Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 3183
“You know not what a day may bring forth.” Proverbs 27:1.
[Another Sermon by Mr. Spurgeon, upon the whole verse is #94, Volume 2—TOMORROW.]
WHAT a great mercy it is that we do not know “what a day may bring forth”! We are often thankful for knowledge, but in this case we may be particularly grateful for ignorance. It is the Glory of God, we are told, to conceal a thing and it most certainly is for the happiness of mankind that He should conceal their future. Supposing that bright lines were written for us in the book of destiny and that we could read those bright lines now, and be sure of them—we would probably loiter away our time until we arrived at them—and would have no heart for the present. If, on the other hand, we knew that there were dark days of trouble in store for us, and had a full conviction as to when they would come, probably the thought of them would overshadow the present so that the joys which we now drink would be left untasted by reason of our nervous fears as to the distant future! To know the good might lead us to presumption—to know the evil might tempt us to despair. Happy for us is it that our eyes cannot penetrate the thick veil which God hangs between us and tomorrow, that we cannot see beyond the spot where we now are and that, in a certain sense, we are utterly ignorant as to the details of the future. We may, indeed, be thankful for our ignorance!
Although, however, we do not know what a day may bring forth or though we cannot see into what I may call, “the immediate future,” yet we have reason to be thankful that we do know something about what is to come and that we do know what is in the far-reaching future. We differ from the animals in this respect. When, two or three nights in the week, I pass on my way home a flock of sheep, or a little herd of bulls—all going down to the butcher’s, travelling in the cold, bright moonlight towards the slaughterhouse—I feel thankful that they do not know where they are going, for what would be their misery if they knew anything about death? The lamb’s thoughts are in the fold and all unconscious of the shambles. It licks the hand that kills it, not knowing of its coming speedy death. It is the happiness of the brute not to know the future!
But in our case, we know that we must die—and if it were not for the hope of the Resurrection and of the hereafter, this knowledge would distinguish us from the brutes only by giving us greater misery. There must be an intention on God’s part for us to live in a future state or else He would, out of mere benevolence, have left us ignorant of the fact of death. If He had not meant our souls to begin to prepare for another and a better existence, He would have kept us ignorant, even, of the fact that this one will pass away. But having given us an intellect and a mind which, both from observation and inward consciousness must know that death will come, we believe that He would have us prepare for that which will follow and look out for that which is beyond. We do know the future in its great rough outlines. We know that if the Lord comes not first, we shall die. We know that our soul shall live forever in happiness or in woe and that, according to whether we are found in Christ or without Christ, our eternal portion shall be one of never-ending agony or of ceaseless bliss! We may be thankful that we do know this, so that we may be prepared for it. But still—to return to that with which we started—we may also be thankful that we do not really know the great future in its details, that it is shut from our eyes lest it should have an evil influence upon our life.
Now, Solomon, in the Book of Proverbs, applied the Truth that we know not about tomorrow to the boaster, the man who said, “Tomorrow I will go into such a city and buy, and sell, and get gain, and then go to another city, and get
more gain, and then, when I have amassed so much wealth, I will say, ‘Soul, you have much goods laid up for many years; take your ease—eat, drink and be merry.’” Solomon seems to come in and put his hand upon the man’s shoulder and to say, virtually, “You fool, you know nothing about all this! You do not know what shall be on the morrow—your goods may never come to you, or you may not be here to trade with these goods at all. So you build a castle in the air! You think your fancies are true. You are as one that dreams of a feast and wakes to find himself hungry! How can you be so foolish?” Solomon dwells upon the text very solemnly and says, “Boast not yourself of tomorrow, for you know not what a day may bring forth.”
I do not intend, however, to use the text with this objective tonight. It struck me that as Solomon uses it here with one design, it might be very properly used for another. That as he intends to shame our growing pride and certainty of prosperity, so it might be used especially to cheer those who have a tendency to gloom—and to shed a ray of light into the thick darkness of their fear.