Another year has almost passed into eternity. A few more days, and we shall enter a new year. My brethren and sisters, employ wisely the remaining hours of the old year. If you have in any wise neglected your duty, repent before God, and return to the path from which you have wandered. Remember how brief the period of life allotted you. You know not how soon your probation may close. Say not presumptuously, "Today or tomorrow we will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain." God may have different plans for you. Life is but a vapor, "that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth." You know not how soon your hand may lose its cunning, your step its firmness. There is peril in a moment's delay. "Seek ye the Lord while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near: 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." {RH, December 23, 1902 par. 1}
Renewal and revival is needed! Consecrate our lives daily to the cause! Draw closer to Jesus. Cling to Him. FAITH and LOVE. Put on the full armor the RIGHTEOUS of Christ. Pray for the heavenly eyesalve in order to make right choices knowing good from evil.
The old year is in its death struggle; let all wrath, malice, and bitterness die with it. Through hearty confession, let your sins go beforehand to judgment. Devote the remaining moments of the swift passing year to humiliation of self rather than trying to humiliate your brethren. With the new year, commence the work of lifting them up,--commence it even in the waning moments of the old year. Go to work anew, brethren and sisters,--go to work earnestly, unselfishly, lovingly, striving to lift up the hands that hang down, to strengthen the feeble knees, remove the heavy burdens from every soul. Let the oppressed go free, and break every yoke. Bring to your homes the poor that are cast out. "Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and thine health shall spring forth speedily; and thy righteousness shall go before thee; the glory of the Lord shall be thy rereward. Then shalt thou call, and the Lord shall answer; thou shalt cry, and the Lord shall say, Here I am. If thou take away from the midst of thee the yoke, the putting forth of the finger, and speaking vanity; and if thou draw out thy soul to the hungry, and satisfy the afflicted soul; then shall thy light rise in obscurity, and thy darkness be as the noon-day: and the Lord shall guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in drought, and make fat thy bones: and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not." {RH, December 16, 1884 par. 11}
A new year has commenced. What has been the record of the past year in your Christian life? How stands your record in heaven? I entreat you to make an unreserved surrender to God. Have your hearts been divided? Give them wholly to the Lord now. Make a different life history the coming year from that of the past. Humble your souls before God. "Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love Him." Put away all pretense and affectation. Act your simple, natural self. Be truthful in every thought and word and deed, and "in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves." Ever remember that the moral nature needs to be braced with constant watchfulness and prayer. As long as you look to Christ, you are safe; but the moment you think of your sacrifices and difficulties, and begin to sympathize with and pet yourself, you lose your trust in God and are in great peril. {4T 521.4}
Although in one sense the first day of the new year is no more to God than any other day, yet He often puts into the hearts of His children at that time a desire to begin the new year with new resolves,--perhaps with plans to carry out some worthy enterprise,--and with purposes to depart from the wrongs of the old year and to live the new year with new determinations. {AUCR, January 5, 1914 par. 1}
In God's plan for His ancient people, He gave the command, "On the first day of the first month shalt thou set up the tabernacle." We have no tabernacle to set up as had the children of Israel, but we have a work of building to do, the importance of which all need to understand. Let us remember that character is not the result of accident, but day by day it is forming for good or for evil. Great importance attaches to this work of character building; for it is far-reaching in its results. We are builders for time and for eternity. Few realize the power of habit. Examine your own heart and life in the light of God's Word, and ask yourself, "What has my record been for the year that is just closing? What advancement have I made in the Christian life? What victories have I gained? And what have I done to help others, and to lead them to Christ?" {AUCR, January 5, 1914 par. 2}
On our secular New Year's day, the sermon streamed to our church was on this very subject - God having Moses set up the tabernacle exactly on New Year's day of their 2nd year after leaving Egypt.
Sadly, almost none of our SDA brethren have a clue how to calculate when the first day of the year is on God's calendar.
