John 11:9-10 Jesus answered, Are there not twelve hours in the day? If any man walk in the day, he stumbles not… The disciples were amazed when Jesus proposed to go to Bethany, and remonstrated with Him. Christ takes this opportunity of explaining the great principle on which He worked. "I walk in God's light which shines upon My path during the time He has fixed for My ministry. Wherever that light shines, I go, regardless of everything but it. Do you the same, My disciples. Your path of duty will be clear. Without that light you will be as men walking in the dark and meeting disaster." We are thus led up to the question of the simplicity of duty. Somehow duty has come to be to many a complicated matter. That it presents problems every one of us knows, but does the problem lie in the duty or in us? Do we not complicate the problem by adding factors of our own. The oculist says that there is a blind spot in every eye: possibly when we think duty obscure we have brought the duty into line with the blind spot. As a matter of precept, duty being a thing of universal obligation must be simple. To make it a matter of subtle casuistry or painful research would limit it. And men stumble none the less because of this simplicity. Christ does not put the blame of stumbling on the law or on the complication of duty. It is not the geological structure of the stone that makes men stumble, but darkness or blindness. And so morally. Our Lord asserts elsewhere that "the lamp of the body is the eye: When thine eye is single thy whole body is full of light," etc. When a man sees two trees when there is only one, or prismatic colours in a house that is white, we do not blame the tree etc., but the man's vision, A sound moral vision recognizes duty under every shape. Hence the truth of our text is that the recognition of duty, and the practical solution of its problems, lie in the principle of loyalty to Christ. A Divinely enlightened conscience and an obedient will, not only push, but lead. See this illustrated here. Going to Bethany involved a question of duty for Christ. To one who had no thought but to do the Father's will, the case was simple. But the disciples, in their natural timidity, put another element into the question, which complicated it — personal safety. If Jesus entertained the suggestion, He would have been diverted from the plain duty. A new question would have been raised which God had not raised. God's commission said nothing about danger — only "Go." If He meant to do right the decision presented no difficulty; if He meant to save Himself, He would have walked in darkness. Is not singleness of purpose an element of all heroism? Was there ever a great general whose thought was divided between victory and personal safety? The men who have moved society have seen nothing but the end to be won. When a physician enters on his profession, he does so with the knowledge that he must ignore contagion. That makes his duty very simple — to relieve disease wherever he finds it. The moment he begins to think about exposure to fever, etc., his usefulness is over. Luther at Worms had a terrible danger to face, but a very easy question to solve; but his inability to do anything but the one right thing ("I can do no otherwise") carried the Reformation, and this singleness is the very essence of Christianity. Its first law is, treat self, as though it were not "Follow Me." It is not always easy to follow Christ; but the way at least is plain. A greater difficulty arises when the question becomes one of compromising between Christ and self. The only way in which self can be adjusted to the Cross is by being nailed to' it. Duty is a fixed fact. It does not adjust itself to us. There is a nebulous mass in the depths of space. The problem before the astronomer may be difficult to work out, but its nature is simple. He is to resolve that mist into its component stars. If he is bent on bringing the facts discovered by his telescope into harmony with some theory of his own, he complicates his task at once: or let the glass be cracked or the mirror dirty, and his observation only results in guess work. But, with an unprejudiced mind and a good telescope, his eye penetrates the veil and brings back tidings which enrich the records of science. So when men look at duty with loyal and obedient hearts, its lines come out sharply. Let self put a film over the spirit, duty remains unchanged, but the man sees only a mist. When the engineer decided that his railroad had to go through Mont Cenis, he had a difficult task but a simple one; and in addressing himself wholly to that solution of his problem, he at once got rid of a thousand questions as to other routes, etc. No one ever had so clear a perception of the hardness of His mission as Christ. And yet the closest study reveals not a shadow of hesitation. He goes to the Cross saying, "The Scripture must be fulfilled." He comes back from the dead with, "Thus it behoved Christ to suffer." His motto was, "My meat is to do the will of Him that sent Me, etc." He admitted no question of stoning or crucifying, and hence it is that His life while it is the most tremendous tragedy in history is the most purely simple. Suppose duty costs popularity, etc., Christ does not promise that the man who walks in the light shall have an easy walk. He promises that he shall not stumble: but Christ did not stumble because He was crucified, nor Stephen because stoned, nor Paul because beheaded. The stumbling would have been in Christ accepting Satan's offer, in Stephen's keeping silence, in Paul making terms with Nero or the Jewish leader. Popularity, etc., won by evasion of duty are not gains. Better that Christ should have gone than that the world should have lost the lesson of the Resurrection. Better all that agony than that the world should have missed a Saviour. But this steadfast light giving principle is not a mere matter of human resolve. Christ is in the soul as an inspiration and not merely before the eye as an example. And remember that though Christ in setting you on that well-lighted track of duty does not allow you to take account of the hardness, He takes account of it. You cannot live a life so hard that Christ has not lived a harder. His word is "Follow Me." Do that and you cannot go wrong. (M. R. Vincent, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: Jesus answered, Are there not twelve hours in the day? If any man walk in the day, he stumbleth not, because he seeth the light of this world. |
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