Isaiah 56:12 Come you, say they, I will fetch wine, and we will fill ourselves with strong drink; and to morrow shall be as this day… In this picture, that exaggerated hopefulness which it describes seems to have been the result of intoxication. It is one who has filled himself with strong drink, who, from the midst of his revels, cries out, "To-morrow shall be as this day, nay, much more abundant." In point of fact, however, such artificial stimulus is in no wise necessary for the excitement of extravagant hopes. Such hopes are born out of circumstances the most discouraging and amid surroundings the most dismal and dreary, Let us bless God that it is so. I doubt whether life would be long endurable if it were otherwise. In fact, it is at the point when the spring of hopefulness fairly snaps that men and women break down. And yet, like some other forms of so-called nourishment, this is one which has a perilous power of enervation. It is worth while to remember that the future is simply and inevitably and inexorably the outgrowth and outcome of the present. The man or woman of ungoverned temper imagines that age will cool their blood and so diminish their provocations. But age weakens nothing save our powers of demonstration. And so of the rest of the infirmities of our nature. Does the lust of the flesh, or the lust of the eye, or the pride of life — do our covetousness and our selfishness and our untruthfulness go through a sort of transformation-scene process, and emerge at some given point in our future in the guise of the Christian graces or the cardinal virtues? The future does not create progress, but only reveals it. And thus we see the province and, if I may so speak, the function in the moral and spiritual world of Hope. That function is to inspire the present. And, therefore, if I were asked to indite that legend or motto which should be the rule and law for every young life among us, I would write the one word "Now." (H. C. Potter, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: Come ye, say they, I will fetch wine, and we will fill ourselves with strong drink; and to morrow shall be as this day, and much more abundant. |
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