David was deeply sensible of the solemn fact that he was a sojourner as all his fathers, and closes the 39th Psalm with this observation. Our entry into another year is fitted to bring this to mind to the young as well as to those further on in life’s journey. We are all passing through this world and will sooner or later leave it and enter eternity.
During the past year, not a few whom we knew finished their journey here and the place that once knew them shall know them no more for ever. During this year which has begun, others will end their days before the end of the year.
Even many who adhere to the Church and have listened to the preaching of the Word of God repeatedly, are still living without any personal or serious consideration of the fact that they are in reality passing through the world and are not to reside here alway. To them, tomorrow is to be as today. They think they have unlimited time to play fast and loose with the means of salvation, that these can be neglected at will, while even the trifling things of a worldly nature are meticulously attended to regularly. Woe to the sojourner who is at ease about his sins and his need of Christ, and is all alert regarding the vanities of earth. Men will stand at the graveside of their fellows again and again and immediately turn back into their activities of a worldly character, without a thought that they too are but sojourners on this earth. Men demonstrate how spiritually dead and dark they are, not only by heinous and actual sins; but by their utter indifference to spiritual things, the brevity of their days and the revealed realities of the eternal world.
Truly, men need the Person and the might of the Holy Spirit to awaken them in their hearts to believe the Holy Scriptures and Providence, declaring to them that here they have no continuing city, and that they need urgently, repentance toward God as sinners and faith toward the Lord Jesus Christ, unto their salvation for time and eternity. To be a godly, spiritual and graciously exercised traveller to eternity, man, the sinner, needs a divine, great, mighty work to be wrought in him according to the riches of God’s grace.
Everyone of us, as sojourners, are confronted with the future realities of death, the day of judgment and eternity. Either hell or heaven is to be our eternal abode. It shall be ill with the wicked, but it shall be well with the righteous, and in each case, for ever. Let each reader stand still a while and examine himself as to whether he be in the faith or no, while still a sojourner and before the end of life’s journey. We know not what a day may bring forth.
Sojourners who are true believers on the Son of God, may have many things to contend with here, yet have much to encourage them on their onward way. Such have sin in their own inward parts to contend with. The evil and God-dishonouring conduct on all sides is a great vexation. And such have their share of afflictions of varied kinds and crooked things and rough places are met with from time to time while they pass the time of their sojourning here, in the fear of God. God leads His people by the right way under His guiding hand and this way is not always easy. The words of the Lord Jesus can afford them encouragement when He says: “In the world ye shall have tribulation but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.” In and through their Redeemer and exalted Lord, they have the expectation of full and final relief and deliverance from all evil.
It will be well for all such to have a deep and constant sense of their need of being kept from turning to the right hand or the left from the path of righteousness and from allegiance to Christ Jesus. The god-fearing are said to be “kept by the power of God, through faith”, and therefore reliance upon the power of God is called for as the only source of keeping. Everyone who professes to be a Christian sojourner is exposed to the eyes of the godless and careless who are also travelling through the world, often side by side with them. The eye of the unconverted can often see when the professing Christian strays from the path of obedience to the Word of God and His commandments: that is, when the professing Christian speaks and acts and behaves at times, like the godless world. Those who claim to be pilgrims to a better country, even a heavenly, are expected by unbelievers (and very especially unbelievers who may be conversant, somewhat with the Church of Christ and the standards required of Christians), to bear at all times the character of true pilgrims. How dishonouring to God, how hurtful to the Cause of Christ and how damaging to the Christian’s reputation, unbecoming conduct can be! Certainly, the Lord will correct His people with rods; but then, they are enjoined to so walk as to please God. Let us hear the warning of Scripture:
“Let him that standeth take heed lest he fall.”
The exercised sojourners will be engaged much in searching the Scriptures and in meditation thereon. Herein he obtains divine light on his spiritual needs and the resources that dwell in His exalted Saviour. Herein he will find food to sustain him in his soul on his way and strong consolations in the time of difficulty and trouble.
And how needful it is for such to turn aside from all their fellow-travellers, again and again, to seek the Lord in secret in the exercise of humble and earnest prayer. At the throne of grace, the sojourner renews his strength and enjoys a measure of fellowship with the Father and His Son Jesus Christ, so needful for persevering on the journey from day to day.
And at this present stage on their way to eternity, the believer may emulate the godly in Israel and look back upon all the way the Lord has already led them and upon all the goodness which He has bestowed them, unworthy as they have been. This calls for praise and thanksgiving to their Covenant God in Christ Jesus.
And as the beginning of another year raises thoughts of the future; how suitable the prayer of Moses the man of God is, in the 90th Psalm: “So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.” And how suitable the counsel of the Lord Jesus is also: “Be ye also ready, for in an hour that ye think not of, the Son of Man cometh.”
May those who truly fear the Lord, as they contemplate future days, also death and eternity, be enabled to respond in their hearts to the exhortation of the Word of God, “Rejoice in hope of the glory of God.” And may that hope abound in them by the power of the Holy Spirit. And may many poor sinners in our Church, and outwith it also, be favoured, in the wonderful grace of God, with this blessed hope, during this New Year and in times to come, to His praise.