PLEASE to ask yourself, dear reader, why you have been permitted to enter upon this new year. Put the question plainly to yourself, ― “Why has God allowed me, who am at this moment a guilty sinner, to see the light of another year?” Conscience says that, had you got your desert, you should, long ere now, have been “cut down” because of your sins. Now, is that not true? Those terrible and countless sins―yearly increasing, whilst your heart becomes ever more hard―have long since called loudly for judgment; and, yet, your life has been spared! Why is this? Others younger, stronger, healthier than you have been snatched quickly from their wild career and ushered into the presence of the living God; and, yet, you have been left! Why?
I have no doubt that, when you heard of the sudden death of your neighbor, you said, inwardly, “What a good thing for me that I was not taken.” Again, why did you say this? Just because you were not ready.
Now, my special object, and most anxious wish, in writing this New Year appeal to you, unknown reader, is that you may be called to think seriously of the infinite value of the moment that God has again given you―given you, too, just in order that you should turn to Him and live. In parable, the Lord said of the fruitless tree―the favored tree planted in His vineyard, blest with mercies, advantages, privileges beyond measure, but which, withal, yielded no fruit― “Cut it down, why cumbereth it the ground?” Solemn command of justice! “Fruitless,” did I say? Nay, more, it “cumbereth the ground,”―it injures the soil,—it acts as a hinderer of others; it is not only negative as to fruit, but it is positive as to evil; it sustains this double character―it is useless to God, it is mischievous to man. Hence the justice of the command.
Would you not thus treat, in your own garden, a tree that not only yielded you no fruit, but that also used up the ground, and cast a poisonous shadow, to the hurt of surrounding vegetation? Of course you would. But take care lest you are pictured by this tree. Indeed “they are altogether become unprofitable―there is none that doeth good, no, not one,” is the verdict of God, in the double character of which I have spoken, of all who, like yourself, are still unconverted. In fact, you are that tree, and justice has thundered out the command for your death. Yes, reader, for your death. Over and over again has justice cried, with the long catalog of your sins full in view, and the richly deserved judgment of death and hell claiming you as its prey― “Cut it down!” “Cut it down!!” “Cut it down!!!” But year after year has gone by―yes, perhaps twenty of them, thirty, forty, fifty, sixty, seventy―until your accumulated load of sins has risen high as a mountain―and, yet, something has always interposed to arrest the stroke. Year after year the patient, gentle, loving hand of Mercy has intervened, and, thus loving, you have been spared. The three words of mercy have, hitherto, counterbalanced the three words of justice― “This year also” has acted as the equivalent, up to this moment, of “Cut it down.” But the year will end―the 31St of December follows slowly, perhaps, but surely, on the 1St of January. The harvest will pass and the summer will end.
“Yet seven days, and I will cause it to rain on the earth,” said God to Noah, before the flood; but the seven days ended, and the flood came!
“Yet will I bring one plague more upon Pharaoh,” said God, after nine of them had failed to humble that proud monarch; but the tenth plague came, and the first-born of Egypt died!
“Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be destroyed,” cried Jonah the prophet. Nineveh repented, from the king downwards, and her destruction was averted. Never did Nineveh attire herself in clothing more becoming, than when she “covered herself with sackcloth,” or recline in a more suited chair than when she “sat in ashes.” Her timely humiliation warded off her inevitable doom.
“God hath numbered thy kingdom and finished it,” wrote the mysterious hand on the wall of wicked Belshazzar’s palace, on the night of his indictment, because, instead of humbling his heart, he had lifted up himself against the Lord of heaven, in whose hand was his breath, and whom he had not glorified. That night he died!
“If thou hadst known,” said One, whose tears told of His sorrow for Jerusalem, “even thou, at least in this thy day, the things that belong to thy peace, but now they are hid from thine eyes.... because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation.” The charge laid to her door was simply, notice, because she knew not the day of her visitation―when Jesus was in her midst, full of grace and truth, ready to pardon and bless, not lay sin to account, yet she despised that day, and pierced the hand which proffered forgiveness!
“Let it alone this year also, till I shall dig about it and dung it, and, if it bear fruit, well; and if not, then after that, thou shalt cut it down” (Luke 13:8, 98And he answering said unto him, Lord, let it alone this year also, till I shall dig about it, and dung it: 9And if it bear fruit, well: and if not, then after that thou shalt cut it down. (Luke 13:8‑9)). Now, this applies, dear reader, not to the world before the flood, nor to Pharaoh, nor to Nineveh, nor to Belshazzar, nor to Jerusalem, but to yourself-yes, whatever wider application it may have had, it most certainly applies to you. Mercy says, in silver tone, “Let it alone; give it further opportunities, greater privileges; dig it about, prune it by the knife of trial, bereavement, loss, in order that it may learn in time to bear fruit; but if, after all this process of education, chastisement, warning, and privilege, it still be fruitless, then, after that, cut it down.”
“This year also!” Ah, soul! how many have you had already? And can I say that you will have the whole of this year? Perhaps not! Perhaps not twelve months more of time! Perhaps not one! And should the ax fall and find you still fruitless, barren, lifeless, Christless what then? A Christless eternity! Can you bear the thought?
But the voice of Mercy, in plaintive eloquence, pleads for time, in the fond hope of your repentance. Yes, God patiently lingers over you in long-forbearing love, bidding you welcome-until, every call refused, every mercy slighted, every warning spurned, His justice, so long withheld, must strike the awful blow, and you, the fruitless tree, be cut down, as fuel for the flames of judgment.
Strong words these, but earnest, and thus I beseech you to begin this year by coming to Christ, for a present and full salvation, through faith in Him, so that the year may be fruitful of His praise by you, and eternity may be spent with Him in glory.
J. W. S.