The NXR Podcast - SUNDAY SERMON - A Mighty Fortress Is Our God ｜ Psalm 46

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00:00:18.080 This morning, we're continuing with our series through the Psalter

00:00:21.200 that is preaching through the book of Psalms.

00:00:24.040 Today, our text is Psalm chapter 46.

00:00:27.460 again our text is psalm chapter 46 would you join me now in standing for the reading of god's word

00:00:35.080 i'll read our text for us in its entirety when i finish reading the text i'm going to say this is

00:00:40.600 the word of the lord at which point i would appreciate very much if you'd respond by saying

00:00:45.980 thanks be to god one final time our text for this morning is psalm chapter 46 the bible says this

00:00:53.840 God is our refuge and strength our very present help in trouble therefore we will not fear though

00:01:01.180 the earth gives way though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea though its waters roar

00:01:07.440 and foam though the mountains tremble at its swelling selah there is a river whose streams

00:01:15.040 make glad the city of God the holy habitation of the most high God is in the midst of her

00:01:21.940 she shall not be moved. God will help her when the morning dawns. The nations rage, the kingdoms

00:01:28.920 totter. He utters his voice, the earth melts. The Lord of hosts is with us. The God of Jacob is our

00:01:36.500 fortress. Selah. Come and behold the works of the Lord, how he has brought desolations on the earth.

00:01:44.480 He makes wars to cease to the end of the earth. He breaks the bow and shatters the spear. He burns

00:01:50.640 the chariots with fire be still and know that i am god i will be exalted among the nations

00:01:57.520 i will be exalted in the earth the lord of hosts is with us the god of jacob is our fortress

00:02:04.600 say law this is the word of the lord all right please be seated and join me as i pray for us

00:02:11.380 once more uh father we thank you for your word and i pray that indeed through the preaching of

00:02:16.060 your word today, that your people would arrive at a right knowledge, a more accurate and biblical

00:02:21.900 and faithful knowledge of who you are, of what you've done, and what it is that you require from

00:02:27.940 us as a proper right response. God, we pray that this knowledge would not serve as an end in itself,

00:02:35.380 but rather this knowledge would serve as a necessary means propelling your people into

00:02:40.740 right love the heart cannot love what the mind does not know and so father we pray that through

00:02:47.800 the preaching of your word and the power of your spirit that you would fill our minds with the

00:02:53.720 substance of your truth so that it might fuel our hearts with greater affection and love and worship

00:03:01.080 and finally obedience towards you jesus you said yourself that those who love you

00:03:09.240 keep your commandments that if we love you we will obey you so we pray that through the preaching of

00:03:16.060 your word we might know you so that our hearts might come to love you so that our lives our

00:03:21.700 hands and our feet might live in obedience to your commands we pray all this ultimately that

00:03:28.300 you might be glorified in all the earth but we also pray these things for the good of those people

00:03:33.100 that you're saving across the globe in our city and even if you would be so kind in this very room

00:03:40.120 especially among our children we thank you for these things we thank you for your promises we

00:03:46.240 thank you for your covenants and we thank you for your love we pray this in jesus name amen

00:03:51.820 All right. Let's go ahead and dive right in. Psalm 46. I'm breaking the text into three parts. We'll take each part. We're going to go with the first one, which is verses one through three. We'll begin with that. Just to refresh your minds, the first three verses of our text are as follows.

00:04:10.600 God is our refuge and strength a very present help in trouble therefore we will not fear though

00:04:17.300 the earth gives way though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea though its waters roar

00:04:23.180 and foam though the mountains tremble at its swelling say long in your notes I've written

00:04:28.960 the following whether our source of hardship be from without or within let me pause there for a

00:04:36.220 moment i'm reminded of the apostle paul where where he writes to timothy and he says that we

00:04:40.920 have hardship without trials tribulation difficulty without and then he says and we have fear or

00:04:47.940 anxiety within and this is the same apostle who writes very strongly against anxiety or worry or

00:04:56.020 fear it is never it is never acceptable or permissible for the christian to be afraid and

00:05:03.500 yet the apostle says he says that we are we are terrified there's a sense of anxiety and fear

00:05:08.860 within and he's not condoning that sense of fear if anything he's confessing that fear as the sin

00:05:15.540 that it is but the point is that the apostle paul he recognizes that in the life of the christian

00:05:20.580 this side of heaven there are trials without tribulation at times there can even be persecution

00:05:26.820 from outside from other parties and yet simultaneously there could be difficulty worry

00:05:33.280 doubt anger grief within so the christian can be experiencing two enemies simultaneously

00:05:40.200 and throughout church history we know that there is actually a third enemy namely the devil so

00:05:45.800 within what we have ultimately is the enemy of the flesh without what we have is the enemy of

00:05:51.020 the world the world and then we also have the added enemy this triple threat of the flesh the

00:05:57.300 world and the devil the devil now when we say the world is an enemy i know that it's become very

00:06:04.440 popular in christian circles to say well that creates this this wrong-headed dichotomy this

00:06:10.560 wrong kind of confrontation this mentality of us versus them well the bible uses that language

00:06:19.260 The Bible speaks of the world in multiple different ways.

00:06:22.160 So in one sense, the world is the cosmos.

00:06:24.880 It is the physical creation.

00:06:26.800 It's what God has made.

00:06:28.560 And the world is underneath the curse of sin because Adam, that is the first Adam, our first father,

00:06:35.860 he was not only the federal head of himself, of his wife Eve, and of all their posterity,

00:06:42.800 all their future children, which includes you and I, but he was also the head of all creation.

00:06:48.640 That's why when in Genesis 3, after Adam eats of the forbidden fruit,

00:06:53.480 God literally curses not only Adam, but he curses the very ground.

00:06:57.760 The creation itself, the earth, falls under the curse because Adam was the federal head.

00:07:04.680 That means he was representative of not only all of humanity, but all of the cosmos, all of creation.

00:07:12.840 That's why later in the New Testament, the scripture speaks of even the creation being under great groans, great groans and sighs, eagerly awaiting for the sons of God to be revealed.

00:07:26.480 So all of creation has fallen under the curse of sin.

00:07:30.020 So the word world is used to describe creation, the cosmos, which is under the weight of sin, under the curse of sin.

00:07:37.540 And yet still the creation speaks to the glory of God.

00:07:41.820 That's what we call natural revelation.

00:07:44.540 We've seen that thus far in our series through the Psalms, meaning that even the skies, if you remember, we talked about how the skies are declaring the glory of God.

00:07:54.180 So what does that mean?

00:07:55.340 It means just as in humanity made in the image of God, the imago Dei, human beings made in the image of God through sin, the image of God has been tarnished.

00:08:06.680 And yet an image of God still remains, a vestige of the image of God.

00:08:11.420 Meaning that the image of God in man, the chief pinnacle of God's earthly creation, human beings, they're made in the image of God, the image of God, a vestige remains so that we can still look at every human being and say they reflect in some sense the image of God.

00:08:29.820 they reflect god himself and yet the image of god has also been tarnished by sin not utterly

00:08:36.340 destroyed but tarnished so too it is with the rest of earthly creation outside of humanity

00:08:41.800 that earthly creation it still maintains enough of god's character to where the apostle paul can

00:08:49.500 write with confidence in romans chapter one he says he says that creation itself testifies to

00:08:55.480 the glory of God so that all men are without an apologia, an argument, an excuse, meaning no

00:09:02.660 single human being can claim the excuse of ignorance. Ignorance doesn't mean innocence

00:09:09.440 because ignorance is a lie. Every single human being by virtue, without even a single verse of

00:09:15.620 the Bible ever being read to them, without ever hearing a single sermon, without ever knowing

00:09:20.340 about Jesus Christ, every single human being is still responsible to honor God as holy because

00:09:27.640 creation itself is enough. It is a sufficient testimony not to save humanity, but it is a

00:09:34.960 sufficient testimony to prove that there is a God in heaven who will judge both the living and the

00:09:40.300 dead, that he has eternal power and a divine nature, and he is worthy of worship. So natural

00:09:46.680 revelation the heavens the skies the earth the trees the mountains the rivers this is sufficient

00:09:53.140 to reveal to all people the existence of God so that all men have been stripped of any excuse

00:10:00.940 so just as human beings were made in the image of God yet the image of God has been tarnished

00:10:07.080 through sin but not utterly lost the vestige remains so too in the rest of creation outside

00:10:12.800 of humanity the earth itself we still have a sufficient testimony the earth is still able

00:10:19.580 it is still able by God's grace to testify to God's existence and yet there are certain things

00:10:26.220 in natural revelation that do not speak to the character nature of God because they have fallen

00:10:31.520 under the weight and curse of sin so we can look at creation and the order of creation the certain

00:10:38.040 laws that God has put into play in the universe and we can glean from this observation something

00:10:43.880 true about the character and nature of God and yet at times if natural revelation is all we look to

00:10:49.920 and not special revelation namely the word of God then at times we will come to wrong conclusions

00:10:55.660 because natural revelation has fallen under the curse of sin for instance death when we look to

00:11:02.660 the world to the cosmos creation human beings and the rest of the creatures that god has made

00:11:08.440 even plants that he has made we see death and if we're not careful we could glean from that we

00:11:13.860 can conclude that god is the author of death and we would be wrong because that's an element where

00:11:20.100 the natural creation has fallen under the curse of sin that doesn't reveal the character of god

00:11:26.220 that reveals the failure of man, the failure of Adam to uphold the covenant that God established

00:11:32.860 with him in the garden. So all that being said, the word world is used to describe the cosmos.

00:11:40.060 The word world is also used to describe the whole mass of humanity. An example of this would be

00:11:47.060 John 3.16, for God so loved the world, the whole mass of humanity. There's a sense in which God

00:11:55.360 has compassion on all people both the elect and even the non-elect why do why is this the case

00:12:02.580 because the Psalms declare that God has compassion on all he has made so in God's common grace this

00:12:11.380 would this would be apart from his fatherly love for his elect children but in God's common grace

00:12:18.100 in his common love God there is a sense in which we can say God loves even the unbeliever

00:12:24.820 Even the unbeliever that God has not chosen, that God has not determined to ever save, there is in his common grace, there is this general compassion for all of creation, including all of humanity, even those individual people that God has determined not to save.

00:12:44.480 his fatherly adoptive eternal salvific love however is reserved for his people who are

00:12:52.520 saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ alone so the word world means the cosmos the

00:12:58.520 word world means the mass of humanity but the word world also has at least one other meaning

00:13:04.320 the word world also conveys the evil system underneath the domain and rule of Satan

00:13:13.220 who takes people captive according to paul's again his epistles his letters to timothy that

00:13:20.020 satan takes people captive to do his will to do his bidding there's a verse in the bible in one

00:13:28.420 of paul's letters to timothy i can't remember if it's the first epistle or the second but where

00:13:32.360 paul says that we should we should argue we should rebuke or oppose those enemies our opponents with

00:13:40.560 gentleness. It says, respond to them with gentleness. And then he gives the reason why. He says, for you

00:13:46.540 do not know that God might grant to them repentance, causing them to come back after being taken

00:13:53.900 captive by Satan to do his will. So our enemy is not flesh and blood. We see that in Ephesians,

00:14:00.960 right? Our ultimate battle is not against flesh and blood, but principalities. But the reality is

00:14:05.860 that these principalities that that the enemy the spiritual enemy satan and all his demons

00:14:11.400 they do however take people captive to do their will so our enemy we have the flesh the devil

00:14:19.780 and the world and the world is good insofar as it represents the cosmos what god has created

00:14:26.940 it's also good insofar as the world represents our universal neighbor that we're called to have

00:14:33.040 compassion on because God has compassion on all he has made but the world also signifies the

00:14:39.280 unbeliever who although there is a sense in which we're called to love them as our neighbor

00:14:43.680 we must also recognize that everyone has an allegiance neutrality is a myth there is no

00:14:50.740 moral neutrality every man is either for Christ or against him and those who are not believers

00:14:56.580 in the Lord Jesus Christ and submitted to his lordship have in fact been taken captive by

00:15:02.900 someone else that someone else is the devil who jesus says in john chapter 8 is their father

00:15:09.920 he says this to the pharisees he says that your father is not abraham not in a true spiritual

00:15:16.340 sense your father is not god your father is the devil and you look just like him you're a chip

00:15:23.120 off the old block he was a liar and a murderer from the beginning and here you are lying that

00:15:28.960 is bearing false witness about me and also you have murderous intentions in your heart to crucify

00:15:36.440 me unjustly to murder me so jesus says to the pharisees you guys are children of the devil

00:15:42.780 and their father spiritual father the devil had taken them captive to do his will so all that

00:15:49.920 being said our hardship in this life our trials in this life the difficulty that we experience

00:15:56.640 it can come from within our flesh it can also come from without that is the world that evil system

00:16:04.280 that satan takes people captive to do his will and it can also come from the enemy himself the

00:16:12.180 flesh the world and the devil and yet in the midst of tribulation and trial whether it be trial

00:16:18.600 within or without from the flesh the world or the devil god is a refuge to all who seek shelter in

00:16:26.540 him god is not merely our hope of future deliverance from every kind of trouble but he is

00:16:33.860 also our source of present help look back at the text verse one god is our refuge and strength

00:16:41.960 a very present help in trouble some of you need to hear that this morning right because i think

00:16:49.420 sometimes we can over spiritualize things to the point where well where god only has promises

00:16:55.920 for the life to come where God is only faithful in an ultimate spiritual sense but our text says

00:17:03.480 that not just that God is a refuge an ultimate refuge for the life to come but that he is a

00:17:09.640 refuge and a help that is present he is a present help so how is it that the Lord is a present help

00:17:19.200 for every kind of trouble well he presently helps his people by equipping and empowering them

00:17:25.500 to bear up underneath any kind of trouble they may find.

00:17:30.800 It is for this reason that the righteous are,

00:17:33.620 as the scripture says, as bold as lions.

00:17:37.720 The righteous are as bold as lions.

00:17:39.640 This is a declaration.

00:17:41.960 This is not a prescriptive text,

00:17:44.440 basically a commandment.

00:17:45.880 That's what prescriptive texts are.

00:17:47.220 They're an exhortation or a commandment.

00:17:49.440 The Bible doesn't say,

00:17:51.360 you need to be as bold as a lion to be righteous.

00:17:55.340 That's not what the scripture says.

00:17:56.520 No, it just says the righteous are as bold as lions.

00:17:59.800 Meaning that if you are the people of God, if you are righteous because of the finished work of Jesus,

00:18:05.160 that's the imputed righteousness of Christ that comes not by your works, but by grace through faith,

00:18:11.220 then the result of that, the evidence of that is boldness.

00:18:16.100 That you are courageous.

00:18:17.900 You're courageous and bold in the face of trouble.

00:18:22.140 And so one of the ways that God is not just our future help with an ultimate deliverance,

00:18:27.600 but that God is our present help in times of trouble is by making us bold and courageous in the midst of trouble.

00:18:35.780 So God will utterly and entirely and ultimately deliver us at some point.

00:18:42.480 But in the meantime, God is still doing something.

00:18:45.640 So the Christian hope in God as refuge when it comes to times of trouble is not merely a future hope that God will completely deliver me at some point.

00:18:58.120 But it's also a present hope that God is he is going to deliver me in the future, but he is helping me in some sense.

00:19:06.400 Now, does that make sense?

00:19:08.160 God will ultimately deliver me someday, but he is presently helping me today.

00:19:13.500 and one way that god is presently helping you in the midst of trouble is that he is presently

00:19:20.820 helping you by being a constant and infinite supply of courage the righteous are as bold

00:19:29.160 as lions and that's what we see i want you to get real quick if we can pan out and get a 30 000

00:19:35.040 foot view of our text one of the major themes of psalm 46 is this it is courage in the people of

00:19:42.560 god during the midst of the whole earth giving way right the earth is melting that's the kind

00:19:50.260 of language that our text is using the earth gives way it's melting the nations are are raging but

00:19:56.700 not just raging it also uses the term that the nations are tottering right so if you remember

00:20:01.740 psalm chapter 2 where the nations rage right that everything in them desires to sever the bonds of

00:20:09.640 the lordship of christ right they cast off their bonds or at least that's their desire meaning that

00:20:15.620 they want to be autonomous but there is no autonomy just like neutrality is a myth moral neutrality

00:20:22.300 does not exist every man has an allegiance either to christ or to satan in the same way that

00:20:28.060 neutrality is a myth autonomy is a myth no one is autonomous but god alone god is the only

00:20:35.640 autonomously free creature. Now you and I, we have freedom of the will in some sense, and I don't

00:20:40.860 have time to go into the theological and philosophical implications of how people are

00:20:45.160 free, and yet God is also free to do whatever he pleases. But suffice it to say, in terms of

00:20:51.040 autonomous freedom, God alone is the only autonomous free being. All creatures, so the

00:20:58.120 creator alone is autonomously free. All creatures, we like to fancy ourselves as being autonomously

00:21:04.720 free that we can do whatever we want but we can't it's not true and so too that's why the nations

00:21:11.440 rage they desire to sever the bonds the bonds of heaven that are over them the lordship and

00:21:18.660 control and dominion over god of god over all creation and yet they are fruitless in their

00:21:25.880 attempts it's futile they are ultimately in submission even though their will is not submitted

00:21:32.260 They are, in terms of all their abilities and everything that they can accomplish, they are submitted to the eternal decree of God.

00:21:41.860 No one can do anything that God hasn't decreed.

00:21:45.200 You know why, I'll say this quickly, you know why there's only one autonomously free being in all the universe?

00:21:50.520 because if anyone else has true autonomous freedom then it encroaches it it it compromises

00:22:00.620 the autonomous freedom of god meaning that if you for instance as an individual person

00:22:06.000 had true autonomous freedom you could do whatever you wanted even those things that would contradict

00:22:12.300 and be outside of the sovereign decree of god then god wouldn't be sovereign rc sproul said it like

00:22:18.800 this. This was one of his famous quotes. He said, if there is one maverick molecule in all the

00:22:26.840 universe, then God is not in control. See, people like to reassure themselves with pithy statements,

00:22:33.380 but they don't actually believe them. So people say this, they'll say, hey, you know, COVID-19

00:22:39.720 and lockdowns and Joe Biden and, oh my goodness, you know, this left-wing media and, you know,

00:22:46.600 everything's crazy right now, but God is on the throne. It's like, that's true. But do you actually

00:22:52.800 believe that's true? What do you mean by God is still on his throne? You know, praise God. He's,

00:22:57.820 you know, things are crazy right now, but he's still in control. All right. What do you mean by

00:23:01.980 that? When you speak of God being in control, what do you mean? Because I think what you probably

00:23:09.500 mean, if you're the average evangelical in the church of America today, what you mean is that

00:23:14.740 God's actually not in control because what you mean is that every single person has free will

00:23:19.620 and when you say free will you don't mean a moral sense but what you mean is everyone is

00:23:25.140 autonomously free and they can all do things outside of God's sovereign will and the things

00:23:31.160 that people do outside of God's will can have an effect on you which means God is absolutely not

00:23:38.160 in control. God has zero control. God is not sovereign or in control of anything. You're in

00:23:44.860 complete danger. And you might counter that by saying, well, well, the reason why I have security

00:23:49.240 and safety is because I am choosing to submit to God's control. Oh, so God's not in control. You

00:23:55.720 mean that God has a weak, pathetic sense of control. He can only control those who give him

00:24:00.540 permission. That's cute. You made of dust, worm. That's what Job, the language he uses. So you

00:24:06.520 worm, you creature from the dust, you believe that God has control if you give him permission.

00:24:13.260 That's cute.

00:24:14.120 That's really cute.

00:24:15.380 That's not true.

00:24:16.680 No, God has control, period.

00:24:19.360 Think of Acts chapter 2 and Acts chapter 4.

00:24:22.320 Acts chapter 2 and Acts chapter 4, one of the sermons and one of the prayers of Peter,

00:24:26.860 the apostle, is this.

00:24:28.360 He says that men gathered from all over, the Pontius Pilate and the Jews and all these

00:24:34.120 people they gathered to do to jesus that is to put him to death to crucify him to do to jesus

00:24:39.620 exactly what your hand and your plan predetermined to occur meaning that jesus was crucified for at

00:24:49.800 least two reasons because evil people made evil choices and jesus was crucified because god

00:24:58.740 decreed for it to happen before the foundations of the world were laid. Jesus was crucified,

00:25:06.000 the Bible says, before the earth was even created. He was crucified in the eternal decree of God and

00:25:14.040 the counsels of eternity according to what God sovereignly determined to take place. And so what

00:25:20.340 we see in terms of human agency is that people do make free choices. Their choices are free and

00:25:27.060 that's why they're morally responsible for the choices they make. If you're just a robot making

00:25:32.180 choices that God's making you make, then you cannot bear moral responsibility for those choices.

00:25:37.680 People make free choices and they're responsible. And yet there is a sense in which the freedom of

00:25:43.920 the creature of mankind making morally free choices that he is morally culpable for is still

00:25:50.740 not outside of the sovereign decree of God.

00:25:54.380 So when we say as Christians, Bible-believing Christians,

00:25:57.620 that God is in control, we mean it.

00:26:00.380 We mean it.

00:26:01.680 So when we say God is in control, we mean,

00:26:03.560 no, he is actually faithful to his word,

00:26:06.980 where he says he appoints those who are in positions of authority.

00:26:10.800 And he works the way that he brings about his will

00:26:14.020 is through human agency.

00:26:15.900 So God uses agency, but God is the one who ultimately does it.

00:26:20.740 So who elected Joe Biden, right?

00:26:23.240 Just to use that as a case study.

00:26:24.920 God, according to his eternal decree,

00:26:27.280 through the agency of man.

00:26:29.200 And God does things for our good,

00:26:33.040 and he does things in his judgment for our wickedness.

00:26:37.360 So I believe that God sovereignly elected Joe Biden

00:26:40.420 through the agency of stupid people

00:26:42.720 to judge a rebellious nation.

00:26:46.540 That's what he did.

00:26:47.720 But he's sovereign, God did it,

00:26:50.300 and man is also responsible morally free but no one is autonomously free that means no creature

00:26:57.760 is capable of making choices that would be outside of or contradicting the sovereign eternal decree

00:27:06.440 of god god is our refuge and strength a very present help in trouble therefore we will not

00:27:14.380 fear this is verse two we will not fear though the whole earth gives way though the mountains

00:27:20.780 be moved into the heart of the sea though its waters roar and foam though the mountains tremble

00:27:27.220 at its swelling again that 30 000 foot view the big theme the predominant theme in psalm 46 is this

00:27:34.980 the earth is giving way the cosmos itself are seeming to melt the nations are both raging

00:27:45.100 but also the nations not just psalm chapter 2 they're raging and trying to sever that bond of

00:27:51.820 the sovereignty of god somehow trying to act autonomously apart from his rule and reign but

00:27:58.440 no the nations are not just raging with rebellion and anger against the lordship of christ but

00:28:04.940 the nations are tottering our text goes on to say meaning they're folding they're falling to their

00:28:11.480 knees nations are crumbling nations are crumbling and although nations rage although some nations

00:28:19.640 rise and although other nations fall they totter they crumble and although the the earth itself

00:28:26.580 the cosmos is is melting away and giving way during the midst of all of this the predominant

00:28:34.900 view and heart posture of the people of God

00:28:38.760 should be boldness. The righteous

00:28:42.620 are as bold as lions because God is our

00:28:46.880 refuge and strength. America is not our refuge and

00:28:50.900 strength. Trump is not our refuge and strength.

00:28:55.600 Certain institutions are not our refuge and strength.

00:28:59.300 Even this physical creation, the earth, is not our

00:29:02.820 refuge and strength none of those things are our ultimate source of hope so as nations rise and

00:29:10.960 other nations crumble right i don't know i i hope that america repents and i am hopeful that that

00:29:16.800 will take place i really am because one of the beautiful things about leftist politics is it's

00:29:23.200 self-defeating right like it's not i'm not hopeful because i think necessarily christians are going

00:29:29.500 to prove things wrong, I think the strongest player on our team is the other team. I think

00:29:35.560 nobody is better at proving certain things as being foolish and wrong than leftists. You see

00:29:43.060 their policies and people are like, oh my goodness, what have we done? This is insane. This is the

00:29:48.480 most foolish thing I've ever encountered. So I am very, very hopeful that America will repent,

00:29:53.760 that God is disciplining America

00:29:56.740 as it is in a state of apostasy, right?

00:30:00.180 It's in the process of apostasy,

00:30:01.940 turning its back on God.

00:30:03.380 And I believe that through his rod,

00:30:05.920 aka leftists,

00:30:07.060 and also through grace,

00:30:08.860 aka Christians preaching gospel,

00:30:11.540 that America will repent and come back around.

00:30:14.120 But here's the point.

00:30:15.120 If it doesn't, it's okay.

00:30:20.440 No, I think we should fight for this nation.

00:30:22.240 It's a wonderful nation,

00:30:23.420 regardless of what people say today.

00:30:25.000 I know it's popular to hate this nation,

00:30:26.580 but this is a wonderful nation

00:30:28.180 and it's founded on biblical principles.

00:30:30.460 That's why it's been so wonderful.

00:30:32.580 It's been a wonderful nation

00:30:34.260 and the stains on our nation,

00:30:36.960 like slavery and those kinds of things,

00:30:38.440 those aren't features, they're bugs.

00:30:40.860 Those are all the examples

00:30:41.900 of how America didn't live up to its principles.

00:30:45.080 But the beauty of America is that in its constitution,

00:30:48.280 based off of biblical principles,

00:30:49.600 as these things over over time and decades were worked out the nation got better and those things

00:30:55.560 that were not consistent with the constitution were fixed and solved that's the beauty i think

00:31:01.920 it's the probably i really think that america is the greatest nation that has ever existed and i

00:31:07.760 think the reason why is because it's the closest it's the closest to being a nation founded on

00:31:13.240 god's word right then that would just make sense right then the nation that's the closest to being

00:31:18.020 founded on god's word would also be the most successful because god's word works god's word

00:31:23.620 is faithful it doesn't return void and there is a blessing a promise of blessing for obedience

00:31:29.460 however so it's worth fighting for we pray for the repentance of our nation we want to preach to

00:31:34.660 those who don't believe god's work we want to be involved in business economics the marketplace

00:31:39.320 politics all these things it's good for a christian to involve themselves in these things

00:31:44.300 but if we lose if we lose america here's the deal christians might lose america but we don't lose

00:31:52.580 the world right that that's the that's the hopeful eschatology that we have we believe that in the

00:31:59.340 same way a little bit of leaven works through the whole lump of dough in the same way a small

00:32:04.080 mustard seed eventually becomes a a massive tree and its branches begin to to cast shadow over all

00:32:11.640 the earth, right? It's a little bit over time becoming large, massive, significant. That's

00:32:17.760 what the kingdom of God is like. The kingdom of God, it starts small, it grows slowly, and it

00:32:23.280 eventually becomes a force to be reckoned with. It eventually becomes significant, massive,

00:32:29.400 engulfing everything. So the kingdom of God will advance. The church wins. The church wins because

00:32:35.900 the head of the church is Christ and Christ is not a loser. Christ doesn't lose. So the church

00:32:41.540 will win, but we have to understand that the church can win without America. I would love,

00:32:47.460 because I love this country, I would love for the church to win with America. I would love for

00:32:51.860 America to get it together. And I think that America is a case that is worthy of the church

00:32:57.660 involving itself in. Do you understand? But we don't need America to succeed for the church and

00:33:04.260 ultimately Christ to succeed. Nations come and go. There was a time when no one thought that Rome

00:33:09.500 would be defeated. People thought this would be an eternal empire that would eventually cover the

00:33:15.460 whole face of the earth. I mean, there was a time when Adolf Hitler thought he was going to rule

00:33:20.460 everything. The Third Reich teamed up with Japan that they were going to take over everything.

00:33:26.060 it didn't happen it didn't work right nations empires societies and cultures they rise and

00:33:34.880 our text says later on and they taught they crumble the earth gives way it melts this is

00:33:41.360 what i want you to see that language of the earth giving way and melting um in verse verse three i

00:33:46.700 believe it is no verse verse two therefore we will not fear though the earth gives way the better

00:33:53.960 translation of that as i looked it up the better translation is this though the earth change is

00:33:59.440 actually what the text means therefore we will not fear right the righteous are as bold as lions

00:34:05.140 we will not give in to cowardice we will not fear we will not give in to not just the trouble without

00:34:11.300 but see the trouble without often is what creates the trouble within right trouble without meaning

00:34:17.440 the earth changing so it says the earth gives way but the better translation is though the earth

00:34:22.460 change and the reality is i think part of the reason why the church is shrinking back in cowardice

00:34:28.940 is because right now the earth which has always changed the nations have always risen and they've

00:34:34.740 always fallen that's the nothing new under the sun this has happened as long as as humanity has

00:34:40.900 has existed but here's the difference i think one of the reasons why the church is shrinking back

00:34:46.140 in fear is because the earth is changing today very quickly very quickly not something that

00:34:55.480 that if you look at history may have taken 50 years for a culture to progress to a certain

00:35:00.620 state of rebellion to to to start condemning certain things that are actually virtuous

00:35:06.380 according to god as vices and and esteeming certain vices according to the scripture as

00:35:12.100 virtues. Usually it's a slower process, right? The progression of sin and the degradation of a

00:35:18.940 culture and society usually is slower. But here's the deal. The earth has given way, aka the earth

00:35:25.820 has changed. Nations have risen and nations have tottered for millennia. If there's any difference

00:35:32.880 at all today, the difference is this, that the earth is changing quickly. And I think there are

00:35:38.020 practical reasons for that and one of the reasons is because the world is smaller today it's smaller

00:35:43.780 in the sense that everybody knows about everything now the thing that we should aspire towards is

00:35:49.780 wisdom but what we've done is this all right so so knowledge you can have knowledge and not be wise

00:35:56.460 you can be knowledgeable and not be wise wisdom is knowledge applied there are people who know a lot

00:36:02.800 of things but they don't know how to live right so they have knowledge but they don't know how to

00:36:07.200 apply it to their marriage, to their parenting, to the marketplace, to economics, to all these

00:36:12.220 different, they don't know how to apply knowledge. So knowledge, or I'm sorry, wisdom is knowledge

00:36:17.100 applied. And we've gone from wisdom to mere knowledge in generations past. Today, we've gone

00:36:26.180 from wisdom to knowledge, and then from knowledge to mere information. We don't even have knowledge

00:36:32.100 anymore. We don't even accurately know things anymore. We just have information. So we have

00:36:38.000 more information than ever, and yet we're less knowledgeable than ever, and we don't have an

00:36:44.340 ounce of wisdom if our life depended on it. And a lot of this is because of things like the internet,

00:36:51.040 technology, social media, all these different things. And because of this, it's made the world

00:36:55.360 smaller it has flooded us with information and everyone is confused and everyone is expected to

00:37:02.280 have an opinion on everything everything hey did you hear the other day this happened you know

00:37:07.720 you know what what's your opinion what's your commentary what's and where the scripture says

00:37:11.680 be slow to speak and quick to listen right because because that rashness that quickness

00:37:19.600 to speak lends towards the anger of man and the anger of man does not bring about the holiness

00:37:25.700 of God. That's what James says. And so today what we have is, it's not just that we have in our

00:37:31.340 pocket sources of information about everything in the world in real time as it's happening.

00:37:37.500 That's half of the problem. Here's the other half and I think it's the bigger one. That same little

00:37:41.800 brick in your pocket doesn't just give you access to every single piece of information all over the

00:37:47.880 world it also gives you a platform to share your opinion about it to everyone in the world

00:37:53.060 that's the problem and because of that what we have is this nothing new under the sun

00:37:59.000 we have nations tottering they've tottered before they'll totter again we have nations tottering

00:38:05.940 we just have if there's anything new at all i don't think it's that novel but if there's any

00:38:10.960 novelty at all what we have is we just have nations tottering quicker right that's all we

00:38:17.300 we just have the world changing if the world gives way again the the better uh the better

00:38:23.140 translation of that is even if the world changes the world is always changing nations come they

00:38:29.280 go rulers come they go things change cultures change all this has all always happened and all

00:38:36.680 we're living through right now in this moment in this time all we're living through is another

00:38:42.660 change and if there's anything novel at all it's simply a quicker change but though the earth give

00:38:49.200 way and even if it gives way quickly therefore we will not fear the commandment is not to fear

00:38:59.800 the prescriptive text the command in our text it's the first half of verse two we will not fear

00:39:07.040 However, here's the thing. Notice the therefore, right? Whenever you see therefore, you need to

00:39:13.460 know what it's there for. So the therefore, therefore we will not fear. This actually comes

00:39:18.140 as the result, the effect of verse one, which is what? God is our refuge. So listen, church,

00:39:27.260 the message of our text, just in these first three verses is not this. The message is not

00:39:31.260 work really hard to be bold even in the midst of chaos and God will reward your hard work of

00:39:39.700 boldness by being to you a refuge that's not the verse that's not the text no the text is

00:39:45.720 because God is already your refuge because he has promised to be your refuge regardless of

00:39:53.240 your moral grit God on the basis of his mercy and grace has promised to be a refuge for all his

00:40:00.460 people and because of his faithfulness not yours because of his strength not yours because he is a

00:40:07.220 sufficient refuge you will not be afraid you will not be afraid because god is the solution

00:40:16.060 god is the antidote to your worry to your fear god is a refuge and he is not only the hope of

00:40:23.960 future deliverance, but he is the promise of present help. He is your refuge, a very present

00:40:32.040 help in times of trouble, whether it be trouble without or trouble within. And for that reason

00:40:38.080 alone, the righteous should not fear. And they should not fear in what circumstances? Any of

00:40:46.440 them and all of them. Even if the whole earth gives way, aka even if the whole earth changes.

00:40:53.960 Even if every nation currently existing falls, and all of a sudden we have some kind of post-apocalyptic tribal world.

00:41:03.760 If all that were to happen, God is a refuge.

00:41:07.880 The righteous don't fear, even when the earth gives way.

00:41:13.000 One more piece of cultural commentary.

00:41:16.060 I just think it's helpful to preach the word in such a way that it applies to real life and every aspect of life.

00:41:23.240 I've said this often, but I don't know if I've said it in this context, so let me say it briefly.

00:41:28.080 I believe that what constitutes a faithful sermon is three parts, revelation, interpretation, application.

00:41:36.420 Revelation means that the man of God, the minister, the preacher, he comes before the people of God,

00:41:42.160 and he does not say, I have a dream, I have a vision, I have a strategy, I have an idea.

00:41:46.560 Now, he comes before the people of God, and he says, I have a text.

00:41:49.140 so the revelation is infallible because the revelation is not man's revelation but god's

00:41:54.080 it's the word so revelation i have a text the second part revelation interpretation application

00:42:00.160 interpretation meaning not eisegesis where man reads in his own thoughts and opinions into the

00:42:06.160 text but exegesis meaning a faithful exegesis a faithful interpretation reading out of the text

00:42:12.520 what god actually placed there what god actually means by the text not what you mean by the text

00:42:17.860 what God intends for the text to mean.

00:42:21.140 So Revelation, I have a text.

00:42:22.840 It's God's revelation.

00:42:24.240 Interpretation, a faithful exegesis of the text.

00:42:27.500 And if you do that,

00:42:28.600 which I think a lot of Reformed churches in our nation do,

00:42:32.120 if you do that,

00:42:33.400 what you have so far accomplished

00:42:35.020 is an audible commentary on the Lord's Day.

00:42:37.940 But it's not a sermon.

00:42:40.340 And there's some great audible commentators,

00:42:43.120 but they're not preachers.

00:42:45.580 If I named them, you might be offended

00:42:47.180 because you probably like them.

00:42:48.240 And I like them too.

00:42:49.680 I like a lot of things about them.

00:42:50.960 They're great to read,

00:42:52.140 but I wouldn't want to be a member in their church

00:42:53.820 and sit under their preaching

00:42:54.680 because they don't have preaching.

00:42:58.100 Text, exegesis.

00:42:59.760 Text, exegesis.

00:43:01.260 That's not preaching.

00:43:02.720 Preaching is revelation, interpretation, application.

00:43:06.760 Preaching says, here's the text,

00:43:09.460 here's what it means,

00:43:10.960 and here's what you need to do.

00:43:13.680 And the reason we don't do application anymore

00:43:15.740 is because the pendulum always overswings.

00:43:19.200 We overcompensate, right?

00:43:20.820 So we're coming from this moralistic therapeutic deism,

00:43:24.200 a.k.a. big phrases to say, the good old boys.

00:43:27.460 Baptist good old boys who they taught their children

00:43:30.500 what was right.

00:43:32.060 But you know why their children left it

00:43:33.780 and forsook that kind of doctrine, that kind of teaching?

00:43:36.360 Because they taught them the what,

00:43:37.900 but they didn't teach them the why.

00:43:40.320 When you hang the what in midair

00:43:42.220 without putting it on the hook,

00:43:43.940 the foundation of why people rebel.

00:43:49.680 People rebel.

00:43:50.680 That's why people are rebelling right now with masks.

00:43:54.340 They're like, why?

00:43:55.580 Not once has Fauci given a singular good scientific argument

00:44:00.060 for wearing a mask.

00:44:01.840 So we're not going to do it.

00:44:04.420 That's not even rebellion.

00:44:06.460 That's actually a gift.

00:44:07.560 It's called logic.

00:44:09.240 God has given people logic.

00:44:11.200 So when you teach them what, but you don't teach them why,

00:44:13.580 what you get is rebellion people they they push it off right so so my point is we had a generation

00:44:22.700 that taught the what it taught the what but without the why and it was all about good behavior

00:44:29.200 moralistic therapeutic deism do the right thing be a good old boy and then what happened is because

00:44:35.040 the the what was there what be good why was absent because of that we had this overreaction

00:44:41.080 an overcompensation the pendulum swung too far and then what do we hear nowadays don't be a

00:44:47.980 legalist don't be a legalist hey that's legal this sounds a little legalistic the pharisees

00:44:51.460 jesus you know jesus was just sugar and spice and everything nice to everyone except for the

00:44:55.540 pharisees and that's all you hear and so then what happens there's no law gospel gospel gospel but

00:45:02.020 no law and and and then in preaching what happens even in the reformed church people out of the

00:45:07.120 fear of man, they bow the knee, pastors bow the knee to this garbage, this false accusation of

00:45:11.980 legalism. And so then what they do is they stop preaching and start offering audible commentaries,

00:45:17.160 revelation, interpretation, but no application. Why do they not give application? Because application

00:45:22.060 tells the people of God to do something. And if you tell the people of God to do something,

00:45:26.980 you might get accused of being a legalist. You're telling people what to do. No, what's legalistic

00:45:34.820 is when you say do this to be saved that's legalism but when you say you're saved by grace

00:45:42.180 alone through faith alone in christ alone and because of that gift of god's salvific love for

00:45:47.180 you you should love him in return and if you love him in return jesus said that the evidence of your

00:45:52.840 love for him will be doing this so do it not to be saved but because you were saved that's not

00:46:01.960 legalism. That's just application. And if you don't have application in your preaching, then you just

00:46:07.800 have revelation and interpretation, aka it's not a sermon. It's a commentary. And so yes, I like to

00:46:14.880 apply scripture to culture and to life and to politics and economics and all these different

00:46:22.160 things. We have a generation of pastors that if they ever apply God's word to anything, it's the

00:46:27.680 home in the church every conference you'll ever hear is a marriage conference or a parenting

00:46:32.500 conference that's it right because it's the only thing they feel like they with with confidence

00:46:38.200 they have enough confidence that god's word speaks to the arena of the family with with

00:46:43.460 x you know explicitly enough to where i can say this and have enough clear scripture to back me

00:46:51.980 up to where i can i can somehow get out of the legalist accusations that i know i'm going to

00:46:57.100 receive so then that's that's what you have you have promise keepers you have all these different

00:47:01.220 things focused on the family and they're good things but but then what you hear in the same

00:47:06.120 breath is hey preach a sermon about family do a conference about family that that's good and tell

00:47:10.740 us how the church should be structured because certainly that's that's part of preaching is

00:47:14.480 preaching to the church but leave politics out of the pulpit don't talk about the marketplace

00:47:21.520 Don't talk about media.

00:47:22.940 Don't talk about politics.

00:47:25.000 And then you wonder why Christians are losing.

00:47:28.900 Christians are losing because we forfeited.

00:47:33.200 It's not because we actually got beat.

00:47:36.160 We didn't get beat.

00:47:37.700 Christ is our head.

00:47:38.380 He can't lose.

00:47:39.840 Christians didn't get beat.

00:47:41.500 The match never even happened.

00:47:44.260 Christians threw in the towel because they were afraid of being called legalistic.

00:47:47.900 And so they surrendered entire breaths of human society to the enemy.

00:47:54.180 And the enemy, again, being those who've been taken captive by the true enemy,

00:47:58.160 not flesh and blood, but Satan, to do his will.

00:48:00.800 Christians forfeited these things because they were afraid

00:48:03.520 that if they preached on these things,

00:48:06.900 that they would be accused of being legalistic,

00:48:09.680 they'd be accused of being theocratic, theonomic, any of these things.

00:48:16.420 when the reality is it's just christian it's just christian the bible applies to all of life

00:48:22.400 right it's sufficient the bible says it's sufficient for life and godliness yeah jesus

00:48:28.080 the bible doesn't apply to everything just life and godliness life is a big category

00:48:31.740 it's a really big category some might say it's all-encompassing it encompasses all of life

00:48:39.340 so all that being said here's my little cultural commentary remember luther martin luther

00:48:46.100 one of the things he wanted to do was not just rediscover the gospel because it had been buried

00:48:51.620 in all the gunk of roman catholicism it's not just that he wanted to to remove the gunk that

00:48:57.120 was surrounding the diamond and to reveal once more the gospel of jesus christ but but in doing

00:49:03.760 that he wanted to to recover orthodox gospel doctrine but he also wanted a long-term solution

00:49:12.220 because he knew that if it was just him getting right doctrine

00:49:15.560 and preaching it to as many people as would hear him,

00:49:18.680 that would only solve the problem for a few people

00:49:21.000 and for a temporary period of time.

00:49:24.100 He knew that if he was really going to solve the problem,

00:49:27.100 that the solution would live on beyond himself,

00:49:30.700 what would he have to do?

00:49:33.340 He would have to make sure that the Bible was translated into the vulgar tongue.

00:49:38.720 Vulgar meaning that's in the Westminster and the 1689 Confession.

00:49:41.900 it just means the common day tongue the bible would have to be translated at that time it was

00:49:46.940 only in latin it was called the vulgate and in the vulgate they had misinterpreted text

00:49:52.240 like do penance when the bible would say and repentance that's a pretty big variant right

00:49:59.440 there the difference between penance and repentance so the vulgate it was inaccurate

00:50:04.380 and not only was it inaccurate but it was in latin which nobody could read or even understand

00:50:10.220 And so people are going to these Roman Catholic masses, and for them, you know where we get the phrase hocus pocus?

00:50:19.340 This is interesting.

00:50:20.660 Hocus pocus actually comes from, it's a rendering of the phrase in Latin that the Roman Catholic priest would say

00:50:28.800 when he would change the bread into the body of Christ, transubstantiation,

00:50:34.780 change the bread into the literal body of Christ and the wine into the literal blood of Christ.

00:50:39.140 The people, they didn't know Latin.

00:50:41.220 They didn't know anything that was happening in the entire church service.

00:50:44.900 They're sitting there, and all they're really getting out of it

00:50:47.940 is they're seeing robes and tassels and hand motions

00:50:50.640 and priests doing this and that and statues and all these different things.

00:50:54.860 That's why Catholicism is all about what you see.

00:50:58.160 That's one of the things the Reformers did is they said,

00:51:00.060 hey, let's take the Lord's Supper, as important as it is,

00:51:03.520 the table, let's move that.

00:51:04.860 That doesn't need to be central.

00:51:06.240 It's a big one.

00:51:07.120 But you know what needs to be central?

00:51:08.300 the tables on the side the pulpits in the middle it's the word the word because faith doesn't come

00:51:17.340 by what we see but it comes by what we hear and hearing by the word of god and people can't hear

00:51:25.200 if we don't even speak their language and so luther and tyndale guys gave their lives

00:51:30.300 were burned at the stake as martyrs to get the Bible into the hands of the people.

00:51:37.620 Now, something happened in the technology world simultaneously.

00:51:42.480 So there's this resurgence, a reformation of doctrine and a mission,

00:51:49.220 but at the same time, in the practical world, in the culture, the printing press.

00:51:55.500 And in the providence of God who decrees all things,

00:51:57.940 he made sure that these things happened simultaneously and today we have i believe

00:52:03.680 for the first time in 500 years something comparable to the printing press namely the

00:52:08.880 internet and social media now this is what luther said because the council of trent and all the guys

00:52:14.200 at rome and the pope they hated luther they called him a wild boar that was going through the lord's

00:52:18.800 vineyard and ripping everything up ruining the harvest and their argument in a nutshell was

00:52:24.760 this to Luther they said if you take the Vulgate the word of God and you rip it out of the Latin

00:52:31.440 which was a dead language that knew nobody knew and you you translate into the vulgar tongue and

00:52:36.120 then take the Gutenberg printing press and print out copies to where every family in the world

00:52:41.680 has a copy of the word of God in their home in a language that they can read if you do that

00:52:48.240 you will open up a floodgate of iniquity remember that that's the phrase

00:52:53.360 a floodgate of iniquity and luther paraphrasing here he said i know he didn't argue he said i

00:53:01.940 know so be it so be it today we have the very same thing so that principle keep that principle

00:53:10.040 in mind the word of god is in latin nobody knows it except for the priest and they've

00:53:15.680 mistranslated the word of God and they are deceiving people into selling everything they

00:53:20.520 have to give indulgences to spring, you know, great grandma out of purgatory, right? You got

00:53:26.020 tinsel going around horrible priest and he's, and he's preaching and saying, can't you hear the

00:53:31.080 clawing and the screaming of your loved ones in purgatory? And if you would just give a little

00:53:35.560 bit more money, you could set them free. You selfish people, right? When you wonder like how,

00:53:40.860 how the Catholic Church has so much money?

00:53:44.840 There's a reason.

00:53:46.200 When you lie to everyone

00:53:47.620 and rip off the entire world,

00:53:50.420 and that's how you got your money,

00:53:52.980 like what people like to say about white people,

00:53:55.780 Catholic Church, they did it.

00:53:57.920 They did it.

00:53:58.600 That's not a rumor.

00:53:59.700 That's not a critical race theory.

00:54:00.920 It's just bona fide truth. 0.97

00:54:02.920 That's why they have money.

00:54:04.300 When you lie to everyone and rip them off,

00:54:06.060 then 500 years of investing and money accumulated,

00:54:08.360 boom, you're rich.

00:54:09.140 That being said,

00:54:10.860 That being said, Tencel, going around preaching about purgatory and giving indulgences, due penance, they had the Bible mistranslated and in Latin, and basically what Luther was saying is, let go of your monopoly on what?

00:54:26.280 Revelation.

00:54:27.320 On truth.

00:54:28.680 Well, in our time, what do we have now?

00:54:31.120 We have had, up until very recently, we have had in culture now, we have had a monopoly by the institutionalized media.

00:54:40.860 and through the age of the internet and social media platforms what we have now is this we have

00:54:49.020 a floodgate of iniquity see the same thing that happened 500 years ago with luther and and rome

00:54:54.840 the roman catholic church they had a monopoly on the revelation in this case the revelation being

00:55:00.500 the word of god they had a monopoly they're the only ones who knew the truth and they were able

00:55:05.220 to twist it to serve their purposes and oppress the people and then luther said i'm going to get

00:55:09.960 into the common tongue. Now, here's what happened. All of a sudden, truth became possible. People

00:55:15.100 could actually know what's true. And there's pros and cons. The con was 3,000 different

00:55:21.800 denominations, and a lot of them are lousy. And what Luther said was absolutely right.

00:55:31.240 What did he say? Worth it. Worth it. Because better to have a floodgate of iniquity, right?

00:55:37.760 A million different interpretations, a million different denominations, a million different opinions, because a million different people have the Bible in their home, have access, direct access to the revelation, to the source.

00:55:52.520 Better to have a million different things, and for many of them, if not the vast majority of them, to be wrong, but for the truth to actually be possible to find.

00:56:02.340 It may feel like a needle in a haystack,

00:56:04.300 but before, in Rome, there was no needle at all.

00:56:09.860 So it was one bushel of hay, no needle.

00:56:14.000 Now it's a haystack, a mile wide,

00:56:17.020 but there is some needles in there.

00:56:19.160 And it's going to take work, and you're going to have to dig,

00:56:20.960 and you're going to have to research,

00:56:21.940 but you can find the truth.

00:56:23.320 You can see God's word and come to an accurate interpretation

00:56:26.120 of what God actually says.

00:56:28.320 The same thing 500 years, half a millennia later.

00:56:31.720 And I don't think it's a coincidence in the sovereignty and providence of God.

00:56:34.740 The same principle has happened again.

00:56:36.840 Instead of Rome, it's the left-wing institutionalized media.

00:56:41.120 Instead of the Bible, God's word, it's information, news, what's happening in the world.

00:56:46.400 And instead of the Gutenberg press, it's the internet and social media.

00:56:50.980 Instead of a million different denominations, it's now the Daily Wire and the Blaze and everything else.

00:56:56.680 Do you see? It's the same principle.

00:56:58.800 and so right now there's a lot of confusion a lot of division and a lot of polarization

00:57:03.040 because there's so many different sources of information but what i want to say is that's

00:57:09.760 an improvement better for there to be a million different sources of information and most of them

00:57:15.200 false but for the truth to actually be possible to find then what we had in our nation just a few

00:57:23.480 years prior which was the gatekeepers of institutionalized media that never told the

00:57:30.540 truth so no truth one source the truth but a million sources and you're going to have to sift

00:57:39.760 that's an improvement but just like 500 years ago with the launch of the reformation i think we're

00:57:47.200 seeing a lot of that occur again and one of the fallouts one of the cons the symptoms of that

00:57:52.740 is mass division.

00:57:55.420 It's the earth seemingly giving way.

00:58:00.960 Old institutions, old gatekeepers,

00:58:03.900 tottering, crumbling.

00:58:07.320 And they don't want to let go of their power easily.

00:58:10.160 They're not coming down without a fight.

00:58:12.180 So they're yelling,

00:58:13.520 you're a racist, right?

00:58:15.680 Because that's the counter argument

00:58:17.000 when you don't actually have substance.

00:58:18.720 You're a racist.

00:58:19.540 all these kind of that's that's what what you're hearing right now is you're hearing the tottering

00:58:25.960 of cultures you're you're hearing you're hearing the final words of an angry man on his deathbed

00:58:35.780 and he knows it what you're seeing right now is the earth giving way

00:58:41.980 changing. And the people of God in times like these are to be courageous. I'm going to skip

00:58:52.620 to the very end because I've gone too long. What should we look like? What does courage

00:58:58.600 look like? It's speaking out. It's getting involved. It's all these things. But in our

00:59:05.040 text, the main thing that courage looks like is this. Be still and know that I am God. I will be

00:59:18.240 exalted among the nations. I will be exalted in the earth. The Lord of hosts is with us. The God

00:59:24.440 of Jacob is our fortress. What does courage look like for the church in this hour? What does courage

00:59:31.260 look like for the people of God, the righteous who are called to be as bold as lions. It looks

00:59:38.280 like a prophetic crying out. That's true. We've got scriptures that speak to that. But our text

00:59:46.140 today tells us that another element, another characteristic of the righteous courage in the

00:59:53.480 midst of the whole earth giving way is stillness be still and know that i am god

01:00:01.680 one of the signs of fear if we were to make the argument from the opposite direction

01:00:08.960 one of the signs of fear is tottering shaking reeling clawing grasping it's it's a frantic

01:00:19.740 position, right? Isn't that what you tell someone on a plane, if there's a lot of turbulence,

01:00:23.880 and all of a sudden, the mass, oxygen mass, they pop down, and someone's like freaking out. What

01:00:29.240 do they look like? If someone's freaking out, do they look like this? No. What does it look like

01:00:35.740 when someone's having a panic attack? They're hyperventilating. They're moving. They're moving

01:00:40.980 crazy, crazy, crazy. You know about that, Jack. They're moving crazy, right? They can't stay

01:00:46.560 still and so conversely what does it look like to be courageous a stillness

01:00:53.900 our world is frantic right now because they're afraid you think they're angry

01:01:02.540 their anger is actually the symptom of the deeper thing which is they're afraid they know that the

01:01:10.800 world is changing they know that there are musical chairs happening right now institutions crumbling

01:01:16.300 other new ones rising. They know they're on the ropes. They know they're losing. They know they're

01:01:23.220 in trouble. They know, as Romans 1 says, all men without an excuse. They all know. They can't claim

01:01:29.140 ignorance. That's a lie. They know that there is a God in heaven who judges the quick and the dead

01:01:34.860 and that he will do what is right in all the earth. They know that the piper is coming. They know

01:01:42.560 that they're being found out they know that they ultimately are not a refuge a strong town

01:01:50.580 a fortress they're not that secure they're not that strong they know that like the flowers of

01:01:57.360 the field and like the grass they will fade and wither and so what looks like strength what looks

01:02:04.760 like anger what looks like all this commotion is really just the signs of a panic attack it's the

01:02:11.740 signs of an anxious people who have not put their hope in God, who is a refuge for the righteous.

01:02:20.520 And so, by way of contrast, we should not look like them. Let's be bold. Let's speak out. Let's

01:02:28.000 engage, but not in a frantic, reeling, and grasping way. I'm not saying that we should be silent,

01:02:36.780 that we should be uninvolved.

01:02:39.580 The church must speak in this hour.

01:02:41.960 The church has a prophetic responsibility

01:02:44.300 and function to cry out.

01:02:47.980 But in our crying out,

01:02:50.020 let's not cry out from a place of anxiety.

01:02:54.280 See, there are some pastors

01:02:55.280 who have just folded to the fear of man.

01:02:57.600 There are other pastors who are crying out.

01:03:00.580 But their motive in crying out

01:03:03.500 is it's fueled their voice,

01:03:06.640 their loud voice you can tell it's fueled by fear they're afraid they're desperately saying no no no

01:03:12.460 no this isn't right that's false this is true but you can tell it's it's this tottering anxious

01:03:17.860 unsteady foundation so we can't bow the knees of the fear of man we can't be apathetic and do

01:03:24.880 nothing we can't say peace peace when there is no peace like a false prophet and we can't cry out

01:03:31.320 even the truth, but from a place of anxiety and fear. The only option for the church is to speak

01:03:38.380 with a calm, resolved, even keel assurance that God is our refuge and that he is our present

01:03:50.820 help, especially when the earth gives way. Let's pray. Father God, thank you for your word.

01:03:57.800 thank you for its truth thank you that it's always relevant it's always applicable

01:04:03.840 lord i pray that um that we would take your word from here and that even further we would apply it

01:04:09.420 to our hearts and to our lives that we would believe your word and that we would live your

01:04:14.100 word in every aspect of life that the lordship of christ would reign supreme over everything

01:04:20.160 that there would not be one arena in our hearts or in our lives that we keep to ourselves that

01:04:26.900 we think that you have nothing to say about. Abanish that thought from our heads. That's a

01:04:32.540 demonic thought. It's a demonic doctrine that so much of the church has bought into, but it's a

01:04:38.880 lie. There's not one square inch in this world that Jesus Christ, that you do not cry out mine.

01:04:46.260 You want it all because you purchased it all. It rightfully belongs to you and even the nations

01:04:54.760 themselves, even those who are raging and tottering, they are your inheritance.

01:05:02.820 We love you and we trust you. It's in Jesus' name that we pray. Amen.

01:05:09.180 Oh, hi. I didn't see you there. Thanks for sticking around. I've got an important announcement

01:05:13.280 to make. That's the Theonomy and Postmillennialism Conference, 2023, May 5th, 6th, and 7th,

01:05:20.640 The Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, Theonomy and Postmillennialism.

01:05:24.920 We've got the speakers that we've already had lined up.

01:05:27.060 That's Dr. James White, Dr. Joseph Boot, Dr. Gary DeMar, non-doctor, Pastor Joel Webin.

01:05:32.080 But we also have a bonus speaker, and that is Dale Partridge from Real Christianity.

01:05:37.620 Perhaps you've heard of him.

01:05:38.540 If not, you should start listening to his podcast.

01:05:40.880 It's fantastic.

01:05:42.380 Dale Partridge is going to be joining our team.

01:05:45.040 We're going to have live panels on Friday night and Saturday night where you'll be able

01:05:49.180 to write in questions and get them answered. We're also going to have a catered barbecue,

01:05:53.440 Texas style barbecue meal on Friday. That's a part of your registration fee. All that is covered.

01:05:58.960 So you need to get that. This is how you do it. Go and register right now at

01:06:03.380 rightresponseconference.com. Again, that's rightresponseconference.com. God bless.

The NXR Podcast - November 20, 2022

SUNDAY SERMON - A Mighty Fortress Is Our God ｜ Psalm 46

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