The following sermon was delivered
on Sunday morning, January 13, 2008, at Trinity Baptist Church
in Montville, New Jersey. Now my preaching this morning
will be the second in a brief series of sermons to which I
have given a plain-Jane title, namely, Council for the New Year. I begin with a very condensed
reminder of the substance of the first message that I preached
here last Lord's Day morning. I began by identifying the undergirding
biblical principle which supports the counsel I intend to give. Each of the words of that counsel
will begin this way. at the beginning of and throughout
the coming year, fix your mind upon." Each of the councils will
begin with those words, at the beginning of, that's where we
are, and throughout. However much time God allots
to us throughout the new year, fix your mind upon. And if you
ask what scriptural principle warrants such language, I answered
in terms of Colossians chapter 3 and verse 2. Colossians chapter
3 and verse 2. Set your mind on the things that
are above. having reminded the Colossians
that if they were true Christians, they are so because they are
united to Christ, that in that union with Christ they have died
with Him, they have risen to newness of life with Him, and
therefore they have both the duty and the ability to set their
minds on the things that are above, not on the things that
are upon the earth. And he says, I give you this
directive And I expect that by grace you will obey it, for you
died, and your life is hid with Christ in God." In other words,
the pattern of New Testament duty is once again patent in
this passage. Our duty grows out of our privilege. what we are to do grows out of
and rests down upon what we are and have in Christ. And so the
apostle fully expects that these believers at Colossae will have
the ability, as he lays upon them the duty, to fix their minds
upon specific spiritual realities. And so it is this principle embedded
in this text and found in many texts in both the Old and the
New Testaments that gives me complete liberty of conscience
that I am not going beyond the warrant of Scripture when I challenge
you in these words of counsel to fix your mind upon this or
that spiritual reality. Having established the biblical
basis for the common denominator of my words of counsel, I then
set before you counsel number one, and it is this. At the beginning
of and throughout this coming year, fix your mind upon your
Savior in three specific areas. and I had time only to cover
two of them. Number one, fix your mind upon
Jesus in living the Christian life. There are several very
fundamental principles which are absolutely essential if we
are to any degree to live as the people of God in a way that
glorifies Christ. And one of those fundamental
principles is this mental fixation upon Christ Himself. And then
we looked at three pivotal texts which demonstrate that. Hebrews
12, 1 and 2, 2 Corinthians 3, 18, 1 John 2, 6, with a little
subset of 1 Peter 2, 22. in applying that first word of
counsel under that first major heading. fixing our minds upon
our Savior Himself as we live the Christian life, I underscored
the fact that we cannot do this unless we have disciplined patterns
of regular meditative time in the Word of God and in earnest
prayer and communion with the Lord Jesus. And if we are to
have such disciplined, meditative, reflective engagement with the
Scriptures, and true heart communion with Christ, I asserted we will
not do it unless we repudiate the tyranny of the communication
technology, technology that blankets our lives like a thick fog. A tyranny that causes an addiction
to being bombarded with sights and sounds that becomes as all-absorbing
as heroin or crack coke to the wasted junkie. And I believe
that. There's some of you sitting here
that this fog envelops you. And to think of sitting for fifteen
minutes without a picture in front of you or a sound dinging
in your ears is a form of torture. Meditate? How can I disengage
my mind to meditate when it is in this wretched addiction of
having to be bombarded with sounds and sights? Very interesting. A number of
you spoke to me as you went out Sunday morning, Sunday night,
and you said, Pastor, you're right. You haven't overstated
the issue. Some of them who earned their
bread from one of these major communication corporations and
then confessed how they recognized that they came into this addiction
so subtly where once they went to the place of prayer and Bible
study with no distraction, there's the face of the computer saying,
look at me, check the weather, look at me, check the major events
of the world. You don't want to be irresponsible.
God nailed them. Others of you said that God had
dealt with you. You saw the issue. My question
is, have you done anything? Have you made a real effort?
to put into practice the resolutions you made sitting here last Lord's
Day. If you have, I'm ready to play
prophet and say, you didn't realize how strong the addiction was,
did you? You thought, oh, well, I'll just,
it has become such an ingrained pattern. And there are others
of you who sit there saying, let the old man rant and rave. I have my Christian liberty. Yes, and you know what time will
show? If you're a Christian at all, you'll be a stunted, shriveled
Christian who brings little glory to God and little usefulness
to His kingdom five, ten years from now. Dear people, I say
it again, unless you in the strength of God and in the name of Christ
rear back and say, this will not tyrannize me. You will not
be one who can fix the eyes of your mind upon your Savior, and
therefore you will not run with endurance the race set before
you. You will not, in gazing upon
Christ be increasingly conformed to his likeness, you will not
be walking as he walked. It will grieve me no end if I
live long enough and you live long enough and you happen to
apostatize for some of you to come to me ten years from now
and say, Pastor, I heard you, but I resented it and I resisted
it. And now I see. My shriveled,
useless life is a monument to the reality that you sought to
get through to my hard, thick heart. And I'll weep. God have mercy. God have mercy. Have mercy. Well, that was my first subheading,
fixing your eyes upon Christ. That was the application. And
the second strand of the First Council was this. At the beginning
and throughout this coming year, fix your mind upon your Savior
with respect to the major change in the leadership of this Church
in this year. Most of you are fully aware of
the fact that, God willing, later this year I will step down from
my full-time office as one of your pastors, and that Pastor
Dave Chansky will be joining the eldership as a man set apart
to labor in the Word and in teaching. And my counsel to you was this.
Fix your eyes upon Jesus in all of this change, remembering Christ's
gifts to the Church are never intended to be a Christ for the
Church. Christ alone is Christ to His
Church. its life, prophet, priest, king,
master, and Lord. And then I reminded you of that
principle in the book of Joshua where God says to Joshua, Moses,
my servant, is dead. Now, therefore, go and possess
the land. In A. W. Tozer's words that have
lived with me for decades, nothing of God dies When a man of God
dies, and I gave my version of that, nothing of God leaves the
church. When a man of God leaves the
church, we've seen in Revelation 2 and 3, Christ leaves the church
only when persistent sin drives Him out of the church. And it's
on the outside saying, behold, I stand at the door and knock.
sin persisted in, unrepented of, drives him out of the church,
or carelessness and smugness causes him to distance himself
and spew us, vomit us out of his mouth. Now we come this morning
to the third strand of this first counsel As we have entered, as
we work through and walk through the coming year, fix the gaze
of your mind's eye upon Jesus with respect to national and
international events as they unfold before us. Fix your mind
upon Jesus with respect to national and international events as they
unfold before us. It is not an irresponsible indulgence
in overblown rhetoric or carnal pessimism to say that in a frightening
way we've entered this new year in a nation and in a world gone
mad. I can remember the day President
Roosevelt announced the attack upon Pearl Harbor and the declaration
of war. Frightening, frightening. Remembering
the reports of the dark days in Britain in some of the fields
of battle across the ocean. But there were such marks of
national stability and tons of common grace. As I think of the
fabric of our national life now, it's a nation gone mad. As we think of the state of the
world, of course it's exacerbated by instant communication. I understand
that. I'm not stupid. Nonetheless,
the extent to which Brother is set against brother and nation
and tribe against nation and tribe. It's like the world has
gone mad and took a big deep draft of some maddening brew
towards the close of 2007 and entering upon 2008. And if you and I are able to
get our heads out of the clouds of willful refusal to see things
as they are in our nation and in the world, we would all be
tempted to be found in the very condition described by our Lord
Jesus in Luke 21, 25, and 26, where He says, There shall be
distress of nations, men fainting or the Greek word literally expiring
for fear and for expectation of the things which are coming
on the world. Exegetes discuss precisely what
Paul meant when he said concerning the period between the first
and second coming of Christ Last days, that's what the Bible means
by the last days. What did he mean when he said,
Know this, 2 Timothy 3, 1 and following, that in the last days
grievous times, grievous epochs, grievous brackets of human experience
shall come. And how will you recognize when
one of them has come? Men shall be lovers of self. What is the official national
God of our nation? It is self. Self-actualization,
self-fulfillment, self-expression. If it feels good to me, it must
be good, and do not you dare tell me anything other than that. Men shall be lovers of self,
lovers of money. The consuming, idolatrous consumerism
We must continue to grab and possess more and more and get
rid of what we have to have more. And the Bible calls it covetousness,
which is idolatry. Lovers of money boastful. I'll
come to that, haughty. Railers, people that engage in
shameless, abusive speech, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy. without natural affection, leaving the natural use of the
woman they burn in their lust, one to another, men with men,
without natural affection. Women killing the life within
their wombs, going so contrary to the instincts of the beast
of the field, without natural affection. Implacable. You can't placate
them. Slanderers. Without self-control. Fierce. No lovers of good. Traitors. Headstrong. Puffed up. Lovers
of pleasure rather than lovers of God. And here is the capstone. Holding a form of godliness. Inveterately religious. having
denied the power thereof. They can do all these things
and be all these things, and at the same time, oh, we're Christians. We're just exercising our liberty,
or we're just carnal Christians. We go to church We give to the
work of God. We associate with our kind, holding
to a form, a shell, a framework, that if you looked at the framework,
you'd say, surely they must be godly people. Folks, I didn't
write this. And I say if we get our head
out of the clouds of willful refusal to face reality, we have
entered this year, 2008, in a nation and in a world gone mad. indications of this in our nation,
just reading this passage and the few comments. But think of
it, here in our own state, people fighting with passion to preserve
the intrusive bear and deer population that threatens human life, spreads
Lyme disease and makes that disease the most prevalent, we have the
most prevalent incidence of it of any state in the country.
destroys millions of dollars of personal property while many
of these same people regard any passionate effort to preserve
the lives of defenseless babies in their mother's wombs as a
horrible crime against a woman's right to her own body. Madness! A baby in its mother's
womb is no more that mother's body than the piece of a leg
of lamb in my belly is my leg. its flesh external to me, and
that intelligent people can in any way extrapolate to a connection
to something the Founding Fathers wanted to secure by our Constitution
and the Bill of Rights. I say we come into this new year
in a nation gone mad as to its basic moral and ethical consensus. 35 years, the end of this month,
since the infamous twisting of the intent of the Constitution
in the Bill of Rights in the Roe v. Wade decision that has
killed off 50 million babies plus. And then the same nation
wrings its hands Social Security won't be solvent. Why? You killed
the hands that would have labored to keep it solvent. And where
is the political leader that has the moral courage to stand
up and at least state the reality? Pressure state after state to
abolish the death penalty for capital offenses judging lethal
injection to be cruel and unusual punishment for men who set their
lustful eyes on little girls and raped them and murdered them
and left a mother without the child of her womb. And now we
must, to the tune of $45,000 a year in New Jersey, of the hard-earned money of responsible
taxpayers, keep that one alive whom God said, having shed man's
blood, by man should his blood be shed. Moral madness! Get rid of the undesirables and
the nonproductive. More and more pressure to call
it decent death. an honorable demise when its
blatant forms of murder, euthanasia, the homosexual aggressiveness,
Romans chapter 1, drowning in a sea of pornographic filth. I don't want to go on. This is
just picking at random that when this preacher says we enter this
year in a nation gone mad at the ethical and moral level. I don't believe it's overstatement.
Add to this the shameless arrogance paraded before us in this election
year. How I've heard the words of Nebuchadnezzar
in the little bit I've listened to some of the public exchange
and statements of the candidates, both Republican and Democratic. In my own Old Testament devotional
reading, I'm presently in the book of Daniel's And here Nebuchadnezzar,
you remember, speaks in this way, 428 of the book of Daniel. This time, and all this came
upon Nebuchadnezzar at the end of twelve months, he was walking
in the royal palace of Babylon. And the king spoke and said,
It's not this great Babylon which I have built for the royal dwelling
place by the might of my power and the glory of my majesty. While the word was in the king's
mouth, there fell a voice from heaven saying, O King Nebuchadnezzar,
to you it is spoken. The kingdom is departed from
you, and God makes him like a beast of the field. To what end? Look
at the last word of chapter 4. Those that walk in pride, he
is able to abase. Listen to the words of the potential
candidates. Elect me, and I will turn this
country around. I will resolve the crisis of
the impact in Iraq and Afghanistan in the Middle East. I will put
this economy on track." And then they make Santa Claus-like Promises
that make Santa look like a stingy piker who offers only dimes while
they offer bags of dollars. No reference! If God would be pleased to bless
economic changes here or there, if God is pleased to keep from
an increase of this escalation of abnormal natural disasters
that hit us, it seems, almost every week, and nobody, it seems,
with any national voice says, could it possibly be that there's
a God in heaven who can make this entire fabric of the American
society implode from the weight of its sin in a week. Madness. You wonder what makes
old preachers want to die and go to heaven. It's coming into
a new year. in the midst of a nation full
of moral madness. And what about our poor world,
the international scene? While we sit here in undeserved
civil stability, Pakistan continues to teeter on the very thin edge
of all-out civil war. Ethiopia has erupted into wanton
violence, pitting one tribe against another over alleged election
fraud, 300,000 displaced people with 100,000 or more facing starvation. aggressive Islamic violence,
seeking to be covered by political correctness, and an unwillingness
to say the Muslim who is determined that Allah shall gain and possess
every square inch of every land is not the fanatical Muslim,
he's the consistent Muslim who believes his Quran. the ongoing tragedy of genocide
in Darfur, the continuing bloodshed in the Sudan, and that again,
brethren, is almost a random sampling. I sat at my desk and
said, oh God, I don't want to even look at it long enough to
sample it. If I'm not preaching to anyone
else this morning when I say, fix your eyes upon Jesus, In
the light of the national and international scene as we've
entered this year, I'm preaching it to this preacher so that I
maintain my own mental and emotional equilibrium. And I say to myself
and to you, dear people, In the midst of this reality, if ever
the exhortation and counsel were needed, it is now. Fix your eyes
upon your Savior. You say, Pastor, in what way
and in what reference points to help me to know stability
and peace, perfect peace in this mad world of sin? I answer in two ways, my dear
brothers and sisters. Fix your mind on Jesus as the
now reigning monarch of the universe, governing the nations by His
power. Fix and keep your mind on Jesus
as the now reigning monarch of the universe, governing the nations
by His power. Now I want you to turn with me
to the passages I refer to, not just have me quote them. In Revelation
chapter 1, when the Lord Jesus is going
to unfold this panoramic view of what this world will be like
until he returns and the things surrounding his return, notice
what he says to John. John, Revelation 1, John, to
the seven churches that are in Asia, grace to you and peace
from Him who is, and who was, and who is to come, and from
the seven spirits that are before His throne, and from Jesus Christ,
the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of
the kings of the earth. As John will subsequently write
of pictures that clearly point to world rulers and their combined
efforts to overthrow the reign of Christ, he wants his readers
to know Jesus is now ruler of the kings of the earth. Therefore, in chapter 17, 14,
and 19, 16, he is called King of Kings, Lord of Lords, and
then it is inverted. He is Lord of Lords, King of
Kings. In other words, there is no one
who in the providence of God is put in any place of power
and authority, but over him stands the true Lord and the true King. Remember Psalm 2? That whole picture of the great
ones of the earth gathering together, hoping that by strengthening
one another's hands and arms, they can overthrow the purposes
of God through His Messiah. Why do the nations rage in the
people's meditative aim? The kings of the earth set themselves
and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against
His anointed, saying, Let us break their bands asunder, cast
away their cords from us. He that sits in the heavens will
laugh. The Lord will have them in derision.
Then will he speak unto them in his wrath and vex them in
his sore displeasure. Yet I have set my king upon my
holy hill of Zion. And in the resurrection of the
Lord Jesus, God then establishes him as the now reigning monarch
of the universe. Ephesians 1, 20-22 speaks of
God raising him from the dead. and sitting Him at His right
hand far above all principality and might and power and dominion
and every name that is named in this world, in this age, and
in the age to come. For in the language of 1 Corinthians
15, 25, he must reign till he has put all of his enemies beneath
his feet. But he now reigns. Yes, that reign will have dimensions
of expression when we come to the consummation. And he ushers
in the new heavens and the earth. But it is a now reigning monarch. who sits upon the throne of universal
government, and his name is Jesus. That's why he so lovingly and
tenderly directs the visions that John receives, that when
he gives that experience on Patmos, the emphasis that we saw this
morning, whatever else follows in the breaking of the seals,
and in the pouring out of the vials, and in the angels that
follow and complete and carry out the decrees of God. Never
forget, my people, there is a throne set in heaven, and one seated. And chapter 5 will show that
the one seated is not God the Father in isolation from God
the Son, but he will see one as a lamb as it had been slain,
seated. there, and so it is called the
throne of God and of the Lamb. And so I say to you, my brothers
and sisters, If indeed, to some degree, you are not with your
head in the clouds, numbing your receptors to be sensitive to
the true state of our nation and the world, fix your eyes
upon Jesus as the reigning monarch of the universe, governing the
nations by His power. But then, secondly, fix your
mind on Jesus as the successful gatherer, Savior, and keeper
of His people. Fix your mind upon Jesus as the
successful gatherer, Savior, and keeper of His people. As we think of the moral and
ethical madness of our nation, the madness of the disruptions
internationally I say, how in the world can the people of God
be brought out of their sins, those upon whom God has set His
love? How can the Church go forward
conquering and to conquer? It is because we have the Savior
who is committed to a successful rescue mission of His people. We read, he, the suffering servant,
he shall see of the travail of his soul, and he shall be satisfied. Christ will have everything for
which he died. Therefore, he could say in John
6.37, all that the Father gives me shall come to All, without
exception, all that the Father gives me shall come to me. And how will they come? John
10, 16. Other sheep I have that are not
of this fold. Them also I must bring. I must bring. They shall hear
my voice. And there shall be one fold,
one shepherd. Jesus, whom the Father always
hears, prays in John 17 and verse 2, You gave me power over all
flesh, that I should give eternal life to as many as You have given. Jesus says to the Father, everyone
you've given to me, you've given me the power to make sure they
will be brought to me, saved and kept by me, and brought at
last to the everlasting kingdom. Hebrews 7.25, wherefore? He is
able to save to the uttermost, that is, to the complete salvation
for which He came into Mary's womb, for which He lived His
perfect life under the law, for which He died under the darkened
sky and the wrath of God. He shall save to the uttermost,
seeing He ever lives to make intercession for them. Listen
to one commentator commenting on the Ephesians 1 passage. The
work of Christ as sacrificing priest is ended. Now has he begun
the epoch in which his victory over death, sin, and Satan is
being worked out. He reigns. Indeed, He powers
over all rule and authority and power and dominion and above
every name that is named, not only in this age, but in that
which is to come, Ephesians 121. There is no rule greater than
Christ's. There is no authority that can
thwart His purposes. There is no power that can withstand
His. There is no dominion that can
prevent His advance. This is true in the present age,
as also in the age to come. Magnificent though this statement
is, Paul has still to state his applicatory climax. Christ is
this not for his own glory alone, but verse 22 of Ephesians 1,
head over all things to the church. He reigns over all things, subdues
all his enemies, withstands all sinister evil forces in the universe
in order to safeguard and bless his chosen people. Our Lord Himself
stated this principle at the end of His ministry as He sent
His apostles into the world to make disciples of the nations.
He commissioned them on the basis of the cosmic authority which
His Father had given Him as the crucified and exalted Mediator. All authority in heaven and upon
earth has been given unto Me, said Jesus. He promised His guiding
and guarding presence. I am with you always, even to
the end of the age. In what capacity? As the now
reigning monarch. Three murderers could not enter
that home without King Jesus giving them
the key. And King Jesus knows precisely
how. That was no retreat for the work
of His kingdom, but a marvelous, mysterious advance. A thirty-one-year-old man buried
prematurely. Did cancer and death somehow
slip through the administrative scepter of King Jesus? No. When he stands before John,
he has a keychain and he rattles the keys and says, I have the
keys of hell and of death. And you read later in the book
of the Revelation, then shall men seek death and they shall
not be able to find it. Men can't even kill themselves
when they want to unless Jesus who holds the key ring says,
I'll put it in the lock. You're done. Dear people, if
that doesn't put a little shouting in your heart, if not on your
lips, I wonder if you're alive. Think of it, the madness to see
people sitting there looking at these gods who assume attributes
that make Santa Claus look weak. Santa Claus, at least you've
got to see him in J.C. Penney's and Sears. Get up on his lap and tell him
what you want and imagine that you hear his footsteps on the
roof. I will do this, says Clinton
and Obama and the Republican bunch as well. Madness! While we sit here, dozens
of little ones sucked out of their mothers' wombs, millions
glued to their television sets today watching grown men carry
on little boys' games, profaning God's holy day, saying to the
Almighty, you've got no right in your world to tell me that
one day is to be yours in a special way. Madness, destroying themselves
not recognizing the Sabbath was made for man, for our well-being,
not only spiritually, but emotionally, psychologically and physically,
and the well-being of the madness, madness, madness. And to think
that as we sit here, machete-wielding tribal members watching one another,
have you any eyes to see it? God help us, we've become so
insensitive. What's our hope? That right now
in the midst of the madness of our nation and the world, there's
a reigning monarch over all of this. Unstained by our sin and
our perversity, that he holds the scepter of
the world in his hands. And He will gather His people.
He is gathering them. Think of today in the midst of
the turmoil and the bloodshed and the privation as the hands
of Christ reach out through Christian philanthropic organizations,
and as some who were fine in days of a smiling set of circumstances
but are now desperate, and the message of Christ comes, and
all around the world in the midst of the madness, this day, Christ's
voice will be reaching this sinner and that sinner and another sinner
and draw them in and bringing them into the orbit of His grace.
Christ will keep and preserve them until He brings them home
at last resplendent with a fully glorified body inhabited by a
perfected spirit. And He will be the firstborn
among His many brethren in the new heavens In the new earth,
O dear child of God, fix your eyes on Jesus as the successful
gatherer, savior, and keeper of his people. We do not know
what a day may bring forth, let alone a year, but we do know
that because Jesus is the reigning monarch of the universe who governs
the nations by his power, he will gather his own to himself,
then Romans 8.28 is true. All things are working together
for good to those whom God has called to those who love him. So what is my first and foundational
counsel for this new year? To this preacher, Albert M.,
it has been Fix your mind, Albert, directly upon Jesus as you live
the Christian life, as you face the changes in the leadership
of this congregation and in my own life, as we respond to the
unfolding events in our nation and in the world. That's children's bread I've
given you. That's children's bread. That's children's bread. That's the consolation, the perspective
that every child of God is not only warranted but commanded
to have fixed your mind upon. What is my word to you who are
not in Christ? The best way I know to answer
that question is to use the words of the Apostle in 2 Corinthians
5. He says, we beseech you, we beg you, be reconciled to God,
for He, God, has made Him, Jesus, to be sin for us, the one who
knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God
in Him. And while at times I say, no,
Lord, no more earnest, tear-filled, passionate pleas with the unconverted. I'm just making hell hotter for
them. I can't do it. Put yourself in
my place. If you believe your Bible, every
gospel sermon you hear, if it doesn't issue in your repentance
and union with Christ by faith, I am stoking the fires of hell
for you. That's my unpleasant responsibility
as a preacher. And there are times I say, Lord,
no more. Maybe if they go a month and
there's no pleading, no earnest entreaty, maybe just the fact
that it doesn't come will frighten them. Will God just leave me
alone in my unbelief and impenitence? Have I said, go away, go away,
go away so many times to the Savior stretching out his hands
through the hands and heart and voice of the preacher that Christ
says, okay, you don't want me, you won't have me forever. And
that does happen. Read Proverbs 1. Read Proverbs
1. God says, the day will come when
you will cry. And God says, no, no, I don't hear your cry. Because
when I cried and I appealed, you would none of my counsel,
none of my reproof, therefore you shall eat of the fruit of
your own ways. But as much as a part of me says,
no, Lord, I don't like the business of being one who intensifies
the pains and the sorrows of hell, yet I am an ambassador
for my Savior, and I must plead with you, entreat you. Have you
faced the fact? This is not a scare tactic. This
is a fact. The numbers 2000, zero, zero, eight, may be engraved
on your tombstone. You got any proof it won't be?
Anyone here arrogant enough to stand up and say, whatever, whatever
happens to anyone else, the numbers 2008 will not be etched on my
gravestone? No, you know better than to do
that, because you know, at the end of the day, you don't hold
your life in your own hands. The God of heaven gives you life
and breath and all things. And I beg of you, I plead with
you in Christ's name, don't let 2008 be another year in which
you resist the overtures of God's mercy and grace, but that you
embrace the one who says, Come unto me, all you that labor and
are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." And likewise, Jesus
said, you know, neither the day nor the hour of His return. It could be that we will never
turn up December 2008 on our calendars. God may have marked
in the calendar of heaven the moment of His return, the return
of His Son, and 2008 is in the appointment book. I don't know
that it is, but I don't know that it's not. For in such an
hour as you think not, the Son of Man comes. Therefore, be also
ready. Let's pray. We are thankful that as we have
been brought in your providence into this new year that is indeed
marked by such moral madness on every hand, we thank you for
the confidence we have that there is a reigning monarch in the
midst of all of this who puts down one and raises up another,
who overturns the nation who dares to stick his neck out through
the visions given to a pagan king, predicting that following
the demise of Babylon, the Medo-Persian Empire would rise, and following
it, the Greek Empire, and following it, the Roman. And you did not
have a moment's hesitation to announce the rising and the falling
of nations in their might and glory. And, O our God, we are
thankful that whatever things occur in our national life, whoever
you are choose to put in the White House and put in the halls
of Congress and on the benches of our land, that ultimately,
regardless of how much we pray and seek to act the part of responsible
citizens, at the end of the day, Lord Jesus, It is your scepter
that will touch the shoulder of those who enter these halls
of power and influence. And we thank you because that
is true. We can sleep well. And as we
think of the turmoil and the foment among the nations, we
are thankful that the hour is coming. Sure, as we gathered
here at eleven o'clock, an hour is coming. When you will return
in flaming fire, taking vengeance upon your enemies, burn up this
present world system as it is, and out of it, it will issue
forth in the new heavens and the new earth wherein dwells
nothing but righteousness. So we thank you that we do not
despair, we do not run and hole up in a cave and pray for death. But we thank you we can live
responsibly, we can live cheerfully, we can live to the praise of
the glory of your grace, knowing that our labors are not in vain. So we would commit ourselves
afresh to you, individually and as a people, that by your grace
our minds will not be held in the numbing, debilitating grips
of modern technology that's determined to sap away all fruitful serious
thought. Gracious God, make of this congregation
of people who dare to be the counterculture that lives in
the freedom of Christ from the toys and trinkets of this idolatrous
consumerism that constantly tries to take its captive. O Lord Jesus,
have mercy upon us. that we may indeed be the city
set on a hill, who by our lives individually and corporately
declare there is fullness of life without the folly of the
idolatry of toys. Give us grace, our Father, by
the power of Your Spirit, and make this year a year of the
triumphs of grace in this place and through us to the ends of
the earth. Hear our cry, we plead,