When Your World Shakes

Today we continue in our series. We've been doing the stories we believe. We all believe stories. And I don't mean, you know, nursery rhymes as a kid or some story you were told or read in a class or, you know, Odyssey or whatever movies you recently saw. I mean, stories we tell ourselves about ourselves, about other people, about God.

And today we're gonna be in Psalm 46. If you got a Bible, you can go ahead and turn there. I'm gonna assume you didn't come to church today to play religious games because you just stayed home. It's raining, you had a reason not to come, right? And so if you came to church today to be connected to Jesus, to encounter him in some way, or to somehow help someone else do that, to be equipped so that you can do that better next week, you're in the right place.

Amen. If you came here to play games, I'm gonna pray when I bow my head. Leave. This ain't a place for you. But we love you.

But stop playing religious games. Let me pray. Father, thank you that we get to open up your word. Thank you that you can open up our hearts and our minds. Thank you for the gift of the Holy Spirit that you have promised to have placed in each one of us that have trusted you as savior.

I pray he would work in our hearts today, and I pray we would sense him even moving around this room. Thank you for your word that's living and active and gives us everything we need to live the life you desire for us to live. There are a lot of things it doesn't talk about. There are a lot of questions that we may have if we've thought through some of these things. But everything you have told us is exactly what we need for life and godliness.

Thank you for that. Will you encourage us and challenge us with it? Thank you for friends and connection with other believers. Will you speak to us through them, too? Even in the lobby, walking around, picking up kids from bridge kids.

Will you work right now in the hearts of the kids that are in bridge, kids that are meeting as a middle school? The things that are happening on this campus, will you be evident? And if I say things that aren't from, you have us all forget them. In Jesus name I pray. Amen.

Well, I have a quick question as we get started. How many of you were born and raised in Raleigh? All right. More than in the first service, but not half. So the majority, I'm going to say, of you relocated from somewhere.

Could have been Wilson. All right. Could have been Wisconsin. It could have been Australia. I don't know where you relocated from, but you're from somewhere else, so I have another question.

Have you ever, if you've relocated here, tried to recruit someone else to come live in Raleigh, raise your hand if you've tried to recruit. All right, there you go. You know, top five places to live. Well, you know, we got all kinds of stuff for a city, for a capital city. The traffic's not that bad.

If you think it is, go to Charlotte, go to Atlanta for a little while. It's not that bad. Although getting worse. So stop recruiting quite so much. But two hours from the beach, right?

Two hours from the mountains, great schools, a great place to raise a family. And inevitably what happens is those people ask you, how's the weather? Now, this is church. This is church. Do you lie to them?

Who lies? Who is lying to them? All right, it's church. Jesus knows. I might not know, but Jesus knows.

I was lied to when I was recruited to come live here. And it was a lie of omission, by the way. My brother in law already lived here. He knew we were gonna plant a church. He said, you should consider this area.

And we were living in Texas at the time. In Texas, it gets hot. Like, it's hot. I had a professor who was a mentor type figure that when I first moved to Texas, came up to me and I said, oh, where do you live? You know, we were trying to figure out where we were gonna live.

And he said, well, I live here nine months of the year. When this place turns to hell, you can. He's a Bible professor. He said it, we go to Colorado. I was like, oh, okay.

Well, I was a seminary student. I couldn't afford to go to Colorado. It was just terrible. And my brother in law told me that it wasn't as hot here. And it would say on the news, it's 105 in Texas.

And I would look on the news and It'd be like 90 or 85 in North Carolina. However, no one told me you have to swim through the air because it's so thick. The humidity, right? And then he told me there were four seasons. That's a lie.

There's at least six. There's at least six seasons. There's fake winter, right? Because rarely do we ever get snow. If you even talk about a dusting, everyone thinks they gotta buy six gallons of milk.

I don't even know how that happened, but it's what happens. It's the half of you that raised your hands from here, what do they teach you in school? Because I didn't get taught that. And then after fake winter is what they kind of call spring hurricane season, which is the beginning of hot weather. But it might rain, and you'll probably leave your house with a jacket and then be sweating by noon.

Like, that's kind of how that season goes. And then there's hot summer, which we're in right now. And then what the rest of the world calls August is our hotter summer. Oh, wait, I skipped pollen season. That's in there, which they say is two weeks is much longer than two weeks.

And then for about 11 minutes, we get fall Praise God. Instagram. You got apple spice and some nice trees for, like, 11 minutes.

And the real catch is they can all happen in one day, right? Like, our weather has got personality disorder of some sort that's happening there. It doesn't know what's taking place. And only here can I have the experience I had this week where it can rain for multiple days in a row. And I'm still getting texts from Aqua telling me, conserve water.

We're in a water shortage. I'm like, bro, come get it. It's at my house on Tuesday. I was working on my car. I was planning on working my car in the driveway, and it started to sprinkle.

So I pulled into the garage. Then it was like a wall of water. Do you remember that? Like, I literally couldn't see out of the garage. There was so much water coming down.

And then it started to thunder. Lightning. And I'm not kidding, I'm not exaggerating. I promise you. I saw what looked like fire in the sky.

It was a white line of lightning and red around it. And then a couple moments later, the garage I was in literally shook. And I thought something got hit. We've had trees go down. We had a lot of trees in our neighborhood.

I thought I heard something. You know, something close to here got hit a little bit later. Same kind of thing. I went in the house, like, Shannon, did you feel that the house shook? She's like, yeah, yeah, I felt it.

When it stopped raining, I went, did a little survey. No trees down. Called my neighbor, older gentleman, said, you got any trees down? No trees down. The next day, my kids came in.

You know, stuff goes around. Kids in the neighborhood and stuff. And they said a tree fell on a house in our neighborhood and a man died. Which I originally thought, no, that's kids. And so we got in the car, we started driving around the neighborhood, and then there was a police tape all Around a big nice house in our neighborhood.

And we got a picture we can show you here. It was on ABC News.

Literally ripped about a third of the house off. And the man that died, some of you may know him, he worked at Harris Teeter in the deli as his retirement job. His name is Mike Ferguson. He was 71 years old. His wife said he loved that job because he was a people person.

That's why he had the retirement job, because he got to talk to so many different people. The same storm that literally physically shook my house shook their world. Because he's a father. His two daughters were home. They survived, he did not.

And we mourn with the family. His wife also said when she was interviewed that he had gone to bed, that that night already, it was early 8, 9 o', clock, and he was sleeping in his bed when the tree came through the house. But it changed their lives for the rest of their life on this earth.

I've titled today's message when your world shakes, because that's what Psalm 46 speaks into. And we mourn with this family and we pray for this family. If you're at Harris Teeter, maybe go by the deli and tell them, hey, we're praying for you. If you want to offer something to them or offer to do something, feel free to do it. Maybe like Mitchell was saying, it could lead to a gospel conversation.

Don't force it, that becomes weird. But offer it. See what the Holy Spirit does.

But what about in your world? Maybe it's not physical. Like I could physically feel my house shake. And maybe it's not the loss of a brother, a dad, a friend, a spouse, maybe loss of a job, maybe a cancer diagnosis, maybe just shattered dreams. You thought you'd have a kid by now.

You thought you'd be married by now. You thought you'd be better off financially by now. You thought something would happen that hasn't happened and your world shakes. Where do you run? That's really the question of Psalm 46.

Verse 1 says this. It's a popular psalm. There are multiple verses in here that are on Christian merch all over the place. For those of you new to church, I apologize for Christian merchandise. It will cheapen this passage.

And I think that you'll see that by the time we're done. But it starts off in verse one. God is our refuge and strength, an ever present help. Not before trouble, not after trouble, in trouble. The psalm says to us something that's true, but I want you to ask yourself the question, is it true?

For you, God is our refuge. And it's tempting to say yes, but hold that thought for about 30 minutes. And in about 30 minutes, I think you'll know the answer to that question. And that's for you and God to know. I don't need to know.

You don't have to tell your small crew. But you need to know. Where do you run when your world shakes? I told you last week when we were jumping into Psalm 63, the superscription that's right above verse one is actually inspired scripture. It's in the Hebrew Bible.

When they found ancient text, they found it, and it was actually labeled verse one in the Hebrew. In the Masoretic text, it says, to the sons of Korah. So that gives us some idea of what's happening. But there's no date. And so I want to be clear about that, because scholars debate about what's actually happening here.

But either way, whichever they pick, there's a battle taking place. I believe, and I think the words of the psalm are what clarify this, that the context for Psalm 46 is second kings, chapters 18 and 19. So you can read that on your own later this week. But I'm going to give you a taste of what's happening here and then ask you a significant question before we read all of the Psalm. What's happening here is the Assyrians have come to take siege of Jerusalem.

We know that's true. At the end of the psalm, it talks about the city of Jerusalem. Jerusalem's in Judea. So think of it like this. North Carolina is the state and Raleigh is the capital city.

Well, Judah, Judea is the main place. Jerusalem's the capital city. But it's like Raleigh. It's a small capital city. It's not big like some of the other places that have capital cities.

And it doesn't have a river. Keep that in mind when we read the passage in just a moment. And the Assyrians are the ones that are sitting outside the gates. And the Assyrians are savages, unlike any warriors ever. And they wanted that to be true and they wanted the world to know it was true.

And so they put it on their inscriptions. And what does that mean? They would flay men, usually officials and significant people that were leaders in a community. And when I say flay, that means they'd skin them. Those of you who deer hunt, that's what that is.

They would not scalp them, literally cut all of their skin off, then put it on the altar, mock their God. They would behead people and stack the skulls to show like trophies. And we know that because we have inscriptions that were carved out by the Assyrians of Assyrian officials standing outside of the palace of the Assyrian King with skulls filling multiple rooms. They would impale people. They would burn them alive.

They would do what they did. Israel has 12 tribes at this point, 10 of them. The Northern Kingdom has already been defeated by the Assyrians. And they would take and lead mass deportation of the people out of their town. And here's why.

Because more than just killing them, they're killing their culture. We're removing you from your place, we're removing you from your traditions, we're removing you from the face of the earth. And the goal is from the annals of history that no one would even know that you existed. And they're showing that's how powerful we are. And they come to Jerusalem and they don't do like in the movies and run through the gate or put ladders up on the wall and climb up over it.

They sit because they know in about four months you're gonna run out of grain. And they believe they're wrong, we'll talk about that. They believe they'll run out of water. And so they start mocking the Jewish people and listen to what is said. And here's why I tell you this, our series about stories.

It's about the stories we believe in our minds. We all tell ourselves a story. Oftentimes that story is dictated by the loudest voice. And I want you to know something. The loudest voice isn't always true.

The stories we tell about ourselves, the stories we tell about other people, stories we tell about the world, the stories we tell about God while we believe they're true. What does God say? And here's the truth about God's word. God's word can rewrite your mind.

Here's what's happening. The Assyrians knew the importance of psychological warfare. And so while they would flay people, behead people, burn people alive, they also knew the importance of trash talk. And they were better at it than Larry Bird, who I think might be one of the all time greats. Verse 26 in 2 Kings, chapter 18, Then hard name, son of another hard name.

So feel free to use that in your own Bible reading. And Shebna and Joah. Joah sounds like somebody that one of y' all would have named your kids. That sounds like that one said to the field commander. And so these are Assyrians.

Please speak to your servants in Aramaic. That's the language of the Assyrians. The Jewish people speak Hebrew. Since we Understand it. So the Jewish leaders said, we've been trained to be able to communicate with you.

The average people have not. Don't speak to us in Hebrew. In the hearing of the people on the wall, they were trying to protect the people from hearing what the Assyrians were saying. Well, just because you make a request to an enemy in battle, look what happens. But the commander replied, was it only to your master and you that my master sent me to say these things and not to the people sitting on the wall who, like you, will have to eat their own excrement and drink their own urine?

If you're here last week, remember a story I told you about how thirsty it's possible to get? That's why they're sitting outside the walls. But they're not just sitting outside the walls. They know the importance of the stories that we tell ourselves in the battle of the mind. And so they're going to yell in the language all the people can understand, not their language.

You're going to get so hungry, you're going to eat your own excrement and so thirsty, you're going to drink your own urine. And it's in that context that Psalm 46 is written. The most powerful army in the world who's already defeated the 10 of your tribes, your brothers and sisters who serve the same God you serve have already been killed, deported. These people are standing out here talking trash. And we'll come back to more of it in just a moment.

Psalm 46. The sons of Korah wrote this song. God is our refuge and strength. It's a little bit more powerful than a coffee mug holds an ever present help in trouble. Therefore, these aren't just words on a page.

These are people with an army outside the wall. The pain's not over. The circumstances haven't changed. We will not fear. Have you seen what they do to people?

Have you seen, heard? God didn't stop them from doing it. To the northern kingdoms we will not fear really. Though the earth give way. Underline that, we'll come back to it.

And the mountains fall into the heart of the sea. Though its waters roar and foam, and the mountains quake with their surging. There's a river whose streams make glad the city of God. There's no river in Jerusalem. Go read the history.

What's he talking about? The holy place where the most high dwells. God is within her. Verse 5. She will not fall.

God will help her. At daybreak, at break of day, nations are in uproar, kingdoms fall. He lifts his voice. The earth Melts. And this verse seven is also the same words that are used in verse 11.

The Lord Almighty is with us. The God of Jacob is our fortress. Oh, so fortress in verse seven. Fortress in verse 11, refuge in verse one. That's a theme.

Come and see what the Lord has done. But they're in the midst of the battle. The desolations he has brought on the earth. He makes war cease to the ends of the earth. Remember what he's done in the past.

He breaks the bow and shatters the sphere. He burns the shields with fire. He says, and this is the first time and only time God speaks in this psalm. And we think it's about self care. I think you're wrong.

Maybe you're right.

Be still and know that I am God. Who's he talking to there? Is it us or the enemy? I will be exalted among the nations. I will be exalted in the earth.

And then again, the Lord Almighty is with us. The God of Jacob is our fortress. The superscription is for the director of music. And this is a song. There are multiple songs that are written by the sons of Korah.

In fact, the superscription that we oftentimes read past is in 116 of the 150 Psalms that we have. It's not just a title, it's actually part of the inspired scripture. And it says, of the sons of Korah according to Alamoth. We don't have any idea what that means. So let me save you a lot of time reading study notes and commentaries.

Here's the answer. Idk, I don't know. The best theory that I've heard is that it means singing in a high pitch. So all the baritones bass, they were not allowed. And that would be a song of victory.

And this is in the midst of the battle. But it's a song. And here's the question I'd ask you. Would you sing?

Would you be singing? If the most powerful army in the world, Russia, comes together with China, comes together with Iran, everyone who hates us in the world comes the They've already defeated Los Angeles. They've already defeated Chicago. They've already defeated New York. They just took out D.C. they come right to the border of North Carolina and they wait.

Are you going? Our God is a refuge because they're yelling to you. We're gonna wait here because you're gonna eat your own excrement, drink your own urine, and we will make easy work of you. In fact, you'll probably beg us to kill you.

Would you sing because most people would look at the circumstances. That's what. Naturally. That's what I did in the storm in my garage. I wasn't praying when it shook.

I was going, what, did a tree come down? What's happening? What's happening? I was like Peter on the water. We always dog the guy out.

If you had waves crash around you, you think you're not gonna look around. You're going to look at the circumstances. That's what's natural. And they don't talk about the circumstances. First they talk about God.

Where do you run? That's the question. And that's the question throughout each one of the points. This psalm is broken down structurally as verses one through three. And if you have an older translation, King James or new King James, or a more literal translation, New American Standard, English Standard Version, many of them, it says Selah after verses one through three.

Now, people, devotional people, say it means pause and reflect. Here's the truth. We don't know. Some people think it's a musical instruction, drop the instruments. We don't know.

But either way, somehow you do stop. And then again, verses 4 through 7, and then again verses 8 through 11. So those are the sections, and those are going to be our points. And each one I'm going to talk about what's happening first around us, then in us, and then above us. When your world shakes all around you, here's what you need to know.

God is the refuge. Is he yours? You have to answer that. And you answer that by talking about where you run. But notice all the movement in the passage.

I know that you haven't had as much time to look at the passage as I have. I've jotted this down already, underlined. In here, the earth gives way. There's movement, action. Mountains fall.

Action, movement. Waters roar, mountains quake. A river flows, nations rage, kingdoms fall. Earth melts, wars cease, Bows break, Spears shatter. Fire burns.

Chariots. The world is constantly moving.

Everything around them is shaking in the most powerful and enemy. And the world is sitting outside the gates. And here's some more from Second Kings, chapter 18. Already told. You're going to drink your own urine.

Already told in your language. I'm going to say what I want to say. To who? I want to say it, because this is a battle of the mind. Then verse 28, second kings, chapter 18.

Then the commander stood and called out in Hebrew. I underline that because just that is trash talk. Can you not talk in Hebrew? We didn't come here for you. I'll talk In Hebrew.

Hear the word of the great king, the king of Assyria. Sennacherib, that's his name. This is what the king says. Do not let Hezekiah. That's the king in Jerusalem.

He's a good king. Israel had less good kings than bad kings. He's one of the good ones. Death. Don't let him deceive you.

He cannot deliver you from my hand. Do not let Hezekiah persuade you to trust in the Lord when he says, the Lord will surely deliver us. This city will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria. Do not listen to Hezekiah, for he is misleading you when he says, the Lord will deliver us. And we have proof.

Has the God of any nation ever delivered his land from the hand of the king of Assyria? He's more powerful than your God. And we've got evidence. Ten tribes to the north.

Who of all the gods of these countries has been able to save his land from me? How then can the Lord deliver Jerusalem from my hand?

What would you say?

The people were instructed not to talk. And that's what verse 36 tells us. The people remained silent and said nothing in reply because the king had commanded, do not answer him.

That's the Bible's version of what was taking place there. Interestingly enough, in a British Museum, we actually have Seneca's actual inscription of what was taking place there and the psychological war he was playing. And do you know what he said? It's on an artifact that they have. It says that he had Hezekiah trapped in his own palace like a bird in a cage.

Oh, you're at home, but you are not free, and I will decide your fate. Interestingly enough, he leaves off how that battle ends. We'll get to it.

But Psalm 46, God is our refuge. Is that where you would begin? Because I don't know that it's where I would begin. Which makes me ask, then, what if everything around me is shaken? And is it because we read here, the earth gives way, the mountains fall, the waters roar, all those things.

But then you think about what's happening in our world. Wars. Those are certainly happening. Russia and Ukraine, it's been going on for a couple years. We had peace in the Middle east for, like, 10 seconds.

And who knows? That could go bad at any moment. Any moment, things could go way worse. And it's not that theoretical that Russia or China or Iran would want to attack us and that they could team up. How about our economy?

There's some volatility. Have you checked your 401k before the service. Check it after the service. It changes. So people wonder, can I retire?

What about inflation? That seems to only be going in one direction and faster than our paychecks. How about AI? Maybe you'll have a job. Will your kids?

I don't even know what's real. Sometimes I'll be like, instagram. I'm like, I don't know. They could show me robbing a bank and I'd be like, what? How did that happen?

So is there stability? Not if you run to money. Not if you're looking at the news. Not if you. I mean, you want a lot of people.

Let's be candid about church. Probably in this room, not just in churches around here, there are a lot of people that your refuge is politics. And so you're running. Trump will fix it, or the next governor of North Carolina or senator of North Carolina or some. I heard this guy said a verse at some speech that he gave.

He's probably got my values. And then you spent. If you want to know if God's your refuge or if Trump's your refuge or some other politician, compare your prayer time to the amount of time you watch Fox News, because I promise you there are a lot of people that will sing praise to God and have mugs that say, be still and know. But when something goes south, they're running the politics.

They care more about making America great again than they do about making Jesus exalted in America. If that offends you. Yeah, go ahead and sit with that. I stand by it.

Maybe you call Jenny. Hey, Jenny. Do you even believe what happened to me? Your world shakes, you lose the thing, Jenny. Usually that's called gossip.

By the way, if your name's Jenny and you're here today, I don't want to talk to you because I don't want to gossip. No, just kidding. I don't know. I just made it up. I don't know who Jenny is.

We love you. It's not an Assyrian name or a Hebrew name. We love you. We're glad you're here. It's easy to pronounce.

I wish it was in the Bible. All right, then. The superscription Sons of Korah. Do you know who the sons of Korah are? Their name was Korah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, number 16. If you don't know if you got your Bible, you can go and turn there. Number 16. What happens is Moses is leading the people.

He's the one that God's called to lead the people. He's the one God's speaking to, to lead the people and his brother Aaron. Then there's this guy named Korah. Korah always gets villainized when people tell the story of what took place. But here's what you need to know.

Korah had a high ranking with God, too. The people that he was a part of were the ones that were responsible for moving the ark. Whenever they would move from place to place, he was a close relationship to God, respected in the community, given special privileges and benefits. This isn't some guy that's just overlooked and angry. And so he's crying out, just saying whatever he can, complaining, trying to cause division.

Nope. This is a spiritual leader in the community with prestige, with reputation. And he comes up and stands up against Moses in Numbers, chapter 16. Here it is. Korah, verse 1.

Korah, son of Ishar, the son of. Why can't it be David and Jason and Doug? It's the son of that guy and the son of Levi's. On a hard name. That's a good one.

Use that one. Reubenites. Dathan. That's a good name. A millennial.

Still having kids, you've got like Declan. How about Dathlin? That'd be good, right? Use that one. There you go.

Abraham, sons of Eliab and An. I dare you to name your kid An. He's him. He's always an. There he goes.

Son of An. A bunch of names here, but don't miss Korah, the son of Izhar, the son of Kohath, because Kohath are the people that move the ark. Peleth became insolent and rose up against Moses. And with him were 250Israelite men, well known community leaders who had been appointed members of the council. These are not just rogue dissenters.

They were with Moses. They stood by Moses. They came as a group to oppose Moses and Aaron and said to them, you've gone too far. The whole community is holy. And that's true.

And they're about to find out. If you knew the story, you'd have laughed. All right, here we go. Every one of them. And the Lord is with them.

Why then do you make it like you're better than everybody else? Moses, that's what he's accusing them of. He's got a different role than everybody else. It's not better. He doesn't want it.

If you remember Moses story, you putting yourself above the Lord's assembly. Hmm. Okay, here is his problem. And you can diagnose yourself. I've done it.

I bet everybody Here has done it. No matter how much you have, it's not enough. So he's got a great job, he's got a great reputation. He's close with God, but he wants more. Okay?

And we know that's true. And I'm not making it up. Verse 9. Isn't it enough for you? That's pretty clear.

Is it enough for you that God of Israel has separated you from the rest of the Israelite community and brought you near to himself to do the work at the Lord's tabernacle and to stand before the community and minister to them? He's brought you and all your fellow Levites near himself, but now you're trying to get the priesthood, too. And here's what happens. The earth opens up and swallows him. That's Korah.

Psalm 46 is written by the sons of. What does it say in Psalm 46? This gives it more power. Verse 2. Therefore, we will not fear, though the earth gives way and the mountains fall in to the heart of the sea.

We're not afraid of that. Oh, really? Back to number 16. Here's what happened. As soon as he, Moses, finished saying all this, the ground underneath them split apart.

Sinkhole. And the ground shook. I've got that song in my head. I can't get it out of my head. Had to say it.

Add, sorry about that. Here we go. The ground opened its mouth and swallowed them and their households and all those associated with Korah. Hmm. Be careful of your friends.

The Proverbs talks about that shrapnel of hanging out with fools. Together with their possessions, they went down alive into the realm of the dead with everything they owned. The earth closed over them, and they perished and were gone from the community.

Verse 35 says, Fire came out from the Lord and consumed the 250 men who were offering incense. And that's not done after the earth swallows them down in verse 49. But 14,700 people died from the plague in addition to those who had died because of Korah. Why? I didn't read verse 34.

Here's verse 34. At their cries, these are the Israelites.

At their cries, the Israelites around them fled, shouting, the earth is gonna swallow us too. No, it's not. That's just the story they were telling themselves. You weren't standing with Korah. You weren't standing against Moses.

But you believe this lie. And now God's not your refuge. You're looking at the circumstances. You're running away from God. And they died in addition to all those who died with Korah.

14,700 people died. This is in the Bible, verse 49. From the plague. It was a sickness that came after, in addition to those who had died because of Korah.

So when your world shakes, the economy, the wars, your health, the weather, you start having those 2am talks to yourself about what's happening and about 30 other things that will probably never happen. Is it all true? Because it's a loud voice.

There's a lot of movement in this passage. Just to remind you of the list. The earth gives way. The mountains fall. The water floor.

The mountains quake. The river flows. Nations rage. Kingdoms fall. Earth melts.

War cease. Bows break. Spears shatter. Fire burns. Chariots.

The world is constantly moving. Do you know who doesn't move? God.

He never changes. James says, every good gift we have comes from him, and he does not change. Like shifting shadows, the time of day and the circumstances. Hebrews. He is the same yesterday, Old Testament today, and he will be the same in the future in the Old Testament.

Isaiah says it like this. Isaiah 26:3. You will keep in perfect peace those who never have any trouble.

Isaiah knew it was a battle of the mind. You will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast because they trust in you. Trust in the Lord forever. Why would I do that? Here's why.

For the Lord. The Lord himself is the rock eternal. Psalm 102 says it like this. In the beginning, you laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands. They will perish, but you remain.

They will all wear out like a garment, like clothing. You will change them and they will be discarded, but you remain the same, and your years will never end. Wow. So where do you run?

Where's your safe place? To use language of our culture, which is supposed to mean, where can you be yourself? It actually has turned into, as long as you agree with the mainstream thought process, this is where you can come say those things. But if you don't agree, shut up.

Here's what I mean by safe space. My wife said to me when I told her the house shook, and I told her that a guy actually did die in our neighborhood. Well, should we get some trees taken down? Because I wonder if this would fall on this bedroom and that would fall on this bedroom. And I said, here's the safest spot in our house.

Go there.

When I was a kid, the safest spot in our house was the basement. The basement. Where I grew up, it was more like home alone. Have you seen that? It was scary.

So the weather had to be more scary than the basement where all the horror movie stars lived. When I wasn't down there, all right, Freddy Krueger was down there. Jason Voorhees was down there. I didn't grow up in a Christian home, so I saw all those movies. All right, here's the.

It was all bad. Everybody bad with chainsaws and knives and blade fingers. They're all down there. But the storm out there is so bad, I'm going down there. But it dawned on me just before the first service.

My mom would send me down there, and she wouldn't go.

Note to self, mom, was there really a tornado? Free babysitting. You're driving me nuts. Go in the basement. But what happened is we'd be, like, trapped in the walls of Israel.

I have to go to the bathroom eventually. Not a nice basement. There's nowhere to go to the bathroom. So I had to run upstairs really quick, go to the bathroom, run back downstairs, and never think the adults look like they're having a lot of fun.

Where's your safe place? Where do you run when your world shakes? Whether it's economically, financially, relationally, spiritually. Get a doctor's call, the diagnosis of cancer, Somebody betrays you, they're gossiping about you. What do you do?

Where do you go? Where will you run? God is our refuge. Is he yours?

And when things shake around us enough things do shake inside of us. So, second point. When everything inside you shakes, here's the truth. You need to know verses three through seven. God is with you.

You look here and you see that's repeatedly mentioned. I pointed it out in verse 7 and then again later it's re emphasized in verse 11. But it was even in verse 1 that God's in the trouble. Not just before it and not just after it. He's in the trouble.

The danger is when there's a storm out there. What's out there eventually often gets in here. That's why you have 2am conversations. That's when your chest gets tight. That's when you can't sleep.

That's when you are afraid. Psalm says they're not afraid. How's that possible? Here's how Isaiah says it before I read it to you in the Psalm. Isaiah 43:2, when you pass through, not when you avoid.

Not when you go over. Not when you go around the waters. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you. He doesn't say, you won't go through the waters. He just says, I'll be with you.

Through the waters. And when you pass through the rivers. That's important. We'll read verse four in a second. They will not sweep over you when you walk through the fire.

Wait. In order to walk, I have to decide to take a step, huh? This is like a Tony Robbins thing. What are you talking about? Here?

Fire walking. No, thanks. It's like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Whether you want to walk or not, you're going to. And I'll be with you when you walk through the fire.

You will not be burned. The flames will. Will not set you ablaze. Yeah, but maybe that's for them, but not for us. Don't forget New Testament.

Remember Mitchell was talking about gospel conversations? When you live on mission for God, you have a special promise. God's omnipresent. He's everywhere, all the time. But there's also his manifest presence.

When you experience his presence, when you sense his presence, when you see his presence, when you know he's there with you. That's Matthew 28. Therefore, go make disciples of all nations, not just your friends, not just the people you're comfortable with. All kinds of cultures, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and teaching them to obey everything I've commanded you. It's actually not complicated.

It's really clear. And here's the promise. And surely I am with you always. There's no end to that promise. King James lo, I am with you always.

But he doesn't say, and, Peter, if you just do this, you won't get crucified upside down. No, you're gonna get crucified upside down. But I'll be there.

John, if you just make enough disciples, I won't boil you alive in oil and then have you live afterwards. Cause if I got boiled alive, I'd want to die. I'm ready, Jesus. And then to come out and be like, are you serious? I still have to stay here, but I'll be with you.

Does that even matter?

You think about the significant moments you've had in your life. I bet you can remember who showed up. Presence counts. Attendance matters in the lives of those that you care about. I was reading a story recently about World War II and Winston Churchill.

And there was a point in time where Germany was bombing London so bad, there was nothing that Churchill could do to stop it. He said, we've got to save the church no matter what. But they really didn't have power to. Churchill was a great orator, prime minister he was the main man, like the president there for them. But what he started doing was after an area of London would get bombed, he'd go the next day and walk through the rubble.

His chief of staff warned him not to go. So the people are gonna be mad. Why didn't you stop this? Couldn't you have done something to prevent this? And now my husband's dead, my father's dead, my kids are gone, my sister's dead.

So the chief of staff was worried people would revolt and be angry, curse him. But when he came, the opposite happened. People ran to him and. And tried to touch him. And one record says they were shouting to him, oh, Winnie, we knew you'd come.

At one point, September 1942, he was walking through the rubble of an East London neighborhood. He had a handkerchief in one hand and his walking stick in the other. And he began to cry. And a woman said, see, he cares. He's crying.

And people began to anticipate and be excited about him coming. He didn't change it. He didn't give them anyone back. He wasn't putting the buildings back together. He just showed up.

Presence matters in this world. You will have trouble. Interesting. Verse two, he is with us in the trouble. Verse three, though it is waters roar and foam, and the mountains quake with their surging.

The King James there actually says, though the mountain be carried in the midst of the sea, the mountain literally crumbled into the ocean. I've mentioned a couple times since being back that in middle of June, I was with a group of people in Greece, and one of my most anticipated spots was not a Bible site. It was Thermopylae. If you've never seen the movie 300, there are other churches for you to attend in this community. We love you.

We'll see you at a restaurant. Just kidding. But if you've seen 300, you know that that was how the Spartans were going to defeat the armies of Persia, which historically released hundreds of thousands and Xerxes said were at least a million to 2 million strong. They had 300. And so I was looking forward to going to the battle of Thermopylae and seeing the place where four men could stand and kill thousands.

And there's a scene in the movie that historians tell us is historically accurate where the Spartans were fighting Persians and they literally, with their shields, pushed them off the cliff of a mountain and the water was right there. And so we went. There are a lot of great parts of the Grease trip. This was not one of them. Have you seen Nash Lampoon's vacation.

Or did you ever go on a road trip with a dad who was like, we've got to go see the world's largest ball of yarn. Here we go. All right, now we're out of here. That's what Thermopylae was like because it was a statue on the side of the road. That could have been any.

It could have been 540, it could have been 440. It could have been a road in Atlanta. It was just nothing. And the water was nowhere near it. And I leaned over to the guide who knows all the geography stuff, I don't know.

And I said, hey, so this is a nice stop. When do we get to the mountain pass? And he goes, oh, no, no, no. That fell into the ocean. He goes, that's like the water used to be five miles closer.

It's now receded. And so the mountain was. He was here, but the water's not anymore and the mountain's not anymore. I was like, what are we doing out here? It's like 90 degrees.

Get back on the bus. Terrible. So what does this say? The mountains are falling into the water. The earth is already talked about the earth opening up.

The sons of Korah whose descendant or ancestors had said, or it actually been swallowed by the earth. Then verse four is confusing because it says, there's a river whose streams make glad the city of God. The city of God. Jerusalem. There's no river there.

I've been there too. The closest thing that there is is a spring. It's in Gihon. That's 700 and or 1750ft away from the wall, the outer wall of Jerusalem at this time. And by hand they dug a tunnel through limestone to get that spring water to come into their city that the Assyrians knew nothing about.

So there was water in the city. But that's not what this verse is talking about. Because the next part makes it clear that it wasn't because there was a tunnel there and it wasn't because of their strategy. It says, God is within her. Talking about the city.

It's his presence. God is within her. She will not fall. But the other tribes did. Why would she not fall?

There's no promise. How do you know that God will help her? At break of day, nations are in uproar. Kingdoms fall. Who's in uproar?

Well, we know who's outside the wall yelling, you're going to eat your own excrement.

He lifts his voice and the earth melts. The Lord Almighty is with us. His presence matters. When everything inside of you is shaking, he's with you. How do I know that?

Not just because the Bible says it? Who else knows the thing you have never told anyone? He does. Who else has never left you? If everybody else abandons you, everybody disowns you.

They discard you. They betrayed you. It's all over for you. No one wants to talk to you. He won't.

Who's gone ahead of you into the future, into the fire, into the circumstances before you even had to, before you knew they were a thing he has. Who's working? You sang it earlier. Who's working when you can't see it? That's how I know.

And it's proven again and again and again, historically, not just because the Bible says it. Even on utensils written by pagans. This God's different. And that takes us to our third point. When everything above you shakes, he reigns.

Up to this point in the psalm, there's still one lie, one twisting of your own story that you could be telling yourself if you're one of the Israelites inside the walls. Or maybe that you're telling yourself in the midst of your world shaking. And the lie is this. Everything is out of control.

Homework assignment. Read Job. His world fell apart. Satan was doing it. But nothing Satan did failed to pass through the hands of God.

He had to ask God permission.

And it was all about a spiritual battle that he couldn't see. If all you focus on is the circumstances, all you see is the thing. There's a really loud voice, and it's not just yelling, you're gonna eat your own excrement. It's also yelling. You're alone.

No one else understands. No one will be there for you. If they knew this about you, if they knew that you did or thought or were going to do that thing, they'd. God says, no, I won't. I will never leave you or forsake you.

And I am the same yesterday, today and forever. And I am in control. Look what happens next. It's the only part of the psalm where God speaks. Come and see.

The sons of Korah are the ones still writing here, and they're going to talk about some battles that have been won. And here's what I challenge you to. If you meet with a small group or just on your own devotional time, what are the top 10 things God's ever done in your life? Prairie Answered. Provision.

Something. Salvation.

Write those down. You might need to go back to them at some point. Look what happens. Come and see what the Lord has done, the desolations he has brought on the earth. He makes wars cease to the ends of the earth.

He breaks the bow and shatters the spear. He burns the shields with fire. He says, and here is where God speaks. The only place God speaks in this psalm, right here. If you got a coffee mug with it, you don't have to break it afterwards.

But is he talking to you?

Be still and know that I am God. I bet you don't have this part. I will be exalted among the nations. I will be exalted in the earth. And then again, a refrain.

The Lord Almighty is with us. The same God that was with Jacob. He is our refuge, fortress, the only safe place.

Be still amidst all this noise. I told you, all the motions. Just look at some of the noise in this passage. Think about what this would sound like. The roaring of the waters, the quaking of the mountains, the raging of the sea, the war, the.

The trash talk we've already talked about. But the weapons, the movements of thousands upon thousands outside your wall. Amidst all of that, God says, be still. So even if you're right, and this is for you, it's like noise canceling headphones. Have you ever thought about noise canceling headphones on a flight?

I don't want to hear the captain. I don't want to hear the flight attendants. I understand there's a door. If someone opens the door at 10,000ft, it's over, all right? And me knowing that five minutes ahead of time isn't doing me any good.

So I'm going to keep reading my book or watching my movie. Put a head. Noise didn't stop, but I'm not listening to it. There's your application. What would happen if you didn't listen to the news for a week?

What would happen if you didn't listen to what everybody else is talking about for a week? What would happen if. If you've drowned out all the noise, It'll all still happen. Trust me. You're not in control of any of it anyways.

But what would happen inside you? You're not in control of what's above you. He is. And he just spoke. And the word for be still, because there's one Hebrew word it does not mean Shh.

And here's why I don't think it's for you, believer, because you don't say this to someone who's exhausted, who's starving, who's on the brink of drinking their own urine. That means put down your weapons, cease. Stand down. You Say that to an enemy. You say that.

Not to the person being abducted, to the abductor, not to the person being robbed, to the robbery. I believe that God is speaking here to the quaking mountains, to the Assyrians yelling their trash talk, to all this other noise, and he's going, stand down. And you know what happens that we don't have? From Sennacherib, who's talking trash about a bird in a cage, is what happens in Second Kings, chapter 19. You can read it on your own.

And verse 35 says this, that while they were sleeping, so they go to bed, you're gonna drink your own urine. Your God can't save you. Your God didn't save your brothers and sisters in the northern tribes. We've already killed all of them. In fact, we brought a couple and skin and heads.

And when you wake up, the angel of The Lord killed 185,000 Assyrians. And their shields are melted and their bows are broken, and you didn't do a thing. So who's the refuge? Fast forward to the New Testament and you think about what Jesus did. Remember when he's being arrested and Peter jumps out like he thinks he's Jason Bourne with a sword.

We haven't seen Peter fight in any of the. Any other story at any other time, but he thinks. He thinks he's gonna be able to do something. And I think he tried to cut the guy's head off. I think he'd be like, shooting and missing.

So he's not Jason Bourne. He never misses. He's going with the sword and he cuts the guy's ear off. What? And I don't know what that was like.

I don't know if it was the top. Maybe it was like one of those lobes, like the big thing. I don't know. I don't know. And do you know what Jesus says to him?

Peter, stand down. Put the sword back in its sheath. If I wanted, I'll call a legion of angels. I don't know this, but I wonder if Jesus thought to himself, I remember the day when my father and I sent one angel and he killed 185,000 Assyrians. And you think, I need your help, Peter, be still.

He says it this way in verse 52 of Matthew, chapter 26. Put your sword back in its place. Jesus said to him, for all who draw the sword will die by the sword. Do you think I cannot call on my Father? And he will at once put at disposal more than 12 legions of angels.

Do you know what happened at the cross? We Oftentimes, don't talk about this either. When darkness covered the earth and the mountain shook. Saints of old, Moses and Aaron, maybe like, go read it. It's in Matthew.

They came walking out of their tombs.

And do you know how much fighting you did for your salvation? None fighting. Zero fighting. He won the battle.

So who's your refuge? We started by asking, where do you run? And don't give the church answer because it's a disservice to you. Give the real answer. If it's to the Lord, praise God.

If it's not great news, you can always turn to him and he doesn't change. Bow our heads, close our eyes and pray. Father, I think of another good king in Israel. Second Chronicles, Jehoshaphat. He gets told, first there's an army outside and they want to kill us.

Then there's more news. No, there's another army. There's multiple armies coming for him. And he says, gather all the people together. And then he prays.

And you know what he prays? Lord, we don't know what to do, but our eyes are on you. Is that you, believer? Maybe you don't know how to fix a marriage. Maybe you don't know how to get your kid to come back to Jesus.

Maybe you don't know how to deal with the cancer. And you have been told every solution from every person. About your diet, about the treatments, about why you must do chemo, why you shouldn't do chemo and vitamins. And we don't know what to do.

Our eyes are on you.

Maybe your investments haven't gone the way. And somebody said, well, you should do this. And why don't you have this kind of account? And I know a guy, and I don't know what to do. My eyes are on you.

Or maybe, like the Fergusons, somebody's gone and you couldn't even imagine your world without them. I don't know what to do. Their eyes are on you. Turn back to him. Some of you've never trusted him before.

Why not today? He can be your refuge. He wants to be with you and live inside of you and reign over you. And all you have to do is believe in him. You don't have to raise your hand.

You don't have to walk an aisle. You don't have to check a box. You don't have to get baptized. You don't have to clean your life up. You don't have to attend church for six months.

First, believe on him. The Bible says, believe on the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved. Now, it sounds easier than it is. But if you believe that he did die on that cross and that death was him fighting the battle for you to defeat sin and defeat death, death and wash you with a forgiveness you could never earn, why wouldn't you believe in him right now? Just pray.

I. I've sinned. You know what? I've sinned. Moses sinned. David sinned.

The sons of Korah sinned. We've all sinned. You sinned. Acknowledge that sin before him. Ask Jesus to be your savior.

And if you believe he died for your sins, rose from the dead, the Bible says you'll be saved. You don't have to do anything else. But I'll tell you, I'd love it if you come tell me. Just so I could pray for you and encourage you. And I promise you there's somebody in this world who's been praying for you for years.

And if today you trusted Christ, would you tell them? They'll rejoice. And I'm sure they'll want to encourage you. I don't want anything from you. We want things for you.

It's in Jesus name that I pray. Amen.