1. When you review your _mercies_, consider how you are affected by
them. It is easy, I know, to say, and to say so far truly, "Thank God
for them!" Yet the whole spirit in which they are possessed may be
intensely selfish. We may have been seeking our life in them to the
very exclusion of God from our hearts, forgetting that "a man's life,"
says our Lord, "consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he
possesseth." What things? Any creature things whatever! To make these
our _life_, that is, our happiness, or to esteem them as essential to
our happiness, is, as our Lord adds, for a man "to lay up treasures
for himself, and not to be rich towards God." This is that
"covetousness which is idolatry,"--the worship of _Self_, through what
ministers to Self.
2. As you remember your _sorrows_, remember not only how you were
sustained and comforted under them, but, what is of incomparably more
importance, consider how far you have been realising God's purpose in
sending them. That purpose may have been to perfect you by trial; or
to prove your loyalty to Him; or to _prevent_ evil in yourselves and
others. But never forget that the lesson of all lessons is, that we or
others should find _life_, and life eternal--that is, as I have said,
life in the knowledge and in the love of God, which will satisfy and
endure for ever; or, if this is already found by us, that we should
possess it "more abundantly." Now, whatever tends to make us realise
that what we often call and think to be "our life" is yet no
life--that money, friends, or earthly enjoyments cannot fill the
immortal soul, or be its portion for ever;--whatever awakes us from
this dream and dispels the delusion, and makes us know the excellence
and reality of true life in God, must be a blessing of the highest and
richest kind. Yet what has such a tendency to do all this as sorrow,
and the very trials which we so much deplore? The pain is no doubt
great--often agony--a very cutting off a right hand, or plucking out a
right eye; but the gain intended by the operation is incalculable and
endless. Yet, what if all the good is lost through our blindness,
ignorance, hardness of heart, pride, self-will, and unbelief? Alas!
alas! if we too "go away sorrowful" from Christ when He threatens to
take away our "much riches," though He does so in order only through
this very discipline to induce us to follow Himself, and by the cross
to gain life eternal! Alas! when it can be said of us, "Yet the Lord
hath not given you an heart to perceive, and eyes to see, and ears to
hear, unto this day; that ye might know that I am the Lord your God."
And what is their punishment? "They have forsaken the Lord, they have
provoked the Holy One of Israel to anger, they are gone away backward.
_Why should ye be stricken any more?_ Ye will revolt more and more!"
What a real loss of friends would this be! For by separating ourselves
through unbelief from Christ, we thereby for ever separate ourselves
from our friends in Christ, if they are with Him!
Ye who have experienced comfort from good in affliction, bless God!
"O Lord, my strength, my fortress, and my refuge in the day of
affliction!" "Bless the Lord, O my soul; and all that is within me,
bless His holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all
His benefits." Let the remembrance of the past, also, strengthen your
faith for the future. As you "let your requests be made known to God
with prayers and supplication," do not forget the "_thanksgiving_" for
this will help you henceforth to "be careful for nothing." He who has
led you out of Egypt, through "the depths," and across the desert,
will never leave you nor forsake you.
3. As you remember your _sins_, consider how very ignorant you are of
their number or their heinousness. But if you could enumerate each
sinful thought, word, and action committed during the past year and
during your past life, there is something in you _worse than sins_,
and that is _sin itself_, _the evil heart_, the wrong mind, out of
which sins proceed; for the corrupt tree is worse than any definite
quantity of fruit which it has produced; the ever-flowing bitter
fountain is worse than any definite quantity of water which has come
from it. But whatever you have been or done in time past, what do you
intend to be and to do _now_? Is it your intention to continue in
sin? However dreadful the thought is, yet many, if such is your real
intention, will sympathise with you. For many _do_ continue in sin,
and resolve to do so, for the present at least. Will you, then, permit
the year to close, and with an unconcerned eye behold all its sin and
sins added to those of other impenitent years, finally sealed up for
judgment? How will you then stand the reading of your autobiography?
Read over any page now, peruse the life of any day, and ask, Has
this been the life of one who believes there is a God to whom he is
responsible? Point out one solitary proof, and such as you think
Christ will accept, in all these twelve chapters of the past year,
of a heart which loved God, or had one mark of a sincere though an
imperfect follower of Jesus Christ. And if you cannot do so, will you
permit the volume to close for ever without a cry for mercy, without
imploring God to wipe out or destroy in the atoning blood of Jesus
these pages, which cry "Guilty" in every line? Will you not resolve
rather, through the grace given to every honest man who wishes it, to
begin and write a new volume, which shall witness to a changed life,
and be inscribed no longer with all that is selfish, and of the earth
earthy--"without God or Christ in the world." Let it be so, I beseech
of you, my reader. Have done, now and for ever, with this shocking
_mutiny_ against your God. End the weary, shameful strife. Be, then,
at peace with God, and remember that for _you_, if you believe in
Jesus, there is free pardon, restoration to favour, a new heart, a new
life, which is now life eternal.
And for you who have long given up sin as a master--who know that
while the "flesh wars against the spirit, the spirit wars against the
flesh," thank God and take courage! "Sin shall not have dominion over
you; for ye are not under the law, but under grace." Hear the words of
our invincible Leader, "Be of good cheer; I have overcome the world;"
"Greater is he who is in you than he who is in the world."
This year we may die. Let this mere possibility lead us to redeem with
greater earnestness what remains of life to the service of our God; so
that when the next year dawns upon this world it will find us, if we
are in the other world, remembering our mercies before God's throne,
our sorrows for ever vanished, and our sins for ever blotted out; but
that if we are still here, it will see us living more worthy of our
mercies, finding true good in our sorrows, and obtaining the victory
over our sins!