Last Friday, The Master’s University was very pleased to host Pastor Voddie Baucham as a guest chapel speaker. Baucham spoke on the perennial threat of anxiety and presented students with the only true solution: faith in a God who hears, remembers, sees and knows.
Baucham turned the audience’s attention to a familiar text in Exodus:
“Now it happened in the course of those many days that the king of Egypt died. And the sons of Israel sighed because of the slavery, and they cried out; and their cry for help because of their slavery rose up to God. So God heard their groaning; and God remembered His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And God saw the sons of Israel, and God knew them” (Exodus 2:23-25, LSB).
Baucham emphasized that the comfort in this passage doesn’t come from knowing that the Israelites’ deliverance was just around the corner – because it wasn’t.
“We’re a long way away from the Red Sea,” Baucham said. “Their deliverance doesn’t come tomorrow. And even when we get to the Red Sea, we’re a long way away from Canaan. And even when we get to Canaan, we’re a long way away from David and the golden age of the Davidic kingdom, right? And even when we get to David, we’re a long way away from the greater David, Jesus. And even when we get to Jesus, we’re a long way away from the consummation of all things at the end of the age.”
The comfort is not found in immediate deliverance, then or now. Instead, the comfort is found in knowing that even though the sources of anxiety and suffering present today will likely still be present tomorrow, God hears our cries, is in full control, and is working providentially for good.
“God’s providence is an amazing thing,” Baucham said. “And what’s amazing about God’s providence, from our perspective, is that we only see it in hindsight.”
So, in a world where reasons for anxiety abound, believers can take comfort in God’s presence and His care in the midst of it all.
“Through prayer, we commune with the Most High God,” Baucham said. “We have intimate fellowship with God through prayer. And whatever we’re suffering, we know – number one – that it’s temporary, and secondly, it’s not worth comparing with what awaits us.”
You can watch this and previous TMU chapel messages on YouTube.
