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• Illustration: In the play A Man for All Seasons, Sir Thomas More speaks with his daughter about standing fast despite the prospering of the wicked.
• The good often seem to suffer; the wicked often seem to prosper.
• Psalm 73
• The psalmist had seen enough of life to be bewildered and bitter.

• As we strive for inner serenity, things about us and beyond us leave us bitter.
  -Illustration: Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., says, "Disappointment is the universal, modern malady."
• Illustration: A poem by Stephen Crane portrays the universe (and its Creator) as cold and unfeeling.
• Illustration: Woody Allen recognizes that being famous doesn't make you immortal.
• The world's perspective says: Get all that you can and get it now, for this world is all you're going to get.
• The Christian's perspective says: We are living now, and we are living forever.
  -Illustration: A London pastor found peace during the WWII bombings in the realization that he would eventually emerge from this trouble.
• All God's people experience life's chaos, but we must hold on to the truth.

• Psalm 73:28
• The psalmist realizes he has lost a right perspective, so he surrounds himself with godly people.
• The secret of life is not what we have, but whose we are—that determines what we become.
• Being in community with God's people will convince us that the present is not permanent.
  -Illustration: In a picture in St. Basil's Cathedral in London, the dark smoke of bombs is pierced by a shaft of sunlight, which illumines the dome of the cathedral.
• Being in community with God's people will convince us that the promises of God are adequate.
  -Illustration: Scientists tell us the floor is just a whirling mass of atoms, and this whirling mass of atoms is flying around the world, and the world is spinning—yet we still trust it enough to stand upon it.
• Being in community with God's people convinces us to make a personal decision to trust in God.
  -Illustration: C.S. Lewis said, "Look for yourself and you will find in the long run hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ and you will find him, and with him everything else thrown in."

• Here is the essence of this sermon in a sentence: Trust in God. Trust in God and never, never give up.
  -Illustration: Harrington points to a 90-year-old cellist, and a man who finally passed the bar exam after 48 tries, as examples of men who kept on keeping on and eventually triumphed over their obstacles.
• Illustration: Harrington committed to getting out of the intensive care unit after he had bypass surgery; he didn't want to check out like so many people do.
• Illustration: Despite the bombing going on around them, the citizens of war-torn Sarajevo sang Christmas carols on Christmas Day.

• Illustration: Despite "seasons of madness," William Cowper wrote of God's moving in mysterious ways to perform his wonders.