Squandering Time in a Desperate Age — E.A. Johnston

The Preciousness of Redeeming Time

Before we go to our time of prayer, I'd like to bring a message on redeeming the time. The precious use of time is an important subject, friends, and one much neglected today by our pulpits. Men of former days contemplated much on how to make the best use of the time God gave them.

Jonathan Edwards on Accountability for Time

There's an important sermon by Jonathan Edwards on this theme. It's entitled, The Preciousness of Time, and in that sermon, Jonathan Edwards states the following, that upon time we should set a high value and be exceedingly careful that it not be lost, and we should therefore be exhorted to exercise wisdom and circumspection in order that we may redeem it, and hence it appears that time is exceedingly precious.

Edwards then makes a strong argument that every Christian will be held accountable to God for the time we spend and consider how much time we've lost already. Edwards goes on to say, we should not waste time on unprofitable amusements, and now this comes from a man who spent eight hours a day shut up with God in prayer and study and whose life was suddenly cut down at the age of 54.

I'd like to read you a little more from this sermon by Jonathan Edwards. Listen to some of his words now, friends. This is also the following, that you are accountable to God for your time. Time is a talent given us by God.

He hath set us our day, and it is not for nothing. Our day was appointed for some work, therefore he will, at the day's end, call us to an account. We must give an account of him, of the improvement of all our time.

We are God's servants, as a servant is accountable to his master. How he spends his time when he's sent forth to work, so we are accountable to God. Christ hath told us that for every idle word which men speak, they shall give an account in the day of judgment.

How well, therefore, may we conclude that we must give an account of all our idle, misspent time. I like those words of Jonathan Edwards, friends, and how each one of us is guilty of squandering our time in this desperate age in which we live.

Ephesians 5 and Redeeming the Time

And that's the title of my message this evening, Squandering Time in a Desperate Age. My text is taken from Paul's letter to the Ephesians in chapter 5. You may turn in your Bibles there now, friends.

I want to read us verses 15 through 16 on the preciousness of time and how we should redeem it. See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time because the days are evil.

Let me ask you, friends, are the days in which we live in evil? Do we live in a desperate age before the Lord's return? Then why do we squander so much of the time that God has given us? How can we dare squander time on useless things like television and entertainment?

How in the world can we sit and squander our time in front of a television set when the lost perish all around us? What will you tell Jesus, friend, when you stand before him knee-deep in the ashes of a wasted life which was squandered on useless things that had no eternal worth?

What will you say to him on that day that you had to watch your favorite reality TV show or you had to be glued to the cooking channel or the sports channel because you needed to unwind and relax? That won't cut the mustard, friend, on that day.

The Evil Age and the Loss of Souls

We live in an evil age. Perversion makes progress in society by leaps and bounds, and violence spreads throughout the land while a sin-loving society mocks God and all things holy, and people perish every minute into a place of misery called hell.

Hell fills up every hour with thousands of lost souls who died in their sins, and what are we doing with our free time, wasting it on ourselves? We'd rather sit and laugh and be entertained by Hollywood rather than be in the next room on our knees in prayer, crying out to God to save our children, save our lost loved ones, save the lost in our communities, save the lost in other nations.

We're so self-focused, so self-absorbed, and so self-indulgent that we walk as fools and not as wise. We do not redeem the time for God and the gospel, but rather squander it on ourselves and on our lusts.

The Brief Window of Usefulness

Listen to me, dear friends. I believe every servant of God who's serious about serving God is given a brief window of usefulness in their life to impact their generation for good, and the gospel, I believe there's a window of opportunity given every man, every woman who desires to be spent for Christ and to throw their life away for him and his glory, where God uses your talents and gifts in a penetrating way to save the lost and impact souls for the kingdom of God.

It's a time of maximum efficiency, so to speak, a brief window of opportunity, and then that window closes. I've seen it time and time again in people's lives. I see that principle when I study Christian biography, and when I study revivals, I see it.

I see it in the life of Evan Roberts of Wales, who was a young man who shut himself up with God for 10 years in prayer. He was in obscurity, and then he bursts upon the scene like a light rising in obscurity for a brief window of time.

In that minor revival, which brought in over 100 ,000 souls and shook the whole continent for God, and then the revival ended, Evan Roberts went back into obscurity. He lived the rest of his life in obscurity.

His great window of usefulness had drawn to a close. Look at biblical examples as well. John the Baptist had a six-month time frame to herald the coming king. Stephen had less than that to preach his incredible gospel sermon before he was stoned to death.

Many eminent servants of the Lord died in their prime of life as young men like David Brainerd and Robert Murray McShane, who both died in their 20s. John Song was given 15 years to shake all of China in powerful revivals, then he burned out at the age of 42.

Jonathan Edwards died at 54, George Whitefield at 55, Spurgeon at 59, and Moody at 61. Life is short, and the time in which we serve our God briefer than we realize we read in James, whereas you know not what shall be on tomorrow, for what is your life?

Mortality and the Brevity of Ministry

It is even a vapor that appeareth for a little time and then vanish away. I was having lunch years ago with Adrian Rogers and Stephen Alford, and as I sat at the table, I listened to them talk excitedly about the work which was before them in ministry.

They were vigor in their actions and excited in their speech. They couldn't wait to get out there and accomplish more for God, and it wasn't long after that I was standing over each one of them in their coffins.

They were both in good health at the time, and then sudden illness and disease took them both away quite suddenly. Listen, friend, we don't have the time we think we do to live and serve God as we should.

The brevity of life and the usefulness of time should be a serious matter for each of us to consider. About three years ago, God put it on my heart to get rid of my TV. I've not watched television in three years, and now some of you may think me an oddball for that.

I certainly wouldn't be a good dinner companion because I couldn't converse with you on the hot topics that are on TV or who just won the last sports tournament. I don't know. I don't care. My free time's consumed with things of eternal worth because I know how desperate the days are in which we live.

I wish I could go back and recover all the years I've wasted on the foolish things of this world, but I cannot. That time was squandered on golf courses and silly amusements, and now it's gone. The apostle Peter faced his mortality when he wrote, Yea, I think it meet, as long as I'm in this tabernacle, to stir you up by putting you in remembrance, knowing that shortly I must put off this, my tabernacle, even as our Lord Jesus Christ has showed me.

Moreover, I will endeavor that ye may be able, after my decease, to have these things always in remembrance. I think it's good, friends, for each of us to face our mortality and the brevity of time and the brief window we have to serve God in our generation.

Listen, friend, you don't know if you will be on this earth this time next year. You may be gone long before that. I've had more friends die in the last few years than ever before. Some were cut down quite suddenly.

How this should stir us up to make better use of the time that God has given us and the health we currently have to serve our God with all our strength for the sake of the gospel. Time's a precious commodity, friend.

Examining How We Spend Our Time

Once it's spent, it's gone. I want to take a moment right now. I want to ask you to contemplate in your own life how much time you've squandered, how much time you've wasted on things of self-indulgence, on things of sports and entertainments, how much time you yourself have squandered, given no thought in how to improve the use of time in your life.

How much of your life this past week, friend, has been spent on idle and worthless things rather than on things of eternal worth? This may be your last year on earth, friend. How do you know it's not?

Take a walk through a graveyard and you'll soon learn that the names on the headstones represent the young as well as the old. We must agree that each of us can improve the use of time in our lives if we set our hearts and minds to it.

Listen, friends, we should live each day consciously as if we knew it was our last. If Jesus came to you now and informed you that tomorrow would be your last day on earth, how would you choose to spend the rest of your hours?

Would they be spent sitting in front of a television? Would they be spent watching a long ball game? Or would they be spent in Gospel Witness, where you'd go out and hand out as many tracts and grab as many people as you could and share about the one who came down here so we can go up there while you had the time before you left this earth?

Would you pray more? Would you weep more over the lost? Would you improve your time if you knew you only had a short time in which to live? If you knew, say, that you were going to die next week, would you still waste your time and squander it foolishly?

Examples of Diligent Christian Stewardship

Some of the most useful saints in their generations were those who improved their time for God's glory in this world, it was said of the Puritan Joseph Alain. All the time of his health, writes his wife, he did rise constantly at or before four o 'clock and on the Sabbath sooner.

If he did wake, he'd be much troubled if he heard any smiths or shoemakers or such tradesmen at work at their trades before he was in his duties with God, saying to me after, Oh, how this noise shames me!

Doth not my master deserve more than thirs? From four till eight, he spent in prayer, holy contemplation, and the singing of Psalms. Listen, friends, the men I've known whom God has used in mighty ways were men who made good use of their time for God in eternity.

They did not squander their time on foolish things of this world. And I know some men now who could be better preachers if they made better use of their time. This is a serious and solemn matter. When weighed in light of eternity, how tragic will it be when our lives are reviewed by Jesus Christ and we realize then how much time we squandered, the time that God gave us?

Repentance and a Life Invested for God

Oh, friends, go to your God and go to your knees and confess the great waste of time in your life, which you've allowed to slip through your fingers and worthless things and make a vow that you make a change, that you're trying to improve your time from here on out for God and his glory.

Live your life by the following motto and you won't go wrong. These are the words of C .T. Studd, only one life will soon be passed. Only what's done for Christ will last. Well, let us go now, friends, to our time of prayer and consider these things very solemnly.

Let us pray.