I would not live forever. By
Charles Simeon. I loathe my life, I would not
live forever. Job chapter 7 verse 16. When afflictions render us weary
of life, we show that we have forgotten the promise of Jehovah
to make all things work together for our good. When we know that medicine is
operating for our good we disregard the uneasiness that it occasions
and are contented even to pay for the prescriptions from a
confidence that we shall be benefited by them in the outcome. Just so, would we not welcome
the prescriptions of our Heavenly Physician, if we duly considered
His unerring wisdom and love? Instead of repining and murmuring
on account of God's afflictive dispensations, we should rest
satisfied that our Heavenly Father knows best. man, as a sinner, deserves the
curse of the law and the wrath of God. If we bore this in mind
would we not say, even under the most accumulated trials,
you have punished us less than our iniquities deserve? Ezra
9.13 Would not a recollection of our
actual deservings from God of wrath and hell constrain us to
cry, Shall a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his
sins? Lamentations chapter 3 verse
39 We would not be so fretful under our sufferings, if only
we bore in mind that instead of being put into the furnace
of affliction, we should, if dealt with according to our deserts,
be cast into the furnace of hell.