5 Things to Maintain Stability and Peace in a Tumultuous 2019

Five things to maintain stability and peace in a tumultuous 2019. That is the topic we'll discuss today right here on the Christian Worldview Radio Program, where the mission is to sharpen the biblical worldview of Christians and to share the good news that all people can be reconciled to God through faith in Jesus Christ.

I'm David Wheaton, the host of the program, and our website is thechristianworldview.org. Well, thank you for joining us this morning as we discuss this topic of five things to maintain stability and peace in a tumultuous 2019. You know, conservative radio host Dennis Prager predicts in a column that 2019 will be a dark year. And our guest this weekend on the Christian Worldview pastor Eric Davis, he uses a different descriptor of this coming year in his column.

He called it tumultuous. So why the foreboding view of 2019 being a year of conflict, upheaval, and instability? Well, in the political realm, with the takeover of the US House of Representatives by Democrats with particularly leftist ideology, there's going to be nonstop opposition to President Trump, even efforts to impeach him, along with the advocacy for really more socialistic policies of bigger central government, divisive identity politics, expanding abortion, open immigration, as we're seeing that battle right now, removing gun rights and on and on and on. So the political realm will be very divisive. Affirmation with Christians being punished for holding to biblical convictions. And you add to that capitulation from within evangelicalism with calls for social justice and departure from all manner of doctrinal orthodoxy. So just stir that all together, along with a host of other issues and events, many of which we can't even see at the moment. In 2019 does indeed promise to be tumultuous. So what's a Christian to do to maintain stability and peace in the midst of all that? Well, Pastor Eric Davis of Cornerstone Church in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, is going to join us in just a few minutes to exhort us to do five things to maintain stability and peace in the coming year. And before we get to Eric, I just want to say we had to start the program today with me connecting via the phone.

We're having kind of a network studio to studio connection, which we're working on, which we'll be able to probably, Lord willing, resolve within by the second segment or so. So I'm starting off this way, but I want to read a column or just a couple paragraphs of that Dennis Prager column. He wrote right at the beginning of this year, he titled his column, The Left Will Make 2019 a Dark Year. And Prager started up by saying, I rarely make predictions, whether of election results or anything else.

My policy has always been to say that I what I believe should be done, not what will be done. But I am making an exception with regard to America in 2019. 2019 will be a dark year in America. Thanks to the less control of the House of Representatives and the news media, Americans will be kept in a fevered state throughout 2019 with innumerable hearings, exposes, criminal investigations and possible indictments of those around the president and the president himself. Truth will not be the point. Defamation will. Anything that might muddy the president, no matter how spurious, no matter how thin the evidence, will be pursued with gusto. The media will drop bombshell after bombshell if lives and careers are ruined.

So much the better. No one should be associating with this president anyway, as long as the left is concerned. Skipping down to the next paragraph, he says the Democrat Party in the media will do to American political life what it has done to the arts, the universities, the high schools, the Boy Scouts, race relations, religion, the happiness of so many women misled by feminism regarding marriage and career, the moral fabric of American life, morality, reduced feelings, late night television, mainstream Judaism, Catholicism and Protestantism, pro football and the sexual innocence of the young.

Colon. It will poison it from the moral from the French Revolution to this day. The two great aims of the left have been promising utopia to the malcontented and accumulating as much power as possible.

All moral values are subservient to these goals. After all, what could be more important than, quote, social justice, equality, quote, liberation, liberation from the women's liberation from the sexual oppression of the patriarchy, combating white privilege, fighting the rape culture that pervades campuses and saving life on planet Earth. And he goes on and on in this column to describe just what's going to make this a very dark, tumultuous year is going to be the movement, the revolution, you could call it.

Maybe that's an extreme word of the left to topple the Judeo Christian worldview of this country. Okay, let's start with Eric Davis as we talk about five things that will maintain stability and peace in a tumultuous 2019. Eric, it's great to have you on the Christian worldview for the first time. And I often ask first time guests just to tell us about your background, how you became a follower of Christ and the interesting story about how you ended up planting a church in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. It's great to be here, David. Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure to be on your show.

I'll give you the Reader's Digest version. It's kind of a roundabout story, but I was not raised in a Christian home, not raised in any type of Christian upbringing whatsoever, sort of raised in the hippie culture of Western Oregon in the late 70s, early 80s. I finished my undergraduate in engineering and plan to move out here to Jackson Hole to take a year off between grad school and sort of sow my wild oats even more than I was, ski, hike, do all that outdoorsy stuff. And the Lord's great kindness and sovereign mercy, I came to faith in Christ out here. I definitely did not plan that.

I was not seeking God at all. I met my girlfriend, who's my wife now of 16, almost 17 years, and I was a hardcore evolutionist. She challenged me to study, hey, look at all this design we see everywhere.

Could there be a creator? Just from a scientific point of view, I did. Before I became a Christian, I guess I became a creationist. And then she said, well, you can find out more about this creator in this book called The Bible. I was early 20s, knew everything fresh out of university.

I thought, well, what can this book teach me? I came to see that there is one and only one God and creator, holy, kind, merciful, all wise God. I had sinned against him and I needed a savior, which he graciously provided in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. I put my faith in him.

My wife and I got married a couple years later. I went to seminary. I just had an instant hunger for the Bible to understand it. I didn't know if I'm going to be a pastor or what I'm going to do. I just wanted to go to seminary, study this incredible book that is like no other. And eventually, through some mentorship of some dear men at both Grace Community Church and the Masters Seminary, under their direction, the Lord had us come out here 10 years ago with a small team of 10 of us. We figured, you know, this is maybe there's others like me who the Lord would draw, who are out here, who need to hear the good news of the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ in our place. So that's sort of the brief version, David. That is just a miraculous story, as you mentioned, of God's sovereignty from the background you came out of.

Just a quick follow up question. I'm assuming your parents aren't believers. Maybe they've become believers.

I don't know. But what do they think of your decision to become a follower of Christ and where are they now? So initially, it was pretty difficult. Everybody, you know, all my friends, family, to my knowledge at the time, no one was a follower of Christ. And so I don't want to say I was persecuted, of course, but verbally and socially it was, you know, Eric's in this cult, he's been brainwashed, he's lost his marbles.

You know, I thought he was going to be the successful engineer and what happened. In my earlier days of faith, I didn't understand the way, the fullness of the way that God works in salvation. So I became sort of combative and trying to convince people, what's your problem?

Why don't you believe? So the Lord really had to discipline and season me, backed off a little bit, show them the love of Christ, pray for them. And eventually, I believe that my father has come to faith in Christ, maybe another family member or two, you know, it's an ongoing thing, an ongoing issue of prayer for me. It's a great struggle.

I know there's many of us out there who have family members that are not followers of Christ and it's a great burden, but I'm trusting the Lord's sovereignty and my family has warmed up to it a little bit, but you know, it's a long term thing and I'm trusting God's sovereignty in it. That's an amazing story. Thank you for sharing that. Pastor Eric Davis with us today in the Christian Worldview radio program.

He's the teaching pastor at Cornerstone Church in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. I want to get into our topic for today, Eric, which is buckling your spiritual seat belt for turbulence ahead in 2019. And you wrote a column for the website, The Cripplegate, and that website is thecripplegate.com about what to do in a tumultuous 2019.

And I want to just read the first paragraph and then follow up with some questions today. You start out by saying you can already feel it. This coming year is going to be a rowdy one again. Depravity didn't leapfrog 2018. And according to my Bible, it won't do so this year or any year until glory. Last year ended with a harmatological bang or a sinful bang. Among other things, the year retired with a guy marrying a hologram, the normal political hullabaloo, a seven year old senselessly murdered, a few New Year's Eve terrorist attacks, et cetera, et cetera. All that is likely an ominous omen of things to come in 2019. And it's nothing new, even more than our speculation. We know this year is going to be a rambunctious one.

2 Timothy 3.13 says evil people and imposters will go on from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. In the first segment, I read this column from Dennis Prager, the conservative talk show host who's not a Christian, but he's a Jewish conservative thinker. And he talked about the political things going on, how there's been a leftist lurch in the Democrat Party, the inevitable clashes with the president. There's been stock market volatility, government shutdown, battle over illegal immigration, religious freedom versus the homosexual transgender agenda, on and on and on. And he had a similar perspective from a different worldview standpoint that this is going to be a very, he called it a dark year coming. So my question for you, Eric, is, is society becoming more chaotic? In other words, sometimes we can become imprisoned by the moment in which we live. But I think society is becoming more chaotic.

And if so, why? That question is always easier to answer once, you know, the dust has cleared and we're maybe a few years or decades or more removed. But from from my viewpoint in the in the mix, I think so. Even in the States, you can see a sort of moral degradation outwardly that's that's been happening over the years with different, you know, I'm not going to cite everything, but different things happening and homosexuality and sort of the progression there and not other things that all of that, of course, we know is already the seed in the heart, the depraved heart.

I think short answer, yes. First of all, though, because the Bible says so. The Bible clearly says that he decided there in Second Timothy three, that things aren't aren't going to get better. Of course, in Christ's return, we know they will.

But in the meantime, we should expect the world to continue being the world and then some. What are some of the things or situations or circumstances that make Christians feel unstable or a lack of peace? OK, much more coming up, you'll answer that question next on the Christian worldview.

I'm David Weeden. And deepen your walk with God in our online store. We have a wide range of resources for all ages, adult and children's books and DVDs, Bibles and devotionals, unique gifts and more. So browse our store at the Christian worldview dot org and find enriching resources for yourself, family, friends, small group or church.

You can also order by calling our office toll free at one triple eight six four six twenty two thirty three. That's one triple eight six four six twenty two thirty three or visit the Christian worldview dot org. Be sure to take advantage of two free resources that will keep you informed and sharpen your worldview. The first is the Christian worldview weekly email, which comes to your inbox each Friday. It contains a preview of the upcoming radio program along with need to read articles, featured resources, special events and audio of the previous program. The second is the Christian worldview annual print letter, which is delivered to your mailbox in November. It contains a year end letter from host David Weeden and a listing of our store items, including DVDs, books, children's materials and more. You can sign up for the weekly email and annual print letter by visiting the Christian worldview dot org or calling one triple eight six four six twenty two thirty three.

Your email and mailing address will never be shared and you can unsubscribe at any time. Call one triple eight six four six twenty two thirty three or visit the Christian worldview dot org. Thank you for joining us today on the Christian worldview radio program, I'm David Weeden, the host, our website, as always, is the Christian worldview dot org. That's where you can go to get connected to the program and find resources and lots of other things. Perhaps sign up for our weekly email to keep you informed or the short takes that go out in the podcast.

So it's all there at our website today. We're talking about five things to maintain stability and peace in a tumultuous twenty nineteen. And frankly, we really don't need Dennis Prager or anyone else to probably tell us this is going to be a rambunctious year. I think we sort of sense that if we're paying attention to the news and what's going on. But I think it just confirms what is likely ahead for us in twenty nineteen. Our guest today in the program is Eric Davis.

He's a teaching pastor at Cornerstone Church in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Let's get straight back to the interview with Eric. What are some of the things or situations or circumstances that make Christians feel unstable or a lack of peace? I think the first answer to that is bad theology is not being anchored in these glorious, eternal truths from the sixty six books of the Bible.

Initially, we might want to answer that question and say, well, you know, this circumstance or that or this liberal agenda or some of the things that Dennis Prager cited. But I think bad theology. Look, we don't we don't put on the glasses of just this here and now, only this world and things happening in society. We put on the glasses of scripture, of the sovereignty of God, of the goodness of God.

And we see through that. And those are the things that are going to anchor us. And a lack thereof is going to detach us from from the anchor and the stability that we have in our good God.

Eric Davis with us today in the Christian Royal View, the teaching pastor of Cornerstone Church in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. We're talking about having peace or buckling your spiritual seat belt for turbulence ahead in twenty nineteen so you can have a sense of stability and peace. You get into in your article what to do in a tumultuous twenty nineteen. We have this linked at our home page of our website, theChristianrealview.org. You have five fundamental keep the main things, the main things that we're going to get into those in a minute. Things that will result in Christians feeling or having stability and peace in the midst of a turbulent culture all around us. But I want to ask you the opposite question first.

What are some of the things or lifestyle choices or ways of thinking that do not result in Christians having peace in the midst of chaotic times? In other words, I'll just give one. I mean, I think if a believer just feasts in every night it's spent watching endless cable news programs and the left versus right battles and politics, you can start chewing on your arm. If you do that all the time. Right. So, you know, throw things at the television set. So that's one thing.

So what are some things that do not result? Like if we look at the world around us and we see, oh, man, things are bad. What's the wrong response for Christians to do to what's going on around us? Yeah, you really hit it there, David.

When we over fuel our minds with the news and the sort of tennis matches back and forth. I don't know about you, but for me, that doesn't result in greater trust, greater peace, greater stability in the Lord. I think the less time we spend in the Bible, not good. You know, in Psalm 1, the very first Psalm, it's put there for a reason. There are some astonishing promises that the Psalmist gives there. He says, look, in verse two and on, he says, if you're the person who is going to marinate his mind or her mind in the word of God, there's some huge promises. You're going to be like this planted tree. It's the idea of stability. You're going to be yielding fruit, fruitfulness. Your leaf is not going to wither.

Whatever you do, you're going to prosper. It's the opposite of a withered, burdened, worrying, fretting individual. It's, yeah, I'm still living in this world where things are going from bad to worse, and there's the same old chaos, but I'm grounded. When we get away from the word of God, it's no coincidence that these things that should not be destabilizing us are going to easily throw us off. When we're not plugged into our church, when the kingdom of man becomes a bigger deal to us than the kingdom of God, that's going to have a destabilizing factor, an unnecessarily discouraging factor. When we're not in prayer before the throne of grace, rarely do I ever get someone in counseling, David, who, you know, is having a spiritual battle and battling some issue, some sin, whatever it might be. And I ask them, how's your prayer life?

How's your Bible reading? Oh, great. That doesn't happen. There's a one-to-one correlation there. Those are a couple of things that are not coincidental as far as grounding and anchoring our minds in these chaotic times. Right.

OK, well, you just listed three of the five fundamentals that we're going to go into in a little more depth right now. Again, Eric Davis with us today, pastor at Cornerstone Church in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, on the Christian worldview, talking about the year ahead and how to have a sense of stability and peace. You say in your column that what are God's people to do amidst the tumultuous 2019? How can we best prepare ourselves for the bumpy ride?

Just about every year has been a rough one for God's people. His word is given for such times as these. We need to keep the main things the main things.

You mentioned the first few, as I mentioned in your last answer. You said the first one is to read the Bible. And that's such a fundamental. You say there's a sense in which the crazier times get, the more we need to read scripture.

It's really the only constant in the world. It's a lamp to see in dark times. Scripture lights the only safe path. It anchors us when the worldly winds beat hard. It invigorates when we are weary.

It gives wisdom when swimming in a sea of foolishness. That's just a short paragraph from your section on reading the Bible as a key. So now we've heard this exhortation to read the Bible, you know, since our Sunday school days. So Eric, why do so few Christians read the Bible regularly then? I mean, I'm talking on an almost daily basis.

And how do you inspire someone to dig into it more? At least for me and people that I get to pastor here. I mean, we lack faith, David.

We lack the trust. There's so much to do. I've got to get the kids to school, get breakfast made, get to work, do this, do that, the chores. These immediate things before us that are like little chihuahuas biting on our ankle.

I've got to get that chihuahua off my ankle first. It's the felt thing. It's the thing that I see, touch, feel, instead of, you know, stepping back for a second and saying, wait a second, who is in charge of this world?

There's nothing new under the sun. It is him with whom I have to do. It is him who I need to have fellowship with on a daily basis. And I believe too that sometimes we lose sight of the promises of God in scripture, some of which we just mentioned there in Psalm 1. That when I dwell with God in his word, there's going to be a transforming effect on me.

And I think sometimes we don't realize that right away or other, you know, the normal daily grind gets in the way. We lack faith. We lack faith that this word that our God has given us is going to have this stabilizing, transforming, peace giving effect that we need. And it's no coincidence. I think of Psalm 93, David, which says the Lord reigns.

He's clothed and girded himself with strength. The world is firmly established. It will not be moved. That's the perspective we need to have is we see this political issues going on in the downgrades and the back and forth that our God has established the world and it will not be moved. Everything going on is under his sovereignty, under his Lordship. God's not wearing a path pacing back and forth and on the carpet of the throne room of heaven.

He is completely calm and in control and we lose that perspective and we don't get into the scriptures. Let's get down to fundamental three, which is pray a lot what to do in a tumultuous 2019. You write spending 10 minutes before the evening news can cause you to blow an arterial o-ring.

Spending 10 minutes before the throne of grace in prayer will cause you to walk steady. How can we possibly hear and shoulder the daily devastating headlines? You say we can't. And playing ostrich is not an option for Christians.

Pray and keep praying. And I'm glad you said that because when I said it earlier about don't feed endlessly on the cable news debates every night. I don't say you shouldn't feed at all because I think it's important for Christians to be very informed about what's going on around us. We need to be really sharp. We need to be wise and discerning what's going on. But there needs to be plenty of balance because we are a product of what we take in. It's like you are what you eat, right?

It's you are what you take in. So talk about how prayer settles us and how to develop a more disciplined prayer life. Yeah, that's a great question you bring up, David, and I totally agree with you.

We do need to be informed while our diet shouldn't solely consist of, as you mentioned, cable news and these kind of things. We do need to be aware, sort of like the sons of Issachar of whom it was said, you know, they understood the times and knew what to do. Well, they knew what to do because they're in the Bible. They were with the people of God. They were in prayer. So they knew what to do in light of this. And part of that, as you mentioned, is prayer. I think it was Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones who said there's nothing harder than prayer. Again, that's because it's a non-material thing where we don't always see an immediate result, instant gratification.

Well, what do I get from this? You know, if I change my oil, I see I got new oil. If I clean the house, I see you got a clean house. I pray sometimes it's like I might have to wait a little bit, but the promises of God are huge. And we as the people of God have to take hold of those and implement them into our lives. And one of the critical ways, without which we cannot do this, to do that is prayer. Prayer, there's huge promises that God guarantees with prayer. In 1 Peter 5, I think of there, 5, 6, he says, Humble yourselves in the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you the proper time, casting all your worries, casting everything that's burning you on him.

Why? Because he cares for you. Well, how do I do that? How do I tangibly cast that on him? It's through prayer.

Philippians 4, 6, and 7 being another passage. Be anxious for nothing. Well, how do I not be anxious? I can't just turn off my brain.

People might medicate it in different ways if you're unhelpful. But the way we do that is prayer and supplication and thankfulness, letting requests be made known to God. This is critical. Now, OK, how do we do that?

How do we develop that? OK, much more coming up with Eric Davis right here on the Christian Worldview radio program. That's next. And designate Overcomer Foundation as your charity of choice. The Overcomer Foundation is the official name of the nonprofit organization that directs the Christian worldview. There's no catch.

You don't pay more for your purchases. Rather, Amazon directs half a percent of your eligible purchases to the Christian worldview. What a great opportunity to benefit this ministry. Again, go to smile.amazon.com and designate Overcomer Foundation as your charity of choice.

Thank you for your support. Social justice is a gospel issue. This has become the mantra of many evangelicals. Rectifying perceived inequities of race, gender, sexuality, poverty, immigration, amongst others, is considered a top priority. But what exactly is social justice? Is working for social justice a biblical mandate, an application of the gospel? Kel Biesner has written an insightful booklet entitled Social Justice. How good intentions undermine justice and gospel. Also included in this revised 44-page booklet is a copy of the just released statement on social justice and the gospel. You can order the social justice booklet for a donation of any amount to the Christian worldview. Go to thechristianworldview.org or call 1-888-646-2233 or write to Box 401 Excelsior, Minnesota 55331. Thank you for joining us today on the Christian worldview radio program where we strive to think biblically and live accordingly. I'm David Wieden, the host, and our website is thechristianworldview.org. Our topic for today is five things to maintain stability and peace for what promises to be a tumultuous 2019 ahead.

And our guest today is Eric Davis, he's the teaching pastor at Cornerstone Church in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and we have one more segment with him. So let's get to some of these points of these five things that will help us maintain stability. Okay, how do we do that?

How do we develop that? I think a Bible reading plan with prayer together, like twin duties, privileges of the Christian life, are critical. Prayer is sort of a response to the Word of God, to what we read, both thanking God for the promises that we see and petitioning God for the commands, Lord, would you make these happen in my life, and starting simple. You know, you don't need to be this two-hour prayer warrior right away. If you are, that's great, but start simple, start something. Five minutes a day, read your Bible, you know, for five, ten minutes, pray for five minutes.

If you've got to set a timer like I do, turn off the phone sometimes, that's okay. Start somewhere, make a prayer list. Pray one day for the nation, pray another day for your church, another day for your family. These kind of things for yourself, and just start somewhere. If you try to shoot too huge, sometimes, you know, shooting for the stars, we might get discouraged because we don't meet that goal and kind of quit.

No need to do that. Start somewhere and let that ten minutes before the throne of grace watch as God will. He will, he promises he will cause you to walk steady, it's a guarantee. I depend on prayer.

If I'm not praying, I see myself destabilized, David, pretty easily as just, you know, dealing with a normal grind that everyone else does. Pastor Eric Davis of Cornerstone Church in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, with us today talking about what to do in a tumultuous 2019 based on his column, which we have linked at our website right now, thechristianrealview.org. Just in the interest of time, Eric, I'm going to combine the last two of the five on how to have stability in the midst of the tumultuous year. You said number four was live godly lives, and number five, tell people the gospel. So there's a way to live here.

There's something we should do. You mentioned in the column that as Paul, the apostle Paul, told his understudy, Pastor Titus, what to do in the midst of his difficult culture he was living in. It was all about just living a godly life.

It wasn't about all these complicated things and go pick at the government, although that's not a bad thing if you want to do that. But really, he made it pretty simple, just live a godly life. So tell us what that means, and then share with us how we can increase our opportunities to tell people the good news about Christ. First of all, the previous three that we discussed are critical to the last two in Scripture, in prayer, in a church. Those are the things that are, those are all like the greenhouse to my soul and the fertilizer and the nutrients to my soul. So that when I go out, I am prepared as much as possible in all of my imperfections and in a very imperfect world. I am prepared to, by the grace of God, live a godly life, speak, have an opportunity to speak about Christ, speak about the good news.

Now and then, you're just not, you're going to struggle more than you need to to do those two things if we're not doing the previous three. With Titus, that always gets me because he lived in such an ungodly culture. Of course, the book of Titus, they are facing all the issues that we're facing. And it's fascinating to me, it's a brief letter, he just tells them, look, older men, younger men, older women, younger women, employees, just be kind to people.

Don't get in these neck bulging, red faced debates. Sure, you can discuss issues, definitely discuss them, but be gentle, be peaceable, be merciful, be humble when you fail at those, and we all do. You can be godly by asking forgiveness, by apologizing. And I find in those normal interactions, you know, we don't have to create new venues. Paul doesn't say, hey, create new venues to go share the gospel. He just says, in the normal rhythms of life, be kind and speak about Christ.

And in those normal venues, as we do interact and we do engage and we're kind, people say, well, what do you think about this? What do you believe about that? Well, you know, yeah, this and that, but you know, I believe that God is good.

He's in control. Things aren't going to just spin out of control perpetually, that there's a savior who one day is going to return and make perfect all the junk that is imperfect right now. And we can just say that to people. That just takes a minute on a lunch break, you know, out on a hike, whatever it is you do with fellow moms, at the mom's group, at the kids, whatever. And that's it. Not always easy, but it's not complicated.

And the previous three will give us strength to do those final. Well answered. And it's true, just in the course of life, if you have, you're setting your mind on things above, you know, by being in the word and praying and living a godly life. When you go out, this is the way you're thinking and you meet someone maybe at the store or just a clerk somewhere, just in the course of conversation. Just pray for those conversations sometimes to turn. And you don't need to give the person a sermon at that moment, but sowing some spiritual seeds and asking some questions about the person.

You'd be surprised. I need to do this much more, but sometimes just what I have done is just amazing, just the kind of conversations that you can have. And people don't get it elsewhere typically because it's such an increasingly secular society now. So they're not conversant or not even knowledgeable about the gospel, you know, as Christians are who go to church, who are hearing on a regular basis. So thank you for that exhortation, Eric. And just the final question for you today as we talk about what to do in a tumultuous 2019. You start at the beginning talking about what makes Christians feel unstable. You said bad theology, not understanding God's purposes for what's going on in the world right now as if he's out of control and he's wringing his hands in heaven. How does a biblical view of the end times, you know, understanding what's to come? I don't think we can understand it perfectly.

Some things are a bit shrouded. Now we see in a glass darkly in a few of these things. But God's told us a lot in his word about what's coming up. So how does a biblical view of the end times figure into having stability and peace in the midst of a tumultuous year?

Short answer is when you know how things are going to end, that being informed and you know it's a very good end, there's no reason to worry. Things are completely, you know, seem chaotic, seem out of control. They're not really. God is in control. It's actually somewhat of a functional atheistic view for us to say they're out of control.

They're not out of control. My Bible in Psalm 93 says God is God's things in control. Yeah, he's not always pleased with everything going on, but he's in control. And even more, he's going to exercise his sovereignty.

He said, you know, we don't know every little detail, but we know Christ is coming back bodily. And that will be the best political, social situation the world has ever seen. And he's going to right all wrongs. He's going to make just all the injustice.

He's going to deal with everything. And by the way, we better be prepared by trusting in him beforehand, believing in him, making sure that we really have put our confidence in him alone and not our works right standing with God. But when we know the end and we know the end is very good and we know who's in charge at the end, we're going to sleep better at night. I think we're going to be a little less combative with maybe our liberal neighbor about political issues. It's just going to have a peace giving effect in our daily lives.

There's nothing more practical than that. Let me just follow up to the question about the end times, because I think there are a lot of professing Christians out there who will say, you know, things are going to get better. We can, Christians can take dominion over our society. We can Christianize this country or Christianize the world and then Christ will return. What's your response to that sort of theology that Christians in the church should be making things better?

And if things aren't getting better, there's something wrong with the church? We are called to pepper society as salt and light. You're the light of the world. Let your light shine before men. Absolutely. Amen.

Do that. But let's step back for a minute and say, what is the God-given mission of the church? It is to make disciples. It's to preach the gospel.

It's to speak the good news of Christ crucified and live a godly life. I don't see in scripture anything that says, you know, Christians are going to progressively overtake the world and completely transform every nook and cranny of culture, and then sort of progressively lead into, you know, these great promises that God gives for the times when Christ returns. I don't see that. I do see promises in passages like things are going to get worse. You read Revelation, you read about some of those things inch up to Christ's return, and it gets pretty rough. A lot of persecution, things getting bad.

Christians don't have to fear, can stick with the mission, speaking the gospel, living godly life, trust in Him, and Christ promises He'll bring in this global earthly kingdom. He'll bring it in. He'll right all the wrongs. He will take care of all the things that sometimes we wonder, man, why isn't the church doing more? God is in control. Christ said, I will build my church, and He's not asleep. He's building it. We can trust Him though we don't understand. Sometimes it's why things aren't getting better.

Stick to the main thing. God is going to make good on all of His promises. He certainly will. Eric, we appreciate your turning our hearts and our minds back to the word and the promises of God today. He's in control.

He's going to make all things right eventually when His Son returns. In the meantime, even in the midst of difficulties, He gives the grace, the supernatural power to do His will and to be sustained in a tumultuous world around us. Thank you for coming on the Christian Real View today.

We just enjoyed the conversation. We wish all of God's best to you, your family, and Cornerstone Church in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Thank you, David.

Pleasure to be here with you. Blessings to all your listeners. Okay, you've just been listening to an interview with Eric Davis, the teaching pastor of Cornerstone Church in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. If you want to find out more about Eric, you can go to the church's website, which is Cornerstone JH, as in Jackson Hole. CornerstoneJH.com.

He also blogs at TheCripplegate.com. We're going to take a break. Final break of the day here on the Christian Real View. We're going to come back. We're going to give some summary comments about how to maintain stability and peace in this tumultuous 2019. So stay tuned.

Much more coming up on the Christian Real View. You can help us in our mission to impact hearts and minds by making a donation of any amount or becoming a monthly partner. All donations are tax deductible. You can give online at thechristianworldview.org or by calling us toll-free, 1-888-646-2233. When you give, we'd like to thank you by sending you a current resource.

Monthly partners can choose to receive resources throughout the year. Call 1-888-646-2233 or go to thechristianworldview.org. Thank you for your support. There's an abundance of resources available in Christian bookstores and online, but the sad reality is that many of them, even some of the most popular, do not lead to a sound and strong faith. A key aim of the Christian World View is to identify and offer resources that are biblically faithful and deepen your walk with God. In our online store, we have a wide range of resources for all ages, adult and children's books and DVDs, Bibles and devotionals, unique gifts and more. So browse our store at thechristianworldview.org and find enriching resources for yourself, family, friends, small group or church.

You can also order by calling our office toll-free at 1-888-646-2233. That's 1-888-646-2233 or visit thechristianworldview.org. So this is the final segment of the day on this first live program of 2019. We're so glad you joined us today on the Christian World View radio program, and I just want to say thank you on behalf of all of us at the Christian World View for so many of you who reached out and supported this ministry at the end of last year and over the entire year, and some of you for many years.

And we're so appreciative for that. We wish you could thank each of you individually, but just wanted to make sure that you know that we are encouraged by your notes of encouragement and your financial support of this listener-supported ministry, so thank you for that. Now, if you missed any of the interview today with Eric Davis on five things to maintain stability and peace in the tumultuous 2019, if you joined the program late, just be sure to go to our website. You can hear the full interview there. Usually we have it uploaded within a couple hours after the program airs live on Saturday mornings, and our website is thechristianworldview.org. Another encouragement this year is to sign up for a free podcast of this program, and some of you might think, What's a podcast? How do I do that? Most smartphones today will have a podcast app built right into it, and so take your smartphone, search for the podcast app, and then within the podcast app, you just search for the Christian World View, perhaps my name, The Christian World View with David Wheaton.

It'll come up, and you can just download it. I automatically get the program every week, in addition to the short takes as well. We're starting to produce these short sound bites, highlights of the program every week, so listeners are enjoying those for those who don't have the time to listen to a 45-minute podcast. So several things we're trying to do this year to make The Christian World View more accessible to more people.

Now, just a few summary remarks on this topic today of maintaining stability and peace in the tumultuous 2019. And as I was thinking about Eric, and we were talking about what makes Christians feel unstable, I mean, in a sense, we often hear it said, Well, we shouldn't be surprised. You know, pagans will act like pagans. The unbelieving world, they're going to act like unbelievers. They're not going to follow the Bible.

They're going to reject it. So why are we surprised? And that's true.

There's no question about that. I guess in a sense, we shouldn't be surprised. But at the same sense, I think for a Christian who sees the sinfulness inside themselves, or even in the world around them, encroaching in, it should be troubling, because I think it's troubling and saddening to God. You think about Paul on Mars Hill in Acts 17. He was seeing them worship all these idols and so forth. And he was said, I think the word is vexed or troubled in his spirit about it.

So I think there is a sense that, yes, we do expect to a certain degree that things are going to be getting worse around it. But it's not that we just accept it and watch it the way it is and move on with our lives. It troubles us because we know what God's will is, we know how much it offends God, and we don't want that. Well, if your spirit's been transformed through salvation, you have a new nature, you don't want that. You don't want it in yourself, and you certainly don't want it for other people, because you know the consequences for living in rejection of God in other people's lives. The ultimate consequence is judgment. And so you don't want that.

And so I think that's understandable. So we see as Christians, we see the fact that other Christians in society right now get marginalized or persecuted for standing up for their biblical beliefs. They're called bigots, they're called homophobes, when this is completely untrue, of course. There's these politically correct speech codes, there's pressure to accommodate a lie.

You must not call someone by anything other than their preferred gender pronoun, or else you're going to lose your business, your bakery, your photography business if you don't participate in this homosexual wedding. We see Christians getting punished, sued, losing their businesses for these things, and it's troubling. And I think that makes us feel unstable, not just because of what it's going to mean for us if we're ever the person that it's directed at, but just for someone else.

It hurts us. And we see what's going on in the schools today. The non-biblical, totally secular worldview taught to our children in schools, from K all the way through the really leftist worldview in higher education.

We see the corporate structure today is very politically correct. There's laws that are clearly against God's will for society. You can't turn on the TV at night without seeing the godlessness and entertainment in the music industry. You know, the political battles on TV we talked about earlier in the program.

You know, I'll give you just one quick example. You know, at the beginning of this year, literally the first day of the new Congress, we have this Muslim congressman from Michigan basically calling the president an obscenity. And, you know, again, maybe that shouldn't surprise us, but I think it's just jarring to us.

And it makes us feel like, what is the future going to be when this has become the discourse in this country? So I think what makes Christians feel uncomfortable is the fact that we see the God-rejecting society around us. But not only that, we also see what's going on in the church. It's a church that is, not all churches of course, this is a generalization, but some of the big, prominent, influential churches are clearly accommodating the culture instead of standing up against the ungodly culture. I think older Christians who are more traditional and orthodox in their beliefs are concerned that the church is becoming more like the world in order to, quote, win the world.

And that's not going to work out very well. Typically the accommodation is going to make the church compromise. And if the younger Christians, the millennial generation, again, not all, but generalization, some of them moving towards more of a social gospel, which is what the mainline denominations did so many years ago, and they're just basically social clubs today, they don't preach a true saving gospel and sound doctrine.

So we see these things and it makes Christians feel unstable. But I think if we keep in mind what Eric said, and those are all fundamental things that he said in the interview today, I mean, they're just the basics, but the fundamentals I learned from my sports background, if you could execute those, that's the key to being successful. And so as he says, number one, read the Bible. Number two, enthusiastically plug into a New Testament church.

You didn't get into that one today in the program, but that one's a key one. That's the one institution that God promises to bless, and the fellowship and the teaching and the growth that happens in that environment is so important. So trying to find a good Bible-preaching church is so important. And then praying, number three, praying a lot, having a disciplined prayer life. Number four, living godly lives and telling people about the gospel. And those five fundamentals, I think, stabilize us and they help us see the world, yep, I can expect what's going on around me, I'm not happy about it, it troubles me, but at least I can have a sense of peace and stability in the midst of it. And I'll just conclude with a verse or two, because ultimately it is about resting and trusting on the promises that God has given his word.

We are by no means living in the worst time in human history, in America at least. I mean, these believers in the New Testament, when the books were written, were in very, very difficult times of persecution. But like 1 Peter 1.13 says, Therefore, prepare your minds for action, keep sober in spirit, fix your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. As obedient children, don't be conformed to the former lusts which were yours in ignorance, but be like the Holy One, of whom it is written, You should be holy, for I am holy. That's the goal, become like Christ. We thank you for joining us today on the Christian Real View, we look forward to talking to you next week because we do live in a changing and challenging world, but there is one thing we can always count on and trust in, Jesus Christ and his word.

They are the same yesterday, today in 2019, and forever. Have a good weekend everyone. one hour radio program that is furnished by the Overcomer Foundation and is supported by listeners and sponsors. Request one of our current resources with your donation of any amount. Go to thechristianworldview.org or call us toll free at 1-888-646-2233 or write to us at Box 401, Excelsior, Minnesota, 55331. That's Box 401, Excelsior, Minnesota, 55331. Thanks for listening to the Christian World View. See you next time.