Psalm 91-- Vern Flynn (June 9, 2024)

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FBC Travelers Rest sermon by guest preacher Vern Flynn

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I'm going to be preaching on Psalm 91 today.
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Great psalm. First I'm going to open us up in prayer real quick. So let us pray.
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Father, we come before you, we just ask that you would help us to behold wondrous things out of your word.
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Please open up our eyes to see you greater, to be able to glorify you greater.
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And we also come before you and we lift up the team that is up in Indianapolis. We pray you would help them to stand strong for truth, to bring the word of God to bear on the various measures and situations up there, and that you would be sovereign over that and direct it towards your will in a righteous way.
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Thank you for this word. Thank you for this opportunity to bring it to the people. In Jesus' name, amen.
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All right. So I'll start off by reading it. I am reading out of the ESV, which is a little bit different, but it should be pretty close to what you're reading.
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But all my notes are off the ESV. So when I saw you had New King James pew
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Bibles, I'm not going to be able to change it now. So Psalm 91. He who dwells in the shelter of the
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Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty. I will say to the Lord, my refuge and my fortress, my
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God in whom I trust. For he will deliver you from the snare of the fowler and from the deadly pestilence.
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He will cover you with his pinions, and under his wings you will find refuge. His faithfulness is a shield and a buckler.
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You will not fear the terror of the night, nor the arrow that flies by day, nor the pestilence that stalks in darkness, nor the destruction that wastes at noonday.
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A thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, but it will not come near you. You will only look with your eyes and see the recompense of the wicked.
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Because you have made the Lord your dwelling place, the Most High who is my refuge, no evils shall be allowed to befall you, no plague shall come near your tent.
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For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways. On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.
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You will tread on the lion and the adder, the young lion and the serpent you will trample underfoot. Because he holds fast to me in love,
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I will deliver him. I will protect him because he knows my name. When he calls to me,
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I will answer him. I will be with him in trouble. I will rescue him and honor him. With long life
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I will satisfy him and show him my salvation." So I'm talking to your pastor and just being here for a little bit,
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I can see this is a church steeped in the word, and that's a wonderful thing. And what they're doing up there,
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I don't know how many of you follow it, but as the brother said, there's a lot of things that have not been going right with the leadership of the
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SBC for at least 10 years probably, almost, that I've been following it.
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But there is hope, there is opportunity, and there are many great churches like yours and like Mount Pleasant where I'm from and others that are standing for truth, preaching the gospel, making disciples, and all just the everyday things
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Christians should be doing. So I thank you for being, letting me be here. This is a great privilege and opportunity and I'm thankful for that.
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So we're going to jump right into it. So I have a book at home by Martin Lloyd -Jones, if you're familiar with him, and it's
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I think eight sermons all just on the verse from Galatians. It's no longer
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I who live, but Christ who lives in me. So every portion of scripture, a verse, could have volumes and volumes written on it.
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And Pastor Rhett told me your sermons are only about three hours each
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Sunday, so I don't know if I'll be able to get to in depth, but there's going to be things I'm not going to be able to cover in depth.
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There's going to be things that you're going to have questions about, and that's fine, you know, be a Berean, you can ask your elders, you can ask me.
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There's lots of great resources out there. If this is nothing else other than make you want to memorize this psalm for your own life, then that's great.
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So I'd say the great theme of this psalm is that our sovereign, all -powerful
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God is in a relationship with us and also with his enemies.
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We don't think of it that way sometimes. Sometimes we say, you know, it's not a religion, it's a relationship.
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A lot of people say that, but in reality, everyone who's ever existed is in a relationship with God, either as savior and father and master or as judge.
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So we relate to him in one way or another. Augustine says of this psalm, this psalm is that from which the devil dared to tempt our
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Lord Jesus Christ. Let us therefore attend to it, that thus armed we may be enabled to resist the tempter, not presuming in ourselves, but in him who before us was tempted, that we might not be overcome when tempted ourselves.
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So I'm going to start off with some challenges people bring up to this sermon, this psalm.
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Many people treat this psalm like a magic charm. If you've recited nothing bad will ever happen to you.
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And we all know that isn't true, yet somehow God's word is still true. So we're going to talk about that. So there, first of all, there's some debate who wrote it.
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Nobody knows for certain. It's not authored. Some people say David, some people say Moses. Spurgeon thought it was
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David for whatever that's, I don't know, he thought it was Moses for whatever that's worth. I read some Jewish writings that say
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Moses recited this psalm against evil spirits as he went up to heaven, but there's no proof of that. So it's just an interesting thought, but seems unlikely.
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But if David was not the author, I'm sure he was familiar with this psalm, and it doesn't really matter who wrote it for the purposes of this message, because as 2
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Timothy 3 .16 says, all scripture is breathed out by God and is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness.
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So to go on to what some people say about it, which I actually think gives fodder for people who doubt the
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Bible, although these people think that they're teaching the Bible, but they're actually providing ammunition for those who want to come against the
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Bible. So people in the kind of word of faith, name it and claim it camp, you know, one author,
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Joseph Prince, tells us that as Daniel's three friends escaped the furnace, his promise is that you can live protected and untouched, and it can be an even greater earthly reality in your life.
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He promises that the Lord will deliver you from all dangers if you believe the promises of this psalm.
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Kenneth Copeland, I'm sure some of you have heard that name before, he says you should use it to dispatch angels around you, your family members, your home, your vehicles, and your building, any building you walk into, saying, ministering angels,
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I send you forth to protect my family according to Psalm 91, then expect it. You know,
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I read that, first thing that popped into my mind was, you know, some people will actually correlate
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Psalm 91 with 9 -11, and I thought about that and what
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Kenneth Copeland said, and you know, I'm sure many Christians were in those buildings when they fell, and it was not a lack of faith that caused them to die that day.
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It was God bringing them home. So that teaching that if you memorize this psalm, if you recite this psalm, nothing bad will ever happen to you, not only is it not true, but it doesn't help anyone, and it's not biblical.
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There's actually a legend which some of you might have heard that there was an army division, an infantry, 91st
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Infantry Division in World War II. They took the card into battle with them, they had it memorized, and they fought in all the bloodiest battles, and no one ever died or was even hurt.
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God can obviously sovereignly do that, but I did a little digging, and most historians doubt there was even a 91st
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Division, so it seems like a story that may not be true, maybe more legend than reality.
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And Psalm 91 is often called the soldier's song, but no doubt many a man has fallen in battle with that memorized.
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You know, I think about our own nation, I think there were probably, in our own civil war, there were probably soldiers on both sides who memorized it and then died by the other's hand, though maybe not, because northerners have been godless pagans for quite some time.
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I'm from Massachusetts, I didn't mention that in the beginning. I'm not a godless pagan, but I was at one point.
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According to the book, He Will Save You From the Deadly Pestilence, there's even a company called
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Psalm 91 Properties in Nigeria that handles upscale expensive property acquisitions, and they assure you that you'll be satisfied with long life, and it'll be guaranteed if you use them as their realtors, so that's quite the promise.
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So enemies pounce on this kind of teaching. They can easily point out that everybody suffers, whether they believe the
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Psalm, whether they have the Psalm memorized, or they've never heard of it. Even, you know, in the
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Bible we have Abel, we have Joseph, we have Moses, we have Job. There's not one person that has believed that Christ was
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Savior that has not somehow suffered, and obviously we all die, and even
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Kenneth Copeland will eventually die. Christ himself suffered and died.
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The greatest hater of God, the devil, quoted this very Psalm to Jesus, and many use the problem of suffering to justify disbelief, open hostility, or indifference to God and the
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Christian faith. It's easy to fall into that. Some don't want to believe that God is sovereign and suffering and bring good out of it for his people, but we're not in charge, and we don't understand everything.
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You can fight against that, but it's the truth regardless, and at the root of it, at the bottom, the real reason why any of us reject
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God is because we're warped by sin and our desire is against him.
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I like to look at Luke 23. It says in 39, you can write that down if you want, 39 to 43.
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You know, you got two different people here. They could not avoid their fate, but there were two very different reactions.
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One of the criminals who was hanged railed at Jesus saying, are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us.
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Some people say, if you're God, do what I want you to do. If you don't do that, then you can't be
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God. But the other rebuked him saying, do you not fear God since you are under the same sentence of condemnation?
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And outside of Christ, we're all under a sentence of condemnation. And we indeed justly, all justly, for we are receiving the due reward of our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong.
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And he said, Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom. And Jesus said to him, truly, I say to you today, you will be with me in paradise.
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So we're like those criminals hanging on the cross. And by God's sovereign will, you can either be the criminal who says, you're going to do it my way.
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Or you can be this criminal who says, have mercy on me, God. You can be the tax collector who went into the temple and said,
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Lord, have mercy on me. I'm a sinner. You can be the Pharisee who said, thank God, I'm not like that guy.
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But God will have his way. An attitude of defiance is futile.
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And there's only two ways we can go. So scripture does not contradict itself. Even though we see suffering in the
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Bible all around us every day, if you turn the news on, if you look in the news, you can always find something.
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In the country of Nigeria right now, I believe I read, thousands of Christians have been slaughtered over this past year, year and a half by terrorists.
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There's suffering everywhere. Is Psalm 91 still true for them? Yes, it is. And we'll see why in a minute.
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Because although there is earthly blessing in it, because I think we can all look at portions of our lives, if you've lived for a while, and say,
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I could have died here, or this worst thing could have happened to me or to someone I love.
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There is earthly blessing in it. God does protect us. There's a greater spiritual and eternal reality.
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So verse one and two, he who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the
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Almighty. I will say to the Lord, my refuge and my fortress, my God whom I trust.
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So who will abide in the shadow of the Almighty? He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High. And who is our refuge, our fortress, the
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God who we have to trust? The only true God, the Lord. That's going to be the answer to a lot of our questions, the
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Lord. Those who walk closely with God will abide and bear much fruit.
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The Lord is our fortress. We must trust in him to work his will. For those who are called according to his purpose, for those whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his
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Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. The beginning of that is, we know that for those who love
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God, all things work together for good. So sometimes we forget about that part, but that's an important part, because it is easy to lose sight of when things aren't going so good.
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That doesn't mean we're passive and don't try to do anything, change our lives or, you know, protect ourselves or whatever, but it means we work to spread
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God's kingdom, provide for our families, and live a prosperous life, but knowing that the ultimate result is in the
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Lord's hand. So who dwells in the shelter of the
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Most High? Not everybody, just believers. We are covered by the shadow of the
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Almighty, so the scorching heat of the days on this earth do not destroy it. Some trust in chariots, some trust in horses, but we trust in the
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Lord. He is our refuge and our fortress. Commenting on these verses,
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Calvin says, He that dwelleth in the secret place of the High One, those who dwell in the secret place of God, are here said by the psalmist to dwell under his shadow, in the sense that they experience to what a rich extent his protection reaches.
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Men generally seek out a great variety of hiding places, having recourse to one or another, according as the calamities are different which threaten to overtake them.
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But here we are taught that the only safe and impregnable fortress to which we can take ourselves is the protection of God.
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He contrasts the security of those who trust in God with the vanity of all other confidences by which we are apt to delude ourselves.
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It's very easy for us to delude ourselves in thinking that we're secure. You know,
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I think back to 2020, and I was in Massachusetts, so the reaction to COVID was a lot more extreme up there, but everybody had absolute faith in this little piece of cloth they put over their mouth that they wore every day without cleaning and hung over the rearview mirror and took off 75 times a day and we all got
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COVID anyway. You know, we can trust in our job, we can trust in our home, we can trust in our family, but you never know what
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God has for you. Two and a half years ago, I never thought I would be in South Carolina. I never thought of moving to South Carolina.
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I never considered South Carolina. We started looking south, a job opened up here, and here we are.
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And in Massachusetts, I worked at the same place for 21 years, and since I've been here for two years,
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I'm on my seventh or eighth job, having been laid off from a number, and so you never know what God has for you.
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But God has always provided for us in many miraculous ways, which I could tell you sometime, but that's not why we're here right now.
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But God is good, and I'm sure all of you can think of things, and if you can't, you'll be able to as you grow older, that you thought, this is my confidence, this is what
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I can hide in, this is my refuge, but as time went by, that was taken away or changed drastically.
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So God is our only true refuge. He will deliver us from the snare of the fowler.
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That's just somebody who catches birds, and somebody pointed out, you know, you look at Christ, relating it to Christ, and many, many times, the religious leaders tried to catch him, to trap him, but he escaped every time.
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And it also brings to mind, many, many years ago, I went to a pigeon shoot in Pennsylvania, and I'm not here to share my testimony, but a little part of it to just make that make sense.
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When I was a teenager, I was an animal rights activist. I love steak now, so don't worry, you can give me all the meat you want,
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I love it. It was a very embarrassing time to reflect on, but anyway, I went to a protest in Pennsylvania, where they protested this pigeon shoot, and basically, they just had them in a trap that would open up, and they'd shoot them with shotguns and whatever.
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It sounds fun to me now, but I was thinking about it as I was reading this, and I just thought, you know, if you don't have
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Christ, you're like that bird, because they come out of that trap, and they're a little disoriented, and some of them would get a little further than others, but boom, you know, they were a cloud of feathers, and that's how we're all going to end up if we don't trust in Christ.
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The deadly pestilence, he also delivers us from that. He will cover you with his pinions, and under his wings, you will find refuge.
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His faithfulness is a shield and a buckler. You will not fear the terror of the night, nor the arrow that flies by day.
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So God will deliver us from the traps and snares of the enemy. He will protect us from harm and fight for us.
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Because of this fact, we don't need to fear the enemies who attack us in darkness or light.
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There are dangers all around us, but the Lord is with us. We do not need to fear the dread of sickness or the destruction of evil that comes with each day, because God's mercies are also new every morning, and his power is what sustains us in all things.
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Verse 6, nor the pestilence that stalks in the darkness, nor the destruction that wastes at noon day.
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So we see that throughout Christ's life, he showed his power over sickness, over disease, and over death.
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He sent out his disciples, and he told them, the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons.
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In Luke chapter 4, and I love this portion of scripture, so Jesus came to Nazareth, where he'd been brought up, and as was his custom, he went to the synagogue on the
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Sabbath. They had stood up and read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written, the spirit of the
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Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim the good news to the poor. He sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the
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Lord's favor. He rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him, and he began to say to them, today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.
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That would have been amazing to be there for that, but we're here now, and we know it by faith.
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First Peter 2, he says, he himself bore our sins in his body on that tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness.
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By his wounds you have been healed, for you were straying like sheep, but now have returned to the shepherd and overseer of your souls.
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It's quoted from Isaiah 53, but he was pierced for our transgression. He was crushed for our iniquities.
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Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray.
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We have turned everyone to his own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. So we see in those verses that though God certainly can heal us if he chooses to, that's talking about sin, which is greater than any disease or sickness.
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Something will get us eventually, but if we're with Christ and he's conquered our sin, then we're secure.
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The end of verse 4 again says, his faithfulness is a shield and a buckler. Your translation may say shield and bulwark, or shield and rampart, or even armor and protection, but the point is his faithfulness that we must rely on.
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Romans 3 says in verse 3, what if some were unfaithful? Does that faithfulness nullify the faithfulness of God?
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If it did, we'd be in big trouble. First John 1 9, which we read at the beginning, if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
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That's the best kind of faithfulness we could have. Nobody else can do that but him. We can't work for it.
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There's no other God. There's nothing you can do to buy off God or to atone for your sins.
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So who will deliver us? The Lord. Where will we find refuge?
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In the Lord. Who is our shield and our buckler? The Lord and his faithfulness.
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And what about those arrows that fly by night? Who's going to protect us from those? Why don't we have to fear them? Again, the Lord. We don't need to fear.
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The Lord is faithful. So I think about the month we're in right now and on the secular religious calendar, you know, this month is gay pride month and we don't need to fear even in this month.
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It seems like the entire year has become some kind of celebration to some kind of debauchery.
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Up north it's worse but it's here too. I just read a story this past week.
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An officer was killed in Connecticut and the town where he was killed they asked him to fly the thin blue line flag at half mast but the officials felt that was offensive so they flew the gay pride flag at half mast.
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So a lot of people fear that because there's repercussions now for that kind of thing.
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You could lose your job. Again, maybe it's easier up there but it could still happen here. You could certainly be ostracized.
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Years ago I had a conversation with one of my children much earlier than I wanted to but we were watching a television show and they introduced some concepts of transgenderism and whatnot and so I had to tell him we're not watching this show anymore and he said why not?
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I said well they're teaching that you don't have to believe God is who you made you to be.
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You were made a boy or you were made a girl. They're saying you can be a boy and think you're a girl, a girl and think you're a boy.
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You can think you're both, you can think you're neither, you can switch it back and forth. He was probably seven maybe at the time and he looked at me and said that's the dumbest thing
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I've ever heard and I said you know what that's true but people are going to think we're hateful for saying that but there's a reason why
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God said to love your enemies and it wasn't because you weren't going to make any but when we tell the truth some people are going to get very sometimes you don't even have to say the truth just your very existence as a
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Christian is enough to offend them so we don't have to fear that either though.
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We can just preach the whole counsel of God we don't have to apologize for it. Romans 8 says in verse 31, starting in verse 31, what shall we say to these things?
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If God is for us who can be against us? He who did not spare his own son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?
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Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn?
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Christ is the one who died. More than that, who was raised, who was at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.
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Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?
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As it is written, for your sake we've been killed all the day long. We were regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.
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No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life nor angels nor rulers nor things present nor things to come nor powers nor height nor depth nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our
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Lord. So right there we see these people were conquerors and yet he said they were going, many of them were going to be killed.
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So there is a much greater spiritual reality. Verse seven says a thousand shall fall at your side, ten thousand shall right hand but it will not come near you.
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You only look with your eyes and see the recompense of the wicked. Death is all around us but will not come near us.
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Justice may seem elusive in this life at times, but God will punish the wicked.
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So we shouldn't despair about that. If it seems like they're winning, they aren't.
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Many of them, you know, you can read many testimonies of, Paul is a good example, probably
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I am a good example, many of you are probably a good example of people who were adamantly opposed and hostile to God and yet God changed them.
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With man impossible, with God possible. So he'll protect you.
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The mayhem that falls on tens and thousands who turn away from Christ, the recompense of the wicked, we don't have to face
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God's justice because Christ already has for us. He's paid the wages of sin and although we will eventually die, there's a famous quote by George Whitefield that I think sums it up pretty well.
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We are immortal until our work on earth is done. Verse nine, because you have made the
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Lord your dwelling place, the most high who is my refuge, no evil shall be allowed to befall you, no plague come near your tent.
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We know the Lord is our light and our salvation. Because we love him and find our dwelling place with him as citizens of heaven, because he chose us before the foundation of the world, we find refuge in him.
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Refuge, first of all, from the righteous judgment that we deserve for our sins.
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And second of all, refuge from the evil and the plague that sweeps so many away. Sometimes that's literally true.
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Other times we have to rest and accept the greater spiritual reality. What many call freedom and liberty is actually
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God's judgment. When we think sin is freedom, it's not freedom.
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And so to not be swept up in that is a great protection. And why is it that no evil shall be allowed to fall on us or plague come near us?
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The Lord. His greatest act of preservation can be found in your own salvation.
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I'm sure you've heard it said, I don't know who said it, but if you could lose your salvation, you would.
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I would. That's not to give false assurance to those who've put faith in a prayer, but not in the
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God of the prayer, or to those who think they must be Christian because they're Southern, or because they're
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Baptist, or because they're Southern Baptist, yet have never borne any fruit. But the greatest good news for those of us who are ours, who are his, excuse me, are that we always will be his.
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Ephesians 2 .8 .9 says, for by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing.
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It is the gift of God, not a result of work, so that no one may boast. It's good that we can't boast of it, because if we could boast of it, we could lose it.
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Being from Massachusetts, you know, I lived through the greatest dynasty in sports history of the
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Patriots, and I only bring it up because when
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I was up there, the fans were absolutely ruthless. It was a season where we won every game but lost the
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Super Bowl. That wasn't good enough. They were calling for Tom Brady to be fired, the coach to be gotten rid of.
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You know, anything you have that you can boast in can be taken away. You know, whatever dynasty we build can be taken away.
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I was reading this. This is, you can look it up online and read the whole thing. I'm just going to read the beginning of it, but it's from chapter 17 in the
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Baptist Confession of Faith in regards to how the
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Lord preserves us, okay? And I just thought it was beautiful. I'm only going to read a portion of it, but those
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God has accepted in the beloved, effectually called and sanctified by his spirit, and given the precious faith of his elect, can neither totally nor finally fall from a state of grace.
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They will certainly persevere in grace to the end and be eternally saved, because the gifts and calling of God are irrevocable.
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Therefore, he still brings about and nourishes them in faith, repentance, love, joy, hope, and all the graces of the spirit that lead to immortality.
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Even though many storms and floods arise and beat against them, yet these things will never be able to move the elect from the foundation and rock to which they are anchored by faith.
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The felt sight of the light and love of God may be clouded and obscured from them for a time, their unbelief and the temptations of Satan.
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Yet God is still the same. They will certainly be kept by the power of God for salvation, where they will enjoy their purchased possession, for they are engraved on the palm of his hands, and their names are written in the book of life for all eternity.
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That's great news. That's only a portion of it. I really recommend you go look it up, read the whole thing, the scripture references associated with it, especially if you're struggling, an assurance of your salvation, or if you've gone astray, or if you just need a reminder of how amazing
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God is and how he's holding you in the palm of his hands. Moving on to verse 11, for he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways.
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On their hands, they will bear you up as you strike your foot against the stone. You will tread on the lion and the adder, the young lion and the serpent you will trample underfoot.
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Who commands his angels to guard us? The Lord. Who will bear us up?
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The Lord. Who shall be trampled underfoot? The lion, the adder, the young lion, and the serpent by the
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Lord. We won't be trampled underfoot. This is the very psalm the devil quoted to tempt
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Jesus. The devil interpreted and used the scriptures in a self -serving, twisted way, which we can all do, and which many do.
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As the venerable theologian Chad Campbell observed, when Satan was tempting Jesus, he quoted from Psalm 91.
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But I wonder why he left out the part about trampling the serpent underfoot. Jesus corrected this intentional misinterpretation.
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The devil still does this, and has been doing this tactic since Adam. But the second
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Adam thwarted him, with perfect obedience. And thank
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God we are no longer doomed in the first Adam, but saved in the final Adam, and we don't need to be tossed around by every wind of doctrine.
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In New England, I managed a chain of Christian bookstores for 21 years, and I can tell you that because there's a lot of pressure to make money by companies and publishers and whatever.
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There's a new fad every few years. Every once in a while, it may be positive, but usually it is not.
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And people jump from one thing to the next, and that's a danger.
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But in Christ, we're on the solid rock. First Corinthians 15 .45.
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The first man Adam became a living being. God made him, God gave him a soul, and then he fell.
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The last Adam became a life -giving spirit. Romans 5 .19.
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For by the one man's disobedience, the many were made sinners. So by the one man's obedience, many will be made righteous.
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There's a right way and a wrong way to interpret scripture, and we learn that through study, discipleship, which it seems like is going on here.
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So that's a wonderful thing. Don't neglect that. We learn this through a saving relationship with Christ and the guidance of the
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Holy Spirit. Jesus, and by extension the church, tread upon the devil who was wandering around like a roaring lion.
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And of course, he dealt a death blow to the serpent's head with his death and resurrection. You could preach forever just on that portion of scripture.
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So I implore you to look up all the other places where it's referenced in the
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New Testament. Look at it. Look how Jesus combated the devil. Look how the devil tempted
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Christ, often using scripture, yet wrongly. Verse 14.
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This is coming to the end here. Verses 14 through 16. This part is so great because God is now speaking in first person to the psalmist.
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Because he holds fast to me in love, I will deliver him. I will protect him because he knows my name.
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When he calls to me, I will answer him. I'll be with him in trouble. I will rescue him and honor him. With long life,
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I will satisfy him and show him my salvation. So he speaks of Christ and he speaks of you and me in Christ.
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Christ's resurrection proves that we can have hope. It proves that he will satisfy us with long life and show us salvation.
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Believers will live forever with the Lord. No one will live forever here. Unbelievers will suffer eternal death, suffering the torment of God's wrath forever.
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You cannot live a longer life than forever, and you cannot have a greater salvation than the one offered to you in Christ.
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So in these verses, again we see who will deliver us and protect us when we hold fast to him, the
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Lord. Why will he deliver us? The Lord will deliver us because we're sinless, right?
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Because we do everything right. Nope. He'll deliver us because he loves us and we know his name.
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When will the Lord answer us when we call him? When will the Lord be with us? The Lord will be with us when we're in trouble.
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And who will satisfy us with a long life and show us salvation? The Lord. It's going to be amazing when we are shown that salvation face to face.
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So as you see, that's a real quick overview. You could go forever on this. There's so much more
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I could have covered and said, so I implore you to study it on your own, but I just want to give you four points in summary, and then
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I'm going to end. Point one, in Christ we win. So we shouldn't despair.
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We plant, we build, we preach, we wage spiritual warfare. We stand for truth.
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We love our enemies. No matter how bleak some moments may seem in our own personal lives or in the culture around us, we should fight with hope and joy.
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The Lord is our shield. The Lord is our stronghold. And of course we will die, but to be absent from the body for believers is to be present with the
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Lord. And no one can separate us from God's love, and no one can take us out of God's hand.
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As believers, we win in life and in death. If you don't trust in Jesus for salvation, the same cannot be said for you.
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You may appear to win in this life, but in the end, you too will die and you will face
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God. If Christ has not paid for your sins, then you will have to face
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God and pay those wages yourself. But the problem is you can't. Point number two, we can trust in the
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Lord's faithfulness. I love that phrase in the middle there.
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His faithfulness is our shield and buckler. He will forgive our sins. He'll forgive the sins of his people.
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He will punish the wicked. Justice may seem elusive at times. The innocent seem like they're punished.
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The guilty are set free or rewarded with riches. We see that often, but those whose lives are not built on the rock of Christ will be crushed and smashed by the rock of Christ.
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For believers, he preserves our lives for as long as he sees fit, and he will work all things together for good.
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He will hold us fast, and he will cause us to persevere through this life and into eternity where we will see our salvation face to face.
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Point number three, Christ is our savior and also our teacher. The devil quoted scripture to Jesus in a nefarious manner, seeming to trip him up to make him doubt.
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But Jesus defeated the devil with scripture, accurately applied. So we need to be
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Bereans and know our Bible. Four, just reiterating,
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God will show us his salvation, and he will give us eternal life. And then in closing,
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I ended my last sermon the same way, and I find myself repeating this quite frequently in my life.
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I had a pastor in New England who spent most of his time with the dying, and he's a very gentle man, and he would quote this all the time, and it stuck with me.
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This is the first question and answer of the Heidelberg Catechism. It was written in the 1500s in Germany.
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So just to get that picture in your mind, the infant mortality rate was 30 to 50%.
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The second wave of the Black Plague happened in the 1500s. It was estimated to kill a third to a half of the population of Europe, and you were completely dependent on the weather for whether or not your food would grow and you'd be able to eat.
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So it was a much harder life than most of us are living now. So in closing, this question and beautiful answer from that catechism.
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What is your only comfort in life and in death? That I am not my own, but belong body and soul, and life and in death to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ.
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He has fully paid for all my sins with his precious blood, and has set me free from the tyranny of the devil.
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He also watches over me in such a way that not a hair can fall from my head without the will of my
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Father in heaven. In fact, all things must work together for my salvation. Because I belong to him,
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Christ, by his Holy Spirit, assures me of eternal life, and makes me wholeheartedly willing and ready from now on to live for him.