The following message was delivered
on Sunday morning, January 2nd, 1994, at the Trinity Baptist
Church in Montville, New Jersey. Now let us again ask God's help
upon the ministry of the Word, and as we do, let us remember
that some of the imagery of this hymn is not the strained imagery
of poetry, It merely reflects many of the images of the Word
of God. The scripture tells us our life
is a vapor, a little puff of smoke that appears and vanishes
away. God says our years are spent
as a sigh. That's your life and mine. Again,
we are told that our days pass swifter than a weaver's shuttle. If you've ever seen an old loom
and see the shuttle that is thrown from side to side as it works
its way through the threads, God says each of those threads
is like a year of our lives and life passes like that weaver's
shuttle. Let us pray that something of
those realities embodied in those graphic images may grip our hearts
and form the very subsoil with which we receive the Word of
God this morning. Let us pray. Our Father, we come to you, the
eternal God, the everlasting God, the God who has no beginning,
the God upon whose brow there are no furrows that come with
age. You have the eternal freshness
of your own eternal and changeless being. And for this, we worship
you with the psalmist. We cry from everlasting to everlasting. You are God. And we thank you
that when you exclaim, I am Jehovah, I change not. Our hearts respond
and say, oh, God, we are glad it is so. We feel very keenly
that we are creatures of time, that our days do indeed pass
swifter than a weaver's shuttle. They are like a tail that is
told a sigh. They are like the vapor that
appears and vanishes. And we pray that you would sober
us with these realities. And as the word of God is ministered
to us, May it be, O God, with the realism of the awesomeness
of the brevity of life, the certainty of death and of judgment and
of an endless eternity to be spent in unspeakable bliss in
your presence or in unspeakable terror where there is weeping
and wailing and gnashing of teeth. O God, come, and may we taste
the powers of the age to come, even as the word is ministered
this morning, we ask in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Now, as I sat at my desk on Saturday,
I went through a very mundane but sobering annual ritual. And that ritual involves reaching
into my top left-hand desk drawer, where I keep my desk calendar
from which I work out my daily, weekly, monthly schedule. And
sometime during the last months of the previous year, I get the
calendar for the next year and place it under the current year.
So for several months, the calendar for 1994 sat under 1993 calendar
and occasionally was referred to in elders meetings, in long-term
planning, occasionally referred to responding to requests for
outside meetings here or there. But the working calendar always
had the comforting numbers 1993 at the top of each month. But on Saturday, that working
calendar of the past year had to take its place beneath the
1994 calendar, which came from its second rank position, now
to sit on top of the preceding year where it will be kept throughout
the year when reference needs to be made to matters of things
that were done in counseling sessions that were had, etc.
And then it gets retired eventually to an archiving file that goes
back now for some 15 years where I keep such calendars. And as I perform that annual
ritual, I was struck with the fact that someday I will perform
that mundane year-end ritual for the last time. Someday a
calendar will be placed in the position of the working calendar
of a new year. And on one of those days between
January and December of that year, there will be a date that
will perfectly coincide with the date on my death certificate. And no more will I perform that
annual ritual. It could be that I have performed
it for the last time. I have no premonition that I
will die in 1994. I certainly have no ludicrous,
fanatical, grossly distorted prophecy that Christ will come
in 1994 as had Mr. Camping dared to make in his
arrogance and in his spiritual blindness and pride. But the
fact still remains that Scripture says it is appointed unto men
once to die. And as a man, I sit within that
clear statement of Hebrews 9 and verse 27. And furthermore, because the
scripture says that we are not to boast of tomorrow, for we
know not what a day may bring forth, then it is right that
I should have felt and carry with me the impress of that feeling
that gripped me as I switched the 1994 calendar from number
two place to number one place. of the awesome uncertainty of
this present life. And these sobering thoughts,
coupled with the fact that today is the first Lord's Day of 1994,
have constrained me to desire to lay bare my heart to you who
are gathered here this morning in a very intensely pastoral
way And if I were to give a title to the burden of my exhortation
this morning, it would be this, a word of pastoral encouragement
and exhortation on the first Lord's Day of the new year. A word of pastoral encouragement
and exhortation on the first Lord's Day of the new year. The biblical forewarrant for
what I am doing and the way in which I propose to do it, I find
to the satisfaction of my own judgment and conscience in, first
of all, Paul's clear charge to Timothy in 2 Timothy 4 and verse
2. where he tells his spiritual
son Timothy, preach the word, the instant in season, out of
season, reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and teaching. In his preaching of the Word
of God, which certainly involves the exposition of that Word,
he was also to engage in specific disciplines of reproof, rebuke,
and exhortation. done in a spirit of long-suffering
and with the doctrine or teaching of the Word of God. And therefore,
to give a message to pastoral encouragement and exhortation
does indeed fit within the apostolic charge which, given directly
and explicitly to Timothy, we can by a proper deduction assume
forms the framework for the ongoing ministry of the Word of God of
those called to pastor and to shepherd the people of God. But
not only do I find a warrant for what I'm going to do in the
charge of Paul to Timothy, but as to the format in which I will
do it, I find in Paul's example to the Thessalonians that this
is what he sought to do in his ministry among them, and that
there is nothing unique to the apostolic office with reference
to what he sought to do. For in 1 Thessalonians 2 and
in verse 10, the apostle says, or verse 11, you know how we
dealt with each of you as a father with his own children. exhorting
you and encouraging you and testifying to the end that you should walk
worthily of God who calledeth you into his own kingdom and
glory. Paul likened his pastoral input
to the Thessalonians to that of a father with his children. There we have at least the elements
of parental affection and intimacy and familial relationships. And it is in that setting that
I want to speak to you this word of pastoral encouragement and
exhortation on this first Lord's Day of the new year. And as I
use as an organizing principle the differing age groups among
us, I believe I see in Paul's directives to Titus, particularly
in Titus chapter 2, the biblical warrant for isolating various
age groups into general categories and bringing distinctive admonitions
and exhortations to them. In Titus chapter 2, the apostle
gives this general directive, speak the things which befit
the sound or healthy doctrine. And then he specifies various
groups to whom Timothy would minister or Titus would minister
in the church at Crete. that the aged men be, verse 3,
that the aged women be, verse 4, that they may train the young
women, verse 6, the younger men exhort to be sober-minded. And then he singles out servants
in verse 9. So the idea that a servant of
Christ ministering the word of Christ to the gathered people
of Christ would isolate various segments of the family of Christ
and bring specific directives to them, I say we have warrant
for that methodology in the very inspired directives which the
apostle gave to Titus as he was to carry on the work of seeking
the maturation of the churches in the Isle of Crete. So having
given you a little idea of what it is that has moved my thinking
in the direction of this particular burden on this particular day,
Having sought to identify the biblical principles and precedents
which settle my own judgment and conscience that what I am
doing has warrant from the Word of God, I wish first of all to
bring a word to four distinct groups within the Church, and
then I want to conclude with a final word to one generic group
within the Church. And these will constitute my
word of pastoral encouragement and exhortation on this first
Lord's Day of the new year. First of all, I want to bring
a word to those whom I'm describing as the aged, ripened, homesick
saints among us. a word to the aged, ripened,
homesick saints among us. And with each of these groups,
I will ask the question, who are they and what is my word
to them? Who do I have in mind when I
speak of the aged, ripened, homesick saints among us? Well, I'm thinking
particularly of those who have already reached the allotted
time span of threescore and ten. For we read in Psalm 90, the
days of our years are threescore and ten. And if by reason of
strength they beforescore, yet is there time but labor and sorrow. And we have among us some who
have already been given their threescore and ten, who are using
up their bonus ten. We have others who have not only
lived out their threescore and ten and used their bonus ten,
but in the mercy of God, they have been given some additional
bonus years. And I am describing all who fit
that category as the aged, but also the ripened. Because not
only have they come to those years chronologically, but in
their walk with God, God is ripening them before He transplants them
to a better world. And many of us can see the ripened
graces of submission to God, the ripened graces of a hearty
embrace of the wisdom and the ways of God, and a sense of deep,
settled confidence that for them to be absent from the body will
indeed be to be present with the Lord, and therefore I've
described them as homesick. God brings such aged, ripened
saints to an acute feeling of being homesick. They have lived
for many years, most of them as pilgrims and sojourners here
upon this earth. They gladly confess in the language
of Hebrews 11 that they are sojourners and pilgrims and that they have
here no abiding city. They've lived long enough in
this world for anything in it to have lost all of its luster. And perhaps the only thing that
yet retains anything of legitimate luster is the glow that they
see upon the forehead of their fellow saints and upon the brow
of their children and great-grandchildren and grandchildren. But apart
from those few things, there is nothing that ties their deepest
affections to this present world. They're homesick, and home is
where Christ is. They don't ask a lot of silly
questions about heaven. For them, it is enough to know
that He said, If I go, I will come and take you to myself,
that where I am, there ye may be also. And that's all the heaven
they want. Less than that would not be heaven. More than that is of relative
little consequence to them. Because in the language of 1
Thessalonians 4, it is the capstone upon Paul's description of our
gathering together, dead and living saints at the coming of
Christ. So shall we ever be with the
Lord. And we have such among us. And
from my heart, I want to address to you a very simple, pointed
word of exhortation. It has two points. You aged,
ripened, homesick saints among us. I hope I described you and
you see yourself in the description. And the first exhortation is
this. Plead for the fulfillment of
the promise of Psalm 92, 12 to 15 in your life for whatever
amount of time God yet gives you. plead for the fulfillment
of the promise of Psalm 92, verses 12 to 15, in your life. In these verses we read, the
righteous shall flourish like the palm tree. The palm tree. that withstands the buffeting
of hurricanes and typhoons, and each time it bends beneath those
unusual pressures of nature is strengthened in its system to
withstand the next freak of nature, as the world would call it. He
shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon, the cedars in Lebanon being the
symbol of strength and of beauty. would be something like we would
say shall grow like a sequoia out there on the West Coast. They are planted in the house
of the Lord. They shall flourish in the courts
of our God. They shall still bring forth
fruit in old age. They shall be full of sap and
green. to show that the Lord is upright,
He is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in Him. It is a marvelous thing to see
an aged, ripened, homesick saint continuing to draw the sap of
vital union with Christ, and though the outward man is evidently
decayed, And the hair has long since turned a shock of white,
and the hand may tremble, and the feet and the knees may be
so weak as to make them only semi-ambulatory, if ambulatory
at all. It is a beautiful thing to see,
shining through that outward man that is decaying, the sap
of the very life of the Son of God keeping them. Fresh. that when they speak of Christ
and speak of heaven and speak of the things of God and speak
of the struggles of the soul and the joys of what it is to
be a child of God, one cannot deny that in spite of old age
that is quickly carrying their bodies to the grave, they are
full of sap and green. They don't become dry and brittle
sticks. They are full of sap, and spiritual
leaves, as it were, are a lush green all over their lives. And they continue to bear the
fruit of the Spirit, which is love, and joy, and peace, and
longsuffering, and gentleness, and goodness, and faith, and
meekness, and self-control, all to the end that God will be magnified
as the upright God. the God who is able so to sustain
his people that even when all of their natural faculties and
powers are obviously waning and degenerating, it is evident that
there is at work within them nothing less than the very life
of God. That life which Paul speaks of
in Galatians 2.20 when he said, I have been crucified with Christ,
nevertheless I live. Yet not I, but the life which
I now live in the flesh. I live by faith in the Son of
God who loved me and gave himself for me. And in the midst of that,
he could say, Christ liveth in me. And to you, aged, ripened,
home, sick saints among us, may I urge you, entreat you, lovingly
exhort you to plead with God that if the Lord is pleased to
bring you through this year or whatever days of this year He
has marked out for you, that this promise of Psalm 92, 12
to 15 would be fulfilled in you. How desperately does this generation
need to see that the grace of God in Jesus Christ, rather than
rendering old people junk to be gotten rid of by Kevorkian's
devices, are marvelous monuments of the power and the grace of
the Son of God. And I say then to the aged, ripened,
homesick saints among us, plead the fulfillment of this promise. And then secondly, I would urge
you to determine to give yourself to a life of prayer. I would
urge you to give yourself to a life of prayer. One of the
great problems of the generation that is growing old and fears
its old age is the sense of uselessness. There are some people who have
higher ambitions than retiring in Florida and playing tennis
until they can no longer play tennis, and then play shuffleboard,
and when they can no longer play shuffleboard, play pinnacle and
bridge until they can do none other, and then lie down and
die. And when you come to that stage
in your life where you have relatively few responsibilities, In terms
of what your previous epochs of life knew, I am convinced
that the pattern that is beautifully described of that woman in the
temple, in the birth narrative of Luke's gospel, is a pointer
to the unique kind of ministry that the aged, ripened, homesick
saints among us can have in the Church of Christ. For we read
in Luke chapter 2 and verse 36, there was one Anna, a prophetess,
the daughter of Phanuel of the tribe of Asher, and she was of
a great age, advanced in many days, having lived with a husband
seven years from her virginity. And she had been a widow even
unto four score and four years. She had lived out her three score,
her three score and ten, and she was now in her fourth bonus
year. And what did she do? She didn't
sit around in idle gossip. She didn't sit around wringing
her hands about how useless she was. It says she departed not
from the temple, worshiping with fastings and supplications night
and day. In other words, she was given
to an unusually intense ministry of devotion to God, of prayer
and of intercession. And you know one of the unique
privileges that was given to her as a result of that ministry. And I am not suggesting that
you set up a tent somewhere here in the foyer of the church. But
there in the privacy of your own living room, there alone
and there with your husband or wife who may fit this category
with you if you are married, aged, ripened, homesick, saint,
begin to commit yourself to regular, repeated seasons of prayer and
intercession in ways that young mothers rearing their children
cannot do. They have the diapers to change. They have the loads of wash to
care for. They have the hamper full of
ironing. They have the concerns of helping
the kids with their homework and young men seeking to provide
for their families, some of them holding down two jobs in order
that they might make ends meet because of their commitment to
the work of God, even in this place. And what a privilege is
yours, dear, aged, ripened, homesick saint, to come alongside with
a unique, intensified ministry of intercession and of prayer. And my pastoral word to you is
not only to plead that in your life there would be an increasing
evidence of the fulfillment of the promise of Psalm 92, but
that in the use of your time It would be evident that you
are taking this chapter of your life to give yourself to an intensified
ministry of prayer that will have the twin benefit of not
only being instrumental to pray down blessing from heaven upon
those who, in fulfilling the revealed will of God according
to Scripture, simply cannot spend the same amount of time in prayer,
And what better way to complete your final ripening process than
to draw into new dimensions of intimacy with your God and with
your Savior in the secret place that when you have to cross the
river, it will be for you a very narrow one. that you'll be able
to say like that dying saint to that young alliance preacher
who was all nervous or Methodist preacher who was all nervous
about what to say to comfort the dying saint and sensing his
struggle to know what passage of the Word of God to use and
what to say, she set the young preacher at rest. I said, son,
don't trouble yourself. In a few minutes, I'm just crossing
over the river and my father owns the land on both You see,
it's someone who is dwelling in the secret place of the Most
High, who is knowing in his or her experience the blessedness
of more than an ordinary measure of intensified ministry at the
throne of grace, to whom that passage will be, in most cases,
the most natural and the most easy. But then, in the second
place, I have a word that I want to bring to the mature, stable,
middle-aged saints among us. The mature, stable, middle-aged
saints among us. As we stand on the threshold
of this new year, I have something I want to say to you. Well, who
are you? Well, you would fit into the
category of Titus chapter 2, though our version renders it
aged men and aged women. In doing a little word study
on that word, it does not necessarily mean ancient. In fact, one secular
writer used it consistently to describe people between the ages
of 50 and 56. But suffice it to say that what
we would call middle-aged, the older men, the older women, those
of you who have, for the most part, raised your families, you're
in the grandparent stage, the manifold pressures of the younger
days, seeing the kids through school and college and settled
into marriage and career. For the most part, those things
are behind you. The childbearing, child-rearing
days are behind you. For the most part, you've reached
a financially stable position. And for the most part, you are
free from those pressures that mark the days when it seemed
that it was a never-ending round of involvement with the cares
of the family. God has brought you beyond that.
And from the world's standpoint, you're on the threshold of that
long-awaited heaven, this side of heaven called retirement.
which by the word of God is not at all recognized, which according
to the word of God is not at all a recognized state. Where
a person ceases from legitimate labor consistent with his energies
and abilities and productivity, I see nowhere where the fourth
commandment says, six days shall thou labor until you reach sixty-two
or sixty-five. Because you're thinking biblically,
you have no such silly nonsense that fulfillment in life could
really come from getting out on the golf course 8 o'clock
every morning and riding around on the golf court and hitting
a white ball and totally turning inward upon yourself and spending
your nest egg upon yourself. You have no such silly notions. It's the quickest way to shrivel
up and die. For he that would save his life
shall lose it. He that will lose his life for
my sake in the Gospels, the same shall save it." Well, you see
who I have in mind? You mature, stable, middle-aged
saints among us. What is my word to you as a pastor
on the threshold of this new year? Well, the first is this,
and may God help you to hear it. Don't grow careless and seek
to coast on past disciplines, past reputation, and attainments
in grace. Don't grow careless and seek
to coast on past disciplines, reputation, and attainments in
grace. There is no one who can hoard
a stock of grace. According to John chapter 15,
Jesus said, You must abide in me and I in you. If a man abide not in me, he
is cast forth as a branch and is withered, and men gather them
and cast them into the fire. We have a classic example of
a whole church that when it came to what we would say the state
and condition of a mature and stable church, Rather than more
intensely abiding in Christ and being filled with a sense of
holy unrest that they might have greater attainments in Christ,
they became smug and were content with the reputation of the past,
which was valid then, but which was no longer valid. Revelation
3 and verse 1. These things saith he that hath
the seven spirits of God and the seven stars, I know thy works
that thou hast a name that thou livest, and thou art dead. You have gained a reputation
and the reputation was gained in a context where it was a legitimate
expression of reality. You once did throb with the life
and presence and power of God, but now the reputation as a carcass
remains, but the life is gone. and that they were not totally
spiritually dead as are the unconverted becomes plain as we read on.
Be watchful and establish the things that remain which were
ready to die for I found no works of thine perfect or complete
before my God. You see the great danger for
those of us who fit into the category that I have just described
Those of us who could rightly be described as mature, stable,
middle-aged saints, the great danger is to grow careless and
to coast and to think that the benefit of past disciplines,
past reputation, past attainments in grace will somehow be a stock
upon which we can automatically draw I remind you that David's
greatest and most shameful sins were committed at this period
in his life. Not when he was a teenager, not
when he was in his twenties, not when he was being chased
around the wilderness of Judea, but it came when he was a middle-aged
man at the height of his reputation and his powers. And when he began to coast, there's
only one direction you go when you coast, and that's down. It
came to pass at the time when kings went out to war, he should
have been out at the head of his troops. There'd have been
no time for leisurely strolls upon a rooftop and gazing at
a naked woman. Things had grown too comfortable
and too easy. And they went along automatically.
No longer did he say, O Lord, in the morning thou will hear
my voice. In the morning I will direct
my prayer unto thee and look up. The text tells us he rose
from his bed at eventide, taking long afternoon naps when he ought
to have been out with his troops. Dear, mature, stable, middle-aged
saints among us, I thank you, I plead with you, and don't look
back on this day and say, would to God I had heard what he said. Some of you have already begun
to coast. The termites of spiritual carelessness
are already eating at the foundations of your life and when you crumble
in the next five years and people say, how did it happen? It started
long ago and you didn't listen to the exhortation today. That's my first word of exhortation.
Don't, don't grow careless and seek to coast on the past disciplines
reputation and attainments in grace, there's only one surefire
way to make sure you will not backslide and fall into grievous
sin, and that's to obey the injunction of 2 Timothy 3.18, continue to
grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. Or
in the language of Peter, if we add to our faith, bringing
in alongside all diligence, add to your faith virtue and to your
virtue knowledge and to knowledge self-control. He goes on to say,
if you do these things, you shall never fall. The man who has gained,
the woman who has gained some measure of legitimate reputation
for spiritual stature and stability and wisdom, if that person, discontent
with what he presently has, says with the apostle, forgetting
the things that are behind, I don't care where people put me on the
scale of attainment, I press towards the mark. There is yet
much more ground to gain if total conformity is the passionate
object of my heart. If total weanedness from this
world, if a love to Christ undiminished by any other love is the great
concern of my heart, it matters not where I am. I know how much
more ground there is yet to gain. That's my first exhortation to
you, but then there's a second, and is this, give yourself afresh
to the ministries of training, counsel, and encouragement unique
to this period of your life. Give yourself afresh to the ministries
of training, counsel, and encouragement unique to this period of your
life. That's the clear teaching of
Titus chapter 2. When he speaks to the older men,
though he does not explicitly describe what they are to do
other than the cultivation of consistent godly character, from
the analogy of scripture we know that there is a tremendous power
in example and a tremendous influence of the older generation upon
the rising generation, speak the things which befit sound
doctrine, that the aged men be temperate, grave, sober-minded,
sound in faith, in love, in patience, So that when you come to do what
verse 6 says, Titus, exhort the younger men to be sober-minded,
you will not only be able to set forth yourself as an example,
but you can point to these older men and say to the younger men,
this is what you will become. by the gradual accumulation of
the knowledge of God and of His Word and of His ways in the disciplines
that God has appointed for the development of spiritual life.
And then he states explicitly in verse three that the aged
women be reverent in demeanor, not slanders, not enslaved to
much wine. You see, the indication is that
they don't have the same pressures to be busy as they did when they
were young, and therefore they can have time to get into the
gossip and slander mill. They can have time to sit around
and sip their cocktails. He said, no, no, they are not
to be slanders, enslaved to much wine, but teachers of that which
is good, that they may train the young women to love their
husbands. as those who are the monuments
of accomplishment by the grace of God, who have had stable long-term
marriages, where the glow of romance is still there, and where
the relationships of submission and honor ooze out of those matured
relationships. These are the ones that are to
be training the young women to love their husbands, to love
their children, to be sober-minded, chaste, workers at home, kind,
being in subjection to their own husbands. And what's at stake?
That the word of God be not blasphemed. That word, to train, is no formal
word for teaching. The idea you've got an older
woman who's got a class and meets three times a week, that is not
in the picture. Whether such a class is legitimate
is another question to be determined on other grounds. But the very
word used for train is not a standard word for teaching and instruction,
but puts us into that realm of what we would call the training
by example, the training by ad hoc opportunity in the context
of what we heard in the previous hour of true family intimacy
within the household of God. I say to you men and women who
are in the category of mature, stable, middle-aged saints among
us, give yourself afresh to the ministry of training, counsel,
encouragement unique to this period of life. It will be one
of the things that will keep your mind fresh, for you'll know
if you're going to relate to the generation coming behind
you. You're going to have to be in
touch with that generation. It will keep you reading to know
the things that are impinging upon their lives. It will help
you to have a strong motivation to keep your own marriage marked
by openness of communication, romantic sensitivity, and tenderness. It will cause you to be willing
to make yourself accessible by hospitality to the younger couples
and singles, 1 Peter 4, 9 and 10. But then I must hasten to
the third category. I want to speak a word to the
younger, vigorous, visionary saints among us. And I've not chosen the words
haphazardly. If you saw how many I struck
out before I left the ones I've left, I'm still not satisfied,
but the moment of truth comes and I've got to get in the car
and go. But for lack of a better way
of describing it, a word to the younger, vigorous, visionary
saints among us, who are they? I'm referring to those of you
who are in the midst of bearing and rearing your children, or
those who desire to be doing this, to those of you seeking
to become established in a God-honoring career track as husbands, or
if you are single men or women, In a place where you feel you
can use the God-given talents consistent with your own temperamental
inclinations in a calling in which you can glorify God and
in the language of Ephesians, not only have enough to provide
for yourself, but to give to others. I'm speaking of those
of you who see great possibilities for your own children as you
see them having advantages that you never had. Some of you never
knew there was such a thing as an evangelical, protestant and
reformed catechism for children until you were 30. And your kids
have been brought up with it with their mother's milk. The
educational framework with which you've surrounded your children,
you see the advantages they have. And that's why I've used the
word. Not only are you the younger and more vigorous physically
and mentally, but visionary. You do have vision. You don't
have delusions of grandeur, but you do have vision that your
kids will be better saints than you are. That this church, if
Christ tarries, will have more of Christ, and more of His presence,
and more of His power, and be more useful in the generation
to come than it has been in this generation. That's what I mean
by visionary. That vision is not only legitimate,
it's commendable. It's an expression of sanctified,
holy ambition for Christ and for His glory. And I thank God
for the number of you who fit that category. Now, what is my
word to you? Again, two simple words to you. The first one is this. Beware
of the peculiar snares of this stage of life. There are peculiar
snares to this stage of life, and you know what they are? They're
described in Mark chapter 4 in verse 18. In the parable of the
soil and the sower and the seed, Our Lord Jesus, when expounding
the significance of that seed which fell among the thorns,
interprets its significance with these words in Mark 4 and verse
18. Others are they that are sown
among the thorns. These are they that have heard
the word. They have been sitting faithfully,
consistently under the preaching and teaching of the Word of God.
But what happens? The cares of the age, making
ends meet, bringing in enough to pay the bills, taking care
of school projects and caring for the kids' social and athletic
needs. The cares of this age, nothing
sinful in itself. Then the deceitfulness of riches,
riches, the accumulation of more promising what they can never
give. And then the lust, the desires
of other things entering in choke the word and it becomes unfruitful. One of the saddest things of
a lengthy pastorate, there are many things that bring great
delight, but one of the saddest things is to see how many I would
have one time placed in this category of the younger, vigorous,
visionary saints in whom the word has been utterly choked. Not because they threw over the
faith, not because they suddenly gave themselves to a vile and
lecherous lifestyle, no. It was The cares of this age,
the deceitfulness of riches, and the lust of other things
entered in and choked the word. I plead with you who fit this
category of the younger, vigorous, visionary saints among us, take
this seriously and cry to God that he would keep you from those
influences. You remember when evangelists
met Christian along the way and gave him godly counsel. At one
point, one of the most sagacious words of counsel in all of Pilgrim's
Progress is this. He said to Christian, let nothing,
this side of the world to come, get within you. What did he mean? He was saying,
Christian, there are many things this side of the world to come
that you must touch and handle and take to yourself if you are
to live in this world, but don't let it get within you! For where your treasure is, there
will your heart be also. Guard your heart above all that
you guard, for out of it are the issues of life. And then
my second word of counsel to you is this, and I pray God you'll
take it to heart. Fully expect the fire, the hammer,
the rod, and the pruning hook. Fully expect the fire, the hammer,
the rod, and the pruning hook. You say, what are you talking
about, Pastor? You remember when Paul gathered the young converts
together, had assisted them in the selection of their spiritual
leaders and was about to lead them? This is the word that he
left them with in Acts 14 and verse 22 and 23, confirming the
souls of the disciples, exhorting them to continue in the faith
and Through many tribulations we must enter into the kingdom
of God. When they had appointed for them
elders in every church and prayed with fasting, they commended
them to the Lord on whom they had believed. And the apostle
is here giving them this realism that is relatively young converts
starting out in their pilgrimage, they could expect between that
point and their entrance into the kingdom in its consummate
glory, one thing would be certain, many tribulations, many situations
and circumstances that would pressure them and test and try
them. And in the word of God, the images
of fire and hammer and rod and pruning hook are used. Isaiah 43, 2, when you pass through
the fire, God says, not if, when you pass through the fire, I
will be with you and it shall not kindle upon you. When you
pass through the fire, whom the Lord loves, he chastens and scourges
every son whom he receives. Is not my word like unto a hammer
and unto a rock? that breaketh the rock in pieces,
and God is not going to bring you to true, proven stability
in an insulated, sterile, germ-free environment. That isn't how He
makes mature saints. And for you, who by the grace
of God fit the category of the younger, vigorous, visionary
saints among us, While you beware on the one hand of the peculiar
snares of this stage of life, fully expect the fire, the hammer,
the rod, and the pruning hook. For every branch in me that beareth
fruit, he prunes it, that it may bring forth more fruit. There
is no escaping of the pruning hook. There is no escaping of
God's hammer, of God's rod. and of this purifying fire. When
it comes, don't whimper, and why? Certainly don't say, well,
if serving Christ brings such hardship, why bother? Are you
a mercenary Christian? And then I want very quickly
to bring a word to a fourth category, and it's the children and young
people among us who believe they are in a state of grace. Now
notice I didn't give them the term saints, because until such
time as it is appropriate for them to make an open public confession
and be found in the assembly of the saints, bearing the liabilities
and the responsibilities and privileges of open identification
with the church, biblically speaking, we should not use the term saints. So seeking to be biblical, I'm
describing them this way, the children and young people, preteens,
teenagers, who believe they are in a state of grace. Now, who
are you? I'm speaking to you children, you preteens, you teenagers,
who believe that God has brought you to own the reality of your
sinnerhood. brought you in your heart of
hearts to throw yourself upon Christ as your only hope of life
and salvation, and consistent with what you are as a child,
a preteen, or a teenager, the best of your knowledge, you live
in a disposition of repentance and faith. When sin is discovered,
you turn from it. You hate it. You confess it. You ask the Lord to forgive you.
And where necessary, your brother, your sister, your father, your
mother, whoever it is, you deal with sin biblically. You repent
of it. You go to Christ for forgiveness
for it. That is a disposition. That is
a pattern of your life. And furthermore, There is a hunger
to know God, a desire to live in the fear of God. For you to
read your Bible is not an insufferable burden and a little pharisaic
discipline. You do it so you can say you
did it, so you've got brownie points with God, your mom, your
teacher, or whoever. No! You love God and you love
His Word and you live in His fear, not perfectly. It grieves
you those days when you neglect your Bible and it grieves you
when you tell something in a way that isn't 100 percent true and
you have no rest till you make it right with God and mom and
dad and whoever else was involved. That's what I'm talking about.
And I believe there are children and young people and preteens
and teens among us who fit that description. And what is my word
to you, dear children? Teenagers, preteens, hear me
carefully. Accept the fact, at your age,
and for all that God will yet give you, accept the fact that
self-denial, cross-bearing, and peer rejection will be accompaniments
of true discipleship. Accept the fact, as a child,
preteen or teenager, that self-denial cross bearing and peer rejection
are indispensable accompaniments of true discipleship. Jesus said
in Mark 8, 34, if any man will come after me, if anyone, not
man, if anyone will come after me, he must deny himself, take
up his cross, and follow after me. If any man would come after
me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. In the Mark 8, 34 passage, it
says, if any man would come after me. In other passages, there's
the more generic terminology, if anyone will come after me. No one is a follower of Christ
without a cross. Whether five years old, ten years
old, fifteen or fifty. And you must accept the fact,
kids, that self-denial and cross-bearing are an indispensable accompaniment
of discipleship. There is no way you can make
the Christian faith so attractive that you will not feel the reproach
of identifying with Christ and His cross as you take up your
cross. You're committed to live an alternate
lifestyle in every area of your life. And in this day, that will
mean even with regard to styles of clothes that are dictated
by lawlessness and immorality, you will have to in some areas
be different. You're going to have to deny
yourself. The whole world does not revolve
around what you want, when you want it, and how you want it.
That is part and parcel of following Christ. And the scripture says
in John 15 in verse 19, the Lord Jesus Christ himself speaking. Listen to him. If you were of
the world at age 5, 10, 15 or 20, the world would love its
own. But because you are not of the world, but I chose you
out of the world, therefore the world hates you. You're going
to have pure rejection. All who will live godly in Christ
Jesus, whether 5, 10, 15, 20, or 90, shall suffer persecution. Now, you young people, hear me.
There is no way to avoid it if you're the real thing. If you're
the real thing, there's no way to avoid it. You cannot avoid
it! Because as a 10-year-old, a 15-year-old,
if you truly love Christ, determined to deny yourself, take up the
cross and follow Christ, and you're going to honor Christ
in the classroom? in your social life, in the jokes
you will and will not listen to, in the music that you will
and will not become conversant with, in the manner in which
you'll respond to godless teaching in the classroom at the higher
grades, the manner in which you respond to the contemporary discussion
of contemporary moral issues, in which you become what they
say, a prude who thinks your way is the only right way, and
you talk about moral absolutes, and you talk about chastity and
virginity, not as matters of preferences, but as matters of
divine mandate, you're going to be marked! I don't care how
sweet you are. I don't care how tactful you
are. Once it becomes known you belong to Christ, he says, I
am not of this world. This world hates me. If you're
one of mine, it'll hate you as well. A way to avoid it. Accept it,
kids. And remember, what are a few
frowns if in that day the Lord Jesus who died for you says,
Well done, good and faithful servant. Where are the guys who mocked
me out in my senior year of high school? Who had their fun getting
together and rolling down their car windows and crying out, hey,
holy roller, walk on your heels, save your souls, ha, ha, ha. Where are they? Where are their words? Am I permanently scarred? If that was true back then when
common grace was so much greater a commodity, what will it be
now? Kids, face it. Self-denial, cross-pairing, and
their rejection, peer rejection are indispensable accompaniments.
And then my second exhortation to you is this. Remember, kids,
that continuance in the words and ways of Christ is the only
valid, sorry, the only validation of
your present profession. Continuance in the ways and words
of Christ is the only validation of your present profession. Jesus
said in John 8, 31 and 32 to those Jews who said, Oh, yes,
we believe on you. Listen to his words. Then Jesus
said to the Jews that had believed him, if you abide in my word,
then are you truly my disciples. Their abiding did not make them
disciples. It would manifest that they were
true disciples. Continuance in the word and ways
of Christ is the only validation of your present possession, profession. It's taught in Luke 8, 15 in
the parable of the good soil. The good soil is described as
those who receive the word and bring forth fruit with patience,
with endurance, with continuance. And some of you yet face the
most crucial decisions. Life partner, life's work, life's
ambitions, what I'm going to give my energies and talents
to. And remember, continuance in
the word and ways of Christ is the only validation of your present
profession. Well, I've opened my heart to
you in these four major categories, the aged, the mature, the young,
and the youths. And in all of these things, I
would urge you to meditate upon Acts 11.23, for that's the answer
at every age level in terms of all of the peculiar opportunities
and temptations and pressures that with purpose of heart you
would cleave unto the Lord himself. But I'm conscious as I close,
and my time is gone, that there is one other generic group among
us this morning, and that is Those of you who are not united
to Christ, there may be some aged, unconverted people among
us. God has mercifully brought you
beyond your three-scoring ten and let you still be in the land
of the living, yet you're not converted. Some middle-aged,
mature people, children have been born and out of the house,
and here you are yet in your sins. and others in the flush
of your youth and young people and teenagers, but you have this
in common. You are not a new creature in
Christ. You have not been born of the Spirit. You have not repented
of sin and believed on the Lord Jesus. And I leave you with this
simple trilogy of thought that came home to me so powerfully
in reading the biography of Rabbi Duncan this past week or the
week before. He said the genius of the gospel
is Encapsulated in these three simple realities, every man needs
Christ. Christ is suited to every man's
need, and Christ is accessible to every man in his need. My friend, that's the only gospel
we preach in this place. You, I don't care what your age
is, what your circumstances are, you need that which only Christ
in the uniqueness of his person and work can give to you. You
need the forgiveness that he alone can give. You need the
liberation from the power of sin that he alone can give, for
whom the Son sets free is free indeed. You need the life that
he alone can give. You need what Christ alone can
give. And in your heart of hearts,
you know that. You know that. No matter how
you've tried to stifle it and put it down and avoid it and
get around it, that reality is not only declared in the Bible,
it thunders in the deepest recesses of your own heart. The second
marvelous truth is Christ is perfectly suited to that need.
Perfectly suited to that need. who he is and what he has done,
answers to every need you have as a sinner. What good would
it be if I knew I needed him and he was suitable to my need
if he were inaccessible? And the glory of the gospel is
that he is perfectly accessible in the gospel. He offers himself
and says, come unto me. all ye that labor and are heavy
laden, and I will give you rest. And him that comes unto me I
will in no wise cast out. And may God grant that on this
first day of the new year you would resolve that by the grace
of God I'll give myself no rest until I know that the Christ
whom I need, the Christ who's perfectly suitable to my need,
and who is accessible to me in the gospel, that that Christ
is mine. Well, dear people, I've sought
to bear my heart to you as a pastor. I hope God will help you to lay
to heart the exhortations that I've sought to give and that
the coming days, should the Lord spare us through this year, will
make it evident that indeed the exhortations were laid to heart
for our good and for God's glory. Let us pray. Our Father, we thank you for
your word that it is a lamp to our feet and a light to our pathway. And we do ask that your word
would come to each one of us in whatever category we have
found ourselves identified this morning. And that not a one of
us would leave saying, whatever was said, there was nothing for
me. Grant, O God, that each one of
us will know precisely what word was your word to our hearts. For we hear our Lord Jesus saying
again and again in the book of the Revelation, he who has ears
to hear, let him hear what the Spirit saith to the church. And
we know that your word is the voice of the spirit. May we have
ears to hear his voice and hearts to embrace it. Seal then your
word to our prophet and to your glory and dismiss us with your
blessing resting upon us. We pray in Jesus name. Amen.