Expositions of Holy Scripture: Second Kings Chapters VIII to End and Chronicles, Ezra, and Nehemiah. Esther, Job, Proverbs, and EcclesiastesMaclaren, Alexander
Religion
Expositions of Holy Scripture: Second Kings Chapters VIII to End and Chronicles, Ezra, and Nehemiah. Esther, Job, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes
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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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