Now, some of us have lived many decades and the passing of an old year and the coming of a new is not an unusual event in our lives. It is nonetheless, each time it occurs, a very sobering event, for it is a vivid and an unescapable reminder of our mortality…It is in the spirit of that sober realization of my own mortality, the fresh awareness of the mortality of every man, woman, boy, or girl to whom I speak on this first Lord’s Day of the year, that I come to open up the Scriptures this morning.
Now as we come to the ministry of the word on this first day of the year, I have but one single, burning, focused concern upon my heart. As I sat here worshipping with you, the words of the Apostle in another context came into my mind again and again, in which he said, “this one thing I do,” and in the preaching of the word this morning, this one thing I would do, and that one thing is to attempt to press home to the consciousness of every single one of you, one very simple but profoundly important question and that question is this, “Do you enter the New Year in saving union with the Lord Jesus Christ?”
I have said it is my one purpose in preaching this morning to press home, not just to your mind, but I used this word purposely, to press home to your consciousness, that is, to the point where you feel the pressure of this great concern and it is this, “Do you personally enter the New Year in saving union with the Lord Jesus Christ?”
No please, don’t grab for that shade that hangs over the window of your mind and pull it down because I’ve been so direct in telling you that I’m going to address the most vital concerns of your soul’s relationship to God. I fully realize that if you are an unconverted man or woman, boy or girl, you do not love the light of God’s truth, for the Scripture says, “this is the condemnation, that light has come into the world, and man loved darkness rather than light,” and…I fully realize that for perhaps not a few of you there will be an immediate internal reaction of the hands of your soul grabbing the thick shade, the dark curtain of your mind, and pulling it down and saying, “If that’s what he’s about to embark upon, I’ll shut him out at the outset.” I beg of you, would you allow me in love to attempt to press that question upon your consciousness?
The text that appears above is an edited transcript of the first few minutes of “Biblical Priorities for the New Year,” a sermon by Dr. Albert N. Martin. The full sermon is available below: