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A FULL GOSPEL MAGAZINE FOR ALL BELIEVERS V>5._ Tito© Unknown To-Morrow. »e_-R_i. A NEW YEAR ADDRESS. ALEXANDER MACLAREN "It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in His own power" (Acts i: 7). THE New Testament gives little encouragement to a sentimental view of life. Its writers had too much to do, and too much besides to think about, for undue occupation with pensive remembrances or imaginative forecastings. They bid us look forward, but not along the low levels of earth and its changes. Mist and cloud conceal the path in front of the portion which we are actually traversing, but when it climbs, it comes out clear from the fog that hang about the flats. We can track it winding up to the throne of Christ. Nothing is certain, but the Coining of the Lord and "our gathering together to Him." The words of this text in their original meaning point only to the ignorance of the time of the end which Christ had been foretelling. But they may allow of a much wider application, L~~~..-~~-.~~.~~.~-., and their lessons are in entire consonance with the whole tone of Scripture in regard to the future. They teach us the limits of our care for the future, as they give us the limits of our knowledge of it. They teach us the best remedies for all anxiety, the great thoughts that tranquilize us in our ignorance, viz. : that all is in God's merciful hands, and that whatever -may come, we have a Divine power which will fit us for it; and they bid us anticipate our work and do it, as the best counterpoise for all vain curiosity about what may be coming on the earth. 1 For the 3\[ew Year 11E will never fail us. He will not forsake; His eternal covenant He will never break. Resting on His promise. What have we to fear ? God is all-stifficient For the coming year. I. THE NARROW LIMITS OF OUR KNOWLEDGB OF THE FUTURE. We are sure that a mingled web of joy and sorrow, light shot with dark, will be unrolled before us--but of anything more we are really ignorant. We know that the great majority of us will be alive at the close of this year; but who will be the exceptions? A great many of us will go on substantially as we have been going on for years past, with our ordinary duties, joys, sorrows, cares; but to some of us, in all probability, this year holds some great change which may darken all our days or brighten them. In all our forward-looking there ever remains an element of uncertainty. The future fronts us like some statue beneath its canvas covering. Rolling mists hide it all, except here and there a peak. I need not remind you how merciful and good it is that it is so. Therefore coming sorrows do not diffuse anticipatory bitterness as of tainted water percolating through gravel, and coming joys are not discounted, and the present has a reality of its own, and is not coloured by what is to come. One future we may contemplate. Our fault is not that we look forward, but that we do not look far enough forward. Why trouble with the world when we have Heaven? Why look along the low level among the mists of earth and forests and swamps, when we can see the road climbing to the heights? Why be anxious about what three hun-
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Title (English/roman) | pcra-dgc-RedTid_v23~001 |
Full text | A FULL GOSPEL MAGAZINE FOR ALL BELIEVERS V>5._ Tito© Unknown To-Morrow. »e_-R_i. A NEW YEAR ADDRESS. ALEXANDER MACLAREN "It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in His own power" (Acts i: 7). THE New Testament gives little encouragement to a sentimental view of life. Its writers had too much to do, and too much besides to think about, for undue occupation with pensive remembrances or imaginative forecastings. They bid us look forward, but not along the low levels of earth and its changes. Mist and cloud conceal the path in front of the portion which we are actually traversing, but when it climbs, it comes out clear from the fog that hang about the flats. We can track it winding up to the throne of Christ. Nothing is certain, but the Coining of the Lord and "our gathering together to Him." The words of this text in their original meaning point only to the ignorance of the time of the end which Christ had been foretelling. But they may allow of a much wider application, L~~~..-~~-.~~.~~.~-., and their lessons are in entire consonance with the whole tone of Scripture in regard to the future. They teach us the limits of our care for the future, as they give us the limits of our knowledge of it. They teach us the best remedies for all anxiety, the great thoughts that tranquilize us in our ignorance, viz. : that all is in God's merciful hands, and that whatever -may come, we have a Divine power which will fit us for it; and they bid us anticipate our work and do it, as the best counterpoise for all vain curiosity about what may be coming on the earth. 1 For the 3\[ew Year 11E will never fail us. He will not forsake; His eternal covenant He will never break. Resting on His promise. What have we to fear ? God is all-stifficient For the coming year. I. THE NARROW LIMITS OF OUR KNOWLEDGB OF THE FUTURE. We are sure that a mingled web of joy and sorrow, light shot with dark, will be unrolled before us--but of anything more we are really ignorant. We know that the great majority of us will be alive at the close of this year; but who will be the exceptions? A great many of us will go on substantially as we have been going on for years past, with our ordinary duties, joys, sorrows, cares; but to some of us, in all probability, this year holds some great change which may darken all our days or brighten them. In all our forward-looking there ever remains an element of uncertainty. The future fronts us like some statue beneath its canvas covering. Rolling mists hide it all, except here and there a peak. I need not remind you how merciful and good it is that it is so. Therefore coming sorrows do not diffuse anticipatory bitterness as of tainted water percolating through gravel, and coming joys are not discounted, and the present has a reality of its own, and is not coloured by what is to come. One future we may contemplate. Our fault is not that we look forward, but that we do not look far enough forward. Why trouble with the world when we have Heaven? Why look along the low level among the mists of earth and forests and swamps, when we can see the road climbing to the heights? Why be anxious about what three hun- |
Filename | pcra-dgc-RedTid_v23~001.tif |
Archival file | Volume188/pcra-dgc-RedTid_v23~001.tif |