, prophetic aspect, so manifestly and tragically, and
yet wonderfully and hopefully. Incomplete and fragmentary in itself,
that there must be something beyond in order to explain, in order to
vindicate, the life that now is. And that aspect of fragmentary
incompleteness is what I would insist upon for a moment now.
You sometimes see a row of houses, the end one of them has, in its
outer gable wall, bricks protruding here and there, and holes for
chimney-pieces that are yet to be put in. And just as surely as that
external wall says that the row is half built, and there are some more
tenements to be added to it, so surely does the life that we now live
here, in all its aspects almost, bear upon itself the stamp that it,
too, is but initial and preparatory. You sometimes see, in the
bookseller's catalogue, a book put down 'volume one; all that is
published.' That is our present life--volume one, all that is
published. Surely there is going to be a sequel, volume two. Volume
two is due, and will come, and it will be the continuation of volume
one.
What is the meaning of the fact that of all the creatures on the face
of the earth only you and I, and our brethren and sisters, do not find
in our environment enough for our powers? What is the meaning of the
fact that, whilst 'foxes have holes' where they curl themselves up,
and they are at rest, 'and the birds of the air have roosting-places,'
where they tuck their heads beneath their wings and sleep, the 'son of
man' hath not where to lay his head, but looks round upon the earth
and says, 'The earth, O Lord, is full of Thy mercy. I am a stranger on
the earth.' What is the meaning of it? Here is the meaning of it:
'Surely there is a hereafter.'
What is the meaning of the fact that lodged in men's natures there
lies that strange power of painting to themselves things that are not
as though they were? So that minds and hearts go out wandering through
Eternity, and having longings and possibilities which nothing beneath
the stars can satisfy, or can develop? The meaning of it is this:
Surely there is a hereafter. The man that wrote the book of
Ecclesiastes, in his sceptical moment ere he had attained to his last
conclusion, says, in a verse that is mistranslated in our rendering,
'He hath set Eternity in their hearts, therefore the misery of man is
great upon him.' That is true, because the root of all our unrest and
dissatisfaction is that we need God, and God in Eternity, in order
that we may be at rest. But whilst on the one hand 'therefore the
misery of man is great upon him,' on the other hand, because Eternity
is in our hearts, therefore there is the answer to the longings, the
adequate sphere for the capacities in that great future, and in the
God that fills it. You go into the quarries left by reason of some
great convulsion or disaster, by forgotten races, and you will find
there half excavated and rounded pillars still adhering to the matrix
of the rock from which they were being hewn. Such unfinished abortions
are all human lives if, when Death drops its curtain, there is an end.
But, brethren, God does not so clumsily disproportion His creatures
and their place. God does not so cruelly put into men longings that
have no satisfaction, and desires which never can be filled, as that
there should not be, beyond the gulf, the fair land of the hereafter.
Every human life obviously has in it, up to the very end, the capacity
for progress. Every human life, up to the very end, has been educated
and trained, and that, surely, for something. There may be masters in
workshops who take apprentices, and teach them their trade during the
years that are needed, and then turn round and say, 'I have no work
for you, so you must go and look for it somewhere else.' That is not
how God does. When He has trained His apprentices He gives them work
to do. Surely there is a hereafter,
But that is only part of what is involved in this thought. It is not
only a state subsequent to the present, but it is a state consequent
on the present, and the outcome of it. The analogy of our earthly life
avails here. To-day is the child of all the yesterdays, and the
yesterdays and to-day are the parent of tomorrow. The past, our past,
has made us what we are in the present, and what we are in the present
is making us what we shall be in the future. And when we pass out of
this life we pass out, notwithstanding all changes, the same men as we
were. There may be much on the surface changed, there will be much
taken away, thank God! dropped, necessarily, by the cessation of the
corporeal frame, and the connection into which it brings us with
things of sense. There will be much added, God only knows how much,
but the core of the man will remain untouched. 'We all are changed by
still degrees,' and suddenly at last 'All but the basis of the evil.'
And so we carry ourselves with us into that future life, and, 'what a
man soweth, that shall he also reap.' Oh that they were wise, that
they understood this, that they would consider their afterward!
II. Now, secondly, my text suggests the immortality of hope. 'Thine
expectation'--or rather, as I said, 'thy hope'--'shall not be cut
off.' This is a characteristic of that hereafter. What a wonderful
saying that is which also occurs in this Book of Proverbs, 'The
righteous hath hope in his death.' Ah! we all know how swiftly, as
years increase, the things to hope for diminish, and how, as we
approach the end, less and less do our imaginations go out into the
possibilities of the sorrowing future. And when the end comes, if
there is no afterwards, the dying man's hopes must necessarily die
before he does. If when we pass into the darkness we are going into a
cave with no outlet at the other end, then there is no hope, and you
may write over it Dante's grim word: 'All hope abandon, ye who enter
here.' But let in that thought, 'surely there is an afterwards,' and
the enclosed cave becomes a rock-passage, in which one can see the
arch of light at the far end of the tunnel; and as one passes through
the gloom, the eye can travel on to the pale radiance beyond, and
anticipate the ampler ether, the diviner air, 'the brighter
constellations burning, mellow moons and happy stars,' that await us
there. 'The righteous hath hope in his death.' 'Thine expectation
shall not be cut off.'
But, further, that conviction of the afterward opens up for us a
condition in which imagination is surpassed by the wondrous reality.
Here, I suppose, nobody ever had all the satisfaction out of a
fulfilled hope that he expected. The fish is always a great deal
larger and heavier when we see it in the water than when it is lifted
out and scaled. And I suppose that, on the whole, perhaps as much pain
as pleasure comes from the hopes which are illusions far more often
than they are realities. They serve their purpose in whirling us along
the path of life and in stimulating effort, but they do not do much
more.
But there does come a time, if you believe that there is an
afterwards, when all we desired and painted to ourselves of possible
good for our craving spirits shall be felt to be but a pale reflex of
the reality, like the light of some unrisen sun on the snowfields, and
we shall have to say 'the half was not told to us.'
And, further, if that afterwards is of the sort that we, through Jesus
Christ and His resurrection and glory, know to be, then all through
the timeless eternity hope will be our guide. For after each fresh
influx of blessedness and knowledge we shall have to say 'it doth not
yet appear what we shall be.' 'Thus now abideth'--and not only now,
but then and eternally--'these three--faith, hope, and charity,' and
hope will never be cut off through all the stretch of that great
afterwards.
III. And now, finally, notice the bearing of all this on the daily
present.
'Be thou in the fear of the Lord all the day long.' The conviction of
the hereafter, and the blessed vision of hopes fulfilled, are not the
only reasons for that exhortation. A great deal of harm has been done,
I am afraid, by well-meaning preachers who have drawn the bulk of
their strongest arguments to persuade men to Christian faith from the
thought of a future life. Why, if there were no future, it would be
just as wise, just as blessed, just as incumbent upon us to 'be in the
fear of the Lord all the day long.' But seeing that there is that
future, and seeing that only in it will hope rise to fruition, and yet
subsist as longing, surely there comes to us a solemn appeal to 'be in
the fear of the Lord all the day long,' which being turned into
Christian language, is to live by habitual faith, in communion with,
and love and obedience to, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
Surely, surely the very climax and bad eminence of folly is shutting
the eyes to that future that we all have to face; and to live here, as
some of you are doing, ignoring it and God, and cribbing, cabining,
and confining all our thoughts within the narrow limits of the things
present and visible. For to live so, as our text enjoins, is the sure
way, and the only way, to make these great hopes realities for
ourselves.
Brethren, that afterwards has two sides to it. The prophet Malachi, in
almost his last words, has a magnificent apocalypse of what he calls
'the day of the Lord,' which he sets forth as having a double aspect.
On the one hand, it is lurid as a furnace, and burns up the wicked
root and branch. I saw a forest fire this last autumn, and the great
pine-trees stood there for a moment pyramids of flame, and then came
down with a crash. So that hereafter will be to godless men. And on
the other side, that 'day of the Lord' in the prophet's vision was
radiant with the freshness and dew and beauty of morning, and the Sun
of Righteousness arose with healing in his wings. Which of the two is
it going to be to us? We have all to face it. We cannot alter that
fact, but we can settle how we shall face it. It will be to either the
fulfilment of blessed hope, the 'appearance of the glory of the great
God and our Saviour,' or else, as is said in this same Book of
Proverbs: 'The hope of the godless' shall be like one of those water
plants, the papyrus or the flag, which, when the water is taken away,
'withereth up before any other herb.' It is for us to determine
whether the afterwards that we must enter upon shall be the land in
which our hopes shall blossom and fruit, and blossom again immortally,
or whether we shall leave behind us, with all the rest that we would
fain keep, the possibility of anticipating any good. 'Surely there is
an afterwards,' and if thou wilt 'be in the fear of the Lord all the
day long,' then for evermore 'thy hope shall not be cut off.'