R335 A Guarantee for the Future Pt.2

Sometimes we're leery of a guarantee, but when the guarantee comes from God's Word, we can count on it. Welcome to the Bible teaching of Dr. Don Wilson. Today on The Encouraging Word, Dr. Don completes this message, a guarantee for the future, as we head to the book of Nehemiah chapter 8. As we do so, know that we're available for you, connecting right now, online at www.tewonline.org. We'd love to connect with you.

And now, Dr. Don Wilson. Please take a copy of God's Word this morning and turn with me to Nehemiah chapter 8, the book of Nehemiah chapter 8. Nehemiah had completed the rebuilding of the walls, and yet there was still a future that had to be dealt with. The completing of the walls is not a signal that life has come to an end or a complete stop. God had given his servant Nehemiah an unbelievable task, a job of work to do, and he and his people set about it, and they reconstructed the walls of Jerusalem. But now they had to think about the future, and every time I think about rebuilding or completing the walls, I think about graduates. We love our graduates so much. Whether you're graduating from college or from high school, there is a sense in which you have just completed building the wall, and the question now becomes, what next?

Where do I go from here? Well, the Bible is filled with advice. The Bible is God's practical handbook. The Bible unlocks the keys to kingdom living, and I have a lot of things that God has laid upon my heart for this morning. There is so much that God would have us to think about, and particularly for our graduates.

I'm going to say out of the love of my heart and particularly to the graduates, do you know that there is a possibility, and this is going to sound awfully negative, but do you know that there is the possibility that in the next two weeks, one of you graduates here is going to hurt yourself so badly that you will spend the rest of your life trying to recover from it? You know that it's possible. You know that it's possible even on a day like this, and you say, wait a minute, pastor, don't talk like that. Well, folks, the problem in our world today is there are not enough people who are talking and warning us about those things that are out there, and the Bible warns us. The Bible tells us how to behave. The Bible tells us about the principles and the decisions that we need to make and the parameters that we need to set for ourselves. There is a possibility that one of you sitting here looking at me today, that over the next two weeks, you're going to make a choice. You're going to do something. Yes, God will forgive.

God's forgiveness is absolute, but you will bear the scars of your choice for the rest of your life. Do you know that I've been told that there are more traffic violations and drunk driving arrests made in the days that follow graduation than at any other time? There are more unwanted pregnancies. There are more broken hearts.

There are more destroyed lives that take place in the days that follow graduation. And you all are sitting here looking at me and you're saying, wait a minute, preacher, what are you talking about? I'm going to tell you something, folks, if your mom and dad haven't told you, if your school hasn't told you, if your friends haven't told you, if you're not prepared to stand in line with God's guarantee for the future, I will guarantee you, you will make some choices over the next couple of weeks that could all but ruin your life and you will live with those consequences. There are people in this congregation who would stand up in a New York second and say, listen, I'm 50 years of age and God has blessed me. But I want you to know that I made bad decisions and I did things that have I've had to suffer with for the rest of my life.

They have impacted everything that I've done. Well, I want to read just two verses. I'm going to preach on a lot of verses, but I want to read just two verses in Nehemiah chapter eight, verses 17 and 18. Here's what the Bible says. Now, the walls had been rebuilt.

Listen what happened. The whole company that had returned from exile, built booths and lived in them. From the days of Joshua, son of Nun, until that day, the Israelites had not celebrated it like this and their joy was very great. Day after day, from the first day to the last, Ezra read from the book of the law of God.

They celebrated the feast for seven days and on the eighth day, in accordance with the regulation, there was an assembly. What was it that these people did after the walls had been rebuilt? What is it that we can do after we graduate, as we begin a new ministry, as we move to a new town, as we go to college, as we start anew?

What is there that we can do according to God's word that will guarantee the future? Number one, set the doors in place. Chapter seven and verse one, after the wall had been rebuilt and I had set the doors in place. You will remember that I said last week that doors keep out those things that you don't want in and they keep in those things that you don't want to get out. If you don't have doors in place in your life, you're never going to be guaranteed the future. What kind of doors? Well, there are doors of discipline. There are doors of moral behavior, standards of behavior. There are doors of doctrine, what you think and what you know and what you believe. There are doors of communication. There are doors of happiness.

There are doors of resolve. You see, my friends, the Bible says that you can resolve to be happy. And as I said last week, there are some people who have sat down one day at some time and they've said, I think I'm going to be unhappy.

That's what I'm going to do. I'm going to be an Oscar the Grouch. I'm going to go through life in reverse gear. I'm going to grumble and complain and when things go right, I'm going to find something wrong. And when it's blue, I'm going to want it to be green. There are people who resolve to be unhappy.

There are some young people here today. You're standing right on the threshold of putting doors in place. You're drawing a line. You're surrounding yourself with God's parameters. You're putting principles in place. And when you put principles in place, when those challenges come about your behavior and your morality and the things that you do when nobody else is watching, when your doors are in place. That's what guarantees the future. I want to encourage you today, young people, set the doors in place. Most of you have already. It's evident.

We saw it on the screens. Keep the doors in place. Don't sacrifice it. Don't let other people open and close the doors for you. Let that be controlled by God because Jesus said, I am the door.

That's what he called himself. Number two, have a high regard for authority. If you want to guarantee for the future, have a high regard for authority.

Nehemiah chapter seven and verse two, I put in charge of Jerusalem, my brother, along with the commander of the Citadel, because he was a man of integrity and feared God more than most men do. Some of the most unhappy people in the world, some of the unhappiest people in the world are people who have no regard for authority. Friend, there is nothing wrong with questioning authority. What is wrong is when you have no regard for authority. Young people, God will always put people in your life who have authority over you.

You will never get away from it. God's had your parents in authority over you. I'm going to tell you something. If you've messed around and been disobedient to your parents while you've been a child, you're in for serious trouble. You're in for trouble.

You're in for the high jump. I'm telling you, if you've been difficult and you've given your parents trouble and you have disdained your grandparents and you've scoffed at their godly authority, you are earmarked for disaster. I'll guarantee you're going to become a statistic. You're going to become a tragic person in society. You're going to be some one of these people who turns 30 and 40 years of age. Your body's going to be broken.

You're going to have destroyed your system with alcohol and with everything else in between. You're going to have made bad choices and it all comes down to the question of authority. You have a very poor level and tolerance for authority. God's going to put people in authority when you go to college.

The most unhappy college students are those who arrive there and they scoff at the college authority. The most unhappy people are people who fight against the police all their lives. You see, only a criminal fears a policeman. And if you're living the way you ought to live, you'll know that God has placed these people, policemen, in place in order to help law abiding citizens live peacefully, to watch out. And if you're just constantly fighting, you're fighting against government, you fight against the deacons, you fight against your church, you fight against the school, you fight against the system, you're always fighting against it.

You're going to be a very unhappy person. Have a high regard for authority. Number three, do what you're supposed to do.

Now listen, some of you are already out of it, I can see it in your faces, you're somewhere else, you're already at Myrtle Beach. Listen carefully, do what you are supposed to do. Listen to what happened here in Nehemiah. Look at chapter seven and verse three. Bible says that I said to them, the gates of Jerusalem are not to be opened until the sun is hot. While the gatekeepers are still on duty, have them shut the doors and bar them.

Also appoint residents of Jerusalem as gods, some at their own posts and some near their own houses. Do what you are supposed to do. Be a man and a woman of your word. Are you a man and woman of your word? It doesn't matter how menial your task is.

It doesn't matter how small, how large, it doesn't matter what you're involved in. If you make a commitment to do something, are you able to do what you have said you are going to do? Do what you're supposed to do. I'm telling you, if your boss, if those in authority find out that you don't do what you're supposed to do, you're going to go nowhere.

They're going to come to promotion time and they're going to get together and they're going to say, what a wonderful person, what a wonderful lady, what a wonderful man. But you can't count on them. They have no responsibility. When they're on duty, they don't do. They're always taking extra time off. They're always having an extra coffee break. They're always arriving late for work. They're always never willing to paint outside the parameters of their job description.

They're never willing to be team members. Do what you are supposed to do. Stand in line, stand at the gate, be at the post, stand tall for the Lord Jesus Christ. Number four, understand your potential for growth. Look at verse four of chapter seven.

Now the city was large and spacious, but there were very few people in it and the houses had not yet been rebuilt. If you want a guarantee for the future, young people, understand your potential for growth. I've got something to say to you this morning, needless to say. I want you to know that I'm so proud of you.

We are so proud of you. You've graduated from high school, but I'm also going to say that you haven't even begun to scratch the surface. You see, you've got so much potential. Do you know that some of the unhappiest people in the world are people who have decided that they don't want to grow anymore? Have you ever met someone like that?

Have you ever met someone who's put a full stop, a period right there at the end of their lives? They said, I don't want anymore. I don't need to learn anymore. I don't need to go anywhere anymore. I don't want anymore. They're miserable people. Understand your potential for growth.

Some of the saddest people in our world today are people who have stopped growing. Number five, never forsake the assembly of God. Never forsake the assembly of God.

Look at chapter eight and verse one, when the seventh month came and the Israelites had settled in their towns, all the people assembled as one man in the square before the water gate. One of the things that I do from time to time in our church is I marry people. Very often when I marry people, I say to them, do you mind if I give you a few words of advice? Not that I'm an expert, just some biblical advice.

One of those things that I always tell them is, listen, you may be in love right now, but don't forsake the assembling of yourselves together in God's house. Now, young people watch me. You're all sitting in church here. Most of you are going to go to college. You want me to tell you a sad statistic? By the time the fall comes, when you get to college, over half of you won't even bother to go to church.

I'm telling you, you're going to get to Clemson and USC. You're going to get to all, you're going to go all over the countryside from Boston to Charleston, and you're going to get down there and you're going to get around your friends and activities, and you're going to push the assembling of God's people into the background. And when you come home, every once in a while on weekends, you'll show up at church and everybody here will think you always go to church.

So it doesn't affect us. You see, friends, it's not the things that you see for man's consumptions. It's the reality of who you are on the inside.

And I'm going to give you another guarantee. You say to me, but Dr. Wilton, why do I need to go to church? Because when you go to church, you surround yourself with God's people. You hear the preaching and the teaching of God's word. You subject yourself to the presence and the power of the spirit of the living God. We're all here this morning.

I'm going to put my neck on a block and say something. It may not be through the preaching of the word. It may not be through singing. It may not be through graduation, but I will guarantee for every person who loves Jesus Christ that somewhere, somehow, in some means that God has already spoken to you and blessed you about something this morning. And I haven't even finished this message.

I'll guarantee you that. Now, if you don't know the Lord Jesus Christ, you've got nothing out of it. Because the spirit of God is not ministering to you. You've got to be able to open your heart.

If your mind is somewhere else and you couldn't care less and you want to beat everybody else to the restaurant, I want to tell you something, my friend. The reason you don't get anything out of church is because you don't know the one who's in the middle of his church, the Lord Jesus Christ. Don't forsake the assembling of God's people together. Don't ever let that go by. Keep to that.

Make a resolution. Number six, read the word of God. Chapter eight and verse three. Chapter eight and verse three. He read it aloud, did Ezra the priest, from daybreak until noon as he faced the square before the Watergate in the presence of the men, women and others who could understand and all the people listened attentively to the book of the law. He stood high on a wooden platform built for the occasion. Verse five, Ezra opened the book and all the people could see him because he was standing above them. As he opened them, all the people stood up. They began to read the word of God. They studied the word of God. Why read the word of God?

Because this word is a lamp unto my feet and it is a light unto my pathway. When people graduate, we usually talk pie in the sky. All the possibilities, all the joy. I'm going to tell you this morning there's going to be a lot of challenge out there. There's going to be a lot of darkness. There are going to be a lot of pitfalls.

There's going to be a lot of places you can't see. There's going to be a lot of challenges and the only way in which you're going to be able to guarantee the future is when you read the word of God and you hide God's word in your heart. Number seven, worship the Lord. Chapter eight and verse six, Ezra praised the Lord at the great God and all the people lifted their hands and responded, amen and amen.

Then they bowed down and worshiped the Lord with their faces to the ground. That word worship young people, do you know what it means? It means worth-ship. It means you are worthy of everything that I have. It means that I'm willing to prostrate myself before you because you are God and there is none like you.

Outside of you, I can do nothing. I can get degrees, I can go to college, I can get a job, I can raise a family, but I'm ultimately going to amount to nothing outside of God. Worship the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul and all your mind. Number eight, number eight, take heed to what you have been taught. Take heed to what you have been taught. Look at chapter eight and verse eight.

They read from the book of law, making it clear and giving the meaning so that the people could understand what was being read. Now that's one of my functions as your pastor. I don't always succeed in that but I try my best every Sunday morning to take God's word, which sometimes can be very difficult and I try and break it down and study it and then I try and share it with you in a manner in which you can most easily understand it. I give you points, number one, number two, number three, number four. Why do I give points? So that you've got something to hang your hat on, so that you can take notes. I see some of you writing these down. You say, man, I don't need to take notes. Let me tell you something. By the time you get tomorrow, you've forgotten most of it.

That's what we're all like. That's why I never asked somebody next week what I preached on this week because they might just tell me. I don't know and I realise that. But you see, my job as a teacher is to be able to communicate God's truth to you. That's what your Sunday school teacher does. That's what your youth minister does. That's what your high school teacher does. That's what your professor does. It's the art of communication. But what is the purpose?

It is so that you can take heed to what you have been taught. Please forgive the interruption. We'll be back with the rest of today's message, A Guarantee for the Future, with Dr. Don Wilton in just a moment. But Dr. Don wants me to remind you, we're here for you connecting 24 hours a day on our website, keyboard to keyboard at tewonline.org.

That's tewonline.org. But we also have a wonderful opportunity to pray with you and for you on the phone. Romans 12 12 says, Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. Prayer is a discipline and in the words of Dr. Wilton is the ultimate means by which God fortifies us. We would like to help you make prayer a priority in your life. The encouraging word has a 24 hour live prayer line.

You can call 866-899-WORD and talk to a real person who will be glad to pray with you. The encouraging word is a viewer and listener supported ministry. Thank you for listening today. Now back to today's great teaching with Dr. Don Wilton and the message, A Guarantee for the Future. Don't forget the things that your folks have told you. Remember those nights when you'd go and sit on their bed and you'd ask a question and your mom or your dad would tell you something?

Don't forget those things. Pay attention to your grandparents if God has still spared them upon this earth. Hey, some of the most precious people, let me tell you something.

Your grandparents have already been there. They've done it. They know what it, some of them have made mistakes. Some of them have slipped by the way. Some of them have stubbed their toe and broken their leg.

They've done, they've done the whole nine. Listen to what your elders have to say. Listen to what you've been taught. Don't become one of these high-minded young people who pushes everything aside and says, I know more than anybody else.

I don't need to pay attention to the things that I've been taught. Number nine, the ninth principle, never forget others. Never forget others. Look at chapter eight and verse 10. I love this verse. Nehemiah said, go and enjoy choice food and sweet drinks and send some to those who have nothing prepared. Now I want you to notice what he said first of all to the graduates here, these who had rebuilt the wall. He said, listen, I want you to go out and have a good time. He said, do it.

He said, go and enjoy choice food and sweet drinks, but don't forget other people. Watch me, some of you sitting down here, God is going to bless your socks off. Some of you are going to be engineers and doctors and lawyers and preachers and missionaries and you name it. Some of you here are going to become very, very wealthy people.

I'm looking at you. Some of you are going to have so much in your bank balance, you don't know what to do with it. Some of you are going to be blessed beyond your wildest imagination. America is the most unbelievable place to live and to grow up in. God has poured out His Spirit upon this nation and our people are blessed.

You think of all the colleges, all the degrees, all the opportunities that we have in this great nation. God is going to bless you. Don't forget other people. It's a biblical principle. You are giving because you have not forgotten other people. You've not forgotten our children who are still coming along. You've not forgotten those who come from outside inside and need to hear the Word of God. You've not forgotten the ministries that reach out to the four quarters of the earth, beginning on the streets of Spartanburg.

And so what do we do? Has God blessed us? Has God blessed this church? Has God poured out His Spirit over this church? Well, friends, the more God pours out His Spirit over this church, the more it is our mandate not to forget other people, not to forget what God has done and translate that into the lives of other men and women and boys and girls.

Why? So that all who come behind us might find us faithful. Young people, listen to me.

Don't forget other people. Give to others, serve others. Number 10, don't be in a hurry to get there. Don't be in a hurry to get there.

Verse 12, the Bible says, All the people went away to eat and drink and to spend, send portions of food and to celebrate. Don't be in a hurry to get there. You read through Nehemiah and you understand Nehemiah, you're going to understand that there was a deliberate one step at a time process whereby they rebuilt the wall and stepped into the future. Folks, sometimes we're in such a hurry to get where we're going that we never get there because we trip over our own two feet. Don't try and get that promotion before it's time. Don't think that you're going to become the boss of your outfit before you've been willing to pay your dues. You don't just arrive. There are not a lot of people born with silver spoons in their mouths. You've got to be willing to pay your dues. Don't be in a hurry to get there. Number 11, if you are a leader, behave like one. Look at verse 11 of chapter 8.

The Levites calmed all the people saying, Be still for this is a sacred day, do not grieve. If you are a leader, behave like one. Young people look at me. The world today is looking for spiritual leaders and I'm looking at some of them. When you go to college, be prepared to stand up. If you're going to be a leader, it's going to come at a cost. Leadership is not a popularity contest. Leadership is not an election. Leadership, my friend, is doing what God has put into your heart. And it is time in America today that there are young people who are willing to stand up as leaders for God's standards of righteousness and godliness.

If you are a leader, behave like one. Finally, number 12, celebrate God's blessings with joy and thanksgiving. Are you willing to celebrate his blessings with joy? Are you willing to celebrate his blessings with joy?

Look at verse 17 of chapter 8. The whole company that had returned from exile built booths and their joy is great. They celebrated the presence of God. Become a celebrator of the presence of God. What a powerful challenge from Dr. Don Wilton and more importantly from God's Word to celebrate the presence of God. You've heard Dr. Don as he shared our great Bible teaching today and now as he steps into the studio, I pray you'll hear from his heart. Are you ready to give your heart and life to the Lord Jesus Christ? Why don't you pray this prayer with me right now? Dear God, I know that I'm a sinner and I know that Jesus died for me on the cross. Today I repent of my sin and by faith I receive you into my heart. In Jesus' name. My friend, I welcome you today into the family of God.

This is exciting news. Perhaps the Lord's been dealing with you and as Dr. Don was praying a while ago, you prayed to give your life to Jesus Christ. Or perhaps you prayed to give your life back to Jesus.

You've rededicated your life. Either way, Dr. Don has wonderful resources he wants you to have if you'll call us at 866-899-WORD. The number again is 866-899-9673. We'd love to put these resources in your hands. We'd love to pray with you and for you. Just know we're here at 866-899-9673 and online at www.tewonline.org.