Dawn at Dusk

“I will give him the morning star.” — Revelation II. 28.

To whom is this promise given? Is it to youth r Nobody would wonder at that; youth is the time of promise. But this is a promise to the old. It is made to those who have finished their labour, as we see from verse 26, “he that overcometh and keepeth my works unto the end.” It is the man at the end of the day who is promised the morning star. And that is a very strange thing. We often speak of a promising boy or a promising young man. But how incongruous would it sound to hear one speak of a promising old man! It would seem like viewing the sunset and saying, “What a beautiful dawn!” Yet it is this and nothing less than this that is imaged here. The veteran who has reached the goal is promised a dawn. We could have understood how he should have been promised a golden sunset. We could have understood how there should have been accorded to him the joy of looking back upon his work and seeing that it was all very good; but to get the morning star at evening time, to hear the lark in the place where the nightingale should be, to listen in December to the voices of the spring — it is the boon of perfect glory.

And yet, my soul, why should it not be thine — thine at the last! I know it has always been thine at the first; thine outgoing has been ever on the wings of the morning. But why shouldst thou not come back on the wings of the morning, too! When thou returnest from thy labour in the evening, why should there be for thee no morning star! Is it not through the hours of night that the earth itself rolls into its morning! Is there any hope like retrospective hope — the hope that is born of memory! There is none, O my soul! Wouldst thou look confidently forward; then must thou look steadily back. Is it not written, “He that spared not His own Son shall freely give us all things,” Thy hope for to-morrow is yesterday. Nothing in the future can be done for thee greater than what has been done. Wouldst thou fan thine expectations of a coming day; I know not where thou canst kindle them so well as at the fire of the day which is gone. The wings on which thou soarest are not made of fancies, but of experiences. It is on the steps of vanquished Calvary that thou mountest the heights of Olivet. It was after the flood that the rainbow was seen. I never really hope in God till I have passed through the waters. It is across the snow that the bells of happiest prospect ring. It is through the rent shadow that I see nearest the promised land; he that overcometh shall receive the morning star.