1989 Concerns at the Threshold of a New Year

The Sobering Reality of Mortality and the Urgent Question

0:05 It was preached on Sunday morning, January 1st, 1989, at the Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, New Jersey.

0:18 While some of us have lived many decades, and the passing of an old year and the coming of a new is not an unusual event in our lives, it is nonetheless, each time it occurs, a very sobering event, for it is a vivid and an unescapable reminder of our mortality.

0:47 On every tombstone that has etched into it the birth date and the death date of the one lying in the sod, there is a date that marks the birth, and a year that was that person's last New Year's. And it is in the spirit of that person's last New Year's. And it is in that sober realization of my own mortality, and the fresh awareness of the mortality of every man, woman, boy, or girl to whom I speak on this first Lord's Day of the year 1989 that I come to open up the scriptures this morning, and let us again seek the face of God in prayer that God will grant us in the language of Moses, the man of God, in Psalm 99. That wisdom that will enable us to number our days. Let us pray. Our Father, we have been reminded in the singing of this hymn that it is but a few more years that shall roll, and we shall be asleep in the earth with all who've gone before us.

2:07 It is but a little while, and he that shall come. We'll come, and the skies will part, and the voice of the archangel and the trump of God will be heard by all the living and the dead, and our Lord Jesus shall wind down time and usher in eternity. O God, in the light of these sobering realities, will you not come and so attend the preaching of the word and our own self-reflection? In the light of that preaching, that we may have a heart of wisdom to number our days.

2:52 May we taste in this place today the powers of the world to come. May heaven and hell and eternity break in upon us with felt reality, and may we give to those realities the response which they demand. Hear our cry. We plead through Jesus Christ, our Lord.

3:19 Amen. Now, as we come to the ministry of the word on this first day of 1989, I have but one single burning, focused concern upon my heart. As I sat here worshiping with you, the words of the apostle in another context came to my mind again and again. In which he said, This one thing I do.

3:55 And in the preaching of the word this morning, this one thing I would do. And that one thing is to attempt to press home to the consciousness of every single one of you in this place this morning, one very simple but profoundly important question. And that is, Do you enter 1989 in saving union with the Lord Jesus Christ? I have said it is my one purpose in preaching this morning, to press home not just to your mind, but I used this word purposely, to press home to your consciousness. That is, to the point where you feel the pressure of this great concern, and it is this. Do you personally enter 1989 in saving union with the Lord Jesus Christ?

5:16 Now, please, don't grab for that shade that hangs hung over the window of your house. Do you personally enter 1989 in saving union with the Lord Jesus Christ? Now, please, don't grab for that shade that hangs hung over the window of your house. Do you personally enter 1989 in saving union with the Lord Jesus Christ?

5:24 Now, please, don't grab for that shade that hangs hung over the window of your house. And pull it down, because I've been so direct in telling you that I'm going to address the most vital concerns of your soul's relationship to God. I fully realize if you are an unconverted man or woman, boy or girl, you do not love the light of God's truth, for the scripture says this is the condemnation, that light has come into the world, and men love darkness rather than light. And I'm fully conscious, as I was in my preparation, that by not, as it were, sneaking up on your mind and your judgment, but by coming straight to the front door and saying that my concern is to press upon your consciousness the great question as to whether or not you enter the new year in saving union with Christ, I fully realize that for perhaps not a few of you, there would be an immediate internal reaction of the hands of your soul grabbing the thick shade, the dark curtain of your mind, and pulling it down and saying, if that's what he's about to embark upon, I'll shut him out at the outset. I beg of you, will you allow me in love to attempt to press that question upon your

6:54 consciousness? Will you let me do, as it were, with the hands of my soul, what my wife and I used to do with our physical hands with our daughter, Heidi Cook, who's now 24, almost 25 years of age when she was a little girl? She had a tendency to look off to the right or to the left or up or down when you were seeking to give her directions, and we often wondered if the directions were registering and, therefore, if it were something important, we'd cup her little face in our hands and we'd say, now, Heidi, look at Mommy or Daddy's eyes, and those two little brown chocolate drops would come up and she'd look, and we'd say, now, Heidi, Mommy is saying, Daddy is saying, do you understand?

7:48 But we'd gently cup her face, turn it upward and say, look into my eyes. Will you allow me the luxury of my love for your soul? To take the hands of my soul and to cup your face and say, look me in the eyes while I ask you the question, do you enter 1989 in saving union with the Lord Jesus Christ? And if there are some of you men that feel a bit uncomfortable with the imagery of having another man cup your face in his hands, perhaps the more appropriate way to do it would be appropriate imagery is that of placing my hands upon your shoulder, as men often do when they have a serious message to deliver one to another. Will you let me take the hands of my soul and place them upon the shoulders of yours and say, man, look me in the eye while I press upon you one simple but basic concern. Do you enter 1989 in saving union? Will you allow me the luxury of my love for your soul and to cup your face and say, look me in the eyes while I ask you the question, do you enter 1989 in saving union with the Lord Jesus Christ?

9:09 And if there are some of you women who feel even uncomfortable with the imagery of a man placing his hands upon your shoulders, perhaps you feel more comfortable with the imagery of a man clasping you by the wrist and standing at a discreet distance saying to you, my friend, will you look me in the eye while I ask you in love this question, do you enter 1989 in saving union with the Lord Jesus Christ? Will you allow me the luxury of my love for you? Will you let me take the hands of my soul and place them upon yours and place them upon yours and place your hands upon mine? Will you let me take the hands of my soul and place them upon yours and place them upon mine?

9:34 In 1989 in saving union with Jesus Christ. Whatever imagery makes you feel most comfortable, I want you to know that the posture of my soul is that which was expressed in cupping my little daughter's face in my hands. And if you feel more comfortable with the imagery of the hands upon the shoulder or clasping your wrist, make your choice. . .

10:00 But on this, please don't deny me the passion of my own love for your soul. Don't deny me success in my effort to press on your consciousness this question. Do you enter 1989 in saving union with the Lord Jesus Christ? Now you may ask, and well ask, Pastor Martin, why are you so concerned with that question?

Why Saving Union with Christ is the Most Important Issue: Preparation for Death and Christ's Return

10:37 When there are so many questions that flood the minds of men and women and boys and girls on the threshold of a new year, why of all the questions that could be raised and addressed from the Scriptures, why that question above all others? Well, among the many parts of the answer that I could give you, I give to your question to me, two are uppermost in my own mind this morning, and they are these. If you are not in saving union with Jesus Christ, number one, you are not prepared to die in 1989, and secondly, you are not prepared to meet the Lord Jesus Christ with joy should he return. In 1989. And it is that twin concern that presses upon me the desire to engage your mind, your interest, your intellect, your affections, all that you are in addressing the question, as you enter 1989, are you personally, individually, truly,

11:59 in saving union with the Lord Jesus Christ? Now, as I attempt to press that question into your consciousness from the Word of God, I will do so by collating the biblical materials as an answer to two other questions. Question one, why is this the most important issue to consider on this first day of the year? Question two, why is this the most important issue to consider on this first day of the year?

12:29 Question three, why is this the most important issue to consider on this first day of the year? Question four, why is this the most important issue to consider on this first day of the year? of 1989, and I'll have three parts to my answer. And then secondly and more briefly, how can I become savingly united to Jesus Christ? First of all, then, why is this the most important issue for you to consider on this first day of 1989? And as I've already intimated, my answer has three strands to it. Number one, because it is only while we are alive in this present life that we can prepare for death and for the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. I'm concerned that you be exercised with this question, are you in saving union with Jesus Christ as we stand on the threshold of a new year? Because,

13:29 it is only while we are in this present life that we can prepare for death and for the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ to events which may well occur in this coming year. And I want you to look with me at two pivotal texts in the scripture, one referring to the matter of death and the other to the second coming. In Hebrews, chapter 9, and in verse 27, God has given us a statement in his word which forever settles beyond reasonable debate the fact that it's only in this present life that we can prepare for death. Verse 27,

14:33 unto men once to die, and that word once often has the pressure of once for all, once unrepeated and unrepeatable, as it is appointed unto men once to die. And after this, that is, after each man's death, you'll notice if you have an older translation, the word, comes, or cometh, is in italics. There is no verb in the original. The language is much more terse, and in that sense, powerful, as it is appointed unto men once to die. And after this, judgment, there it is, death followed inevitably. Death is followed in every case without exception by judgment. Judgment. For this is an appointment in which you and I have nothing to say as to when, where,

15:51 and under what circumstances we shall keep it. The year passed, for some of us held the unfolding of certain pages of God's appointment book. God has revealed that in his appointment book, he had marked the book of judgment. He had marked the book of judgment. He had marked the book of judgment. He had marked the book of judgment. He had marked the book of judgment. He had marked the down the death of a certain loved one, a death that came in what we might say rather ordinary ways, a degenerative disease that over a period of months took them down to their graves.

16:29 This past year, death's appointment book was opened up to us with regard to one of our dear elderly sisters, Grace Albert, for whom her three-scoring ten were lived and almost her bonus ten, and the general erosion and degeneration of old age took her down to her grave, thereby revealing that in God's appointment book on the threshold of 1988, He had determined that Grace Albert should die. He had determined that others should be taken from our ranks by death. He had determined that multitudes in the world would be taken by more ordinary means of death. But I remind you that Almighty God has underscored in bold red for all of us to see that He does not always take by such ordinary means. God said in my appointment book, There are some fifty things. Fifty thousand who must keep an appointment with death in Armenia, and they are all appointed on the same day, and so God just takes the earth that He made out of the womb of nothing

17:51 by the word of His power, and He shakes a little bit of it, and through an earthquake, fifty thousand keep their utterly unexpected appointment with death.

18:09 Laughing. Laughing. Joke. Telling, and no doubt if it's like most international flights, booze-drinking people anticipating a marvelous, wonderful communion, and having done considerable travel across the Atlantic, that very route that was taken by Flight 103, I have no reason to think that the internal activity of that flight was any different from the dozens I have witnessed personally.

18:43 LET ME THEY SAY, BUT THEY ARE APPOINTMENT WITH DEATH, AND I SAID WELL. MY APPOINTMENT BOOK SAYS TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY SHALL MEET DEATH TODAY. It is appointed unto men once to die. And notice what the text says, and after this, AS DEATH LEAVES YOU, THE JUDGMENT WILL FIND YOU.

19:18 And as the judgment finds you. After this, after this, as death leaves you, the judgment will find you. Judgment. Judgment.

19:21 Judgment. Judgment. Judgment. you. Eternity will hold you. Precious, dear young people, hear me. With what you think is your whole life spread out before you, and should God give you the fulfillment of every dream in life, even to live to be ninety, it is nonetheless true. As death leaves you, the judgment will find you, and as judgment finds you, eternity will hold you. And that's why I'm concerned with this question. Are you in saving union with Jesus Christ? Because

20:13 it is only while we are alive in this present life that we can prepare for death and for death. And it is only in this present life that we can prepare for the coming of the Lord Jesus. Turn, please, to the second text, Matthew chapter 24. In this chapter in which our Lord Jesus is dealing with the subject of the destruction of Jerusalem, and then that greater destruction that will come at his own second coming, listen to the language of Matthew chapter 24, beginning with verse 1.

20:54 Verse 37. And as were the days of Noah, so shall be the coming of the Son of Man. For as in those days that were before the flood, they were eating, nothing wrong with that, and drinking, nothing wrong with that, and marrying, nothing wrong with that, and giving in marriage, nothing wrong with that. They were engaged in normal, legitimate, God-instituted activities, innocent activities. And they were engaged in normal, legitimate, God-instituted activities. And they were engaged in normal, legitimate, God-instituted activities. And they were doing these things until the day that Noah entered into the ark, and they knew not until the flood came and took them all away. So shall be the coming of the Son of Man. They had opportunity to prepare up to the point of the closing of the door of the

21:50 ark, and then there was no second chance. So shall the coming of the Son of Man be. Verse 40. Then shall two men be in the field.

22:02 One is taken, the other left. To what? Not a second chance? Any more than those that were left outside the ark were left to a second chance? Those taken are entering into consummate glory. Those left are left to crushing, irreversible judgment. Verse 40. So shall the coming of the Son of Man be. Verse 40. Then shall two men be in the field.

22:25 Women shall be grinding at the mill. One is taken, one is left. Watch therefore, for you know not on what day your Lord comes. But know this, that if the master of the house had known in what watch the thief was coming, he would have watched and would not have suffered his house to be broken through. And here's our text, therefore.

22:45 Be ye also ready, for in such an hour that you think not, the Son of Man comes. You see, the readiness must precede the coming. There is no time to be ready when he comes. There is no opportunity to be ready after he comes. For in an hour that you think not, the Son of Man comes, and at his coming, all opportunity for readiness is forever past. And dear people, this is why I want you to consider. Consider the question as you enter 1989. Are you in saving union with the Lord Jesus Christ? Why am I concerned to press this to your consciousness on this first Lord's Day

23:44 and first day of the new year? Because it is only while we're alive in this present life that we can prepare for death and for the coming of the Lord Jesus and the only part of 1989 you are certain to enjoy is the part that is presently yours. Not even one more hour is guaranteed by God. You see, in our day, people like Shirley MacLaine have popularized the silly pagan lie of the devil, of the so-called incarnation, reincarnation of the soul.

24:34 That's not the end of you. You'll come back in another life, in another form. They would rewrite Hebrews 9.27. It's appointed unto man once to die, and after this comes another life and then another death. My friends, that is not the teaching of the Word of God. It is a satanic lie to drag you into hell to make you think that you will come back in some other form, in some other life. Not with another chance to attain some higher or more noble existence. No, this Bible that we hold in our hands and our own consciences confirms its witness that it is appointed unto man once to die and after this judgment. There is no second chance. There is no extinction of our being. doctrine of the annihilation of the soul is equally a satanically conceived notion to lull people to sleep in their present state, for no matter what we may try to say to defend

25:51 morality and the gospel of Christ and say it does not depend upon a doctrine of conscious suffering beyond the experience of death, the facts are that God knows that to strip from His Word the patent truth of it, that the soul is the deathless part of us that survives this body's death and this body's decay in the grave, a body slated for resurrection, yes. But a soul that merely flies from the body to go to a place of conscious existence in bliss or in torment, awaiting the day of judgment at which time it will be joined to a body that will then be ushered in to consummate bliss in the presence of Christ in the new heavens and the new earth, or consigned to a place called Gehenna, where soul and body will suffer forever and forever.

27:03 My friends, this is why I ask you the question, because it's only while we're alive in this present life we can prepare for death. There is no reincarnation, there is no second chance, there is no annihilation or extinction of being. And this is equally true with resurrection. There is no reference to the second coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Nowhere does the Bible hint that at the second coming there will be a period for reflection and repentance and reformation.

27:37 Listen to the language of 2 Thessalonians chapter 1, the very second coming that will bring rest and eternal deliverance to the people of God. What will it bring to those who are not in saving union? With Christ, I read now 2 Thessalonians 1 and verse 7. And to you that are afflicted, rest with us at the revelation of the Lord Jesus from heaven with the angels of His power, inflaming fire, rendering vengeance to them that know not God and to them that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, who shall suffer eternity. Eternal punishment, who shall suffer punishment, even eternal destruction from the face of the Lord and from the glory of His might. When? When He shall come to be glorified in His saints.

28:41 When the Lord Jesus comes to be glorified in His saints. Living saints caught up to meet Him in the air. Dead saints resurrected in their bodily, their bodies. Dead saints from the grave joining their glorified spirits.

28:58 At that point, there will be irreversible, eternal punishment upon all who know not God and obey not the gospel. This teaching of the second coming that says believers will be snatched away and though things are going to get rough and hot and though things are going to be difficult, and it won't be easy to be a Christian. There will be a period when men can still call upon the Lord and be saved. My friends, that is an utter denial of this and many other portions of the Word of God.

29:38 And if you've come here this morning imbibing some notion, well, it's all right if I come into and pass through 1989 not savingly united to Christ, because although things will get a bit hot in the so-called final, tribulation period, as long as I know the Lord has snatched His people away, I'll know that time is upon us. I'll grit my teeth, I'll become a Christian, and I'll make it. And then I can breathe easily when the Lord comes again and again to take me to Himself, and I enter with Him into the new heavens and the new earth. My friend, that's a pipe dream.

30:17 That's a pipe dream. Be ready, for you know not when the Son of Man comes. And when He comes, if He doesn't come to take you in mercy, He'll crush you in judgment. And there will not be a millisecond of an extension of the day of mercy.

Why Saving Union with Christ is the Most Important Issue: God's Sovereignty Over Life and Time

30:47 But there is a second reason why I want you to consider this question. Am I savingly joined to Jesus Christ on this first day of 1989? I ask it not only because it is while we are alive, in this present life, that we can prepare for death, and for the coming of the Lord Jesus, but secondly, because not one of us knows how long the gift of earthly life will be given to us, nor do we know the time of our Lord's return. There is not a one of us who knows how long the gift of earthly life will be given us by our sovereign God. Nor do we know the time of our Lord's return. We know when Christ will come. Consider several passages of the Word of God with me.

31:46 First of all, Acts chapter 17.

31:51 How fragile is human life? How tenuous is human existence? How uncertain is it that I shall live even through the day? I tell you, it's a sobering thing to realize in the midst of preaching at times when my own soul is caught up with the truth and my mouth is dry and I take a drink of water that I could choke upon my own spittle and die in front of you.

32:25 It wouldn't be the first time it's happened to a preacher.

32:31 I feel that. I don't have a death wish. I don't have a premonition. But I realize that my life hangs on a thread that makes a spider's web look as thick as a spider's web.

32:46 I don't have a premonition. As a rope.

32:50 And that thread is held in the hand of a sovereign God with one hand. And he holds the scissors in the other. And all he needs to do is exercise his sovereign right to stretch out the scissors, clip the thread, and I shall drop from the land of the living into the realm of the dead. And so will you.

33:20 Look at Acts chapter 17. It underscores this so powerfully. Paul is standing in a place where the learned ones gather to spew out their latest insights as to reality. You see, a philosopher is a man who thinks that unaided by outside illumination, a pagan philosopher that is, that he can take the stuff of his own gray matter and with that little mass of gray matter he can take the stuff of his own gray matter and interpret all reality.

33:53 He can find the great universals which unlock the mystery of life's meaning. Well, because poor man is doomed to futility, no sooner does one school of philosophy gain ground but another comes to take its ground from it. And before the man can even gloat that he's claimed new turf, someone has taken his turf from him. And so there was a group of these people that gathered for no other purpose.

34:18 Look at verse 21 of Acts 17. Now all the Athenians and the strangers sojourning there spent their time in nothing else but either to tell or hear some new thing.

34:30 That's what the scripture says. I mean, the new things were coming out quicker than cars come off the assembly line there in Detroit. Some new thing, some new thing. What an opinion you have to have of yourself to think that you can stand in the midst of even the universe of your own existence and figure it out by yourself.

34:48 Let alone stand in the midst of God's universe whether we think of that universe in the microcosm, the mystery of the atom, the macrocosm, in the thousands of galaxies that stretch out over millions of light years. What a fool and arrogant creature man is to think he can come up with the answers to where it came from, why it's there, what's his place in the midst of it. And so God dooms such arrogance to futility so they're always trying to come up with some new thing, new thing, new thing, new thing. So what does Paul do?

35:22 To cut the nerve of their, to cut the nerve of their pride. He begins to preach to them and notice where he begins. Verse 22. Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus and said, You men of Athens, in all things I perceive, you are very religious.

35:37 For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found an altar with this inscription to an unknown God.

35:48 What therefore you worship in ignorance, this I set forth unto you. And notice where he starts. With the place, the place that the Bible starts in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The God that made the world and all things therein, he being Lord of heaven and earth, dwells not in temples made with hands, neither is he served by men's hands as though he needs anything, seeing he gives to all life and breath and all things.

36:25 He starts, he starts by emphasizing that the God who made the world is the Lord of all that he made. Then he tells them that this God cannot be either contained by his world or by sustained by anything in it. He is neither contained by what he made nor sustained by what he made. Then he says he continually gives to all life.

36:57 He says,

37:07 you just heard three gifts of God.

37:12 Stop. Listen to yourself breathing.

37:16 You're alive this morning.

37:19 God is giving you life, a present participle, actively, presently, imminently, giving you life.

37:30 The next breath, a gift of God, I exhale. Will I have another? From God, I exhale. Will he give me another?

37:46 A gift of God! I exhale. But remember, many inhaled for the last time in 1988.

37:59 And a moment is coming when God will You happen to be hooked up to a life support system. The cold number will be sounded and the cardiac will be placed upon your breast and your body will jump.

38:35 They can bring a thump that's sold because he gives and all things. You talk about cutting these, these proud philosophers off at the knees. They'll figure everything out. God says the very life by which you're sustained to stand in this think tank part of Athens called the Areopagus.

39:18 God who gives you that life. And the breath you breathe with which you exhale and frame your own agitations. Almighty God in grace gives you that breath with which you form words, to blaspheme him, to deny him, to dishonor him. But he gives it.

39:43 And the time is coming when he's going to say, that's the last one. Now my friends, that's why I want you to consider the question. Am I, as I enter 1989, savingly united to Christ? Why do I want you to take that question into your consciousness?

40:04 Not only because the Bible teaches, that it's only while you're alive and present in this world that you can prepare for death or the second coming. But how long you will be in this present world is not determined by you but by a sovereign God. I had a moving letter recently from a man in his sixties from a place many of you perhaps wouldn't even know where it was. If I said Tasmania and said here's a thousand bucks if you can tell me where it is, would you be able to tell me?

40:46 Suppose I put a gun to your temple and said tell me in the next five seconds or I'm going to pull the trigger. It's a little hunk of real estate down off the southern tip of Australia. It's part of Australia. And this man wrote to me to express how he's been helped over the years by the tapes and they have fed his soul.

41:09 But then he mentioned a very moving incident. He had a sixteen year old daughter and the Lord had been dealing with her and she was saved. And she was saved by His grace at age sixteen. And the day after she was saved with no previous indication or hint as a carefree happy new believer in the Lord Jesus with the fragrance of the kiss of reconciliation still upon her cheek she sat at her desk to do her homework and God took her breath away.

41:45 She died. What I guess they would call an unexplained mortality an idiopathic cessation of life all big fancy mumbo jumbo to say God controls life and not man. That's reality. That's not a preacher trying to scare you.

42:16 That's reality. He gives life and breath and all things. The second text that underscores that all of this is in the sovereign hand of God is James chapter four. A passage which over the past twenty-five years I've preached on two or three times on the first Lord's day of a new year.

42:40 It almost has written over the face of it a new year's text. James four thirteen Come now you that say today, tomorrow we'll go into this city and spend a year there and trade and get gain. In other words here's some people sitting down projecting their business goals. Nothing wrong with that.

43:04 Nothing wrong whatsoever with being prudent and wise and using sanctified forethought. God commends it in the very example of the ant who anticipates winter and stores up in summer against that emergency. What is God concerned about in this passage? Follow on.

43:23 You that say we will go into this city and spend a year and trade and get gain whereas you do not know what shall be on the morrow. And that's the truth. Who among us would dare stand on his feet and say I will give an accurate and comprehensive description of every detail of my life tomorrow. Even if to prove yourself true you should lock yourself in a lead walled shelter three feet thick.

43:54 You might carry with you into that shelter a tummy bug you picked up in the nursery today and end up vomiting all day. Hmm? You might in that shelter take a drink of water and choke on the water as it went down your windpipe. No, I don't care what circumstances you create to be as it were the surefire context of fulfilling your predictions.

44:20 You and I do not know what even a day may bring forth. What is your life? You and I are a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. Now here's the heart of their sin for that you ought to say.

44:34 If the Lord will we shall both live and do this or that but now you glory in your hauntings all such glorying is evil. You see what he's driving at? Here are people living life as though they had life in their hands. This is what we plan to do believing it to be an application of biblical principles so that we may live responsibly to the glory of God.

45:12 If God wills this is what 1989 will hold. Now theirs is an evil haunting as though they were gods. 1989 I will this and I will that. My friend there's one fatal flaw with all your I wills.

45:33 You don't know whether you'll see January 2nd, 1989. A sovereign God gives you life and breath. It is the sovereign will of God that I stand here in the land of the living today. It's not that I've been careful with my diet though I am.

45:58 It's not that I make conscience of exercise though I do. It's not that I try to drive responsibly though I do. Sovereign will of God who has given me life and breath through another year and privileged me to see the light of this day and that's the only reason you're here sitting here breathing and looking up at me. And the only reason any one of us does not go out of this life with a cardiac arrest before the sermon is over is that God wills to keep you in the land of the living.

46:41 And what is true with respect to living is also true with respect to the second coming of the Lord Jesus. Just as we do not control the extent, the duration of our days nor the events in them with reference to the second coming of Christ I give you this one text only from the chapter we expounded several months ago Mark chapter 13. The man who sent out his thousands of booklets proving Christ was coming in 1988 now must sit with his pencil and red face and try to with sophistry explain why his predictions were right though they didn't come to pass when the scripture tells us in Mark 13.22 but of that day and of that hour knoweth no one not even the angels in heaven neither the Son but the Father the Lord Jesus in his present state of humiliation when he spoke those words the Father had not yet revealed to him in his messianic function and identity a function of dependence upon the Father for the revelation of his will even he at that point in his own life history

48:09 did not know the day nor the hour nor were the angels privy to God's time schedule locked up in the cabinet of his own sovereign mind the incarnate Son was not even privy to it at that point my friend will Jesus Christ come back in 1989 I do not know I'd be a fool and you could call me a false prophet if I said he were coming in 1989 but hear me I would be a false physician to your soul if I did not tell you he could and he may come in 1989 be ye ready for in such an hour as you think not the Son of Man now that's why I'm concerned you see that you take this question seriously am I in saving union with Jesus Christ am I united to the Son of God why am I concerned that you take that question to heart reason number one because sitting here today in the light of the scriptures

Why Saving Union with Christ is the Most Important Issue: God Calls the Unprepared Foolish

49:37 because the scripture tells us that we must die and there is no second chance Christ will come and there is no second chance the scripture tells us secondly as we have seen together that a sovereign God holds in his own sovereign hand the time of our death and the knowledge of the day of the return of his Son but then thirdly and finally I ask you to take this question to heart as the most important issue to consider on the threshold of a new year because God calls everyone a fool who does not make present preparation for death and the second coming his first priority because God calls everyone a fool who does not make present preparation for death and for the second coming his first priority now let's look at the text that says that's true with death and one that says that's true with the second coming Luke chapter 12 Luke chapter 12 this is the same Lord Jesus who said that if we call people fools

51:04 in an attitude of derision and an angry mean spirited abusiveness it is of the very essence of the spirit of murder and he says whosoever shall say to another thou fool shall be in danger of hell fire and so our Lord does not use the term fool lightly nor carelessly now we read in Luke chapter 12 this very interesting story could well be a true story because in verse 13 there is the record of one who cried out of the multitude teacher bid my brother divide the inheritance with me unlike our own day we got a lawyer on every corner begging you to take on the case of litigation one lawyer for every 365 people we are the most litigious society on the face of the earth everybody waiting to pounce on someone else with a lawsuit apparently what all the curses of the condition at that day at least apparently it wasn't anything like it is in our day so he figures well here is a teacher of righteousness a man committed a justice maybe I can get Jesus to be my unofficial lawyer at least his rates will be a little cheaper so one cries out of the multitude teacher bid my brother divide the inheritance but he said man who made me a judge and a divider over you who gave me such a role the fact that you want me to play it doesn't mean I have to

52:31 that's a vital word for every preacher you better know who you are and what God's called you to do because there's all kinds of people telling you what they think you ought to do and you need to just tell them man who made me to fulfill such a role hand your bible to them say my conscience is bound by the word of God to do the will of God as a servant of God show me oh yes but my preacher always came and held my hand four hours a night fine you show me in the bible where I'm supposed to come and hold your hand four hours a night yes but my preacher always came and dug the fences in the spring fine good for your preacher but tell me where's God say I gotta come and dig your fence post in the spring you see Jesus wouldn't be bullied by men's wishes he was bound by the revealed will of the father so he said rather curtly man who made me a judge and a divider over you and then he took the man's request as a springboard to preach against covetousness the clear inference is this man had a covetous spirit that was driving him and he said unto them take heed and keep yourselves from all covetousness for a man's life does not consist in the abundance of the things that he possesses and he spake a parable unto them saying the ground of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully and he reasoned within himself saying what shall I do I don't have anywhere to bestow my fruits and he said this is what I'll do I'll make some capital investments to secure my capital goods

53:56 that's current terminology put it in current economic terminology that's what he said he'd do make some capital investments in order to secure his capital goods I'll pull down my barns build greater capital investment there I will bestow all my grain and my goods capital goods now notice all this has this end in view and I will say to my soul soul you have much goods laid up for many years take your ease eat drink and be merry he said I got it all figured out I'm going to secure my gains and then I'm going to live off those gains and I'm going to live the life that all of the people who play the lottery hope that they'll end up living do you hear their testimonies while you play the lottery what are your fantasies live them out place your buck live out your fantasies it's the same spirit that thinks that life consists in things and Jesus goes on to say verse 20 but God said unto him thou fool thou fool and why was he called a fool not because he had good business sense not because he had the foresight to know how to preserve his gains he says thou fool this night your soul is required of you

55:22 and the things which you have prepared the things which you've prepared who shall they be he made sin for things but he made no peace he made no preparation for his deathless soul and God says he's a fool and my friend sitting here this morning if you go into this new year if you've come into it and you are not in the language of this passage rich toward God so is he that lays up treasure for himself but is not rich toward God if you don't have the riches of the righteousness of Christ the riches of the full pardon of your sin rooted in eternal justice having been satisfied in the bloodletting of the Son of God if you are not rich with a new heart in which the dominion of sin has been broken and the reign of righteousness has been established if you're not rich with a personal knowledge of the Son of God that makes him the pearl of great price if you are not rich with experimental communion with God rich with the hope of heaven well grounded in the scriptures rich with the indwelling of the Holy Spirit the down payment in earnest of all the blessings of salvation my friend listen to me

56:48 God says you're a fool God says you're a fool oh you're not a fool that you've made judicious planning in the event of your death that your wife will not be destitute your children will not be destitute you've made wise investments low risk, high yield yes, yes my friend but you're not but what of that deathless soul now housed in your body if God should say to you before nightfall your soul will be and God sends the death angel and says to the death angel rend that soul from that body sever that immortal never dying soul from that body my friend that soul of yours leaving the body entering immediately into the body into the realm of spirits what would it be a naked soul no covering of the righteousness of Christ but deformed and ugly and grotesque in its sin no covering of the righteousness of Christ a soul with no eyes to see the glory of God with delight but only with terror oh my friend what a horrible way to enter a new year

58:11 as a fool who's not ready to die dear children you'll allow me will you not with the hands of my soul to cup your faces and I say to you look me in the eye and answer me with all that you're learning in your school in the home have you learned your sin and learned the grace of God and learned the initial lessons of repentance and faith so that your youthful soul is washed in the blood of Jesus and ready for heaven dear children if it isn't God says you're a fool God says you're a fool and what about not being ready for the second coming turn to Matthew 25 and see how Jesus describes such people how does Jesus describe people who are not ready for the second coming Matthew chapter 25 look at the language of the text then shall the kingdom of heaven verse 1 be likened unto ten virgins who took their lamps and went forth to meet the bridegroom the Lord's describing an oriental wedding in the Middle East at that time five of them were foolish

59:38 and five were wise and when you read down through the parable you know what makes the difference between the wise and the foolish not their New Jersey scores on their school tests not their IQ quotient you know what makes them wise or foolish five were ready when the bridegroom came five were not ready and the thing that made them wise or foolish was one issue readiness for the coming of the bridegroom and some of you kids may struggle and be on the bottom of the heap in your class not because you're lazy God just didn't give you the mental furniture to be a math whiz oh you do alright in social studies you do even better in science but somehow God just didn't give you a head that's comfortable with numbers and you struggle and struggle I know what that's like I could get straight A's in everything with a breeze but I had to sweat like crazy to get A's in math oh man I said God if you'd only done something in my head that made me more at home some of you may struggle with it you feel bad about that and others of you why you can just you take math like a fish to water but you just get into another subject and you feel so bad

61:06 others listen forget all of that I would not encourage laziness or indifference in any of your studies but listen to me kids there's something far more important than A's in math and A's in social studies and A's in English and reading it's that you be wise unto salvation that you be ready for Jesus to come so if he came in 1989 he would not only summon mom and dad into their everlasting joy with him not only your elders and your deacons and your Sunday school teacher and some of the older ones but when the heavens part and the voice of the archangel shouts and the trump of God blares and Jesus comes he would gather you his precious lands with him as well as some of his old and limping sheep and some of his young rams in the figure of their youth and strength oh dear children listen if you're not in Christ and ready for his coming you're a fool you're a fool now you see why I've come to you this morning with one burning concern to get this question inside your spiritual and mental gut to get it inside your spiritual and mental viscera

How to Become Savingly United to Christ

62:34 until you face it honestly am I savingly united to Christ why is that important to consider above all else on this first day of 1989 I've given you three parts of the answer from the word of God because because the scripture tells us it's only in this life that we can prepare for death and the second coming secondly a sovereign God determines how long to live and when his son will return and thirdly God declares that all who are not ready to die or for the Lord's return are fools now very quickly in closing for our time is gone and I've already given much of the answer how can I become savingly united to Christ well that's what I preached on last week you must own yourself to be what you really are you must start by owning yourself to be what you really are a guilty hell deserving rebel against God you'll never be ready to die and meet the Lord it is coming until you own yourself to be what you are secondly you must own Christ to be what he is

64:02 the son of God and son of man the only savior of sinners whose perfect life whose death upon the cross and his mighty resurrection and whose place at the right hand of God the Father constitutes him the one and only savior of sinners thirdly you must embrace this Christ in penitent faith you must turn from your sins and throw the weight of your guilty soul upon the Lord Jesus Spurgeon said it so beautifully when he said repentance is the tear in faith's eye in faith we look off to Christ crucified, buried and risen as our only hope that we will be pardoned and accepted with God and there is always in faith's eye the tear of repentance that is genuine grief and sorrow for sin a resolute turning away from sin repentance is as one old Puritan described it the vomit of the soul in which we vomit out our sins and return to Christ to be our life and then fourthly and finally you must manifest the reality of that union by a transformed life if you are united in Christ if you are united to Christ then the sole object of your trust for forgiveness will be Christ Philippians 3 the supreme object of your affection will be Christ

65:29 Luke 14 the sovereign Lord will govern you and direct you by his word John 10 27 and Jesus will be the real object of your hope and expectation Philippians 1 21 1 Thessalonians 1 9 and 10 those were the texts I'd hoped to open up but our time is gone but oh dear friends sitting here this morning you can be united to Christ but not if you're determined to live in the never never land of thinking you are what you'd like to think you are you must confront and embrace the reality of what God says you are a sinner hell deserving guilty helpless bound and impotent and you must embrace Christ for what he is son of God son of man the only savior of sinners and you must in penitent faith lay hold of him and for some of you who say this wasn't for me you've been able to coast through the sermon I wonder do you manifest the reality of being united to Christ your life does not demonstrate that Christ is the sole object of your trust the supreme object of your faith the sovereign Lord who governs you he is not your hope and your expectation

Final Exhortation and Prayer

66:56 he's something secondary in your life if you're a child of God he never takes second place for long and if second place is a pattern of your life you're no more saved than this pulpit for whosoever he be that renounces not all that he has cannot be my disciple so I come around full circle to where I began I want you to leave today with one burning concern on your consciousness something that goes with you as much as the clothes you wear more than that you can take them off when you get home as much as the skin upon your body and that question is this are you savingly joined to the Lord Jesus Christ if not my friend don't presume as death takes you judgment will find you and eternity will hold you when he comes there is no second chance I ask you do you doubt the genuineness of the love that has tried to cup your face in my hands place my hands upon your shoulder clasp you by the wrists do you think I'm just doing my preacher's thing to earn my living do you really

68:24 if you do please come to me afterwards I mean that sincerely if you've been so turned off and made so cynical by preachers who don't live what they preach and you think I'm just going through it all dear friend will you come to me for until I can persuade you that I'm dead in earnest you'll slough all of this off and I'm prepared to do anything short of sin to prove to you that I'm dead in earnest I don't get paid anymore if I preach my heart out my friend don't treat this lightly give yourself no rest till you know that you're in union with Christ let us pray our father how we thank you for your sovereign gracious purpose to keep us in the land of the living many of us can think of some who were taken from us while they were yet in their teens others in their early twenties and thirties we think of those who have left the land of the living and have joined the spirits of just men made perfect and others who've joined the spirits of the damned that await the day of judgment

69:53 oh Lord we pray that this coming here however many days it may hold for any one of us may not find us as fools unprepared to die unprepared for the coming of Jesus oh God will you not come down this morning will you not come down even upon this gathered people that every man, woman, boy or girl who is not ready to die and go to judgment who is not ready for the coming of Jesus and the subsequent judgment oh Lord give him, give her no rest, no peace until they own what they are acknowledge your Son to be what he claims to be and as they repent and believe upon him enter into the joy of sins forgiven Father what thanks can we give you we who have been spared we who were not cut off in our sins Lord we marvel that you gave us breath and with that very breath we mocked you with that very breath we defied your law many of us our lips were stained with profane in your name our lives spent in violating your holy law oh God we thank you for your long suffering

71:21 you bore with us for so long and we thank you oh we thank you you've drawn us to your Son and we pray that out of gratitude and love to you for so great salvation this coming year how many days are plotted for us would find us utterly undividedly devoted to the Lord Jesus Christ smash every idol that would rival his place in our hearts tear from our breast every trinket to which we would cling that we may say with the apostle for to me to live is Christ and to die is gain oh hear our cry for his dear name's sake we plead Amen