It's good to be with you this morning. My hope and prayer is that God would be gracious to you and me. I need his mercy. I need his grace. I need his strength. I think the Lord caused me to struggle with the message this week. I pray that that's good for you. Pray the Lord will bless the message and give you what the Holy Spirit intends to give you. I pray for those that are traveling still, those who are not with us.

For whatever reason, God knows, And I know this, that God is able, I'm so thankful for that scripture, God is able to save us to the uttermost. That's good, because I need an uttermost salvation. I don't need something, I don't need a cooperative effort in salvation. I don't need that salvation. I need someone to do it for me. And I know this by the word of God, Christ has.

That's my confidence, that's my hope, And I want to tell you the intent of my heart is the intent of this message that you and I should have confidence. You're going to find that that confidence rests nowhere in yourself but only in God. Only in God can one be confident. You can't be confident in anything else. Everything else just moves and shakes and falls to pieces. God doesn't. God doesn't. So my hope and prayer is that we who are in Christ might have what the Spirit here gives us. Confidence. You can be sure of these things. You can be sure of these things.

And I pray that God would teach them to us. Pray for other churches. Pray for God's grace upon those churches without pastors. Again, let's be faithful in this to pray for those congregations. God would be gracious to give men to preach the gospel. There are few. There are few. The world don't believe that. church on every corner. But there are few who preach the word of God. There are few who preach the gospel as it is written in Holy Scripture. There are many who preach after the traditions of men, the feelings of men, the whims of man as though man is sovereign and God is not. That's what Paul calls another gospel.

That's not another. There are many of those. There are a few. I say there are a few, but there are many. I don't know. I don't know where they are. They don't know where they all are. Do you? I don't. I know God has them there, and that's a comfort to know. But I know this, there are not many. So pray for them. Pray for God's people and God's churches, God's pastors. Let's go to him in prayer.

Our gracious Father in heaven, we bow ourselves to you, asking for grace, asking for mercy, asking, Father, for what you have promised, that you would give us these things not based on our merit, not based on our will or determination or the strength within ourselves. We ask you to give us the blessed promises that are in Christ by the merits of Christ. I pray, Father, that you would pour out blessings upon us today, that you would take the Word by the power of the Spirit and use it, apply it to the hearts of this people, to my heart and to theirs. And, Father, we ask this, that it all redound to your glory, that there be no glory in the preacher, there is no glory in the hearer, The glory belongs to you and the sacred trinity of your persons. Glory to the Father, for you have chose us. Glory to the Son, who redeemed us. Glory to the Spirit, who has called us and even now teaches and keeps us.

Give every heart confidence, not in ourselves, but in your word. And this we ask. In the name of Jesus our Savior and for his sake. Amen. Now take your Bibles, turn back with me to Psalm 46. Psalm 46. Entitled this message, Song of Confidence. Song of Confidence. The psalmist begins with a bold statement. He says, God is our refuge and strength and very present help in trouble.

Now, the life of the believer in Christ is full of trouble. Every believer understands this. Maybe not at the beginning. When we first begin, that's not how we expect things to go. But as we go, as we journey, we find out this is true, that our life is full of trouble. Job said that a man is born under trouble, listen how easy, as the sparks fly upward. I remember watching my dad grind something one time and the sparks just naturally fly up. You didn't have to do it, they just naturally do. Trouble is natural, friends.

It's natural to everyone, but especially to the heart of the believer. Yet we are sure of this truth. This is a confident truth that everyone the Father chose and gave to Christ. Everyone. Every one of them the Son redeemed. Everyone. And everyone the Son redeemed, the Spirit will call them, and listen to this, He will keep them in the faith until they receive all their inheritance. This is without doubt.

Our Lord made that plain in John 6, didn't He? He said, All that the Father giveth shall come to me. And him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. Why? I came down from heaven not to do mine own will but the will of him that sent me and this is the Father's will. You can have confidence in this. This is the Father's will. that of all he hath given me I should lose nothing." Now that's confidence, isn't it? Do we talk like that? Can any man speak like that? Only the Lord Jesus can speak like that, who is God, manifest in the flesh.

He came to do the will of the Father, and that is that he should save all that the Father gave him. This is the will of the Father, that everyone that seeth the Son, and believeth on him, May have everlasting life. And I will raise him up at the last day. These are words of confidence. These are words of sure confidence. And so then we know this to be true.

That our Lord Jesus did come down to do the will of the Father, didn't he? He said, Lo, I come in the volume of the book. It is written of me to do thy will, O God. Listen to this. By the witch will we are sanctified. How are we sanctified? By the will of God through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ. Listen to this. Once for all. That's confidence. The scripture should instill confidence.

But you notice where the confidence is? It's not in us, is it? I've not said anything about you. There's no confidence in you. The confidence is only in God. My confidence of being saved is in the election of God, the will of God. My confidence of being saved is in the redemption of Jesus Christ, the perfect righteousness, the perfect redemption of Christ. That's my confidence. And my confidence is in the Holy Spirit who gave me this understanding, who gave me life, who gives me faith, and my confidence is this, He's going to keep me. He's going to keep me because He said He would. That's my confidence. Now, if I said something like that, you might not have confidence in it. If you even said it to yourself, you might have room for doubt. But our confidence is not in ourselves at all.

It is totally in God. In God. So this psalm here is another statement of confidence. It's not a question. The psalmist is not saying, is God my refuge? Is God my strength? Is God my very presence? No, he said God is. This is without doubt. God is our refuge. God is our strength. God is our present help in trouble.

So let us see that this psalm is a psalm of confidence. Now this is what Psalm is really the whole theme of it is God is our refuge. You can see that in verse 1, verse 7, and verse 11. These 11 verses, three times he says it, God is our refuge. That's the theme. That's the theme of this. And Spurgeon, the reason I gave it this title, Spurgeon called it the Psalm of Holy Confidence. It is, it's just a Psalm of Confidence.

And so I'm going to do what The old preachers used to say how to preach. Tell us how to preach. This is how you preach. Tell them what you're going to tell them. Tell them and then tell them what you told them. So that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to tell you what I'm going to tell you. Then I'm going to tell you. Then I'm going to tell you what I told you. OK.

First of all, I'm going to tell you this, God's our refuge. God is our refuge. Let the world trust in whoever they will. Man, the God of this world is nothing like the God of this Bible. Have you seen that? The God they trust, men in this generation trust a God of their experience, a God of their imaginations. All he is, he's a figment. Might as well call him the tooth fairy. I mean, he's just a figment of man's imagination. I sat down with a man the other day, and he said, well, you know, I think God is like my experiences. I said, your God's not God. Your God's not God. God says, I'm God, and there is none else.

There's none like me, declaring the end from the beginning from ancient times of things not yet done, saying, my counsel will stand, and I will do all my pleasure So let the world trust in whom they will, but we who believe in Christ, we who trust in Christ, we trust Him as our refuge. Our refuge. We have faith that He is our rock, our foundation, and our protection.

Kind of like that manslayer. Scripture says that if a man were to accidentally slay another man, he was to flee for his life from the avenger of blood and flee to a city of refuge. And in that refuge there was a high priest and as long as he abode in the city, the city was his refuge. And we found out we were guilty of sin, where did we flee? We flee to Christ who is our refuge.

Secondly, I'm gonna tell you this, Christ's our strength. He's our strength. David said in Psalm 27, the Lord is my light and my salvation. Whomsoever shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life. Where's your life come from? You that have spiritual life, where did it come from? You didn't have it when you were born. And now you do. Where'd that come from? Well, the Lord is the strength of my life. He's the source of my life. And listen to this. He's the giver of my life. He gave me this life. You listen to this. He's the strength of my life to sustain it. I'm not going to be able to sustain this spiritual life. I didn't give it to myself. I'm not the source of it and I can't sustain it no matter how hard I try. I can't sustain it.

But this is good news. Here's my confidence. He's the strength of it. He's the strength of it. And thirdly, he's a present help in trouble. Anybody in trouble? Any believer in trouble? This is a confident statement. He is a very present a continually present help in trouble.

That's good because that's where I find myself most of my life. And so this means that He is constantly helping me. So that's what I'm going to tell you. Now I'm going to tell you. Look at this in your text. Read it with me. Again, this is a confident statement.

God is our refuge. Refuge from what? from Himself. God is a refuge from Himself. Our Lord Jesus Christ, when He came into this world, the object of His coming was, yes, to provide a righteousness by His own obedience. And He did that perfectly. Lived His life in perfection for us.

And then, On Calvary's tree, he suffered the full measure of the wrath of God. Now tell me, is there anything of greater fear than the wrath and judgment of God? Is there any greater pain? Is there any greater affliction? Is there any greater trouble than God's wrath?

Man prays for all sorts of protections, right? Well, just let me get through this. Let me just make it through this or just help me through this. You know, at the end of that, what is that? No. What I need above everything else is a protection from the wrath of God. I have sinned, and I deserve the wrath of Almighty God, but here is my confidence. is that Jesus Christ himself endured the wrath of God in my stead.

He was my refuge. He was my refuge. And my confidence is this. He paid all the debt that I owed to God. This is the gospel. See, Christ didn't make salvation possible. That's a foolish statement. He just made it possible for everybody. Then it's possible that nobody gets it. No, He didn't make it possible. That's not confidence, is it? Confidence is this.

He endured the wrath of God and paid every last farthing for my sin. Every last debt that I owed to God, He paid. How? By being my refuge. He endured it. Go to Isaiah chapter 40, verse 2. God knows it's always a self-righteous nature of even His pastors to get on to His church. It's just our nature. You see something going wrong, man, you use one of them. It's not our command, is it? Listen to what it says. Comfort ye. Comfort ye, my people, sayeth the Lord. Speak comfortably to Jerusalem and cry unto her, what? That her warfare is accomplished. that her iniquity is pardoned. How can that be?

For she hath received of the Lord's hand double for all her sins. How valuable was the death of Christ? It was double what I owed. It was double. That's how precious the blood of Christ is. Is that when He paid for our sins, He doubly paid. I think of somebody who gets, just gets off by the skin of their teeth, you know. They're convicted and they pay the penance or whatever it is, and then they just let them go. That's not what He did. He didn't just pay for our sins, He also bought our inheritance. His death paid for my sins and paid for my inheritance.

So that all the promises of God are now mine in Him, because He is my refuge. I like to think of the Passover, when I think of a refuge, there's several pictures in the Old Testament. Passover is a good picture of a refuge, isn't it? You see, that lamb that was to be without spot and blemish.

God says, I'm going through the camp tonight, I'm going through Egypt, and I'm going to kill everyone, every firstborn. I'm going to kill them. Condemnation is coming. And everyone in Egypt is under condemnation. What a picture of the world. Every one of us are born under the condemnation of our father Adam. We were born sinners worthy of death.

And yet God, for Israel, made a way. And He said, take a lamb without spot and without blemish and kill him in the midst of the congregation. What a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ. Is that not what John said? Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away, beareth away the sin of the world. Our Lord Jesus Christ was that lamb slain.

You want to know what your sin cost, you have to look at the cross. You won't find it anywhere else. God doesn't punish us by these troubles that we do. People say, oh, I'm being punished for my sin. Friends, hell is punishment for sin. All this other stuff is a prelude. It's just a beginning of sorrows. But our Lord Jesus Christ endured the full measure of God's wrath and died. Died in our stead.

And then that blood of that lamb was to be taken and applied to the doorpost and the lintel of the house. They did this in faith. This had never been done before. You realize this has never happened before? When God said, take that lamb and kill it and then put it on the doorpost in order to save your firstborn. They did that in faith, trusting. Isn't this what happens when the Spirit of God comes and applies the blood to the doors of our hearts? We believe. We believe on Christ. And just as that firstborn entered into that house, even so we enter into Christ by faith and we are safe.

Maybe that firstborn didn't feel safe. Did that have anything to do with it? If the blood was on the door, did his feelings about it have anything to do with it? I imagine there was a lot of fear that night. There was a lot of, I mean, can you imagine the cries of those people and their sons and daughters? Everything they had was dead.

And there you are, the firstborn, and you're alive. You're alive because you're under the blood. That's what the refuge is. We are in Christ. And when God says this concerning your heart, when I see the blood, I will pass over you. Not when I see how good you are or how well you're adapting to the Christian life or how good your religious deeds are. God's not looking at that. My confidence is that God is looking at the blood. Don't look at me, look at the blood.

It's my only hope. It's my refuge. He endured that for us. So the evidence of us being in Christ is what? Is Christ your refuge? What's the evidence of that? The evidence is this, I believe in Him. See, Christ to me is not a figment. He's real. He's more real than you are. My hope of salvation is more real than the chairs you're sitting in, the ground you're walking on. His blood is all my hope. And you that are in Him, He is your refuge. It's not a question. He is your refuge. And in Him you are as safe as Noah in the ark. You are safe as the firstborn under the blood.

Secondly, God is our strength. God is our strength. Though we have Christ as our refuge, we are safe from the justice of God. We are safe from the wrath of God. We are safe. You can have confidence that you are safe. We're just saying that. It is well with my soul. Why? Because you're in Christ, it's well. Yet living in this body, it does not feel well.

We still have the old man of sin about our necks constantly pulling us in the opposite direction of where we want to go. Man, I want to wrap myself in him. I want to grab a hold of him and hang on with everything I have. And the flesh is pulling me in the opposite direction. Oh, wretched man that I am. Not that I was, that I am. Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?

So we have trouble in the flesh and what do we need then? We need strength. The burdens of this life and this body are weights and they're heavy and I can't bear them. And so we are being crushed underneath all of these difficulties and afflictions and the sin of our own soul, the hatred of the world, the temptations of our enemy. We are surrounded by enemies, surrounded by troubles. What do we need?

We need strength. God, give me strength. I need strength to make it through the day. I'm not worried even about tomorrow. I need Him today. I need strength now. Well, here's my confidence. He is my strength. He is my strength. Strength to what? To continue in faith. Go to Colossians. Look at Colossians. You that are in Christ, you know this, you need strength to continue. Look at Colossians chapter 1.

Paul says all these wonderful things about our Lord Jesus Christ. He says in verse 13, who hath delivered us from the power of darkness and translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son, in whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins. Look at verse 20, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things to himself, by him I say whether things in heaven, things in earth, or things in heaven, And you. I like that. He said, not only reconcile things in heaven and earth. That's one thing. What about you? Yeah, even me. Even me. Even you. And you.

That were sometime alienated enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled. When did he reconcile me? In the body of his flesh through death. to present you holy, unblameable, unreprovable in His sight." Now, who are these people reconciled? Who are these that Christ made peace for?

Listen, everyone who believes. Everyone who lays hold of Christ as all their hope in standing before God and leans nothing upon the flesh but only in Christ. And listen to this, Paul makes a contingency here. He says, You continue in the faith. Grounded and settled and be not moved from the hope of the gospel which you have heard and was preached. Now, faith in Christ is precious because it is the evidence of spiritual life. Nobody has been born again of the Spirit of God who does not believe on Christ alone. But what's the evidence that my faith is genuine? I have, over the years, seen so many who came into the church and made a profession of faith.

That's easy, isn't it? Many shall say to me, not everyone that saith to me, Jesus said, Lord, Lord, shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. And the will of the Father is very simple. It is to believe on his Son. That is the will of the Father. Everyone who believes on the Son, who trusts in the Son, we call him Lord. But Jesus said not everybody that just says it is going to enter the kingdom of heaven.

How many people have said it? How many people have said, I believe And for a while, they seem to flourish. They seem to do well in the church. I've seen many. But time, trouble, difficulties, riches, prosperity, many different reasons, they just seem to fade off. You know what?

They lacked strength to maintain their profession of faith. Now, Paul says this to the Hebrew believers. He says, hold fast your profession of faith. Which is really not your profession, but rather the object. Hold fast the object of your faith. Don't hold fast to your faith. Why? Because that wavers, doesn't it? Even you true believers, our faith wavers. We don't hold fast to our faith. We hold fast to the profession of our faith, to Christ. We hold fast to Him.

But the reason many do not continue is because their faith is nothing more than self-generated faith. That's all it is. And that faith, my friend, will not last. Why? You don't have the strength for it. It's dead faith. It's empty. The Apostle John experienced this in his day. You know what he said? They went out from us because they were not of us. Now, this is his confidence. If they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us. Why?

Because the evidence of true faith is this, it continues. It doesn't shift, it doesn't move from its object. Faith doesn't grow out of looking to Christ. This is religion's view of faith, is that you begin looking to Christ, but as you grow, you grow out from that and start other things. You go from Christ, to the law and you start trying to obey the law. No, true faith is rooted and grounded and settled in Christ and it doesn't move. Now what's my hope of keeping that faith?

Here it is. The Lord is my strength. I'll tell you what, that gives me great joy to know that I will never move from Christ. I'll never move from believing on Him. Not because of my strength, but because God is my strength. As I told you before, God is the source of my life.

He gave me this life. He gave me this faith. He's the sustainer of this life and this faith and He is the keeper of this life and this faith. Therefore, my confidence is this. God is my refuge. He endured all the wrath of God for my sins. Christ did. And then this. Christ is the strength of my life. He's the sustainer of it.

It's not ever going to die. He whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never Die. This should be the believer's confidence. We must endure by faith. And those that don't will perish. Jesus said, He that endureth to the end, the same shall be saved. That's the only one that will be saved. What's my hope of enduring? God is my refuge and my strength. My strength. Look what Jesus said concerning our keeping in John 10. Here's your confidence. John chapter 10. Look at verse 27, my sheep hear my voice and I know them.

And they follow me. And I give unto them eternal life. And they shall never perish. Neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father which gave them me is greater than all, and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand. I and my Father are one. We are one in will, one in purpose, one in power, one in nature. We are one, and it is our will, it is our power, it is our grace that will keep my sheep.

And none of them shall perish, neither shall they be able to pluck them. I like the way the Lord puts that because He says they're not going to be able, which means they're going to try. That means they're going to try everything they've got. The world, the flesh, the devil, everything is going to try to pull you away.

And it does. Oftentimes you feel like it succeeded. It hasn't. Now, why is that? God is my strength. God is my keeper. Look at this. God is a very present help in trouble. A very present help in trouble. In other words, this promises this, God is always near and, listen to this, engaged as our constant helper.

God doesn't wind you up and let you go by yourself. God doesn't just walk with you and then just kind of let things happen to you. No, everything that happens to you is ordained. Everything that happens to you. God is absolutely sovereign in all things and nothing takes place in this world by chance.

Nothing. I saw a guy going fishing this morning. I thought, well, if that guy makes it to go fishing, it's ordained, isn't it? I mean, everything, every little thing. But consider how much more care he takes over you. That everything in your life is ordained and purposed for your good. Therefore, God's not only with you. He's not just standing by idly watching you. He's not watching over you. He is actively engaged in every part of your life. And he is a constant help. That's good because I need a constant help. I don't need a temporary helper.

Go to Psalm 91. Look at this promise because God is your helper. This is a promise to you. Psalm 91. And look at verse 9. Because thou hast made the Lord which is my refuge even the most high thy habitation. Is he your habitation? Is he your refuge? Look what the promise is.

There shall be no evil before thee. neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling." What happens to you that's evil? You that have God as a refuge, tell me, what happens to us that is evil? When God says no evil, no evil, Listen, neither shall any plague come nigh unto thy dwelling."

Now, we know that false religion misuses this. They say, well, that means that nothing bad's going to happen to you or that you're not going to get sick. God promises He wants you to be healthy, He wants you to be happy, He wants you to be wealthy. That is not what it means. It means this, that everything happens to you, whether you consider it good or you consider it evil, it is intended for this purpose. You're good. Don't care what it is. God doesn't make excuses for anything. He said no evil. What does that mean? Not evil.

It may be to you. It may be to everyone. You may take a survey and everybody around you say, well, man, that's bad. Well, we only need a survey of one. What does God say about it? That's all that really matters about this. What does God say about your your so-called evil?

He said, no, I mean it for your good. I mean it for your good. I don't have this, but I remember a long time ago, Don made the illustration. He said, if you go to a pharmacist versus a medicine pharmacist in the old days, they'd make the medicine there in front of you. And he said, he'd take one thing by itself.

If you took it, it'd kill you. And he mixes it with another thing that if you took it, it'd do nothing. And he takes these two and he mashes them together and it becomes a medicine that heals you. It's exactly what God does. He takes something that by itself would kill you. He takes other things that would by itself do nothing for you. He puts them together in his providence and it's a medicine. What's the medicine? The medicine is to draw me near him. In every affliction, the purpose of God is to bring you to himself. That's astounding.

I don't like being around me. And yet God wants me near himself. And to do that, he killed his son so that he might draw you near to himself. The son willingly offered himself so that God would draw you to himself. And man, isn't this exactly what it does? Every affliction proves this.

God is my helper. And He's a very present help in trouble. And look at what the psalmist says. Go back to your text. Verse 2, Therefore will not we fear. If God give us faith to see the confidence of these three things, the result is always fearlessness. I often think of that first century believer. I think it was Polycarp.

He was 80 years old and they had just went, sent soldiers to fetch him and bring him to the arena to kill him. And he prayed and the soldiers adored him. He prayed and the soldiers, I think that some of the soldiers professed to believe after that and they begged him to recant. They begged him to just say that Caesar was God. And he said this, 80 something years hath he not forsaken me? How then shall I now in my life forsake him? fearless. He stood in that arena and was attacked by wild animals and eaten without fear. Now why?

Christ was his refuge. Christ was his strength. Christ was his present help in the midst of his trouble when he was being eaten. And you know what happened? No evil happened to that man. He immediately was ushered into the presence of God and his body waits until the Lord raises it from the dead. Nothing happened to him. No evil befell him. The Lord was his helper.

Why then should we fear? Are you full of fear? I am. What is fear but unbelief? Isn't it? I think sometimes we think fear is noble. That because we're afraid or because we doubt that somehow that makes us pious. It doesn't. It's unbelief. The believer is to have confidence so not to have fear. Now look at these things. I'm going to move quickly with these. I'm not going to be able to have time for everything. Look at this.

Though the earth be removed. You ever felt like the earth been pulled out from underneath you? Everything's going well, and all of a sudden, boom, the whole bottom falls out. Listen, God is your refuge, and God is your strength, God is your present help, and what God is going to do is He's going to remove every earthly crutch. You have earthly crutches? Family? That's a crutch.

Anything that removes us from God and His worship and His praise and His adoration is nothing but an earthly crutch and it must be removed. And when God removes it, what's your confidence? Christ is my refuge. Christ is my strength. Christ is my present help in this trouble.

Though mountains be removed and carried in the midst of the sea. I believe this has to do with The pillars of the church. Those things we see that are high above us. Mountains are majestic. Watch on television, I don't want to see mountains around here, but you see them on television. And they're just beautiful. They look as though they would last forever. And that's how we view some preachers, right? That's how I viewed preachers before. I said, man, that man's a mountain.

That church is a mountain mightily used of God and then what if God takes that mountain and throws it in the midst of the sea? What are you going to do? Sometimes we rely on preachers, we rely on churches, we rely on these earthly relationships and God just throws them into the sea. Where do you turn?

Christ is my refuge. Christ is my strength. Christ is my help in trouble. Though the waters thereof roar and are troubled." Oh, our life is full of storms, waves, crashing against our little boat. What is our hope? God is our refuge. God is our strength. God is our present help in trouble.

And look what he says, in the midst of all this chaos. That just seems like chaos, doesn't it? That's how our lives are. But in the midst of this, look at this, there is a river. The streams whereof make glad the city of God, the holy place of the tabernacles of the Most High. Here's where the stream, here's the river, friends.

Is this not where God pours out His grace from His Word? Where are you looking for hope? Where are you looking for help? If it's not here, You've got none. This is where God's river is. It's in His Word. And out of this, what do we find? We find Christ. He's the river. Christ is the river. There is a river that flows from God above. There is a fountain that frees the soul from sin. Christ is the river that never shall run dry. These are the streams of God's grace and look at this in verse 5, behold God is in the midst of her, listen to this, she shall not be moved.

Now is that a question? Is God asking questions again? No, he's making statements. What does God say about his church? She shall not be moved. Why? I'm in the middle of her. I am with her. I am her refuge. I am her strength. I am her present help. And I will help her in that right early.

Are you troubled? Man, I am often troubled. I don't seem to have confidence in anything in this world. And you shouldn't, because this world is ever-changing. It's always mutable, isn't it? Everything you have could be taken in a moment, couldn't it?

Don't trust in it. There's no confidence in it. You can't have confidence in your parents. You can't have confidence in your children. You can't have confidence in me. You can't have confidence in the government. You don't have confidence in that? There's no confidence there. Where's your confidence?

Thus saith the Lord. God is my refuge. God is my refuge. Not a question. It's a statement. God is my refuge. Christ is my refuge. He did pay for my sins. My sins have been paid. Justice has been satisfied for all my sins. He is my strength. He gave me life. He gave me faith. He'll keep my life and He'll keep my faith. And He's my present help in trouble.

Why then should we fear? If we hold our confidence in God, we will never fear, regardless of what takes place. Now my heart toward those of you that are outside of Christ, there is no hope for you. If you are outside of Christ, he is not your refuge, he is not your strength, and he is not your helper. He is your judge, he is your king, and he will damn you. At the end of this seventh verse, he said, we, our God is a refuge. Our God is the refuge. Our God is the God of Jacob. You know, there's one man I can identify with as Jacob.

Trickster. Surplanter. Schemer. Oh, I had so many schemes. And God showed me my sin. And in love, he saved me. He shows me over and over and over. I'm your refuge. I'm your strength. I'm your help. Regardless of what happens to you in time, my purpose is to bring you to myself, and I'm going to do it.

May God comfort us with this. Give us confidence in God and not in ourselves. stand and be dismissed in prayer. Our blessed Father in heaven, thank you for your grace. Never ceasing, never ending supply of limitless grace upon such unworthy objects, sinners. From the sole of our foot to the crown of our head, there is nothing in us but sin, and yet you sent Christ to remove our sins from us. He has carried them away, paid the debt, could not pay.

He is our refuge. You are the strength of our life. We pray that you would keep us and sustain us and that you would help us in every trouble to look only and always to Christ and never to self. Look away from the world and look to Christ. I ask this in His name. and for his sake. Amen. Oh,