The searching words found in John 13:27 are, of definite significance to the workers of Christ's church today—"That thou doest, do quickly." These words come to us out of one of history's most tragic experiences. This text reveals the disillusionment of one who should have been alert when the crisis was at hand. It is a text of defeat, of tears, of tragedy..It reveals the fact that someone had lost his way in the labyrinth of bewilderment. Someone had become confused by improper reasoning. That someone was Judas. Out of his disillusionment, defeat, and tragedy come these words of the Saviour so fraught with meaning: "That thou doest, do quickly."
This record of the climax of the disciple's life is a sad picture of one who was close to the Master, and yet actually was far from Him. The true concept of Christ's kingdom was far from him. The essence and a deep sense of it never gripped his heart. The material things of life had taken on an abnormal proportion, and so he was not able to comprehend the real privilege that lay at his own door.
There are tragic characters about us everywhere who are licking the deep wounds of their disillusionment. We are living in a day when a strange fatalism has gripped the hearts of men. In stoical silence many of them look to the grim future without much hope. With a faraway look in their eyes men listen in expressionless silence to the grim news predicted for tomorrow. Just a few weeks ago Anthony Eden, Britain's wartime foreign secretary, made this significant statement, and used only five words to express the fatefulness of the hour : "The hour is full late." These words set forth the dramatic and fateful pronouncement of world conditions at this time. One columnist in the Philadelphia Inquirer recently wrote concerning the United Nations:
"The outlook is like that of a London fog in November. . . . During 1947 its record is zero. . . . To say that the division between the great powers is responsible for the United Nations' staggering failure is a sophomoric cliche. . . . They failed without even trying."
In the Christian Century of September 3, 1947, the editor described the special calendars employed by Lord Mountbatten in the closing days of the British rule in India. On this calendar these words were printed: "4 August, 1947. II days left for the transfer of power." As each day passed, the number of days left on the calendar diminished until the zero hour. Then the editor of this outstanding religious journal observed:
"Don't we all need Mountbatten calendars these days? Like the British in India, we are all working against a deadline. Time is not running on for us; time is running out. The ordinary calendar, with its subtle suggestion that day will follow day, month will follow month, and year will follow year for eons beyond reckoning, has suddenly become a deceiver. 'Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow'—for how many tomorrows? Just how close the deadline is, no one can say with the certainty that Mountbatten could employ when he designed his calendars for the final days of British India. But those who know most about the peril in which humanity stands—the atomic scientists —are most insistent that the deadline is near, and constantly drawing nearer."
Such evidence can be multiplied manifold in the tragic recital of the disillusionment of our world. Herein lies the great challenge for the Seventh-day Adventist evangelist. Surely this is the hour for great things in evangelism.
But there is another element in our text, for this text not only sets forth the disillusionment of one who lost his way but likewise a spoken urgency which we cannot lightly disregard—"That thou doest, do quickly." Here is truly a charge of urgency. In His life the Saviour had borne the weight of the world's guilt. Now the grim moment had come in the timetable of God, when that day which had been ordained millienniums before in the councils of heaven, was to take place, for the Lamb of God was to be slain. Restlessly the river of time had rolled on. The hour of God had struck. "When the fullness of the hour was come, God sent forth His Son." Christ was not urging Judas to go out and do that which was evil. Christ was merely recognizing that the fruits of his selfishness were now ready for harvest, and that the hour had come for the great drama to be enacted. All heaven was watching, and the newly formed church on earth was beholding the unfolding of its gigantic task.
Similarly, there is a definite urgency in the prophecies concerning the last days. Over and over again prophecy after prophecy speaks of the quickness with which God will finish His work. Surely the urgency of the hour is here set forth. We are living in that period when the prophecies are rapidly being fulfilled. Soon God will require a finished work. There must be a new sense of our task. A new heart must stir within us. A new sense of sacrifice must move us. This is the hour to do things for Him quickly. Ere long we will not be able to do our work. Soon it will be done in the way ordained by God. This is our task. This is our challenge.
"Sow in the morn thy seed, At eve hold not thy hand;
To doubt and fear give thou no heed. Broadcast it o'er the land.
"Thou canst not toil in vain; Cold, heat, moise, and dry
Shall fashion and mature the grain
For garners in the sky."
—MONTGOMERY.
What an hour this is in which to preach Christ's message to the people who are to have a part in the unfolding of the drama of the last hour. Surely in this time of evangelistic opportunity no worker for Christ should be able to rest while souls are hanging so close to the precipice of eternity. The eternal time schedule of God moves relentlessly on. We must not pass the Saviour by. As workers in His cause we cannot shrug off lightly the challenge of our task, for if ever His words meant anything, those words, "That thou doest, do quickly," should spur us on to a new height of fervency and passion for His cause. Jesus would rather suffer the cross all over again than see His workers and His church fail in this critical hour.