Thank you. Yes, it is great to be in the house of the Lord today, isn't it? Yes sir. Yes sir, it is. Oh, wow. I have truly enjoyed worshiping with you today. Wow. Don't you just love our worship team here? Yes sir. Man, this is bring it. Yes, you can do that. We can clap. Well, uh, I had been here about six months and it has been a blast. And, and there's two things I know now about Bern Hickory. The first one is that we have some incredible volunteers and we have incredible staff too. And all of us do ministry together and we make ministry happen. And I tell you, I love working alongside so many of you. Y'all are committed believers and we cannot thank you enough for doing what you do because you make ministry happen. So thank you. Give yourself a round of applause for that.
Thank you for what you do. And here's the second thing is that, you know, normally during the summer, people tend to like put, you know, cruise out, um, and just cruise and take it easy, not burn hickory. We take discipleship seriously. And that's number two, discipleship. Seriously. And, and, and we don't take off for the summer. We go all in for the summer. And so Chip just talked about our student minister here. He just talked about just the kids camp. And it was an incredible time for our kids. And I love that we disciple the next generation. Amen. And, and, and they didn't even talk about this morning about burn, uh, vacation Bible school, 1400 kids in vacation, Bible school with 400 volunteers, 1800 people on this campus. Disciple was discipleship was being had during the summer. And that's what I love. But I tell you what students, our students are incredible here.
We had a lot of students in today, and I'll tell you, we just got back from Beach Camp Discipleship Beach Camp over almost 250 peak kids. Students, not kids, students, young adults went to camp. And guys, students, their schedules are really busy, a lot busier than I used to be as a student. But they made a point to be down there for the week in 11. But they don't stop there for the summer. Even during the summer, our life groups meet. And if you don't know what the life group is, get to know what one is because it is where community happens. Whereas discipleship happens. And we have about 1400 adults who regularly meet during the summer on Sunday morning learning more about God. And you know what, you do not have to be an expert to go to life group here. You just have to be someone who wants to learn and someone who wants communion, someone who wants just to build friendships that last a lifetime.
But we have incredible life group ministry here. I'm thankful for that. Thankful for the adults that lead it as well. And also as a Christ father, we are told to go to the ends of the earth, the ends of the earth. And our missions team has done that for the summer. They did not take the summer off. We went to Kenya. We went to Guatemala. We have, we, our college ministry went to England. And then we have two vision casting trips that are gonna happen before the end of the summer. One's happening right now, and one's happening a week later. We are excited about what God is doing here. But here's something, we've had five baptisms today, year to date. We've had 121 baptism. That's what it's all about in terms of people coming to a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and then taking that public testimony to get baptized.
That's exciting. That's why I love being here. And it's not all these numbers, it's not what we're doing. It's what God is doing through Burt Hickory. And that's why I love being here. That's why I love being part of the family. And it has just been incredible experience to be here. And I love what God is doing. So I wanna just stop before we start the sermon today, the story, start the lesson. And you probably are thinking, Mike, you already started. What are you talking about <laugh>? And you'll be right. Uh, but last week we had our July 4th message and it was packed in here. Thank you for your patience. We had to seek people outside, outside in our commons area, not outside. We have places inside for you, uh, outside our commons area. But thank you for your patience. You didn't bring, do a nice job last week, just bringing us to God's word.
We can clap for him. Uh, but it was a great time to be together worshiping on Independence Day. Now. But something else happened last July 4th, this past July 4th. And, and I, and I know what we, we've seen in Kirk County, Texas. We see the floodings that occurred, the devastation that has occurred, occurred, and the lives that have just been lost, lives have been shattered. Families that have been just heartbroken all can't mystic sad tragedy. I can't stand up here and give you the why I can't. I don't. And turn during these times that we can't figure out the why. We know who that we can go to. And that's Christ and that's God. That's through our, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, that we go to our father in heaven. And so what I like to do right now is just spend some time praying for those victims, praying for the families who've lost. So let's go. Let's go Lord and Prayer right now, our Miss Graces and Heavenly Father, we come to you now and we lift up Kirk County, Texas and the surrounding areas that have been impacted by this, these devastating floods. Father, it is a, uh, we come to you grieving. We come to you with our hearts hurting because we know we have our own families. We have our own homes. And Father, we know that the loss that has been had has just been catastrophic.
But Father, we also know that you are our strength. You are our refuge. And that you are very present. And though we don't know why, we know we can lean on you. So we ask you to be with the families. We ask you to be with the government officials as they do search and rescue. We have to be with the ask you to be with the volunteers, ask you to be everyone there and comfort them as I know they're tired. Father, I know they're weary, and we ask you to bring comfort to them in this time.
Lemme, we pray all these things in your son's most precious and holy name. Amen. Amen. Well, thank you. Thank you for praying. Uh, so let me ask you this. We we're studying the Book of Psalms and we have the Summer of Psalms. How many people have enjoyed the summer of Psalms? Okay, this is how we take our next sermon series. Okay, come on. If you've enjoyed Psalms, uh, raise your hand. Okay, yeah, there we go. Okay, good. And today we are gonna be in Psalms. Uh, but I tell you one of the reasons why I like reading Psalms is that it's a book of the Bible that's real and all of 'em are real. But this one captures your human emotion like no other. You see, it's kind of tough for us to be real, isn't it?
You know, we, uh, have this thing called, you may have heard of it, social media. We like, we have to edit pictures, we like to polish 'em and then we like to post them, really not showing the real side of who we are. And I do it too. So I'm not blaming you guys. I mean, we all do it, but it's tough being real. It is tough being real. But Psalms doesn't play the game. The writers of Psalms. And there's 150 Psalms and, uh, David wrote about half of them. But there are other writers in there and they are authentic. The authenticity that that that is, that is incorporated in the book of Psalms, it's just refreshing because it's raw, it's unfiltered, and it's transparent.
And that's why the Psalms so deeply connect with us because we're longing for that. Sometimes we don't know the words just to put into play because we just know how to express it. Well, Psalms does a beautiful job of expressing it, of expressing how we feel. The rawness, the humanness. David Jeremiah said this. He said, perhaps no other book in the Bible can act as a companion in our daily lives with this joys, heartaches and dramas as the book of Psalms does. Here's another quote from Billy Graham. My wife and I read the Psalms every day. The late Billy Graham, he read, he and his wife read the Psalms every day. Five Psalms and one chapter of Proverbs. And here's, here's where it gets funny. Psalms teaches us how to get along with God, but Proverbs teaches us how to get along with man. Oh, that's funny.
See, family. The Psalms show us that we have a father, a heavenly father who wants us to be real with him and wants us to rely on him. And here's why that matters. Life can push you to your limits. Come on. Life can be tough. Life can be devastating. And the storms, you, you, you, you, the storms rise in your life and your, your, your fear rises and you're, and you're just just holding on sometimes. And, and maybe your path that you're on is just isn't clear. At times. You find your stir, your courage and your strength just cracking. I get it. I been there. And that's what brings us to our guiding principle today. Courage flows from the faithful presence of God are unshakeable, refuge and strength. And today we're gonna unpack that principle by studying together Psalms 46. But before we do that, I'm gonna just start us off with prayer right before we begin diving into God's Word. So would you pray with me, dear heavenly Father, thank you that we can come today to worship you and to study your word. And Father, as we come in here today, we come in with all sorts of things racing through our mind.
Some people had a hard time just getting here. It was a just a, a fight to get into the church building today. But they're here. And Father, there's some people who come in here with heavy hearts. Some people come here confused about the future. There's some people who just don't know why they showed up but they felt drawn to be here. So Father, I'm gonna ask you to pause what are going, what's going through our minds? And just speak to our hearts. Have the Holy Spirit speak to us as only he would and family. I'm gonna ask you to pray for me before we begin this message. Please pray just silently where you are, that I'm true to the text today and that I'm true to the Holy Spirit's direction this morning.
Father, we lift up all these prayers to you. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. Alright, so let's jump into the Book of Psalms. Thank you for those prayers. Let's jump into the Book of Psalms. And if you brought your Bible with you, if you just hold your Bible up on the spine and just open halfway in, just split it in half. And that's Psalm. Psalms is right in the middle, uh, the Bible. In fact, we still carry Bibles around. I believe I saw a couple in here. Um, so yeah, turn to Book of Psalms and we're gonna dive right into Psalm 46. So let's begin. So the first verse says this, God is our refuge and strength, very present, help and trouble. You know, I've heard these words before. A lot of us have quoted them. This is a good one to memorize if you haven't memorized one.
But this is interesting 'cause assaulter here, the writer here of Psalms comes right out of the gate and he gives a bold declaration. A declaration is God is so what is God? God is refuge protection. God is strength. God is very present, help in times of trouble. And furthermore, as you read down the text, actually as you start with the text, the first word of the text is God. And we look at the original language that the Old Testament was written in, which is Hebrew, the New Testament written in Greek, the Old Testament written in Hebrew. It kind of expands our knowledge of, of what we see 'cause it's just not God. It is Elohim that is the Hebrew word Elohim. And the first time we see the word Elohim used is' in Genesis one, one. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
In the beginning, Elohim created the heavens and the earth. See, Elohim mean creator. Elohim means mighty. El Elohim means powerful. And just think about that for a second. The God who spoke the universe into existence is the God that knows our name, that cares for us is our refuge. And yes, he does know you by name. He knows every be fiber of your being. That's the God that we're talking about in verse one. And that's the powerful God who creates something out of nothing. See you matter. Scripture tells us that. So let's move on to verse two. Now, verse two is interesting because it starts with an adverb. And I know what you're thinking, Mike. It's summertime. School's not back. Don't start with adverbs. Don't start with sentence diagramming. Only this side of the room laughed at that one. So they're going to school so they get it. But yes, uh, I also have it. My wife's an English teacher, so I score points with her. When I say, uh, speech or what, I nevermind. You get it anyway. Therefore, we will not fear. The earth gives way through the mount, though the mountains be moved in the heart of the sea. So we will not fear it continues on with that. But therefore that that's an important part of the verse there.
So what we call a hinge, don't miss this, a theological hese. 'cause what it's about to do to you is that it just told you a truth. And now it's about to tell you how to apply it truth and then how to apply it. Don't miss it. Sometimes you Ms. May wanna circle words like that when you read 'em in scripture. So here's the truth that it tells us. It says God is our refuge and strength. A very present time in trouble. Powerful voices. Elohim is our refuge and strength. They're very present in times of trouble. How do we apply it? We will not fear because he's a strength, because he is a refuge, because he's present. We will not fear, we won't feel tomorrow. We won't fear today. We won't fear because God is our refuge. This is a powerful reminder. This is theology on the move because it fell on us.
Here's the truth. Now apply it. I love theology like that. But let's be honest, scripture tells us do not fear. We will not fear because our refuge, but fear grabs all of us at some time, doesn't it? You're right. Fear can grab us. It's real. It's powerful. And and fear unpacks. Fear. Fear attacks us more than we realize it. And and sometimes it just holds us back from being all that God wants us to be. And then feared does three things. One, it isolates us. It pulls us away from society or we just get isolated and we're just afraid to move forward. We've all been there. I've been there.
Fear can be damaging. We don't have to fear because of God. But the second thing it does, it can paralyze us. It can paralyze us from moving. It can even paralyze the church. Too often the church has stayed silent on critical, crucial issues. And I'm talking about the big sea church. All churches just throughout America, throughout the world, we have stayed silent. I think we're waking up now. I do. But we're still staying silent more often than we should. And we've accepted the label silent majority. We weren't told to be that were we as Christ. As Christ followers. We tend to accept those and retreat back to our homes and just sit there and let the world pass us by. But church, we cannot do that. Fear will drive us to paralysis. And we cannot let fear drive the church to paralysis. I love what Jesus told Peter. Okay? I mean, on this rock, I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. But yet fear has gripped us as a church. Come on now and see we're called to be salt and light

Flavor.

We are called to be the flavor.

Yes sir.

And God has given us that. See, we don't need to stand and be called the silent majority. We need to rise up and be salt of the earth. Yes sir. And show the world the grace that they need to see, which is only through Jesus Christ. Amen. I wanna take a step back just for a second. I am thankful and grateful that we have a church that wants to tackle some of these issues. You may not know this and some of y'all come to this, but on Wednesdays, our, our, our senior pastor, Matt Petty, uh, wants us to make sure that we're equipping the church. And one thing we do is faith in action class. We do so many other classes on the end times. We do classes on spiritual warfare. But I love the fact that we can spend time dealing with these issues that impact the church.
But sometimes we're quiet, sometimes we just don't know what to say. Sometimes our courage and strength gets pulled back because we're fearful. God didn't call us to be fearful. We will not fear. I love the fact that we do talk about sanctity of life. I love the fact that we do talk about marriage. I love the fact that we do talk about schools, books, and schools. We need to be the salt of this community. We need to be salt of this state and salt around the world. 'cause we have a truth that's worth telling. Amen. Amen. Amen. But fear can isolate, can paralyze, but it can also distort our view of God. Now, sometimes we let our circumstances define God. Sometimes we let our opinions define God. And we've gotta be very, very careful with that. 'cause the only one thing defines God. And that's what we find in the Holy Bible. And that's where we need to spend our time.
Not letting fear get in the way, defining God, but letting the Bible define God. Letting the Bible define who God is. John Piper said this, he said, fear is always the enemy of faith. When we are afraid, we're tempted to act as if God isn't real or sovereign. The fear does not come from God, it comes from the enemy. But we need to be bold. And why can we be bold? And we need to do it with grace. We need to be bold because God told us, gave us a mission, didn't he? Yes sir. To go and seek the loss and disciple. I'm thankful we have a church that does that. Again, fear does not come from God. It comes from the enemy. But God is our strength. And God provides the courage. Let's move to number three, verse three. Though it's water's, roar and foam, though the mountains tremble at its swelling. And, and what the rider here is doing, he's describing the most powerful force that he knows at the time. You see, back then they didn't have a lot back then. They didn't have powerful tools, powerful machinery, but they saw the power of nature. We still see the power of nature, but it's no match to God. No match.
It doesn't even come close. Y'all, y'all may remember a time in 2004 a massive earthquake occurred off the Indian ocean. And then a tsunami followed after that storm, after that earthquake. And they, they went back and they looked at it and they said this tsunami had the power of not one atomic bomb. So the tsunami just wiped out areas upon areas was not the force of just one atomic bomb. It was 23,000 atomic bombs. That's the force of nature. Now. It's no match to God, but that's the force of nature that occurred. And there's a girl by the name of Riley Kehoe. She's a, she's a woman now and just wrote a book. And she looks back at her time when she was there and her parents were there and her family was there in Thailand. And they were just there to meet, uh, meet some family members and do some work there. And she writes about her deal in this book. And I just wanna pick up what she said.
She said the tsunami was so powerful. Remember she was 10 years old when this happened. The tsunami was so powerful that it caused the entire ground to shake. As we climbed higher up the path to escape, we prayed that we would be high enough above the spot where the wave would crest. And there was a moment when I looked back down at the beach and, and I wish I hadn't. Our altitude afforded us a grand view of the resort area. And what I saw was like a scene from an apocalypse. The wave was annihilating. Everything in its way. People, animals, buildings, boats.
Remember she was 10 years old. My dad noticed that I was falling behind and I was looking behind me. I had no energy left. And as a 10-year-old, I was nowhere near as strong as either my parents, even though they were carrying her sisters. As I stood there, then I heard my dad's voice deep in commanding Riley run. And just like that, I focused on my father's voice and let the chaos around me fall away. I zoned in on his words and his location, five steps ahead of me. I sped to catch up. That massive swell of white water was on my back. And I ran and I ran. And by the grace of God, we got high enough and the wave couldn't reach us. We were saved. And church, that's what faith looks like. Come on, Riley ran to her father 'cause she knew his voice. And we need to run to our Heavenly Father because we know him and we see him in scripture. And he tells us, do not fear. He tells us to be courageous and that he is our refuge.
You see, the power of God's power never shrinks, never shrinks. But the, our perspective of God begins to shrink when we pull away from him. And, and so church, how does that happen? How do we pull away from God? Hmm. Maybe you stop reading your Bible. Maybe you're defining God by how you think and feel as opposed to what the Bible says. Maybe you used to read it, but you don't do it anymore. You went to read on your phone, but then you kind of stopped because I dunno, a game pulled up as opposed to the Bible. Ladies and gentlemen, the church cannot afford to get away from the Bible. We have to be in God's word on a daily basis so we can speak to us. So we can know the voice of our father.

Yes sir. Yes sir.

But maybe you stopped praying. Maybe you said, I just don't believe in prayer. And you may not say it outwardly, but your actions show it. Your actions just show, Hey, I don't really need the prayer right now. I'm good. And maybe you're late for a business meeting one day. Maybe you're late to go pick up a kid. I don't know what it was. Now don't be late to pick up kids and don't be late to your business meetings. But we do need to wake up earlier to pray. Amen. Yes sir. We have an enemy who does not want us talking to God. We have an enemy that just wants to keep us as far as away from communicating to him as possible. But we need to spend time in prayer. We see it all throughout scripture. Even Jesus Christ gave us the model prayer to pray.
Maybe you stop gathering with other believers. Y'all haven't. You're here today. But maybe you said, you know, I'm gonna watch online. Maybe you said, you know what? I'm okay watching a podcast or listening to a podcast watching on YouTube. But family, we can't do that. Hebrews talks about don't forsake the gathering. Why? Because we need to encourage each other because the day is drawing near that God will return. But right now we need to encourage each other because the day that the world and the day can be chaotic, see it. We have a tendency as humans to veer off course. Our natural tendency is a sinful nature that we are, we veer off course.
We need to help each other to come back to the right course. And that's through Jesus Christ when need to get in the Bible where it makes us come back on the right course, we need to get to prayer where it makes us come back to the right course. 'cause we have a God who is all powerful and almighty. Psalm 46 calls us back to remember that our God is unshakeable, encouraged follows. Point number two, today. Good. Uh, God's presence is our protection. Now, now you can look at Psalms 46. It's interesting. Do y'all remember hymns? Remember hymns we used to use in the backseat of the, of the pew? Remember pews? Whoa. So, um, yeah, IIII do have to admit I like padded chairs. But uh, you can look at Psalm 46 as a hymn. Three stanis. And you may not know this, uh, Psalm 46, Martin Luther, uh, the Reformation wrote a hymn, almighty fortresses, our God.
That hymn came from this passage. It was his favorite passage. In fact, he would often say, come, let's sing Psalm 46. Now, Martin Luther was a flawed, it had flaws. He wasn't perfect, but he held scripture close and especially Psalm 46, the powerful hymn that gave her a chance to look into that hymn. But this is interesting. We moved to the second Stan. Now the first Stan was talking about the raw nature of just, uh, uh, the raw nature itself. The power that it existed with the nature, but it also talks about the power of our God. But then we shift to the second stanza, and then it gets interesting. And, and I wanna read verse four. It says, there is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy habitation of the most high.
Now we've gone from chaos to now it's calm, it's really calm and it's calm because of God's presence. You see, the, the writer was writing about the temple and where God was and wherever God is, that is where calmness is. But also too, when you read that verse, it says something in there that's interesting. You may have not picked up on it. It says rivers. There is a river whose streams make glad. Well, here's the deal. There are no rivers in Jerusalem. None. Couple streams. Sometimes it rains a lot. It may look like a river, but there's no river. So why does the salter write this? Why does he say, Hey the rivers, he was talking about Jerusalem when he wrote it, but he's thinking to a future reality. That's to come. And the prophet Ezekiel in the Old Testament says this. And on the banks, on both sides of the river, there will grow all kinds of trees for food.
The leaves will not wither nor their fruit fail, but they will bear fresh fruit every month because the water of them flows from the sanctuary. Sanctuary is where God is, where Jesus will be, their fruit will be for food and their lease for healing. And it's a fascinating part of prophecy there. 'cause what he's, what Ezekiel is talking about is the new Jerusalem where we will spend eternity. And that from there rivers are coming. So again, it was riding for that day in Jerusalem, but he was also thinking ahead to the new Jerusalem. That if you accept Christ, you will be part of. But then we have John in Revelation talk about this. He says, then an angel showed me the river of the water of life Again. A river is used bright as a crystal flowing from the throne of God. And that's heaven. Where he is now. And the lamb. And the lamb is of course Jesus Christ. Church, we have hope because we know this future. We have hope because we know that our future is gonna be okay. That we're gonna spend it with our heavenly Father. There'll be no more sin <laugh>, no more sorrow. I can't wait for that day. And everything will be made clear to us.
But right now, we need to rely on him for our strength and hope, especially today. The writer goes on. Let's go to verse five. God is in the midst of her. She shall not be moved. God will help her. When the morning dawns the nations raids, the kingdom's title, he God utters his voice. The earth melts. The Lord of host is with us. The God of Jacob is our fortress. Now, we talked about Elohim in the first part, but here we see the Lord of hosts and we see the God of Jacob, the Lord of hosts. What's the Lord of hosts? The Lord of hosts is the Lord of armies. Angel armies, powerful armies. That's power. The God of Jacob emphasizes we, we can't get into it today, but the covenant promise that he made to Jacob, a flawed individual. But he still for broken people, he made a covenant. And God makes a covenant with us today. And that's who his son Jesus Christ.
See, we're all flawed people. We're all sinful. And we need a savior. That's perfect. Now actually, when you look back at that verse, it's not the walls, it's not the weapons of the day. It was God's presence that brought this calmness. Nothing man creates ever can serve as a substitute for God and what he brings to us. Let's go to 0.3 through God's victory. We have hope for today and we have hope for eternity. And we're looking back at this last part of Psalms and we're starting verse eight. And I want you to notice there's a command in Psalm eight. The command says come, but let me read it. It says, come behold the works of the Lord, how he has brought desolation on the earth. Come. And all that means is say, Hey, come over here. Look. Look at what's God is doing. Now the desolation are being talked about.
There are not uh, uh, catastrophes that we see by nature. These are, this is God saying the enemies of God will not stand. They will be decimated. They will be destroyed. Ladies and gentlemen, I can't wait for that day. I cannot wait to that day. But here it goes on. And it says this. It says, he makes war cease to the end of the earth. He breaks the bow, he shatters the spear, he burns a cha with fire. And that's God's just saying, no more war done. Imagine the day that there's no more war or rumors of Ro ah peace.
But want you to pay attention to verse 10. 'cause this is interesting. If you have your Bibles, I believe it's up on the screen. There it is. You see the quotes around this next text. Now these quotes mean that this is Jesus talking. Don't miss that. This is, I'm sorry, this is God talking Jesus Holy Spirit. We can do the trinity thing. But the bottom line, this is God speaking to us today. This is God speaking in scripture. You wanna hear God's voice? Read scripture and right here we see it be still and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations. I'll be exalted on the earth. Amen. Amen. Come on. Woo. I'll preach the Lord of hostess with us. The God of Jacob is our fortress. Sayah, come on. Sayah means this. Sayah means you stop. You pause and you contemplate who we need to do that more in our lives, don't we? Yes sir. Especially when it comes to reading God's word. Especially when it comes to just knowing who God is. We need to pause. Now, the theologians believe that this, that this could be King Hezekiah that they're talking about. And when you read the story of King Hezekiah, it is a compelling story in the Old Testament. Two kings, 18 through 19. If you have some time this afternoon between a nap, read two Kings 18 through 19. It will beat any Netflix documentary that you can watch is an incredible story about God's power.
And I wanna talk just a little bit about this because it talks about being still and see Hezeki Hezekiah was a good king. And so Israel was split in the northern kingdom and the southern kingdom. And Hezekiah oversaw the southern kingdom. He did right was in God's eyes. He restored the temple, he restored the Levitical priesthood, he cleansed the temple. He did right. But then we have Assyria and there was a king of Assyria and he was bad. He was a jerk. And he would go around conquering lands. He already conquered a northern kingdom, but now he's coming to the southern kingdom with his armies. And he is outside and he is hurling insults. He is giving blasphemous things to over to the, throwing it over the wall, just doing everything he can to intimidate him. He even says stuff like this. He goes, Hey Hezekiah, here's the deal.
The people of the northern kingdom relied on God. He's not gonna save you. God can't save you. Whoa. Be careful. Be careful. In fact, he he, he went on to a little bit, step further. He wrote a letter to King Hezekiah. You know what happened? Now, Hezekiah at one time did try to appease this king of Assyria and, and then also he did make sure that his weapons were ready and his defenses were strong. But when he got this letter, fear began to set in. His courage began to wane. So what did he do? He went to the temple and laid out the letter and prayed, come on now. But the story gets better because as he prayed and he sent a note to Isaiah, Isaiah came back and said, don't fear this guy. Don't fear this guy. There's a reason why scripture tells us not to fear. Because sometimes he knows how we are and we're gonna fear. But he said hes aah, don't fear. So he prayed. And that night an angel of the Lord went out and struck down 185,000 Assyrians in the camp. And when the people arose early in the morning, behold these were all dead bodies. Remember our God is the host of heavenly armies. This was one angel and destroyed 185,000 people.
The the King of Assyria left with his tail between his legs. And when he got home, he went to worship a false God. And while I was in there worshiping two sons, his two sons came in and killed him. Wasn't a good ending for him. But Hezekiah allows us to understand what a good ending can be for us. And see you Hezekiah's breakthrough. Didn't it come through what he did? It came through when he surrendered. And we need to be like Hezekiah. We need to stop and we just start surrendering in our lives. Amen. Amen. And I need to do that just as much as anybody. Guys. There's no doubt family. There's no doubt we live in a crazy time and the times are gonna get crazier and fear's gonna set in our strength is gonna get weak. And our courage is just gonna crack. But that's why we need these psalms. That's why we need to read these psalms to talk about that God alone is our strength. We need to talk about God is a creator. God is almighty. God is a heavenly host. God is the God of Jacob working through broken people to keep his promises. He alone is God. And no matter how challenging the gets, God is our strength that we have to rely on. Yes

Sir. Yes sir.

Psalms 46.4. Psalms 46 doesn't ignore the chaos around us. It helps us to reframe it. It helps us to reframe it. So you might be here today and you said, Mike, I I, I need this peace that you're talking about, this heaven. I understand maybe you need to be like Riley who ran to are earthly father. Maybe you need to run to the Heavenly Father. 'cause you feel him pulling you, pulling you saying Come all who are weak. You see, John three 16 says this. It says, for God so loved the world, he gave his only begotten son that whoever believed in him will not perish. But I've everlasting life. His son is Jesus Christ. And we turn from sin to Jesus. That's the good news. That's the gospel. And that's what we're supposed to just tell you today. That's what we're supposed to tell you. All of our lives. Our our lives should just exemplify Christ grace. Would you accept him? And you just have to say a Father, I need Jesus.