James 4:15

["It is remarkable that the sermon selected for this week should be so peculiarly suitable for the present trying time. It ought to be read with special solemnity. Oh, that it may be the means of leading many to make the great preparation for the future which only Believers in the Lord Jesus Christ have made!"—Words noted at the bottom of page one of this sermon—read to the congregation at the Metropolitan Tabernacle the Sunday after Brother Spurgeon died—EOD.] MEN, today, are just the same as when these words were first written.

["It is remarkable that the sermon selected for this week should be so peculiarly suitable for the present trying time. It ought to be read with special solemnity. Oh, that it may be the means of leading many to make the great preparation for the future which only Believers in the Lord Jesus Christ have made!"—Words noted at the bottom of page one of this sermon—read to the congregation at the Metropolitan Tabernacle the Sunday after Brother Spurgeon died—EOD.] MEN, today, are just the same as when these words were first written. We still find people saying what they are going to do today, tomorrow, in six months time or at the end of another year and, perhaps, still further. I have no doubt there are persons here who have their own career mapped out before them pretty distinctly—and they feel well-near certain that they will realize it all! We are like the men of the past, but this Book, though it has been written so long, might have been written yesterday, so exactly does it describe human nature as it is at the end of this 19th Century! The text applies with very peculiar force when our friends and fellow workers are passing away from us. Sickness and death have been busy in our midst. Perhaps in our abundant service we have been reckoning what this Brother would do this week, and what that Sister would be doing next week, and so on. Even for God's work we have had our plans, dependent in great measure on the presence of some beloved helpers. They have appeared among us in such buoyant health that we have scarcely thought it possible that they would be struck down in a moment. Yet so it has often been.

For that ye ought to say - Αντι τοι λεγειν ὑμας· Instead of saying, or instead of which ye should say, If the Lord will, we shall live - I think St. James had another example from the rabbins in view, which is produced by Drusius, Gregory, Cartwright, and Schoettgen, on this clause: “The bride went up to her chamber, not knowing what was to befall her there.” On which there is this comment: “No man should ever say that he will do this or that, without the condition If God Will. A certain man said, ‘To-morrow shall I sit with my bride in my chamber, and there shall rejoice with her.’ To which some standing by said, אם גוזר השם im gozer hashshem, ‘If the Lord will.’ To which he answered, ‘Whether the Lord will or not, to-morrow will I sit with my bride in my chamber.’ He did so; he went with his bride into his chamber, and at night they lay down; but they both died, antequam illam cognosceret.” It is not improbable that St. James refers to this case, as he uses the same phraseology. On this subject I shall quote another passage which I read when a schoolboy, and which even then taught me a lesson of caution and of respect for the providence of God. It may be found in Lucian, in the piece entitled, Χαρων, η επισκοπουντες, c. 6: Επι δειπνον, οιμαι, κληθεις ὑπο τινος των φιλων ες την ὑστεραιαν, μαλιστα ἡξω, εφη· και μεταξυ λεγοντος, απο του τεγους κεραμις επιπεσουσα, ουκ οιδ’ ὁτου κινησαντος, απεκτεινεν αυτον· εγελασα ουν, ουκ επιτελεσαντος την ὑποσχεσιν. “A man was invited by one of his friends to come the next day to supper. I will certainly come, said he. In the mean time a tile fell from a house, I knew not who threw it, and killed him. […]