Job 14:14 If a man die, shall he live again? all the days of my appointed time will I wait, till my change come. We are all, like Job, mortal; like him, we may be assailed by severe afflictions, and tempted to wish impatiently for death; but we ought, like him, to check these impatient wishes, and resolve to wait till our change comes. I. CONSIDER DEATH AS A CHANGE. The word is impressive and full of meaning. It strongly intimates Job's belief in the immortality of the soul, and in a future state of existence. Though death is not the extinction of our being, it is a change. 1. It is the commencement of a great change in our bodies. 2. In our mode of existence. Until death, our spirits are clothed with a body, but after death they exist in a disembodied state, the state of separate spirits. This change will be accompanied by a corresponding change in our mode of perception. Then we shall see without eyes, hear without ears, and feel without touch. 3. In the objects of perception we shall in effect experience a change of place. Death removes us from one world to another. We shall then most clearly, constantly, and forever, perceive God, the Father of spirits, and of the spiritual world. 4. In our employments, and in the mode of spending our existence. 5. In our state and situation. This world is a world of trial. While we remain in it, we are in a state of probation. Our days are days of grace. 6. A great change with respect to happiness and misery. II. THE APPOINTED TIME ALLOTTED TO EACH OF US ON EARTH, AT THE EXPIRATION OF WHICH THE CHANGE WILL TAKE PLACE. The number of our months is with God; He sets us bounds which we cannot pass. We must allow that God has set to every man an appointed time, or deny the providential government of the universe. III. WHAT IS IMPLIED IN WAITING THE DAYS OF OUR APPOINTED TIME? 1. Waiting till God shall see fit to release us, without voluntarily hastening our death, either in a direct or indirect manner. 2. An habitual expectation of it. No man can be said to wait for an event which he does not expect, nor can we be properly said to wait all our days for death, unless we live in habitual expectation of it. 3. Habitual care to preserve and maintain such a frame of mind as we should wish to be in when it arrives. Whatever preparation is necessary, the good man will take care to make. 4. Waiting for our change may be justly considered as implying some degree of desire for it.Some reasons why we should wait for it in a right manner. 1. The perfect reasonableness of so doing. Consider the certainty and importance of death. 2. The command of Christ, with its attending promises and threatenings. Stand, says he, with your loins girt about, and your lamps trimmed. Be ye like servants who wait for their Lord, that when He cometh ye may open to Him immediately; for ye know not at what hour the Son of Man cometh. Blessed is that servant whom He shall find so doing. (E. Payson, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: If a man die, shall he live again? all the days of my appointed time will I wait, till my change come. |
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