The opening of another year reminds us once more that our life is passing. Time does not stand still. The Psalmist was saying:
Threescore and ten years do sum up
our days and years, we see;
Or if, by reason of more strength,
in some fourscore they be.
Yet how many will never see that length of time in the world. Death will come much earlier than that age and carry them away into the eternal world. How very short at the longest is our time in this world and how necessary it is in the short span of time we have in this world to be making our calling and election sure. Have we not need to cry with the Psalmist:
Mine end, and measure of my days,
O Lord, unto me show
What is the same; that I thereby
my frailty well may know?
We are ready to let time pass without truly considering our latter end. Death seems far away when in reality it may be near at hand.
Another year has opened and we have been spared in the providence of God to see the opening of it but who can say that they will see its close. We do not know what a day or an hour will bring to pass. We are to lay to heart that we are journeying to the eternal world, to the world of spirits. But is it to the world of the spirits of just men made perfect that we are journeying or is it to the world of the spirits of the lost in the prison house of a lost eternity? What a momentous matter this is. We are to consider it seriously in the light of God’s Word. We have no need to be deceived in this matter. The Word of God will show us where we stand in the light of eternity.
The matter of chief importance for us is whether we are in Christ or whether we are not. This is what will determine our latter end. If we are found in Christ, united to Him by a living faith, then death will not find us unprepared. If, on the other hand, we are still in our sins, still enemies to God by wicked works, then we are in imminent danger of perishing in our sins and going down to an undone eternity. If this is our case, is it not time to be up and doing, to be seeking the Lord while He may be found and to be calling on Him while He is near? There is every encouragement given to us in God’s Word to seek the Saviour, and to come as poor needy sinners to the footstool of mercy and grace. Seek, we are told, and ye shall find. Let the wicked forsake his way, we are urged, and the unrighteous man His thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and He will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon.
May we not plead with the Psalmist:
— Lord, teach thou us
our end in mind to bear;
And so to count our days, that we
our hearts may still apply
To learn Thy wisdom and Thy truth,
that we may live thereby?