The Time Is Short

Minister:
Date: PM (New Year's Eve)
Text: I Corinthians 7:29-31
Psalters: 345, 246, 106, 105
  1. This earthly time is like the set of a play.
    1. Time in this life consists of many good, lawful activities.
      1. “They that have wives.”
      2. “They that weep” refers to the difficult times of affliction and tribulation (death or economic loss).
      3. “They that rejoice” are those with the joy given through many wonderful circumstances.
      4. “They that buy” are those who make a good life buying and accumulating.
      5. “They that use this world” are those who enjoy the comforts which wealth can give.
    2. The curtain will soon fall on these things, bringing them all to an end, for time is short.
      1. While time is short, it is absolutely sure that there is an end.
      2. We must “consider your ways” (Haggai 1:5,7); “set your house in order” (II Kings 20:1).
    3. Let us leave the theater of this life and grasp that which abideth forever.
  2. The Christian’s view of this drama whose fashion is the vanishing splendid pageantry of a scene.
    1. The value of this short time is great to the Christian when it is activity of God, when it is seen as a responsibility to God, and is gratitude and love we owe to God.
    2. It teaches the Christian that has a wife to view her as one who does not have one. “Be as though they had none.”
      1. Marriage is wonderful, but we are not to seek our heaven in it by making it an end in itself (as if it will last “forever”).
      2. It is right to value this blessing, but wrong to make it my all, everything.
      3. We weep (God means us to), learningfrom Him because the time is short.
      4. Our joys are good, but they all pass away as a dream, and often are forgotten (viewed as though they were not).
      5. Buy and trade, but remember that it is not the real way to be rich.
      6. Use this world without “abusing it” holding it with a loose hand.