I love this hymn on the back
of your bulletin this morning. In the beloved, accepted am I,
risen, ascended, and seated on high, saved from all sin through
his infinite grace, with the redeemed ones according to a
place. In the beloved, I went to the
tree. There in his person, by faith,
I may see infinite wrath rolling over his head and infinite grace
for he died in my stead. Let's stand together and pray
the Lord to give us a rejoicing heart as we sing these words
in praise and worship to him. Tom, you come please and lead
us. In the Beloved accepted am I,
Risen, ascended, and seated on high, Saved from all sin through
His infinite grace, With the redeemed ones accorded a place,
? In the beloved, I went to the tree ? ? There in his person
by faith I may see ? ? Infinite wrath rolling over his head ?
? Infinite grace for he died in my stead ? In the beloved God's marvelous
grace Calls me to dwell in this wonderful place God sees my Savior
and then he sees me In the Beloved, accepted and free In the Beloved,
I went to the tree there in his person by faith i may see infinite
wrath rolling over his head infinite grace He died in my stead. In the Beloved, how safe my retreat. In the Beloved, accounted complete. Who can condemn me? In Him I am free. Savior and Keeper forever is
He. In the Beloved I went to the
tree. There in his person, by faith
I may see Infinite wrath rolling over his head Infinite grace,
for he died in my stead Please be seated. Morning. Turn with me, if you
would, to the second book of Timothy. Greg preached a great
message on Wednesday from Acts 19 about when divers were hardened,
and he alluded to this scripture a couple of times, and we sang
this song, but the Lord put it on my heart this week, and I'd
like to read it with a little bit of the context around it
here. So we'll start in chapter 1, verse 7. For God hath not given us the
spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. Be not thou therefore ashamed
of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me his prisoner, but be
thou partaker of the afflictions of the gospel according to the
power of God, who hath saved us and called us with a holy
calling, not according to our works, but according to his own
purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before
the world began, but is now made manifest by the appearing of
our Savior, Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death and hath
brought life and immortality to light throughout the gospel.
whereunto I am appointed a preacher, and an apostle, and a teacher
of the Gentiles, for the which cause I also suffered these things. Nevertheless, I'm not ashamed,
for I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he's able
to keep that which I've committed unto him against that day. Let's
go to him in prayer. Our Heavenly Father, we ask that
You would bless our time here this morning, Lord. We thank
You for Your Word and pray that You would breathe the Holy Spirit
into us, Lord. We ask that You would enable
Greg to preach boldly and declare Your Word clearly. We ask that
You would give us ears to hear, Lord, but most especially we
ask that you would give each of us a new heart and persuade
us that what was accomplished on the cross was sufficient. Nothing else is needed. It's
in his name we pray. Amen. Let's stand together once again.
We'll sing hymn number 235 from your hardback timbrel. ? Pass me not, O gentle Savior
? ? Hear my humble cry ? ? While on others thou art calling ?
? Do not pass me by ? ? Savior, Savior ? ? Hear my humble cry
? While on others thou art calling, do not pass me by. Let me at the throne of mercy
find a sweet relief. Kneeling there in deep contrition,
help my unbelief. Savior, Savior, hear my humble
cry. While on others Thou art calling,
do not pass me by. Trusting only in thy merit would
I seek thy face. ? Heal my wounded, broken spirit
? ? Save me by thy grace ? ? Savior, Savior, hear my humble cry ?
? While on others thou art calling ? ? Do not pass me by ? ? Though
how the spring of all my comforts ? ? More than life to me ? ?
Whom have I on earth beside thee ? ? Whom in heaven but thee ?
Savior, Savior, hear my humble cry. While on others Thou art
calling, do not pass me by. Please be seated. Let's open our Bibles together
to Ecclesiastes chapter 3. Ecclesiastes chapter 3. I thought as we stood on the
threshold of a new year, it would be profitable for us to think
about time and eternity. We live and measure our lives
by time. Every minute, of every hour,
of every day, of every week, of every month, of every year,
we have birthdays and anniversaries and the beginning of a new year,
measuring this thing we call time. We cannot control time. We cannot change time. The clock ticks and the calendar
flips with or without our approval. Time is relentless. It is unstoppable. The Lord tells us to redeem the
time, to acknowledge the fact that our lives in this world
are but a vapor. and that our time here, our sojourning
here in time is a very brief period of time, and that we are
to walk in faith. 1 Peter 1, verse 17 says, pass
the time of your sojourning here in fear, fear of God, reverence
of Him. Only those who believe Him and
trust Him, only those who have been forgiven by Him will bow
before Him in worship and in fear. And so what the Lord is
telling us to do, the time that we have in this life, let us
use it for His glory. Proverbs chapter 31, verse 15
says, our times are in his hand. We know that whatever happens
in time was purposed by our God in eternity. And the believer's
comfort is to know that he makes everything beautiful in his time. Our time here in this life, we
don't We don't often see a lot of the beauty, do we? It's a
time of vanity, it's a time of struggle. We stand here on January
the 2nd and the whole world's looking back over their shoulder
to last year and they're looking forward to the events of the
new year. We don't know what God's gonna
do this new year. We don't have any idea what he
has purposed in his time, but we know that when he works all
things in time together for good, it'll be for his glory. And in
that day, in that day, when we see him as he is, when time,
the scripture says, shall be no more, then everything will
be beautiful. Only then will we see it as God
purposed it. I love the word providence. It
is a conjunction of the word pro, which means before, and
bideo, which means to see. And when we speak of, well, you
hear someone say, well, you know, that was providential. The truth
is that everything in time is providential. Everything. He not only saw it, but he purposed
it before time. In eternity, it is all happening
according to his good providence. Notice in our text, in verse 10, I have seen the
travail which God hath given to the sons of men to be exercised
in it. This word travail means difficult,
it means hard. He's talking about our life in
time. Solomon's looking at life and
he begins this book by saying vanity of vanity, all is vanity. Everything in this world is empty. Nothing in time can really be
compared to that which is in eternity. Only those things which
are eternal will satisfy the soul. Hebrews chapter 12 says that
God shakes everything in time. This is the travail of our lives
here in this world. so that that which cannot be
shaken might remain. And that's what he has purposed
in eternity. And so he goes on to say, look
at the next verse. We are exercised by this travail,
these troubles, these hard times that the Lord has purposed for
us. What is the purpose of the exercise? It's to cause us to
look to that which is eternal. It's to cause us to look to our
God who is seated at the right hand of the majesty on high,
who has purposed everything in his time for his glory. And that's
the only thing that I don't know how anybody can make sense of
this life. It doesn't have this hope. They
either have to live in complete denial or they have to live,
you know, in some sort of horrible fear or they can't live at all. The eternal is the only thing
that makes sense of the temporal. And that's what the next verse
goes on to say. Look at verse 11. He hath made everything beautiful
in his time. Also, he has set the world in
their hearts so that no man can find out the work that God maketh
from the beginning to the end. Now, this word that's translated
in the King James world, You can look it up, it's easy to
look up. It's the only place in all of the Bible where this
word is translated into the word world. It's actually the word
forever or the eternal. Now what this scripture is saying,
let me read you a paraphrase from the Amplified Bible. He
has also planted eternity, a sense of divine purpose in the human
heart, a mysterious longing which nothing under the sun can satisfy
except God. What the Lord is saying here
is that all men know that this created time, It has a creator. There is an
eternal God. And nothing in time can really
satisfy this longing that God has put in the hearts of all
men to know that there is an eternal God. Notice in verse 12, I know that
there is no good in them, but for a man to rejoice and to do
good in his life. There's no real satisfaction
is what he's saying. The Lord is saying there's nothing
in time that's going to satisfy your soul. That can only be met
by that which is eternal. So as the whole world is turning
their calendar over to a new year, and they're thinking about
the events and the consequences of time, I pray this morning
that God will enable us to realize that there is an eternal God
who has purposed everything in time for one reason, for one
reason. We call those years before the
birth of Christ B.C., and we do not mean a common era. We mean before Christ. And we
call those years after Christ A.D. and uh or that that's the common
era now we we mean that what ad stood for in the latin anno
domini the year of our lord what i'm saying to you is that everything
in time before christ and after christ points to the lord jesus
christ he's the eternal one and until the lord enables us to
believe that And to see that, nothing in time will make any
sense at all. It won't make any sense. Look at verse 13, and also that
every man should eat and drink and enjoy the good of his labors.
It is the gift of God. Enjoy the life that God's given
you in time, but don't look to the events of time to satisfy
the yearning of the soul, which God has put in the hearts of
every man. Look, go back with me to verse 11 again. He has
set eternity in their hearts. He has put into the hearts of
all men a realization of the eternal. And men who call themselves
atheist, they weren't always atheist. They had to convince
themselves to be atheist. God put into the heart of every
man the knowledge of himself. And that's what our Lord's saying
here. And so, as the world is putting,
once again, their emphasis on the eternal. My hope this morning
is that we will come to understand that the cross of the Lord Jesus
Christ, as it is called in the Latin, the crux, and we say the
crux of the matter, the cross is the crux of the matter. It
is what all of time is purposed for. Everything in time before
Christ points to Christ and everything that's happening in your life
and in my life in time is purposed by our God to point us back to
Christ. Look at verse 14. I know that whatsoever God doeth, it
shall be forever. Nothing can be put to it, nor
anything taken from it. God doeth it that men should
fear him." Oh, what a blessing it is when God enables us to
believe that. That we can't add anything to
what God has done. we can't take anything away from
it. And we don't know what he's gonna
do next, but we know that it's all for the purpose of glorifying
his son in eternity. Look at, in fact, in time, what we're
doing is we are watching the eternal purpose of God being
worked out. in the saving of his people and
in the glorifying of his son. That's what January the 1st and
January the 2nd and January the 3rd, that's what 2022 and 2021
and however long the Lord tarries is about. Someone said, I want
to find my purpose in this world. That is your purpose in this
world. is to believe on Christ, is to
look to Him, is to rejoice in Him, is to understand that nothing
in time, nothing in time can satisfy the soul of a man. Men are trying to satisfy their
lives with only the things that time has to offer, but they depart
from this world unfulfilled, only those who have been given
the grace to look to Christ and to realize that our God is working
out in time that which he has purposed in eternity. It is the one event in time,
the cross is the one event in time that all events in time
are purposed for. Look at verse 15 in our text.
That which hath been is now. And that which is to be hath
already been. And God requireth that which
is past. Oh, there's no adding to it.
There's no taking from it. There's no changing it. It is
God's time and God's purpose to glorify God's son. Now, we're
going to go back to the beginning of this chapter because most
people that read Ecclesiastes chapter 3 think of it only in
terms of temporal things. Well, you know, there's a time
for this and a time for that. And we just have to maintain
a positive attitude that all things are going to work out. There'll be a silver lining to
the storm clouds. And we just need to be optimistic. And tomorrow's going to be a
better day. And 2022 is going to be better
than 2021. And that's the way the world
thinks. That's how they interpret time. And they think that if
we could just have a positive attitude about time, that somehow
the power of positive thinking can affect time. What we just read in Ecclesiastes
is clear. Now we ought to be positive people, but we're positive
people not thinking that our positivity is going to somehow
affect time, but that our God is completely in control of time.
Turn with me to James chapter four. I quoted just a part of this verse
a moment ago, but let's look at it together. James chapter
four. Look at verse 13. Go to now ye that say today or
tomorrow we will go into such a city and continue their year
and buy and sell and get gain. That's time. We're gonna take
the time that we have. We're gonna go to this city and
that city. We're gonna do this and we're gonna do that. We're
gonna make this and we're gonna accumulate that. Whereas you know not what shall
be on the morrow. Let the prognosticators, the
talking heads, the philosophers of the world talk about what's
going to happen in 2022. They don't have a clue. They
don't have a clue what's going to happen. We don't know what
the Lord is going to send our way. The trials of last year
might be nothing compared to what he sends this year. We don't
know. But we know who's sending them.
We know who's in control of time. And we know what his purpose
is. His purpose is to exalt that which is eternal. And he will
shake those things in time that those things which are eternal
cannot be shaken. to cause his people to realize
just this very thing. Whereas you know not what shall
be on the morrow, for what is your life? It is even a vapor
that appeareth for a little time and then vanisheth away. For that you ought to say. Is
the Lord saying we just, Don't make any plans in life. No, we
make our plans, but we understand that as we make our plans, the
Lord is ordering our steps and he can change our plans anytime
he wants. And so you ought to say, if the Lord wills, we'll
do this and we'll do that. That's the believer's understanding
of time. Go back with me to our text. Here's my hope. At this present
time, there is a remnant, according to election. At this present time, there is
a remnant, a small number of people who are not bound by time. They've been given the grace
and the faith to know that there is a God who created time and
has existed far before time in eternity and has reserved a place
for his people when time will be no more. A remnant. And that remnant is according
to election. God chose them. Adam, you read that passage in
2 Timothy. Turn back with me to that passage
real quick. 2 Timothy chapter 1 and verse 9. I want you to see something very
special about this verse. who hath saved us and called
us. Just stop right there. What happened first? The saving
or the calling? We're called out by his grace.
When the eyes of our understanding are opened, God's pleased to
breathe life into our souls and give us faith in Christ. That's
our calling. the effectual calling of the
Spirit of God. But notice, he saved us before
he called us. The rest of the world looks at
their faith as their salvation. But here, God is saying to the
remnant, according to election, that he saved them before he
called them. When were they saved? Oh, they
were saved in eternity past, before time was. When Christ is before time, in the beginning,
in the beginning. That phrase is a reference to
eternity before time. That's when he saved us. Christ
is the lamb that was slain before the foundation of the world.
God chose this remnant according to election in the covenant of
grace before time. and all that he chose in Christ
in the covenant of grace before time will be brought in time
to hear the gospel and we reserved for eternity future when time
will be no more. You see, you can't really understand
time without eternity. You can't. You can't cope with
time. You can't have any hope for time. Go back with me to Ecclesiastes
chapter three. Most people look at these verses
in Ecclesiastes as nothing more than a philosophy of life. Well,
you know, it's a time for this and a time for that. And when
this passes, something else will happen and we'll just hold out
and endure the circumstances of life until time passes. If that's all we get out of Ecclesiastes
chapter three, then we haven't really understood the eternal.
We know that in the volume of the book, it is written of him.
We know that men search the scriptures because they think that somehow
if they can apply these biblical principles to their life, that
they can somehow be able to cope with time. But these are they
which testify of me. These verses aren't just giving
us a wishful hope, something to hang our hats on for time. They are revealing to us what
God has done in time in order to bring his remnant, according
to election, home to glory. These verses are about Christ.
They're about what God accomplished in time to save his people in
eternity. Verse one. It's hard to read
these words if you're older without the tune of that old bird song
coming into mind, isn't it? And somebody said, well, Seger
wrote the words to that song. No, he didn't. God wrote them.
He just put a tune to them and then interpreted them as a philosophy
of life. Some of you young people don't
know what I'm talking about. You go listen to that song. Look it
up on your phone. I think the title of the song
is Time, isn't it? I know it's by the Byrds. To
everything there is a season and to a time and a time to every
purpose unto the heaven. Now, I want to say this simply
and clearly. I want to try to summarize what
I've been trying to say the last few minutes. God has one purpose,
one purpose, and that is to glorify His Son by the saving of His
people. And everything that God is doing
in time is for that purpose. Everything before the cross pointed
to the cross, and everything since the cross that God is doing
in time is pointing his people back to the cross because God's
purpose. That's why I wanted you to look
at those words in that hymn earlier and make sure that we change
that. Our God's not a God of plans. He's not like us. We make our plans. And if plan
A doesn't work out, we come up with plan B, don't we? Oh no,
our God is absolutely sovereign and he hath done whatsoever he
wills with the armies of heaven and all the inhabitants of the
earth. And no man can stay his hand or say unto him, what doest
thou? Our God is absolutely omnipotent and sovereign and in control
of every event of time from the microscopic to the telescopic
and everything in between. God is controlling the events
of time. He created time and his purpose
for creating time was to glorify his son in eternity. And the only way for you and
I to make any sense at all out of time is to believe that. If you don't believe that, then
you'll lose hope. How can, I mean it just seems
like, seems like time is completely out of control, doesn't it? Seems
like the world events are completely out of control. Sometimes it
seems like the events in your life are completely out of control.
It is not true. Let's read that verse again.
To everything there is a season and a time to every purpose under
the earth. A time to be born and a time
to die, yes? Yes, Paul said, when it pleased
God who separated me from my mother's womb. Oh, we're fearfully
and wonderfully made and each of us are born just as exactly
when God purposed that to happen and it is appointed. It is already
appointed unto each one of us. The day of our death is appointed. It is purposed by God. It is
on his calendar and nothing's gonna change it. It is appointed
unto man once to die. But if that's all we understand
this to mean, then we've missed the purpose of time. This is
not about your birth and about your death. It's about the birth
of the Lord Jesus Christ. He's the one who invaded time. He's the one who was made in
the likeness of sinful flesh, born of a woman, born under the
law. A son is given, a child is born. God Almighty became flesh and
he dwelt among us. Why? Because he's showing us
the purpose of time. Time only can be understood in
light of eternity. This is the purpose of time.
The time had come that God had purposed from the very beginning
and that he had promised when he said the seed of the woman
would crush the head of the serpent. This is the time that brings
everything in time into its purpose. the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ. When the fullness of time was
come, God sent forth his son, born of a woman, born under the
law to redeem them that are cursed by the law. When the fullness
of time had come. God's time. This is his purpose
in time. And if the Lord doesn't give
us the faith to believe that and to rest our immortal soul
in the purpose of God, everything in time will be nothing but confusion,
fear, and depression, anger, and awe. He left eternity. And he made
himself subject to time in order to fulfill that which God had
purposed in eternity past. When God the Son entered into
that covenant relationship with his Father, saying, I will go
into time, this time that we created. And that's what it is. What we're experiencing in time
is a bubble that God has made. And one day he's gonna pop it
and time will be no more. And God Almighty said, I'll go
into there. I'll enter into their time. And
I'll take on their flesh and their sin. And I'll lay down
my life in time. in order to satisfy the justice
of God, in order to fulfill the law of God, in order to accomplish
the salvation of my people, which is what time is all about. It's
not about us having a better tomorrow or a better year in
2022. I mean, we make our plans and
we hope for the best, but you know, what's the Lord say? This
is what time is about. He accomplished in 33 years what
man could not do in 33 millennium. He satisfied the justice of God. He put away the sins of his people.
He saved them and he saved them before he called them. When the
Lord Jesus Christ died on Calvary's cross, there's a time to be born
and there's a time to die. How many times we see the Lord
saying, my time is not yet. And then he prays to the father
and he said, father, the time is at hand. The time is at hand. everything in eternity and everything
in time pointed to this moment when I would lay down my life
for my sheep and redeem them unto God. That's the only purpose
of time. all this that we're experiencing
in this world. And let me remind you, this is
not a depressive subject. This is a glorious, hopeful subject.
Go back with me to verse 13. And also that every man should
eat, drink, and enjoy the good of his labors. It is the gift
of God. You know, enjoy the time you have, but you're not gonna
be able to understand it or make any sense of it or really enjoy
it. apart from the purpose of it,
it was the birth and death of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's
the purpose of time. When we were yet without strength,
Didn't say when we were of little strength, we had a little bit
of faith, we had a little bit of ability. No, when we were
dead in our trespasses and sins, in due time, Christ died for
the ungodly. In God's perfect time, 2,000
years ago, he set his face like flint toward Jerusalem. Why? Because his time had come. The
time had come. Not just his time, but the time. The whole purpose of time had
come for the Lord Jesus Christ to lay down his life. Everything was purpose for that
day. The lamb would be slain. He would make his soul an offering
for sin. He would bore in his, bear in
his body the sins of his people. He would suffer the full wrath
of God. And when the cup of all damnation was drunk dry, he would
bow his mighty head and he would cry, it's finished. It's finished. Father into thy
hands, I commend my spirit. And so he saved them. and then
called them. You see, I want to make a statement,
and I hope I'm not misunderstood by it, but the gospel doesn't
really change people. The gospel reveals what people
are. The gospel doesn't change people.
It reveals what they are. When one of God's elect, for
whom Christ died, hears the gospel, it is revealed what they are,
a lost sheep, a child of God, and they believe what they hear.
And when a reprobate, one for whom Christ did not die, a vessel
fitted for destruction, hears the gospel, they say, well, you
know, what am I concerned about eternity? I've got too much going
on in time to worry about eternity. And so the gospel doesn't really
change us, it just reveals what we are. Isn't that glorious? Oh. Go back with me to a time to
be born. There was an exact time for the
Lord Jesus Christ to come into this world. A time to die. A time to plant. Oh yes, we are
the trees of righteousness, the plantings of the Lord, the palm
trees, if you will, that God plants around the oasis of the
water of life. Here he's talking about Romans
chapter six, if we are planted together in the likeness of his
death, we shall also be in the likeness of his resurrection.
When the Lord Jesus Christ went into the grave, he was planted
and the seed has to die before it can germinate and bring forth
life. And so when God's people, when
Christ died, all his people that he came in time to redeem died
with him. They died with him. They were
planted together in the likeness of his death and were raised
together in the likeness of his resurrection. Planted and plucked
up. And our Lord said in Matthew
chapter 15, every plant which my heavenly father has not planted
shall be plucked up. Oh, there's a lot of plants in
this world. God didn't plant. The Lord Jesus Christ was plucked
up. Here's our hope. Our hope in
time is that God enables us to look to Christ as the one who
died, the one who was born, the God-man, the one who became flesh,
the one who dwelt among us. the one of whom we beheld his
glory as the glory of the only begotten of the father, the one
who was full of grace and full of truth, who went to the cross
and died and was planted into the grave. And God was satisfied
with what he accomplished by plucking him up to life. Oh,
here's our hope. If we have no belief in our understanding
of this, And we are, we are doomed to the world's philosophy of
time. Well, you know, there's a time
for this and a time for that. What goes around comes around
and we just have to kind of, you know, hope for a better tomorrow.
I knew a person one time, every time I talked to them, you know,
tomorrow's going to be better than today. And it never was. They died. But that was their
way of dealing with the trials of life, with their travail of
this world. Well, you know, tomorrow's gonna
be a better day. I'm just gonna have a positive attitude and
somehow it's gonna work out. That's what you're doomed to
if you don't understand the purpose of time. The purpose of time is to point
us to that which is eternal. the finished work of the Lord
Jesus Christ by his birth and by his death and by his being
planted and by his being plucked up. Look at, look at verse three,
a time to kill. Now this word kill is the word
murder. It is a reference to what man
did when he took the son of God. Yes, the Lord Jesus Christ purposed
his death and God purposed it from all eternity. And it was
God almighty that he was making himself a sacrifice for and to,
but it was the wicked hands of men that killed him. The son of man shall be betrayed
into the hands of men, and they shall kill him, and the third
day shall rise again." Oh, we see him and mourn after
him, knowing that he bore our sins. It was my sins that killed
him. murdered the son of God on Calvary's
cross. A time to kill. And only then
can we understand the healing effects of his death. For by
his stripes, Isaiah 53, we are healed. Are healed. The only way to be healed from
our sin, the only way to be delivered from the vanity and the futility
of this world and this time and these temporal things that men
put all their hopes in is to understand what He did when He
died and when He was planted and when He was killed. Look at Tom. a time to break down and a time
to build up. Oh, what a wonderful work of
grace it is when God breaks our hearts and causes us to break
down our idols and break down that wall of partition that separated
us from God and break down all of the hopes that we had for
our salvation. He just breaks it down. He takes
that that tower of Babel that we fashioned with our own hands
and he breaks it down and then he builds up. Oh, you are, you
are lively stones built up into a spiritual house. The Lord takes
those for whom he died and he, and he places them in his church
and he builds up the city of God. There's a time for him to
do that. The Lord said, I'm the one, I'm
the rock, the stone that the builders rejected. I'm gonna
become the head of the corner and I'm gonna build my church
upon that rock. And the gates of hell shall not
be able to prevail against it. Here's our hope for time, brethren.
Enjoy the life that God's given you. Happy New Year. You know, I hope the Lord will
be easy on us this year. But I know that whatever he does
will be right and it'll be good. And it's already purposed and
ordained in time in order to point us to Christ. And only then can we rest. Only then can we have any hope
in what the vanity of this world. Notice in verse 4, a time to weep and
a time to laugh. It's the shortest verse in all
the Bible. Jesus wept. He wept, he entered into the
grief that his disciples were experiencing in the death of
Lazarus, and he weeps over our sins, and he wept over Jerusalem,
and he's not untouched by the feelings of our infirmities.
We have a high priest who's tenderhearted and merciful toward the travail
of our flesh, and he remembers that we're made of flesh, and
that we're created from the dust, And he weeps over us. And the
disciples wept at his crucifixion. They thought all is lost. And
then the scripture says, oh, but there's a time to laugh.
There's a time to rejoice. There's a time to be glad. There's
a time to be happy. Oh, we weep over our sin. And yet that weeping brings us
to Christ. And we are reminded once again
what he has done and put that sin away. and giving us His righteousness
and giving us the hope of salvation for our souls. This is what this
is about. It's about Christ. It's not just,
well, you know, there's a time for this, time for that. We're
just going to try to get through time best we can. Time to mourn. God's people do
mourn over their sin. but not like the Lord Jesus Christ
mourned. Oh, he mourned like no man's
ever mourned. He owned the sins of his people
as he owned, as his own. And he's the one who spoke, who
David spoke prophetically of in the Psalms when he said, I
will be sorry for my sins. He mourned over the sins of his
people, calling them his own sins. He mourned before his father
in the garden when he sweat great drops of blood and cried, Father,
if there be any way this cup can pass from me. It was the
cup of sin that he was going to drink from. The bitter dregs
of your sin and my sin. It was a time for mourning. And there's a time for joy. That
morning resulted in dancing. That morning resulted in gladness. Oh, what hope. Look at verse
five, a time to cast away stones and a time to gather stones. And the Lord Jesus Christ is
that stone which the builders rejected. They casted him away.
We don't need that. We'll build our house on shifting
sand. That's what the philosophy of
the world is. You know, it's time for this, time for that.
Might be this way, might be that way. We'll just see what works
out. We'll have our best, our best hopes. That's shifting sand. A rock? No, we're not gonna have
that. And they cast away that stone.
And God gathered him together. And he gathers together the stones
of his people, the living stones, and he builds them up together
into a spiritual house. This is what time is all about.
Your time, your sojourning is to be done in fear. That just
means that it's to be done in looking to Christ, in believing
on him, In understanding that God is
controlling the temporal in order to establish the eternal. A time to lose and a time to
keep. Oh, we lose hope in our righteousness. when the time of our redemption
happens. And the Lord Jesus Christ, well,
he buried our sins in the depths of the sea. They've been lost
forever. God said, I remember them no more. They're separated
from you as far as the East is from the West. And we keep that,
which we have in Christ. And he keeps his people. He keeps
them. He said, I'll not lose one sheep,
not a single one. This is what time is all about.
This is what 2022 is purposed to accomplish. The keeping of
God's people. A time to rend and a time to
sow. That bale was rent. when the
body of the Lord Jesus Christ was rent on Calvary's cross from top to bottom. Oh, the fake worship that was
going on in that temple. And God said, there, come, enter
in. enter into the joy of the Lord,
which had been prepared for you from the foundation of the world
before time in eternity. This was already, this is already
prepared. Look at, I think I missed one
in the end of verse five. Look, a time to embrace and a
time to refrain from embracing. This is very important. You remember
on resurrection morning, when Mary ran back, she was the first
one to the tomb. And she saw the gardener, or
she thought it was a gardener. And it was none other than the
Lord Jesus Christ who had raised from the dead. And she said,
sir, please tell me where he is. I'll go get his body and
I'll treat it properly. And the Lord Jesus Christ said,
Mary, And she cried, oh Rabboni, she
realized it was the Lord Jesus. And she fell at his feet. And
you can just see her wrapping her arms around his legs. And
he said to her, Mary, now in the King James it says, don't
touch me. She was embracing him. I'm never going to let you out
of my sight again. I'm never going to let you away
from the Lord. Didn't you know, people read
that and they say, Mary, don't touch me. I've not yet ascended
to my father as if Mary touching the resurrected body of Christ
was some somehow going to defile him. That's not what he was saying.
That word touch me means embrace. Don't cling to my physical presence
for the hope of your salvation. I'm going to my father. And when
I go to my father, I'm going to send my Holy Spirit. And he's
going to be with you always. And you're going to embrace him.
You're going to embrace me by him. In other words, don't rely
upon that physical presence of Christ and the physical evidence
of your salvation for your hope. Mary, stop clinging to that which
is temporal. Look in faith to that which is
eternal. Isn't that what we do? We cling to the temporal. We
cling to those things which are physical, thinking that somehow
these physical things are gonna give some purpose to time. And
the Lord's saying, don't cling to that which is physical. Look
outside of time. Time to love, verse eight. Time
to hate. The Lord Jesus Christ loves his
people with an everlasting love. Before time was. And his love
doesn't change. It doesn't change. Jacob I've
loved. And you can't have love without
hate. Esau I've hated. And when he comes and shows us
the eternal purpose of time, he puts the love of Christ in
our hearts. And he gives us a love for him and a hatred for our
sin and our flesh and our bellies and the dearth that comes from
them and all the things of this world. And we realize that God
has put in our hearts the eternal so that we cannot be satisfied
with that which is temporal. He continues to shake that in
time so that that which cannot be shaken, the eternal, might
remain. Oh, here's our hope. Here's our hope. A time to love,
a time to hate, a time to make war. And that's what the Lord
Jesus did. He went to war for the sins of
His people. He went to war against death.
He went to war against sin. He went to war against the devil
and he got the victory. He got the victory once and for
all. And that one battle was the decisive battle for all time
and eternity. So that now there's a time for
peace. We have peace with God through
our Lord Jesus Christ. Brethren, this is the only thing
that makes time and what we're living in
of any sense and of any consequence and of any real value. What profit hath he that worketh
in the wherein he laboureth? Oh, Now go back with me, I wanna
look at this one verse again, verse 14. I know, can you say
this? Can you say this? I know that
whatsoever God doeth, now we're not talking about the providential
circumstances of life, we're talking about what he did on
Calvary's cross. I know that whatsoever God doeth,
nothing can be added to it. Nothing that I can do to add
to the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ, and nothing can
be taken from it. What he did on Calvary's cross
brought together all the events of time to accomplish the purpose
of God, and not one for whom he died can possibly be lost,
nor anything taken from it. God doeth it. God doeth it that man might fear him. Now I close with one verse, Hebrews
chapter 4 verse 16. May the Lord cause each of us
to come with confidence, that's what that word boldly means,
to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find
grace to help in our time of need. Do you have a time of need? Do you need a savior to
put away your sins? Do you need to know the one who
is controlling everything in time to glorify himself and to
save his people? Come in your time of need before
that throne of grace that you might have help. Our Heavenly Father, we're thankful
for your word. We thank you, Lord, that we don't
have to just be slaves to the vanity
and philosophies and empty promises of this world, that we can look
in faith to thy dear son and know that you are truly God of
eternity, working all things in time for your glory and for
the salvation of your people. Forgive us, Lord, for our unbelief. Increase our faith. We thank
you for this table, for the bread and the wine and what it reminds
us of and points us to. We pray that you bless it to
the faith of your people. We ask it in Christ's name. Amen. Number 12 in the spiral hymnal.
You can just remain seated. Number 12.