Zechariah 14:7 But it shall be one day which shall be known to the LORD, not day, nor night: but it shall come to pass… In the thought and in the speech of the world night is made the symbol of the dark experiences of human life. It is common to speak of the day of prosperity and of the night of adversity. Both of these symbols are frequently used in the Bible, the day standing for the bright experiences and the night standing for the dark experiences of life. But the Bible studs the night of darkness with stars of hope and suns of promise. "At evening time it shall be light." That is grace overstepping and going beyond Nature. Nature's evening time is darkness. When the evening time comes in the experiences of God's people, and they fear that there shall be no more day, then God steps in, introduces a principle beyond Nature, and declares, "It shall come to pass that at evening time it shall be light." 1. This is a promise for the evening time of the world. The morning of the world was a bright and glorious sunrise. In the beginning God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. And when He had finished His wide and wise creation, "God saw that it was good." But soon the dark cloud of man's sin overspread the earth. Light was shut out. Darkness reigned. Out of that darkness the world has been gradually emerging, until, through all the tears and tyrannies of the centuries, it has come into the noonday splendour of the Christian civilisation of our century. And it is distinctly Christian. It was the historian Froude who said: "All that we call modern civilisation, in a sense which deserves that name, is the visible expression of the transfiguring power of the Gospel." Our highest literature is swayed by the purest influences of Christianity. The scientific spirit of research and investigation, so conspicuous a fact and so important a factor in our modern life, owes its stimulation to the encouragement of Christianity. Christianity has created the laboratory as well as the library. Christianity is the parent of education. It has founded schools, established colleges, endowed seminaries. To benighted lands and to blighted homes Christianity has sent the teacher with the preacher. Our civic liberties and our social order are based upon Christianity. Burn the Bible, proclaim "there is no God," write over your cemetery gates "Death is an eternal sleep," and there is no power in all this land that will stay the ravages of that beetle-browed hag — infidelity's twin sister in every age and in every land — Anarchism. I know that there are historians of discontent and prophets of calamity who cannot enjoy the splendour of the world's midday, and who are ever telling us that the former times were better than these. They discount all inventions and all advancement by claiming that the morality of the present, if as strong, is no stronger than the morality of the past. They are right in holding that all advancements go for naught if the people are not better than they were. The test of the world's advancement and strength is not that the grandson rides today in the Pullman ear, while the grandfather rode yesterday in the stage coach. The test is, Is the grandson a better man than the grandfather was? This world has not seen a brighter era since the gates of Eden were closed upon man than the last days of the nineteenth century. And the twentieth century will be better. Christ Jesus is to reign in this world. He has not yet ascended HIS throne. He is now on His Father's throne. When He went into Heaven He sat down at His Father's right hand, "henceforth expecting till His enemies be made His footstool." When His enemies shall be subdued, then, rising upon them as upon His footstool, He shall ascend His throne and reign. And it shall come to pass that in the evening time of the world it shall be light. 2. The promise pertains to the Church of God. The Church of God has had two organisations in the world — the theocratic organisation of the Old Testament dispensation, and the spiritual organisation of the New Testament dispensation. Through all the Old Testament we can trace a gradual unfolding of the Church's life and power. This unfolding was not in a continuous advance. The whole history of the Old Testament Church shows a succession of onward marches, and then of quick retreats — progressing, retrograding, standing still for a while, then progressing once more, and again falling back. But in no instance did she fall back as far as she had been, and so her history was, on the whole, one of advance and growth. So with the Church of the New Testament dispensation. The Church was born on Pentecost — that was the sunrise of the Church, and it was glorious. From Pentecost the disciples went forth to tell the story of Him who had been crucified, who rose and ascended into heaven, and as the story spread the Church grew. Then came opposition and hatred and persecution, but the Church advanced through all until she entered the darkness of the Dark Ages. The heavens were shut, and a black cloud of superstition spread over the earth. Rome sat upon her ebon throne and stretched her rod of cruelty across the nations. It seemed as if the evening time of the Church had come. In that time every lamp of prophecy had ceased to shine He who thundered in the streets of Rome had been burned at the stake, Savonarola had received the martyr's crown at Florence, the black clouds of ignorance, superstition, and vice shut out the sunlight of God's love from the world. It was evening time, but God said, In the evening time it shall be light. He kindled a beacon in the soul of a young monk in the monastery at Erfurt. As the monk mused the fire burned, and out from Erfurt went Martin Luther to proclaim God's message; and Rome shook, the Vatican trembled, the gates of brass were opened, the rod of cruelty was sundered, Germany was delivered, and civil and religious liberty were secured to the world. There came a time in England when religion became a formality, and when all good men trembled for the Church and longed for the mighty Puritans, who would crush the giant forces of evil beneath their onward progress. It was evening time, and God had said, "It shall come to pass that at evening time it shall be light." Four young Oxford students — William Morgan, Robert Kentham, Charles and John Wesley — met for prayer and Bible study. They were called by their fellow students "Bible Moths," "the Holy Club," and "Methodists," because they were so methodical in all studies and their work. One resistance after another the Church has overcome; at times pressed back, but ever pushing onward, multiplying her victories and extending her dominions. No more hospitals, for there are no more sick; no more asylums, for there are no orphans; no more prisons, for there are no criminals; no more almshouses, for there are no poor; no more tears, for there is no sorrow. The long dirge of the earth's lamentations has come to an end in the triumphal march of the blessed redeemed Church; the New Jerusalem is with men, her children are gathered home, and across that city of a redeemed humanity earth's grandest outburst of hope and welcome breaks antiphonal from wall to jasper wall. The sunset glow; the evening time of the Church, and at evening time it shall be light. 3. This promise is for all human experience. The great promises of God, which apply to the whole kingdom of the redeemed, may be appropriated by each individual member of that kingdom. In Nature the laws which control the great forces direct the minute elements. The law that rules the grain of sand on the seashore governs the planets in their course. It is so in the realm of grace. "At evening time it shall be light" to the Church; "at evening time it shall be light" to every individual believer. In the matter of the experience of the believer in Christian service it is true that "in the evening time it shall be light." The majority of the men who have lived and laboured to make this world better have received the scorn and obloquy of the world. John Wesley was howled down by the mob to whom he preached; they threw bricks at him, they spat upon him, but where is there a more honoured name today? Light at evening time. Wendell Phillips was scorned and spurned for his advocacy of the slave. Boston would not hear him, but in less than a generation afterward Boston built a monument to his honour, and men who would not defile their lips with his name taught their children the pathway, to his tomb. "At evening time, it shall be light." 4. The promise brings its helpful message to every believer in his season of adversity and trouble. Very few people in this world escape the time of adversity. The bright, sunshiny day of prosperity is pretty certain to have a nightfall. "It was good that I have been afflicted," cries David. "The Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away," exclaims Job. "Sorrowful, yet always rejoicing," says Paul. "And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes," exclaims John in apocalyptic vision. At evening time it shall be light. Ten thousand saints of God have found it so in the evening time. 5. The text has a message for old age. Sometimes men look forward to it with trembling. It is a mistaken notion that youth is the time of gladness and old age the time of sadness. America's beloved artist, Horatio Greenough, a few days before his death, said: "I have found life to be a very cheerful thing, and not the dark and bitter thing with which my early days were clouded." At evening time it was light. At eighty years of age Albert Barnes stood in the pulpit of the First Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, and said: "The world is so attractive to me that I am very sorry I shall have to leave it so soon." Dr. Guthrie, past eighty, said: "You must not think, that I am old because my hair is "white"; I never was so young as I am now. At evening time it was light. New lights shall burn when the old lights are quenched; new candles shall be lit when the lamps of life are dim. At the evening time of his life the Christian has many lights that he did not have before. There is the bright light of experience; the pleasing light of sweet memories; the cheering light of service done for God and humanity. The scientist tells us that no physical force is ever wasted. We whisper into the telephone, and the vibration, though it be less than one one-hundred-thousandth part of an inch, affects a diaphragm a thousand miles away, and our exact voice is heard by the listening ear in Chicago. So they tell us that the light from the farthest fixed star has been travelling steadily undiminished for more than a million years to greet our upturned eye tonight, and to reassure us that "the hand that made it is Divine." If it be true of physical forces, how much more is it true of moral and spiritual forces, that they are never lost! What a halo of glory this casts about the old age of a man, out from whose life have poured forth the streams of holy and sacred influences! At evening time it shall be light. John Bunyan was right when he located Christian old age in the land of Beulah, in full sight of the ripe fruitage and the ravishing, prospects of the Celestial City. The infirmities of old age are only the land birds lighting on the sails, telling the weary mariner that he is nearing the haven." "And it shall come to pass that at evening time it shall be light." 6. This promise is for the time of the death of the believer. "It is a dark passage through which you are passing now," said a young man as he sat beside his dying mother. And her whole countenance lighted up as she said: "Oh no, my son; there is too bright a light at the other end to have it dark," and she passed out, and up, and into the palm and to the crown and to the throne. At the evening time it was light. Paul drew near the end, and he said: "The time for the weighing of the anchor has come. I have fought a good fight; I have finished my course; I have kept the faith; henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me at that day." Take the promise with you into the future. Remember that if sorrow camps with you overnight, joy cometh in the morning. (J. F. Carson, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: But it shall be one day which shall be known to the LORD, not day, nor night: but it shall come to pass, that at evening time it shall be light. |
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