A New Year's Eve Tradition

For two consecutive years now, after the clock passes midnight on December 31st, I have listened to one of my favorite audio files that I have stored on my computer. It's the recording that Dr. Bob Jones Jr. made on May 24, 1977 for Bob Jones University's 50th anniversary time capsule. Of course, the time capsule was opened in 2002, and the message was played during one of the evening sessions of that year's Bible Conference. Although I was living in Greenville at the time, I was working in the evenings for Southern Wesleyan University and was unable to attend the service that night. Yet I quickly downloaded the file from Sermonaudio.com and have listened to it countless times ever since.I guess that I like to hear Dr. Bob in the early hours of New Year's Day for a couple of different reasons. First of all, listening to him always reminds me of an important point in my life - a time when I was a freshman, sitting in the FMA and wondering what to think of BJU. More importantly though, his words in this particular message seem to be especially appropriate for closing a year of our past and commencing a year of our future. Some of Dr. Bob's very first words are, "Time is passing. One of the certainties of life is that we cannot last forever. And as we move on in time, it's well to recollect that we're in God's hands - that He's not only the God of today, He'll be the God of your day too when you hear this."For some reason, it seems like every time I listen to this specific message, something new always jumps out at me, even though I'm now well on my way to having the entire thing memorized. Today, the first morning of 2005, is no different. The following paragraph seems to echo with significance, and I feel compelled to rewind the file and listen to the statement over and over again: "Many new schools have started up in these recent years, but they're not like Bob Jones University. They say they want to be, but they want to leave out something. Either they leave out the discipline and the regulations, or they leave out the cultural atmosphere of the university and put in cheap, sorry music that's so characteristic of this day."

(Here's a link to Dr. Bob Jr.'s message.) http://www.sermonaudio.com/sermoninfo.asp?SID=670294022