December 31, Evening
C. H. Spurgeon · Modern retelling
"The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved." — Jeremiah 8:20 · KJV
Not saved! Dear reader, is this your mournful plight? Warned of the judgment to come, bidden to escape for your life, and yet at this moment not saved! You know the way of salvation; you read it in the Bible, you hear it from the pulpit, it is explained to you by friends — and yet you neglect it, and so you are not saved. You will be without excuse when the Lord judges the living and the dead. The Holy Spirit has given more or less of blessing on the word preached in your hearing, and times of refreshing have come from the divine presence, and yet you are without Christ. All these hopeful seasons have come and gone — your summer and your harvest have passed — and yet you are not saved. Years have followed one another into eternity, and your last year will soon be here; youth has gone, manhood is going, and yet you are not saved. Let me ask you: will you ever be saved? Is there any likelihood of it? Already the most favorable seasons have left you unsaved; will other occasions alter your condition? Means have failed with you — the best of means, used perseveringly and with the utmost affection — what more can be done for you? Affliction and prosperity have alike failed to impress you; tears and prayers and sermons have been wasted on your barren heart. Are not the probabilities dead against your ever being saved? Is it not more than likely that you will remain as you are, till death for ever bars the door of hope? Do you recoil from the thought? Yet it is a most reasonable one: he who is not washed in so many waters will, in all likelihood, go filthy to his end. The convenient time has never come; why should it ever come? It is reasonable to fear it never will, and that, like Felix, you will find no convenient season till it is too late. Oh, think what that ruin is, and of the dread likelihood that you will soon be cast into it! Reader, suppose you should die unsaved — your doom no words can picture. A brother's voice would gladly startle you into earnestness. Oh, be wise, be wise in time; and before another year begins, believe in Jesus, who is able to save to the uttermost. Consecrate these last hours to lonely thought; and if deep repentance be bred in you, it will be well; and if it lead to a humble faith in Jesus, it will be best of all. Oh, see to it that this year pass not away with you an unforgiven soul! Let not the new year's midnight peals sound on a joyless spirit! Now, now, now believe, and live! "Escape for thy life; look not behind thee, neither stay thou in all the plain; escape to the mountain, lest thou be consumed."