You Do Not Know What Tomorrow Will Bring - Charles R. Swindoll

you you're listening to dallas theological seminaries chapel podcast our speaker comes to encourage justin challenges again he is no stranger to our campus having graduated from here he came back years later to serve on our board for a number of years before they put a noose around him and pulled him to campus to be our fourth president he now serves as our chancellor author writer radio speaker pastor Stonebriar community church but for us on the platform especially in for many of you a voice of as a servant of god in our lives for so many years would you join me in welcoming our dear friend dr. chuck swindoll to our campus again well it's always great to be back on the campus and to look around and remember the things that happened when I was a student here bill mentioned you know we've all done a lot of rotten since I've been with Bill when he's done a lot of those rotten sins that's part of the reason I chose that him for us to sing today you know the definition of an optimist is a person who plays the trumpet and carries a pager it'll take a moment for you to just a joke bill it's just a joke havin a little fun me I remember one cold winter morning back when dr. Wahlberg was president and we had we had a few Saturday morning classes and one of my Saturday morning classes was taught by a s Lewis Johnson dr. Lewis Johnson not gone and and taught a lot of us and the platform Greek and and for some of us it was more of a challenge for him than for others and I've happened to be walking along as he was making his way to the class he hated cold weather had a big heavy black coat on a hat on and and he's from Carolinas and so this kind of cold weather for him was unusual and he said I said good morning dr. Johnson he said I said how are you not well you know the problem with his school Chuck I said no sir run by a bunch of Yankees bunch of Yankees have class on days this cold I'm so excited about this new year I hardly standing I have to tell you it's always amazing to me that people are bored there are folks that are actually bored in life like fella named Lawrence Walters from San Pedro California let me tell you about Lawrence he said one day enough is enough what I needs a little adventurer tired of just sitting around so on the second is July that year he rigged up 42 helium filled weather balloons tied them to a Sears lawn chair and lifted off true story armed with only a pellet gun to help handle the elevation issues before he knew it he was shocked to realize he was 16,000 feet high Walters short had his breath taken away about that level mine started getting a little fuzzy he wasn't the only one surprised pilot in a Southwest Airline radioed the tower had said some guy is in a lawn chair floating across the sky thankfully Walters had enough presence of mind to start shooting out the balloons which allowed him to land about 45 minutes later in Long Beach but that bizarre experience got him on a Tonight Show and a Timex watch in a Timex ad and ultimately the God to quit his job as he went on the road to deliver motivational speeches that is how hard up we are for motivational speakers why in the world did you do that was the common question everybody asked him he says people ask me that a lot they want to know if I had a like a death wish or something and he said I just told him no I just had to do something I couldn't just keep sitting there the guys are not you imagine people just sitting there you can't not can't what a terrible way to spend a year just sitting around just wondering and waiting for something to happen with years unfolding like these years of best years of our lives and the best is yet to come we just sang about it how exciting is it that we can we can walk into 12 new months well the half of its already gone so eleven and a half of the months now that are unrolling in front of us which I want to talk to you about and I want to warn you too before we get into these months very far that that there are dangers lurking a couple of three of them that came to my mind as I put my thoughts together there's a danger of our walking in the flesh instead of the spirit and suffering the consequences not walking by faith but walking by sight which fills our lives with worry stupid worries then there's a danger of a planning every detail right down to the gnats whisker and forgetting the most important part of all and that's praying for direction as we walk into these 11 1/2 months that remain and the the danger of running ahead of God rather than waiting for him to open doors and to make the path straight and to clear the obstacles instead of our trying to move them out of the way our selves and that constant battle everybody has with worry the chances are good your worry list is longer than your prayer list you're all worried about some big thing on the horizon and it's a very real a probability it'll never happen my worst worries and fears never realized throughout my life and of course the greatest of all the worries is the worry regarding when our last day will come and it's a serious issue of course it is Peter Marshall while he was Chapel of the Senate during the days of the Second World War I love to tell the story was an old legend of a merchant in Baghdad who one day sent his servant to the market and before very long a servant came back white and trembling and he said to his master down to marketplace I was jostled by a woman in the crowd and when she turned and looked at me I looked right in the face of death death hustled me she made a threatening gesture and he said master please lend me your horse I must I must hasten to avoid her and I will ride to Samara and there death will not find me of course the master lent him his horse and he galloped away in that afternoon the same master made his way into the market ran into the same old woman walked up to her and said why did you frighten my servant this morning why did you make that threatening gesture her response would that was not a threatening gesture death said it was only a start of surprise I was astonished to see him here in Baghdad you see I have a an appointment with him tonight in Samara we serve a God who has put our lives together start to finish he's not finding things out along the way you'll never hear a gas coming from heaven oh wow I didn't know that it's planned for us our times are in his hands and some of you are learning that better than others I have a few timely reminders for you in taking on the new year they're all based on three simple statements found in James chapter 4 if you brought a Testament with you turn to it as dr. turn state turns to his Greek text to check it out good for him he's in our church I look at him every Sunday and I just thank God for things like patience on his part and a willingness to listen to me who was once a student talk about amazing turn of events remarkable even shows up so here we are looking at the next few months and we read in verse 13 of James 4 come on now you who say today or tomorrow we will go to such in such a city and we'll spend a year there and and engage in business and make a profit yet look closely students faculty members friends of the seminary you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow you're just a vapor it appears for a little while and vanishes away instead you ought to say if the Lord wills we will live and then we will do this or that love this passage of Scripture love preach on it every new year whoever's from Stonebriar church you heard me bring his talk a few Sundays ago it's a great reminder not just at the beginning of a new year but how easy it is to play God especially when we get a little theology under our belt it's easy to think we got him figured out I remember when dama great barn haw something pencil up in a philadelphia used to stand before a simple microphone a Bible in his hand and he'd take heed take questions from the audience called it open forum and it's student up in the balcony stood up said doctor barn house I've been wondering how could a children of Israel be forty years in the wilderness and the shoes never wear out and clothes never wear out and they never went hungry dr. Boren House answer was go he kind of had the voice of the fourth member of the Trinity you know God the kid goes oh now understand Barnhouse said no you don't son nobody understands that great nobody understands about an old year that's passed we got a new year coming and we're not careful we'll follow our own rules look at verse 13 here are our rules our rules first we choose our time today or tomorrow see we're making plans we got our day timer or whatever form you use to help organize your life so we choose our own time today or tomorrow second we select our location we go to such and such a city January I'm going to be in Dallas come July I'm going to be in Phoenix come September hope to be and you name that we choose the location we select the place we're going to be third we limit our stay see what it says we'll spend a year there so this guy's really got his life organized and then we arrange our activities we will engage in business we even predict a profit we will make a profit it's all in verse 13 that's exactly what we do in unguarded moments I do it when I'm not thinking more wisely set out a plan I got the year in front of me love get my book and going through January February and March I get all this thing I've got all the way through December is if I'm going to live to see December I don't know I will get it all planned out now understand James is not criticising good planning he's not advocating being haphazard about our lives being disorganized Book of Proverbs which I'm reading with our one of our grandsons every day we're going through a in the Proverbs you're going to do it all you along here I go again maybe we're going to go through it all year long if I'm still around if he's still around I thought but or proverbs to talk about organizing your life what is addressing is demonstrating mistaken confidence stop that stop that kind of a presumptive living presumptuous living in fact look at the very next verse you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow then a remarkable thought we planned out tomorrow but we don't know what our life will be like tomorrow I put together a few tomorrows it's a Thursday the date is April the 13th the Secretary of War is Edwin Stanton he's making plans in the White House for a celebration flowers have been ordered banners have been raised the name ulysses s grant Victoire it's going to be spread all over the war this terrible war between the states finally the bloodshed is ending they're going to celebrate and then in the words of Jay Winik then came the bullet that bore into his brain 1865 April 14 Good Friday the president's assassinated the day before they didn't know a thing about that oh I got the security all buttoned down presidents okay safe thank God the newspapers are finally getting beyond the ugly criticism of this buffoon of an ape-like president they called him now he's dead travel with me ahead over 75 years later it's a Saturday afternoon and a naval officer and his wife are of all things finishing them decorating of their little apartment is they're enjoying a wonderful tour duty at Pearl Harbor December 6 will sleep in tomorrow morning got our apartment ready this is going to be great wonderful night of romance together and the place comes apart the next day tomorrow December 7 1941 Sunday morning when all hell broke loose never thought of that the day before you didn't know what their life would be like tomorrow you and I were not alive in that first tomorrow many of you weren't alive in the second I mentioned let me mention one where we all were Monday Night Football what a great game it was had a terrific time guys on the TV talked too much I had it on mute just enjoyed the game Cynthia and I and two or three friends we head over in our little our little home here in Dallas September 10 2001 and I'm eating a bowl of cereal on Tuesday morning in the kitchen standing up which is my style when I have breakfast not that I'm driven but and I click on the TV it's still on mute and I'm looking to what looks like a Bruce Willis movie and I'm thinking how in the world did they film that I got a son at school of the Recording Arts on in Florida where they do these animations and I'm thinking well he would know how they did that film and all of a sudden a plane goes through the second tower and I screamed for Cynthia and we call our kids we couldn't get through to one of them as either living was at that time in a place called EDS in temporary quarters as our building was being built and or that place shut down they'd look like we were at war they were tomorrow it's not amazing I mentioned a Thursday in a week I mentioned a Saturday afternoon and in an otherwise delightful week I mentioned a Monday where by the way I read later twelve investors had met on the hundred and first floor saying tomorrow morning we meet and carry out this plan come early and they did and it never got out of the South Tower you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow nor do I suddenly it makes sense doesn't it Oh James writing way ahead of his time why you're just a vapor a just a vapor Shakespeare writes and Hamlet Macbeth he writes if you can look into the seeds of time and say which grain will grow and which will not speak then to me I wonder there's such a run-on astrologists stupid game plan in life guide your life of the stars they don't know either but we long to know people who know tomorrow I got a friend lived Santa Barbara Canyon he said Chuck when the fire hit it came like like a 50 mile an hour flood of flames since I looked up and I saw the smoke and I started making a list I called my dog over and I got my dog next to me and I'm putting my list together it I got out of there with a car a dog and my list lost everything else you don't know what your lives gonna be like tomorrow so what do we do let me give you some things to write down I've said one of them over and over again so you hopefully have put that down you have no knowledge of what tomorrow holds we have a church out in Frisco filled with people who didn't know what their year held before the years started they didn't know that by the end of the year they'd be unemployed a whole bunch of white-collar workers unemployed now not just white-collar workers one lady didn't know she'd face serious surgery when they cut her open they just sewed her back up it's inoperable healthy-looking attractive a young grandmother one family didn't know they'd lose the man of the house 50-year old pilot with Delta layover in Amsterdam he and his co-pilot friend flown together for years with school together decided on their layover because you have to layover to get your sleep back so you feel okay to fly back across the pond and while they're in Amsterdam this pilot friend of mine and the copilot says he says they say to each other let's go bike-riding boom hit by a bullet train gone could hardly find the remains the family didn't know that be without a man of the house is this a dramatic stuff where we've made a movie out of this real stuff I can give you names to every one of these people it goes on there was a family that discovered their 15 year old son is now on drugs at the top of his class got a drug problem he's kept secret for two years he also been messing around with pornography all that's come to light another the other side is we have a couple that thought they'd be single forever and they've fallen in love with each other and they can hardly wait to get married in April they didn't even know each other the beginning of last year how exciting is that I got a pastor friend who was at offal Memorial Church and he's now in Fargo North Dakota and I'm driving along about truck yesterday and I here in Fargo it's 37 below zero I prayed for Matthew st. John we have friends from that church his friends that are from that church that were visiting our church a few Sundays ago they took my hand like they were about to pass out and they said pray for our new pastor he has no idea what winter is like we shut down schools when he gets to 20 in dollars 37 below zero I could go on you do not know how about finances how about finances I would like to announce today that we're going to take that 200,000 surplus and give it to all the students I would like to announce that we're not going to do that but I would like to announce that Yancy wrote this in the last page of the January oh 9 issued listen to this as analysts began picking through the ruins of the financial collapse they started dusting off old fashioned words like greed moderation integrity and trust when executives lined their pockets at the expense of employees and shareholders when banks make speculative loans with little likelihood of payback when borrowers walk away with good faith contract from good faith contracts and the system breaks if the system collapses a functioning economy is held together by a thin web of trust if you doubt that visit a country where you have to pay bribes to get action and you must count your change after every purchase than this the same week that global wealth shrank by seven trillion dollars Zimbabwe's inflation rate hit a record 231 million in other words if you had saved $1,000,000 Zimbabwean dollars on Monday by Tuesday it's worth a dollar 58 you have no knowledge of what tomorrow will bring second you have no assurance of a long life I preach this many times before I ever let the text say what it's saying and I found that pauses are worth more than words you were just a vapor appears for a little while then vanishes away instead you ought to say if the Lord wills we shall live pause and if the Lord wills we shall do this or that you have no assurance of a long life you see the word he uses to describe our lives vapor at Miss ATM is and the Greek we get a word atmosphere from it puff of smoke is the way one renders it another a wisp of fog all these hotshots run around three-piece suits looking like big deals driven around in limousines think they got life with the tail their life is like a wisp of fog I bury him earlier younger now than ever in my ministry I should have kept a record of the 40 and 50 year olds I've buried in the last two years it's remarkable so we have no assurance of a long life so here's what we ought to say if the Lord will not about my will it's about his will not about the attorney who draws up a will for my life it's about the Lord's will if the Lord wills we will live meaning I don't have forever and then we will do this or that three very practical very practical lessons and I'm through number one there was a will we need to respect our Lord's will notice the name Lord I don't need to remind you of all that that includes our master there is a will we need to respect this by the way will guard us from Pride constant problem we all fight pride if the Lord wills second there is a destiny we need to remember disregard you from presumption I'd say work hard I say give it your best these are the only few years you'll be at this place give it everything you've got grades will take care of themselves give it everything you've got because there's a destiny you need to remember we're all going to wind up there and it doesn't mean you run scared okay I was in the grocery store the other day a very old lady was shopping next to me and I listened to her she kind of talking to herself or she had one of those ear deals and was talking to somebody I've answered people in grocery stores I reached over to get tomatoes one time and she said no I've got and she wasn't talking to me she's talking to Frank somewhere on the phone anyway this old lady talking to herself picking among the bananas no green ones don't want to get any agreements she won't even buy green bananas don't don't live like that you know you're gonna you're gonna probably make it to tomorrow so there's a destiny we just we just need to be remembering but here's a third in the last there's a life we need to realize and this will guard you from procrastination for goodness sake live love Jim Eliot's line wherever you are be all there live to the hilt every situation you believe to be the will of God live it don't put it off live it mmm it's a wonderful way to conduct your life and so much more to do than helium balloons on a lawn chair because I'm going to tell you if you don't you'll regret it my brother-in-law opened the bottom drawer of my sister's bureau and lifted out a tissue wrapped package this he said to me this is not a slip this is lingerie he discarded the tissue and handed me the slip it was exquisite silk handmade trimmed with a cobweb of lace the price tag with an astronomical figure still on it still attached Jan bought this the first time we went to New York at least 8 or 9 years ago but she never wore it she was saving it for a special occasion well I guess this is the occasion he took the lovely slip from me and put it on the bed with the other clothes we were taking to the mortician his hands lingered on the soft material for a moment then he slammed the drawer shut stood there and then said don't ever save anything for a special occasion every day you're alive is a special occasion I remember those words through the funeral in the days that followed when I helped him and my niece attend to all the sad chores that followed an unexpected death I thought about them on the plane ride returning home from the Midwestern town where my sister's family still lives I thought about all the things she hadn't seen or heard or done thought about the things that that she had done without realizing they were all special I'm still thinking about his words to me and they've changed my life I'm not I'm not saving anything now we use our good china and crystal for every special event such as losing a pound getting a sink on stop the first camellia blossom in spring someday and one of these days are losing their grip on my vocabulary if it's worth seeing or hearing or doing I want to see and hear and do it now now I'm trying very hard not to put off hold back or save anything that would add laughter and luster to my and our lives and every morning when I opened my eyes I tell myself this is a special day father thank you for perspective that only you give at times like this you have an amazing way of never decreasing our joy but reminding us of the brevity of life and the necessity of living it thank you for the warnings against pride and presumption against procrastination help me to live this better than I could ever preach it thank you for the year by your grace we'll live it and if it's in your will will see the end of it thank you that is well with our souls because of Christ in his name we pray everybody sit

Channel: Dallas Theological Seminary

Views: 131,076

Rating: 4.7841601 out of 5

Keywords: schedule, time, worry, fellowship, relationships, spiritual life, Dallas Theological Seminary, Dr. Charles Swindoll

Id: A5MmL_XEzwo

Length: 37min 41sec (2261 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 06 2012