6.8.08 What Do We Do When We Are In Trouble
WESTMINSTER PULPIT
The Rev. Dr. David Thompson
June 8, 2008 “What Do We Do When We Are In Trouble?”
Text: God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in time of trouble (Psalm 46)
Has trouble come looking for you? Perhaps you have recently lost a job. You were doing so well when the telephone call came to turn in your things and clean out your desk. Your services were no longer needed.
Or perhaps for you it was that second visit to the doctor when she told you that you had cancer. The big C and you suddenly felt vulnerable, unimportant and mortal. Now your hopes and dreams are suddenly up for grabs…
Oh yes, when trouble comes looking for us there are a number of classic responses we can make:
· We can grin and bear it
· We can deny it and move into escapism. This isn’t happening to me.
· We can move into pessimism and let trouble defeat us and take the sunshine out of our life
· We can be brave, self reliant. I’m going to beat this, we can tell ourselves
Or we can develop a specifically Christian response to trouble—we can let God be our refuge and strength
At the close of the second service today we are going to sing the historically important hymn of faith written by the courageous Protestant Reformer Martin Luther, A Mighty Fortress is our God. Written in 1529, based on our text “God is a very present help in time of trouble”, this mighty hymn has been fascinating me lately, particularly the second verse: “Did we in our own strength confide, our striving would be losing”
Luther literally took on the world of his day, the Pope and the Emperor and more. His life was in constant danger. His protector hid him away in Wartburg Castle in a room that we can still see today and his enemies could not get to him in his refuge. The pressure was intense upon him. Yet his pen was not idle and continued through the printed word to speak to Europe. Summoned to the parliament of Worms with a safe conduct, he was asked to recant his doctrines. He steadfastly refused. At the end of his trial Dr. Eck his prosecutor assigned by the Roman church pompously said to Luther:
“Luther, though disobedient to the Emperor you are allowed to go in peace. Do not preach on the road and look out for yourself after the expiration of your safe conduct.” Luther with immense courage responded: “As the Lord pleased it has come to pass. You must also look out for yourself.” Where did Luther get his immense courage?
“Did we in our own strength confide our striving would be losing?”
Do you remember when Terry Waite the special envoy of the Archbishop of Canterbury was kidnapped by Hezbollah? For one thousand and seven hundred and sixty three days, Terry Waite was in prison, completely cut off from the rest of the world, as Luther had been in his day, but in much worse conditions. Terry, also a man of immense courage, was chained to the wall of his cell most of the time—a torture designed to weaken him spiritually and physically. It did weaken him physically but his spirit within him was indomitable!
One day after the second anniversary of his capture, a British housewife attended her home church in Bedford, England and there she joined in prayers for the release of Terry Waite. She felt led to send him a card and she chose a very special one. It was of a stained glass window of John Bunyan looking out the bars of the Bedford Jail. While in the Bedford jail, John Bunyan had written the famous classic Pilgrim’s Progress. The picture showed a man who could see the outside world but not participate in it. And yet Bunyan had not given up.
He didn’t fall into the four traps:
· He didn’t just grin and bear it
· He didn’t try to deny it
· He didn’t go down into despair. In fact he wrote about despair as a giant in a castle but pilgrim escapes from him with a key called “promise” which he puts into the jail cell door and escapes:
God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in times of trouble… is one such key…
Joy Brodier of Bedford, England wrote to Terry Waite on this card with Bunyan on the front she wrote these words: “Dear Terry: People everywhere are praying for you and working for your release and the release of the other hostages. Signed, Joy Brodier of Bedford.” She didn’t know how to address the card, so she just put on the card; Terry Waite c/o Hezbollah (Party of God) Beirut, Lebanon.
Three years passed. Nobody knew where Terry was. The international Red Cross had boxes full of cards and letters for Terry – all undeliverable. Then on November 19th, 1991 journalists flashed the news around the world of Terry Waite’s release. In his first speech to the world Terry spoke with gratitude of all who had helped him and prayed for him. In particular he mentioned the single and only piece of mail that he had received in prison was a picture of John Bunyan in the Bedford Jail.
Joy Brodier happened to be watching the newscast and she said: “It can’t be!” But her husband said to her: “It has to be!” Four weeks later a letter came in the mail from Terry Waite. It began with the following words: “It’s my turn to write to you!”
In the summer of 1992 Joy and Terry finally met in person. They stood together under the stained glass window at the Bunyan meeting house in Bedford where Terry thanked Joy for the “simple act” that had given him such hope in his time of trouble.
I don’t know what your particular trouble is today. I don’t know what is eating you up from the inside. I don’t know your particular stress, but I have a word from God for You—a promise that David the Psalmist once knew to its roots, that Martin Luther knew in the depths of his soul. That John Bunyan knew, that Terry Waite knew and that you can know today. It only comes however, with the exercise of the fifth option. If you have tried the other four: grinning and bearing it, denial, pessimism, being brave and going it alone, then perhaps for you it is time to listen Luther about the folly of going it alone:
“Did we in our own strength confide. Our striving would be losing.
In times of trouble, the fourth option although it may be heroic ,will be to lose the only genuine spiritual struggle of our lives, which is to understand that all the great things of life and even the little things, like postcards, are only finally successfully accomplished, through faith in God.
“God, is our refuge and strength! A very present help in time of trouble
So we shall not be afraid,
When the earth gives way,
When mountains tumble into the depths of the sea
And its waters roar and seethe…”
Thanks be to God!
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