Job 32:7 I said, Days should speak, and multitude of years should teach wisdom. I. TIME UNFOLDS THE PLAN OF OUR LIFE. Our curiosity often prompts us to desire a present knowledge of future events. Would we understand them if revealed? You put an arithmetic book in the hand of a child, and say, In this book you will find Practice, Proportion, Fractions, Interest, etc. The child turns the leaves over from beginning to end, but as yet he has not learnt numeration. The book is of no use, although it contains the arithmetician's wisdom. So, did we see the end from the beginning, we should be no wiser. God has kept the other pages of the Book till we have learnt the first; the others are not soiled. 1. Human life is ordered of God. He orders our steps. He girded Cyrus for his work, although he knew it not. It is impossible to realise and value life if this view is not taken of it. Its sacred origin and its Divine organisation constitute the basis of belief. 2. Human life is gradually unfolded. Because it is Divine it is mysterious. All God's works have passed through time. Matter and events must ever turn in cycles. God alone is immovable. "I, the Lord, change not." II. TIME UNFOLDS OUR CAPACITIES FOR LIFE. Growth is a characteristic of life; change, that of inanimate nature. 1. Man becomes an intelligent being by the exercise of time. There are activities which tend both to reveal that which we ought to know, and enlarge our capacity for knowing it. It is a two-fold process. Unexercised brains are dwarfs. Minds which are exercised about that which pleases them, and are made their hobby, grow like the willow — very long, but very weak. 2. Man becomes a moral being by considering time. Life moves on gradually, like a panorama, that we may observe its motions, and know the purposes of God in them. We learn the nature of actions by the exercise of the intuitive faculty, as actions reveal themselves. Morality and accountability are unfolded by degrees. 3. Man becomes a social being by the enjoyment of time. We have a capacity for enjoyment, and life has blessings to exercise that capacity. Every period of life has its charms. III. TIME UNFOLDS THE GREAT PURPOSES OF LIFE. 1. The development of true manhood. Man is God's ideal creature. All others am steps up to man. Evolution is the gradual unfolding in creation of the final embodiment of matter and life. 2. The unity of the various parts. There is a period when we shall not look upon life as atoms separated from their kindred, or contradictions, but a whole, with all its parts fitly put together, and all things working for our good. (T. Davies, M. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: I said, Days should speak, and multitude of years should teach wisdom.WEB: I said, 'Days should speak, and multitude of years should teach wisdom.' |
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