A Ripe Old Age
F. W. Brown. Job 5:26 You shall come to your grave in a full age, like as a shock of corn comes in in his season. We have here pictured a ripe and venerable old age — a good man coming safely out of all the drill and discipline of the present life, taken up from all, and housed forever in the glory and garner of the sky. Polishing and ripening are rough and warm work. The soul of man undergoes rough and trying treatment here; but the path of sorrow is the way to joy; and the path of suffering is the way to glory. I. THE SUGGESTIVE SIMILE BY WHICH THE LIFE OF THE AGED SAINT IN THIS WORLD IS DEPICTED. Corn, ripe corn, ready for the husbandman and home. Corn suggests the ideas of preciousness, maturity, diversity of influences, and manifoldness. Let us seek that our lives may be valuable as ripe corn, and not valueless as empty chaff. II. THE GLORIOUS DESTINY FOR WHICH THE AGED SAINT IN THIS WORLD IS BEING DISCIPLINED. 1. The saint as well as the sinner has to meet the same inevitable lot, so far as the body is concerned. 2. The saint goes to his grave, but the wicked is driven there. 3. The good are not destroyed when they come to the grave, but are gathered into the garner. Let these reflections cheer us in remembrance of our departed, sainted friends, and in anticipation of our own departure. (F. W. Brown.) Parallel Verses KJV: Thou shalt come to thy grave in a full age, like as a shock of corn cometh in in his season. WEB: You shall come to your grave in a full age, like a shock of grain comes in its season.