Human achievements are temporary and fleeting compared to God's eternal purposes.
In the age succeeding the flood, they piled old Babel's tower, and said, "This shall last forever." But God confounded their language: they finished it not. Old Pharaoh and the Egyptian monarchs heaped up their Pyramids, and they said, "They shall stand forever:" and so, indeed, they do stand; but the time is approaching when age shall devour even these. The most stable things have been evanescent as shadows and the bubbles of an hour, speedily destroyed at God's bidding. Where is Nineveh? and where is Babylon? Where the cities of Persia? Where are the high places of Edom? Where are Moab and the princes of Ammon? Where are the temples of the heroes of Greece? Where the millions that passed from the gates of Thebes? Where are the hosts of Xerxes? or where the vast armies of the Roman emperors? Have they not passed away? And though in their pride they said, "This monarchy is an everlasting one, this queen of the seven hills shall be called the eternal city," its pride is dimmed; and she who sat alone, and said, "I shall be no widow, but a queen forever,"—she hath fallen, hath fallen; and in a little while she shall sink like a millstone in the flood, her name being a curse and a byword, and her site the habitation of dragons and of owls. Man calls his works eternal; God calls them fleeting; man conceives that they are built of rock; God says, "Nay, sand; or, worse than that, they are air." Man says he erects them for eternity; God blows but for a moment, and where are they? Like baseless fabrics of a vision, they are passed and gone forever. Spurgeon.
G136. WORKS, Spiritual. As in a building, after the foundation is laid, great labor, diligence, and expense is necessary to finish and furnish it; even so in the heavenly edifice of our soul. All our lifetime is to be employed in building up the walls and other parts of our spiritual structure, by the exercise of all virtues, and by diligent observance of God's commandments, without which it will be as useless to look for salvation, as it would be to expect to have a house because a foundation had been laid. Cawdray.
G137. WORLD, Attachment to the. A pagan moralist hath represented the folly of an attachment to this world almost as strongly as a Christian could express it. "Thou art a passenger," says he, "and thy ship put into harbor for a few hours. The tide and the wind serve, and the pilot calls to thee to depart; and thou art amusing thyself, and gathering shells and pebbles on the shore, till they set sail without thee." So is every Christian, who, being upon his voyage to a happy eternity, delays and loiters, and thinks and acts as if he were to dwell here forever." Jortin.
G138. WORLD, Attractions of the. A weeping willow stood by the side a pond, and, in the direction of that pond, it hung out its pensive-looking branches. An attempt was made to give a different direction to these branches. The attempt was useless: where the water lay, thither the boughs would turn. However, an expedient presented itself. A large pond was dug on the other side of the tree; and, as soon as the greater quantity of water was found there, the tree, of its own accord, bent its branches in that direction. What a clear illustration of the laws which govern the human heart! It turns to the water, — the poisoned waters of sin perhaps, but the only streams with which it is acquainted.
