Alright brethren, let's go to
Psalm 46. You know, whenever things are going well in our
life, we feel like we're pretty strong. And even if we run into a little
trouble, generally we can pull ourselves up. We feel pretty
confident we can get ourselves out of it. But when God brings
you to have no strength privately,
personally, And in your family, with your
wife and your children, and professionally, whatever
it is that the Lord's given you to do in your life, and there's
problems and there's trouble, and as much as you try, there's
nothing you can do to get out of it. That's when you find out you
don't have any strength. I don't have a message. I've
tried to have a message, but I don't. But a preacher told me one time
12 years ago, I stood up to preach. And just before I got up to preach,
I said, what do you do when you're about to open up a conference
and you don't have a message? And he said, you lean on God
hard. And that's what I'm going to
do tonight. Our text begins here and it says,
God is our refuge and our strength, a very present help in trouble.
And I pray we find that out right now. I need help. And I need a message for you. I had
a pastor tell me once, he said, if you don't have a message,
he said, it's your responsibility to get up. Read a psalm if you
have to. God will give you a message and
you read it. So that's what I'm going to do. God is our refuge
and our strength, a very present help in trouble. Why do we need
a refuge? God is our refuge. That means
a place you can run to for ultimate safety. Why do we need a refuge? Why do we need God to be our
strength? Because we have none. We don't
have any strength. You know, we really think we
have some strength. And when things are going well
and we feel like we're in control of things, we feel like we have
some strength. And we'll put on a humble show
and we'll talk about not having strength and all that. But really,
we think we have some strength. But then God shows you sometimes
you don't have any strength. You don't have any strength.
I'm talking about you can't bat your next eye or take your next
breath if God don't allow it. You see people who are wise and
intelligent and do great things in this world, all God's got
to do is just change something in their mind and they don't
even know who they are. They don't know who their dearest
loved one is. You think you got some strength?
God can't bring you to be nothing like that. And that's what you
are always. That's what I am always. But
God is our refuge. God is our strength. Who's He
talking to? Is He talking to everybody in
this world? No, He's talking to His people. He's talking to
those he's everlastingly loved. He's talking to those that he's
always provided a refuge in Christ and Christ has always been their
refuge even when we didn't know he was our refuge. That's who
he's talking to. You and me who have some understanding
by God's grace that we don't have strength. You don't need
a refuge or you don't need God to be your strength. If you think
you're able to save yourself and you think you're able to
do something for yourself, you'll never flee to God for your refuge. He's talking to his people who
he's made to know, you and I are sinners and we don't have any
refuge. We don't have any strength. That's who he's talking to. And
he says to you and me, God is our refuge. God is our strength. He's a very present help in trouble. You know the fact of the matter
is when we come into trouble, how do we come into that trouble?
Was it out of God's control? No. He's present when the trouble
comes. He's present when we're brought
into that trouble. He's bringing us into it. No
matter what form it's come in, no matter how He's doing it,
He's in control of bringing the trouble. So yeah, He's right
there in the midst of us, a present help for our trouble. Because
He's bringing it to show us that we need Him, we need Christ to
be our refuge. What does it say there, verse
2? Therefore will not we fear, we're not going to be afraid,
Though the earth be removed, though the mountains be carried
into the midst of the sea, though the waters thereof roar and be
troubled, though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof.
Now we, we become afraid, we tremble, we become troubled,
but under all of that and at our worst state, we still know
God's our refuge. We still know God's our strength,
and in that sense, we don't fear. We may not see Him, but we know
He sees us. We may not think on Him or be
able to even think on Him, but we know He's thinking on us.
Maybe we can't seek Him right now, but we know He's got His
eye on us. We're at the center of His affection,
every one of us, His people, all the time, in every hour,
constantly. And so in that way, we don't
fear. Now what does he mean here when
he says, though the earth be removed and though the mountains
are carried into the midst of the sea? How could a mountain
be carried into the midst of the sea? Well, physically, literally,
if the sea level changed, that's how the mountains can be carried
into the sea. If you travel the Northwest Pacific Highway from
Washington down to Napa Valley and you stay on the coast, you're
going to see tops of mountains in the sea. It's very beautiful
and it's strange looking to see the mountains sticking up out
of the sea. You realize the sea level has changed and fluctuated
for years and years and years that this earth's been around.
Men say the surf's a billion years old because they have fossils
to record it. I don't know about that because
there was no death until Adam sinned in the garden. Where was
your fossils before Adam sinned in the garden? That was about
5,000 years before Christ came. So I don't know about that because
there was no death before then. But that's still a long time
until now. I've only been alive 49 years.
5,000, 7,000, 8,000 years, that's a long time. But God's only ever made one
water. The water that's in that glass
right there is the same water that drowned Noah in his day,
drowned people in Noah's day. He never made any new water.
And if the sea fluctuates and the boundaries change and the
mountains are in the sea tomorrow, the Colorado mountains are in
the sea tomorrow, God's still on His throne. He's doing what he will, but
spiritually these sorts of things gives us trouble too. I think, personally, I think
we have more trouble with physical things than we do spiritual things. It ought to be the reverse. We
ought to have more trouble with spiritual things, We're creatures
of the flesh, and what we see happening physically, this world
right now is going crazy over climate change, you know. Well,
I don't think it's a change at all. I think it's what God's
been doing from the beginning. And you can usually say, well
scientists say it, so let me tell you something. Two archaeologists
contacted Andrew Carnegie one time and said, we found a dinosaur.
He said, I want to buy it. When he got out to Colorado,
wherever it was they had been digging, they only had two bones.
That's all they had. Two bones. He said, well, just
build me a dinosaur skeleton that looks like what you think
it looked like and I'll pay you. And they did. And he put it in
every library he's got all over the world. And he's got a bunch
of them. And from there, Scientists began to say, well, this is what
we think it looks like. And they'd build skeletons that
looked like it, even if they didn't have all the bones. And
so now we just accept this is what dinosaurs look like. Well,
maybe they do. Or maybe it's just the rich man's
got enough money to say this is how it is. And maybe that's
what climate change is. But there's change in the climate,
but it's God who's changing it. It's God who's in control of
it. And one of these days, there's gonna be global warming on such
a massive scale, this whole place is gonna melt and everything,
and it's gonna melt. But, if you have God as your
refuge, you don't have to be troubled. No matter what physical
change comes, no matter what spiritual change comes, With
God as our refuge, we have a very present help in trouble, so we
don't have to fear these things. I don't know what's going to
change. I don't know what change is coming, but I know who's controlling
the change, and it's my refuge, and I don't have to worry about
it. I don't have to worry about it. That's why you don't see
the Lord's people clamoring about acting crazy when the world starts
acting crazy is because we have a refuge. We don't have to worry
about that. Well, look at this. He says in verse 5, or verse
4, there's a river. The streams whereof shall make
glad the city of God, the holy place of the tabernacles of the
Most High. What's this river? It's not a
literal river. We have a river And where's this
river? It says it's in the city of God,
it's in the holy place, it's in the tabernacles of the Most
High. Where's that? That's in His people
and in the midst of His church. And in His people, in the midst
of His church, there's a river that makes His people glad. What
is this river? This is that clear, clear river
that John saw in Revelation when he saw it coming out of the throne
of God and saw it in the midst of Jerusalem and all manner of
fruit on each side of the river. This is that river. It's Christ,
Jesus our Lord. It's the gospel of Christ. It's
the gospel made effectual in our heart through the Holy Spirit.
It's life! That's what water is. It's life!
It's a river. It's life! And we have this life
in our midst. We saw Sunday, the Lord Jesus
is walking amongst the candlesticks, the golden candlesticks. That's
His church. And He's that river of life through the Holy Spirit.
It's walking, it runs through His people, runs through the
midst of His church and it's where His people are so that
we're glad no matter what. And here's the point. This earth's
going to change. Everything in your life's gonna
change. You have a spouse you love dearly, don't hold on too tight. They
might be here today, they might not tomorrow. You have children you love, don't
hold on too tight. God can take them as quickly
as he gave them. But if you have Christ, There's one that'll never
be taken away. There's the gladness that you'll
always have constantly forever. And he ought to make us regard
these other relationships better, more favorably, with more earnest
and more love and more desire to make these other relationships
fruitful and and happy and lasting because we have Him, that river
that makes us glad. God is in the midst of her. She
shall not be moved. God shall help her in that right
early. And He gives us a proof here.
The heathen raged. The kingdoms were moved. He uttered
His voice. The earth melted. You think of
how many times this has happened throughout the history of this
world. The heathen raged. Hadn't the heathen been raging
since the fall? Since we fell in the garden, since we fell
into sin, since we became dead and trespassing in sin, there's
always been God-hating rebels raging against God and against
His people. Always. We see it on the cross, don't
we? More than any place else, we look to the cross and we see
the heathen raging. We see the cross and we see men
with hatred of God in their hearts. And it does you no good to say,
well, that was the Jew, or that was the Romans, or that was the
Pharisee, or that was you, and that was me. That's who that
was. That's what you would have done and that's what I would
have done if we'd have been there and God left us to do what we would.
We'd have been the first one nailing the nail in his hands,
in his feet. We'd have been the one throwing
the spear in his side, you and me would have. But everything that took place
was God's will being fulfilled, wasn't it? Everything that was
taking place was according to what God determined before to
be done. That was God in our midst. That
was God being a very present help in trouble. And when it
appeared to our eye that this was the worst thing that ever
happened in the history of the world. You think about the apostles. They thought, we thought this
was the Messiah. We thought this was the salvation.
We thought this was God's promise brought to us. You know how bad
that appeared to them? You know how broken hearted they
had to have been? That was God in their midst,
a very present help in trouble, working out salvation for His
elect people. My point is, is when you think
it's the worst, and when I think it's the worst, and when all
we can see is the clouds, and we can't see the light, we can't
see any good coming from this, I'm not making an excuse for
my sin. I'm not making an excuse for your sin. I'm not saying
when your horse is behind, your horse is behind. That's all there
is to it. I'm not making an excuse for that. But God's still in
our midst, and He's still working everything for His people to
be our very present help in trouble, even when we can't see it. He says here, so the answer is
verse 7, the Lord of hosts is with us. The God of Jacob is
our refuge. Why does he say the God, why
does he say the Lord of hosts first? Why does he say the Lord
of hosts? The Lord of hosts means everything that you see, everything
you don't see, everything that is, the Lord's in control of
it. He's ruling it. He's doing it. It's working His will. It's working
His good pleasure. He's the Lord of everything.
He's ruling it all. And then it says, the God of
Jacob, because that means He's our covenant God. He's the God
who entered covenant with that worm Jacob. He's the one who
says, I'm God and I change not, therefore you sons of Jacob are
not consumed. That's God's way of saying, you
know, if we were to say it, we'd say, you son of a so-and-so. God's saying, you sons of Jacob. That's about as bad as you could
say it. You sons of Jacob, you're not consumed because I don't
change. My covenant's everlasting. When
I enter covenant with my people, I enter covenant through Christ
and I look to my son to fulfill every covenant obligation that
you sons of Jacob can't fulfill. and He fulfilled every one of
them. He honored me. He walked before my law. He honored
me. He went and worked out my salvation
in this earth and went to the cross and bore the sins of my
people and put away the sins of my people and He did everything
you sons of Jacob could never do. And therefore you sorry sons
of Jacob are not consumed. He's a covenant God. He says,
verse 8, Come, behold the works of the Lord. Now let's go and
look at the works of the Lord. What desolations has He made
in the earth? He makes wars to cease until
the end of the earth. He breaks the bow. He cuts the
spear and sword. He burns the chariot in fire.
Well, I look around right now, I see desolation everywhere in
the earth. I see wars going on all the time in the earth. I
see men using the bow and the spear Every chariot, every other
kind of weapon right now in the earth to kill one another, don't
you? What's he talking about? Christ
Jesus the Lord has come and by His work, by what He's done,
He's made the war to cease between God and His people. There is
no more war between God and His people. It's over. He's reconciled
us. God was in Christ reconciling
the world unto Himself, not imputing our trespasses to us. How come
God didn't charge us with our trespasses? For He had made Him
sin who knew no sin, and He put away our trespasses. He made
us the righteousness of God in Him and therefore God's just
not to impute our sin to us because we don't have any sin before
God. He's made that war to cease.
And now He's coming through this gospel and working in the hearts
of His people so that He's making His people now to put down our
weapons and quit fighting against God And through this gospel,
He's creating peace in our heart, giving us a new heart, and bringing
us to bow to Christ, and trust Christ, and come to God through
faith in Christ, so that God will receive us, and there's
no more warfare. He's taken the devil's weapons,
He's taken his bow, He's taken his spear, He's taken his chariot,
He's taken everything that He would use to cause war against
His people, and broken it. Destroyed it. When Christ said
it's finished, It was all destroying. And whatever the devil is doing
right now in this earth, it's accomplishing God's purpose.
I told my children the other day, or told him I think, I feel
like the devil is waging an all out full frontal assault on me
right now in every area of my life. But God's in control of it. He's
unbroke the bow. He's already took the wheels
off the chariot, destroyed him in the Red Sea just like he did
Pharaoh and his army. He's already made a way for his
people to go across on dry ground through the blood of Christ,
the Red Sea, so that we're going to be spared. Whatever the Lord's
using the devil to do, it's just accomplishing his purpose, and
it's just for our good. Does that mean I'll just ignore
the trouble? No. Does that mean I ought to
just make an excuse for the way I am and the way others are? No. I ought to try to be the best I
can be because of what God's done for me. I ought to try to
be the best I can toward those around me because of what He's
done. Because I know the war has ceased.
Because I know I don't have anything to worry about. That ought to
make us the most peaceful loving, cheerful people to be around,
shouldn't it? Why would I want to find fault
with somebody when God says he finds no fault with me? Huh? Isn't that just self-righteousness? You know, we talk about hypocrisy
being, you know, you're telling somebody not to do something
when you do it. That's not really hypocrisy. Hypocrisy is knowing
your sins are forgiven and yet you still find fault with other
people. That's hypocrisy. Hypocrisy is knowing what great
debt God's forgiven me and then going out and finding somebody
that owes me so much less and grabbing them by the throat and
saying, you have to pay me everything. I'm not going to let you go.
That's hypocrisy. Why would we do that when we
know the war ceased between us and God? If it really has, it
ought to break our heart and make it to where we're not that
way toward one another, shouldn't it? If I have that problem, I
really ought to do some self-examination. Rather than examining this person
and accusing them and jumping on them and strangling them by
the throat, I ought to really examine myself and say, do you
really know God? What does he tell us? Knowing
that he's ended our warfare, the war that counts. What does
he tell us? Be still. Be still. When the rest of the world is
running about crazy, when your flesh is trying to
wage war against you and telling you everything's wrong. God's saying to you in that inner
man that He's created, He's saying, you be still. What did He say
at the Red Sea? They were standing there and
they saw mountains on this side, idol of God on this side made
out of the mountains. Mountains on this side, a Red
Sea before them. And they look back and here comes
Pharaoh and his army. I mean, the biggest army in the
world. You think that first desert storm
was something? You think that shock and awe
was something? Here comes Pharaoh and his army.
And here they are, a bunch of ex-slaves, ain't got a weapon
to their name. And they're standing there surrounded
with no way to get out of it. What did God say through Moses?
Be still, and see the salvation of the Lord. Just stop your raging,
stop your carrying on, and just stand there. See what God does. Watch Him. And He opened that sea, and they
went across on dry ground, and when Pharaoh and his army came
into the sea, God took the chariot wheels off. I can picture Pharaoh
and his generals looking at them soldiers and saying, you didn't
wield the bearings on these chariots? We greased them yesterday! Why are the wheels coming off?
God took them off, that's why. And they sung a song on the other
side of God's salvation. God says, be still. You're going
to sing my song of salvation. You're going to praise me for
salvation. You just be still. Right now you don't see it. Be
still and watch. See what happens. You know, sometimes,
and this is probably the best place, it is the best place we
ever come to, is when you can't say nothing to fix it. You can't
do nothing to fix it. You just have to stop and wait
and see what God does. That's where you are all the
time. We just don't feel like that's where we are all the time.
That's where we are all the time. Be still. Just wait. What does he say? Be still and know that I am God. Don't you know if we could just
know that all the time? God is God. Just know that. You got a problem with your wife?
God's God. Got a problem with your husband?
God is God. Got a problem with your job?
God is God. Got a problem with your friends
and family? God's God. Whatever is happening,
just know He's God. There's nothing happening out
of His control. And the very worst, it doesn't
excuse a person's sin, but God's going to work that sin for the
good of His people too. If I really believed that, I
wouldn't have to try to fix other people. You know that's when
we have problems. We don't have problems when we
just leave other folks alone. When do we have conflict with
other people? When we try to fix them. We try to make them be
what we think they ought to be. That's when we have problems
with. Well, if everybody was just like you, this world would
be a pretty boring place, wouldn't it? Don't try to fix people. God's
going to fix his people. Just know he's God. He's going
to fix his people. You don't have to try to fix
them. I will be exalted among the heathen. I will be exalted in the earth.
That means God's going to give glory to His name. When He gets
done, everybody in this earth, me, you, unbeliever, believer,
everybody's going to know God did it. And He's going to be
exalted. So he says to us, the Lord of
hosts is with us. Again, the Lord of hosts is with
us. He's controlling everything.
The everlasting covenant God of us sorry, no good sons of
Jacob is our refuge. just run into him and be still
and know he's God and watch him work it all out. It's going to
work out all right. Somebody, I was talking to a
fellow, I was talking to Terry Worthen down in Winston, And we was talking and he said,
yeah, all these people talk about premillennialists and amillennialists. He said, I'm a panillennialist.
I said, what's a panillennialist? He said, I believe it's all going
to pan out all right. That's what I am. I'm a panillennialist.
I believe God's in control. It's going to pan out. Amen.