O, it is true, in increasing measures even, the men of science have set themselves to wrench our Christian faith loose from the foundations, to undermine Christian traditions, and even to tear apart Holy Scripture, robbed of divine authority, and bring it to nought. But, if this grieves you, and offends you, have you then no eyes to see, how God has used this audacity, to compel us to renewed and deeper going investigation, and thus, thanks to this very opposition, has made an entirely new light to shine upon those Scriptures in our behalf, and has enriched and confirmed our insight and knowledge of His holy truth.

And herein is the grace, and herein are the mercies and compassions of the Lord, that what man had thought for evil, by Him is turned to good, and that He continued so to love the world, for Christ’s sake, that He did not deal with her according to her sins, but on the contrary, has overladen her, more than ever in former centuries, with the choicest of His blessings.

When a hundred years ago opposition against God assumed such unholy proportions, it was thought and said by more than one saint: Why does not God destroy the world? Why does He still tolerate it before His face? And this is the answer: There still hid so much glory of God in that creation, a glory which still tarried to manifest itself. The plan of God regarding this world was by no means yet perfected. She stood but at the beginning of her rich development. And the end can not come, before God has brought to light all His mightiness, all His glory also in this dispensation, to the praise of His holy Name. And be it, that multitudes have neither eye nor ear for this, and that ever greater numbers purposely close their eyes against this, yet the Almightiness of His grace knew how to raise up also in this century men and women, who admiringly viewed this greatness of the Lord in the work of His creation, and have praised God for what His impenetrable majesty wrought.

If this applied to His work of creation, it likewise applied to the treasures which He gave us in His Gospel.

These treasures also had by no means yet been exhausted. The full glory of this had by no means yet been brought to light, in breadth as little as in depth, and according as the life of our human consciousness has been clarified, our human inventiveness broadened, and our human ability expanded, our Christian faith also, our Christian hope and our Christian love had to set itself to a new and higher exhibition of power.

It was to be a century without God, and more than ever that God Whom men rejected, has shown Himself to be, He alone, the King of the ages.

But though for this reason thanks behooves us instead of complaint and a psalm of praise rather than a song of mourning, yet it may not be ignored, that also “the mystery of iniquity”, of which Paul speaks in 2 Thess. 2:7, has in this selfsame century developed itself with menacing rapidity.

This hangs together.

As long as God keeps you weak and small and poor, it takes less effort, in hushed humility to bend your knee before Him. But when your means enlarge, and your strength increases, and you begin to feel your might doubly strongly, the temptation to reckon yourself to be your own lord and master, becomes ever more strong in you. That is the history of personal life, that is the history of nations, and that too is the history of humanity.

So long as humanity stood powerless in the face of nature, weak over against worldpower, and trembled in its littleness, it inclined toward worship and silence. But now that God in this century, as never before, gave us power over nature, enriched our knowledge, increased our strength threefold, caused our wealth to increase, and gave our life more in our own hand, the temptation to forget Him, to do it without God, and to cast His cords from us, became thereby the stronger. And before this temptation the generations of this century succumbed.

Man began to be too conscious of himself. He had too much in his own power. He grasped and saw through too much. His wealth of life became too abundant. And so the apostacy went on. Apostacy first of confession in the church, then of the church itself. And when once a man had freed himself from the church, gliding down the fatal steep became ever more imminent: apostacy from the Christ, apostacy from God, apostacy from the moral world-order, apostacy from public honor itself, and at length the privileged group exhibited itself in self-degradation, in which the human is scarcely recognizable, and something wild, something rough, something beastly more and more disfigures life.

We are not blind to so much that is good, beautiful and true, and which is evident even in non-Christian circles. God’s common grace does not cease to work wonders. But yet, when we ask after the “god of this age”, as Paul calls it, or if you will after the spirit that has marked this century, confess, can it be denied, that the spirit which governed this century, betrayed ever more human pride, demanded the throne for man, and thus of itself had to mark itself by the loosening of holiest ties, which were the honor of our human society.

And yet, notwithstanding this bold apostacy, and in spite of that unholy spirit, which captured the heart, humanity remains God’s humanity, and His working in the underground of the heart of the nations comes every time again so gloriously to light … Is it not remarkable, that a century that began with a Voltaire, ends with payment of homage to a Cruger as a man of mightiest and most impressive proportions, who proclaims in the hearing of all, that his confidence is the God of the fathers.

True, this does not appease our offended feeling; and what child of God shall not be offended, while the keynote of the world’s life is continually sounded against God and against His Anointed, against His commandment and against His Holy Spirit. But yet, even this should and can not blind our eye to the work of grace, that in spite of its apostacy, God has continued in this century. It can not be thought for one moment, that the century which presently passes away, has been one without God and that God has not been in it. Your mood should not be merely that of sadness because of religious apathy, but should likewise be that of joy in the adoration of His high appointment. Us too He has advanced this century, made richer, girded with strength, and by the deeds of His Almightiness He has gladdened our heart. He has been great, continued great, yea, He has shown Himself still more mighty in His greatness, in this very century now nearly gone, in the measure in which man has willed to put himself in His place, and has aimed to cause the greatness of our God to be forgotten.

The vision Moses saw in the burning bush retains also here its significance. Stalk and leaf in that grove of shrubs were aflame with fire. It all seemed one self-consumption. And yet they were not consumed. Glorious image of what presently God announced in His holy Covenant Name: Jehovah, I am that I am. Whatever may restlessly turn and be consumed, I your God remain the same, with Me is no shadow of turning. “As a garment it shall all wax old, and the ages also as a vesture shall be changed, but Thou, O Lord, art the same and Thy years shall have no end” (Ps. 102:26, 27).

That is the holy laughter of Him Who is throned above years and centuries. When the peoples imagine a vain thing, and the kings of the earth take counsel together against Him and His Anointed, saying: “Let us break the bands of God asunder and cast His cords from us,” then He Who dwells in the heavens, laughs, and He, Who holds the ages in His hand, has them in derision, saying: “Yet have I set my King upon my holy hill of Zion, and His seed shall endure for ever” (Ps. 2).

Whether the wise of the earth and the mighty ones among the peoples stir themselves and rise up against Him, He goes on restfully every morning and every evening with His divine plan, and renders even that commotion and that apostacy serviceable to His holy purpose, and that unchangeable purpose is: to glorify Himself as God and make His creature share His joy.

And therefore our soul beats no retreat from fear at what is to come, even when presently the new century is ushered in, because our heart knows, that that same God Who was King in the century that went by, shall also be what He is in the century that comes, and in that century too He shall reveal Himself as God Almighty. Years hasten on, centuries come and go, but our God remains the same, in Whose hand the heart of kings is as the rivers of water, and with Whom the nations are counted as shall dust of the balance and as a drop of a bucket.

Be in you but the humble prayer, in the years of the new century, as many as God has appointed you, to be found among His saints, whose joy it is to be an honor to His holy Name. Would God’s people but understand, that, where apostacy increases hand over hand, in like measure among His chosen people the deeper seriousness of life must increase, the full readiness of consecration, the heroism of faith, to come up for the honor of their God. Strength here must stand over against strength. In the world increasing strength of self-importance, of pride and the exhibition of power, and over against this in the circles of the redeemed increasing strength of mountain-removing faith, of purity of soul and of a love that shrinks back from no sacrifice.

So let there be zeal for God in you personally, zeal in your family, zeal for God in your entire generation, in your environment, in your circle of life. One host, that advances under the banner of the Lord, that, whatever the coming century may bring, they may stand faithful and true to His Holy Name.

The old die away, to the younger comes the turn of shouldering the task. And as from the century that now passed away, the names sound in our ears, inspiring us with courage, of the men of God who then stood in the front ranks, so from among those who now are young, the men must presently come forward, whose names, when the new century shall be ended, shall be rehearsed, with inspiring echoes in the heart, to the succeeding generation.

Let every one of us therefore turn in upon himself. To us also God gave of the century that went, such a considerable part to live. Dark upon the way of that century behind us lie the many spots of sin, which He covered over in His great compassionateness. But on that way behind us here also lie the deeds of God’s grace to our soul; the loveliness and trials He apportioned unto us; all that for our training, He has done to our soul. And therefore from the century that went, must be brought into the century that comes, the fruit of that grace, in ripened faith, in formed character, in gains of self-control and love. And what is this gain with you, what is the fruit which you, to the glory of God, into that new century bring with you?

Some fruit there will surely be. God never works for nought. But who of us does not complain, that that fruit might have been so much riper, so much more glorious, if we, stilled as the weaned child, had ever been near unto God?

But, what is done takes no turn, and you would double your guilt before God, if in so serious a moment, as the transition from one century into another, you did not take hold of yourself, sit in judgment upon yourself, and, quickening the seriousness of life in your soul, you did not equip yourself, in the new century, to place yourself more unreservedly at the service of your God.

Believe it, apostacy will go on, seduction will assume a more crafty form, temptation in the century to come shall become still more overwhelming. In the end the foundations of the earth shall begin to shake before your eye. In that respect the century that went shall be holy compared with what the new century carries in its womb. Has not the Lord Himself spoken of days to come, which shall be so terrible, that, unless they were shortened, even the elect would succumb? Let then for you also the hour draw near, to gird on the full armour of God, and to stand in the strength of your Lord. Then, and then only, will you be invincible, and this passing century will close with the jubilation of worship in your heart: Now unto the King eternal, invisible, incorruptible, the only wise God, be honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen.

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