That's what happens in times of distress. What you really love, who you really love, becomes manifest. And if you really love God, then in the midst of all the distress you're rejoicing because God is in the distress. It is His will for your good and for His glory. Welcome to Grace to You with John MacArthur.
I'm your host, Phil Johnson. It's been said that anxiety is a thin stream of fear trickling through the mind. If it's encouraged, it cuts a channel into which all other thoughts are drained. So how do you stop even that first trickle of worry? How do you keep concerns about sickness or the economy or who's going to be the next U.S. president from consuming your thoughts and robbing your joy and curbing your passion for God?
Is a life free from anxiety truly within your reach right now? Keep those crucial questions in mind as John shows you what God's word says about finding security in a troubled world. That's the title of the lesson today, and now here's John MacArthur. Our nation is facing something that has circled the globe, the coronavirus epidemic, and it has created fear, confusion, doubt, questions everywhere. And we haven't seen the end of it yet.
It's still moving at a rapid rate. We don't know the final outcome of that, not just the physical outcome of the illness itself, but the implications that have hit everyone from an economic standpoint. And even though 99-point-something percent of people who receive this will recover from it, there is still mounting fear, not just from the illness itself, but from all that's happening around it that is changing people's lives. The world can be a difficult place. Isaiah 8, 22 says, "'Look to the earth and behold, distress and darkness and the gloom of anguish.'"
We understand that. On a more personal level, Solomon writing in Ecclesiastes chapter 2 said, "'I hated life, for the work which had been done under the sun was grievous to me, because everything is futility and striving after wind, because all of a man's days his task is painful and grievous. Even at night his mind does not rest.'"
Now that's a man with no media. That's a man just saying life is vain, just in my own circle of experience. Jesus said in John 16, 33, in the world you will have tribulation, you'll have trouble.
The word in the Greek is actually pressure. The Bible, however, always tells us this, that God is in the trouble, God is in the trouble. He's not just looking at the trouble, He's not just allowing the trouble, He is in the trouble. Listen to Isaiah 14, 24, "'The Lord of hosts has sworn, saying, "'Surely, just as I have intended, so it has happened, and just as I have planned, so it will stand.'" Again Isaiah says in chapter 46, "'My purpose will be established, and I will accomplish all my good pleasure. Truly I have spoken, truly I will bring it to pass.
I have planned it, surely I will do it.'" And what is God speaking of? Everything, actually everything. What God wants you to know is He is in charge of absolutely everything at a complexity level that is so vastly beyond your comprehension that explaining it would be useless. But He wants you to know this, it's all according to His will that everything operates.
That is to say, He is absolutely sovereign in the world, He is in control, and what He purposes is exactly what comes to pass. And He wants you to know that if you belong to Him, it's all working together for your good. God wants us to know this, "'You're Mine. I love you. I sent My Son to die for you.
You're My child. Trust Me, trust Me.'" God is in charge of everything. He's not revealing everything. But He is doing something, and that is He's teaching us to trust Him. He's teaching us to trust Him.
And most of those lessons are much more enhanced and much more intense and much more effective when we're in trouble. We don't learn a lot when everything's going well. We don't listen very well. We start listening when we're at the end of our ability to control something, when life's getting away from us. When forces beyond us have taken over, maybe we become a little more eager to listen. And what would God say to us? What lessons does He want us to learn?
I'm going to give you some of those, just a list taken from a number of passages of Scripture. But let me tell you what God is doing in your life and my life in this time of trouble. Number one, God uses trouble.
And this is in a general sense, this is in a broad sense, but it's applicable in a specific sense. God uses trouble to test the strength of our faith. God uses trouble to test the strength of our faith. And now, by the way, He doesn't need to test it for His information. He knows that.
But He tests it for our information. Listen to Exodus chapter 16, verse 4. The Lord said to Moses, "'Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you, and the people shall go out and gather a day's portion every day, that I may test them, whether or not they will walk in My instruction. Will they go out and take just enough for a day and believe God that the next day He will provide more bread, and the next day more bread, and on the sixth day they can bring in twice as much because there won't be any bread on the Sabbath?
Will they do what I command them to do?'" Another illustration of this can be found in the prophecy of Habakkuk. Habakkuk sees doom on the horizon, and he says in the opening of his prophecy, "'The oracle which Habakkuk the prophet saw, how long, O Lord, will I call for help, and you will not hear? I cry out to you, violence, you do not save. Why do you make me see iniquity and cause me to look on wickedness? Yes, destruction and violence are before me, strife exists and contention arises. Therefore the law is ignored and justice is never upheld, for the wicked surround the righteous. Justice comes out perverted.
Are you looking? Look at the nations, observe,' says God back, "'because I am doing something in your days, you wouldn't believe if you were told. It doesn't look good. Trust me, trust me.'" That's the lesson. This was a test of Habakkuk's faith.
How did he do with the test? Well, over in the third chapter of Habakkuk there's one of the most wonderful portions of Scripture anywhere, chapter 16, the end of chapter 3, the end of the prophecy. "'I heard, I heard from God, and my inward parts trembled at the sound my lips quivered. Decay enters my bones, and in my place I tremble, because I must wait quietly for the day of distress for the people to arise who will invade us.'"
He's terrified, because the prophecy's telling him that invaders are coming, and they're coming with power and judgment on the Jewish people. But notice his faith, verse 17. "'Though the fig tree should not blossom, and there be no fruit on the vines, though the yield of the olive should fail, and the fields produce no food, though the flock should be cut off from the fold, and there be no cattle in the stalls.'" Look, he's an agrarian guy.
He lives in an agrarian culture. If everything that is predictable – fig trees blossoming, fruit showing up on vines, olive oil not failing over hundreds of years from the same tree – if everything that is normal and routine is changed dramatically – "'Yet I will exult in the Lord. I will rejoice in the God of my salvation. The Lord God is my strength, and He has made my feet like hinds' feet, like mountain goats' feet, and He makes me walk on my high places.'"
And actually, he gives instruction to turn it into a song for the choir director on a stringed instrument. "'If everything in my world that I know is routine and normal goes away, disappears, is so dramatically altered as if to non-exist, I will rejoice in the God of my salvation. The Lord God is my strength.
I'm like a mountain goat on high places.'" This is why God brings trouble. It doesn't need to explain anything to us. What He does in that trouble, first of all, is test our faith in Him. Second Chronicles 32, 31 says about Hezekiah, God left him to test him that he might know what was in his heart. Not that God might know, but that Hezekiah might know. God knows what's in our heart. God knows everything. The test is for us so that we can do an honest evaluation of our faith.
So how are you doing in this momentary chaos of a virus? How's your faith? God allows those trials for us to test the strength of our faith. Secondly, I would say, and it kind of flows out of that, God has a second purpose, and that is to humble us. I would suggest to you that anyone going through a test of faith legitimately and honestly is going to say, I need more faith, I need more faith, and you're going to be humbled.
The severest test of faith on the most faithful person is not likely to cause that faithful person to be proud about his or her faithfulness, but rather the most godly and spiritual person in the midst of the trial would say, Lord, I believe, strengthen my faith. In 2 Corinthians, chapter 12, there's a text that speaks so directly to this. Paul is suffering a thorn in the flesh.
This thorn in the flesh is not likely a physical ailment. This thorn in the flesh is described as a messenger of Satan. A messenger is angelos, a satanic angel is a demon. Most likely this demon was tormenting him, not on a personal level, but tormenting him by leading the attacks on his beloved Corinthian church. And this became painful and agonizing for Paul that demon-led false teachers were tearing up his beloved Corinthian church. So verse 7, he says, because of the surpassing greatness of the revelation, for this reason to keep me from exalting myself, there was given me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me to keep me from exalting myself.
Why would God allow demonically inspired false teachers to do damage to the Corinthian church? The answer is to humble Paul. When you think of Paul, you think of the godliest of men without equal. And yet pride was a reality in his life because of the many revelations that he had had. And he says, even I in the midst of this trial recognize that God is humbling me. The Lord puts us through trials then to test the strength of our faith, and in the testing to show us that our faith is far less than it should be, even the noblest of us, and therefore to humble us to the point where we would say with Paul, I am well content with weaknesses. Give me more of this if it humbles me.
Is that something you've thought about, whatever the distresses are currently? Are you saying, Lord, I'm not what I should be? I thank You for the reality of my faith, the truthfulness of my faith.
It's the real thing. My faith holds and stands. This test has proven the validity of the faith You gave me in Christ. But can You say, Lord, bring on more, whatever it takes to humble me, because I know Your power is perfected in my weakness.
I will rather boast gladly about my weaknesses so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. So the Lord brings these things into our lives to test the strength of our faith, and in the testing and inevitably our pride, self-confidence, self-trust is exposed, and we are humbled. There are the two profoundly initial realities of what the Lord is doing in our lives.
I think there's a third principle. I think the Lord is weaning us from earthly things. The Lord is weaning us from earthly things. In Colossians, Paul says, set your mind on the things above, not on things on the earth, for you have died, your life is hidden with Christ in God. What are those earthly things you need to turn from? Immorality, impurity, compassion, evil desire, greed. You once walked in those things, put them away, along with anger, wrath, malice, slander, abusive speech, don't lie. Put on the new self renewed in a true knowledge according to the image of one who created Him. Be marked by compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience, bearing with one another, forgiving each other. Whoever has a complaint against anyone, just as the Lord forgave you, so also should you."
That's a godly life. That's what it means to set your mind on things above and not on things on the earth. One of the benefits of a massive trial like this is the fact that there's a certain sense in which the reset button has been set in all of our lives.
We don't know what the next chapter is going to look like. But we do know this, that it's for our good. It's according to the will of God and will bring Him glory. And so we approach this with joy, and peace, and love, and purity, and holiness, and virtue, and kindness. In other words, we grasp all those heavenly realities that have been vouchsafed to us by the work of the Holy Spirit in our hearts.
There's a fourth reality that is important too, and that is this. Trials call us to heavenly hope. Trials call us to heavenly hope.
In 2 Corinthians, chapter 4, Paul closes this chapter recognizing the difficulties. Verse 16 of 2 Corinthians 4, therefore we do not lose heart. But though our outer man is decaying, that our inner man is being renewed day by day. We're not only focused on those things that are heavenly, but we're focused in the midst of trouble on the renewal of the inner man. In other words, we've been weaned from the world, we're now walking more in the Spirit, and we're in touch with what the Lord is doing in our hearts. Verse 17, for momentary light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison. In other words, how you respond to the trial is directly related to your eternal reward. While we look, he says in verse 18, not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal. He goes on to say, we're just in an earthly tent, and if this is torn down we have a building from God, a house not made with hands eternal in the heavens. For indeed, in this house we groan, longing to be clothed with our dwelling from heaven. When things begin to be stripped away from you in this world, your focus shifts to eternal glory."
Just a couple of other things to think about. This would be a fifth work of the Lord in this process of going through trouble. God designs trouble to reveal what we really love, to reveal what we really love. What do you love? This is the kind of situation that will reveal that. Is anything specially dear to you?
It's going to show up in a time of stress. I can't help but go anywhere in my thinking but to Genesis 22 when the most horrible of all situations occurs. A man is told by God to take the life of his beloved Son, covenant Son. The man is Abraham, the Son is Isaac. And God says, I want you to take His life. All Abraham's hopes and all of his connections to the promise of God were in Isaac. But Abraham took him, Genesis 22 says, bound his son Isaac, verse 9, laid him on the altar on top of the wood, stretched out his hand, took the knife to slay his son. But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said, Abraham, Abraham.
And he said, Here I am. He said, Do not stretch out your hand against the lad. Do nothing to him, for now I know that you fear God."
Fear not in the sense of terror, but in the sense of respect. Abraham has so much respect for God that when God tells him to take his son's life, he's ready to plunge the knife. There's no question that Abraham loved Isaac.
There's also no question he loved God more. That's what happens in times of distress. What you really love, who you really love becomes manifest. And if you really love God, then in the midst of all the distress, you're rejoicing because God is in the distress. It is His will for your good and for His glory.
You're finding out who you really love. There's another principle that God is working in our lives through this. He is putting us through trials that will enable us to help others in their trials.
I think of Luke 22 where Jesus says, Peter, you're going to go through this, you're going to deny Me on three occasions multiple times. But in the end, when you are converted and when you are turned around and go the right way, you will strengthen the brethren, you will strengthen the brethren. The God of all comfort, Paul says, comforts us that we might comfort others. This is the work of God. We become more useful to others. We become more devoted to the Lord because we love Him more than anything else, and whatever else might be taken away from us only leaves us with less, which makes it easier to focus on the one who really matters, and that is God. Are you finding that you love Him with all your heart and with all your soul?
That's the test. And in the end, the final word is pretty simple. God does what brings Him glory.
If you love Him, you rejoice in that reality. We want to bring honor and glory to God. That is what He is doing in all things. God will receive glory from this current stress.
We don't know exactly all the ways He will, but He does. That's why it's happening. The end of all that I have to say to you is this. You are a part of something God is doing, and you're on the top side of it if you're a believer. You're on the heavenly side of it. You're looking down on this from the heavenly perspective. We don't worry, because we know who our Father is, we know who our family is, and we know what our future is.
We don't worry. But we do become learners through this kind of situation. We have the responsibility to learn the lessons that the Lord is teaching us.
You can take a look at your own life and examine where you are in regard to the things we've talked about. But if you look at them rightly, you see this not as a threat, but as an incredibly wonderful, promising opportunity to grow in grace and in the knowledge of Christ and become more like the Savior, more faithful to the Lord, more obedient, more useful to Him, more joyful, more the source of all that is good and godly than you were without this trial. We ought to be the shining lights in the midst of all of this. And when it's done, if you have been a faithful mathetes, a faithful learner or disciple, all these lessons will be for your good and His glory. This is Grace to You with John MacArthur.
He's chancellor of the Masters University and Seminary. His lesson today is titled, Finding Security in a Troubled World. Well, today's message, as we've said, John delivered it in the wake of the COVID-19 lockdowns, and there was an urgency to the sermon at the time. But really, the need for finding security in a troubled world hasn't gone away. The world is still troubled. Our lives are filled with trouble, and just because you're a Christian doesn't mean that anxiety won't come your way.
John, you have some thoughts on that. Yeah, everybody understands anxiety. The very fact that you can't control everything around you, the very fact that bad things happen, and they happen to everybody. They happen to the best people.
They happen to God's people. There's always the potential to worry. But for a believer, to worry is sinful because you're really not accessing the resources that are available to you in Christ and in His Word. So I want to offer a book that I know will have an impact on your life because it's done that for decades. The title of the book is Anxious for Nothing. That's taken from a Bible verse, Be Anxious for Nothing. And I want to let you know that this book is an offer to anyone who has never contacted us before.
We would love for you to contact us now. Request the book, Anxious for Nothing. It'll take you through the basic principles found in scripture for defeating worry. This is a classic book for grace to you that has blessed tens of thousands of people, if not more through the years. And it provides powerful biblical insight into overcoming temptation to worry about the things that are happening around you. If you're a Christian, you'll see how to appropriate really amazing spiritual resources that are available to you and able to put your worries to rest. One of the key features that I love about the book is the section on Psalms for the anxious.
It takes you through those Psalms, shows you how to defeat worry with the super weapon of prayer and a lot more. So here's what we want to do. We want to send you a free copy of Anxious for Nothing if you're contacting us for the first time. And obviously this is a limited time offer, so get in touch with us right away.
That's right. Thank you, John. Friend, Anxious for Nothing can help point the way out of fear and uncertainty by showing you how to find peace in any circumstance. Request your copy when you contact us today. You can call us at 800-55-GRACE or send an email to letters at gty.org. Once again, Anxious for Nothing is our gift to you if you've never gotten in touch before, so ask for your copy, call us 800-55-GRACE or send your request to letters at gty.org. If you have contacted us before, Anxious for Nothing costs $10.50 and shipping is free. So place your order at gty.org or you can call us at 800-55-GRACE. When you visit our website, you'll also find thousands of free resources.
You can download more than 3,600 messages free of charge in MP3 and transcript format. That includes John's lesson from today titled, Finding Security in a Troubled World. You'll also find daily devotionals, Grace To You television, blog articles, all of these study tools that can help deepen your understanding of Scripture and enrich your worship. Our website again, gty.org. Now for John MacArthur and the entire Grace To You staff, I'm Phil Johnson. Be back tomorrow for a lesson from John that we've never aired before titled, Hope for a Doomed Nation. It's another 30 minutes of unleashing God's truth one verse at a time, on Grace To You.
