Santiago 4:14

James 4:14

There is no topic, I suppose, on which we are all so heartily agreed as that of the uncertainty of human life, and yet perhaps there is no topic, unanimous as our agreement about it may be, which produces so little effect upon character and conduct.

I. The sacred writer of the text, a man of a very practical turn of mind, is speaking of the habit in which some persons indulge of laying their plans for the future without any reference whatever to the Divine goodwill and pleasure. They arrange, he says, a long course of procedure, extending over many weeks or even months; they calculate the steps they will take, the transactions in which they will engage, the bargains they will strike, and all as if they were perfectly certain of a continuance of life. But is this wise or right? It is neither. It is foolish and wicked. These persons are feeling and acting as if they were masters of the situation and could command from God a prolongation of existence until their work was done, whereas such is the uncertainty of life that they positively cannot reckon upon what a single day will bring forth. St. James would be the last man to condemn a reasonable foresight. He well knew that we must look forward, must provide, must lay plans for the future. It is not this that he condemns. But the thing which he visits with the severity of his denunciation is the practical leaving of God out of His own world and the practical taking of the management of affairs into our own hands, which is implied in all confident reckoning upon the continuance of life.

II. Consider the importance of the life which we are now living in the flesh when regarded as determining our future destiny for incalculable ages. Its very uncertainty is part of the merciful Divine plan for making us thoughtful. The uncertainty is the very thing we want for rousing us to earnest seeking after salvation. When we feel it is probable that we shall continue to live, and yet possible that we may die at any time, we are in the very best state of mind for attending to religion.

G. Calthrop, Penny Pulpit, New Series, No. 899.

References: James 4:14 . E. Carr Glyn, Church of England Pulpit, vol. i., p. 49; Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxx., No. 1773; Preacher's Monthly, vol. iii., p. 351.James 4:17 . J. H. Thorn, Laws of Life, 2nd series, p. 91.James 5:7 . J. M. Neale, Sermons for the Church Year, vol. i., p. 25; H. P. Liddon, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxxiv., p. 385; Homiletic Magazine, vol. vii., p. 340.