The Tremendous Importance of Now
A. Hovey, D. D. 2 Corinthians 6:2 (For he said, I have heard you in a time accepted, and in the day of salvation have I succored you: behold, now is the accepted time… This language implies a need and an opportunity of being saved on the part of those addressed. And, if we understand the Scriptures, to be saved is the supreme good for men. 1. One feature is suggested by the text — namely, a limited period of grace. But why should there be any limit to the period of probation? Why should the door of recovery from sin ever be closed? Plainly, because it would be useless to keep it open for ever; because choice has a tendency to become irrevocable, and character to become permanent. God's methods are never arbitrary. The amazing longevity of the antediluvians appears to have resulted in equally amazing wickedness. 2. Another feature in the economy of grace is seen in God's withholding from the sinner a knowledge of the duration of his earthly life. As a rule no man knows the hour of his own death. 3. Another feature in the economy of grace is the influence of an animal body upon a sinful soul. An animal body is weak, perishable, exacting, and in certain respects heterogeneous to the soul. It renders a little service and requires much. With a large part of mankind the business of life is to provide for the body. How, then, can he give much attention to the wants of his spirit? But this is less than half the truth. The influence of a frail and exacting body may be favourable to the recovery of man from the terrible fascination of selfishness. For a body whose preservation must be purchased by so much toil and care reminds them by its frailty of the one coming event which can be postponed, but not averted. Again, it must be considered that care for physical life or health is a duty, though not the highest; it is right in itself, though not religious. We may exercise it, therefore, with a clear conscience. Moreover, it is safe to assume that the moral natures of men who are engaged in doing what is felt to be right will not deteriorate so rapidly as they would have done if the same men had been either idle or doing what was seen to be in itself wrong. Susceptibility to high influences will not be so quickly destroyed. And, therefore, the day of grace can be made longer than would otherwise have been safe or useful. "But look once more," you may perhaps reply, "to the other side of the picture. Does not the body drag the soul downwards? Is it not a source of strong temptations rather than a spur to honest toil?" They are not, however, so numerous as the calls to useful service which are presented by the body, nor are they so powerful as to silence these calls. "But is not the mind clogged in its search after the highest truth by the body which it inhabits? And is not the possibility of its return to God dependent oil its clear apprehension of that highest truth? Must not this weak and exacting body, then, be a serious impediment at the very outset to religious life?" I freely admit that our present bodies are not perfect organs of the spirit. But let it not be forgotten that the search for truth which is rendered toilsome by a body whose senses are dull and whose energies are limited, leaves only a modicum of power to be worse than wasted in self-indulgence. Nor let it be forgotten that a little truth may have infinite value to the soul which receives it as a friend, or that effort to obtain truth because it is loved is a part of the blessed life itself. The great difficulty experienced by men in obtaining knowledge, because their bodies are now adapted to animal life more exactly than to spiritual life, is therefore a circumstance favourable to their prospect of recovery from sin and death. 4. Another feature of human probation on earth is the influence of domestic life upon sinful beings. This influence is very pervading and beneficent. The domestic affections, whether conjugal, parental, filial, or fraternal, must be contemplated with a reverence second only to that which we owe to Christian love. They are not indeed identical with love to God, nor do they imply or produce that love. They do not regenerate man, but they keep alive his power to enjoy fellowship, and to believe in the possibility of love. For of all natural avenues to unrenewed souls these affections are probably, next to conscience, the surest and the best. While they continue open, the way of salvation is rarely closed. They tend to prevent a final and utter hardening of the spirit against "sweetness and light." Thus all the features of human life, in so far as they are ordered by our Heavenly Father, reveal His wisdom and goodness. In every instance they appear to have been chosen with a view to human salvation. (A. Hovey, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: (For he saith, I have heard thee in a time accepted, and in the day of salvation have I succoured thee: behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.) WEB: for he says, "At an acceptable time I listened to you, in a day of salvation I helped you." Behold, now is the acceptable time. Behold, now is the day of salvation.