Give me a minute. There we go. I feel like doing
that commercial. Can you hear me now? You want
to turn to the 46th soul. As you can tell, my voice is
not in particularly good shape. And I had some suggestions given
to me about what I could do maybe to help it. and I considered
them, but one in particular, which I believe would have been
effective, had I done it, I might still be asleep over in the motel,
and had I been awake, I'd have had a really bad headache. I
didn't do it. I want to thank you for having
me here, for how generously you treat us who come here, to preach
the gospel to you, but I assure you, we would be glad to pay
you for the opportunity. You don't know how much of an
encouragement it is to those of us who preach to come to meetings
like this and see other believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, other
than the ones we continually preach to, and just have our
hearts encouraged to see there's more people out there who trust
Christ, who worship with the same precious faith that our
little group up in Iowa worships with. And that even though we
are various local assemblies, we are one body under one head,
joined to one father, united by one spirit. And I come to
a place like this, and I do feel at home. And not just because
I've known Todd for Well, I got to 13th Street Baptist Church
in 1977, and he left for college. Now, I don't know if I had anything
to do with him leaving. It may have been just the right time. I don't
know. So our paths didn't cross often, but whenever he was around
for the weekend and we were in a preacher's class together.
But I've known him, known of him since then, and known of
you all since you were on American Avenue. But that's not why I
feel at home here. I feel at home here because it
is home. It is the house of my relatives. When I'm done here, I'm going
to drive down south of Nashville to my daughter's house. I'm going
to feel at home there. And that's how I feel here. So
thank you. Thank you so much for inviting
me here, for providing for me. And I pray that what I'm going
to say here shortly will be a benefit to you. And I asked, Clay, what are you
going to preach on? Because I've always got this
fear, particularly if I'm second, that the guy's going to get up
and preach what I planned. They're from the same text, and
I'm going to have to come up with something all at once. So
I wanted to make sure that we weren't going to be on the same
scripture. We got that all arranged and he came up and a major portion
of what he just said is what I'm going to try to deal with
right here for this scripture. So I guess we ought to realize
that's going to happen a lot because as I told someone yesterday,
the Bible is a big book but it doesn't say many things. It just
says the same thing a lot of times and in different ways.
Now, the title of this message, if it's important to you, is
A Word of Comfort for the Citizens of the City of God. Now, Duane
came to me ahead of time and said, write down your title and
text. And I wrote down, Gladness in
the City of God. Because I figured there's no
way he's going to get that long title to fit on a CD or something
like that. So you can go with any title
that you want. We're just going to go through
this psalm and see what it has to say to us. I told Todd yesterday
that I kind of pay attention to where I am in the lineup of
preachers because to me it makes a difference in a conference
like this. And I told him, I said, we're going to close and I want
to send them away in peace. You know, there's time for every
kind of preaching. And when we come to a conference
like this and you got eight preachers, you're probably going to get
about every kind of preaching that can be done. And there's challenging
preaching, there's doctrinally thick, if you want to call it,
or heavy, and it's good for us to wade through those things
and learn. Well, I'm not going to challenge
you. Rather, if the Lord will enable
me, I'm going to tell you relax. Relax. In fact, I'm not going
to tell you God is. To relax. It says here, verse
1, God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Someone once said, we are not
citizens of this world trying to make our way to heaven. We are citizens of heaven trying
to make our way through this world. Now you think about that
a minute. And if you can get a hold of
that concept, it'll change how you live in this world. The old
spiritual is true. This world is not my home. I'm
just passing through. Now, I don't have a choice about
whether I pass through. I gotta pass through. But it's
not home. Now, I've been traveling since
Monday. And I've made some stops along
the way. And I enjoyed the stops. But they weren't home. And I
did not expect to stay there for very long. And when I got
here, Todd gave me directions to the motel, Hampton, really
nice. I got in that room, I said, this
is wonderful, but I'm glad to leave, because nice as that place
is, it's not home. And this world we're passing
through, and it's perfectly fine for us to enjoy whatever is enjoyable
here while we're passing through, but it ain't home. Don't invest
yourself here. I wouldn't have thought of starting
to build a house in Lexington. Why? I'm not going to stay here. I'm moving on. I don't have a bank account in
Lexington. I'm not saying you shouldn't
have a bank account. I'm just saying don't invest yourself. Our Lord
said don't build up treasures here. And it didn't mean you
couldn't prepare for retirement and all that. What he meant is
don't make this place to be where you anchor yourself so that if
it falls apart, you're in trouble. Don't think that way, he says. It's not easy for the citizens
of heaven to make their way through this world because they are constantly
being stretched. On the one hand, They have to
have their jobs and go to them and make a living. And when you're
doing that, it's hard not to get so fixated on that, that
that's all you think about. And yet, on the other side, we
have this longing for heaven, but we can't ever satisfy that
either. I mean, we don't get to choose
when we depart to be with Christ, which is far better. And we don't
get to ignore our responsibilities in this life while we sit around
pondering the life to come. So it's kind of like we're forced
to walk two directions at once, which is always difficult. You
see, in this world, we are foreigners. We are. Like I said, we're making
our way through the world to our country. We're foreigners. And just like right now, there's
a good many people that don't care for foreigners to come into
our land. In this world, we're foreigners
and they don't like it that we're here. They don't. And no matter what you think
of the United States immigration problem, the world doesn't like
the fact we settled here. They may not be as violent on
some occasions as they are on others. But if God gives the
world enough leash, they will do all they can to destroy every
vestige of Christ and his people. I was in India last November. I was in the southern part. It's
not very dangerous to be a Christian there. But you get in the northern
part of the country, being a Christian is very dangerous. Interestingly
enough, the Hindus don't care for Christians. And I don't know
why, because Hindus, according to their way of thinking, ought
to be pretty well good with anything. But they aren't. But what's interesting
is there are also Muslims and Buddhists there. And the Hindus
don't bother them, only the Christians. We're foreigners, and they want
us gone. The indigenous people do not
like us. Our enemy, who is called the god of this world, has as
his agents the political powers, the powers of false religion,
and the world with all of its seductive powers. You find these
agents in the book of Revelation under the symbols of the beast
that rose up out of the sea. the beast that rose up out of
the earth, and the great prostitute of Babylon. And even though Paul says we
do not wrestle against flesh and blood, the one against whom
we do wrestle has a lot of flesh and blood at his disposal to
give us trouble. And last but certainly not least,
we who are citizens of heaven trying to make our way through
this world have the trouble and difficulty of our own flesh. Now we can come together like
this and for a little while, if we want, hide from the world. That's one thing I like so much
about assembling like this, and it's why you should too. Forsake
not the assembling of yourselves together. Interestingly enough,
it does not say forsake not the listening to sermons on the internet.
It doesn't say forsake not listening to CDs of faithful preachers.
It's good to do those things. It's nice when you can have them
as a supplement. But brethren, it said don't forsake
assembly. And that means that assembly must be important. And I'll tell you this, if you
want to know how important it is, you talk to one of your beloved
brothers or sisters who has no one with whom to assemble. Yeah. There are some that are in circumstances,
there's no other believers around to meet with, and they can't
leave where they are. And they would give just about
anything to be where you are. Why is assembling so important?
where two or three are gathered together, said our Lord Jesus,
there I am in the midst of them. And my soul, wherever Christ
is, I wanna be there, don't you? Don't you? So we're given some encouraging
words here for us who are trying to make our way through this
world. Our greatest ally, no more than
that, our savior cannot be seen. And that makes it impossible
for our flesh to take any comfort in what is said about him. People ask me, you know, I feel
so bad because I doubt. I have doubts. Of course you
do. Because you are a mixture of flesh and spirit and your
spirit never doubts and your flesh never believes. And so
you are just a confused mess in that single consciousness
which you possess because you've got two voices in your head. And there's going to be two voices
there until you die. The flesh is never going to shut
up, much as we wish it would, but it's not. So we've got these troubles.
But our Savior, while he cannot be seen, he can be heard. Faith comes by hearing. And hearing
by the word of God, and understand that phrase, certainly at that
juncture in the scriptures, is a reference not just to the Bible,
because lots of people hear the Bible and have no faith. The word of God there is meant
the message of the scriptures. Peter calls it this way, he says,
it's the word of the Lord that endures forever, and this is
the word which by the gospel was preached to you. Faith comes
through hearing the gospel. And this is true not only with
regard to the first time we had faith. It created faith in us. We're begotten again by the word
of truth, and that new life naturally expressed itself in faith. But
brethren, it is that same word that upholds that faith, strengthens
that faith, and keeps it going. I don't know why anybody is surprised
at a weak spiritual condition when they do not bother to meet
with the saints and hear the word preached and take it to
heart. Your bodies can't live if you
do not regularly go to the table. And your souls can't live unless
you regularly feed upon the word of God, the gospel of Jesus Christ. Now, in verse 1, it says that
God is our refuge. Now, what is a refuge? It's a
place of safety. And what does that imply about
our lives in this world? There's dangers. You don't need
a refuge when there's no danger. God is our refuge, the place
we run to hide. You say, are we supposed to act
like cowards? If you had any idea how powerful
your enemy was, is, you wouldn't say something like that. These
silly preachers, and I don't know any other word to put on
them. Maybe that sounds judgmental. We'd be just like them if God
left us alone. I mean, there's not any foolishness you see in
false religion that we wouldn't be doing if God didn't just grab
us by the neck and pull us out of it. I realize that, but that
doesn't mean it's not silly what they do. And they act like they're
beating up the devil. They act like they have power
over the devil. Do you know what? The apostles
didn't have power over the devil. So wait a minute, they cast out
demons. Not really. God cast out demons through them
to give authentication to the message they were preaching.
But you and I are no match for that spiritual world. No match. I'm not afraid of it, but my
lack of fear of the spiritual world doesn't come from the fact
that somehow or another I think I can handle them. My lack of
fear arises from the fact that my master, my Lord, has defeated
them and is holding them at bay according to his will, and they
can't get any closer to me than he allows them to. And he won't
allow them to get close enough to destroy me. Ask Job. God may allow them to make you
miserable. He will not let them touch your
soul. We flee to Christ for refuge
as a place for safety. And then it says, he's not only
our refuge, he's our strength. Now, this is being cast in a
military likeness. Well, a refuge or a fortress,
See, this is the song from which, well, that inspired Martin Luther
to write that song, a mighty fortress is our God, a bulwark
never failing. But he's not just our refuge.
He is our strength that enables us to go out and engage in the
kind of battle he sent us to do. There is a war in which we're
involved. It's not the war that most of
religion is involved in. It's a much more serious war
with much more serious consequences to it. It's a war in which we
are guaranteed victory because God gives us the victory in Christ,
but that doesn't mean it's not a battle. Well, what is our strength
in this battle? Well, it ain't us. Why? Because we run and hide in a
refuge. But how can we hide in a refuge
and win the battle at the same time? God is our strength. I'm
hiding and fighting at the same time. In fact, if you want to
get right down to it, our fight in this world is over our refuge. In 1 John, And I believe it's chapter 5,
though Brother Don had to turn to chapter 3 too, and I might
have read it while we were there. But it made this remark, faith
is the victory that overcomes the world. Now people say, yes,
with faith we can overcome the world. No, that's not what it
said. It said faith is the victory. What's that mean? This fight
is over whether or not you're going to keep believing Christ.
And if you die in faith like all those people, In chapter
11 of Hebrews, you won. Because the devil does not care
what you do as long as you don't believe. As long as you don't flee for
refuge to Jesus Christ. He'd love to draw you out into
the battlefield. The battlefield of the world
and worldly religion and what they think we're supposed to
be fighting about. Why? Because he'll defeat you there.
He can't defeat you in your refuge. For you have won the battle by
running to the refuge. And you'll continue to win if
you'll just stay in that refuge. And one of these days, lest the
Lord returns, they'll put you in a box and a few people will
cry and they'll stick you in the ground And the devil's gonna
have to say, I couldn't get him. I couldn't get him. There's one
more I lost. It must be a frustration to be
the devil. You know? Every time he thinks
he's about to win, he loses real bad. He thought he won in Eden. He didn't. He lost. He thought he won on the Mount
of Temptation. Thought he was going to. He lost.
He thought he would win in Gethsemane. He lost. He thought he'd win
on Calvary. He lost. He's been setting up
false churches ever since, thinking he's going to win. And there
was times it looked like he very nearly did. And then he didn't. And he took his big beastly churches.
And he threatened God's people. And through those churches, he
tied some of them to stakes and burned them. Some of them he
cut their heads off, did all kinds of monstrous things to
them. And you know what? He lost. Because they loved not their
lives unto the death. We believers, we have a refuge
and a strength in God. He's our help. The word for help
is ezer. Do you remember that place Eben
Ezer? It means hither by thy help. The Eben must be the hither.
Ezer, he's our help. He's our help. And it says in
the ever present. Now, I like looking at lots of
other translations, primarily because when you look at a lot
of them, you start to gain a broader sense of the word. And I like
to look at the non-translation so long as it's an interlinear
one so I know what the word actually is. It's not like I can read
Hebrew. But the word actually means to find. To find. And I saw these other
ways that it was handled. An ever ready help. Or an always found help. that he is found to be very helpful
in times of trouble. In fact, friends, have you not
found or discovered that when you are in trouble is when it's
most easy for you to find the Lord? And here's the reason. In trouble, you're most motivated
to find him. Now, let's just face it. Let's not pretend that
we have the same zeal for the Lord at all times. But boy, when
we're in trouble, we get real zealous, don't we? We get real
zealous. And maybe that's why we spend
so much time in trouble. The Lord thinks, I haven't seen
him in a while. I know how to get him here. I tell you, when we're in trouble,
we'll find him. We'll find him because he says, you will seek
me, and you'll find me when you seek me with all your heart.
And when we're in trouble, we seek him with all our hearts. And when we find him, what do
we discover? He's ready to help. He's a good
helper. In fact, he is such a good helper,
he does it all. Now, that's a good helper. He
said, stand aside here a minute, I'll take care of this. And he
helps in time of trouble. It's common to all God's people
to have trouble. They have all the troubles common
to men, and then they have some troubles that unbelievers don't
have and can't have. He said, well, the apostle Paul
said, there's no temptation taking you except what's common to men. Well, at that time, the Corinthians
weren't going through anything. that old men didn't go through,
so far as their outward persecutions or their difficulty making a
living, that's all common, but there are internal struggles
and troubles that you and I, as believers in our Lord Jesus
Christ, we have to deal with, nobody else does. We say, I abhor
myself. We say, wretched man that I am. Now, unless a person is psychologically
ill, unless an unbeliever is psychologically ill, he doesn't
say that. He'll say, I got my problems. I don't hate myself. I'm not disgusted with myself.
You know, that's why the world of psychology doesn't understand
a believer. They think we're mentally ill because we abhor
ourselves. They don't know what we mean when we say that. We're
not talking about low self-esteem as a psychological illness or whatever, we're talking
about the fact that being born again by the Spirit of God and
at least in some measure seeing things like God sees them, we
look at what we are by nature and we're disgusted. We're disgusted
with the temptations or the inclinations that go through us. We're disgusted
with the thought of what we would do if God had just let go of
us because we know what He, you know what you're prone to. And then there's this. Not only
are we prone to it, we do it. Maybe nobody else in the world
but you and God knows about it. Oh, and you go, oh, wretched
man that I am. You know, when Paul said, oh,
wretched man that I am, he was not saying simply that his sinfulness
was his wretchedness. That's not all there was to his
wretchedness. He says, I'm in a wretched condition because
I am a righteous man trapped in this fleshly body full of
lusts I don't want. Thoughts I don't want. You see, the unbeliever has all
those same thoughts, lusts, desires that you have. He's not wretched.
Why? Because there's no fight in him about it. The only reason
he's not doing it is because of what he might lose. He lives
under law. It's the only thing he can do.
So he's afraid of the consequences of following his fleshly inclinations,
so he may restrain them in order to avoid the loss he would experience. Paul said, I'm just wretched
because this is the way I am. There's this constant fight in
me. I'm never satisfied. That's why he said, O wretched
man that I am, who shall deliver me from this body of death? I
thank God through Jesus Christ. And he goes on to say, we will
not fear. And with such a refuge and strength
as God, why should we fear? No matter what happens, brothers
and sisters, why should we ever be afraid? Now there's reasons
for tears, legitimate reasons for tears. Bible says there's
a time for weeping. And brothers and sisters, when
it's time for weeping, don't try to laugh. You hurt yourself
if you do that. Tears are a blessing from the
Lord. Now there didn't have to be tears
of sorrow in Eden. Once we were kicked out of Eden,
there has been reason for tears, for sorrow, and those tears,
and even doctors and psychologists can tell you this, those tears
are a gift from God to let some of that inner stress of your
sorrow out. Those who try to pretend, I'm a Christian and
these things don't bother me, and bottle that all up inside,
they suffer for it. Our Lord wept, and if he can weep and it not
be sin, so can I. Of course, we've been taught
to be stoic. Well, there's a time, sometimes
there's urgent things to be done, and you've got to shut down your
emotions in order to take care of some practical things. But
brethren, if God sends you a time of weeping, weep. Weep. It'll do you good. We weep, but we don't fear. Don't
ever, shouldn't. Got nothing to be afraid of. It says here, we will not fear,
though the earth be removed and though the mountains be carried
into the midst of the sea, though the waters thereof roar and be
troubled, though the mountains shake with a swelling thereof. Now, it's true, you and I would
not have to fear, even if the apocalypse came upon us, or what
the world thinks the apocalypse will be like, and if the earth
started to shake and mountains started flying through the air
and landed in the sea, We could, if we would think about what
our refuge is, just stand and say, well, I never thought anything
like that. Someone says, well, we're all going to die. Well,
I already knew that. Didn't know it was going to be today, but
I knew I was going to die. Dealt with that a long time ago.
How about a mountain might fall on you? Well, how you die is
not really all that important. How is it? Ends the same. You're
dead. Actually being dead's not the
problem. It's what comes after that's the problem. It's a point
on a man wants to die. Well, we can reconcile that.
But after that, the judgment, that's what we're scared of.
But we don't have to be afraid of that if we're in Christ. We don't. Not at all. But I think that this, while
he put it in these terms of natural disaster. that these things are
used as symbols, or we can use them that way, and they describe,
shall we say, we could put it this way, we will not fear even
if our world gets turned upside down. And it could. In fact, I suppose
everybody here is a citizen of the United States of America.
Our world's getting turned upside down. I know that the old timers,
when I was a kid, the old timers were talking about how bad things
were. And we youngsters said, old fogies. And I hope I'm not
just being an old fogie. But there are some things that
have happened in the last few years. It's startling. When I was a kid, you didn't
talk about somebody being a homosexual. If you called someone that and
they weren't, they'd probably beat you up. I'm not acting like that's the
only sin in the world. I'm just showing you the way our culture's going.
Now, if you won't bake a cake for one of them to get married,
or two of them to get married, they'll take you to court. Now,
and this is startling, the various state legislatures are writing
laws, not only giving permission, but actually applauding those
who kill their children in the womb. And you say, boy, the world
is just being turned upside down. We look at our political world.
Do you see anybody good out there? I get so sick of people saying,
well, if the Republicans were in charge or if the Democrats
were in charge, let me tell you something. It's Pharaoh. He may be a Republican. Pharaoh,
he may be a Democrat Pharaoh, but he's still Pharaoh. And he thinks he's powerful,
and he has no concern for the people of God. It is a very rare thing to find
grace and worldly power combined, very rare. I hear people say, well, if we
could just get Christians in places of power, You know, and
this generally comes, and I'm not trying to make a political
thing out of this. I'm just using our experience in the present
to illustrate some of this. But generally, it's conservatives
that connect their religion with their politics so strongly. They
say, we just got more Christians in office. Well, I think that
we could call Joseph a Christian of sorts. So see if you want
this man in office. He taxed the people 20% of what
they had. And then when they didn't have
anything, he made them pay him to get it back. And when they
ran out of money, he said, okay, give me your cattle. And they
gave him the cattle. And then they ran out of cattle,
he said, okay, give me your land. And they gave him the land. And
then they ran out of land. And he said, all right, if you
want any grain, you gotta give me your sales. And they did. And
when Joseph was done, Pharaoh owned everything and everybody.
Be careful what you ask for. Brethren, politics is not our
salvation, period. God has been pleased to use some
men in power to make things more pleasant for his people in this
world. And that's why Paul says, pray
for them that you may live your lives peaceably. I want to be
able to go on gathering like this and not have to worry about
a bunch of police circling this place and arresting us all. Last
two services, there must be a policeman or a policewoman who goes to
church here. Because last night and this morning, I followed
them in and it kind of shook me up. I thought they found out. I want the blessings of liberty.
I'm not acting like these things are nothing to me. I'm just saying
this. God is our refuge and strength
even when the whole world is against us. When the Jews were
in captivity and they wanted to be free, they wanted to go
home, God did not put a Jew on the throne of that empire. He
put a godless pagan on the throne who wrote a decree to send him
back. And in that decree, he said, Every city you go through,
they're supposed to give you money. You see, God doesn't need
a Christian to take care of you. Do you know what the powerful
men of this world are? They're sock puppets. Do you
know what a sock puppet is? You take a sock, you put a couple
of buttons on it, then you stick your hand in it, stuff it in
like this. Now, what is a sock puppet without
an arm? It's a sock with two buttons on it. I hear people say, the president
of the United States, most powerful man in the world. I beg your
pardon? The most powerful man in the world is the man Christ
Jesus. You say, well, he's not here. He's here this morning.
He's here. And no matter what you think
of our president, I try not to. It's a little hard not to think
about politics in our day. It's stuffed in your face all
the time. People may think he's powerful.
He is doing exactly what our Lord Jesus Christ intends for
him to do, to bring about his eternal purpose for our good.
And you know what? The guy before him was exactly
the same way. It don't matter whether he's
conservative, liberal. Doesn't matter if he's a socialist
or diehard capitalist. He was put there by God. And
even if he enacts policies that you think are contrary to freedom
and the welfare of the church, when all is said and done, you'll
look back and say, you know what, Lord, you got that right, didn't
you? I shouldn't have been so upset. We will not fear. We'll not fear even if our church
world gets turned upside down. Brethren, it happens. It does.
It's a sad thing to see, but churches break up. Preachers
die. We think of those mountains maybe
as like one of the notable preachers of the gospel. Maybe your pastor,
wherever it is you attend or something, and you've been listening
to him for years. And you have so much enjoyed
all you got, and all at once, he's cast into the sea. He's
gone. And you'd be amazed how many
people think, oh, here's the end. Do you really think so? I'm going to quote a guy. I'm
not going to tell you who he is, because I don't like much anything else
he said, but this was really good. He said, what does God
say when one of the notable defenders of the faith dies next Really? See, that arises from the idea
that God needs us. He'll use men, but He doesn't
need them. And if He can raise up children from stones, I'll
guarantee He can raise up preachers anytime He wants to. I hear people
say, oh, the church has a shortage of preachers. No, it doesn't.
It has exactly how many it needs. And when one of them dies, if
he needs to be replaced, God will replace him. I'm not saying
that it's not sad to see him go. Of course it is. We don't
have to be afraid. Don't have to. I remember about
20 or 25 years ago, I was talking to Brother Tim James on the phone.
And you know, Brother Richardson, Brother Mahan, they're getting
a little long in the tooth by that time. And I was saying to
him, I said, this is a little hard to watch because they're
getting slower. And they don't preach in as many
conferences as they used to. And Tim said, yep, they're about
to knock the ball in our court. That scared me to death. I said,
you know, wait a minute, I'm not ready to be, shall we call
it the top generation. But here I am. And it's obvious
I'm from the older generation of preachers now. I mean, I think
silver hair is kind of pretty. But I don't have any of that
up here, so that's not so pretty. You know, time goes by. Brother
Scott's gone. But you know what? The church
goes on. Brother Mahan, don't know how
much longer the Lord will leave him here. Oh, it'll be a sad
thing, in some respects, when the Lord is pleased to take him
home. Be good for him, but we'll probably weep some, and that'll
be fine. But you know what? Things are gonna go on just fine.
And every preacher you saw this weekend, someday won't be here. But it's not going to hurt God's
church. There'll be someone else. See, we don't have to be afraid.
The city of God will never come to harm. And it says in verse
4, and I've got to move it along or I'll never get to the end.
There is a river the streams whereof shall make glad the city
of God, the holy place of the tabernacles of the Most High.
God is in the midst of her. She shall not be moved. God shall
help her. And that right early. Now, over
here, it talks about the earth being removed. And that word
actually just means changed. And you know, everything that
has to do with this existence is changing all the time. As
someone once said, the one thing that never changes is change.
It's always changing. But this one here, when it says,
she shall not be moved, that means to be toppled, to be pushed
over. Now this city of God, that is
the church of the Lord Jesus. And if you think there was no
such thing as a church until the day of Pentecost, okay, then
I'll just say this. It's the people of God from at least as
far back as Abel. And I only say, the only reason
I didn't mention Adam and Eve is I don't know whether they
believed or not. But I know Abel did. Maybe it includes Adam and
Eve or one or the other. I don't know. But everyone who
has believed the promises of God and laid the hope of their
eternal souls upon Him, they are part of this city of God
and they are in a city that will not be toppled ever. Now these
local assemblies, they might be. They might be. They might be
toppled if Well, we haven't had the United States yet, but don't
think it won't. But in other countries, the government
topples the local assembly. Takes their property from them,
they got no place to meet, it's broken up, they're scattered.
But one thing they didn't do was topple the city of God, because
the city of God is not in real estate. The city of God is not
the city of God because the citizens of it are capable of meeting
in large congregations. The city of God is in constant
assembly at the feet of Christ and has been before God ever
said, let there be light. We are the General Assembly and
Church of the Firstborn, whose names are written in heaven,
and there is not a power in earth or hell that can topple that
church. Someday, this church, this little,
this assembly here will be toppled. and it'll be toppled because
it just fizzles out, or it'll be toppled because someone else
comes in here and starts preaching something other than what's been
preached here, and it will be discovered that those who remain
either have no discernment in what they're hearing, but it will be a building, and
it will be religious people calling themselves Christians, but it
won't be a church. That's just the way things happen
in the world. You say, oh yeah, that bothers
me. We need to do something to prevent that from happening.
Nothing you can do. In fact, you shouldn't even concern yourself. It says this, and this was when
I first, when I read it once, something is just like a light
came on this scripture. It said David, when he had served
God's purpose in his generation, fell on asleep. And David didn't
concern himself with the next generation. God will raise up
men to take care of that one. Seriously, folks. Oh, we need
to keep our eyes fixed on where we are. Today is the day God
has sent us to. Let us redeem the time while
we're alive and leave the time when we're not going to be alive
in this world to those who are going to be alive. Knowing this,
the ever-living one will raise up men to handle his people in
that day. The next generation is not my
responsibility. It's like a relay race. If you
run a relay race, what's your job? Run your section. and hand
it to the next guy. His part of the race is his problem.
All you need to do is make sure that the baton you received is
the one you pass on to the next guy. If he misuses it, that's
his problem. You ran your race. I mean, you
just get off the track, go back to the gym, get cleaned up, you
know, you're done. This is the way to live in peace
in this world. Not trying to figure out how
the purpose of God is going to come to pass in the generations
to come, or to go back and refight the battles of the last generation,
as though you're going to be able to go back in time and fix
something that went wrong. Look right in front of you. There's
God's people out there that haven't heard the news yet. They haven't
got the memo yet. Do what you can to get the message
to them. And to do that, you just got
to kind of tell it to everybody, because you don't know which
one of them are God's people. But you tell it to everybody,
and you will, metaphorically speaking, get a pie in the face. You know, you'll get cursed at.
It's all right. Don't worry about it. Just tell
everybody when you've got an opportunity. You tell them about
the hope that lies within you and why you have such a hope.
And one of these days you might run into someone whom God has
chosen and Christ has redeemed, and the Spirit of God's standing
right there waiting. And you're going to tell the
Word, and the Spirit of God's going to give them life. You won't give them life, but
you will have been part of the process. And I tell you, that's
a blessing to be part of that process. You'll know you didn't do anything,
and yet Your flesh might get proud of
it, but you've got to ignore that. You'll rejoice that God
was pleased to use you to find one of his sheep. After all,
God used somebody to find you. God's in the midst of her. Now
this is in reference to the General Assembly and Church of the Firstborn,
and that shall never fall, even if local assemblies do. But let
me do say this. You take a church like this one,
I know the gospel is faithfully preached here. And I would say
that probably virtually everyone, if not everyone, and this congregation
who professes to believe actually does. And even though we cannot say
that Todd's Road Grace Church or Grace Community Church is
the city of God that shall not be moved, it is, as it were,
a portion of it. And if it rises up in your heart
to move it, be careful. It says God is in the midst of
her and it will not be moved. I don't know if you all like
those, well I can see his face, Chuck Norris jokes. You know,
I get a big kick out of them. Someone once said, Chuck Norris
doesn't do pushups, he pushes the earth away from him. If you try to move God's church,
you think you're Chuck Norris. The church is not going to move,
you are. There are people that get themselves
a majority of a congregation where the gospel is preached,
and they call a meeting, and they run out to believers and
steal their property. They say, oh, they moved in.
No, you didn't. You moved. And I'm telling you
this not because I don't know of anything going on. Honestly,
I'm not saying in my mind, I heard about it. I'm not. I just know
humans. Paul said, there shall arise
from among you wolves in sheep's clothing. And I don't know, you
all look like sheep to me, but one of you might be a wolf inside.
And while I can't turn you to a sheep, if you ever get kind
of wolfy, let me give you some advice, leave. Leave. You try to move God's church,
you will be destroyed. That's what Paul says, what it
means when he says, he will be destroyed who destroys God's
temple. If you ever get mad at God's
people, just leave them alone. If you want to find out what
happens to people that bother God's people, read the book of
Revelation. That's what happens to them. They get thrown into
the lake of fire. Now why? Because they're good? No, because they're Savior's
good. that He's in the midst of them. And they may look real
shaky and movable, but He is like a pole in the middle. They're
all attached to Him. And you won't be able to move
them unless you can move God. And guess what? You can't do
that. So don't even try. Verse 6, the heathen raged, the
kingdoms were moved. He uttered... The word actually
means gave. He gave His voice, the earth melted. The heathen
raged. And they always have. Did it get them anywhere? Now,
I got to admit, the heathen are raging. A lot of them are raging
right now in our country. Makes me mad. It frustrates me
that they can say such stupid things and the world believes
them. You know, you want to pull your
hair out, you know. But you know what? They're raging. But it
says, the kingdoms were moved. And here's that word, toppled.
Oh, they'll have their little day. And they'll say, we're winning,
we're winning, we're winning. All at once, boom. God shoves
them over. Pharaoh thought he was winning.
After all, he's Pharaoh. The scriptures say to Pharaoh,
for this reason, I made you Pharaoh. I set you up so I could slap
you down and the world would know I'm God. I'm glad I'm not Pharaoh. Really. Most of the big shots in the
world, God set them up as big shots so he could squash them
and show the world, I'm God. I'm God. The Lord of hosts is with us. The God of Jacob is our refuge.
That word with us. Remember the name Emmanuel? Actually,
that's a name made up of two words. El means God, but Emmanuel
means with us, and that's the word there. We don't get the
El part in the name here. Instead, it says Jehovah of hosts,
Emmanuel. Now, that's the same thing as
the El they were talking about in Emmanuel, but this time it
uses God's name. Jehovah of hosts. And the hosts
there were references to armies. But it doesn't mean that the
Lord needs armies. It's just saying the power associated
with armies is all right there in Him. And He is with us. And He is for us. And if God
be for us, who can be against us? Do you really believe that? If you do, why do you get afraid
of men? Well, I'm afraid that it's gonna
be, you know, we might suffer some persecution. I don't want
to. But the scriptures say, if you
would live godly in Christ Jesus, you will suffer persecution.
But you know what? In the end, you'll win and your
persecutors will lose. because the Lord of hosts is
with us. And then the God of Jacob. Oh,
I love it when he calls himself that. Now he could have said
the God of Israel, but Israel's kind of a glorious name. I don't
seem to fit that name very good. But now I do fit Jacob. You want to know a good definition
of that name? You can get technical and call it heel grabber. But
why don't we just call this scoundrel, ne'er do well. I hope nobody
here sells used cars, but used car sales. Really, he was a cheat. He would do everything he could
to deprive you of what you have and make it his, and he would
somehow or another make it look like it was okay that he did
it. Doesn't that kind of person just get under your nerves? They
find a way to take the law to pervert justice. That's the kind
of guy Jacob was, but God loved him. How can He do that? Well, how can He love you? But I like it. He's the God of Jacob.
Well, that means He can be the God of me. And He is our refuge. Verse 8, Come, behold the works
of the Lord. Oh, I'd love to say, look what desolations He
has made in the earth. We only ascribe to God those
works that we think are good and pleasant. Sometimes the word
of the Lord, in behalf of his people, is destruction. In fact, in the end, that's going
to be exactly what it is. He's going to save us by destroying
the world. Let me wrap this up. Verse 10. Be still and know that
I am God. Now, I like looking up, as I
told you, I like looking things up in the original language,
using the reference books, and I thought, those words, be still. What does that mean? You're gonna
love this. The very first word to define
that word was relax. Relax. You know what God says
to you? Relax. Don't get all tensed up. Don't
run around like a chicken with your head cut off. Relax, I've
got this under control. I know what I'm doing, and I
know what they're doing, because I'm the one that purposed that
they would do it. He didn't find out what they were doing and
is able to accommodate that. They're doing it because he ordered
them to do it in his divine decree, and they'll do it. He'll hold
them responsible for it, and he will deal with them in a just
and right way. And in the end, whatever it was
they did, even if it caused you pain, will have brought you good.
Now you think on that a minute. That's the God we serve. Relax. But God, it looks like
everything's falling apart. I know it does, but just relax.
Just sit down. I've got this. I'm handling it. He says, I will be exalted among
the heathens. And He will, either in grace
as He saves them, or in judgment as He did with Pharaoh when He
destroys them. I will be exalted in the earth. Now let me ask
you, is there anything else you really want in this earth? Not
really. If my Lord is exalted, I'm happy. I'm happy. Well, He says, well,
I will be. I will be. And you know something, for some
of them, It might not come until that day when everyone, some
willingly, some unwillingly, are brought into the presence
of Christ and they bow and say, He's Lord, I was wrong. He's
Lord, not me. Brethren, relax. God's in control. The Lord bless you.