Time Redeemed

The Scriptures teach that life is a gift whose days are measured and numbered.

Psalm 90

10 The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.

On Queen Elizabeth I's deathbed, her last words were said to be, "All my possessions for a moment of time." But Benjamin Disraeli rightly noted in a speech on September 21, 1865, that "Time is precious, but truth is more precious than time." It is not merely time that is precious, but above all, time redeemed, which is most precious.

Psalm 90

12 So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.

Make the prayer of Moses your prayer then, and likewise, the prayer of Richard Baxter: "Time is precious; Lord give me skill and wisdom to redeem it" (Baxter, MSS (Letters), vol. v, f. 28b, quoted by Gerald R. Cragg, Puritanism in the Period of the Great Persecution, 1660-1688, p. 135).