Days Of Destiny
Days of Destiny
Mark 1: 1-12
A captain in the British Army was standing on the platform of his Pullman car waiting for his train
to pull out of the station.
On an adjoining track there stood a private car with the shades drawn.
His attention was called to it as a limousine drove up beside it, and some men entered the private car.
He watched for a moment, and suddenly, the shade was raised, and he found himself face to face
with Winston Churchill.
The captain said that he was so confused that he simply waived, forgetting to salute.
Mr. Churchill waved back, and then his train was gone.
The officer said he felt as though, in that brief moment in 1943, he had been face to face with destiny.
I believe that the days in which we are living are days of destiny.
There have been many generations who have experienced such days.
- In 1517 when Martin Luther seemed to be destroying the foundations of the kingdom itself...
those were days of destiny.
- In 1789 when the French Revolutionist apparently were undermining civilization...
those were days of destiny.
- In 1861 when the American Union began falling apart with Civil War...those were days of destiny.
Of course, we can add many other fateful days.
And so are these days in which we live.
Our Lord was no stranger to crucial times.
- It was a day of destiny for Him and the world when He stood in the crowd and requested
to be baptized at the hands of John the Baptist.
- It was a night of destiny when Jesus looked up from His prayers in Gethsemane
and saw the torches of those who had come to arrest Him.
It was a night of destiny for the world.
He did not attempt to escape and save Himself.
Rather, He volunteered to die so that streams of healing grace might flood the ages.
It was a day of destiny when Paul reached Troas on his second missionary journey.
His decision at Troas is one of the pivotal decisions of history.
If he had turned east, Christian missionaries would be coming to us from China, Japan, and India.
But by God's grace, he turned west toward Europe and the Americas.
In days of destiny what shall the Church do?
Does the Church have anything that is dynamic and creative and redemptive to say?
Shall we be escape artists and flee to some other worldly theology?
Shall we busy ourselves with organizational details so that the groans of the world will not disturb us?
Shall we bury our heads in the sand and refuse to see the earth in travail?
The Church has followed these courses in other ages, and whenever it has done so;
it's influence has declined, and people have looked upon it with contempt for its shameful failure.
There are some stern truths that we must declare in these days without fear and without hesitation.
For the good of our own souls and for the souls of others, we must preach these truths
that all men everywhere may hear.
It could be that these days in which we now live will be the most momentous in the light of the centuries.
In 1945, for example, two great dictators were defeated, the atomic bomb was discovered,
and the United Nations came into being.
What a year!
Days of destiny!
Days of destiny will bring out of us the demonic or the divine.
We are on the side of the devils or the angels.
We stand either for the hurt or the healing of the world.
We either help or hurt.
We either tear up or buildup.
We stand in a day that shakes the foundations of the world.
Forces of evil hem us in.
The threat of inflation, writes, murders, rapes, robberies, abortion, illicit drugs, and other crimes
are everyday occurrences.
Here we stand amid this flood of evil.
What it does to us depends upon what is in us.
If Christ does not live in us, then we will turn to personal immoralities and have an orgy of self-indulgence.
But if we are the redeemed of the Most High God, then we will offer ourselves for the redemption
of the world through Christ.
In days of destiny we will want to walk with our Lord so that His virtues, the fruits of the spirit --
fortitude, temperance, justice, mercy, purity, love -- may shine under the intense pressure
of the events of the hour.
In the whirlwinds of these evil days, my little candle may flicker, but it will never go out,
for it is lighted by the Light of the world.
Days of destiny demand a double devotion to duty.
That word, "duty," is treated badly because we look upon it as having
some dark and sinister meaning, which is driving us to do tasks which are repellent
and which we do not want to do.
It seems that we come at this matter of duty from the wrong end.
We think of it as a compulsion driving us rather than as an opportunity challenging us.
Days of destiny, such as these, should cause us to wonder what the will of God is for our lives.
We may have intellectual difficulties with the will of God, but we should have no difficulty
in the area of our duty to our world.
There are times when it may be difficult to know the will of God for our lives.
But we know, within reasonable limits, what our duty is to our families -- that clear duty is the will of God.
We know, within limits, what our duty is to our spouses -- that unmistakable duty is the will of God.
We know with a fair degree of accuracy what our duty to our church is in these days
-- that obvious duty is the will of God.
We know to a great degree what duty we have to our friends -- that important duty is the will of God.
Carlyle said, "Do the duty which is nearest thee, and which thou knowest to do,
and thy second duty will already have become clearer."
Something deep within us tells us that there is an "ought to," a duty which thrusts us
into the midst of the world's woe, a duty which is synonymous with the will of God.
Our "oughts" are not always the noticeable task, but they are to be done.
Days of destiny demand a double devotion to duty in the matter of purity, of character of selflessness
in service and loyalty to our mission as a disciple of Jesus.
This is especially true in the area of faithfulness to the privilege of prayer and worship and to learn of God.
Days of destiny ought not to dull our dreams.
We must continue to dream.
The world is hungry.
In our dreams, we must see a world that is fed, and work toward that dream.
The world is suffering.
We must visualize a world in which people are not in pain, and lead others to have that hope in Christ.
One of the great things the Church can do today is to stay sensitive to the pain and needs
of those around us.
We must be more concerned for others.
We must see a world that is lost without Christ.
We must realize that it is our responsibility to witness to them of the Good News of Jesus Christ
which can give them eternal life.
Days of destiny should sharpen our dreams for it is out of vision that action comes.
"Where there is no vision, the people perish."
Those who have no vision will do nothing about lost humanity.
They will do nothing about the world's woe.
The big question is what are you doing?
How many burdens have you lifted?
Have many hurts have you healed?
How many lost souls have you shown the way to Jesus?
In days of destiny we shall meet destruction or deliverance -- individually and collectively.
What I do affects you, and what you do affects me.
We must love each other more.
We need each other.
We must cease competing with each other.
We must be more cooperative.
We must maintain a unity.
These things we must do in our families, in our communities, and in our churches.
These days of destiny have brought us to the crossroad.
We can either destroy one another or save one another.
Which shall it be?
Our generation stands upon the brink of a bottomless pit.
Individually and together, we are lost without Jesus, the Saviour of the world who came to seek
and to save that which was lost.
To individuals in these days of destiny, Christ cries out: "Come unto me, all ye that labor
and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest."
Ignorance and destiny are manifested in Luke 19: 42: "If we had known..."
Sometimes the remorse has been despair, not merely, the cry of ignorance, which says,
"If only I had known!"
It is also the cry of anguish for opportunities that have been willfully lost.
It is a blindness to see what we should see, and that is a moral perversity.
If we had known!
"It isn't the thing you do;
It's the thing you leave undone,
Which gives you a bit of heartache
At the setting of the sun.
The tender word forgotten
The letter you did not write.
The flower you might have sent,
are your haunting ghosts at night.
The loving touch of the hand,
The gentle and winsome tone,
That you had no time or thought for
With troubles enough of your own.
The little acts of kindness
So easily out of mind;
Those chances to be helpful --
Which everyone may find --
No, it's not the thing you do,
It's the thing you leave undone,
Which gives you the bit of heartache
At the setting of the sun."
If we had known!
But we do know!
We should know!
We can know!
These are days of destiny!
Today for you could be a day to remember!
Sermon by Dr. Harold L. White
