Opportunity and Time by John Flavel

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Sep 13, 1910

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 37, No. 36.

Opportunity and Time

By John Flavel

GREAT is the worth and excellency of time. All the treasures of the world can not protract, stop, or call back one minute of time. O, what is man, that the heavenly bodies should be wheeled about by almighty power in constant revolutions, to beget time for him! (Ps. 8:3.) More precious are the seasons and opportunities that are in time for our souls; those are the golden spots of time, like the pearl in the oyster shell, of much more value than the shell that contains it.

There is much time in a short opportunity. There is a day on which our eternal happiness depends (Luke 19:41, 42; Heb. 4:7). Lost opportunity is never to be recovered by the soul any more (Eze. 24:13; Rev. 22:11). To come before the opportunity, is to come before the bird is hatched; and to come after it, is to come when the bird is flown. There is no calling back time, when it is once past. See this in the examples you find (Luke 13:26; Eccl. 9:10). It is wholly uncertain to every soul, whether the present day may not determine his leave in this tabernacle, and a writ of ejection be served by debts upon his soul to-morrow (James 4:13; Luke 12:20). As soon as ever time shall end, eternity takes place. . . . We are now measured by time, hereafter by eternity.—Flavel.