THE SACREDNESS OF OPPORTUNITY.
By W. S. Sadler
“I must work the works of Him that sent Me, while it is day; the night cometh, when no man can work.” John 9:4. The one thing that comes and goes with time is opportunity. Every moment of time marks the birth of an opportunity; it also marks the decline of another; and perhaps the death of still another. Opportunities are coming and going perpetually. When time has passed, the opportunities are gone, and gone forever. We can no more recall a lost opportunity than past time. So the passing of time, under any and all circumstances and conditions, must mean at least this much to every one of us—the passing of opportunity. It may only be possible to seize the seed of an opportunity in a passing moment; but in that seed there are concealed untold possibilities, which may bud, blossom, and bear fruit in the future. But if the seed is lost, all the possibilities of that opportunity have passed with the passing of time. The only possible good that can come from lost opportunity is its reflex action when we discover the value of that which we have lost. This realization of lost opportunity may arouse us to seize with greater alacrity those which are now before us, and which are to come in the future—to produce such a real regret and remorse on our part that we shall ever be more on the alert to grasp opportunities during their lifetime, just while they are before us, ere they pass on to leave only a trail of sadness behind. Human opportunities all have their dawn, their noontime, their eventide, and last of all, their night. It is true that sometimes the dawn comes gradually, like the break of day. Sometimes but a short while after the dawn of an opportunity, its noontide seems to have been reached;—the time of greatest good is here. Did we make the most of the noontime, or did we let it pass, thinking that the noontide blaze would shine on indefinitely? Just as surely as an opportunity has dawned and high noon is reached, now is the time for our greatest effort, for night is surely drawing on. The time of darkness is coming, when you will not be able to carry forward your chosen work. See how our Saviour looked upon the sacredness of human opportunity. In the closing part of the eighth chapter of John we see Him driven from the temple court by an angry mob, with stones in their hands, ready to cast at Him. It would seem that He almost miraculously took Himself from their midst. The blind man, a beggar, is sitting by the wayside; Jesus is passing by, with an angry mob not far away; His disciples are hurriedly fleeing with Him; all is excitement, but the Master sees a blind man, and that is enough. He recognized the afflicted man’s need. Human souls, spiritually blind, morally crippled,—how many such have we passed by, without so much as seeing them? But Jesus saw a man who was blind from his birth. His disciples might have paid no attention to this blind beggar. But the procession is suddenly brought to a standstill. There Christ stands before the blind man. The sightless man can not see Him, but He can see the blind man. Let us remember this case when the hours are dark, and things look discouraging. We may not be able to see Jesus, but we have the assurance that Jesus sees us. You may be in the night-time of some trial, and unable to see Jesus; but He sees you. The day will break soon, and you will see Him. So the disciples pause with the Master, who sees the blind man. That is all the Saviour sees—the blind beggar. The silence is painful. The mob is not far distant. The disciples break the silence by asking, “Who did sin, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” He was a well-known character. The disciples knew he had been blind from his birth. The blind man is entirely ignorant of the fact that the4Master of heaven and earth is looking upon him. How many times He has graciously looked upon us, and we have been blind to His watching, searching gaze. How it pained the Saviour to have this question of idle, morbid curiosity intruded upon this sacred and solemn occasion. Jesus had seen an opportunity, and it was the most sacred thing in all the world to Him. Ah, yes, the eye that could see the blind man is the eye that recognized the opportunity of the hour. The Master brushes aside the disciples’ question, for here is an opportunity; He must seize it now, right now; He must strike while the iron is hot. So we hear Him say, “I must work the works of ‘Him that sent Me, while it is day; the night cometh, when no man can ‘work.” Says Jesus to His disciples, “I must work.” It is not enough for Me to teach. It is not enough to send you out to work, etc.; but “I must work.” Jesus recognized the individual responsibility to do something. “I must work the works of Him that sent ‘Me.” There is a certain kind of work I must do. I recognize it, and I recognize it in this blind man. “I must work the works of ‘Him that sent Me, while it is day; the night cometh, when no man can ‘work.” The Saviour recognized that the noontime of His opportunity had arrived for this blind man. And with the mob at His heels, and His disciples asking idle questions, the Master keeps His thoughts centered on one thing, and that is the opportunity. For many years divine Providence has designed to bring about this occasion. It is now or never with Jesus. Perhaps if the blind man had been passed by on this occasion, he would never again have met the Master, and one of the most remarkable miracles on record would not have been worked, and so its lessons would have been untaught. I pray God to anoint our eyes with eye-salve that, as time passes, we may see the blind men, the lame ones, the discouraged souls, the broken hearts, the poor in spirit; that we may “work the works of ‘Him that sent’ us, ‘while it is day;’ for it is just as true of us that ‘the night cometh, when no man can work.’” As surely as the night-time of this world’s history is drawing on, and we may even already have entered its eventime; just as truly as this world’s probation will one day be closed, and its day of opportunity be forever past; so the day whereon we can help any soul, heal any broken heart, find the blind man, and anoint the blind eyes of the soul, comes and goes. It may even now be passing. The Lord may choose you or me as the instrument to be brought around in the last tick of time just before the sun sets, that we may feed a hungry soul, that we may point the dying soul to “the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world,” that we may say, “Daughter, brother, thou art loosed from the spirit ‘of thine infirmity.’” Let us study Jesus’ life, and learn how carefully He recognized opportunities. As we see Him on the cross, He recognizes the thief. He listens to his cry, and forgives his sins; and in the last moment of his life, the thief is given the promise of eternal existence. The Saviour recognized the opportunity. He saw that the last moment had arrived; and He was there to improve it. Shall we be quick to recognize the dawn of an opportunity? If we seize it as a dawn, we can march on with it and gain a fulness of experience in the good things that are stored for us in every opportunity.