HOW much is comprehended in this little word of three letters—"Now"! The minutes pass by us rapidly—never to be recalled. The atom of time represented by that word may seal the destiny of your soul, reader, forever.
“Now is the accepted time." A moment longer and the turning-point of your soul's history has been reached, and you may have lost it for good and for eternity. Why not gain it for good “now?
How many trifle with the word, with the moment, and the opportunity never returns. I have met such persons, who have calmly told me that they had resisted the striving of the Spirit of God, and all was over for them. The soul had entered upon a sleep-like stupor, and they seemed careless as to the end which they themselves foretold.
Someone has said that “there is hope for every sinner out of hell; but fear for every saint out of heaven." I believe the statement is true.
"Now once in the end of the world has he (Christ) appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself" (Heb. 9:2626For then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world: but now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. (Hebrews 9:26)). Here then is God's “now." The world's history was closed; sinners—as all admit and cannot but admit that they are—are not only such, but sinners who have been tested. A race which has been tried—" weighed in the balances and found wanting." Sinners too, for whom Christ died—whose extremity has been God's opportunity to reveal Himself as a Savior God, and as such He is perhaps unknown to you.
Is it so? Has all been expended that He could devise, and your heart is not yet won to Him?
Your conscience not yet cleansed of sin?
He proclaims to you, sinner, that “all things are now ready." “Come." Jesus has been here; He has trodden this world for thirty-three years; He has been refused here by sinners; He has been crucified, dead, buried, raised again the third day, according to the Scriptures. He has ascended to heaven, has been greeted in that glory, and crowned with glory and honor. He has received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost. He has shed forth the Spirit, and His voice proclaims from heaven, "Come, for all things are now ready.”
We are told, when royal guests are invited to a wedding in the Eastern lands, that with the invitation is sent the garment in which to appear. This garment cannot be purchased; it is furnished from and by the king. It hangs ready in the palace, and could not be procured. It accompanies the royal command. Into the hands of him who receives the invitation is placed, at the same moment, the robe in which to appear; while his ears hear the king's command—"Come!" This word includes the fitness to appear before God of him whose ears are open to hear.
Can he count on tomorrow? " Go to now, ye that say, Today or tomorrow we will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain; whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow "(James 4:1313Go to now, ye that say, To day or to morrow we will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain: (James 4:13))." Today, if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts “(Heb. 7, 8).
Job was a perfect and an upright man, one that feared God and eschewed evil. Yet his conscience had never awaked under the sense of the presence of the living God. Trials came; fortune fled in a moment. Family were taken away. Health broke down. Friends accused him of living a secret sinner, but God loved him and desired to bless him fully. Therefore he must be taught to measure himself in the presence of God. The candle of God must shine into the secret chambers of his heart, that he might be enabled to say, “In thy light I see light,” yet also that he might see the dark hidden chambers of his soul. At the end he says—for God's controversy is over then—" I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear, but now mine eye seeth thee; wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes " (Job 13:66Hear now my reasoning, and hearken to the pleadings of my lips. (Job 13:6)). Then all is ended; Job knows himself because he knows God, as a convicted sinner alone can know Him, but he does know God, and as a Savior. Then we read, "and the Lord accepted Job"—just as he was.
Well, “now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself?" and that work is done for faith as for God too. And "all things are now ready." "Come." And again, " now is the accepted time, behold now is the day of salvation.”
Reader, have you ever said to God—" Now mine eye seeth thee, wherefore I abhor myself "? This is your fitness, and this alone your title—to confess you have none But there is another side to this. The solemn cry of a heart—the vessel too of the Spirit of God for a moment, who sees with the vision of the Almighty the beauty and order and fruitfulness of God's elect—who describes them with language of His Spirit, hardly surpassed in Scripture. The apostate Balaam can say to his own eternal ruin, “I shall see him, but not now; I shall behold him, but not nigh " (Num. 24), and that too in the day anticipated, yet revealed by the Spirit of God—that awful crisis, soon coming on the world—“Behold he cometh with clouds, and every eye shall see him; and they also which pierced him; and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him "(Rev. 1:7,87Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him. Even so, Amen. 8I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty. (Revelation 1:7‑8)). Can you say to this," Even so, amen. Come, Lord Jesus "? (Rev. 22:2121The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen. (Revelation 22:21).) Or will it be for you as for Balaam, a coming that will be the death-knell of hope, when you will see Him there, but not nigh? “Now we see through a glass darkly, but them face to face; now we know in part, but then shall we know even as we are known (1 Cor. 13.).
F. C. P.