Taking Inventory On Old Year's Night

December 31. “Where did the year go?” we commonly say.

Deep within, we know 1987 slipped past uncomfortably fast. Uncomfortably, I say, because doesn’t 1987’s brevity remind us of the slippage of life itself?

Old Year’s preaches to us that life has a terminus—a point of ending. Death-day is inevitable for each of us.

No doubt we are accustomed to facing inevitabilities. Certain of these we often attempt to ignore: the past-due “tune-up” for noisy engines, nagging bills that demand payment, burnt-out bulbs that need replacing, crooked teeth that refuse to straighten themselves…. But life’s greatest inevitability cannot be postponed.

The impending threshold from 1987 to 1988 must be crossed. So, too, our rapidly-advancing threshold from time to eternity.

There is a finality about our terminus— our ending point, that defies human vocabulary. Witness the open coffin. Stand beside the grieving family. You can better feel than say what death is.

Death is ultimate finality par excellence. Death is certain, decisive, irrevocable. Death ushers in the solemnity of judgment and the awesomeness of eternity.

Yes, awesomeness. Who can comprehend eternity? A Puritan once compared eternity to sand. He said that if you heaped all this world’s sand into one large sky-piercing mountain, and a bird came to transfer the pile to a new location by taking into its beak one grain every thousand years, eternity would be no closer to completion after the trillions times trillions of years involved in this bird’s task had passed.

Eternity is timelessness. Incomprehensible timelessness.

In fact, it is precisely this serious awesomeness of eternity that compounds the serious awesomeness of our brief lives on earth. For our life here is interwoven with our destiny hereafter.

Do you see now why life is so serious? In God’s great judgment day, the books of this life shall be opened. “And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works” (Rev. 20:12).

Ought not our life here be largely preparation for the life to come? Is not eternity too long; God, too holy and worthy; judgment, too all-decisive, to come to any other conclusion?

You see, if we had a thousand souls and lives to live, we might foolishly reason that we could risk a few in light of the eternity to come. (I say, “foolishly,” because all life apart from God is essentially “fool”-ish as it does not meet the purpose for which life was designed.) But what fools—yes, blind, dead, foolish fools, we are when we stake our one life, our one soul, on anything apart from God! My friend: What shall it profit you, if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul?

Every moment of 1987 is frozen solid in God’s eternal memory.

We have one soul to gain or to lose. If our soul is lost, all is lost. Eternal separation from God, eternal bitterness against God, eternal hell will be our solemn portion.

Nor will we be able to reshape our one soul any more than we can reshape 1987. We may rethink 1987, but we cannot redo it. For all of 1987 we must give account to God. We cannot pick and choose which parts we want to show to, or hide from, Him. Film editors splice performances to construct seemingly flawless film, but as of January 1,1988 we shall never be able to splice anything into or from 1987. They splice because they are in a make-believe world. We cannot splice for we are in the real world. God’s record books make no mistakes. He allows no retakes. Heaven’s courts records all our thoughts, words, and actions.

Every moment of 1987 is frozen solid in God’s eternal memory. Our inconsistencies, guilts, blunders, sins — not one can be erased from heaven’s recordings. Not one can be relegated to oblivion. What is past in our minds, is still present in God’s. Hence the past is not past, but unalterably present.

Oh, what need you and I have for forgiveness! For whose record book for 1987 is unstained in any of its days or hours? Who of us can be rightly proud of his/her record book? Not even the proud Pharisees had an answer for Jesus: “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone…. And they which heard it, being convicted by their own conscience, went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, even unto the last” (John 8:7b, 9a).

Have we not all sinned and come short of the glory of God? Do we not all have dire need to pray with the psalmist:

O God who hearest prayer:
Our sins rise up against us,
Prevailing day by day,
But Thou wilt show us mercy
And take their guilt away.

— Psalter 170, stanza 1

Shamefully, we confess that we all too often think, speak, and act as if we are in a make-believe, “spliceable,” “re-do-able” world. Hence we trifle with life, judgment and eternity.

That’s why it’s so important to take daily inventory of our lives. Especially on Old Year’s day.

Inventory. Hundreds upon thousands of stores, warehouses, factories, and companies take inventory annually at the end of the year. Present stock and goods are numbered. And for three good reasons.

First, inventory unveils how well-stocked a particular business is at the present time. Over- or under-supply may then be corrected.

Second, inventory unveils how well business has fared in the past season. Moreover, the matching of sales and supplies will reveal the approximate amount of goods stolen.

Third, inventory gauges how and what to purchase for the year that lies ahead. Hence, past, present, and future are intimately interwoven in inventory. My friend, let us pause to take spiritual inventory. Our inventory must contain three sheets. Their headings and a few sub-questions might be as follows:

SHEET #1:

How did I fare spiritually in 1987?

• Sin: Was I often convicted of sin in 1987, and did it become a burden too heavy for me to bear? Did my actual sins, and especially my original sin, lead me to seek refuge in Christ alone?

• Self: Was I stripped of all my righteousness in 1987—also religious righteousness, and did I cry out at times with the apostle: “O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” (Rom 7:24) Did I truly become who and what I am—a cut-off and lost sinner—before a holy and gracious God?

• Christ: Did Christ become altogether lovely, altogether essential, altogether suitable for me in 1987? Was He revealed and applied to my heart as the one Person needful? Did my love grow for Him? Did I increasingly view Him as the only source of “wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption” (1 Cor. 1:30)?

• Lifestyle: Despite many shortcomings, did my lifestyle reveal my desire to live unto God and not unto self? Despite the poverty of my sanctification, was it visible that I longed to walk in God’s ways, abhorred sin, and desired to serve a worthy and faithful Savior? Did the way I spent my time, pursued conversation, and utilized my hands, feet, and eyes reveal that the fear of God has been within me?

SHEET #2:

How am I faring spiritually as I cross the 1987 threshold and enter 1988?

• Means of grace: Are the means of grace feeding my soul? Do I love the house of the Lord? Are the preaching and reading of His Word sources of ongoing nourishment for me? Am I searching Holy Scripture and orthodox writings that can make me wise unto salvation? If prayer has rightly been called the thermometer of spiritual life, do I presently have a warm and close life with the Lord? Am I living prayerfully, meditatively, dependently in relationship to God?

• Comfort: What is my present, daily comfort? Is it the faithful Savior, Jesus Christ, to whom I belong, or do I try to find comfort in belonging to myself? (Hei. Cat, Q. 1).

• Guidance: Am I acknowledging God in all my ways and asking Him to direct my paths? Am I pursuing His will through Scripture and providence, asking questions such as these when confronted with a decision:

- Does this glorify God? (1 Cor. 10:31)

- Is this consistent with the Lordship of Christ? (1 Cor. 7:23)

- Is this consistent with biblical examples? (1 Cor. 11:1)

- Is this lawful and beneficial for me — physically, spiritually, mentally? (1 Cor. 6:9–12)

- Does this help others positively and not hurt others unnecessarily? (1 Cor. 10:33; 8:13)

- Does this bring me under any enslaving power? (1 Cor. 6:12)

• Direction: Is the tenor of my life toward God or self? The church or the world? Righteousness or sin? Self-denial or self-indulgence? Giving or receiving? Christ-increasing/self-decreasing or Christ-decreasing/self-increasing?

SHEET #3:

How shall I fare for eternity if I continue to pursue the same general course and direction of life as I have displayed in 1987?

Negatively

• If I have lived Christless in 1987, how shall I fare when I appear before the Judge of heaven and earth?

• If I have lived an indifferent, worldly, or content-to-be-unconverted lifestyle in 1987, how shall I fare when I appear before the Judge of heaven and earth?

• If I have lived largely impression-less in 1987—largely law- and gospel-hardened, how shall I fare when I appear before the Judge of heaven and earth?

• If I have lived in 1987 more for temporals than eternals, more for the trivia of this time-state than for the weightiness of eternal glory, how shall I fare when I appear before the Judge of heaven and earth?

Positively

• If I have lived in 1987 out of the only possibility and way of salvation, Christ Jesus, and found nothing worthy of boasting in myself but desire all my boasting to be of Him, shall I not fare well by grace when I appear before the Judge of heaven and earth?

• If I have lived in 1987 with strong aspirations to know Christ and be found more fully in Him for my own soul’s consciousness, shall I not fare well by grace when I appear before the Judge of heaven and earth?

• If I have lived in 1987 with strong yearnings to walk uprightly before the Lord and to bow before Him in the submission of saving faith, shall I not fare well by grace when I appear before the Judge of heaven and earth?

Christ Jesus can purge your spoiled inventory. He can refurbish your out-dated inventory. His supplies know no boundaries.

Dear friend, how did you fare? Are you prepared to meet God? Do you not see that moving through time (that is, life itself) is so serious not only because we cannot turn our clocks back, but especially because we will reap tomorrow what we sow today? Oh, let us make haste for our life’s sake to flee from the wrath to come, before it is too late!

Dear child of God, when we weigh our spiritual inventory in God’s balance, are we not found wanting from our side? Oh, who is sufficient for these things?

Only Christ Jesus. His inventory is perfect and complete. He alone can purge your spoiled inventory. He can refurbish your out-dated inventory. His supplies know no boundaries. In Him, there is bread enough and to spare in the Father’s house (Lk. 15). In Him, your cups run over (Ps. 23). He is the Greater Joseph whose storehouses are never empty to the famine-stricken.

Dear friends, Christ’s inventory is infinite! Oh, may all our shortcomings cause us to flee to the Lamb of God whose blood cleanses from all iniquity! His righteousness exceeds all human numbering: “My mouth shall shew forth Thy righteousness and Thy salvation all the day; for I know not the numbers thereof” (Ps. 71:15).

Rev. J.R. Beeke is pastor of the First Netherlands Reformed Congregation of Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Best Wishes for Holy-Days

Dear friends,

Wholeheartedly, we desire to wish you and yours God’s richest blessings of grace this holiday season.

Admittedly, we do not deserve the least token of divine mercy. We have tragically forfeited everything in our deep fall in Adam. Our fall has been complete; our state, dead; our depravity, total; our condition, unspeakable. But there is hope for dead sinners as we are in the living Jesus.

May God make room for and application of this exclusive, yet all-sufficient, Hope to our hearts as we move through Advent, Christmas, Old Year’s and New Year’s commemorations. Then we shall experience true holidays (literally and originally, holy-days), for the holiness of God finds through the Christ-child a channel in which “mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other” (Ps. 85:10).

The yielding of 1987 to 1988 ought to give us pause. The exchange of years calls us to stand in the doorway of history’s stream, looking backward to what has transpired and forward to what may rightfully be expected. In this time of passing over from 1987 to 1988, we pray that all of us may stand spiritually and experientially by Israel’s Passover door, covered with blood overhead and on both sides. Oh, how desperately we need, like Israel to stand “under” Christ’s blood, “between” Christ’s blood, and “behind” Christ’s blood! Otherwise, how shall we escape the angelic messenger of death? Apart from Christ, God can only be a “consuming fire” and “everlasting burning.” Without the blood of Jesus, our looking back shall only spell death, hell, and condemnation. Without the blood of Jesus, our looking forward shall only spell sin, disappointment, and hopelessness.

On the other hand, if we stand under Jesus’s blood, the sword of God’s justice shall be sheathed. If we stand behind the blood of Jesus, we may look back upon 1987 with humble gratitude, notwithstanding thousands of shortcomings and, worst of all, a heart prone to sin. If we stand between the blood of Jesus, we may look forward to 1988 with holy expectation, knowing that Christ is not only the justification, but also the ongoing sanctification, of His dearly purchased church. Oh, dear reader, is the blood of Jesus Christ all-in-all to you? May it become so this season. Then our precious doxology would become living reality under the spiritual tutelage of the Holy Ghost:

Now blessed be Jehovah God,

The God of Israel

Who only doeth wondrous works,

In glory that excel.

And blessed be His glorious name,

To all eternity;

The whole earth let His glory fill.

Amen: So let it be.

Receive our best wishes on behalf of our Banner of Truth workers, and be commended to the God of grace.

Pastorally,

Rev. J.R. Beeke

Deze tekst is geautomatiseerd gemaakt en kan nog fouten bevatten. Digibron werkt voortdurend aan correctie. Klik voor het origineel door naar de pdf. Voor opmerkingen, vragen, informatie: contact.

Op Digibron -en alle daarin opgenomen content- is het databankrecht van toepassing. Gebruiksvoorwaarden. Data protection law applies to Digibron and the content of this database. Terms of use.

Printen