“But many of the priests and Levites and chief of the fathers, who were ancient men, that had seen the first house, when the foundation of this house was laid before their eyes, wept with a loud voice; and many shouted aloud for joy” (Ezra 3.12).

The Bible warns us against a sentimentality that accounts days past as being superior to these days. Yesterday had its troubles just as surely as does today, but sometimes we tend to forget them.

It is not wrong, however, to remember the blessings of the past and to rejoice in them. God does not change, and if He is good today, he was good a year ago and a century ago; and we honor Him when we remember his mercies past. The “ancient men” in Ezra’s day were old enough to have remembered the laying of the foundation of the original temple, and when they watched the new one being laid, it caused such joy to well up within them that they shouted out loud because of it.

In the final analysis, the old days were not much different than today. They had their troubles and their triumphs, their sorrows and their sweetness. God called able ministers then just as he does today, and it is the same Spirit that worked in both cases. The gospel has not changed, and the work of God the Spirit remains the same in the matter of giving gifts unto men.

Those ancient men may have remembered with peculiar fondness their experiences from that signal event of their youth, and, since God works in similar ways in all ages, their contemplations over the years of that first great event may have caused it to take on a unique sweetness in their memories. That is how it ought to be. We get the goodness from our meals when we chew them well, and we enjoy blessings past all the more when we re-live them at intervals throughout our lives.

However, we need to keep in mind that in due time our current experiences may also have that same sweetness if we contemplate them with the same earnestness. Current blessings will soon become blessings past, and if we appreciate them and thank God for them as we should, they will become all the more sweet as time passes.