Proverbs 27:1

Let us turn to him, dearly beloved, and not wish to defer our amendment until the end of our life. Let us listen to the prophet when he says, "Delay not your conversion to the Lord, put it not off from day to day," "for …

Do not boast about tomorrow, etc. Do not ever be secure about the future, because even if you see yourself serving the Lord today, you cannot at all foresee what you might become in the future or how you may end your life. For blessed …

Boast not thyself of tomorrow,.... Or, "of tomorrow day" (t).

Boast not thyself of to-morrow - See note on Jas 4:13, etc. Do not depend on any future moment for spiritual good which at present thou needest, and God is willing to give, and without which, should death surprise thee, thou must be eternally lost; such as repentance, faith in Christ, the pardon of sin, the witness of the Holy Spirit, and complete renovation of soul. Be incessant in thy application to God for these blessings. My old MS. Bible translates thus: Ne glorie thou into the morewenning.

On Behalf of the Metropolitan Benefit Societies’ Asylum, Ball’s Pond Road, Islington. “Boast not thyself of to-morrow; for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth.”—Proverbs 27:1. GOD’S MOST holy Word was principally written to inform us of the way to heaven, and to guide us in our path through this world, to the realms of eternal life and light.

On Behalf of the Metropolitan Benefit Societies’ Asylum, Ball’s Pond Road, Islington. “Boast not thyself of to-morrow; for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth.”—Proverbs 27:1. GOD’S MOST holy Word was principally written to inform us of the way to heaven, and to guide us in our path through this world, to the realms of eternal life and light. But as if to teach us that God is not careless concerning our doings in the present scene, and that our benevolent Father is not inattentive to our happiness even in this state, he has furnished us with some excellent and wise maxims, which we may put in practice, not only in spiritual matters, but in temporal affairs also. I have always looked upon the book of Proverbs with pleasure, as being a book not only teaching us the highest spiritual wisdom, but as also more especially speaking on the “now”—the time that is present with us—giving us maxims that will make us wise for this world, and that will instruct us in conducting our affairs whilst we are here amongst our fellow-men. We need some temporal wisdom as well as spiritual illumination; it need not always be that the children of the kingdom should be more foolish than the children of darkness. It is well that we should be wise to order our common affairs aright, as well as to set out house in order for the grave; and hence we find in Scripture maxims and teachings for them both. Since God has been pleased thus to instruct us in the avocations of life, I shall not, then, be out of place, if I use my text, in some degree, in a merely temporal manner, and endeavour to give advice to my friends concerning the business of this life. Afterwards, I shall dwell upon it more spiritually. There is first, the abuse of to-morrow forbidden in the text; in the second place, I shall mention the right use of to-morrow. I.

[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.

[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.