The Fleeting Present

by N/A | Category: General | Jul 1943

"God, even God, the LORD, hath spoken, and called the earth" (Psalm 50.1).

How did He make Himself known to His creatures on earth? In what way has God spoken? What was the medium of communication to man? In what language did He call the world? In what tongue were the sublime words uttered which fell on the ears of man, revealing to his intelligence the Divine plan of redemption ?-shadowy and enigmatical at first but progressively unfolded, and becoming clearer until the waiting' time ended, and the note rings out, "He has come."

Surely then the language in which the wondrous revelation was given has in its very structure some lessons to teach! One very significant fact connected with it, which seems to be pregnant with meaning, is that strictly speaking there is no Present Tense in the Hebrew language. A Hebrew Christian has pointed out that, while there is a future and a past tense, the present tense is sometimes denoted by the past being used as a continuation of the act or event, and sometimes by the use of a participle to express the tense. Is there then no present in God's calculation of time? Is there but an approaching and a passing time, with nothing between? What is the significance of this arresting omission in the Hebrew language? There seems to be some solemn meaning indicated.

The same writer whose article suggested these thoughts illustrated it by the hour-glass and its falling sand, the particles falling from one apartment to the other there being but two they pass straight from one to the other. Future in their course they become instantly past, with nothing between When the grains have finished their course one compartment- is left empty, but the other is filled and presents in its fulness and stillness a continuous and permanent state.

The sands of time, too, are. passing from the future into the past. We speak, do we not? of the sinking "sands of time." As in the hour-glass we watch them fall, the future falls into the past while the least of these words is being penned- by the writer, and those fleeting, passing -moments we call Now, these few, rapidly falling grains, will go on till they have run out, and "time shall be no more."

Surely with God there is a continuous, ever-abiding present-the two periods of time, as it were, folded into one and forming eternity. How solemn is all this in respect to our life down here! Again and again God seeks to impress upon us the brevity 6f our earthly sojourn. He yearns to arrest the unsaved man in his downward course, and He brings eternity with its tremendous issues before him, thus urging him to flee from the wrath to come. Before the saint He would keep the s6lemn fact that we must all be made manifest before the judgement seat of Christ, to receive the things done through the body. Each shall give account of himself to God. Memory will be awakened in That Day. The long-forgotten past will return-" God seeketh again that which is passed away" (Ecclesiastes 3.15).

Hear what suffering Job has to say concerning man's life on earth:

"His days are determined, the number of his- months is with Thee," and, "Thou changest his countenance, and sendeth him away" (Job. 14.5, 20). "When a few years are come, I shall go the way whence I shall not return" (16.22).

"Notmany lives, but only one have we,

One, only one;

How sacred should that one life ever be,

That little span

Day after day filled up with earnest toil,

Hour after hour still bringing in fresh spoil.

We have no time to trifle, life is brief,

And sin is here

Ourage is but the dropping of a leaf,

A falling tear;

We have no time to sport away the hours,

All must be earnest in a world like ours."

" See that ye refuse not Him that speaketh.

For if they escaped not, when they refused Him that warned them on earth, much more shall not we escape, who turn, away from Him that warneth from heaven" (Hebrews 12. 25).

Through all eternity we shall share His bliss, because for this Christ died, but how important it is that we avoid the vain regrets that a careless life will bring!

"Still shall the soul around it call

The shadows- which it gathered here;

And, painted on the eternal wall.

The PAST shall reappear."

N/A | Jul 1943
General