Ecclesiastes 3:15 That which has been is now; and that which is to be has already been; and God requires that which is past. In what senses does God require the past? I. God requires that which is past in the way of NATURAL LAW. 1. The matter of the past God requires to-day. The mighty primeval forests which reared their lofty heads and waved their huge branches, and the earth's elements which rolled in fiery flood ages before the human era, God requireth now in this age of advanced civilization, and they answer the requirement, the one by furnishing coal, the other by supplying granite and metals for the use of man. And as of the remote past, so of the nearer. The leaves which a day or two back we saw chased hither and thither by the spirit of the wind will contribute their due portion to the vegetation of the coming year. 2. What is thus true of nature is true also of society. The year has been what it has because of what it has received from the past, and in turn it will hand down to the coming years its vast inheritance of the past increased with its own individual contribution. 3. As also by natural law God requires the evil and the good that are past. You see a nation as Greece, or as Spain, once so great, now without physical energy or moral vigour; it is the judgment exacted or required by natural law for the vices and follies of the fathers and forefathers. You see certain weakly or diseased children; the wickedness of the generation before them is therein required of them. The excesses of the youth by natural law God will sooner or later require in the man's disordered physical system, or in his undermined constitution succumbing to some disease. But it is more true of the good than of the evil that God requireth the past. Has Abraham's faith perished? Has Jacob's wrestling prayer died? Have David's psalms and prophets' word, and, above all, have the truth and grace of the good Lord Himself wrought so long ago perished? Our mighty dead are with us in the saintlier lives, in the freer thought, in the ampler work of the Church go-day. No; the past is not gone. Time does not triumph over us. By natural laws God preserves the past. God requireth that which is past. In requiring, however, the past through natural law, there is no appeal to the human will. II. We pass now to the sphere of will, and say that a second chief way in which God requireth that which is past is by means of THE MORAL LAW. Here God appeals go man to render somewhat suitable to his past. Here, ere the requirement of God can be met, man must consent and co-operate. 1. In this sphere God requireth that which is past by requiring thankfulness for past mercies. No state of heart is so happy as that of thankfulness, as no state is so conducive go the right use of God's gifts. Be ye thankful. 2. But while we have received mercies many, who, as he looks over this year, is not conscious of sin? and for the sin which is past God requireth penitence. 3. But God has given us time and place here, and has so constituted our life that it puts us through a wise discipline; and for this discipline of the past God requireth character and service. Have we fashioned the limbs of the moral man — honesty, sincerity, justice, honourableness — into greater strength and beauty? Have we produced any of the finer lines of gentleness, lowliness, meekness, devoutness, which are so glorious in our Divine model? III. God requires the past in the way of FUTURE JUDGMENT. God, at the judgment, will require that. The modern mode of conceiving of past time differs from the ancient mode. We think of past time as something left behind us; the ancients thought of past time as something gone before them. Tempus fugit (time flies) was the common expression of classic thought; the notion being that time was ever moving forward, requiring therefore prompt action to use it, and suggesting that when past it had fled not behind but before us. In like manner in Arabic philosophy, and in the Koran, authorities inform us that past deeds are conceived of not as left behind but as gone on before, waiting in yonder great future go confront their doers. It is this conception of past time that the original of our text presents. And this view is just. The moral feeling of all races anticipates judgment to come. Though pride and unbelief will beat down the feeling, yet, naturally, the bad man instinctively dreads the future, and the good man instinctively hopes. There is a judgment-hall within us where conscience sits; her judgments, however, are often slighted, drowned sometimes in the clamour of a rabble of worldly considerations; in such circumstances she anticipates and appeals go the future judgment to confirm and enforce her despised judgment. The unrepented evil will be known and declared. That undiscovered lie, that secret immorality, that unknown fraud, that godlessness of the heart, that enmity of the mind, that unbelief of the spirit; all will stand clearly revealed, anal judgment just will be passed. We cannot deceive Him the Omniscient, nor elude Him the Omnipresent. There is no escape from that supreme judgment. From the sentence of that judgment what vast issues will flow! Eternal life or the second death! Heaven or Gehenna! Let us, then, prepare for that judgment by requiring from ourselves our past. (A. Goodrich, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: That which hath been is now; and that which is to be hath already been; and God requireth that which is past. |
    |