The NXR Podcast - November 20, 2022


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

Topics
legalism be still and know that I am God Theonomy and Postmillennialism Conference 2023
Hosted by
Joel Webbon Harrison Smith Antonio Griffith Dale Partridge Wewsley Todd Calvin Robinson
Mentioned
Adam Jesus Christ Joe Biden Luther Jamie White Gutenberg Jacob Adolf Hitler Joseph Boot Gary DeMar Joel Webin COVID-19 Selah Peter Trump Jack
QUESTIONS - Are Multisite Churches Biblical？ DAILY TRUTH - God's Flawless Message Spoken Through His Flawed Messengers

Episode Stats


Length

1 hour and 6 minutes

Words per minute

162.64

Word count

10,762

Sentence count

438

Harmful content

Misogyny

1

sentences flagged

Toxicity

20

sentences flagged

Hate speech

21

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Join us as we continue our series through the book of Psalm 46 where we learn about the power of the preaching of the Word of God. God bless you as you listen to this morning's message!

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00 Hey guys, real quick, before we get started, I have a small request.
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00:00:18 This morning, we're continuing with our series through the Psalter
00:00:21 that is preaching through the book of Psalms.
00:00:24 Today, our text is Psalm chapter 46.
00:00:27 again our text is psalm chapter 46 would you join me now in standing for the reading of god's word
00:00:35 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 the word of the lord at which point i would appreciate very much if you'd respond by saying
00:00:45 thanks be to god one final time our text for this morning is psalm chapter 46 the bible says this
00:00:53 God is our refuge and strength our very present help in trouble therefore we will not fear though
00:01:01 the earth gives way though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea though its waters roar
00:01:07 and foam though the mountains tremble at its swelling selah there is a river whose streams
00:01:15 make glad the city of God the holy habitation of the most high God is in the midst of her
00:01:21 she shall not be moved. God will help her when the morning dawns. The nations rage, the kingdoms
00:01:28 totter. He utters his voice, the earth melts. The Lord of hosts is with us. The God of Jacob is our
00:01:36 fortress. Selah. Come and behold the works of the Lord, how he has brought desolations on the earth.
00:01:44 He makes wars to cease to the end of the earth. He breaks the bow and shatters the spear. He burns
00:01:50 the chariots with fire be still and know that i am god i will be exalted among the nations
00:01:57 i will be exalted in the earth the lord of hosts is with us the god of jacob is our fortress
00:02:04 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 once more uh father we thank you for your word and i pray that indeed through the preaching of
00:02:16 your word today, that your people would arrive at a right knowledge, a more accurate and biblical
00:02:21 and faithful knowledge of who you are, of what you've done, and what it is that you require from
00:02:27 us as a proper right response. God, we pray that this knowledge would not serve as an end in itself,
00:02:35 but rather this knowledge would serve as a necessary means propelling your people into
00:02:40 right love the heart cannot love what the mind does not know and so father we pray that through
00:02:47 the preaching of your word and the power of your spirit that you would fill our minds with the
00:02:53 substance of your truth so that it might fuel our hearts with greater affection and love and worship
00:03:01 and finally obedience towards you jesus you said yourself that those who love you
00:03:09 keep your commandments that if we love you we will obey you so we pray that through the preaching of
00:03:16 your word we might know you so that our hearts might come to love you so that our lives our
00:03:21 hands and our feet might live in obedience to your commands we pray all this ultimately that
00:03:28 you might be glorified in all the earth but we also pray these things for the good of those people
00:03:33 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 especially among our children we thank you for these things we thank you for your promises we
00:03:46 thank you for your covenants and we thank you for your love we pray this in jesus name amen
00:03:51 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 God is our refuge and strength a very present help in trouble therefore we will not fear though
00:04:17 the earth gives way though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea though its waters roar
00:04:23 and foam though the mountains tremble at its swelling say long in your notes I've written
00:04:28 the following whether our source of hardship be from without or within let me pause there for a
00:04:36 moment i'm reminded of the apostle paul where where he writes to timothy and he says that we
00:04:40 have hardship without trials tribulation difficulty without and then he says and we have fear or
00:04:47 anxiety within and this is the same apostle who writes very strongly against anxiety or worry or
00:04:56 fear it is never it is never acceptable or permissible for the christian to be afraid and
00:05:03 yet the apostle says he says that we are we are terrified there's a sense of anxiety and fear
00:05:08 within and he's not condoning that sense of fear if anything he's confessing that fear as the sin
00:05:15 that it is but the point is that the apostle paul he recognizes that in the life of the christian
00:05:20 this side of heaven there are trials without tribulation at times there can even be persecution
00:05:26 from outside from other parties and yet simultaneously there could be difficulty worry
00:05:33 doubt anger grief within so the christian can be experiencing two enemies simultaneously
00:05:40 and throughout church history we know that there is actually a third enemy namely the devil so
00:05:45 within what we have ultimately is the enemy of the flesh without what we have is the enemy of
00:05:51 the world the world and then we also have the added enemy this triple threat of the flesh the
00:05:57 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 popular in christian circles to say well that creates this this wrong-headed dichotomy this
00:06:10 wrong kind of confrontation this mentality of us versus them well the bible uses that language
00:06:19 The Bible speaks of the world in multiple different ways.
00:06:22 So in one sense, the world is the cosmos.
00:06:24 It is the physical creation.
00:06:26 It's what God has made.
00:06:28 And the world is underneath the curse of sin because Adam, that is the first Adam, our first father,
00:06:35 he was not only the federal head of himself, of his wife Eve, and of all their posterity,
00:06:42 all their future children, which includes you and I, but he was also the head of all creation.
00:06:48 That's why when in Genesis 3, after Adam eats of the forbidden fruit,
00:06:53 God literally curses not only Adam, but he curses the very ground. 0.60
00:06:57 The creation itself, the earth, falls under the curse because Adam was the federal head.
00:07:04 That means he was representative of not only all of humanity, but all of the cosmos, all of creation. 0.78
00:07:12 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 So all of creation has fallen under the curse of sin.
00:07:30 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 And yet still the creation speaks to the glory of God.
00:07:41 That's what we call natural revelation.
00:07:44 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 So what does that mean?
00:07:55 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 And yet an image of God still remains, a vestige of the image of God.
00:08:11 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 they reflect god himself and yet the image of god has also been tarnished by sin not utterly
00:08:36 destroyed but tarnished so too it is with the rest of earthly creation outside of humanity
00:08:41 that earthly creation it still maintains enough of god's character to where the apostle paul can
00:08:49 write with confidence in romans chapter one he says he says that creation itself testifies to
00:08:55 the glory of God so that all men are without an apologia, an argument, an excuse, meaning no
00:09:02 single human being can claim the excuse of ignorance. Ignorance doesn't mean innocence
00:09:09 because ignorance is a lie. Every single human being by virtue, without even a single verse of
00:09:15 the Bible ever being read to them, without ever hearing a single sermon, without ever knowing
00:09:20 about Jesus Christ, every single human being is still responsible to honor God as holy because
00:09:27 creation itself is enough. It is a sufficient testimony not to save humanity, but it is a
00:09:34 sufficient testimony to prove that there is a God in heaven who will judge both the living and the
00:09:40 dead, that he has eternal power and a divine nature, and he is worthy of worship. So natural
00:09:46 revelation the heavens the skies the earth the trees the mountains the rivers this is sufficient
00:09:53 to reveal to all people the existence of God so that all men have been stripped of any excuse
00:10:00 so just as human beings were made in the image of God yet the image of God has been tarnished
00:10:07 through sin but not utterly lost the vestige remains so too in the rest of creation outside
00:10:12 of humanity the earth itself we still have a sufficient testimony the earth is still able
00:10:19 it is still able by God's grace to testify to God's existence and yet there are certain things
00:10:26 in natural revelation that do not speak to the character nature of God because they have fallen
00:10:31 under the weight and curse of sin so we can look at creation and the order of creation the certain
00:10:38 laws that God has put into play in the universe and we can glean from this observation something
00:10:43 true about the character and nature of God and yet at times if natural revelation is all we look to
00:10:49 and not special revelation namely the word of God then at times we will come to wrong conclusions
00:10:55 because natural revelation has fallen under the curse of sin for instance death when we look to
00:11:02 the world to the cosmos creation human beings and the rest of the creatures that god has made
00:11:08 even plants that he has made we see death and if we're not careful we could glean from that we
00:11:13 can conclude that god is the author of death and we would be wrong because that's an element where
00:11:20 the natural creation has fallen under the curse of sin that doesn't reveal the character of god
00:11:26 that reveals the failure of man, the failure of Adam to uphold the covenant that God established
00:11:32 with him in the garden. So all that being said, the word world is used to describe the cosmos.
00:11:40 The word world is also used to describe the whole mass of humanity. An example of this would be
00:11:47 John 3.16, for God so loved the world, the whole mass of humanity. There's a sense in which God
00:11:55 has compassion on all people both the elect and even the non-elect why do why is this the case
00:12:02 because the Psalms declare that God has compassion on all he has made so in God's common grace this
00:12:11 would this would be apart from his fatherly love for his elect children but in God's common grace
00:12:18 in his common love God there is a sense in which we can say God loves even the unbeliever
00:12:24 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 his fatherly adoptive eternal salvific love however is reserved for his people who are
00:12:52 saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ alone so the word world means the cosmos the
00:12:58 word world means the mass of humanity but the word world also has at least one other meaning
00:13:04 the word world also conveys the evil system underneath the domain and rule of Satan
00:13:13 who takes people captive according to paul's again his epistles his letters to timothy that
00:13:20 satan takes people captive to do his will to do his bidding there's a verse in the bible in one
00:13:28 of paul's letters to timothy i can't remember if it's the first epistle or the second but where
00:13:32 paul says that we should we should argue we should rebuke or oppose those enemies our opponents with
00:13:40 gentleness. It says, respond to them with gentleness. And then he gives the reason why. He says, for you
00:13:46 do not know that God might grant to them repentance, causing them to come back after being taken
00:13:53 captive by Satan to do his will. So our enemy is not flesh and blood. We see that in Ephesians,
00:14:00 right? Our ultimate battle is not against flesh and blood, but principalities. But the reality is
00:14:05 that these principalities that that the enemy the spiritual enemy satan and all his demons
00:14:11 they do however take people captive to do their will so our enemy we have the flesh the devil
00:14:19 and the world and the world is good insofar as it represents the cosmos what god has created
00:14:26 it's also good insofar as the world represents our universal neighbor that we're called to have
00:14:33 compassion on because God has compassion on all he has made but the world also signifies the 0.99
00:14:39 unbeliever who although there is a sense in which we're called to love them as our neighbor 0.99
00:14:43 we must also recognize that everyone has an allegiance neutrality is a myth there is no
00:14:50 moral neutrality every man is either for Christ or against him and those who are not believers
00:14:56 in the Lord Jesus Christ and submitted to his lordship have in fact been taken captive by
00:15:02 someone else that someone else is the devil who jesus says in john chapter 8 is their father
00:15:09 he says this to the pharisees he says that your father is not abraham not in a true spiritual 0.99
00:15:16 sense your father is not god your father is the devil and you look just like him you're a chip 1.00
00:15:23 off the old block he was a liar and a murderer from the beginning and here you are lying that 1.00
00:15:28 is bearing false witness about me and also you have murderous intentions in your heart to crucify 1.00
00:15:36 me unjustly to murder me so jesus says to the pharisees you guys are children of the devil 0.93
00:15:42 and their father spiritual father the devil had taken them captive to do his will so all that
00:15:49 being said our hardship in this life our trials in this life the difficulty that we experience
00:15:56 it can come from within our flesh it can also come from without that is the world that evil system
00:16:04 that satan takes people captive to do his will and it can also come from the enemy himself the
00:16:12 flesh the world and the devil and yet in the midst of tribulation and trial whether it be trial
00:16:18 within or without from the flesh the world or the devil god is a refuge to all who seek shelter in
00:16:26 him god is not merely our hope of future deliverance from every kind of trouble but he is
00:16:33 also our source of present help look back at the text verse one god is our refuge and strength
00:16:41 a very present help in trouble some of you need to hear that this morning right because i think
00:16:49 sometimes we can over spiritualize things to the point where well where god only has promises
00:16:55 for the life to come where God is only faithful in an ultimate spiritual sense but our text says
00:17:03 that not just that God is a refuge an ultimate refuge for the life to come but that he is a
00:17:09 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 for every kind of trouble well he presently helps his people by equipping and empowering them
00:17:25 to bear up underneath any kind of trouble they may find.
00:17:30 It is for this reason that the righteous are,
00:17:33 as the scripture says, as bold as lions.
00:17:37 The righteous are as bold as lions.
00:17:39 This is a declaration.
00:17:41 This is not a prescriptive text,
00:17:44 basically a commandment.
00:17:45 That's what prescriptive texts are.
00:17:47 They're an exhortation or a commandment.
00:17:49 The Bible doesn't say,
00:17:51 you need to be as bold as a lion to be righteous.
00:17:55 That's not what the scripture says.
00:17:56 No, it just says the righteous are as bold as lions.
00:17:59 Meaning that if you are the people of God, if you are righteous because of the finished work of Jesus,
00:18:05 that's the imputed righteousness of Christ that comes not by your works, but by grace through faith,
00:18:11 then the result of that, the evidence of that is boldness.
00:18:16 That you are courageous.
00:18:17 You're courageous and bold in the face of trouble.
00:18:22 And so one of the ways that God is not just our future help with an ultimate deliverance,
00:18:27 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 So God will utterly and entirely and ultimately deliver us at some point.
00:18:42 But in the meantime, God is still doing something.
00:18:45 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 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 Now, does that make sense?
00:19:08 God will ultimately deliver me someday, but he is presently helping me today.
00:19:13 and one way that god is presently helping you in the midst of trouble is that he is presently
00:19:20 helping you by being a constant and infinite supply of courage the righteous are as bold
00:19:29 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 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 god during the midst of the whole earth giving way right the earth is melting that's the kind
00:19:50 of language that our text is using the earth gives way it's melting the nations are are raging but
00:19:56 not just raging it also uses the term that the nations are tottering right so if you remember
00:20:01 psalm chapter 2 where the nations rage right that everything in them desires to sever the bonds of
00:20:09 the lordship of christ right they cast off their bonds or at least that's their desire meaning that
00:20:15 they want to be autonomous but there is no autonomy just like neutrality is a myth moral neutrality
00:20:22 does not exist every man has an allegiance either to christ or to satan in the same way that
00:20:28 neutrality is a myth autonomy is a myth no one is autonomous but god alone god is the only
00:20:35 autonomously free creature. Now you and I, we have freedom of the will in some sense, and I don't
00:20:40 have time to go into the theological and philosophical implications of how people are
00:20:45 free, and yet God is also free to do whatever he pleases. But suffice it to say, in terms of
00:20:51 autonomous freedom, God alone is the only autonomous free being. All creatures, so the
00:20:58 creator alone is autonomously free. All creatures, we like to fancy ourselves as being autonomously
00:21:04 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 rage they desire to sever the bonds the bonds of heaven that are over them the lordship and
00:21:18 control and dominion over god of god over all creation and yet they are fruitless in their
00:21:25 attempts it's futile they are ultimately in submission even though their will is not submitted
00:21:32 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 No one can do anything that God hasn't decreed.
00:21:45 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 because if anyone else has true autonomous freedom then it encroaches it it it compromises
00:22:00 the autonomous freedom of god meaning that if you for instance as an individual person
00:22:06 had true autonomous freedom you could do whatever you wanted even those things that would contradict
00:22:12 and be outside of the sovereign decree of god then god wouldn't be sovereign rc sproul said it like
00:22:18 this. This was one of his famous quotes. He said, if there is one maverick molecule in all the
00:22:26 universe, then God is not in control. See, people like to reassure themselves with pithy statements,
00:22:33 but they don't actually believe them. So people say this, they'll say, hey, you know, COVID-19
00:22:39 and lockdowns and Joe Biden and, oh my goodness, you know, this left-wing media and, you know,
00:22:46 everything's crazy right now, but God is on the throne. It's like, that's true. But do you actually
00:22:52 believe that's true? What do you mean by God is still on his throne? You know, praise God. He's,
00:22:57 you know, things are crazy right now, but he's still in control. All right. What do you mean by
00:23:01 that? When you speak of God being in control, what do you mean? Because I think what you probably
00:23:09 mean, if you're the average evangelical in the church of America today, what you mean is that
00:23:14 God's actually not in control because what you mean is that every single person has free will
00:23:19 and when you say free will you don't mean a moral sense but what you mean is everyone is
00:23:25 autonomously free and they can all do things outside of God's sovereign will and the things
00:23:31 that people do outside of God's will can have an effect on you which means God is absolutely not
00:23:38 in control. God has zero control. God is not sovereign or in control of anything. You're in
00:23:44 complete danger. And you might counter that by saying, well, well, the reason why I have security
00:23:49 and safety is because I am choosing to submit to God's control. Oh, so God's not in control. You
00:23:55 mean that God has a weak, pathetic sense of control. He can only control those who give him 0.99
00:24:00 permission. That's cute. You made of dust, worm. That's what Job, the language he uses. So you
00:24:06 worm, you creature from the dust, you believe that God has control if you give him permission. 0.89
00:24:13 That's cute.
00:24:14 That's really cute.
00:24:15 That's not true.
00:24:16 No, God has control, period.
00:24:19 Think of Acts chapter 2 and Acts chapter 4.
00:24:22 Acts chapter 2 and Acts chapter 4, one of the sermons and one of the prayers of Peter,
00:24:26 the apostle, is this.
00:24:28 He says that men gathered from all over, the Pontius Pilate and the Jews and all these
00:24:34 people they gathered to do to jesus that is to put him to death to crucify him to do to jesus
00:24:39 exactly what your hand and your plan predetermined to occur meaning that jesus was crucified for at
00:24:49 least two reasons because evil people made evil choices and jesus was crucified because god
00:24:58 decreed for it to happen before the foundations of the world were laid. Jesus was crucified,
00:25:06 the Bible says, before the earth was even created. He was crucified in the eternal decree of God and
00:25:14 the counsels of eternity according to what God sovereignly determined to take place. And so what
00:25:20 we see in terms of human agency is that people do make free choices. Their choices are free and
00:25:27 that's why they're morally responsible for the choices they make. If you're just a robot making
00:25:32 choices that God's making you make, then you cannot bear moral responsibility for those choices.
00:25:37 People make free choices and they're responsible. And yet there is a sense in which the freedom of
00:25:43 the creature of mankind making morally free choices that he is morally culpable for is still
00:25:50 not outside of the sovereign decree of God.
00:25:54 So when we say as Christians, Bible-believing Christians,
00:25:57 that God is in control, we mean it.
00:26:00 We mean it.
00:26:01 So when we say God is in control, we mean,
00:26:03 no, he is actually faithful to his word,
00:26:06 where he says he appoints those who are in positions of authority.
00:26:10 And he works the way that he brings about his will
00:26:14 is through human agency.
00:26:15 So God uses agency, but God is the one who ultimately does it.
00:26:20 So who elected Joe Biden, right?
00:26:23 Just to use that as a case study.
00:26:24 God, according to his eternal decree,
00:26:27 through the agency of man.
00:26:29 And God does things for our good,
00:26:33 and he does things in his judgment for our wickedness.
00:26:37 So I believe that God sovereignly elected Joe Biden 1.00
00:26:40 through the agency of stupid people 1.00
00:26:42 to judge a rebellious nation. 1.00
00:26:46 That's what he did.
00:26:47 But he's sovereign, God did it,
00:26:50 and man is also responsible morally free but no one is autonomously free that means no creature
00:26:57 is capable of making choices that would be outside of or contradicting the sovereign eternal decree
00:27:06 of god god is our refuge and strength a very present help in trouble therefore we will not
00:27:14 fear this is verse two we will not fear though the whole earth gives way though the mountains
00:27:20 be moved into the heart of the sea though its waters roar and foam though the mountains tremble
00:27:27 at its swelling again that 30 000 foot view the big theme the predominant theme in psalm 46 is this
00:27:34 the earth is giving way the cosmos itself are seeming to melt the nations are both raging
00:27:45 but also the nations not just psalm chapter 2 they're raging and trying to sever that bond of
00:27:51 the sovereignty of god somehow trying to act autonomously apart from his rule and reign but
00:27:58 no the nations are not just raging with rebellion and anger against the lordship of christ but
00:28:04 the nations are tottering our text goes on to say meaning they're folding they're falling to their
00:28:11 knees nations are crumbling nations are crumbling and although nations rage although some nations
00:28:19 rise and although other nations fall they totter they crumble and although the the earth itself
00:28:26 the cosmos is is melting away and giving way during the midst of all of this the predominant
00:28:34 view and heart posture of the people of God
00:28:38 should be boldness. The righteous
00:28:42 are as bold as lions because God is our
00:28:46 refuge and strength. America is not our refuge and
00:28:50 strength. Trump is not our refuge and strength.
00:28:55 Certain institutions are not our refuge and strength.
00:28:59 Even this physical creation, the earth, is not our
00:29:02 refuge and strength none of those things are our ultimate source of hope so as nations rise and
00:29:10 other nations crumble right i don't know i i hope that america repents and i am hopeful that that
00:29:16 will take place i really am because one of the beautiful things about leftist politics is it's
00:29:23 self-defeating right like it's not i'm not hopeful because i think necessarily christians are going
00:29:29 to prove things wrong, I think the strongest player on our team is the other team. I think
00:29:35 nobody is better at proving certain things as being foolish and wrong than leftists. You see 0.99
00:29:43 their policies and people are like, oh my goodness, what have we done? This is insane. This is the
00:29:48 most foolish thing I've ever encountered. So I am very, very hopeful that America will repent,
00:29:53 that God is disciplining America
00:29:56 as it is in a state of apostasy, right?
00:30:00 It's in the process of apostasy,
00:30:01 turning its back on God.
00:30:03 And I believe that through his rod,
00:30:05 aka leftists,
00:30:07 and also through grace,
00:30:08 aka Christians preaching gospel,
00:30:11 that America will repent and come back around. 0.86
00:30:14 But here's the point.
00:30:15 If it doesn't, it's okay.
00:30:20 No, I think we should fight for this nation.
00:30:22 It's a wonderful nation,
00:30:23 regardless of what people say today.
00:30:25 I know it's popular to hate this nation,
00:30:26 but this is a wonderful nation
00:30:28 and it's founded on biblical principles.
00:30:30 That's why it's been so wonderful.
00:30:32 It's been a wonderful nation
00:30:34 and the stains on our nation,
00:30:36 like slavery and those kinds of things,
00:30:38 those aren't features, they're bugs.
00:30:40 Those are all the examples
00:30:41 of how America didn't live up to its principles.
00:30:45 But the beauty of America is that in its constitution,
00:30:48 based off of biblical principles,
00:30:49 as these things over over time and decades were worked out the nation got better and those things
00:30:55 that were not consistent with the constitution were fixed and solved that's the beauty i think
00:31:01 it's the probably i really think that america is the greatest nation that has ever existed and i
00:31:07 think the reason why is because it's the closest it's the closest to being a nation founded on
00:31:13 god's word right then that would just make sense right then the nation that's the closest to being
00:31:18 founded on god's word would also be the most successful because god's word works god's word
00:31:23 is faithful it doesn't return void and there is a blessing a promise of blessing for obedience
00:31:29 however so it's worth fighting for we pray for the repentance of our nation we want to preach to
00:31:34 those who don't believe god's work we want to be involved in business economics the marketplace
00:31:39 politics all these things it's good for a christian to involve themselves in these things
00:31:44 but if we lose if we lose america here's the deal christians might lose america but we don't lose
00:31:52 the world right that that's the that's the hopeful eschatology that we have we believe that in the
00:31:59 same way a little bit of leaven works through the whole lump of dough in the same way a small
00:32:04 mustard seed eventually becomes a a massive tree and its branches begin to to cast shadow over all
00:32:11 the earth, right? It's a little bit over time becoming large, massive, significant. That's
00:32:17 what the kingdom of God is like. The kingdom of God, it starts small, it grows slowly, and it
00:32:23 eventually becomes a force to be reckoned with. It eventually becomes significant, massive,
00:32:29 engulfing everything. So the kingdom of God will advance. The church wins. The church wins because
00:32:35 the head of the church is Christ and Christ is not a loser. Christ doesn't lose. So the church
00:32:41 will win, but we have to understand that the church can win without America. I would love,
00:32:47 because I love this country, I would love for the church to win with America. I would love for
00:32:51 America to get it together. And I think that America is a case that is worthy of the church
00:32:57 involving itself in. Do you understand? But we don't need America to succeed for the church and
00:33:04 ultimately Christ to succeed. Nations come and go. There was a time when no one thought that Rome 0.74
00:33:09 would be defeated. People thought this would be an eternal empire that would eventually cover the
00:33:15 whole face of the earth. I mean, there was a time when Adolf Hitler thought he was going to rule
00:33:20 everything. The Third Reich teamed up with Japan that they were going to take over everything. 0.93
00:33:26 it didn't happen it didn't work right nations empires societies and cultures they rise and 0.93
00:33:34 our text says later on and they taught they crumble the earth gives way it melts this is
00:33:41 what i want you to see that language of the earth giving way and melting um in verse verse three i
00:33:46 believe it is no verse verse two therefore we will not fear though the earth gives way the better
00:33:53 translation of that as i looked it up the better translation is this though the earth change is
00:33:59 actually what the text means therefore we will not fear right the righteous are as bold as lions
00:34:05 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 but see the trouble without often is what creates the trouble within right trouble without meaning
00:34:17 the earth changing so it says the earth gives way but the better translation is though the earth
00:34:22 change and the reality is i think part of the reason why the church is shrinking back in cowardice
00:34:28 is because right now the earth which has always changed the nations have always risen and they've
00:34:34 always fallen that's the nothing new under the sun this has happened as long as as humanity has
00:34:40 has existed but here's the difference i think one of the reasons why the church is shrinking back
00:34:46 in fear is because the earth is changing today very quickly very quickly not something that
00:34:55 that if you look at history may have taken 50 years for a culture to progress to a certain
00:35:00 state of rebellion to to to start condemning certain things that are actually virtuous
00:35:06 according to god as vices and and esteeming certain vices according to the scripture as
00:35:12 virtues. Usually it's a slower process, right? The progression of sin and the degradation of a
00:35:18 culture and society usually is slower. But here's the deal. The earth has given way, aka the earth
00:35:25 has changed. Nations have risen and nations have tottered for millennia. If there's any difference
00:35:32 at all today, the difference is this, that the earth is changing quickly. And I think there are
00:35:38 practical reasons for that and one of the reasons is because the world is smaller today it's smaller
00:35:43 in the sense that everybody knows about everything now the thing that we should aspire towards is
00:35:49 wisdom but what we've done is this all right so so knowledge you can have knowledge and not be wise
00:35:56 you can be knowledgeable and not be wise wisdom is knowledge applied there are people who know a lot
00:36:02 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 apply it to their marriage, to their parenting, to the marketplace, to economics, to all these
00:36:12 different, they don't know how to apply knowledge. So knowledge, or I'm sorry, wisdom is knowledge
00:36:17 applied. And we've gone from wisdom to mere knowledge in generations past. Today, we've gone
00:36:26 from wisdom to knowledge, and then from knowledge to mere information. We don't even have knowledge
00:36:32 anymore. We don't even accurately know things anymore. We just have information. So we have
00:36:38 more information than ever, and yet we're less knowledgeable than ever, and we don't have an
00:36:44 ounce of wisdom if our life depended on it. And a lot of this is because of things like the internet,
00:36:51 technology, social media, all these different things. And because of this, it's made the world
00:36:55 smaller it has flooded us with information and everyone is confused and everyone is expected to
00:37:02 have an opinion on everything everything hey did you hear the other day this happened you know
00:37:07 you know what what's your opinion what's your commentary what's and where the scripture says
00:37:11 be slow to speak and quick to listen right because because that rashness that quickness
00:37:19 to speak lends towards the anger of man and the anger of man does not bring about the holiness
00:37:25 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 pocket sources of information about everything in the world in real time as it's happening.
00:37:37 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 brick in your pocket doesn't just give you access to every single piece of information all over the
00:37:47 world it also gives you a platform to share your opinion about it to everyone in the world
00:37:53 that's the problem and because of that what we have is this nothing new under the sun
00:37:59 we have nations tottering they've tottered before they'll totter again we have nations tottering
00:38:05 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 novelty at all what we have is we just have nations tottering quicker right that's all we
00:38:17 we just have the world changing if the world gives way again the the better uh the better
00:38:23 translation of that is even if the world changes the world is always changing nations come they
00:38:29 go rulers come they go things change cultures change all this has all always happened and all
00:38:36 we're living through right now in this moment in this time all we're living through is another
00:38:42 change and if there's anything novel at all it's simply a quicker change but though the earth give
00:38:49 way and even if it gives way quickly therefore we will not fear the commandment is not to fear
00:38:59 the prescriptive text the command in our text it's the first half of verse two we will not fear
00:39:07 However, here's the thing. Notice the therefore, right? Whenever you see therefore, you need to
00:39:13 know what it's there for. So the therefore, therefore we will not fear. This actually comes
00:39:18 as the result, the effect of verse one, which is what? God is our refuge. So listen, church,
00:39:27 the message of our text, just in these first three verses is not this. The message is not
00:39:31 work really hard to be bold even in the midst of chaos and God will reward your hard work of
00:39:39 boldness by being to you a refuge that's not the verse that's not the text no the text is
00:39:45 because God is already your refuge because he has promised to be your refuge regardless of
00:39:53 your moral grit God on the basis of his mercy and grace has promised to be a refuge for all his
00:40:00 people and because of his faithfulness not yours because of his strength not yours because he is a
00:40:07 sufficient refuge you will not be afraid you will not be afraid because god is the solution
00:40:16 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 future deliverance, but he is the promise of present help. He is your refuge, a very present
00:40:32 help in times of trouble, whether it be trouble without or trouble within. And for that reason
00:40:38 alone, the righteous should not fear. And they should not fear in what circumstances? Any of
00:40:46 them and all of them. Even if the whole earth gives way, aka even if the whole earth changes.
00:40:53 Even if every nation currently existing falls, and all of a sudden we have some kind of post-apocalyptic tribal world.
00:41:03 If all that were to happen, God is a refuge.
00:41:07 The righteous don't fear, even when the earth gives way.
00:41:13 One more piece of cultural commentary.
00:41:16 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 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 I believe that what constitutes a faithful sermon is three parts, revelation, interpretation, application.
00:41:36 Revelation means that the man of God, the minister, the preacher, he comes before the people of God,
00:41:42 and he does not say, I have a dream, I have a vision, I have a strategy, I have an idea.
00:41:46 Now, he comes before the people of God, and he says, I have a text.
00:41:49 so the revelation is infallible because the revelation is not man's revelation but god's
00:41:54 it's the word so revelation i have a text the second part revelation interpretation application
00:42:00 interpretation meaning not eisegesis where man reads in his own thoughts and opinions into the
00:42:06 text but exegesis meaning a faithful exegesis a faithful interpretation reading out of the text
00:42:12 what god actually placed there what god actually means by the text not what you mean by the text
00:42:17 what God intends for the text to mean.
00:42:21 So Revelation, I have a text.
00:42:22 It's God's revelation.
00:42:24 Interpretation, a faithful exegesis of the text.
00:42:27 And if you do that,
00:42:28 which I think a lot of Reformed churches in our nation do,
00:42:32 if you do that,
00:42:33 what you have so far accomplished
00:42:35 is an audible commentary on the Lord's Day.
00:42:37 But it's not a sermon.
00:42:40 And there's some great audible commentators,
00:42:43 but they're not preachers.
00:42:45 If I named them, you might be offended
00:42:47 because you probably like them.
00:42:48 And I like them too.
00:42:49 I like a lot of things about them.
00:42:50 They're great to read,
00:42:52 but I wouldn't want to be a member in their church
00:42:53 and sit under their preaching
00:42:54 because they don't have preaching.
00:42:58 Text, exegesis.
00:42:59 Text, exegesis.
00:43:01 That's not preaching.
00:43:02 Preaching is revelation, interpretation, application.
00:43:06 Preaching says, here's the text,
00:43:09 here's what it means,
00:43:10 and here's what you need to do.
00:43:13 And the reason we don't do application anymore
00:43:15 is because the pendulum always overswings.
00:43:19 We overcompensate, right?
00:43:20 So we're coming from this moralistic therapeutic deism,
00:43:24 a.k.a. big phrases to say, the good old boys.
00:43:27 Baptist good old boys who they taught their children
00:43:30 what was right.
00:43:32 But you know why their children left it
00:43:33 and forsook that kind of doctrine, that kind of teaching?
00:43:36 Because they taught them the what,
00:43:37 but they didn't teach them the why.
00:43:40 When you hang the what in midair
00:43:42 without putting it on the hook,
00:43:43 the foundation of why people rebel.
00:43:49 People rebel.
00:43:50 That's why people are rebelling right now with masks.
00:43:54 They're like, why?
00:43:55 Not once has Fauci given a singular good scientific argument
00:44:00 for wearing a mask.
00:44:01 So we're not going to do it.
00:44:04 That's not even rebellion.
00:44:06 That's actually a gift.
00:44:07 It's called logic.
00:44:09 God has given people logic.
00:44:11 So when you teach them what, but you don't teach them why,
00:44:13 what you get is rebellion people they they push it off right so so my point is we had a generation
00:44:22 that taught the what it taught the what but without the why and it was all about good behavior
00:44:29 moralistic therapeutic deism do the right thing be a good old boy and then what happened is because
00:44:35 the the what was there what be good why was absent because of that we had this overreaction
00:44:41 an overcompensation the pendulum swung too far and then what do we hear nowadays don't be a
00:44:47 legalist don't be a legalist hey that's legal this sounds a little legalistic the pharisees
00:44:51 jesus you know jesus was just sugar and spice and everything nice to everyone except for the
00:44:55 pharisees and that's all you hear and so then what happens there's no law gospel gospel gospel but
00:45:02 no law and and and then in preaching what happens even in the reformed church people out of the 0.95
00:45:07 fear of man, they bow the knee, pastors bow the knee to this garbage, this false accusation of 0.97
00:45:11 legalism. And so then what they do is they stop preaching and start offering audible commentaries, 0.96
00:45:17 revelation, interpretation, but no application. Why do they not give application? Because application
00:45:22 tells the people of God to do something. And if you tell the people of God to do something,
00:45:26 you might get accused of being a legalist. You're telling people what to do. No, what's legalistic
00:45:34 is when you say do this to be saved that's legalism but when you say you're saved by grace
00:45:42 alone through faith alone in christ alone and because of that gift of god's salvific love for
00:45:47 you you should love him in return and if you love him in return jesus said that the evidence of your
00:45:52 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 legalism. That's just application. And if you don't have application in your preaching, then you just
00:46:07 have revelation and interpretation, aka it's not a sermon. It's a commentary. And so yes, I like to
00:46:14 apply scripture to culture and to life and to politics and economics and all these different
00:46:22 things. We have a generation of pastors that if they ever apply God's word to anything, it's the
00:46:27 home in the church every conference you'll ever hear is a marriage conference or a parenting
00:46:32 conference that's it right because it's the only thing they feel like they with with confidence
00:46:38 they have enough confidence that god's word speaks to the arena of the family with with
00:46:43 x you know explicitly enough to where i can say this and have enough clear scripture to back me
00:46:51 up to where i can i can somehow get out of the legalist accusations that i know i'm going to
00:46:57 receive so then that's that's what you have you have promise keepers you have all these different
00:47:01 things focused on the family and they're good things but but then what you hear in the same
00:47:06 breath is hey preach a sermon about family do a conference about family that that's good and tell
00:47:10 us how the church should be structured because certainly that's that's part of preaching is
00:47:14 preaching to the church but leave politics out of the pulpit don't talk about the marketplace
00:47:21 Don't talk about media.
00:47:22 Don't talk about politics.
00:47:25 And then you wonder why Christians are losing.
00:47:28 Christians are losing because we forfeited.
00:47:33 It's not because we actually got beat. 0.96
00:47:36 We didn't get beat.
00:47:37 Christ is our head.
00:47:38 He can't lose.
00:47:39 Christians didn't get beat.
00:47:41 The match never even happened. 0.61
00:47:44 Christians threw in the towel because they were afraid of being called legalistic. 0.94
00:47:47 And so they surrendered entire breaths of human society to the enemy. 0.91
00:47:54 And the enemy, again, being those who've been taken captive by the true enemy,
00:47:58 not flesh and blood, but Satan, to do his will.
00:48:00 Christians forfeited these things because they were afraid
00:48:03 that if they preached on these things,
00:48:06 that they would be accused of being legalistic,
00:48:09 they'd be accused of being theocratic, theonomic, any of these things.
00:48:16 when the reality is it's just christian it's just christian the bible applies to all of life
00:48:22 right it's sufficient the bible says it's sufficient for life and godliness yeah jesus
00:48:28 the bible doesn't apply to everything just life and godliness life is a big category
00:48:31 it's a really big category some might say it's all-encompassing it encompasses all of life
00:48:39 so all that being said here's my little cultural commentary remember luther martin luther
00:48:46 one of the things he wanted to do was not just rediscover the gospel because it had been buried
00:48:51 in all the gunk of roman catholicism it's not just that he wanted to to remove the gunk that
00:48:57 was surrounding the diamond and to reveal once more the gospel of jesus christ but but in doing
00:49:03 that he wanted to to recover orthodox gospel doctrine but he also wanted a long-term solution
00:49:12 because he knew that if it was just him getting right doctrine
00:49:15 and preaching it to as many people as would hear him,
00:49:18 that would only solve the problem for a few people
00:49:21 and for a temporary period of time.
00:49:24 He knew that if he was really going to solve the problem,
00:49:27 that the solution would live on beyond himself,
00:49:30 what would he have to do?
00:49:33 He would have to make sure that the Bible was translated into the vulgar tongue.
00:49:38 Vulgar meaning that's in the Westminster and the 1689 Confession.
00:49:41 it just means the common day tongue the bible would have to be translated at that time it was
00:49:46 only in latin it was called the vulgate and in the vulgate they had misinterpreted text
00:49:52 like do penance when the bible would say and repentance that's a pretty big variant right
00:49:59 there the difference between penance and repentance so the vulgate it was inaccurate
00:50:04 and not only was it inaccurate but it was in latin which nobody could read or even understand
00:50:10 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 This is interesting.
00:50:20 Hocus pocus actually comes from, it's a rendering of the phrase in Latin that the Roman Catholic priest would say
00:50:28 when he would change the bread into the body of Christ, transubstantiation,
00:50:34 change the bread into the literal body of Christ and the wine into the literal blood of Christ.
00:50:39 The people, they didn't know Latin.
00:50:41 They didn't know anything that was happening in the entire church service.
00:50:44 They're sitting there, and all they're really getting out of it
00:50:47 is they're seeing robes and tassels and hand motions
00:50:50 and priests doing this and that and statues and all these different things.
00:50:54 That's why Catholicism is all about what you see.
00:50:58 That's one of the things the Reformers did is they said,
00:51:00 hey, let's take the Lord's Supper, as important as it is,
00:51:03 the table, let's move that.
00:51:04 That doesn't need to be central.
00:51:06 It's a big one.
00:51:07 But you know what needs to be central?
00:51:08 the tables on the side the pulpits in the middle it's the word the word because faith doesn't come
00:51:17 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 if we don't even speak their language and so luther and tyndale guys gave their lives
00:51:30 were burned at the stake as martyrs to get the Bible into the hands of the people.
00:51:37 Now, something happened in the technology world simultaneously.
00:51:42 So there's this resurgence, a reformation of doctrine and a mission,
00:51:49 but at the same time, in the practical world, in the culture, the printing press.
00:51:55 And in the providence of God who decrees all things,
00:51:57 he made sure that these things happened simultaneously and today we have i believe
00:52:03 for the first time in 500 years something comparable to the printing press namely the
00:52:08 internet and social media now this is what luther said because the council of trent and all the guys
00:52:14 at rome and the pope they hated luther they called him a wild boar that was going through the lord's
00:52:18 vineyard and ripping everything up ruining the harvest and their argument in a nutshell was
00:52:24 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 which was a dead language that knew nobody knew and you you translate into the vulgar tongue and
00:52:36 then take the Gutenberg printing press and print out copies to where every family in the world
00:52:41 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 you will open up a floodgate of iniquity remember that that's the phrase
00:52:53 a floodgate of iniquity and luther paraphrasing here he said i know he didn't argue he said i
00:53:01 know so be it so be it today we have the very same thing so that principle keep that principle
00:53:10 in mind the word of god is in latin nobody knows it except for the priest and they've
00:53:15 mistranslated the word of God and they are deceiving people into selling everything they
00:53:20 have to give indulgences to spring, you know, great grandma out of purgatory, right? You got
00:53:26 tinsel going around horrible priest and he's, and he's preaching and saying, can't you hear the
00:53:31 clawing and the screaming of your loved ones in purgatory? And if you would just give a little
00:53:35 bit more money, you could set them free. You selfish people, right? When you wonder like how,
00:53:40 how the Catholic Church has so much money?
00:53:44 There's a reason.
00:53:46 When you lie to everyone
00:53:47 and rip off the entire world,
00:53:50 and that's how you got your money, 0.92
00:53:52 like what people like to say about white people,
00:53:55 Catholic Church, they did it. 0.94
00:53:57 They did it.
00:53:58 That's not a rumor.
00:53:59 That's not a critical race theory.
00:54:00 It's just bona fide truth. 0.97
00:54:02 That's why they have money.
00:54:04 When you lie to everyone and rip them off,
00:54:06 then 500 years of investing and money accumulated,
00:54:08 boom, you're rich.
00:54:09 That being said,
00:54:10 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 Revelation.
00:54:27 On truth.
00:54:28 Well, in our time, what do we have now?
00:54:31 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 and through the age of the internet and social media platforms what we have now is this we have
00:54:49 a floodgate of iniquity see the same thing that happened 500 years ago with luther and and rome
00:54:54 the roman catholic church they had a monopoly on the revelation in this case the revelation being
00:55:00 the word of god they had a monopoly they're the only ones who knew the truth and they were able
00:55:05 to twist it to serve their purposes and oppress the people and then luther said i'm going to get
00:55:09 into the common tongue. Now, here's what happened. All of a sudden, truth became possible. People
00:55:15 could actually know what's true. And there's pros and cons. The con was 3,000 different
00:55:21 denominations, and a lot of them are lousy. And what Luther said was absolutely right. 1.00
00:55:31 What did he say? Worth it. Worth it. Because better to have a floodgate of iniquity, right?
00:55:37 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 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 It may feel like a needle in a haystack,
00:56:04 but before, in Rome, there was no needle at all.
00:56:09 So it was one bushel of hay, no needle.
00:56:14 Now it's a haystack, a mile wide,
00:56:17 but there is some needles in there.
00:56:19 And it's going to take work, and you're going to have to dig,
00:56:20 and you're going to have to research,
00:56:21 but you can find the truth.
00:56:23 You can see God's word and come to an accurate interpretation
00:56:26 of what God actually says.
00:56:28 The same thing 500 years, half a millennia later.
00:56:31 And I don't think it's a coincidence in the sovereignty and providence of God.
00:56:34 The same principle has happened again.
00:56:36 Instead of Rome, it's the left-wing institutionalized media.
00:56:41 Instead of the Bible, God's word, it's information, news, what's happening in the world.
00:56:46 And instead of the Gutenberg press, it's the internet and social media.
00:56:50 Instead of a million different denominations, it's now the Daily Wire and the Blaze and everything else.
00:56:56 Do you see? It's the same principle.
00:56:58 and so right now there's a lot of confusion a lot of division and a lot of polarization
00:57:03 because there's so many different sources of information but what i want to say is that's
00:57:09 an improvement better for there to be a million different sources of information and most of them
00:57:15 false but for the truth to actually be possible to find then what we had in our nation just a few
00:57:23 years prior which was the gatekeepers of institutionalized media that never told the
00:57:30 truth so no truth one source the truth but a million sources and you're going to have to sift
00:57:39 that's an improvement but just like 500 years ago with the launch of the reformation i think we're
00:57:47 seeing a lot of that occur again and one of the fallouts one of the cons the symptoms of that
00:57:52 is mass division.
00:57:55 It's the earth seemingly giving way.
00:58:00 Old institutions, old gatekeepers,
00:58:03 tottering, crumbling.
00:58:07 And they don't want to let go of their power easily.
00:58:10 They're not coming down without a fight.
00:58:12 So they're yelling, 0.91
00:58:13 you're a racist, right?
00:58:15 Because that's the counter argument 0.97
00:58:17 when you don't actually have substance. 1.00
00:58:18 You're a racist. 0.89
00:58:19 all these kind of that's that's what what you're hearing right now is you're hearing the tottering 0.99
00:58:25 of cultures you're you're hearing you're hearing the final words of an angry man on his deathbed
00:58:35 and he knows it what you're seeing right now is the earth giving way
00:58:41 changing. And the people of God in times like these are to be courageous. I'm going to skip
00:58:52 to the very end because I've gone too long. What should we look like? What does courage
00:58:58 look like? It's speaking out. It's getting involved. It's all these things. But in our
00:59:05 text, the main thing that courage looks like is this. Be still and know that I am God. I will be
00:59:18 exalted among the nations. I will be exalted in the earth. The Lord of hosts is with us. The God
00:59:24 of Jacob is our fortress. What does courage look like for the church in this hour? What does courage
00:59:31 look like for the people of God, the righteous who are called to be as bold as lions. It looks
00:59:38 like a prophetic crying out. That's true. We've got scriptures that speak to that. But our text
00:59:46 today tells us that another element, another characteristic of the righteous courage in the
00:59:53 midst of the whole earth giving way is stillness be still and know that i am god
01:00:01 one of the signs of fear if we were to make the argument from the opposite direction
01:00:08 one of the signs of fear is tottering shaking reeling clawing grasping it's it's a frantic
01:00:19 position, right? Isn't that what you tell someone on a plane, if there's a lot of turbulence,
01:00:23 and all of a sudden, the mass, oxygen mass, they pop down, and someone's like freaking out. What
01:00:29 do they look like? If someone's freaking out, do they look like this? No. What does it look like
01:00:35 when someone's having a panic attack? They're hyperventilating. They're moving. They're moving
01:00:40 crazy, crazy, crazy. You know about that, Jack. They're moving crazy, right? They can't stay
01:00:46 still and so conversely what does it look like to be courageous a stillness
01:00:53 our world is frantic right now because they're afraid you think they're angry
01:01:02 their anger is actually the symptom of the deeper thing which is they're afraid they know that the
01:01:10 world is changing they know that there are musical chairs happening right now institutions crumbling
01:01:16 other new ones rising. They know they're on the ropes. They know they're losing. They know they're
01:01:23 in trouble. They know, as Romans 1 says, all men without an excuse. They all know. They can't claim 1.00
01:01:29 ignorance. That's a lie. They know that there is a God in heaven who judges the quick and the dead
01:01:34 and that he will do what is right in all the earth. They know that the piper is coming. They know
01:01:42 that they're being found out they know that they ultimately are not a refuge a strong town
01:01:50 a fortress they're not that secure they're not that strong they know that like the flowers of
01:01:57 the field and like the grass they will fade and wither and so what looks like strength what looks
01:02:04 like anger what looks like all this commotion is really just the signs of a panic attack it's the
01:02:11 signs of an anxious people who have not put their hope in God, who is a refuge for the righteous.
01:02:20 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 engage, but not in a frantic, reeling, and grasping way. I'm not saying that we should be silent,
01:02:36 that we should be uninvolved.
01:02:39 The church must speak in this hour.
01:02:41 The church has a prophetic responsibility
01:02:44 and function to cry out.
01:02:47 But in our crying out,
01:02:50 let's not cry out from a place of anxiety.
01:02:54 See, there are some pastors
01:02:55 who have just folded to the fear of man.
01:02:57 There are other pastors who are crying out.
01:03:00 But their motive in crying out
01:03:03 is it's fueled their voice,
01:03:06 their loud voice you can tell it's fueled by fear they're afraid they're desperately saying no no no
01:03:12 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 unsteady foundation so we can't bow the knees of the fear of man we can't be apathetic and do
01:03:24 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 even the truth, but from a place of anxiety and fear. The only option for the church is to speak
01:03:38 with a calm, resolved, even keel assurance that God is our refuge and that he is our present
01:03:50 help, especially when the earth gives way. Let's pray. Father God, thank you for your word.
01:03:57 thank you for its truth thank you that it's always relevant it's always applicable
01:04:03 lord i pray that um that we would take your word from here and that even further we would apply it
01:04:09 to our hearts and to our lives that we would believe your word and that we would live your
01:04:14 word in every aspect of life that the lordship of christ would reign supreme over everything
01:04:20 that there would not be one arena in our hearts or in our lives that we keep to ourselves that
01:04:26 we think that you have nothing to say about. Abanish that thought from our heads. That's a
01:04:32 demonic thought. It's a demonic doctrine that so much of the church has bought into, but it's a 0.54
01:04:38 lie. There's not one square inch in this world that Jesus Christ, that you do not cry out mine.
01:04:46 You want it all because you purchased it all. It rightfully belongs to you and even the nations
01:04:54 themselves, even those who are raging and tottering, they are your inheritance.
01:05:02 We love you and we trust you. It's in Jesus' name that we pray. Amen.
01:05:09 Oh, hi. I didn't see you there. Thanks for sticking around. I've got an important announcement
01:05:13 to make. That's the Theonomy and Postmillennialism Conference, 2023, May 5th, 6th, and 7th,
01:05:20 The Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, Theonomy and Postmillennialism.
01:05:24 We've got the speakers that we've already had lined up.
01:05:27 That's Dr. James White, Dr. Joseph Boot, Dr. Gary DeMar, non-doctor, Pastor Joel Webin.
01:05:32 But we also have a bonus speaker, and that is Dale Partridge from Real Christianity.
01:05:37 Perhaps you've heard of him.
01:05:38 If not, you should start listening to his podcast.
01:05:40 It's fantastic.
01:05:42 Dale Partridge is going to be joining our team.
01:05:45 We're going to have live panels on Friday night and Saturday night where you'll be able
01:05:49 to write in questions and get them answered. We're also going to have a catered barbecue,
01:05:53 Texas style barbecue meal on Friday. That's a part of your registration fee. All that is covered.
01:05:58 So you need to get that. This is how you do it. Go and register right now at
01:06:03 rightresponseconference.com. Again, that's rightresponseconference.com. God bless.