(Clip) Your Life is Like A Vapour

I have a text tonight which is a question. And it's a question that we cannot answer collectively. It's a question you have to answer individually. It's found in the very practical epistle, as it's usually called, the epistle of James in the fourth chapter. For what is your life? It is even a vapour that appeareth for a little time, and then it vanisheth away. You will never face a more challenging question than this text. What is your life? And notice what it doesn't say. It doesn't say what is life, because if it did, nobody has an answer. It doesn't say what is our life, otherwise we could fool all our thinking. It says, what is your life? And it replies, it gives a reply here in the text, it is even a vapour that appeareth for a little time. And you hear people say, well, life isn't just, life isn't fair. One man said life is a feast, another wise man said life is a fast. One man said life is a paradise, another man says life is a prison. You see, the question here is very pointed and maybe it's very personal, maybe it's very painful, maybe you could answer the question. What is your life? You say it's a failure. What is your life? A success. What is your life? It's a disappointment. But actually it's showing to us by the very context that life is like a vapour, it's like the steam that comes off the kettle and you try and get a handful of it, it's gone. And in every case in the Word of God where life is referred to, that is this physical life, it's likened to something that's very swift. It's likened, for instance, to a weaver's shovel. It's likened to a tent that men wrap up and move on in the night. Isaiah likens our life to the grass of the field, which today is and tomorrow is cast into the oven. But the whole thing is about life, every kind of life. And supremely about eternal life. And there's one thing that life does, wherever it goes, life begets life. He explains it all when he said, I'm crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live. And yet not I, but Christ liveth in me. And the life which I now live here in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God. If I were to ask you tonight, you're saved. You say, yes, I'm saved. When? Oh, so and so preached, I got baptised. What do you say for? Hell? Are you saved from bitterness? Are you saved from lust? Are you saved from cheating? Are you saved from lying? Are you saved from bad manners? Are you saved from rebelling against your parents? Come on, what are you saved from?