–Louis L’Amour  (Mojave Crossing)

       “Make a joyful shout to the LORD, all you lands!  Serve the LORD with gladness; come before His presence with singing.”

                    –Psalm 100:1-2 (NKJV)
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Here’s something that’ll tickle you going into 2023–“Life’s a mess and then you die.”  That’s from Psalm 88, but Psalm 89 has a totally different perspective.  The nation may be falling apart, stupidity may reign, but God is good and is faithful and bigger than our problems.  Look this morning at the first seven verses, oh, and it’s all right if you sing the chorus while you read.

       1 — I will sing of the mercies of the LORD forever; with my mouth will I make known Your faithfulness to all generations.
       2 — For I have said, “Mercy shall be built up forever; Your faithfulness You shall establish in the very heavens.”
       3 — I have made a covenant with My chosen, I have sworn to My servant David:
       4 — “Your seed I will establish forever, and build up your throne to all generations.”    Selah
       5 — And the heavens will praise Your wonders, O LORD; Your faithfulness also in the assembly of the saints.
       6 — For who in the heavens can be compared to the LORD?  Who among the sons of the mighty can be likened to the LORD?
       7 — God is greatly to be feared in the assembly of the saints, and to be held in reverence by all those around Him.   (NKJV)

       How wonderful it is to know that we can always count upon the mercies and faithfulness of God.  He keeps His word at all times.  “God always stands committed to do what He says He will do.  He never forgets His word, never forfeits His promises, never violates His covenant.  Never does He pledge something and then fail to bring it to pass.”  (Steve Lawson)
       If you read the complete Psalm you will see the emphasis on the term “forever.”  God’s is faithful–forever.  God’s mercies last–forever.  F.B. Meyer states, “Mercy is a structure never done, layer on layer, story on story, tier on tier.  God’s faithfulness is sure as the heavens.”  God loves lasts–forever.  Because of the Lord’s mercy and faithfulness “we can live with solid confidence.” (Lawson)
       It is right that we should sing of God’s faithfulness.  I like what George O. Wood says, “Faith shines best when you declare God’s truth even though it contradicts how you feel.  God’s love stands firm forever, and His faithfulness is established in heaven itself.”  That’s one reason why God is greatly feared.  His faithfulness surrounds Him, what He said He would do, He will do.  He did it before and He’ll do it again.  His faithfulness to us is sound and sure.  Wood goes on to say, “The presence of faithfulness means God can be utterly relied upon.  The laws of mathematics, physics, genetics, gravity, and space all owe their existence to the predictability and dependability of God.  Indeed, faithfulness does surround Him.”  He is not going to take a vacation; He neither slumbers or sleeps.
       Throughout the new year make this a song from your heart.  “I will sing of the mercies of the Lord forever, I will sing, I will sing…”. Joy rather than despair, victory instead of defeat, peace instead of gloom.  God is faithful!

               “Be still, my soul!  thy God doth undertake
               To guide the future as he has the past.
               Thy hope, thy confidence let nothing shake;
               All now mysterious shall be bright at last.
               Be still, my soul!  the waves and winds still know
               His voice who ruled them while he dwelt below.”
                         –Katharina von Schlegel

                    –Exodus 20:18 (NLT)
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The New Year — oh, the hopes that are before each of us.  That’s good, but we must also live in the reality of life.  Life and the devil have a way of trying to crush hope.  No matter what happens we must keep our eyes on that heavenly light–the Holy Spirit.  Through the darkest nights, through the skies of gray days, through troubles and woes He is always there to lighten our way.
       I had one of those “midnight hymns.”  A song that I haven’t heard in ages.  My Aunt had an album by Red Foley (most of you won’t remember him) and he was singing this song.  The tune is nice, but the words came to me this first week of 2023.  It was written by Doyle Lawson.  I’ll give you the chorus first.

                          “There’s a light guiding me I can see heaven’s glory,
                          And it holds me steadfast to His way and His love.
                          It’s guiding me through temptation and evil,
                         There’s a light guiding me to that Heaven above.”

       The song starts where we must all start, with repentance.  Now, there is the repentance of salvation, but it is something that we need to practice every day.  We need to repent of the sins we committed, we need to repent of the sins we committed out of ignorance.  In other words, it should become a practice.  None of us are above repenting before the Lord.  Jesus died for all of us, for all of our sins.  Repent and let the Light guide us through each day, through each situation of life.

            “I’ve talked with the Lord many nights at my bedside,
            I’ve asked His forgiveness as I knelt to Him,
            And if I could repay I’d be only too willing
            For He died on the cross just to save us from sin.”

            To that distant shore many friends have gone ‘fore me,
            They are singing the victory of God’s love I know
            Through the valley of death I’ll be guided by Jesus,
            He will carry me over though I’m weak and low.”

       As I get older I see the value of obituaries; it’s to see who’s yet living.  As I age, more and more of the folks that I knew have succumbed to the grave.  Of course, that is to be expected.  I often wonder why people say, “Rest in Peace,” when, if they don’t know Jesus they will never rest in peace.  However, on the other hand, Christians can walk through that valley of death with confidence.  Their Lord is beside them and He’ll bear them across that great divide between life, death, and glory.  Old Charles Greenaway used to say that “we might not look like much when we cross into glory, but we’re going to make it.”

            “When that great day comes and I see heaven’s glory,
            I’ll hope that my soul will be free from all care;
            He’ll open the gates and bid me to enter,
            When the roll’s called up yonder I pray to be there.”

       When we all get to heaven, we’ll see those we looked for in the obituaries.  We’ll holler “Here” when the Master calls the roll in heaven.  Cares will all be gone, tears no more to shed.  We’re no longer heaven-bound, but we are there–home at last, never more to roam.  Now, in this new year, He will hold us steadfast, guiding us with His holy Light through this dark world.  Keep your eyes upon the Light of Jesus; follow the leading of the Holy Spirit throughout 2023.

                         –Zephaniah 1:16(NLT)
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I don’t want to leave Samson out in the wilderness waiting for his chance to fight the Philistines.  Remember, he was to judge Israel for twenty years; he was to begin to start the judgment against the enemy of God’s people.  We have found Israel to be in a sorry state.  They have freely given themselves over to the Philistines.  They have forgotten their identity and their promises before God.  They are complacent, especially the tribe of Dan.
       We don’t know all of the judgments that Samson was responsible for, only those that are told in the Bible.  He has just destroyed the livelihood of the Philistines by using the jackals/foxes to destroy the fields with fire.  (That is a feat in itself, 300 jackals tied together, then setting their tails afire.  It must have been quite a sight).  However, his fellow-men considered him a troublemaker.  He was wrecking the status quo and Samson found that even though he was to judge the people, he had no followers.
       Gary Inrig said that Samson was a “Man with passion for freedom in the middle of a society committed to compromise.”  Compromisers have no time for the committed; they would rather see Samson dead than change or join him to fight the Philistines.  These complacent people led by Judah conspire to turn Samson over to the Philistines.  Judah, wimpy Judah for it took 3000 men to betray their leader, tie his hands behind his back and give him to the Philistines.  Peace was more important than liberty.  “Sin dispirits men, nay, it infatuates them, and hides from their eyes the things that belong to their peace.” (Matthew Henry)
       Samson made them promise that they wouldn’t kill them.  The Spirit of the Lord was leading him.  The Philistines were rejoicing in the capture of Samson, they railed against him, mocked him.  “…Then the Spirit of the LORD came mightily upon him; and the ropes that were on his arms became like flax that is burned with fire, and his bonds broke loose from his hands.  He found a fresh jawbone of a donkey, reaching out his hand and took it, and killed a thousand men with it.” (Judges 15:14-15, NKJV)
       Samson was a freedom-fighter.  He saw what was happening to his tribe of Dan and to Israel.  Wiersbe writes, “A nation is in a sad state indeed when the citizens cooperate with the enemy and hand over their own God-appointed leader.”  I wonder what the men of Judah thought when they saw Samson break the cords.  I wonder if they were amazed when he began to fight the Philistines.  Here was their chance.  Join him, destroy the enemy, but they didn’t and Samson fought alone.

                         –Nathan Wright  (The Trail)

       “As for man, his days are like grass; as the flowers of the field, so he flourishes.  For the wind passes over it, and it is gone, and its place remembers it no more.”

                         –Psalm 103:15-16 (NKJV)
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Here today, gone tomorrow–just like a wisp o’ smoke.  Last year is completely gone.  No day can be brought back.  Oh, there may still be some consequences to pay for deeds done last year.  Some people have yet to pay last years taxes, but the day, the year is gone forever, never to be repeated.  
       We are shown in Scripture that life is much like that especially in the sense of eternity.  I saw an illustration by Francis Chan once where he had a hundred foot rope stretched across the room.  On that rope there was a single thread wrapped around it–that’s time.  In the span of eternity, time is only a thread.  In the span of time, each of our lives is only a thread.
       I have spent time around many a campfire.  Where does the smoke go?  You know, that smoke that continually gets in your eyes while you are sitting there.  It torments you, makes your eyes burn, but almost immediately it is gone.  The other day we had some fog.  Once the sun came out it lifted, there was not even a trace of the fog.  James says that our life is much like that.  “For what is life?  It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away.  (4:14, NKJV)
       With the New Year comes resolutions.  I am in favor of them, they are goals.  However, it jerks my jaws when I hear someone say, “Resolutions are made to be broken.”  No!  Absolutely not!  If so, then they were not truly resolutions.  If you make them, you are to be resolute in keeping them.  Plans are good, they should be made to help one better themselves either mentally, physically, emotionally, or spiritually.  Alistair Begg wrote, “Tomorrow is not promised.  We may plan for it, but we may not assume we can control it.”  As James was telling us, tomorrow isn’t ours unless God gives it to us.  Look at James 4:13-17.  Don’t be boasting that you are going to do such and such tomorrow.  Planning for it is okay, but tomorrow isn’t yours.  “But now you boast in your arrogance.  All such boasting is evil.” (4:16, NKJV)
       Jesus told the story of the rich ruler who said that he would tear down his barns and build greater barns where he could lay up goods for years and live in ease.  “But God said to him, ‘Fool!  This night your soul will be required of you; then whose will those things be which you have provided?  So is he who lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.'” (Luke 12:16-21, NKJV)  What is important is what you are doing for the kingdom of God–now.  That includes the proper guidance and raising of one’s family.  Life is not fun and games, though so many people think that it is.  Life is not entertainment.  Life is serious.  Life is brief.  So what are you doing about today, the time which has been given to you?  “The wise person knows that we have limited time and that the best way to spend it is on the Lord’s errands.”  (Begg)