Let's open with a word of prayer. Our Father, we thank you for this day and this time to come. Look at your word. We are so indebted to the wisdom that's here and how it truly does change lives. We thank you for it and ask that your hand would be on the service, that people would go from here different, including myself, changed by what we hear. a change of attitude, just renewed in these things. We ask these things in Jesus' name, amen. Two weeks ago, I talked about, you know, COVID and Well, there's a lot of things that are causing fear. How do we as Christians deal with fear? Fear seems to be the thing that has really been pushed by the media, by the newspapers, by certain individuals, and that fear has really taken hold. There's some people that just won't leave their houses. There's some people that have put off medical things because they're so afraid of COVID they won't even go to the hospital to get things checked out. So, there's a lot of fear out there, and we as believers need to know, how do we deal with that? And so, I went through passages about fear, and how are we as believers, are we supposed to respond to these things the same way the world does, or are we supposed to respond differently? Is there a difference in how we think than how the world thinks? And so, I'm just going to read some of those. We went first to Matthew 24, 3. Where Christ is sitting on the Mount of Olives, his disciples came to him privately, saying, Tell us, when will these things happen, and what will be the sign of your coming in the end of the age? And Jesus answered and said to them, See to it that no one misleads you. For many will come in my name, saying, I am the Christ. And they will mislead many people. And you will be hearing of wars and rumors of wars. Those are fearful things. Those are scary things, right? Here's his instruction. See that you are not alarmed. Would the world be alarmed? Yes. Is that our tendency to be alarmed? Yes. His command is, see that you are not alarmed, for those things must take place, and that is not yet the end. For nations will rise against nations, and kingdoms against kingdoms. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places, but all these things are merely the beginning of birth pains. Okay, see that you're not alarmed. Well, that seems hard and odd, right? Isaiah 41 10, do not fear for I am with you. Do not be afraid for I am your God. I will strengthen you. I will also help you. I will also uphold you with my righteous right hand. Just a command. Because I am who I am, because you have trusted me, the command is don't fear. So is fear just a choice? Well, you know, when I think about it in my life, it is kind of a choice. We can engage in a thought process that will continually alarm us, can we not? We're told to not worry. That means cut it off, stop, okay? Fear, if we continue to think about it, right? We can continue to have it grow and get worse and we can think of more things. What are we to dwell on? The thing or the God who says don't fear? The one who says, hey, I'm in charge, okay? Romans 8, 14, for all who are being led by the Spirit of God. Now, I have to say that for those who are unbelievers, they don't have access to this. An atheist does not have access to do not fear because there is a sovereign God of the universe that's in charge. They can't rest on that. It's not there. There is no God, therefore, to the atheists, therefore all there is is death and going in the ground. There is nothing else. Scripture says they're without hope. Why are they without hope? because there's nothing afterwards, right, to them, an atheist. I think scripture is very clear that there is, even for the atheists, much more afterwards that isn't good, right? Like a fire, because they've rejected the one true God. For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, those are believers, are sons and daughters of God's, for you have not received, so you don't get from that, not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again." Again, so what did the law bring? What does the life without God bring? It can bring fear, right? He says, this spirit-led life doesn't lead to a spirit of slavery leading to fear, but you have received a spirit of adoptions of sons and daughters by which we cry out, Abba, Father. Okay? Why is that Abba Father thing interesting or worth distinguishing? Here's why. Abba Father is the way of saying the most affectionate term for your dad. Okay? Like Daddy. Okay? The most affectionate familial term. What this verse is saying is believers can use that term to their father in heaven. It's that intimate of a relationship that you can say that, okay? And that can bring great comfort, especially since he's adopted you as a son. So you really can call him daddy, let's say, okay? Or Abba Father, an intimate familial term. How many times as we were young were we comforted in fear as a child that our dad was able to comfort us with? And that's really a similar situation to us now, right? When you're a kid, you don't understand what's going on fully. Things are much bigger than possibly they are. You have no power to control things, okay? And your earthly father, It's wiser, has power to control things more than you have, right? And can allay some of these fears and can see it in reality. Now think, the creator of the universe is the one we're talking about now as we sit in the place of a young child without knowledge, without power. We have nothing, right? We're very powerless in this world, right? God is that, in the illustration, our earthly father is saying, hey, don't worry about this. I got this, kid. I got it covered. Hebrews 13, five, make sure that your character is free from the love of money, being content with what you have, for he himself has said, I will never desert you, nor will I ever abandon you, so that we confidently say, the Lord is my helper, I will not be afraid, what will man do to me? Now, I find this fascinating. What will man do to me? Well, possibly kill you. In reality, right? Many people in history have had men kill them, martyr them, and yet this person can say, but I'm held by God through Jesus Christ, through the sacrifice of Christ. It makes no sense other than in that sense to say, what can man do to me? Do not think when you say, what can man do to me, he's not saying that man can't kill him. Man can kill him and has many times in history been allowed to by God because that was the end of his days. His point is that he is held for eternity by the creator. And that that is a much more powerful thing, that that is in fact the most important thing since we're all gonna die anyway, right? So you die 10 years earlier by the hand of man, but you're in Christ Jesus, right? Okay, Psalm 31, 19. How great is your goodness, which you have stored up for those who fear you, which you have performed for those who take refuge in you before the sons of mankind. Okay, this is a song written by David, a king, who's trusting, you think, if anybody can trust in his own self, it's a king of a nation, right? He's got it all. David was so humble that he could write something like this. How great is your goodness, which you have stored up for those who fear you, which you have performed for those who take refuge in you before the sons of mankind. All right, so that was a brief summary of what I did two weeks ago. And I wanted to continue on with this and say, okay, beyond not fearing, what else are we to do as believers in this time of fear, okay? And I have to confess that I robbed, borrowed a lot from MacArthur, because he did a great job on one of these. And so I just started looking at the verses that he was referencing. And I'm not using his words, but I'm using his verses and gonna go through it. The church has to stand firm on truth, okay? Truth, it's been lost. There's a lot of deception going on in the world for all kinds of agendas, all pragmatic, the ends justify the means kind of stuff. We can lie as long as the ends come out right, as the way we see it. There's a lot of power at play. There's a lot of money at play. And because of that, because we as a culture really have rejected that truth matters, We really, as a culture, have decided that no, results matter. Truth doesn't matter. And however you get to the results we want are okay. If we have to lie, cheat, steal, whatever. That's what the culture has embraced. Well, when that happens, truth goes out the window. And when there's no truth, in the culture, a lot of bad things are gonna happen. But the church needs to be a bastion of truth. It needs to keep holding to scripture in such a way that we can get, continue to go to scripture for ultimate truth. 1 Timothy 3.15, but in case I am delayed, I write so that you will know how one ought to conduct himself in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and support of the truth. So, Timothy is saying the church, the body of believers, okay, I don't mean, we are part of the church, those who are saved are in the body of Christ, but more broadly, all believers globally, right, are the church, okay, the body of Christ, the bride of Christ. And our job is on this earth to be pillars and support of the truth. Alexander Solzhenitsyn arguably brought down communism. He wrote a book, he had a memory, he memorized everyone's story that he ran into in the gulag. To the detail, if you chance to read even part of that book, you will just be shocked. And I've never read anyone who disputed any of his comments, or any of his historical statements. Each person, who the judge was, what the charges were, the testimony, what was said against this person, when, how long they spent in the gulag, when he ran into a, I mean, just literally, it's 88 hours of audio book, okay, to get through this thing. And he said, if we had only said the truth from the beginning and stopped and hadn't accepted little lies along the way, the whole thing would have come crashing down. It was all built on a lie. And he then wrote a book, Live Not by Lies, or it was more of an essay, it's a very short thing. If you want to get that, Live Not by Lies, it's an incredible, he's like just, you can't have any lies in your life. It's fascinating to me that these people are, secular people are saying, lies destroy you. Jordan Peterson, he's got a whole chapter in his book, Do Not Lie. And he's not even a believer. He's saying, you look at the path of human history, and you believe your own lies, and it affects you mentally, and it destroys civilization. Lies destroy civilization. And the bigger the lie, the worse the atrocities. What is the church supposed to be? Church of the living God, the pillar and support of the truth. We are to hold to truth. 2 Corinthians 10, 4-5, for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh. Pragmatisms of the flesh, manipulating everything politically, that's of the flesh. but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses, we are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. Our job in our own lives, in our own minds, between our own ears, is to take thoughts captive. That would include things that bring fear in our lives. Take that captive. Put it in its place, okay? Put fearful things in its place in your mind, destroying speculation. Well, maybe it's this, maybe it's that. I don't know what's going on here, okay? No, stick with the things that are true. 1 Corinthians 3, 19, for the wisdom of the world is foolishness before God, for it is written, He is the one who catches the wise in their craftiness. Every once in a while, I'll just give an example. I've been trying to read more of the classic literature that I felt like I never got to when I was young, and I've been able to do it through audiobooks. There's a lot of praise in philosophy for Dostoyevsky, and I would have to praise his work. I finished a book called Crime and Punishment. And it's, you know, it's an amazing book, but literally you could sum it up with a verse of scripture. I mean, it is the most torturous way of someone coming, so the premise is that if there is no God, then morality is relative, and if morality is relative, then there could be things you could do on Earth that would just, it's basically a pragmatic approach, and he had this pawnbroker in his life, this evil, greedy woman who would prey on old woman who was a pawnbroker, meaning you brought, you know, your dad's gold watch and she'd say I give you five rubles for that and at 3%, 5%, 20% interest, and you had to pay it back. And these poor college students would get their stuff taken away, because they were drinking. And they'd lose their dad's watch. And everybody had this evil thought to this. And she was rude, and she was coarse. And so this thought happened, well, what if I murder the pawnbroker lady? take all the pledges, meaning all the things that she's collected, and the money that she has, and do good with it. Everyone hates this woman. And if there is no God, it seems perfectly logical, pragmatic way of thinking. Except murder's wrong. Right? They just forgot that little part. But anyway, the whole book is, he reasons through this, he does the murder with an axe, The lady's sister comes in and he murders her too because now he's in this problem of covering things up. And the whole book goes on of him. getting interrogated by the police, and then he gets sick because his guilt is there, but then he doesn't feel, how can he feel guilty if there's no God? And then there's guilt, and he can't figure out where it's coming from, and he works through, you know, I don't know, the book's probably 400 pages, okay, to where he finally gets to the point where he has to accept that the only reason that this doesn't work to murder somebody and give her things away for good, is that there is a morality, there is a God, okay? And it's not even really said that way, but by the very end of the book, you're like, there is a God, there is a moral standard, and when you break it, there's consequences, okay? Even in time, okay? Wow. You know, it's like, really? Did I have to go through that much? literature to get to that simple point. But this whole book just mesmerizes. Well, some philosophers hate it because it points to God. And some philosophers are like, hey, if you're an atheist and you haven't dealt with Dostoevsky, you really haven't dealt with the true philosophy. I'm like, this is simple kindergarten stuff, guys. To be caught up on this in philosophy that you can't figure this out. Anyway. God's truth is literally so rich, deep, well, and Dostoevsky is a puddle, really. I mean, this is the ocean of truth, and Dostoevsky, for all its praise, crime and punishment, is a puddle of depth, okay? Something there to learn. So, how'd I get onto that? We are destroying speculations, worldly speculations. Well, maybe this is true, and maybe that's true, right? No, go to scripture, okay? For the wisdom of the world is foolishness before men. That's what I got to. John 17, 17. Sanctify them in the truth. Your word is truth. This is from Christ's high priestly prayer. He asked the Father for specific things for the believers he's leading. Christ, praying to the Father before he is put on the cross, says, One of the things he asked for for his disciples is sanctify them in the truth. Set them apart, so sanctification is setting apart, okay? If you're looking through your coin collection and you find one that might have more value than face value, what do you do? You pull it out, you set it apart. This is the one that says it's worth a penny, but it's worth $10 as a collector's item, okay? You're setting it apart, you're separating it. That's sanctification. He's saying set these people apart in the truth. Christ is saying, Father, Make truth the thing that makes them different, one of the things that makes them different from everyone else, okay? And then he says, your word is truth. Where do they go to get this truth? From God's word, okay? Psalm 19.7, the law of the Lord is perfect, restoring the soul. The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. Confession. I, as of even five years ago, would read that verse and say, okay, yeah, I get it. The law of the Lord is perfect, restoring the soul. I get that there's truth in God's word, but there's a lot of truth in a lot of other places. We've got a lot of truth, okay? And what I was missing was these are words for all of humanity, okay? We have been so blessed in this country. to have a culture that was based on Christian principles, at least morality, at least deism, that there is a God, and that he said something to man about how to conduct himself. We have been so blessed by a constitution that said, here's some rules that guarantee some freedoms, and here's some things that are wrong. It was a set of rules, a guidance to how to run a nation, and it's worked pretty well. And I was critiquing this verse based on where I'm standing in this very blessed nation of the United States of America. I got a chance 10, 15 years ago to go to Brazil with the Browns to visit the Browns Missionary Post in Brazil. What an eye-opening experience. Because when you got there, you realized you weren't in America anymore. You weren't in a place that you could call the police. There was no 911. You were a minority in a culture where you didn't know the rules. You didn't know what could be done to you, and you started to realize that there probably would be no recourse. I mean, justice would not have been served if they would have stuck you with an arrow, okay? You were in Yanomami Indian land territory. I was asked by Dave Brown, we were getting into a canoe, hey, I forgot something. Can you run up to the house and get, it's sitting on the kitchen table. I mean, these are just palm slat houses. I leave the, most of the time we were in Dave Brown's presence. I leave the canoe and it's like a hundred yards. You kind of go up a hill to where you can't see the dock anymore and you walk across this open area where the huts are. I clear the top of the hill and standing by one of the posts is like three young guys, like teenagers. All have bows and arrows. I step up there, and it's like, do I smile at him, or do I? I'm kind of alone. I mean, what am I supposed to do in this culture? I kind of ignore him, and I just walk. And on the corner of my eye, this Indian knocks an arrow. And he goes to full draw, and he just holds that arrow on me as I walk by. That's the equivalent of pulling a gun on somebody in the United States. Right? What do you do? It's like, well, I can't do anything. I can't run towards him. I can't, right? You just deal with it, right? Turn around, walk back, okay? He didn't hold it for that long. I exaggerated. He put it back down, and then they all sort of chuckled about it. It's like, you know, that's not a comfortable feeling, okay? And it was more than that. It was more shattering than that. It was that there was no structure. There was no rules. You didn't know the rules, right? So if God's word is truth, and we step out of, or in the last two years we've seen that laws can be broken and nobody cares, right? And we can see that constitution can be ignored and nobody cares. And so we're starting to get to what is truth? Is the vaccine good or is it not good? Is the COVID as bad as they say it is? It's like everybody has an agenda and it's like, it's a full-time job just trying to get the data. You still don't know what the truth is, right? When you're all said and done, okay? All right. Psalm 12.6, the words of the Lord are pure words. As silver tried in a furnace on the earth refined seven times. Romans 1.22 through 25. I see this as what the world is doing. So the category is, we're the pillar in support of the truth. We need to desire the truth, we need to know where to get the truth, and when we can't suss it out, we get it from here, okay? Professing to be wise, they became fools. and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and of four-footed animals and crawling creatures. So, this is talking about mankind, gave up the creator, started worshiping the creature. And we go, oh yeah, yeah, I know, those crazy idol worshipers, right? We've seen it. Worshiping idols, images of four-footed creatures. Wait a minute. What are we doing today? We've just said, guys, the new image that we fall down to is just the earth, the whole thing. We're not just earth worshipers, okay? That's what the culture, the new religion of the culture is an environmental worshiping, right? It is Mother Earth. It now has a personification. She's mad at us. heard this from the newspaper, right? Or some article. Mother Earth is mad at us, and that's why, because we're destroying the Earth, okay? So, It's no different. Exchange the glory of the incorruptible God, we exchange that, trade it, for the image of the form of corruptible man and of birds, four-footed animals, and crawling creatures. I would just change that to what we're seeing today, is you lump all those crawling creatures and the earth together, and that's your idol. Therefore, God gave them over to lusts, to lust of their hearts, to impurity, so that their bodies would be dishonored among them. for they exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the creator who is blessed forever. Okay, so there's this big shift to worship man. There's a big shift to throw off all restrictions in sexuality. Well, that's not happening today. 26, for this reason God gave them over to degrading passions, for the women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural, in the same way also men abandoned the natural function of the woman, burning their desire towards one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error. So when we reject God's principles and how he set up marriage and how he set up procreation, it's men with men and women with women is the natural consequence of rejecting God as a standard and his law and going to man's standard. Just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to depraved mind to do those things which are not proper. So sometimes we look at what's going on in the world and we just say, it's crazy. It's crazy. Well, wouldn't another way to describe it be God gave them over to a depraved mind? I mean, isn't that, if you have someone that's raving and depraved, they're saying nonsense, that's a depraved mind, that's craziness, right? This is the consequence of those things, and the only antidote is truth. Isaiah 59, 14, justice is turned back. and righteousness stands far away, for truth has stumbled in the street. If this isn't a perfect verse for what I think America is in right now. And uprightness cannot enter. So let's look at, that's just one verse. Justice is turned back. You can't get a police officer to come for property crimes. Property crimes, they're not coming anymore. They will not come. I mean, maybe if it's over $10,000, but I don't know. I've heard that they don't have enough time to come look at property crimes. I'm seeing videos on Facebook of thieves going into department stores, breaking glass, sweeping all the contents into a bag while people film and watch and walk out the store. No justice. And righteousness stands far away. I mean, where is righteousness, right? For, and I love this illustration, truth has stumbled in the street. You're watching, oh, there's truth over there. Oh, he fell down in the street. He's still lying there. Oh, he fell, he's dirtied, he's sullied, right? and uprightness cannot enter. So there's no place for uprightness. Yes, truth is lacking, and he who turns aside from evil makes himself a prey. Is that not exactly, okay, so let me explain. Truth is lacking, he who turns away from evil, so someone who says, no, I'm not doing that. I'm not following after that evil. What's the consequence? They leave him alone? They say, oh, you go do what you wanna do. We're gonna do what we wanna do. He makes himself a prey. He's then seen in their eyes as the rabbit and they're the hawk. He's the prey. You're the target if you speak the truth. You're the target if you live differently and say, no, I'm not gonna do evil. To me, that's such a summary. Okay, next thing. What is to mark a believer in these times of fear? Joy, not fear, should dominate. 1 Thessalonians 5, 16. Rejoice always. What? Really? I thought it was hard enough just to not fear. Now I gotta rejoice? Okay. Yep. Rejoice always. Pray without ceasing. Why is prayer important? To me, there's a couple aspects of prayer here, but prayer gets our minds right. Because when you're praying to God, you're acknowledging God. You're acknowledging his power. You're asking, you're submitting to some humility that says, I need to pray about this. I can't control this. This is outside of my control. So it puts us in the right frame of mind with the creator. Next command, verse 18. In everything give thanks, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus. So, have you ever heard of the power of positive thinking? So this is the idea that it has a lot of different aspects and I think there's truth to it in that people that decide to smile and to be joyful are happier people. Now, it's pretty hard to do when there's no reason to be happy or joyful. But the believer has reason to be joyful and happy. So it is not outside of reasonability for God to say, hey, rejoice. Why? Well, because I got eternity planned for you in heaven. I've adopted you as a son and you can call me father. Okay? There's reason to rejoice. Pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus. Philippians 4.4. Rejoice in the Lord always. There we go again. Again I say rejoice. Got one of those tough words in there, right? Always. Always? Really? Even when my dad's laying in the bed and can't move? Yeah. Yeah. Let your gentle spirit be known to all people. We're not to be brutal, harsh, crude, rough people. We as believers are to be gentle, and that gentleness will be known to all people. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything. So now I, I gotta, I can't be fearful. Now I can't even be anxious. Like, I think there's people that spend like, I don't know, 50%, most of their life anxious, okay? Worrying, right? It's a devastating thing. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and pleading, with thanksgiving, let your request be made known to God. Here's your anecdote. Well, I'm anxious, so I went to the doctor, and they put me on antidepressants. I'm anxious, so I went to the counselor, and we talk about it for four hours a day. Well, I got another anecdote for you. God's word says, pray about it, to the father, he's your true counselor, right? Pleading with thanksgiving, so we're extremely thankful for what we have so far in life. Letting your request, you have a request, you have something you're anxious about, be made known to God. Give it to him, okay? Don't give it to your earthly counselor. Don't put it away with drugs, okay, by altering your mind. And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and minds in Jesus Christ. This prescription, let's say, from God, says the result is peace. You're not anxious anymore. Isn't the opposite of anxious peace? You have peace about something? Something you used to be anxious about, and now you have peace about it? God gives that, which surpasses all comprehension, meaning it doesn't make sense that you have that much peace. That's what that means. Beyond comprehension, meaning you can't even explain it, because logically, there's no reason, other than the fact that God gave it to you. It's a gift, right? I mean, deeply logically, it makes sense, because he's sovereign, right, and truly in control, right? But if you try to explain it to somebody else, why you're not, you know, wrapped up in knots about something, I gave it to the Lord, and I trust that whatever direction it goes, it's the way it should go, okay? Which surpasses all comprehension. Okay, let me take out, because that's in two parentheses. So, and the peace of God, I'm gonna leave out, which surpasses all comprehension. And the peace of God will guard your hearts and minds in Jesus Christ. So, that result. That piece guards your heart. It's a shield, so to speak, guarding you from fear, guarding you from anxious things. And the whole point of it is that we see the big picture. We see truly with eternal eyes, let's say. Philippians 4, 8. Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true. So these are the things we're supposed to think about. First thing mentioned, whatever is true. That was our first point. Whatever is honorable. Whatever is right. Whatever is pure. Whatever is lovely. Whatever is commendable. If there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, think about these things. I was listening to some philosophy talk, and they're trying to dig up what life could be mostly about, kind of without God. And they said that sort of the highest aim is beauty. The highest aim that you can come up with is beauty. Like if you can surround yourself with beauty, that's like the greatest thing you can do. And really, I can't disagree with them without God, right? I mean, would you rather look at ugliness, right, in this world? When I say I can't disagree with them, I mean from a secular atheist standpoint, what else you got, okay? It's to surround yourself by beauty. This is saying that with thoughts, our thoughts are to be about right things, godly things, true things, honorable things, lovely things, okay? and excellent things that are worthy of praise. Think about these things. As for the things you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, practice these and the God of peace will be with you. One of those things that was on the TV was how I think CNN said this, an insider on CNN said it was gangbusters to have the death numbers up, how many people died for their ratings. So as you watch TV, back last year, I don't know if they're still doing it because I don't watch that stuff, but they had the tally, the daily United States tally of death. And the insider was like, that was gangbusters for ratings. People just ate that up. Well, if you immerse yourself in that stuff, you're not thinking about eternal things. You're not thinking about right things. It's all blown out of proportion. And that's part of the fear dynamic. Our Father, we thank you for this day. Lord, I just pray that we would indeed seek truth in our lives as such a primary importance, and that as believers that we would be the pillar and support of truth. We indeed find out later in scripture that we have a great effect on the world because that truth is a light that shines forth. And we can be that light in this community. As fear percolates through our culture, we can be those that bring that light and bring a message of hope and that peace that surpasses comprehension in our own lives. Pray for that and that we would indeed spend time in your word. We ask these things in Jesus' name, amen.