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HopeLives365

Chris Holland

The Fall of Babylon, the Spread of Viruses, and the Rise of Nyctophobia

A good morning and happy Sabbath to each of you.

You sound like maybe you're asleep out there.

I don't know how you could be sleeping after a song like that.

Dawn has been broken, shattering the darkness and showing the way.

What a message for the time in which we are living.

The Lord is my light guiding my footsteps.

There is a story told by an anonymous author that goes like this.

1 night his mother told him to go out to the back porch and bring her the broom.

The little boy turned to his mother and said, "'Mama, I don't want to go out there.

"'It's dark out there.'" The mother smiled at the young boy and reassured him, you don't have to be afraid of the dark.

The little boy looked at his mother real hard and asked, Are you sure he's out there?

He's always ready to help you when you need him.

So the little boy thought about it for a moment.

He cracked open the back door just a little.

He peered out into the darkness, contemplating his next move.

And then said, Jesus, if you're out there, would you please hand me the broom?

Jesus, if you're out there, would you please pass me the broom?

The question of A simple child afraid of the dark.

Yet it is that question that many of us seem to be asking today.

Jesus, can you give us an answer to what's going on?

By now many of you have looked that up, wondering why my sermon contained such a word.

It literally means to have an irrational or an extreme fear of the dark.

It comes from 2 Greek words, niktos, night, and phobos, fear.

They have wondered why people are afraid of the dark, and they believe that 1 of the reasons is that it's the brain's reaction to creating a startled response, releasing chemicals into your body, and increasing your anxiety.

And in addition to that, we know that in the absence of light there seems to be increased anxiety because of the fear of the dark may have a connection to violence and victimization.

Interestingly enough, experts believe that darkness actually heightens our other senses, and so when we can't see the source of a noise or movement, we are more likely to experience extreme fear in belief that we are hearing something that is not really there.

It is, quite simply put, fear of the unknown.

Have you ever been walking in the dark, you hear the rustling of the rustling of something by the wayside, and in your mind you begin to invent that it's a grizzly bear waiting for you?

Have you ever been in a cave like Luray Caverns, and deep into the cavern, they want you to see how dark it really is.

And so they shut off all the lights in the cavern.

And you cannot even see the hand in front of your face.

You see, with a lack of information, we begin to make up things, to fill in the blanks that lack the information.

A simple Google search of the word fear yields 464 million hits in the news alone.

The top 5 headlines as of the preparation of this sermon were as follows.

The USA Today, The facts of coronavirus aren't all that scary, so why so much fear?

Fox News, how to successfully cope with your fear.

Yahoo Finance, Trump's sell-off shows fear government can't save the market.

WKMG Orlando, most coronavirus patients recover, still anxiety and fear loom.

LA Times, coronavirus isn't tanking the global markets, it's fear.

We are living at a time of unprecedented circumstances, an uncertainty, a fear, and an anxiety.

COVID-19 or coronavirus as it has been called, has seen the cancellation of events, the closing of stores, the closing of stock markets, the closing of schools, the cancellation of sports, declared states of emergency, and a declared national emergency.

And that in and of itself creates enough fear.

But we're living in a context where there are headlines in the news cycle that are filled with more fear-producing items.

Missiles launched against a base in Iraq.

Natural disasters, tornadoes in Tennessee.

The political races that are currently going on have seemingly plunged us into a deeper, more polarized society, leaving many with a fear and anxiety over the future.

It seems like the impeachment story was years ago.

Yet, that in itself was fear producing as to what will happen with the leadership of this country.

It has left many asking the question, what in the world is going on?

And the question we want to ask this morning is what should we do?

What is our reaction to the crisis before us?

So today we will attempt to provide answers from the Bible on how each of us can live in these precipitous times.

The message this morning is entitled the fall of Babylon, the spread of viruses, and the rise of nyctophobia.

Heavenly Father, as we open up Your Word, we are looking for some type of hope, some type of confidence, something.

Lord, that something that we can anchor to in a shifting news cycle where 1 prognosticator says something different than the previous.

So this morning Lord, we come begging of You that you this morning would show up in a way that we might find hope and confidence and boldness to understand that you have this and that you have us and you will carry us through.

Lord, I pray that I would simply fade to the background this morning and that your son Jesus would stand high and lift it up.

If you have your Bibles, I'd invite you to open them to Psalm 27.

There in Psalm 27 we find, I believe, some answers.

Psalm 27 comes in the context of someone who had a great deal of fear and unknowns in the context of the very life he lived.

David wrote Psalm 27 in the context that he had just been anointed the king of Israel.

The problem is, he had been anointed while there was still another king sitting upon the throne.

David had a deep respect for the fact that Saul had been anointed as king.

David knew that he would eventually be king, but he did not seek to usurp the throne from Saul.

Saul, however, did not have such feelings toward David.

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The Fall of Babylon, the Spread of Viruses, and the Rise of Nyctophobia

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