1996 Seven Lights for the New Year's Path

Introduction: Seven Border Lights for the New Year's Path

0:04 The following sermon was delivered on Sunday evening, December 31st, 1995, at the Trinity Baptist Church of Montville, New Jersey. Now those of you who were with us this morning will know that we considered together the very pointed words of God through the pen of Solomon as found in Proverbs 27 and verse 1, in which we are given a very strict prohibition, we are commanded not to boast concerning tomorrow because we know not what a day may bring forth. Now tonight, rather than parking on one text or portion of the Word of God, I have collated numerous portions of the Word of God, seeking to organize them. In such a way as to highlight some of the fundamental truths of the Word of God, which we as the people of God will need constantly to keep before our minds and hearts as God in His providence unfolds the path of His will for us in the coming year. Psalm 119, verse 105 is familiar to many of us.

1:29 Thy Word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path. And I want you to consider these portions of the Word of God that I've organized under seven headings as border lights or ground lights that many of you have seen, perhaps some of you have them on your own property, those low voltage lights that are put close to the ground and very close to the air. And I want you to consider these portions of the Word of God that I've organized in this way in order to light not the entire landscape of our property, but to light the path that leads from the driveway to the front or to the back door of the home. And those ground or border lights have sufficient illumination that when we come to that part of the path where we need to take our next step. I want you to consider these portions of the Word of God that I've organized under seven headings as border lights or ground lights that many of you have seen, perhaps some of you have seen, perhaps some of you have seen, perhaps some of you have seen, it is sufficiently illuminated that we have no reason to stumble and to fall for lack of knowing what our next step should be. And I want you to liken this clustering of verses as these border lights, these ground

2:49 lights, which will be our point of reference, giving light upon the path of God's providence as it unfolds. folds in our individual lives. These realities that we shall consider are fundamental and essential to the life of faith. And since the scripture says that we walk by faith and not by sight, that without faith it is impossible to please him, it is crucial that our faith be well grounded in those clear revelations of the mind and purpose of God, which will indeed give light to us as we walk along the pathway of the unfolding of the will of God. Now what we're going to consider tonight is the exclusive possession of the child of God. I spent considerable time this morning seeking to persuade and to entreat and to warn and to woo to Christ those of you who are not the children of God. But tonight, with but the exception of a few moments at the end of the message, what we set before you to change the imagery from light to food is children's bread. And

4:16 I trust that those of you who are the people of God will, by the grace of God, be enabled to lay up in your hearts, by the power of the Spirit of God, the things that we consider tonight, and not only lay them up and refer to them again and again in the coming year, but also use them in obedience to the biblical injunction in Colossians chapter 3, where we are told that the word of Christ is to dwell in us richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another. And the things we will tonight are the stuff of mutual admonition as we seek to minister one to another as a family of God, as a body of Christ. And as I wrestled with how to express these things, I originally wrote them out in what I might call the more general and plural form. And then I said, no, it doesn't have enough teeth, and I opted for the specific and the individual form of expressing them, so that each of you who is a child of God can take to yourself each one of these fundamental

Light 1: Nothing Will Come But for My Highest Good

5:38 principles from the Word of God. And the first is this. As we look out into the coming years, should the Lord be pleased to give us days and weeks and months, and even the previous years, and the previous years, and the previous years, and the previous years, and the previous years, and the previous years, and the previous years, and the previous years, to see the coming year to its completion, should the Lord delay His coming, the first thing that you and I as the people of God need to know and need constantly to bring to our remembrance is this. Nothing will come into my life but that which is ordained for my highest good. Nothing. That means no thing. Nothing will come into my life but that which is ordained for my greatest or highest good. Now I did not say nothing will come into my life but that which is ordained for my highest or greatest joy, pleasure, ease, delight, but I did say nothing will come into my life but that which is ordained for my highest or greatest joy, pleasure, ease, delight, but I did say nothing will come into my life but that which is ordained for my highest or greatest joy, pleasure, ease, delight, but I did say nothing will come into my life but that which is ordained for my highest or greatest joy, pleasure, ease, delight, but I did say nothing will come into my life but that which is ordained for my highest or greatest joy, pleasure, ease, delight, but I did say nothing will come into my life but that which is ordained for my highest or greatest joy, pleasure, ease, delight, but I did say nothing will come into my life but that which is ordained for my highest or greatest joy, pleasure, ease, ordained for my greatest good and you already have anticipated the text that is the foundation of that sweeping assertion the familiar text in Romans

7:05 chapter 8 where the Apostle says in verse 28 and we know notice he does not say and we feel or we can understand or we can explain he says we know we know as an article of our faith not our feelings not our understanding not our ability fully to explain to others but as men and women of faith we know that to them that love God the all things are working together for good all things on top all things everything that is the thing is working together soon RJ it is working constantly working together ice on the farm in two two words leading on to good now either God's a liar that that's true. And if it is true, then facing all of the unknown things of 1996, you as

8:28 one who loves God, who has been called according to purpose, you can stand on the threshold of the coming year and declare as a tenet of unshakable confidence in God, nothing will come into my life but that which is ordained for my greatest good. Now are you prepared to say that? And then are you prepared by the grace of God when everything seems to be coming apart at the seams? A year is not enough.

9:08 A year is not enough. But in which amongst us, I am sure, there will be the shock of unexpected unplanned pregnancies, the grief of miscarriages, the horror of going down in the basement and finding that the bottom is blown out of your water heater, going to work and you throw a rod on your engine, getting the pink slip from your boss. All of the unknown things that will unfold from the 500 or so lives that are in this building tonight. But we have biblical grounds to say if we love God and love Him because we are the called according to His purpose, nothing, nothing will come into my life but that which is ordained for my greatest good. And having taken one or two texts under each of these headings, I have sought to find a biblical illustration of the principle stated in the text. And again, this illustration from Genesis 50 is familiar to many of us. But how we need to come back again and again to the familiar in Genesis chapter 50 when the whole story, as Paul Harvey

10:34 would say, and now you know the rest of the story. Well, we know the end of the story of all of the mysterious. Winding paths of Joseph's life. When from his dreams, there seemed to be in the providence of God, everything that was countering what he was led to believe from those dreams in his earlier period of life. And yet, as he stands before his brothers who were filled with envy, who have the spirit of murder in their hearts, sold him as a common slave. And from slavery. You'll remember. He came under unjust accusation from Potiphar's wife and a period in prison. Yet he could say of all of this in Genesis 50 and verse 20. And as for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good to bring to pass as it is this day to save much people alive. You meant it. You meant it for evil. But the same combination of attitudes and actions which they meant

11:50 for evil and that were spun out of evil dispositions, he says all of that was overruled and governed and controlled by a sovereign God with this end in view. Good. Your highest good. My highest good.

12:11 The highest good of his kingdom. This covenant people. You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good. And therefore it is crucial for us as we stand at the beginning of the pathway of 1996 to say, as we look down at these border lights, these brown lights, here is the first that sheds its light upon the path. Nothing will come into my life, but that which is ordained for me. And that's what I've been ordained for. My greatest good. Greatest good with respect to my higher conformity to Christ. My greatest good in terms of doing that which will wean me more and more from the love of this world and the things of this world and fuel my love for Christ.

Light 2: God Himself Will Be With Me

13:06 My greatest good in terms of making me more and see. for heaven, less attached to earth. Dear child of God, settle it now, without knowing any of the particulars that God has locked up in the womb of the tomorrows that He has appointed for you in 1996. Nothing will come out of the wombs of the tomorrows of the coming year, but that which is ordained for my highest good. Secondly, nothing will come into my life, but that God Himself will be with me as I face it. Nothing will come into my life, but that God Himself will be with me as I face it. You see, it's one thing to believe that God is sovereignly making all things, to work together for good, and as a man or woman of faith, to be convinced through the bitterness of my tears and through the confusion of everything that seems to be a mess of rubble in the path,

14:26 to believe that indeed a sovereign God has ordered it for my good. It's another thing to believe He's there at my elbow, before the mass of apparent rubble, that He is there to comfort, to strengthen, to uplift. Now, behold me, there's a beautiful passage that underscores this truth with God's relationship to His old covenant people in Isaiah 63, verses 7 through 9. Isaiah 63 and verse 7, I will make mention of the loving kindness of the Lord, His covenant faithfulness, His chesed, and the praises of the Lord according to all that the Lord has done for me. has bestowed on us and the great goodness toward the house of Israel which he has bestowed on them according to his mercies and according to the multitude of his loving-kindnesses for he said surely they are my people children that will not deal falsely so he was their Savior in all their affliction he was afflicted and the angel of his presence saved them in his love and in his

15:48 pity he redeemed them and he bore them and carried them all the days of old you see there is not a cold detached sovereignty exercised from afar but there is an intimacy in all their affliction he afflicted that's what sympathy means there is a feeling with the afflicted and the angel of his presence save them and in his love and pity he redeemed them and bore them and carried them there's the picture of the father who picks up the child when they come to a place in the path that the child cannot navigate on his own strength in the strong armor the father reaches around and lifts up the child and carries him through the place of difficulty so god says he does with his people and in the new testament hebrews chapter 13 quoting from an old testament passage god says to these hebrew christians many of whom were facing tremendous difficulties in the way of persevering attachment to christ some of their brethren had taken the loss of their goods some were facing tremendous persecution and opposition and yet he says to

17:16 them in hebrews 13 5 be free from the love of money content with such things as you have why for himself has said i will in no wise fail thee neither will i in any wise forsake thee so that with good courage we say the lord is my helper you see not from afar but he is my helper is the one who is with me and near me who will not forsake me i will not fear what shall man do unto me here is the promise of the special the immediate nearness of god with his people in the midst of the things that distress them disturb them unhinge them but well can't hear in white see all got nothing will come into my life but the god himself will be with me as i face it illustration of this in the light for the servant of god is beautifully underscored in that der 조 Fenal ų

18:40 Calcitrant Jews that he faced in town after town and city after city. And we read in verse 8 of Acts 18, Crispus, the ruler of the synagogue, believed in the Lord with all his house. And many of the Corinthians, hearing, believed and were baptized. And the Lord said unto Paul in the night by a vision, Do not be afraid, but speak and do not hold your peace.

19:07 And what's the great consolation he's going to give him? Not, I am on my throne as the sovereign of the universe to protect you. No, I am with you. I am with you.

19:23 And no man shall set on you to harm you. You see, the great consolation God brought to the somewhat fearful spirit of his servant was this. My son, my servant. As you carry out my will for you here in Corinth to preach the gospel of the grace of God, no matter what you've already seen and experienced of opposition, carry on, don't be afraid, speak, hold back nothing, and all you need to know, Paul, is I am with you.

19:58 I am with you. I am with you. The heart of God's covenant commitment to his people is I will be their God, and he is...

20:09 He is never, never an absentee God to his people. He doesn't leave notes on the counter while he's gone off to work to have you fix your own sandwiches and fend for yourself. He is there with you, never to leave you, never to forsake you. I will be their God.

20:33 And the marvelous promise of our Lord Jesus in which he says at the end of the commission, in Matthew 28, though it has a peculiar and special application to gospel endeavors, it is true with respect to all of his people. And the original is weakly translated when it renders it, and behold, I am with you. It should be rendered, I myself, I even, I am with you, not always, but literally all of the days. Each.

Light 3: Nothing Can Separate Me from God's Love

21:09 And every one of those days, the womb of which is opaque to us. We know not what it contains, but one thing we know that as it gives birth to the things ordained of God, he himself is with us each and every one of the days, nothing will come into my life, but that God himself will be with me as I face it. Thirdly. Nothing will come into my life that can separate me from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus.

21:49 Nothing, nothing will come into my life that can separate me from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus. And here you've already anticipated against the text. I told you nothing new going back to the most elementary issues of the life of faith. Romans chapter eight, where the Apostle throws out the question in verse 31.

22:16 What then shall we say to these things, the things he has just just been expounding and unfolding of the commitment of the triune God to our complete and consummate salvation, even the resurrection of our bodies and the present ministry of the Holy Spirit, helping us in the felt infirmity. Of our inability to know how to pray as we ought. And in the meanwhile, knowing as we considered in verse 28, that all things are working together for our good and that God is committed to complete the salvation that will find us completely conformed to the image of his own dear son. What shall we say then to these things? If God is for us, for us in the context means, utterly irrevocably committed to our consummate salvation. If God is for us, who is against us? He that spared not his son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not also with him freely give us all things, all things pertaining to this salvation and all that is planned and purposed and marked out for us in that salvation?

23:37 Who shall lay anything to the charge of God? Who shall lay anything to the charge of God? Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It's God that has justified.

23:44 Who is he that condemns? It is Christ Jesus that died, yea rather that was raised from the dead. Who is at the right hand of God who also makes intercession for us? In the light of God's commitment in Christ to take care of every exigency rising from our sinfulness, our sin that demanded condemnation, Christ died.

24:07 Christ died. The validation of the worth of that death has been given. He has been raised. The problem of our ongoing sin is taken care of.

24:19 He intercedes for us at the right hand of God. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? If God himself is so committed to take care of every single matter that would stand between us and our consummate salvation, who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Not love in the abstract, not love simply as an emotion in God's heart and an affection toward us, but love that has planned and committed itself to our complete salvation.

24:57 That's the context. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, pressures of all kinds, anguish, growing out of disappointment, anguish, growing out of disappointment, tragedy, persecution, opposition from without, famine, nakedness, peril, sword, even as it is written, for your sake we are killed all the day long, we are counted as sheep for the slaughter. Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us, for I am persuaded.

25:33 Here we come back again. You see, he says, and doesn't say, for I'm riding the crest of a marvelous healing. No, he said, I am persuaded. This is a judgment that goes on between my ears and filters down into my heart.

25:52 At times it's overlaid with billows of wonderful feelings. There's times when you can barely find something as thick as a piece of saran wrap of feelings around it, but it doesn't change my persuasion. I am persuaded. Of what are you persuaded, Paul?

26:15 I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, good or evil, nor things present, things present, all of the things that nag, that carp at me, that seem to eat away at the vitals of my life and seem determined to strangle out all spiritual reality, nor things present, nor things to come. What things? The things that I do not know that are locked up in the womb of tomorrow, that God has put there and that God will bring forth, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created reality, any other creature, any other created thing shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus. Amen. Our Lord, you and I, if God spares us, one thing is certain for 1996, we're going to sin. Are you persuaded your sin cannot separate you from the love of God in Christ Jesus?

27:31 We're going to stumble. We're going to fall. We're going to feel our weakness, our ignorance. We're going to mourn our downright stupidity at times.

27:44 But are you persuaded? If you're stupid, if your stupidity and your weakness and your ignorance cannot separate you from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord, did he know all about your weakness, your stupidity, your sins? When in sovereign mercy and grace, he set his love upon you, gave his son to die for you and thereby secured in giving his son that all other things necessary to complete. His work of salvation in you were secured in that death.

28:22 Then child of God, you not only have every right, you dishonor God. If you do not stand and say on the threshold of this coming year, nothing will come into my life that can separate me from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus, my Lord. But someone says, Pastor, if we do that, then we sin with a high hand and say it will never...

28:51 My friend, anyone who sins with a high hand based on a so-called conviction that nothing can separate him from the love of God in Christ Jesus has never known the love of God in Christ Jesus. That's the simple answer to that objection. Because to know the love of God in Christ Jesus is to long to be holy as he is holy. To be what God has marked us out to be.

29:18 Whom he did foreknow. Whom he did predestinate to be conformed to the image of the Son. And our greatest burden is our sin and our greatest yearning is to be like Christ. And our greatest grief is when we are unlike him and when we sin.

Light 4: God's Grace and Power Will Be Sufficient

29:34 But in the midst of that ongoing struggle, we need as men and women of faith to be able to say nothing, nothing will come into my life that can separate me from the love of God in Christ Jesus. Fourth. Border light, ground light upon our path is this. Nothing will be expected of me in the will of God, but that His grace and power will be sufficient for me.

30:06 Nothing will be expected of me in the will of God, but that His grace and power will be sufficient for me. You come along the path. And there is something that you must lift. Before you die.

30:22 can take the next step and you say the boulders too big for me but if God's placed it there and if in the will of God it must be removed for you to please God that there will be strength Jesus said even to make mountains skip and end up in oceans for if you have faith as the grain of mustard seed you shall say to this mountain be thou removed and cast into the sea and it shall be done what did Paul say in Philippians 4 13 I can do all things Paul you could stand at the base of the Empire State Building and jump over no because when he said I can do all things he said that in a context in a setting that interprets itself significance he had been talking about his physical circumstances and the fact that at times God providentially brought him into a path where his stomach was playing a tune on his back

31:33 bow and when he shivered in cold he said I know how to be in want he said there are other times when I'm flush my tummies full my back is warm and I have something to share with others I know how to be a base I know how to abound Paul where did you get the strength to be cheerful and thankful and have no hard thoughts of God when you are hungry and you didn't have your three squares even though you prayed give us this day our daily bread and even though you knew the passages where David said I've been young and old and I've never seen the righteous forsaken nor his seed begging bread how is it Paul that you had grace and strength not to think hard thoughts of God did not to speak hard words about God I can do all things through him who gives me the strength I can do all things through him who strengthens me with the grace to bless the hand of God when it seems to be a closed hand and a stingy hand and an unconcerned surely he knew the verses better than we do cattle on a thousand hills of the Lord's

32:56 all things are his the earth is the Lord's in the fullness thereof why then were there times when God wouldn't open up his hand and provide even a decent meal for his servant where do you find strength to bless a God like that you find it from the God who says my grace is sufficient for you and when he was flush Paul how did you find grace not to let God's abounding blessings turn your heart away from him as God had to warn Israel to remember again and again for me that I've got to get breakfast when you're going into the land's that when you go in and I fulfill my promise to drive out your enemies and you enjoy the fat of the land me where the well where beware lest your hearts and broke hold to me and turn away from me and the very blessings I've given become a curse Paul however did you have Devil all your needs were met and you were in the state of the bombing no not to have your heart those who are going from the job to go ahead with your affairs is yourrice con Mercedes this Der EHR I can do all things through him who strengthens me. That's the context. What he's saying is, there is nothing that I face in the will of God, but that the grace and power of God will be sufficient for me. You remember how he learned that lesson in another setting, 2 Corinthians chapter 12?

34:21 Whatever Paul's thorn in the flesh was, whatever this messenger of Satan to buffet him was, it was something that made him consciously and physically weak, so much so that Paul was convinced it was inconsistent with his doing the will of God as an apostle. So what did he do? Verse 8 of 2 Corinthians 8, Concerning this thing, I besought the Lord three times, that it might depart from me. He's referring most likely to three seasons of intense, earnest, importunate prayer focused on one thing, that it might depart from him.

35:05 Does this have overtones of anything else you remember in the Bible? Oh, my father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me. How many times? Three times.

35:21 Was our Lord, by his spirit, moving his servant in his own mind and heart to think of Gethsemane? I can't pontificate, but there is. There is that similarity, but he was convinced that this thing had to be removed if he was to go on in usefulness and do the will of God. So he prayed the only way he knew how to pray, that it might depart.

35:46 But then the Lord speaks to him and says this, And he hath said unto me, My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect not in removing weakness, but in the midst of weakness. Most gladly there. Therefore will I glory in my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may literally spread itself like a tent over me, that I may be tabernacled by the very power of Christ.

36:24 That's the promise of God to his servant, that in doing the will of God, there will be sufficient grace and power from the hand of God. Of his Savior. And dear child of God, that is a blood-bought provision for every one of us.

36:47 His grace is sufficient for us. And we need to look into all the unknowns of the coming year and say as men and women of faith, nothing will be expected of me in the will of God, but that his grace and power will be sufficient for me.

37:10 I commend you, Hebrews 13, 13, 20, and 21, that beautiful benediction. And then the illustration of this, not only in Paul with his thorn, but Paul in his period of being deserted, 2 Timothy chapter 4, toward the end of his earthly pilgrimage. He says in verse 17 of that chapter, 2 Timothy chapter 4, at my first defense, verse 16, no one took my part, but all for me. May it not be laid to their account.

37:44 Now notice, but the Lord stood by me. There's the principle. I face nothing but what he is with me, but with me what? Not just as an observer.

37:55 And gave me power and strengthened me that through me the message might be fully proclaimed and all the Gentiles might hear. And I was delivered out of the mouth. Of the lion. And the Lord will deliver me from every evil work and save me unto his heavenly kingdom.

38:20 Every measure of grace and strength and protection and preservation I need to do the will of God. God is committed to get it. The apparent impossibilities which you face are but God's own theater constructed in his providence to display his own power. His own grace and power.

38:45 Child of God, it's easy to believe that sitting here. But remember, when you come to that point in the path where you say, the boulders too big, I can't move it. The obstacle is too high. I can't go over it, under it, around it.

39:00 Remember, if it's the will of God that you go through it, over it, under it, or lift it up and remove it, there will be grace sufficient.

39:11 God is committed to that reality.

39:16 And the reason he constantly brings us to the place where we feel our circumstances and the demands upon us are far beyond us is so clearly exegeted in 1 Corinthians chapter 1 as Paul reminds the Corinthians of their calling. He says in verse 27, God chose the foolish things of the world to put to shame them that are wise. The weak things of the world to put to shame the things that are strong. The base things of the world and the things that are despised did God choose and the things that are not.

39:55 Those are the five kinds of people God chooses. To what end? That he might bring to naught the things that are that no flesh should glory before God. He chooses the weak, the foolish.

40:14 He chooses the base. He chooses the despised. The despised and the things that are not. One servant of God called them God's five-ranked army of descending human weakness with which he will conquer the world.

40:31 God's five-ranked army of descending human weakness. Fall in if you feel yourself weak and a nobody and despised. Fall in. You're part of God's five-ranked army of descending human weakness that become the theater of displaying his own almighty power that no flesh should glory in his presence.

Light 5: God Decrees and Executes All National and Natural Events

41:02 Then I hasten on. There's a fifth light on the pathway and it is this. Nothing, nothing, nothing will transpire in our national, international, politics, economics, and the forces of nature but God has decreed and executed it. Nothing will transpire in our national and international politics, economics, and the forces of nature but God has decreed and executed it.

41:41 Think of all the unknowns as I referred to some of the things that unfolded in this year in these very realms. Making no reference to the mudslides in California, to the horrible floods in the Midwest, the likes of which they haven't known in recorded history. And we could go on and on. Dear child of God, as we move into the pathway of the year before us, we need to move with this confidence that nothing, nothing will transpire in our own national life, in international affairs, politics, economics, and the forces of nature, that our wise and sovereign God has decreed and executed it. Ephesians 1 in verse 11 He is the God who works all things after the counsel of His own will. Daniel 4.35 He does according to His will among the armies of heaven and the inhabitants of the earth, and none can stay His hand and say unto Him, And I love Nahum 1.3

42:57 He hath His way in the whirlwind and the storm and the clouds or the dust of His feet. And when we see in our newscasts the weather report and the satellite pictures of the swirling tropical storms, to be able to say that's God's big toes stirring it up, the clouds or the dust of His feet. I love to think of it that way. Oh, they think that because they've got computers that can track them and they know the forces at work that somehow these things are all just happening.

43:35 No, there is a personal wise sovereign God at work. You and I need to believe this especially if in His own sovereign wisdom and the execution of His sovereign rights the devastation strikes you. Think of our brothers and sisters down in Florida who one day sat in lovely homes and the next day looked at a pile of rubble. And God didn't cause the wind and the rain that tore those houses to pieces to cut a swamp that bypassed the homes of the children of God or even their places of worship.

44:16 And in the midst of legitimate grief and tears of a sense of loss the child of God can look up into the face of the God who has His way in the whirlwind and the storm and say, Father, this has not come by some chance combination of the forces of nature. This has come by Your sovereign decree and by Your imminent all controlling providence. The next time you get a fender bender your car goes out of control on the icy road and smacks into a tree, this is your consolation. This is your consolation. And dear people of God, it does no good to make an articulate accurate confession of the doctrine of the divine decrees and of the sovereignty of God as it works itself out in providence if we can't translate it into the world in which we live in the now. Remember Revelation 5 and 6 in looking over them again this afternoon. What a thrilling

45:32 thing to see that picture of the weeping in heaven not is found worthy to take that scroll and open up the seals that determine the activities and the course of history and the events upon earth until a lamb in the midst of the throne is found worthy and he takes the scroll and he opens it and then we read that when he opens it the things that transpire upon earth transpire according to that which is written in the scroll. The lamb on the throne is in control. All authority has been given unto him in heaven and upon earth. We can say with the Psalmist in Psalm 93 Jehovah reigneth let the earth be glad let the isles rejoice righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne a fire goes before him darkness is round about him though we cannot and though we need not attempt to justify his ways we know that the foundations of his throne are righteousness and justice and Jehovah reigns. I believe on one other occasion some years ago I told this true story. It bears repeating. It's one of those I want you to remember and tell others after I'm gone.

46:57 A friend of mine who a number of years ago coming out of a Pentecostal background where he had been well grounded in a very defective theology in the providence of God through his reading of the Bible and other good books came to embrace the truth of scripture that God is sovereign in every realm creation, providence and grace and he began to preach this in his church and he was in a little town where he was well known he had a very popular television broadcast so he was known throughout the town pastor of the largest Pentecostal church probably the largest non Baptist church in that particular town and the whole town began to be in a stew when he began to understand and preach the doctrine of God's sovereignty particularly God's sovereignty and salvation and began to preach election and God's distinguishing grace that is set upon some and bypass his others, excuse me and even the president of the local bank with whom he had a very good personal relationship became aware of the furor that was going on in that church and in other parts of the town because of what was happening to preacher so and so with his new found doctrine and one day he had occasion to speak face to face with this banker, a man of the world an absolute worldly, not a Christian

48:24 and he said to him reverend so and so, he said what's all the trouble going on up at your church there and my friend said brother I pray God give me wisdom to know how to make it simple and plain to a man of the world and he said this is what came to my mind, I said to him mister so and so if you were God and had made the world would you run it or would you turn the job over to someone else, he said no way if I were God and made the world and it belonged to me I'd run it he said well mister so and so that's really the problem, I'm just preaching what the bible says about the fact that God that made the world hasn't given over the government to someone else but the God who made it is running it and people are getting all upset dear people that's it the God who made this world runs it and you see that's relatively easy to confess in the abstract but does he run it when that part of the world that is your little sphere suddenly is fractured and fragmented and seems to have no sense it's at that point as we sang tonight here will my be taken my stand is taken on the fact that nothing will transpire in our national, international

Light 6: Nothing Will Frustrate God's Saving Purpose

49:51 politics, economics and the forces of nature but that God has decreed and executed it then very quickly there's the sixth light on our path and it's this nothing will occur in any realm of heaven or earth to frustrate the saving purpose of God in Christ nothing will occur in any realm of heaven or earth to frustrate the saving purposes of God in Christ now according to the scriptures there are real spiritual beings and powers unseen to the human eye they are not material they cannot be touched but they are real and they are set in hellish demonic opposition to Christ and to the work of the gospel Paul could say in Ephesians 6 12 we wrestle not against flesh and blood but against principalities and powers against spiritual host of wickedness in the heavenly places in Revelation 12 and verse 13 we have a graphic picture of that warfare Revelation 12 and verse 13 and following and when the dragon saw that he was cast down to the earth he persecuted the woman that brought forth the man child and they were given to the woman two wings of a great eagle that she might fly

51:20 to the wilderness verse 15 and the serpent cast out of his mouth after the woman water is a river that he might cause her to be carried away with the stream and the earth helped the woman and the earth opened her mouth and swallowed up the river which the dragon cast out of his mouth and the dragon became angry with the woman and went away to make war with the rest of her seed those who keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus there's a real warfare with real powers of darkness set upon the destruction of Christ and of his people but Jesus said in Matthew 16 18 I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it again Ephesians 1 20 to 22 speaks of our Lord Jesus and the power manifested in his resurrection and ascension and ascension which placed him according to those verses in a position far above all principality and power and might and dominion and every name that is named not only in this age but in that which is to come and has put all things under his feet and gave him to be head over all

52:49 things to his church which is his body the fullness of him that fills all in all in first Corinthians 15 25 and 26 it says he must reign until he has put all his enemies beneath his feet the last enemy to be destroyed is death many in our day would read it he shall reign when all the enemies have been defeated at the beginning or end of the millennium no no my bible says he must reign he is reigning and will continue to reign and there is a divine necessity that reign until every last enemy is destroyed the last one to be destroyed is death and in the context it is death in its impact upon your body and mine when they have gone into the grave sown in dishonor sown in weakness but when he returns they will be raised in glory raised in honor and that will be the final triumph of the reigning Christ in messianic mediatorial power and grace he must reign he is reigning and Psalm 2 is the most fascinating description of that reign because God the father decrees that his son shall have the nations for his inheritance and the uttermost part of the earth for his possession but the great ones of the earth say no way Jose and they are going to get together

54:17 and they are going to conspire and plot and scheme to frustrate what God has decreed for his son and when the great ones of the earth those people who have the place of influence who make the laws and demand that the whole country give itself to the worship of Allah and be bound by the Quran when they get together and conspire that they shall cast off any thought of the reign of Christ and when the intellectuals gather and with their souls who call intellectual powers determine that they shall cast off the bands of any thought that this is a universe controlled by a risen and ascended and glorified Christ and that the whole rationale of human history is to be found in God's purpose to take out of the nations a people for himself and they are determined to obliterate any thought of creationism any thought of a sovereign control over the nations by a living personal God any thought of personal accountability when the great ones gather and take counsel and combine their wisdom and might and power saying lets break their bonds asunder and cast away their cords

55:46 from us God is so nervous about all this you know what he does look at verse 4 he that sits in the heavens will have a giggle fit a laugh he who sits in the heavens he laughs and it's the laughter of derision there's no greater way to show disdain for an enemy than to laugh at him in derision and that's what God does God belly laughs when the men of the world in their greatness say we will frustrate what God is purpose concerning his son God laughs God speaks in his wrath and said I've set my king upon my holy hill of Zion I have decreed that he shall have his inheritance among the nations I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it in the coming year if God is pleased to give us as your elders met last Thursday and discussed some aspects in which God may be pleased in the coming year to give us greater and more extensive involvement in the work of the gospel in some of the very bastions

Light 7: Everything Brings Us Closer to Christ's Coming

57:15 of Satan's control how we need to believe as a people that there is absolutely nothing in the realm of heaven or earth that can frustrate the saving purposes of God in Jesus Christ and then light number 7 one will consider tonight along the path of the coming year is this and this is the final and most glorious ground light everything everything that transpires in the coming year will bring us closer to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ everything that transpires in the coming year will bring us closer to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ Romans 13 and verse 11 is one of those verses that points in the direction and shows how this consciousness was embedded in the soul of the early church Romans 13 11 and this knowing the season that already it's time for you to awake out of sleep for now is salvation nearer to us than when we first believed from the time we first believed to now our ultimate ultimate completed salvation is

58:43 nearer that salvation to be completed at the coming of the Lord Jesus and according to Titus 2 12 and 13 as we seek to live under the tutelage of the grace of God that grace that teaches us that denying ungodliness and worldly loss we should live soberly righteously and godly in this present age is all conditioned by this perspective looking for looking for yes denying ungodliness and worldly loss applying ourselves as we focused upon it this morning universal obedience universal mortification universal embrace of our duty but all of it looking for the blessed hope and the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ and described the conversion of the Thessalonians in first Thessalonians 1 9 Paul says you turned to God from your idols to serve the living and the true God and to wait for his son out of the heavens you turned to serve and to wait for his son the emphasis of Peter in his first letter in verse 5 of chapter 1 where he says that we the people of God

60:12 are kept by the power of God through faith unto a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time it's ready to be revealed and each day that unfolds in the coming year and each event and every circumstance brings us closer to that moment in human history when the heavens will part and every eye shall see him every year shall hear the blast of the trumpet the voice of the archangel the trump of God be ye therefore ready from such an hour as you think not the son of man cometh and while I claim to be no expert in matters of prophetic things this much I know it is the wicked servant who says my Lord delays his coming it is the wicked servant who says the delay is an offering an opportunity for indulgence and the disposition of the child of God is that he yearns he longs he looks for he anticipates inwardly stands on tiptoes awaiting the return of his blessed Lord well dear children of God I told you I'm going to tell you anything you didn't know before the older I get

61:39 as a Christian the more I'm convinced that the battle is won or lost in the trenches of the most parliamentary issues and as we together move into this new year in just a couple of hours if the Lord spares us surely the word of God is a lamp to our feet and a light to our pathway and as that pathway unfolds in the coming year we need to remind ourselves and remind one another as we bear one another's burdens as we exhort and encourage and admonish one another with the word of Christ that dwells in us richly nothing will come into my life but that which is ordained for my greatest good nothing will come into my life but that God himself will be with me as I face it nothing will come into my life that can separate me from the love of God in Christ nothing will be expected of me in the will of God but that his grace and power will be sufficient for me nothing will transpire at the national and international level of economics and politics and the forces of nature but that God has decreed and executed it nothing will occur in the realm of heaven and earth to frustrate the saving purpose of God in Christ

63:06 and everything that transpires in the coming year brings us closer to the coming of our Lord Jesus if you are not a Christian I hope what you have heard has made you envious to become one what do you have of this kind of solid granite reality on which to stand as you face the coming year you go on playing Russian roulette with your never dying soul you spin the chamber every day and pull the trigger and hope there is no bullet in the chamber and you have made it through another day God may stop your heart in the middle of the night my unconverted friend what a horrible position you are in now and what have you as you face the coming year do you have any kind of insurance that you can buy for any amount of money that says you will not be put on your back with a terminal illness that you will not be struck dead the next time you get in your car you tell me the insurer that will insure that you see this is not scare tactics this is reality you are not the master of your fate and the captain of your soul

64:31 the God who could crush you is the God who in Christ condescends to urge you to come come to the feast of gospel bainties prepared purchased by the blood of Christ spread before you in the gospel and he says ho everyone that thirsts come buy wine and milk without money and without price God stoops to the imagery of a street hawker who ought to have no trouble getting rid of his wares he said you can have them for nothing someone else is paid for them with his own precious blood and he offers them to you freely why will you lie why will you live your empty self serving life in a climate of despair and hopelessness and all of these blessed realities can be yours in Christ oh go to him don't pillow your head tonight till you go to him and by God's grace enter the new year with all of these things just as much your possession as the person in this building who has been a Christian for 70 years because all of these

65:57 are the possession of all of the people of God from the most immature to the most mature from the most recently born into the kingdom who are gray headed in the kingdom oh my unconverted friend boy girl man or woman don't enter the new year without these blessed realities your possession as God holds them out to you in Jesus Christ let us pray our Father how we thank you for your blessed word and for that which you have called exceeding great and precious promises we thank you for these many scriptures that we have been able to quote and comment upon and apply and we thank you that you are the God who cannot and will not lie that every word that you have given is tried proven as though placed in the furnace seven times and it comes out again and again as pure gold thank you Father Jesus is your people as we face all of the unknowns as they unfold to us in your will thank you that the things we have considered tonight we can know for certain because you have spoken help us to be men and women of faith

67:26 who will lay hold of these basic realities bring them to our remembrance when we most need them and are most likely to forget them we are faithful one to another that we may remind one another when we see a brother or sister buried beneath the grief, the pain, the confusion from forgetting these realities oh Lord help us that we shall minister one to another with these very words of yours we pray for those our Father who have no such confidence as they face the new year as we have sought to urge them as we have sought to make them jealous will you not work in their hearts that which you alone can do to bring them broken and believing to the feet of Christ that in him they may know the blessedness of all of these realities thank you for this day in your courts thank you Father that we are found in a place of worship tonight some amongst us who can remember new year's eves when their only thought was for indulging the flesh carnal debauchery thank you for the miracles of grace that sit here tonight thank you that you've maintained

68:54 in this place your worship in its simplicity you've maintained a hunger amongst your people for the preaching of the word we thank you oh Lord we can say to us there's nothing more that we desire but more of yourself more of your grace more conformity to Christ more love to Christ oh grant that these may be the things we pursue with all of our hearts in whatever days are allotted to us in the coming year Amen