Your ShelfYour Projects

A Good Time

14%

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Apr 22, 1913

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 40, No. 16.

Read the full edition

A Good Time

By Obadiah Oldschool

WHAT strange ideas some people have of enjoyment, and how strange the ways in which they seek it!
A good time—how can we have it except in getting good or doing good? A good time can not be mere pastime; for pastime is the waste and squandering of time. As well call a spendthrift a good financier, as call one wise and happy who spends the golden hours of his earthly probation in mere amusements, tho he may call them innocent.
A good time is not a time of excitement merely. It may be enjoyed as quietly as the dew falls or the sun shines. An old man in the poorhouse, with a book in his hand, was asked, “What are you doing?” He looked up a moment from the printed page, and replied, “O sir, I am sitting under His shadow with great delight, and His fruit is sweet to my taste.” The feeble, friendless pauper had a good time with God and his Bible.
People sometimes have a good time in very strange places. Paul and Silas sang hymns in the dungeon at Philippi, with their backs raw and bleeding, and their feet fast in the stocks. They praised God that they were counted worthy to suffer for Him. And in that prison, before morning, they witnessed wonderful displays of divine grace. I have no doubt they looked back upon that as one of the happiest nights in their lives.
The angels have a good time in heaven. But it would be as dull there as a prayer-meeting, to the lovers of carnal and worldly pleasure. They could find no enjoyment in those songs of praise, which roll like the sound of many waters around the throne. They can not appreciate the beauty of holiness and the blessedness of the pure in heart who see God.
Hence it is of the utmost importance that we try to interest ourselves and others in that which is truly good—that we cultivate on earth those sources of enjoyment on which we must depend for happiness in heaven.—Obadiah Oldschool.