In this New Year's Eve sermon, Pastor Albert N. Martin expounds Psalm 90, particularly verses 7-10, to impress upon his hearers the reality of human mortality and the swift passing of time. He argues that while physical aging is automatic, spiritual growth in repentance and faith is not. Martin then uses Hebrews 3, Romans 2, Acts 7, and Matthew 4 to demonstrate how the passing of time for the impenitent leads to a hardening of heart, treasuring up wrath, resisting the Holy Spirit, and tempting God. He urgently calls unbelievers to repent and believe in Christ today, emphasizing that God's long-suffering is not an excuse for delay but an opportunity for salvation.
Primary Texts
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Psalm 90:7-10This passage is expounded as the primary text establishing the brevity of human life and the reality of time's passing.
The Reality of Our Existence as Creatures of Time0:02
Sober Reflection on Time's Passing: Lessons from Psalm 902:15
Automatic Changes with the Passing of Time (Physical vs. Spiritual)5:06
The Non-Automatic Nature of Repentance and Faith10:11
The Consequences of Delaying Repentance Over Time15:58
Four Destructive Effects of Impenitence Over Time21:22
The Urgent Call to Repentance and Faith Today42:43
Key Quotes
“ultimate proof that we are creatures of time will be a marker of bronze or a headstone of marble that will have your name on it, and next to it a birthday and a death day. Now, folks, that's reality.”
“You see, the only alternative to perishing is to come to repentance. If you do not come. Important with reference to faith to the Lord Jesus.”
“When I say that I have one issue to bring before you this morning in our sober reflections on the passing of time and that that issue is this. That the passing of time does not automatically move us closer. Repentance towards God and faith toward the Lord Jesus. In your little bracket of time.”
“Number one, you have been by degrees hardening your heart. Turn to Hebrews chapter 3 if you will, please. Hebrews chapter 3. You have hardening your heart.”
“slip entered into the bank of heads of divine wrath and the next day five more shits of divine wrath and the next day five more shits until you have treasured chest and when your last bracket of time comes and only God knows when it is he'll dump the treasure chest in your lap dear people fear almighty”
“you say but Pastor Martin are you saying that little puny men can resist God God's eternal purposes and decrees no hath resisted his will that's the language of scripture but this is also the language of scripture you do always resist the Holy Spirit and I'm not embarrassed to preach what's in this book”
“who takes away the sin of the world you say oh more but what shall it profit a man if he gained the whole world and lose his own soul that's why Jesus said strive to enter the narrow gate no matter what it costs get through the gate of true repentance and faith I'll have to eat crow I may be in debt to the government for years of his peace whatever the cost”
Applications
All listeners
Soberly reflect upon the reality that you are indeed creatures of time.
Do some sober meditation on the reality of the passing of time.
Pay attention and look at the preacher when weighty issues are being discussed.
Recognize that the passing of time does not automatically move you closer to repentance towards God and faith toward the Lord Jesus.
Consider what you have done with the gospel message you have heard over the years and decades.
Take heed to the overture of salvation today.
Seek the Lord while He may be found; call upon Him while He is near. Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and return to the Lord for abundant pardon.
Strive to enter the narrow gate of true repentance and faith, no matter what it costs.
A full transcript is available on the
tab. 72 paragraphs, roughly 55 minutes.
Machine transcription
The Reality of Our Existence as Creatures of Time
This sermon was preached by Pastor Albert N. Martin on Sunday morning, December 31st, 1989 at the Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, New Jersey. This is the first in a series entitled Meditations on the Passing of Time and the title of this message is The Passing of Time and Our Souls' Salvation.
Each and every one of us gathered in this building this morning is in a very real sense a creature of time. The proofs of this fact surround every one of us. We all have a very special day. Some of us wish we could forget it.
And we celebrate it every year and it's called our birthday. That recurring reminder that our place in this world had a specific beginning in time. We all, we all live out our lives in segments of time no matter how old we are 2, 4, 6, 10, 20 or 87 we all live out our lives in these segments of time called minutes, hours, days, weeks, months and years and unless the Lord returns before we live out our lives the only way to live out our lives is to live out our lives. The only way to live out our lives is to live out our lives. The only way to live out our lives is to live out our lives. The only way to live out our lives is to live out our lives.
The only way to live out our lives is to live out our lives. The only way to live out our lives is to live out our lives. The only way to live out our lives is to live out our lives. The only way to live out our lives is to live out our lives.
ultimate proof that we are creatures of time will be a marker of bronze or a headstone of marble that will have your name on it, and next to it a birthday and a death day. Now, folks, that's reality.
That's not something I conjured up in my study. That's not something I imagined in the midst of a fitful dream, the result of too much Christmas feasting. That's reality. You and I together are creatures of time.
Sober Reflection on Time's Passing: Lessons from Psalm 90
However, while we are all creatures of time, we're made acutely aware of that reality at the close of each calendar year and at the ushering in of a new year. And that awareness is heightened and intensified when the passing of the old year is over. It is also the passing of a decade, as is the case with the passing of 1989. And to state this reality in the most concrete way I know how, let me remind you that this Lord's Day is not only the last of 52 Lord's Days in 1989, but it is the last of 520 Lord's Days of the 1980s. Now, the fact of our being creatures of time in this way should be a constant cause for sober reflection. Many portions of the Word of God underscore the duty of the creatures of time soberly reflecting upon the reality that they are indeed creatures of time. But perhaps no one passage, even in the book,
underscores this with more vividness and concentration than does the 90th psalm, the psalm that I read in your hearing. It is in this psalm that Moses reflects back over many, many years a man who had lived beyond the threescore and ten, and he could say all our days are passed away in thy wrath. We bring our years to an end as a sigh, and he likens the whole of his life. The beginning is the inhaling.
We begin to exhale with a sigh. He said, that's our life. That's our life. We bring it to an end as a sigh.
And when he gets more specific in verse 10 and says the ordinary lifespan is 70 years, and in the case of some, 80 years, yet even if it's 80 years, he says, it is soon gone.
And we fly our lives to a blade of grass, to a flower that sprouts in the morning, opens to its full extent with the noonday sun, and by the end of the day has withered and has died.
Automatic Changes with the Passing of Time (Physical vs. Spiritual)
And with the occasion of the closing of this year, and with the occasion of the passing of the decade of the 1980s, I want to help you. As I have sought to help myself to do some sober meditation on this reality of the passing, it is to all of us that there are some things which, with the passing of time, automatically, as one of ten children, I have seen many of these things before my own eyes, with my own life, and with the lives of my siblings. Having been a pastor in one place for 27 years, I've observed many of these things in the life of this congregation. They happen automatically with the passing of time. The passing of time's babies soon becoming toddlers, and toddlers very soon becoming boys and girls, and very soon boys and girls becoming pre-teens, and pre-teens becoming teenagers.
And while for parents it seems that those years get frozen in a little bit of eternity, as far as some of us know, as far as some of us know, as far as some of us know, as far as some of their own headaches in coping with their teens, it isn't long before teenagers become young adults. And it isn't long before young adults become mature men and women. And mature men and women become middle-aged people who join AARP.
And you have the shock coming that I had. It came for the first time last year when I enrolled in a motel, and I was asked, do you have your AARP card? Do you have your AARP card? I didn't go around with my birth certificate hung on my neck.
But those things that mark out a man with his physical strength and powers, but as a middle-ager, the clerk picked those signs and signals and asked for my AARP card. And middle-aged soon become old people. And then old people become nothing but names on the obituary page, and names etched.
Now, dear people, that's reality. And I would appreciate it if I had your eyes upon me while I speak on this reality, because I'm not here doing my thing as a preacher. And I find it distressing when I'm seeking to impress weighty issues when I don't have people's eyes on me. Would you do me the kindness, please?
I'm not looking in any specific direction. Those of you who, for one reason or another, have not been looking at me almost since I began, I would appreciate it if you'd look at me. Because I want to speak to you about the great issues of the fact that we are creatures of time. And I've said that many things in our passage through time happen automatically.
Barring a life cut short by premature death or radically altered by some abnormality, all of these issues from the cradle to the grave can go automatically. The things that make that the things that prepare even death, death and judgment, they are the passing of time. Not all English gals will only in the way I want to direct your attention beginning this morning and then, God willing, completing this meditation next Lord's Day morning.
The Non-Automatic Nature of Repentance and Faith
I have only one of those things to bring to your attention this morning and it is this. The passing of time to repent towards all underscore heartened repentance. Repentance for God.
Repentance and faith.
As the Bible says,
he repents.
Unless it's towards 2 Peter 3. Which deals promises. Some men count slackness. But he's longing that any the second coming of God didn't come. And I can read the four millennial language of 2 Peter 3 and Peter says, wait a minute.
Not forgotten his promise. But he is brackets of time. Because he is wishing that his people perish. But that they come to repentance.
You see, the only alternative to perishing is to come to repentance. If you do not come. Important with reference to faith to the Lord Jesus.
For the Bible said in our Lord Jesus Christ. Hear the scripture. John 3. He that believeth on the Son hath but he that believeth as long.
And if he goes a little bracket, little parenthesis with the wrath upon the Lord.
The bracket of time is spent for that man or woman and that soul and on to and out into eternal dark. Where? There shall be weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth and the smoke of their torment shall ascend up forever and ever and they shall have no rest day nor night. My friend, listen.
When I say that I have one issue to bring before you this morning in our sober reflections on the passing of time and that that issue is this. That the passing of time does not automatically move us closer. Repentance towards God and faith toward the Lord Jesus. In your little bracket of time.
The Consequences of Delaying Repentance Over Time
Now then, some of you sitting here have heard before. In fact, some of you have heard both and the claims before you. All.
Some of you in your home. Many of you in this place.
And in other contexts. You have heard of your need of Christ. Of God's provision for sinners in the person and work of Christ. You have heard the gracious summons to repent and to believe the gospel.
You have heard the promise that all and adopted into God's family and given the gift of the Holy Spirit and made heir to eternal life. And as you have heard that message, perhaps some of you can remember back the first Lord's Day of 1989. You heard it. And what was your response?
Well, you didn't say to yourself, well, I'll go through another year impenitent and unbelieving. No, you didn't say that. Some of you who heard that message on the first Lord's Day of 1980. And there was urgent and passions into your will to repent yourself.
Well, I will squander all of the decade of the year and come to the last Lord's Day still impenitent and unbelieving. You didn't say that. You didn't intend that. But when the overtures of God's gracious offer of life and salvation came to you in the preaching, what did you do?
You said, well, I feel the pressure. My conscience, affirms the reality of my sinnerhood. I can no more deny that for an eternal existence than I can deny the consciousness of my own identity. There are other things that have to be attended to.
Next week time, during January, surely I'll not trifle with my soul beyond January, but I will attend to the issue of getting serious about repenting and about believing. And when 1980, passed and you look back and said another year and I've heard the overtures of mercy and the command to repent and to believe, I've squandered that year, but I have 1981. And when the offers of mercy went forth on the first Lord's Day of 1981, you said, well, I just have a few things to attend to. Surely by the second or the third and the same was true of 82 and 83. And think of it. Think of it. I'll sit here this morning.
A year it has squandered, a day it's important is the issue. It's important if you can address.
What have you done for what you have regarded?
Important is not to deny.
Nonsense claims over you and may sovereignly merge in the gospel. But what have you done? Important issues. You have tabled them.
Now my third question is what has happened during this tabling time?
Mind you stood on belief and impenitence to repenting and to believing. You say, I think I am. I've been in church 52 more times you've told us. 520 times in the decades.
Surely then I am repenting and believing. My friend, listen. That isn't what the Bible says. Do you know what the Bible says?
And here I'm not going to quote the verses from memory, though I could. But I want you to see them with your own eyeballs in your own Bible. You know what the Bible says about you? What has this time actually done to you?
Four Destructive Effects of Impenitence Over Time
Number one, you have been by degrees hardening your heart. Turn to Hebrews chapter 3 if you will, please. Hebrews chapter 3. You have hardening your heart.
Listen to the word of God in verses 7 and 8. Hebrews 3. Wherefore, even as the Holy Spirit says, and then there is a quotation from the 95th Psalm. Today you shall hear His voice.
On the first day of 1980 my voice. You did not you did not you pardoned your heart. Family worship in school chapel in this place in your Sunday school class in the quiet hours came back to you and thought heaven in heaven from Gethsemane and from the high print and from Pilate we've beheld him prove marching you've not thrown you upon the Lord Jesus nation
and done that has not automatically brought you nearer to repentance and faith it's hardened your heart it has hardened your heart that's what the scripture teaches. Secondly it has to increase is that what you're thinking? Then say that turn to Romans chapter 2 say that to God your language to say that's exactly what you've done.
You have increased now look at the word forbearance it is God and sinner over a period and impenitent forbearance that have no meaning of hating and reasoning do you despise do you regard
and forbearance and suffering not knowing that the goodness of God was why while the unity within your little bracket of time since you've not repented look what you have done verse 5 dear thine it is again suffering and forbearing has resulted in your hardness of hardness and impenitent heart now look at the language
slip entered into the bank of heads of divine wrath and the next day five more shits of divine wrath and the next day five more shits until you have treasured chest and when your last bracket of time comes and only God knows when it is he'll dump the treasure chest in your lap dear people fear almighty
God remember what Moses did his due unto thee in the light of it you go humming along you've been hardening your heart you've been treasuring up wrath you've been doing a third thing you've been resisting the Holy Spirit turn to Acts chapter 7 you've been resisting the Holy Spirit 7 you've been Peter is preaching to a people who were wonderfully favored among all the nations of the earth they and they own among all the peoples of the had entered into special covenantal relationship with God and choice and mercy and yet speaking to these very people who had put the Lord Jesus to death notice what Stephen says in verse 51 of Acts 7 you stiff necked
and uncircumcised in heart and ears you the Holy now what does it this context to resist the Holy Spirit we'll just read on the next verse it's self-explanatory which did not and they killed that showed before just one on the context what is resisting the Holy Spirit to obey when he delivers it to us that's it
deliver his word now they played clever head games see they tried to make it an issue between themselves and the prophet who was the mouthpiece of the Spirit and so Amos said they hate him that reproves in the gate well they really didn't hate him they hated the God who reproved through him and you see men do the same today there will be some of you sitting here right now saying that's Pastor Martin's thing I get so sick and tired all this heavy stuff this is new yeas and tears
by living prophets but by men who open up this word as in and through the book you try to make it an issue well that's his view that's his interpretation my friend words such as these are not open to interpretation he that believeth not shall be damned shall be damned can't you what have you been doing you've been resisting the Holy Spirit every time has said
come today on this moment has resisted that word gracious command and invitation every time the word has commanded you to repent to turn from your sin and self-centeredness and your preoccupation with your Koreans and your you've been resisting the Holy Spirit what's the big deal if I do that my friends there's only one person who can show you your true state as a sinner and savingly reveal Jesus Christ to you and you know who that is his name's not in the phone book it's the person of the Holy Spirit when he has come he will reprove the world of sin he shall take the things of mine and reveal them unto you no man can come to me except the Father which has sent me draw by the to be gross but if it can stick the thing in your conscience in memory
and it can be and hold out Christ to you you're chopping off its fingers bit by bit until the time will come when there'll be no hands stretched forth anymore and God will say you want to be a sinner you want to go on in your independent existence you want to go on living your own life by your own standards according to your own rules alright you can have it and you will be as good as if you're in hell already there are people cumbering the earth who are as good as in hell already because God says my spirit shall not always strive you say but Pastor Martin are you saying that little puny men can resist God God's eternal purposes and decrees no hath resisted his will that's the language of scripture but this is also the language of scripture you do always resist the Holy Spirit and I'm not embarrassed to preach what's in this book and some of you are resisting the Holy Spirit who has brought near to you the powers of the world to come in spite of all the con games
you try to play on yourself in your own little head in your heart of heart you know that this book is for real you know that hell's for real you know that heaven's for real you know Christ is for real and you know with all our faults and failures and sins and inadequacies you know that those of us who preach to you are real you know it around inside of my head that you're talking about me my friend you're not so special you're just a common ordinary impenitent self-justifying sinner you're not so special you're like the whole bunch of us does that make you uncomfortable not if you're a Christian it makes you grateful that God took you out of that class and you acknowledge that only God could do it this is what you've been doing friend hardening your heart treasuring up wrath resisting the Holy Spirit and you've been doing a fourth and final thing that's terribly serious you've been tempting God you've been putting God to the test that's what it means to tempt or try God remember when Jesus was tempted by the devil in the wilderness one of the temptations was this and the devil's never never more dangerous than when he comes quoting the Bible he doesn't come
with horns and pitchforks saying boo the Bible says he comes as a messenger of light an angel of light and a messenger of righteousness he comes as a quoter of scripture and he comes to our Lord and says if you are the son of God see this great pinnacle place of the temple the greatest point of danger yet prominence climb up he shall give his angels charge over thee to keep thee in all thy ways lest thou dash thy foot against the stone and surely if the promise is going to be good for any of the people of God it will be good for you the son of God cast yourself down demonstrate that you are the promise in anyone's our Lord respond he said it is written thou shalt not be thou shalt not make trial what is it to make trial of goodness and faithfulness and mercy to the test in a way for which there is no biblical warrant and that's exactly what some of you have done all during the 1980s some of you all throughout 1989
you say well the insurance charts say that people my age die only one in every so many thousands one in so many if you're very young God will hold me crashing into hell for another day and I'll be another month another year old of a new decade I'll be alive at the end of the 90s my friends you're tempting God but the scripture says boast not thyself of tomorrow for you know not what a day may bring forth you know not what a day may bring forth now that's what's happened with the passing of time that's not a pretty picture is it but that's the interpretation the Bible gives you see the passing of this year of this decade has not ought to be the passing of time of faith of the decade as a toddler pre-teen or into your teenage years automatically you didn't have to do a thing but breathe
and eat and sleep it did it if you in your teens brought you into young brought the grey hairs you didn't have to do a thing to bring them or some of you make efforts to cover them but you don't do anything to bring them the crow's feet you ladies you first see it when the skin under your chin loses some of its resilience and on your neck won't stop it now it's gonna come automatically those feet and sagging skin under the chin but it doesn't my faith are not closer to you they are what do I do
The Urgent Call to Repentance and Faith Today
friend your life irrational faculties suffering has out over hardened heart over even to you and what must you do what can you do what all is clear in the answer of the word of God that you must
say I must
this overture today of salvation if you hear to the prophet Isaiah seek the Lord he may be found he is near he'll never be near when you're shut up in this place you and entreat he's near upon him while he may be found let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man is thought and let him return unto the Lord and he will abundantly pardon you must this day take heed to those words 1730
he promises him that comes to me I will in no wise can he that believes on the sun shall have life him that comes to me I will cited friend I close by quoting some of the most sober words I've ever heard in Christian music they were obviously the words of a poet then they were put to music and for those of you tempted to make this last Lord's Day of 1989 the last Lord's Day of 520 in the decade of the 80s another day when you say yes I feel the compelling pressure my conscience affirmed this issue the imagery of what we might call and these that the great morning had come and the trumpet had blown I dreamed that the nations had gathered to judgment before the white throne
from that throne came a bright shining angel who stood on the land and the sea and swore with his hand raised to heaven time time was no longer to be the moral man came to the judgment but his self righteous rags would not do for the men who had crucified Jesus had passed off as moral men too now listen carefully the man that had put off salvation not today were told
and wailing
when you Lord will be told of your fate for rocks and for mountains you'll pray will be too late and I'll meet you in judgment point your finger at me then and try to tell me in the presence of God what you're trying to tell yourself about me right now try to tell me in God's presence the preacher's just doing his thing a little bit of acting ability he's just histrionics he just God that when you stand before him and see if you can make it stick God himself will vindicate what you know in your heart of hearts is true that I seek not yours but you I have nothing to gain but humanly speaking bringing near the day of my own death by pouring my soul into earnest close reasoning preaching pleading entreating arguing laying out the word of God what do you think in the name of all common sense do I have to gain but your soul or never
who takes away the sin of the world you say oh more but what shall it profit a man if he gained the whole world and lose his own soul that's why Jesus said strive to enter the narrow gate no matter what it costs get through the gate of true repentance and faith I'll have to eat crow I may be in debt to the government for years of his peace whatever the cost
believe the gospel because this I leave with you this morning the passing of time does not automatically bring you closer to repentance and faith you'll get there only when the now you're being spiritual of your heart sobered by your word comfort in the words of the prophet who said to this man will I look even to him who is of a poor and a contrite spirit and who trembles at my word we believe oh lord it is right that we should inwardly tremble when handling such awesome such fearful realities and yet we thank you for the glory of the gospel that we in the lord Jesus can have our treasure chest of wrath emptied because he bore the wrath for sinners and that all of our grieving of the spirit all of our resisting
all of our hardness of heart can be overcome by his grace oh gracious god do it this morning for many we pray boys girls preteens teenagers young adults people in the prime of their years middle aged and old men and women oh mercy we pray may this day be marked as the day of life and salvation for many we who have been brought to you in your grace what can we say but thank you for the grace that softened our hearts that overcame our resistance open to us the folly of our resisting the spirit and we thank you for that grace that is yet extended that long suffering that still stretches out to the neediest sinner in this place today oh may it not be stretched out in vain hear our prayer may your word abide with us burn within our hearts and may we obey its overtures of mercy and its commands to seek your face we ask in Jesus name amen
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It is provided for study and reference only; the audio recording is the authoritative source.
Passages Expounded
Psalm 90:7-10
This passage is expounded as the primary text establishing the brevity of human life and the reality of time's passing.
Texts Expounded
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Moses' reflection on the brevity of life and the passing of time is the foundational text for the sermon's theme.
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Martin quotes these verses to illustrate how human life passes quickly, likening it to a sigh or a withered flower.
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Martin directs hearers to this passage to show that delaying repentance leads to a hardening of the heart.
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Used to demonstrate that impenitence leads to treasuring up wrath rather than drawing closer to God.
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Cited to illustrate the sin of resisting the Holy Spirit, particularly in the context of rejecting God's word through His messengers.
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Used to explain the sin of tempting God, specifically in the context of the devil's temptation of Jesus.