Work While It Is Day by Horatius Bonar

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Nov 5, 1885

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 11, No. 42.

Work While It Is Day.

By Horatius Bonar

Do I paralyze effort when I say, “Work while it is day; for the night cometh, when no man can work”? Nay, do I not thus stimulate zeal, and toil, and prayer, and love to the uttermost? Do I lull men to sleep when I say, “The coming of the Lord draweth nigh,” and time is ebbing fast? Do I tempt the sinner to postpone his conversion, because I speak of the “wrath to come” as so very nigh? Or do I with less serious haste beseech men to be reconciled to God, because I add that the time of reconciliation, the acceptable year of the Lord, is fast running to a close? Do I cherish idleness instead of diligence, softness of spirit instead of hardness, heedlessness about redeeming time instead of eagerness to gather up its fragments, when I announce that “the day goeth away, and the shadows of evening are stretched out”? Do I tempt the minister or the missionary into indolent security, when I declare that “the Judge standeth before the door,” and that erelong the time of working, and preaching, and inviting, will be over? Do I persuade the soldier of the risen Jesus to ungird his weapons because I tell him that his feet are already on the battle-field, and bid him listen to the loud roar afar, that forewarns of the deadly onset?

Do I preach Christ crucified the less, because I preach also Christ coming to reign? or do I the less proclaim that “here we have no continuing city,” because I can point so clearly to that which is to come, the “city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God”? Or do I make saints feel the less that they are strangers here, because I set forth to them the “new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness”?

Do I undervalue the cross because I magnify the throne? In holding up to view the crown of glory, do I deprecate the crown of thorns? Do I enfeeble my proclamation of immediate and free forgiveness to sinners through the Sin-bearer, because I enforce it with the announcement, “The coming of the Lord draweth nigh”? Do I foster error, or heresy, or lax walking, or any departure from the faith, when I warn men that the perilous times of the last days are setting in, when Satan will cast abroad the rage of his wrath, and the unclean spirits will overflow the earth with their delusions, to deceive, if it were possible, the very elect, and to gather the nations to the battle of the great day of God Almighty?

I do not know how it may be with others, but I feel that when I say, “The coming of the Lord draweth nigh,” I have a weapon in my hand of no common edge and temper. To be able to announce, The Lord will come, is much; but to be able to say without the intervention of an interval, He is at hand, is greatly more. I can go to the struggling saint against whom the battle seems to go hard, and say: Faint not, the Lord is at hand, and he will bruise Satan under your feet shortly.

To the saint wearied with a vexing world, fretted with its vanities, and troubled with the thickening darkness of its midnight, I can say: Be of good cheer, the Lord is at hand; but a little while, and that shall cease to vex; sooner than you think, the morn will break—yea, before it is broken we shall be caught up and meet morning ere it is “spread upon the mountains.” To the suffering saint I can say: Weep not, the Lord is at hand; the torn heart shall be bound up, and the bitterness of bereavement forgotten, in the joy of union forever. To the flagging saint, heavy and slothful in his walk, I can say: Up, for the Lord is at hand; work while it is day; look at a dying world, all unready for its Judge; cast off your selfishness and love of ease. To the covetous saint I can say: The Lord is coming; it is no time for hoarding now; heap not up treasures for the last days.

Next to our own salvation must come the duty of sending the gospel to all. We begin in the inner circle, but woe to us if we stop there. Woe to us if we preach not the gospel to every creature. We feel a peculiar call to this, and a peculiar agency enforcing this call from our very system. For but a little time remaineth. The night is falling. The storm is beginning to burst. We cannot tarry; we must go forth. We cannot heap up treasures for the last days. We must give liberally as long as the time allows. Those who look for a calm, long day, may sit down listlessly, but we dare not. Those who look for a mere extension of the present state of religion as the millennium the world is to enjoy, may excuse themselves from giving, and may heap up treasures. But we dare not; we feel that there is not a moment to be lost; and that whether there are few or many to be saved, it matters not to us. We must fulfill our ministry, not counting even our lives dear to us, that we do the will of Him who sends us, and testify the gospel of the grace of God.—Horatius Bonar, D. D.