Your Divine Appointment

Your Divine Appointment

By Pastor Jim May

This morning I want to draw your attention to some people in the Bible who had a choice to make. The choice that they would make would be influenced by so many things that it would be easy for them to make the wrong one. And the choices they would make, on that fateful day when the opportunity to hear the gospel came to them, would forever seal their eternal destiny.

My hope is that we all make the right choice this morning, for today you will have your chance to accept the gospel, or reject the gospel, just as the people in my examples.

Let me first say that you made a choice this morning when you decided to come to the House of God and hear the Word of the Lord. Some of you may have come only because of an invitation, or because you were almost coerced into coming, but you are still here. Many of us are here because we chose to come. To us, this gathering of people, to worship the Lord, is our favorite place to be. We love coming to God’s House and being around God’s people.

Whatever your reason, you are not here by accident. Today, all of us, and especially those who aren’t sure of their salvation, have come because of a Divine Appointment.

The Almighty, Eternal God of Heaven has determined that this day will be the day that you will have your chance to make a choice either to serve Him or reject Him.

I believe that every man has to face his own divine appointment with God.

2 Peter 3:9-10, "The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night;"

It is the will of God that every man, woman and child should be saved. He doesn’t want to see any of us miss out on Heaven, but God won’t make that choice for us. He gives that power of choice to you and I because He doesn’t want robots that obey His commands; He wants living people who will willingly love and serve Him because they want to.

One thing that all of us search for is companionship. Some seek that companionship by surrounding themselves with friends and family. They love the interaction with people. But there are some who find their companionship in the form of pets, like a dog or a cat. Some really get desperate and try to form a relationship with a boa constrictor, a turtle, goldfish or some exotic animals like tigers, llamas or some other animal.

But one of the strangest things that I’ve seen lately is that there are a lot of people buying robot pets. There is “Cybie”, the robotic dog. He barks, he runs around the house, his eyes light up and he does tricks. He learns as he moves around to avoid obstacles and to interact with his owner. And when you get tired of him, just turn him off and take out the batteries.

Or how about the new “I-Cat”? It just lays around on your furniture, listening to your radio or TV. Whenever the music starts she lights up to let you know what kind of mood she’s in. And if you scratch her nose you will hear the sound of a record being moved back and forth by a DJ.

But the one thing that these pets can’t do is choose to leave, or choose to love. They are robots.

God could have had all the robot pets He wanted, but He wants living human beings; people with the ability to think, to reason, to love and to choose to be God’s children because they love God.

Because God seeks after people who will willingly serve Him, He gives every man the opportunity to either accept or reject His love. God sent His only Son, Jesus Christ, to die on the cross for your sins and mine. But before those sins can be washed away, we have to do 3 things, all of which are very simple to do because God chose to make it easy and simple for us to serve Him if we want to.

I don’t have to do anything hard like bringing a bull or a calf to sacrifice upon an altar. I don’t have to bring all of the money I can scrape together to buy my way in. I don’t have to confess my sins before another man, embarrassing myself in the process for all the bad things I’ve done. I don’t have to crawl through broken glass for miles, or recite memorized prayers for hours. In fact, none of those things mean anything to God. He doesn’t want your sacrifices; he wants your service, given to him freely in love.