Fearless Living in Fearful Times

Introduction

And I’m going to talk to you tonight about trusting God. That’s what the lesson is going to be about. And I want to begin by talking about fear, because fear is the big problem that we have, and fear is often opposed to trust. I’m going to begin by talking some about the destruction of Jerusalem. If you look in your Bible in Luke chapter 21, Jesus had a great deal to say about the destruction of Jerusalem. And he talked about the awful things that would accompany that destruction. Here’s what he said in Luke 21, verses 10 and 11. He said to the disciples, nation will rise against nation, kingdom against kingdom, there will be great earthquakes in various places and famines and pestilences, and there will be fearful sights and great signs from heaven.

He talked about the pressure that will come upon disciples and how that they would maybe be tempted to turn away from the Lord because of the persecution that would come. And so the Lord, in the midst of this discourse, and that which you find in Matthew chapter 24, the Lord urged his disciples to be faithful to him. But notice this verse, verse 26. He said it would be characterized by a time when men’s hearts would fail them from fear, and the expectation of those things which are coming on the earth, for the powers of heaven will be shaken. I want you to notice that language there. It says men’s hearts would fail them from fear and the expectation of those things that are coming upon the earth.

Now, ladies and gentlemen, the things concerning the destruction of Jerusalem were fulfilled exactly as Jesus said. It was the year 70 AD when the Romans came against the city and overran the city, and thousands upon thousands of Jews were killed at that time by the Roman armies. The Jewish historian Josephus, who was present after the destruction of Jerusalem, describes in vivid and graphic detail the awful things that came upon the people of Jerusalem at that time. Now let me say, and I’m going to say this twice. Jesus, when he spoke these words, men’s hearts failing them from fear, he was not speaking of our time. This was a prophecy of the destruction in Jerusalem. The Lord was not talking about our time. And yet, when you look at this text here, you can see at least a parallel with these words in verse 26.

Ladies and gentlemen, we live in fearful times. Men are more frightened today than at any time in recent history. In addition to the terrorist attacks on September the 11th, we’ve seen a number of other things. We’ve had the Mad Cow scare, the anthrax scare, we’ve had the Columbia shuttle disaster where it’s rained down debris over Texas. We have American troops at war on foreign soil. We have what, in uh Ohio in the last several months, there was a three-way shooter a little over a year ago, a year and a half ago, we had someone in the Washington, D.C. area killing people on almost a daily basis. We indeed do live in fearful times. And many people wonder what’s happened in our world. The world is very different than it used to be.

Fear is one of the most powerful emotions that human beings have, and it can often cause us to do things that are contrary to our own best interest. When we were very young, we had very few fears. We didn’t fear the stock market falling when we were little toddlers. We didn’t worry about growing old, we didn’t think about loneliness, we didn’t worry about poor health, the loss of a job. We didn’t think about death, we weren’t worried about eternity. Oh, we may have been afraid of the dark, we may have been afraid of the big dog down the block, but our fears were limited. Even as late as the summer of 2001, our fears were limited to lesser things. But the time in which we now live is very different.

Our world today is not the same world that we woke up to just three years ago. And yet, whether before or after September the 11th, the issue and the problem is still the same. It has to do with our relationship with God. You see, in our culture today, we have lost the fear of God. The fear of God has been lost among many of our national leaders. It’s been lost in many homes, and indeed, ladies and gentlemen, the fear of the Lord has been lost in many churches and in the hearts even of many who are God’s children, Christians. And as a result of losing the fear of God, we fear almost everything. We’re afraid of the dark, we’re afraid of noises in the night, we’re afraid for the economy, we’re afraid for our health, we’re afraid for the future, we’re afraid of almost everything.

You see, the rule is you either fear God or you will fear everything else. And that’s what’s happened in our nation today. And yet our God makes a promise to us, a promise that many people are not aware of. Notice this text with me in the book of Pro Proverbs, chapter 3, verses 25 and 26. It says, Do not be afraid of sudden terror nor of trouble from the wicked when it comes, for the Lord will be your confidence and will keep your foot from being caught. Their God makes a promise to his people, to those who trust in Him, to those who follow Him, that they do not have to be afraid of what may happen. According to this verse, then I think we can conclude that it is possible for us to have fearless living in fearful times.

1. We Fear for Our Lives

But what kind of time what kind of things do we fear in our time? Well, let me suggest four things in the course of our introduction tonight. First of all, we fear for our lives. We ha we live in fear of death. That’s why some people are even afl are afraid to fly on airplanes. I’m not going to mention David Banning, okay?

I flew to uh to South Africa last September, just a couple of weeks after David moved to Beaumont. And uh we said, you know, David, on our next trip to South Africa and Zimbabwe, we’d sure like for you to go. He said, I’ll sure be glad to go, as soon as they had built a bridge across the Atlantic Ocean. Just weeks after September the 11th, it was Thanksgiving week, I believe, there was another plane crash in New York City. And there were people who thought maybe the terrorist attacks had begun again. But this time it was mechanical failure or something like that. But I remember on CNN, they interviewed several people there in that neighborhood, and one lady said, You know, I’ve been a frequent flyer all of my life.

I fly on my on my my job. My business requires that. But she said, I will never get on an airplane again because I’m so afraid of dying. But folks, you can stay off of airplanes, but that won’t deal with the problem because you’re going to die whether you get on airplanes or not. Notice this passage, Hebrews 9, verse 27. It is appointed for men to die once, but after this, the judgment. We’re all going to die. And then the passage in Ecclesiastes chapter 8 and verse 8, it says, No one has power in the day of death. There is no release from that war. The King James Version says there is no discharge from that war. You see, everybody dies on the battlefield. We all have to face death.

2. Fear of Losing Our Health

And yet our God, our God does not want us to live in constant fear of death. And yet, so many people, well, what do they do? They are so afraid of death that they try to act like it won’t happen to them. We are a death denying culture. And yet events like September 11th, events like the DC sniper make it very hard, very hard for us to ignore death. Then there’s a second fear that we have, and that is fear of losing our health. And of course, that’s much like the prior fear. Loss of health can lead to loss of life. The anthrax scare struck terror in the hearts of millions of Americans and made them afraid to go to their own mailbox. When King Hezekiah was sick, Isaiah told him he was going to die.

Look at this text in 2 Kings chapter 20, beginning at verse number 1. In those days, Hezekiah was sick and near death, and Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amos, went to him and said, Thus says the Lord, set your house in order for you shall die and not live. Then he turned his face toward the wall and prayed to the Lord, saying, Remember now, O Lord, I pray how I have walked before you in truth and with a loyal heart and have done what was good in your sight, and Hezekiah wept bitterly. Now, ladies and gentlemen, Hezekiah was a man of faith. He was a man of God, he was a good man, and yet still he was consumed in bitter sadness over the fact that he was going to die.

I don’t necessarily believe that he was weak because of that. Now you know that God heard his prayer and extended his life for 15 more years, and the sickness was gone. And yet there’s the possibility that a person, that a person might live a long, long time with an ill illness. That’s another fear that we have. Being chronically ill, getting getting some illness maybe when I’m 60 years old, and I’m going to live with this and be incapacitated for the next 15, 20 or 25 years. That too is a very real fear. Cases like that have always been with us. Notice this text in Luke chapter 8, verse 43. It speaks of a woman having a flow of blood for twelve years, who had spent all of her livelihood on physicians and could not be healed by any.

I know people today who’ve been going to doctors for years and they’ve spent thousands upon thousands of dollars, and still the doctors have not been able to cure their illness. It’s not a new thing, is it? It’s always been there. Notice this passage in John chapter 5, verses 5 and 6. There was a certain man who was there who had an infirmity 38 years. And when Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been in that condition for a long time, he said to him, Do you want to be made well? Of course he wanted to be made well. But you see, there’s the possibility that we could contract an illness like this. And for 12 years, for 38 years, we could be the one who suffers with something like this.

3. Fears Related to Money

But for most of us, for most of us, we’re not going to have a long term illness. And yet we worry about those kind of things, and so much so that it’s often the case that we can’t enjoy the good health that we have for fear that we’re going to lose it. I know of one person who every time, every time he gets a headache, he is sure that it’s a brain tumor. And there are people like that who really, really worry. They lay awake at night worrying about their health when basically their health is pretty good. And so we have a fear for our lives, fear of death, and a fear of losing their health. But here’s the third fear. Fears related to money. Losing our money.

But most of our fears involve loss, don’t they? Loss of health, loss of life, loss of our money. And if listen, if you’ve been in the Nasdaq stock market for the last four years, and wow, in the last 12 months, we’ve seen a really good recovery. It’s nowhere near where it was four years ago. Four years ago this time, the Nasdaq stock market was at 5100 points. And today it’s somewhere around 2,000 or maybe 2100. If you had your money invested in the Nasdaq four years ago in mutual funds, and uh you had fifty-one thousand dollars, you can just about count on the fact that you’ve lost thirty thousand of it. You’ve lost sixty percent of it. Today you’ve maybe got twenty thousand. We fear losing our money, don’t we?

And listen, folks, money is not stable. Notice this text in 1 Timothy chapter 6, verse 17. Here, Paul says to Timothy, Command those who are rich in this present age not to be haughty, nor to trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God who gives us all things richly to enjoy. Did you see right in the middle of the verse? It says, not to trust in uncertain riches. And it doesn’t make any difference how much money you may have. It can all be lost. You know, sooner or later. You’re either going to lose your money or your money is going to lose you. That is, you’ll leave your money behind, because, as one person said, nobody takes it with them. And yet, how many people are trusting in wealth and trusting in money?

And you don’t have to be a multimillionaire in order to trust in money. There are people who have only a little bit. And yet their life is tied up in that little bit and keeping that little bit and not spending it because that is their security. In fact, for some people, it becomes their God. You see, the text here is telling us to trust in the living God. It says not to trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God. God is certain, sure, stable, unchanging, and safe. Money is not. I remember several years ago, it was on the old Johnny Carson show. This has been, my it’s been 25 years or maybe maybe close to 30 years ago. There was a preacher on one night, and I don’t remember why they had a preacher on, but there was this other fellow who was a lot sharper dresser than the preacher was.

And uh Johnny had interviewed this one fellow, and then this preacher came on, and they were talking about God, and there was some controversy going on in the country at that time. I don’t remember what it was. But anyway, uh this preacher is uh is making some comments about God, and this other fellow who had already uh spoken, who was sitting next to him, spoke up and said, You want to see God? He said, I’ll show you God tonight. And he reaches inside and pulls out a wad of bills. He says, This is God. This is where strength is, this is power, this is security. You know what? There were a lot of men in 1929, when the great stock market crash happened on that Black Friday.

4. Fear of the Future

There were a lot of men who trusted in that God on that day. And men in New York City on Wall Street, who were jumping out of 20, 30, and 40 story buildings to their death. You know why they did that, ladies and gentlemen? Because their God had just died when the stock market crashed. Listen, that’s not where you put your trust. And yet we have fears. We have fears about things like that, don’t we? And then this fear of the future. And maybe that’s really the sum of all of our fears. You see, we don’t know what the future holds. Will it be good or will it be bad? Will I lose my health? Will I lose my money? Will I lose my life? Will there be more disasters, more terrorist attacks down the line?

The future is a place we’ve never been before. It involves the unknown, and we cannot see tomorrow. Proverbs chapter 27 and verse 1 says, Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a what a day may bring forth. Who on that Monday, September the 10th, could have imagined what would have happened on September the 11th. And how many people have had some tragedy that immediately and suddenly without warning strikes them. You don’t know what a day will bring forth. The world could end by this time tomorrow. Do you realize that? And yet we think, oh, well, I’ve got my future sort of planned out. I know what I want to do. Well, I know what I want to do also, but I may not be able to do that because we can’t boast about tomorrow.

The Lord may come back, the world may end, my life may end by this time tomorrow. And I need to be prepared to meet God, if indeed that is the case. No, do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring forth. Again, fear of the future, you see, comes right back to the fear of death. We fear that we might, we might be like the man that you read about in Luke chapter 12. Remember this man, this man that says, I will say to my soul, so you have many goods laid up for many years. Now remember, this is the fellow who had who had the big barns, and he yet he had so many, so many things, so much stuff, that he had to tear down the barns and build bigger barns still, and that’s when he says, Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years.

Take your ease, eat, drink, and be merry. And the man looks at his life and says, I’ve got it made. Finally, I am where I want to be. And yet the next verse says, Fool. God said to him, Fool, this night your soul will be required of you. Then who will those things be which you have provided? You know, ladies and gentlemen, I am glad that God called this man a fool. Because we tend to call this man a success. Here’s the man who had the big barns, and yet he had so much stuff. He had to build bigger barns still. We look at him and we admire him and say, I’d give anything to trade places with him. No, no, not when his soul was required of him.

You wouldn’t want to trade places with him. This man is not a success. This man was not rich toward God. He was rich in the ways of this world. He had amassed a great fortune, but he had nothing as far as God was concerned. And then he lost his life, and he lost everything when he died, including his soul. Yes, we fear the future, don’t we? Many people fear aging as they fear the future. I’ll tell you one thing you can know if the world stands until this time tomorrow, and you live until then, you will be another day older. We hear people say, Well, I’m not getting any younger, you know. Well, nobody is. We’re all getting older. That’s what life is about. Aging is certain until we die.

And we we fear a hundred things about the future. Things over which we have no control, and yet we allow these fears and warriors to control us. I often wake up in the middle of the night. Sometimes two, three o’clock, and I lay there and I think about my work that I’m doing. I pray, and I think, well, let me just check and see if anything has happened in the middle of the night. And so I have the remote there next to my bed and I turn on the television at three o’clock in the morning. Do you know what you see? At three o’clock in the morning, you go from channel to channel. It’s almost all infomercials. And psychics. Psychic Ron. I like psychic Ron. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen him.

Psychic Ron begins his field by saying, Are you tired of talking to phony psychics? Well, Ron, I thought that’s the only kind there were. You can talk to psychic Ron, who’s a real psychic, and he’ll solve your problems. Or, or a year ago, there was this lady who was really popular, Miss Cleo. Had a strong Jamaican accent. How many of you saw Miss Cleo? You know you don’t see her anymore, not right now, at least. Miss Cleo has the answers. And I can’t use the I’m not going to try to imitate the Jamaican accent. But you have love problems, Miss Cleo has the answer. You have family problems, Miss Cleo has the answer. You have money problems, Miss Cleo has the answer. You have job problems, Miss Cleo has the answer.

Now it was about seven months ago that Miss Cleo was arrested and charged with fraud and federal racketeering. She should have had the answer on that too. She should have known that that was coming. But you see, here’s the deal. Folks, let me tell you why the psychics are so popular in our time. It’s because people have turned away from the book of God. They’ve not listened to God’s word. They’ve not trusted in God, and so they’re afraid of everything. They’re afraid about all the relationships in life. They’re afraid about their money. They’re afraid about their family. They’re afraid about their job. They’re afraid about their country. And since there’s no trust in God, then we have to turn to phonies.

And you know, here’s one that says, here’s one that says you get 30 minutes free when you sign up with so and so. 30 minutes free psychic time. You think, you think. Wow, that sounds great. Yeah, you get 30 minutes free, and the way that works is either two minutes a call or three minutes a call, but then you have to have, you have to talk 10 more minutes after you get your first three minutes, and by the time you’ve made 10 calls, yeah, you’ve got 30 minutes free, but you’ve also got a hundred minutes that you’ve had to pay for at four or five dollars a minute. That’s four or five hundred dollars they’ve got out of you. That’s what people are willing to do when they don’t trust in God.

They’re willing to pay frauds, charlatans, and phonies. Five dollars a minute. You think about that. Well, that’s the kind of world we live in today. You see, we are in fearful times, and people have all these fears, but what’s the answer? Is it really possible for us to have fearless living in such fearful times? I believe that it is possible to live without being consumed with fear. That, ladies and gentlemen, is what our relationship with God is all about. Ultimately, though, there is only one thing that will set us free, and that is that the Lord must rule and guard our hearts. If you’re living in constant fear tonight, there’s an answer to that problem. God must take charge of your life. God must rule your heart and guard your heart.

Notice this text with me in Philippians chapter 4, verses 5, 6, and 7. Let your gentleness be known to all men. The Lord is at hand. Be anxious for nothing, but in everything, by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your request be made known to God, and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. Ladies and gentlemen, I believe that this text, these three verses, has the answer to the fear problem that we face today. We do not have to be filled with anxiety about the future or about anything. When my daughter Jennifer was very young, she today is 34 years old. But when she was very young, when she was four years old, any danger that arose, anything that went bump in the night, anything that might have been an occasion of fear, everything would be okay as long as Daddy was there.

You see, she knew that Daddy could fix whatever was wrong. He could solve any problem that came up. At least that’s what she believed. And here’s my point that if a little girl in her limited understanding can have that much faith in her in her Father who has all sorts of limitations, how much more faith should we have in the living God who has no limitations whatever. You see, tonight’s lesson, ladies and gentlemen, is a lesson on trust and trust in God. And what I’m suggesting, no, what the Bible is teaching is that if we trust in God, we do not have to have hearts that are filled with fear and anxiety. Read the text again. Let your gentleness be known to all men. The Lord is at hand.

5. Obedience: I Must Be Obedient to Christ

Be anxious for nothing. That word anxious means to be filled with worry and to stew over things, to fret, to be so concerned, filled with anxiety, be anxious for nothing. But in everything, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your request be made known to God, and the peace of God which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. I want to talk about six factors relative to this passage. And then the lesson is yours. Six passages or six factors that relate to the peace of God about how he rules and guards my heart. And the first thing I’m going to talk about is obedience. Notice that this is something that is done through Jesus Christ our Lord. I must be obedient to Christ.

Hebrews chapter 5 and verse 9. You know the text as well as I do. The verse begins, actually, the thought begins in the prior text that though Jesus were a son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered, and being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation to all them that obey him. Notice what it said. He is the author of eternal salvation to all them that obey him. Jesus said this in Luke chapter 6 and verse 46. He said, Why do you call me Lord, Lord, and then not do the things which I say? If tonight you want peace from God, you’ve got to obey Jesus Christ. You’ve got to have a relationship with God through him. And if you’re trying to have peace with God any other way, friend, it will not work.

You might deceive yourself into having some kind of false peace, some kind of phony contentment, but you’re not going to have the peace of God that passes all understanding. Anything less than than obedience to Christ is an attempt to deceive myself.

6. Trust in the Lord With All Your Heart

Be anxious for nothing. Don’t be filled with fear. Why not? Because God is going to take care of you. We sing that song. God will take care of you. And then we walk out of the church building afraid of everything. We don’t have to be afraid. Someone says, But what if you die? Lee and I are going to be getting on an airplane tomorrow. Brother Harkrider is flying to Huntsville, flying to Birmingham than on the Huntsville tomorrow. You may be flying on an airplane too tomorrow. What if that plane, what if it’s one of those that doesn’t make it? You know what? If you’re a Christian and you’re living before the Lord in humility and love and sacrifice, you’re doing the will of God. And you die tomorrow, you go to heaven.

You go to heaven. You know, Bob and I were talking earlier this week about people who say, Well, uh, talk about growing old. They said, but it’s better than the alternative. Well, what’s the alternative to growing old? It’s dying. No, folks, the alternative for us is better. Dying is better than living. Are we eager to die? Are we eager to die tonight? I’m not eager to die tonight. I have four grandchildren, one that just became a teenager last week. I have a little little granddaughter, four years old. I want to see them grow up into adulthood. I want to see those children while one of them has already obeyed the gospel. I’ve got three grandchildren who haven’t yet. And they hopefully they will in the next eight to ten years.

I want to see them finish high school. I want to see them grow into adulthood to go to college. I want to see what kind of people they marry. I want to see my great grandchildren if I can. I’m not eager to die tonight. I want to live out the rest of my life with my wife. If she lives another twenty years, I’d like to be at her side. I’m not eager to die tonight, but I’m ready. And if I die tonight, or if I die tomorrow, I go home to be with God in heaven. Folks, we don’t have to fear what may happen to us. When we were in Zimbabwe two and a half years ago, the condition in Zimbabwe is terrible. There are roadblocks set up on the highways where gangsters and terrorists hijack cars.

They’ll pull people out of the cars. If there’s any women in the cars, they rape the women before they murder them. They always murder all the men. Then they take the cars and do whatever they’re going to do with them. We saw some terrible sights while we were in Zimbabwe. It’s a lawless country. There’s so many things we can say about that. But I had people ask me when we got back, well, weren’t you afraid? Listen, I wasn’t going to live my life in fear. Why in the world would I want to do that? If you trust in God, why do you have to live a life in fear? Look in your Bible in Proverbs chapter 3, verses 5 and 6. It begins with the word trust.

Trust on the Lord with all your heart. Lean not to your own understanding, and all your ways acknowledge him, and he will direct your path. That, ladies and gentlemen, is a verse for all seasons. I have used that text at weddings. I’ve used that text at funerals. When a child is born or someone is sick in the hospital. I’ve talked to the parents or to the to a spouse. Trust in the Lord with all your heart. That’s a passage for all seasons, you see. That’s what we do. And when we have that kind of trust in God, we don’t need to be filled with anxiety. We don’t need to live in constant fear of what may happen in the future. And then I need, I need to acknowledge God’s care.

You see, here the text says, Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving. Let your requests be made known to God. Listen, whether you’re a pub Republican or Democrat, whether there’s a Republican in the White House or a Democrat in the White House, it’s going to be mighty hard for you to get an audience with who’s in the White House. Mister, I’ll tell you just about it’s almost impossible. And are they going to care about you personally? Or are they going to say, Oh,