FBC Midweek Service

Well, good evening, I trust you're doing well in this middle of the week. Oh, what a wonderful week a beautiful week

It's been hasn't it? I Don't remember the last time we had a nice warm Indian summer in the first of November, but I'm grateful for it enjoyed

Enjoyed being able to walk to the church today both in the morning and then again after lunch and so got a couple miles of walking in just going back and forth to The church and and did so without being cold in the process.

So that's a great blessing I hope you were able to get outside and enjoy sunshine today get some of nature's vitamin

D infusing and Help you help you ward off the kovat infection

Anyway, glad you can join us for our midweek service time tonight So some prayer requests

I want to share with you after you have a word of opening prayer and and then we'll spend a few minutes looking at these prayer requests and then praying for them and then

Going to the 39th Psalm. So our father in our God. We thank you for this opportunity in the middle of the week to Turn our attention to you to your word to pray for one another to pray for some of the needs of of our church our family and Beyond and pray that you'd bless the time we ask in Jesus name.

Amen So some prayer requests we want to continue to pray for Jerry sailors family if you were able to tune in to the funeral service yesterday

It was a it was a blessing if you were able to hear it a little challenge in the audio portion from the funeral home but nevertheless

The message was good and appreciated the emphasis in that funeral but pray for Jerry's daughters and loved ones as they continue to mourn the loss of Jerry and then

Bob had another round of chemotherapy today Slept through it.

So handled it well and just pray for it to be effective and that he doesn't have any negative repercussions from that Word of rejoicing

Timothy. We've been praying for him. He's out of the hospital and back at his home

So we're thankful for that pray continue to pray for for Timothy and his family

Pray for Harold Harold has had some frustrating news He was thinking that he would be done with that antibiotic and then be able to get back to physical therapy on his shoulder

You got word that he needs to continue the antibiotic for another week And that's that's very disappointing and frustrating for him.

So pray for him and for his And his wife who is being a good faithful nurse taking these days one at a time and of course, we want to pray for our country as you know, it's just all everything's up in the air with the election and of course charges about Fraud and all that kind of thing and and it's one of those things

I I think that we have to we have to consider where where we sit and that is

Do we really know do we really are we ever really going to be able to get to the bottom of it?

I don't know but what I do know is that our nation is in a in a state of a state of unrest and Anxiety and and that's not healthy.

So we want to pray for Pray for our nation and the outcome of this election

And then if you would pray for for the family of Tim Challis now if you

If you were here, let's see. When was that last? In the spring we we watched this video series from Tim Challis Entitled epic where I guess was over the summer where Tim took us to Different places around the world looking for artifacts of Christian history church history

So if you you would know who I'm talking about if you were there able to see those But Tim Challis and his wife

Eileen they live in Toronto, Canada and their son their only son Was a student first -year student this year at Boyce College down in Louisville Christian College and they just got word yesterday that their son had suddenly passed away and That Can't imagine the devastating news that that was for Tim and his family

Tim's a blogger and he writes, you know several articles a week

Posts something every day in his in his website and his post this morning was the heart

He said it's the hardest thing he's ever had to write to Inform his readers that his son has suddenly passed away.

Can't imagine the grief So I want to pray for Tim and his family So, let's take a few moments and pray together shall we

Our Father and our God we are grateful today for the fact that we know

You are in control of all things. We know you are sovereign and We know you care for your children you care for Those who name the name of Christ?

you care for your faithful children in this country and as we are living in a time of upheaval and tension and anxiety even over the routine of an election is nothing routine about it this year and We pray that by your grace you would bring clarity in that election we again pray for you to be merciful to our land and deliver us from those who

Who would enact laws and encourage legislation that would be unrighteous and unjust and Lord, I pray that you would preserve our freedoms through the outcome of this election

We also pray father for your people who are hurting today Pray for Harold just encourage him got to be frustrating and just disappointing to have gotten the news

It's been struggling for a while with just this recovery on his shoulder And I'm sure is longing for the day that it would be healed we pray for Bob as well and Just thank you for his ability to handle the chemotherapy pray that That there wouldn't be any negative reaction from it in the next couple of days continue to pray for Kathy and ask for the strengthening of her knee and I Pray that you would give her flexibility

Father we pray for Jerry Saylor's family as they all Undoubtedly make their way home to the various homes and and now there is this void in their life and And their family as far as their earthly family thank you for the confidence the hope the joy of knowing that Jerry is with Christ and and is enjoying the splendors of his presence and Then father we pray for Tim Challis family and Lord.

What a heartache what grief this must be to To have lost this young son,

I pray that you'd give comfort to him and Eileen and their family even as they journey to Kentucky and have to deal with the grief of Emptying a dorm room.

Oh father. We pray be merciful to them be gracious to them through this time

We thank you for your word and pray that you would encourage our hearts from it tonight and help us to see even the answer to some of this anxiety over the uncertainty of life

Father we also want to pray tonight for Jim Linda Stroop Thank you for the minister the law and grace ministry that Jim leads

Pray that you would use him bless him even in this time when he can't get to the jails

I pray that he could get back soon that they would open open up for them soon Bless that work we pray

Now father we ask these things in Jesus name. Amen just a word of Announcement about Sunday the

Lord's Day Again, we are tentatively planning a Sunday morning in -person service only we will not have will not have a nursery and not have children's church, so we're trying to trying to be

Responsible and ease back into things and it's a current surge of cases in Kovat in our area

I don't know if you saw it. I saw yesterday a video from the mayor Skip Lee and other, you know, dr.

Coons and some others and in our community who were really emphasizing this severity of the outbreak that's going on right now and How much how much how many more cases there are now than there were back in this in the spring and and just the encouragement to be responsible and careful and We want to we want to do our part with that We don't want to forsake the worshiping of together

But at the same time we do want to be responsible. So Tentatively as of right now, we'll plan an in -person service

Sunday morning at 1030 And if you can join us, that would be fine If you have any uncertainty about that, you just don't feel comfortable.

That's certainly understandable We will be live -streaming of course and join us on on Facebook or YouTube or the church home page so quite a juxtaposition of Individuals who went to be with the

Lord in those prayer requests, right? Nick Chalice, Tim's son.

I'm not exactly how sure how old he was but a college -aged student suddenly unexpectedly passed away and In contrast to that there's 90 almost 96

Jerry Saylor's would have been 96 years old tomorrow Lived a full life Her health has of course have been deteriorating for a few years

It was almost two years ago that we thought she was going to pass away and she rallied and continued on and and finally succumbed

But the full life and even we were expecting Expecting her to go home to be with the

Lord at this particular time and that that contrast that juxtaposition of those two individuals at two completely different stages of life reminds me of a

Time I sat sat with my mom. It was a Christmas Day that I sat with my mom several years ago now and looked through a scrapbook that had been

My grandfather's so her father's scrapbook and in that scrapbook, you know

We go page after page and there's all these different entries and there were four particular clippings that stood out

One of them was my mom's 14 year old cousin So on one page it showed her standing in front of kind of a welfare housing unit that they would call it at that time and She was describing in this post in the scrapbook how she decorated it when she was 14 years old and Then you turn the page and it showed another picture of that same cousin

Less than two years later. She wasn't even 16 years old yet lying a picture of her lying in a coffin she had apparently succumbed to a

Flu -like disease and like Tim's son died pretty unexpectedly a second clipping in that Scrapbook was a clipping of Lou Gehrig who died in his 38th year of what has become known as Lou Gehrig's disease and Then a third clip a third set of clippings was about a famous war correspondent

Who in the prime of his life and in the prime of his career? was as the clipping said quote ambushed by the

Japs and in the fourth clipping Was an obituary for an aged relative of ours who passed away at a ripe ripe old age now with all that discussion about About death.

You may think well, it's a pretty just is a pretty bleak Bible study time tonight.

I don't intend it to be like that. I simply want these varied incidents of Individuals at different stages of life who entered into eternity

I want it to remind I want those to remind us that life is uncertain

Now, I know that's something we know up in our heads But when you when you look at those different instances and and and they stay they stare you in the face

It's it shouts at you. Doesn't it that life is uncertain?

and this is a reality that has plagued man for millennia and we can even look in the

Psalms and David the the most prolific psalmist Actually penned a psalm psalm 39 where he is grappling with this whole issue of The uncertainty of life now, we don't know what it is that prompted

David to write this psalm but nevertheless We see in the psalm

The what we've also probably experienced the is the anguish over life's uncertainty

We see that in the first three verses David says I said I will take heed to my ways that I sin not with my tongue

I will keep my mouth with a bridle while the wicked is before me this

Anguish over the uncertainty of life can affect your very tongue Where you see?

You see this How do you grant how do you grasp the the heartache and the

Perplexity of a 19 year old Young man who one day seems to be perfectly healthy.

No known health problems whatsoever and the next day he's gone How do you deal with that?

And one of the things that can do is is it can cause us to lash out With our tongues saying things like well, you know, what in the world is

God doing? Why would God do this, you know and that kind of a thing? well, David says, you know, I'm going to I'm gonna take heed to my ways that I don't sin with my tongue because the

Anguish over life's uncertainty can cause us to sin with our tongue

It can also create a great deal of turmoil within as he says in verse 2

I was dumb with silence. I kept my mouth shut I held my peace even for good and my sorrow was stirred

My sorrow was stirred. There was this turmoil that was boiling within me and that anguish over life's uncertainty can also lead to some rather uncontrolled outbursts as David expresses here in verse 3

He says my heart was hot within me while I was musing the fire burned and then

I spoke with my tongue so there was this temptation with the heart burning as He's musing over this there's the temptation to to to blurt out in outbursts but he spoke with his tongue and instead of instead of sinning with his tongue he then expressed four areas of life's uncertainty that you

Probably are quite aware of you've thought about them. You've been confronted with them. I'm sure one of those areas of life's uncertainty see in verse 4 is

Just its end the end of life When will it come?

So he says in verse 4 Lord make me to know mine end Make me to know my end

Now there are certainly some physical alternatives to the end of our lives aren't there we could enter into eternity suddenly inexplicably like this young man,

I also read today of a college girl a girl at Grace College in Winona Lake, Indiana Who also went to be with the

Lord I think yesterday? 19 I think she was 19 years old and She had apparently contracted kovat and she was self -isolating in her dorm room

And then and then she was found She died she passed away

Well, our end can come suddenly Unexpectedly at a time of life that would seem out of the norm

But then it can also come after a long lingering illness our end can

So yeah, we get this it can come from a some kind of a calamity and what we would look at as an accident

That would take our lives. I have a friend had a friend who passed away rather suddenly he was

He seemed to be in good physical health. It was actually working out on a treadmill And all of a sudden had a massive

Widowmaker heart attack and entered into the presence of his Savior so We just don't know the end of our lives and it's physical and in terms of the physical

Alternatives, but there are also of course Spiritual alternatives to the end make me to know my end.

Where am I going then? Am I going to? Heaven am

I going to be absent from the body and present with the Lord or Am I going to be am

I going to be cast into the eternal lake of fire? You know the answer to that question

If you're a child of God's if you have by grace through faith in Christ Put put your trust and called upon him to save you.

Well, you know the answer The that to that question of the end of your life

You who are Christ? Your end is to be with Christ Well, one of the areas of uncertainty is the end of life how it will end

Another area of uncertainty is the length of your life He says make me to know my end and the measure of my days the measure of my days the length of my life and just How uncertain that length is isn't it?

Scripture is interesting in having several different expressions for the brevity of life

Take for example in Job 14 verses 1 & 2

Job says man who is born of a woman is few of days and full of trouble

He comes out like a flower like a flower and withers he flees like a shadow and Continues not

Or in Psalm 90 verses 9 & 10 says all our days are passed away in thy wrath we spend our years as a tale that is told a story that is told

What a description what a poetic and figurative description for the measure of my days for the length of life we get to the end of it and we're facing eternity and it is as if I just read a story

I Started it. I finished it and it went so quickly Psalm 103 verse 15 says as for man his days are like grass.

He flourishes like a flower of the field James picks up that same theme and he says you do not know what tomorrow will bring.

What is your life? For you are a mist a vapor that appears for a little time and then

Vanishes And first Peter 124 echoes what the psalmist wrote?

He says for all flesh is like grass and all its glory like a flower of grass the grass withers and the flower falls

We are certainly uncertain About we are certainly uncertain

About the length of our life the measure of our days. The only thing we can know

Is that it'll seem so short. It'll seem so brief But then the third area of uncertainty is the frailty of your life says in verse 4

Make me to know my end the measure of my days what it is That I may know how frail

I am how frail I am We don't always have a good idea of that do we a good a good grasp on just how frail we are

But let's pause and think about it for a minute Realize that you and I are incapable of guaranteeing our health.

We can't do it We can't do it. We can try to do things. We we can try to eat

Well, we can try to get exercise maybe take supplements and so on and so forth But we can't guarantee what what's going to happen with our physical health we don't have that capability

You're also incapable of knowing what a day may bring you You've known situations like this where you're cruising along doing fine seeming to be fine and then

Something happens something some tragedy or something, you know, you you don't have any control over it

I have another friend of mine who we were in college together and He has since gone to be with the

Lord and it was just a couple of years ago I got a call from a

Mutual friend that lived in the same area and he said, you know pray for Bill Bill has had a stroke and It doesn't look like he's going to survive

Maybe at that time he had actually passed away when he could when I got the call or I got the notice And the day before he was okay

We have no control over no and capability of knowing what a day may bring

We we don't have the capability of even foreseeing the ultimate impact of a decision we make

We we get all the facts. We we work through things. We do the pros and cons and so on and so forth

We make a decision that's going to take us in this. It's a right decision. It's a good decision It's a proper decision, but we we don't know what the impact of that decision is gonna be.

We may think we do But how many times have you found you simply did not we are incapable of even preserving our life

We don't have that Control that authority We are incapable of protecting against every danger.

Sure. We take reasonable precautions. I Mentioned a minute ago about the the precautions we want to take with the kovat virus and so forth

But when all is said and done we really can't protect against every danger No matter how hard we try and we're incapable

We're incapable of changing the true nature of things the true nature of life

And that by the way brings up the fourth area of uncertainty We are uncertain about the frailty of our life the length of our life the end of our life and we're also uncertain

Over the real nature of our life. What I mean by that is what comes out in verse 5

He says behold thou hast made my days as in handbreadth So from the standpoint of time,

I am uncertain about just how Just how broad my life is gonna be you've made my days as in handbreadth from the standpoint of time my life is just a mere handbreadth and and specifically that that breath is from It's from it's the palm breath from one side of the palm to the other

It's not even the breadth of the extended hand from from thumb tip to little

Fingertip, which is far broader than the hand breath. What's the point of that?

that Expression that figurative expression of the handbreadth

But I don't really have any certainty about how long my life is going to be

And from the standpoint of eternity he goes on to say he says mine age is as nothing before thee

It says nothing before thee So I'm the standpoint of eternity you know, my life is like nothing

Psalm 90 verse 4 talks about in the vantage point of eternity from God's point of view a thousand years is like a day that has passed a

Thousand years is like a day that has passed. Well, what about my four score in ten? How quickly does that go by?

This is the real nature of life and yet we we don't have a good grasp of it, do we and then the real nature of life and involves its its impact and we don't really have a good grasp of or certainty about the impact of our lives the psalmist says

Verily or truly every man at his best state is altogether vanity

Altogether vanity meaning Empty or poof.

What is the impact of my life? What is the legacy of my life?

I? May do my best to leave a great legacy a good legacy behind but 200 years from now

Who will know what will know what will it be? We don't really know that's the uncertainty of the real nature of our lives well

You've also as the psalmist has done probably grappled with the agonies over that Uncertainty of life haven't you so look at verse 6.

He says surely Here's the egg here the agonies of life. He says surely every man walks in a vain show

And that may need a little explanation of what he's talking about there a vain show

I have a little marginal note in my Bible that says the literal translation of that would be in an image it's like a mirror image or a

Phantom image a ghost The point being that's here and gone now you see him now you don't what he's what the psalmist is referring to here is the

And I know this sounds terribly depressing, but the the apparent meaninglessness of our existence

I mean think about where you are in in the in the from the standpoint of history

How many millions and millions of people? Have lived before you on this planet that you know absolutely nothing about Yeah, I mean from the standpoint of your everyday life

They they mean nothing to you It's not that they were there is no meaning to their existence there certainly is they're made in the image of God and and God had a purpose for their existence and so on and so forth but from our perspective from the the standpoint of Our the uncertainty of life one of the agonies of it all is what does it mean?

what does it all mean and Then is the and then he goes on to talk about the purposelessness of life as he continues

He says surely they man are disquieted in vain they're disquieted in vain and What he's means by that is we get all worked up over stuff that Well, does it really does it really matter in the end?

Usually we get worked up over stuff that in the end doesn't matter We've got it.

We're all in a in a turmoil over Acquiring the bigger the newer the greater the more expensive the latest the hottest or whatever or or making this happen or making that happen

Etc. Etc. Etc. What what is it over the last several days? That you have gotten disquieted over and how much of it in the end really matters

I'm sure there were some things but everything He says surely we are disquieted in vain and then the third

Expression of the agony of life certainty is the is its profitless existence.

He says He heapeth up riches and he doesn't know who's gonna get them.

He knows not who will gather them this you know David's son

Solomon when he wrote the book of Ecclesiastes he spent much time talking about that how how a man may give his life and his labor to to accumulate and so on and so forth and But then when he dies, he leaves it all behind and then what's gonna happen to it.

No, it's gonna happen to it the profitless existence Well, you've undoubtedly grappled with some of those

With some of those agonies of life's in certain uncertainty But aren't you glad the psalmist doesn't leave us in the in the agonies and the uncertainties of life

He gives us some answers. He gives us some answers and those are answers We must discover and we find them in verses 7 through 13 one of the answers to The struggle over the uncertainties of life is to accept the convicting work of the

Lord We see this in verses 9 through 11 He says I was dumb. I opened not my mouth

Because thou didst it you did it Remove thy stroke away from me.

I am consumed by the blow of thine hand When thou with rebukes just correct a man for iniquity thou makest his beauty to consume away like a moth

What the psalmist is getting at here is he sees the discomforts of his life

That is making that is throwing up in his face the uncertainties of life he sees those discomforts as the gracious work of God wooing him to himself

Drawing him to himself compelling him to turn away from himself and to God the

Lord so accept the convicting work of the Lord and then secondly The answer to life uncertainty is simply to accept your condition before the

Lord It says at the end of verse 11 surely every man is a breath

This vanity that word vanity doesn't mean You know like vanity fair.

It means literally wind a breath We need to accept that reality and then we also need to accept the reality of verse 8

Has as to our condition as sinners he says in verse 8 deliver me from all my transgressions

David acknowledging here that he is a sinner Which will then should then lead us to call upon the

Lord ask the Lord to save And here's where I'm going with that in verse 7

He says now Lord. What do I wait for? My hope my hope is in in thee

There is no hope anywhere else. Oh That it would that everyone who grappled with the uncertainty of life would come to this conclusion

That yes, my life is a breath and I am a sinner that needs a

Savior Where else can I turn? My hope is only in the

Lord. There is no hope apart from him The only hope is found in him see this in verse 8 or he says deliver me deliver me from my transgressions and here is the grace of God working in the heart of one who

One who has sinned transgressed To bring him to his knees and to call for deliverance verses 12 and 13

He says hear my prayer O Lord and give ear unto my cry Hold not thy peace at my tears

For I am a stranger with thee and a sojourner as all my fathers were Oh Spare me that I may be cut recover strength before I go hence and be no more

What's he doing here? He's appealing to the only source of hope in the uncertainties of life

Where else could he go? Where else can you go where else can

I go we go to the Lord? He's your say is he your

Savior if he's your Savior You've trusted Christ as your Savior and God in his grace has reached down from heaven

And he has he has convicted you of your sin and you called upon you turned up him and called upon him

Well you you did so in the midst of the uncertainty of life and the uncertainty of the end of life where you would spend eternity

Well as you still as a believer a follower of Christ from time to time you come to grapple with these realities of life's uncertainty

Return to the only hope That we have we have in this brief life

Our Lord our God Go to him Cry to him as he does spare me that I may recover strength before I go hence and be no more

Oh that God would God would so work in our hearts that we would go to him frequently and but and beseech him to restore our strength

To restore our strength before we go away and are no more

Our Father in our God we thank you again for this psalm tonight

That helps us to grapple with the uncertainties of life to face them to face them honestly and forthrightly

But then as we must always do to turn to you not in despair not in a sense of foreboding and And As if life is just nothing but dark and just and just despondency

But to turn to you in hope our hope is in thee

May that be so we pray in Jesus name and for his sake. Amen All right.

Well, I trust the Lord will bless those thoughts to your heart tonight And that he will give you a good rest of your week as you go about your routine your responsibilities

Each day and then if you can gather on the Lord's Day in person fine, if you're not comfortable with that join us on live stream and We'll worship the

Lord together be looking at Jeremiah chapter 27 this Sunday this

Lord's Day as a follow -up to You know to the election and however, if there is a follow -up at that point anything certain

Decided by then nevertheless, that's where we'll be this Lord's Day If the Lord be willing so trust you'll trust we'll see you then.