Latest / Reformed Thinking / Time Is Exceedingly Precious (Ephesians 5:16) | Jonathan Edwards

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Time Is Exceedingly Precious (Ephesians 5:16) | Jonathan Edwards · Reformed Thinking

0:00
Welcome to reformed thinking. You know, usually when we talk
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about a medical diagnosis, there's a clear expectation of
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precision. Right.
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You think of it like engineering, almost.
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Yeah, you break your arm, you go to the hospital, and the X-ray
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shows that jagged white line right on the screen.
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It is a binary situation. It is either broken or it is not
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broken. It is clean.
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The doctor points to it and says, well, there it is broken.
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The solution is clear because the problem is isolated.
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And that visual evidence is comforting.
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I mean we want our problems to be visible like.
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That we really do. We like the physical world
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because it provides undeniable visual evidence of our
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condition. We want things easily
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categorized so we can just, you know, apply a straightforward
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remedy and move on with our lives.
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But then you step into the world of evaluating how we spend our
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lives. You try to evaluate the
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condition of your soul and the daily habits you have dealt.
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And suddenly that X-ray machine is broken.
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Yeah, total broken. We are looking at a diagnostic
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landscape of our own existence that is, well, incredibly murky.
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Extremely mucky, it is hard to pin down.
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So we are bringing you a deep dive today into a single, highly
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focused source text. We are looking at Jonathan
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Edwards. Sermon time is exceedingly
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precious. Such a weighty piece of.
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Work. It really is.
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This is a message he preached based on the Apostle Paul's
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letter to the Ephesians, specifically chapter 5, verse
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16. Right, the passage that talks
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about redeeming the time because the days are evil.
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OK, let's unpack this. The core concept here is this
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idea of redeeming time. Edwards defines the straight
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from the text as buying it up. Buying it out of the market,
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essentially. Yes.
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And he says we do this through circumspection.
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That means cautious observation. It requires considering all the
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circumstances before acting. It is a very liberate, almost
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aggressive posture toward the clock.
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You are not just letting the hours pass, you are actively
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purchasing. Them and the gravity of this
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text. It cannot be oversakened.
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No, it really cannot. Because when we hear the phrase
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redeeming the time today, our modern minds instantly filter it
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through the lens of a life hack. Oh sure, we think of
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productivity apps. Right.
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We assume Edwards is giving us an early version of a
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productivity seminar. We think he is going to teach us
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how to optimize our calendar so we can squeeze in another
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workout or, you know, answer emails faster.
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Or get ahead in our careers, like time blocking.
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Yeah, time blocking. Yeah, But that is not what he's
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doing at all. He is laying out a stark cosmic
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economy. A.
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Cosmic economy. I like that phrasing.
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In his view, every ticking second dictates an eternal
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state. The mission for us today is to
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understand why we squander our most finite resource and how
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Edwards argues for its supreme value.
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We really need to look at the sheer weight he places on
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seconds and minutes. Because it completely upends our
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normal way of operating. It changes everything.
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I think we should start with how Edwards builds his case for the
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value of time. He does not begin with abstract
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theology at all. No, he grounds it in something
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incredibly relatable. Human welfare.
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Right. He sets up this rule that time's
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value is proportionate to its role in securing our welfare.
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He says people habitually set the highest value value on
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things that secure their interests.
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It is just human nature. It is, and he points out that if
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we fail to improve our time, which he defines as using it to
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the best advantage, we risk poverty and disgrace in this
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physical world. Which makes sense.
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You sleep all day and refuse to work.
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You will go hungry. The physical world punishes
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wasted time very clearly. But that is just the baseline
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for him. That is just the visible
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consequence. Yeah, more pressingly, our
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entire state through eternity depends on how we manage this
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resource. And that is the crux of the
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economics of eternity he is building here.
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He is looking at human behavior and noting that we are very
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pragmatic creatures. We naturally gravitate toward
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prioritizing whatever keeps us safe, comfortable, and well fed.
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Right. We protect our assets.
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Yeah, Edwards uses that natural human inclination as a stepping
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stone. He acknowledges that failing to
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use time well in the physical world leads to poverty.
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But then he scales that concept up to Infinity.
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He wants us to apply the exact same pragmatic logic we use for
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our earthly bank accounts to our eternal standing before God.
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He uses this financial analogy that really makes the abstract
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concept concrete. He talks about gold and silver.
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Yes, he notes that men esteem gold and silver.
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People will cross oceans, dig mines, risk their lives for
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these metals. But those metals have absolutely
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no intrinsic worth. Not at all.
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You cannot eat gold. It does not keep you warm at
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night. It is a soft metal with very few
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practical applications in daily survival really.
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Gold and silver are only valuable because society agrees
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they are valuable. They are valuable because they
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provide an opportunity to avoid evil or possess good.
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Right, if you are holding a massive block of gold on a
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desert island with no one to trade with.
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It's completely useless to you. You might as well have a rock.
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Exactly. Well, absolutely.
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It's value is entirely derived from its utility as an exchange
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mechanism to secure your welfare.
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Maybe you use it to buy a ship passage to save your life.
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And Edwards argues that time operates on the same economic
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principle, but on a cosmic scale.
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Time itself is just a mechanism of exchange.
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Right, It is the currency we use to secure our internal welfare.
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I was thinking about a modern equivalent to this.
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We obsessively monitor our bank accounts to prevent fraud.
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Oh definitely. We all have those alerts set up.
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We set up alerts on our phones so that if a dollar is spent
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without our authorization, we know instantly we protect that
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currency fiercely. If a credit card gets stolen and
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$100 goes missing, we make phone calls, we freeze accounts.
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We dispute the charges. We go to war for that, that lost
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money. We do, yeah.
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We leave the vault door wide open regarding our daily
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schedule. We let people, distractions,
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trivialities steal ours from us without a second thought.
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That is such a conviction, right?
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There. So I have to ask you, if time is
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the only currency that allows us to escape infinite evil and
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attain infinite good, which Edwards defines as everlasting
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misery versus everlasting blessedness, why is human nature
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wired to value a dollar over a day?
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If we connect this to the bigger picture, earthly welfare, like
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avoiding poverty or protecting that bank account, it provides
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immediate, tangible feedback, right?
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If someone steals $100 from you, you feel the loss today.
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You might not be able to buy groceries this week.
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You might miss a rent payment. The pain is immediate and
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undeniable. Eternity, on the other hand,
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feels abstract to the human mind.
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The feedback loop is severely delayed.
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Psychologists refer to this as temporal discounting, right?
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Yes, temporal discounting. We inherently prefer a smaller
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immediate reward over a much larger delayed reward.
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And we also fear an immediate minor consequence far more than
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a massive delayed consequence. However, Edwards argues the
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literal math of Infinity makes time infinitely more precious
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than any physical substance. If a person can save their
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physical life with money, they value that money highly.
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They will give everything they own to cure eternal disease.
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Every penny. How much more than should we
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value the time that allows us to secure an eternal state?
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The math dictates that an endless duration of existence
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requires our utmost attention right now, yet our senses
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deceive us into prioritizing the immediate and the temporary.
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We trust what we can see over what God has declared to be
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true. Absolutely, we are very sensory
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driven creatures. And if time is a currency, its
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value skyrockets not just because of what it buys, but
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because of its severely limited supply.
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Scarcity. Extreme scarcity.
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Yes, that brings us to this concept of extreme scarcity,
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Edwards says. Time is very short, and that
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extreme scarcity drives up value exponentially.
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We see this in basic economics. When a resource becomes scarce,
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the price goes up. He brings in a striking
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historical parallel from the Old Testament to illustrate this.
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He does. He points to 2nd Kings chapter
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6, verse 25. The historical account of the
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siege of Samaria by the Syrian Army.
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Right. And during this military siege,
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the city was entirely cut off from all outside resources.
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No trade was allowed in or out. The food supply dwindled to
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nothing. People were desperate.
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Edwards notes that during this siege, the economic values of
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everyday items were completely upended.
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Provisions became so scarce that a donkey's head sold for 80
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pieces of silver. And a fraction of dove's dung
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sold for five pieces of silver. Here's where it gets really
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interesting. Think about the grotesque nature
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of that siege. It is horrific to even imagine.
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A donkey was considered an unclean animal in ancient
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Israelite culture. You were not supposed to eat it,
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even on a good day. Let alone the head of it.
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Right. The head of a donkey is the
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least fleshy, most undesirable part of an already undesirable
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animal, yet people paid an absolute fortune for it.
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And does dog? I mean people will trade vast
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fortunes for literal garbage if their physical survival is
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threatened. The.
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Instinct to survive overrides all previous concepts of worth,
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dignity, and religious custom. You have people trading life
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savings for a handful of refuse just to live one more day.
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Yet for spiritual survival, where Edwards reminds us whole
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eternity depends upon it, we act as if we have an endless surplus
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of days. We're not treating time with a
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desperation of a starving person in a besieged city, even though
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the stakes are infinitely higher.
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That contrast is highly intentional on his part, isn't
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it? Oh.
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Absolutely. He wants to shock the spiritual
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system of his listeners. He is asking a very logical
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question. Which is.
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If men will prize garbage to extend their physical lives by a
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few miserable days during a brutal siege, how should they
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prize the days that determine an endless, unchanging eternity?
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It is a staggering comparison when you really let it sink in.
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He is highlighting a massive cognitive dissonance in how we
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evaluate our situation. We are besieged by our own
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mortality, yet we act like we live in a land of plenty.
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We act like billionaires with time, but we are actually
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destitute. Spot on.
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And to further establish this scarcity, he brings in a rapid
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fire sequence of biblical metaphors describing life's
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brevity. He wants to prove just how short
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the supply of time actually is. Yes, the imagery he pulls from
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Scripture is relentless. He pulls from James chapter 4,
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describing life as a vapor that appears for a little time and
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then vanishes away. You think about breath on a cold
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winter morning. You exhale.
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You see the mist hang in the air for a fraction of a second.
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And then it is gone without a trace.
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It dissipates into nothing. That is our entire lifespan in
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the eyes of eternity, Just a momentary mist.
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He also pulls heavily from the book of Job, doesn't he?
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He does, he uses the image of days being Swisher than a
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Courier or a post. Right in the ancient world, the
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postal system relied on riders galloping at top speed on fresh
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horses. They would ride until the horse
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was exhausted. Immediately switched to a fresh
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horse at a relay station and keep sprinting.
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It was the. Fastest moving thing in the
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ancient world. They didn't stop for anything.
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Then he mentioned swift ships. A ship cutting through the water
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with the wind and its sails experiences very little friction
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to slow it down. It glides relentlessly forward.
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There are no brakes on a sailing ship.
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And perhaps the most disceral image he uses is an eagle
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hastening to its prey. Think about the physics of that
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for a moment. When an eagle spots its target
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on the ground, it does not casually float.
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Down. No.
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It folds its wings back and goes into a stoop.
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Essentially a freefall. It drops from the sky at
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incredible speed, sometimes reaching 200 mph.
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It plummets with aggressive targeted velocity.
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Edwards applies all these metaphors to our lifespan.
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We are not casually strolling toward eternity.
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We are plummeting toward it. OK, I have to push back a little
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on the psychological weight of this realization.
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Go ahead, Edwards says. The work we must do to prepare
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for eternity is a work of great difficulty and labor.
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It is not an easy task. Right requires immense effort.
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If the timeline is a mere moment to eternity and the labor is
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intense, does the scarcity induce panic or does it clarify
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our focus? That is a very valid question.
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Because I know my own psychology, if I am told I have
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a massive difficult project to complete at work and my boss
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tells me I only have 5 minutes to do it, my instinct might be
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to freeze. For sure the deer in the
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headlights reaction. I might panic, throw my hands up
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and not even try. Rather than working steadily,
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how does Edwards expect people to function under the weight of
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an eagle plummeting toward the ground?
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Recognizing scarcity is meant to strip away frivolity.
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It is not intended to paralyze you, but to crystallize your
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priorities. So it acts as a filter.
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Exactly, if you realize you literally have none to spare, as
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he puts it, you stop wasting energy on things that do not
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contribute to the final goal. The difficulty of the labor
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combined with the shortness of the time means every action must
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be highly intentional. The panic you were describing
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usually sets in when a person and refuses to engage with the
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work until the very last second. Like cramming for an exam.
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Right. But for the person who is
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circumspect, the person who is actively buying up the time as
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Ephesians commands, this realization produces a highly
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focused, deliberate way of living.
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It filters out the noise. When you know time is scarce,
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you do not spend an hour debating trivial things.
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You focus entirely on what is necessary.
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It acts as a massive pruning mechanism for your daily
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choices. If the time is a vapor, you
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cannot afford to invest it in things that are also vapors.
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If you are building a house and you know you only have 10
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bricks, you do not build a decorative wall.
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You build the foundation, you focus on the absolute
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necessities. Precisely.
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And while the brevity of life is frightening enough on its own,
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the true terror in Edwards argument lies in the next point.
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Oh boy, it gets worse. It does.
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It is not just that the time is short.
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The real danger is that the actual expiration date is
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completely hidden from us. Right, we know our time is
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short, but we have absolutely no idea how short.
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We are operating completely in the dark regarding our own
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deadline. That uncertainty principle he
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outlines is profoundly unsettling.
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We do not know if we have 20 years, a month, a week or a
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single day left. We are uncertain every single
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day whether that particular day will be our last.
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Or if we even get to finish the current day, we go to sleep
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assuming we will wake up, but we have no contractual guarantee
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that we will. He looks at the current state of
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the world to prove this reality. He observes that multitudes
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presently enjoy perfect health and see absolutely 0 signs of
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approaching death. They feel fine, they eat well,
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they exercise. Their doctors would run tests
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and say they are in peak physical condition.
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Yet statistically and providentially, many of these
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same healthy individuals will die next month, next week,
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tomorrow, or even tonight. A sudden accident.
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A massive heart attack. A natural disaster?
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Edwards lived in a time before modern medicine where sudden
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death was perhaps more visible, but the statistics remain true
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today. Perfect health in the morning is
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no guarantee of survival by the evening.
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I see this collective delusion in society all the time.
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We look at our neighbors and because they are walking around
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healthy, we assume we both have decades left.
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We hide death in modern society. It happens in hospitals behind
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closed doors. So we maintain this illusion of
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permanence. It is like standing in a massive
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room where trap doors are randomly opening up and Smalling
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people. That is a terrifying image.
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But because the person standing directly next to you has not
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fallen through yet, that you assume the floor under your own
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feet is totally solid. You assume you have figured out
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where the safe zones are. So why is it that even those who
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acknowledge this reality conceptually still fail to prize
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their time practically? We all know logically that
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people die unexpectedly, yet we live like we are completely
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immune to the trap doors. What's fascinating here is that
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neither the individual nor their neighbors have any specialized
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knowledge predicting who will be taken out of the world next.
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No one receives an advance this warning.
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There is no e-mail from management saying your time is
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up. Edwards argues that if a man
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knew he had exactly 3 days left to live, he would prize his time
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intensely. Every second would be
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meticulously planned. He would make things right with
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his family. He.
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Would cry out to God. He would ignore all trivial
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entertainment. Nobody binges ATV show if they
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have three days left. A wise person, according to
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Edwards, adopts that exact posture right now, recognizing
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that human experience verifies sudden ends constantly.
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The reason we fail to prize time practically is that we rely
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entirely on our immediate physical senses over objective
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reality. Because we feel healthy today,
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we project that feeling of health onto tomorrow.
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We let our subjective feelings of invincibility override the
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objective truth of human mortality.
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Edwards is demanding that his listeners let reason,
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observation and Scripture override their subjective
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feelings. We lean heavily on the
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assumption of a guaranteed tomorrow.
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But an uncertain deadline is stressful enough.
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What makes the loss of time truly devastating in his
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framework is its absolute finality.
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Yes. We move from the illusion of a
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guaranteed tomorrow into the unforgiving economy of lost
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minutes. He emphasizes that time is
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entirely irrecoverable. Once passed, no amount of pain
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or cost will recover it. He contrasts time with earthly
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possessions very effectively in this section.
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He. Explains that if a person is
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overseen an older term which means acting hastily or
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carelessly in a business margin. Right, and they barter away
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something highly valuable for practically nothing.
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There is usually a remedy. If you make a terrible financial
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decision, you can often repent of of the bad deal.
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You can go back to the person, pay a financial penalty and
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obtain a release to recover what was lost.
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The physical world often allows for do overs, even if those do
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overs are expensive and painful. You can declare bankruptcy if a
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man loses his entire worldly substance.
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If his business fails and he goes completely bankrupt, it is
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a disaster, sure. But he might work hard for
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another 10 years and build another estate just as good.
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Or perhaps even better, He can start over.
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The clock, however, has this brutal linear nature.
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When time is gone, the loss is absolute.
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There is no bankruptcy court for wasted years.
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None at all. I like to imagine time as a
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relentless conveyor belt offering you a specific moment.
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I like that analogy. You are standing next to this
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belt and a box representing right now comes down the line.
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You must choose immediately to make it your own or refuse it.
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There is zero delay. The belt will not wait for you
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to make up your mind. It does not pause while you
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consider your options. Once that box drops off the edge
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of the belt, it is out of your possession and out of your reach
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forever. You cannot climb down into the
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machinery and get it back. It is gone into the abyss.
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That conveyor belt is a highly accurate image for what he
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describes. Every part of time is
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successively offered to us. If we refuse to use it, well, it
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is immediately taken away and the next moment is presented.
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And he expands on this finality by noting something very
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sobering. Even sincere repentance over
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wasted time does not bring the time back.
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That is a hard pill to swallow, especially in a theological
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framework that emphasizes forgiveness.
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Repentance fixes a lot of things.
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It restores relationships, it clears the conscience, it
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reconciles a person to God, but it does not rewind the clock.
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No, it does not. If someone lives 70 years
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unimproved, meaning they lived a long life but did not use it to
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prepare for eternity, living entirely for their own earthly
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pleasures. That time is eternally gone.
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All the regret, all the weeping, all the genuine sorrow in the
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world will not recover a single minute of those 70 years.
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God may forgive the wasted time, but He does not refund it.
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Only the few remaining moments on the conveyor belt can
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possibly be claimed. And once physical death arrives,
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the opportunity to prepare for eternity, eternity is utterly
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and everlastingly gone. Edwards makes it clear there is
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no second chance after death. There is no possibility of
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obtaining another space in which to prepare.
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The probation period ends completely at the grave.
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Knowing that time is an irrecoverable resource with a
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totally unknown expiration date shifts the entire tone of his
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message. It really does.
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It moves from a general theological observation into a
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very direct, uncomfortable challenge.
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We enter the phase of the divine audit and the half empty glass.
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He brings a direct conference presentation regarding your past
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time and demands to know what account you can give to God for
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it. This raises an important
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question for you, the listener. What have you done with the
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precious talent of time God committed to you?
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Edwards grounds this challenge in the very design of human
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nature. He says God created reasonable
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souls for endless duration. That means we are built for
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eternity. You are not a temporary
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creature, like an animal that simply ceases to exist.
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You have an endless conscious eternity before you, and the
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Westminster Catechism teaches that man's chief end is to
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glorify God and enjoy him forever.
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If you are an eternal creature designed to glorify God forever,
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but you spend your temporary time entirely on temporary
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things, you are violating your own design.
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You are squandering the talent given to you for that specific
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preparation. The imagery he uses for aging
21:19
here is incredibly vivid. He describes your life is a
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glass, an hourglass. He tells his audience that for
21:25
many of them, their glass is more than half run and there may
21:27
be but few sands remaining in the top bulb.
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He says your son is past the Meridian, past the high point of
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noon, and perhaps just setting or going into an everlasting
21:35
eclipse. He is forcing the listener to
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visualize the literal draining away of their lifespan.
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You can almost hear the sand hitting the bottom of the glass.
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And he does not let his listeners just sit with a vague
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sense of guilt or unease. He breaks down the audit into
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specific surgical categories that demand thorough
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examination. First, he asked them to consider
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the sum of days. If you calculated every day you
21:59
have lived, it would be a massive sum.
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Thousands upon thousands of days.
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If you are 70 that is over 25,000 days.
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He asks what benefit or good done can you show that is
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answerable to all that time? When you look back at that
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mountain of days, is your life, in a great measure, empty?
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Is there anything of substance, anything of eternal weight to
22:20
show for all the as sunrises and sunsets?
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He also targets specific seasons of life.
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He directly addresses youth. For those past their younger
22:28
years, he asks if that entire season was spent in vain.
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We often view youth as a time for experimentation, a time to
22:35
be carefree, a time with an infinite runway.
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But Edwards asks A shocking question.
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Looking back at the frivolity and the wasted energy of those
22:43
years, would it have been better to be asleep or in a state of
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non existence during your youth rather than wasting it so
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completely? That is a brutal question.
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Would it be better to have not existed at all during those
22:56
years? He also challenges their use of
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leisure. He asks how they have spent
23:01
their freedom from worldly business.
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When you were not forced to work for your physical survival, when
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you are not securing your earthly welfare, what did you do
23:10
with that freed up capacity? And finally, he audits holy
23:13
time. He asks what they have done with
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the Sabbath days they've enjoyed.
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Under his theological framework, the Sabbath is a day
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specifically set apart from ordinary labor to focus entirely
23:23
on the eternal state. He asks how many of those days
23:26
have come and gone with 0 spiritual improvement.
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So what does this all mean for us?
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Practically, we have this modern concept of killing time.
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Right. We scroll on our phones for
23:35
hours. We binge watch television shows.
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We. Literally try to make time pass
23:39
faster when we are bored or waiting for something.
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We invent entire industries designed to distract us from the
23:45
passing of time. If Edwards challenges us on how
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much service we could do for God in a single year or a single
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day, if we push to our utmost, how do we reconcile necessary
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rest with the terror of finding our past lives empty of good
24:00
improvement? Especially when Edwards calls
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out our use of holy time and Sabbaths.
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Is any moment of relaxation considered wasted sand in the
24:08
hourglass? Because living at a level of
24:10
maximum output constantly sounds like a recipe for immediate.
24:14
Exactly. Well, absolutely.
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How do we balance this? Edwards is not against rest, he
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is against wasting the specific purposes of the time given.
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Remember his definition of improving time, using it to the
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best advantage? Rest that restores your physical
24:28
body and your mind so you can continue your laborers is a
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massive advantage. You cannot function without
24:33
sleep. You cannot function without
24:34
mental breaks. But holy time, like the Sabbath,
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is designed for a specific type of eternal preparation.
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In the Reformed tradition, the Sabbath is supposed to be a
24:44
delight. It is a foretaste of eternal
24:47
rest. It is not just about ceasing
24:49
physical labor so you can lie on the couch and stare at the
24:52
ceiling. Right.
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It is about reorienting the soul toward its endless duration.
24:57
It is about worshipping God, studying His Word and resting in
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His provision. If all the wit, capability and
25:04
treasure of the universe cannot buy back a single wasted Sabbath
25:08
or a squandered afternoon of leisure, we must answer to the
25:11
God who gave us those exact hours.
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The audit is meant to wake us up from the lethargy of assuming
25:16
our leisure time is ours to throw away on mindless
25:19
distraction. Our time is a granted talent and
25:22
the master will return to see what we have done with it.
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It is a massive reality check we have walked through this intense
25:28
cosmic economy, Edwards lays out.
25:30
Time is the currency of eternity.
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It's extreme scarcity should drive our urgency, pulling us
25:35
out of our daily complacency. It's uncertain end should
25:38
completely banish our presumption that we always have
25:40
tomorrow to get things right. And it's irrecoverability should
25:45
force a ruthless, honest audit of our days right now, while we
25:50
still have some sand left in the top of the glass.
25:52
We spend so much mental energy regretting the years that have
25:55
already spilled out of the hourglass.
25:56
We look at the bottom bulb and we grieve completely, unable to
26:00
put the sand back up to the top. But consider this final thought.
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What if the very next minute you step into after this audio
26:07
finishes is the specific, irreplaceable moment God has
26:11
appointed for you to secure your eternal welfare?
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What if this next hour is the defining hour of your spiritual
26:18
state? You cannot get yesterday back,
26:20
no matter how hard you cry for it.
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But you possess right now the box is on the conveyor belt
26:25
right in front of you. Will you redeem it?
26:27
Will you buy it up? Or will you let it fall off the
26:29
edge forever? That is the question we all have
26:31
to answer. Thank you for joining us for
26:33
this deep dive into Edward's sermon.
26:35
Take a close look at your own hourglass today.
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We will see you next time on Reformed thinking.