Boast Not Thyself of Tomorrow

Introduction: The Last Day of the Year and the Text's Relevance

0:04 The following sermon was delivered on Sunday morning, December 31st, 1995, at the Trinity Baptist Church of Montville, New Jersey. Now, before we turn to the Word of God, let us again unite our hearts in prayer, giving thanks especially for God's faithfulness to us through another calendar year in which we have never been bereft of the sense of God's presence with us in our gathering, and let us plead that God would grant a crowning measure of that very blessing in the ministry of the Word this morning. Let us unite in prayer.

0:49 Holy Father, we come into your presence again to thank and praise your holy name for your faithfulness to us, your people.

1:02 With the prophet, we too can exclaim it is of your mercies that we have not been consumed, because your compassions fail not, they are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness. And we thank you that you have sustained us as a congregation through another calendar year. We thank you that Lord's Day by Lord's Day we have known your presence as we have sought to worship you according to the precepts and principles of your Word, as we have sought to bring our minds, subject to your written Word in the Holy Scriptures.

1:44 And we plead that on this, the last Lord's Day of this calendar year, you would grant us that blessing which we desire above all else, even your own blessed presence. Gracious God, come in saving presence and power to those whom you have spared through another year, and yet, who have squandered their opportunities to close with the offers of your mercy. Oh Lord, on this final Lord's Day, will you not so work that they may look upon this day as the day of days in their earthly pilgrimage. We pray that you will speak to us, your people, take your holy word and inscribe it upon the fleshy tables of our hearts, that we may know its constant, companionship throughout the coming days. Hear our cry and meet with us, we plead, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. Now I doubt that there is anyone here this morning, within the sound of my voice, young and old alike, who is not aware that this particular Lord's Day,

3:08 December 31st, is the last day of the calendar year, 1995. And since we are all creatures of time, and since few things are a more powerful reminder of the passing of time than the coming in of a new calendar year, I want us to consider a text from the Word of God which is most suitable to the realities and the circumstances within which we meet on this, the last Lord's Day, of 1995. And that text is found coming to us from the pen of the wisest man who ever lived, who was only man, namely Solomon. And they are found in chapter 27 of the book of Proverbs and verse 1. Here in a section of the Proverbs compiled according to 25 and verse 1 by the men of Hezekiah, king of Judah, in this collection of Proverbs, Solomon writes in chapter 27 and verse 1,

The Obvious Fact Asserted: You Do Not Know What a Day May Bring Forth

4:24 Boast not yourself of tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring forth. Or as the New King James Version renders it, and two or three other modern translations which I consulted in my study, which I consulted in my study, I can give you a brief description of the date because I did not know when it would come. consulted in my preparation, boast not about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring forth. Now I trust you can all readily see in a very cursory examination of this text that there are two clear and dominant thoughts given to us by the Spirit of God through the mind and the pen of Solomon. There is first of all a strict prohibition issued. Here is a strict prohibition issued to every one of us. Do not boast about tomorrow. And that is followed by an obvious fact

5:32 asserted, for you do not know what a day may bring forth. A strict prohibition issued. A strict prohibition issued. A strict prohibition issued.

5:41 Do not boast about tomorrow. An obvious fact asserted, for you do not know what a day may bring forth. Now since the prohibition rests down upon the obvious fact and is logically connected to it, for you notice it begins with the word for, the prohibition rests down upon the logical connection with the obvious fact asserted and therefore in expounding the text we shall first of all consider this obvious fact asserted and then the strict prohibition issued. The obvious fact asserted is that you and I do not know what a day may bring forth. Solomon here asserts with undiluted dogmatism that none of us know what a day may bring forth.

6:41 None of us knows what a single day may bring forth, let alone any combination of days into weeks, months, or years. And the word that he uses for bring forth is a much used Hebrew word, yalad, which in its several forms is found several hundred times in the Old Testament to describe the day. Solomon here asserts that the birthing process or the act of birthing, both with respect to human beings and to animals, it is the most common word used when someone is said to give birth or to bring forth a person or animals even giving birth. Therefore Solomon is likening every day to an opaque womb in which

7:42 God has placed all of the particulars that will come forth from that womb on a given day. And he says in this obvious fact that he asserts, you and I do not know for certain what will come forth and be birthed out of the womb of any given day. That's the imagery. And up in the language used, each day which lies before us is to us an opaque womb, the contents of which are utterly unknown to us until they are actually birthed in the events of our own days in the sovereign will and providence of God. Now this obvious fact asserted in this way is one which is used. It is universal in its application. The man or woman with an IQ of 170 considered a genius.

8:51 The poor man or woman with an IQ of 60 considered an idiot. In this they have equal knowledge. Neither one knows what a day may bring forth. The filthy rich and the dirt poor.

9:11 In this they stand together. Neither one knows what a day may bring forth. The famous whose names are a household word throughout the earth. And those who live and die in utter obscurity known by the most narrow circle of only their most intimate acquaintances.

9:35 In this they stand on equal turf. Neither one knows what a day may bring forth. In the teeming cities such as Mexico City with its 10 or 12 millions soon to become 20 million souls. In the smallest little rural village in some obscure town with a population of 320 it is applicable universally.

10:09 Not one knows what a day may bring forth. God has given to us some amazing. And God-like faculties as creatures made in his image and after his likeness. He has given us the faculty of memory and reflection that enables us to look back.

10:32 And looking back to remember events and circumstances. And to analyze and to interpret and to see the relationship and significance of those events. A marvelous faculty that God has given to us as creatures. He has made in his image to remember, to reflect, to look back.

10:53 He has also given us the faculty of consciousness and awareness to look about us in the present. To have a sense of our consciousness. Each of us sitting here knows that we are in a present state of conscious existence. We can turn our heads and look about us and see others of our kind who are also equally aware.

11:18 And conscious of their existence and of the circumstances that surround them in the present moment. Amazing faculties that God has given to us to look back in reflection. To look in in present understanding of our existence and of our circumstances. But God has not given to us any faculty to penetrate the unknown of what lies before us.

11:49 Not. Not even for one day. Not for one day. For here the obvious fact asserted is you and I do not know with any certainty what one day will bring forth.

12:10 Yes, I know there are some things written in the word of God which are absolutely certain with respect to the future. As far. As far as the general patterns of God's dealings, we know from Genesis chapter 9 that as long as the earth remains there will never again be a universal flood that will inundate the entire world and sweep it off into judgment. God made a promise in Genesis 9 that as long as the earth remained there would be seed time and harvest and never again would there be a flood.

12:47 And we know that at the. A pointed moment the Lord Jesus shall come with the voice of the archangel and the trump of God for the scripture says this same Jesus who is taken from you into heaven shall so come in like manner as you have seen him go into heaven and that in the interim we know that the Lord Jesus will infallibly and certainly gather his own to himself for he said in John 10 16 other sheep I have which are not of this fold. Them also I must bring and there shall be one fold one shepherd. Yes, there are certain things we can know for certain with respect to the future but this does not negate this very obvious fact asserted by Solomon that you and I with respect to the hundreds and even thousands of the particular things. That make up any one of our days you and I do not know what is locked up in the womb of any one day and what that day will give birth to in our own experience.

14:05 Think with me of some of the startling reminders of this fact the things that have captured the attention not only of our nation. Some instances our congregation. But in most the entire world that no one would have predicted who was seeking to be a senior and a profit on the threshold of 1995 who would have known on that given day early in the morning that an entire federal building in Oklahoma City would have been rocked as those struck with a whole plane load of bombs. We knew not.

14:55 What that day would bring forth who could have predicted that Superman would fall from a bolting horse the strong hero Christopher Reed rendered quadriplegic in a moment of time who would have ever thought that Sergei Grinkov who made people who love skating sit breathless with his artistry with his wife would die a man in his twenties die of a massive heart attack no one in that little village. No one in that little village. In the north of Scotland would have ever thought when little Emma kissed her mummy goodbye at eight fifteen and hopped on her bike that at eight twenty four she'd be in another world. You see dear people this is indisputable when Solomon asserts you know not what a day may bring forth it is a very clearly affirmed fact and therefore he asserts it. With harm diluted he spoke but just how only food that time self destructions seek to live their lives ignoring the obvious facts of reality.

16:20 Do you hear me still live their lives speaking to the door the obvious facts of reality. That's why the young person who thinks he will beat the path. Before the Senate and before the constitutional laws discuss with you one of the promotional reports. What theck did it look like way.

16:29 He received a going through and listening to the newspapers in late co Dam pertaining to this one of the ultimate esquire of the contemporary simplementis de nica. And this suits a sea this souls is. I'd then bridge To his first tie on his coat, to his first needle, and to his first pipe full of crack, he'll never become a junkie lying in an alley like a half-dead rat. Not me!

17:03 He's a fool who will not face the reality of the facts,

17:12 that the wicked should be held by the cords of his own iniquity. And he that commits sin is the bond-slave of sin.

17:25 You see, this is an undeniable fact, asserted by Solomon under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, that none of us knows what a day may bring forth. Is there anyone here, boy, girl, man, or woman, who would dare to dispute this? Who would dare to stand and say, I know for certain, I know for certain what tomorrow will bring forth for me, it will bring forth...

17:54 You can't do that and make it stick. You may make some calculated guesses, you may make some calculated judgments based on past patterns, but you do not know what a day may bring forth. That's reality!

The Strict Prohibition Issued: Do Not Boast About Tomorrow

18:12 And only fools live their lives willfully ignoring reality. And that then brings us to what is the real burden, then, of the text. It is the strict prohibition issued based upon that undeniable reality. And the strict prohibition issued is this.

18:31 Do not boast about tomorrow. Now, what does it mean to boast about tomorrow? Well, it means to think, to speak, and to act confidently concerning what...

18:51 what our purposes are, what our plans are, and what we will do and experience in the future. It is to do this with no realistic recognition that we don't control the future. It is to think, to speak, as though we have the power to fill up the womb of tomorrow based on our desires, and having filled up the womb of tomorrow based on our desires, we have the power to bring forth everything that we've put in that womb. That is to boast about tomorrow. But two biblical pictures will be worth hundreds of my attempts to define it. Turn to Luke chapter 12. Here is a man who is boasting about tomorrow.

19:52 He is framing purposes in his mind which find expression in the language of his lips and in the actions of his life. And all of them have written over the sum total boasting about tomorrow. Luke chapter 12 and verse 16. And Jesus spoke a parable unto them, saying, The ground of a certain rich man brought forth, Now notice where this boasting begins.

20:27 And he reasoned within himself, saying, It all began in the internal cogitations of his own mind. He reasoned within himself, saying,

20:43 And what does he say? What shall I do? Because I have not where to bestow my fruits. And he said, This will I do.

20:52 I will pull down my barn. And there I will bestow all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have much goods laid up for many years. Not just many days.

21:10 Many weeks. Many months. You have much goods laid up for many years. Take thine ease.

21:20 Those are his plans. This is his projected lifestyle. Eat. Drink.

21:25 Be merry. Here was a man boasting about tomorrow. A man who, as he looked back and saw the patterns of his productivity and his, quote, success could reason from the past and his present circumstances into the future. And he thinks that he will place into the womb of his future only those things that he desires to find.

21:54 Those things that he desires to factor in. And you know what God calls him? That God said unto him, Thou fool. Thou fool!

22:08 Why was he a fool? Astute businessman. A keen trader in the market. He knew when to hold back his grain for the highest price and when to sell off how many bushels and how to get optimum return.

22:25 He was no fool in his business enterprises. He was a fool in that he failed to reckon on this inescapable fact that he did not know what a day would bring forth.

22:41 There's the man who is boasting about tomorrow and the Lord Jesus describes him. Then in James chapter 4 we have a second description of what it means to boast about tomorrow.

22:56 James chapter 4.

23:01 James calls to account people that are not that are boasting about tomorrow. James 4 in verse 13. Come now you that say. Here it breaks out in their speech.

23:14 Their speech frames the thinking of their minds. Come now you that say today or tomorrow we will go into this city and spend a year there. Here they've got their plans for a year. The fool of Luke 12 was thinking of many years.

23:35 These fools speak of a year and trade and get gain. They think they can absolutely predict the market. Whereas you know not what shall be on the morrow for what is your life. You are a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away for that you ought to say if the Lord will we shall both live and do this or that.

24:00 In other words he says you are not factoring in this reality. The will of God fills up the womb of your tomorrows not your high pollutant plans. It is the will of God that fills up the wombs of your tomorrows. And what will come forth is not what you place there by your own wishful thinking but what is placed there by the sovereign will of God.

24:27 But now you glory in your vauntings. All such glorying is evil. Rendered into evil. Rendered into evil.

24:35 Rendered into more contemporary English. You boast in your pretentious arrogant words. Is a little rendering of the Greek. You are boasting in your pretentious arrogant words.

24:51 And what were they boasting about? They were boasting about the mortal. So what is clearly prohibited in this strict prohibition issued by Solomon? It is the law.

25:04 It is anything that approaches and involves the mentality that I can in my own independent judgement store up what I propose to do tomorrow. Not in the humble spirit of the child of God who prayerfully assesses where the tracks of Scripture will most likely find His feet should God sustain us. sustain him and prepare him for tomorrow and the next week and month and year, and who prudently seeks to frame his future by the precepts and principles of the word, all the while knowing that the will of God is what determines the unfolding of each day. No, no, what is condemned in this prohibition is that disposition that thinks that we can put infallibly into the womb of tomorrow that which we desire to put there, even the most noble of things, when in reality all God has given us is today in which to do the will of God.

Application to Believers: Dealing with Unconfessed Sin Today

26:27 And so on the threshold of this new year, we need to lay to heart these words of Solomon, and based on this obvious fact that we know not what a day may bring forth, to take to ourselves this solemn, strict prohibition that we must not boast about tomorrow. Now in the application, I wish first of all to make an application to the people of God, and then an application to you who sit here. I am here unconverted this morning, God willing, tonight it's my purpose to bring a seven-fold string of pearls of comfort and consolation to the people of God as they face the new year, but without embarrassment and I trust with genuine pastoral love and concern, I want to go after the consciences of not a few of you this morning. First of all, to you who are the people of God, you who are united to Christ, not only by profession, but in reality, you have known what it is by the Spirit of God to be driven out of yourself to rest solely in Christ for your acceptance before God. You have been united to Christ in the virtue of His death and resurrection,

27:52 and in the virtue of that union, you have died to the dominion of sin, and you have risen to walk in newness of life. You have a heart that is suffused with evangelical motives of disobedience, desiring to please Christ, and to honor Christ, and to serve Christ, and to you, the true people of God, I say, first of all, do not boast of tomorrow with reference to dealing with unconfessed sin that is right now in your life. Do not boast of tomorrow with respect to unconfessed sins in your life today. You see, if you are a true child of God, you are obeying Hebrews 12.14, which says, follow after peace with all men, and the holiness without which no man shall see the Lord. If you are a true child of God, 1 John 1.7 is indeed the pattern of your life.

29:01 If we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ, His Son. He goes on cleansing us from all sin. So that the basic pattern of your life is one of an ongoing, honest dealing with sin. And when sin is discovered, you go to the fountain open for sin and uncleanness.

29:24 And with the assurance of God's promise in 1 John 1.9, if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. And if any man sinned, 2.2 of that same book, we have an advocate with the Father as a real Christian.

29:44 This is the meat and drink of your life. However, however, however, sitting here this morning, on this last day of 1995, you know that you have one or more specific sins that you have not owned from the heart, brought to the living God. With fresh application to the blood and mediation of Christ.

30:15 And because you are a true Christian, you know you are going to have to deal with that sin or those sins. But you know what you are doing? You are saying, come on, I will deal with that sin. You know that you could not maintain your level of assurance were you to say, I have no intention of ever dealing with that sin.

30:41 You know that to take... That posture would be to relinquish a major element of a well-grounded biblical assurance that you are even in a state of grace.

30:53 And so your posture is not one of justifying the sin, not one of deliberately intending to try to bury it in some self-made sea of forgetfulness. Oh yes, you have every intention of confessing it tomorrow. Do not boast, for you do not know what a day may bring forth. As long as that sin lies uncleansed and unconfessed as a festering sore in your soul and as a burr in your conscience, Proverbs 28.13 is stamped on your forehead. He that covers his sin shall not...

31:50 prosper. And if God were to allow you to prosper while you knowingly cover that sin, he'd have to come out of heaven and scrub that text from his own holy word. What is the sin? You say, if I confess that to God, I know, I know, I'll have to confess it to my wife.

32:16 And I don't know how she'd react if I tell her this or that. She might turn against me. She might threaten to divorce me. I know eventually I must confess it and I fully intend to.

32:33 Son, tomorrow, child of God, get out of your dream world. Harden your heart one more day about that sin and the likelihood that you'll ever confess it is much less in the orbit of reality. Ah, but if I confess that sin, I know I'll have to make it right at other levels. It may mean going to the IRS and acknowledging that I should.

33:01 I may have to pay the tax in order to favor myself. And I didn't render to Caesar what belonged to Caesar. I might be taken to court. I might lose my home.

33:11 My whole family might be ashamed. And you're covering that sin that you know was committed when you filled out your tax forms last April. You know it! Yet you're boasting of tomorrow.

33:30 Oh, I don't intend to die with that sin undealt with. I don't intend to meet the Lord Jesus with that sin undealt with. But I'll deal with it tomorrow. In God's name.

33:44 In the name of the God who's redeemed you, child of God! Confess that sin today. For whoso confesses and forsakes them shall obtain mercy. Not only will you know the blessedness of a cleansed conscience, you have the promise of God's mercy which is pity joined to action.

34:12 And though the confession of that sin may bring you into dire conditions in terms of your relationship to mom and dad, wife or husband, the government, your boss, sorrow, to face a thousand obstacles with a clean conscience in the knowledge of open-faced communion with God is far better than to sneak into 1996 with a bloody gun. You need conscience. Knowing that God has a controversy with you. Now, what's the sin?

34:56 You know, even as I preach, conscience is active. Don't boast yourself of tomorrow. Don't do another con job on yourself, saying, Yes, Lord, you know. I acknowledge that.

35:10 I'm not trying to hide it. And, Lord, I hope and plan and propose that I will. Boast not thyself of tomorrow. For thou knowest not what a day may bring forth.

Application to Believers: Ruthless Mortification of Sinful Patterns Today

35:28 And a second word of exhortation to you, the people of God, do not boast of tomorrow with reference to the ruthless, principled mortification of patterns of sin in your life. See the difference between the two? It is one thing to have a specific or specific unconfessed sins, matters that have not been dealt with biblically, and matters that are still too subtle for some to grasp. It is another thing to have a specific or specific unconfessed sin, matters that have not been dealt with biblically, matters that have not been dealt with biblically, and matters that are still too subtle for some to grasp.

36:13 And the wanton self, whose sin is that which is moody, whose sin is that which is unholy, and whose sin is certain and Laban, whose sin is certain and Laban, is truly an unholy sin. Where there is not the ruthless, principled mortification. Now, because you're a Christian, you are mortifying sin. Romans 8.13 says, If you by the Spirit do keep on mortifying the deeds of the flesh, you shall live. You are in a fundamental pattern of mortifying sin. You are doing what Jesus said in Matthew 5.29 and 30, plucking out the right eyes and cutting off and casting away the right hands that cause offense in your life.

37:01 You are, by the grace of God in the overall pattern of your life, seeking to implement 2 Corinthians 7.1, having therefore these promises, dearly beloved. Let us cleanse ourselves of all defilement of the flesh and of the Spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God. But there are some areas where you know that the ordinary spiritual energy directed to the mortification of those specific patterns of sin has found you coming into 1995 with those patterns entrenched.

37:39 I'm sitting here this morning, you're going out of 1995 with them just as deeply entrenched.

37:47 Though in some areas there has been progress in mortification, these particular patterns, alas, not only have they not been excised to any degree, you have declined into even greater crippling falls before those particular patterns.

38:11 And what's the issue? The issue is you know, you know, you know that those particular patterns are not going to go with the ordinary measure of spiritual means and spiritual energy directed against them. This kind goes not out but by prayer. There's going to have to be a more determined, ruthless concentration of spiritual weaponry upon those areas of your life.

38:39 And you know it! And you have every intention of marshalling up those energies in dependence upon the Spirit of God and starting to hack and whack away in holy mortification.

38:55 But it's tomorrow.

38:59 It's tomorrow. It's tomorrow. Tomorrow!

39:09 And God's word to you is don't boast about tomorrow. You don't know what a day may bring forth. Leave those patterns of sin still entrenched as they are and they may be the very seedlings that will sprout into the full-blown tree of apostasy.

39:36 What's the area? Conscience at work?

39:41 You came into 95 knowing you had an obsessive, obsessive, inordinate attachment to your TV.

39:49 You're coming out of 1995 with that inordinate attachment increased and intensified and you know it. You came into 95 knowing that you were not exercising the disciplines necessary to cut off the right hand that reached for the VCR and the rented movie that fed your flesh and put words and images in your mind that had nothing to do with enabling you to be a more holy man or woman. And you have to determine, I've got to stop all of that. But here you come to the end of 1995 and you're renting more movies a month than you did in January of 1995.

40:31 You've not mortified your inordinate, insatiable appetite for that which you're getting from the blockbuster store. And there are more in this assembly than I think any one of us would want to know who are in that category. You can't remember! You took an evening off for three hours to open your Bible that he would help you mortify for the unclean and the impure and the brutal,

41:13 gratuitous sex and gratuitous violence. And you've not spent one evening of three hours before God asking him by the power of the Holy Ghost whatever it is that has an appetite for that that you spent many an evening feeding it with what you rented at the video store. Get honest, my friend. Stop trying to con yourself.

41:35 That's where you're at. And you're boasting, tomorrow, tomorrow, I'll have deal with that tomorrow. Boast not thyself of tomorrow. I know this may mean some negative votes on my reconfirmation in January.

41:53 Frankly, I don't give a hoot because I'm going to stand before God and maybe on my tombstone we'll have etched the date 1996. I don't care how you may be angry at my honesty. I say this not to hurt you, my Bible says unless you start hacking and hewing, you're going to go to hell. I want to see you go to heaven.

42:24 And Jesus said if the offending eye is not plucked out and cast away and the offending hand come out and cast away, you'll burn. You boast of tomorrow because you know as a Christian you can't sign a peace treaty with any sin and you've not. But you've been deceived into thinking somehow the resolution will be greater tomorrow. Somehow the next time, I go into the video store, the resolution will be greater to bypass everything I ought to or perhaps to resolve never to go into it again as some of us have made resolutions never to go into them at all. Dear child of God, don't boast about tomorrow. Don't boast of tomorrow with reference to dealing with unconfessed sin in your life. Secondly, don't boast of tomorrow with reference to the ruthless principled mortification of the patterns of your sin, and do not boast yourself of tomorrow with reference to a wholehearted commitment to the full scope of your biblical duties.

Application to Believers: Wholehearted Commitment to Biblical Duties Today

43:47 Do not boast yourself of tomorrow with reference to a wholehearted commitment to the full scope or spectrum of your biblical duties. As a child of God, you are committed to doing all the will of God. Jesus describes you in Matthew 721. Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter the kingdom, but he that is doing, not half, two-thirds, three-quarters, or the convenient aspects of, but he that is doing the will of God.

44:17 If you're a true Christian, you know that your heart with the Psalmist says, I esteem all thy precepts concerning all things to be right, and therefore I hate every false way. If you're a true sheep of Christ, he's described you in John 1027. My sheep are hearing my voice, and I know them, and they are following me. Not just following me selectively, but following me in principle universally.

44:44 They hear. They follow Hebrews 5, 9, being made perfect, speaking of Christ. He became the author of eternal salvation unto all that are obeying him. If indeed you're a true child of God, you know that that's the fundamental disposition of your heart.

45:02 Commitment in the strength of Christ, out of gratitude to Christ, to fulfill all of your known duties as defined and delineated by the word of Christ. But if you come to this last day of the new year, and what's your problem? You lack a wholehearted commitment to certain aspects of that full spectrum of your duty. For some of you, the area of chronic lack of whole-souled commitment is the basics of your own personal walk with God.

45:38 You came into 1995 with a sloppy devotional life. You come to this last day of 1995, and you still have a sloppy devotional life. I didn't say, throughout the year, some of us have had periods where our devotional life has been shriveled, where it has been skipped, where it has been more intense and more fruitful. I'm not talking about the normal ebb and flow, but the basic pattern of your life is, you have to live.

46:09 You had no established framework of personal devotional exercises when you came into 1995, and you've come to the last day and there's been no fundamental change. And yet if I ask you, does God's word warrant that you meditate in his law as a part of your daily experience? Does the Lord's prayer clearly establish that every disciple of Christ will pray daily, give us this day, our daily bread? You say, yes.

46:44 But you're not doing it daily. Why not? You say, well, I assure purpose to tomorrow. Tomorrow, out there, something's going to happen in me and in my circumstances that are going to make it more acceptable and more welcoming to an established devotional life.

47:11 You're boasting of tomorrow. You're living the life of a fool in that area. You're living the life of a Christian in the domestic area. What more can be said to you men about assuming the burden of loving, assertive, sensitive, Christ-like headship over your wives and over your families?

47:35 What more can be said to you from the scriptures than has been said? And you came into 1995 knowing there's certain areas where you're not nurturing your wife. You have allowed patterns in her life that are not in her best interest. The best interest spiritually, physically, emotionally, psychologically.

47:54 But you know, if you were to address them, she might pull her special pout that you know and can recognize three blocks away. She might push the buttons that you know she's pushed before to freeze you out and to bring an emotional climate into the home that's negative. And you've lacked the moral courage to lay hold of Christ for his grace to do the nurturing, cherishing, loving thing and be willing to tolerate her frown for a while and her frigidity emotionally and even physically for a while that you might nobly look up into the face of your savior and say, Lord Jesus, with all the strength you're giving me, I'm seeking to reflect your loving, sensitive, assertive, self-giving headship in this home. Some of you, the minute your kids get 16 and get a license, you cop out and think they're adults now and can negotiate. What's going to go on in the family and you don't have the moral courage to get in the face of those kids and say, look, as long as you're under this roof, God's pointed me his vice regent to implement his rule and you get too big for your britches to obey that rule. There's the door.

49:05 So you discuss things with your kids and you negotiate with your kids. Shame, shame on any man rule not well, his own household. How shall we take care of the church of God? We are to rule our households, not like tyrants.

49:21 Imposing our will, but as vice regents appointed by the King of Kings and Lord of Lords to graciously implement his will in the domain assigned to us. You know it and you purpose. Oh yes, you're not sitting here today saying I have no intention to be a loving, sensitive, caring, assertive head in my home. Oh no, but it's tomorrow.

49:48 I'm going to start tomorrow. Tomorrow. Oh, so for tomorrow with respect to a whole hard commitment to the full spectrum of your biblical duties as an individual believer in your domestic roles and responsibilities in your church commitments, you made solemn commitments when you came into this membership, you made them before God and before men that only providential hindrances would keep you from making your way to this place. When the church gathers, I wouldn't want to be in your place and try to prove to God that all the times you've absented yourself from prayer meeting was because God's providence made it necessary. You think you could persuade God? If not, then don't con your own conscience. You made solemn commitments that you would give proportionately out of principle, not out of convenience.

50:54 And you know, you've been waffling and robbing God in his tithes and his offerings. And you know, in the workplace, you know what the will of God is. Whatever your hand finds to do, do with all your might is unto the Lord and not as on demand in the workplace, do all things without murmuring and disputing that you may be blameless and harmless. You know that you've heard it preached and you have every intention of being that kind of workman.

51:18 Tomorrow, dear child of God, hear the scriptures, boast, not yourself of tomorrow. You know, not for the day may bring. Today is the day. When before God, that sin that needs to be confessed must be the marshaling of spiritual energy and the looking to Christ for fresh grace to mortify those chronic patterns of sin.

51:51 Today is the day of opportunity. And today is the day of opportunity for wholehearted commitment to the full scope and spectrum of your biblical. Duties don't enter the new year. A partial fool saying tomorrow, tomorrow, the ability to even rationally think about the unconfessed sin, the patterns of unmortified pockets of sin in your life, the areas of sloppiness with respect to your biblical duties.

52:30 How do you know you're even going to have the rational faculties to think of those things? Tomorrow, one little blood vessel bursting in the brain. It could be rendered an idiot. One visit to the doctor and the discovery that there's been working in you silently and unfelt, a deadly life destroying tumor and your whole life will be absorbed in one thing.

53:06 How am I going to get over the heaves from the next treatment to the chemotherapy? You won't be thinking about your devotions. You won't be thinking about your family headship. You just be thinking about how am I going to survive?

53:18 The next chemo treatment. Are these scare tactics? No, my folks, that's reality. We don't know what a day may bring for.

Application to the Unconverted: Do Not Boast of Tomorrow for Salvation

53:30 Don't post concerning tomorrow. And then I make this application to you who are unconverted. You say, Pastor, who do you mean by the unconverted? I mean, those of you boys, girls, teenagers, men and women, you make no profession of faith in Christ.

53:49 I would have come down where you're sitting in the pew and say to you by name, do you profess here and now to be trusting only in Jesus Christ as your hope of life and salvation? Do you profess to have given yourself to Christ to be saved by him and to be his willing bond slave for the rest of your days? No way, man, that's not me. I make no such profession.

54:13 Others of you are unconverted. You make the profession, but you're a hypocrite. Hypocrite is a man who knowingly wears a mask. The very biblical word hypocrite.

54:23 Hypocrite. Is the word that etymologically means the wearing of a mask. When a man was on the stage playing the role of the mask he had on his face, he knew his own true identity as well as the identity he was projecting with his mask, with his voice and with his part. There are some of you in that category.

54:43 You profess and others have accepted your profession. But, you know, in your heart of hearts, you're as phony as a seven dollar bill. You know it. You haven't got an ounce of.

54:55 Reality in you. You know it. God knows it. You fooled everyone else.

55:00 And then there's a third category of the unconverted among us. Those of you that profess to be saved. You don't know that you aren't because you're a formalist. You you're convinced that if you say the right words and if you're in the right place at the right time and lives a reasonably decent life, then surely you've got reality of personal communion with God.

55:21 You know nothing of tenderness of conscience maintained that you might. Maintain that fellowship and communion with God. You know nothing of hunger and thirst after God. You know nothing.

55:37 You're a formalist, but you think you're converted. Now I'm addressing all three categories of the unconverted here this morning with this text. Do not boast yourself of tomorrow for you do not know what a day may bring forth if I were to gather all of you who fit that category. The.

55:59 Unconverted and ask you. Do you purpose to go on in this way until your allotted days are used up and in God's appointment book, the angel of death comes or Jesus Christ returns in power and glory? Do you intend to go on unconverted in any of those categories only to sink into hell forever? I doubt there's a one who would in a cavalier way throw his or her head back and say, yeah, what of it?

56:28 I trust there's no one so hard as to almost dare God to strike you dead in your arrogance. I believe every unconverted man, woman, boy or girl here would say, yes, I do want to know that I'm saved. Those of you make no profession. Yes, I am.

56:48 I read my Bible and I listen to family worship and I hope someday that Christ will be mine and I'll be his. And I trust that some of you are hypocrites. Are feeling the. Wretched.

57:00 Taste of the hypocrisy in your mouth, beginning to soberly realize what does it matter if I fool the whole world? I'm on my way to be stripped naked before God in the last day. I hope you'd say I don't want to be a hypocrite anymore. If you're a formalist, you'd at least admit the possibility and say, oh, God, if that's what I am, simply a formalist who says the right things and is in the right place at the right time.

57:30 I'm doing what's expected, but I don't know anything of communion with God. I don't know anything of true fellowship with Christ. I would hope that anyone in any of those categories of the unconverted would say, no, I want to do something about it. I want to get serious about obtaining divine forgiveness, receiving a new heart, turning from my sin, laying hold of Christ.

57:54 But I ask you, I ask you when will you say tomorrow? In other words? I'm serious about this and I want to do something about it any time, but right now. Well, I want you to look in the Bible at a man who took that posture.

58:16 Turn to Acts chapter 24, where God has given us the picture of such a man, unconverted, conscious he was unconverted, concerned that he was unconverted. Even listen to a preacher, the likes of which you and I have never heard. But he boasted. Tomorrow, Acts 24 and verse 24.

58:40 But after certain days, Felix came, Felix, I'm sorry, came with Drusilla, his wife, who was a Jewess and sent for Paul. Now listen and heard him concerning the faith in Christ Jesus. This man, Felix, sent for this preacher of preachers, the great apostle Paul, who next to our Lord Jesus Christ probably did more for the kingdom. Of God than any other person that walked the face of the earth in human history.

59:14 He sends for Paul and he listens to him. Didn't fall asleep. Didn't nod off. He listened to him concerning the faith, the body of truth surrounding Christ Jesus.

59:26 And as he, that is Paul, reason of righteousness. He went after the conscience of this man, that there is an absolute standard of right and wrong. Epitomized in the law of God. And he went after this man's conscience concerning righteousness and self-control.

59:43 The control of one's appetites and passions in relationship to God's standards. And the fact that all of that would come out in the day of judgment and of the judgment to come when every area of lack of self-control that led a man into disobeying God's holy law and his standard of righteousness. What happened to Felix? Did he write it all off and say, well, that was interesting to hear the babblings of this religious nut?

60:08 What? That was a very interesting philosophical dissertation on his views of religious reality? No, no, look what the text says. And as Paul reasoned, Felix was terrified.

60:21 Felix was terrified. He became terrified. He became terrified. These realities pressed in upon him.

60:34 God, the law, righteousness, self-control, a coming day of judgment. He was terrified. But what did he do? Look at the text.

60:46 He answered, go your way for this time, and when I have a convenient season, I will call you unto me. See what he's doing? He's boasting of tomorrow. Look what he's assuming.

61:06 He's assuming he would be alive for another season. He was assuming he would have his rational faculties. For a more convenient season. He was assuming the man of God would be alive, that the man of God would be accessible, and that the man of God would be willing to come and speak to him.

61:25 And that he would still be cons... Look at all the things he's putting into the womb of tomorrow that he has no power to put into the womb of tomorrow.

61:36 He puts them in and says, they'll come out at my will. Oh, hot shot Felix. Now you control all these things, do you? The tragic thing.

61:45 You read the story and meditate on it. There's every indication that he never again was terrified. All he had was dollar signs on his eyeballs. And he hoped by having Paul in again and again, he could eventually get Paul to Greece's palm.

62:00 That's what the text says. He hoped with all that money would be given him of Paul, therefore he sent for him the more often and commutes with him! But he never trembled again. You want something to scare you out of your indifference?

62:18 This passage ought to make some of you grasp a few in front of you. This passage ought to make some of you grasp a few in front of you. This passage ought to make some of you grasp a few in front of you. This passage ought to make some of you grasp a few in front of you.

62:22 of you and say, God have mercy on me, lest I drop into hell. You think this is fooling business? Look at that man. He had this great servant of God, fishing with passion and the unction of the Holy Ghost, until the hairs on the back of his neck. But he boasted of tomorrow. Tomorrow, manana, I'll call you again. Isn't that where some of you are? You have no intention to go on rejecting Christ until you die and sink into hell. You have no intention going on being the hypocrite you've been. You're getting weary of it. You're getting tired of always looking over your shoulder to make sure you've picked your mask off at the right time and in the right place and in the right circumstances. And you're beginning to have a yearning to live with no mask. Oh, the blessedness of having no

63:23 mask to wear, so that what men see is what is.

The Divine Antidote: Now is the Day of Salvation

63:30 Warts and moles and all, but no mask. Haven't you begun to wonder that maybe you're just a formalist when others speak so naturally of communion with Christ and the Lord's presence and blessing? Isn't there a yearning in your heart to have something more than a formal religion? Oh, dear unconverted man or woman, don't boast of tomorrow. The scriptures tell us here is the divine antidote. Look at it in 2 Corinthians. 2 Corinthians 6 and verse 2. 2 Corinthians 6 and verse 2. And in my own devotional reading in the New Testament this week, I came again to this passage and found my own heart drawn out with earnest pleadings with God that I would know something of what Paul felt and knew when he says in verse 20 of the preceding chapter, that's the beginning of the paragraph, we are ambassadors therefore on the behalf of Christ. As though God were intreating by us, think of this, as though God himself were intreating, exhorting, that he may have the use of parakaleo drawing alongside and calling and speaking,

64:55 as though God were intreating by us, we, o my, we beg you on the behalf of Christ. Think of it. Paul said as an ambassador, we not only draw alongside and entreat you in the very stead of Christ, we beg you with all the pathos and the passion and the yearning of the incarnate God who said, O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how oft would I have gathered you as a hen gathers her chicks, and you would not, who stood and cried in the temple of any man first, let him come unto me and drink. As the scripture saith, he that believeth on me out of his innermost being shall flow rivers of living water. Think what it means to stand in Christ's stead, and his peel was bereconciled.

65:57 Child to God, throw down your arms, going on in the posture of enmity against God, living your own life, trusting yourself, hiding under your mask. And on what grounds can we entreat and beg? Because God has done something objectively in space-time history in the person of his Son, him who knew no sin, he made to be sin in our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God in him. It's on the basis of what?

66:30 What Christ has done, that we entreat, we beg, and we, working together with him, entreat also that you receive not the grace of God in vain. For he saith, at an acceptable time I hearkened unto you, and in a day of salvation did I succor you. Behold, now, now is the acceptable time. Behold, now is the day of salvation.

67:00 You see the conjunction of those words, now the time, now the day, now the time, the day.

67:27 For you know not what a morrow may bring forth.

67:36 Hebrews 3, 7 and following, today if you hear his voice, harden not your heart. And again he repeats it in verse 15, as he saith before, today if you hear. His voice, all the Bible says to you as far as tomorrow is concerned, hear me carefully as I close. Listen, all the Bible says to you who are unconverted, as far as tomorrow is concerned, is this.

68:09 That you may find God to be a totally different God to you tomorrow than he is today.

68:19 You got that? You may find God to be a totally different God. You may find God to be a totally different God to you tomorrow than he is to you today. Pastor, what are you talking about?

68:32 You go home and read Proverbs chapter 1, starting in verse 23, where God says, I have stretched out my hands, I have called, I have entreated, you have refused.

68:47 He said, the day is coming when you will call.

68:51 And I almost trembled to quote these words. And God says, I will laugh and I will mock. At your calamity. You will cry and I will not hear.

69:08 My spirit shall not always strive with men.

69:16 You see why Solomon said, don't boast about tomorrow. You don't know what tomorrow may bring forth this morning in the gospel and in the word. And God taking a natively foul-mouthed, dirty mind, self-centered, hell-deserving sinner. And so working on his heart that he honestly, sincerely has at least an infinitesimal touch of the yearning of God for your salvation.

69:45 And I've tried to get inside your head and inside your skin to entreat and to beg and to plead. You stand and tell me you have absolute certainty you'll have one more time for somebody so to beg and to plead.

70:06 God is toward you today. And the gospel with an inviting face. God is toward you today in the gospel. May I say it reverently with oversized ears.

70:19 Ready to pick up the faintest whisper of the sigh of a penitent cry. God be merciful to me a sinner. And for the sake of Jesus your son, save me. God has oversized ears.

70:38 And God has outstretched hands.

70:43 But all God says about tomorrow is that he may be a different God to you. If your cry does not go up into his ears today. And if your heart does not reach out to his outstretched hands today. Now is the day of salvation.

71:04 Now is the acceptable time. May God grant that even this day, this hour.

71:17 You will say, God, no longer will I play the fool.

71:21 I will close with Christ. I will cry out for mercy. Till I know that mercy is mine.

Closing Illustration and Prayer: The Judgment Morning

71:34 Someone who felt the pressure of these things penned these words.

71:40 I dreamed that the great judgment morning had come. The trumpet had blown.

71:47 Man is speaking. Thinking of the coming day of judgment. I dreamed that the nations had gathered to judgment before the white throne. From that throne.

71:57 Came a bright shining angel. And he stood on the land and the sea. And he swore with his hand raised to heaven. That time was no longer to be.

72:10 The moral man came to the judgment. But his self-righteous rags would not do. For the men who had crucified Jesus had passed off as moral men too. Now listen carefully.

72:23 The man that had put off salvation. Not today. I'll get saved by and by. No time to think of repentance.

72:39 At last he had found time to die. And oh, what a weeping and wailing. When the lost were told of their fate. They cried for the rocks and the mountains.

72:55 They prayed. But their prayer let us pray. Oh, our God.

73:15 What can we say before you? Oh, our God. The very thought that another Lord's day morning would come and go. That you would draw near in the worship and ministry of your word.

73:29 And that sinners laid in with their guilt and bondage. Would go on increasing that guilt and bondage. When liberty, forgiveness, pardon, acceptance. All stand available in Christ.

73:44 Oh, God have mercy. Have mercy. Have mercy. Have mercy.

73:49 Have mercy. Oh, Lord. Don't let people destroy themselves forever. Stretch forth your hand.

73:57 Have deep saving dealings with many today. And for your children, oh, Lord. Whose area of arrested growth has been identified. And your word has found them out.

74:11 May they also have dealings with you today. That we may be able. Should you spare us for days to come. Into the new year.

74:22 That we may look back and have occasion to bless you. For this last day of the old year. Because it was to us in a unique way. A day of your salvation.

74:34 Hear us. And seal your word to our hearts, we pray. In Jesus' name. Amen.