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UPON ENTERING A NEW YEAR

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UPON ENTERING A NEW YEAR

14 minuten leestijd Arcering uitzetten

The old year with all its cares, troubles, and sorrow, with all its sin and misery, but also with all its tokens and manifestations of God’s mercy, lies behind us. They are happy souls, indeed, who do not have to enter the new year with all their old guilt, but whose sin has been graciously forgiven and whose unrighteousness has been covered and cast into the sea forever. Most people carry on without having recived forgiveness and reconciliation. They continue to add guilt to their guilt and never feel the need of the blessed blood of the Son of God that washes and cleanses from all sin. On the other hand, there are those that must travel on, burdened by the load of their sins. With a heavy heart they face the future. Their hope that all mountains may be removed between God and their soul becomes smaller and smaller; for that is such a great thing in their sight, and they feel themselves so unworthy of it, that it seems to them more and more impossible that it will ever take place. Death is at their heels; God’s justice has not been satisfied; their debt is not paid; their soul is surrounded by firebrands; the struggle is heavy; and the assaults upon their soul are many. The Law condemns them; the Gospel is veiled; and Christ is hidden. They walk the face of the earth with condemnation in the their conscience. Alas, what will be the end?

Even in the greatest darkness they believe that the end of the people that trust in the Name of the Lord will be peace. They believe that God will never forsake the work of His own hands. But most of the time it remains a big question whether they themselves belong to that number and are included in it. On the other hand, they do not envy all those people who talk religion and who confidently await death. When worse comes to worse, no matter how heavy the inward struggle or how often inward voices scream, “You have no peace with God!” they desire to be kept from appropriating anything that has never been given to them. Rather, with Mordecai, the Jew, they prefer to remain prostrate before the gate with the silent hope that God may have mercy on their soul, and that their soul may be set at liberty. It is their continual prayer that the blood of Christ may be applied unto their souls, and that they may be delivered and saved by way of justice and righteousness through the salvation that is in Christ alone.

It is my sincere wish and prayer that the year of salvation may dawn for these souls. That this year may be the year of God’s good pleasure for them. That these poor, yearning people, who cannot help themselves, may receive beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, and the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness. For is it not true that your desire is not for external prosperity, or to become great in the world, but to be reconciled with God and have peace with Him? Let it be a comfort to you in the midst of all your sorrow that God in His time will cause the sunlight of his salvation to dawn upon you, and that He will lay your stones with fair colors, and lay your foundations with sapphires. It is true, we are living in dark days, but God is faithful. The captive exile will hastily be loosed; he shall not die in the pit, nor shall his bread fail (Isa. 51:14). The words I write to you are poor and empty, but God is able to bless even the least of means. And to the people that, with a degree of assurance, may believe, I say:

And though your path lies in the sea,
No waves will drown or cover thee.

In the course of our life we are time and again confronted by new ways. God carries out His counsel. And in this counsel so much can be hidden, outwardly as well as inwardly. Here we shall never find the land of peace and rest. By way of many tribulations we enter the Kingdom of God. And we cannot help ourselves with previous experiences, former grace, enjoyed love. For each new way we need new grace. But what a comfort it is, people of God, that God’s promises are yea and amen in Christ, to the glory of God.

The faithful Covenant Jehovah has promised His people that He will never leave them nor forsake them. “When thou passeth through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee: when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon the” (Isa. 43:2). Christ, the blessed Head of the Church, was never alone, for the Father was with Him. But it is the same way with all who have been bought and redeemed by the blood of the covenant. We may feel that we are alone and forsaken, but that is not really so: “Thou stayest with me in all adversity; Thy rod and staff they always comfort me.” The Father’s eye is ever in love upon His people. In Isaiah 49:14 Zion laments: “The Lord hath forsaken me, and my Lord hath forgotten me.” But the Divine answer is : “Can a woman forget her suckling child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee. Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands; thy walls are continually before me.” And there are times and moments that His people must believe that this is so, and then it is impossible not to believe it.

Christ as the Surety and Mediator has, in the state of His humiliation, been forsaken by God on Golgotha during the three-hour darkness, in order that He might bring back to God those who were forsaken by God, so that they would never more be forsaken by God.

At His ascension the Son of God as the Mediator of His people promised and declared: “And, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world” (Matt. 28:29). Indeed, with respect to His Godhead, majesty, grace, and Spirit He is at no time absent from His people, but remains with them and reveals Himself unto them in a manner in which He does not do to the world. And concerning the Holy Spirit the Lord Jesus assured His people: “And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever” (John 14:16). Each and every one of those who have been regenerated by the Spirit has three companions on his way through the desert of this life, namely, hope, faith, and love. They accompany His people through every valley and every darkness of this life. However, it is a much greater grace if we, with the realization of faith and a sure confidence may speak of a triune God as of our three best Friends! Oh, what a joy, what a glory, what blessedness that is! No matter what may develop in this year and what may befall us on our pathway through life, His people may then sing with Asaph :

Though flesh and heart should faint and fail,
The Lord will ever be
The strength and portion of my heart,
My God eternally.

In their greatest sorrows, in their most bitter grief, in the severest temptation, indeed, even in the hour of death, that will be the strength of those that fear the Lord. The Father takes care of them, the Son takes care of them, and the Holy Spirit takes care of them. With God they are able to face these trials and to overcome them, and they will inherit substance and God will fill their treasures.

Fear not, people of God! The Lord is your refuge and your strength. All things will work together for your good. He has taken care of you with a Father’s care; would He now withdraw His hand from you? His omnipotence is unlimited; His love is from eternity to eternity. His mercy, too, will endure eternally, as His Word assures us. And in case this year may become the year of your death, it would mean eternal gain for you. The angels carried Lazarus into Abraham’s bosom. This will also happen to you. With all the grace which you have received out of grace from Heaven, you will experience that if the last step depended upon you and your own strength, you would be eternally lost. But your blessed and most precious Mediator has assured you : “I give unto my sheep eternal life ; and they shall never perish…. I and my Father are one” (John 10:28, 30). And as long as you have been privileged to walk the narrow road of life, the road of righteousness, you have never experienced anything else but that God is faithful. There is no unrighteousness in Him. In yourself you remain re-jectable and damnable until your very last breath, but:

Exalted by Thy might from depths of desolation They praise fore’er Thy Name, Thy justice and salvation.

May our lives be in the fear of God, in childlike trust, in continual dependence upon God whose work is perfect and whose days will never cease. He has promised that your bread will be certain and your water assured. God is also a God who takes care of temporal things, and even though you may not always have abundance, you will not be in want of anything needful. “Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and He shall sustain thee: he shall never suffer the righteous to be moved” (Ps. 55:22).

And now, finally, I should like to continue writing to display the riches of the people who have God as their portion, but the available space forbids me to enlarge upon this subject. It is, through the grace of God, my joy and desire to serve His people whom God from eternity and freely has loved, and whom also my soul loves as the holy ones in whom is all God’s pleasure. I realize and am convinced that my words are poor and empty and full of shortcomings, but the God of all grace can make these words rich and full out of the riches and fullness of Christ by the administration of the Holy Spirit.

Allow me to call out to all these people at the end of this meditation: “Comfort one another with these words!” I wish all God’s people, both small and great, a rich blessing in this new year, and myself the smallest crumb from the table of God’s grace. We have forfeited everything, but even the least is inexpressibly great to a waster of His blessings and a transgressor of all God’s commandments.

Oh, when our soul may receive the least impression of God’s goodness, love, faithfulness, mercy, and grace, through Jesus Christ, then our heart embraces all who seek the Lord and who love the appearance of the Lord Jesus Christ and long for it. Indeed, when our heart is full of the things of the Lord and the Spirit of Christ, then we pray in truth for the coming of God’s Kingdom, just as Christ taught His disciples. This prayer is not only for submission and preservation but also for the extension of God’s Church. God Himself promised His Church in Jeremiah 30:19, “I will multiply them, and they shall not be few.” We also read in Proverbs 14:28, “In the multitude of people is the king’s honour.” When we are thus minded, the honor of God becomes the highest goal in our life, but then also the growth of God’s Church is dear to our heart. Among the angels in heaven there is joy when one sinner repents; should there then be no joy on earth when we may observe that God is still working in our generation, in our congregation, and throughout the length and breadth of the earth? Should we therefore not remember in our prayers the blind heathen among whom there are those that must be added to the number that shall be saved; as well as the hardened Jews for whom rich promises are waiting to be fulfilled in the last days? Should it, at the beginning of the year, then not be our prayer that this year might be the year of God’s good pleasure, and that the pleasure of the Lord might prosper in His hand; that everywhere many might be added to the number that shall be saved; that Christ might be manifested in the hearts of God’s chosen ones; that God might build up the ruined walls of Zion and in a right way bring together that which belongs together; that the obstacles might be removed and that those that fear God might meet one another with confession of sin in the valley of humility? Time is running out; the signs of Christ’s coming on the clouds of heaven can be discerned. It should be the continual prayer of our hearts: “Lord, abide with us: for it is toward evening, and the day is far spent.”

It is a great blessing that we may still enjoy the faithful preaching of the gospel, and that we may still have the means of grace among us. But all these things together cannot be our Saviour. It is the Spirit only that quickens us. Paul may plant, and Apollos may water, but neither one can do anything, as it is God who must give the increase. Great is our responsibility, living as we do in the light of the gospel; but this responsibility cannot bring about faith in Christ, either. God’s Spirit must accompany the preaching of the Word will it be a power unto salvation, as it is for everyone who believes.

May it also be our prayer that the Lord may cast out laborers into this vineyard, as He has promised:

From age to age shall men be taught
What wondrous works the Lord has wrought.

The need is great, and in this regard, too, may our eyes be lifted up unto the Lord. May He raise men With grace and talents to serve in His Church, to build upon the secure foundation of the prophets and apostles, of which Jesus Christ is the cornerstone, so that they may be like spoilers of hell upon the earth, to lead God’s people in wisdom and understanding.

May the Lord bless us and our families with all temporal, spiritual, and eternal blessings from heaven, in Christ Jesus. May He keep our country and people from the devastations of war. Our sins are great and many, but may God in His wrath remember mercy. May He cause us to break with sin and to follow after righteousness, to walk in His ways, to glorify His Name, and to remember His day.

Young and old, great and small, may the fear of God fill our hearts and adorn our lives. There is great reward in the keeping of His commandments, but He causes those that forsake His Law to dwell in desert places.

May the Lord take pleasure in us, and be with us. May He keep our going in and our going out from henceforth and forevermore. May He prepare our souls to meet Him in righteousness and peace and to behold His countenance in Christ Jesus. Some time it is going to be the year of our death, and God grant that we do not deceive ourselves into believing that the day of our death is far away. Let us not drive the stakes of our tents too deep into the dust. May God teach us to die foundationally (Col. 3:3) as well as experientially (I Cor. 15:31); for then dying will no longer be dying when the hour comes. It will then be a dying unto sin and a passing into eternal life. May the God of all grace give this unto all of us through His Holy Spirit. Amen.

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Bekijk de hele uitgave van zondag 1 januari 1967

The Banner of Truth | 20 Pagina's

UPON ENTERING A NEW YEAR

Bekijk de hele uitgave van zondag 1 januari 1967

The Banner of Truth | 20 Pagina's