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)
II. God knew the future in the past before it was the future.
Isaiah 46:9-10 (ESV) 9 remember the former things of old; for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me, 10 declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, 'My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose,'
Genesis 8:20-22 (ESV) 20 Then Noah built an altar to the LORD and took some of every clean animal and some of every clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar. 21 And when the LORD smelled the pleasing aroma, the LORD said in his heart, “I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the intention of man’s heart is evil from his youth. Neither will I ever again strike down every living creature as I have done. 22 While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.”
A. Consider the prophecies fulfilled the birth, life death and resurrection of Jesus.
Isaiah 7:14 (ESV) Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.
Micah 5:2 (ESV) But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, who are too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose origin is from of old, from ancient days.
Psalms 22:16 (ESV) For dogs encompass me; a company of evildoers encircles me; they have pierced my hands and feet —
Psalms 22:18 (ESV) they divide my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots.
III. God’s promises for our future.
A. He knows this fallen world is filled with conflict
Matthew 24:6-8 (ESV) 6 And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not alarmed, for this must take place, but the end is not yet. 7 For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places. 8 All these are but the beginning of the birth pains.
B. But he has plans for us.
C. God has made promises about the future before and kept them.
Jeremiah 29:10-15 (ESV) 10 "For thus says the Lord: When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will visit you, and I will fulfill to you my promise and bring you back to this place. 11 For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for wholeness and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. 12 Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. 13 You will seek me and find me. When you seek me with all your heart, 14 I will be found by you, declares the Lord, and I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you, declares the Lord, and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile. 15 "Because you have said, 'The Lord has raised up prophets for us in Babylon,'
D. Christ knows the future.
John 14:27 (ESV) Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.
John 16:33 (ESV) I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world."
John 14:1-6 (ESV) 1 "Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. 2 In my Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also. 4 And you know the way to where I am going." 5 Thomas said to him, "Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?" 6 Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
Psalm 8:1-4 (ESV) 1 O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens. 3 When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, 4 what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?
IV. The theological explanation
A. Romans 8:18
The world is one where beauty fades and loveliness decays; it is a dying world; but it is waiting for its liberation from all this and the coming of the state of glory.
Barclay's Daily Study Bible (NT).
