Upon the New Year

How true it is what we read in this text of God's holy and precious Word. The explanation in the margin says, “That is, very rapidly; or as a word that is spoken, which soon vanishes away in the air.”

“Our” years does not imply that we have any authority over them, but rather that God grants them to us upon earth according to His eternal counsel. For our life is in His hand, and all our paths are with Him. God, as the supreme Sovereign, orders our lives. He determines the hour when we shall enter the world, but He also determines the hour when we must, or may, leave the world. The worldling must leave this life, but God's child may leave this life, for the strength of our years upon earth is but labor and sorrow.

How we spend these years is our responsibility, and one day we shall have to give an account of it. At the passing of the old year into the new, we are forcefully reminded of this truth. Every year comes to an end. In God's Word we read of Nebuchadnezzar, who, at the end of twelve months, walked in the palace of Babylon (Daniel 4:29). Although he was a heathen, there was, nevertheless, also in his heart some consciousness of eternity. And to us, who from early youth have lived with the truth, comes the Word of God from 2 Corinthians 5:10: “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad.”

The year that lies behind us simply flew past, no matter how much happened in that time to us personally, in our families, in the church, in society, and in our nation. We cannot understand where the time has gone, for the years of our lives are swallowed up in the ocean of eternity.

Again a new year lies ahead of us. Whether we shall finish it is unknown to us. What lies ahead of us is hidden from us. But, beloved, we were not free from cares and concerns in the past, and it is with many cares and concerns that we enter this year. Our hearts and lives are fïlled with so many cares, causing us to see that man is born to trouble. The older we become, the more we see that cares and vicissitudes multiply. We could never have imagined that life here on earth could be so complicated and that there could be so many problems to beset us and keep us occupied.

The greatest concern of our life is to be prepared for eternity, to consider what gives us eternal peace, to hasten and flee for refuge in the shadow of the Almighty (Psalm 91:1) and for a place of rest in the heart of God, where alone rest and peace are to be found. But, alas, everything in our corrupt hearts is constantly drawing us away from God and is holding on to those things that in the hour of death will surely fall away.

We read of many of the old saints in the Bible that they died old and full of days, that is, tired of life. They were tired of themselves, tired of sin, tired of the avengers, and tired of all the trouble and strife. Especially God's people find out that this is not the land of peace. God made them strangers here, and He sees to it that they shall not find their satisfaction here; they are burdened in order to remain strangers here. Jacob said to Pharaoh, “The days of the years of my pilgrimage are an hundred and thirty years: few and evil have the days of the years of my life been, and have not attained unto the days of the years of the life of my fathers in the days of their pilgrimage” (Genesis 47:9). And again, Moses said in Psalm 90:10, “Yet is their strength labour and sorrow.” “Their strength,” that is to say that the best in this short life is labor and sorrow. That which we consider the best, namely, riches and honor, power and pleasure, is obtained and retained at the cost of much labor, effort, and care. The desire and longing for these things is usually greater than the joy of possessing them. Moreover, what grief is caused by the diminishing or the loss of them!

It is a blessing that can never be sufficiently appreciated if and when we may be found in the eternal thoughts of God. That is what David said in Psalm 139:17, “How precious also are Thy thoughts unto me, O God! how great is the sum of them!” These are thoughts of peace, and not of evil (Jeremiah 29:11), which God thought from all eternity toward all His people, whom He freely loved. Our thoughts are wrong, wicked, and utterly miserable. Psalm 10:4 says of them, “God is not in all his thoughts.” Indeed, “every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.”

What a monster man has become on account of his deep fall, and that because of his own fault. In this deep fall, we have deliberately and voluntarily torn ourselves away from God and turned to the devil. We have wholly surrendered ourselves to him, and now our whole nature and all our inclinations are devilish. The unregenerate heart cannot but cast up slime and mire. Even after having received grace, we must continually be afraid of ourselves, for how often is not hell found in our own hearts.

It is only by regenerating and renovating grace that we receive other thoughts than formerly, thoughts of the greatness, majesty, glory, holiness, righteousness, and omniscience of God, but also of His goodness, mercy, grace, and longsuffering as manifested and revealed in and through Christ Jesus. It is by the regeneration of the Holy Spirit and by the purification and holiness of the precious blood of Christ that we may have our pleasure and delight in God's law, indeed, that at times we may experience, “My meditation of Him shall be sweet: I will be glad in the LORD” (Psalm 104:34). Indeed, what blessed moments when we may rejoice in the Lord!

Without this, our life is poor, empty, miserable, and indeed purposeless. For then we continually and increasingly sink deeper in the mire of sin and everything that is destructive, both temporally and eternally. Oh, what will eternity be for the man who will have to appear before this God whose eyes are as flames of fire, without having knowledge of reconciliation with God and the covering with the righteousness of Christ! Truly, then it would have been better had he never been born and had never seen the light of day.

Indeed, it can never be presented to us enough and never be impressed upon us enough how necessary it is for a miracle to be wrought in our hearts by the irresistible power and operation of the Holy Spirit. Many people put their trust in their baptism, their confession of faith, their irreproachable way of life; others in their experiences, even though they cannot meet the test of God's Word. We must be born again, united with Christ, and reconciled with God by Him. We must be saved by grace.

This new year may be the year of our death, and how sad it would be if we were to squander away our life! It would be a double hell for us, especially if we have lived in the light of the gospel and nevertheless despised the blood of the new testament. Many people are forever saying that they cannot convert themselves, but they refuse to admit that they are unwilling. By nature we do the same thing our first father and mother did, namely, blame God. Moreover, by unbelief we reject the means of eternal grace God Himself has ordained, namely, Christ Jesus. We will not that He be King over us. By nature we would rather go to hell than to heaven.

Oh, stand still for a moment! Consider what is conducive to your eternal peace! Seek the Lord and His strength (Psalm 105:4). Fall at God's feet, before He shall break your legs and dash you in pieces with a rod of iron like a potter's vessel (Psalm 2:9). You still have time to call, to seek, and to find. The Lord still stands ready to be gracious, to us as well as to our children.

How it should impress us that the Lord has not swept us away with the broom of His holy justice and has not removed us like the dirt of the streets. He, again, at the beginning of this new year, calls out to us that He has no desire in the death of the wicked, but that he be converted and live (Ezekiel 33:11).

— Rev. W. C. Lamain (1904-1984)

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