Daniel 12:13 But go you your way till the end be: for you shall rest, and stand in your lot at the end of the days. Daniel had been receiving partial insight into the future by the visions recorded in previous chapters. He sought for clearer knowledge, and was told that the book of the future was sealed and closed, so that no further enlightenment was possible for him. He is bidden back to the common duties of life, and is enjoined to pursue his patient course with an eye on the end to which it conducts, and to leave the unknown future to unfold itself as it may. I. THE JOURNEY. This is a threadbare metaphor for life. The figure implies perpetual change. The landscape glides by us, and we travel on through it. If life is truly represented under the figure of a journey, nothing is more certain than that we sleep in a fresh hospice every night, and leave behind us every day scenes that we shall never traverse again. What madness, then, to be putting out eager hands to clutch what must be left, and so to contradict the very law under which we live. Another of the commonplaces that spring from this image is that life is continuous. There are no convulsions in life. To-morrow is the child of to-day, and yesterday was the father of this day. What we are springs from what we have been, and settles what we shall be. We make our characters by the continuity of our small actions. Let no man think of his life as if it were a heap of unconnected points. It is a chain of links that are forged together inseparably. Therefore, we ought to see to it that the direction in which our life runs is one that conscience and God can approve. The metaphor further suggests that no life runs its fitting course unless there is continuous effort. There will be crises when we have to run with panting breath and strained muscles. There will be long stretches of commonplace where speed is not needed, but pegging away is, where the one duty is persistent continuousness in a course. Mark the emphasis of the text, "Go thy way till the end." You older men, do not fancy that in the deepest aspect any life has ever a period in it which a man may "take it easy." You may do that in regard of outward things, but in regard to all the deepest things of life no man may ever lessen his diligence until he has attained the goal. Until the end is reached we have to use all our power, and to labour as earnestly, and guard ourselves as carefully, as at any period before. And not only "till the end," but go thy way "to the end." Let the thought that the road has a termination be ever present with us all. There is a great deal of so-called devout contemplation of death which is anything but wholesome. It is more unwholesome still never to let the contemplation of that end come into our calculations of the future. Is it not strange that the purest thing is the thing that we forget most of all. II. THE RESTING-PLACE. "Thou shalt rest." This is a gracious way of speaking about death. It is a thought which takes away a great deal of the grimness and terror with which men generally invest the close. It is a thought the force of which is very different in different stages and conditions of life. Few, if any, however, but have some burden to carry, and know what weariness means. The final cessation of work has a double character. The only way to turn death into the opening of the gate of our resting-place is setting our heart's desires and our spirit's trust on the Lord Jesus. III. THE HOME. "Stand " — that is Daniel's way of preaching the doctrine of the Resurrection. "Thy lot." Image from the security of the Israelites in Canaan. Humanity has not attained its perfection until the perfected spirit is mated with a perfect body. God is the true inheritance. In that perfect land each person has precisely as much of God as he is capable of possessing. What determines our lot is how we went our way till that other end, the end of life. Destiny is character worked out. Therefore, tremendous importance attaches to the fugitive moment. Each act that we do is weighted with eternal consequences. (A. Maclaren, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: But go thou thy way till the end be: for thou shalt rest, and stand in thy lot at the end of the days. |
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