The Apostle says, 'see that ye walk strictly, not as fools but as wise.'
That is to say, such limitation, which buys the opportunity and uses it
for the highest purposes, is the only true wisdom. If you take the mean,
miserable, partial, fleeting purposes for which some of us, alas, are
squandering our lives, and contrast these with the great, perfect,
all-satisfying, blessed, and eternal end for which it was given us, how
can we escape being convicted of folly? One day, dear friends, it will
be found out that the virgins that were not ready when the Lord came
were the foolish ones. One day it will be asked of you and of me, 'What
did you do with the life which I gave you, that you might know Me?' And
if we have only the answer, 'O Lord! I founded a big business in
Manchester--I made a fortune--I wrote a clever book, that was most
favourably reviewed--I brought up a family'--the only thing fit to be
said to us is, 'Thou fool!' The only wisdom is the wisdom that secures
the end for which life was given.
Then there is another motive here. 'Redeeming the time _because_ the
days are evil.' That is singular. 'The days' are 'the time,' and yet
they are 'evil' days, which being translated into other words is just
this--we are to make a definite effort to keep in view, and to effect,
the purposes for which all the days of our lives are given us, because
these days have in themselves a tendency to draw us away from the true
path and to blind us as to their real meaning. The world is full of
possibilities of good and evil, and the same day which, in one aspect,
is the 'season' for serving God is, in another aspect, an 'evil' day
which may draw us away from Him. And if we do not put out manly effort,
it certainly will do so. The ocean is meant to bear the sailor to his
port, but from the waves rise up fair forms, siren voices, with sweet
harps and bright eyes that tempt the weary mariner to his destruction.
And the days which may be occasions for our getting nearer God, if we
let them work their will upon us, will be evil days which draw us away
from Him.
Let me add one last motive which is not stated in my text, but is
involved in the very idea of _opportunity_ or _season_--viz. that the
time for the high and noble purposes of which I have been speaking is
rigidly limited and bounded; and once past is irrevocable. The old, wise
mythological story tells us that Occasion is bald behind, and is to be
grasped by the forelock. The moment that is past had in it wonderful
possibilities for us. If we did not grasp them with promptitude and
decision they have gone for ever. You may as well try to bring back the
water that has been sucked over Niagara, and churned into white foam at
its base, as to recall the wasted opportunities. They stand all along
the course of our years, solemn monuments of our unfaithfulness, and
none of them can ever return again. Life is full of too-lates; that sad
sound that moans through the roofless ruins of the past, like the wind
through some deserted temple. 'Too late, too late; ye cannot enter now.'
'The sluggard will not plough by reason of the cold, therefore he shall
beg in harvest and have nothing.' Oh! let us see to it that we wring out
of the passing moments their highest possibilities of noblest good. Let
us begin to live; for only he who lives to God really lives. Life is
given to us that we may know Jesus Christ--trust Him, love Him, serve
Him, be like Him. That is the pearl which, if we bring up from the sea
of time, we shall not have been cast in vain into its stormy waves. Do
you take care that this new year which is dawning upon us go not to join
the many wasted years that lie desolate behind us, but let us all see to
it that the flood which sweeps us and it away bears us straight to God,
Who is our home. 'Now is the accepted time, now is the day of
salvation.'