READER, — It has pleased God to allow this paper to come to your notice. In His great and righteous name, I beg a word with you about this coming NEW YEAR. It lies before us unsullied by a single crime; a solemn quiet rests about it. Printers are putting into type the date of the New Year; authors are busy about it; but, as yet, it has not issued from
The Eternity of God.
The first hour of its time has not struck: it is still “the future”; and whether we shall breathe the breath of this life through an hour, a day, a week, a month of it, is unknown, except to God. Its changes, joys, and sorrows are known alone to Him. “To them that look for Him,” this coming year may bring the blessed One, the Lord of Glory.
Reader, consider. What a moment for His people! What a position for you, if you are not one of them! It may be that during the year you will have entered eternity. You cannot be wholly without misgivings about eternity― an unsettled eternity! The warnings granted to all have doubtless, in measure, been given to you: the uneasy midnight reflection; the trembling of heart at the intelligence of the death of an acquaintance. Such appeals, many or few, are probably not unknown to your conscience. Look back to the past of your life, far back to the yesterday when you were a child. Think over the unsatisfactoriness of your life, your one life, your life “without God”! Does not a sense of alarm, of helplessness, of hopelessness, come over you? Looking back, you feel disquieted; looking forward, it is as one blindfolded, groping near a precipice; looking to the earth, to society, to business, — the world’s greatest things and brightest, — in this gleam of light let in upon you from eternity, you sicken at its inability to satisfy, at the remorseless rush, the hurry, the excitement. The whole thing appears worthless and wearisome, and, after all, for what is it? Oh, pause a while, I beseech you, and ask yourself the question, “For what?” For what do I put aside eternal bliss? For what have I so long pulled away the shoulder from the gentle hand (the hand of Christ) so often laid upon me? All that is past has been mere ashes: you loathe it; and the future! “What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul?”
Reader, you need God; but you do not know God. You have been
Trying to forget God.
Perhaps you incline to think that what is wrong about you is somehow His fault — not so much yours. However, you would like to propitiate Him; but that is hopeless. Melancholy work, too, like a preparation for death; for to you He is “the unknown God,” — a mysterious, exacting power, because Satan has misrepresented God to you. Is it not, then, of immense importance that you should awake to what He is, and to your real present position in His eyes?
Suppose the case of a man fully committed for murder, sentenced to death, but under a strange delusion that his conduct in the interval will soften the judge’s heart, and avert the execution of his sentence. How vain his efforts, his tears, his prayers! Long since the judge did his part — he passed sentence on him, and the prisoner awaits the executioner. Justice must have its course. The case is your own. Ignorant of the nature of your position, you think (when you do think) that you can amend your ways, lead a new life, read your Bible, repent, pray, and thus make peace with God. You are mistaken; your sentence is contained in these words: “THE SOUL THAT SINNETH, IT SHALL DIE.” You have sinned; and it is not possible by reformation to evade the consequences of sin.
We read of a great white throne, and of “Him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them”; but you, if you perish, must stand before, see, and hear Him, whom you have avoided and disregarded.
Listen for a moment longer: God does not enter into the question of the extent of your sin. Nor have you, for your part, to determine the merits or defects of your position; but, simply, how its inevitable consequences are to be escaped. Here, God approaches you. So long as you seek to amend your condition, He is “a God afar off.” Own yourself lost, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and the distance between you and God is annihilated. Your sin need not ruin you; your self-confidence, if maintained, would infallibly prove your destruction.
You have heard of “the precious blood of Christ.” It was shed for sin. True. Is it enough to satisfy God with regard to your sin? Surely, you reply. Then, if God is satisfied, why may you not be?
“God so loved the world [you are included], that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever [you] believeth on Him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:1616For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. (John 3:16)).
ANON.