I have preached many sermons on today’s topic. I looked back over the 216 sermons published on our church web site and there was a large number about how to face tough times, how to face death, how to face tragedy. I make no apology for this repetition because there is no subject that is more relevant to our faith. We all go through those times when we may ask "Where is God in all of this." I want to speak what I believe to be the word of the Lord on that subject. God willing, I’ll do it again and again as long as I have breath.
The need for this kind of sermon was made vividly apparent for me 48 years ago when I was pastor of another church. It was a revelation to me -- one of those crisis situations in my personal faith
I remember that it was my visit with Glenn Smith. Glenn was an elder in the church I served. He was a man of a quiet, gentle faith. But Glenn developed cancer of the larynx and at the hospital they did terrible things to him. They took out his voice box and he had to learn to talk through a hole in his throat. I visited Glenn regularly at the old Baptist Hospital and it was so depressing to see Glenn with his swollen face learning how to make noises though the windpipe. It took a great deal of therapy for him to make sounds that people could recognize as language. His image is still burned in my mind.
To this day, I’m not sure I could cope with such a disaster with the same grace and confident faith as Glenn. My stumbling prayers at his bedside were as much for myself as for him. I still remember the first words I could recognize from the guttural sounds he made by a kind of controlled belch: "I’m going to be all right, preacher."
"I’m going to be all right, preacher." It made me cry. It inspired me. And I shall never forget it. Often when I read the 23d Psalm, even today, I think of Glenn: "I will fear no evil, for thou art with me." -- "I’m going to be all right, preacher."
I don’t want this incident to be overblown -- Glenn died within a few months as the cancer continued its course through his body. But I knew Glenn was beyond the reach of trouble. I knew that Glenn was where evil could not touch him.
Don’t we all covet that kind of faith? That is what faith is, you know. Some people think that faith has something to do with believing or not believing some doctrine -- some interpretation from the Bible that you must wrap your mind around and agree to. No! No! No! Faith is something that you live with, something you cope with, something you die by. Faith is something you use to face the evils and the disasters of life. Faith is something that you use to dissipate fears.
We need that kind of assurance today. Do you remember the near panic so many of us had a few years ago when we were partly convinced that an earthquake was imminent? Do you remember the subdued terror you felt last year when the skies turned black and the back of your neck bristled because of all the electricity in the air and you knew that a tornado was certainly going to destroy someone’s house? -- and it might be yours. Do you remember when you went to the doctor about a pain in your stomach and you knew it was really nothing serious -- MAYBE?
There is the constant awareness that we each one may be victims of the crime and violence that infests our city as never before. Well, we need to face up to our fears and see just how our faith can help us cope with fear.
Let me start with a word of caution: it is only a kindergarten faith that believes no evil, no trouble, will come. We WILL walk through the valley of the shadow of death. There is no wall high enough to shut out trouble; there is no trick to prevent it; there is no life, however pure, that will escape evil; there is no security system that you can buy that will ensure you won’t be hurt; no denial of its reality that will prevent evil from coming; no drugs or alcohol or happy pills that will protect us. Not even by miraculous intervention will we be protected from having to walk through the valley of the shadow of death.
Now, this goes against the popular religion -- that is, the religion that’s taught in the streets, but not in the churches -- not in the Bible. Many people think that if they are good enough, God will protect them from all evil. This is why when bad things DO happen, they ask, "What did I do to deserve this? or "Why should this happen to me?"
It is only a myth that God protects his faithful ones from all tragedy.
Now, don’t understand me. There ARE evil consequences to wicked behavior. Some of the bad things we suffer certainly DO come from our misbehavior. It doesn’t take a prophet to know that a youth that disregards all the health rules and smokes and abuses drugs will pay for this mistreatment in a few years -- not because God is punishing them, but because of the natural "cause and effect" way God has created His world.
It doesn’t take a prophet to know that a woman that shuts herself up in her home and allows no one to invade her privacy and who never reaches out in ministry and service will become a lonely, sad, and pitiful old woman if she lives long enough. Not because God is punishing her, but because this is the way things work. We do indeed reap what we sow.
Now with this said, let us look at how our faith can help us face disasters and trouble.
First, some of our troubles are quite manageable. Some of the evils that befall us have power to harm us only because of our fear of them. Lloyds of London has made a fortune betting people that the disaster they anticipate will never happen. I heard a woman say, "I don’t believe in ghosts, but I’m afraid of them."
I’m afraid I’m one of those people who fear things which in themselves have no power to hurt us except through the torment of our fears. But fear of illness can be worse than illness. Fear of failure can be worse than failure. Some of you, I know, have phobias. They are terrifying and nothing to be laughed at. A few weeks ago I was asked to help a man in West Memphis who was on his way to his mother’s funeral in Virginia. He simply could not cross the Mississippi River bridge. He finally drove back home to Texas without attending the funeral. There are those with a fear of the dark, a fear of high places, a fear of closed places, a fear of criticism, a fear of old age, a fear of death.
These are serious fears and they are not to be laughed at. Have you seen the new television series about the brilliant detective, Monk? For Monk, everything must be exactly in the right place. Monk meticulously rearranges the pillows on his guest’s bed. Crooked pictures on the wall drive him to distraction. I have a little problem with the TV series because it is making fun of someone’s phobia.
These "shadow" fears can be devastating and they are hard to be rid of, but I believe that when we concentrate on the presence of God and his loving protection, even these can be overcome by our faith and trust in him. "Be not dismayed whate’er betide, God will take care of you."
Now let’s go a little further. Some of the evils that befall us turn out to be assets. We are beyond the reach of trouble when we confront them and turn them into something good and useful for our lives.
Look back over your life. Aren’t some of the best things that have happened to you been those things that you called trouble? The very thing that you prayed NOT to happen to you became one of the most blessed things in your life. Someone has said, "What every person needs to get ahead is a powerful enemy." I don’t wish on any person a handicap, and handicaps are hard to face, but they can be what forms our character. Sometimes we need something to push against to make us strong.
You already know this, don’t you? The kid on the block whose parents were wealthy and gave him everything became an irresponsible, spoiled, unreliable adult. The man whose wife does everything for him becomes ineffective and helpless.
What I mean is that the disaster that comes in our lives may destroy us, but they may also become the source of our greatest achievement. You see, it’s not what happens to you that counts -- it’s what you do with what happens to you that is important.
Our faith tells us to fear no evil because we can, with God’s help, turn the evil into triumph. You heard the words of Paul that Jack read this morning: "We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed, perplexed, but not driven to despair, persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed." This attitude is the real test of Christian character.
This leads me to the third point I want to make. Some evils we can just brush aside, some we can wrestle with and be stronger because of it -- but some evils are utterly beyond human understanding. There is no way around them -- only through them.
I’m sure some of you here this morning have thought up to this point -- "He just doesn’t understand what I am going through. It’s not just something I can turn into a blessing. It is a terrible and tragic devastation."
But I do understand. There are things that happen that are almost beyond redemption. A man is walking down the street with his dog and someone randomly and savagely shoots him. A fierce hurricane strikes a whole coastline wreaking havoc to everything it its path and causing floods that destroy the homes of countless people. St. Jude’s Hospital is filled with little ball-headed children with dreadful illnesses that are likely to be fatal. There are evils that hurt and destroy.
I don’t understand them. I can’t explain them. What does our faith have to say in the face of this kind of unfathomable evil?
Our faith assures us that we are in the hands of a loving God. We are still in a place where we are safe -- beyond the reach of trouble.
You are in the hands of a loving God. You here today -- some of you are even now facing that kind of devastation in your life. More than just a handicap. More than just an evil that can be used to make your life richer and your character fuller. I want you to have the assurance of Paul -- that even in these dreadful circumstances, you are in the hands of a God of love and grace.
What is the meaning of faith? It means trusting in God in all circumstances. Faith is unconditional trust in the power and grace of God. "I’m going to be all right, preacher," said Glenn Smith. You can say that too, under whatever circumstances you find yourself, if you have that unconditional trust.
Pray that your faith will increase to where you, too, can say with Paul, "I am afflicted in every way, but not crushed, perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed."
The source of our faith is our Lord, Jesus Christ. With that kind of faith you can say with the Psalmist, "I will fear no evil, -- for thou art with me.
