Confidence In These Troubled Times
TEXT:
INTRODCUTION:
1 This morning I would like to talk to you about how to have – Confidence In These Troubled Times.
2 I’m sure we can all agree that these are uncertain times.
3 We’ve lived in a nation surrounded by 2 great oceans that seemed to insolate us from the uncertainties and tragedies endured by the rest of world.
4 Then, 2 jet liners crashed into the World Trade Center and robbed many of their security.
5 This week there was an article in the paper about a 68-year-old man who was going back to work. He had been a stockbroker, lawyer and mortgage banker. He thought he had it all figured out and had everything under control. Since 9-11 he had seen his retirement dwindle by half.
6 We have seen a generation of students taught in our universities that truth was not absolute. "It’s all relative," They were told. "Do whatever think or feel in your heart works."
7 Pragmatism was the guiding light.
8 Now we see fruit of the pragmatic relativistic world view in Enron, World Com, etc.
9 There are now question about he possibility of war with Iraq and what effects it will have on us.
10 Global warming – is the sky falling? Are the ice caps melting? Or, is it just junk science?
11 We can’t even agree on whether or not Coffee is bad for you.
12 I must admit there are times that these news events bother me, but they are unable to reach the core of my soul because I have a sense of security that can only come from God.
13 Let me share, with you, a few reasons for "Confidence in these troubled times."
14 I am confident because I know:
1) There is a God who loves,
2) There is a God has saved me,
3) There is a God who cares for me
4) There is a God who will take me to heaven to meet loved ones who have gone before.
DISCUSSION:
I. I know there is a God who loves me.
A. I know there is a God because it just makes sense.
1. The existence of God is so obvious that the Bible Never tries to prove his existence it just assumes it.
(Hebrews 3:4 NKJV) For every house is built by someone, but He who built all things is God.
(Psalms 8:1,3 NKJV) O LORD, our Lord, How excellent is Your name in all the earth, Who have set Your glory above the heavens! When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, The moon and the stars, which You have ordained, {4} What is man that You are mindful of him, And the son of man that You visit him? {5} For You have made him a little lower than the angels, And You have crowned him with glory and honor. {6} You have made him to have dominion over the works of Your hands; You have put all things under his feet, {7} All sheep and oxen; Even the beasts of the field, {8} The birds of the air, And the fish of the sea That pass through the paths of the seas.
(Romans 1:18-21 NKJV) For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, {19} because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. {20} For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse, {21} because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened.
B. I know there is a God (and he is the God of the Bible) because fruit of unvief.
1. The Muslsim religion
2. Liberal MO
3. Famous Men who were Infidels.
a) Voltaire, French Revolutionary thinker: "Strike out a few sages and the crowd of human beings is nothing but a horrible assemblage of unfortunate criminals, and the globe contians nothing but corpses. I tremble to have to complain once more of the Being of Beings in casting an attentive eye over this terrible picture, I wish I had never been born."
b) Goeth, the German Philosopher: "I have always been esteemed one of Fortune’s chiefest favorites; nor will I complain to find fault with the course my life has taken. Yet, truly, there has been nothing but toil and care; and I may say, that in all my seventy five years, I have never had a month of genuine comfort. It has been the perpetual rolling of a stone, which I have always had to raise anew...men will become more clever and more acute, but not better, happier and stronger in action.
c) Renan, the French writer: "We live on the perfume of an empty bottle.
d) Theodore Jouffroy, a Frenchman: "I knew then that at the bottom of myself there was nothing left standing, that all I had believed about myself, about God and about my destiny in this life and in that to come, I now believe no more. This moment was frightful; and when towards morning, I threw myself exhausted upon my bed, it seemed to me as if I could feel my former life, so cheerful and complete, die away, and before me there opened another life, so cheerful and complete, die away, and before me there opened another life, dark and dispeopled, where henceforth I was to live alone, alone with my fatal thought which had just exiled me tither, and which I was tempted to curse."
e) Robert Ingersoll, the famous nineteenth-century American infidel, delivering the eulogy at his brother’s grave: "Life is a narrow vale between the cold and barren peaks of eternities, We strive in vain to look beyong the heights, we cry aloud and the only answer is the echo of a wailing cry.
(Romans 1:21-32 NKJV) because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. {22} Professing to be wise, they became fools, {23} and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man; and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things. {24} Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves, {25} who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. {26} For this reason God gave them up to vile passions. For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. {27} Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due. {28} And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind, to do those things which are not fitting; {29} being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil-mindedness; they are whisperers, {30} backbiters, haters of God, violent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, {31} undiscerning, untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving, unmerciful; {32} who, knowing the righteous judgment of God, that those who practice such things are deserving of death, not only do the same but also approve of those who practice them.
C. I Know there is a God who loves me.
D. He created me
(Psalms 139:14-16 NIV) I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. {15} My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, {16} your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.
E. His Son Died for me.
John 3:16
(Romans 5:6-9 NKJV) For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. {7} For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. {8} But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. {9} Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him.
II. I know there is a God who saved me.
A. The Bible was written so we could know we are saved.
(1 John 5:13) These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life, and that you may continue to believe in the name of the Son of God.
(Romans 8:1 NKJV) There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.
B. Men can steal your life savings and the banks could close, but not even Satan could steal you away from God.
(John 10:28-29 NKJV) "And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand. {29} "My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of My Father’s hand.
III. I know there is a is a God who cares for me
(Romans 8:31-39 NNAS) What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us? {32} He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things? {33} Who will bring a charge against God’s elect? God is the one who justifies; {34} who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is He who died, yes, rather who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us. {35} Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? {36} Just as it is written, "FOR YOUR SAKE WE ARE BEING PUT TO DEATH ALL DAY LONG; WE WERE CONSIDERED AS SHEEP TO BE SLAUGHTERED." {37} But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us. {38} For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, {39} nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
(Psalms 139:1-12 NNAS) O Lord, You have searched me and known me. {2} You know when I sit down and when I rise up; You understand my thought from afar. {3} You scrutinize my path and my lying down, And are intimately acquainted with all my ways. {4} Even before there is a word on my tongue, Behold, O LORD, You know it all. {5} You have enclosed me behind and before, And laid Your hand upon me. {6} Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; It is too high, I cannot attain to it. {7} Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? {8} If I ascend to heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, You are there. {9} If I take the wings of the dawn, If I dwell in the remotest part of the sea, {10} Even there Your hand will lead me, And Your right hand will lay hold of me. {11} If I say, "Surely the darkness will overwhelm me, And the light around me will be night," {12} Even the darkness is not dark to You, And the night is as bright as the day. Darkness and light are alike to You.
IV. I kow there is a God who will take me to heaven to meet loved ones who have gone before.
(Revelation 21:1-7 NKJV) Now I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. Also there was no more sea. {2} Then I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. {3} And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, "Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people. God Himself will be with them and be their God. {4} "And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away." {5} Then He who sat on the throne said, "Behold, I make all things new." And He said to me, "Write, for these words are true and faithful." {6} And He said to me, "It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. I will give of the fountain of the water of life freely to him who thirsts. {7} "He who overcomes shall inherit all things, and I will be his God and he shall be My son.
(Revelation 14:13 NKJV) Then I heard a voice from heaven saying to me, "Write: ’Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on.’ " "Yes," says the Spirit, "that they may rest from their labors, and their works follow them."
A.
CONCLUSION:
1 You Can have confidence in these trouble times.
2 You can know
1) there is a God who loves you,
2) There is a God has saved you,
3) There is a God who cares for you
4) There is a God who will take you to heaven to meet loved ones who have gone before.
3 I love this book because it tought me that God loves me
4 It taught me how to love my fellow man
5 It taught me how to love God.
Sermon History:
08-11-2002-AM-Waterford Church of Christ
David E. Parks
