What Gives The Christian Comfort In Troublesome Times?

What Gives the Christian Comfort in Troublesome Times?

By Pastor Jim May

Life is filled with uncertainties. You never know what the next minute will hold, or what tomorrow may hold for your life. Of course we all know that God has every moment of our lives in his hand, and yet, even with the trust that we have in him to lead us in the right paths, there is always that uncertainty of what will happen next.

There are a number of things that are surely uncertain in this life. Let’s look at a few of them for a moment.

Beauty is uncertain, and the only thing certain about it is that it will soon begin to fade away. Outward beauty fades with time as the troubles of life and the effects of sin on this mortal body take their toll. Who among us can look into the mirror and see the same image of ourselves that we saw just a few years ago? With every passing day a little more hair turns grey, or maybe even falls out. With every trouble another wrinkle appears. Some folks want to call the wrinkles “crows feet” but I think sometimes they are little more like Eagle talons. The whole body sags under the weight of gravity and one day we find that the muscles in our chest and shoulders have fallen and settled around our mid-section and they are there to stay. I suppose if the Lord has allowed us to live to be 200 years old we might all just wind up as a mass of bone and tissue just rolling on the ground because it seems that every year gravity pulls us down a little more. Instead of growing up, we are growing out and down at the same time. Yes, outward beauty is something that is certainly uncertain.

The Promises that people make are also uncertain. I thank God that I know a lot of people who speak the truth. They are my brothers and sisters in the Lord. But how many of you know that church folks can lie like the devil too? Let me just tell you that no one is above reproach when it comes to telling the truth all the time.

We like to say that we are just “stretching the truth”. No – we are lying. We like to think that it’s just a “Little White Lie”. – NO, it’s a black lie. There is no white lie. It’s either true or it’s a lie. There is no middle ground here. We like to think that it’s a “half-truth”. NO – it’s a whole lie.

I like what our court system make us promise to do before we can be a witness on the stand, but the problem is that nearly everyone who makes that promise and takes the stand actually perjure themselves in a court of law. The promise is that we will “Tell the Truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.” In reality we only say what the lawyers want us to say, and the whole truth may never be known. The promises of men are shaky at best and unreliable.

Some folks don’t know how to talk without telling a lie. It’s like one story goes about politicians. How do you know when they are lying? If their mouth is moving. Our president made his first speech before Congress last night. How many of you heard it? Do you think he told the truth, or is he hiding his agenda behind words that sound good?

Somehow I don’t think that everything he said is right, neither will it all end up the way he says and there’s no doubt that every word was weighed with the socialist and democratic party agenda in mind. And it’s not just the democrats either. The Republicans are no better. All of them say what they think you want to hear to get your vote of confidence, and then when the voting is done, it’s right back to party politics and political agendas, and you can bet that neither one has an agenda in mind that is going to do much for the working class Americans that pay the tax bill. No matter what they say, you can count it as a lie because the real truth is never told. The rich will get richer and the poor will get poorer, and I’m convinced it will be that way until Jesus comes again and sets up his righteous government. If there’s money to be made, lies will be involved.

Now I don’t know if most politicians plan to lie about everything. The problem is that many of them have been sold a bill of goods and been convinced that what they are saying is the truth. They aren’t even aware of the deceit that is involved.