River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1910-04-07
AS THE DAYS OF
HEAVEN UPON
THE EARTH
By REV. HUGH BLACK

! Therefore shall We lay up my words in
| your heart and in your soul that
your days may be multiplied in the land
, as the days of heaven upon the
earth.-Deut. 21:1S. q.
The permanence of the life prom
Used springs from the quality of the
life lived. The continuance of Isra-
els national existence as the seed
shall be as "the days of heaven upon
the earth This has been the dream
Of man always; this the hope of the
| faithful, the vision of the seer, in some
form or other, the great consumma-
ton that inspires the work of the re-
former. the philanthropist and the
missionary, the hope of the future, cas-
the days of heaven upon the earth"
These words aptly describe that
reaching forward which we trace in
every page of the Bible, from start to
finish: through the history of the
chosen people of Israel, through the
visions of the prophets, even through
the years Of their sorrow and de-
spair, as they cry out, 20 Lord, how
long. how long?" Nothing else will
| satisfy them, nothing else will they
strive for but 'the days of heaven
upon the earth" There is no single
phrase '1hich can so sum up in our
own life the aim of the people. Think
how it explains, for instance, the
books of the Old Testament; or think
how it gives the moral of all the BIS
torical books of the Old Testame, :.
And this is no less true when they
tell us, as they SO often do, of days
that were as hell upon earth. Trace
I the content of this very promise that
it should be different, that it should
be or might have been as "the very
days of heaven upon the earth
Think how it expresses the prophet
tc books, so varied in time, in tenn
per, in language, and yet one and
the same in their possession of this
idea, warning, threatening; all in
| spired by the same thing and all
sustained by their sense of the days
that shall be "the very day of heaven
upon earth" Think, also, how it COW
ers and expresses the whole new TIES.
lament, from that message of John
the Baptist, from his announcement
that the kingdom of heaven was at
hand, from the birth of Jesus Christ
at Bethlehem, to that vision of the
holy city.
Think how it expresses our Lords
teaching about the gentle life, about
| forgiveness, about love and humble
piety. His teaching about the king
dom of God which in the body he
came to found; his prayer, which he
| taught his disciples to pray, that Gods
will might be done on earth "as it is
in heaven" and that his kingdom
may be entered into upon earth. You
can trace it from the very cradle of
Bethlehem, where he was born, that
our salvation by grace might be &C
complished, and from the cross where
| he died that we might live and be
reconciled to God and "put on the
new man." Is not the whole promise
of Christian faith just picture of the
words, "as the days of heaven upon
the EARTH That is what makes a re-
former and gives him patience and
courage to work. He likes a tell
ing blow for the next point of vantage
! that will bring him nearer that good
time coming, which is 'the days of
| heaven upon the earth" In business
and politics, true hearts look forward
! toward finer type of living, and in
all these things we are inspired by the
hope of time when it shall be as
"the days of heaven upon the earth
Even in this life we live much in
the future, and if our thoughts Of the
future are right, and our prospects
are based on right intentions, that flu
ture Of which we dream may be a
source of inspiration to us Individual
ly as we'll as socially. When we wish
man well, are we not dealing with
this dream which we have traced
through the Bible and which we have
traced through human life at it's very
best; are we not asking that this
dream shall be realized? AS men,
we dare not let go of hope; we must
work for this or we slide back to low
er levels When our hearts are warm
and our minds are full of generous
thoughts, we can always use these
very words of our text, "as the days
Of heaven upon the earth"
The days of hope are found some
times where there seems to be little
of what we call happiness. Some
things for which men long and strive
are only won through vexation Of
spirit Again and again has it been
seen through human history that
palace has been a very hall where
human hearts wear themselves out
in pain and unsatisfied desire. That
life may be as the very days of
heaven upon the EARTH" it must aim
at things beyond.
This kingdom Of heaven that we
pray about and about which we dream
cannot come among us. We must
come into the kingdom. We cannot
be forced into the kingdom, but we
must come humbly as little child.