Genesis 47:9 And Jacob said to Pharaoh, The days of the years of my pilgrimage are an hundred and thirty years… I. LIFE IN ITS GENERAL CHARACTER. 1. It is evil. This may be understood as including two things — sin and affliction. Sin is evil and only evil, and that continually. This is man's true misery, and the only way to save man from misery is to save him from sin. Affliction is not misery; it may not have the sting of moral guilt in it, and therefore, although in itself an evil, by God's merciful guidance it may become the means of great good to us. 2. This leads us to remark that another feature in man's natural life is that it is met by the great redemption of Christ Jesus the Lord. The man who uttered the words of my text spoke also of the Divine Messenger who redeemed him from all evil. 3. Life may become a pilgrimage to heaven. You may travel through the wilderness to Canaan; you may now set out for a city which hath foundations, whose Maker and Builder is God. Will you? II. LIFE AS TO THE PERIOD OF TIME IN WHICH IT FALLS. 1. What a contrast between the time when the patriarch lived and our own! 2. And what is its state? 3. It is a time of great discovery and rapid and well-nigh universal communication. 4. The missionary work of the Church has only been preparatory; soon it will break forth in its proper strength. 5. The Church is being tried as silver is tried; every man's work is being tried of what sort it is. 6. There is a yearning in the Church of God for union; this we hail with delight! III. LIFE IS ITS INDIVIDUALITY. "My life." 1. Consider your life as a gift from God with its consequent responsibilities. 2. Your life as the time of your salvation. 3. But, again, let me remind you that your life is the opportunity for Christian activity. IV. AND, LASTLY, LIFE AS TO ITS BREVITY, AND THE DIVISION OF ITS DURATION. 1. Its shortness. It is not only a vanity, but a short-lived vanity. 2. But think for a moment of its swiftness. Have you ever seen a shadow run along the ground, darkening the places beautified by the beams of the sun, but quickly disappearing? Such is man's life; "for he fleeth as it were a shadow, and continueth not." A weaver's shuttle is very swift in its motion; in a moment it is thrown from one side of the web to the other; yet our days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle. "My days are swifter than a post," says one; "they flee away as the eagle that hasteth to the prey"; the eagle flying, not with his ordinary flight, for that is not sufficient to represent the swiftness of our days, but as when he flies upon his prey, which is with an extraordinary swiftness. (T. E. Thoresby.) Parallel Verses KJV: And Jacob said unto Pharaoh, The days of the years of my pilgrimage are an hundred and thirty years: few and evil have the days of the years of my life been, and have not attained unto the days of the years of the life of my fathers in the days of their pilgrimage. |
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