I want you to open your Bibles
with me this morning to the book of James. I'm going to be speaking
to you on this subject, what is your life? What is your life? And we're going to read from
the fourth chapter of James, three verses beginning with verse
13. Verse 13 through 15 of James
chapter 4. Now listen to the scriptures. Go to now, ye that say, Today
or to-morrow we will go into such a city, and continue there
a year, and buy, and sell, and get gain. Whereas ye know not
what shall be on the morrow, for what is your life? It is
even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth
away. Ye ought to say, If the Lord
will, We shall live and do this or do that. What is your life? I wish that I could get everyone
who's listening to my voice today to do some serious thinking about
life and death. I think we're prone to joke too
much about growing old. I know we do talk about getting
old and we laugh about it and joke about it, but it's a serious
subject. I think we speak lightly about
the passing years, and we're even prone to laugh and joke
about death. Well, my friends, there's no
subject more serious than death, and there's no appointment more
certain than death. The Scripture says it's appointed
unto men once to die, and after that, the judgment. The Scripture
says in a few days, not in a few decades or a few years or even
months. But the time is so short the
prophet uses the word days. In a few days I shall go the
way from which I shall not return. David prayed this way, Lord teach
me to number my days that I may apply my heart unto wisdom. I wish we could think seriously
about this subject of growing old dying and meeting God in
the judgment and spending eternity somewhere. What is your life? Now, my friends, I'm not suggesting,
I'm not suggesting that we miss the blessings and happinesses
of life by constantly dwelling on death. I'm not suggesting
that at all. God has given us many joys and many happinesses
and many blessings and benefits on this earth. It's a beautiful
world. The heavens declare the glory
of God. The firmament showeth his handiwork.
God made the world good. He made it beautiful. Sin has
marred it. Take sin out of this world, it'd
be a good world. And I'm not suggesting that we
think about death and judgment and hell and heaven so much that
we miss the blessings of life and the happiness that God has
given us. But a wise man, a truly wise man will consider what he
is. He is dust. He is dust. His life is a vapor. It's a swiftly
passing fad. His life is, the scripture says,
it calls it the fashion of this world that faded away. His life
is a flower that's here for a little while and then gone. So a wise
man will consider what he is, he'll consider where he's going.
A wise man will consider what his future holds, and he'll also
consider what sort of hope he has. for the future and where
he'll spend eternity. Was it Longfellow the poet who
wrote, life is real, life is earnest, the grave is not its
goal, thus thou art to thus return it, was not spoken of the soul. Many years ago I learned a poem. I can't recite the whole poem,
I won't attempt to, but I remember the story. The poem told about
a great king in a foreign country who had a jester, a court clown,
that entertained him and all of his friends. And the court
clown was so good at his work and so good at entertaining people,
he was so foolish, that the king knighted him. He called him Sir
Fool. And one day called him in to the throne room, and he'd
entertained the king, and the king presented him with a gift.
He gave him a gold-tipped walking cane. It had a gold knob on it. And when he gave the walking
cane to the jester, he said, Sir Fool, he said, I believe
you're the biggest fool I've ever met. He said, if you ever
find someone who's a bigger fool than you are, give him this cane. And the fool thanked the king
for the cane and took it away. And the years passed. They were
good friends, the king and the jester. But one day someone came
to the jester after many years had passed and said to him, the
king wants to see you. The king is a sick man. The king
is dying and he wants to bid farewell to you. So the jester
went up to the king's bedroom where he was passing away, where
he was dying. And when he came up beside the
bed, the king said to him, I wanted to tell you goodbye. And the
jester said, is my lord taking a trip? The king said, well,
yes, I'm taking a long, long journey. Well, he said, where
are you going? The king said, well, I'm not
sure. And the jester said, well, when are you coming back? And
the king said, well, I fear I'm not coming back. And the jester
said, well, your majesty, what preparation have you made for
this trip? And there was a long silence
and a tear came in the eye of the old king and he said, well,
I'm afraid I've made no preparation for this journey at all. And
the jester looked at him and he said, you mean that you're
going on a long journey and you're not coming back? You're going
to stay in this place where you're going and you've made no preparation
at all for the journey? And the king said, that's correct.
I'm afraid I've made no preparation at all. And when he said that,
the gesture handed him the gold knob walking cane. And he said
to the king, your majesty, with apologies, I believe you're a
bigger fool than I am. This is your cane. I give it
back to you. Well, that's what I'm talking
about. I want us to think seriously about this thing of death. This
thing of judgment and eternity. I often wonder how I will die. Do you? Do you ever think about
that? I know I'm older than many of
you, but some of you are older than I am. Do you ever wonder
how you'll die? Do you ever wonder when you'll
die? Do you ever wonder what shall be your hope and confidence
when you come to die? Will you be able to face death
at rest at peace, with confidence that you'll live always with
the Redeemer. The prophet in the book of Numbers,
chapter 23, wrote this, let me die, let me die the death of
the righteous, and let my last end be like his. Now in our text,
the Apostle James raises a question, what is your life? And that's my subject today,
what is your life? What is your life? I suppose
I could get many answers to that question, just about as many
answers as there are people listening to my voice, but let's go to
the Scriptures. The best interpreter of Scriptures
is the Scriptures. That's right, the best way to
find out what a Scripture means is to find another Scripture.
So I'm going to ask the question, what is your life, and answer
it from the Word of God. And I'll divide the message into
three parts. First of all, I'm going to talk
about the swiftness of life. What is your life? It's very
swift. It's quickly over. And then I'm
going to talk about the uncertainty of life. What is your life? Well,
it's very uncertain. It's like a frail tent. The Bible
doesn't call these bodies buildings. It talks about a building which
we have with God, but it talks about a tent which we live in
below. A tent is a frail structure.
It can quickly be dashed aside or blown down by the wind or
something happen to it. So the uncertainty of life, and
then I'm going to talk lastly about the hope of life after
death. The hope of eternal life. Now
first of all, the Bible talks about the swiftness of life.
What is your life? What is your life? The swiftness
of it. I know that young men and women
listening to my voice today view life as a long experience. I suppose if you're 21 or 2 or
3 or 4 or 5 and you're sitting there listening to my voice,
you say, what's he talking about, the swiftness of life? Boy, it
seems like I'm going to live all the way down here on this
earth. Turn to granddaddy there and ask him how long life is.
who's 60 or 70 years of age. He's been here as long as you'll
probably live. Ask him how long his life. He'll say, son, it's just a day
and a half. The older you get, the faster
the years go by. The years go by like days after
you get 50 or 60 years of age. The years roll by so quickly,
and it's soon gone. The older you get, the faster
it goes by. And a young man looking forward
to life, and 40 or 50 more years. It seems so long. But the old
people looking back on life, well, it just seemed like yesterday
they were children sitting around their mother and father's table.
Life swiftly goes by. Let's see what Scripture says
about it. In Job chapter 9, verse 25, Job says, My days are swifter
than a post. My days are swifter than a post.
They flee away. and see no good." What's he talking
about? Well, back in the days of Job, the mail was delivered
by men riding fast horses. They had relay stations. A man
had letters to deliver or messages to deliver. And he'd get on a
horse here, and he'd ride rapidly to the relay station, and they'd
have a horse waiting on him, and he would lay aside the tired
horse and get on the fresh horse and ride rapidly to another relay
station. He'd get off that horse onto
another and ride till he'd complete his journey. Well, this is what
Job is talking about when he says our lives go by so swiftly. Each year is like those fast
horses. We get off one onto the other,
get off that one onto another, get off that one onto another,
until soon, We reach the end of the journey. Our years are
like these fast horses. They go by so quickly. Watch
another illustration. He says in Job 9, 26, My days
are like a swift ship being carried by the wind, just swiftly going
toward the harbor. There's no stopping it. The wind
gets in the sails and the ship just speeds along to its destination. My days are like an eagle. Not
an eagle floating gently in the air, taking its time, you know.
Not an eagle sitting on the nest. But my days are like an eagle
that hasteth to its prey. The old eagle has spotted some
prey or victim down below, and he swoops down upon that victim
and overtakes it. And even so, death overtakes
us as swiftly as an eagle flies after its victim. And then in
Job 7, verse 6, he said, My days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle. A weaver's shuttle. And they
are spent without hope. Did you ever see anyone weave
a rug or a garment on an old-fashioned shuttle? It just flies. It flies
faster, really, than the eye can see it. And after a while,
the garment is done and complete. And that's what Job says, My
life, my days. are like a weaver's shuttle,
they just go like that, so quickly they're passing by. And then
in Job 7, verse 7, he says this, talking about the swiftness of
our days and the swiftness of our years, he said, Oh, remember
that my life is like the wind, like the wind, sudden, swift,
and then it's gone. Did you ever stand out in the
field, and everything's calm, and then suddenly you hear the
rustling of the leaves, and see the bending of the trees, and
a wind comes up so quickly and blows, and it seems like it's
going to blow you away, and then in a moment, everything's calm
again. You see what the Lord is saying?
Life is moving swiftly along. Swiftly along. Life is like fast
horses. on a relay, a post relay. Life is like the swift ships
driven by the wind. Life is like an eagle that hasteth
after its prey. Life is like a weaver's shuttle.
Each day passes by like the weaver's shuttle weaving the garment. And life is like the wind. Boast
not thyself of tomorrow, yet tomorrows may all be gone. boasts not thyself of tomorrow,
yet tomorrow's may all be gone." Are you thinking with me? The
swiftness of life. What is your life? Well, it's
a quickly passing thing. All right, notice the second
thing now. Let's look at the uncertainty of life. The uncertainty
of life. Now, there are so many scriptures,
in fact, on the uncertainty of life that I've had to leave many
out. I'm just going to deal with a
few that I find in the Word of God and leave most of them out.
The Bible speaks quite a bit about the uncertainty of life,
how frail it is. Mr. Spurgeon used to say, it's
surprising that a harp of so many strings could stay in tune
so long. In James chapter 4, verse 14,
when the apostle asked, what is your life? He doesn't stop
there. He says, what is your life? He
tells you what it is. He said, it is even a vapor,
a mist, a fog, that appeareth for a little time, and then it's
gone. Did you ever walk out on the
lake before the sun comes up some morning? Just walk out on
the lake, and just before the sun rises, you can see a vapor
rising from the lake. There's a mist or a fog. It's
rising from the lake. It's all over the lake. You see
it everywhere. There's that mist, that fog.
Vapor is what it is. And then the sun tops the hill
and shines down on the lake and the fog just slips away. And it's gone. Life is frail
like that. It's frail as a vapor, as a mist
of fog. It's fleeting and uncertain.
That's what he's saying to us. What is your life? It's a vapor
that appears for a little time. And then it's gone. And then
in Ecclesiastes 6, verse 12, he says, all of my days, all
of my days, I spend as a shadow. Now, you talk about a vapor being
frail and uncertain. How about a shadow? There's nothing
with less substance than a shadow. There's nothing with less certainty
than a shadow. Now a tree is firm and certain,
but the shadow is nothing. The great wall that you've built
with your stones and bricks is permanent, but the shadow of
the wall is temporary. It's there, and then it's not
there. And that's what he says. My days are spent as a shadow. The days of my vain life are
but a shadow. Listen to Isaiah 38, 12. My age
is departed. and removed from thee as a shepherd's
tent." You know, you see the shepherd out there on the side
of the mountain. He's grazing his sheep. He's not going to
be there long. He's just going to be there till
the clover's gone or till the grass is gone. He's going to
be there a little while. So he doesn't build a house there. He doesn't put a fence around
his house. He doesn't plant a garden or plant trees. He pictures a
little tent, a lean-to. It's a temporary dwelling place. It's just something to shield
him from the wind and the sand and the sun. He won't be there
very long. And that's what the prophet Isaiah
says, my age is removed from me as a shepherd's tent. And
then Isaiah 40, verse 6, all flesh is grass, and the glory
thereof is as the flower of the field, the grass withereth, the
flower faded, Surely the people is grass. Why do we try to plant
our roots so deep? I don't know why, but we do.
On this earth, when life is so frail and so fleeting and so
uncertain, we try to plant our roots deep. We build our mansions
and put fences around them as if we were going to stay there.
And the Word of God says this, God knoweth our frame. He remembereth
that we're dust. As for man, his days are as the
grass. As the flower of the field, so
he flourisheth. Oh yes, strong, handsome, beautiful,
full of strength, power, nourishment. But the wind passeth over it,
and it's gone. The wind passeth over it, and
it's gone. And the place thereof shall know
it no more." As I said, there are so many scriptures on the
uncertainty of life. Other scriptures picture life
as a pilgrimage, as a tale that's told. In our days, fly away,
the scripture says, as a dream. The songwriter said, swift to
its close ebbs out life's little day. Earth's joys grow dim, its
glories fade away. Change and decay all around me
I see, O thou that changest not. abide with me." Well, let's close
with this thought. What is the hope of eternal life? What is the hope of eternal life? Now, one of the clearest scriptures
in the Bible on the hope of eternal life, we've been talking about
its swiftness, the swiftness of human life, natural life,
the uncertainty of it, but there is a hope of eternal life. 1 John 5, you want to turn over
there, 1 John 5, 11. It says, and this is the record.
This is the record. In other words, this is the promise
of God. This is the Word of God. The Word of God who cannot lie.
The Word of God who cannot fail. Paul called it a faithful saying. A faithful saying. A sure saying. And worthy of acceptation by
all men. This is the record. This is the
Word of God. What does it say? That God hath
given to us eternal life. Who gave it to us? God did. We
didn't earn it. We didn't merit it. We didn't
buy it. God gave it to us. God thought
it. God in Christ bought it. God
in Christ sought us and applied that life. God hath given us
eternal life. If a man dies, shall he live
again? Well, you can't answer that question because you've
never talked to anybody who died and lived again. The only one
who can answer that question is God Almighty. And He says,
man shall live again. There is a resurrection of the
dead. There is an eternal life. Now, we're not talking about
just the length of it. We're talking about the quality
of it. Eternal life is spiritual life. It's divine life. You see, there's several kinds
of life. There's mineral life. There's vegetable life. There's
human life. And then there's divine life.
Eternal life. And divine life is eternal. And
God, the source of divine life, the giver of life, has given
to us eternal life. I'm interested in that. The wages
of sin is death. But the gift of God is eternal
life. All right, you witness so far?
This is the record. This is the record. This is not
guesswork. This is not theory. This is the
record. This is God's record. He's the
only one who has the answers to these questions. Nobody has
the answer. The doctor stands and watches
life leave the body. He can't do anything about it.
He doesn't know where it goes or what it is, what its form
is after that. He doesn't know. The philosopher
might talk about life, but when a person dies, that's all he
knows. That's the end of his knowledge. But God knows, and
God says this is the record. God has given to us eternal life.
Now listen to the next sentence. And this life, this eternal life,
this divine life, this spiritual life, is in His Son. Who is His
Son? He said, This is my beloved Son,
in whom I am well pleased, the Lord Jesus Christ. When Christ
Jesus was on this earth, the Father spake from heaven and
said, This is my Son. And this life, this eternal life,
this divine life, this spiritual life, is in His Son. That's where
it is. Eternal life is not in the church.
The church is not a building anyway. The church is an assembly
of people. Eternal life is not in the ordinances, baptism, the
Lord's table, or whatever. Eternal life is not in the law.
Eternal life is not even in a profession of faith. It's not in a mourner's
bench, or walking the aisle, or shaking a preacher's hand,
or having somebody put some water on your head. That's not where
life is. Life cannot be conferred by one
human upon another human. I don't have eternal life to
give you. I'm not the source of life. God's the source of
life. In Him is life. In Him, Christ is our life. No
man can live. Christ quickeneth whom He will.
As the Father quickeneth whom He will, so the Son quickeneth
whom He will. Eternal life's in Christ. And
that's what He said. This life is in His Son. In His
Son. Now, He is life. And He purchased
our eternal life by his death on the cross. He bought life
for us. He bought life. And he satisfied God's law and
honored God's justice in order to give us this eternal life,
in order that God may be just to justify the ungodly. This
life is in his Son. That's where it is. That's the
source of life. Now listen to the next sentence. And he that
hath the Son of God, he that hath Him, not a picture of Him,
he that hath the Son, not He that hath his words, he that
hath the Son. Not he that hath his ordinances,
or some relic, a piece of the cross, or a piece of the ark,
or something. He that hath the Son himself hath everlasting
life. And he that hath not the Son
of God hath not life. Now he said, these things have
I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God,
that you may know that you have eternal life. And this life is
in his son. And this life is in his son.
Yes, I'm going to die. I will face God at the judgment.
There will be an eternity to spend. Somewhere. I want to spend
it in the presence of God. I read this scripture quite often
and think about this. Let me share it with you. Revelation
21, 1 through 5. John's writing here. He said,
And I saw a new heaven, and a new earth, for the first heaven and
the first earth were passed away, and there was no more sea. And
I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down from God
out of heaven prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And
I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle
of God is with men, and they shall be his people. And God
himself shall be with them, and be their God. And God shall wipe
away all tears from their eyes, and there shall be no more death,
neither sorrow nor crying. Neither shall there be any more
pain, for the former things are passed away. And he that sat
on the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And he said unto
me, Write, for these words are true and faithful. What is your
life? Have you understood what I've
been trying to say to you? It's swiftly passing by. The
years you have, most of them are gone, some of you. The tomorrows
you've been talking about, most of them are gone. And life is
so uncertain, it's so frail and fleeting. But eternity is certain. Judgment is sure. Eternity is
long. Where will you spend eternity? But if you have the Son, by faith,
you have eternal life. And to die is gain. To live is
Christ, to die is gain. And when Christ, who is our life,
shall appear, then shall we appear with Him in glory. Now, this
message is on a cassette tape, What Is Your Life?, along with
a message I'll be bringing next week. The tape sells for $2. If you want it, write to me.
We'll mail it to you right away. Ask for the tape that I preached
today, What Is Your Life? On the next Lord's Day, at the
same time, I bid you a very pleasant good day.