p. 16 | Too Late | AdventAI

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, California · Oct 19, 1904

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 30, No. 41.

Too Late.

Only one minute too late! only one-sixtieth of an hour! only one of seventy heart beats! It is such a little bit of time; but O, how potent with eternal realities. A little extra time in getting ready; a few words of explanation which might have been left with God, a failure to calculate slower progress on account of the mud, and the station is reached one minute too late; a congregation is disappointed; and some soul fails to hear the word of life which may have helped on to the kingdom, and all because the preacher was one minute too late for his train. O, the importance of the minutes of time. God gives opportunity to speak a word to a soul in sin. He moves upon your heart to-day; and, as He never works by halves, He moves upon the soul to receive your message of warning, or encouragement, and always of love. But, when the moment comes, you hesitate, and wait; the minute passes, and the opportunity is gone. The king was slow in granting the pardon, or the messenger dallied by the way, and the news reached the place of execution one minute too late. Duty, insistent, clamorous duty, awaits, demands; but you take your own time; the Master calls some one else, and your character and perhaps a life-time opportunity is forever gone, simply because, through love of ease or stubbornness, you were one minute too late. O soul, the time to act is now.

Hast thou duty to be done? Do it now. Do not wait another sun, Do it now. Speak the word or do the deed, Help the fallen, meet his need, To the Master's voice give heed; Do it now.

Do not let the moment pass; Heed it now; Heeded not, ’twill bring, alas, Thorns on brow. Use it now for God and man; Raise the burden, lift the ban; Help as only duty can, Do it now.

“Behold, now is the acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation.”