for 46. To the choir master of the Central Cora, according to Alamo, a song. God is our refuge and strength, a very present help and trouble. Therefore, we will not fear, though the earth gives way, though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble at its swelling, say la. There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy habitation of the most high. God is in the midst of her, she shall not be moved. God will help her when morning gone. The nation's rage, the kingdom's powder, he uttered his voice, the earth's melt. The Lord of hosts is with us. The God of Jacob is our fortress, say la. Come, behold the works of the Lord, how he has brought desolations on the earth. He makes words cease to the end of the earth. He breaks the boat and shatters the spear. He burns the chariots with fires. 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 fortress, say la. Let the Lord add a blessing to the reading and the hearing of his words.
Good morning. Good morning, each point church. Wherever we are gathered here this morning, I want to say thank you for logging on and logging in. So glad that the Lord would wake us up this morning once again and direct us to this place. Wherever that place may be, we are gathered together to lift our voices and praise him. I pray everyone has had a safe and a blessed holiday weekend. I pray that last night didn't get too crazy and you were able to get some sleep. Amen. I think this still setting off fireworks and I'm neighborhood. But I pray that everyone is safe and doing well this morning. If you are visiting here with us at East Point Church, let me say to you so glad that you would log in and log on. We do pray that there's been something encouraging already and that the word as we meditate upon God's words this morning, that the Lord and His Spirit will have something particularly encouraging and good for your spirit this morning. If you have any questions at all about East Point Church, please do not hesitate to get in contact with us. We would love to serve you and answer any of your questions that you may have this morning. But we are in a series called The Psalms of the Season. We've come to Psalm 46 this morning. A very familiar and important and powerful word from God this morning. It has been read in our hearing. So let us pray that the Lord will make it effectual as we meditate upon it this morning. Heavenly Father, we do thank you once again that we are here. We thankful that we are your people. We are thankful that you have come by your spirit and you have encouraged our heart and reminded us that you are our God. We thank you for the songs that we sing. We thank you for the prayers that we play. We thank you for your words as we read it and meditate upon it. And most of all we thank you for Jesus Christ who is our salvation, who is our hope, who is our life this morning. May He be all and in all as we speak to understand better your words, according to your spirit. In His name we pray and ask all these things. Amen. Well in the summer of 1934, Reverend Michael King, he's a senior pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church. And he toured Europe on his way to a Baptist convention in Berlin, Germany. And while in Germany, it's 1934, remembering despite the growing presence of the Nazis and their hate-filled propaganda, Reverend Michael King fell in love with Germany. And in particular the lives and teachings of one German Martin Luther. And Martin Luther, you might remember was that 16th century priest who lit the flame of the Protestant Reformation by nailing his 95 vices on the church door there in Vittenburg, Germany, in October 31st, 1517. And Michael King was impressed. He was impressed with the life. He was impressed with the passion of Martin Luther, the scholarship and the resolve of this preacher and this theologian. And it changed Reverend Michael King in deep and profound ways. In fact, so profound and impactful was this change that when Michael King returned home to Atlanta, he changed his name. And the name of his five-year-old son. He would no longer be Martin Luther King. He would now be Martin Luther King. And his son would be Martin Luther King, Jr. Now tell you this story this morning so that we can once again appreciate the impact. That Martin Luther had on the world in general and on the church in particular. Not just in naming, not just in the naming of Atlanta's favorite son, but also in reminding us of how wonderful our text is this morning. Psalm 46. You see Martin Luther loved the Psalm, but loved none more than Psalm 46. But Psalm 46 reminded him of the power and the presence of God. And this is because Luther lived his life much of his life under the stresses and strains of the dangers and death on every hand. Every day his life was filled with stress. And because of this, he would often find himself caught up in it all and becoming distressed and anxious and even depressed. And in this Psalm, he tells us that he would often find solace. In this Psalm, he would often find hope and help. In fact, when he was feeling low and lacking confidence in his mission, he would often say to his friend and confidant, Philip Malanxin, come, come, Philip, let's sing the 45.
And they would sing a sure stronghold, our God to be, a timely shield and weapon. Our help he'll be and set us free from every eel can happen. This, this is the Psalm. In fact, beloved that came became the inspiration for the popular Lutheran hymn, a mighty fortress is our God, a bulwark, never a family. Psalm 46, Psalm 46 has peace in it. It has backbone.
What we have this morning is a psalm that is designed to build confidence in God and strengthen our conviction in the surety of God's Word. This is not a psalm that asks questions. This is a psalm that makes statements, strong statements. What we have here is a psalm declaring in no uncertain terms the power and the glory of God. This psalm reminds us that our God is stronger. This psalm reminds us that our God is able. This psalm is a clear word from God and it speaks directly to our anxiety. It speaks directly to our doubts. It speaks directly to our fears. And it tells us God is our help. It tells us that God is our help. Notice how the psalm begins. Psalm 46, verse 1, God is our refuge and strength. A very present help in trouble. It begins with this kind of universal assumption and I think it is a safe assumption and a verifiable assumption. God is a refuge and strength because we are in some degree or another in some type of trouble and even distress. And the reason we're in trouble is because we're helpless. We are helpless. And actually we live our lives a lot more helpless than we think we are. And the reason why we have trouble is because we're helpless. Think about it. Have troubles if they can help it. But the reason you and I have trouble is because we can't help it. Troubles come and you and I are often helpless to do anything about it. That's what the Bible says. Job chapter 5, verse 7, man is born to trouble as surely as the sparks fly upward. You saw the fireworks last night. Which way did the sparks go? They went up. Yes, they came down. But before they came down, the sparks went up. And assure as the sparks fly upward, you and I are born to trouble. Job 14 and 1 echoes those same words. Man who is born of a woman is of a few days and full of trouble and because we all have trouble, we all need help. We go to our parents because we need help. We go to our friends. We go to doctors. We go to lawyers. We go to the church. We go to the government. Why? Because we all at some point of time need help. Why? Because the world is made up of dependent beings, dependent on dependent beings. But if you would hear the word of God this morning, listen to it clearly and listen to what God says. The Bible says God is your help. And what type of help is this? The Bible says that he is a very present help. That idea, very present means exceedingly available. Whenever you need, he's there. Why? Because God is the only truly independent being in the universe who is never needing help and therefore is always available to get in sports. What we see in sports is people demonstrating great and awesome ability. But in sports, you know what we say is the best ability to have? The best ability is availability. That means you're available to play. Because I don't care how talented you are. If you hurt and sitting on the bench, you are have no help time. You're not available. The best ability is availability. God is not just able available. Present. Psalm 121, verses 3 and 4 says, he will not let your foot slip. He who watches over you will not slumber. Indeed, he who watches over Israel will neither slumber nor slumber. Because he is very present, exceedingly available. All ways will, all ways able to be your refuge. Refuge, refuge. He is your refuge. Psalm 32 and 7 is the idea of a hiding place. You are a hiding place for me. A refuge is a hiding place. Or better yet, in Psalm 9 and 9, he is a shelter. The Lord is a shelter for the oppressed, a refuge in times of trouble. For God to be a refuge, it means God is a shelter. The Lord is your shelter in the time of storm. He is a shelter.
We have had opportunities. We had opportunities from time to time to take people down to the local shelter. They were out on the street and homeless. They needed their refuge. They needed a place to stay. And so in working with them, we would take them down to the shelter and see if they could find their a refuge, a place to stay. But why do you fight past the field oftentimes when you go down to the shelter and you want to ask somebody to, and you want to see if somebody can come to the shelter? What do you fight past the field oftentimes? Most times when you go down to the shelter. What do you fight? You find that the shelter is full. There is no vacancy. There is no room. There is no availability. Beloved God is a shelter that is never full. The Lord is a shelter that is always room. There is always a vacancy. He always has room. When the storms of life start building, you have somewhere where you can run to. When the storms and the troubles of life start blowing, you have someone to whom you can turn. Where do you go? When there is nobody else to turn to. Who do you talk to? When nobody wants to listen. Who do you lean on when there is no foundation stable? I go to the rock. I know that he is able and I go to the rock. I go to the rock of my salvation. I go to the stone that the builders rejected. I run to the mountains and the mountains stand by me when the earth all around me is thinking, send on Christ the solid rock I send. When I need a shelter, when I need a friend, I'm going to the rock. Is Jehovah as there? The Lord God. Who is I help? That is His name. He is our help. And when you go to God, or better yet, when God brings that shelter to you, God comes to help you, beloved. God comes to help. He often get it wrong. Come to judge. He comes to help other folks. When they show up, they show up to judge. They show up to condemn. When God comes, God comes to help. When he came to Adam and Eve in the garden, he came to help them. When he showed up with Moses and Israel, he showed up to help them. As Jacob, as Jonah, when God showed up, God showed up to help. That doesn't come to condemn. Beloved, that is the tool of the devil. God showed up. He comes to help. He comes to shelter you from sin. He comes to shelter you from shame. He comes to hide you from wrath and judgment. Do you know, the Bible says that Jesus went around everywhere doing good? Why? Because in John chapter 3 and 17, Jesus didn't come to condemn the world. Jesus came to help the world.
Came to help. He's a helper. In every way he went, came to help. Others came to condemn. Jesus didn't. He's down in chapter 8. The woman hung herself there. Others came to condemn. Jesus came to help. The people on the cross, our others were there to mark and condemn. Jesus showed up to help. Because the longer I live and the more I walk this Christian life, there is a verse that is playing in the background all the time and every day it gets louder and louder and it says now there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ and the Spirit of God is turning up that verse in my life. More and more every day. Don't you allow your sins to drown that out? Don't you allow others in their condemnation and their judgment to drown that out? You ask the Lord, pump up the volume. I need to hear. Now there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ, Jesus. Play it loud. It's your help. We need shelter and the Lord knows that we need shelter. We need shelter in this world. And he is our helper. He is our shelter in this physical world. When the world around us seems to be crumbling all around us, when the world that we live in is so troubling. He is your help. The world is troubling. The world is troubling because of nature. That's what it says in our text. 46 verses 2 and 3. Talk about the earth giving way and the mountains being moved into the hearts of the sea and the mountains trembling and it's troubling. It's troubling. Nature is troubling. Global warming or are they call it not a climate change? Melting polycaps and disappearing rain for storm in unfamiliar places and fluctuations in weather patterns. Disaster and the pollution and pandemic. Ebola in Africa, Corona in China and racism in America. Each of these on their own would be enough to make you feel a helpless, multiply them across the whole world. You see a world in flux and you see a world and if that was not enough, the world is troubling not just because of nature. So what is troubling because of the nation? The earth is the nation's rage. The kingdom's hotter. Nations go to war against nations. Kingdoms rise and kingdoms fall. People are prosperous one moment and thrust into poverty. The next at the whim of their leaders and dictators. Nation goes the world against nation which causes neighbors to go to war against neighbors. Movement rise up. New hat tags every day. People who were friends today, all of a sudden now they're false tomorrow. They're marching in the street. Yelling impeached the president. Yelling defund the police and with every with every movement and with every agenda, every one thinks I'm going to be different. But loving every generation thinks theirs is going to be different. Children unwrap is not new. There was social unwrap when this song was written. There was social unwrap when Jesus was walking the streets of Palestine. There was social unwrap when Luther wrote a mighty fortress in our God. There is social unwrap now. Why? Because ever since the garden, the world has been in flux phase fighting. Way struggling. It's like a fish out of water that's flopping around not knowing what to do next. And in the midst of that people by his name and he has made them Christians. And he said Christians in the midst of a world that is in flux, flopping around and running around like a chicken with his head caught off. What is the Christian to do? The Christians find help. Where's the Christian find hope? The Christian alone in this world. Not only has help, the Christian alone has hope. Has hope. What a mountains crumble and the waters rage. Do you hear what the psalmist says? There is a river that runs through the city of
and it is a communist. It is a reviving river. It is a restoring river. These are refreshing waters. These are not stagnant waters, beloved. This is a stream that is flowing. It is a reassuring stream. There is flowing a river of and notice how it is described. It is a river that makes glad. It is a river that makes glad. In the midst of the chaos, both from nature and emission, there is a river that is flowing for the Christian that is a blessedness, a happiness, a joy that comes to those who dwell in the habitation in the city of God. There is a peace. The Bible says
that is perfect. Isaiah chapter 26, you keep him in person. He is mine. It is saved on the cause, the trust, and in Romans chapter 14 and verse 7, the Bible says, for the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating the grains but a righteous peace, joy, and the Holy Spirit. Because there is a river of life that is flowing in the life of God's people, that brings righteousness, peace, and joy. It is the waters of life that are given to us in the Spirit of God, and it makes glad. So he is not just a Holy Spirit that he is a happy. He makes glad in the city of God. In all the holy dwellings. He is a river that flows. He is a stream that flows and knows how to strive. It makes glad, but it doesn't just make glad but it is a reminder that God is in the midst of us. This river is a tangible reminder that God is with you. God is here. This is always been the hope of God's people. From Genesis to Revelation, the hope of God's people has always been and will always be the presence of God. That is what makes the difference. That is what makes the difference, the presence of God. God is in the midst of us and God is there to help and he is available and he is willing and he is able. Revelation, 21, and 3, and 3, hollow it to the end. Love it is the promise that is given in Genesis to go all the way to the end. And I heard a lot of voice from the throne saying, look, God's dwelling place is among his people and he will dwell with them and they will be his people and God himself will be with them and be their God. The presence of God is the hope of God's people. And so what does it sound like? In verse 7. In case you didn't understand what I was saying all this time, I want to make it plain to you. The Lord of Hostes with us. The God of Jacob is our fortune. God is with you. This is our hope, the presence of God. He hasn't failed yet, beloved. He has never failed to be with his people. He has never failed to deliver his people. That this will be the generation where he stops. This is our hope. Our hope is not in police reform. Our hope is not in a new mayor. Our hope is not in a new president. Our hope is in the power and the presence of God. Our hope is in God. We vote. Yes, vote. But our hope is not in the ballot box. Demonstrate. But our hope is not in demonstration. Our hope is in God. And why? Why is our hope in God? Because of what the Bible says in verse 9. If wars are going to end, it is God who will do it. It's going to come to an end. It is God who will be brought to and guess what, beloved. He's just to an end. To make an end of all your sins. That's why we hope in him, Dr. King, who would often quote the poet James Russell Lowe when he said truth forever on the scaffold and wrong forever on the throne. Yet that scaffold sways the future beyond the demon known instead of God within the shadows, keeping watch above his own. God is watching, beloved. If God is watching, what do you and I need to do? Christian to do the parents like this, versus be still and know that I am God. I am that I am. That's how he had revealed himself. That's what he said to Moses. Moses be still. I am who I am. I hear I know I am God. Be still. Be still. Now, beloved, when the Bible says be still, the Bible is not talking about inactivity. You know, just sit there on your hands. It doesn't mean that you don't move. The idea here is not that you stop working. The idea is that you stop worrying. It means that you stop bickering.
It means you stop murmuring. And so the Lord, literally, literally what he does is he says, cease and desist. Do you ever get a cease and desist letter I have? I got one. Do you ever get one? I got one. You know what cease and desist means? cease and desist means stop doing what you do. And don't start back doing it. In other words, stop it. Stop it. And it's like a it's like a parent who has these two siblings who are fighting and the parent comes and break it up. And what's the first thing you say? What's the first thing you say to them? Stop it. This is what God said. Christian Jesus said in the storm, Mount chapter 4, when he's dead, when he's disciples in the boat. And he walked and they walked him up our frantic and scared and worried. And Jesus got up and he spoke to the storm, beloved. He was not only speaking to the storm, speaking to Peter, James, and John, and the whole lot of them. When he said, be still, the peace I give you, the peace that's for me. Don't you dare, because I was stolen from life to some other day out. Be still. I'm still on the boat. Did you hear what I said? Jesus said, I am still on the boat. Beloved as long as Jesus is on the boat, the boat isn't going down. The waves can blow all they want to. The wind can roar all it wants to as long as Jesus is on the boat. The boat isn't going down. This is why, beloved, I don't worry about the church. People can talk all they want to and talk about the church and all the church ain't this and the church ain't that. Listen, beloved. As long as Jesus is on the boat, the church ain't going anywhere. It never had. People have come and people have gone. Makers have come and Makers have gone. Scoffers have come and Scoffers have gone. You know the one thing that is still here is the church. And you know what? Because Jesus is on that boat. Be still your worm. Be still your worm. The last time I checked, beloved, and I checked, I checked just this morning just to be sure. But the last time I checked was right before I came in the sanctuary this morning. Philippians 4 and 4 still says, be anxious for nothing. Quaid says, now I know, I know people try to explain that away. But beloved, when I read it, nothing still means nothing. Nothing. Wait a minute, Pastor. You don't have, you heard about Corona virus. The Bible says nothing. Wait, wait a minute, Pastor. Don't you see all of the over-policing and the militarization of the police force? Nothing. Oh, okay, okay, but wait a minute. We got election coming up this fall in November. You can't possibly mean the election, nothing. If you realize it, but you probably need to check again, I'm still in charge. Be still. Be still. I'm going anywhere, hadn't advocated my throne, haven't had a reduction in my power. Be still. Last time I checked, beloved God is still faithful and his mercies are still new. You can be still. Last time I checked, the graves were still empty and Jesus was still alive. You can be still. Last time I heard the blood still hasn't lost any of its power. And when it all started dying, I will be adopted among the nations. I will be adopted. Overall, the Lord of hosts is with you. The God of Jacob is your mercy.