Every Day May Be Our Last Day

"Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring forth” (Proverbs 27:1).  Jonathan Edwards delivered another sermon on the Christian’s use of time entitled, Procastination, or the Folly of Depending on Future Time.  The main point of this sermon is that we do not know if we will have another day.  We should be careful to live each day as if it were our last.  The command in Proverbs quoted above is that we should not speak or act as though tomorrow was guaranteed to us.  Time does not belong to us.  We do not know whether God will give us another day, or whether we will have to give an accounting of our lives to Him before another day comes.  To quote Edwards’ own words, “Consider, if you will hearken to this counsel, how much it will tend to your safety and peace in life and death.  It is the way really and truly to be ready for death; yea,to be fit to live or to be fit to die; to be ready for affliction and adversity, and for whatever God in his providence shall bring upon you.  It is the way to be prepared for all changes, and particularly your last change.  It is the way to possess your souls in a serene and undisturbed peace, and to enable you to go on with an immovable fortitude of soul, to meet the most frightful changes, to encounter the most formidable enemies, and to be ready with unshaken confidence to triumph over death.  O how happy are such persons, who have such safety and peace!”  This exerpt comes from  one of the most powerful paragraphs I have ever read.  Time goes by so quickly, and we cannot depend on having another day or hour in this world; but fortunately we can always depend on our Lord, who never changes. 

Redeeming Precious Time

"Redeeming the time, because the days are evil” (Ephesians 5:16).  Jonathan Edwards said that time is a thousand times more precious than money.  He carefully explained in his sermon The Preciousness of Time how different kinds of people needed to take the exhortation of Ephesians 5:16 to heart.  Some waste their time in idleness, doing nothing to any good purpose. These people do not place a high value on time.   Then there are those who not only waste their time, but do worse.  They use it in pursuits that bring great harm to themselves and others.  This terrible misuse of God’s gift will increase their eternal misery.  Others use their time only for their own benefit in this life.  Time used in this selfish way will be lost.  Edwards affirmed, “Time was not given for itself, but for that everlasting relation which succeeds it.  They, therefore, whose time is taken up in caring and laboring for the world only; in contriving to lay up for themselves treasures upon earth; they lose their precious time.”  Edwards concluded by exhorting us to carefully consider what he had said.  If we have a right conception of these things, every moment and hour will be far more valuable to us than gold.  God commands us to make the most of our time (Ephesians 5:16); the previous verse (5:15) tells us that wisdom is needed to do that.  Throughout the Bible, wisdom to a large degree involves being aware of time, and being careful how it is used.  The substance of the prayer for wisdom in Psalm 90:12, involves the realization that the days our lives pass by quickly: “So teach us to number our days, that we may 

Why Time is so Precious

"Redeeming the time, because the days are evil” (Ephesians 5:16).  In his outstanding sermon The Preciousness of Time, Jonathan Edwards begins by outlining four reasons why Christians should put a very high value on time: 1. Time is precious because our welfare both in this world and in eternity depends our use of it.  Things are valuable to us in proportion to the degree they concern our welfare.  Our deliverance from infinite misery and our attaining infinite good are what is at stake in our use of time.  2. Time is so valuable because it is a scarce commodity.  Edwards wrote, “Time is so short, and the work we have to do is so great, that we have none of it to spare.  The work we have to do to prepare for eternity, must be done in time, or it can never be done.”  3. We are uncertain how long our time will continue.  We do not know if opportunities that we fail to take advantage of will ever come again.  How much more would we prize our time if we knew that we have only a few weeks left.  4. Time cannot be recovered.  This is so sobering.  Once an hour or a day is past, that priceless moment is gone forever.  We possess many things, which if lost, can be obtained again.  Not so with time.  Once it is past, it is gone; no pains, no cost will recover it.  If we do not use time wisely, it is immediately beyond our reach, and never offered to us again.  No amount of wealth can reclaim wasted time.  No amount of regret will buy us a second chance to live a day over again. 

Redeeming the Time

"Therefore be careful how you walk, not as unwise men, but as wise, making the most of your time, because the days are evil” (Ephesians 5:15,16).  How often have you heard someone say, “I was just passing time”?  Or, the expression, “I am just killing time”?  The idea is getting through a period of time that has no value, waiting for something you really want. The verses quoted from Ephesians expresses the preciousness of time in a very unique way.  Verse 16 literally reads “redeeming the time, because the days are evil.”  If precious time is not to be wasted, it must be redeemed, that is, a price must be paid.  We are to put a very high value on each hour and each day God has alloted to us; and we must pay a price to buy back our time, so that it is not lost in evil.  Jonathan Edwards delivered one of his greatest sermons on The Preciousness of Time.  The older I get, the more heavily I feel the weight of Edwards’ powerful words.  The sermon he is most remembered for is Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.  I feel his sermon on Time is in every way the equal of its more famous counterpart, and is of greater relevance to the Christian.  Rereading this sermon yearly would be of inestimable benefit to every believer.  In the next few days we will spend a little time with Edwards’ great sermon.  You will never be content with “killing time” again, and you will think twice about how many hours you let television devour.