The Preciousness of Time and the Importance of Redeeming It (Part 1)

(DECEMBER 1734)
“…redeeming the time, because the days are evil.” (Ephesians 5:16)

Jonathan Edwards

TIME IS EXCEEDINGLY PRECIOUS

As Christians, we should not only study to improve the opportunities we enjoy, but also labor to reclaim others from their evil course. We should do this so that God might defer His anger, and time be redeemed from the terrible destruction that will put an end to the time of His divine patience … “because the days are evil” (Ephesians 5:16). It is as if the apostle Paul said the corruption of the times tends to hasten the threatened judgments of God, but our holy and careful walk will tend to redeem time from the devouring jaws of those calamities to come. We must place a high value on time, and be extra careful that it is not wasted. We are exhorted to exercise wisdom and care so that we may redeem time, because time is exceedingly precious.

SECTION 1
Why Time Is Precious

Time is precious for the following reasons:

OUR ETERNAL DESTINY

A happy or miserable eternity depends on the good use of time or its waste. Things are precious in proportion to their importance, or to the degree that they concern our welfare. People set the highest value on those things that interest them the most. This then renders time exceedingly precious, because our eternal welfare depends on the improvement of our use of time.

Our welfare in this world depends upon our improvement of the use of time. If we do not improve its use, we stand in danger of coming to poverty and disgrace. However, by improving our use of time, we can obtain those things that are useful and make our lives more comfortable. Nevertheless, time is precious above all things, because our eternal state depends on it. The importance of improving our use of time regarding other matters is subordinate to this.

Gold and silver are esteemed precious by people, but are of no value to anyone except in their use to avoid or remove some evil, or to purchase something good. The greater the evil that is escaped, or the good that is obtained with gold and silver, so much greater is the value of that thing, whatever it be. Therefore, if one uses something they own to save his or her life, they will view the thing used to escape death as very precious.

TIME IS SHORT

Time is very short, which is another thing that renders it precious. The scarcity of any commodity causes people to set a higher value upon it, especially if it is necessary and cannot be done without. Therefore, when Samaria was besieged by the Syrians and provisions were exceedingly scarce, “… a donkey’s head was sold for eighty shekels of silver, and one-fourth of a kab of dove droppings for five shekels of silver” (2 Kings 6:25).

Time must be prized. Eternity depends upon time, yet we have so little of it:

• For when a few years are finished, I shall go the way of no return. (Job 16:22)
• Now my cays are swifter than a runner; They flee away, they see no good. They pass by like swift ships, Like an eagle swooping on its prey. (Job 9:25-26)
• For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. (James 4:14)

It is but a moment to eternity. Time is so short and the works we have to do is so great, that we have no time to spare. The works we must do to prepare for eternity must be done in time or it can never be done. Furthermore, this work is very difficult, masking the effective use of time even more vital.

THE END OF TIME IS UNCERTAIN

Time must be esteemed precious becaues we are uncertain of its length. We know that time is very short, but we do not know how short. We do not kow how little of it remains, whether a year or several years, or only a month, a week, or a day. Every day, we are uncertain whether that day will be the last, or even if we will live the entire day. There is nothing that experience verifies more than this.

If a man had some provisions stored up for a journey or a voyage, and knew that if his provisions failed they would perish by the way, he would be very careful in stocking up. How much more would people prize their time, if they knew they had only a few months or a few days left to live!

A wise people prize their time, because they do not know when it will run out. This is the case with multitudes now in the world, as they enjoy good health and see no sign of approaching death. Nevertheless, many will die in the next month, many the next week, many will die tomorrow, and some even tonight. Yet these same persons know nothing of it, and perhaps think nothing of it. Neither they nor their neighbors can say that they are more likely to be sooner taken out of the world than others. This teaches us how we must prize our time, and how careful we must be that we lose none of it.

TIME CAN’T BE RECOVERED

Time is very precious, because when it is past, it cannot be recovered. Men possess many things which, if they part with them, would be lost forever. If a man loses something, though not know the worth of it or his need of it, he can often regain it with effort and some cost. If a man has traded away or sold something and afterwards has a change of mind, he may seek and recover what he traded or sold.

However, it is not true with respect to time. When time is gone, it is gone forever, and no effort or cost will recover it. Though we are filled with remorse and repent that we let time pass without properly using it, it is to no avail. Every part of time is successively offered to us, so that we may choose whether we will make it our own or not. But time does not delay. It will not wait on us to see whether or not we will comply with the offer. If we refuse, it is immediately taken away, and never offered again. As to that part of time that has passed, however we have neglected to use it, it is out of our possession and out of our reach.

If we have lived fifty, sixty, or seventy years, and have not properly used our time, it cannot be helped. That time is eternally gone from us, and all that we can do is to properly use the little that remains. If one has spent all his life with but a few moments unused, all that is past is lost and only those few remaining moments can possibly be made his own. Likewise, if the whole of man’s time has passed and is all lost, it is irrecoverable.

Eternity depends on the proper use of time. When once the time of life is gone and death is come, we have no more to do with time. There is no possibility of obtaining the resurrection of time, nor is there another realm in which to prepare for eternity.

If a man loses his entire worldly substance and becomes bankrupt, it is possible that his loss may be regained, and he may have another estate as good. But when the timme of life is gone, it is impossible to ever obtain another such time. All opportunity to obtain eternal welfare is utterly and everlastingly gone.

SECTION 2
Reflections on Time Past

You have been told how precious time is, and you are the one to whom God has committed that precious commodity. You have eternity before you. When God created you, and gave you a reasonable soul, He made you an endless existence. He gave you time in order to prepare for eternity, so your future eternity depends on your proper use of time here.

Therefore, consider what you have done with your time until now. Your time is not just beginning, a great deal is already past and is gone. Furthermore, all the human intelligence, human power or treasure of the universe cannot recover it. You may well conclude that more than half of your time is already gone. Though you may live to the ordinary age of man, your glass is more than half empty, and there may be but a few moments remaining. Your sun is past the zenith and perhaps just setting, or going into an everlasting eclipse. Therefore, what account can you give of your use of time? How have you let the precious seconds of your life be used?

Every day that you have enjoyed has been precious, even your moments have been precious But have you not wasted your precious moments, your precious days, and your precious years? If you were to total how many days you have lived, what a sum it would be, and every one of those days has been precious!

• What have you done with them?
• What has become of them all?
• Can you show any improvements made, good done, or benefit obtained for all this time that you have lived?
• When you look back and search, do you find this past time of your life empty in great measure, having not been filled with any good improvement?
• If God, who allotted your time, should now call you to an account, what account could you givce Him?

How much good can be done in a year? How much service can you do for God in a year? How much good for your own soul if you improve it to the utmost? How much can you do in a day? What have you done in the many days and years that you have already lived? What have you done with the time of your youth (if you are past your youth)? What has become of that precious season of life? Hast it all been in vain to you? Would it have been as well or better for you if all that time you had been asleep, or in a state of nonexistence?

You have had much time of leisure and freedom from worldly business. Consider to what purpose you have spent it. You have not only had ordinary time, but have had a great deal of holy time as well. What have you done with all the Sabbath-days that you have enjoyed? Consider those things seriously, and let your conscience answer.

SECTION 3
Misusing Time is Sin Against God

The preciousness of time is rarely considered, and most people seem to ignore it! Many of them spend their time and accomplish very little good purpose. There is nothing more precious than time and nothing of which men are more wasteful. For many people, time is as silver was in the days of Solomon, as the stones of the street, and nothing accounted of. People act as if time were as plentiful today as silver was then, and as if they had a great deal more than they need, not knowing what to do with it. If one were as foolish with his money as with his time, we should think him insane and not in his right mind. Yet time is a thousand times more precious than money. When it is gone, it cannot be purchased for money and cannot be redeemed by silver or gold.

There are several kinds of people who are admonished by this teaching:

THOSE WHO ARE IDLE OR LAZY

Those who spend a great part of their time in idleness, do nothing of value for the good of either their souls or bodies. These folk do nothign either for their own benefit, or for the benefit of their neighbor, their family or the community where they live. Time seems to lie heavy on some persons, who, instead of trying to properly use it as it passes, act as if it is their concern to figure out ways to waste and consume it. It is as though time is a burden to them instead of being precious. Their hands refuse to labor, and rather than go to work will let their families suffer while suffering themselves. “An idle person will suffer hunger” (Proverbs 19:15) and “drowsiness will clothe a man with rags” (Proverbs 23:21).

Some people spend lots of time in the bars and nightclubs; others wander from house to house wasting away their hours in idle and unprofitable talk. “In all labor there is profit But idle chatter leads only to poverty” (Proverbs 14:23). Paul declared, “Let him who stole steal no longer, but rather let him labor, working with his hands what is good, that he may have something to give him who has need” (Ephesians 4:28). However, lazy men, instead of gaining anything to give to another in need, waste what they already have. “He also that is slothful in his work, is brother to him that is a greater waster” (Proverbs 18:9).

THOSE WHO ARE WICKED

This teaching convicts those who spend time in wickedness. These folk do not merely spend their time doing nothing to any good purpose, but spend it in wickedness. Such not only lose their time, but do worse by hurting themselves and others as well.

Time is precious, because eternity depends upon it. By the wise use of time, we have the opportunity to escape eternal misery and obtain eternal blessedness. However, those who spend their time doing wicked works, not only neglect to improve their time to obtain eternal happiness or to escape damnation, but increase their eternal misery. By their acts, they render their damnation even more heavy and intolerable.

Some spend much time in wild living, engaging in unclearn talk and unclean practices. They keep company with vicius, corrupt people, and spend their time corrupting and ensnaring the minds of others. These folk set bad examples and lead others into sin, undoing not only their own souls, but the souls of others as well.

Some spend their precious time gossiping and backbiting, talking against others. They live in contention, quarreling with others and brewing up strife. It would have been well for som emen, and well for their neighbors, had they never done anything at all, because then they would have done no good but caused no hurt. Instead, they have done more hurt than they will ever do good. There are those for whom it would have been better if the towns where they lived would maintained them in doing nothing and kept them in a state of inactivity.

Those who have spent their time doing wickedness, if ever they do reform and embark on a different mode of living, will find that they have not only wasted the past, but have made work for their remaining time to undo the harm they have done. Many men, when their time is done, will look back over their lives and wish that they had had no time at all! For the time that they have spent on earth will be worse to them than if they had spent all their time in hell, because an eternity of more dreadful misery in hell will be the fruit of their time on earth.

THOSE WHO PURSUE THE WORLD

This teaching convicts the folk who spend their time in worldly pursuits and neglecting their souls. Such people lose their time but are ever so diligent in their worldly business. Thou they are careful not to let any time pass idly by, they will in some way or another turn it to their worldly profit. They that use time only for their benefit, lose it because time ws not givcen for itself, but for that everlasting duration which succeeds it.

Therefore, those whose time is taken up in caring and laboring for the world only, wondering what they shall eat, what they shall drink, and how they will be clothed, contriving to lay up for themselves treasure upon earth and how to enrich themselves will lose their precious time. Likewise, those who are concerned with how to make themselves great in the world, or how to live in comfortable and pleasant circumstances while here. Those who busy their minds and employ their strength in these things only, the stream of whose afflictions is directed towards worldly things, will lose their precious time.

Therefore, let such as have been guilty of spending their time so, consider it. You have spent a great part of your time, and a great part of your strength in getting a little of the world. See how little good it brings you now that you have gotten it? Ponder these questions:

• What happiness or satisfaction can you reap from it?
• Will it give you peace of conscience, or any rational quietness or comfort?
• Is your poor, needy, perishing soul the better for it?
• What better prospects does it afford you of your approaching eternity?
• What will all that you have acquired avail you when time is no more?

(To be continued in Part 2)