Our Life, Our Work, Our Change

Spurgeon, Charles Haddon

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.

I. First, let us observe THE ASPECT UNDER WHICH JOB REGARDED THIS MORTAL LIFE. He calls it an "appointed time," or, as the Hebrew has it, "a warfare."

1. Observe that Job styles our life a time. Blessed be God, that this present state is not an eternity! What though its conflicts may seem long, they must have an end. The winter may drag its weary length along, but the spring is hard upon its heels. Let us then, my brethren, judge immortal judgment; let us not weigh our troubles in the ill-adjusted scales of this poor human life, but let us use the shekel of eternity.

2. Job also calls our life an "appointed" time. Ye know who appointed your days. You did not appoint them for yourself, and therefore you can have no regrets about the appointment. Neither did Satan appoint it, for the keys of hell and of death do not hang at his girdle. To the Almighty God belong the issues from death.

3. You will observe also that Job very wisely speaks of the "days" of our appointed time. It is a prudent thing to forbear the burden of life as a whole, and learn to bear it in the parcels into which Providence has divided it. I must not fail to remind you of the Hebrew: "All the days of my warfare will I wait." Life is indeed a "warfare"; and just as a man enlists in our army for a term of years, and then his service runs out, and he is free, so every believer is enlisted in the service of life, to serve God till his enlistment is over, and we sleep in death. Taking these thoughts together as Job's view of mortal life, what then? Why, it is but once, as we have already said — we shall serve our God on earth in striving after His glory but once. Let us carry out the engagements of our enlistment honourably. There are no battles to be fought, and no victories to be won in heaven.

II. JOB'S VIEW OF OUR WORK while on earth is that we are to wait. "All the days of my appointed time will I wait." The word "wait" is very full of teaching.

1. In the first place, the Christian life should be one of waiting; that is, setting loose by all earthly things.

2. A second meaning of the text, however, is this: we must wait expecting to be gone — expecting daily and hourly to be summoned by our Lord. The proper and healthy estate of a Christian is to be anticipating the hour of his departure as near at hand.

3. Waiting means enduring with patience.

4. Serving is also another kind of waiting. He would not be a servant sometimes, and then skulk home in idleness at another season, as if his term of service were ended.

5. Moreover, to close this aspect of Christian life, we should be desirous to be called home.

III. Now comes JOB'S ESTIMATE OF THE FUTURE. It is expressed in this word, "Till my change come."

1. Let it be observed that, in a certain sense, death and resurrection are not a change to a Christian . they are not a change as to his identity. The same man who lives here will live forever. There will be no difference in the Christian's object in life when he gets to heaven. He lives to serve God here: he will live for the same end and aim there. And the Christian will not experience a very great change as to his companions. Here on earth the excellent of the earth are all his delight; Christ Jesus, his Elder Brother, abides with him; the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, is resident within him; he communes with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ.

2. To the Christian it will be a change of place.

3. Specially will it be a change to the Christian as to that which will be within him. No body of this death to hamper him; no infirmities to cramp him; no wandering thoughts to disturb his devotion; no birds to come down upon the sacrifice, needing to be driven away. Right well, good patriarch, didst thou use the term, for it is the greatest of all changes. Perhaps to you it will be a sudden change.

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