I would not live forever!

(Charles Simeon)  LISTEN to Audio!  Download Audio

"I loathe my life; I would not live forever!" Job 7:16  

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 benefitted 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 3:39

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!