Living With Fear And Winning – Part 2 of 2

Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith. Many long for the good old days without terror attacks, days when jobs lasted a lifetime.

But those days are gone. There is a way to handle our fears. Today, Psalm 27 will show us that God's hands are stronger than the hands of wicked men and that we can be secure even when facing calamity. From the Moody Church in Chicago, this is Running to Win with Dr. Erwin Lutzer, whose clear teaching helps us make it across the finish line.

Pastor Lutzer, your topic is living with fear and winning. Some listeners may not know that the lofty words of Psalm 27 were written by a man hunted by those who sought to kill him. You know, Dave, it's a remarkable story, isn't it, when you stop to realize that Saul attempted to kill David over a period of about 10 years.

So imagine. And David necessarily did not have any great assurance that he was going to be spared, although God had promised him the kingdom. But meanwhile, he had to constantly run for his life. And in the midst of this, he was assured of God's presence, and God would become for him a refuge. And even as we listen to this message today, that is my prayer for all who are listening. Meanwhile, I want to emphasize that I've written a book entitled Famine's Deserts and Other Hard Places. The subtitle is, Trusting God in a Day of Calamity. For a gift of any amount, we're making it available for you.

And at the end of this broadcast, I'm going to be giving you some contact info explaining how it can be yours. Meanwhile, I want you to listen carefully. You've heard me quote the Puritans before, haven't you? When all that we have is God, we discover that God is enough. There is such a thing as comfort and rest and security in God. And David says that actually is the answer ultimately to those whom we fear and the whole fear issues that are so important to us.

And he says, lead me, Lord. Keep me from the desire of my enemies. They've laid traps for me. There are some of you who tomorrow morning are going to be in a work environment where there are people whose sole desire is to get you to fail. They want to see you fail. They want to set traps for you.

They want to work it in such a way that you fail because it's so important to them either to get your position or else to feel better in relationship to you, full of envy. And then there are others of you who may be harassed and who may be in difficult situations. And David is saying, keep me from the desire of my enemies. Do not turn me over to the desire of my foes, even though false witnesses have been raised against me. And we find today that there are people all over the place who are willing to be false witnesses.

If you get money, if you get prestige, if it helps you, false witnesses abound in our culture. Sometimes even in Christian circles, there are false witnesses that rise against us. So what David is saying is that, Lord, you're giving me these blessings, not when everything is going well. You'll notice he says he hides me in his tabernacle, as I mentioned a moment ago, in the day of trouble, not when you're healthy and well and when you get a windfall and when everything seems to be going in your direction, very much in the day of trouble. God protects us, satisfies us, receives us, leads us, and in that we can be confident. Now, I began this message by saying that the answer to fear is for us to understand God and his relationship to what's happening in the world. And what I need to tell you is this, that obviously from this Psalm we can see, first of all, that the bigger our God, the bigger our God, the smaller our fears and our enemies, the bigger our God. Because, you see, when David began to understand that the Lord was omnipotent and that he was God, that's what instills confidence in us. Do you remember the early church?

They were persecuted, they were whipped, they were taken, and they were put in jail. And when they came together for a prayer meeting, a marvelous prayer that was prayed in Acts chapter 4, what did they say? Oh, sovereign Lord, we know that you are the creator of the ends of the earth. That's the way their prayer began.

Why did they begin that way? They needed to remind themselves that their enemies who were persecuting them, that even those enemies were created by God and they were dependent upon God for their very breath. Listen, the person who has you in his sights, the person who would like to destroy you, I want to tell you today that that person lives and breathes by the mercy of a sovereign God who could snuff out his breath and his life in one second. And so the early church said, Lord, you're the creator and because you're the creator, you really do have the whole world in your hands and you are in control, in control. There's a second lesson.

And now we get to the biggie that I think is going to be very helpful for all of us. Even when we are in the hands of wicked men, we are still in the hands of God. Even when we're in the hands of wicked men, as believers, we are still in the hands of God. Who is it that crucified Jesus? Peter, when he was preaching to the people said, you crucified Jesus, wicked hands crucified him and nailed him to a cross. Wicked hands did it. And yet when Jesus dies on the cross and gives us those marvelous seven sayings from the cross, what is the last one that he gives?

He says, Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit. Wicked hands can only do so much. Wicked hands can only snuff out your life or nail you to a cross or cause an explosion or cause a plane to go down. That's all that wicked hands can do. But when wicked hands have done the worst that they can possibly do, underneath are the everlasting hands of God and those hands sustain God's people even when wicked hands do evil.

Always remember that. You remember Jesus said some things about his hands. He says that as far as my people are concerned, he said, no one can pluck them out of my hands, he says, speaking of his people.

And then he says in the very same context, my father who gave them to me is greater than everybody and nobody can pluck them out of my father's hands. You have hands in harmony. You have the hands of the son and you have the hands of the father and both of them are holding onto God's people and they hold onto God's people even when God's people are thrown to the lions, even when they are massacred, even when they die in airplanes, they hold on to God's people. Those hands do not let go.

Let's take Todd Beamer of Let's Roll fame. Did he as a believer die under the hands of wicked men or the hands of God? The answer is of course that he died under both hands. He was in the hands of wicked people on that airplane, you remember, that went down in Pennsylvania. Wicked hands were hijacking it, intending to take it perhaps to Washington and hit one of the buildings there.

Wicked hands were doing that. But he dies under the hands of God and even those hijackers were in God's hands and the Bible says regarding the wicked, it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. They also fall into God's hands but believers fall into God's hands and they are taken to heaven along with Jesus who said, into thy hands I commit my spirit. I hope I'm making myself clear today. What I'm trying to say to you is that the providence of God does not leave you just because somebody who is wicked attacks you or even kills you.

You're still in the hands of God. I helped a woman understand this whose husband was murdered in a random murder. She was a believer, he was too.

She she struggled a great deal with this. She could never accept the death of her husband as being part of God's plan because to her God's plan had only good things over here. It would never include evil things over here. Well needless to say, God does not do evil. God did not murder her husband.

Wicked hands murdered her husband. But even those wicked hands as I have mentioned are still in the hands of God and the believer, her husband, died in God's hands. That's why David said just a couple of Psalms later, if your Bible is like mine, you can turn to Psalm 31. Psalm 31, and I love to hear the turn of the leaves of your Bible. Psalm 31 verse 14, but I trust in you, O Lord. I say you are my God. My times are in your hands.

Your hands. Now he says, deliver me from mine enemies and those who persecute me, but my times are in God's hands. This evening, God willing, I'm going to be flying to Canada.

You know that there is a big country to the north of us called Canada. God willing, tonight, if he wills it, I'm going to be in Regina, Saskatchewan, enjoying some fellowship with my parents, my father's 100, my mother's 95, and I get a chance to visit them en route to Calgary where I'm speaking just for a couple of days. Now I want to tell you in advance, I believe that the plane that I'm going to be flying on is going to make it okay.

Let's just get that straight. But if it doesn't, I don't want you to think to yourself, well, you know, he died because this plane had mechanical failure or because it was hijacked or because of this and that, whatever the reason may be. I want you to know that ultimately, despite all of these contingencies, I have the deep satisfaction that I will have died in the hands of almighty God.

And I want you to have that satisfaction too, because when you begin to believe that, then fear begins to dissipate because you begin to say that there is no fear that will come to me except that it is a part of the divine plan. Now, of course, we don't do foolish things. We make wise decisions, just like David was running from Saul.

He didn't say, well, God, you know, you're going to protect me. So here I am. Let's all kill me.

No, David was running because you have human responsibility connected with Providence. But at the end of the day, I want you to know today that we are in God's hands. That's why Jesus said, do not fear those who are able to kill the body. That's all the terrorists can do. All that they can do is to kill the body.

And then after that, they run out of ideas. Jesus said, fear him rather who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. There's a third lesson. And with this, we will conclude that it's not possible to simultaneously focus on God and focus on our fears. In fact, there's a verse in the Psalms that actually says that if you fear God, you need fear nothing else.

You don't even have to fear news from a far country, the Bible says, as long as you fear God, because there's nothing that comes into your life, but that it is a part of his permissive will, at least part of his permissive will. Someone has said that fear, and here we have an acrostic now, F-E-A-R, fear is false evidence appearing real. There are tons of fears out there that you and I have that will never come to us.

British Columbia, I'm reminded of that prison made of wallboard that any prisoner could have pushed down, but it looked like concrete, so they never tried to touch it. The very same way, many of our fears, if you push on them, you find that they are a puff of smoke, especially in the presence of a sovereign God. And that's the way our fears are.

But as long as we think that they are formidable, they are as formidable as we think they are. But if we are willing to trust God, the fear dissipates. Let not your heart be troubled. There was a little girl who was riding on a train playing with her dolls and toys on one side of the train, and when it went into a tunnel, the people who were around thought that the little one would cry, that suddenly this train which was in sunlight was engulfed in darkness. But she didn't cry. And when the train came out on the other side of the tunnel, everybody realized why she didn't.

She had left her dolls and her toys and had rushed across the aisle and was securely being held in the arms of her mother. That's what fear does to us. Fear makes us leave all the things that we are important in life, and we run to God, and we say, I want you to envelop me.

I want you to be all that I am at this moment. And God, figuratively speaking, puts his arms around us. Look at what David says here in the last verse of Psalm 27. Wait for the Lord. Be strong and take heart. Wait for the Lord. Some of you are bearing burdens and fears that God never, never intended you to bear, and you're bearing it and it hurts and it's destructive. Why don't we just give it all to God today? Just let go and say, God, you're stronger than I am.

You know more than I do. You have a providential plan. You can hurt me as deeply as you think I need to be hurt, but at this moment I transfer my fears to you. Can we do that? Let's pray together. Father, before I came here today, I prayed for the deliverance of your people from fear.

Fear of illness, fear of terrorism, fear of rejection, fear of war. Today we pray, Father, that in a new way you'll help us to see that we are in your hand. May we transfer those fears to you. Would you transfer those fears to the Lord right now? Father, we know that these things take time.

They can't be done in just a moment, but I wanted the opportunity to be given for everyone to say, Lord, by your grace I'll bear these fears no longer. The Lord is my light and my salvation. Whom shall I fear? Who's out there?

No one is out there who's as great as the one who loves me and cares for me and hides me in his tent. Oh, grant that, Father, we pray. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. My friend, this is Pastor Luther. I want to speak directly to your heart. I know how difficult it is to give our fears to the Lord. It's so easy to transfer those fears onto his shoulders and then moments later those fears return. What you and I must do is to live a life of continual dependence. And when the fears do return, we need to give them to God over and over again.

And then eventually, I believe that they will lose their power. For a gift of any amount, we're making a book available for you entitled, Famine's Deserts and Other Hard Places. The subtitle is, Trusting God in the Day of Calamity. I want people to understand that the saints of the past have gone through tremendous calamities in their generation. They were faithful.

God rewarded them and God will do the same for us. For a gift of any amount, we're making this resource available for you. I do hope that you have a pen or pencil handy so that you can write this contact info down. Go to rtwoffer.com. That's rtwoffer.com or call us at 1-888-218-9337. Remember the title of the book, Famine's Deserts and Other Hard Places. Meanwhile, I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for all those of you who support this ministry, for those who pray for us, for those who join hands with us.

Right now, go to your computer and type in rtwoffer.com. It's time again for another chance for you to ask Pastor Lutzer a question about the Bible or the Christian life. Eternal security. Some believe salvation cannot be lost. Others feel we can fall away from the faith.

Fred listens to Running to Win in Marion, Kansas. This is his story. I attend a Bible study and one of our group members said that if we can choose to accept Christ, then we can choose to give back our salvation once attained. However, I believe that I'm sealed by the Holy Spirit and that no created thing, including myself, can separate me from God. However, my pastor told me that a person can lose his salvation. He doesn't accept my argument that a person who falls into some kind of apostasy only professed salvation and did not really believe. He said I was a Calvinist by holding that belief. I do not believe the strict Calvinist view that God has pre-chosen all believers without their will being a factor. I do believe that God has chosen many.

Paul comes to mind. But I can't accept the view that we can lose what the Holy Spirit has sealed. Pastor Lutzer, I've not had a good past and the devil keeps attacking me and trying to get me to doubt the assurance I have in Christ. When I hear my pastor and a knowledgeable friend tell me that I can lose my salvation, it makes me wonder if I'm understanding the Word correctly. So, can we lose our salvation?

Brad, I want to thank you so much for asking this question and the clarity with which you asked it. And I know that for you it is a very personal question, because as you say, because of your difficult past, there is within your mind this question of whether you can lose your salvation. So I want to begin by saying first of all that there are good Christians on both sides of this controversy. And I hope that it's not a controversy that splits your church or drives you away from your church, which in many respects may be a very good church. And throughout the years Christians have differed on this point. It's not because God vacillates. It's just that there are some passages of scripture which if we had them by themselves, we would conclude one point of view and then you read other passages of scripture and they clearly give another point of view and clearly both cannot be right.

I believe that you cannot lose your salvation, because as you mentioned, we are indeed sealed by the Holy Spirit. Also, there is a verse in Romans chapter 8 that is very clear that God foreknows us, that means that he chooses us, and then he justifies us, he sanctifies us, and then it says, this group of Christians he even glorified. It's a very strong statement that God has seen fit to save all those who believe and to carry them all the way to heaven.

Let me give you another example. In the New Testament, Jesus is spoken of as the Good Shepherd. I've often pointed out that if you had a hundred sheep and in the morning you left with a hundred sheep and in the evening you came back with 98, you'd be the laughing stock among the other shepherds.

It's your responsibility to bring as many home as you were given. Jesus repeatedly spoke about those whom the Father has given me. I can't imagine that the Good Shepherd would lose a sheep. No matter how stubborn the sheep is, sheep have a tendency to go on false paths, etc., and yet the Good Shepherd brings them back by hook or by crook. What do we say about those who do fall into moral sin or doctrinal error? Well, I do believe that many of these might be Christians. Christians can fall into great sin, but I believe that generally they do come back to the Lord, and if not, God does bring them into great discipline. Some of them might actually die, as the New Testament teaches there is a sin unto death, so we need to leave them in God's hands. As far as your salvation is concerned, Fred, don't take it for granted, but just remember that your faith is in Christ, he regenerated you, and have confidence that he who has begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ. So be encouraged, keep going, and remember that you are in God's hands, and Jesus said, no one can pluck them, his children, out of my hands. Some good news from Dr. Erwin Lutzer for Fred and for all of us. If you'd like to hear your question answered, go to our website at rtwoffer.com and click on Ask Pastor Lutzer, or call us at 1-888-218-9337.

That's 1-888-218-9337. You can write to us at Running to Win, 1635 North LaSalle Boulevard, Chicago, IL 60614. Next time, a series on famines, deserts, and other hard places.

Guidance for facing life as it gets harder and harder to bear. Thanks for listening. For Pastor Erwin Lutzer, this is Dave McAllister. Running to Win is sponsored by the Moody Church.