This is the year of our Lord, 1965. It has come upon the earth, in spite of the worldling’s vain attempts to obliterate the knowledge of this fact from his mind. Naturally, he desires to have no cognizance of such a thing as that! The fact that he has come through another year, in reality, means that he has participated, for one more such span of time, in “vanity and vexation of spirit” to the hilt. And now he has to be reminded of that once more, not only, but also that another year hastens upon him at the departing of the old! His key? False merriment and drunken oblivion.

We repeat: This is the year of our Lord, 1965. When you take such a designation upon your lips, youthful saint, you indeed make a confession. You, as a child of our God, do. It is not so that you here make confession simply by using these words without care, of course. But, is that the way in which you use words and especially those that involve the King of the whole earth? We think not.

That year is upon us. And, you know, it seems filled to the brim with uncertainties and the fear-instilling unknown. But what a mighty confidence you set forth when you actively and meaningfully call it the year of our Lord! No, not now in the sense commonly employed to denote a given span after the birth of Jesus. There, too, of course, we have the expression and confession that He Has Come! But as Christian youth we should and do consider that this year in all of its scope belongs to and is of the Lord. The covenant youth of the Church of Christ Jesus should reckon, in this connection and to the peace of their souls, that the Lord our God is the absolutely Sovereign One, Who works His Work in the earth for His sake and to that end for the everlasting good of His children. Always He does that. Always He governs all things for the sure gathering of His chosen, His Church. And if you, in your contemplation of the future, think that you can conceive of an event that would not answer to that purpose for His Church in the midst of the world, you may be sure that such an event shall never transpire.

The sanctified heart of the Psalmist understood this and whether in faithful anticipation or in joyous retrospect, he glories in the truth: “Thou crownest the year with thy goodness…” (Psalm 65:11a). Humble trust in the Lord is certainly one trait evinced by the saint, the youthful saint also, as together we traverse this weary scene with our God. It is important to remember this, covenant youth, as we embark upon the seas of this new year.

In love and with limitless power, our sovereign God, working all things from the beginning according to HIS PURPOSE, cares for you. Do you believe that? Do you KNOW that in the experience of your soul? Do you, as you look forward into this year, rest in the beautiful assurance given to the Zion of God in Isaiah 50:16 where your God comforts: “Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands; thy walls are continually before me.”?

We mentioned earlier that this year, even the year of our Lord-1965, seems to be filled with uncertainties and unknowns. What a list we think we could compile! But this is not, in reality, so at all. For ALL things are known and purposed by our God and even though we experience betimes the reality spoken of in Isaiah 55:9 and in our flesh struggle with the truth: “…as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts”, we also most assuredly shall experience, in a life of trust and consecration to our God in 1965 as in the past, the blessedness: “…ye shall go out with joy and be led forth with peace.”

Because the absolutely Sovereign God so speaks to you, all terror and anxiety is utterly banished from your soul.

May God so bless you as soldiers of His Cross, who, though young, manfully engage in the battles of the militant Church throughout this year, 1965.