Number Our Days / Time

TNG Radio, where today's culture and timeless truths come together. It's reasoned, relevant content apologetics, worldview, and answers to the questions that you need to know. From Alex McFarland Ministries, this is Truth for a New Generation Radio. And now the man who preached in 50 states in 50 days, speaker, writer, and advocate for Christian apologetics, Dr. Alex McFarland. Hi, Alex McFarland of Truth for a New Generation. Think about that as we begin today's edition of the broadcast.

Spending time, I hear people talk about how they're spending their time. But really, from a biblical sense, and certainly in the sense of good stewardship, we should think about using time, not merely passively letting time elapse. We're going to look at Psalm 90, and I invite you to turn to the Word of God. If you're in a place where you can look up the Old Testament book of Psalms, maybe you're driving along and you can't read along, but just listen along if you would. And I trust that you've had a wonderful Christmas and holiday season.

I wish you God's best in all things in the New Year. I think a lot of times we see some riots that have drug on for months in cities like Portland and Seattle and Minneapolis and Chicago and Detroit and Atlanta. All over the nation there's been racial unrest. I think what's made it doubly hard for so many people is we don't minimize the seriousness of human suffering. We don't ignore the responsibility to live morally and do right by all people and to love people unconditionally. But at the same time, that relationship with God is being So many have used the pandemic racial issues for political leverage, and now the politically incorrect so desirous to make sure that there is no racism, I mean, they've really gone beyond normal protocols to trying to police the soul and the heart of all people. I just read in California that books like To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee and Homer's Odyssey, books are being banned, we're experiencing more and more censorship and government control and really viewpoint discrimination in a perhaps well-intentioned but misguided quest to make the world fair and true and equitable for all people.

But do you know what? The closest the world has ever come to justice, equality, and liberty for all was the United States of America built on a Judeo-Christian moral foundation where we knew and we told our kids and grandkids, look, you're accountable to God, do right, live right, understand that all people are equal in the eyes of God and it's not the government that will be your judge and redeemer, it is God Almighty before whom we all must give an account. Do you know what the Bible says in Ecclesiastes 12.14, speaking of the judgment bar before which we all will appear, that God, quote, shall bring every work into judgment with every secret thing whether it be good or whether it be evil, Ecclesiastes 12.14. And so we're living in a time when so many people are anxious about the future, they're lamenting the past because this has been a tough time and what makes it so tough is not just the hard things of life that inevitably come along in a fallen world. What's made this era and certainly the year 2020 especially burdensome for so many people, myself included really, is because the answer to all of our problems and the hope for humanity is more of God and more of His Word, not less of it. And so I'm praying for America, and I hope you're praying for America, I'm praying for the young people, say late twenties and younger, millennials and younger, that so many, if you post something online, so many will be quick to denigrate God.

And I know just recently I was posting some spiritual insights on social media and people were mocking back and saying, �Your sky daddy isn't going to save you.� And I will not repeat the mocking, really sacrilegious words they would post about the Bible. It's been a decade and a half, maybe two decades, building just this disregard of God and this attitude of there is no God and even if there is, we want to just tell Him what's what. And we need to understand that the only hope for this culture and ultimately for the world is the Church. The only hope for individuals is Jesus Christ. But as my friend, the late Chuck Colson would say, the conscience of the culture is the Church.

That's part of our job. So I want to read a little bit from Psalm 90 and talk about as the New Year elapses, that we would rise to the challenge of verse 12 of Psalm 90. And the Bible says, �Lord, teach us to number our days that we may apply our hearts to wisdom.� That's what we want to do. If God gives us more time, another day, another month, maybe another year, we don't know, none of us know how long we're going to live, but that we would not merely passively spend time, but that we would use time. Now Psalm 90 begins with a famous verse.

It's very beautiful. It says, �Lord, you have been our dwelling place for all generations. Before the mountains were created or you gave birth to the world, from everlasting to everlasting, you are God.� Amen to that and thank God for that. But then it goes on and it talks about the mortality of man. After pointing out the eternality of God, the mortality of man.

You turn man back into dust. You say, �Return, O children of men, for a thousand years in your sight are like yesterday when it passes by, or like a watch in the night.� So for God, eternity is brief because He is the I Am. God is. We don't use past or future tense verbs when speaking of God. Not God was or God will, but God is. Now man lives a brief amount of time, dies and returns to the dust, but even if a person were to live for a century, it's just like a blink. Verse 5 and 6 of Psalm 90 says that God sweeps people away like a flood, people fall asleep.

They're like the morning grass that is sprouting and blossoming, but by the afternoon sun turns dry and fades away. Now stay tuned because when we come back we're going to talk about what the Word of God says regarding our use of time and what you do led by God, led by the Spirit of the Lord and by His Word to shape your future. Yes, you have a say in the future you'll experience. And with God's help, that can be a great future and one that counts for eternity.

Stay tuned. Truth for a New Generation is back after this. America today is like a patient struggling to live, yet is being forcibly euthanized by her, quote, doctors. The life force within the patient fighting for survival is the honest citizens like yourself.

The team of, quote, caregivers are the local and national leaders actually contributing to the demise of the patient. The economy is crashing, crime is exploding, the Constitution is being abolished. The assault on America, how to defend our nation before it's too late by Alex McFarland has one single purpose, to get you prepared. Learn the real source of America's current problems that no one else is talking about and what you can do now to face tomorrow, regardless of what tomorrow brings.

The assault on America, how to defend our nation before it's too late, available now at Amazon, Barnes and Noble and local Christian bookstores. Christians don't necessarily agree with one another when it comes to questions of religious pluralism, homosexuality, the role of government, abortion and war. Too often we manage these disagreements by ignoring them. But we're called to engage the world for the sake of Christ. How can we be effective if we avoid society's most pressing questions in 10 issues that divide Christians? Alex McFarland challenges us to drill down to the biblical core of 10 current issues such as social justice, evil and suffering, pornography and environmentalism as he echoes the biblical invitation, Come, let us reason together. Only by engaging the scriptures deeply, thinking clearly and speaking truthfully can we and God's family address our differences and discover the peace that comes with unity of purpose.

Ten issues that divide Christians. Find this book and many others at alexmcfarland.com. For apologetics resources, books by Alex McFarland and to find out where Alex is speaking, visit alexmcfarland.com. Psalm 93 and 4, how man lives a brief time returns to the dust and no matter how long man lives, to the Lord who is eternal it's like a watch in the night or a thousand years like a single day.

Hi, Alex McFarland, welcome back to Truth for a New Generation. We're talking about time and how we spend time and let me just encourage you, regardless of how you feel about your past, maybe you're very proud of your past, maybe you're grateful for wonderful memories or maybe you are hurt by your past and maybe things that you experienced months, years, maybe decades ago, maybe things like that haunt you and you would love to move on but you feel like you can't. Friend, the past should not dominate you or control you. The past should not break you and make your present and your future to no avail and we're going to talk about that in just a moment. But I bring this up because it is significant, the beginning of a new year, but I think about in all the ministry God's allowed me to do over 30 years, meeting with people, whenever I meet with, oh people, I don't know, let's just say north of 50 and older and middle age, late middle age, elderly people, they talk so much about time. Men especially, I listen to men really beat themselves up over opportunities squandered or the past, we really romanticize the past, we make it so wonderful and we often times whether it was good or bad, we make the past so huge that it seems to control our present and whenever something controls our present, it's definitely informing our future.

So let's talk not about letting time expend our lives, let's talk about how we can use time. Now the Word of God in Psalm 90, it goes on and it talks about the judgment of God. God is holy and God is righteous. Seven and eight talks about being consumed by God's anger and God's wrath. And verse eight says you have placed our iniquities before you, our secret sins in the light of your presence. Now our guilt before God is something that is very serious, obviously, but at the same time you need to understand that God loves you. Billy Graham said God will forgive any sin, he will overlook none. And you know our culture nowadays, whether it's premarital sex or abortion or lying or substance abuse or homosexuality, all sorts of carnality, let me say this friend, God loves you.

Oh I could spend the next ten years broadcasting just that message that God loves you and it is so needful that people realize that. However, no sin in the Bible has been declassified and I really get the impression in talking with people, I think people feel like because so many people disregard holiness anymore. So many people do their own thing and they ignore what the Bible says about repentance and purity, that I think there is the assumption that well God is just going to have to be cool with it. God is just going to have to be okay with it. And I want to say this, while God loves you and you are valuable to God and he will forgive any sin if you confess and repent. But at the same time, as Psalm 90 points out, God is a God of wrath, God is a God of judgment, God sees our iniquities. There are no secret, hidden sins that God doesn't know about. And God has not changed one single verse in the Bible. Everything the Bible did say, it still does say. And so it goes on and it says that our life is like labor and sorrow, isn't that something?

Hard work and then regret, that would be so sad if the story ended there. And it says in verse 10 that even the pride of someone who lives seventy or eighty years at the end of it all, their life is but labor and sorrow for soon it is gone and we fly away, says Psalm 90 verse 10. So who can understand this? To fully comprehend, fully apprehend what life is all about, we can't know it all. To understand all of the purposes of God, we don't know it all. But we can know the way to be saved, we can know the way to prepare to meet God and not only to be ready for the judgment and to face God and to be saved and to leave this world confidently, at peace, knowing that our sins are under the blood of Christ and we've been washed new and our name is in the Lamb's Book of Life if you will simply believe in Jesus. We can have that peace, but do you know what?

We can even have a meaningful, fulfilling, purposeful life here. Now all of that to bring us to verse 12 of Psalm 90. So, and the word so means in light of all this, the brevity of life, the surety of standing before God one day, in light of all this what do we do? Verse 12, Lord teach us to number our days that we may, some translations say apply our hearts to wisdom, I like that, apply our hearts to wisdom. Some translations will say that we may present to you a heart of wisdom.

Can you imagine facing God and saying, God here is what I did with my soul, I was wise. You know Billy Graham, the great evangelist once said that who we are is God's gift to us, you're born, you're given life, but what we become is our gift to God. Now I want to unpack this verse a little bit, Lord teach us to number our days that we may apply our hearts to wisdom. Friend, life is brief, life can be fragile, life can be gone so quickly, COVID has shown us that, 2020 has shown us that, young people die, people that are otherwise healthy die, life can be gone in a blink.

And so what do we do? Like Job, Job 7 verse 6, Job said my days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle and are spent without hope. If you've ever seen the weaving of cloth, that shuttle with the spool of thread goes back and forth at blinding speed, making the tapestry. Friend, days are going by, time is ticking, a week goes by, a month goes by, you look up a year has gone by. Job is right, our days do fly by more quickly than the movement of a weaver's shuttle.

What type of cloth are you crafting my dear friend? What is the tapestry that's being woven by your days but not merely by the time that's ticking by? But what is your life representing in terms of your thoughts, your priorities, the way you act, the way you react, the care and feeding of your soul?

Do you know Jesus? Now when we come back we're going to talk about not merely spending time but using time and using time in a way that will not only honor God, count for eternity, but will bless you right now, back after this. You know, Alex has been writing for many years and one of his classic books is still great today as a basic introduction to the Christian faith. It's called Stand, Core Truths You Must Know for an Unshakeable Faith. This book will help you help your teens get off the roller coaster of doubt and onto solid ground. You'll read about the six pillars of biblical Christianity.

They are one, inspiration of the Bible, two, the virgin birth, three, the deity of Christ, four, atonement, five, Christ's resurrection, and six, Christ's return. You know, Alex mixes it up with humor and stories he gleaned from decades of working with youth and encourages teens to build a foundation of faith that will stabilize their lives and help them take a stand for Christ. Simple and straightforward, Stand, Core Truths You Must Know for an Unshakeable Faith, available wherever Christian books are sold. If you're a Christian parent, you of course want to instill a biblical view of life in the hearts of your children. If you're a pastor, you want to offer ministry that draws young families to your church. This is Alex McFarland encouraging you to check out my new book and video curriculum, The 21 Toughest Questions Your Kids Will Ask About Christianity. Why do bad things happen? I interviewed hundreds of children, ages five to twelve, and we address actual questions from actual children, the spiritual issues that are on the minds of your kids.

Did Jesus ever sin? The book and video lessons are great for groups of any size and was produced with the goal of equipping kids to stand strong for Christ in any situation. The 21 Toughest Questions Your Kids Will Ask, the book, study guide, and video series. You'll find it at AFASTORE.NET.

That's AFASTORE.NET. In the midst of a culture obsessed with relativism, Alex McFarland is a voice you can trust to speak the timeless truths of Christianity in a timely way. You're listening to Truth for a New Generation Radio. Lord, teach us to number our days that we may present to you a heart of wisdom. Welcome back to the program, Alex McFarland here. Before we continue on in Psalm 90 and talk about using time, and using time to the maximum degree possible, and striving for God's plan and God's purposes in the New Year, striving for excellence, for the glory of God, let me make you aware of something coming up. I'm so excited about in just a few months, June 25-27, I'll be in Asheville, North Carolina at the Billy Graham Training Center at the Cove. We're going to go verse by verse through the book of Acts. The theme that we're going to be looking for is revival, spiritual awakening, the principles of awakening and revival from the book of Acts.

The website is thecove.org, and we'll go through the book of Acts together. And then also on our website, which is alexmcfarland.com, it's just my name, alexmcfarland.com, we've got so many resources, questions and answers. Right now we are working on an answer book, the top 100 questions from 10 years of Exploring the Word, which is the program that we do daily, live on the American Family Radio Network. That book will be out in September. I have 100 of the toughest Bible questions and answers.

Many of those questions are answered on the website alexmcfarland.com, plus a calendar of my traveling, my speaking. You know, we had in 2020 something like 35 major events that were canceled, but in 2021 we are going to do our utmost to be back on the road and speaking all over America, sharing the Gospel and equipping the Church to defend the faith. Do you know what? I give God the glory in spite of the challenges. People are spiritually hungry.

Every day, literally every day of the week, we get dozens of emails and letters. People are asking, how can I know the Lord, how can I be saved? And this or that has happened, or I've done this, and I can't seem to move beyond it.

Is there hope for me? And so let us say, as we get into Psalm 90 verse 12, that yes, there is hope, more than merely some wishful thinking. I mean, there is tangible reality in Jesus. And so right now we want to say this, that Christ is as close by as a prayer. And you can call on the name of the Lord and be saved right now. You can say, Lord, I am sorry for my sins, and Lord, I do believe you are the Son of God and you died for me. Friend, on that cross 2,000 years ago, He did that for you. The punishment was deflected onto Jesus. You don't have to suffer for your sins. You can say, Lord, I accept that you suffered in my place. And if you will turn from sin, the Bible calls that to repent.

And that simply means to turn the car around and drive away in a different direction. So you turn from sin to Christ. And part of that is to say, Lord, I admit it, I'm a sinner. I'm sorry for my sins, and Lord, please help me. And pray this and mean it, Lord, I do believe you are the Son of God. I believe you paid my sin on the cross and rose again. I ask you to save me, forgive me, make me your child. And the Bible says that if you believe in Jesus, you will be saved. Confess your sin, turn to Christ, put your faith, and faith means trust.

Your trust in Jesus, and He will save you. Now let me talk about numbering our days. Psalm 90 verse 12 says, number our days. Now how do you do that? Maybe you think, okay, well I'm 50, I might live to be 80, so I've got 30 years left. Okay, that's part of it, because there's the implication to reckon, an accounting.

Where are you in life, and where do you hope to go? Think about that. But do you know what the word really means? To number our days. It means to destine our days. At Christmas we sing that song, Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas, and it says, Through the years we all will be together if the fates allow.

I've never liked that line, even though I do love that song. Because we don't have to trust in blind fate, some roll of the dice willy-nilly. No, you have the ability, God's word says it, to destine your future. Now step one, make sure that your life is committed to Jesus Christ, and you're born again. And then, order your life, live by his word. The book of Proverbs says that's the wisest thing you could ever do. Proverbs 1-7 is to begin to follow God's roadmap for life, and a huge, immeasurably large part of what God wants for every person is that you would forsake sin and live righteously or morally. Now why is God so interested in moral behavior?

Because he loves you. So number your days, destine your days, and then apply your heart to wisdom. And do you know what it means to apply? It means to attack.

In other words, an army that was going to take a city, they would apply themselves to the city, I mean they attacked it with all of their strength. That's how you need to approach wisdom. And what is wisdom? God's word. Wisdom comes from God. Data, information might come from the internet, content, but more than mere data, God is offering you wisdom. And so, let's talk about time. Are you applying your heart to wisdom?

Are you not just letting life passively go by, but you're actively thanking God for life, understanding that each day is a gift, and God has given you his Son and his Word and innumerable promises for his unlimited favor and grace. You know I've quoted this many times, you know in 1 Chronicles 12.32, the children of Issachar had understanding of the times to know what Israel ought to do. We need people like that. It's called discernment, it's called commitment, it is called wisdom, and it is called obedience. Someone who understood the times to know what Israel ought to do.

Friend, you need to understand the times in which we live and what you ought to do. Number one, to be saved. Number two, daily to be growing, walking, following, hearing, serving, being used by, and know the times. As the Bible says, now is our salvation nearer than when we first believed. Christ is coming back.

The world is growing darker, people are waxing worse and worse. You can stand on the solid rock of God and his truth, and that is the best use of your time, maybe right this moment, to make the decision to live for Jesus. May God bless you in this day and in the new year as we're not used by time, but with God's help and for God's glory, we faithfully, fruitfully use the days that are given to us. TNG radio is made possible by the friends of Alex McFarland Ministries, P.O. Box 10231, Greensboro, North Carolina 27404. That's P.O. Box 10231, Greensboro, North Carolina 27404. Call us at 877-YesGod1. That's 877-YesGod1. Or give online at alexmcfarland.com. While you're there, listen to Program Archives, read Alex's blog, invite Alex to speak at your event, or contact Alex with a question or comment, alexmcfarland.com. Thanks for listening today and join us again next time as we bring you more truth for a new generation on TNG radio.