NEW YEAR’S DAY MESSAGE

From a Sermon

Dear fellow-travelers, another year has passed into oblivion; but no! that year also lies to your reckoning; and on the resurrection day and in the final judgment, God shall show that this year is not forgotten by Him. Out of His book of remembrance He will enumerate the benefits He bestowed upon you, who He was for you and what you were over against Him. And what shall the verdict then be?

Blessed is he who may have a Surety for the enormous guilt incurred by his actions of the past year also.

And now we are ready to take our first step into this new year. What shall it bring us? This is the question which probably fills your heart with fear.

Yes, what shall this year bring us? What does it have hidden for us behind its mysterious veil? Shall it be fruitful or an unfruitful year? What storms and thunderclouds hang over our heads? Which trees in this garden are marked to die? Shall any be hewn down? Shall it bring forth happiness, or bitter sorrow and grief ?

We know not. If we look upon the sins of our heart and our home, our nation and our people, when we look upon the abominations committed by rich and poor, upon the provocations with which rulers and people provoke the Lord, if we notice the swearing, lying, Sabbath breaking, the shamelessness, the forsaking of God, then the future looks very dark. Then we may expect the Lord in the way of His judgments. And how terrible will that be for the unconverted, if God will pour out the vials of His wrath upon the earth. My heart is filled with sincere sympathy for you and your unconverted children. Who shall live when God doeth this?

How great is the privilege of the children of grace! It is true, we do not know what the future will bring, either, but still we may confidently say that it will be well with them, for God remembers His covenant for ever. And that covenant includes the promise that He will never forsake nor leave us. Whatever may leave us, whatever may forsake us, He, our blessed Guide, in this year also will guide us with His counsel and afterward receive us to glory.

The Lord places a demand before us in the words, “Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life.” This, beloved, is a demand —

1. Given so righteously.

2. Performed so defectively.

3. Crowned so gloriously.

The demand to be faithful unto death is directed especially to God’s people, to the true disciples of Christ, to all whom He hath delivered from the power of darkness into His marvelous light, out of the death of sin unto the life of grace.

And is not this demand then perfectly just? For they all were led by God’s sovereign love and grace to choose the Lord and His service, to swear allegiance to the banner of Jesus the King. Therefore Immanuel has mustered them and given them a place in His ranks. He has given them His Holy Spirit, and strengthened them with might in the inner man.

O, let us ask much for grace to be faithful, for there is nothing that we need more, and in the future shall need more than this. For it is an evil time, and it is evident that we have entered that period of falling away of which the Bible speaks, and that the man of sin, the Anti-Christ, is soon to come. But the Lord is near, and He has told us not to look upon the Anti-Christ, but upon Him, our faithful God and Savior.

If we may be faithful unto death, that too is pure grace. Therefore all the redeemed shall lay their crown at Jesus’ feet, saying, “Thou hast made us unto our God kings and priests.” Rev. 5:10.

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