“And Sarah died…” (Genesis 23:2)

“… For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.” (James 4:14)

To find the answer to our title question of “What is Your Life?” – let’s take notice of the following three thoughts to introduce this subject:

1) The brevity of life.

Job used the analogy of the wind to relate the brevity (or shortness) of the duration of life: “O remember that my life is wind…” (Job 7:7). The wind is invisible; it moves by the Sovereign Will of God.

See John 3:8:

“The wind bloweth where it listeth (or wills), and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth…”

The wind is a mystery. It comes and goes quickly – and so is the life of a man.

The Psalmist writes:

“For all our days are passed away in thy wrath: we spend our years as a tale that is told.” (Psalms 90:9)

“The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.” (Psalms 90:10)

Here the Psalmist gives the average brief life span of man. Seventy years passes as swift as a weaver’s shuttle:

“My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle, and are spent without hope.” (Job 7:6)

“Now my days are swifter than a post: they flee away, they see no good.” (Job 9:25)

All of these facts show the brevity of a man’s life.

2) God determines the days of a man’s life.

In Job 14:5, Job wrote, “Seeing his days are determined, the number of his months are with thee…”

And Solomon wrote in Ecclesiastes 3:2, “A time to be born, and a time to die…” This is not speaking of a certain season, but a definite point in time both to be born and to die.

3) God ordained man to die.

In Hebrews 9:27, the writer says, “And as it is appointed unto men once to die…”

Therefore, death being appointed by God, there is no way to miss this appointment. There is no way to stop death.

See Ecclesiastes 8:8, “There is no man that hath power over the spirit to retain the spirit; neither hath he power in the day of death…”

The Bible says over and over “_____ died.” Our text verse from Genesis says, “…and Sarah died.” And one day they will say of you, “and he died.”

Knowing these above facts to be true, the following are the topic statements for tomorrow’s post:

The way we view death is the way we view life.
There are two ways to view death:
as men view death; and as God views death.