Welcome to Affirm Foundation presented by Princeton Ministries with Dr Ken Smith. This is Carol Smith, Ken’s wife. Please enjoy.

Let me ask you this question. Have you ever wondered why you are still alive?

Have you ever wondered why you are still alive? Why is it that your old school school friend died in that car accident and yet you are still here? You’ve been preserved thousands of times from various dangers. But you have friends who died facing similar dangers. Why is it that you are still here?

Illness and disease seem to stalk friends of ours, neighbors, family relatives. Some have died. But why are you still alive? It’s like the bullets of death have whizzed by so many times and yet you’re still alive. It’s as though you have been standing on some rock of life and around you is an ocean that has been taking people day by day, year by year.

Occasionally you’ve even felt the spray of death, but you’ve never been washed to that sea. Why is it that you and I are still alive and many of our friends have already died? The bible gives an answer to the question. And the answer is presented in 2 ways. That there are two reasons why you may still be alive.

The first one is found in the book of Romans chapter 2 verse 5. And I almost tremble to mention this as a possibility why you are still alive. Perhaps these are the most solemn words that a minister can ever speak as a preacher of God’s word. We read in Romans chapter 2 verse 5, that there is the possibility that you are still alive for this reason. That you are treasuring up for yourself, wrath for the day of God’s judgment.

That as every day goes by, you are you are contributing to your own judgment. Charles Spurgeon who spoke for some 2 decades before a congregation that was the largest ever in the history of the Christian church. He would often have over 10,000 people in his congregation on Sunday. Said this, is it possible that God has prolonged your days that you might grow riper for damnation. That you may fill up your measure of crying iniquity and then go down to the pit.

A sinner, seared and dry like wood, sinner seared and dry like wood that is ready for the fire. There are some people who are still alive today and some may be within the sound of my voice. Who the only reason that we can explain that you are still alive is that you are storing up with every act, with each sinful thought, like water behind a massive dam that is ever growing higher and higher and higher. For that day when the dam will burst and the wrath of God will fall upon you. If that is the case, there is a remedy message of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

That you need not have to face that day of wrath. Because Christ died on the cross that your sin would be forgiven. And that no amount of sin that has been behind you cannot be forgiven by Christ. That Christ who died on the cross has allowed you another day of life. That you would hear one more time the Gospel of Christ.

That one more time the Gospel invitation would be extended to you. By faith you would trust in Christ. That you would know Him. That you would love Him. That you would acknowledge your sin and that upon the tree Christ died for you.

And that on the 3rd day he was raised from the dead. Could it be that in Christ you would not have to face the consequence of your sin because Christ has already faced it for you? If you will not turn to Christ, the scriptures make it very clear that you are storing up for yourself the wrath of God that will be revealed on the day that you’ll open your eyes in eternity. Now if you are a Christian, why are you still alive? Why didn’t God in all of his wisdom at the moment that you trusted in Christ bring you instantly into his presence?

Why did he leave you here? Why are we still alive when others who are far smarter, far more skilled than we have already gone to stand before God? In the book of Ephesians chapter 2 verse 10 we find the answer to that question. In verses 8 and 9 Paul tells us that we are saved by grace through faith. It is not our own doing it is a gift from God not of works lest we should boast.

That continues to be given. And in verse 10 we read, For those who have accepted the gift of grace, of faith in Jesus Christ, that we are his workmanship. Created in Christ Jesus for what purpose? The scripture tells us, for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. If you are a Christian and still alive, God has a purpose for you.

The purpose for His allowing you to take even one more breath, to live one more day, is that you might accomplish some work that only you are able to accomplish. That God is going to work through you to accomplish his will. That he has good deeds that only you can accomplish. Not only that, but there are good deeds that he has for you to accomplish that are great and mighty. And there is no one in the world who will be able to do those tasks except you.

The challenge of God’s word to every Christian is that we would be shaken out of our routine. That we would see that God desires to do new things with us each and every day. So often we would rather stay to a life of ease and routine than to ask God, what is the work that you want me to accomplish today for you? It might be something I’ve never tried before. It might be uncomfortable, but I want to do that work that you’ve prepared for me.

John Calvin, who early in his life wanted to live a very quiet meditative life. He desired only to be a scholar and to live a very peaceable life. This was during the days of the reformation. He was detoured to spend one night that he had never planned to do in a city called Geneva, Switzerland. His plan was to only stay there that evening and then move on.

Well in Geneva, he met a man by the name of William Farrell. Farrell was very involved in the reformation of the church, calling Christians to accomplish the ministry that God had prepared for them. Farrell met Calvin that night. And he challenged him to stay in Geneva, where the gifts that Calvin had would be so useful in turning that city around for Christ. Well Calvin was completely unmoved by Farrell’s arguments.

Until Farrell said this, Calvin, you are simply following your own wishes and I declare to you in the name of the almighty God, that if you refuse to take part in the Lord’s work in this city, God will curse the quiet life that you have planned for yourself. In his diary, Calvin says, I was thoroughly shaken by these words. I felt as if God in heaven had laid his mighty hand on me to stop me from the course of my life and I did not continue my journey. Calvin stayed in Geneva. He became the instrument that God used to turn an entire city as one of the brightest spots of Christian living that ever occurred in the history of the Christian church.

Perhaps you are a Christian and you know that you are to accomplish good works for Jesus Christ. But there seems to be a prison that at times shackles you. And though you want to do the good works that you know Christ has prepared for you, you find that the chains of this prison seem so strong that you’re not able to break free as often as you know you ought. It’s as though the windows have been barred and that the door has been locked. It could be that you live in a prison of loneliness.

Yours might be a darkened cell of anxiety or fear. And that you’re not able to break free. You know that you love Christ, but never able to get the energy, the purpose, the drive to actually perform the good works that Christ has prepared for you. It was in exactly such an occasion as that. That the prophet Jeremiah heard from the Lord.

Jeremiah who was an old testament prophet, who’s known as the weeping prophet. As he would bring his word to the people and over and over again they would deny him. And they would turn their backs to the promises of the Lord. We read in Jeremiah chapter 33 verse 1. That while Jeremiah was in prison, the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah a second time.

While he was still shut up in the court of the prison. And so with a guard at the cell door, Jeremiah heard from the Lord in his isolation, in his fear, in his anxiety. And the word of the Lord that came to Jeremiah was this, Call to me. Call to me. And I will answer you and I will show you great and mighty things that you do not know.

The first instruction that each of us as Christians has been given by the Lord. In order to accomplish the work that He has prepared for you, is that we are called upon to call upon Him. To humble ourselves and to prayerfully ask, father, what is it that you want me to do? I am willing to serve you. To Jeremiah, he said first, call upon me.

In the Hebrew language, there are only 2 tenses. The perfect and the imperfect tense. The perfect tense is for events that have been completed. The imperfect tense is for events that have not been completed. The Hebrew language is different than ours where we have past, present, and future.

For the Hebrew and especially for Jeremiah who is in prison, it was very important to him to know what tense God was using when he said call upon me. Was he using it in the perfect tense where God was acknowledging that was calling upon Him. Or was it the imperfect tense? Where Jeremiah was not calling upon Him. This is in the imperfect.

The Lord had called upon Jeremiah at least one other time. For the text tells us, the Lord spoke to Jeremiah a second time and Jeremiah had yet to do to complete what the Lord had asked him. He knew that he ought to call upon the Lord, but as of yet it was an incomplete act. As Christians, we know that we ought to pray and ask the Lord everyday, how will you use me? That is either a completed act each day or it is incomplete.

Would the Lord, for you today, say call upon me in the perfect or the imperfect tense? Today, have you called upon him? Abraham Lincoln once said, You can find any number of men who are willing to shed their last drop of blood. But it’s far more difficult to find drop of blood. But it’s far more difficult to find men who are willing to shed their first drop of blood.

We are far more willing to be used by the Lord once we see success than we are to begin a work that we are uncertain as to whether or not it will succeed. Call upon me today, says the Lord. Do not let the externals be the determining factor. Right now now? Why is it that so few Christians are willing to call upon the Lord now, today?

Not tomorrow and not simply to remember that there was a time I called upon the Lord last week or 5 years ago. Why is it so difficult for Christians to call on the Lord today, now? I am sure that it is simply because the great deceiver, Satan has whispered into your ear over and over again. Why waste your time? It doesn’t work.

Isn’t it true that you knocked once and the door wasn’t opened? Isn’t it true that you sought another time only to find silence? Isn’t it true that you wanted God’s answer to a prayer and it didn’t occur the way you planned? And so today you’re called upon to call upon the lord and immediately through our minds we say, but why? Does it really make a difference?

Discouragement is the odd shaped crowbar that Satan uses. And he’s able to tear and to twist his way into the most wonderful heart, to force it open. That they would become discouraged as Christians to call upon the lord. Jeremiah in prison was asked to call upon the lord. Later we read Jeremiah who tells us, you did come to me on the day that I called upon you.

That on the day that we call upon the lord, he will show us what it is that we must do for Him. Could it be so simple that even today you didn’t call upon Him? You didn’t ask Him, what is it that you want me to do? Call to me, He says, and I will answer you and I will show you great and mighty things that you know not. Why is it that we listen to the voice of Satan who says don’t call upon him?

When God in his word says call upon me, I will answer you. I will show you great and mighty things that you know not. Some 40 years ago, Clarence Jones, who was a preacher, played the trombone, was given some property in South America. He prayed and he determined that God wanted him to begin a radio station in Quito, Ecuador. Located on the very point of the equator as it would go through that country.

The state of the art of radio was very simple in those days and it was believed as a principle that the higher you went, the more difficult it was to transmit. And so he checked with all of the experts. Would Quito, Ecuador be a good place for a short wave radio station? All of the experts said that is the worst place to build a station and yet he called upon the Lord and the Lord kept persuading him to go to Ecuador and to begin this station. And so he went.

And they took a small room of technical equipment and on the day that the station began, they plugged in the equipment, they began to broadcast and something occurred on that day which no one had ever known about in all of the history of radio. It is now called the keto effect. For they learned on that day that actually the higher your transmitter, the greater the power and the greater the coverage. And so on that day when they plugged in HCJB in Quito, Ecuador, suddenly the power of that station was heard literally around the world in the city of Quito. The power was so great that coming out of springs and anything that was metal were sounds coming out of the air because of the power of that station.

Today, HCJB is heard over 95% of the surface of this earth. They broadcast in over 16 different languages and what is the founding text of HCJB? It is taken from the book of Jeremiah, chapter 33. Call to me and I will answer you and I will show you great and mighty things that you do not know. Why is it that you are still alive?

Is it? The Lord wants to show you great and mighty things in your life that you might accomplish the good deeds that he’s prepared for you from the beginning of time. Let us pray. Our God and our father, we are alive. We have heard your gospel.

Help us to not only believe, but in our believing to then call upon you. And to know that you will answer and that you will show us great and mighty things, which even right now we do not know. Help us to accomplish those tasks. Thank you for listening to a firm foundation presented by Princeton Ministries. This programming is supported by you, the listener.

You may go to our website, Princeton ministries.org, or send your donation to Princeton ministries post office box 2171, Princeton, New Jersey 0854 3. That’s Princeton Ministries, Post Office Box 2171, Princeton, New Jersey 0854 3. The Lord bless you, and doctor Smith looks forward to hearing from you.