"Now Is the Accepted Time."
"Strive to enter in at the strait gate; for many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in, and shall not be able." Luke 13: 24. We often hear this text presented as showing a contrast between "striving" and "seeking," giving the idea that seeking implies a merely passive Christian life. That this is not the idea of the text is shown by the Saviour's injunction, "Seek, and ye shall find." To strive means to seek earnestly and continually. The reason that many "will seek to enter in and shall not be able" is because they will seek too late. That this is the point is shown by the verses that follow: "When once the master of the house is risen up, and hath shut to the door, and ye begin to stand without, and to knock at the door, saying, Lord, Lord, open unto us; and he shall answer and say unto you, I know you not whence ye are," etc. The time is at hand when many will seek to enter in at the strait gate and shall not be able. Soon the time of probation will be closed, and the door will be forever shut. "Behold, the days come, saith the Lord God, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord; and they shall wander from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east, they shall run to and fro to seek the word of the Lord, and shall not find it." Amos 8: 11, 12. "Now is the accepted time."