1 Chronicles 29:15-16 For we are strangers before you, and sojourners, as were all our fathers: our days on the earth are as a shadow… This proposition is liable to many mistakes. It does not mean — 1. That we are here in a place unsuited to us, for which we were not designed, or to which our Creator had either exiled us as a punishment or only placed us in for a certain period without having any particular view in so doing, till He could assign to us at some other time a different place in the territory of His dominion. 2. That we must be as indifferent to all the objects around us and take as little interest in them as travellers and strangers are wont to do in the several places of their short sojourn. 3. That we here are only obnoxious to toils, troubles, and sorrows, and incapable of real happiness, as though all that is so called existed nowhere but in the imagination, or as though we could here enjoy happiness merely in hope, in agreeable prospects of futurity. How, then, and in what sense are we strangers and sojourners on earth? I. SINCE WE HAVE HERE NO INHERITANCE IN THE STRICTEST IMPORT OF THE EXPRESSION, since we possess nothing on the possession whereof we can rely. II. IN THAT WE CANNOT HERE ATTAIN THE WHOLE OF OUR DESTINATION, we cannot be and become all that our Creator designs. We here only begin to unfold our faculties. III. WE CANNOT HERE FIND ALL THAT WE WISH FOR AND REQUIRE, and what in itself may be good and desirable, but that alone which is proper for this station and for our present constitution. In the exercise of our faculties we frequently meet with insurmountable obstacles. Seldom can we do as much good and for so long a time as we could wish. We cannot here find happiness that fully satisfies, that is uninterrupted in its duration, and its enjoyment not subject to casualty or change. IV. WE ARE NOT APPOINTED IN PERPETUITY TO THIS TERRESTRIAL LIFE. V. WE HAVE A COUNTRY TO WHICH WE ARE HASTENING, and in which alone we shall reach our destination. Improvement: 1. Seek nothing here that is not here to be found. 2. Be not surprised nor troubled at anything which is a natural consequence of your present condition, which is inseparable from the pilgrim life which you lead. 3. Beware of rendering your pilgrimage still more laborious by avoidable deviations and mistakes. 4. Reckon your present state always for that which it really is, and use it always to the purposes for which it is designed. It is not the term, but the way to the term. It is not the most perfect mode of existence and of life whereof you are capable, but only the first, the lowest stage of it. 5. Never be unmindful of your better, celestial country. (Anon.) Parallel Verses KJV: For we are strangers before thee, and sojourners, as were all our fathers: our days on the earth are as a shadow, and there is none abiding. |
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