Certainties Concerning Ourselves

The Need for a Biblical Perspective on the New Year

0:05 You've already begun to experience the awkward adjustments to a new calendar year. It won't be long before you are forced to do so. You kids, when you go to school tomorrow, if betting were legitimate and I wanted to make some quick money, I would bet that some of you are still going to write January 1975, and then you're going to say, oops, 76, right? Those awkward little adjustments to the fact that we've entered a new year.

0:39 Some of us will be making out the monthly bills in a few days. And unless we write 76 right down the line for the next few checks, we just forget and we revert to writing 1975.

0:54 So with the holidays, as it were, going before us to remind us that a new year, a new calendar year has come, and with these many... petty little reminders before us, I thought it would be in the interest of our own sanctification and our general spiritual profit to address myself this morning, and I have a sneaking suspicion I'll only get about two-thirds of the way through, and probably then again next Lord's Day morning, to the very simple, but I trust useful theme, a Christian or a biblical perspective towards or upon a new year.

1:37 A Christian or biblical, and I use the two terms synonymously. A Christian or a biblical perspective on the new year. Now why is it important for us even to consider such a subject? Well, for the simple reason that we are commanded in Romans 12 to be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove...

2:05 what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. In other words, sanctification goes on in its progressive dimensions as our minds are renewed so that we are enabled to prove that is to work out in experience the good, the acceptable, and the perfect will of God. But we do not prove in experience the perfect will of God, apart from the renewing of our minds. And the great enemy to the renewed mind is the influence of the ungodly world. That's why the apostle has an order in his directions. He starts with the negative. Be not fashioned according to this world. Don't let the world push its thought

3:00 patterns into your mind, for if you do, you'll never prove the good and acceptable and perfect will of God. Therefore, there must be a shutting out of the world's perspectives, an absorption of the perspectives of God, and then and only then do we prove and experience the good, acceptable, and perfect will of God. Now, all of us have been bombarded with the world's perspectives on a new year. All the way from the very licentious that looks upon the season of the coming of a new year as some kind of a carte blanche for all kinds of debauchery and drunkenness and gluttony, to what we might call the more refined humanistic aspirations for a new year, a new beginning, and man will conjure up all of his innate powers and make a new start and make seventy-six. A better year than seventy-five and all that other rubbish that comes out of humanism. Well, you see, the world is bombarding us with its perspective, and the word of God says, be not fashioned according to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

4:20 And how is the mind renewed? By the word of God. And therefore, it is in the interest of our own sanctification and ultimately to God's glory, that we as Christians address ourselves to the subject, what is, or what are some facets of a biblical or Christian perspective on the new year. Now, many things could be said, but of the many precepts and principles in the word of God that could be brought to bear upon this broad theme, I wish to bring to bear upon your conscience just three under two headings.

Three Certainties Concerning Ourselves: Introduction

4:59 So altogether, there will be six. And the first heading is, what we know with certainty concerning ourselves in the coming year, and what we can know with certainty concerning our God in the coming year. And I would suggest that if you are thinking biblically or thinking Christianly with reference to what we can know with certainty about ourselves, and what we can know with certainty about ourselves, and what we can know with certainty about ourselves, and what we can know with certainty about ourselves, and what we can know with certainty about ourselves, and what we can know with certainty about ourselves, and what we can know with certainty about ourselves, and what we can know with certainty about ourselves, and what we can know with certainty about ourselves, and what we can know with certainty about ourselves, and what we can know with certainty about ourselves, and what we can know with certainty about ourselves, and what we can know with certainty about ourselves, and what we can know with certainty about ourselves, we can know with certainty about God, we will then have a Christian perspective on the new year. First of all, then, this broad heading, what we can know with certainty concerning ourselves as we face 1976. And you know what the first thing we can know with certainty is? It is this, the uncertainty of the events of the coming year. The one thing we can know

Certainty 1: The Uncertainty of Events in the Coming Year

6:03 for certain about ourselves is that the events that will touch our lives are uncertain. This is the time of the year when we have political and economic and scientific and agricultural and investment experts making their predictions and their forecasts. But you know what God does with all of those? Two simple statements, one from the Old Testament, one from the New. Proverbs 27 and verse 1.

6:34 What is it to think Christianly about the coming of a new year with reference to ourselves? It is to think within a framework in which we face realistically the uncertainty of the events of the coming year. Proverbs 27 and verse 1. Boast not thyself of tomorrow. That is, do not think. Speak, enact in such a way that you think there is certainty with reference to the events of tomorrow. Boast not thyself of tomorrow. For, why are we not to do that, Solomon? For, thou knowest not what a day, let alone a week or a month or a year, may bring forth. Thou knowest not what a day may bring forth. Now, there is no debating that. That's a statement not only of special revelation that is embodied in the Scriptures, but it's a fact of general revelation.

7:39 The most ungodly man who has his mental sanity will acknowledge he does not know what the next 24-hour period will bring forth, either in his own life, in his family, in his nation, his country, in the world, in the whole cosmos of God. We know not what a day may bring forth. And you have a parallel statement in the New Testament, the book of James, in which we have an incident when believers were not thinking Christianly. They were beginning to think like the ungodly.

8:14 Their minds were being influenced by the thought patterns of the world. They were making plans that assumed the certainty of certain contingencies. And James rebukes them in James 4.13 and says, Come now, ye that say, Today or tomorrow we'll go into this city and spend a year there and trade and get gain, whereas ye know not what shall be on the mark.

8:46 May I suggest that you're thinking like a pagan and not a Christian if you face the coming year as it pertains to yourself with anything less than the deepest conviction, this realistic conviction, of the ungodly. The uncertainty of the events of the coming year. We do not know what any day of 1976 will bring to us individually, health, sickness, prosperity, privation, or death itself. We do not know what it will bring to us domestically.

9:21 We do not know what it will bring to us nationally, internationally. We know not what a day may bring forth. Now, the recognition. Of that simple truth, realistically and honestly and continually throughout all of the successive days that God may be pleased to give to us in the coming year will have tremendous practical effects.

9:47 Think for a moment of what it will do for us who are the people of God. Look at this passage in James. If we live with that conviction, we know not what a day may bring forth. We do not govern our own destinies.

10:01 We are not the masters of our own fate and the captains of our own souls. James says it will radically alter our whole perspective. Look at the same passage. Verse 15.

10:16 For that ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall both live, and do this or that. In other words, when you talk in such a way as to reflect, that you've lost this perspective that both the duration and the circumstances of life are uncertain as far as I'm concerned. You're thinking like a pagan. And he says you need to think as a Christian who constantly acknowledges life's duration.

10:48 If the Lord will, we shall both live. And life's circumstances are ordered and governed by a wise and a sovereign God. And therefore, there will be created in us a sense of life. Dependence upon that God.

11:07 A constant recognition of His rights and His claims. In other words, this simple fact of the uncertainty of the events of the coming year, recognized in its biblical setting, will bring us into an orbit of deeply religious perspective. God is God. I am creature.

11:33 He or... He orders and disposes.

Application of Uncertainty to Unbelievers: The Danger of Presumption

11:37 I am utterly dependent upon Him. And it should have a profound effect upon those of you who sit here this morning who are yet in your sins. Who know nothing of a broken and a contrite heart for your sins. Who know nothing of a saving sight of Christ that has ravished your heart.

12:01 In the language that we've been reminded of in the adult class, you know nothing of... poverty of spirit.

12:07 You know nothing of mourning for your sin. Nothing of hunger and thirst for righteousness. Oh, listen this morning. There are boys and girls among us who fit that description.

12:19 And tragically, there are gray-haired men and women who fit that description. There are others in the prime of life who fit that description. And my friend, if you really believe this, that there is no certainty with reference to the coming year, as far as your knowledge is concerned, and you look back upon all of the opportunities squandered in 1975, and no certainty with reference to 1976, you fit the description of that man in Luke chapter 12. Jesus spoke of the man who in his prosperity said, So, thou hast much goods made up for many years.

13:01 Take thine ease. It's retirement time. A lot of days and months, months and years before death time.

13:11 Prosperity time has led to retirement time. And God says, Thou fool, this night shall thy soul be required.

13:23 Little did those people think who stood around that carousel in TWA,

13:30 baggage delivery place a few days ago, little did they think as they no doubt were fretting, why in the world doesn't that stuff come as I also fret. Sometimes it takes longer to get my baggage than it did to get from Chicago to New York.

13:45 And I just pictured in my mind's eye some fretting, some puffing on their cigarettes, others maybe pacing up and down, others looking to see if loved ones were meeting them. The last thought in the minds probably of everyone is that we are second from eternity. And eleven of them smashed off, gone to stand before God. They knew not what a day may bring for.

14:10 It's put a new perspective on my traveling. I always, the moment the plane touches down, say, thank you, Lord, you've brought us safely. When it's about to take off, I pray that God will have his sovereign hand upon the controls. Now I'm going to breathe even another prayer when I'm able to get my baggage.

14:30 You see? You see, we don't think Christ in me. Well, we needed the direct protection of God to get us up, keep us up, and bring us down safely. But now, you see, we're on our own steam, picking up our baggage, and getting home.

14:44 Oh, no, we aren't. We know not. And I speak to you, children and adults. Are you trying to scare us?

14:52 No, I'm facing you with facts, my friend. You don't know what a day may bring for. Little did those people who perhaps were caught up in the same holiday festivities as you and I were in the past days, little did they think that Almighty God, who in the language of the prophet has his way in the whirlwind and the storm, little did they think that that God was to send a whirlwind sweeping through Northern Europe and into Britain that would snatch his creatures out of this life to stand in his presence. But he did it.

15:28 They knew not what a day would bring forth. And you, children, you in the prime of life, you with gray hairs and advanced years, oh, that God would sober you this first Lord's Day of 1976 with the realization, oh, that God would sober you this first Lord's Day of 1976 with the realization, you have no assurance, I have no assurance that we shall meet in any place of worship for the first day of 1977. There may be no 77 for any of us. There may be none for you.

16:08 Now, in the light of that, my friend, do you see how irrational, what madness it is to stay in your sins, to remain under the frown of a holy God? What can we know with certainty? What can we know with certainty concerning ourselves? We can know with certainty the uncertainty of the events of the coming year.

16:36 My friend, don't play Russian roulette with your soul. Well, I've got through 75. I hope I'll make it through 76. Do you know what I mean when I say don't play Russian roulette with your soul?

16:55 You know what Russian roulette is. Put one shell in the six chambered pistol, turn it around, put it to the head, pull the trigger, hope that the shell was not in the chamber that was next to the firing pin. My friend, that's what you're doing with your soul. If you're out of Christ and you face another year in the light of its uncertainty.

Certainty 2: The Brevity of Time Allotted to Us

17:22 But then secondly, we can know with certainty not only the uncertainty of the events of life, but secondly, the brevity of the time allotted to us in the coming year. Now, I'm not saying, that there's an international conspiracy that's going to touch the time pieces by which all of the clocks of the world are affected. No, no. There will still be 60 seconds in every minute, 60 minutes in every hour, 24 hours in every day, seven days in every week, 365 days in the coming year if the Lord tarries.

18:01 But what I am saying is, that that time is continually set before us in the Word of God. The Word of God as fleeting. And we can know for certainty the brevity of the time allotted to us. Notice how James underscores that in this same passage.

18:23 Having said that life is uncertain in verse 14, he also goes on to say, What is your life? For ye are a vapor that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away. In other words, life is not only uncertain, life is brief. You're like a vapor.

18:48 Some of you have dryers. And in a winter day, where the vent goes outside, and your mom's running the dryer, you see that vapor comes out. And it's there, and if the dryer shuts off, in less than three seconds, every trace of it is gone. James says, that's your life.

19:08 With all that it seems to have of substance. Look, sit there this morning. Think of yourself. You say, well, I've got my friends, my wife, my mom, my dad, my children, my relatives, my home, my car, my job, my clothes.

19:24 All of this is substantial. James says, the whole of your life, ye are a vapor that appeareth for a little time. It appears in God. And the people that walked the streets of Caldwell a hundred years ago, who thought everything was substantial, there's not a one of them around now.

19:43 It's not. If God spares his creatures, and the Lord does not return, in less than a hundred years, my friend, all of us will have joined the vapor. That's it. Oh, how we fool ourselves that life is substantial.

20:08 It isn't. And this is the great theme that runs through the biblical perspective on life, its brevity. I remind you of the language of Psalm 90, the psalm from which we read at the commencement of our worship this morning. Moses, the man of God, speaks of man in the brevity of his life, saying, verse 10, the days of our years are threescore seven, I'm sorry, are threescore years and ten, that's seventy, or by reason of strength, fourscore eighty.

20:43 Yet is there pride but labor and sorrow, for it is soon gone, and we fly away. And I was thinking at this Christmas time how real that is. I can't believe, I can't believe, that it's been over thirty to thirty-five years since I lay awake half New Year's or Christmas night wondering what my present would be in the morning. That's as real to me as though it were three weeks ago.

21:15 I can recall all the details. I can relive it emotionally. Thirty-five years! A generation is gone!

21:23 Our dear sister's in her ninety-third year, and I'm sure if she could speak, as soon as she was to be heard by all of us, she'd say that the memories of being a little girl with no cares and concerns are as real to her as though they were yesterday. We soon fly away! But you know it wasn't children who wrote these songs. It was people who already had lived out the majority of their lives.

21:57 It was Job, an old patriarch, who said, our days are faster than a weaver's shuttle. Have you ever seen an old loom? Have you ever seen an old loom? Where the shuttle that carries the thread goes through?

22:12 You've seen it. You understand Job's picture. Swifter than a weaver's shuttle! And if we liken every strand to a day or to a year, in a matter of seconds, the weaver's able to push his shuttle from one side to the other.

22:30 He says, that's my day! From infancy to old age, and then to death. In the light of this, he's a child of God. You and I have to think as Christians, and the Bible has much to say about the consciousness of the brevity of life being a powerful motive in the way we live as God's people.

Application of Brevity to Believers and Unbelievers

22:58 Take our Lord for an example. In John 9, in verse 4, he said, We must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day. For the night cometh when no man can work. He's saying, I have an allotted period in which to accomplish the will of my Father, and that is likened to the daylight hours.

23:21 And just as surely as the daylight hours will be followed by twilight and night, and no work can be done, so, he says, every one of us has a span of time that is our day, and we must work the works of him that in grace has laid hold upon us. Again, the psalmist in Psalm 90, in verse 14, having spoken concerning the brevity of life, notice his prayer. Verse 12, So teach us to number our days, that we may get us a heart of wisdom. What's he saying?

23:59 He's saying, Lord, I cannot live wisely unless I live consciously aware of the brevity of life. He who lives indifferent to the brevity of life lives as a fool, for he squanders what is more precious than gold itself, time, time, time. And when we meditate upon it, believers, think of it, every event in time has reverberations into eternity. No wonder he prays, teach us to number our days, that we may get us a heart of wisdom. We may not live like fools who assume that life will go on forever. And isn't that the perspective of the apostle in Ephesians? Ephesians chapter 4, chapter 5, I'm sorry, verses 15 and 16.

25:06 Ephesians 5, verses 15 and 16. Look therefore carefully how ye walk, not as unwise, but as wise. And what is the peculiar concern of the apostle in terms of a wise or a foolish work? Walk, verse 16, redeeming the time, buying up the opportunities.

25:32 There on the market is the opportunity allotted in the hours of the day that is at hand. He says, don't be a fool, buy up the opportunity, seize it, invest it, for that which will count. Not only does the brevity of the time allotted to us have tremendous implications for us as believers, but oh, it ought to affect those of you that are yet in your sins. Children, and I speak out of the fullness of my heart to you this morning, it seems strange to think about funerals and graveyards because life is so carefree for you now, but listen, you are hastening, to your grave, and surely, as Mrs. Blair and all of us in between, you're hastening to your grave, every one of us. And the time between that first cry in a delivery room and that last sigh in a deathbed, the scripture says, is passed swifter than a weaver's shuttle. It's like a vapor that appeareth

27:00 and vanisheth. Again, the scripture says, our days are like a sigh, we bring our years to an end as a sigh. That's the picture the psalmist gives to us in Psalm 90. You know what hell's going to be among other things?

27:21 Hell is going to be the eternal monument of squandered opportunity, abused privileges, and it's going to be the place where all the dreams that life would go on forever are forever dashed upon the rocks of eternal judgment. Few are the people who in their youth say, well, I think I'll be indifferent to the gospel so that when I'm an old person I'll be hardened in my sins so that when I die I'll go to hell. Few are the people who reason that way. You know how they reason, young people?

28:00 You children, they reason like some of you are reasoning. I have yet many years to think seriously about my sins and about the Savior. Many years to think seriously about a new heart, being right with God, making sure that I've entered the narrow gate. But oh, that's a lie of the devil.

Certainty 3: The Accountability of All We Do

28:19 Now is the day of salvation. And we know for certain not only the uncertainty of the events of the coming year, the brevity of the time allotted to us, but thirdly, we can know for certain the accountability of all that we do during the coming year. The accountability, excuse me, of all that we do during the coming year. Whatever hours, days, or weeks, or months, or if the entire year is given to us, these things come as a trust from God.

28:54 And all the things we have to use in that allotted time, abilities, the air we breathe, money entrusted to us, clothing, food, relationships, influence, the totality of our lives comes as a trust from God. And the Scripture says we're accountable to God for every bit of it. 2 Corinthians 5, 10, So then every one of us shall give an account of himself to God. Romans 14, 10 through 12, As I live, saith the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess.

29:34 So then every one of us shall give an account of himself to God. And this is what this will take in our deeds, our words, our thoughts, our gifts, our opportunities, our talents. And oh, how we need desperately to face the coming year with a sense of that accountability deeply impressed upon our spirits. You who are yet in your sins need desperately to face this reality.

30:05 You see, if you enter this year and God even spares you through 1976, you come to December 31, 1976, still in your sins, you know what this year will have done for you? It will have done nothing but increase the weight of your damnation. That's the teaching of the Word of God. For we read in Romans 2, beginning with verse 4, these striking words, Despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and longsuffering, why will any sinner be brought through an entire year sustained by the goodness of God, upheld by the sovereign hand of God, while he defies the authority of God, tramples underfoot the blood of the Son of God? Why does God tolerate such in his universe? This passage gives us the answer. Despisest thou the riches of his goodness giving you life and breath and sanity and health, his goodness and his forbearance and longsuffering.

31:29 Oh, if you could see for a moment how you tax the patience of God, you'd fall upon your face in repentance. How you tax the forbearance of God! Right now in God's ears is ringing the prayer of martyred saints who cry out, O Lord, how long? How long?

31:51 How long? You read about it in the book of the Revelation. They long for the day when God will vindicate his character, scour his earth of all evil and evil men. You despise that goodness and forbearance and longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance.

32:17 This forbearance of God is not indulgence, not indulgence on his part. It's giving you space for repentance. But if that space for repentance simply hardens you in your sins, look at the next verse. But after thy hardness and impenitent heart, treasurest up for thyself wrath in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God who shall render to every man according to his works.

32:49 You see what he's saying? God invests goodness, longsuffering and patience. He desires to see as the return of his investment repentance. And what do you give him?

33:04 No repentance, no seeking the Lord while he may be found, no crying to God to show you the enormity of your sin, no studious application to the gospel and to the glory of God in the face of Christ. God invests goodness, forbearance, longsuffering. You give him nothing but hardness and impenitence. And you know what God says he'll do with that?

33:29 He'll take that return and he'll bank it. And he'll draw it out in the day of judgment to your account. That's what he'll do. Oh, may God sober us with the recognition of our accountability to him.

Application of Accountability to Believers and Unbelievers

33:54 If you're yet in your sins, I plead with you. I plead with you in the name of the God of heaven to whom you're accountable. Rest not until you know that you're in Christ and in Christ no longer exposed to the wrath of God. But what about the people of God?

34:18 Is this accountability something that has been negated by the gospel? No, my friend, it's been intensified. Do you hear me? Our accountability has been intensified, granted, and bless God.

34:34 We are not accountable to God as criminals before a judge. The scriptures say that there is no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. But we are accountable to God. It is to believers that Paul speaks when he says, so then every one of us shall give account of himself to God.

35:00 We need to be accountable and conscious of our accountability with reference to time, to gifts, to opportunities. For we're accountable to God as stewards to the head of a household. Let's read of it in the Talents of the Pounds, in the parable of the talents in the Pounds, Matthew 25 and Luke 19. We're accountable to him as servants to a master.

35:23 Romans 14, to his own master a servant standeth or falleth. And we're accountable to him as sons to a father. 1 Peter 1, 17. Peter nowhere intimates that there is a negation of this accountability if ye call on him as father who without respect of persons judges according to each man's work.

35:47 Past the time of your sojourning in fear. Such accountability that we have as believers is real, it is extensive, it is awesome and rightly understood will be productive of God. Reproductive of godly fear, holy zeal, carefulness, prayerfulness, a strict walk before God and before men. Every paycheck that comes into your hand and the dispensing of every penny of it, you and I will give an account of the stewardship of the money given to us.

36:26 Every day of health, all the bundle of energy we'll give an account, we'll give an account. Now I don't understand, I do not understand how that accountability will express itself in terms of God's dealings with his own. I know that heaven is not going to be a place of sorrow. There are many mysteries I cannot unravel but this the scriptures clearly teach.

36:54 It is not sub-Christian to walk carefully and in godly fear with a constant sense I'm accountable to God who is my father. I'm accountable as his son. I'm accountable to Jesus Christ who is my master. I'm accountable to the God who is the head of the household of faith.

Transition to God's Certainties and Concluding Exhortation

37:18 We can know for certain dear friends that we're accountable for what's already been done in the first three days of 1976. Accountable, accountable. Well I have time just to announce one thing about God and I feel I must, I feel I must, I feel I must close on this note and then God willing perhaps open it up next week. Perhaps that's the best thing to do.

37:47 But let me just tell you what the three heads are going to be and then I'll stop here. What can we know with certainty with reference to God? Well we can know first of all his absolute rule over all the events and circumstances of the coming year. We can know secondly his unfailing covenant faithfulness to his own in the coming year.

38:13 And we can know his unswerving commitment to his saving purposes in the coming year. And you see if we stopped with what we can know about ourselves I think I'd join some of those fearful saints who've bought themselves a piece of land up in the hills somewhere and have retreated. I think I'd do the same thing. I don't know what the day, the year will hold.

38:41 You don't know. All I can know is that I don't know what a day may bring forth. Life is uncertain. Life is brief.

38:49 And I'm accountable to God. What is my consolation in all of this? My consolation is that though every day of 1976 is uncertain for me it is absolutely certain for the God of heaven and earth. 1976 will simply be the exegesis of God's eternal decree for that year.

39:13 And I tell you I've been made almost shouting happy on my bed thinking about it. What will every day of the coming year be? It's to be an exegesis, an opening up of what God decreed and infallibly brings to pass. And within the fabric of that great all-encompassing sovereignty of God is that special providence by which He's ordering every single detail of my life so that every single thing is working together for my good.

39:47 And that has significance because it is encompassed within the larger sphere of that same God carrying all of history to its consummation when the last member of the redeemed shall be brought into vital union with Christ and he that is tarried will no longer tarry but shall come. Oh dear people may God help us to feed upon those things Lord willing I'll try to open them up next Lord. But it would be too much to get into it and then I'd be holding you beyond the time that's reasonable. May I entreat you as we close this morning to pray, to meditate, to think that you may think Christianly as you face the coming year. May God purge from us all the paganism of the kind of talk that speaks of we're going to do this and that's what we're going to do. No, no my friend for that ye ought to say. If the Lord will.

40:51 That is have such an inward sense of life's uncertainty with reference to our plans mingled with and joined to an absolute confidence that our lives are in the hands not of blind fate but of a loving Father. We do not serve the God of faith. Faith is heartless, mindless. Faith is cold steel machinery.

41:22 We're in the hands of a loving God who's revealed Himself in His dear Son. And if you don't know Him, my friend how in the world can you face a coming year without the confidence that your sins are pardoned? How can you do it? I don't ask that as a rhetorical question.

41:39 I mean that. How can you? I'm not surprised people drown themselves in booze and in spectator sports and in everything else. Anything to escape facing the awful reality what have I if I do not have the knowledge of sins forgiven?

41:56 Oh, may God grant that you will seek the Lord while He may be found and call upon Him while He's near. We're going to sing in closing a hymn that brings together some of the strands of truth that we've considered reminding us of the brevity of life. Hymn number 611 I'm sorry 609 A few more years shall roll A few more seasons come And we shall be with those That rest asleep within the tomb Then, O my Lord, prepare my soul For that great day Wash me in the precious blood And take my sins away Number 609