The Day of
Golden Opportunity
by
REUBEN ARCHER TORREY—1856-1928 "The Holy Spirit says, Today" — Hebrews 3:7 THE DAY OF GOLDEN
OPPORTUNITY is today. Golden opportunities, opportunities of priceless worth,
are open to every one of us today. But "tomorrow" has no sure
promise for any one of us. "The Holy Spirit says, Today," and
Conscience also cries, "Today," and the voice of Reason and the
voice of History and the voice of Experience unite in one loud chorus and
shout, "Today." Only the voices of indifference and laziness and
folly murmur, "Tomorrow." The Holy Spirit is ever calling,
"Today." Men in their folly are forever saying,
"Tomorrow." When the frightful
plague of frogs came on Pharaoh of old and on his people, Pharaoh, in his
terror, sent for Moses and Aaron and said, "Pray to the LORD to take the
frogs away from me and my people, and I will let your people go to offer
sacrifices to the LORD" (Exodus 8:8). Moses replied, "I leave to
you the honor of setting the time for me to pray for you and your officials
and your people that you and your houses may be rid of the frogs, except for
those that remain in the Nile." One would naturally suppose Pharaoh
would have answered, "At once," but Pharaoh, like many another
king, played the fool and answered, "Tomorrow" (Exodus 8:9, 10).
Men show a similar folly and often a greater folly in these days. When urged
to forsake sin with its miseries and degradation and perils and turn to
Christ with the joy and peace, and elevation of our character and tranquility
that He gives, they answer, "Yes, I think I will."
"When?" "Oh, tomorrow." But "the Holy Spirit says,
Today." A poor wretch came into
my office one day. He had been drinking, and drinking had brought misery into
his heart and ruin into his life. I asked, "Will you quit drinking and
turn to Jesus Christ?" "Oh," he exclaimed, "there is
nothing else that I can do, I will." "Will you do it now?" He
hung his head, and murmured, "Not now, tomorrow." But "the
Holy Spirit says, Today." Tomorrow is the devil's day and the fool's
day. Today is God's day, and the wise man's day. I wish to give you
tonight some conclusive and unanswerable reasons why every man and woman in
this auditorium who makes any pretensions to intelligence and common sense
should not only accept the Lord Jesus as his Lord and Savior, but should
accept Him here before he leaves this building tonight, if he has not already
done it. What I want to get is action, immediate action, intelligent and wise
action. And the only action that is intelligent and wise for anyone who has
not already accepted Jesus Christ is to accept Him right here tonight.
Resolutions to do the right thing and the wise thing at some indefinite time
in the future are of no value whatever. God's time is now. "The Holy Spirit
says, Today."
The
first reason why every man and woman in this auditorium who has not already
accepted Jesus Christ should not only accept Him but accept Him now is
because the Lord Jesus brings peace to the tormenting conscience as soon as
He is accepted, and the really wise man will not only desire that peace but
desire it just as soon as he can get it. Wherever there is sin there will be
an accusing conscience. And we "all have sinned." If any man has
sinned and his conscience does not accuse him and torment him he has sunk
very low, very low. There are, of course, different degrees of torment of
conscience and different kinds of torment of conscience. With some the pain
is sharp and piercing, with some it is dull and grinding, but there is pain,
there is unrest, there is no peace in the heart where sin has entered until
that sin has been forgiven. But Jesus Christ gives peace to the most agonized
conscience. Men and women have come to me in all degrees of misery over the
memory of some sin they have committed, and I have pointed them to the Lord
Jesus, and everyone who has really gone to Him has found rest. I could not
tell how many men and women have come to me who were driven to the very verge
of hopeless despair by the accusations of their conscience and were
contemplating self-destruction in the hope of thus getting away from their
mental agony. But I led them to Jesus Christ, and now they have rest and the
peace of God that passes all understanding. A
young man came to me one Sunday morning in Chicago in awful agony. He had
sinned grievously and was reaping the harvest. He was contemplating all sorts
of sinful actions to escape the inevitable consequences of his sin. I pointed
him to the Son of God and the young man accepted Him. Afterward he brought to
me his companion in sin. She was fully determined to commit a very wicked and
desperate action that was likely to land her in prison or in the cemetery. I
pleaded with her and pointed her to the real cure, to the Savior. When she
left me she was still undecided as to what she would do. She afterward
decided and decided right. One night a long time afterward, as I was going
down the back stairs of the Moody Church to the inquiry room, a young,
happy-faced woman stopped me and said, "I want to thank you for what you
did for me, and for my husband and for my child." I did not recognize
her for a moment, and she said, "I am the young woman who came to
you," and she explained the circumstances. It was the woman who had
contemplated the destruction of her child, and her own destruction for time
and for eternity. But she had found peace in Jesus Christ. Men and women with
tormenting consciences, and with uneasy, restless hearts, there is rest for you
in Jesus Christ. If you are wise you will not only find it, but you will find
it now. "The Holy Spirit says, Today." You need not spend even one
more day or one more hour in the agony of your accusing, tormenting
conscience.
The
second reason why every man and woman who have not already accepted Jesus
Christ should not only accept Him but accept Him now is because Jesus Christ
brings inexpressible and glorious joy, a joy to which the joy of this world
is as nothing in comparison, to all as soon as they really accept and confess
Him. Any really wise man will not only desire this joy but desire it at once.
I for one not only wish the best I can get, but I wish it as quickly as I can
get it. The joy that is in Jesus Christ is the very best joy one can get.
There is not a particle of doubt about that. Ask anyone who has ever tried
the world and has then really tried Jesus Christ. You cannot find one single
man or woman who has really tried the joy that there is in Christ, anyone who
has really put his trust in Him as his personal Savior and unreservedly
surrendered to Him as his Lord and Master, who will not tell you that the
world has no joy for a moment comparable with that joy which is found in
Jesus Christ. No matter how rare their opportunities may have been for
enjoying the world, they will tell you without the slightest hesitation that
the joy that one finds in Christ is incomparably greater and finer and more
satisfying than any joy the world can give. There are millions of witnesses
to this fact, and their testimony is absolutely unanimous. I
know the joy that comes from wealth, I know the joy that comes from the
theater, I know the joy that comes from the dance, from the card table, and
the joy that comes from the race track, and the joy that comes from the wine
supper, and so on down to the end of the catalog of this world's joys. I know
also the joy that comes from literature and from art, the joy that comes from
music, from science, from philosophy and from travel. I know practically
every joy that this world has to give, but I say to you that the joy of all
these put together is nothing to the inexpressible and glorious joy that
comes from a genuine acceptance of Jesus Christ as our Savior, and a
wholehearted surrender to Him as our Lord, and a constant and open confession
of Him before the world, and from receiving the Holy Spirit whom He gives to
those who do thus accept Him and fully surrender to Him and confess Him. Men
and women, if you wish the highest, deepest, purest, and most abounding joy,
immeasurably the most satisfying joy that is to be known, not only in the
life which is to come, but in the life which now is, not only come to Jesus
Christ but come now. "The Holy Spirit says, Today."
The
third reason why every man and woman in this auditorium who has not already
accepted Jesus Christ should not only accept Him but accept Him tonight is
because Jesus Christ brings deliverance from the power of sin, and any wise
man or woman not only wishes deliverance from the power of sin but wishes it
as soon as he or she can get it. There is no other form of slavery known to
man so degrading and so wretched as the slavery of sin. Better far be the
poor black slave of the most brutal slave driver the South ever knew than to
be the slave of rum, or the slave of lust, or the slave of bad temper, or the
slave of drugs, or the slave of an impure imagination, or the slave of greed
for gold, or the slave of any other form of sin. Poor old Uncle Tom, groaning
in his cabin after the cruel blows of the brutal master, is not so pitiable
an object as the wretch, poor or rich, who is under the whip of appetite or
of lust or of drugs or of any other sin. But there is freedom right at hand,
right now. Jesus Christ sets men free from sin in all its forms. He sets free
men who have been slaves for years. He sets them free in a moment. Any sinner
can find deliverance in Christ from any sin, can find it now. What Jesus said
when He was here on earth is just as true today. "Everyone who sins is a
slave to sin" (John 8:34). But, thank God, it is also as true today as
when He said it that, "So if the Son sets you free, you will be free
indeed" (John 8:36). Any man or woman who has a spark of intelligence
left will not only wish deliverance from sin and its awful bondage, but wish
it at once. What
would you have thought of any old time black slave of a vile and cruel master
who had been offered freedom and answered, "Yes, I wish liberty. My
bondage has been awful. But I don't want the freedom just yet. I will wait
until next year. I will wait until next month. I will wait until next week. I
will wait until tomorrow." You would exclaim, "What a fool!"
But he would not be so colossal a fool as you are when you say, "Yes, I
do wish deliverance from the power of sin," and then add, "but not
tonight-tomorrow." Oh, men, listen, "The Holy Spirit says,
Today."
The
fourth reason why every man and woman who has not already accepted Jesus
Christ should not only accept Him but accept Him tonight is because Jesus
Christ brings beauty of character, and every wise man and woman will not only
desire beauty of character, but desire it just as soon as they can get it. I
sometimes notice advertisements in the papers that read, "The Secret of
Beauty." I can tell you the secret of beauty, men and women, the secret
of permanent, indestructible beauty. It is Jesus Christ in the heart. He not
only beautifies the face, He beautifies the soul. He makes over the soul that
trusts in Him into His own glorious likeness. I have seen some of the foulest
men and women I ever knew made over into the fairest, and it was Jesus Christ
who did it. Sam
Hadley of the Water Street Mission, New York, was the friend of all men who
were down and out. He was always on the lookout for an opportunity to help
some man who was about as bad as they make them onto his feet, and to lead
him to Christ and to thus get the man saved. A man said to Mr. Hadley one
day, "I have a friend whom I wish you would take an interest in."
Sam Hadley asked, "Who is he?" "He is Bowery Ike."
"Well," said Hadley, "what is he, anyhow?" The man
replied, "He is a crook. He makes his living by stealing and picking
pockets and all that sort of thing. Presently he is on Blackwell's Island,
serving a term there. You can find him more easily now than usual." Sam
Hadley went over to Blackwell's Island and looked up Bowery Ike, and found
him; for he could not get away, he was behind bars. Bowery Ike had no use for
Sam Hadley, except that when he got out he came around to Sam to get a little
money to get a new suit of clothes. But he was soon off to the Island again.
Every time he would come out of confinement he would go around to see Hadley,
but as soon as he got on his feet again he would go back to his crooked work. Sam
Hadley followed Bowery Ike for seven long years, and one day at the end of
the seventh year Bowery Ike was thoroughly sick and tired of sin, and this
time not only came to Sam Hadley, but came to Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ
opened His arms and took Bowery Ike in. After Bowery Ike had been saved about
a year, Sam wrote me, saying, "Mr. Torrey, I have a man who wants to
study at your school. They used to call him Bowery Ike. His right name is Ira
Snyder. We believe in him. He has been a tough customer. He has been a hard
case. But he is saved and we believe God wants to use him. Will you take
him?" "Dear Sam," I replied, "I will take anybody you
recommend." He wrote back, "I recommend him." Then I wrote,
"Send him on." And Bowery Ike (Ira Snyder) came. Listen, men,
though that man had been a crook from his boyhood, for he commenced picking
pockets when a little lad; though he had been a crook nearly all his life, he
became one of the most beautiful Christians I have ever met in all my life.
And I say I have known thieves who have come to Christ, burglars who have
come to Christ, train robbers and bank robbers who have come to Christ; I
have known harlots, and murderers and people guilty of every kind of crime I
ever heard of, who have come to Christ and have become some of the loveliest
Christians I have ever known. Yes, some of the men and women who were once down
in the deepest depths of sin. But
to come back to Ira Snyder, Bowery Ike. He came on to Chicago. He stayed with
us about a year, a little over a year. One night he said to me, "I want
to walk home with you and have a little talk with you." On the way to my
home he said, "I made a little visit down in New York a few weeks ago. I
think they need me in New York. I have loved it in Chicago, I would like to
stay on, but I believe they need me in New York. I have written Mr. Hadley
that I am ready to go back to New York and help in the work." A few days
after this Ira Snyder was taken down with influenza, a slight attack, not a
very serious case, but he went to bed with it. They did not think he was very
ill. But as I was leaving the dining table one night the maid told me that
Mr. Hunter, who was one of my assistants there at that time, as he is now
here, wished to see me. I met Mr. Hunter and he said, "Mr. Torrey, Ira
Snyder is dead." I said, "What, John? You don't mean Ira
Snyder?" We had another man at the Institute at the same time whose name
was much the same, and who was very ill at that time, too, and I thought Mr.
Hunter must mean him. "You don't mean Ira Snyder?" I said.
"You must mean So-and-So," naming the other man. "No,"
Mr. Hunter said. "Mr. Torrey, Ira Snyder is dead. He died very
suddenly." I asked, "Where is he, John?" "He is over at
the undertaker's. They have prepared him for his burial and have placed him
in his coffin. They are going to have the services tomorrow, and I thought I
should come to tell you tonight." "That was right, John," I
replied, "let us go over." We went to the undertaker's, which was
not far away, and walked into the parlors. And there in a beautiful coffin
lay Ira Snyder. When I looked down into that face, one of the noblest faces I
have ever looked into in my life, I will tell you what I did, I could not
help it, I broke down, and, leaning over, I kissed Ira Snyder's beautiful
face as he lay there in his coffin. Yes, friends, Bowery Ike had been a crook
before he became a Christian, but by the power of Jesus Christ in his heart
he became one of the loveliest Christians I ever knew in my life. I don't
think my heart ever ached over anybody outside my own family as it did over
Ira Snyder, who was formerly a pickpocket, a burglar, and everything that was
bad, but who in his lost and ruined condition came to Jesus, and the heart of
Jesus was big enough to take him in, and Jesus came into his heart and
transformed him into His own likeness. The Lord Jesus is doing that sort of thing
every day. And
the Lord Jesus is also taking others who are not so foul, who, indeed, the
world thinks good, and He is making them immeasurably better. It is Jesus and
Jesus only who makes truly lovely characters. Yes, men and women, do you not
wish to be good? Not only good in the eyes of man, but good in the eyes of
God? You may be. It is Jesus' work to make you so. Let Him begin it at once.
Let Him begin it now, "The Holy Spirit says, Today." What do you
say? "Tomorrow?" No, not if you have a particle of sense left, and
I believe you have. You will say, "Tonight. Right now."
The
fifth reason why every man and woman who has not already accepted Jesus
Christ should not only accept Him but accept Him now is because Jesus Christ
fills our lives with highest usefulness; and every wise man and every wise
woman desires not only to be useful but desires to begin being useful as soon
as possible. The Christian life is the only really useful life. We look at
the life of many a one who is not a Christian, and say, "There is a
useful life"; but God looks at it and looks through it, looks at it in
all its directions, and writes this verdict on it, "Useless."
Whether you and I see it or not, the man or woman who is not with Christ is
against Him (Matthew 12:30), and the man who is against Jesus Christ is
against God and against humanity. His life is useless and worse than useless.
But the life that is fully surrendered to Jesus Christ becomes at once a useful
life. It may be the mere wreck of a life, but it becomes at once a useful
life. A
friend of mine found one of the most hopeless wrecks of womanhood in New York
City and brought her to Jesus Christ. I think this poor creature lived less
than two years after her conversion and many months of that time were spent
on a sick bed. But that woman was used to the eternal salvation of more than
a hundred persons while she lay there dying, and the story of the transformed
life of "the Bluebird of Mulberry Bend" has gone around the world
and saved thousands. Come
to Christ. Really come to Him. He will make you useful. Come at once, that
your usefulness may begin at once. I am glad I came to the Lord Jesus when I
did, but oh! if only I had come sooner. How many precious years were wasted!
How many golden opportunities were lost, opportunities that will never
return! Come, men and women. Come now. "The Holy Spirit says,
Today."
The
sixth reason why every man and woman in this auditorium who has not already
accepted Jesus Christ should not only accept Him but accept Him tonight is
because the sooner we come to Christ, the fuller and richer will be our
eternity. The eternity of each one of us will be just what we make it in the
life that now is. You are constructing your eternity every day. Every day of
true service for Christ makes our reward so much the greater and our eternity
so much the fuller and richer. Come to Christ next Sunday and you will be
behind for all eternity by as much as you might have accomplished this week.
You may cry in coming years, "Backward, turn backward, O Time, in your
flight," but Time will not turn backward in its flight. Time cannot turn
backward. Time is flying by every moment and never returns. Today is hurrying
by us at express speed. Tomorrow will soon follow. And as I turn around and
peer after Yesterday and Today as they plunge into the unfathomable depths of
the Past, I cry, "Yesterday, where are you?" Out from the
fathomless abyss of bygone days comes the answer, "Gone forever."
And I hear the Holy Spirit crying, "Today! Today! Today!" "The
Holy Spirit says, Today."
I
will give you one more reason why every man and woman who has not already
accepted Jesus Christ should not only accept Him but accept Him at once, and
that is because if we do not come to Jesus Christ today we may never come at
all. That is not at all a remote possibility. Thousands and tens of thousands
have been as near to an acceptance of Jesus Christ as you are this moment and
have said, "Not tonight," and now they have passed without Christ
into that world in which there is no hope for repentance, no matter how
"diligently with tears" they may seek it, into that world in which
there is no opportunity to change their mind or their eternal destiny. A
man came into one of our tents one night in Chicago. It was the first time he
had ever been in a meeting of that kind in his life. The words of Mr.
Schiverea, who spoke that night, made a deep impression on him, and after the
meeting was over he lingered with a friend and talked personally with Mr.
Schiverea. His friend accepted Christ and he was on the very verge of accepting
Him. Mr. Schiverea said to him, "Will you accept Jesus Christ right
now?" "No," the man said, "this is the first time in my
life that I was ever in a meeting of this kind. I cannot decide tonight, but
I promise you that I will come back Sunday night and accept Christ." It
was Friday night and there was to be no meeting on Saturday. Mr. Schiverea
replied that he did not question at all the honesty of the man's intention or
the sincerity of his promise to return Sunday night and settle it; but added,
"We have no guarantee whatever that you will live until Sunday
night." "Oh," the man said, with a laugh, "you don't
suppose that God is going to cut me off after the first meeting of this kind
that I ever attended in my life and not give me another opportunity?"
Mr. Schiverea replied, "I do not know. But I do know you are taking a
great risk in waiting until Sunday night. I greatly fear that if you do not
accept Jesus Christ now you will never accept Him and be lost forever."
"No," the man said, "I give you my word that I will be back
here Sunday night and accept Christ." Mr. Schiverea continued to plead
with him, but the man would not yield. He went out of the tent with his
friend. They got into a carriage and turned toward home. And as they drove up
the street they passed a saloon. The man said to his friend, "Let's stop
and have one more drink and then we will both stop drinking
permanently." "No," said his friend, "I have settled it
already. I have accepted Christ and I will never take another drink."
"Well," said the other, "I'm going to have one more drink,
anyhow. You drive up the street and then come back for me and I will be
waiting for you outside." He entered the saloon. His friend drove up the
street, and after a few minutes returned to pick up the man. He was nowhere
to be seen. The friend went into the saloon to look for him. He was not
there. The friend went into the street again and looked up and down it for
the man, but he was nowhere in sight. Passing a high board fence, he heard a
groan, and passing swiftly around behind it, he discovered his friend lying
behind it stabbed, with an awful gash in his body, unconscious and dying. He
was taken to the Presbyterian Hospital and lived until Monday morning, but
never regained consciousness and passed into eternity unsaved, lost forever.
Why? Because when "the Holy Spirit said, Today," the man said,
"Tomorrow." So he passed unprepared into the presence of God, and
so will some of you if you do not listen to the Holy Spirit now as He says,
"Today." One
night when I was preaching in Bradford, England, a man and his wife sat side
by side in the meeting and were deeply moved, but they made no decision. As
they walked away from the meeting the wife said to her husband, "Would
it not have been nice if you and I both had accepted Christ?" He
answered, "Yes, it would." They reached home and retired. About two
o'clock the following morning his wife awakened him and said, "I feel so
strange." In a few minutes from that time she had passed into eternity.
After he had laid his wife's body away in the cemetery, he came back to the
meeting and told us this story and accepted Christ, but he came alone. Oh,
men and women, listen! Do you not hear the Holy Spirit crying,
"Today"? There
are so many things besides death that may make this the last opportunity you
will ever have and make a refusal now final and fatal. Loss of opportunity
may come. The Holy Spirit is here in power now. It is a great opportunity,
the Day of Golden Opportunity. A like opportunity may never come again. It
never will come again for some of you. "The Holy Spirit says,
Today." A
hardened heart may seal your doom. When a human heart is moved on by the
Spirit of God, as some of your hearts are, and the heart continues to resist
the Holy Spirit, it is likely to become very soon hardened and hopeless. One
night in our church in Chicago, after the meeting in which many had accepted
Christ, I remained talking with a young man. He was under deep conviction,
within one step of a decision. I urged on him an immediate acceptance and
confession of Christ. "No," he said, "I cannot do it tonight.
But I will give you my word of honor that I will come back tomorrow night and
do it." I told him I did not question his word or his intention; but I
said, "I have no guarantee whatever that you will keep your word. I have
a feeling in my heart that if you do not settle it tonight you will never
come back." "Why," he replied, "my mother is here every
night. We live within a block of this place. I give you my word of honor I
will come tomorrow night and settle it." Again I said, "I do
question your word, but the Spirit of God is working mightily with you
tonight, and if you go out of here resisting the Spirit of God, I believe
your heart will be so hardened that your eternal destiny will be sealed and
you will never come back." "No," he said, "I cannot
accept tonight, but I will come tomorrow night and settle it." He walked
away. I watched him with a heavy heart as he passed out of the door. I said
to myself, "He will never come back," and he never did. Quite a
while later I asked his mother about him and she told me he had never come
back into the church from that night. Men and
women, listen! You cannot trifle with God, and you cannot trifle with your
own souls, and you cannot trifle with the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is not
only saying in our text, but He is saying in your hearts, "Today! Accept
Christ right now." Will you listen to the mighty, gracious Spirit of
God? Will you do as He bids you? Will you listen right now and harden not
your heart, but accept Jesus Christ as your Savior, surrender to Him as your
Lord and Master, and begin to confess to Him as such before the world, and be
saved, and get right here and now the wonderful blessings that He gives and
that He alone can give? |