Ecclesiastes 12:5

Ecclesiastes 12:5

It is not at his death only that it may be said of any man, "He goeth to his long home." It is a continual present tense. Every moment, every step he takes, he is always on the road, getting nearer and nearer.

I. Eternity is an abyss in which the mind loses itself in a moment; and the more we try to realise, the more impossible it grows. And because we have never seen it or conceived it, we call some earthly thing, some work, some waiting-time, some sorrow, some suffering, "long." But we shall never call it long again when we have looked out into the immensities which lie on the other side the horizon of this little world. But that life the Infinite Himself calls "long." "Man goeth to his long home."

II. If that is home, then this is exile. We are not "expelled." Christ has secured us from that. But we are "banished." He deviseth means that His banished be not expelled. There is much, very much, to tell us we are not at "home" yet. The manners and the habits about us are all foreign. We are prisoners of hope, but we are prisoners; and by many things which we all feel, we know that the term of our exile will be over the moment of our death.

III. If that is home, we are travellers here. And every day should be a step homeward. We must not pitch our tents as if they were houses, for they will soon be taken down. We must not stop by the way to pick many flowers, and we must not care for little discomforts and disagreeable things as we go, seeing that our halting-places are only inns.

IV. If that is home, this is school. Hence the discipline. Life is all training. We have much to unlearn and much to learn, many habits to lose and many habits to form, before the minority of our existence here shall have fitted us for the maturity of our glorified manhood.

J. Vaughan, Sermons,10th series, p. 189.

Reference: Ecclesiastes 12:5. Clergyman's Magazine, vol. vi., p. 326.