Balancing Out Fear - Conclusion

‘I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.’ John 16:33 NIVUK https://bible.com/bible/113/jhn.16.33.NIVUK One Sunday my team and I were asked to visit a church in the village of Micesti, just outside Pitesti, in Romania. We had lunch in the house of a guy called Pavel Oprescu, who was one of the church elders. He had been a Christian for a long time and had come through the difficult Communist years without losing his faith. He was hosting us in his small living room when the conversation came round to those tough times. It turned out Pavel had been receiving Bibles in Romanian from the French Bible Society while the Communists ruled. The Bible was contraband during the Communist years. If he had been caught, he would have been arrested, put on trial and potentially tortured. Pitesti prison was one of the most notorious prisons in all of Europe for the ferocity of its torture against political prisoners and dissidents, so the threat of brutal violence was real. Someone in our group asked him, "Did the Communist secret police ever raid this place?" "Oh, sure." he replied blithely, as if it was nothing. He pointed to an Ottoman couch with a lift-up seat that concealed a wooden storage container. "They just didn't look there." It was astonishing. It was absolutely the most obvious place to look. Romanians have them in all of their houses and apartments. Rooms tend to be small and furniture like this is used normally to store linen or clothes. It would be the perfect place to conceal contraband. But for some reason, the secret police never looked there. I don't mind telling you: he might have been casual about it, but the hairs on the back of my neck stood to attention as soon as said it. We live in times when we are actively being intimidated. It might not be by a fearsome secret police force. But nevertheless, Coronavirus and its awful effects on the world will be with us for some time. If follow Jesus' advice, though, then we need not be afraid. If we balance all the world's threats against what He has done, is doing and will do for us, then we will see that in Christ we have peace, even though in this world we have trouble. But when we think the scales might tip against us, we know that in Christ we overcome the world. That afternoon in Pavel Oprescu's place will live long in my memory. He was an ordinary man who had lived through extraordinary times and still a smile on his face and a tale to tell. Why? Because he trusted God in those extraordinary times. It's how men like him, and us, overcome. So don't believe the shysters and the conmen who spin the lie that God wants us to experience heaven on earth now. If we did, then we wouldn't be thirsty for the coming of the real thing. Jesus didn't tell us life would be a bed of roses. He warned us there would be thorns. But He also said that He has overcome. And when we follow Him, we share in His victory.