Time Becomes Fixed

By Stephen Leonard

“We must work the works of Him who sent me while it is day; night is coming, when no one can work.” John 9:4

Teenagers normally think they have “forever” to grow and mature, do adventurous things, marry, have children, make lots of money, travel to exotic places, what have you. Even people in mid-age believe they have a good twenty, thirty, even, possibly, forty years left of life, so why be that concerned about death now. People in their eighties begin to think the time may well be short, but there are at least a few years left. Very few people really think they will die tomorrow or only have hours to live out “the rest of their lives.”

There is “always” more time, isn’t there? People think there is plenty of sand left to funnel its way through the hourglass. But have you measured what sand you truly have left? How do you really measure what you do not know? Really, how much time is left before your death arrives? All this when you do not know what tomorrow, or even the next minute, holds.

Time is not only a precious commodity, but it has a different stopwatch for everyone, as history perfectly shows. The split-second accident, the unexpected heart attack, aneurism or stroke, a terrorist incident, a homicide, or many different acts of nature. No person planned for those types of incidents to suddenly overtake you. But experience proves they do.

Our text tells us we must do something when we are still in “day” because “night” comes when we cease from being able to do anything about it. The “something” is “doing the works of Him who sent Jesus,” that is, God, the Father.

Time is where your “day” of salvation resides. Time is that opportunity to be born again and be sanctified. Time is when salvation takes place. Because when “night” comes, the curtain falls on salvation occurring. Time stops for all of us when night falls.

Time really does stop for those still living the second Jesus returns. The curtain of Time falls that very moment He appears on the clouds of earth. History ceases. Eternity begins. Some to eternal life. Others to eternal hell. Do not shout obscenities at me. I am simply a messenger reporting what the Bible clearly reveals.

Psalm 139 tells you every one of your days have already been ordained. And you do not know precisely how many of those are left. “The sands of time are sinking.” Everyone in God’s world have a fixed time, but many do not live as though it is already determined.

Time stops, timelessness begins. Only none of us have ever experienced timelessness. I cannot say what it is like, for I have never known it. In Bible language, a thousand years is as one day, and one day is as a thousand years. That is about all the Bible gives, as a glimpse into timelessness.

So pay careful attention to “doing the works of God” when you can. The night of the soul is coming when faith will no longer grab hold of salvation. The window closes on the opportunity to place your faith in Jesus, the author and completer of your salvation. Come to Him when it is still “day.” He will never turn you away!

Encouragement

“Come, you disconsolate, where-e’er you languish; come to the mercy seat, fervently kneel. Here bring your wounded hearts; here tell your anguish. Earth has no sorrow that heav’n cannot heal.”

(1st verse of Thomas Moore’s hymn, “Come, You Disconsolate,” 1779-1852)