The Last Change

The Last Change

My change.—Job 14:14

Job 14:14

14 If a man dies, shall he live again? All the days of my warfare and service I will wait, till my change and release shall come.

This was a very natural mode of expression for the Patriarch Job. His life was a weary monotony at the time he thus spoke. Day after day there was the same repressing presence of pain, reproach, and temptation. How regularly they came; how tardily they withdrew, even for an hour. What a gospel rang out of the word Change into the ear and heart of Job. You and I may be feeling the monotony of being; let us cheer our hearts with meditation on the certain change awaiting us all.

I. It might have been an unwelcome change. It is to some. The cypress of the grave casts its shadow all across their lives. But Jesus came to save us from the fear of death, as well as from all other fears. Death is robbed of its real sting; take heed lest, through unbelief, you invest it with an imaginary one.

II. It will be a great change. Our familiar calling, the body, our relations in the world, must be left for a noble calling—a spiritual body—and for the spirits of the just. Yet, in heaven, the latest comer feels no sense of strangerhood. Although all things are so different from those he has just left, he feels heaven is his home.

III. It may be a sudden change. Sudden death, in the case of holy men, is a mark (I should think) of the Divine favor, as far as those taken from the world are concerned.

It is dreadful when a man is snatched away, not from honest labor and patient suffering, but from yielding to indolence, and fretfulness or doubts.

IV. It is likely to be an unattended change. We must die alone; the only one from your church, your village, your town. Yet, though alone in the article of death, what a goodly company of angels shall receive you and bear you to rest.

V. It must be a final change. The experience of celestial beings, while in no painful sense monotonous, will know nothing of "change "; for our idea of change is connected with painful separation and uncertainty.

I'm Free

Don't grieve for me, for now I'm free

I'm following the path God has laid you see.

I took His hand when I heard him call

I turned my back and left it all.

I could not stay another day

To laugh, to love, to work, to play.

Tasks left undone must stay that way

I found that peace at the close of day.

If my parting has left a void

Then fill it with remembered joy.

A friendship shared, a laugh, a kiss

Oh yes, these things I too will miss.

Be not burdened with times of sorrow

I wish you the sunshine of tomorrow.

My life's been full, I savored much

Good friends, good times, a loved one's touch.

Perhaps my time seemed all too brief

Don't lengthen it now with undue grief.

Lift up your hearts and peace to thee

God wanted me now; He set me free.

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