New Year's Message by Charles Spurgeon
Not saved! Friend, is this your mournful plight? Warned of the judgment to come, bidden to escape for your life, and yet at this moment not saved! You know the way of salvation, you read it in the Bible, you hear it from the pulpit, it is explained to you by friends, and yet you neglect it, and therefore are not saved.
You will be without excuse when the Lord shall judge the living and the dead. The Holy Spirit has given more or less of blessing upon the Word which has been preached in your hearing, and times of refreshing have come from the divine presence, and yet you are without Christ. All these hopeful seasons have come and gone― your summer and your harvest have past― and yet you are not saved.
Years have followed one another into eternity, and your last year may have arrived. Let me ask you will you ever be saved? Is there any likelihood of it? Already the most propitious seasons have left you unsaved; will other occasions alter your condition?
Means have failed with you― the best of means, used perseveringly and with the utmost affection― what more can be done for you? affliction and prosperity have alike failed to impress you; tears and prayers and sermons have been wasted on your barren heart. Are not the probabilities dead against your ever being saved? Is it more than likely that you will abide as you are till death forever bars the door of hope?
Do you recoil from the supposition? Yet it is a most reasonable one; he who is not washed in so many waters will in all probability go unclean to the end. The convenient time has never come, why should it ever come? It is logical to fear that it never will arrive, and that Felix-like, you will find no "convenient season" till you are in hell. (Read Acts 24:2525And as he reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come, Felix trembled, and answered, Go thy way for this time; when I have a convenient season, I will call for thee. (Acts 24:25).)
O think what that hell is and of the dread possibility that you may soon be cast into it! Friend, suppose you should die unsaved; your doom no words can picture. You will "be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of His power." (2 Thess. 1:99Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power; (2 Thessalonians 1:9))
I would fain startle you into earnestness. O be wise, be wise in time, and as another year begins, believe in Jesus, who is able to save to the uttermost.