There is no delusion more prevalent, or more difficult to dissipate from the minds of men than the imagined power which this world possesses to confer solid good or substantial enjoyment on its votaries. Their life is one unceasing struggle for some object or attainment which lies at a distance from them. They are fighting their way to an arduous eminence of wealth or of distinction or running with eager desire after some station of imagined delight, or imagined repose on this side of death.
And it is the part of Christian wisdom: to mark the contrast which exists between the activity of the pursuit in the ways of human ambition and the utter vanity of the termination; to observe how, in the career of restless and aspiring man, he is ever experiencing that to be tasteless, on which, while beyond his reach, he had lavished his fondest and most devoted energies!
When we thus see that the life of man in the world is spent in vanity and goes out in darkness, we may say of all the wayward children of humanity, "Surely man walks in a vain show, surely he vexes himself in vain!" (Psalm 39:6)
But these censures on that waste of strength and of exertion, which is incurred by the mere votaries of this world, are not applicable merely to the pursuits of general humanity they are frequently no less applicable to the pursuits of professing Christians! Here is the conclusion: Fear God and Keep His Commandments.
[Thomas Chalmers]
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1 John 2:17 … 17 And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.
John 4:13 … Jesus answered and said unto her, Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again:
Ecclesiastes 12:13-14 … Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man. For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil.❤
