ANOTHER year is opening upon us. Which of us will see its end? You and I, my reader, may have finished our course before many weeks of it have passed.
Do you ever think of how your life will finish? Paul sought to live in such a way as that he might finish his course “with joy.” Many, alas! around us seem to care very little how they may “finish” so long as they can obtain the “pleasures of sin for a season.” They live for the present, regardless of the future. Paul lived for the future, regardless of the trials such a life might entail for the present.
To put it on the lowest ground, which is the wisest?
“Let me die the death of the righteous,” cried the godless Balaam, “and let my last end be like his.” Yes, truly, the last end, by reason of its everlasting endlessness, is of infinitely greater importance than this brief life, which is but as a vapor.
“What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul?” (Mark 8:36.)
“Were the vast world our own,
With all its varied store,
And Thou, Lord Jesus, wert unknown,
We still were poor.”
The blessed yet solemn truth of the return of the Lord Jesus Christ has been much before the mind and heart of late. Blessed for the saints, who look for Him as “the Saviour” (Phil. 3:20), and wait for Him as “the Bridegroom” (Matt. 25), who will usher them instantaneously, in one glorious company, into the eternal joys of the “Father’s house”; yes, all joy, comfort, and brightness to them. But solemn, unspeakably solemn, to the world, upon whom He will come as “a thief in the night” (1 Thess. 5:2,3); yes, nothing but darkness, dismay, and destruction to them that “obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ” (2 Thess. 1:8).
In view of the Lord’s speedy return “let us, who are of the day, be sober;” “let us not sleep, as do others, but let us watch” (1 Thess. 5:6, 8). Let us seek “to gather in the lost ones,” and to spread the “fame of Jesus.” All whose hearts are set on serving the Lord, and seeking souls for Him, have opportunities for this work. If not by public preaching, at any rate by tract distribution and individual speaking to others.
Not long since a tract was given to a careless, godless man. It was quickly torn and cast under the fender unread. The servant cleaning the grate next day found the pieces, stuck them together, read the tract, and was converted. A change was soon apparent in her whole life. The master inquired the secret. The pieces of the torn tract were soon before his astonished eyes. He had despised what she had found to be a treasure.
“In the morning sow thy seed, and in the evening withhold not thine hand; for thou knowest not whether shall prosper either this or that, or whether they both shall be alike good”
(Eccl. 11:6). A. H. B.
GOD of all grace! I gladly own
What in His death Thy Christ has done:
What He is now upon Thy throne,
What Christ is now, and Christ alone,
Is all my joyful plea;
He’s all my trust! He’s all my boast!
For, since He died to save the lost,
I’m sure He died for me.
C. G. E., 1860.