Word of Salvation – Vol. 13 No.17 – April 1967
As Time Runs Out…!
Sermon by Rev. A. I. de Graaf on Luke 21:28
Scripture Reading: Luke 21:5-32; Acts 1:6-8
Psalter Hymnal: 202; 161:2 (after Law); 371; 144:1-3; 144:4
Brothers and sister in Jesus Christ, our Lord!
With Lord’s Day 10 our Catechism, in accordance with the Word of God, we confess that God, as it were by His hand, still upholds heaven and earth and all creatures, and so governs them that herbs and grass, rain and drought, fruitful and barren years, food and drink, health and sickness, riches and poverty, yea all things come not by chance but by His Fatherly hand!
We also confess, that with our prayers we have contact with God; that, as James 5 says, the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much? That Elijah was a normal ordinary man like we and at HIS prayer it did not rain in 3½ years and as he prayed again the rains came? That we must, “Call upon the Lord in the day of trouble AND HE WILL ANSWER?”
The whole Church is in prayer, for peace on earth, and there are, no doubt, MANY righteous men among them. Yet God, Who rules all of the universe, says: “No my children, no, I have other plans…!” Now you might wonder: what ARE these plans, then?
Yes, brother?
Do you ever ask yourself that question? What the plans of God are, and what’s bound to happen in the world? You see, quite a few people, and there might be Christians among them, too, live on without ever trying to look at very worldly things with God’s eyes. They look at them only with HUMAN eyes and they say: Oh, Lord, please no war! And then they may mean: no more killing of boys and girls, men and women, or they just mean: that then they can’t go on making money, like now.
We often think that things “just happen”, and even if we believe that God is in control, we sometimes think that God some way or other will see to it that our soul will get to heaven one day or that we will get the strength “to cope with the worst”.
It is like in the days of the war: there were people who hoped and trusted that the bombs just wouldn’t hit THEIR house. But there were others, too. They were EQUALLY hoping that they were not to be killed. Everyone hopes that. But in their attic room they had a big map, pinned onto the wall. And as the news from London came through, they pinned little flags onto that map. They knew: THINGS JUST DON’T HAPPEN, but THERE’S A WAR ON AND I’D LIKE MY SIDE TO WIN. And my side WILL win, it’s only a matter of how long yet…? Time is already running out.
You see: THAT’S a different way!
What’s really happening in the world?
This: “There’s a war on, and God is going to win.”
“And signs are there that he won’t be long, TIME IS RUNNING OUT….!”
There must be a reason why God hears ALL these prayers, and yet says: “That peace cannot come”. And we must, as Christians, look for that answer, for that plan of God, that PURPOSE that He must have in it. We surely will not find everything, but there are certain things we may be sure of: and our Lord Jesus, the very same One who came to save you from your sins, the very same One who still today through messenger boys of His, like I am, urges you to accept the peace with God that God so wonderfully offers, is dealing with that whole world of His, and things are NOT running out of control.
But, you see: time is running out! His plan moves on. And it MIGHT be so, that the things happening now in spite of our prayers are happening because, all day long, Christians have been praying that OTHER prayer: “Our Father, which art in heaven, HALLOWED BY THY NAME”, that is: give, that Thy Name be known here, glorified and praised… no more blasphemed but praised, praised!
And that means another world than this is necessary. It might be that the Lord now hastens on making it happen!
Or we prayed: THY KINGDOM COME, which means: destroy the works of the devil and all power that exalts itself against thee and all wicked counsel that are made up against Thy Holy Word! UNTIL THE PERFECTION OF THY KINGDOM ARRIVE WHERIN THOU SHALT BE ALL IN ALL!
What! And YOU think that the world can go on like this, then? This masked world where evil acts as if it is good? But where, even if there’s no war, GOD is not glorified as He should be? Have you really been praying? Looking on the map pinning flags, because God’s war is yours? What then are you content with as long as God’s world is not God’s fully? There’s a WAR on, and now we hear the rumble of the gunfire approach: TIME is running out!
You’ve been praying it: “THY WILL BE DONE, on earth as it is IN HEAVEN!” My, you think that will is done on this earth very much, by you? – for instance? Or do you, like me, look at yourself and groan and say: Lord, when are you going to put an end to this, for it’s a disgrace? Lord, make me REALLY do Your will… Make this world like heaven, and us like angels: YOUR will our delight! But don’t you think that if that’s going to happen, that things must come to a head, that we must see what is evil and what is God’s will, and that the great cleansing must take place? Do we know what we’ve been praying? Then it might be, that the Lord God is now going to do the very things we’ve been praying for. Yes, that’s even sure. For we can trust, that things still haven’t run out of His hand. They never will.
Now it’s easy for me to make statements about this. There has been much said about this sort of thing by all kinds of theologians. But I’d rather not. I’d rather listen with you to what OUR SAVIOUR said on these matters.
There are four things in the texts I quoted, the Lord Jesus said about this world of ours and the things happening in it.
TIME IS RUNNING OUT, that’s what He stressed all through. And then…
1. He showed us WHAT we may – surely – know.
2. What we – definitely – may NOT know.
3. What we may be, and
4. What we in this situation must do.
1. WHAT WE MAY KNOW.
You see, in the Scripture we read, we got a picture, sharp and almost breathtakingly realistic, of what happens in the world. Jesus says: “Many shall come and say: “Here is Christ, or there…!” and we see them going from door to door, with Bibles marked and with fluent arguments: “Jesus came already, he’s not in the world.” Now don’t be worried that’s a sign: time’s running out! Jesus says: wars you shall hear of, and commotions, nation rising against nation, and we see it, as JESUS saw it, and He who went through the agony of Gethsemane knows TOO WELL what he was saying and what terror He means, and yet He said: Don’t be worried: Time’s running out, it’s a sign! He speaks of brainwashing and the love of many growing cold, many falling off… and earthquakes, nature disasters, the whole earth being in labour and agony… and He says: look at it! It’s a sign: TIME IS RUNNING OUT!
And then there are these golden words: “When these things come to pass, look up and lift up your heads, for your redemption draweth nigh!” Vexilla Regis predeunt! The banners of the King come marching on! The rolling of the Bridegroom’s chariot. Your redemption!
Again I think of the years of occupation in Europe. You KNEW: as the front comes here: there will be shells, and bombs, and the terror and agony of the screen of war going over the very place you live in. But ONE thing stood out: AT LEAST THEN WE SHALL BE FREE: Our REDEMPTION draweth nigh!
Jesus says: this you may know: that there are the footsteps of the Coming King in all these sounds! And the question is, here: WHAT DO YOU SEE AS YOUR REDEMPTION? Just the jolly easy life? With heaven in the end? Or is it – and God can make that happen to you – or is that redemption: that the things are going to happen that YOU prayed for: that God’s Name be hallowed, that God’s Kingdom may come, that God’s will be fully done, by you, and by the whole of God’s world! That there be no more that miserable split-up business of Romans 7: “The good that I want to do, I don’t and the evil, that I don’t want to do, I do.” O Lord, with thy Whole world, I look out for the redemption, and then I, struggling with sin, think of my friend, struggling with his cancer on his bed, and of my brother, whose children go the wrong way, and of the hospitals full of sick people, and of the bitter, bitter enemy of death, grave after grave, and my soul cries out: Lord Jesus, You died for the Paradise, for us to become children of God; Come, Lord come, make us free, free from that rotten sin that grieves you and the brother, free from grief and death.
You see, if you are saying THAT to your Saviour – and Who won, Who rose, Who is busy now, then He says: “Look! Lift up your head! Hear the sounds already of the trumpets! There comes the front, the fight, the victory: It’s no longer far away! That we may know – as time runs out. And our heart responds: Jesus, come! Come!
2. WHAT WE MAY NOT KNOW.
There is, secondly also something that we may NOT know. That’s what our Lord says shortly before He goes up into heaven. The disciples meet with Him, and they wonder. He conquered death! He won! Now what about the prophecies? The prophecies that Israel shall be restored again as a Kingdom? Clearly they can be found in Isaiah and Jeremiah; the prophecies about that Kingdom of Messiah, where the nations shall come to the Son of David, and Jerusalem shall be restored as the City of God. WHEN, they say – AT WHAT DATE?
But then the Lord Jesus says: “It’s not for you to know the times oR the seasons which the Father hath put in His Own power.. !” that is the second time the Lord Jesus says a thing like this. Once before He said (speaking with His actual return in view): “Of that day and that hour no one knoweth, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, BUT THE FATHER…!”
The Lord Jesus loves you, and He knows you. And He doesn’t want you to despair: “Oh, is it SO long yet?” He doesn’t want you to worry either: “Oh, SO short only, what must I do?” He wants you to be ready, always.
He knows what we are like, and that we can become easy-going saying: “It’ll last!” He says: “There are things GOD has kept for Himself. There are things which, as they happen, we should leave trustingly in Father’s hand.”
He can over-see this whole situation better than anyone. It’s HIS war!
Our Belgic confession says that so beautifully in its 13th article: “As what God does is surpassing human understanding, we will NOT curiously inquire into further than we’re able to go, but with the greatest humility and reverence adore the righteous judgments of God, which are hidden from us, contenting ourselves that we are pupils of Christ, to learn only those things which He has revealed to us in His Word, without transgressing these limits.” This doctrine affords us unspeakable consolation. “Since we are taught thereby, that nothing can befall us by chance, but by the direction of our most gracious and heavenly Father who watches over us with a paternal care, keeping all creatures so under His power that not a hair of our head – they are all numbered! – falls to the ground without His will, in whom we do entirely trust, being persuaded that He so restrains the devil, and all our enemies, that without His Will and Permission they cannot hurt us.”
And what was again that will of God, too?; That Jesus was hurt for me, hurt and killed and destroyed! Shall I, even if there are things I cannot know these days, shall I then not trust? Vexilla Regis predeunt: How it be: the banner of the King come nearer!
3. and 4. WHAT WE MAY BE AND… MUST DO!
And so Jesus then goes on telling us what – as time runs out – we may be and do! HIS WITNESSES! HIS HERALDS! Telling the people, as time runs out, what all these happening in the world TELL us: That He is Coming Nearer! There isn’t really much time to waste! Then suddenly, while we might sit down and worry about all what may be ahead, we are taken by the arm, and the storm of the Spirit blows around us and takes us up and we are now no longer sitting on the fence looking at what’s happening in the world, but we’re IN it, we’re IN THE MIDDLE OF THE FIGHT. We, by witnessing of our wonderful Saviour are actually hastening His coming!
You shall be my witnesses! Time is running out: don’t sit there and worry, but go to work in the great Resistance Army of King Jesus: that’ll make the day come closer! For thus we read in 2Peter 3: that the Lord only waits yet because He has patience with the world AS MORE PEOPLE MUST COME into knowledge of salvation! You shall be my witnesses! YOU’LL be in that army! And be quick about it: Time’s running out! Instead of asking questions that don’t really matter: TELL, tell what you KNOW. Instead of puzzling and fussing about what God has kept for Himself!
And then we see them go, these witnesses! The footsteps of the Coming King are already sounding the world events. And the witnesses go. As still there is the light!
First in Jerusalem, Jesus says. Start at home! Don’t begin in China, but begin at home! Your children wait to hear! Can you tell them? Can you be a witness? Do you know the Plan and work of God? Do you know the Scriptures? Beginning at Jerusalem, be my witnesses!
And from home you go out, as the Lord gives you gifts! The circle widens: Judea! Your own country people. Whose language you know, to whom you can talk, who will understand you! The fellows perhaps of your own Church who could know but don’t live up to things: YOU tell them, too? You don’t just leave that to a minister, will you? Time is running out: MY WITNESSES….!
And the circle widens: Samaria, the heathens who once had been Jews, the ones that still know a bit of God, the ones we deal with in EVANGELISM, which is calling back to God those who still could know… and we think of Jesus who went to such a Samaritan: how He broke through barriers of misunderstanding and distrust saying: “I can give you that living water…!”
You have something to tell them, don’t you? You know the word, don’t you? You know your Lord? What do you say? Not enough? Well, we can do something about that! There will be another worship service tonight… and next week! Where you’ll hear MORE, and there are Bible Study groups where you might never have been. But do not lose time: there is a knock on your door: Time is running out: HE comes.. Tell, witness…! Yes even to the ends of the world!
There is the circle that God’s love spanned when He sent Jesus – He loved the world. There’s the ultimate challenge to the Church of God! My witnesses… to the world! That world wherein great Statesmen think they are something. That world wherein we often think we mean nothing… That world JESUS has died for, and that world JESUS will get. With your help or without it: HE WILL GET IT! He shall win.
But the question is: shall you be in it? Now time is running out? My brother: what witnessing can YOU do? Have you ever asked that Lord Jesus: Lord, where have you got a job for ME? It may be just simply praying for, say, some mission field, or the Back to God Hour. It may be just to tackle the matters of Life and Death with the chap on the turntable next to yours. It may be going to Geelong and becoming a minister in one of those vast lands… or a missionary. You ask Him!
YOU SHALL BE MY WITNESSES. You can be. You know what that witness is? If not, then get busy about that quick smart. Time’s running out, and in the world full of confused ideas and false doctrines today men and women are needed who KNOW what they confess, and who gladly know WHOM they confess: the Same Christ Who gave Himself that YOU and countless others, yes, a whole world, would again be doing what God made them for: singing His praises… hallowing His Name… hailing His Kingdom… doing His Will, like in heaven… so on earth.
That our prayers, YET, will get answered at last!
Amen.