WE have reached, in the rapid flight of time, the last month of 1898; and, strangely solemn it is to think that, when twelve more months shall have fled, this wonderful nineteenth century shall also have passed away! There is, for it, but one more December, and then a new century shall dawn; one mere fast-fleeting year, and then the two well-known figures “18,” which we have so often written, must give place to a higher number, and to a date nearer the end of all. And why do I call this now closing century wonderful? Is it because of its mighty wars, its inventions, its discoveries, its intellectual advance, its scientific attainments? No. These are all wonderful, and have their rightful place on the historian’s page.
But I allude not to them. What strikes my own mind most forcibly, and certain I am that the same thought is entertained by many besides, is the extraordinary “long-suffering of God!”
Yes, I repeat it fearlessly and thankfully―the most wonderful feature of this wonderful century is God’s unwearied patience with man. There never was a more guilty century―the accumulation of sins is unprecedented―and never was God’s grace more fully expressed in His forbearance with the world than now!
And shall this remaining few months see that grace extended? Shall mercy dwell? shall judgment tarry?
Admitted frankly that every scientific achieve, went has tended, in the providence of God, to ameliorate the lot and lessen the hardships of the race, what has been the response rendered to Him? Is man more thankful? more godly, more truly marked by a spirit of reverence and fear of God? Is this a clear result of the intellectual march of the century?
Certainly not! Material prosperity is evident everywhere; but, if the eighteenth century ended badly, the nineteenth is ending worse.
Thanks to science for additional comforts and material wealth, but none for moral or spiritual improvement. Neither has science nor education made man one whit more spiritual, or led him one single step nearer God. Nay, education is very largely the handmaid of a far more subtle infidelity than was taught in the comparatively ignorant pages of Thomas Paine and the skeptics of his day.
There is a vast increase of sin, of infidelity, of disregard of God’s Word, of the love of pleasure, of pride, and of the marks that foretell the approach of judgment. Noah’s day and our own are painfully alike. There is a moral resemblance between them that should forewarn the unready of the second coming of the Son of Man. And yet the nearer the danger, the less the fear!
Is it that a kind of judicial blindness is causing this?
Let me beg you, dear reader, to turn your mind, for a moment, from the doings and achievements of man to a remarkable statement in Acts 13:41,41Behold, ye despisers, and wonder, and perish: for I work a work in your days, a work which ye shall in no wise believe, though a man declare it unto you. (Acts 13:41) “I work a work in your days, a work which ye shall in no wise believe, though a man declare it unto you.” This alludes to the work of God, the most wonderful work, undoubtedly, that can be wrought on the face of the earth, and yet, one which, alas, and strange to say, is discredited and disbelieved. Man’s works are extolled. God’s work is despised.
The steam engine, the telegraph and telephone, mastery over disease, and the use of electricity, all these form subjects for admiration, and properly so, but God’s work―that which lasts for eternity, is quietly ignored. Was I wrong in asserting that His patience is, by far, the most wonderful feature of the time?
And what is God’s work? Well! but will you believe if I declare it to you?
The work of God, my friend, is the salvation of your soul! It is the blessing of man, the lifting him from his place of infinite distance to one of sweet and conscious nearness to God, through the death and resurrection of His Son! This work begins with the new birth, then forgiveness and justification, then the impartation of God’s Spirit in view of glory to come. And all this wondrous blessing is declared in the gospel. Quite true evangelical agencies and missions have spread the glad tidings during this century as perhaps never before, but what is the result? Are the sowing and the reaping commensurate? Has not the most successful reaper to cry, “Who hath believed our report?”
And is it not a fact that the heart remains untouched even when the mind may be enlightened?
The result would be heart-breaking if the servant of Christ anticipated universal acceptance. He and his message are but a witness, a light shining amid a darkness that is not dispelled. He waits the coming of his Lord.
Nevertheless, God is working, silently, truly, deeply. “The wind bloweth where it listeth,” and grace is gaining her lovely victories.
Now we see the droppings, now the shower, and now the wave of blessing. These may be followed by an ebb-tide and a period of unbelief and Satan’s more evident opposition. Again the grace of God rolls on; and thus to the end.
“God beseeching, man refusing,” until the “Master shall rise up and shut to the door.”
Then all is over for a Christ-rejecting Christendom!
But God suffers still. He is not “willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.”
How much longer will He suffer? Dare we say that the century will close as it has continued? or that the Master may not rise and rinse salvation’s wide and welcome door ere this very month is gone?
Who shall say?
Ah! reader, despise not His forbearance any longer. His goodness leads to repentance. When the triumphs of human genius have all become things of the long-forgotten past, and when man and his doings are buried in the grave of oblivion, God’s saving work will abide, and myriads of ransomed sinners will be found in His glory as its happy result.
Friend, will you be one of them? Just such as you are welcomed to that all saving grace. “By Him all that believe are justified from all things!” Wonderful statement, how little believed!
Yet this is just the work I declare to you―shall you disbelieve it!
Let me analyze the statement: ―
1. “By Him,” that is, our Lord Jesus Christ.
2. “All that believe,” not, all that work or weep or feel!
3. “Are justified,” not, shall be justified, for the blessing is now!
4. “From all things,” the clearance is complete!
If, my reader, you are truly amongst the “all that believe,” you may safely and on divine authority claim your present justification from all things! Now, this is the work that people will not believe―do not you be of their number―and they shall assuredly “wonder and perish.”
This is a truth which has gone forth during this century with amazing lucidity and fullness. The sound of the gospel was never (since the early days) so clear as today. And why? Because we are just at the end!
The sun is setting in a murky sky. Its lingering rays will soon be withdrawn. Now is your moment, only now! Enter by faith the open portal. Take the one saving step out of self into Christ. “There is no other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved” (Acts 4:1212Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved. (Acts 4:12)).
J. W. S.