Our Responsibility for Lost Opportunities
By W. A. S.
Is it not true that many are excusing themselves from engaging in this or that line of work on the ground of incapacity, who put forth little effort to remedy their lack? It is a comforting fact that the Lord does not require of us what we cannot do. But one who is not fully awake to his responsibilities can very easily allow this thought to quiet his conscience, and lull him into inactivity wholly inexcusable. As a warning against this mistake, a quotation from “Testimonies for the Church,” No. 32, is to the point:— “Remember that your responsibility is measured, not by your present resources and capabilities, but by the powers originally bestowed and the possibilities for improvement. The question which each one should ask himself is not whether he is now inexperienced and unfitted to labor in God’s cause, but how and why is he in this condition, and how can it be remedied.” How the thoughts of wasted opportunities and privileges unimproved, come rushing in upon us as we think of our real responsibility before God, and see the pressing need of workmen in the cause. But there is a blessed message which comes to us from the Lord in the words of the prophet, “I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten.” Joel 2:25. Time and privileges lost are gone forever, but as in ancient days the Lord’s blessing was pledged to restore the years to Israel by multiplying the harvest of future seasons, so now he does not leave us in despair with the weight of years of neglect and sin crushing upon us; for in the wondrous workings of his grace, the time lost may be redeemed. The sentence following the quotation already given from the Testimony says:— “God will not supernaturally endow us with the qualifications which we lack; but while we exert the ability we have, he will work with us to increase and strengthen every faculty; our dormant energies will be aroused, and powers which have long been palsied will receive new life.” We have no right to be weak or to live for ourselves, with souls perishing about us, and a world unwarned stretching its vast proportions beyond our farthest efforts. Every soul of us in this decisive hour must be a soul winner by the grace of God, ready, as God’s minuteman, to serve anywhere at his call. Time has been lost by this whole people. We know that we might have filled every continent with the sound of this message ere this. Now there is no further time to lose if we would not lose our own souls; for the call is to instant and world-wide service. Now indeed “it is the last hour.” 1 John 2:18, R. V. “The sunset burns across the sky;
Upon the air its warning cry
The curfew tolls, from tower to tower;
O children, ’tis the last, last hour!” “The work that centuries might have done
Must crowd the hour of setting sun,
And through all lands the saving name
Ye must in fervent haste proclaim. “The fields are white to harvest. Weep,
O tardy workers, as ye reap,
For wasted hours that might have won
Rich harvests ere the set of sun. “We hear his footsteps on the way!
O work while it is called to-day,
Constrained by love, endued with power,
O children, in this last, last hour.” Shall we not, as workers together with God in the gospel, claim his promise of lost years, and let his word bring the promised life to enfeebled powers? Earth’s last hour is the most glorious time for service that has ever come to men.