The Age Of Anxiety Series

Almost every chapter of the New Testament was written to and

for people who were having hard times. God knows that life is filled

with trouble and anxiety, and so He gave us His word to be the ark

to carry us through this world where the flood of sorrow never

ceases. Where else can we find help and hope? So many modern

scholars have become pessimistic because of their rejection of God.

Ernst Jungers in his essay Man In The Moon wrote, “I as a man on

the moon, can no where find sense, being truly an icy lunar with its

craters. Since I have given up seeking the point of my life, I am

completely tormented.” The best that man can give us will be of no

benefit when the flood strikes. The comforts of man’s theories of life

are shallow. The coin of their comforts ring like wooden nickels in

the hour of crisis.

Man wants an answer for his anxiety. He wants to be delivered

from his dread and cured of his care. Joshua Leibman in his best

seller Peace Of Mind wrote, “That men want peace is no private

opinion of mine. Heap worldly gifts at the feet of foolish men, give

me the gift of the untroubled mind.” Man wants peace, but where

can he go? All the world has to offer is sounding brass and a

tinkling symbol. There is only once source he can go to, and that is

the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort. We want to focus

our attention on verse 7 for His message of challenge and comfort.

I. THE REALITY OF ANXIETY IS RECOGNIZED.

The Bible does not escape problems by pretending they are not

real. It recognizes that anxiety is very real and that even the

Christian is in danger of falling into its grasp. We would not have to

be told to cast our care upon Him if we had no care to cast. The

Bible assumes that Christians, like all people, suffer with worry and

anxiety in times of trouble. Anxiety comes from the root meaning to

divide.” The anxious Christian is a divided personality and cannot

give full devotion to Christ. Anxiety is to the personality what fever

is to the body. It registers the presents of something foreign causing

a reaction. Often we can no more help being anxious than we can

help getting an infection.

Someone has said, “Anxiety will not empty tomorrow of its

sorrows, but it empties today of its strength. It does not enable you

to escape the evil, but makes you unfit to cope with it when it

comes.” Jesus told us that sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.

You will have all you can deal with each day without adding to the

load worries about the future. Man has the power to imagine the

worst, and so he is capable of anticipating the future, and it is the

future that is the cause for so much anxiety. There is an old story of

a man walking along with a heavy burden, and the angel of

knowledge comes and says, “What are you caring?” The man said,

“My worries.” “Let us examine them,” said the angel. So the man

let down the load, and when they looked in the bag it was empty. “I

don’t understand,” said the man. “I had two great worries that

were so heavy I could hardly lift them.” “Yes,” said the angel, “but

one was of yesterday, and it is gone. The other was of tomorrow,

and it is not yet here.” We need to learn to bear only the worries of

today, and then we need not bear such a heavy load. God will not

give us burdens to great to bear, but if you take burdens beyond

today, they are not God given.

Every person has a breaking point, and if you choose to worry

about enough things anyone can destroy their peace of mind. If only

we could learn to live for today as the hymn says.

I’ll live for today nor anxious be,

Jesus my Lord I soon shall see.

Sometimes when the sky of our life is dark and dreary we feel

like the poet when he said:

Backward, flow backward, O tide of the years!

I am so weary of toil and of tears,

Toil without recompense, tears all in vain,

Take them and give me my childhood again!

But there is no escape from life’s trials like that. The past is gone

and we must face the present and the future with a greater power

than that which seeks to crush us. The Bible recognizes the reality

of anxiety and worry, but it also recognizes that faith in Jesus Christ