Download Worn Out World

7/13/05 & 7/17/05 - “Worn Out World”
Victory Ministries International presents:
Awesome Truths and Amazing Facts
Treasures of awesome truths from God’s Word
and facts that affect you!
Hello! This is Richard Vaughn
Today’s subject – “Worn Out World”
A group of construction workers were eating lunch together and
discoursing on the troubled times. As it often did, the talk drifted to the
news of the day—the hot wars and cold wars, crime and violence,
accidents and disaster, the political, economic and social perplexities. It
was an ugly recital and the carpenters, naturally of a practical turn of
mind, were hardly optimistic. "It is a great world," one of them observed
cynically. "The world is all right," another corrected wryly, "the trouble is
with the people who are in it." Maybe that is so, but is it really true,
friends?
Let's look at this strange world of ours for just a moment today. Take the
weather—look at the endless onslaught of destructive storms, the mud
slides, volcanoes, tornadoes, hurricanes, tidal waves which rake our
world annually. Look at those fierce blizzards, the flash floods that are
visited on us every season. Look at the cold spells and hot spells, the dry
spells and wet spells, the disastrous spring run-offs from denuded hills
and tilled prairie lands. What a frightening toll of human life they exact!
What a treasure of material wealth they destroy! How relentless they are
in wearing away the precious layer of fertile top soil! Again, take the fires
started by lightning or accident. Have you ever seen fire running into
green timber or across a parched prairie? Dry prairie grass burns just
about like oil. A conifer practically explodes! Have you ever seen the
animals of the wild try to outrun such a conflagration when a stiff wind is
blowing, and get trapped? It is not a pleasant thing to see and what is left
when the flames have raced on is neither beautiful nor profitable.
And then, what about the earthquakes and volcanoes? No one enjoys
having his home shaken down on top of him, or his city, and who wants
to be buried alive with ashes while he sleeps? Yes, these things have
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happened and they keep on happening all too frequently. Look at our
atmosphere. How desirable is the sullen gloom of a cold inert fog or a hot
dry wind that blows all day and every day for weeks and months at a
time? What of the many deadly viruses borne about on the tiny particles
of dust and moisture in the air? And the hordes of insects, fungi and
bacteria, many of them so vitally affecting our bodies and our food
supplies? And then think of the myriads of weeds. How costly and
troublesome they are!
Now, friends, notice the basic geography of the earth. How little land
there is compared to the dreary waste of water. Of the land area, how
much of it is mountainous and too arid really to be of any use to man.
Capping our earth at the poles are the immense frigid zones where
normal human life is practically impossible. Have you noticed the fear and
savagery which dominates the animal world? Watch a bird feeding. A
peck of food, a look to see if danger is approaching, another peck,
another look, but not too many pecks or looks in one place for danger is
never very far away for a bird. It is like that all day and every day until
death comes either by violence or disease. Something has gone wrong,
friends. This is not the kind of world God made, nor is it the kind He
intends for us to have. Better by far than this was Eden of old. Far better
will be Eden restored. Surely as the Psalmist says, "The whole creation
groaneth and travaileth in pain."
Our world is waxing old. The effects of sin, like the infirmities of age,
weigh heavily upon it. The 20th century could have been a period of
world-wide peace and happiness. Instead it was a time of darkness and
fear such as Isaiah described when he said, "Darkness shall cover the
earth and gross darkness the people." Isaiah 20:2. And in the 21st
century it is no better. Statesmen enter upon negotiations with such
confidence but then suddenly their confidence is gone because the
desired end is never reached. Commissions and agencies are set up with
the avowed purpose of searching for a formula whereby certain harmful
situations can be altered. Then after months of hard labor, it is found that
conditions have just grown worse. Why, it is becoming clearer all the time
that each year brings new problems that defy all solution. According to
journalist C. E. Vulliamy, "Humanity is marching solidly with no emotion
more precise than bewilderment, into the deadest of all dead ends. It's
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too late now for any one to be effectively self-righteous. Man has
resolutely set his foot on the broadway that leads to destruction." That is
taken from his book, MAN AND THE ATOM.
As disillusionment spreads, thinking people are beginning to wonder why
so many good plans for a better world have gone astray. They overlook
the Bible fact that man has a weakness, a disease, over which he has no
control. It is worse than cancer. It is too deep-seated for an electronic
microscope to detect. No lab technician can isolate it. Jeremiah 2:22
says, "For though thou wash thee with nitre, and take thee much
soap, yet thine iniquity is marked before me, saith the Lord God."
Jeremiah 13:23 "Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his
spots? then may ye also do good, that are accustomed to do evil."
"I try," wrote Bertrum Russell in PORTRAITS FROM MEMORY, "though
with indifferent success, to accustom myself to a world of crumbling
empires, Communism, atom bombs, Asian self-assertion, and aristocratic
downfall. In this strange, insecure world where no one knows whether he
will be alive tomorrow, and where ancient states vanish like morning mist,
it is not easy for those who were accustomed to ancient solidities to
believe that what they are experiencing is a reality and not a transient
nightmare. Very little remains of institutions and ways of life, that when I
was a child, appeared as indestructible as granite." Yes, my friends, that
statement was made by one of the world's great philosophers. These
dismal words echoed from many rostrums and today's world reminds one
of the condition of those that the apostle Paul describes as "having no
hope and without God in the world." Ephesians 2:12
Gertrude Stein in her last piece of prose before her death in 1946 said
this: "If you're not scared, the atom bomb is not interesting." Well, that is it
alright, friends. Our civilized world is running scared. Almost the whole
world is afraid of the probable results of its recent past, afraid of what the
future holds and also afraid for today. The past is a haunting skeleton,
uncomfortably nearby and the future is a menace taking an ugly shape.
These two combine to make today but a brief period of aggitation
between two dilemmas. Such is the sum of life for millions of mankind—
they are scared.
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Well, what about you, friends? Have you found any security? Have you
found any remedy for this great fear? Notice how Paul describes the
situation in 2 Timothy 3:1-4 and I'm reading this out of Phillips translation.
"But you must realize that in the last days the times will be full of
danger. Men will become utterly self-centered, greedy for money,
full of big words. They will be proud and contempuous without any
regard to what their parents taught them. They will be utterly lacking
in gratitude, purity, and normal human affections. They will be men
of unscrupulous speech and have no control of themselves. They
will be passionate and unprincipled, treacherous, self-willed, and
conceited, loving all the time what gives them pleasure instead of
loving God. They will maintain a façade of religion but their conduct
will deny its validity. You must keep clear of people like this."
Friends, how accurately is this prediction being fulfilled today. How true it
is that millions are lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God. "They
have a form of Godliness but deny the power thereof." Verse 5.
Hence the tragic growth of lawlessness and the general decline in
morality. In the language of Carl F. Henry, Editor of CHRISTIANITY
TODAY, "Western man has been floating downstream on the River of
Negation, for driftwood requires nothing in the way of spiritual decision.
Today, tossed by doubt and uncertainty, modern man is wearying of this
world and of himself."
Well, friends, in Genesis 6:11, prior to the great deluge of Noah's day, the
Bible record states that the earth was filled with violence. Even so today
as men turn away from the living God and true religion, unbridled passion
creates unrest, riots, mob violence, race friction, revolution, and war. "As
it was in the days of Noah," said Jesus, "So shall it be also in the
days of the Son of man." Luke 17:26. Of the antideluvians it is said,
"They knew not until the flood came and took them all away."
Matthew 24:38. Even so the second coming of Christ will burst upon the
thoughtless multitudes of this modern world as an overwhelming surprise.
In speaking of the signs that will immediately precede His return to this
earth, Christ especially mentioned "distress of nations with perplexity,
and men's hearts failing them for fear and for looking after those
things which are coming upon the earth." Luke 21:25, 26.
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A popular French writer recently declared that in his opinion mankind is
beyond salvation. Though this is partially true, there is a brighter side to
it, radiantly illuminated by the sure promises of God's Word. Probation
has not yet closed. The door of mercy still stands ajar. The loving Voice
of God is still pleading and whispering to us, "Give Me thine heart."
When Eve's first baby was placed in her arms, she exclaimed in joyful
anticipation, "I have gotten the man Jehovah." Genesis 4:1. This is
from Spurnell's translation. Eve thought that she had given birth to the
promised Redeemer, but she lived to discover that her first-born was not
the Messiah but the world's first murderer. Four thousand years went by
before the angels announced Christ's birth in Bethlehem's manger.
During those intervening millenniums, the sons of Adam marched in
unbroken columns unto the dark shadows of death. None have returned
to tell what life beyond the grave is like, and in 1 Corinthians 15:22 we
read this: "For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made
alive." What thrilling news this is to dying men. We know from past
experience that men don't live very long. Life at its best is all too short,
and we know the curse of death lies heavily upon the human family. But
as we are doomed to die in Adam, so are we predestined to live in Christ.
This, then, is the great remedy, the great panacea to the world's ills. Have
you discovered that remedy, dear friends? Have you taken Christ as your
Saviour and your Helper so that you can be delivered from the
hopelessness that grips this modern world of ours? May this be your
happy experience to lay hold of Jesus Christ as a Saviour and Friend, as
a power to deliver you from this lost and dying world. This is our only
hope.
Be listening next week as we continue studying the awesome truths in
God’s word and A Fatal Mistake – Part 1 of 3.
Until next week, Jesus said in John 5:39, “Search the Scriptures, for in
them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of
me”. Even so, Come Lord Jesus.
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