The end of any year gets our attention! The reasons may vary from person to person, but whatever else it may mean to you; one fact is true for all of us. As the bells ring on the last day of 2019, three-hundred-sixty-five days have gone, and they will never return!
Is there one day of the passing year, that you remember more than any other day of 2019? For most of us, generally speaking, at least one day stands out, for various reasons. To start with, this one day or several days tied together, may be etched in our minds so deeply, that they will never be forgotten. We may have lost a loved one, one so dear, so much apart of our lives, that a place in our lives is missing and will never be replaced! On the other hand, this one day may be remembered because a very good thing happened. An event that brought to us, great joy. Thoughts here go to retirement, after twenty, twenty-five, or thirty years, finally we can get-up in the morning at our own pleasure! Maybe it was a new and better job, a job that meant more money in the paycheck, which made taking care of our family better. Finally, just here, it could have been a new child was born into the family, who was received with tears of joy! For one family, it was death of a loved one; for another it was the newborn baby; tears and joy! So, what was it for you, that took place in 2019?
Solomon should have a few words to address our subject; therefore, let us see what he had to say. He wrote: “Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them; While the sun, or the light, or the moon, or the stars, be not darkened, nor the clouds return after the rain: In the day when the keepers of the house shall tremble, and the strong men shall bow themselves, and the grinders cease because they are few, and those that look out of the windows be darkened, And the doors shall be shut in the streets, when the sound of the grinding is low, and he shall rise up at the voice of the bird, and all the daughters of musick shall be brought low; Also when they shall be afraid of that which is high, and fears shall be in the way, and the almond tree shall flourish, and the grasshopper shall be a burden, and desire shall fail: because man goeth to his long home, and the mourners go about the streets: Or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken, or the pitcher be broken at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern. Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it” (Sol. 12:1-7). There is life, as written by the “pen of Solomon!”
Whatever we may or may not understand of Solomon’s words (Ecc. 12:1-7), the inspired conclusion is hard to miss: “Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man. For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil” (Ecc. 12:13-14). In the New Testament, Jesus said: “He that rejecteth me, and receiveth not my words, hath one that judgeth him: the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day” (John 12:48).
Here we allow Paul to conclude, both the positive and the negative; first the positive: “For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words” (1 Thess. 4:15-18). Now the negative: “… when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, In flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ: Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power” (2 Thess. 1:7-9).
Yes, the end of the year 2019 is drawing near, it is even at the door, it has knocked, and it came in, and now is fast passing out and into history!
Frank R. Williams