WE have come to the end of another year —to another mile-post on the road of time; let us sit down and pause for a moment. Dear reader, listen! If you are unsaved you are not ready for eternity. A voice calls to you, “Seek ye the Lord while He may be found, call ye upon Him while He is near.” (Isa. 55:66Seek ye the Lord while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near: (Isaiah 55:6)). “While He may be found”! Ah! this will not always be. Reason may fade away; the last opportunity is at hand; death draws near; and, more urgent still, at such an hour as ye think not the Son of Man cometh! Oh! should He come and find you unfit to meet Him!
Call upon Him while He is near— “while He is near.” And He is near today, for whosoever shall call on the Name of the Lord shall be saved; but He will not be always near. The eager, earnest look of the man of business proclaims his determination to succeed, but how few are determined to find Christ, and to be right for eternity. Call upon Him while He is near, dear friend, for soon He will be as one afar off, and then to call on Him will be in vain. When the great day of His wrath is come who shall be able to stand?
Yet why is it that there is so little real seeking after God? Often it is because some secret sin is too well loved, some pleasure of the world too fondly prized, and for such things the conscience is bidden be still, or hushed to sleep. “Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and He will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon” (ver. 7).
God demands repentance of men. Belief without repentance is a dead thing. If a man believed the path he was on led to a precipice, he would retrace his steps. If a man believed the house he was in was on fire, he would avail himself of the fire escape. Faith ever affects our whole being.
Let not the last hours of this old year die with this sad sigh, “The harvest is passed, the summer is ended, and we are not saved.”