-Transcript-
00:36 Amen. Glory to God. Welcome to the cafe today.
00:41 I hope you’re having a wonderful day and I’m just thankful to be here. Thankful for the opportunity to share God’s Word with you and the truth that is in God’s Word. You know there’s so much in God’s Word about faith and what is faith, what underpins faith, if not trust.
00:58 The idea that you can’t have faith if you don’t have trust, right? They’re kind of interchangeable. If, you know, the preacher says, have faith in God and He’s going to give you peace. Well if you don’t trust God, then how can you expect to have peace from Him? Or have faith in God and go to that appointment tomorrow that you’re afraid to go to.
01:19 And if you don’t trust God, then how can you have faith that He’s going to deliver you as you go to that important appointment for whatever it is? Trusting God is so important. And we see here in Psalm 112:7, He shall not be afraid of evil tidings. His heart is fixed, trusting the Lord.
01:39 What a beautiful Psalm. We shouldn’t be afraid of evil tidings. How often do we encounter evil tidings? I would say we encounter evil tidings every day.
01:47 Evil news, bad news, challenges. It just seems like it never ends. Amen? When I was young, I thought when I got older, problems would just seem to kind of go away and solve themselves, and this would go right, and that would go right.
02:02 Little did I know how sheltered I had been and how many problems would be at my doorstep day in and day out as I try to work for the Lord, as I try to operate a business, as I try to parent children, as I try to just simply stay healthy. All of these things become challenges in this life. We have evil tidings from all places, all corners of the earth oftentimes bring us evil tidings.
02:31 And here in Psalm 112:7, it says, He shall not be afraid of evil tidings. His heart is fixed, trusting in the Lord.Now that’s where we need to be.
02:41 We need to, number one, not be afraid of evil tidings. Number two, have our heart fixed. Have that power and strength to have our heart fixed on who? On God, trusting God, and then we should praise Him for it.
02:59 So, starting here, we shouldn’t be afraid. You know, if we’re trusting the Lord, that means that we should not be afraid. What is fear? Fear is typically kind of sewn out of the unknown.
03:09 I read an article many years ago, I think it was in a newspaper, about the theory or the way that people make scary movies or horror movies. They make them by hiding the character, and apparently something about that character not being seen fully makes that character more frightful. And that idea that, and again, trust Hollywood to scare people, okay, that idea here that we are frightened by what we don’t know is true in all facets of life, is it not? Think about the first day at school.
03:41 You were afraid to go to school if you didn’t know that school, or maybe you’re going to a new school. I think about the first day at work. You’re fearful, you’re anxious, because you don’t know what’s going to happen.
03:53 Recently my wife and I went to a conference for foster parents and foster parent training, and it was a two-day intensive conference on Saturday and Sunday. And we had just gotten back from a road trip on Friday to a radio station for the ministry. And so here we go on Saturday, we go up there, and I think my wife and I were both pretty anxious because we’re about to spend eight hours in a room with people we didn’t know, doing whatever we didn’t know we were going to do.
04:24 We didn’t know what we’re going to do. That’s what I’m trying to say here today. We didn’t know what we’re going to do, and so there’s a little bit of anxiety there.
04:33 And yeah, we were okay. We’re adults. We’re big boys and girls now.
04:38 We can handle it. But the next day was, I think, much more relaxed. It was much more fun because you didn’t worry so much because you got to know, oh, these people aren’t so bad.
04:46 They’re actually really nice, and all these assignments are really helpful, and so forth. And so it’s just that idea of knowing things makes us less afraid. So when we have this command to be not afraid, we have Psalm 112:7 telling us, he shall not be afraid of evil tidings.
05:04 We should then reflect on this idea of saying, well, then how do we know what we need to know so that we’re not afraid? And that, my friend, is in the Bible. The more that you read the Bible, the more that you study the Scriptures, the more that you spend time in God’s Word, he’ll illuminate what’s really going on in this world, and what you really need to pay attention to, and what you need to pay no mind to. And as that old hymn says, you know, as we get closer to the Lord, the things of this world grow strangely dim.
05:34 As we get closer to God in the Scriptures, the things of this world should grow strangely dim. We should not care about them. We should go away from them.
05:42 Our normal routine of maybe scrolling on a Facebook, or TikTok, or Instagram, or our normal routine of spending a few hours watching worldly TV, those things should fade away. And the reason why I’m saying that is because you’ll be happier. You’ll be more at peace.
05:59 The world won’t be able to throw these fearful things at you so quickly. You know, think about all the things that we’ve been through lately, and how the world has said that we should be afraid through this thing and that thing. And there’s always this sensationalism in the media, and among people, then it permeates, you know, the people that are reading the paper, or watching the news, and then they carry the media’s message.
06:21 And there’s so much fear in this world, and God’s saying, don’t be afraid. Psalm 118:8, it is better to trust in the Lordthan to put confidence in man. I love that.
06:33 Psalm 118.8, it is better totrust in the Lord than to put confidence in man. Amen to that. We are to trust God and not put our confidence in man.
06:41 And that means we should not fear, because God tells us over and over again in His Word, both literally, the Scripture will say, do not fear, do not be afraid, it is I, saith the Lord, but also collectively, as we read the Scriptures, they should soothe us, they should calm us. I’ll tell you what, it doesn’t matter where I am in the Bible when I read it, it calms me, it settles me, it soothes me, it’s the only thing that I know to do when I’m worked up, or wound up, or worried about something, is to get into God’s Word and pray. And those two things together will lead to power.
07:19 Psalm 118:6,the Lord is on my side, I will not fear what man can do unto me. What can man dounto me. Excuse me, Psalm 118:6, the Lord is on my side, I will not fear what canman do unto me. Well, what can man do unto you if God is on your side and you understand and believe that God is all-powerful? And that is a big step, friend.
07:43 A lot of people don’t believe that. If they believed that, they’d fear God, they’d live much differently. But if you understand that God is all-powerful, that He is all-sovereign, that nothing is too hard for Him, and then you say, this God is on my side? The Lord is on my side? I’ve been saved, I accepted Christ as Savior.
08:01 I know what Christ did on the cross for me. I believe it. I believe that He was risen from the dead, and Father God rose the Son from the dead, so that when I believe on Him, I get that Holy Spirit.
08:14 Now I’m going to worry about what man can do to me? Oh no, God’s in control, friend. He’s fully sovereign. If you go through a turmoil, if you go through a trying or a testing, God’s allowed it.
08:26 In Romans 8:28, it tells us it’s for your good, amen? For those that love the Lord, it is for their good, what happens to them, every bit of it. Psalm 118:6, the Lord is on my side. I will not fear.
08:39 What can man do unto me? Psalm 118:14. So now we’ve gone through three verses. Psalm 118 is a powerful psalm. I’ll tell you, read that thing, and you’ll be fired up.
08:52 Read this beautiful scripture, Amen. I shouldn’t call it a thing. It is the Word of God. Psalm 118:14, the Lord is my strength and song and has become my salvation.
09:02 Look, there’s a whole message in this one psalm alone. There are many messages in it. The Lord is my strength and my song and has become my salvation.
09:08 We see here the psalm is telling us that we have strength in God, so we trust God. We don’t need to fear, and that trust is based upon strength, the strength not of ourselves, but of God. I may wake up one day and be very weak and may have a massive to-do list and have no clue how I’ll get it done, and I may say, I, I, I. What I need to do is say, God, God, God.
09:35 Lord, let you increase and me decrease. Lord, let your power and strength be shown through me today because I know in my power I just can’t do this, but in your power I can. This is why Paul mentions that thorn in the flesh that he prayed fervently three times for the Lord to remove, and the Lord didn’t remove it.
09:52 And then Paul says, I’ll glory in my infirmities because when I am made weak, he is made strong, Amen. And so sometimes we deal with problems and we say, oh, woe is me, and oh, I don’t know what to do. Instead, we need to say, great is God. He knows what to do.
10:09 He’s going to show his power through me today, amen? The Lord is my strength and song and has become my salvation. The idea of song like singing and praising, trusting God and not being in fear should lead to what? It should lead to praise, amen? We should be so happy that God has delivered us from this world. We should be so happy that we have strength and power in God.
10:33 We should be so happy that trusting God has led us down a path that is fruitful and right in his sight, amen? What should we do? We should praise him. What should we praise God for? Well, as we trust the Lord and as he gives us strength and as we no longer fear what’s in the world, we should praise Him for our life. Think about that.
10:55 The air we breathe is supplied by God. He has given us life. The same God that is in all control and sovereign gave you life.
11:05 And not only did he give you life, but if you’re saved, Amen, he gave you salvation. He gave you new life. So we should praise God for our life, period, the fact that we have it, Amen, and not take it for granted and really cherish the fact that God gave us life.
11:22 He gave us a season here to live for him and to work for him for a heavenly reward. And he gave us salvation, which goes hand in hand. We can’t get that heavenly reward unless we’re saved, Amen. He gave us salvation.
11:33 He gave us the word, Amen. I was going to say he gave us Roman’s Road so we understand how to be saved. He gave us Paul who wrote Roman’s Road, and he gave us Jesus Christ who died on the cross for us, which is what the Roman’s Road is based upon. The idea of that substitutionary death, that we have a sin debt that we cannot pay, but that Jesus Christ being perfect and sinless died on the cross to save us and that we inherit that righteousness.
12:02 It’s imputed to us as righteousness instead of a debt, a sin debt that we can’t pay when we accept Christ’s free gift of salvation on the cross. And that salvation gift is something we must accept. If I come and knock on your door and say, I’ve got a gift for you, you may look at me and say, who is this big bearded man at my door asking me to take a gift from him? And you’ll have a decision to make.
12:23 I’m not going to force this gift upon you. You can say, I’ll take that gift, or you can say, I’m going to slam the door and I’m going to walk away. Well, guess who may help you make that decision? Guess who may be working inside of you to make that decision, convicting you? The Holy Spirit, God himself, Amen. So we thank God for salvation, not just that salvation is in the word, not just that we can be saved, not just that he wants all to be saved, not just that he sent Christ to die for us, Amen, but even the fact that he convicted us to be saved.
12:55 I was thinking of my salvation experience the other day. I was thinking I was a teenager and a young person and my mom would read the Bible to me and I had been, you know, or baptized or whatever it was as a little baby, but I didn’t understand it. I don’t think that would have made me saved.
13:09 As I reached the age of accountability, I wasn’t saved, but I had a deep conviction. I’ll never forget being in high school, a lost young man arguing with another lost young man about pro life and how all children come from God and are a gift of God and they should not be murdered by abortion. I remember, you know, where did that come from? Why did I believe that? Where was that conviction? Oh, that’s God, Amen.
13:33 That was God working on me at a young age, Amen, even though I was out in sin. You know, the Bible says that the Lord loved us. He commended his love towards us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
13:45 While I was out in sin, I had that conviction. And as I got older, I remember when it finally came time that my dad was in church, a church for a season there, and they said, hey, you can walk the aisle. I said, I’m ready.
13:57 I want to walk the aisle. I remember being excited. They said, well, walk the aisle at so-and-so time and your friend will be there, whatever it was.
14:04 And for time’s sake, we have to stop here, but tune in next time for the second part of this message on trusting God, having faith in God. Thank you for listening. Take care.
14:11 God bless and Amen.