This is your daily reminder. God has not run
out of mercy, not for you, not today. Welcome
to the New Mercies Podcast. Welcome back. Saturday,
March the 7th. It is considered a bonus day in
our reading plan. We have a reading plan as a
church family, and on Saturdays we gave these
bonus days, meaning it's a day to catch up if
you missed a day or if you want to go back and
look back over a text to do that on Saturday.
But we also give a bonus psalm or another reading
that if you're all caught up and you want to
read a little bit of psalms and connect a little
bit with the Lord, this is your day to do it.
So we are in Psalm 46 today. I am very excited
about this psalm. I've got three things I want
to share with you out of this psalm. It's 11
verses in this one chapter. It's broken up into
three sections. You can tell the break in each
section by the word selah. The word selah is
a word, it's a musical type term. It's a word,
imagine that where the music swells and builds,
it's that moment. It's the moment where you say,
this is what I'm talking about. Let's look at
this again. Let's hear this again. This is a
truth that needs to be proclaimed with an exclamation
point. We're going to push it until everybody
hears this word again. So it's a powerful word.
It's a powerful term that gives us. a moment
in each of these Psalms. So here's what I like
to think of. Here's what I like to think of when
I read a Psalm with the word Selah in it a few
times. I like to think, what refrain, how do
you emphasize more and more and more? And it
keeps building. Here's the beauty of this Psalm.
I want to read a few verses, the first three
verses right now, and then we'll talk about it.
Here's what the first three verses say. Psalm
46, beginning of verse 1. These three verses
give us the... overarching peace? What is the
hope? What is the goal? What is the thing that
the writer wants us to know? God is a refuge.
My first word for the day is refuge. What is
refuge? It's a place you go for safety, for security,
for care, for hope, for all of the protection
that can show up. He is our refuge. There is
no stronger place than God. There's not one.
There's not a stronger plate. You can't have
a bunker deep enough that God can't reach it.
I love when the scripture says that God is our
shield. I like to think about a shield as the
one who stands. A shield stands in between the
warrior and the enemy. And the enemy has to get
through the shield before they can get to the
warrior. This picture of a refuge has that same
thought to it. You can't get to him. You can't
get to me if I'm in the Lord. You can't. He's
taking care of me. He's protecting me. I can
find care. I can find protection in him. And
not only protection and safety, I can also find
strength. The Lord is my refuge and strength.
He's my place I go to for safety. He's also the
place I go to for strength. I get a renewal with
him. I get this power from him that I don't get
anywhere else. He is the source of that. Powerful.
He's our refuge. That's the first word, refuge.
The second word is found in the next few verses.
Listen to what it says in verses 4 through 7.
There is a river whose streams make glad the
city of God, the holy habitation of the Most
High. God is in the midst of her. She shall not
be moved. God will help her when morning dawns.
The nations rage, the kingdoms totter. He utters
his voice, the earth melts. The Lord of hosts
is with us. The God of Jacob is our fortress.
Selah. Verses 4 through 7 teach me that not only
is God my refuge, also tells me God is my river.
He is the river. Now, in King Hezekiah's time,
let's go back to the Old Testament. Let's go
back to some cool history things. One of the
things I discovered when I was in the Holy Land
was our tour guide at every stop. And even if
we were driving by a city or a place, one of
the funniest statements ever when we were on
the tour bus, I'll never forget our tour guide.
He's talking on the little microphone, and we're
all back there, and we're listening, and we're
looking out the window, and he says, if you look
to your right, you'll see the mountain which
we believe Jesus transfigured at the top of,
and the Shekinah glory of God burst through him.
And out your window to the left, you'll see where
the city of Nain, where Jesus raised a young
boy to life. And I was like, can we stop for
just a minute? Like, go see these things? It's
like, no, we've got to stay on our agenda. But
I remember, I'll never forget, I absolutely loved
our tour guide. He was a great guy. He helped
us understand Scripture in a different way and
see it, and it was a lot of fun, great trip.
But I remember, too, one of the things he did
was every place we went, even if we were driving
by somewhere, he talked about how they got water.
He talked about how they were satisfied with
the life -giving source of water. You know, he
would say sometimes water is pretty scarce in
the Holy Land specifically, and so they would
have to create aqueducts or cisterns, or they
would have to find a way to get the water to
the people. Whether there was a spring or wherever
there was a river close by or a sea, they would
have to get the water to the cities. It's a very
important part. And if you notice, even in nations
today, big cities are built around water systems,
right? That's just because that's where life
is found. I look at this and I think, man, it's
so cool to think in King Hezekiah's time, Jerusalem
needed a water supply that was safe. They didn't
want the enemy to pollute the water. So what
Hezekiah did during his reign, which is one of
the great kings, he was one of those that a revival
came through. I think it's interesting. He built
this cistern and this water supply in Jerusalem.
that was unknown to the enemies. It was underground.
It came in kind of a sneaky way into the city,
which is kind of a cool thought. I think about
that when I read this psalm. There's a river
in the city of God, right? That's the source
of life. The river is the source of the flowing
life that you get. And even Hezekiah during his
time had built this way underneath the ground
where the enemy didn't even know. So the enemy
couldn't pollute it. right? It's a constant stream
of life that God was giving to the city. I think
about that, but ultimately what I take from that
is God is my refuge. I can go to him for safety,
for security, for strength. He's also my supply.
He's also what sustains me. God is the river.
He's the river that is flowing in me. It says
in the scripture, there's a river who flows through
that. God is in the midst of her. Because God
is the one sustaining us. We look through all
Scripture. How can I do all things? Through Christ.
Well, what does that mean? It means that whether
I'm sick or healthy, whether I'm up high or down
low, or whatever I've got going on, He's my sustainer.
He's my supplier. I can trust that I have life
because of Him. No other reason. I had lunch
with a guy this week and I was so encouraged
because everything he said that he had seen in
his life, he was like, it was all because God
let me do it. God was right there. I didn't even
know God was orchestrating all these steps. It's
him that everything had fallen into. And I thought,
man, this is amazing to hear that this guy believed
and understood the truth that the river, the
sustaining life came from the Lord himself. Then
there's the final word. So there's refuge, there's
river, and then there's the final one. Listen
to what it says, verses 8 through 11. Come behold
the works of the Lord. Now he has brought desolations
on the earth. He makes wars cease. I will be
exalted among the nations. I will be exalted
in the earth. The Lord of hosts is with us. The
God of Jacob is our fortress, Selah. These last
few verses, I want to tell you, so I see God
as our refuge. God is our river, and God is our
ruler. That's right, I made them all start with
the letter R, like a good preacher should. As
I look at this text, I could not imagine it any
better way. He's our refuge, the place we find
safety, security, and strength. He's our river,
the place we find life that sustains us. He's
our sustainer. And then He is the one that rules.
Ultimately, He's exalted. Ultimately, He reigns.
He rules. And thank goodness, because I've seen
man after man after man after man try to reign
and rule, and we mess it up every time. We do.
God's not going to mess up His rule. He's not
going to mess up his reign. It's going to be
good every single time. I will tell you this.
There will be a moment where all the earth will
exalt him and his name. We do it on a regular
basis. In a couple of words, I just want to say,
I hope and pray today your refuge, your safe
space is found in God. I want to say I hope that
your sustaining life is found in God. And I will
say I hope that the ruler of your life, is the
one and only true God that we see revealed through
his word in the scriptures. I'm going to hope
and pray today that your refuge, your river,
and your ruler is all found in the God of the
scriptures.