Seven Lights for the New Year's Path

Q: What does the Bible say about God's sovereignty over our lives?

The Bible teaches that nothing will come into our lives except what God has ordained for our greatest good (Romans 8:28). The doctrine of God's sovereignty assures us that nothing will enter our lives without His divine ordination. Romans 8:28 declares, 'And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.' This means that everything we face, whether joyful or painful, is overseen by God's loving hand and is ultimately for our good. Crucially, this does not guarantee comfort or ease but focuses on our spiritual growth and deeper conformity to Christ.

Q: How do we know God is always with us in difficult times?

The Bible assures us that God will never leave us or forsake us (Hebrews 13:5). The presence of God with His people is a fundamental aspect of His character. Hebrews 13:5 states, 'I will never leave you or forsake you.' This intimate relationship assures us that in every trial and hardship, God's comforting presence is with us. Just as the Lord assured Paul in Acts 18:10, saying, 'I am with you,' we can be confident that God walks alongside us through every challenge, providing the necessary strength and courage to face whatever comes our way.

Q: Why is it important to understand God's love for us in Christ?

Understanding God's love assures us that nothing can separate us from Him (Romans 8:39). God's love in Christ is the anchor for our souls, as Romans 8:39 declares that nothing can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus. This truth is essential for a Christian's assurance and peace. It reminds us that even in our failures and weaknesses, we are secure in His love. When we recognize this unconditional love, we are empowered to live in obedience to Him, striving to be conformed to the image of His Son, and motivated to pursue holiness out of gratitude rather than fear of separation.

Q: What does the Bible say about God's grace and our weaknesses?

God's grace is sufficient for us, especially in our weaknesses (2 Corinthians 12:9). God's grace shines particularly bright in our moments of weakness. As Paul recounts in 2 Corinthians 12:9, the Lord assured him that 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.' This means that when we face challenges and feel inadequate, God's grace not only sustains us but enables us to persevere. By recognizing our weaknesses, we can lean into Christ's strength, which equips us to fulfill His will despite our shortcomings. This invites reliance on God rather than self-sufficiency, emphasizing that His power is magnified when we are at our weakest.

Q: How does God's sovereignty relate to world events and personal circumstances?

God decrees and executes all events in the world for His glory and our good (Ephesians 1:11). The sovereignty of God encompasses all events, both globally and personally, assuring us that nothing happens outside of His divine plan. Ephesians 1:11 teaches that God 'works all things according to the counsel of his will.' This doctrine provides profound comfort, especially when faced with uncertainty in politics, economics, or natural disasters. As believers, we can trust that every occurrence is part of God's sovereign control and is ultimately meant for His glory and our ultimate good. This perspective encourages us to have faith in God's overarching plan and provides peace in chaotic times.

The following sermon was delivered
on Sunday evening December 31st 1995 at the Trinity Baptist Church
of Montville, New Jersey. Now those of you who were with
us this morning will know that we considered together the very
pointed words of God through the pen of Solomon as found in
Proverbs 27 and verse 1 in which we are given a very strict prohibition,
we are commanded not to boast concerning tomorrow, because
we know not what a day may bring forth. Now tonight, rather than
parking on one text or portion of the Word of God, I have collated
numerous portions of the Word of God, seeking to organize them
in such a way as to highlight some of the fundamental truths
of the Word of God, which we, as the people of God, will need
constantly to keep before our minds and hearts as God, in His
providence, unfolds the path of His will for us in the coming
years. Psalm 119 verse 105 is familiar
to many of us. Thy word is a lamp unto my feet
and a light unto my path. And I want you to consider these
portions of the word of God that I've organized under seven headings. as border lights or ground lights
that many of you have seen, perhaps some of you have them on your
own property, those low voltage lights that are put close to
the ground and very close to the edge of one's walkway or
path from the driveway into the house in order to light, not
the entire landscape of our property, but to light the path that leads
from the driveway to the front or to the back door of the home.
And those ground or border lights have sufficient illumination
that when we come to that part of the path where we need to
take our next step, it is sufficiently illuminated that we have no reason
to stumble and to fall for lack of knowing what our next step
should be. And I want you to liken this
clustering of verses as these border lights, these ground lights,
which will be our point of reference giving light upon the path of
God's providence as it unfolds in our individual lives. These
realities that we shall consider are fundamental and essential
to the life of faith. And since the Scripture says
that we walk by faith and not by sight, that without faith
it is impossible to please Him, it is crucial that our faith
be well grounded in those clear revelations of the mind and purpose
of God which will indeed give light to us as we walk along
the pathway of the unfolding of the will of God. Now, what
we're going to consider tonight is the exclusive possession of
the child of God. I spent considerable time this
morning seeking to persuade and to entreat and to warn and to
woo to Christ those of you who are not the children of God But
tonight, with but the exception of a few moments at the end of
the message, what we set before you to change the imagery from
light to food is children's bread. And I trust that those of you
who are the people of God will, by the grace of God, be enabled
to lay up in your hearts, by the power of the Spirit of God,
the things that we consider tonight, and not only lay them up and
refer to them again and again in the coming year, but also
use them in obedience to the biblical injunction in Colossians
chapter 3 where we are told that the word of Christ is to dwell
in us richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another. And the things we will consider
tonight are the stuff of mutual admonition as we seek to minister
one to another as a family of God, as a body of Christ. And as I wrestled with how to
express these things, I originally wrote them out in what I might
call the more general and plural form, and then I said, no, it
doesn't have enough teeth, and I opted for the specific and
the individual form of expressing them. so that each of you who
is a child of God can take to yourself each one of these fundamental
principles from the Word of God. And the first is this. As we
look out into the coming year, should the Lord be pleased to
give us days and weeks and months and even the privilege to see
the coming year to its completion, should the Lord delay His coming,
the first thing that you and I as the people of God need to
know and need constantly to bring to our remembrance is this. Nothing
will come into my life but that which is ordained for my highest
good." Nothing, that means no thing, nothing will come into
my life but that which is ordained for my greatest or highest good. Now I did not say nothing will
come into my life but that which is ordained for my highest or
greatest joy, pleasure, ease, delight. But I did say nothing
will come into my life but that which is ordained for my greatest
good. And you already have anticipated
the text that is the foundation of that sweeping assertion. The
familiar text in Romans chapter 8, where the apostle says in
verse 28, and we know. Notice he does not say, and we
feel, or we can understand, or we can explain. He says, we know. We know as an article of our
faith, not our feelings. not our understanding, not our
ability fully to explain to others. But as men and women of faith,
we know that to them that love God, all things are working together
for good. All things. Panta. All things, everything that is
the thing, is working together, sunerge. It is working, constantly
working together, ais agahan, into, towards, leading unto good. Now either God's a liar or that's
true. And if it is true, then facing all of the unknown things,
of 1996, you as one who loves God, who has been called according
to purpose, you can stand on the threshold of the coming year
and declare as a tenet of unshakable confidence in God, nothing will
come into my life but that which is ordained for my greatest Now,
are you prepared to say that? And then are you prepared by
the grace of God, when everything seems to be coming apart at the
seams, a year in which amongst us, I am sure, there will be
the shock of unexpected, unplanned pregnancies, the grief of miscarriages. The horror of going down in the
basement and finding that the bottom is blown out of your water
heater. Going to work and you throw a
rod on your engine. Getting the pink slip from your
boss. All of the unknown things that will unfold from the 500
or so lives that are in this building tonight. But we have
biblical grounds to say if we love God and love Him because
we are the called according to His purpose, nothing, nothing
will come into my life but that which is ordained for my greatest
good. And having taken one or two texts
under each of these headings, I've sought to find a biblical
illustration of the principles stated in the text. And again,
this illustration from Genesis 50 is familiar to many of us. But how we need to come back
again and again to the familiar in Genesis chapter 50. When the
whole story, as Paul Harvey would say, and now you know the rest
of the story. Well, we know the end of the
story of all of the mysterious winding paths of Joseph's life. When from his dreams there seemed
to be in the providence of God everything that was countering
what he was led to believe from those dreams in his earlier period
of life. And yet as he stands before his
brothers who were filled with envy, who have the spirit of
murder in their hearts, sold him as a common slave, and from
slavery, you remember, he came under unjust accusation from
Potiphar's wife and a period in prison, yet he could say of
all of this in Genesis 50 and verse 20, and as for you, You meant evil against me, but
God meant it for good to bring to pass as it is this day to
save much people alive. You meant it for evil, but the
same combination of attitudes and actions which they meant
for evil and that were spun out of evil dispositions He says
all of that was overruled and governed and controlled by a
sovereign God with this end in view. Good, your highest good,
my highest good, the highest good of His covenant people.
You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good. And therefore
it is crucial for us As we stand at the beginning of the pathway
of 1996 to say, as we look down at these border lights, these
brown lights, here is the first that sheds its light upon the
path. Nothing will come into my life
but that which is ordained for my greatest good. Greatest good with respect to
my higher conformity to Christ. My greatest good in terms of
doing that which will wean me more and more from the love of
this world and the things of this world, and fuel my love
for Christ. My greatest good in terms of
making me more antsy for heaven, less attached to earth. Dear
child of God, settle it now. without knowing any of the particulars
that God has locked up in the womb of the tomorrows that he
has appointed for you in 1996. Nothing will come out of the
wombs of the tomorrows of the coming year but that which is
ordained for my highest good. Secondly, nothing will come into
my life but that God himself will be with me as I face it. Nothing will come into my life
but that God himself will be with me as I face it. You see, it's one thing to believe
that God is sovereignly making all things to work together for
good. And as a man or woman of faith
to be convinced through the bitterness of my tears and through the confusion
of everything that seems to be a mess of rubble in the path
to believe that indeed a sovereign God has ordered it for my good.
It's another thing to believe He's there at my elbow before
the mass of apparent rubble. That He is there to comfort,
to strengthen, to uphold me. There's a beautiful passage that
underscores this truth with God's relationship to His old covenant
people in Isaiah 63 verses 7 through 9. Isaiah 63 and verse 7, I will
make mention of the loving kindness of the Lord, His covenant faithfulness,
His chesed, and the praises of the Lord according to all that
the Lord has bestowed on us, and the great goodness toward
the house of Israel which He has bestowed on them according
to His mercies and according to the multitude of His lovingkindnesses. For He said, Surely they are
My people, children that will not deal falsely. So He was their
Savior in all their affliction, He was afflicted, and the angel
of His presence saved them. In His love and in His pity He
redeemed them, and He bore them and carried them all the days
of old. You see, there is not a cold,
detached sovereignty exercised from afar. But there is an intimacy
in all their affliction. He was afflicted. That's what
sympathy means. There is a feeling with the afflicted. And the angel of His presence
saved them. And in His love and pity, He
redeemed them and bore them and carried them. There's the picture
of the father who picks up the child when they come to a place
in the path that the child cannot navigate on his own strength.
In the strong armor the father reaches around and lifts up the
child and carries him through the place of difficulty. So God
says He does with His people. And in the New Testament, Hebrews
chapter 13, quoting from an Old Testament passage, God says to
these Hebrew Christians, many of whom were facing tremendous
difficulties in the way of persevering attachment to Christ. Some of
their brethren had taken the loss of their goods. Some were
facing tremendous persecution and opposition. And yet he says
to them in Hebrews 13, 5, Be free from the love of money,
content with such things as you have. Why? For himself hath said,
I will in no wise fail thee, neither will I in any wise forsake
thee. So that with good courage we
say, The Lord is my helper. You see, not from afar. But He
is my Helper, as the One who is with me and near me, who will
not forsake me. I will not fear what shall man
do unto me." Here is the promise of the special, the immediate
nearness of God with His people in the midst of the things that
distress them, disturb them, unhinge them. But God says, I
am with you. Nothing, nothing will come into
my life but that God himself will be with me as I face it. The illustration of this in the
life of a servant of God is beautifully underscored in Acts chapter 18.
Many of you remember the setting. Paul has gone into Corinth And
as he preaches, there is opposition from the recalcitrant Jews that
he faced in town after town and city after city. And we read
in verse 8 of Acts 18, Crispus, the ruler of the synagogue, believed
in the Lord with all his house. And many of the Corinthians,
hearing, believed and were baptized. And the Lord said unto Paul in
the night by a vision, Do not be afraid, but speak and do not
hold your peace." And what's the great consolation he's going
to give him? Not, I am on my throne as the
sovereign of the universe to protect you. No, I am with you. I am with you. And no man shall
set on you to harm you. You see, the great consolation
God brought to the somewhat fearful spirit of His servant was this. My son, my servant, as you carry
out my will for you here in Corinth to preach the gospel of the grace
of God, no matter what you've already seen and experienced
of opposition, carry on, don't be afraid, speak, hold back nothing,
and all you need to know, Paul, is I am with you. I am with you. I am with you. The heart of God's
covenant commitment to His people is I will be their God and He
is never, never an absentee God to His people. He doesn't leave
notes on the counter while He's gone off to work to have you
fix your own sandwiches and fend for yourself. He is there with
you, never to leave you never to forsake you, I will be their
God." And the marvelous promise of our Lord Jesus, in which he
says at the end of the commission in Matthew 28, though it has
a peculiar and special application to gospel endeavors, it is true
with respect to all of his people. And the original is weakly translated
when it renders it, and behold, I am with you. It should be rendered,
I myself, I even I, am with you, not always, but literally all
of the days, each and every one of those days, the womb of which
is opaque to us. We know not what it contains,
but one thing we know. that as it gives birth to the
things ordained of God, He Himself is with us each and every one
of the days. Nothing will come into my life
but that God Himself will be with me as I face it. Thirdly, nothing will come into
my life that can separate me from the love of God that is
in Christ Jesus. Nothing, nothing will come into
my life that can separate me from the love of God that is
in Christ Jesus. And here you've already anticipated
again the text I told you, nothing new. Going back to the most elementary
issues of the life of faith, Romans chapter 8, where the apostle
throws out the question in verse 31, What then shall we say to
these things? the things He has just been expounding
and unfolding of the commitment of the triune God to our complete
and consummate salvation, even the resurrection of our bodies,
and the present ministry of the Holy Spirit helping us in the
felt infirmity of our inability to know how to pray as we ought. And in the meanwhile, knowing,
as we considered in verse 28, that all things are working together
for our good, and that God is committed to complete the salvation
that will find us completely conformed to the image of His
own dear Son, what shall we say then to these things, if God
is for us? for us in the context means utterly,
irrevocably committed to our consummate salvation. If God
is for us, who is against us? He that spared not His Son, but
delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not also with Him
freely give us all things, all things pertaining to this salvation,
and all that is planned and purposed and marked out for us in that
salvation? Who shall lay anything to the
charge of God's elect? It's God that has justified. Who is He that condemns? It is
Christ Jesus that died, yea, rather, that was raised from
the dead. Who is at the right hand of God who also makes intercession
for us? In the light of God's commitment
in Christ to take care of every exigency rising from our sinfulness,
Our sin demanded condemnation. Christ died. The validation of
the worth of that death has been given. He has been raised. The
problem of our ongoing sin is taken care of. He intercedes
for us at the right hand of God. Who shall separate us from the
love of Christ? If God himself is so committed
to take care of every single matter that would stand between
us and our consummate salvation, who shall separate us from the
love of Christ? Not love in the abstract, not
love simply as an emotion in God's heart and an affection
toward us, but love that has planned and committed itself
to our complete salvation. That's the context. Who shall
separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, pressures
of all kinds, anguish, growing out of disappointments, tragedy,
persecution, opposition from without, famine, nakedness, peril,
sword. Even as it is written, For your
sake we are killed all the day long. We are counted as sheep
for the slaughter. Nay, in all these things we are
more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded."
Here we come back again. You see, he doesn't say, for
I'm riding the crest of a marvelous feeling. No, he says, I am persuaded. This is a judgment that goes
on between my ears and filters down into my heart. At times
it's overlaid with billows of wonderful feelings. There's times
when you can barely find something as thick as a piece of saran
wrap of feelings around it, but it doesn't change my persuasion. I am persuaded. Of what are you
persuaded, Paul? I am persuaded that neither death,
nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, good or evil, nor things present,
things present, all of the things that nag, that carp at me, that
seem to eat away at the vitals of my life and seem determined
to strangle out all spiritual reality, nor things present,
nor things to come. What things? The things that
I do not know, that are locked up in the womb of tomorrow, that
God has put there and that God will bring forth. Nor powers,
nor height, nor depth, nor any other created reality, any other
creature, any other created thing shall be able to separate us
from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. You and I, if God spares us,
one thing is certain, for 1996 we're going to sin. Are you persuaded your sin cannot
separate you from the love of God in Christ Jesus? We're going
to stumble. We're going to fall. We're going
to feel our weakness, our ignorance. We're going to mourn our downright
stupidity at times. But are you persuaded that your
stupidity and your weakness and your ignorance cannot separate
you from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Did he know all about your weakness,
your stupidity, your sins, When in sovereign mercy and grace
He set His love upon you, gave His Son to die for you, and thereby
secured in giving His Son that all other things necessary to
complete His work of salvation in you were secured in that death,
then child of God, You not only have every right, you dishonor
God if you do not stand and say on the threshold of this coming
year, nothing will come into my life that can separate me
from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus, my Lord. But someone says, Pastor, if
we do that, then we sin with a high hand and say it will never...
My friend, anyone who sins with a high hand based on a so-called
conviction that nothing can separate him from the love of God in Christ
Jesus has never known the love of God in Christ Jesus. That's
the simple answer to that objection. Because to know the love of God
in Christ Jesus is to long to be holy as He is holy. to be
what God has marked us out to be, whom He did foreknow, He
did predestinate to be conformed to the image of the Son. And
our greatest burden is our sin, and our greatest yearning is
to be like Christ, and our greatest grief is when we are unlike Him
and when we sin. But in the midst of that ongoing
struggle, we need, as men and women of faith, to be able to
say, nothing, nothing will come into my life that can separate
me. from the love of God in Christ
Jesus. Fourth, border light, ground
light upon our path is this. Nothing will be expected of me
in the will of God, but that his grace and power will be sufficient
for me. Nothing will be expected of me
in the will of God, but that his grace and power will be sufficient
for me. You come along the path, and
there is something that you must lift before you can take the
next step. And you say, the boulder's too
big for me. But if God's placed it there,
and if in the will of God it must be removed for you to please
God, there will be strength, Jesus said, even to make mountains
skip and end up in oceans. Or if you have faith as the grain
of mustard seed, you shall say to this mount, be thou removed
and cast into the sea, and it shall be done. What did Paul
say in Philippians 4.13? I can do all things. Paul, you could stand at the
base of the Empire State Building and jump over? No. Because when
he said, I can do all things, he said that in a context, in
a setting that interprets its significance, he had been talking
about his physical circumstances and the fact that at times God
providentially brought him into a path where his stomach was
playing a tune on his backbone. And when he shivered in cold,
he said, I know how to be in want. He said, there are other
times when I'm flush. My tummy's full, my back is warm,
and I have something to share with others. I know how to be
abased. I know how to abound. Paul, where
did you get the strength to be cheerful and thankful and have
no hard thoughts of God? When you were hungry and you
didn't have your three squares, even though you prayed, give
us this day our daily bread. And even though you knew the
passages where David said, I've been young and old and I've never
seen the righteous forsaken nor his seed begging bread, how is
it, Paul, that you had grace and strength not to think hard
thoughts of God and not to speak hard words about God? I can do
all things through Him who gives me the strength. I can do all
things through Him who strengthens me with the grace to bless the
hand of God when it seems to be a closed hand and a stingy
hand and an unconcerned hand. Surely he knew the verses better
than we do. Cattle on a thousand hills are
the Lord's. All things are His. The earth
is the Lord's in the fullness thereof. Why then were there
times when God wouldn't open up His hand and provide even
a decent meal for His servant? Where do you find strength to
bless a God like that? You find it from the God who
says, my grace is sufficient for you. And when he was flush,
Paul, how did you find grace not to let God's abounding blessings
turn your heart away from Him? As God had to warn Israel, you
remember, again and again, when they were going into the land,
He said, when you go in, and I fulfill my promise to drive
out your enemies, and you enjoy the fat of the land, beware,
beware, beware, lest your hearts grow cold to Me, and turn away
from Me, and the very blessings I have given become a curse.
Paul, how is it that you had strength when all your needs
were met and you were in a state of abounding, not to have your
heart go a-whoring from God to God's gifts? I can do all things
through Him who strengthens me. That's the context. What he's
saying is, there is nothing that I face in the will of God but
that the grace and power of God will be sufficient for me. You
remember how he learned that lesson in another setting, 2
Corinthians chapter 12? Whatever Paul's thorn in the
flesh was, whatever this messenger of Satan to buffet him was, it
was something that made him consciously and physically weak, so much
so that Paul was convinced It was inconsistent with his doing
the will of God as an apostle. So what did he do? Verse 8 of
2 Corinthians 8, concerning this thing, I besought the Lord three
times, that it might depart from me. He's referring most likely
to three seasons of intense, earnest, importunate prayer focused
on one thing that it might depart from him. Does this have overtones
of anything else you remember in the Bible? Oh, my father,
if it be possible, let this cup pass from me. How many times? Three times. Was our Lord by
his spirit moving his servant in his own mind and heart to
think of Gethsemane. I can't pontificate, but there
is that similarity. But he was convinced that this
thing had to be removed if he was to go on in usefulness and
do the will of God. So he prayed the only way he
knew how to pray that it might depart. But then the Lord speaks
to him and says this. And he hath said unto me, My
grace is sufficient for you. For my power is made perfect
not in removing weakness, but in the midst of weakness. Most
gladly, therefore, will I glory in my weaknesses, that the power
of Christ may literally spread itself like a tent over me, that
I may be tabernacled by the very power of Christ, That's the promise
of God to His servant, that in doing the will of God, there
will be sufficient grace and power from the hand of His Savior. And dear child of God, that is
a blood-bought provision for every one of us. His grace is
sufficient for us. And we need to look into all
the unknowns of the coming year and say, as men and women of
faith, nothing will be expected of me in the will of God, but
that His grace and power will be sufficient for me. I commend to you Hebrews 13,
20 and 21, that beautiful benediction And then the illustration of
this, not only in Paul with his thorn, but Paul in his period
of being deserted, 2 Timothy chapter 4, toward the end of
his earthly pilgrimage. He says in verse 17 of that chapter,
2 Timothy chapter 4, at my first defense, verse 16, no one took
my part, but all forsook me. May it not be laid to their account.
Now notice, But the Lord stood by me. There's the principle. I face nothing but when he is
with me. But with me what? Not just as an observer. And
gave me power and strengthened me that through me the message
might be fully proclaimed and all the Gentiles might hear. And I was delivered out of the
mouth of the lion and the Lord will deliver me from every evil
work and save me unto his heavenly kingdom. Every measure of grace
and strength and protection and preservation I need to do the
will of God. God is committed to get it. The apparent impossibilities
which you face are but God's own theater constructed in his
providence. to display His own grace and
power. Child of God, it's easy to believe
that sitting here. But remember, when you come to
that point in the path where you say, the boulder's too big,
I can't move it. The obstacle is too high, I can't
go over it, under it, around it. Remember, if it's the will
of God that you go through it, over it, under it, or lift it
up and remove it, there will be grace sufficient. God is committed
to that reality. And the reason he constantly
brings us to the place where we feel our circumstances and
the demands upon us are far beyond us is so clearly exegeted in
1 Corinthians 1, as Paul reminds the Corinthians of their calling
He says in verse 27, God chose the foolish things of the world
to put to shame them that are wise, the weak things of the
world to put to shame the things that are strong, the base things
of the world and the things that are despised did God choose,
and the things that are not. Those are the five kinds of people
God chooses. To what end? that he might bring
to naught the things that are that no flesh should glory before
God. He chooses the weak, the foolish. He chooses the base. He chooses
the despised and the things that are not. One servant of God called
them God's five-ranked army of descending human weakness with
which he will conquer the world. God's five-ranked army of descending
human weakness. Fall in if you feel yourself
weak, and a nobody, and despised. Fall in. You're part of God's
five-ranked army of descending human weakness. You've become
the theater of displaying His own almighty power that no flesh
should glory in His presence. Then I hasten on, there's a fifth
light on the pathway, and it is this. Nothing, nothing, nothing
will transpire in our national, international, politics, economics,
and the forces of nature, but God has decreed and executed
it. Nothing will transpire in our
national and international politics, economics, and the forces of
nature. But God has decreed and executed
it. Think of all the unknowns. As
I referred to some of the things that unfolded in this year, in
these very realms, making no reference to the mudslides in
California, to the horrible floods in the Midwest, the likes of
which they haven't known in recorded history. And we could go on and
on, dear child of God, as we move into the pathway of the
year before us. We need to move with this confidence
that nothing, nothing will transpire in our own national life, in
international affairs, politics, economics, and the forces of
nature, but that our wise and sovereign God has decreed and
executed it. Ephesians 1 in verse 11. He is
the God who works all things after the counsel of His own
will. Daniel 4.35, He does according
to His will among the armies of heaven and the inhabitants
of the earth, and none can stay His hand and say unto Him, What
are you doing? And I love Nahum 1 3, he hath
his way in the whirlwind and the storm, and the clouds are
the dust of his feet. And when we see in our newscast
the weather report, the satellite pictures of the swirling tropical
storms, to be able to say that's God's big toe stirring it up,
the clouds are the dust of his feet. I love to think of it that
way. Oh, they think that because they've
got their computers that can track them and they know the
forces at work, that somehow these things are all just happening.
No, there is a personal, wise, sovereign God at work. You and
I need to believe this, especially if in His own sovereign wisdom
and the execution of His sovereign rights, the devastation strikes
you. Think of our brothers and sisters
down in Florida who one day sat in their lovely homes and the
next day looked at a pile of rubble. And God didn't cause
the wind and the rain that tore those houses to pieces to cut
a swath that bypassed the homes of the children of God or even
their places of worship. And in the midst of legitimate
grief and tears of a sense of loss, The child of God can look
up into the face of the God who has his way in the whirlwind
and the storm and say, you're my loving father. This is not
come by some chance combination of the forces of nature. This
is come by your sovereign decree and by your imminent all controlling
providence. The next time you get a fender
bender, Your car goes out of control on the icy road and smacks
into a tree. This is your consolation. This
is your consolation. And dear people of God, it does
no good to make an articulate, accurate confession of the doctrine
of the divine decrees and of the sovereignty of God as it
works itself out in providence if we can't translate it into
the world in which we live in the now. Remember Revelation
5 and 6. in looking over them again this
afternoon. What a thrilling thing to see
that picture of the weeping in heaven. None is found worthy
to take that scroll and open up the seals that determine the
activities and the course of history and the events upon earth
until a lamb in the midst of the throne is found worthy. And he takes the scroll and he
opens it. And then we read that when he
opens it, the things that transpire upon earth transpire according
to that which is written in the scroll. The Lamb on the throne
is in control. All authority has been given
unto him in heaven and upon earth. We can say with the psalmist
in Psalm 93, Jehovah reigneth. Let the earth be glad. Let the
isles rejoice. Righteousness and justice are
the foundation of His throne. A fire goes before Him. Darkness is round about Him.
Though we cannot and though we need not attempt to justify His
ways, we know that the foundations of His throne are righteousness
and justice and Jehovah reigns. I believe on one other occasion
some years ago I told this true story. It bears repeating. It's
one of those I want you to remember and tell others after I'm gone.
A friend of mine who a number of years ago coming out of a
Pentecostal background where he had been well grounded in
a very defective theology in the providence of God through
his reading of the Bible and other good books came to embrace
the truth of scripture that God is sovereign in every realm.
creation, providence and grace. And he began to preach this in
his church. And he was in a little town where he was well known.
He had a very popular television broadcast. So he was known throughout
the town, pastor of the largest Pentecostal church, probably
the largest non Baptist church in that particular town. And
the whole town began to be in a stew when he began to understand
and preach the doctrine of God's sovereignty, particularly God's
sovereignty and salvation, and began to preach election and
God's distinguishing grace that is set upon some and bypasses
others. And even the president of the
local bank, with whom he had a very good personal relationship,
became aware of the furor that was going on in that church and
in other parts of the town because of what was happening to preacher
so-and-so with his newfound doctrine. And one day he had occasion to
speak face-to-face with this banker, a man of the world, an
absolute worldling, not a Christian. And he said to him, Reverend
so-and-so, he said, what's all the trouble going on up at your
church there? And my friend said, brother, I pray God give me wisdom
to know how to make it simple and plain to a man of the world.
And he said, this is what came to my mind. I said to him, Mr. So-and-so, if you were God and
it made the world, would you run it? Or would you turn the
job over to someone else? He said, no way. If I were God
and made the world and it belonged to me, I'd run it. He said, well,
Mr. So-and-so, that's really the
problem. I'm just preaching. What the
Bible says about the fact that God that made the world hasn't
given over the government to someone else, but the God who
made it is running it and people are getting all upset. Dear people,
that's it. The God who made this world runs
it. And you see, that's relatively easy to confess in the abstract,
but does he run it? When that part of the world that
is your little sphere suddenly is fractured and fragmented and
seems to have no sense. It's at that point as we sang
tonight, here will my stand be taken. My stand is taken on the
fact that nothing will transpire in our national, international
politics, economics and the forces of nature, but that God has decreed
and executed. Then very quickly, there's the
sixth light on our path, and it's this. Nothing will occur
in any realm of heaven or earth to frustrate the saving purpose
of God in Christ. Nothing will occur in any realm
of heaven or earth to frustrate the saving purposes of God in
Christ. Now, according to the Scriptures,
there are real spiritual beings and powers unseen to the human
eye. They are not material, they cannot
be touched, but they are real, and they are set in hellish,
demonic opposition to Christ and to the work of the Gospel. Paul could say in Ephesians 6,
12, we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities
and powers. against spiritual host of wickedness
in the heavenly places. In Revelation 12 and verse 13
we have a graphic picture of that warfare. Revelation 12 and
verse 13 and following, And when the dragon saw that he was cast
down to the earth, he persecuted the woman that brought forth
the man-child. And they were given to the woman
two wings of a great eagle that she might fly to the wilderness. Verse 15, And the serpent cast
out of his mouth after the woman water as a river, that he might
cause her to be carried away with the stream. And the earth
helped the woman, and the earth opened her mouth and swallowed
up the river which the dragon cast out of his mouth. And the
dragon became angry with the woman and went away to make war
with the rest of her seed, those who keep the commandments of
God and hold to the testimony of Jesus." There is a real warfare
with real powers of darkness set upon the destruction of Christ
and of His people. But Jesus said in Matthew 16,
18, I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail
against it. Again, Ephesians 1, 20-22 speaks
of our Lord Jesus and the power manifested in His resurrection
and ascension, an ascension which placed Him, according to those
verses, in a position far above all principality and power and
might and dominion and every name that is named, not only
in this age, but in that which is to come, and has put all things
under His feet and gave Him to behead. over all things to his
church, which is his body, the fullness of him that fills all
in all. In 1 Corinthians 15, 25, and
26, it says he must reign until he has put all his enemies beneath
his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed
is death. Many in our day would read it,
he shall reign when all the enemies have been defeated at the beginning
or end of the millennium. No, no, my Bible says he must
reign. He is reigning and will continue
to reign. And there is a divine necessity
to that reign until every last enemy is destroyed. The last
one to be destroyed is death. And in the context, it is death
in its impact upon your body and mind. When they've gone into
the grave, sown in dishonor, sown in weakness, But when He
returns, they will be raised in glory, raised in honor, and
that will be the final triumph of the reigning Christ in messianic,
mediatorial power and grace. He must reign. He is reigning.
And Psalm 2 is the most fascinating description of that reign. Because
God the Father decrees that his son shall have the nations for
his inheritance and the uttermost part of the earth for his possession.
But the great ones of the earth say, no way, Jose, and they're
going to get together and they're going to conspire and plot and
scheme to frustrate what God has decreed for his son. And
when the great ones of the earth those people who have the place
of influence who make the laws and demand that the whole country
give itself to the worship of Allah and be bound by the Qur'an
when they get together and conspire that they shall cast off any
thought of the reign of Christ and when the intellectuals gather
and with their so-called intellectual powers determine that they shall
cast off the bands of any thought that this is a universe controlled
by a risen and an ascended and glorified Christ and that the
whole rationale of human history is to be found in God's purpose
to take out of the nations a people for Himself And they are determined
to obliterate any thought of creationism, any thought of a
sovereign control over the nations by a living personal God, any
thought of personal accountability, when the great ones gather and
take counsel and combine their wisdom and might and power, saying,
let's break their bonds asunder and cast away their cords from
us. God is so nervous about all this.
You know what he does? Look at verse 4. He that sits
in the heavens will have a giggle fit. He will laugh. He who sits in the heavens, he
laughs. And it's the laughter of derision.
There's no greater way to show disdain for an enemy than to
laugh at him in derision. And that's what God does. God
belly laughs. When the men of the world in
their greatness say, we will frustrate what God has purposed
concerning his son, God laughs. God speaks in his wrath and said,
I've set my king upon my holy hill of Zion. I have decreed
that he shall have his inheritance among the nations. I will build
my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And in the coming year, if God
is pleased to give us, as your elders met last Thursday and
discussed some aspects in which God may be pleased in the coming
year, to give us greater and more extensive involvement in
the work of the gospel in some of the very bastions of Satan's
control, how we need to believe as a people that there is absolutely
nothing in the realm of heaven or earth that can frustrate the
saving purposes of God in Jesus Christ. And then light number
seven, the last one we'll consider tonight along the path of the
coming year is this. And this is the final and most
glorious ground light. Everything, everything that transpires
in the coming year will bring us closer to the coming of our
Lord Jesus Christ. Everything that transpires in
the coming year will bring us closer to the coming of our Lord
Jesus Christ. Romans 13 and verse 11, it's
one of those verses that points in the direction and shows how
this consciousness was embedded in the soul of the early church.
Romans 13, 11, and this, knowing the season that already it's
time for you to awake out of sleep, for now is salvation nearer
to us than when we first believed. From the time we first believed
to now, our consummate, ultimate, completed salvation is nearer. That salvation to be completed
at the coming of the Lord Jesus. And according to Titus 2, 12
and 13, as we seek to live under the tutelage of the grace of
God, that grace that teaches us that denying ungodliness and
worldly loss, we should live soberly, righteously and godly
in this present age, is all conditioned by this perspective, looking
forward. looking for, yes, denying ungodliness
and worldly lust, applying ourselves as we focused upon it this morning,
universal obedience, universal mortification, universal embrace
of our duty, but all of it looking for the blessed hope and the
glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ. In describing the conversion
of the Thessalonians in 1 Thessalonians 1 9 Paul says, You turned to
God from your idols to serve the living and the true God and
to wait for his Son out of the heavens. You turned to serve
and to wait for his Son. The emphasis of Peter in his
first letter in verse 5 of chapter 1 where he says that we, the
people of God, are kept by the power of God through faith unto
a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. It's ready
to be revealed. And each day that unfolds in
the coming year and each event and every circumstance brings
us closer to that moment in human history when the heavens will
part, and every eye shall see him. Every ear shall hear the
blast of the trumpet, the voice of the archangel, the trump of
God. Be ye therefore ready, for in
such an hour as you think not, the Son of Man cometh. And while
I claim to be no expert in matters of prophetic things, this much
I know. It is the wicked servant who
says, My Lord delays his coming. It is the wicked servant who
says the delay is an opportunity for indulgence. And the disposition
of the child of God is that he yearns, he longs, he looks for,
he anticipates, inwardly stands on tiptoes awaiting the return
of his blessed Lord. Well, dear children of God, I
told you I wasn't going to tell you anything you didn't know
before. The older I get as a Christian, the more I'm convinced that the
battle is won or lost in the trenches of the most elementary
issues. And as we together move into
this new year in just a couple of hours, if the Lord spares
us, surely the word of God is a lamp to our feet and a light
to our pathway. And as that pathway unfolds in
the coming year, We need to remind ourselves and remind one another
as we bear one another's burdens, as we exhort and encourage and
admonish one another with the word of Christ that dwells in
us richly. Nothing will come into my life,
but that which is ordained for my greatest good. Nothing will
come into my life but that God himself will be with me as I
face it. Nothing will come into my life
that can separate me from the love of God in Christ. Nothing
will be expected of me in the will of God but that his grace
and power will be sufficient for me. Nothing will transpire
at the national, international level of economics and politics
and the forces of nature, but that God has decreed and executed
it. Nothing will occur in the realm
of heaven and earth to frustrate the saving purpose of God in
Christ. And everything that transpires
in the coming year brings us closer to the coming of our Lord
Jesus. If you're not a Christian, I
hope what you've heard has made you envious to become one. What
do you have of this kind of solid granite reality on which to stand
as you face the coming year? You go on playing Russian roulette
with your never-dying soul. You spin the chamber every day
and pull the trigger and hope there's no bullet in the chamber.
And you've made it through another day. God may stop your heart
in the middle of the night and you'll sink into hell. My unconverted
friend, what a horrible position you're in now. And what have
you as you face the coming year? Do you have any kind of insurance
that you can buy for any amount of money that says you'll not
be put on your back with a terminal illness? That you'll not be struck
dead the next time you get in your car? You tell me the insurer that
will insure that. You see, this is not scare tactics,
this is reality. You are not the master of your
fate and the captain of your soul. The God who could crush you is
the God who in Christ condescends to urge you to come. Come to
the feast of gospel babies prepared, purchased by the blood of Christ,
spread before you in the gospel. And he says, oh, everyone that
thirsts, come buy wine and milk without money and without price.
God stoops to the imagery of a street hawker who ought to
have no trouble getting rid of his wares. He said, you can have
them for nothing. Someone else is paid. with His
own precious blood and He offers them to you freely. Why will
you die? Why will you live your empty
self-serving life in a climate of despair and hopelessness when
all of these blessed realities can be yours in Christ? Oh, go to Him. Don't pill your
head tonight till you go to Him. And by God's grace, enter the
new year with all of these things, just as much your possession
as the person in this building who's been a Christian for 70
years. Because all of these are the possession of all of the
people of God, from the most immature to the most mature,
from the most recently born into the kingdom, from those who are
gray-headed in the kingdom. Oh, my unconverted friend, boy,
girl, man or woman, Don't enter the New Year without these blessed
realities, your possession, as God holds them out to you in
Jesus Christ. Let us pray. Our Father, how
we thank you for your blessed word and for that which you have
called exceeding great and precious promises. We thank you for these
many scriptures that we have been able to quote and comment
upon and apply, and we thank you that you are the God who
cannot and will not lie, that every word that you have given
is tried, proven as though placed in the furnace seven times, and
it comes out again and again as pure gold. Thank you, Father,
and we pray that you would help us as your people as we face
all of the unknowns As they unfold to us in your will, thank you
that the things we have considered tonight we can know for certain
because you have spoken. Help us to be men and women of
faith who will lay hold of these basic realities. Bring them to
our remembrance when we most need them and are most likely
to forget them. Make us more faithful one to
another that we may remind one another when we see a brother
or sister buried beneath the grief, the pain, the confusion
from forgetting these realities. Oh Lord, help us that we shall
minister one to another with these very words of yours. We pray for those, our Father,
who have no such confidence as they face the new year. as we
have sought to urge them, as we have sought to make them jealous,
will you not work in their hearts that which you alone can do,
to bring them broken and believing to the feet of Christ, that in
Him they may know the blessedness of all of these realities. Thank
you for this day in your courts. Thank you, Father, that we're
found in a place of worship tonight. Some amongst us who can remember
New Year's Eve's when their only thought was for indulging the
flesh, carnal debauchery. Thank you for the miracles of
grace that sit here tonight. Thank you that you've maintained
in this place your worship in its simplicity. You've maintained
a hunger amongst your people for the preaching of the word.
We thank You. O Lord, we can say, many of us,
there's nothing more that we desire but more of Yourself,
more of Your grace, more conformity to Christ, more love to Christ. O grant that these may be the
things we pursue with all of our hearts in whatever days are
allotted to us in the coming year. Amen.

Seven Lights for the New Year's Path

Key Quotes

What does the Bible say about God's sovereignty over our lives?

How do we know God is always with us in difficult times?

Why is it important to understand God's love for us in Christ?

What does the Bible say about God's grace and our weaknesses?

How does God's sovereignty relate to world events and personal circumstances?

Sermon Transcript

About Albert N. Martin

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Seven Lights for the New Year's Path

Key Quotes

What does the Bible say about God's sovereignty over our lives?

How do we know God is always with us in difficult times?

Why is it important to understand God's love for us in Christ?

What does the Bible say about God's grace and our weaknesses?

How does God's sovereignty relate to world events and personal circumstances?

Sermon Transcript

About Albert N. Martin

Comments

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