Our God, grant us the grace to
know and understand all that you have written here for us.
In Christ's name we pray. Amen. The old hymn goes, When
upon life's billows you are tempest-tossed, when you are discouraged, thinking
all is lost, count your many blessings, name them one by one,
and it will surprise you what the Lord has done. It's revealing
to see how often the scriptures, and when we say the scriptures,
we mean God, takes pains to remind us of all the good that he has
done for us. Our brother just read, and that's
one of my favorite Psalms. There are 150 Psalms, and I have
150 favorites. Blessed is the man whose transgressions
are forgiven. And you know, we just hear about
that one. If we can get our minds wrapped
around what that one means, it will put a blessedness on everything
else we have. But he often, God goes on to
list for us things that that central blessing brings to us. But God repeats these things
so often, I believe, at least for these reasons, if not others.
First of all, we're foolish and do not know how to recognize
many of the blessings that God sends our way. He is at all times
blessing his people. But seeing that we are naturally
natural, that is, that's the way we were born, and those ways
of thinking still permeate our mind, we often miss what blessings
God has sent us because we're interpreting things according
to a natural way of thinking. Secondly, God must remind us
of his great blessings toward us because we are selfish. and
have little understanding of what happens outside of ourselves in this little bubble of time
that we live in. We interpret everything according
to how it immediately affects us, not considering that what
is painful right now may prove to be most blessed later on. We are immature, like children,
and tend to measure our blessedness by how we feel at any given moment. You know, children, and this
is the hard work of raising children, they don't know what's good,
they don't understand what is wise, We have to teach them that
at any given moment, if things are not going the way they want
them to go, they automatically think that means something's
wrong. And spiritually speaking, we
often think the same way. Something isn't going the way
we thought it would or the way we wanted it to. It's not following
a pleasant path. Therefore, like children, we
automatically think it must be a bad path. We are fleshly, and
we tend to measure our blessedness by the abundance of fleshly benefits
and pleasures we enjoy, rather than by that multitude of spiritual
blessings that are given to us in Christ Jesus. Now, I'm not
saying these things as though I've got a firm grasp on them,
that is, got a firm grasp on them in the sense that I actually
practice these things. Like you, these are things I
already know, but they're awfully difficult to put into practice. It's much easier to just fall
into the natural way. Falling is easier than standing
up. It's more painful, but in the end, but it's easier. But we tend to think of our blessings
in terms of this life and the ease with which we are able to
live this life. Consequently, we almost always
think that health is to be preferred to sickness. Wealth is to be
preferred to barely getting along or maybe even having a little
less than we need. That's just the flesh, that's
all it is. It's not bad in the sense that
there's nothing wrong with enjoying health and wealth, but it would be wrong to think
that the absence of those things is necessarily a curse. The psalmist was wise to say,
give me neither riches nor poverty. Don't give me riches, lest I
forget you. Don't give me poverty, lest I
curse you. Just give me enough. Give me
my daily, and that's something the Lord didn't say. You know,
pray, give us this day all we're gonna need for the rest of our
lives and maybe some surplus to pass to our kids. He said,
give us today. today's bread. I know by my own experience,
and I'm sure that you have maybe experienced this at some time
or another, the moment that we get what looks to us like a secure
position in this world, we begin to no longer lean upon God and
be thankful for what we have. That brings us to the next point,
why God must continually remind us of all these blessings. We are unthankful, or at least
we do not often enough take the time to consider just how blessed
we are and give appropriate thanks to God for it. Because of the hyper-religiosity
of some people, myself included, when I was younger, you know,
we didn't like it, or I don't like it when I think people are
doing things just for a religious show, or just because it's what
you do. And therefore, often, we're out
to eat, especially with others, We don't say a blessing over
the meal. I'm not saying we don't say one in our hearts, though
there's times that doesn't happen either. The food comes and we
dig in. But that's reactionary. Now, we don't have to make a
big show of it, but we should never cease to give thanks, even for the food that's put
in front of us. After all, who made it appear? Who put it there in reality?
Our Lord, when he took that bread and fed 5,000, before he dispersed
it, he gave thanks for it. And here's the interesting thing.
Later on, John is mentioning that they come to a certain place,
and he doesn't describe that place as where The Lord Jesus
Christ took five loaves and two fishes and fed 5,000 people.
He described it this way, this is where the Lord took the bread
and fishes and broke them and gave thanks. To John, it was more important
to note that our Lord who created all things by the word of his
mouth and could have done so right then if he'd wanted to
under his own power. He gave thanks. Now, if he gives thanks, certainly
we should. And we don't, just because others
may say a blessing at home, merely as a matter of religious ritual,
doesn't mean it's inappropriate to give thanks to God. Just stop
for a minute and thank God for the food. when I was with Miles McKee,
first in India and then in Africa. You know, Miles does things differently
than most people do, and I kind of like him for that. And the food would come to the
restaurant, and he didn't say, well, brethren, bow your head,
and he never said, Brother Joe, would you return, nothing like
that. Food would come, and with eyes wide open, he'd say, thank
you, Lord, for this good food, and then go right on eating. I like that. I do it once in
a while. But we're not naturally thankful. Whatever it is we've always had,
if we still have it, we don't realize each time it's given
to us, it's a blessing from God. We have our three square meals
a day, complete maybe with dessert afterwards on some of them and
appetizers before others. I read somewhere, I saw a joke
put up on Facebook, you know, it shows you this kid from Africa
and he's looking real incredulous. You know, he says, so an appetizer
is the food you eat before you eat and then you eat and then
dessert is the food you eat after you eat? And we've come to think of food
in that way. I mean, we eat just because it's there. When was
the last time you ever worried you would have enough to eat?
Remember, our Lord has his hand on the faucet and he can go and
stop it right now. So all the time it's flowing,
it's a gracious blessing from God for us to have even the barest
of necessities of life. And then also, here's another
thing that works in us, a distress that makes us forget blessings,
we're spiritual. We're not just fleshly, we're
also spiritual. And we must bear with this world,
and like righteous and godly lot, We are vexed, deeply troubled
by the godlessness of this world, the world around us, and most
of all, we're vexed by the godlessness of the world within us. And focusing on that, and it's
so easy to do that, focusing on that, we forget all the blessings
that have been given to us, even that blessedness of having a
spiritual nature that is vexed by the world. Would you rather
be happy with it? Would you rather that God allow
you to live in perfect satisfaction with the way the world is? He does that with a lot of people.
and they perish. Now, our God knows all about
this. That is, he knows all about the weaknesses and frailties
that cause us the need or give us the need to be constantly
reminded of his blessings. He knows our frame that we are
dust, says the scriptures. He knows that we are foolish,
selfish, childish, fleshly, and unthankful. He knows all that
about us. He knew it about us before he
called us to himself. He knew this was how it'd be
when he, you know, gave us the blessings, and yet it did not
withhold him from giving us those blessings. He also knows that
by the work of his Spirit, we are spiritual, and therefore
we are susceptible to sorrows, frustrations, and trials that
the world knows nothing about. Therefore he understands that
it's especially easy for us to be overcome with fears and sorrows,
for we see causes of fear and sorrow the world cannot perceive. There are times in the life of
a believer when all looks dark, for neither in his flesh nor
in his spirit can he find any cause for joy. His natural self
craves what is forbidden to him or cannot find any satisfaction
in those pleasures which are allowed to him, and his spirit
feels adrift, unable to enter into the joy of the Lord and
there find that strength. It may be that his life has not
changed at all from what it was when he was happy. But for reasons known only to
God, she must go through a time of blindness to all the goodness
that God has bestowed on her. He must endure a sense of loneliness
and disconnection from God, the God of his salvation, and be
unable to rejoice in anything. You say God would do that? Well,
if it's happened to you, it's God that did it to you. Remember
that. Whatever has happened to you,
God did it. He did it for his glory. He did
it for the accomplishment of his purpose. And he did it, if
you're his child, he did it for your good. And unlike us parents
who often do things that we think are good for our children, but
they turn out that that really wasn't good, Everything God does
for His children not only has good intentions and good purposes,
it has good results. And yes, sometimes the best thing
for us is spend the time when we can't see Him or hear Him
and have nothing but the remembrance of His Word to hang on to. And in order that in those times
we might have a restorative word to hang on
to, that is something of his word that not only buoys us up
in the trouble, in the time of distress, but shows us how to
properly perceive the stress. or the distress and no longer
be so stressed about it. He reminds us of all that we've
been given in Christ Jesus. Our God knows all of our frailties,
and yet He is not angered by them, nor does He become frustrated
by this tendency in us. As a father has pity on his children,
so does the Lord have pity on us. He knows we're dust, and
knowing that we're dust, He will never let the winds of trouble
blow hard enough to blow us away. Knowing we are dust, he lovingly
and wisely sends to us such troubling times, so that in the midst of
them, he may remind us of how blessed we are, and more importantly,
remind us where our blessings come from. All of them. Now, we don't wish for these
times, of trouble, a sense of isolation, a burden of guilt. We don't pray for them. Knowing our own weaknesses, our
Lord Jesus Christ taught us to pray this, do not lead us into
trial and trouble, but deliver us from the evil one. Now I quoted
that hymn, from that hymn, count your blessings. There are other
hymns And there is a certain aspect of them that we might
like, but I avoid singing them because there are things underlying
them that we are not taught to do. For example, the song More
Love, to thee, more love, O Christ, to thee. It says, let sorrow
do its work, send grief or pain. Sweet are thy messengers, sweet
their refrain, when they can sing to me, more love, O Christ,
to thee. Nowhere in the scriptures do
we find an exhortation to pray to God, send grief and pain.
It's exactly the opposite. Lead us not into trouble. Now, I would hope that if the
Lord in his wisdom and goodness decided to send grief and pain,
despite the fact I asked him, lead me not into temptation,
if he sent it, I would pray that by his grace, that these troubles
would not drive me from him, but rather to him. And that's
what the trials of a believer are designed to do, drive the
believer to God, drive him back to Christ. And these trials are
sent by him, and when they are sanctified by him to our good,
they will work more love in our hearts toward Christ. But I'm not gonna pray that God
sent me grief and pain, or the song nearer my God to
thee. nearer my God to thee, nearer to thee. Even though it
be a cross that raiseth me, still all my song shall be nearer my
God to thee. Now friends, our Lord promised
us trouble. And we don't think, we're not
so foolish as to think we're gonna get through this life without
it. We may have a lot of it. And there may, you know, the
Bible speaks about bearing your cross, though very few people
understand what that means. But the only cross that will
ever make you love Christ more is his cross, not yours. We pray that in the time of trouble,
well, our Lord said, lead us not into temptation, but deliver
us from the evil one. Well, what's he saying? Lead
us not into temptation, but we know it's coming. And when it
does come, do not turn us over and leave us alone in the face
of the evil one who would separate us from you. So it's kind of
a, what we are to pray for and look for. is the blessedness of pleasantness. What we are to prepare for and
know will come is distress and trouble at the hands of our enemy. And we pray, Lord, don't leave
us to him. In times of sweet rest, we may
think we can endure trouble. When the sea is calm, we may
feel confident that we can brave the storm. And it may be that
for this very reason, God sends us troubles and storms to remind
us we're no match for the world. We do not have it within ourselves
to endure the storm. People say, God will never send
you a trouble you can't handle. Then you haven't suffered much
trouble. God will send us troubles we
cannot handle precisely to teach us we need him. Now, I don't mind God will never
send you a trouble that his grace will not enable you to deal with
or endure, but you will, if you're his, you will undergo trouble
bigger than you. God is gracious. He knows how
to mix the days of our lives in the proper proportion. The
proportion of darkness and sunshine, trouble and rest, and trials
and peace. He knows how to mix them so that
we do not become overworldly or in despair. He knows the right recipe. for
our lives. We don't. That's why we pray
according to our wisdom and desires. Paul says to make your requests
known to God. But yet all the time that we
are praying these prayers, we are submitting them to the wisdom
of our Father. Because we know we're going to
pray amiss. Because we don't have the wisdom. We don't have the proper set
of values by which to guide our prayers. That's why it's good
that in Romans 8 it says that the Spirit helps us in our weaknesses,
for we don't even know what to pray for. But while we're babbling
on in our prayers, the Spirit is interceding for us with groans
that words won't even be able to describe. And that's why you
and I, despite the weakness of our prayers, despite the foolishness
of our prayers and the selfishness of our prayers, we continually
get what we need. Why? Because the Spirit is taking
that mess that we say and throwing everything out of it that shouldn't
have been there, putting everything in it that should have been,
and then passing it on to God. And God hears the most wonderful
prayers ever prayed. Because they are prayers. made
from the mind of the Spirit of God himself. We're not in a position to know
what we can bear, and it's not wise to put the Lord to the test
on these things. Lest in our pride we bring upon
ourselves a harsh lesson in humility. Brother Spurgeon once, not Brother
Spurgeon, Brother Mahan, told a story of a man, I think he
was there for their annual conference and was doing some special music.
And he sang a song and the hook to it and the title was Spare
Me Not. Henry said, you could hear the
gasp from the people. A man stand in a pulpit and essentially
say, don't spare me God, I can take it. And he said after that,
and I can't remember the particular things that happened to him, but things on the level of losing
a wife or a child, things like, I mean, just a series of horrible
troubles. Don't ever ask for trouble. You're
going to get enough of it without asking. It's part and parcel
of this life. Pray for grace. Now, quickly,
having laid that foundation, let's look at some of these blessings
that are given to the city of God. And what a blessed place it is
to live. Verse 1, God is our refuge and strength and ever-present
help in trouble. Now, we don't want trouble. We're
not going to pray for it. But you know that it's in the
midst of trouble we become most aware of the presence of our
God. He's always there. But the more
we sense our need of him, the more we sense his presence. He says, God is our refuge. Now,
refuge implies weakness on our part, because a refuge is where
you run in times of defeat. When you are in full retreat
from the enemy, you run to a refuge, a shelter, a place to hide. He is our refuge. The script, that song says, the
Lord's our rock, in him we hide, a shelter in the time of storm. You know, there's some troubles
that come upon us. There is no fighting to be done. There's
no resisting to be done. All that can be done is to hide, to run to God who is on our refuge
and shut the door and cry out, God, protect me. but it says he's our refuge and
our strength. Strength implies victory, an
ability to meet and defeat the foe. So how can God be both refuge
and strength? If we have strength, we don't
need a refuge. If we're running to a refuge,
it's obvious we don't have strength. Well, in this case, the answer
is rather simple. When we face our lives in our natural strength,
we quickly find a need for shelter, for we cannot defeat the foe.
And don't ever think that you can. But once we abandon hope
in ourselves, we run to our refuge, and in that place of admitted
weakness, we find another strength. a strength that prevails over
our enemies. Paul wrote this, when I am weak,
then am I strong. God sends us trials and troubles
too big for us to prove to us that we're weak and cause us
to run to him as a refuge, a shelter. And once we do, there, cowering
in the shelter, afraid, defeated, because of our weakness, we find
his strength. You can be certain that God will
never give you a victory in which you can boast. So it is equally
certain that he'll never give you a victory that arises from
your own strength. Whatever you handle by your own
wit and by your own strength, you'll take credit for. But God said that he does things
in such a way that no flesh will be able to boast in his sight. We thank our God that when in
our foolishness we trust in our own strength, which is nothing
but weakness, we have a refuge to run to. and there to lick
our wounds, as it were, and heal up. But in that glorious refuge,
we find a strength, we find a wisdom, we find a way that we did not
know. It says, he's our ever-present
help in time of need. In the very times when it is
quite obvious we are not up to the trouble we face, then he
appears with the greatest clarity. When we run to him for refuge,
all we find in him, all we need for life and godliness. And because of this, the psalmist
goes on to say, therefore we will not fear though the earth
give way. The mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though
its waters roar and foam, and the mountains quake with their
surging." He's not saying we're never going to fear that. He
says, when we have run to God for refuge, then we won't fear
those things. When we're out there trying to
face, well, when the earth gives way,
I assume he's referring to things like earthquakes, you know? earthquakes
and if the mountains fall into the heart of the sea. Can you handle that? Can you
stop an earthquake? Can you determine the outcome
of an earthquake or maybe some volcanic eruption so powerful
that it actually casts a good portion of the mountain into
the sea? Can you deal with the storm where the waters roar and
foam? Can you deal with that? No, you
can't do anything about it at all, can you? Too big. And that's
the way life is. But if we have taken refuge in God,
we can look out the window and say, I'm not worried about it.
Why? I'm in here. I am inside the God who's causing
all those things, and He does not intend that they reach me. Verse 4, there is a river whose
streams make glad the city of God, the holy place where the
Most High dwells. God is within her. She will not
fall. God will help her, or God will
help her at break of day. There is a river. When John the
Apostle was given that vision of the city of God, which was
a symbolic vision actually of the glorified church, there was
a river, and it flowed out from the throne of God. And on both sides of the river
was the tree of life, a symbol of all spiritual blessings in
the heavenly places in Christ. Oh, what gladness fills the heart
of the one whose mind and heart are set upon heavenly things
rather than earthly things, and who sees flowing from the throne
of God an unstopping and unstoppable river of blessedness to all his
people. And here's the thing, it flowed
out from the throne and outside the city gate. Why? Because not every citizen of
the city of God has yet been called in. And it goes out and blesses them
and brings them in. Oh, what a river. Now, you and
I, we've got some rivers around. I'll admit, when I came here,
I thought, you all call this river? Because I was raised by,
I mean, our backyard went down the Guyandot River, and that
flowed right into the Ohio River. I'm used to bigger things being
called rivers. But back then, they were so utterly dependent
on them. Nobody was pumping water to them. They didn't have any
municipal water supply. They had to be near a river or
be able to dig deep enough to find water or they'd die. And so you can imagine what a
river means and oh, what a river of blessing. It is a river, not
that comes out. of the free will of man, rather
it comes out of the throne of God. It's a sovereign river,
if you will, one that God causes to flow out from him, and it
will flow wherever he wants it to. It will nourish and supply
everybody to whom he sees fit to direct it. And when it touches
someone, it makes them glad. The city of God says God is within
her. Here's our little group this
morning. God is here. This is a little
gathering of the city of God. A small bunch of the citizens
of that city, not yet home, but it doesn't matter. Remember,
that river flows out. God is within her. Where two
or three are gathered together there in my name, there I am
in the midst of them. Churches get all up in arms and
excited if somebody famous is going to come to their church. Jesus Christ meets with His church
every time she meets. I'd much rather go to church
where the Lord Jesus Christ is going to attend than to a thousand
churches where the heads of state are going to deign to grace the
place with their presence. Verse 7, the Lord as Jehovah Almighty
is with us. The God of Jacob is our fortress. Now we started out saying God
is our refuge. It's a place we run in high.
But a fortress is something else. It's a defended position from
which you fight. Now we go outside that fort and
we try to fight. leave the fortress and think
we can meet the enemy. No, we can't. But God is our
fortress. The Lord Almighty is with us.
Do you have any idea what that means? In Isaiah it prophesies the coming
of the Lord Jesus with this, You shall call His name Immanuel. which means God with us. Now that includes God is on our
side, except that's really not the best way to put it. By his
grace, we've been put on his side. I think as Abraham Lincoln
said, the question is not whether or not God is on our side, it's
whether or not we're on his. God doesn't join sides, he is
a side. but He is with us. And if God be with us, if God
be for us, who can be against us? Come and see the works of the
Lord, the desolations He has brought on the earth. He makes
wars cease to the ends of the earth. You say, well, now, wait
a minute. You're talking about desolations? Wouldn't making
wars to cease mean the end of desolation? What it's saying
here, and it may not be politically correct, but they say, come see
the works of the Lord. He brings the world to desolation
to make her wars against him stop. And he does that in small ways,
he does that sometimes in big ways, and someday he's gonna
do it completely. He will put an end to this world's
war against him by bringing an end to this world. He breaks the bow, shatters the
spear, and burns the shields with fire. Be still. That's what he tells
his people. Sounds pretty serious. Breaking
bow, you know, shattering a spear, burning shields. If it's been
written now, maybe he'd say something like blows up the tanks, you
know, sets off all the nuclear bombs they can't set off anymore,
burns up all the military bases. That sounds pretty serious. But
he says to us, be still. Sit still. Don't worry. Don't be moved. And know that
I am God. I will be exalted among the nations.
I will be exalted in the earth. I will be exalted through my
name being glorified in the salvation of sinners, or I will be exalted
in the destruction of them. But one way or another, every
knee will bow, every tongue will confess that Jesus is Lord to
the glory of the Father. The Lord Almighty is with us. The God of Jacob is our fortress. So let me ask you this, how can
anything other than blessing happen to you? If God is our refuge, our strength,
our fortress, nothing bad can come to us. The unpleasant may
come, but we learn that the unpleasant can be good. That our God, who made us by
the word of his mouth and called us to himself by the word of
his mouth, controls all things for our good. We are safe in
him, secure. We are strong in Him. And if He is our fortress, we
can be valiant in battle in Him. Outside of Him, nothing. In Him, everything. The world is not black and white.
And the one who tries to live it that way is going to be frustrated.
But here's the blessed truth. When it comes to God, it is black
and white. In him, everything. Outside of
him, nothing. That's the only two conditions
they are. Absolutely blessed or not blessed at all. Well,
may God grant. His blessing on this word preached. Lord, help us now as we observe
your table. In Christ's name we pray, amen. Now, forgetting that it was the
Lord's table today, I didn't choose hymns particularly designed
for the Lord's table, but the two we did, the two I chose,
you know how our choosing goes, don't you? Works out good. There's
a fountain filled with blood. That's what we're all about.
And then did God become a man His flesh, his body was broken
for us. Scott and James, if you'd come
help us.