_{FACING NEW DAYS CONFIDENTLY}

_{Time. What is it? The seconds, minutes or hours on your wrist watch? For the ancients was time just the shadow on their sun dial? Is time the gauging of the midnight hour on your old grandfather clock? Is it the grains of sand seeping through the hour glass?}

Tolstoy, in “War and Peace,” said: “Time is infinite movement without one moment of rest.” Sometimes I say YES to that! J.A. Van Horn, in “Physics Today,” said: “To the philosopher, time is one of the fundamental quantities. To the average man, time has something to do with dinner.” Longfellow wrote in “Hyperion,” “Time is the life of the soul.” That definition gets a little closer to the truth! Plato put it like this: “Time is the image of eternity.”

Considering all of the prior attempts at defining time, I believe a better explanation would be, “Time is the moment for a life, with the brush of faith, to stroke on the canvas of one’s being the masterpiece of the presence of God, the reflection of the eternal, through repentance, reconciliation, and redemption.”

Look with me at Ecclesiastes 3:1-9. “There is an appointed time for everything. And there is a time for every event under heaven – a time to give birth, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to uproot what is planted. A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to tear down, and a time to build up. A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance. A time to throw stones, and a time to gather stones; a time to embrace, and a time to shun embracing. A Time to search, and a time to give up as lost; a time to keep, and a time to throw away. A time to tear apart, and a time to sew together; a time to be silent, and a time to speak. A time to love, and a time to hate; a time for war, and a time for peace. What profit is there to the worker from that in which he toils?”

And verse 9 brings us to the moment of divine confrontation, “What eternal profit is there in the daily investment of my life?”

In “A Psalm of Life,” Longfellow wrote: “Lives of great men all remind us we can make our lives sublime, and, departing, leave behind us footprints on the sand of time.” Leah Richmond said, “There is a time to be born and a time to die, says Solomon, and it is the momento of a truly wise man; but there is an interval between these two times of infinite importance.”

In Galatians 4:10,11, Paul is talking to a church who saw only the “surface” and had not yet majored on the “substance.” “You observe days and months and seasons and years. I fear for you, that perhaps I have labored over you in vain.”

Jesus spoke to the multitude in Luke 12:54-56, “And He was also saying to the multitude, ‘When you see a cloud rising in the west, immediately you say, ‘A shower is coming,’ and so it turns out. And when you see a south wind blowing, you say, ‘It will be a hot day,’ and it turns out that way. You hypocrites! You know how to analyze the appearance of the earth and the sky, but why do you not analyze this present time?”

The Psalmist had a discerning of the days when in Psalm 39:4-7 he said, “Lord, make me to know my end, and what is the extent of my days, let me know how transient I am. Behold, You have made my days as handbreaths, and my lifetime as nothing in Your sight, surely every man at his best is a mere breath. Surely every man walks about as a phantom; surely they make an uproar for nothing; he amasses riches, and does not know who will gather them. And now, Lord, for what do I wait? My hope is in You.”

I want us to study what we must possess in order to face new days confidently. FIRST, WE MUST KNOW THE DAYS ARE DIVINELY ORDAINED.

Psalm 31:15 says, “My times are in God’s hand…” Do you believe that, or is each day just an accident of the ages? Ecclesiastes 8:15 speaks of “the days of [a man’s] life which God gives him under the sun.” Are the days of my life gifts of His grace? Is He in control of those seconds, minutes, hours, days on the clock of my life?

Psalm 118:24 says, “This is the day which the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.” How awesome when we see it!

I believe without a doubt that multitudes never come into confident living in their hour because they’ve never seen themselves as a piece of the puzzle that God is putting together. I believe that many never come into confident living in their marriages because they have never really seen their marriages as an interpretation to the world of what Christ and His bride are like. I believe that far too many businessmen have missed eternal blessings because they’ve built, they think, businesses as a reward of their own diligence and not a tool to honor God and expand His kingdom.

Frederick William Faber: “The surest method of arriving at a knowledge of God’s eternal purposes about us is to be found in the right use of the present moment. Each hour comes with some little fagot of God’s will fastened upon its back.” I would only add, “…not some little fagot of God’s will, but the full assurance of divine intent fastened to your heart!”

Paul, in Acts 17:26-28, said to the aimless Athenians, “And He made from one, every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times, and the boundaries of their habitation, that they should seek God, if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and exist…”

Isaiah 49:5 says, “And now the Lord says, Who formed ME from the womb to be His servant…” And because I know my days and times are ordained of God, according to Psalm 62:8, I will “Trust in Him at all times…” In verse 5 the Psalmist said, “My soul, wait silently for God alone, for my expectation (or hope) is from Him.”

And because I know my days and times are ordained of God, according to Psalm 34:1, “I will bless the Lord at all times, His praise shall continually be in my mouth…” And because I know my days and times are ordained of God, I’ll not see change as a disaster, but as a blessing! Daniel 2:20-22 says, “Daniel answered and said, let the name of the Lord be blessed forever and ever, for wisdom and power belong to Him. And it is He who changes the times and epochs; He removes kings and establishes kings; He gives wisdom to wise men, and knowledge to men of understanding. It is He who reveals the profound and hidden things; He knows what is in the darkness, and the light dwells with Him.”

In Robert Wise’s book, “When The Night Is Too Long,” he quotes a poem written by Ruth Harms Calkin entitled “Once For All.” The poem was found in the belongings of a friend, Jan Wolfard, who had helped him with typing over the years. Jan had suffered from a serious mental illness, he says, “triggered by the failure of her marriage.” But with God’s help and Robert Wise’s, she’d climbed back. At the age of 38, she died. In her belongings they came across Ruth Calkin’s poem: “Lord, may I settle it once and for all that I am dealing directly with You. You need never apologize for any plan You ordain for me since nothing but good can come from Your hand. You are sufficient for every changing circumstance in my God-planned life, for every unchanging circumstance as well.”

Do you sense divine ordination over your life? In Jeremiah 1:9,10, Jeremiah says, “Then the Lord put forth His hand and touched my mouth, and the Lord said to me, ‘Behold, I have put My words in your mouth. See, I have appointed you this day over the nations and over the kingdoms, to pluck up and to break down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant.”

Is God’s divine ordination written on your mind and heart yet? Look with me at Psalm 139:16, “Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed. And in Your Book they all were written, the days fashioned for me, when as yet there were none of them.”

WE MUST SEE THE DAYS AS DAYS OF DIVINE OPPORTUNITY. In Ephesians 1:5,6, Paul said, “having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will – to the praise of the glory of His grace.” Verse 12 goes on to say, “that we who first trusted in Christ should be to the praise of His glory.” And verse 14 reiterates, “to the praise of His glory.”

Days of divine opportunity are to be days of magnifying Him! 2 Corinthians 5:18 says, “Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation.”

To the Galatians, Paul put it like this: “but when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother’s womb and called me through His grace…to reveal His Son in me!”

Robert Wise, in “When The Night Is Too Long,” tells an awesome story of Christ-like ministry and response as we walk life’s paths of opportunity:

“Kitty Hart is an amazingly energetic woman with great drive. An x-ray technician, she has also raised two out-standing sons. Perhaps the most remarkable quality one discovers as Kitty talks is her energetic buoyancy and zest for living. Considering the extraordinary pain that has filled her life, her optimism is confounding. The fact that she is alive is itself something of a miracle.

As a teenage Jewish girl, Kitty and her family were torn apart by the Nazi assault that ripped her world to pieces. As her family struggled to survive annihilation, they were separated. She and her mother were shipped to Auschwitz Concentration Camp in Poland. Her father and her brother disappeared.

Kitty discovered quickly that survival depended on doing daily jobs too nauseating to describe. Such tasks as carrying out buckets of human waste from latrines provided minimal shelter to keep winter ice storms from devouring her. Removing jewelry and other items from bodies being prepared for crematoriums gave her precious trinkets with which to bargain for bits of food. Being on a detail that spent the days throwing bodies onto wagons kept her out of the endless flow of human traffic toward the crematoriums. Kitty’s adolescence was spent in pursuit of an existence that seems worse than death.

The horror of the murder of six million Jews is so overwhelming that statistics have persuaded many that people are essentially only animals. The Hitlers, Himmlers, Eichmanns, and Mengelas seem to prove the hypothesis that humanity is no more than the most cunning and dangerous of all species. The death camps suggest that survival of the fittest is a fact and the only measure of right in this universe. So the experience of Kitty Hart poses an unavoidable question for us. Can people really be a reflection of a God of love?

As the years dragged on, Kitty was subjected to horrors that only increased with time. During one period she worked in the infirmary. As the sick poured in, Kitty found old friends and relatives among the multitude. Reunions were a singular source of joy when she was able to smuggle in a crumb of bread or an article of clothing to help someone survive. On one of those bleak winter mornings, the commandant appeared, demanding that the entire infirmary be emptied into waiting trucks. Instantly everyone knew that must mean death.

The influx of more and more Jews had produced an overload of sick people. The Nazi solution for the crowding was to exterminate the present population. Since none would survive anyway, recovering patients were only marking time until they disappeared.

Kitty knew there was no alternative but to comply with the orders, which soldiers stood ready to enforce with club and bayonet. One by one she helped her friends out of the cold, shabby sick bay on their way to death. At such moments the terror and horror that mingled with overwhelming anger created a single desire. Should she survive, the day would come when she would avenge the butchery. Hate kept Kitty alive.

Even though the end of the war was at hand and the defeat of the Nazis had become imminent, Kitty and her mother were sent on a death march to another camp. All that kept her bleeding feet moving was the burning intention to get her hands on her German captors. Germans of any shape or size. Germans who would bleed and die as her people had. Germans who could be strangled.

On the final day of their imprisonment, Kitty and her mother noticed that men in strange uniforms were walking outside the barbed wire. Then an SS guard appeared and announced surrender to the Allies. Immediately the prisoners turned on him, tearing his uniform from his body. As the other inmates beat him, Kitty saw his dagger fall to the ground. Instantly she grabbed the knife and ran for the gate out of the camp. Surging together, the prisoners rampaged into the town seeking food. Kitty clutched at the dagger with one thought in mind. Somewhere she would find a German to try to even a score that had never been settled.

Breaking down the door to one of the village houses they poured in seeking food. The house appeared empty until a prisoner noticed a door that went down to the basement. Quickly Kitty descended the stairs with the knife in the air, poised for attack. From out of the shadows the forms of people began to emerge. There they were. Germans who were trapped just as Kitty and her friends had been for all those years.

“Throw it!” someone yelled in her ear. “Stick them!” As one man stepped from the group, Kitty drew her arm over her head ready to plunge the knife into his chest.

“Throw it!” the man behind her screamed. With the blade overhead, a most contrary impulse surged up from her soul. An almost lost emotion touched her intention. Deep within the recesses of her mind, compassion arose. Unexpected goodness froze the knife in the air. Her obsession with revenge gave way to thoughts of forgiveness. To Kitty’s amazement, her own hand turned, hurling the knife against a wall where it fell harmlessly to the floor.

“I realized that if I killed the man, the Nazis would have succeeded in making me like them,” she now reflects. By bearing humiliation and degradation with forgiveness, Kitty demonstrated that the inhumanity of the Nazis was only a momentary perversion of true humanity. Kitty is living proof that the image of God can be obscured, but not destroyed. The worst life offers produced in her a transcendent quality of character.

Kitty found that she was changed by her decision. By exchanging benevolence for bestiality, she profited the most.

How can the effect of years filled with hate be revised in a few moments of forgiveness? Nothing compares with the power of love. No cleansing agent, no scouring powder, no catharsis can accomplish what a few moments of absolution will do for the soul. The darkest depths of hate reveal most fully the highest possibilities of love.” WOW! DAYS OF OPPORTUNITY – days of ministry to reveal Christ!

WE MUST SEE THE DAYS AS DAYS OF OCCUPATION! Ecclesiastes 3:10-11 says, “I have seen the task which God has given the sons of men with which to occupy themselves. He has made everything beautiful in its time.”

Luke 10:13 makes a similar point: “So he called ten of his servants, delivered to them ten minas, and said to them, ‘Occupy (or do business) till I come.” Do you remember young Jesus’ response to His parents when they came back to Jerusalem to find him? Luke 2:49, “Did you not know that I must be about My Father’s business?”

George Macdonald, in the “Marquis of Losaie”, wrote, “I find the doing of the will of God leaves me no time for disputing about His plans.”

** DAYS OF OCCUPATION ARE DAYS OF DECISIONS – Ephesians 1:1 says, “Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, by the will of God…” What is the will of God for your life? I Corinthians 2:2 says, “For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.” Ephesians 6:6 says, “servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart…”

**DAYS OF OCCUPATION ARE DAYS OF DETERMINATION – Look with me at 2 Samuel 23:10-12, “He arose and struck the Philistines until his hand was weary and clung to the sword, and the Lord brought about a great victory that day; and the people returned after him only to strip the slain. Now after him was Shammah the son of Agee a Hazarite. And the Philistines were gathered into a troop, where there was a plot of ground full of lentils, and the people fled from the Philistines. But he took his stand in the midst of the plot, defended it and struck the Philistines; and the Lord brought about a great victory.”

Henry Parry Liddon says, “Nothing is really lost by sacrifice; everything is lost by failure to obey God’s call.” John Greenleaf Whittier wrote, “In simple trust like theirs who heard beside the Syrian Sea the gracious calling of the Lord, let us, like them, without a word rise up and follow God.”

Hebrews 12:2-3 says, “fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand throne of God. For consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you may not grow weary and lose heart.”

** DAYS OF OCCUPATION ARE DAYS OF DISCIPLINE – Look carefully at I Corinthians 9:23-27 and ask yourself, “Is my walk with Christ disciplined?” “And I do all things for the sake of the gospel, that I may become a fellow partaker of it. Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win. And everyone who competes in the games exercises self-control in all things. They then do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. Therefore I run in such a way, as not without aim; I box in such a way, as not beating the air; but I buffet my body, and make it my slave, lest possibly, after I have preached to others, I myself should be disqualified.”

As Paul came near the end of his life, he wrote in 2 Timothy 4:7, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.”

WE MUST SEE THE DAYS AS DAYS OF ORDER: Do you remember “good King Hezekiah?” In 2 Kings 20:1-2 Hezekiah was sick and near death and Isaiah the prophet went to him and said to him, “Thus says the Lord: Set your house in order, for you shall die and not live.” In Amos 4:2 God said, “Prepare to meet your God!!” Set your house in order! Days of order are days of preparation, examination, devotedness and readiness.

In Luke 16:2 Jesus speaks of the rich man’s steward when he called him to himself and said, “What is this I hear about you? Give an account of your stewardship…”

To the church at Corinth Paul said, “It is required in stewards that one be found faithful.” Set your house in order.

Matthew 25:10 speaks of those five foolish virgins: “And while the five foolish virgins went to buy, the bridegroom, and those who were ready went in with him to the wedding. And the door was shut.” Set your house in order!

Revelation 19:7 also speaks of a wedding. “Let us be glad and rejoice and give Him glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come and HIS WIFE HAS MADE HERSELF READY.” Set your house in order!

Oswald Chambers, in “My Utmost For His Highest” wrote, “The great need for the Christian worker is to be ready to face Jesus Christ at any and every turn. This is not easy, no matter what our experience is. The battle is not against sin or difficulties or circumstances, but against being so absorbed in work that we are not ready to face Jesus Christ at every turn. That is the one great need, not the facing of our belief, or our creed, the question whether we are of any use, but to face Him…Jesus rarely comes where we expect Him; He appears where we least expect Him; He appears where we least expect Him, and always in the most illogical connections. The only way a worker can keep true to God is by being ready for the Lord’s surprise visits. It is not service that matters, but intense spiritual reality, expecting Jesus Christ at every turn…If you are ‘looking off unto Jesus’ avoiding the call of the religious age you live in, and setting your heart on what He wants, on thinking on His line, you will be the only one who is ready. Trust no one, not even the finest saint who ever walked this earth, ignore him, if he hinders your sight of Jesus Christ.” SET YOUR HOUSE IN ORDER!

WE MUST LIVE THE DAYS WITH THE PROMISE OF OVERCOMING! I John 5:4 says, “For whatever is born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that overcomes the world – our faith!”

In I Corinthians 15:57 we read, “But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” Is it so? Then…”These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace; In the world you will have tribulation, but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.” 2 Corinthians 2:14 says, “Now thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and through us diffuses the fragrance of His knowledge in every place.”

We are not called to Christ to be men and women filled with pessimistic fear, but men and women empowered by a powerful faith of “Victory In Jesus.” We are not called to Christ to be disciples clouded by doubts, but disciples who are gloriously certain of our conquest because of the unconquerable majesty of Christ. We are not called to Christ to be His servants bathed in the foul smell of failure and short coming, but servants flooded with the heavenly perfume of Christ’s joy, His triumphant victory, and His overcoming life.

We don’t walk despondently toward heaven’s gates, we ride the chariot of faith radiant in the triumphant procession of oneness with Christ. We don’t walk toward heaven’s gates hoping that at least some of our time we are triumphant in Christ, the Word says God “always” leads us in triumph in Christ! We walk toward heaven’s gates because we willfully chained ourselves to Christ, responding to the unfathomable love of the Victor!

George Matheson wrote the text to the hymn, “O Love That Will Not Let Me God.” Those four verses say: “O love that will not let me go, I rest my weary soul in Thee; I give Thee back the life I owe, that in thine ocean depths its flow may richer, fuller be.

O Light that follows all my way, I yield my flickering torch to Thee; my heart restores its borrowed ray, that in Thy sunshine’s blaze, its day may brighter, fairer be.

O joy that seeks me through pain, I cannot close my heart to Thee; I trace this rainbow through the rain, and feel the promise is not vain, that many shall tearless be.

O grace that lifts up my head, I dare not ask to fly from Thee; I lay in dust life’s glory dead, and from the ground there blossoms red, life that shall endless be.”

A SENSE OF

URGENCY

By J. Farrell Fisher

October 4, 2014

Recently I sent to my dear friend, Dr. Bill Anderson, former classmate at Baylor University and teammate on Baylor’s “Golden Bears” football team that beat Number 2 in the nation, Tennessee, in the Sugar Bowl in 1957, a message that I had prepared on “The Virgin Birth of Jesus Christ”! Bill’s last pastorate was, I believe, 26 years leading Calvary Baptist Church in Clearwater, Florida.

I had received word from a dear friend that a mutual friend of ours had shared that he didn’t believe in the virgin birth of Christ and didn’t think it was necessary for one to have a relationship with God. I prepared the message on the virgin birth and sent it to Bill. He E-mailed back, “As you know, large segments of Christendom are giving up the doctrine. I’ve often heard that 85% of all writing theologians don’t accept the doctrine as biblically stated; I think the number is higher. I have a manuscript in which I exegeted every passage in the New Testament which relates to eternal punishment – at least 148 – there are several other questionable ones – but can’t get it published. Publisher told me to write on how to get to heaven, without really trying, and it’d sell! Bill”.

Do you sense a time of great urgency for STANDING FOR TRUTH as you see the world around you, yes, promoting deceptions? Of late our Lord has been impressing upon me “A Sense of Urgency.” All across this world of ours, what happens politically, economically, socially, spiritually, and morally becomes a rallying cry in my bones, “We don’t have long!”

And that “sense of urgency” increases in its intensity each day. Webster, in his 1828 Dictionary, defines “urgency” as: “pressure, pressing with necessity; as the urgency of want or distress, violent or vehement.”

It would help us to have a taste of Hezekiah’s medicine. One day he’s healthy – the next he’s mortally ill. [2 Kings 20]. And God sent Isaiah the prophet: “Thus says the Lord, ‘SET YOUR HOUSE IN ORDER, FOR YOU SHALL DIE AND NOT LIVE.” Is it time for you to set YOUR life in order, your family, your nation, your church? Some men never consider the urgency bound up in this earthly life. They think they’ll never die and if they do it’s just a grave they face, it’s all over, believing there’s nothing to follow.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, in his Psalm of Life, wrote: “Life is real! Life is earnest! And the grave is not its goal!” In Psalm 39:4-5 David wrote, ‘LORD, MAKE ME TO KNOW MY END, AND WHAT IS THE EXTENT OF MY DAYS. Let me know how transient I am…Behold, You have made my days as handbreadths, and my lifetime is as nothing in Your sight. Surely every man at his best is a mere breath.”

Shakespeare, in Macbeth (Act V, sc 5,l.26) wrote: “LIFE…is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.” How sad is that? Charles Wesley, who wrote his “Letter to John Wesley” said, “I desire to have both heaven and hell ever in my eye, while I stand on this isthmus of life, between two boundless oceans.”

Look with me at Ephesians 5:15-16, “Therefore be careful how you walk, not as unwise men, but as wise, ‘redeeming the times,’ because the days are evil.” THE TIMES? Look at the, yes, Holy Scriptures!!

Genesis 38:12, “time of mourning,” Psalm 21:9, “time of anger,” Psalm 102:13, “a time to be gracious,” Proverbs 25:13, “time of harvest,” Isaiah 49:8, ‘Thus says, the Lord, ‘In a Favorable TIME, I have answered you…”, Jeremiah 14:19, “a time of healing,” Jeremiah 15:11, “a time of disaster,” Jeremiah 30:7, “time of Jacob’s distress or trouble,” Jeremiah 51:6, “this is the Lord’s time of vengeance,” Ezekial 30:3, “a time of doom for the nations,” Ezekial 35:5, “the time of their calamity,” “the time of the punishment of the end,” Daniel 11:24, “a time of tranquility,” Hosea 10:12, “time to seek the Lord,” Romans 8:18, “the sufferings of this present time,” 2 Corinthians 6:2, “the acceptable time,” 2 Timothy 4:6, “the time of my departure,” I Peter 1:17, “the time of your stay upon the earth,” I Peter 5:6, “the proper time,” Revelation 2:21, “time to repent,” Psalm 9:9, “times of trouble,” Daniel 9:25, “times of distress,” Matthew 16:3, “the signs of the times,” Acts 17:30, “times of ignorance,” Ephesians 1:10, “fullness of the times,” 2 Timothy 3:1, “difficult times coming.”

Are you and I ‘time’ or ‘times conscious? Are we aware of the days – their number, destiny, signs, opportunities, wisdom? In I Chronicles 12:32 it speaks of the “men who understood the times, with knowledge of what Israel should do…” Deuteronomy 32:29 tells us, “Would that they were wise, that they understood this, that they would discern their future (or latter end!).” In Deuteronomy 28 we come to the end of the blessings and curses chapter, and for those who refuse the wisdom of God, reject the biblical pathways to blessing, renounce the discernment of the times, verse 66 tells us: “So your life shall hang in doubt before you: and you shall be in dread night and day, and shall have no assurance of your life.”

Notice, there is assurance of life, of blessing, and of a future. It’s why we read in Ecclesiastes 7:17, “…WHY SHOULD YOU DIE BEFORE YOUR TIME?” Or, why should you die before you’ve really begun to live? And in Deuteronomy 32:35 our Lord talks about the unwise: “In due time their foot will slip; for the day of their calamity is near, and the impending things are hastening upon them.” Then in verses 46-47 Moses said, “Set your hearts on all the words which I testify among you today, which you shall command your children to be careful to observe – all the words of this law. For it is not a futile thing for you, because it is your life, and by this word you shall prolong your days in the land which you cross over the Jordan to possess.”

Do you remember Paul before Felix and his wife Drusilla in Acts 24? He preached faith in Christ Jesus – ( righteousness, self-control, and judgment to come)!! Verse 25 says, “And Felix became frightened and said, “Go away for the present, and when I find time, I will summon you.” There’s no evidence he ever did! He didn’t make the most of his opportunity, he didn’t sense the urgency of the moment – he didn’t understand the life or death preciousness or peril!

In Acts 26:28-29 Paul shared with King Agrippa “words of sober truth.” Paul discerns Agrippa even believed the prophets as Agrippa said to him, “In a short time, Paul, if I let you, you will persuade me to become a Christian.” But he pushes Paul away, goes back to the business of being a king, and misses the King of kings!

Jude 18 tells us, “In the last time there shall be MOCKERS, following after their own ungodly lusts…Verse 20, “But you, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, Verse 21, keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting anxiously for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to eternal life!!”

CONSIDER CAREFULLY, FIRST, A SENSE OF URGENCY BECAUSE OF THE SERIOUSNESS OF OUR ONENESS AND OUR WALK IN CHRIST: Ephesians 5:15 says, “Therefore, be careful how you walk…” The Amplified translates it: “Look carefully then how you walk! Live purposefully and worthily and accurately, not as the unwise and witless, but as wise – sensible, intelligent people – MAKING THE MOST OF THE TIME – BUYING UP EACH OPPORTUNITY – BECAUSE THE DAYS ARE EVIL.”

“Be careful how you walk?” Why? I Timothy 4:1 says, “But the Spirit explicitly says that in later times some will fall away from the faith paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons…” Paul had said earlier in I Timothy 1:19, “Holding faith and a good conscience; which some having put away concerning faith have made shipwreck…”

Peter discerned and was led also to sense spiritual urgency and even danger! In 2 Peter 3:17 he wrote, “You therefore, beloved, knowing beforehand, be on your guard LEST, being carried away by the error of unprincipled men, you fall away from your own steadfastness.”

It IS a “serious walk”! Because of our call, not to ease and comfort, but to ‘commitment’ and a ‘cross’! What did Paul say in Romans 8:18? “For I consider the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed in us.” If Paul knew he had to die daily, it’s just an option to you without any real significance?

It IS a “serious walk” because our call IS a call to alertness and not to apathy! Luke 21:36 tells us, “But keep on the alert at all times.” And true believers keep on the alert through prayer and the Word! Luke 18:1 says, “that at all times they ought to pray.” And in Romans 15:4 we read, “For whatever was written in earlier times was written for our instruction, that through perseverance and the encouragement of scriptures we might have hope.”

It IS a “serious walk” because our call is a call to duty in a spiritual and invisible war! What does Ephesians 6:12 tell us? “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.”

It IS a “serious walk” because our call is the calling of hope in Christ and not in ourselves! In 2 Corinthians 12:8-9 Paul wrote, “Concerning this thing I pleaded with the Lord three times that it might depart from me. And He said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.”

It IS a “serious walk” because our call is a call into the test of our faith! In Hebrews 10:35-36 we read, “Therefore do not cast away your confidence, which has great reward. For you have need of endurance, so that after you have done the will of God, you may receive the promise.”

CONSIDER SECOND THE SENSE OF URGENCY BECAUSE OF RAMPAGING FLOODS OF EARTHLY, NATURAL, AND DEMONIC ‘wisdom” IN OPPOSITION TO THE “WISDOM OF GOD”! Follow carefully James 3:13-17, “Who is wise and understanding among you? Let him show by good conduct that his works are done in the meekness of wisdom…

But if you have bitter envy and self-seeking in your hearts, do not boast and lie against the truth. This wisdom does not descend from above, but is earthly, sensual, demonic…

For where envy and self-seeking exist, confusion and every evil thing are there. But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy.”

CONSIDER THIRD THE SENSE OF URGENCY BECAUSE OF THE SINISTER IMPACT OF THE WORLD’S DAYS! In Ephesians 5:15-16 we read, “See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil.” The spiritual father nature in Paul, inspired by the Holy Spirit, had him write to Timothy, 2 Timothy 3:13, “But evil men and imposters will proceed from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived.”

I changed Romans 6:19 just a ‘fraction’ for emphasis, “…if you present your members as slaves of uncleanness, and of lawlessness [it will lead] to more lawlessness, when God intends your members to be slaves of righteousness!”

There must be in you as a true disciple of Christ Jesus, one with Him, in Him, through Him, and we are to be those disciples who take the full armor of God and, yes, “we resist in the evil day”! We stand firm and faithful and full of the Holy Ghost, fighting the good fight of faith!

CONSIDER FOURTH THE SENSE OF URGENCY BECAUSE OF THE SPIRITUAL SICKNESS OF FALLEN MANKIND WHO ARE WITHOUT CHRIST AS LORD AND SAVIOR! It was the psalmist who said, “No man cares for my soul,” and I wonder if the fallen world, separated from God, is saying the same thing today!

What does Isaiah 59:2 tell us? “But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid His face from you, that He will not hear.” I don’t know how any prodigal, wayward, wandering, lost, alienated child of God could read Luke 15:14 and not know there is hope in a Loving, Caring Father-God! “And when he had spent all, there arose a mighty famine in that land; and he began to be in want,” but some wayward sons are satisfied in their spiritual destitution!

Paul wrote the Thessalonians, I Thessalonians 4:13, “But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them who are already asleep, that you sorrow not, even as others which have no hope.” But, in Christ, we ARE “children of the hope”, and God calls us to reach out with His “Life-Preserver”!! His name is Jesus!

I remember reading a news article many years ago about a child in Louisville, Kentucky, who had been on a ‘liver-transplant list” for a long time. One became available at a much-needed time, but Louisville was hit with a massive snow storm. There was two feet of snow and the temperature had dipped to 22 below zero. The call came the morning of the storm, but the airport had been closed. The deadline for the little boy was only hours away. What happened? Hundreds and hundreds of people went out to clean the runway so the child could be flown out, yes, to an available liver!

CONSIDER FIFTH A SENSE OF URGENCY BECAUSE OF THE SOBERNESS OF DIVINE JUDGMENT! Oh, look carefully at Isaiah 26:7-10! The prophet tells us, “The way of the just is uprightness; O Most Upright, You weigh the path of the just. Yes, in the way of Your judgments, O Lord, we have waited for You; the desire of our soul is for Your name and for the remembrance of You. With my soul I have desired You in the night, yes, by my spirit within me I will seek You early; for when Your judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness. Let grace be shown to the wicked, yet he will not learn righteousness; in the land of uprightness he will deal unjustly, and will not behold the majesty of the Lord.”

How SAD is that?!? Yet our Lord has unveiled Himself every single day since this world was created! Why then do men not “see” the righteousness of God and desire it? Because they love darkness rather than Light, untruths rather than Truth, turmoil rather than the peace that passes all understanding – lost men “crucify” Jesus over and over! And they must learn: Hebrews 9:27, “And inasmuch as it is appointed for men to die once and after this comes the judgment!”

There are so many, many lives that we meet every day whose lives hand over the entrance to Hell by one solitary thread, and the thread is old and rotten! Hell IS REAL! It was prepared by God for the devil and his angels, but it also became a place for godless, Christ-less lives! It’s “where the worm dies not and the fire is not quenched”!! If you’re without Christ, you need only one whiff of the smoke and stench of Hell!

Jude 14-15 tells us “…Behold, the Lord comes with ten thousand of His saints, to execute judgment on all their ungodly deeds which they have committed in an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him.”

Was Simon Peter alert to “divine judgment”? In 2 Peter 2:9-10 he tells us: “then the Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of temptations and to reserve the unjust under punishment for the day of judgment, and especially those who walk according to the flesh in the lust of uncleanness and despise authority. They are presumptuous, self-willed. They are not afraid to speak evil of dignitaries.”

Do you have “a sense of urgency because you know the seriousness of divine judgment”?

CONSIDER SIXTH THE SENSE OF URGENCY BECAUSE OF THE SHORTNESS OR BREVITY OF LIFE! What did James tells us? James 4:14, “Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away.”

In Job 7:6 we read, “My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle [or a Singer sewing machine!].” Have you ever heard someone say, “I have plenty of time!” But the next day, they’re gone!

The psalmist told us, Psalms 39:5, “Indeed, You [God] have made my days as handbreadths, and my age is as nothing before You; certainly every man at his best state is but vapor.” They don’t have long – then their eternal days are ushered in!

LASTLY, CONSIDER THE SENSE OF URGENCY BECAUSE GOD”S KINGDOM HAS DRAWN NEAR! Matthew 3:2 says, “Repent, for the Kingdom of heaven is at hand…it draws near.”

I’m telling you, “Gabriel has God’s trumpet to his lips, and he’s about to blow!! Plus, Psalm 34:7 tells us, “The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear Him, and delivers them.” Delivered to Jesus or delivered to the devil and his angels? Psalm 34:22 then tells us, “The Lord redeems the soul of His servants, and none of those who trust in Him shall be condemned.”

I’m sure John 3:16 is in your memory-box, but what about John 3:18-19? “He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.”

The most awesome, awful, seek deed on earth? Rejecting the love of God expressed in the crucifixion of His Beloved Son, Jesus Christ!

When one is called to be a ‘saint’ and settles into selfish sinfulness and unbelief, only Hell, the Devil and his demons, and multitudes of unbelievers will be one’s eternal companions with every day dark, then darker, sick then sicker, sinful and more sinful, hellish and more hellish – but you’re a true believer, and you’re not accountable for them?