Ger-03 Ist Unser Gott Gewoehnlich — Art Katz

Lord, we thank you for our brother, for our dear brother, our friend over years now. And Lord, we ask really to bless him and we say welcome to him and his ministry. We open also the gates here in our country, here in Nuremberg for his ministry.

And Lord, we ask really for protection by your angels and be with us this evening. And Lord, also, Lord, we ask really that you drive him, that you guide him with your Holy Spirit and that he can bring it out, the whole message you have given to him in the name of Jesus.

Amen.

Guten Abend. I am so surprised by the number of you who have come. This is, after all, Monday night, raining and dunkel, and you're here. So I'm grateful for your response. And my brother is right. This has been a gateway into Deutschland for us over the years.

I didn't even think that you should be included in these days, because I have already given you my best and been here so frequently, but the Lord has other thoughts and he prevails. So we have started out this morning from Innsbruck, Austria.

It's been a long day of travel, lunch with Klaus and Gertrude at their home, and in the course of the day, learning that the conference in Braunschweig, to which we were attending, has been for us canceled.

So I'm a little bit discombobulated by the sudden announcement of our cancellation, feeling a sense of loss, that it might have been a platform in which the Lord might have been pleased to make a statement for the nation.

So we're announcing, telling you, in case you had made plans to come on our account, we will not be there. But the Lord is not outwitted, and we are looking to see how he will himself fill the days that have now been made free.

Please pray for that. So how shall I tell you, what is the manner and mode of prophetic life and being? And I'm not appealing for a human sympathy, but a participation with us in drawing out the Lord's heart and word.

We have already been in Albania for ten days a week. And now, a significant weekend in Innsbruck, very greatly contended against. The pastor had been warned not to have me as a speaker, but I would encourage anti-Semitism and various other threats and complaints.

And that had been coming also for the Braunschweig Conference, actual letters of appeal to German pastors to boycott the conference. This is a new kind of opposition for me, but I'm not expecting that it's going to decline, but increase.

So we have been knocked about a bit in these days, and then even got lost finding your church tonight. So I'm standing before you in my travel kleidung. But Klaus is properly dressed. I'm expecting that tomorrow night will be the significant statement from the Lord through me.

Tonight will be a preparation for tomorrow night, preparing the soil for the word, which I do not presently know, but expecting that the Lord will use the occasion to speak something of significance. And that even tonight will not be entirely lost.

Prayer for an Appointed Word

So let's pray together. Lord be with my mouth. Let me not err against you nor against your people, neither in word nor in the spirit of the speaking. If I have been misguided in thinking to speak something that was not your intention, put it entirely aside and bring forth that which is appointed.

So look at the congregation, Lord, that has been formed, and listen to the worship that has gone forth. Surely these are earnest men and women, and are expecting and believing something from you tonight and tomorrow.

Let them not be disappointed, not for my reputation's sake, which is daily decreasing, but for your name's sake. Send something, my God, into their deeps, that is an appointed word, and let me be beside myself for their sake and for your sake.

So we thank you for the privileged occasion that you have given. Yes, this church at Nuremberg has been a platform for your word into the nation. Let it be again now also. We thank you and give you the praise for the privilege, trusting you completely, willing to be your fool.

Come, Lord, and speak, for your servants are hearing. We give you praise in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, I have a little article that I found among my papers today, entitled, The Trivialization of God, and it brings a corresponding note in my spirit.

Contending for the Reality of God

I think the whole world has been guilty of trivializing God. We have rendered him almost as being a commodity of our convenience, even the best of us, however well meaning our intentions, there's something even about the very nature of religion and its repetition and its services and its forms that ironically tends to diminish the reality of God.

So I thought of the verse in Jude, contend earnestly for the faith once and for all given the saints. If we don't contend for it, we will surely lose it, and I know that God means much more than the articles of faith or the doctrines of faith that are to be contended for.

The genius of the faith, the essence of faith, the knowledge of God as God, and not some projection of our own fancy or our own subjectivity. We mustn't think that we're safe from this kind of tendency, and maybe the shakings that are taking place now in the earth are coming as God's divine corrective.

Well, we don't know as we ought to know, and we need thoroughly to be shaken to a deeper apprehension and knowledge of God as God. Israel should be our textbook and our instruction. In the very first chapter of the book of Isaiah, where he describes the condition of Israel wretchedly and miserably, your righteousness, you become a city of murderers, your wine is turned to water, and your silver to dross, even while you continue your festive days and sabbaths and new moons and sacrifices, you're not even aware of the truth of your condition, but what you are celebrating in your religious observances is already a stink in the nostrils of God.

Isn't this ultimate irony and paradox that while God is being correctly celebrated according even to Scripture, the truth and the character of the nation has absolutely turned from God? The ox knows its owner and the ass its master's crib, but my people do not know and they don't even consider.

Dumb animals have more of an instinctive affinity and allegiance with their masters and their owners than my people Israel with me. Even the way in which the first chapter begins, hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth, for the Lord hath spoken.

Is that some kind of biblical rhetoric or a device, or a prophet who is compelled to speak to the dumb elements because the nation is not hearing? We need to be humbled by Israel's experience. If the nation that has had such an exquisite history with God and enjoyed the benefit of a Levitical priesthood and the painstaking observance of all of the religious requirements established by God, and that they could come to such a condition of actual apostasy while technically observing the truth of their religion, what shall we say?

Are we made of better stuff? Is such a loss of actual faith possible for us? When did the wine turn to water and the silver to dross? Was it overnight or over a process of time, a gradual erosion of which the nation is not even aware until the prophetic cry comes?

So I'm sensing that we're sharing in something of Israel's past predicament, and I'm very sympathetic to the statement made by this writer. Our faith is becoming predictable. And where is the reverence and awe of God?

Where is the fear of God, which I think is so conspicuously absent in the church and in the world? And isn't that the heart of Germany's tragedy? Can we understand the rise of Nazism as a demonic phenomenon, except that it was the statement of something wanting in the Christianity of the nation?

Whether it had become liberal or formal or orthodox, something was lost that left a spiritual vacuum into which the evil could come. That ought to be an instruction for every nation, including my own.

Psalm 46 and the Faith That Refuses Fear

So I feel like speaking to you out of Psalm 46 this evening. And just to encourage you to all of the Psalms, have I ever shared that with you before, reading the Psalms daily, and perhaps the word reading is not even the correct term, immersing yourself in the Psalms daily, swimming in the particular literature that the Psalms are.

If ever there was an end-time book, it's the book of Psalms. If ever there was a book to save us from trivializing God, and keeping our faith alive, and our No book more serves that purpose than Psalms.

Who of us as New Testament believers can boast that we have a faith that exceeds that of the Psalmists? There's such a quality of intimacy, such a cry to God, even sometimes of an accusing kind, which would be for anyone else presumption, but the Lord is not dishonored nor displeased.

The Psalmist cries out, how long, Lord? How long do I have to suffer the onslaught of those who seek my life? The Psalmist is so pathetic in his weakness, you wonder why anyone would desire his life, because his life is his life in God, and there's a particular bitterness against him, which he would not have to experience if he were satisfied with a lesser kind of faith.

It's the very intensity of devotion that marks him as an enemy by those who oppose God. And he cries out for relief, how long, Lord, will you come and vindicate your servant who stands for you in righteousness, and will not walk in the way of the wicked, look what it's costing me.

Look at the oppression. How long, Lord? And what we need to understand, this is not just the pathetic cry of a man for personal relief. This is a man who recognizes that God himself is being dishonored, and his name and honor is put to question because he has failed to come and give answer to his own servant.

It's the name and reputation of God that the Psalmist is crying out about. Now, how long is not the relief of my personal distress, and how long before you vindicate your own name, because those who are oppressing me are saying, where is your God?

And this tears me and shreds me that your name is derided by the wicked who are having a field day with me. So come and vindicate your servant, not to bring me a personal relief. I'm willing to bear this for your name's sake, but that your name not be degraded.

And you'll show yourself faithful, and reveal your true character, standing with those who stand for you. That's the whole genius of the book of Psalms. Look how this Psalm begins. God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.

Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change, though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble with its tumult. We will not fear.

Beautiful poetry. It's a delight just as a literature, such a passioned cry, but don't for that reason miss the content. Word for word, brood over this text, as you should over every text, or your faith will become trivial.

What's the first word? God. I can't think of a better beginning than that, and I don't want to rush on to the next word. I want to let that register upon my soul. God, what a resonance when a psalmist speaks it, but when we speak it, does it bear the same resonance?

Only to the degree that we have a comparable history and relationship with God, as does the psalmist himself, otherwise the word God is a little expletive, a little spitting out of a syllable, God. How is it out of your mouth?

Is the statement of your history with God, the depth of your reverence, the extent of your intimate knowledge, what you have been willing to suffer for his namesake, what misunderstanding or what reproach will be expressed in the resonance when you speak the word God?

If ever there was a word that needs jealously to be protected, it's the word God. You know the way Orthodox Jews are. They will not even spell it. In English, it's G-D. They omit the O as a statement of respect for deity, for only the high priest in ancient times came into the holiest place of all with the blood of a sacrificed animal and spoke the name of God, for he alone knew how it was to be pronounced.

How do you pronounce Yud-Heh-Vov-Heh, the consonants from Hebrew? You can say Yahweh, you can say Jehovah. All of those expressions are valid within the framework of the structure of the word, but evidently only the high priest knew the correct pronunciation.

And so now in modern times, only this melancholy note remains, even by Jews who are yet in the darkness, omit the middle letter as a respect toward God. Well, I was a lifelong atheist before I was saved, a swaggering blasphemer, and yet the most painful thing for me, as a new convert in the faith and in a Pentecostal assembly, was the looseness, the shallowness, and the familiarity with which God was addressed.

And I didn't come out of an orthodox background, I came out of an atheistic background, and yet I winced, I recoiled at the frequency with which the name or the word God or Jesus was being pronounced, as if something is lost by the very frequency of the use.

It's not rubbing a genie lamp by using a key word that in order to obtain something. There needs to be a reverence for the name, for the word God. God is a refuge and a strength. Not that he will show me a refuge and a strength, he is himself the refuge and the strength.

God is my refuge and my strength. This isn't a play on words. This is the statement of the actuality of the faith of the psalmist. God is this very thing to me. And then look what follows. Such a description of catastrophe and natural disaster as stretches the imagination of the reader.

Though the earth should change, though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam, as if the psalmist has gone out of his way to finger those things that are the most durable, the most stable, the most counted on things in very nature and creation itself.

Though these things could be shaken, the very foundations of earth collapse and shake and the waters roar and foam, mountains tremble. I will not fear. I don't care what catastrophe is taking place, therefore I will not fear.

Therefore from what? God is my refuge and my strength. My God, what does it take to come to a faith like this? Are you teasing us? Are you raising a standard that is impossible for us to attain as believers?

Or are you shaming us that there's no reason why we should not have attained to a comparable faith in our own generation? Why haven't you become for us a refuge? Why haven't you become for us our strength?

Because you have not cast yourself upon me as radically and totally as the psalmist of old. That's why. You have your own strengths. You have your own places of safety and confidence. In institutions, in finance, in your own self-possession.

You have not been as radically cast upon me. Is that the reason, Lord, that you've allowed the financial world center towers to be brought down? Not only to shake the institutions where the world finds its trust and confidence, but where we ourselves have found it more than we know, more than we realize.

You are not our total confidence. Society is, government is, institutions are. We look at statements like this as if it is some kind of esoteric literature that's impossible for our attainment. So I'm saying this is an end time book.

Want to be saved from trivializing God? Making his name or the word a commonplace out of your own mouth? Steep yourself in the reality of this book and cry out to obtain it. Ask for a history like unto the psalmists, and if he is not your refuge and a strength, you perish.

So I steep myself in the psalms daily, and it makes me less attractive and less fun than I used to be. Not that I ever was fun, but now dangerously intense and earnest, not one with whom even Christians can casually relate.

You're coming from another place, and it makes the casual Christian uncomfortable, who wants to suck you into the orbit that is customary and normal for most. You have to contend earnestly for a faith like this.

You have to be willing to suffer the humiliation of weakness. In seven weeks of travel in Southeast Asia, day and night in the Philippines, Indonesia and Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, until you have expended all your strength, and yet another requirement.

But brother, you can take it easy, it's only a service, you can fill the need, you have enough background. Oh, you dear saints, you don't understand. Fanatical men like me never look upon any occasion as a mere meeting, including tonight.

There's too much at stake. The unknown requirements of the last days. The increasing oppression that will come to the church from the world. What future catastrophes, of which the recent ones in New York were only a beginning, the earth is going to be shaken, shake all things that can be shaken, the mountains, the sea will roar, but we will not fear, because we have made our God our refuge and our strength.

Don't think he'll not test you in this, where you look to him to be your strength, and you'll not dip into your own reserves if he's not quick to answer. You should have seen me last night in Innsbruck.

I told them what was already visible to them. I said, I am death warmed up. I have no inspiration. Concluding service after a dynamic series of days, no inspiration, no eagerness to speak, and yet something had to be brought to a conclusion that will serve them in good stead all of their days, and if God was not my strength, shameful collapse, shameful disappointment, but when you trust him, he becomes your strength.

We're living beneath that great provision, and as I said to them last night, I say to you tonight, we're Austrian, all too Austrian, German, all too German, Jewish, all too Jewish, what do we all have in common?

This Germanic speaking world, a very impressive sufficiency and proficiency in ourselves. We're unwilling to suffer the shame of weakness, to be dead and hid with Christ and God until his life is revealed, where we can always supply from ourselves what is needed, sufficient to get us through and falling short of the glory of God.

Oh, I understand these psalmists. This faith was not cheap. It comes with a history, sacrifice and struggle and opposition that God himself not only is, but that he's a refuge and a strength, and a very present help in times of trouble, because the psalmist is not exempt from trouble.

His very devotion to God guarantees he will experience trouble, but in that trouble, God is a very present help, not as present as you would like, not as immediate as to release you of your tension, but very present, even when his supply and answer is not yet evident.

Therefore, let the earth shake, let the seas roar, let the mountains convulse. I'll not be afraid. I make a choice and a decision based on my knowledge of the faithfulness of God, with whom I have a history who has proved himself faithful in my times of trouble.

Therefore, whatever unforeseen thing comes in the future that shakes the very foundations of earth, I will not be afraid, because in verse 7, the Lord of hosts is with us. The God of Jacob is our refuge, only to the degree that he is the God of Jacob.

That's not just a mere honorary title. That's the designation of God as the God of Israel, the God of the Jews, the God of the Hebrews, the God of Jacob, yes, even shameful Jacob, the usurper, the wheeler-dealer.

God is not ashamed of being identified with him. The question is, are you ashamed? It becomes a little uncomfortable to be reminded that this God is first and foremost the God of the Jews. And it'll become less comfortable as they come into increasing criticism and rebuke.

The God of Jacob and the Church’s Debt to Israel

It was right in this neighborhood of Nuremberg, where I spoke at a hotel where we will be coming again, having spent that afternoon at a Jewish cemetery, where the ancient gravestones were so thick that the Nazis could not topple them.

I can't tell you how melancholy it makes me feel, how I go out of my way to find every Jewish cemetery in Germany that I could find, to see the faded inscriptions in Hebrew. On the one side, and the German inscription on the other.

Oh, it pierced me through. Those ancient stones, and where is the remnant of that people today? Gone. And I come into the meeting room, and I look out on my German audience, self-satisfied, content, assured, German, all too German.

And I say to them as my first statement, how is it that my Jewish people have lived in your midst for 2 ,000 years, and you never communicated to them that the God that you celebrate is their God? Have you ever understood that your God is the God of Jacob?

You would have thought that the word hit them on the head like a bludgeon. Their jaws drop. No, they had never thought of it, that their God is the God of Jacob. Somehow in their Gentile minds, in the narrowness of the New Testament understanding, they had omitted this recognition.

And I had to say to them, not only have Jews suffered for this omission, but you yourself have suffered, because unless you acknowledge deeply and willingly and joyfully that the God that you celebrate is the God of Jacob, you're missing God in his fullness and fashioning something in your own image that serves the purposes of your culture, your generation, your nation, but you have forfeited the knowledge of God as God.

As he himself desires to be known and recognized, which is humbling for you, that the God whom you ostensibly celebrate and worship is the God of Jacob. And until he's become that deeply for you, you can forget about his becoming a refuge.

It's only a refuge in proportion to this deep knowledge and apprehension that he's Jacob's God. Psalm 47 verse 9 says that the princes of the people gather as the people of the God of Abraham. That's a statement of the millennial future.

When the end of the age comes and the millennial glory is established, the princes of this world will be gathered as the people of the God of Abraham. They'll acknowledge that there's but one God, the God of Abraham, the God of Jacob.

We, the church, need to make that clear now. So, a key verse in Psalm 46, after telling us that we should behold the works of the Lord in verse 8 and see what desolations he has brought in the earth, who makes wars to cease to the end of the earth.

You see, the psalmist does not have the advantage of Time or Newsweek magazine or some other Frankfurt Allgemeine Blatt or something. His notion of causation is strictly God. It's God who causes wars and makes them to cease.

For the psalmist, there's no such thing as historical accident. He has a complete confidence in the sovereignty of God. He has an expansive knowledge of God, because if you don't see him involved in the causation of events taking place in the world, you are minimizing and diminishing God.

If you ascribe the collapse of those towers as merely the accident of men, as if God himself is looking the other way or sleeping, are you not trivializing God and making him one who is without a knowledge, who if he sees or knows he's impotent and cannot affect change?

This was not the problem of the psalmists. A sublime and complete confidence in God's total sovereignty. No such thing as accident or something attributed to men God makes wars to cease. To the ends of the earth, he breaks the bow and shatters the spear.

He burns the shields with fire. I wonder if President Bush knows that. Or would he have embarked on the ambitious program which I believe began today? Which I believe we will long regret. Of course, if the issue is just man, Islamic man, who needs to be punished and chastised by force, then maybe there's a justification for the use of force.

Even though it will engender fresh anger and reprisal yet again. But if the issue is not man but God, then you don't send your bombers in, but you call the nation to a fast and prayer. And seek the God who makes wars to cease and burns the shields and arrows together.

You're going to catch this together with us. You heard it on the radio in the car. Special defensive measures being taken in Bavaria. Because of your alliance with the U .S. And you are also at risk of retaliation.

So you're being threatened by a world that has trivialized and omitted God from its history. So you're being threatened by a world that has trivialized and omitted God from its history. Oh, he's up there somewhere.

He set the world in motion. And it's ticking like a clock. And we're the ones who need to act and change and do. What kind of God is that? Believes to us the issues of disaster and the condition of the world and the safety of men.

How then is he a refuge? If we're turning to our bombers and to our strength? Evidently, President Bush's faith is not the faith of the psalmist. It's the faith of conventional Christianity. Not only the American kind, but the German kind.

Contending for Last-Days Faith

Even when it is imbued with the extra benefit of that which is charismatic. Oh, you dear saints, the faith of the psalmist is not some esoteric ideal that is unattainable. It's God's provision for last day's trouble by those who know their God and have not trivialized him by omitting him from the circumstances that have come upon the earth.

And those very circumstances have come to trouble the earth. For he's not happy to be allowed to be trivialized. Yes, and he'll bring judgment and shake our institutions in which our false confidences have been deposited because he knows if we continue in this sinful rejection of himself as God, even while we profess to honor and acknowledge him as Christian nations, we'll suffer the consequence of that real rejection eternally and that without remedy.

It's the mercy of God to destroy our towers. And we should read it as a wake-up call to contend for the faith once and for all given the saints, contend earnestly by being up early every morning before you go to work, to have your time of devotion with the Lord, not in some obligatory mechanical German way.

I read a whole chapter. I spent 15 minutes. That trivializes God. Find a place in your bedroom. How many times have I made the toilet bowl an altar? If I had no other alternative, not to disturb my wife or the house by turning on lights, I'll sanctify the bathroom and bow before the toilet bowl and call upon the God of my fathers.

Oh, God, and read the psalm for the day. Really read it over and over. God is a refuge and a strength, a present help in time of trouble. Therefore, though the whole world convulses in nature, I will not fear.

Be staggered by the word of God. Don't reduce it to idle poetry. Learn from the psalmists of old. Be jealous for their faith and their relationship with the living God. Or it will bring you trouble. You'll not complain.

And you'll not cry out pathetically, how long, Lord, do I have to suffer this? Because the issue is not your inconvenience. The issue is your jealousy for his name and his honor. How long, Lord, before you vindicate your name?

You know, you profane it by thinking that they can run over your saints like me without any consequence for themselves. I'm going to say, where is your God? As if you don't, in fact, exist. I'm willing to bear anything that you should vindicate yourself.

Before these scoffers who think that they can act as if you don't see and don't require. As if there's no judgment, no eternal consequence. How long, Lord? Have you changed? Have you become something less than you were in Old Testament times?

Or are you the same yesterday, today, and forever? Forgive us for our modernity. That we find it hard to think that in modern times, you should be a God of judgment still. It's not a comfortable equation.

Of course, the God of the Old Testament was a God of vengeance and wrath. But now to think in terms of judgment, God intervening in history, allowing our institutions to be brought down before our sight, conflicts with our modern view.

So, choose for yourself what constitutes your reality. The Time and Newsweek interpretation or the biblical. The view of the psalmists. Because you steep yourself in that literature daily and call upon that God with reverence as the God of Jacob and of Abraham.

Even though it will make you strange and you'll not be as much fun, you're a little too extreme. For you have chosen the biblical reality as being the true reality. And you condemn what appears as reality in the modern world as a fiction and as an illusion.

You'll be a stranger and a pilgrim in the earth. But you'll know your God. Who will be for you a present help in time of trouble. And because of that, a help to others. Who themselves have not that faith.

Israel’s Future Trouble and the Witness of the Church

Even my Jewish kinsmen who are coming into the greatest trouble of their entire history. The time of Jacob's trouble. That will catapult them out from the state of Israel. And uproot them in every nation.

Make them to flee for the persecution that pursues them. The time of Jacob's trouble. But they have not the faith of the psalmist to bear it. But you understand it. Until they come to you. And see your calm.

And your deep peace. That passes understanding. You're not coming apart at the seams. You're not rattled. You understand the times. This is not an accident of history. This is the prophesied last days of Israel.

But he will save Jacob out of it. And their salvation will come with what they see in you. Who are not afraid. Even of being caught in helping them. You're willing to take that risk. You even consider it a privilege.

What strange person are you? Who believe that you even will obtain an eternal reward. By any suffering that you must bear for their sake. You'll show them the faith of their fathers. As Gentiles, Germans.

Who have deeply appropriated that faith. And demonstrated it actually. In time of trouble. You're not afraid. For you know their God. And you make him known. So shall the redeemed of Israel return to Zion.

Because they met you in the way. And you showed them the reality of God. Not by your doctrinal correctness. But by your peace. That passes understanding. Because you know your God. Not just in the last final moment.

But in all your moments. He has long been your strength. He has long been your refuge. You're not afraid. And you're not afraid. So be still and know that I am God. That's more than just keeping quiet.

That means putting down what rises up in questionings against God. How come Lord? Why me? What's happening in the world? Look at the disasters. Where are you? Be still. Put that down. Shut up. How dare you be impertinent to ask him?

As if he's not God. As if you demand and deserve an explanation. In the midst of catastrophe. And the shaking is of the earth. And the mountains trembling. Be still. And know that I am God. Because I will convey to you a knowledge of myself.

That awaits your obedience. To be still. To stop your questioning and critical attitude toward me. Trusting my sovereignty. That I alone make wars to cease. Be still. And you will know that I am God. I want to pray for such a church in Germany.

Because you have a historical destiny. With the distressed and anxious, panicking, fearful, lost sheep of the house of Israel. All their bluster and bravado will go. And the things in which they trusted will collapse.

And they have not a knowledge of their own God to sustain them. Until they see the revelation of him in you. Do not share their panic. Nor their apprehension. Or taking issue with God. How come? Why? You're still.

And you know God. And you make him known. Let's pray for this faith. For the alternative is to trivialize God. Even when we think to celebrate him. Contend for the faith. Earnestly. Morning by morning.

Morning for morning. Make him your refuge. And your strength. So, Lord, I pray for the church of Deutschland. Yes, Austria was a warm-up. This is where the action is. This is where the significant thing must take place.

This is where the final act must be performed. Casual churches might exist elsewhere. Of which President Bush is the product in America. But that's not a luxury that we can enjoy in Germany. We have an ultimate destiny.

The lost sheep of the house of Israel. And we must show them the God of their fathers. As those who really know him. Who are still. And obey the commandment. Put down their human reasonings and arguments against God.

That they might know the I am. And make him known. This is not a Christianity of convenience. It wasn't for the psalmists. And it'll not be for you. So, I'm praying blessing. I'm leaving my peace behind in your house.

I'm calling you to be as fanatical as myself. To become Hebraic more Hebraic. To steep yourself in the Old Testament. Steeping yourself in the Old Testament. Drinking deeply from that sauce. From the psalmists.

Who knew him. So, I bless this church, Lord. Let them determine from this night. An end of religious convenience. This kind of faith that is being put before us. Shall not come cheaply. It didn't come cheaply for the psalmists.

And it'll not come cheaply for us. We want a history with you. Of testings and trials. Where if you are not our strength. If you are not our safety. We'll perish. But we have forfeited every other confidence.

We'll not trust in our German ability. We'll trust in God. And if you are not the God of the fathers. We of all people are most to be pitied. But we rather perish believing that. Then we should succeed in something less and more trivial.

Already the world is bringing its persecutions. Because we have gone already too far for them. And those troubles will increase. As we continue on. Deeper deeply in the reality of God. Will conspicuously stand out.

Where we really stand out openly. And will be called with all kinds of names. But you'll be a present help in our trouble. Your word says so. And we believe it. We are ready to accept this trouble. That reveals you as a present help.