Triumphant Over Trouble - Part 2

Christian from the counter was coming. We would do a report brought dessert manger just wanted out of surrender through the real Turning Point of the river your Moses, Norway, when you find yourself in the thick of trouble for the proven strategies in Psalm 46 overcoming the trials of life is the conclusion of his message triumphant order. Thank you for joining us today were super thankful to have you along for this ride as we've been studying the book of Psalms were down to just this one and the one we do next Monday and Tuesday and will be finished with a series today were going to finish up what we started yesterday as we teach Psalm 46 one the great Psalms are all great but this is greater than the greatest Mrs. Martin Luther, Psalm, and we understand why when we study it together. Let's do it now. One of the important benefits of the Reformation was the rediscovery of congregational singing. Luther had such strong convictions about the use of the power of sacred music. He expressed his convictions in a number of statements that I found this week. For instance, in this one.

If any man despise his music as all fanatics do for him. I have no liking for music is a gift and grace of God, not of invention of men. Thus, it drives out the devil and makes people cheerful. I hope you heard what he said he sitting but then like musics a fanatic.

I didn't say that that's Martin Luther and again, the devil, the originator of sorrowful anxieties and restless troubles. Please before the sound of music almost as much as before, the word of God.

And since I'm a preacher and I love music so much. I gravitated toward this one said I would allow no man to preach or teach God's people without a proper knowledge abuse of power of sacred song interesting the single most powerful hymn of the Protestant Reformation was Luther's a mighty Fortress is our God based upon Psalm 46 is him became the battle cry of a people great source of strength and inspiration even for those who were martyred for their convictions.

This hymn has been translated into almost every language and there are over 60 different English translations of the text itself. When difficulty or discouragement would come upon Martin Luther and his buddy Philip Melanchthon, who were the architects of the Reformation. They would come to one another and sometimes Luther would say Philip, let us sing the 46 Psalm and they would take out the metric version that Luther had written they would sing the words of this great song in the first line of this national hymn of the Protestant Reformation is fittingly inscribed on Martin Luther's tomb, which you can see sometime if you ever visit Germany. Our God is an awesome refuge for our time. For Luther's time, for any time notice. Secondly, he's an accessible refuge. Notice what it says in the text. He is a very present help in trouble.

Reminds me what I heard a parent asked the little boy what the Bible says about lying and he said the Bible says that lying is a very present help in the time of trouble.

That is not what the Bible says God, our refuge is a very present help in the time of trouble.

The word for trouble could be translated in tight places. How many of you ever been in a tight place between a rock and a hard place. You don't know what to do.

The words very present convey the idea that God is easy to be found in windiest bounties enough for any situation. God never withdraws himself from us when we are in trouble. He is more present to us than a friend or relative can be think about this God is more present to us than the trouble that has driven us to them in the first place is a friend in need and a friend indeed as we read in Exodus chapter 33 in verse 14 God's word to Moses was my presence will go with you and I will give you rest is very accessible and then notice. Thirdly, he's ageless. This refuge is not only accessible, but it's an ageless refuge. It says in verses two and three of the 46th and therefore will we not fear even though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea, though the waters roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with its swelling. Here the psalmist is tried to figure out all of the calamitous things that could happen being removed, the mountains being destroyed.

He's come up with all of the things that would think of natural and national disasters and he said if all those things happen. There are still God. Sometimes we wring our hands with the things that happen in our culture, we think, oh my goodness, what if this takes place. Look what happened on earth you know, we ask you to read part of Osama hundred and 225 through 28. Let's read it out loud together of all laying on your they will perish. You will yesterday all my clothes and she what you are saying here's an children of your servants will continue their descendents will be established when your trouble comes retreat to your refuge is awesome. He's available he's ageless when everything else fails, there still God. Notice in the second stanza of the Psalm, and when trouble comes, you need to rediscover your strength. There are two thoughts here in this stanza. First of all, the first part of your strength you need to rediscover is that you have a secret power within did you know that I let me tell you something that's really interesting to me.

Whenever an ancient city thought they were going to be surrounded or seized by another nation. They feared most of all, not the enemy, not there, and battlements, not their armaments, they feared the supply of food and water inside the walled city.

So when Hezekiah realized that the Assyrians were coming toward Jerusalem. We had enough time to do a little preparation. He took great care to make sure that his city would be protected and listen to what he did in the kindling Valley outside of Jerusalem. There was a deep spring and ever bubbling spring called the spring of Dion and the spring was the water supply of Jerusalem and had to be protected and so Hezekiah redirected the waters of the spring through a conduit that was 1777 feet long, hewn out of solid rock and he redirected the waters of the spring of Dion under the wall of the city of Jerusalem into a reservoir so that was right in the middle of the city that he went out any covered up any evidence of the spring and did it in such a clandestine way that's inaccurate been the Assyrians had no idea where the water supply was or what happened to it. If God hadn't taken out the Assyrians that night. Hezekiah had enough water inside the city to keep his people alive for a long time and so we read in verse four. There is a river whose streams shall make glad the city of God, the holy place of the tabernacle of the most high. How many of you know that in the midst of the walled city trouble all around you have a resource in the person of the Holy Spirit of God.

Everywhere you look in the New Testament. You see that the Lord Jesus teaching any powerful reminder to his people in the book of John chapter 4 said whoever drinks of this water will thirst again but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life, and again in the seventh chapter of John on the last day the great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, if anyone thirst, let them come to me and drink.

He who believes in me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water. When you have the Holy Spirit of God within you. You have a resource a secret resource that nobody knows about its down deep inside of who you are as a person gets the holy God himself incarnate in you through the Holy Spirit.

When trouble comes, don't look out there you not find anything out there even close to the resource of the Holy Spirit who lives within you is the Almighty God.

He is the stream that never ceases to supply not only do you have a secret power within you. But if you keep reading in the Psalm you discover you have a secret person within you notice verses five through seven. God is in the midst of her she shall not be moved.

God shall help her just at the break of dawn the nations rage than the kingdoms were moved, he uttered his voice and the melted the Lord of hosts is with us. The God of Jacob is our refuge.

You see how this Psalm reflects what God did before dawn when all the people were killed by the angel and the rejoicing in the great victory of the Lord, like the fourth person in the fire in the book of Daniel. They looked in and there were more than Shadrach me shack and Abednego there was 1/4 person like into the son of God.

God was in the fire with his children, like the disciples out of the Sea of Galilee fishing at night and the storm blows up in their panic stricken. They don't know what to do in the Lord God's asleep in the back of the boat and the one who created the waves and the wind spoke one word, peace be still and everything was over. How many of you know.

So often we go through trouble. We look everywhere but the right place and I'd rather be in the storm with God in the boat and on the shore without and wouldn't you. I'd rather be in the fire with the Lord God there protecting me and standing outside the furnace without his provision Bible says when we go through trouble. What we need to do is re-examine and restore and remember we have a resource to secret resources. The Holy Spirit, God himself in the midst of us. We come to the third stanza reminder that we need to redirect our thoughts here is a wonderful reminder to us whenever we face trouble. This is psychological. In some sense of the word. It's therapeutic and some sense of the word, but it's theological in every sense of the word. It is God's word to us what you need to do when you go through trouble.

First of all, redirect your thoughts by reviewing the works of the Lord. Notice what it says in the eighth verse, behold the works of the Lord, who has made desolation's in the earth and makes war ceased to the end of the earth. He breaks the bone cuts the spear into he burns the cherry did fire whenever you go through a difficult place in your life when trouble comes your way. One of the greatest things you could do is look back over your shoulder and review what God is done for you. Remember that the God of today is the God of yesterday the God who sustains you to where you are right now was brought you victoriously through every trouble you've ever experienced that God is the God who stands with you in the midst of this trial. I love what it says in the story of Sinnott. The next morning Barry got up and they were all dead corpses.

How do you ever forget a victorious intervention like that. How do you ever forget the interventions that God is exhibited in your life and one of the things that I love to tell people about and try to encourage them to do it. I keep trying to be faithful at it every day myself is to record what God is doing in your life in a journal because we have a tremendous capacity for forget the works of the Lord. I've been doing this now since 1994, and now it's fun for me to go back when I'm writing in my journal on a particular day and say I wonder what was going on in my life. On this day in 1994 I go back in that pile of papers and pull out those two pages and read you know what I forgot all about that.

I forgot what God did, sometimes you know you can just almost get high on what God did for your four years ago. You know, just get excited about the thinking back to the circumstances. Behold the works of the Lord to see what happens.

Satan isolates us to our present calamity out of context of the greater work of God is not what he does. He makes us think that this thing were going through right now is everything and that nothing else is involved, but this is a little blip on the chart and we need to see how God has helped us in the past. Behold the works of the Lord in the second part of that last stanza reminds us in Psalm 46 that we need not only to review the works of the Lord. We need to reclaim the words of the Lord. Notice what he says as he closes out this hymn be still and know that I am God.

I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth the Lord of hosts is with us. The God of Jacob is our refuge hardest part of all of that is the first two words be still be still. That's what we tell our children be still sometimes I think God leans over the banisters of heaven and sees us running around in our Wednesday activities. He just leans over like where is located sent piece down because when you're frenzied and you're doing everything you can find God in the midst of the frenzy you need to retreat to your refuge. Rediscover your strengths and then be still and know that he is God.

These verses call us to be quiet long enough to hear the Lord and to know that the Lord is with us that he has a plan for our future your God's plan is that he be exalted among the nations, and exalted in the earth.

He will be exalted in our circumstances as well. If we will be still and know that he is God. Trust him to do it for the second time the psalmist says the Lord of hosts is with us. Don't let that slip through your fingers.

Don't just read that is, if that was something you want to forget twice in the Psalm, the Lord of hosts is with us. The God of Jacob is our refuge, who is the Lord of hosts in the Hebrew it's the Lord of savvy off the Lord of the angel's the Lord of the hosts of heaven.

Think about this in the story we read in second Kings 19 God Almighty sent the angel of the Lord one angel down and he destroyed 185,000 Assyrians were bent on the destruction of God's people and the text says we don't just have the one angel we have the Lord of all the angels with us. Every once in a while people get off on this Angel thing you know what is got an angel. Angels help them find parking places and all kinds aware things you know I've never had an angel like that but you know and people saying I read the believers that we have guardian angels and I probably have a guardian angel. I would be standing appear before you today I wouldn't survive. But I'll ask you question would you rather have your own angel. Would you rather have the Lord of Saturday off as your God, my friends, we've got Almighty God in our heart. I want to get off on the angel thank I'm glad to God is a yes and revealed a lot of things about angels that people are talking about today, but he has revealed this clearly the Lord of the angels lives within our hearts. When were in the midst of our troubles. We need to pray to Lord savvy off Lord of hosts and skill. Lord God of hosts, you are with me. You know if the word with me is in the in the language of the Old Testament. It is the man you from which we get the word Emmanuelle his Emmanuelle the Lord of savvy off Emmanuelle is with us. If you read much of the literature of what we might call the deeper life you've read some writings of Hannah Whitehall Smith. She will book some years ago called the God of all comfort and in this book. She told of this experience. She said that she had been going through a time of great trouble in her life and time of great questioning about the trouble and difficulty. She didn't know what to do. Like most of us when we face our troubles.

She thought that no one had ever had any trouble. I could trouble it was all peculiar to her and that there was no one who could understand it and then well this is what happened and she writes about it. There happened to be staying near me just been for a few weeks. The lady was considered to be a deeply spiritual Christian to whom I had been told I should go for additional help to get through my trouble so I summoned up my courage and one afternoon I went to see her and I poured out my troubles before, and I expect of course that she would take a deep interest in me and would be at great pains to do all she could to help me. She listened patiently did not interrupt me when I finish my story, said Hannah Whitehall Smith and I paused expecting her to respond in sympathy and consideration.

She simply said yes all you say may be very true. But then, in spite of it all, there is God she said. I waited a few minutes for her to say something else but nothing came and my friend and teacher had the air of having said all that was necessary and I knew she was not, but I continued you didn't understand how very serious and perplexing. My difficulties are all yes I did reply my friend, but then as I tell you there is God. I could not induce her to make one other answer. It seemed to me most disappointing and unsatisfactory.

I felt that my peculiar and really harrowing experiences could not be met by anything so simple and so near is the statement yes but there is God. I knew God was there.

Of course, but I felt I needed something more than just God and I came to the conclusion that my friend for all her great reputation as a spiritual teacher was at any rate, not able to grapple with the peculiarity of my particular case, however, she said my need was so great. I did not give up. With my first trial but I went to her again and again, always with the hope that she would sometime begin to understand the importance and peculiarity of my difficulties and that she would give me some adequate help, but it was of no avail. I was never able to draw forth any other answer, and it lasts because she said it so often and seemed so sure.

I begin to dimly wonder whether, after all, God might not be enough even for my need overwhelming and peculiar as I felt it to be from wondering I came gradually to believe that being my creator and redeemer. He must be enough, and at last a conviction burst upon me that he really was enough.

In my eyes were open to the fact of the absolute letter all sufficiency of Almighty God and she wrote my troubles disappear like magic and I did nothing but wonder how I could ever have been such an idiot is to be troubled by them. When all the while there was God the Almighty. The all seeing God the God what created me and was therefore on my side and eager to care for me and help me and I found out that God was enough, and at last my soul was at rest, and I thought as I finished reading that statement. How simple. But how profound we mean God is enough, that sounds like pious language that somebody rehearses for answer questions with, but it is not just asking this, you better hope he's enough because if he isn't enough. Will you go for plan B if you have exhausted all of the sufficiency of Almighty God, will you go then no I'm telling you he's your creator, he's your Redeemer. He's your sustainer.

He's the one who loved you enough to give his life for you and when you come to him. The all-powerful want of the universe with whatever problems you may have. I'm telling you he's enough. God's enough. All I know you need the comfort and encouragement of God's people, and I'm not disdaining the personal ministries rehab to another. But when all of that is pushed aside in your loan at 3 o'clock in the bedroom more alone.

At 3 o'clock in the hospital room and you look up into the ceiling and there's nobody there but just you and the darkness I'm telling you I'm telling you God's enough is enough for you. I don't know what your problem is.

Just try to think about your problem in relationship to Almighty God. He's enough surely is going through him. He was enough for me when I went to cancer and he's enough for all of us during the coronavirus.

He's enough for us when we lost her job.

He's enough for us when we don't know what the future holds. If we will hold on and just trust him, he will be enough. He doesn't say that he will be more than enough he doesn't say who be everything we want, but he will be enough.

He will sustain us. He's promised to do that so please hang on to him. We'll have to do that on occasion this happens to be one of those times will take a break for the weekend and have them come back on Monday and Tuesday and finish up this series the weekends been constrained for all of us. I preached to an auditorium that seats about 2500 people and there's nobody there except the cameramen and a few musicians yet at the same time last week 48,000 homes tuned in to that message. And there's more than one person in these homesites. A lot of folks, and it's really hard to be honest with you I don't like preached empty auditoriums. It's very difficult but I try to look beyond the empty seats into the empty hearts that are out there. During this day, who become so open to the gospel during the coronavirus series over 2000 people have accepted Christ during these online services at shadow Mountain. I've never seen anything like it. Folks and I hope you're involved in someplace online now, or perhaps if you're back in your church services trying to help get started again. Thank you for being a part of this ministry and helping us. Have a great weekend will see them as message comes from Shadow Mountain Community Church with Dr. David Jeremiah serves as senior pastor report is ministering to Israel. It is not Turning Point PO Box 3838, San Diego, CA 92163 visit our website at David Jeremiah/radio hospital copy of David's new book shelf in God sure to encourage you in this unprecedented time for gift of any amount which is the Jeremiah study Bible and the English standard and new international questions and stand in the large print in the new King James variety of handsome, options, visit David Jeremiah.org/radio Gary who flicked join us Monday as we continue. This is when you're alone.

Todd Turning Point with Dr. David Jeremiah taking time to listen to families in Christian