-Transcript-
00:35 Amen, glory to God. Welcome to the program. Thank you for joining us at the cafe today.
00:41 Hope you’re having a wonderful day. Hope the Lord is richly blessing you and you are just loving Him. That’s a great day when you are able to see the little blessings in your life and the big ones and you just give it right back to God in honor and praise.
00:57 And today that’s what we’re doing. We are praising God. We’re in the book of Psalms, Psalm 46, and we are looking at how God is a very present help in times of trouble.
01:10 He’s a very present help in times of trouble. Can you say Amen to that today? Can you come to terms of the idea that God is very present in times of trouble? As I’ve looked back over the last few years, our family has faced troubles. We’ve faced distress and problems.
01:30 And no, they haven’t been the biggest problems in the world, but they’re big to us. Amen. Just like you have problems, they’re big to you.
01:37 And I look back and I think of God just showing up and showing out in our times of trouble and how we as a family can gather together and give God glory and ask Him, hey God, don’t go anywhere. Hey God, stay close. Hey God, how about this? Get closer and we’ll do our part.
01:54 We’ll pray and we’ll seek your face and we’ll repent before you so we have tender hearts and we’ll draw near to you. We’ll try to live out those principles in your word.
02:03 But look, God, He is here and present all the time, yet oftentimes we feel Him and see Him working the most when we’re in a very difficult situation.
02:15 Psalm 46: 1, God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Now, I love how Psalm 46 starts with two principles. God is our refuge and our strength.
02:28 Let’s start with refuge. What is a refuge? That’s somewhere you go for safety. Well, where are you going to go for safety? You’re gonna go to somewhere strong, something that is fortified.
02:38 Amen. I think of the conflict in Ukraine and those brave Ukrainian soldiers that are fighting. As the Russian army comes in, if they see the battles getting hot and they’re in trouble, what are they gonna do? They’re gonna go to their refuge.
02:51 You’re gonna go to a bunker, a tunnel. They’re gonna go to a shelter. They’re gonna go to a high tower, a walled city.
02:57 They’re gonna go where they can be safe. God in His mercy and grace has given us Psalm 46 to help us understand that that’s who He is, that He is our refuge. And a refuge must be strong.
03:09 Amen. If you are seeking refuge, you’re not gonna seek refuge in something that’s fallible, that’s broken, that could break. Amen.
03:16 You wouldn’t do that, would you? No, you would go somewhere strong. And that’s our God here today. I love how strong God is.
03:23 And there’s bits and pieces you see throughout the Bible. I’ve been studying numbers and talking to our church about numbers and about the Israelites and the mixed multitude complaining for that flesh, for that quail, they wanted some meat. And God sends it and Moses is looking around saying, how are you gonna give these 600,000 foot men plus their families meat, essentially? So well over a million people meet and God’s response is, has my hand waxed short? Am I not strong enough? Amen.
03:52 I’m God. How sometimes we question God when we ask Him how He’ll do the remarkable, yet that’s who He is. So we must understand that God is our refuge because God is our strength and He is all powerful.
04:04 So He is our refuge because He is sovereign. And that’s hard to come to terms with sometimes because you’ll say to yourself, you walk down this path of doubt, you’ll say, well, if God is sovereign, why am I over here? And why is this, this way? And why is that, that way? That’s why the Bible says His ways are higher than our ways. Amen.
So much higher that they are like the heavens to the earth. Amen. There’s no comparison to God’s knowledge and His power and His strength.
04:29 And what we have here is an all-powerful God that is close to those that seek Him. And the Bible is rich in detail with this idea or principle biblically that we are to seek God. We are to desire Him.
04:48 We are to study to show ourselves approved, not be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. We are to get into the word and study it and desire Him, to know Him. And as we have that desire to know Him, and as we seek Him, as we open that door that’s being knocked on by our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, as we do those things, He shows up.
05:07 Amen. And that’s when we can see His strength. And now that we know that He is strong and He is a refuge because He is strong, then we know that He can be a very present help in times of trouble.
05:17 And again, if you have a close walk with the Lord, you too will encounter trouble. Some people, especially maybe a lost person, may think, oh, if I get saved, life will be all sunny. These worldly problems will go away and nothing will be bad.
05:31 And that couldn’t be further from the truth. When you’re saved, you’ll be tested and tried like never before. But the difference is when you’re saved and when you’re close to God, when you’re seeking God, when you’re repentant of your sin, when you’re living for Him, you can really see Him in times of trouble.
05:46 He’s a very present help. And we think about this, how good God is to show up when we need Him most. Because this is such an important point.
05:55 Remember this, God knows the context in which we live. God knows the context in which we live. So we may often go to God and say, Lord, you just don’t understand what I’m going through or how hard it is for me, right? And God’s thinking up there, I made you.
06:10 I know exactly. I know how many hairs are on your head. I know everything about you.
06:15 I can see the future. I can see the past. I knew you before you were even created.
You are fearfully and wonderfully made. Amen. I’m here to give you peace and an expected end.
06:23 I know exactly what’s going on. So the point is God knows the context in which we’re struggling. Therefore, when we go through a hard time and we see God move by giving us peace, by answering prayers, by opening doors or closing them, whatever it is, when we see God move, we can then thank God for being a very present help in a time of trouble and for understanding the context in which we’re living.
06:46 Because is that not proof? I can think of a time I was very sick not long ago. And I was praying to God and this peace just washed over me. And the Lord, it was just right there with me.
07:01 And I was thinking of scriptures and great things that the scriptures promise in the future. And for lack of a better word, it was just exceptional time being really sick and overwhelmed. And that’s only the Christian could say that.
07:14 But what I learned from that is, number one, the Psalm 46 is true. God is our refuge and He’s our strength. We go to Him.
07:21 He’s a very present help in times of trouble. And I also learned that God knows the context in which we are living because I had more peace then than I do say on a day when things are going well. And so how is that? Well, because God knew I needed it.
07:35 Amen. And by the work of the Holy Spirit, He gave it to me. Now, look at the consequence of this in a good way.
07:40 Look at the consequence. Verse one, God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Verse two, therefore will not we fear though the earth be removed, though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea.
07:57 You see the consequence or the result of trusting God and Him being all powerful and having all strength and being very present, right? Amen. He’s very present. We won’t have to fear.
08:11 We are given a fearlessness that only God can provide because when we understand who He is and we understand that He has all sovereignty and all power, we understand His promises in His Word that He promises never to leave us nor forsake us, that He’ll stick us closer than a brother, that He loves us, that He sent His only begotten Jesus to die for us, that we have the Holy Spirit living within us, that He will keep us until that last day, Amen,
08:39 when we’ll be redeemed and be with Him forever and then be kept with Him for an eternity, that He won’t lose even one, then we don’t have to fear. We don’t have to have anything to fear. Our fear is gone, Amen, and it’s replaced with a love and adoration for God.
08:57 He deserves the praise because He’s delivering us from so much evil and pain and suffering, and it’s only by God’s sovereign power that He is a refuge and that He can do that. Verse three, though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof, say La, there is a river, the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God, the holy place of the tabernacles of the Most High. God is in the midst of her.
09:24 She shall not be moved. God shall help her, and that right early. Oh, you know, this is so beautiful because we know that in heaven, the Bible tells us there’s the river running through heaven and we have the tree of life there, but also we can look at God as that river of peace and joy and love in the midst of trials, and we look at God as a sovereign one that has all power, that is here to help us right early.
09:51 Oftentimes, I preach about how somehow along the way, I think the devil’s convinced people through the worldly culture that prayers take a really long time to get answered, and you know, if you pray, just give it a couple of years, and look, it may be some prayers do take a long time to get answered, but others don’t. Amen. And I know that if you are close to God, He is not going to be far from you. The Bible tells us that, to draw nigh to Him and He’ll draw nigh to you, and the other part of that is cleansing your hand as a sinner, repenting, giving God all your sins and asking for forgiveness, and He’s faithful and just to forgive all those sins.
10:26 So number one, we have to be saved, which is only by Jesus Christ, by grace alone, through faith alone, and Jesus Christ alone must believe what Christ did on the cross for us, realize our sin debt, and then thank God, because He’s there, He’s very present, Amen,
10:40 and He will not be moved, and He will be there even early to help us. And I think of the scripture I’ve been mentioning a lot lately about how God goes before us, amen, and if we start looking at our life in the light of God going before us, we can see that He’s working,
10:58 even as Romans 8:28 tells us, you know, all things working together for good, that those that love the Lord, those that are called according to His purpose. When we look at even bad situations, even situations of trial, we see that God has a purpose in it to help us develop patience and faith, to give us a sense of gratitude and appreciation.
11:16 And I can tell you that there’s something special about that. There’s something special about the way that the Lord refines us through the fire. And if we just are willing to be obedient, to submit to Him and realize that really there’s no trouble, because He’s a very present help in times of trouble, and His arm is not whacked short, He has all power.
11:36 Verse 6, the heathen raged, the kingdoms were moved. He uttered His voice, the earth melted.Psalm 46:6, 66 for man.
11:46 Here we go. The heathen raged, the kingdoms were moved. He uttered His voice, the earth melted.
11:54 So look at this sequence of events, the heathen rage. Is that not true today? Oh, how everybody here on this earth that’s living for the world wants to rub it in God’s face, rub it in His eyes, say, look at me. I’m for all this wickedness.
12:06 I’m for drunkenness. I’m for drugs. I’m for intoxication.
12:08 I’m for homosexuality. I’m for all manner of lewdness and crudeness. I’m for obscenities.
12:16 I’m for false gods and idols. They want to do that. The heathen are raging today, more so than I’ve ever seen.
12:22 I tell my wife I want to watch a basketball game or football game, which I really don’t try to do as much as I used to. I got to mute the commercials, amen. I have to mute the commercials on network TV.
12:33 It’s unbelievable. You can’t even, social media, forget it. There are social media places you can’t even go now because all the pictures and videos on there.
The heathen is raging. The kingdoms were moved. He, God, uttered His voice, the earth melted.
12:48 Think about that. How was the earth created? God’s spoken into existence. What happens in the book of Revelation when Christ comes back? The word is spoken and victory is given, Amen.
12:58 The word is very powerful and He’s all powerful. And as we see people rebel and push against the ways of God and the things of God, it is futile because He is all powerful.
13:08 And we need to think on this hard as we live this life and we struggle in this world and we wonder when will vengeance be enacted? When will we be made whole for worshiping Christ? Understand it’s already been done, number one, on the cross at Calvary, the devil’s back has been broken.
13:25 Number two, through this scripture, we can understand God’s power. And number three, through faith and perseverance, we will see Christ come again. We will see the literal kingdom of God here on earth.
13:39 We will see God’s glory in heaven for an eternity. We will see now and then that God is a very present help in times of trouble. We will see the strong arm of God.
13:48 We just need to hold on, folks. Hold on tight. Keep praying to Jesus.
13:50 Keep giving Him praise and realize He is the refuge. Run to Him as fast as you can every single day as you encounter struggles and watch what He can do. He is so powerful.
14:01 He’s all-powerful, all-knowing. He is great. And for time’s sake, I gotta wrap it up.
14:05 But I love the Lord here today and I know you do too. Continue to pray. Thank you so much for listening.
14:10 Take care. God bless and Amen.