The day is come.
This chapter opened with a prophecy of "an end." It now proceeds to the annunciation of a new beginning. No end is absolutely final. In the night which sees the death of one day a new day is born.
I. THE FUTURE BECOMES PRESENT. The much anticipated day at length arrives. We are thus forever overtaking the future. However far the future event may be, it will surely be reached, if time is the only impediment to be got over. The day of death may be far ahead, but most assuredly it will come. The dreaded day will come only too swiftly. The hoped for day will also dawn, though we become weary in waiting for it. God's great day of doom will arrive, though the sinner mock at its tarrying. Christ's glorious day of triumph will also appear, though the Church grow faint and wonders at its slow approach.
II. THE NEW DAY WILL BE REVEALED BY ITS OWN ADVENT. No prediction can exactly describe the coming day, for no words can paint the thing that has not been. We vainly try to anticipate the future, and we blunder into the greatest mistakes. We cannot know what sorrow is till the day of sorrow breaks, nor can we understand the joy of the Lord till a glad day of heavenly love smiles upon us. We shall not know death till we are in the day of death. When the new day of the life beyond dawns we shall know its meaning as we can never guess now.
III. THE COMING DAY WILL HAVE A NEW CHARACTER. No two days are exactly alike. Ezekiel was announcing a day of doom. The awful thunders of that day are to roll over the heads of guilty and impenitent men with a surprise and a horror never anticipated in easier times. Thus it was in the doom of Israel under the Babylonian invasion. But there are brighter days to anticipate. There is the day of light after the night of doubt; the day of joy's sunshine succeeding the night of sorrow's weeping; the day of penitent new beginnings after the night of sin; the day of busy service after the night of rest and waiting. Carlyle writes—
"Lo! here hath been dawning
Another blue day:
Think, wilt thou let it
Slip useless away?
"Out of eternity
This new day is born;
Into eternity
At night will return.
"Behold it aforetime
No eye ever did;
So soon it forever
From all eyes is hid."
IV. THE CHARACTER OF THE NEW DAY IS DETERMINED BY OUR CONDUCT IN THE OLD DAYS. The day of doom is not the day of fate. It is a day of judgment, i.e. of examination, discrimination, and consequent decision. Therefore it is determined by the character of the old days it judges. The new day may come to us as a surprise, but it will not fall out by chance as one of storm or one of sunshine. When it arrives we shall see that, in its deepest character, it bears the record of our own past.