[AI translation] Once again, on the last day of the year, we are gathered here. Though one day is like another, and today is seemingly no different from yesterday, there is a deadly serious warning. I do not mean a financial balance sheet, of course, but something quite different, as if the angel who once appeared to Hagar in the wilderness were standing behind us, asking us again and again, "Where do you come from and where are you going?" Yes, so on the last day of the year, we feel very much that we humans are not only a superior animal, but also beings in touch with a world that cannot be perceived with our five senses.Indeed, the heart of even the most serious man is often pounding when he hears the clock strike twelve on New Year's Eve. And there are many men who, though they have long since ceased to care about religious matters, still, at that hour, a kind of prayerful sigh rises from their hearts to God! Perhaps one feels that this is how life itself will one day pass away, like this passing year! Yes: it is a shudder in our hearts that the message will surely come to us: "They will take your soul tonight!" There is nothing in the world that we can know so surely as this!
In the summer, as the world waited anxiously for the outcome of the Geneva Conference, I received the news of the sudden death of a colleague and dear friend. I had no idea he was ill, and now there he is, lying spread-eagled in the church where he had preached the Word so many times! I thought to myself, well, he is no longer interested in the Geneva Conference, nor in the price of meat, nor in the gossip in the village, nor in anything that we make such a big deal of, that gives us so much excitement. The whole visible world has gone out for him like a burnt-out light bulb. Then it became so startlingly real to me again that there was really only one existential question, and that was, if there is eternal life, can I count on it? So let us try to face this question now, if I were to ask for your soul tonight, what would happen to you? In other words, are you ready, if God calls, to go and appear before His judgment seat? Someone might say, what a sentimental question! Well, whatever we label it, the Word of God asks the question: do you know what will happen to you if you leave here? If you have to leave everything you lived for? If they take your soul? However sentimental or pietistic it may sound, it is true that we are on our way to eternity. God's Word says it this way in one place, "It is finished that men should die once, and after that the judgment." (Heb 9:27)
So death at the end of our life is not an ending, not like the period at the end of a sentence that closes the line, but like the colon at the end of a sentence: which means that the sentence of our life continues, and its continuation is determined by precisely what was said before the colon. The Word of God speaks most emphatically that after the colon, life continues in two directions: up or down, in light or darkness, included in God's glory or excluded from it, in salvation or in damnation! And which way it will continue for me depends on my present faith relationship with Jesus Christ. Behold, there are such definite statements on this subject in the Scriptures, "He that believeth on him (Christ) shall not be condemned; but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed on the name of the only begotten Son of God." (Jn 3,18) And, "He who believes in the Son has eternal life, but he who does not obey the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God will remain on him." (Jn 3,36) So closely, so seriously does the Gospel take this. Upwards or downwards?
I am well aware that in recent years this question has not been discussed in this way! The proclamation of God's Word has illuminated for us the worldly, not the other-worldly, aspects of our faith, and has encouraged the believer to take his place in this life on earth. This emphasis on our salvation in the hereafter is therefore perhaps foreign to our ears. Maybe so, but I would like to emphasise this question on the last night of this year: have you thought about your salvation, have you prepared for it? It is not such an abstract question as it may seem, but a very practical, very mundane, everyday question: i.e. can you measure it by how you have lived? Yes: our salvation depends on our relationship with Jesus Christ alone. Do we truly love Him as our redeeming Lord, who offered Himself as an atoning sacrifice for us on Calvary? (John 14:21) He even said, "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father in heaven." (Mt 7,21) So when God's Word asks you if your salvation was important to you in the past year, it is the same as asking how far your everyday life demonstrated the reality of your salvation, how far your faith in Christ was proven true by your actions? Have you lived as one who is consciously moving towards eternity, as one who is thinking about salvation, expecting it, preparing for it?!
In the parable Jesus speaks of a man who did not live like that! In fact, there is nothing bad that could be said about him, he was not an evil man, but he stands before the world as a wise, careful, foresighted, calculating, a man of some public esteem because of his wealth, who is diligent and skilful in his profession, who has luck in whatever he touches, and yet: before God he is a fool and a lost man. So astonishing is this word in the Word: fool! Perhaps the literal translation is, foolish! Apparently, by worldly, human standards, he is a very thoughtful, careful farmer, who, after a record harvest, has saved and rationed to provide himself with a quiet living for many years to come. He could be held up as a model to the world in many ways - and yet God's Word says of him: a reckless, foolish man, a fool! Is not the man thoughtless who has his mind set on everything, who takes account of everything but the supreme reality of life: that at any moment his soul may be taken?! That there is eternal life, there is salvation and there is damnation! He is prepared for everything but death and salvation! How severely does the Word of God say of such a life: fool!
Is a man really a fool who wants to go to Debrecen and takes a train to Szombathely? Or who doesn't want to go to prison, but burns down his neighbour's house, or who drives a car at 100 km on a busy street and closes both eyes - is such a man really a fool?! Foolish, reckless! But even more foolish and reckless is the man who wants to go to heaven and goes in the opposite direction: who does not repent, who does not live what God tells him, who "does not obey the Son"! It is hurtful, insulting, when people say someone is a fool, but woe to the one whom God says is a fool! It means that the whole direction of such a life is wrong, not progressing towards eternal life. Every life, or every stage of life, which does not show that it is preparing for eternity, is a misguided, foolishly spent, wasted life!
You can see it in the details. Take what Jesus says about the rich man in the parable: 'What shall I do? for I have nothing to hide my produce. And he said, "This is what I will do: I will pull down my barns and build bigger ones, and in them I will cover all my grain and my goods." (Lk 12:17-18) In the sight of God, there is no greater folly than when a man lives so much for himself, when he thinks only of himself, when he thinks only of himself, when he thinks only of his goods, when he thinks only of himself, when he thinks only of the blessings given to him. This is what it means that whoever wants to keep his life will lose it! The greatest waste is to save my goods so that others may not have them: for this is a waste of life itself! Beware: the life of one who shuts himself off from others, who does not share with others the fruits of his labour, the goods of God, is a bad course! Behold, the worldly aspect of a wasted salvation in the hereafter! Is not God right when he says that he is a fool?
Thus Jesus continues the parable of the rich man, "These things I say to my soul..." (Lk 12,19a) From God's point of view, this is also foolishness: to behave as if I owned my soul, my life, as if I could freely dispose of it, as if I could do what I wanted with it. To live as if I did not belong to God, as if I never had to give an account of myself to him, as if God never asked for my soul! "And I say this to my soul: My soul, thou hast many possessions laid up for many years: make thyself comfortable, eat, drink, and be merry. " (Lk 12,19) What foolishness to think that if we have our bread, if we have provided for ourselves, our souls are happy! As if the soul could be well fed, satisfied with eating, drinking, money, full granaries, pleasures! As if that soul needed nothing else!
What folly to dream of many years, when God says. To speak of many goods, when God says, Whose shall be the things that thou hast got? In other words: what will you leave behind you, what will you leave as your inheritance?! A few little things that the heirs will fight over before the rust and moths eat away at them, or something like the man whose relatives wrote on his tombstone in the cemetery in Nagykőrös: "He loved so much and left this to his heirs!" Who will the things you have collected belong to? It's as if Jesus said, "Look, your money, for which you have toiled and fought so hard, will belong to strangers; your body, which you have taken such care of, will belong to the cemetery; and your soul, which you have forgotten, that is, you yourself, your life, will belong to the devil! Was it worth it? Is it not foolishness, is it not the greatest folly, to gain the whole world, and to harm the soul? What ransom can a man give for his soul, for his wasted life?!
The greatest of all losses is to lose one's soul! You can lose your health, your money, your friends, your reputation - all this is nothing compared to what the loss of your soul means! Have you ever really thought about what it means to die without your soul in fellowship, reconciled, reconciled, redeemed fellowship with God? Look: this is why God sent His only begotten Son, so that if anyone believes in Him, he will not perish but have eternal life! Just think of what happened in the garden of Gethsemane! On his knees, the Lord Jesus begged, "Father, if the soul of Alexander the Baptist or any other man can be saved in any other way, let this bitter cup pass from me, so that I may not die tomorrow morning nailed to the cross! There is no other way! That's why Jesus let himself be nailed to the cross the next day, that's why he gave himself up to the power of death!
What can a man give in exchange for his soul? Nothing! But it is not necessary to give anything, for God has already given His only begotten Son, so that he who believes in Him - but in such a way that it will be seen in him - can count on being able to appear before God in peace when his soul is claimed! He who truly believes in Him: his sins are forgiven, his iniquities are atoned for, eternal life is his! Make sure today, now, before they really claim your soul!
Let us pray together:
Christ, who art the sun and the world,
Do not leave us in darkness.
You are the true light,
Let us not go to destruction!
We beseech thee, holy Lord God:
Protect us this night;
Our rest be in you,
Our souls shall not perish.
(Song of Songs 500 verses 1-2)
Amen
Date: 31 Dec 1955 New Year's Eve.