Isaiah 38:12 My age is departed, and is removed from me as a shepherd's tent: I have cut off like a weaver my life… Judas Iscariot was a man of whose capacities we know little. We may infer, however, that he possessed some valuable gifts, or his brethren in the apostolate would never have assigned to him the important office of purse-bearer and almoner to the little band. His circumstances, we know, were unusually good. He was drawn, with the other apostles, to the feet of Jesus by the gracious words that proceeded out of His mouth. For three years he accompanied our Lord in His journeys. He heard the discourses to which He gave utterance, and he lived under the influence of His character. This was the warp of his life. But what does he weave into it? Is it avarice, or is it vindictiveness, or is it a conceited idea that he can force the triumph of his Master, or is it bitter disappointment at the spiritual character of Christ's kingdom, that forms the weft of his life? Whatever it is, it is a dark, coarse thread. Satan enters into him. He betrays his Master even with the kiss of loyalty and affection. And when he comes to look at the web that he has woven, he himself is so overwhelmed with grief and remorse, that he cuts himself off from the loom. "He went, and departed, and hanged himself." Saul of Tarsus was a very different man; a man of weak physical constitution, but of strong intellect; a man of deep conscientiousness and rousing enthusiasm. Drought up in a comfortable home and trained in the Pharisaism of his day, he weaves into his early life a simply lurid thread of persecution of the Christians. Jesus meets him on the way to Damascus, and he gives himself up completely to the influences that are brought to bear upon him. How changed his life is! He has severe physical sufferings to endure; he has persecutions innumerable to face; but inwoven into all the threads of the Divine providence is the grand purpose of consecration to Christ's service. Henceforth the motto of his life is, "To me to live is Christ." Christ is the aim of all his labours, of all Iris sufferings, of all his successes. And now that that life is unrolled for us in the Scriptures it is acknowledged to be one of the noblest and best ever lived upon earth. (W. V. Robinson, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: Mine age is departed, and is removed from me as a shepherd's tent: I have cut off like a weaver my life: he will cut me off with pining sickness: from day even to night wilt thou make an end of me. |
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