HOW does this New Year find you, dear reader? For Christ, or against Him?
Which? oh, which? I earnestly ask you.
What think you of Christ? Do not cast the question away from you, but put it to your own heart, and answer it truthfully. You are either saved or unsaved, ―serving Christ, or Satan; in the narrow road leading to glory, or treading the downward path to hell. You will spend eternity either with Christ, or―solemn thought―in eternal banishment from Him. Again I ask you, Which is it? which will it be for eternity, heaven or hell? Blessed it is for you if you can say, ―
“Now I can call the Saviour mine,
Tho’ all unworthy still;
I’m shelter’d by His precious blood
Beyond the reach of ill.”
Beloved, if this be the language of your heart, it is well with you; and I would just say, Be true to the One who loved you, and gave Himself for you, and who is coming to receive us to Himself! But oh! if my reader be still a stranger to that blessed Lord Jesus Christ, I would say, How awful is your position! ―unsaved, without the question of your soul’s eternal salvation settled; judgment staring you in the face! Does this startle you? or do you think the case exaggerated? Nay, it is not; and no matter how you look at or regard it, you cannot change God’s word. “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but “―awful thought―” the wrath of God abideth on him” (John 3:3636He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him. (John 3:36)).
O, beloved unsaved one, in the face of all this, can you deliberately turn your back on Christ? “How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation?” (Heb. 2:33How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation; which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed unto us by them that heard him; (Hebrews 2:3)). We cannot; and surely you cannot be so mad as to begin another year as a rejector of Christ, duped by the devil?
Do not talk, I pray you, about “reforming,” and “turning over a new leaf.” It will not do. Reformation is not SALVATION turning new leaves is not CHRIST and nothing else will stand. God wants none of your doing. Why? Because His Beloved Son finished all on Calvary, when He stood in the guilty sinner’s place. He said, “It is finished.”
Can you add aught to what is already complete, think you? What could you bring to God? Nothing; for He says, “All our righteousnesses are as filthy rags.” What an offering! And when our best is “filthy rags,” what about our, WORST, ― the sins of which the wages is death? Do you think you will be able to stand before God in rags? Will they cover you? Ah! you know they will not. As one once said, “‘Snow water’ is not enough to cleanse, nor ‘filthy rags’ to clothe; but the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ is enough for everything.” Christ has completed the work of salvation more than eighteen hundred years ago, and you have only to believe it, to accept Him, and life, eternal life, is yours. Is it not simple? God offers this free salvation to you now. Will you take it?
And now one parting word. God in boundless grace offers to “whosoever will the water of life freely;” but remember, it is now He offers it. “Now is the day of salvation;” beware how you neglect it
“‘All things are ready;’ come,
Tomorrow may not be;
O sinner, come, the Saviour waits
This hour to welcome thee.”
C. E. S.
“NOT OF WORKS.” ―A man is rowing a boat on a river just above a dreadful cataract; the current begins to bear him downward; the spectators give him up for lost. “He is gone,” they exclaim; but in another moment a rope is thrown toward the wretched man; it strikes the water near the boat. Now how does the ease stand? Do all the spectators call upon him to row? to try harder to reach the shore, when with every stroke of his arm the boat is evidently nearing the falls? O no! Give up your desperate attempt! take hold of the rope! But he chooses to row, and in a few moments he disappears and perishes. All his hope lay, not in rowing, but in laying hold of the rope; for while he was rowing he could not grasp the rope. So the sinner’s hope lies, not in struggling to save himself, but in ceasing to struggle; for while he expects to accomplish the work of salvation himself, he will not look to Christ who did it for him.