Psalm 39:4 LORD, make me to know my end, and the measure of my days, what it is: that I may know how frail I am. Some see a kind of pettishness in this verse, the fruit of impatience under the chastening hand of God. But it is not for us to upbraid the psalmist, for what is his impatience compared to ours? David prays, "Make me to know mine end." But was his frailty a secret that he could not discover? We may be sure that he knew it in part, but he wanted to know it after a more perfect way; with that spiritual enlightenment which God alone could communicate. Thus he would know — I. His END. Do we know this? 1. Its certainty. I must die. There is no discharge in that war. Is that fact realized by us? 2. It will be our end. Not a halt, but a finale. Mine end for all things beneath the sun — sin, sorrow, service, opportunity for doing and getting good. Think of the accompaniments of our end, the last scenes here in which we shall take part. Picture it all to your minds so far as you can. Rehearse it so far as you may. And think of its results. Then it is that though we end here, we enter on the most solemn part of our existence. Whither wilt thou go? To be with Christ, or amongst the lost — which? We need to be made to know our end, made to believe in it firmly, realize it vividly, so as to be prepared for it whenever it comes. II. THE MEASURE OF HIS DAYS. It is only the days of God that cannot be counted. Ours can, "as poor men count their sheep," because they are so few. But the fact that man is sinful makes it blessed that his days should be few. Would we have a Voltaire for ever stalking about this world, or such as he? Let us measure our days so as not to waste them. III. His FRAILTY. We are like travellers on a road across which there is a deep gulf. Some know it, but most forget it. Those in the front ranks fall into it, and the others will, but as yet they think not of it. So we all go on until we come to that fatal step which will plunge us into eternity. ( C. H. Spurgeon.) Parallel Verses KJV: LORD, make me to know mine end, and the measure of my days, what it is; that I may know how frail I am.WEB: "Yahweh, show me my end, what is the measure of my days. Let me know how frail I am. |
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