The Spur

worlddic.com, H. W. Beecher.

John 9:4

I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night comes, when no man can work.

I. THE GREAT MASTER WORKER.

1. He takes His own share in the work, "I." How encouraging! It is enough for the general if he directs the battle, but Jesus fought in the ranks. As the great Architect He supervises all, yet He helps to build the Spiritual Temple with His own hands. It made Alexander's soldiers valiant, because, when they were wearied with long marches, he dismounted and walked with them; and if a river had to be crossed in the teeth of opposition, foremost amidst all the risk was the general.

2. He laid great stress on the gracious work which was laid upon Him. There were some things He would not do — dividing inheritances, etc. But when it came to the work of blessing souls, this He must do, and He did it with all His might. The unity of His purpose was never broken.

3. He rightly describes this work as the work of God. If ever there was one who might have taken the honour to himself it was Jesus; yet He ever says, "The Father doeth the works." He sets us the example of confessing that whatever we do God does it and should have the glory.

4. He owned His true position. He had not come forth on His own account. He was not here as a principal, but as a subordinate, an ambassador sent by the king. God gave Him a commission and the grace to carry it out.

5. He threw a hearty earnestness into the work He undertook. Though sent, the commission was so genial to His nature that He worked with all the alacrity of a volunteer. He was commissioned, but His own will was the main compulsion.

6. He clearly saw that there was a fitting time to work, and that this time would have an end. He called his lifetime a day: to show us that He was impressed with the shortness of it. Thou hast but a day — youth is the morning, manhood the noon, old age the evening. Be up and doing, for beyond that is night. But as with Christ, so with us. We cannot die till our day is over.

II. OURSELVES AS WORKERS UNDER HIM.

1. On us there rests personal obligation. We are in danger of losing ourselves in societies and associations. The old histories are rich in records of personal daring. There is little of that now because fighting is done so much by masses and machinery. So our Christian work is in danger of getting mechanical, so much en masse that there is barely room for singular deeds of valour. Yet the success of the Church will lie in this last. Each man should feel "I have something to do for Christ which an angel could not do for me."

2. Our personal obligation compels us to just such work as Christ did. We are not called meritoriously to save souls, for He is the only Saviour, but we are called to enlighten them. This work must be done, whatever else is left undone. And how paltry is every other gain compared with that of a saved soul! We have our secular callings and ought to have them, but we have a high calling of God in Christ, and while other things may be this must be.

3. It is God's work we are called upon to do. What greater motive can we have than to have a Divine work and Divine strength to do it? Your mission is not less honourable than that of angels, and how blessed it is! How desperate the case of those we are sent to save, and how short the time in which to save them!

worlddic.com

The night cometh when no man can work. — Although our Lord's ministry began late, it was marked by incessant activity. His disciples marvelled at it, and Be accounts for it by the fact that He had much to do and but little time to do it in. This declaration is worth attention. It is not wise to dwell in a cold sense of death. Dying need not be gloomy; but life has a certain duration, and there is allotted to every man a certain round of duties; and as in a journey a man divides the distance into stages according to the time he has to accomplish it, so a man ought to look forward to death in order to accomplish in life the things that are to be done. The husbandman says, "If my ground does not receive the seed early in the spring, I shall have no harvest in the autumn. I know the measure of the summer and labour accordingly."

I. I address THOSE WHO LIVE AIMLESS LIVES. Many of you will not live long, and yet there are incumbent upon you great duties toward God, man, yourselves. You may not be stained with vice; but there is great wrong done by every man who in life has no plan but that of idly floating out of one day into another. That is to surrender the dignity of life and to make yourselves like the gauzy ephemerides that float in the air. But you are not born to be insects, and however cheerful you may be you ought to answer the great questions: "What am I born for? how long have I to stay here?"

II. I also address THOSE WHO ARE ALWAYS INTENDING TO DO THE THINGS THEY ADMIRE. How many are saying, "When there is a more convenient season it is my purpose to reform." But no man is wise who does not say day by day, "What I do I must hasten to do, for life is not very long for me." For whatever you mean to do you have no time to spare. Putting off till prosperity is established is substantially putting off forever. They who late in life attain to any considerable excellence are rare exceptions. Men usually plant in childhood the seeds which blossom and bear the fruits on which they feed in later years.

III. IS THE SPIRIT OF THIS TEACHING MAN SHOULD MEASURE CERTAIN PRACTICAL DUTIES.

1. It is part of a Christian man's duty to make provision for his household. No man has a right to leave out of view the fact that he may be taken away, and when that is the case the breadwinner is gone. It is wicked therefore for a man, because he admires his wife and loves his children, to live beyond his means to gratify their tastes or whims. Where a man does this, when the collapse comes there is nothing but misery.

2. It is a Christian man's duty to secure the provision he has made. There are many men whose business is in such a state that if they were to die their affairs would be like a ship from whose rudder the pilot has been shot down. "Set thy house in order," then. Make your will, and have your affairs so straight that it will be easy to wind them up and dispose them according to your wishes.

IV. THE SENTIMENT OF THE TEXT RULES IN THE RELIGIOUS SPHERE.

1. In personal spiritual growth. The time for the development of the graces, the acquisition of knowledge, the contraction of good habits is brief — make the most of it.

2. In Christian work. If you have anything to do for the poor, for the Church, for the world's purity and happiness, you have no time to lose. And yet how few, however active, are using the whole economy of their natures according to the power that is in them?

(H. W. Beecher.)