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I. AS A DEPARTURE TO ANOTHER COUNTRY. As when the ship puts to sea, it is for the purpose of sailing to another port, so Paul looked forward to death as a "departure" for another country. The sailor does not leave the port with the prospect of an eternal cruise in unknown seas, or for the purpose of ultimately losing himself somewhere in some mysterious, undefined nothing.

II. AS A DEPARTURE TO A BETTER COUNTRY. He was willing to sail. Now Paul was no misanthrope, who had become so sick of human society that he longed to be rid of it. He was not weary of life. Then why did he wish to go? Was he amongst those eternal grumblers who themselves do all the "howling," and then complain that the world is a "howling wilderness"? By no means! His desire to depart was not because this was bad, but because that was "better"; not because he had had enough of Christian society and Christian service — that was good — but because he wished to be with Christ, which was infinitely preferable.

III. AS A DEPARTURE TO A BETTER COUNTRY, WHICH WAS HIS HOME. Paul compared himself to a sailor who, lying in a foreign port, was awaiting orders to sail for home. Such a man, though in a land of pleasure and plenty, would sit and long to be away. As he thought of friends beloved across the sea, he would count the weeks and days when he hoped to see them once again. Not unlike this are the Christian's dreams of heaven.

IV. AS A DEPARTURE FOR HOME, THE TIME OF WHICH WAS FIXED. "The time of my departure is at hand." The Psalmist says, "My times are in Thy hand." "My times!" — that is, all my future is with God. He knows —

1. When I shall depart.

2. Whence I shall depart.

3. How I shall depart.Two Cistercian monks in the reign of Henry VIII. were threatened, before their martyrdom, by the Lord Mayor of that time, that they should be tied in a sack, and thrown into the Thames. "My lord," answered one, "we are going to the kingdom of heaven; and whether we go by land or water is of very little consequence to us." So our thoughts should be fixed on the goal rather than on the path by which it is reached; on the rest that remains rather than on the toil through which it is obtained.

V. AS A DEPARTURE FOR HOME, THE TIME OF WHICH WAS NEAR. "The time of my departure is at hand." The sailor, lying in a foreign port, with his cargo complete, his sails "bent," and the wind fair for home, contemplates with joy the fact that the day is near when the order will come to bid him sail. Thus Paul waited for death. To him the disease, or the accident, or the martyrdom, would be but as the postman who brought the letter — the letter for which he longed with unutterable desire.

VI. AS A DEPARTURE FOR HOME, FOR WHICH HE WAS PERFECTLY READY. "I am now ready," said he. And so he was. As one by one he saw the cords being unloosened which bound him to this world — as loved ones were taken away — as sickness, disease, or age told him that the time was at hand when he was to depart, he viewed the whole with the complacent satisfaction of the sailor who sees his vessel being unmoored to sail for home.

(W. H. Burton.)

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KJV: For I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand.

WEB: For I am already being offered, and the time of my departure has come.