The Life That Has No Morning

“If they speak not according to His word, surely there is no morning for them.”

ISA. viii. 20.

If a man build not according to the plumb-line there cannot dawn upon him the glory of a finished pile. If a man despise the plumb-line his work will not issue in a shining temple but in a dismal rubbish-heap. Even in architecture there is no morning for the disobedient: there is only the darkness of futility and disorder. The rebellious builder, who builds as he pleases, is assuredly moving toward chaos and night. And if a man build not his life according to the divine word there will be for him no morning of bright and finished achievement. The trend of his day is toward a miserable sunset, and not toward the morning star and the things of the perfect day. When a stone is well and truly laid it is sealed with the promise of

86 glory: when it is laid in iniquity it is sealed with the assurance of doom.

“Light is sown for the righteous!’’ It is God who said “Let there be light,” who still makes all our mornings, and it is only when our wills are buried in His will that we become the children of promise, the promise of a wonderful dawn. There are some people who are most evidently and conspicuously people with a morning! It is not a matter of wealth or poverty; it is a matter of spirit, and attitude, and relation; and we can clearly see that they are stepping eastward and their faces are even now catching the first flush of the dawn. And there are others who are quite as evidently people without a morning. When we think of them, or look upon them, when we consider their mode and manner of life, we think of twilight and evening bell, of sunset and coming night. Their little game will be played out to-day — quite played out!

The man who builds on falsehood has no morning. The nation that builds on falsehood has no morning. It is truth alone that belongs to the dawn and has the promise of the day. Falsehood belongs to the darkness, and in darkness and dissolution it will find its appointed end. “For yet a little while, and the wicked shall not be.” “But He shall make thy righteousness go forth as the light, and thy judgment as the noonday,”