Gold Nugget 269 - One Life Only

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      Job conceives of life as even more transient than the weaver’s shuttle.  It does not only pass swiftly away; it melts into nothingness, and ceases to be like the cloud that evaporates in the heat of the rising sun.  The journey to the grave knows no return. …

      We can never overtake the days that we have let slip by us in heedless idleness.  A wasted youth is an irretrievable disaster; manhood cannot possibly go back and make up for the deficiencies of youth.  At best we can but do the duties of to-day; it will be foolish to neglect these in attempting to pick up those of yesterday.  A misused opportunity will never return.  The memories of a happy and long-lost pas may dwell with us as sweetest dreams, but they can never bring back the days of old.  Joy, sorrows, busy scenes, quiet scenes, - all have melted away like the mountains and palaces of cloudland. …

      The pagan doctrine of metempsychosis finds no support in Scripture.  We live but once on earth.  Let us, then, make the best of this one earthly life; it is the only one we have.  We might think we could afford to squander it a little recklessly if we had a dozen more lives to fall back upon.  But we have no reserves.  All our forces are in the field.  We must win the battle at this once.  Let us use them in the highest possible service, that our one life may be a good life.  Our dear ones are with us for one life only.  Let us be patient with them and kind to them.  When we have lost them we can never have them back to atone for our ungenerous treatment of them. …

      We now know that death does not end all.  But it ends the sowing-time.  After death there is the harvest.  What is sown in the present life must be reaped in the great coming age.  If this life is misspent, it will go for ever, and we shall have no opportunity to come back to the world and make a better preparation for the great day of reckoning. …

      We shall not rise on earth.  But we can look forward to a resurrection-life in heaven, when we shall meet those long-lost but never-forgotten friends who have gone on before us.

 

The Pulpit Commentary, Job p.136, Job 7:9-10, (W. F. Adeney)

 

Gold Nugget 269

One Life Only

 

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