Psalm 46

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Rob at FBC Newton. God will be Exalted 1. God is our Defender

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Isn't it a blessing that our whole service is filled with the Word of God and exalting Christ? We don't have to wait till now to do that.
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What a blessing. I'm so thankful. If you're here or if you're online, if you've ever watched it online, the words are over here.
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If you're online, turn to Psalm 46 and so you don't have to flip later. There's just two other passages that I wanted to read with you this morning, if you want to put your finger there.
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So our main text will be Psalm 46. And then the other two passages will be
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Ezekiel chapter 47 and Revelation 22, if you want to hold your place there.
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So I have a first one to tell me the first word in the first verse in your Bible of Psalm 46, verse one gets the prize.
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What's the first word in the first verse Psalm 46? God. It may be different in different versions.
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Okay. Okay. The prize that you received this morning for getting the correct answer so quickly is that you get to remind
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Kelly and myself to take our Christmas cards home with us today. That's going to be your surprise or your prize.
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So some friends shared a video online that it was a guy,
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Pastor Owen, and he was speaking at a conference and it was just a short clip of the sermon.
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But basically in that short clip, he said in America, and it sounded like he had a, maybe a British accent, but he said in America today,
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America has no preachers, only teachers. And a couple of my friends shared it.
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They said, amen. And I thought about sharing it. I thought about saying amen, but I couldn't,
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I couldn't do it. I understood the people that he was talking about. I understood the circles of preachers he was talking about.
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I understood his sentiment. But he said, America does not have any preachers. They only have teachers.
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He said, teachers share information. Preaching moves.
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I understood that. I get that. I just, I couldn't share it. I couldn't say amen just right off the bat for this reason, for so many years that I've been doing this, studying it, studying, teaching, and preaching, teaching and preaching myself when
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I have the opportunity. I've yet to hear a really good explanation that's satisfactory to me, the difference between teaching and preaching.
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Pastor MacArthur, John MacArthur, he would probably correct me so much on quoting him here, but this, this is what
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I heard from him when he spoke on this issue. He said, explain the text and leave the application to the
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Holy Spirit. So that, that was kind of his, his take on it. So I'm trying to decide if preaching is, is to motivate people to move.
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What is the difference between preaching and teaching? What is, what is the balance that I'm looking for? Is it, is it my tone?
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Is it my volume? Is it my cadence? Is it the proclamation with authority?
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Is it being animated with really shallow cliches repeated over and over again?
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Is it me marching around screaming, screaming so much that you see the big blood vessel in my head about to pop out?
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Is it, is it those things? Because I'm sure if you're like me, you've heard all different kinds.
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You've heard pastors, preachers stand before you and they're, they're smooth the whole time, calm the whole time.
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And they, they read a lot like I do from their manuscript. And then you have the other extreme where the pastor's everywhere.
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He's marching up and down the aisles. He's screaming. Some pastors even between every other word they have almost like a hiccup or a cough that they'll, they'll do.
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So is that preaching? Is that the difference between teaching and preaching? When I started to study this text and I saw that first word,
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I feel like the answer for me was there in that first word,
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God. It must be about God, for God, through God, and by God.
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And then I recall the words of Jesus when he said, love the
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Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your mind, with all your soul and with all your strength. So that's where I resigned that I needed to be.
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So in application, when I'm teaching God's word, I want to teach,
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I want to love God in my teaching with all my heart, mind, soul, and strength. When I'm preaching,
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I want to love God in my preaching with all my heart, mind, soul, and strength. When I'm there and I'm listening to Pastor Chris or listening to another pastor,
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I want to hear God's word with all my heart, mind, soul, and strength.
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I want to love God in my hearing of his word with all my heart, mind, soul, and strength. That may not be so specific to the text today, but it helped me answer this question.
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And I also think it helps sets us up for today's sermon, for next Sunday's sermon, for organization of the service, for our service of others, for our decisions making in the church, that whatever we do in our
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Christian life, that we do it, we love God in that what we're doing with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength.
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So for me, I may sound like I'm teaching more than I'm preaching, but I want to be in a place where I'm doing it, where I'm loving
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God with all my heart, mind, soul, and strength. I think that's where we can be in all of our life for Christ.
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So in Psalm 46, this is a psalm that Christians have turned to for thousands of years.
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It's a psalm that inspired Martin Luther so much that he penned, A Mighty Fortress is
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Our God. It's a psalm of comfort, but why do we need to talk about comfort?
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This is such a joyous time of year. There's a lot of lead up and great expectations for this time of year.
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The expectations of great joy and happiness at Christmas and New Year. Sometimes those feelings are somewhat forced because not all of us are feeling it, right?
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This time of year is the worst time of year for depression. Folks have lost loved ones.
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We've heard about that this morning. Loved ones, family members, folks are sick, family members are sick.
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Some folks are alone. They have no one to love. They have no one to love them.
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Winter is the worst time of year for depression and the early spring is the worst time of year for suicide.
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I want to be real with everybody, but I also want to be sensitive because I know so many people are hurting this time of year.
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I'll even admit for me personally, I battle with being down and depressed sometimes.
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We don't even know where it comes from. We look at our lives and God has been so good to us and blessed us so much and yet for some reason our brain causes us to think negatively and we can't explain it.
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We don't even know where it comes from. We just enter into a place, even though things are so well, we enter into a place of negativity.
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But here's where I want to be real. The reality of it is, and another title,
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I titled the sermon, God Will Be Exalted, but another title could have been, It's Worse Than What You Think, But It's Better Than You Can Imagine.
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The reality is, is that no matter how depressed, how bad things are in our lives and in front of us, it's worse than what we think.
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If we could see ourselves before God and see our total depravity, we would want a mountain to fall on us.
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We would want the earth to swallow us up if we were standing before God and we were able to see ourselves the way he sees us.
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However, the reason so many Christians have flown to this psalm for so many years is because there is hope far greater than we could ever imagine.
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I hope to express that hope with you today. Psalm 46 is from the sons of Korah.
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If you look at the heading before verse one, it's from the sons of Korah and it was meant to be played with a stringed instrument called the
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Alamoth. No one is certain exactly who penned this psalm. Some people suggest it was
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King David who was reflecting on a great victory. Some suggest it was King Hezekiah after the great victory over the attempted invasion of the
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Assyrian army. But what we do know for sure is that this psalm is ultimately about the
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King of Kings and Lord of Lords, King Jesus. But to get there, we have to be careful with our interpretation.
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We're often tempted with Old Testament passages to interpret them about ourselves.
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Maybe you've heard this over the years by some other folks, but sometimes we interpret
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Old Testament passage like this. I'm David and Goliath is my problems.
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Well, that's not a Christ -centered interpretation of the Old Testament. We also have to remember that we are not in the old covenant as they were.
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I want us to be able to understand what was meant to the original audience. I call this psalm a 2020 psalm.
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We always have perfect vision, right? Looking backwards. In this case, they did do what was right before God.
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He blessed them and Psalm 46 is a reminder to look back and to see what it's supposed to look like.
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Under the old covenant, God dealt with them in terms of obedience and blessing, disobedience and consequences.
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Psalm 46 are words of reflection, of comfort and encouragement.
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If this did come from King Hezekiah, it makes sense in this sense, and we'll look at another sense here in a second.
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But the Assyrian king, he wrote a letter to King Hezekiah telling him to look at all the other nations that they had already destroyed.
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And he said, their God didn't help them. And your
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God, Hezekiah, he's not going to help you either. King Hezekiah, he took that letter.
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He took it before the Lord. He put it on the altar. And then King Hezekiah believed the promises of God.
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He moved forward, trusting in the promises of God through the prophet Isaiah. And Hezekiah was found faithful and Jerusalem was saved because of the covenant promise of God that God had made with him.
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Psalm 46 says to the Jews, obey God, trust in Him, and He will bless you.
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We, however, we are not Judah. We are not Israel.
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We are not the Jews. We're not in the old covenant. We are post cross, post empty tomb, post
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Pentecostal Christians in a new covenant. So my encouragement to us is don't listen to some preachers that say this every year.
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And some people have to hear it weekly. This is the year of breakthrough. God will break through all those strong holes that you have.
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Just sow your seed. This is just another covenant of works. Don't listen to that.
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My hope is for us to see the beauty of how ancient Israel was comforted by this
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Psalm and then see how we can be comforted in this Psalm through Christ.
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So we're going to divide up this Psalm into three sections. The first one, God is our defender, verses one through three.
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God is our sustainer, verses four through seven. And God is our warrior, verses eight through 11.
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But before we get started in these verses, this is something that helped me. And I know we're not all the same, but it might help you as we try to get an understanding of what was meant to the original audience.
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So what we have to do is a little imaginative work. For me, this is what
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I did, and maybe it'll be helpful for you. I had to picture the walled city of Jerusalem sitting up on a great hill.
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So if you can, put yourself in their circumstances. There's the great city of Jerusalem sitting up on a hill.
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And I want to imagine myself as part of their population. Word is that there's a great army headed towards us, and now they've made it, and they've surrounded our city.
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All the soldiers are in their positions. All the lookouts and the spies are in theirs as well.
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We've all been summoned to our safe places within the city, and messengers are bringing word to the king of what they're seeing.
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The king now begins to comfort us with his speech, and he describes to us our current situation.
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And then he tells us about hope in God. Verse one is his proclamation of hope.
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If this was King Hezekiah for our story here, if this is King Hezekiah, verse one, to us, his people, is his proclamation of hope.
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And then the rest of the psalm are the supports for this bold proclamation. So look at verse one, his bold proclamation.
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God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.
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Let me read it to you this way. God, the always almighty
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God, he is never changing and all the time all powerful, is he doesn't like anything, he doesn't change, and he doesn't fail.
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God is our reserve for those in his city, his chosen people, and I like this, selected beneficiaries.
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As opposed to those who are not, Psalm 92, 9 says, behold your enemies,
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O Lord, for behold, your enemies will perish, all who do iniquity will be scattered.
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God is our refuge, our protection, defense, comfort, and blessing, is our refuge and strength.
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He is our faith to stand and live, the ability to face whatever and not be dismayed.
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A very present help, he is always all present.
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He is completely present. All of God is always before his people, past, present, and future.
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His people have a helper and a savior. In times of trouble, trouble now becomes relative.
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Trouble for whom? In times of so -called trouble, it is no trouble now for God, but in our perceived trouble, he is there to show us his love and kindness.
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I also want to include the first part of verse two. Therefore, because of these truths, we, his chosen people, will not fear.
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An unwavering determination in the face of impossible adversity, we will not fear.
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Now let's look at verses two and three. Therefore, we will not fear, though the earth should change, and though the mountains slip into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar in foam, though the mountains quake at its swelling pride.
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Selah. Cities and temples were built on high hills and mountains.
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This was for symbolism, to teach spiritual lessons, to be closer to God, also to be strategic and difficult for enemies to overcome them.
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This is where I can imagine, so go back to our story. This is where I can imagine Psalm 46 is a poetic description of what the lookouts were seeing and reporting to their king.
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What a gut -wrenching feeling to be watching a vast army approach your city on foot.
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You'd see all the soldiers marching. You'd see the chariots, the horses, the weaponry as they march, and as they prepare, as they make their stand, we can almost feel the mountains crumbling beneath our feet.
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One can imagine everything giving way and falling to the ocean as you look at this army coming and making their stand.
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And even though the mountain seems so massive and permanent, it is no match for the ocean.
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Their sense of security and pride, their source of strength and defense was the security in the mountain.
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But now it is falling into the ocean. The waves foam and swell and overtake this unmolded disturbance.
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Yet the psalmist says, we will not fear. Let's look at verses four through seven.
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There's a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy dwelling places of the most high.
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God is in the midst of her. She will not be moved. God will help her when morning dawns.
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The nations made an uproar. The kingdoms tottered. He raised his voice. The earth melted.
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The Lord of hosts is with us. The God of Jacob is our stronghold, Selah. Not only is
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God our defense, but he is the sustainer of life. Again, it makes sense if this was
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King Hezekiah who penned this psalm, because when King Hezekiah heard of these armies coming, he built an aqueduct.
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He went outside the city to Gihon, where there was a spring, and he built an underground aqueduct from there all the way to the city.
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And the Assyrian army had no idea it was there. And they were able to sustain themselves and outlast the
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Assyrian army. Our salvation also comes from outside the city.
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Actually, outside of this world, Christ came from heaven above. He was crucified outside the city, buried, and rose on the third day.
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Now there is life -giving water through the Holy Spirit that saves souls and builds a kingdom and humbles the nations.
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Now let's look at Ezekiel chapter 47 to hear about this water of the
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Holy Spirit. Ezekiel 47, 1 through 8.
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Then he brought me back to the door of the house, and behold, water was flowing from under the threshold of the house toward the east.
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For the house faced east, and the water was flowing down from under, and the right side of the house, from south of the altar.
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And he brought me out by way of the north gate, and led me around on the outside of the other gate by the way facing east.
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And behold, water was spurting out from the south side. When the man went out toward the east with a line in his hand, he measured a thousand cubits.
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He led me through the water, water reaching to my ankles. Again, he measured a thousand and led me through the water, water reaching to my knees.
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Again, he measured a thousand and led me through the water, water reaching to my hips. Again, he measured a thousand, and it was a river that I could not wait across because the water had risen, even water, enough water to swim in, a river that could not be crossed by waiting.
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And he said to me, son of man, have you seen this? Then he brought me back to the bank of the river.
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Now, when I had returned, behold, on the bank of the river there were very many trees on the one side and on the other.
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Then he said to me, these waters go out toward the eastern region and go down into the
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Areba, then go to toward the sea, being made to flow into the sea, and the waters of the sea become fresh.
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Now, John in Revelation takes Ezekiel 47 and he gives us an explanation of what was going on here.
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So turn over to Revelation chapter 22. Revelation 22 comes from Ezekiel 47.
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And he showed me a river of the water of life, clear as crystal, coming from the throne of God and of the lamb in the middle of its streets.
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On either side of the river was the tree of life, bearing 12 kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit every month.
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And the leaves of the tree were for healing of the nations. There will no longer be any curse, and the throne of God and of the lamb will be in it.
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And his bond servants will serve him, they will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads.
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And there will no longer be any night, and they will not have need of the light of a lamp nor the light of the sun, because the
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Lord God will illuminate them, and they will reign forever and ever. And he said to me, these words are faithful and true.
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The Lord, the God of the spirits of the prophets, sent his angel to show his bond servants these things which must soon take place.
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And behold, I am coming quickly. Blessed is the one who keeps the words of the prophecy of this book,
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I, John, am the one who heard and saw these things. And when I heard and saw them, I fell down and worshiped at the feet of the angel who showed me these things.
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And he said to me, do not do that. I am a fellow servant of yours and of your brother, the prophets, and of those who keep the words of this book.
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Worship God. And he said to me, do not sell the words of this prophecy of this book, for the time is near.
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Let the one who does wrong still do wrong, and the one who is filthy still be filthy, and the one who is righteous still practice righteousness.
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For the one who is holy still keep himself holy. Behold, I am coming quickly.
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My reward is with me to reward each as his work deserves.
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I am the alpha and the omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end. Blessed are those who wash their robes so that they will have the right to the tree of life and may enter the city by the gates.
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Outside are the dogs, sorcerers, sexually immoral persons, the murderers, the adulterers, and everyone who loves and practices lying.
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I, Jesus, have sent my angel to testify to you of these things for the churches.
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I am the root and the descendant of David, the bright and morning star.
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The spirit and the bride say come, and let the one who hears say come, and let the one who is thirsty come, and let the one who desires take the water of life without cost.
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The enemy hates this, this water of life, both the one surrounding
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Jerusalem and the enemy surrounding us. Let's go back to our story.
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When the morning dawns, the enemy who has been waiting for the city to surrender from lack of supplies sees the city still standing.
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They are furious. They make an uproar, scripture says. They cry aloud, they growl, and they grumble.
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The kingdoms totter, just like when the lookouts imagined that they would be the ones sliding into the sea.
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The Lord says, no, it's the kingdoms that will totter. In other words, the armies will slip, slide, and fall down.
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As it says in verse 6, the earth melts at his voice. The armies will all slide away like lava down a mountain into the sea.
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For us, in the ultimate and final victory, 2 Peter 3 10 says, but the day of the
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Lord will come like a thief, in which the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat, and the earth and its works will be discovered.
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And then in Ezekiel and the Revelation that we just read, the earth will be filled with the
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Holy Spirit like fresh, life -giving water, verses 8 through 11.
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Come, behold the works of the Lord, who has wrought desolations in the earth.
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He makes wars to cease to the end of the earth. He breaks the bow and cuts the spear in two.
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He burns the chariots with fire. Cease striving and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations.
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I will be exalted in the earth. The Lord of hosts is with us. The God of Jacob is our stronghold.
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Selah. Come, behold the works of the Lord, what are, what is the
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Lord able to do? This is so fascinating. In 2
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Kings 19 35, we are told that one angel killed 185 ,000
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Assyrian soldiers. Jesus said in Matthew 26 53, that he could call down, call out to his father and have sent down 12 legions of angels.
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If a legion at its minimum is 6 ,000, 12 legions of angels would be 72 ,000 angels.
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And if you did the math, if one angel could kill 185 ,000 enemies, 12 legions could kill 13 billion, 320 million enemies.
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That's more than the population has ever been. And yet God doesn't need the angels.
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He can speak and they will melt like wax. Now, can we say what trouble?
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This was their hope that if they would obey in faithfulness, like Hezekiah, God would be faithful to his promises and his covenant.
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Here in verse 10, God speaks. Now that the audience has the right perspective on their troubles, he says to them, be still, cease striving.
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In other words, relax, know with confidence that I am
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God. They may have been his chosen people and he does care about their welfare and his covenant.
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However, above all this, they can be secure in their perspective because he is
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God, Elohim. And God says, I will be exalted among the nations.
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I will be exalted on the earth. No matter which covenant we are looking at, this truth is universal and will be true through all generations.
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So for us who are post -cross, post -empty tomb, post -Pentecostal, new covenant believers, what is our hope of victory?
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How will God be exalted in the earth among all the nations? Our hope, our victory is in Christ, ultimately, just like theirs is.
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God is winning with the gospel in our salvation and in the building of his kingdom in this world.
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Isaiah 2 verses 1 -4 says, the word which Isaiah, the son of Amoz, saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem.
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Now it will come about that in the last days, the mountain of the house of the
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Lord will be established as the chief of the mountains and will be raised above the hills and all the nations will string to it.
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And many peoples will come and say, come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the
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God of Jacob, so that he may teach us about his ways and that we may walk in his paths.
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For the law will go out from Zion and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. And he will judge between the nations and he will mediate for many peoples and they will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into printing knives.
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Nation will not lift up sword against nation and never again will they learn war.
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Why? Because God will be exalted in the earth. Romans 1 -16, for I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God until salvation to everyone who believes, to the
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Jew first and also to the Greek. Why? Because God will be exalted among the nations.
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Isaiah 42, 12 and 13, let them give glory to the Lord and declare his praise in the coastlands.
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The Lord will go out like a warrior. He will stir his zeal like a man of war.
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He will shout in deed. He will raise a war cry. He will prevail against his enemies.
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Why? Because God will be exalted in the earth. As Ephesians 3, 20 and 21 says, now to him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we could ask or think according to the power that works within us, to him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever.
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Amen. Why? Because God will be exalted in the earth. Romans 11 -36, for from him and through him and to him are all things.
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To him be the glory forever. Amen. Why? Because he will be exalted in the earth.
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Psalm 46, 7 and 11, the Lord of hosts is with us. The God of Jacob is our stronghold and an inaccessible fortress.
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Why? Because God will be exalted in the earth. John 3, 16, for God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son that everyone believing in him will not perish, but have everlasting life.
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Why? Because God will be exalted in the earth. And then Romans 8, 37 and 39, but in all things we are overwhelmingly, we overwhelmingly conquer through him who loved us.
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For I am convinced that neither life nor death, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creative thing will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our
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Lord. Why? Because God will be exalted in the earth. Let's pray.
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Father, thank you for Psalm 46. Thank you for teaching us who you are.
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And by knowing who you are brings us comfort because there is no foe.
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There is no enemy that could ever match you.
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Thank you for making us yours. Thank you for saving us through Christ. Thank you for being our defender, our sustainer, and our warrior.
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We give you all the praise and glory and honor in Jesus name.