Ezekiel 41:1 Afterward he brought me to the temple, and measured the posts, six cubits broad on the one side, and six cubits broad on the other side… Then consider that life is a plan. It is not a cloud; it could be more perfectly illustrated by geometry than by clouds and mist or vapour. It has its four points, its main boundaries, its architectural shape; its elevation, imposing, and all its appointments detailed with scrupulous care towards the education and spiritual comfort of the inhabitant. Work on that plan, and all will be right. Ask for the plan every morning; go into the little office, and have a look at the paper. Here is the great skeleton building with all its anatomy of scaffolding and planking: what is that little house or wooden shed outside? That is where the plan is kept. Why do men go in there now and then? To look at the plan. Can they not carry the plan in their heads? Not well. Can they not make the plan as they go on? No. Architecture is not conjecture. It is settled, designed; every little part mapped out, and put down and set to scale. And art thou, poor fool, building a life house without a plan? The only man who has ever grasped life in all its bearings and relationships and issues is the Son of God. You can hew away at this old book called the Bible as much as you please, you cannot get away from this living and all-dominating fact, that no man known to history has so laid hold of life in all its depth and length and breadth and height, in all its pain, tragedy, agony, destiny, in all its discipline, education, and culture, with such grasp, such clearness, and such wisdom, as it has been realised and provided for by the Christ of God. There are other religions, and many of them fine, fantastic speculation, beautiful, cloudy, rainbow-like dreaming; but for culture of the soul, for discipline of the will, for stirring the whole nature into benevolent impulse towards other men, Christianity stands alone. To that Christ I ask my fellow men; to that Christ I would go every day and say, Lord Jesus, what is the next thing to be done? and tell me how to do it, and never leave me one moment to myself; measure out the thousand cubits, tell me which is the north side, the south side, the west side, the east side, and if it comes to a great fight, show me how to stand, how to move, how to stretch: Lord, be with me all the time, till "the hurly-burly's done," till "the battle's fought and won." Given a young man who goes out to make his own fortune and his own destiny, and you have an image of folly: given a young soul who says, As everything else is meted out, measured, adjusted, and balanced, mayhap my poor little life is treated in the same way; I will go to the Divine measurer, and He will tell me within what lines to work, where to stop and how to live — and in that young soul you have an image of Wisdom. (J. Parker.) Parallel Verses KJV: Afterward he brought me to the temple, and measured the posts, six cubits broad on the one side, and six cubits broad on the other side, which was the breadth of the tabernacle. |
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