A New Year’s Address delivered by Dr. Heyman Wreford at the Victoria Hall, Exeter.
AT this solemn moment, the first Lord’s Day evening of the New Year, we desire to give everything into God’s Hands. May He deign to work by His Spirit with everyone. May He guide and control all things for us, and mightily bless the Word spoken all over the world in these last days.
We commend every helper and worker to God for this year, God bless every Sunday-school teacher, and every Bible-class teacher; may He bless those who give away tracts or invitations to the meetings, and everyone who visits the sick, and those who speak to the anxious, and those that pray for a blessing on the spoken Word. May God abundantly bless all those who so freely give their time to the service of God, and they WILL be blessed for it, I am sure.
We commend every saint and every sinner to God. All who are here tonight, and all who may come to the meetings from time to time. May God keep those true to Christ, who have confessed His Name, and give peace to those who are still strangers to His love.
It is a terrible battle, this strife with sin and Satan. The soldiers of the cross seem few, and the battalions of the enemy to be multitudinous in their fierce array. I say tonight, God help us; we must not give in. God help us; we must press on. God help us; we must overcome. God help us; we must go from victory to victory. God help us; there must be no parleying with the enemy. We must be out and out for Jesus; true soldiers of the Cross.
Let the Apostle’s words, with their deep earnestness, fill our hearts. “This one thing I do.” He might have done many things. He had marvelous opportunities, and manifold advantages, but his life was completely under the control of one idea. Before his conversion he was the slave of many pursuits; he was blown about with many a wind of human reason. He thought and acted, as a man might be expected to, who had shifting and changing ideas of what was right and wrong. But when he was converted, then the whole range of his associations and ideas became centralized. There was the clearly defined purpose of life before him. No more his vagrant fancy, ever seeking, seeking, and never satisfied, but the truth of his whole life at rest. Every faculty was under the control of a guiding Hand, and every heart-beat purposeful and real.
“This one thing I do.” One aim, one life-work, one end, one all. And this made his career so intense and useful. He was not divided in his interests, or his hopes; he had but One to please, and but one purpose to fulfill. And he brought all the powers of his cultivated mind to bear upon this. He was a divinely-blessed, and a divinely-guided man. His life was a blessing to himself and to those with whom he associated.
It is better to do one thing well, than many things badly. This the Apostle found out when he said, “This one thing I do.” May God grant that you may find that out this evening.
At the commencement of a New Year, it is customary for people to keep a diary: they write down this resolution, and the other, and their hearts are full of brave new desires to turn over any number of fresh leaves. I can fancy Paul keeping a diary, and writing on it, with his eyes sparkling, and his cheeks glowing, these words: “This one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.”
He could calmly face the future. He could look without a veil between, into the glories of eternity. Some tell us that the future is a mystery, a blank; that none can know it, or reveal it. It was not so to Paul; is it so to us? He speaks of a forgetting. There was nothing to charm him here, he buried his old life in the grave of Jesus. The old life of Saul of Tarsus was to be forgotten Forever. He speaks of a reaching forth. There was a yearning and a striving for what was beyond. Not a mystery, but a glorious certainty. He saw a vision in the skies that charmed his very soul. It was Jesus risen from among the dead, a glorified Man at God’s right Hand, and it was his desire that everyone else should see it too. When people are traveling through the desert, if they suffer from thirst, the eager eyes are looking for the oasis, and the one who sees it first cries out in his gladness for all the rest. He points to the waving palm trees and the refreshing; grass, and the clear, cool water, and the delightful shade. The sight is too good to be kept to one’s self. And a risen Christ, seen by the eye of faith, is a sight that makes the ready tongue speak forth. The opened heavens stretch away with the light of God upon them. No mystery to faith, but the ineffable delight of knowing and believing God. Sinner, will you gaze tonight? Look yonder and see the rest of God; face the future now. There is the water of life, the palm trees of the Paradise of God are blooming there; the green pastures are in front. Press on to the feet of Jesus, sinner; press on now. There is rest for the weary, there is rest for you.
When out at sea, the eyes have been looking for the land. The one who first descries the shore shouts, “Land ahead.” He is the herald of the journey’s end. And so Paul, with his clear eyes facing the future of the love of God, speaks of the mark, and the prize. He saw it, and he pressed towards it. No dim conception was his, but a real comprehension of the purposes of God. No mystery to be solved by the soul when winging its way to the Infinite; but a revelation made to faith now. He saw the golden shores of heaven; the thronging angels on the golden streets; the pinnacles of the heavenly temple not made by hands, eternal in the heavens; he saw it all, and his life was absorbed in it. He could forget, he could reach forth; he could press on, for the mark was Christ, and the prize was an eternal one. Can you thus face the future? Can you thus clearly see what is hidden from the world? “The natural mind understands not the things of the Spirit.” Only those who are born again, are in the secret of God.
(To be continued, D.V.)