Whether converted, or unconverted, this is a solemn question. If unconverted, you are hastening on to death and judgment, where every secret thing of another year must be brought out. All that you have said, and all that you have done, will be brought out of the books before that terrible throne. “And the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works.....And whosoever was not found written in the book of life, was cast into the lake of fire.” Oh, will you close another year unsaved? You may be weary with the pleasures or sorrows of another year: soon it will have passed away, like a cloud. And will you still turn a deaf ear to Him who, in tender compassion, says, “Come unto me, all ye that labor, and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest?” Oh, try Him, come to Jesus before the year is out!
But do you profess to be a Christian? Then how have you spent this year? Take heed that you are not deceived. Remember, Jesus says that out of the mass of profession there are a few names, a few that shall walk with Him. (Rev. 3:44Thou hast a few names even in Sardis which have not defiled their garments; and they shall walk with me in white: for they are worthy. (Revelation 3:4).) And “he that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white raiment.” Have you been an overcomer this year? If not, is it not high time to wake out of the delusive sleep of mere profession? Are you a child of God, and have you neglected prayer and dependence on God, so that you have sinned? If so, come at once, before the year closes, and fully confess your sins to your Father. “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” Oh, what mercy! “And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and he is the propitiation for our sins.” (1 John 1:9; 2:1, 29If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. (1 John 1:9)
1My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous: 2And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world. (1 John 2:1‑2).) Do not go on another day without confession and restoration to communion with your Father.
Or have you spent the year in contentions and strivings about unprofitable questions? Is this a lost year, both as to spiritual growth and usefulness? Does it need to be thus, if even called to “earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered to the saints”? The Lord enable us to discern between things that differ. Or have you spent the year in spiritual dearth? These are “clouds without water, carried about of winds.” (Jude 1212These are spots in your feasts of charity, when they feast with you, feeding themselves without fear: clouds they are without water, carried about of winds; trees whose fruit withereth, without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots; (Jude 12).) This is one of the terrible marks of apostasy. Its opposite is stated thus: “If the clouds be full of rain, they empty themselves upon the earth.” (Eccles. 11:33If the clouds be full of rain, they empty themselves upon the earth: and if the tree fall toward the south, or toward the north, in the place where the tree falleth, there it shall be. (Ecclesiastes 11:3).) Have you spent a year in soaring high in profession, but without giving a single drop of refreshing rain to others? Then surely you will have been driven about by the winds of this year. Oh, what a windy year it has been! enough to blow about the clouds without rain, until they do not know where they are.
But if the clouds be full of rain? Well, how are we to know if they are full of rain? The proof is very real—they empty on the earth—they are a blessing to a dry and thirsty land. Have you been a blessing to anybody this year? Or have you been, with itching ears of quibbling criticism, living in selfish uselessness and vain conceit? You may call this testimony, but has God used you to give a little refreshing rain on the earth?
But do you say, Well, as to the past sad year, all has been failure; but how am I to be refreshed myself, and be a blessing to others? For these two things, we would ask you to look at two scriptures. The figure is changed, but the truth is the same. In John 4 Jesus says, “Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.” Now, if you have not received the gift of Christ, all knowledge, and mere doctrine, and so-called testimony, leaves you as thirsty, as dry as a cloud without rain, driven about. What would be the state of a meeting where all are such clouds?
But if you have received the Holy Ghost, and He supplies the water of the word, then are fulfilled those wondrous words of Jesus, “shall never thirst.” It is now in him a well of water, springing up into everlasting life. There is now in him an inexhaustible source of unchanging satisfaction and joy. The Holy Ghost, ever refreshing him with the water of the word, he knows no drought. His trust is in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is. “For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the river, and shall not see when heat cometh, but her leaf shall be green and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit.” (Jer. 17:88For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the river, and shall not see when heat cometh, but her leaf shall be green; and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit. (Jeremiah 17:8).) What a contrast to the poor head-knowledge cloud without water.
The other scripture we would look at is in John 7:37-3937In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink. 38He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. 39(But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive: for the Holy Ghost was not yet given; because that Jesus was not yet glorified.) (John 7:37‑39). Do you say, the end of the year has come, and I am still unsatisfied, still thirsting for something I have not got? I have tried all the feasts of the year, and the various teachings of men; still I thirst, I thirst. “In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink.” Do you hear His blessed voice, His invitation to you? He knows that man, with all his ritualism and feasts, or all his opinions, cannot satisfy you, so He says to you, “Come unto me.” Like the cloud gathering its water from the vast ocean, so you must come to Him, and drink of His infinite fullness. There can be no rain on the earth, no blessing to others, except as you come first to Him, the only fountain of life and joy. He does not say, Let him come to the church, or to the priest, or to His blessed mother; no, Let him come unto Me, and drink.
And what will be the result? “He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.” Rivers of living water are not like clouds without rain, driven about. Then which are you most like, an empty floating cloud, or a river of blessing to others?
“But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive: for the Holy Ghost was not yet given; because that Jesus was not yet glorified.” But now Jesus has glorified God, and has been raised from the dead glorified. The Holy Ghost has been given, and is here on earth. Have you received Him? If so, your privilege is now to be a river of living water-not the dry bed of a river, needing water merely-but full to overflowing. God grant it may be so with each of us, should we be down here another year.
Many a reader of this little gospel magazine may say, I read this little book to get blessing to my own soul; and many a high and dry cloud may despise it: but you say, What can I do to be a blessing to others, to rain on the earth?
I will tell you what a constant reader told me a day or two ago. He lives in a village where there is no ministry of Christ within reach of his home. He is very aged. Few could possibly have less privileges than he has had. If a few Christians met in any house in the villages around, they would be discountenanced, and probably turned out of their houses. Satan reigns in these dark villages. What can T. F. do in such a place? He receives one copy of Things New and Old. He said, “I always read it twice Then I send it to the village of H. It is read by three or four families there. I send another, the same (I think he said “Word and Work”). It is then sent to the village of C, a village where the gospel is unknown, except it enters in this way. Several families read it there. It then goes on to B. And so, some twenty families have the gospel brought to their doors, and food to the hidden sheep of Christ. Thus one hundred souls may be reached continuously by one copy of Things New and Old.
Now, if every reader of this little magazine did likewise in the coming year, should the Lord in long-suffering tarry another year, nearly one million souls would be reached, in a monthly stream of rain on the earth.
Oh, dear fellow-Christians, will you not earnestly cry to God in prayer that this little paper may be a cloud full of rain, to be thus emptied in blessing on the earth? We only desire to continue in this service, so long as the Lord gives refreshment and blessing by it to His scattered flock in these last dark days. You who are the Lord’s can thus help, both in prayers and in seeking the hidden sheep and lambs of Christ. Is it not “high time to awake out of sleep?” We call upon all our readers to awake. “The night is far spent, the day is at hand.” Ah, even yet before the year closes we may be forever with the Lord.
Let not Satan discourage you by the dry clouds driven of winds. Come to Jesus Himself; seek close, abiding, satisfying communion with Him; and then He will show you what to do, so that, as a full cloud, you may be emptied on the earth. Remember, we are in the days of lukewarmness as to Christ, neither cold nor hot. Beware of the chilling stream of indifference. You must either walk close to Him, come to Him, and drink, or be a cloud driven about by the wind. And now, before we bid farewell to 1885, may the Lord revive His work in all our souls. Amen. C.S.