FEAR THOU NOT

“Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness” (Isa 41:10).

Could it be that this will be our common test or trial of our faith? Nations in the Middle East are falling apart like dominoes. As crude oil production gets threatened, crude prices go up as do gas prices at the pump. If our own nation cannot pay its debt and the dollar loses its status as the world reserve currency, is it not too wrong to think that the dollar will soon fail? If the dollar fails and becomes worthless, what will we use to buy and sell goods? There might even be plenty of food still on grocery store shelves, but citizens will have no money, or not enough money, to buy anything. If state governments go bankrupt or fail to meet their budgets, what will happen to millions of people dependent upon government services? The scenarios can be multiplied with speculation after speculation, but one thing for sure is that things are never going to be the same.

To simply tell one another to just “Keep trusting the Lord” or “Keep looking to God” or even to say “God is in control” can become phony churchianity and religious fluff. “Fear thou not” is an imperative; that is, it is a command. Our fear is disobedience. The hard thing for us to do is to look calamity in the face and courageously say the just and Holy God of Heaven above has ordained this evil for His own glory. This evil developing around the world is not happening by chance. The same God who ordained every detail of the crucifixion of His only begotten Son has also ordained every detail of the events we see unfolding before us.

When the evil begins to attack us personally, will we be able to agree with Abraham and say, “Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?” God’s prophet Jeremiah had to endure the captivity with the people of Israel. Speaking through Jeremiah, God commanded Israel to “Fear thou not, O Jacob my servant, saith the Lord: for I am with thee; for I will make a full end of all the nations whither I have driven thee: but I will not make a full end of thee, but correct thee in measure; yet will I not leave thee wholly unpunished” (Jer 46:28) We know in the New Covenant our substitute, Jesus Christ, took our punishment, which is death. But we also know that “…all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution” (2 Tim 3:12).

To know all this is one thing. To live courageously for Christ is another. The entire history of the world was predestined by God; it could not have happened any other way. The same must be said about current events. The riots, the protests, the wars, the deaths, the failing economies have all been predestined by God. God is carrying out His just and Holy will according to His eternal plan. God truly is in control, and He will not be mocked by men. We are not to be fearful, because God is at work. Instead, let us pray that God will give us the grace to boldly proclaim the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ and His Sovereignty over all the earth, and that men will see that the puny will of man is not free but rather in bondage to sin and therefore not able to thwart the Sovereign will of God in both the salvation and the damnation of men.