David’s Prayer Standing upon the Threshold of a New Year

We, as The Banner of Truth Committee, want to wish for you, our readers, the Lord’s indispensable blessing for this newly begun year. We do that by drawing your attention to the above-quoted Scripture verse. For a moment we ask you to glance back upon the year 2023 to see how swiftly it has passed away. In that year, we experienced the undeserved mercies of the Lord. In our congregations the Word of God continued to be the Lord’s gift. For our young people there was the Christian education in many places. May the Lord bless this to their hearts.

We know that also sorrow was experienced. May the Lord remember those who mourn loved ones who have gone from time into eternity. May those empty places be a constant reminder to all of us that we do not have a continuing city here upon earth.

The year 2023 has come to an end. We, by the grace of God, stand upon the threshold of a new year. What the coming year will hold for us is unknown to us. For some of us it will be the year of our departure. Then the tree of our life will fall. Will it fall to the north or to the south? Where it falls it will lie forever. Seeing the solemnity of this, the earnest warning that lies in these words, the most important thing in our life is not that we may do well in the world but that by God’s grace we may know something of the prayer of David, “Hold up my goings in Thy paths.” What a privileged person you may be when in this

What a privileged person you may be when in this year your goings may be in His path. That is a path opened in and through the blood of Jesus. That will not always be an easy going, but that will be a going for His account. Such a going has only one end, the eternal praise of Him who has upheld you.

“That my footsteps slip not.” In this going, how many times we fear that our footsteps will slip away, but for the Lord’s children, those footsteps can never again slip away from His paths. It is possible that we will stumble in the darkness of the night, but His promise is that those called out of darkness by free and sovereign grace, those gathered by divine love, will never walk alone. He, the eternal King of His Church, will uphold them. “That my footsteps slip not.” How many footsteps have slipped away from sound doctrine in these days?

May the Lord bind us to His Word and by His almighty, gracious power continue to bless His Word— for young and old—unto the saving of our soul. This is the hope and prayer of our committee. In this year, may our Banner of Truth continue to have a place in your homes and your hearts. There are many who labor faithfully and selflessly to make this publication possible. Many are not named in the pages, but we wish for all of them the same as for our readers, the hope that He may continue to bless His Word unto the saving of their soul.

Through all the busyness of this fast-paced life, may the Lord give you the prayer of David. “Hold up my goings in Thy paths, that my footsteps slip not.” May He bless you with goings that are the work of His hands. Those goings lead from darkness to light, from self to Christ.

On behalf of The Banner of Truth Committee,

Rev. J. den Hoed

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