Certainties Concerning God

Introduction: Thinking Christianly in the New Year

0:05 Those of you who were with us last Lord's Day will know that today's study is the last half of last week's sermon.

0:15 Coming to the threshold of a new year, I thought it would be profitable to us as the people of God to consider what it is to think Christianly as we face a new year. And I suggested that such a discipline of mind is essential in the light of the biblical doctrine of how the people of God are progressively sanctified. That is, how do we more and more become conformed to the image of Christ and to the revealed will of God. The Apostle gives us a very clear guideline concerning that issue in Romans 12, 2, where he says,

1:00 Be not fashioned according to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God. So that the pattern of our lives is determined by the pattern of our thought. As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he. And with the world continually pressing upon us its perspectives concerning how to face a new year, it is essential for the people of God to think biblically, to think Christianly, concerning this very practical subject.

Recap: Certainties Concerning Ourselves

1:42 And though there are many things that could be said, I suggested last Lord's Day that the most important things could be collated under two headings. Number one, what we can know with certainty concerning ourselves in the coming year. And secondly, what we can know with certainty concerning God in the coming year. Last week we only had time to consider the three things that we can know about God.

2:08 The three simple, fundamental things that we can know with certainty concerning ourselves. As we think of the year 1976, what can we know about ourselves? And I suggested from the word of God we can know, number one, the uncertainty of the events of the coming year. The scriptures say, Boast not thyself of tomorrow, for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth.

2:37 Proverbs 27.1. In the New Testament, James says, Ye know not what shall be on the morrow, let alone any succession of morrows. James 4 and verse 14.

2:52 Secondly, we can know with certainty not only the uncertainty of the events, but the brevity of the time allotted to us. The scriptures everywhere assert that the time allotted to us passes so quickly. James says, Ye are a vapor that appeareth for a little while, and then vanisheth away. And then thirdly, we can be sure of the accountability of all that we do during this present year.

3:24 For the scriptures tell us, So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God. We shall give account of the deeds done in the body. Romans 2 speaks of our accountability for our thoughts, and for the very, for the very secrets of our hearts. Now, this morning, I want to move from what we can know for sure about ourselves to what we can know with certainty about the living God.

Certainty 1: God's Sovereign Rule Over All Events

3:53 And when I say God, I speak as a Christian. Therefore, I speak as one who believes that God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. So when I use the general term God, in our study this morning, I am using it having reference to the living and the true God, who is Father, who is Son, who is Holy Spirit. Now, what can we know with certainty about God?

4:25 Let me suggest three fundamental things this morning for your edification. We can know, first of all, His sovereign rule over all the events and circumstances of the coming year. Secondly, we can know for certain His special care for His own in 1976. And we can know with certainty His saving purpose for the coming year.

4:54 First of all, then, as we face all the uncertainty of our own lives, the events in our homes, our country, our nation, the world, we should find Tremendous consolation and stability as the people of God, facing all those uncertainties with this absolute certainty as one of the most fundamental convictions of our minds and of our hearts. Namely, God's sovereign rule over all the events and circumstances of 1976.

5:31 In other words, we face the coming year with belief in the living God of the Bible, and the living God of the Bible is the sovereign ruler of every atom in his universe. We do not face the coming year as deists, but as theists.

5:56 You say, well, what in the world do you mean by that? Well, simply this. A deist is one who professes to believe on the basis...

6:04 On the basis of human reason, he sees a world that has some indication of a creative power, and he reasons. God took all the raw materials, he put them together, he established the world, he worked into it certain laws, the principles by which ecology would operate, the principles by which our own bodies would operate, and then he took his hands off and says, now I've made it, and I've got it going, now let it do its own thing. To illustrate it, God made the clock, put a spring in it, all the wheels, all the cogs, all the arms, wound it up, took his hands off, and he lets it wind down according to its own inherent power and principles.

6:49 That's a deist. We are not deists. We face the coming year as theists, that is, those who believe in the one God who is creator and ruler of his universe, and who is known by revelation. We face the coming year, I trust, as full-blown theists, to believe that the God who created sustains and rules in his world.

7:18 Now, why do we do so? Well, because of the explicit testimony of the word of God. And I direct your attention not to many passages, because that would be an exercise that could go on for hours, but just some pivotal passages from the Old and the New Testaments. In the 42nd Psalm, Psalm 42,

7:42 the people of God are called upon to engage themselves in wholehearted praise to God. Oh, clap your hands, all ye peoples. Shout unto God with the voice of triumph. And remember, this was long before the advent of modern Pentecostalism.

8:04 The people of God are called upon to be so taken up with the wonder of who God is, that they must express it physically. They must clap their hands for joy. They must not just whisper or mumble or groan out a reluctant expression of praise. They are to shout unto God with the voice of triumph.

8:27 They are to be so taken up with their vision of God that they feel like triumphant soldiers who've seen their enemies conquered and who shout the shout of victory. Now, in what particular light is the gospel? The psalmist contemplating God that calls forth such vigorous expressions of praise. Verse 2.

8:46 For, clap your hands, ye people. Shout unto God. For, the Lord Most High is terrible. That is, He is a God who is full of terror in the majesty of His reign.

9:02 He is a great King over all the earth. Here is the contemplation of the psalmist. The psalmist standing within the people of God, who knew something of God's kingship in a way that was peculiar to the nation of Israel, and yet they saw that Israel's King and God was King over the whole earth. Verse 8.

9:27 God reigneth over the nations. God sitteth upon His holy throne. How can we know for sure in 1976 that God will...

9:42 God will sovereignly rule over every event and every circumstance in the world? We know it because He is a great King over all the earth. Again, in the Psalms, 103 and verse 19. Psalm 103 and verse 19.

10:02 Having contemplated the Lord as the great benefactor who forgives the sins of His people, who sustains them in life, who is merciful and patient, who is loving Father, who is tender and compassionate, who removes His people's sins as far as the east is from the west. You see, from all that we might call the great, personal, detailed, intimate aspects of God's relationship to His people, the psalmist backs off and he sees something grander, something more glorious, something more pervasive, than God's dealings with him as an individual. Verse 19.

10:50 You see, you'll be blighted if all you see is that which is revealed in Scripture concerning God's intimate, detailed concerns towards you as an individual. You must back off and behold Him for what He is. He is the...

11:12 God whose kingdom ruleth over all. And then the classic statement, of course, in the New Testament, Ephesians chapter 1 and verse 11, the little phrase concerning the God who has saved his people, who has purposed redemption for an innumerable company whom no man can number. The apostle tells us, verse 11 of Ephesians 1, in whom also, that is, in Christ we were made a heritage, having been foreordained according to the purpose of him who worketh not just redemption, not just the salvation of his people, but who worketh all things

11:57 after the counsel of his will. And then perhaps the grandest statement in all of Holy Scripture, Romans 11 and verse 36, having dealt with the mystery of God's dealings, with the nation of Israel in grace and in judgment, God's dealings with the Gentile nations in judgment and now in grace, the hardening of Pharaoh, the rising up of some, the raising up of some and the putting down of others, after the apostle has contemplated all these mighty and weighty and lofty things, he comes to this expression of praise in Romans 11 and verse 36, for of him.

12:42 And through him and unto him are all things to whom be glory forever and forever. You see, all of the events and all of the circumstances of the coming year are but what I intimated last week. They are but an exegesis of God's eternal decree. What is God's decree?

13:10 The answer of the shorter catechism has never been implied. What are the decrees of God? The decrees of God are his eternal purpose, according to the counsel of his own will, whereby for his own glory God hath foreordained whatsoever comes to pass. What are the decrees of God? The decrees of God are his eternal purpose,

13:36 that which is laid in eternity, according to the counsel of his own will. So what are the decrees of God? The decrees of God are his eternal purpose, touched through the hands of his own will, whereby he hath foreordained whatsoever comes to pass. Now, how does he execute his decrees? And the answer of the catechism is beautiful in

14:02 its simplicity. God executed his decrees in the works of creation. He brings a world into being and providence, a world that he now governs. What is providence?

14:15 It is God's most wise and holy and powerful, preserving and governing all His creatures and all of their actions. That's why Daniel could say in Daniel 4.35, not Daniel, God got this confession out of a heathen king. Look at it, Daniel 4 and verse 35.

14:40 This great God of Daniel, the God whom a heathen king came to know for what he was by strange circumstances, verse 34 of Daniel chapter 4. And at the end of these days I, Nebuchadnezzar, lifted up mine eyes unto heaven and mine understanding returned unto me. And I blessed the Most High and I praised and honored Him that liveth forever. For His dominion is an everlasting dominion.

15:09 His kingdom from generation to generation. And all the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing. And He doeth according to His will in the army of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth. And none can stay or strike His hand or say unto Him, What doest thou?

15:33 You see the picture? The will of God being accomplished in the armies of heaven and all the sons of God. All the sons of God. All the sons of God.

15:39 All the sons of God. All the sons of God. All the sons of God. All the sons of God.

15:39 All the sons of God. All the celestial hosts. And the scriptures give us to believe that there is a multitude of heavenly hosts. The angels of God who do His bidding.

15:50 He doeth according to His will among the armies of heaven down to the last inhabitants of the earth. That's why Nahum could say He hath His way in the whirlwind, in the storm, in the clouds, in the dust of His feet. From the movement in what we would call the atmosphere, that affects the storms and winds. Jesus said, Write down to a sparrow that falls.

16:15 Not one sparrow falls to the earth without your Father. Matthew 10, verses 29 and 30. Psalm 135, verses 5 and 6. The psalmist celebrates this all-pervasive control of God in His world and says, I know that the Lord is great and that our Lord, that is above all gods, whatsoever the Lord pleased, that hath He done in heaven and in earth, in the seas and in all deeps.

16:50 Oh, dear Christian, do you meditate upon this truth? Think of it. Think of it. Whether we turn to the macrocosm, that is, we think of the universe in its vastness, standing with an articulate astronomer there upon Mount Polymer, looking through, that 200 inch reflecting telescope, and we have someone talk to us about galaxies that are thousands and millions of light years away.

17:21 Think of it, Christian. There is not one motion of the smallest star in the farthest galaxy that breaks the boundaries of the sovereign rule of God. Then turn to the microcosm. From the macrocosm, the expansion, the advance of the galaxies, to the movement of every last atom.

17:49 Now, you stretch your mind with that for a while and you'll lose your appetite for some silly little soap opera on the television. You meditate upon that, my Christian friend, and you'll begin to lose your preoccupation with your own little psychological itch. You'll begin to lose your maudlin, selfish preoccupation with your own petty little feelings. You think upon a God like that, and you begin to lose your mind.

18:19 You begin to find who you really are as a creature. But we were made to stand in amazement in the presence of such a God, doing according to his will in the armies of heaven, caring for the falling of a sparrow to the motion of the atoms. And as we face the coming year, what can we know about our God? We can know with certainty his sovereign rule over every event and circumstance.

Biblical Predestination vs. Fatalism

18:50 of the coming year. Ah, but someone objects, Pastor, isn't that fatalism? What will be, will be? No, no, my friend, listen carefully.

19:01 Fate is a heathen god. And fatalism is a heathen doctrine. You see, fate is like a cold steel machine with its wheels and its cogs and its levers and its rollers. But there's no life to it.

19:20 It just grinds on with no purpose, no plan, no pulsing heart, no warmth of feeling, no affection. The God of the Bible is the living God. He is the God who is described to us as having a heart and bowels of compassion. The God who knows and feels and cares.

19:44 It is not fatalism. The cold steel wheels of unavoidable events and circumstances who are not fatal. It is falling out to no purpose with no wise, loving plan. No, no, my friends, listen.

19:57 We're talking about the living God of the Bible. And the most helpful illustration I've ever encountered on the difference between fate and this biblical concept of God who orders all things. I came across it a week or so ago in reading in B.B. Warfield

20:18 who has an article called What Fatalism Is. And I tried to read it. And I tried to read it. And I tried to read it.

20:22 And I tried to read it. And I tried to read it. And I tried to read this over a number of times and give it to you in my own words. And I said, no, I'd spoil it.

20:27 So I'm going to read this very simple. You children, latch on to this now because it speaks about a child, a little boy over in Holland. And some of our Dutch friends will appreciate this. There's the story of a little Dutch boy, says Mr. Warfield,

20:42 that embodies very fairly the difference between God and fate. This little boy's home was on a dike in Holland near to a great windmill. Now, some of you have seen at least pictures of windmills and the big, wide arms that would turn when the wind came. And the long arms swept so close to the ground as to endanger those who carelessly strayed under them.

21:08 But this little boy was very fond of playing precisely on that spot where the arms of the great windmill swept close to the ground. His anxious parents had forbidden him to go near it. And when his stubborn will did not give way, they sought to frighten him by arousing in him an awareness of what would happen if he was ever struck by the arms of that windmill and carried up into the air to have the life beaten out of him by the ceaseless strokes of the windmill. But one day, this little boy, heedless of their warning, strayed under those dangerous arms and was soon absorbed in his play at the precise spot of danger.

21:51 Forgetful of everything, but his prayer, his prayer, and his present pleasures. Perhaps he was half conscious of a breeze springing up and somewhere in the depth of his soul whom he may have been obscurely aware of the danger that was drawing near to him. But at any rate, suddenly as he played, he was violently smitten from behind and found himself swung all at once with his head downward up into the air. And then the blows came swift and hard.

22:22 Oh, what a sinking of his breath. Boyish heart. What a horror of great darkness. It had come then, and he thought to himself, I am gone.

22:31 In his terrified writhing, he twisted himself about and looking up saw not the immeasurable expanse of the brazen heavens above him, but his father's face. At once he realized with a great relief that he was not caught in the mill. He was only receiving the threatened punishment of his displeasure, his disobedience. The little boy melted into tears, not of pain, but of relief and joy.

23:01 In a moment, he understood the difference between falling into the grinding power of a machine and into the loving hands of a father. That's the difference between fate and predestination. And all the language of men cannot tell the immensity of the difference. Do you see it?

23:24 Do you see it? There's a machine operated upon by the brute forces of nature, which if they caught the boy, would it beat him to death with no feeling and no heart. That's fate. But what this boy was feeling was a loving father who yanked him by the ankles, turned him upside down and began to thrash him, that he might learn his lesson to the end, that that boy might be more submissive to his father as well as to his father.

23:55 Well, as for his own good. Oh, child of God, is not this the basis of any stability of mind and heart as we face the unknown, the uncertain, personally, domestically, nationally, internationally? We're not nervous about the activities of President Ford and Secretary Kissinger and Congress and Brezhnev and Mao Zedong. We pray, I hope we pray, 1 Timothy, 2 says we're to pray for kings, for rulers, for those in authority.

24:30 I hope we are intelligent citizens that we're able to make competent decisions. But my friend, listen, are you nervous about these things?

24:43 Concerned? Yes. Do our hearts bleed at the open sores of humanity? Yes.

24:49 But nervous, distraught to the place where we somehow have a suspicion that there is some reason that there is such a little thread in the fabric of the universe that has slipped out of the hands of God? Our vision is that of John 17, 3. We look at our lovely Lord on the eve of His crucifixion. Lifting up His eyes to heaven, He says, Father, Thou hast given me authority over all flesh.

25:21 On the eve of His ascension, He says these words, All authority hath been delivered unto me in heaven, and upon the earth. Ephesians 1, 23, God has exalted Him to be head over all things. Macrocosm, microcosm, head over all things to His church, which is His body, the fullness of Him that filleth all in all. You see, dear Christian, the Biblical doctrine of predestination, and that's all I've been giving you, and I didn't use the term till the end.

26:01 The Biblical doctrine of predestination is simply that which I've opened up to you this morning. It is not a theological abstraction. It is not a concept to be debated for the sake of debate. It is the sheet anchor of the soul of the Christian to know with certainty that our God is in the heavens.

26:24 He does whatsoever He pleases. Has that truth become a deep religious conviction to you? You'll never learn it in abstraction. It's when this wise, loving God who is executing His decrees in creation and providence begins to take you by the heels and turn you upside down and lay it on you that you begin to understand that you're in the hands of a loving Father.

27:06 And may I say to the unconverted among us, God have mercy on you, for you're dealing not with a capricious God who threatens judgment today and who'll somehow be found of a different disposition tomorrow. You fall into the hands of the living God, the Scripture says, and it's a fearful thing. You'll never catch Him in a capricious moment. You won't catch Him at a moment when He does not look at His holy law and take full cognizance of all the ways in which you've trampled underfoot that law and defied the authority of the living God.

Certainty 2: God's Special Care for His Own

27:42 Every thought, every work, every word He'll bring into judgment. You see, what comes with great consolation to the people of God should strike terror into the heart of the unconverted. But I must hurry on. We can know with certainty not only the sovereign rule of God in the coming year, but secondly, His special care for His own in the coming year.

28:12 Although God exercises an all-embracing rule in all of His creation and over all the actions of all men, the Scriptures teach us that He exercises a special providence to His own in terms of a special relationship that He sustains to His own. You got that? You see, the special relationship brings into its orbit peculiar activity. Now, what is the orbit of God's special relationship to His own?

28:44 It's the orbit of the covenant of grace. That is the divine initiative both to plan and to execute mercy toward a specific people because of who Christ is and what Christ has done. Now, all who are His people stand within the framework of that covenant of grace in which God has made wonderful people promises to His own Son and to His people in the Son. And David could say of God's covenant commitments to him what we must learn to say with intelligent faith

29:27 concerning God's covenant commitments to us. 2 Samuel 23 and verse 5, Verily, my house is not so with God yet. He hath made with me an everlasting covenant ordered in all things and sure, for it is all my salvation and all my desire. O child of God, that you would learn to say this with intelligent faith.

29:57 God hath made with me an everlasting covenant ordered in all things and sure, and this is all my salvation and all my desire. In other words, the ground of all my comfort is that which God has committed Himself to do in a covenant of grace. And all my expectations are based upon that covenant. For you see, He has only begun to do what He has purposed to do to those with whom He has entered into covenant.

30:32 The best is yet to come. We have an earnest, a down payment, a foretaste. And we need as the people of God to believe that within us in the framework of that covenant, God exercises a special care. Where does He say this?

30:49 Well, in many portions, but let's take just one, the most familiar one. You all know it. Romans 8 and verse 28. And we know that all things work together for good for all people.

31:04 No, no. No, no, it doesn't say that. That God controls all the events of all people is taught everywhere in Scripture. But this passage says, we know that all things work together for good to a specific class of people.

31:19 To those who love God. And now He describes, as it were, the very origin of that love. To those who love God, to those who are the called according to purpose. You see, there was divine initiative that made them His special people.

31:37 And the same initiative that made them His special people is operative to provide a special providence making all things work together for their good. All of the provisions in that covenant are graciously and eternally designed. They were purchased by the Lord Jesus Christ and now they are infallibly provided and applied by the Holy Spirit. Child of God, what can you and I know about the coming year?

32:13 We can know not only this glorious truth asserted in the first heading this morning. God's sovereign rule over all, from the macro to the microcosm. But we can be assured of His special care to us who are His own. Having taken the initiative in our salvation, the same God now knowing our frame, Psalm 103, tenderly nurtures us as His people.

32:45 You have that beautiful picture in Ephesians 5. Christ is the heavenly bridegroom, nourishes and cherishes His church. And both words, I don't know how else to say it, but they drip with the most intimate connotations of the feminine aspects of parenthood. What does a mother do?

33:09 I mean, a proud papa holds the baby, but he doesn't, it just doesn't quite seem right in his arms. As hard as he, it just doesn't quite seem there. But see that same child laid upon a mother's breast. Somehow it just fits.

33:26 Well, that's the connotation of those words. He nourishes, to hold close, to warm, to fondle. He nourishes and cherishes His covenant people, His church, those whom He purchased, those upon whom the Father set His love, and eternity, and gave to the Son when they were chosen in Him. This is not something I am to understand as I interpret God's providences towards me.

33:57 No, no. I am to understand this on the basis of revelation and interpret the providences from this. See the difference? If you look at God's providences in order to read His heart, you're going to come up with heresy.

34:12 If you look at God's providences, in order to read His heart, you're going to come up with heresy. There are many times when providence comes with deep furrows upon its brow, and its nostrils breathe fire, and its countenance is dark and foreboding. You take Job. In one day, lost all his wealth, lost his family, shortly thereafter loses everything.

34:48 But what does he say? The Lord giveth, the Lord taketh. Blessed be the name of the Lord. Didn't William Cooper have that truth firmly embedded when he penned the lines?

35:03 Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take. The clouds ye so much dread are big with mercy and shall break in blessings on your head. Behind a frowning providence he hides a smiling face. Now how do you know that?

35:23 How do you know the sun is there like today? You can't see it. Anybody here see the sun? How do you know it's there?

35:32 Well, man, the sun's there and it's going to be there until the Lord comes and consumes the earth in the fires of the second coming. Right! Now how do you know that? Well, you say it's been confirmed in my experience.

35:42 It's asserted in the Word. Ah, yes. How do I know then that behind a frowning providence there's a smiling face? Because I believe this truth that having brought me within the orbit of His special love and His distinguishing affection, everything in my life is ordered for my good and for His glory.

Interpreting Providence and Its Application

36:04 And Christians give up trying to interpret providence. Give up trying to interpret it. You see, if I were to take the fabric that's there on the piano and I'm almost tempted to go pull it up and say, well, let's take the curtains. All right.

36:25 There's the fabric of that whole curtain on that side. All right. Can you imagine someone who got this up just six inches from his face and there was a tube and all he could see was about one and a half square inches and someone says, now, what are you looking at? Well, he wouldn't know if that were magnifying glass.

36:46 He might be looking at something wholly different. If it were something that shrunk it, it might be something...

36:51 He would never know what it really is because his perspective and vision is too limited. But you sitting out there who can see the whole relationship to the structure of the building, to the roof, you say it's obvious what it is. It's a curtain. It fits with all the other things.

37:05 Grant it because your perspective is broader. Now, my friends, listen. Trying to figure out providence is like trying to know what this is looking at it like this. Your perspective is too limited.

37:19 You see, God, the eternal God who fills eternity and who has purposed and planned everything that touches your life from eternity with a distinctive end in view, He alone is capable and competent to see the significance of every thread in your life in the great expansive view of eternity. And He calls upon you to believe that it is so. And we wear ourselves out trying to figure out providence. And then we wear ourselves out more trying to fight providence.

37:56 That's losing business, friends. When you're fighting providence, you're yanking at the hands of omnipotence. That's losing business. I mean, if I were asked to go mix it up with some guy 6'4", 275 pounds, who was intercollegiate heavyweight wrestling champion, I'd just say, take it by forfeit, buddy.

38:15 I'm not going to mix it up with you. I mean, why go out there and get your head busted? You've got sense enough to say, no contest. Throw in the towel.

38:27 Or may I say, without being irreverent, my friends, capitulate. When God, by a wise providence, brings things into your life that cut across the grain of your natural temperament, cut across all of your fondest dreams, and He blasts them and blows upon them, and you're left with the ashes, it is the highest act of faith to fall upon your face and say from the heart, all things are working together for my good within the framework of the covenant of grace. Oh, dear unsaved friend,

39:11 what a miserable state you're in. You don't know that all things are working together for your good. All the good things God has done for you, all the good things God showers upon you, you don't know whether God's sending them as the only heaven you're ever going to know and whether you're just being fattened for judgment, because the Scripture teaches that, you know. Psalm 73, Romans chapter 2, that some men God fattens them and ripens them for judgment by showering upon them in His providence good things that He denies His own children.

39:51 And you sit back in your unconverted state and say, God must not be too upset with me. Look at all the good things. I've got health. I've got strength.

39:58 My bills are paid. My friend, listen. How do you know that's a kind providence? It may be God ripening you for judgment.

40:06 And then when God blasts your gifts, you can't find consolation because your conscience tells you this is a preview of the hour when He'll blast all my fondest dreams, when all my gifts will shrivel in my hands. You cannot say with a Christian, the Lord giveth, the Lord taketh. Blessed be the name of the Lord. Oh, my friend, would that we could make you jealous to become a Christian.

Certainty 3: God's Saving Purposes in the Coming Year

40:33 Would that we could fill you with jealousy to be able to face the uncertainties of the coming year with the confidence that a special, loving providence was ordering all the events and all of the circumstances of your life. But then finally, we can know for certain as we face the coming year not only God's sovereign rule, His special care, but the certainty of His saving purposes in 1976. Have you ever asked yourself this question at the beginning of a new year? Will this new year see a completed calendar?

41:17 Let me make it even more pointed. Will we be able to check off all three hundred and sixty, six days? This is a leap year. I was informed that I was inaccurate when I said seventy-six would have three hundred and sixty-five days.

41:35 One among us will have her fourth birthday this year. A teenager who will have her fourth birthday born on that extra day in leap year. But be that as it may, have you asked yourself what will determine whether or not we'll gather next New Year's Eve in each other's homes? What will determine whether or not all twelve months will be expended on our calendars?

42:03 With the wickedness in the earth great, the blood of innocently slain unborn babies crying to God with an eloquence and a power that if somehow God would allow it to become audible to our ears, I believe it would deafen us more than the most raucous rock group which has its materials and its equipment tuned up to a thousand decibels. The blood that is crying to God from our western nations, Great Britain and America, with its wholesale slaughter of unborn babies with the abortion racket. It cries unto God. One man slew his brother and God says, Thy brother's blood

42:47 crieth unto me from the ground. What must be the din in the ears of God with the millions of murders?

42:58 Being performed in our western nations. Having been sold a bill of goods that the end of life is sex. Now we're being sold a bill of goods that what promiscuous sex produces is not human life but just blobs of protoplasm. Why will God bear with that another three hundred and sixty-six days?

43:22 If you were God, would you? Would you? Is God unmoved by the open sores of humanity? Granted all men sinned in Adam and no man is innocent.

43:35 Don't you talk about innocent people suffering. No human being is innocent. Every human being in Adam sinned and is under the just condemnation of God. But God is moved with human suffering for God in Jesus Christ is pictured as beholding the multitudes in shape with no shepherd.

43:57 Seeing the hungry, He is moved with compassion, saved or unsaved. And God is not indifferent to the starving multitudes. Of the third world and now they're breaking down the division into the fourth and the fifth world. God is not indifferent to the careless affluence of our Western civilization that stops in great measure the bowels of its compassion.

44:25 And then there's the saints who are under the altar. We see them there in the book of the Revelation who have been martyred for the sake of Jesus and they cry out, Lord, how long? How long before Thou have changed our blood upon the earth? And then there is the wicked who takes advantage of God's long suffering and taunts us.

44:47 2 Peter 3.1 Where's the promise of His coming? Since the fathers fell asleep, everything continues. My friend, put all those things together.

44:55 And I ask the question reverently, if you were God, would you bear with all this for another year? If God does, what's the reason? May I suggest there is but one fundamental reason? Only one.

45:12 And I want you to read it in your Bible. 2 Peter 3. 2 Peter 3. The chapter begins with the account of the mocking, sneering language of the unbeliever.

45:38 And then the promise that He will indeed come. Then the exhortation to believers. Verse 8. Don't reckon time in the light of what you know of time, but remember, we're talking about God's timetable.

45:54 The God with whom a day is, is a thousand years, and a thousand years is a day. Then be comforted in the certainty that He shall indeed come. Verse 10. The day of the Lord will come.

46:05 The day of the Lord will come. O Christian, let it write itself upon the tables of your heart. The day of the Lord will come. There will be the consuming of all wickedness and wicked men, the ushering in of the new heavens and the new earth.

46:22 And in the light of this, the day of the Lord will come. Verse 12 through 14. There is to be a tremendous practical effect. We are to look for, earnestly desire, the coming of the day of God.

46:34 Verse 14. We're to give diligence to be found in peace without spot, blameless in His sight. Here's the directive, but now notice the next phrase. Verse 15.

46:45 And account. In the midst of our confidence, the day of the Lord will come. In the midst of our looking for and hastening unto the coming of that day, in the midst of our preparedness for that day, walking in blameless holiness before God and men, we are to account something. We're to have a mind that logically and clearly comprehends something.

47:10 What is it? Here it is. Account that the long-suffering of our Lord is salvation. That's it.

47:21 We're to know why history goes on. Why, if 1976 completes its appointed days on the calendar, it's to be accounted as salvation. That is, the saving purposes of God must go on until they are fulfilled, and then the day of the Lord will come. We take our clue from the first coming.

47:48 Think of poor Eve. God had said, The seed of the woman shall bruise the head of the serpent. The first child born, she says, perhaps this is He. Perhaps the promise is fulfilled.

48:03 I have gotten a child with the help of Jehovah. Then it becomes evident that that's not the promised seed. And months flow into years and years into decades and decades into centuries and centuries into millennia. The Abrahamic covenant and then the development of the nation and the godly remnant continually longing continually longing, when shall the seed come?

48:31 When shall the seed come? And then we have that wonderfully simple word in Galatians 4, 4. When the fullness of the times was come, God sent forth His Son. Right on schedule.

48:49 The angel came announcing the conception of Jesus in the womb of the Virgin Mary, not a day too early, not a day too late. The angel came to the heart of that heathen man to send out a decree that all should be enrolled to be taxed. Why? Because the prophet had said he would be born in Bethlehem.

49:08 He had ordered the rise of the Roman government, the establishment of Roman roads and communication, the unifying of the empire under a common language. And you stand back and say, Lord, if you'd sent him any earlier, it would have botched the whole thing up. Looking back, we see the wisdom of God. My friend, listen.

49:29 After the second advent, we shall look back and admire the wisdom of God. When the fullness of the time was come, He sent him forth the second time. We need as the people of God to live in that confidence that there is ultimately but one reason why this coming year will see its completion. We must account that the long suffering of God is salvation.

The Imperative of a Holy Life and Evangelism

50:00 The Lord Jesus said, Your sheep I have, them also I must bring. And we must in all of our thinking as we look at the open shores of humanity, the injustices, the wholesale abandonment to humanistic thinking, the wholesale absorption with sex and with the temporal and with what can be seen and touched and all the rest. And there are times when we feel, Lord, how long? How long are you God?

50:32 We need to say, Oh God, the only reason the heavens that are still kept in store now are not being consumed with fire is because you have other sheep that you intend to bring. And if we believe that dear Christian, what an effect it will have upon our lives. What in the world am I doing to be involved in that great enterprise which is the rationale for the delay of the Lord? As a housewife, as a father, in my place of business, in my school, is it amidst the fulfillment of all of my many God-given responsibilities?

51:14 Is it my conscious prayer, Lord, use me to call out those sheep? Jesus said, He that gathereth not with me scattereth. My friend, that's where the imperative of a holy life comes in. If you are not walking in blameless holiness before your children, before your wife, your husband, your work associates, you are scattering your heart and your life is not flowing in to that great purpose of salvation.

51:53 If we are not found seeking to be enterprising in how we can reach our unconverted relatives and neighbors. Notice I did not say if we are not button-holing everyone and giving them a tract, you'll never hear that said from this pulpit. Perhaps for some of us, the button-holing and the giving of a tract might be the tangible expression of a true concern. And sinner, do you see what this says to you?

Call to the Unconverted: Repent Now

52:22 How long do you think Almighty God is going to go on bearing the terrible weight of your impenitence? How long? Until His saving purposes are fulfilled and then He's going to come. And on the one hand, that ought to frighten the wits out of you.

52:41 God alone knows how full the role of His elect is. There may be but one more name on the role of that elect to be gathered in. He may be gathered in ten minutes from now. I don't know.

52:51 And if He is, on one thing I know, the day of the Lord will come. The day of the Lord will come. There'll be the voice of the archangel, the trump of God. The dead in Christ will rise.

53:03 And, oh sinner, you'll shrivel before a coming Lord. Thank God it's also a tremendous encouragement. My friend, you'll never know, you'll never know what God's decree to you was until eternity dawns upon you. And the fact that the door of mercy is still open should be the greatest thing and the greatest incentive to run to it and to plead for mercy.

53:30 There's not one phrase of Scripture that says any sinner presently listening to my voice cannot be saved. Not a verse. Not a verse. The door of mercy is open.

53:46 Seek ye the Lord while He may be found. Call ye upon Him while He is near. Don't wait until that almost terrifying picture of Revelation 6 dawns upon us. When the heavens will be rolled back as a scroll and the Lord comes, and then they shall cry to rocks and hills, fall upon us, hide us from the face of Him that sitteth upon the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb.

54:11 Imagine crying to God, hide us from His wrath. We have no refuge, no place to go. Call upon mountains, fall upon us, crush us, annihilate us, do anything. But, oh, we must not face the wrath of the Lamb.

54:27 My friend, listen. God says, now call. While the wrath of the Lamb is restrained, and while He calls in the gentle overtures of grace, come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden. You dear children, unsaved husbands, wives of people who are believers, visitors among us, what will the coming year hold?

54:57 It will hold the ongoing of the saving purposes of God. Would to God that it would find you encompassed within it. You say, but I can't believe. My friend, listen.

55:12 That's a cop-out. You'll never know you can't until you try. I can't repent! You're not even trying.

55:26 You see, every sinner who truly repents by the gracious enablement of the Holy Spirit was conscious of repenting. He didn't say, oh, I'm one of the elect. God's going to give me repentance. Whoopee!

55:37 Now watch it work. That's why the Gospel comes with the overtures of commandment. God commandeth all men everywhere to repent. This is His commandment that ye believe on the name of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

55:54 Don't you sit there and cop out and say, well, I can't repent. I can't believe. You're not even trying. You get in earnest about trying and then you find, oh God, but my heart is so hard.

56:05 Then you'll understand why Jesus is set before you as the Savior of hard-hearted sinners. He saves from hardness of heart. He saves from inability. He saves from the enslavement of the will.

56:18 He is Jesus who saves from sin. Is your hard heart sin, yes or no? Well, then Jesus came to save you from it. Oh, my friend, know that the reason January 11th has come to the calendar account that the long-suffering of God is salvation.

56:42 And call upon Him. Embrace the Savior. And know the joy of facing this year with the confidence that your Father controls the universe. Your Father will order every event and circumstance within the framework of the covenant of grace for your good and His glory.

57:03 And know that your life has significance because it is through His body, the Church, that the purposes of salvation are being realized. And when they are fulfilled, He that cometh shall come and will not even so come. Lord Jesus, let us pray. Father, seal to our hearts the word and oh, be merciful to impenitent sinners that this very hour they may become penitent believing sinners

57:47 for Jesus' sake.