WE have entered on another year. What shall be our message for this New Year? What, my soul, wilt thou say to thyself? Let the great apostle sound his message in thy ears, “Redeeming the time, because the days are evil” (Eph. 5:1616Redeeming the time, because the days are evil. (Ephesians 5:16)).
Let every day find some work done for Jesus; some saint helped; some sinner pointed to the Saviour.
“Redeeming the time.” Making the most of every opportunity. The days are evil, therefore let us seek the highest good for those with whom we come in contact. No slothful ease when demons seek the souls of men and women; when false doctrine is permeating Christendom, and false prophets deny the Christ of God and the inspiration of the Bible.
Every Christian is responsible to God to tell others of salvation, and God will hold them responsible if they do not.
This was brought home to me most forcibly the other day in reading the third chapter of Ezekiel, verse 17 to 19.
“Son of man, I have made thee a watchman unto the house of Israel; therefore hear the word at my mouth, and give them warning from me. When I say unto the wicked, Thou shalt surely die; and thou givest him not warning, nor speakest to warn the wicked from his wicked way, to save his life; the same wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at thine hand. Yet if thou warn the wicked, and he turn not from his wickedness, nor from his wicked way, he shall die in his iniquity; but thou hast delivered thy soul.”
Fellow Christian, have you delivered your soul?
I have a very solemn, serious question to ask the unsaved. It is this: —
CAN YOU FACE AN ETERNITY THAT CONTAINS YOUR UNPARDONED SINS?
What of your sins? You may be in eternity this year. Oh I let the sinner hear that his salvation and safety depends upon his appreciation of the value of the blood of Christ to God.
How lightly many think of sin! How little they fear the wrath of God. If unsaved, every sin is written on the recording volumes of eternity. God can never pass over one sin unless all are forgiven; and none can be forgiven unless Christ is the Saviour.
How can a man die in peace when his sins will follow him beyond the grave, and with their myriad voices shout for his damnation before the Great White Throne of Judgment? No one is safe for one moment in his sins. The sinner may be saved today; he may be damned tomorrow. Oh! the awful unbelief of this age. Men resist the Holy Ghost, they will not believe God and His testimony concerning His Son; they will not bow their stubborn hearts, or give up their human wills, and so God has to break them. Men become hardened in their sin, because they will not obey God. God commandeth men everywhere to repent. How few do repent. God says, “Choose life and ye shall live; choose death and ye shall die.” Men choose death and so they die eternally.
“I don’t believe in the Bible,” a young man cries, “and if there be such a place as heaven, the only reason I should care to go there would be to escape from hell; though I tell you I would rather be annihilated than go to heaven, even if there be such a place.”
And another cries, “I don’t believe there is a devil or a hell.” And another says, “Jesus of Nazareth was not the Son of God; He was the Son of Joseph and Mary.” And fouler expressions than these are used. Men are hardening their hearts in their unbelief everywhere today.
But what is man that he should thus dare to contend with his God? If he will not bend, he must be broken. A power stronger than his stubborn will rules the universe, and before that power, if he resists it, he must be crushed forever.
Tremel, Brittany. — I ask your prayers for my dear friend, Pasteur Lecoat, who, after fifty years and more spent for God, is now seriously ill. I went to see him in November last. I hope soon to publish some of the wonderful conversions that have taken place in Brittany through the reading of the Bible in the Breton language by the people, Pasteur Lecoat having translated the Scriptures into the Breton language, and his colporteurs have carried them far and wide.
Queen’s Hall, Exeter. — Through the mercy of God we have cause for the greatest thankfulness for the deepening interest in the meetings. A dear Christian friend writes: “I shall be praying with all my heart that great blessing with ‘the sword of the Spirit’ may rest on the meeting.”
Another friend writes from a distance:— “I am praying for Exeter.”
Another friend sends a card with these words of cheer: — “Certainly I will be with thee.”
Thank God for believing prayer.