'Redeeming the time,' says the Apostle. The figure is very simple and
natural, and has only been felt to be difficult and obscure, because
people have tried to ride the metaphor further than it was meant. The
questions of who is the seller and what is the price do not enter into
the Apostle's mind at all. Metaphors are not to be driven so far as
that. We have to confine ourselves to the simple thought that there is a
need for making the opportunity which is given truly our own; and that
that can only be done by giving something in exchange for it. That is
the notion of purchase, is it not? Acquisition, by giving something
else. Thus, says Paul, you have to buy the opportunity which time
affords us.
That is to say, to begin with, life gives us opportunities and no more.
We _may_, in and through it, become wise, good, pure, happy, noble,
Christ-like, or we may not. The opportunity is there, swinging, as it
were, _in vacuo_. Lay hold of it, says he, and turn it into more than an
opportunity--even an actuality and a fact.
And how is that to be done? We have to give something away, if we get
the opportunity for our very own. What have we to give away? Well,
mainly the lower ends for which the moment might serve. These have to be
surrendered--sometimes abandoned altogether, always rigidly restricted
and kept in utter subordination to the highest purposes. To-day is given
us mainly that we may learn to know God better, and to love Him more,
and to serve Him more joyfully. Our daily duties are given us for the
same purpose. But if we go about them without thinking of God or the
highest ends which life is meant to serve, then we shall certainly lose
the highest ends, and an opportunity will go past us unimproved. But if,
on the other hand, whilst we follow our daily business for the sake of
legitimate temporal gain, we see, above that, the aspect of daily life
as educating in all Christian nobleness and lofty thoughts and purposes,
then we shall have given away the lower ends for the sake of attaining
the higher. You live, suppose, to found a business, to become masters of
your trade, to gain wisdom and knowledge, to establish for yourselves a
position amongst your fellow-men, to cultivate your character so as to
grow in wisdom and purity, apart from God. Or you live in order to win
affection and move thankfully in the heaven of loving associations in
your home, amongst your children. Or you live for the sake of carrying
some lower but real good amongst men. Many of these ends are beautiful
and noble, and necessary for the cultivation and discharge of the
various duties and relationships of life; but unless they are all kept
secondary, and there towers above them this other, life is wasted. If
life is not to be wasted, they must be bartered for the higher, and we
must recognise that to give all things for the sake of Christ and His
love is wise merchandise and good exchange. 'What things were gain to
me, those I counted loss for Christ. Yea! doubtless, and I count all
things but loss that I may win Him and be found of Him.' You must barter
the lower if you are to secure the higher ends for which life is the
appointed season.
And then, still more minutely, my text gives us another suggestion about
this 'redeeming the time.' 'See, then,' says the Apostle, 'that ye walk
circumspectly.' The word rendered circumspectly might better, perhaps,
be translated in some such way as 'strictly,' 'rigidly,' 'accurately,'
'punctiliously.' As I take it, it is to be connected with the 'walk,'
and not with the 'see, then,' as the Revised Version does.
So here is a practical direction, walk strictly, accurately, looking to
your feet; as a man would do who was upon what they call in the Alps an
_arrête_. Suppose a narrow ridge of snow piled on the top of a ledge of
rock, with a precipice of 5000 feet on either side, and a cornice of
snow hanging over empty space. The climber puts his alpenstock before
his foot, he tests with his foot before he rests his weight, for a false
step and down he goes!
'See that you walk circumspectly,' rigidly, accurately, punctiliously.
Live by law--that is to say, live by principles which imply duties; for
to live by inclination is ruin. The only safety is, look to your feet
and look to your road, and restrain yourselves, 'and so redeem the
time.'
There is something else to look to. Feet? Yes! Road? Yes! But also look
to your guide. Tread in Christ's footsteps, 'follow the Lamb
whithersoever He goeth.' Make Him the pattern and example, and then you
shall walk safely; and the path will carry you right into 'His presence
where there is fulness of joy.' No great, noble, right, blessed life is
lived without rigid self-control, self-denial, and self-crucifixion. Do
not fancy that that means the absence of joy and spontaneity. 'I will
walk at liberty for I keep Thy precepts.' Hedges are blessings when, on
the other side, there are bottomless swamps of poisonous miasma, into
which if a man ventures he will either drown or be plague-stricken. The
narrow way that leads to life is the way of peace, just because it is a
way of restrictions. Better to walk on the narrowest path that leads to
the City than to be chartered libertines, wandering anywhere at our own
bitter wills, and finding 'no end, in devious mazes lost.' Freedom
consists in obeying from the heart the restriction of love; and walking
punctiliously.