Hope For The Future

HOPE FOR THE FUTURE

Introduction:

1. Have you ever noticed that man and women who do not know and trust God have an innate fear of the future?

2. Do you doubt me?

3. WHERE WERE YOU AT 11:58 P.M. on December 31, 1999? What was going through your mind? Was your heart beating just a little fast? Were your palms sweating? Were you concerned about what would happen in the next two minutes?

4. Were you worried about the future?

5. That’s a date many will never forget.

6. So many were so worried about Y2K? Computer clocks were programmed through 1999.

7. People were afraid the power grid would fail and planes would fall out of the sky and the streets would be filled with violence.

8. People were stockpiling food, water and ammunition.

9. Just two minutes later thousands of people were thinking,

“I wonder if Home Depot will take back the generator?”

10. What in the world am I going to do with all that freeze-dried food?

11. And the cases of canned spam. Who’s going to eat that stuff?

12. And when we look back on it now, some feel just a little silly about being so uptight, don’t we.

13. Illustration: Maybe some need to fear the future

The following is seen in a Florida newspaper: A man was working on his motorcycle on his patio and his wife was in the house in the kitchen. The man was racing the engine on the motorcycle and somehow, the motorcycle slipped into gear. The man, still holding the handlebars, was dragged through a glass patio door and along with the motorcycle dumped onto the floor inside the house.

The wife, hearing the crash, ran into the dining room, and found her husband laying on the floor, cut and bleeding, the motorcycle laying next to him and the patio door shattered. The wife ran to the phone and summoned an ambulance.

Because they lived on a fairly large hill, the wife went down the several flights of long steps to the street to direct the paramedics to her husband. After the ambulance arrived and transported the husband to the hospital, the wife up-rights the motorcycle and pushed it outside.

Seeing that gas had spilled on the floor, the wife obtained some papers towels, blotted up the gasoline, and threw the towels in the toilet.

The husband was treated at the hospital and was released to come home. After arriving home, he looked at the shattered patio door and the damage done to his motorcycle. He became despondent, went into the bathroom, sat on the toilet and smoked a cigarette. After finishing the cigarette, he flipped it between his legs into the toilet bowl while still seated.

The wife, who was in the kitchen, heard a loud explosion and her husband screaming. She ran into the bathroom and found her husband lying on the floor. His trousers had been blown away and he was suffering burns on the buttocks, the back of his legs and his groin. The wife again ran to the phone and called for an ambulance.

The same ambulance crew was dispatched, and the wife met them at the street. The paramedics loaded the husband on the stretcher and began carrying him to the street. While they were going down the stairs to the street accompanied by the wife, one of the paramedics asked the wife how the husband had burned himself. She told them and the paramedics started laughing so hard, one of them tipped the stretcher and dumped the husband out. He fell down the remaining steps and broke his arm.

DISCUSSION:

I. Man without God has always feared the future.

A. Don’t believe me?

B. Consider the following quotes

“Civilization will end within 15 or 30 years unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind.” (Biologist George Wald Harvard University April 19, 1970)

“By 1995, “…somewhere between 75 and 85 percent of all the species of living animals will be extinct.” (Sen. Gaylord Nelson Quoting Dr. S. Dillon Ripley, Look Magazine, April 1970)

“The world will be …eleven degrees colder in the year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to put us into an ice age.” (Kenneth Watt Speaking at Swarthmore University April 19, 1970)

“By the year 2000...the entire world, with the exception of Western Europe, North America and Australia, will be in famine,” (Peter Gunter, North Texas State University,

The Living Wilderness, Spring 1970)

“It is already too late to avoid mass starvation” (Paul Ehrlich, Interview in Mademoiselle Magazine April 1970)

“By 1985, air pollution will have reduced the amount of sunlight reaching earth by one half…” (Life Magazine, January 1970)

The battle to feed humanity is over. In the 1970’s the world will undergo famines . . . hundreds of millions of people (including Americans) are going to starve to death.” (Paul Ehrlich The Population Bomb, 1968)