Isaiah 52:12 NIV

12 But you will not leave in haste or go in flight; for the LORD will go before you, the God of Israel will be your rear guard. 

Security from Yesterday… “the God of Israel will be your rear guard...”

Ecclesiastes 3:14-15 NIV

14 I know that everything God does will endure forever; nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it. God does it so that men will revere him.

15 Whatever is has already been, and what will be has been before; and God will call the past to account.

• At the end of the year we turn with eagerness to all that God has for the future, and yet anxiety arises from remembering the yesterdays…
• Our present enjoyment of God’s grace is scarred by the memory of yesterday’s sins and blunders.
• But God is the God of our yesterdays, and He allows the memory of them in order to turn the past into a ministry of spiritual culture for the future. God reminds us of the past to prevent us from getting into a shallow security in the present.

Security for To-morrow… “For the Lord will go before you.”

• This is a gracious revelation—that God will go before us into our future...
• He will watch to prevent things from tripping us up again…

Security for Today... “But you will not leave in haste or go in flight...”

• As we go into the coming year, may we remember what God has done…
• Our yesterdays present irreparable things to us; it is true that we have lost opportunities which will never return, but God can transform destructive behavior into something good for the future…

CONLUSION

Leave the Irreparable Past in His hands, and step out into the Irresistible Future with Him.