The Babylonians are represented by the prophet as coming to plunder the Holy City, like flocks being led to their feeding ground. They hurry to the work of destruction, yet they are not speedy enough, for work takes time, and time flees fast away. “Prepare ye war against her: arise, and let us go up at noon. Woe unto us! for the day goeth away,” etc. “Arise, and let us go by night, and let us destroy her palaces.” We have no city to destroy, and it is morning; yet, standing, as we do, almost on the threshold of another year, these words are worthy of consideration. The day of opportunity that tills year contained is going away, the shadows of the evening are stretched out. And with the departure of the day and the deepening of the shadows of the night, some among the bravest hearts may well exclaim, “Woe unto us!” For all who are Christ’s servants, as they grow in grace, more clearly come to see the great issues of life, the vast importance of the days and months and years which God has given them to spend to His glory. With this clearer sight comes the consciousness of the awful waste of time for which men are answerable, a waste which can never be repaired. True, that the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses from all sin; but only if there he true repentance. As you really understand the cleansing and accept it, so you will grow most earnest in guarding the gift of time.
1. Save time in your work. Surely it is “woe unto us” that we have been so half-hearted often in our time of work; so ready to lay down the task that is difficult, or so ready to do it lazily and badly. The great characters in history are mostly the indefatigable, who, while they worked, worked hard.
2. Save time in your leisure. Do not spend it all in amusement, which excites, but does not profit. If you have your evenings free, use some to the glory of God, by helping children, by showing acts of kindness, by improving your own knowledge.
3. Again, save time on Sundays. How can men’s religion be real and true if they spend Sunday mornings in bed? (W. R. Hutton, M. A.)
Opportunities for self-rescue
I.Heaven granted these men of Judah an opportunity for escaping a great evil; so it has to all unconverted men. The evil to which the Jews were exposed was very great: it was captivity, slavery, utter destruction of the country. But this was only a shadow of the moral dangers to which every unconverted man is exposed. He is in danger of losing his soul. To lose a soul is to lose all true liberty, pure sympathies, harmonious affections, real friendships, self-approving conscience, true hopes, and means of improvement. And when these are gone, the worth of existence is gone, for it becomes an intolerable curse.
II. The opportunity which these men of Judah had for escaping their danger was now drawing to a close; so is the opportunity of all unconverted men. The whole day of life scarcely opens before it begins to close.
1. This opportunity is constantly departing to return no more.
2. This opportunity is constantly departing though the work be not done.
III. The closing of the opportunity of these men of Judah was fraught with terrible calamity; so it will be with all unconverted men. “Woo unto us,” exclaims the doomed Jew in bitter anguish. “Woe unto us”; we have not only lost our country and become the slaves of a heathen despot, bug we have shamefully neglected the merciful opportunities with which providence has favoured us. These words remind us of the language of Christ (Luk_19:41-44). Conclusion--“Now is the accepted time.” Today is “the day of salvation.” (Homilist.)
The old and the new year
The old year is dying, the new year is about to commence. And whether the past has been wasted, or redeemed and used for God; whether the work of the past has been done or left undone, still there is a work for all of us. Each day and each year brings its own proper duties, and our conscience needs to be awakened and stirred to the right performance of them. The day goeth away. And you feel that there is something solemn about this passing from one year to another.
1. Some of you are anxious about your spiritual condition. Take the past year as a whole, and perhaps you may be able to hope that some progress has been made. But it has not been all progress. The picture has its dark side. You have had your temptations, you have had your troubles and annoyances; and you have been forced to see how weak your strength is, how poor your best resolutions, how much you have fallen short of what you had intended a year ago. The day goeth away. But if the past has not been what you wished, must you therefore give up in despair? Nay, you may be thankful if you have advanced at all. You could have made no way whatever but for the grace of God. Believe that He who has been with you hitherto will enable you to live more and more to your Master’s glory.
2. Again, the close of the year may suggest its thoughts to those who, as our fellow labourers in the schools, or among the sick and destitute, are trying to do the Lord’s work, and to be a blessing to their neighbours in their generation. You look back over the year that is gone, and there are abundant reasons for regret. Opportunities for good have been lost which never will come back again. Some one was lying ill, and you knew of the illness, but you delayed your visit. You would go tomorrow: you had other things to do today. And tomorrow you went, but it was too late. Death had come before you. Or again, you might have taken a bolder and firmer course, had your zeal for God been stronger. You saw some evil done, and you did not protest against it. You heard ill-natured words, and you did not try to check them. You might have spoken for God, and you cowardly held your peace. Yet all has not been failure. Feel as painfully as we may our weakness and want of faith, still we may see and thankfully acknowledge the evident signs of God’s presence with His people here. (Canon Nevill.)
A New Year’s sermon
I. The fact here indicated. The day glides imperceptibly away, from morning to noon, from noon to eve. Does not this strikingly typify our life in this world? Do not our years glide on like the minutes and hours of the natural day? And, ere ever we are aware, do we not perceive that the shadows are lengthening? Are we not reminded of the flight of time by many things which we see around us? The old men, with whose slow step we were familiar, are disappearing from the scene; those whom we knew in their prime now bear the marks of age. But does not this suggest to us one particular in which the analogy between the natural day and our human life signally fails? We know the very hour, we can ascertain the very minute, when the sun will set. But how different is it with the life of man? Who can tell when, in any individual case, that life shall end? Who but He who knows the end from the beginning, and who is the God of our lives and the length of our days? But whether the period of our sojourn upon earth be brief or protracted, it is quickly passing away. Whether we are to be cut down when the shadows have stretched out far, or while they are yet comparatively short, in the case of every one of us they are lengthening; and in the case of not a few, it approaches eventide, and their sun declines to its setting. But surely there arises here another question. When the day declines and nightfall comes, what then? “After death the judgment.” Death does not reduce us to nothingness, but detaches us from time to land us in eternity. It places us before the tribunal of the Most High to receive the sentence which is to fix unchangingly our final doom. “We must all stand before the judgment seat of Christ.”
II. What effect the consideration of this fact should have upon us.
1. It should have this effect, to impress us with the solemn and abiding conviction that it is a fact. We are ever prone to take it for granted that though the end of life is no doubt approaching, it is still distant from us; that though the duration of life is very uncertain to men generally, and to our friends and neighbours around us, we are much less likely to be suddenly removed, and may reassuredly count upon a protracted span being afforded to us is a strange and subtle delusion of the human heart, and sedulously fostered by the enemy of souls, the father of lies. How needful to learn and lay to heart the lesson here taught; how needful to be thoroughly persuaded that it is a solemn fact that our life is a vapour which appears for a little time and then vanishes away; that not with respect to our fellow men merely, but with respect to ourselves also, the days of earth are drawing to a close, and that to any one of us the end may come very soon and very suddenly!
2. But, further, it is of the last importance that we not only really believe this fact, but that we give practical effect to the belief. What are your resolutions for the future? Will you be stirred up to greater diligence and devotedness ere your sun go down! And if you, if any of you, are still far from God, living in carelessness and unbelief, will you not take warning by the lengthening shadows to make your peace with God ere it be too late? (P. Hope, B. D.)
Difficulties of old age
I. The appointed period of grace is coming rapidly to a conclusion. “The day goeth away.” It has been enjoyed in the fulness of its privileges. It has been for some, far protracted. But while unimproved, it has tended only to increase the guilt and danger of the soul. For fifty years the Redeemer has called upon some now aged sinner to turn to Him and live. How difficult is it to arouse him to a consciousness, or belief, of the privileges which are yet remaining, and of the duty which yet rests upon him! The recollection of wasted opportunities drives him to despair.
II. The short period of grace now remaining. He set out early in the morning to go astray from God. Through the whole day, he has been pressing forward in his course, with unabating rapidity. And now, when the shadows of the evening are stretched out, and exhausted nature is asking for repose; alas, is this an hour in which to commence the journey of a day? Death now stands at the door. The line which separates him from eternity, has dwindled to a hair. And he is tempted to yield to total despair of escaping at all from the ruin which is so close upon him. The difficulty which his own heart presents as thus arising from his shortened remaining period of probation, Satan employs as a temptation to him, to be quiet and careless under his conscious load of sin.
III. The increased hardness of his own heart. When young, conviction of sin impressed his mind. His eyes could weep under the preaching of the Gospel. He then often felt strongly excited towards a life of holiness and piety. But now he has no such feelings. The rain which descends to refresh others, seems rather to hasten his decay. The summer and the harvest have passed without advantage, and every succeeding day of autumn seems only to dry, and harden, and seal up the earth against the arrival of a frost-bound and cheerless winter.
IV. The pride of character which is always an attendant upon advanced periods of life. The heart may be often moved, the conscience awakened, and the emotions aroused, in the bosom of an aged transgressor, and a strong desire be felt, to lay down his burden, and find peace in believing in Jesus. But an assumed dignity and coolness of manner are drawn over a broken, bleeding spirit, because an acknowledgment of these awakened feelings will be so humiliating to the age and station of the individual concerned. But there remains no other course of safety. To this humbling ground, sinful man must be brought, or he will assuredly perish. (S. H. Tyng, D. D.)
Opportunities lost
The opportunity for success was lost; the day of action had been misspent, and the result was, captivity and slavery. The day of action was going away; the shadows of the evening which was to cover them with its darkness and sorrow, were already stretched out. Just so it is with multitudes now in reference to the work of their salvation. The Gospel of the Son of God has been preached in their ears, until it has become stale and powerless. They listen to it, but take no heed to its requirements.
1. Look at the opportunities which the Church affords to all attendants on her service, not only of learning their duty, but also of practising it to the glory of God.
2. Then, again, look at the opportunities for repentance and faith which God has given you in the daily providence of life. You have been rich, perhaps, and He has made you poor--Why? That He may give you spiritual riches, which moth and rust can not corrupt. You have been poor and He has made you rich--Why? That you might “remember the Lord thy God, for it is He that giveth thee power to get wealth.” You have been well, and He has laid you on a bed of sickness--Why? That you might consider your latter end. You have been sick and He has made you well--Why? That you should love your Divine Healer, and seek for your spiritual healing. Your life is full of the echoes of God’s voice speaking to you in His daily providence, as well as in the inspired Word and through the ministry of His Church. Yet hour after hour has glided away, and you have hesitated, procrastinated, put off to a more convenient season. Shall life’s sun go wholly down, shall the night of death wrap you in its starless mantle, without one honest effort on your part to secure your soul’s salvation? (Bp. Stevens)
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An inch of time
“Millions of money for an inch of time,” cried Elizabeth--the gifted but ambitious Queen of England, upon her dying bed. Unhappy woman! reclining upon a couch--with ten thousand dresses in her wardrobe--a kingdom on which the sun never sets, at her feet--all now are valueless, and she shrieks in anguish, and she shrieks in vain, for a single “inch of time.” She had enjoyed threescore and ten years. Like too many among us, she had devoted them to wealth, to pleasure, to pride, and ambition, so that her whole preparation for eternity was crowded into a few moments! and hence she, who had wasted more than half a century, would barter millions for an inch of time.
The shadows of the evening are stretched out.
The setting sun
There is something at once grand and solemn in a setting sun. It is the sinking to rest of the great king of day; the withdrawing from the busy world the light that has called out its activity, and the covering up with the veil of darkness the scenes that glistened with the radiance of noon. There is, however, in the setting of the sun of life, that which is equally grand, still more solemn, and surpassingly sublime.
1. The sun, when it sets, has run a whole day’s circuit; his pathway has apparently traversed an entire are of the heavens, and slowly, patiently, but surely, it has done its allotted work. And so the aged Christian, when he dies, is described as having “run his race,” as having “finished his course.” He has toiled a whole day of life, and has come to his grave in a “good old age,” having “finished the work which was given him to do”; and though all his labours have been imperfectly done, though he himself feels more deeply than he can express his unprofitableness before God, yet he looks for acceptance, not to any merit of his own, but only for Christ Jesus sake, who of God and by faith is made unto him “wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption.” We can contemplate with satisfaction, then, the aged disciple, having “borne the burden and heat of the day,” patiently waiting for the stretching out of the evening shadows and the hour of his own sunset.
2. Another point to be considered is, the fact that the setting of the sun is not always like the day which it closes. The morning may have been bright, and the evening hour dark with tempests; or the rising may have been obscured by clouds and mists, which gradually faded away and left a clear sky at sunset. So the sunset hour of Christian life does not always correspond to his previous day. We have seen the last hours of the believer shrouded in impenetrable gloom, and we have seen them gilded with hope and radiant with the forecast glories of the upper world. The way in which a Christian dies is not always an index of his spiritual condition. He is to be judged by his life, not by his death. Self-denial, the mortification of our passions, the resisting of earthly temptations, the putting into active exercise, and amidst opposing difficulties, the whole class of Christian affections which flow out from the simple principle of loving our neighbour as ourselves, and the manifestation of that life of faith, of prayer, of holiness, of zeal, which necessarily results from the constraining love of Christ in the heart all these qualities and tests of character scarcely find a place on a dying bed, so that persons thus situated have few opportunities to develop the true evidences of the work of grace. The varieties of Christian experience are literally innumerable; but whatever their nature, we must not judge of the validity of one’s hope, or the genuineness of one’s conversion, by his dying hour. Yet, when that dying hour accords with a long life of piety, or a true profession maintained in health and strength; when it is but a concentrating within itself of the glories which have been more or less visible in the whole track of his experience, then is it eloquent in its revelations of the riches, and peace, and joy which God generally gives to those who are faithful unto death: and though we cannot order when or how our lives shall close upon earth, yet it should be our aim so to live as to secure, if God pleases, a serene, if not a triumphant exit, that our setting sun may, like the sun in the firmament, grow larger and more resplendent as it declines, until passing away it shall leave behind a trail of glory spread all over the place of our departure.
3. Another interesting thought connected with this subject is, that the sun is not lost or extinguished when it sets. This may seem a very trite remark concerning the natural sun, but it is not so trite when we speak of the soul set in death. For are we not apt to grieve over the going down of our friends to the grave, as if they were to be forever hidden in its dark chamber--as if the bright spark of their immortality had been suddenly quenched?
4. And this leads us to make one final observation, namely, that when we see the sun set, we know that it will rise again; and so when we see the body of our friends borne to the voiceless dwelling of the tomb, we know that they also shall rise again. (Bp. Stevens.)
