A great man has said, “There is nothing long but what has an end.” He meant that when you come to the end of anything and have done with it, on looking hack it seems short. The longest life at its close appears so. David, who “died in a good old age,” says,
“Behold, Thou has made my days as an handbreath; and mine age is as nothing before Thee.” Ps. 39:5.
Jacob, bowed with a hundred and thirty years, exclaims,
“Few and evil have the days of the years of my life been!”
Of the man who passed the longest time on earth it is recorded at last, “and he died.”
But if this is so with what must end, what shall we say of that which knows no ending, even eternity? Thousands of ages may roll on, yet bring its close no nearer. Of what immense importance then it is how we shall spend it. Are we saved, and saved forever? Are we to be happy forever? We can only be so by having our “life hid with Christ in God.”
Let us give our hearts now to Him; let us depend on nothing short of His finished work for salvation; look for nothing less than His Holy Spirit to renew and form us according to His mind and will.
“Brief life is here our portion;
Brief sorrow, short lived care;
The life tht knows no ending,
The tearless life, is there.”
ML 09/15/1946