The prospect of the close of another year ought to direct our minds to what the Lord has done for us and the way He has led us hitherto.
If we are the Lord’s true people we have reason indeed to marvel at His gracious dealings with us throughout the year which is now drawing to a close. How wonderfully He has watched over us and conducted us all the way we have come. What cause for thanksgiving there is if we know the Lord as our personal Saviour, if He is our covenant God and Redeemer, and if we are journeying to the place of which the Lord has said, “I will give it you.” The longsuffering of the Lord to His people notwithstanding their many provocations and sins, is matter for wonder and praise. They have to confess: “He hath not dealt with us after our sins; nor rewarded us according to our iniquities.” Oh what tenderness, oh what compassion the Lord has shown in His dealings with His own. What undeserved favours are heaped upon them day by day. Even the Lord’s correcting rod upon them is cause for thankfulness; for it is those whom the Lord loves that He chastens. As they look back to days and weeks and months — yes, and to years now past — are they not going to set up their Ebenezer and say: “Hitherto hath the Lord helped us.” Surely their song in the house of their pilgrimage is:—
“The Lord of us hath mindful been,
and He will bless us still.”
Although there is much they have to mourn over, much that they wish was otherwise, yet they have to say with David: “Although my house be not so with God; yet He hath made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things and sure: for this is all my salvation, and all my desire, although He make it not to grow.”
But how are poor unregenerate sinners to view the past? What can they say who hitherto have remained under the power of sin and unbelief? If this is the case with us we have reason to acknowledge the Lord’s longsuffering towards us. What forbearance He has shown while we have remained in rebellion against Him. What sad reflections should a review of our past life bring — a life lived without Christ and without hope — seasons of opportunity under the Gospel let slip so that these opportunities are lost and gone forever — a life wasted in the service of sin and Satan. Is it not time to hear the voice of the Lord saying, “Consider your ways”? How quickly days, and weeks, and months, and years, speed past. Soon we will be on the threshold of the eternal world with our days on earth done. How will it be with us then if we have neglected Christ and the salvation that is in Him? Oh, sad deathbed (if deathbed we should have) without Christ! Oh, solemn entrance into eternity without Christ as our Surety and Hope! Surely the realisation that time is on the wing and that we are hurrying to eternity ought to stir us up to seek to make our calling and our election sure while the day of mercy lasts. Christ is still to be found of those that seek Him. Delay not! Those who seek me early, He says, shall find me. For believers the message of His Word is: “Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness. Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God.”