How to be Safe and Secure When the World is Unsafe and Insecure

2004-09-02

Herbert Hoover, as he said in 1928, believed that the end of poverty was near. President Hoover, a “self-made” man who went from being a poor orphan boy to being highly successful had the belief that the individual could persevere to become successful. Yet nobody suspected the successful economy in the United States in 1929 would soon turn to ruin.

Let us get even a little closer to home. On Tuesday, September 11, 2001, the employees that worked in the World Trade Center never would have thought that airplanes would crash into the buildings, causing the buildings to collapse. The American worldview changed in an instant: We are no longer safe. The real question is, were we ever “safe” in the first place?

How many other places have suffered attacks and how many other areas have unrest across the globe? How about issues of weapons of mass destruction all around the globe? It is as if there is something restraining the certain annihilation of the world that we live in.

We live in a world where nothing is certain. When thinking about the terror and unrest around the world, the average American would say, “This couldn’t happen to us.” But it did. It has happened and can happen again. We live in an age of uncertainty. We always did, but we do so even more now than any other time in history. Nuclear weapons that can destroy the planet and the scare of terrorism are real. Can anything be for certain in this world?

President Hoover was about as mistaken about poverty as anyone who believes that we as the human race can make anything secure. Perhaps the world will be able to control “terrorism” better in the years to come. Perhaps we might even find cures to AIDS and cancer. Perhaps we will come to know inventions that will make life even easier, longer and more enjoyable. But nothing will change the fact we live in a cursed world where death will reign over us indefinitely.

Nothing is secure, there is no hope, and there is nothing we can ever do to escape the inevitable: death. The thought of death causes one to think carefully about the purpose of life. What are we doing here on earth, and why is it full of pain, suffering, and death?

There is a reason for life, and there is hope for the future.

There is a God in heaven that created this world in a perfect state, but because of humankind’s rebellion against Him, evil entered the world. Death was a part of the consequence for our rebellion. Today we are no different, living lives contrary to God, not even giving thought to God or why we should even serve Him. But since He loved us so much, He provided a substitute to suffer and die in our place, the Man Jesus Christ. Beaten and nailed to wooden beams of a cross at the hands of men, He died and was buried, but on the third day He was raised from the dead. By trusting Jesus Christ for eternal life and the only way to escape death, you can turn to God from the false sense of security you have in this life. Maybe you’re looking to make enough money in life or find someone to marry to experience that security. But I have already told you that you cannot count on any of that for security. The only secure thing in this world is that God loves you and wants you to turn to Him, so that you can spend eternity with Him. God knows there is something wrong with the world. The day will come when His appointed Man Jesus Christ will return to earth to judge and put an end to the rebellion of humankind.

If you want to know something that is secure, it is God’s love. Trusting in Jesus Christ as your savior, that is, the one who took the punishment for your rebellion against God, is the only security we can know. God wants for you to trust in Him. I could write volumes on how Jesus Christ has changed my life, turning me from useless religious and philosophical beliefs that left me hopeless. After hearing this message I have given you, the rest is now up to you.