EARNESTNESS is, with one remarkable exception, the order of the day. See that man behind the counter, how keenly in earnest he is to strike a good bargain with his customer!
Look at that man on the Exchange; he is dead in earnest to get the highest quotations of the day!
Observe that man running for the train, what earnestness he shows in his desire not to miss it!
If he should lose this one he may have to wait half an hour. Half an hour! How could he afford to lose that?
Watch that woman, what earnestness she displays in her endeavor to make for that tramcar. To lose it would cause her great disappointment, and necessitate waiting perhaps twenty minutes.
Yes; men and women are in deep, real earnest as to temporal things, but when eternal things are mentioned, and the all-important subject of their souls’ salvation is pressed home upon them, they talk of there being plenty of time for that, as though they held life as they do land, on a ninety-nine years’ lease.
“Plenty of time!” Reader, is this your plea? Plenty of time! when death may overtake you at any moment. Plenty of time! when eternity lies but a few paces ahead of you. Plenty of time! when God says, “Now is the accepted time... now is the day of salvation,” and in solemn warning whispers, “Boast not thyself of to-morrow.”
“Plenty of time!” Never was there a better soul-snare invented by the devil than that of “Plenty of time.”
Plenty of time! Tell that to the man behind the counter, or to the man on the Exchange, or to the man hurrying to catch the train, or to the woman who hastens to reach the car, and they will laugh at you and say you are beside yourself.
“Plenty of time” do you say? Yes, God has given you plenty of time, and what have you done with it? Warning after warning He has sent you, opportunity after opportunity He has given, and still you talk of “Plenty of time!” “Plenty of time” have you had for repentance. “Plenty of time” to think of your soul; your sins and your salvation, “Plenty of time” to make preparation for eternity. Plenty of time to trust in Christ and confess Him as your Saviour, and what have you done with it? Squandered it all away. Oh, reader, may God awaken you to your danger!
Plenty of time? Yes, if you reject Christ you will find plenty of time to reflect upon your folly. If you lose your soul, you will find plenty of time to bemoan your loss. Plenty of time will you have to think of lost opportunities and misspent hours. Plenty of time in hell! Plenty of time in eternity!
Memory will be active there. Thousands will wake up too late, in that awful abode where naught but the wail of the damned is heard, to find that God’s time, which they despised, has passed forever, and that “plenty of time” was but the devil’s wile to destruction.
E. E. N.