Join us now for the chapel hour coming to you from the campus of Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina. Following the introduction by Dr. Bob Wood, our speaker will be Rev. James Bledsoe, pastor of Faithway Baptist Church in Greensboro, North Carolina. The title of his message is, A Time to Prepare. The text is from Proverbs chapter 24, verse 27. I can tell you that you're in for a treat in chapel today and tomorrow. Pastor James Bledsoe, who's pastor of the Faithway Baptist Church in Greensboro, North Carolina, is our speaker. He's become a very close friend of the school over the last few years. He grew up in Chapmanville, West Virginia, and the Lord called him to preach after he graduated from high school. And he went off to Tabernacle Baptist Bible College to be prepared to preach. And certainly you're familiar with that school. And from 1979 to 84, he was involved in planning two churches in West Virginia, Mount Calvary Baptist Church and Hilltop Baptist Church. From 84 to 90, he pastored the Faith Independent Baptist Church in Logan, West Virginia. Finally, after all those years, they let him out of West Virginia. And for the last 12 years, he's pastored the Faithway Baptist Church in Greensboro, North Carolina. He's a man that loves the Lord. He loves God's word and he loves God's people. He loves bringing people to Christ. He has had a background in counseling, so he's very concerned about the spiritual condition of the folks in his church and those that he meets. And I think he'll bless your heart very much. and delivering the Word of God to you today and tomorrow. You give him your utmost attention as he comes to us to preach. Brother Bledsoe. Good morning. It is my privilege to be here on campus at Bob Jones University. I'm very thankful, of course, for the ministries of this school and the staff, the faculty, the student body, the historical testimony of the school and its productivity and its products. Our church is greatly affected by Bob Jones University in that we have numerous folks in our church that are graduates, alumni, that are real assets to our ministry. They love the Lord. They get on board. They teach. They sing. They play. They just do it all. They're servants of God. I'm very thankful for their training that they receive here at Bob Jones University. It makes it easy for me to pastor sometimes. when they're trained well and do well and do right and they're on board. And it's just a wonderful privilege to be in the ministry of our Lord Jesus Christ, to pastor a church or to be a missionary or to be a schoolteacher or whatever God would have for you. I'm here to tell you after 30 years, it has been my privilege. If the Lord should take me home today, I would have to say thank you, Lord, for all those years of allowing a person like me to be part of serving you. And I pray that my service was rendered well. I pray that we honor and glorify Him. Today, I want to start a... I'm a pastor. Have you ever heard this? I want to start a series of messages. When I do that, there's some guys in my congregation who kind of roll their eyes and say, uh-oh, we're in for the long haul. I'll be here, Lord willing, tomorrow in chapel as well. I want to do a two-part message for you and try to encourage you. I'm sure there's times that we need to be encouraged. I want to edify you. We certainly need to be edified. I want to, most of all, exalt the Lord Jesus Christ. He is our Redeemer. He is our Savior. And so I want to give that a try, if I could, today with you, and you pray for us, and we'll pray for you. I'll be speaking from Ecclesiastes 3 momentarily, but let me read, if you're turning to Ecclesiastes 3, let me read Proverbs 24. If I might, Proverbs 24, 27, prepare thy work without, and make it fit for thyself in the field, and afterwards build thine house. I want to read that one more time if I might. Prepare thy work without, and make it fit for thyself in the field, and afterwards build thine house. That word prepare in Proverbs 24, 27 comes from a word that means to establish or to set stable, to be fixed, to be secure, to fix it aright, to do it the right way, to be steadfast, to make ready. And in that verse particularly, he's saying before you get to one point in life, Make sure you have the previous point all fixed. In other words, you establish yourself with priorities. You establish yourself where you are. You fix things aright as you are, where you are, when you are, before you ever assume the other. For instance, I use as a practical illustration. If a man was going to become a doctor, there's a lot of preparation goes into that. I mean, a lot of schooling, a lot of training. A lot of experience, etc., that goes into it. Well, he can't just get up one morning and say, I'm a doctor. I don't want to go to him if he gets up one morning. How'd you get to become a doctor? I just decided this morning I wanted to be a doctor. And all of a sudden, I am one. No, you won't hear that. And if you hear that, by the way, you're in the wrong office probably. But what I would do is say, hey, there's years of preparation before you'll ever get to that point. And, you know, God is good to us. When God designed and God decreed and God develops us, it is through a process of one event or one time or one season, one opportunity preparing us for other opportunities or greater opportunities on down the road that God has prepared for us as well. As a matter of fact, the idea of preparation is a biblical idea. It's theologically sound to think about preparation. And I know you're here. Many of you are here to prepare for life. No matter what field or what avenue you travel, you're preparing yourselves. You're preparing yourself spiritually. You're preparing yourself academically, socially, etc. You're making preparation, and you're fixing things aright. You're being a Proverbs 24, 27 believer, and you're preparing to work without before you consider the end or the house. Later, you're preparing the field. And even Jesus Christ, Before he began his earthly ministry, or his public earthly ministry, there was one sent forth to bear witness of the light. It was not the light, but he was bearing witness of the light, named John. He was the prophet that was prophesied that would prepare, or declare, that were to prepare the way of the Lord. Christ Himself spoke on preparation when He spoke in John chapter 14. I go to prepare a place for you. That wasn't a new concept. That's the way God has things designed. And Christ, of course, doing His Father's will and doing it perfectly, I might add, was teaching us that He's gone to prepare a way. And thank God He'll come again someday and receive us unto Himself. But everything's for preparation. You know, if you live, you're going to have some wonderful opportunities in life. Some of you are going to become husbands. I'm happily married, 28 years. I'm a husband. Some of you are going to become— you ladies, of course, will become wives, and you'll marry, and you'll bring forth children, and you'll be parents. You'll be parishioners in local churches all around the world. You'll be servants of God. You'll be propagators of the gospel of Christ. There's some wonderful opportunities in life. I love life. I love life. I don't think I really realized how much I love life until the doctor walked in one day after surgery, and it was supposed to be a minor surgery, and said, Pastor Bledsoe, we hate to inform you. Well, whoa, I hate for you to, if you hate it that much, I kind of hate for you to tell me. We hate to inform you you have a very rare type of cancer. It's called medullary carcinoma. It is familial. There is no treatment. There is no cure. The only thing we can have done is what we've done, and that is surgically remove that tumor. You know, after that, in days of recovery that would follow, I really had to sit down and do some evaluations about being prepared, not for heaven, but prepared for what life held for me from those days forward. That's certainly something I didn't sit down and plot when I was 18 and say, you know, I want to prepare for the day the doctor tells me I'm dying. But I am prepared to go home and be with the Lord. I'm saved. I'm a child of God, been saved for about 29 years, and thank God for every day of it. But that wasn't the issue. The issue was, what about my wife? The issue was, what about my son? The issue was, hey, what about my church? What about my people? Those became issues. And how to prepare people and prepare yourself. And all of a sudden, this thing called preparation. You know, the doctor says, you know, get your family situation in order. Get your wheels set up. Get your trust fund. Get all that set up. And if you don't have it already, get prepared and so forth. Well, those are sobering thoughts. I thank God for every day of life in this, that God in His Word gives us ample opportunities to prepare for life, godliness, and heaven. And He's a wonderful God for doing so, to prepare you for being a spouse, to prepare you for being a parent. And it's not frightening. As a matter of fact, preparation ought to do this to you. And I'm going to give you two basic theological truths today that ought to encourage your hearts. Because I'm sure, as I drove around the campus last night, things were kind of quiet. We went over to the fitness center, doing some walking, and things were kind of quiet. And, you know, I made a visit or two with some folk that we know that are in school here, and stopped by the rooms just to see if they were being God's kind of students, you know what I'm saying? And they were, and so we're thankful. But things were quieting down, and they were settling down. And I told Brother Lane, who's with me, I said, you know, I would be so lonely about this time of day, because I'm a homeboy. And I like when the sun goes down, I like to go down with it. And I like to know where I am when I go down. I like being home. And I said, you know, there has to be young people here that get homesick. There has to be people here that get discouraged. There has to be people here that need encouragement. But the reason I'm giving you a message of hope is because of what God is doing in your life supersedes any human emotion that would cause me to be distracted from what God is doing in my heart and life. And let me share those with you. In Ecclesiastes chapter 3, if we could, to everything there is a season and a time to every purpose under heaven. Then he begins to read, expound upon the seasons, the occurrences, the occasions, if you please, the opportunities. And I'm not going to read it, but I do want to go down to verse 14. I know that whatsoever God doeth, it shall be forever. Nothing can be put to it, nor anything taken from it. And God doeth it that men may fear Him. Obviously, in this pastor's scripture, the word time is used, I think, about 30 different times in 11 verses. 30 times God uses the word time. It is a word in the original language that means experiences, fortunes, occurrences, occasions. And we could put another synonym there and say opportunities that God gives us. Time, seasons, opportunities relating to man in about every aspect of life. a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant, a time to pluck up that which is planted, a time to kill, a time to heal, a time to break down, a time to build up, etc., etc., a time to weep, a time to rejoice, and on and on and on. Well, what is he saying? Well, he's saying, I want you to see this thing unfold about life. Because if he starts with birth and he ends with death and everything in between is encountered there, he labels those as occurrences and opportunities. that we could see God working, God's purpose in our life. And by the way, that's exactly what he's going to manifest here momentarily. That when he relates this everything, and he uses the phrase everything in verse 1, and he uses it down again in verse 11, I think it is, everything, he's saying these occurrences, these events, these opportunities, these places that you travel, these people you'll be with, this occasion in your life, this season in your life, is with God's divine direction, it's with God's divine providence. Now, understand what I'm saying here. These times are providentially established of God. I believe that with all my heart. It's appointed that the man, for instance, wants to die, Hebrews 9, 27. So just as sure as we're born, we're going to experience death, barring, of course, the coming of Christ and the resurrection. But he says everything's seasonal, everything's a time, everything's an opportunity, everything's an occurrence. And there are some opportunities in life that we frown upon. But, yea, they are still opportunities, and they remain opportunities. There are occasions in life that we frown upon, distasteful events. It was very distasteful to me when the doctor says, you have cancer. What was more distasteful is he says, there's no cure. What's more distasteful is he pat me on the shoulder and said, I'm sorry. Well, he wasn't any more sorry than I was. I guarantee you that. I'm the guy laying there. I'm the guy having to face tomorrow. That was very distasteful until I began to think about the occurrence of that in my life and the purpose behind what God was doing. And then the veil began to lift. And then the opportunity began to avail itself. And then the occurrence began to make sense. And then everything began to evolve in God's good purpose and God's good plan for my life. And we began to use that thing in a way that we believe was pleasing to God and to this day. And what I'm saying is this. God said in Isaiah 46, 9 and 10. Remember the former things of old, for I am God and there is none else. I am God. There's none like me, declaring the end from beginning from the ancient times of things which are yet done, saying, my counsel shall stand. And I will do all my pleasure, Psalm 136, 5, whatsoever the Lord please that did he in heaven and in earth, in the seas and in the deep places." You know, I'm convinced that the judge of all the earth will do right. That that occasion in my life had divine purpose to it by the divine providence of God. We'll get to that momentarily. But I had to come to that conclusion that God does all things well. And I use that as an illustration because that doesn't necessarily relate to being a student or whatever, but I'm just saying that that calamity to that extreme, if we could back off that and say, hey, at this time of my life, I'm a student at Bob Jones University. You know, I don't know what your motive was for coming or who sent you or whatever, but you're here. I mean, you're here. Now, the steps of a good man being ordered, but you're here, and you're here with God's blessing and God's providence, a faculty, a staff, a tremendous school that loves God, loves people, loves the ministry of Jesus Christ. And not just the ministry, but the fine arts and the other areas of life, the expertise in life. And we're very thankful for that, of course, but you're here. You know, it's not by accident. It's not by chance. Surely we don't take our faith and flip a coin and say, you know, heads, I'll do this today, and tails, I'll do this today. When James has very plainly taught us, Lord willing, we shall do thus and thus. So, Lord willing, we're all assembled in this chapel service today. Lord willing, we're hearing principles and truths of the Word of God. And that ought to be a real encouragement to you because here's the God of all, the Creator of all. that in His loving mercy and His loving grace, out of all the people in the world, He brought you into this place for such a time as this. That's God's good promise. What a wonderful encouragement that is to my heart. To know that the steps are order of the Lord, to know that I am where I am by God's direction, by God's desire, by God's design, and His blessings are upon His providence, obviously, and I'm here because of God. And what an opportunity, and here we go a step farther, what an opportunity to pursue Him. I mean, if He went to this extreme to bring you to this place for such a time as this, and you're here, and He's providing, and He's providing teachers and instruction and learning and opportunities for you, then, hold on a second, then let's look at the majesty of God like Isaiah did and said, hey, and His counsel shall stand forever. What a wonderful, wonderful God He is to love you just like that. You see, it was more than just forgiving you of your sins, wasn't it? God had a purpose in that. Through His providence, and He begins to work out that purpose. And His providence, by the way, is in accordance to His wisdom. Pastor, why did you have cancer? According to His wisdom. God knows what He's doing. The Lord knoweth them that are His. God knows exactly what He's doing. You know, and I have to get to the point where I see God as knowing what He's doing, trusting God in His omnipotence, trusting God in His omniscience, trusting Him as God, and rejoicing in the fact that God, out of all the people in the world, God, You love me. Out of all the people in the world that could be redeemed, God, You redeemed me. Out of all the people in the world that could be at this place at this time, God, You brought me to this place to prepare for life. Lord, to be that Proverbs 24, 27 individual. Lord, to help me prepare the work without and make it fit for Thyself in the field. And afterwards, build Thy house. Afterwards, in other words, there's more to this than just working in the field. There's more to this than just preparing in the field. Obviously, Ecclesiastes chapter 3, there's more than birth. There's more than death. There's more than mourning. There's rejoicing. There's more than gathering together. There's a time to cast away. There's more to it than just that. Obviously, what a wonderful God He is to bring you into this place to prepare for that. What a wonderful opportunity. Let me encourage you with that. Could I please? That you're not here by accident. There's a God in heaven who's in control. Now, I don't know what your motives were for coming. I trust they were good and pure and right before the Lord, but maybe. But you're here, and that's wonderful. Now, let's get to the next. Okay, pastor, you convinced us. I pinched myself. I'm really here. I'm sitting right here in this front row. I'm here. You got me. All right, you're here by the grace of God, I might add. Not by chance. We didn't flip a coin and get here. You know, we didn't get in a closet and wait for a good feeling to come over us and say, OK, Bob Jones is it. You know, if the first two letters I roll up on Paradise is B.J., I know I'll go to Bob Jones. We didn't do that. We trust that God brought you here for such a time as this. Now, wait. As a student then, he says in verse 14 of Cleanse Essays 3, I know that whatsoever God doeth, it shall be forever. Nothing can be put to it nor anything taken from it. God doeth it that men may fear him. In other words, God had a purpose in working out His providence in your life to this point, to point you to that house that you're going to be prepared to build, or that career, or that opportunity that avails itself on tomorrow. God did that. Now, you believe that pattern? Well, sure. Listen to this. Very familiar passage of Scripture. Romans 8, 28, and 29, of course. And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them that are called according to His purpose. For whom He did foreknow, He did also predestinate to conform to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren." In other words, God's purposing in your life through His providence, His wisdom, bringing it into your life to do what? To conform every individual in this room that names the name of Christ, into the image of Jesus Christ. Here we go, preparing for what? Preparing for life, preparing for God, preparing for eternity. Now, the practical truth of that is this. Knowing that God doeth all things well, and knowing we do it according to God's purpose, then that causes me as an individual, listen, here's the practicality of that, to be more assertive with my faith. It caused me to be more aggressive in what God has me to be in. In other words, now I'm a student. I'm a student on purpose. So now when I walk into that classroom, I'm not just going to nod through the session. I'm in here aggressively learning and growing and changing and developing and preparing the field that then I may build the house. This is after the order of Proverbs 24 and 27. So I'm aggressive. It also caused me to anticipate tomorrow. I look forward to tomorrow. Now, what does tomorrow hold? I've got no idea, but I do know who holds tomorrow, don't I? But it caused me to anticipate. As I build today, as I prepare today, it causes me aggressively to participate. It caused me to be more assertive in my participation, but it also caused me to anticipate the next phase. For instance, a time to plant. Well, you know, I've worked a few gardens. I'm not a farmer, but I worked a few gardens back in West Virginia. My dad, when you went to the garden with my dad, you stayed the day. But you know what? It wasn't any fun hoeing corn or hoeing the garden. I'll tell you what was fun when we began to gather it in and we had mom fix it all up. You know what I'm saying by fix it? That's a southern term for a cook. to cook it, put it on the table, and boy, could she ever cook. And boy, to know that there's those tomatoes, there's that corn, there's those potatoes. And boy, I didn't enjoy the sun, I didn't enjoy the heat. That was one of those seasonal things. But now I've entered into this season, and I anticipate that. And that's exactly, as believers, how we ought to be. We ought to anticipate, since we know where we are by the providence of God, by the purpose of God, we ought to anticipate what God is doing in our lives today to prepare us for tomorrow. Isn't that a wonderful truth, by the way? You know what I can do? I can go back to that classroom, I can open up that book and say, hey, I'm here. Let's go. All right. OK, so I'm struggling with English. I know no one in here would, but I would have. I'm struggling in English. I'm struggling with accounting. I'm struggling in maybe one of the ministerial classes. I'm struggling. OK, let's get in here. We're here on purpose. This isn't an accident. I'm here by the providence of God. God's got a purpose in my life. Help me to participate in an aggressive way. Help me to be assertive with this. Help me to anticipate what God is doing. Help me to be aggressive about this, that I might be the kind of student in this season in my life, in preparation for the house, help me to be the kind of student that God would have me to be, that I might glorify Him according to His good purpose. Those are wonderful basic truths. that would pick the lowest of the low up out of the valley. I'm telling you, when I get to thinking about things, humanly speaking, and I look around and I see all the discouraging things and all the things I get distraught about, please, Lord, please, first of all, I'm here by your grace. Secondly, God, according to your grace and your mercy, I have a purpose for being here. Lord, with that purpose, help me to participate Help me anticipate what you're going to do through this. After all, God, you did say that all things work together for good to them that love you, to them that are called according to your purpose. You did say that, Lord, in this you're conforming me to Christ's likeness. And, Lord, I trust you with that, and I thank you for it, and I praise you for that. Why? Because, Lord, there is so much in life that I find distasteful, but yet, God, Even in those areas, even in those places, God, You use those to develop me to prepare for life today and, yea, God, even tomorrow. What a wonderful God we have to know that our lives are in His hands. It's as though He's the potter and we're the clay. Isn't that wonderful? Who would you rather trust your life to than Him? I've met a lot of great folk in 28 years of ministry. But you know, I've never met anyone that even compares to the greatness of my God. I've met a lot of men I can have confidence in, but I can never have any more confidence in any man I've ever met than I have in my God, to know that all things work together for good. And I trust before we pray, I trust that you go out of here and you'll say, hey, I'm going to look to Him. I'm going to be assertive. I'm going to anticipate what He's doing. I'm going to be aggressive. Why? Because this is according to the good purpose of a holy, righteous God. Father in Heaven, thank You so much for Your goodness. Thank You for Your grace. Thank You for Your love. I pray, Heavenly Father, that the words that were spoken today would edify the believer. Encourage them, O God, I pray, I pray that exaltation of Christ was manifested, that we would look to Him, the author, the finisher of our faith. We would trust in Him. I pray that you'll bless these students. Give them wisdom, O God. Give them grace for the day. Help them to see the season that they're in, to be real, to be realistic, and to be theologically theocentric, that they might glorify You. O God, please, we pray for mercy and blessings and favor. We love You today. because you first loved us. In Christ's beloved name we pray. Amen. You've been listening to the Chapel Hour coming to you from the campus of Bob Jones University. Our speaker was Reverend James Bledsoe, pastor of Faithway Baptist Church in Greensboro, North Carolina. For a cassette copy of today's message, send a check for $5.13 to Campus Store, Bob Jones University, Greenville, South Carolina 29614. Be sure to mention the name of the speaker and today's date. The Chapel Hour has been sponsored by Bob Jones University.