Psalm 48 - All God Does Is Win

Hello, and welcome back to Tabernacle Talk. It is good to be back with you all.

Just got back from a free pastors conference down in Northern Virginia yesterday, and it was a wonderful time.

Went over several different topics, five stages of church advancement, just like how the life of a church ought to look, and the process that that's supposed to take, as we see from scripture, that first we make disciples, then as disciples mature,

disciples become leaders. And once you have then leaders and disciples, then you can begin doing ministries.

And as you have those ministries, then you're able to make systems that help it all to work together, that you know what you're doing, why you're doing it, how you're doing it, and you're able to do it effectively.

Think of the old phrase, if you aim at nothing, you're going to hit it every time. And man, if that's true, like in a business secular sense, not much more true for our spiritual growth and for what we do as Christians.

And then all of that is not just to be done so that a church can make itself well known or well run or big or something like that.

All of those things, disciples, leaders, ministries or programs and then systems that all heads, so then churches can make more churches so that the gospel would continue to spread out and the fame of Jesus would be known everywhere.

And so want to maybe one little, that was just one of like the seven or eight things that we went over yesterday. But that particular, that particular session was incredibly helpful for me and looking, okay, where's our church?

Where do we need to be? Where are we acting like we are? Where are we truly?

And looking at some of that. So would encourage you take time for your life. Be learning consistently, constantly in whatever place God has you.

If it's grown in His Word, do that. If you're a realtor, learn how to be a good realtor. Whatever you do, do it heartily.

Do it for the Lord. Do it to the best of your ability because you are the image of God. You are the ambassador of Christ wherever God has you.

So do whatever you do well. We are in Psalm 48 today, and the inscription for this Psalm reads, It's a song, a psalm of the sons of Korah. So this is another one of those ones that's for this particular music group.

And many people have connected this particular psalm as well. I think I mentioned yesterday Psalms 46, 47, and 48, all with God's deliverance of Judah from the nation of Assyria that had come, tried to attack them. They had besieged.

They said, hey, don't trust in God, God can't save you. And then God sent one angel and wiped out a huge portion of their army. There was turmoil and things back home as well.

And so Assyria had to leave and God wrought the victory. And so this is one of those songs that is mentioned as having to do with that particular time period and the praises of God's people as a result of his deliverance.

And verse 1 says this, Yahweh is great and highly praised in the city of our God, his holy mountain. Rising splendidly, it is the joy of the whole earth. Mount Zion, the summit of Zephon, is the city of the great king.

God is known as a stronghold in its citadels. Look, the kings assembled, they advanced together. They looked and froze with fear.

They fled in terror, trembling, seized them there. Agony like that of a woman in labor as you wrecked the ships of Tarshish with the east wind.

Just as we heard, so we have seen in the city of Yahweh, of armies, in the city of our God, God will establish it forever. Selah. God, within your temple, we contemplate your faithful love.

Like your name, God, so your praise reaches to the ends of the earth. Your right hand is filled with justice. Mount Zion is glad.

Judah's villages rejoice because of your judgments. Go around Zion, encircle it, count its towers, note its ramparts, tour its citadels, so that you can tell a future generation, this God, our God, forever and ever, he will always lead us.

What a great portion of scripture. And we're going to kind of take this piece by piece, as we often do here, and see what does this past victory of God, what does it have to do with us today?

How can this help you as you are sitting, maybe drinking a morning coffee, or on your way to work, or maybe just closing out the end of the night, or at some point during the day listening to this, how does this affect you?

What can this mean for our life? Let's look first at verses one through three. The Lord is great, Yahweh is great, and highly praised in the city of our God.

His holy mountain rising splendidly is the joy of the whole earth. Mount Zion, the summit of Zaphon, that is the mountain that is chief, that is most important in this mountain range. It is the city of the great king.

God is known as a stronghold in its citadels.

Here God, because of his actions, he is revered in his city, in the place that he rescued them, and he put his name there, he put his temple there, he allowed his people to experience victory over their enemies. He is revered in that place.

Can I tell you that God has redeemed you, just as he saved Judah, just as he saved Jerusalem, he saved you, he bought you back, he redeemed you with his own life and death. He is the one that has made it so that you are part of his family.

He is the one that has made it so that when you die, you have a home forever in heaven with him. So what is your response? Do you exalt the Lord?

Do you lift him up? Do you think of him as your stronghold, your safety? Do you rely on other people as your safety?

Do you rely on security cameras as your safety? I think I mentioned before way back in Psalm 2 or 3 with the verse, I will both lay me down and sleep in peace, for thou Lord only maketh me dwell in safety.

That safety, security is found only in the Lord. I think I told the story when it was in Psalm 3 that we had once experienced a robbery at the church that the parsonage was right next to, and we lost our car. We lost.

I lost a guitar. My wife lost a computer, something. We had just several items stolen from us personally.

And the church had tons of stuff stolen from it. I had some friends that had stolen guitars, all that kind of stuff. And for a long time after that, it was really hard for me to go to sleep at night.

I had to have a light that was turned on elsewhere in the house, not necessarily in the room that I was in. But I just had so much fear and anxiety going, how do I stop evil or robberies from happening again?

And the song, Jesus Strong and Kind was one that really ministered to me. Just the truth that I can trust in the Lord, that even when bad things happen, like I was still alive. No one at the church was hurt.

We were able to recover our car. There were just blessing after blessing after blessing. There were people there even that Sunday, put their faith in Christ.

Like I can trust my heavenly father. He might not do everything the way that I would want him to, but I can think of him as my stronghold.

The one that, yeah, he might not stop every possible evil from happening in my life, but he has stopped so many.

And he has stopped the ultimate evil of me suffering the punishment for my sins that I did, that I deserved it, and yet he took the punishment for me. So he is my stronghold. Do you view God as your stronghold?

Do you exalt him? Do you praise him? Do you lift him up to others because he has saved you just as he saved Jerusalem 1500 years ago or no, 2500 years ago.

Verses four through eight, he says, Look, the kings assembled, they advanced together, they looked and froze with fear, they fled in terror, trembling, seized them there, agony like that of a woman in labor as you wrecked the ships of Tarshish with

the east wind. Just as we have heard, so we have seen in the city of Yahweh of Heaven's armies, in the city of our God, God will establish it forever. Here he says, When wicked people came against Jerusalem, God, you completely disconfitted them.

You made it so that they didn't accomplish what they wanted to. They had to leave, they were scared, they were in agony. You overcame these great gigantic vessels that no one person would ever be able to overcome.

And yet, you took some wind and you wrecked these ships of these foreign nations. And so, God, we know that though these people are fleeing, these people are running, these people are having all of their things destroyed.

God, we know that you will protect us and you will establish us forever. Your sins will fall before your God. Your agonies, your physical pains and sicknesses will one day bow the knee to the Lord and you will never encounter them again.

God will bash the ships of the enemies that are assailing your soul so that one day they are either no longer your enemies, they have become your friends, they've become brothers and sisters in Christ, or God and His justice will have removed them so

that they no longer cause you the trouble that they do, whether in this life or once you die, God wins all your victories. So what a wonderful truth that this is, that nothing that I encounter truly assails or attacks my soul, that God has promised

to establish you forever. You are His child and if He gave up Jesus for you, do you think that there's anything in this life that He won't do for you? Anything that is good for you? Sometimes we hear those phrases.

Okay, like, God gave me Jesus, so why wouldn't God give me a million dollars? Why wouldn't God give me a lamborghini? That's not the point.

That's not what your soul needs. Your soul needs to be like Jesus. Your soul needs to have the fruit of the Spirit living out in you.

And so that is what God has promised to establish. So don't fear situations. Don't fear people.

Don't fear illnesses. Don't fear your sins. Realize that God is the one who can conquer.

And so pray to Him consistently and say, God, like, change me to be more like Jesus. And as you do that, protect me from evil. I can think of the Lord's Prayer where it says, do not lead us into temptation, but keep us away from the evil one.

Keep us away from these difficulties in life. That we can pray that to God. That every day in Job's life was not the giant trial with Satan.

For most of Job's life, he had just walked with God. God had put a shelter around him. And yes, Satan came and he brought in some difficulties, but that was only like eight days of Job's life.

And we think of Job and we go, man, like, what a hard life that Job had. Job had a hard, like, week and a half, but that was not all of his life.

And God, all the time before those eight days, had been good to him, had been kind to him, had brought him protection and safety and children and success in business and all of these things.

And after those eight days, God brought back in riches and animals and children and friendship and health. Your struggle that you were going through is not your forever. So call out to God.

Ask him to do these actions. God save me, deliver me, destroy the ships, beat the sin in my life so that I am no longer struggling with my lust. I'm no longer struggling with my temper, with my pride, with my anger.

God, I need you to work as only you can work. Then in verses 9 through 11, they say, God, within your temple, we contemplate your faithful love.

God, as we are here in this place where you have put your name, we are thinking about how incredible you are, how steadfast your love is for us, that though we are wicked, that we do not deserve this, you have accomplished this and you are glorified

as a result. Can I encourage you, be in church whenever you can. I know we've got some dearly loved saints here that struggle with different health and sickness things. You're not primarily the ones that I'm saying this to.

I know that if you could be in the Lord's house, that you have every desire to be there.

But for those of you that perhaps sometimes you just don't really know, if you feel like it today, maybe you might take every opportunity possible of, oh man, I can go fish in, or I can take this trip, this place.

Yeah, I'm just going to do it all the time, whenever the opportunity presents itself. Yeah, whenever maybe it's convenient and I'm in town, I'll definitely be in church.

Can I encourage you, like, be there, be within this place where God's people are and exalting and praising Him? Ephesians chapter 3, I heard someone mention this at some point in the last two months. I don't remember.

Oh, actually, I do remember who it was. It was Pastor Mark Dever from down in the DC area called our attention to Ephesians chapter 3 and verse number 10. He says God has these incredible riches and mysteries in Christ for us.

And he says this is so that God's multi-faceted wisdom may now be made known through the church to the rulers and authorities in the heavens. This is according to his eternal purpose, accomplished in Christ Jesus, our Lord.

That God has the church as his plan A and there is no plan B. Jesus died for the church. That's what it says in Ephesians chapter 5.

Jesus is the one that the church is his bride. The church is how God shows the heavenly beings, the angels and demons and Satan and the cherubim and the seraphim and everything else.

This is how he shows them his intelligence and his wisdom and his greatness is through the local assemblies of believers that as they gather together, they worship the Lord, they praise him, they experience his presence, they pray to him, they

denounce their greed through their generosity to his work. They then go out from those local congregations, those local assemblies, and they spread out through their communities and all throughout the week. God's people shine the light of Jesus.

They shine the light that was stoked, that fire that was lit and was fed in church, in the assembly. Now, they are bringing those little fires all across their life, into their families, into their neighborhoods, into their jobs, into their hobbies.

And then, each Sunday, they bring that fire back to the church, and Lord will, and as they've gone out, then that fire is made even brighter because they didn't just let the fire die out during the week, they stoked it more.

They invited people into the life. I was so encouraged on Sunday.

Had one of our facilities and maintenance guys that has served as a deacon, lots of different things, that he was like, hey, I invited this person that I interacted with this week, and I'm hoping to see him here today. Man, that helped stoke my fire.

Like, I was coming to hopefully give some encouragement to other people, and that person encouraged me, and then heard from my friends Roger and Kathy the other day that Roger was in Walmart, and he was inviting people to church, and that fire that's

being stoked then is brought back to the assembly, and the fire gets even brighter, and Lord willing, it lights the fire in some people that maybe their fires are really dim right now, and they're going through discouragement, or they're going

through not really knowing if they should be all in for God, and they're motivated because they can see that God is real and working in other people, and they want that for themselves, and so then, they bring it out to their communities, and it just

goes. That is how God is glorified. That's the way that the church works. We gather, we are fed, we worship, we do everything God has commanded us to do, and then we spread out through the rest of the week in order to light fires wherever we are.

Metaphorically speaking, none of you commit arson this week. So, hear that all from verse number nine, that within God's temple, we contemplate His faithful love. So, let's have an importance on being in church whenever we can be.

Certainly, let's take vacations, let's take time off, let's do all of those things, but let's place an importance on the church, that the church isn't just something that we go to when it's convenient.

It's not just something that we go to when we have no other fun things going on. Let's place importance on the church of the living God. He says, Like your name, God, so your praise reaches to the ends of the earth.

Your right hand is filled with justice. Mount Zion is glad. Judas' village is rejoiced because of your judgments.

Tell people in your life about Jesus. Don't just rely on maybe a church service to tell people about Jesus and who he is and what he's done. You do it in your life with those that you know.

Let the praise that reaches to the ends of the earth reach through your hands to your local earth, if you will. Then verses 12 through 14. Go around Zion and circle it.

Count its towers. Note its ramparts. Tour its citadels.

So that you can tell a future generation, this God, our God, forever and ever, he will always lead us.

Here the person is noting, hey, all of these areas that were threatened, that were going to be destroyed by Syria, look how God saved them and tell it to future generations.

I can think of many people at our church that talk about the victories that God has won in their life, that they were struggling with addiction, they were struggling with sexual immorality, they were struggling with pride, they were struggling with

all sorts of things, and how God defeated those evils in their life, and that now who they are is not who they were. And it didn't just come through them becoming a better person, it came through the Spirit of the living God transforming them, that

we can go to the ramparts, the citadels, the towers in our life, that once were filled with evil, were filled with wickedness, were filled with selfishness, and that now we can show others and say, hey, God did this in my life. He won the victory for

me, and so I know that he can win the victory for you. This is the kind of God that he is. He's the God that is victorious, the one that wins the battles in my life, and in my morality, and in my thinking. God is victorious.

Who can you tell today? Maybe just for your life.

You need to do some introspection to go around the areas of your life and remember who you once were and who you are now and where God would have you to go in the future, that you would remind yourself, God, I remember this tower that once was a

stronghold for evil, that now it's a place where I call out your praise from, that my mouth that used to spread gossip, my mouth that used to be filled with cursing and cussing, now I'm using it to sing about Jesus. Now I'm using it to speak kind

words to people. God, you took this tower, you took this rampart, and Lord, now you have accomplished the victory. Our God wins, He's amazing. And so we ought to worship Him with everything that we have.

Let's go and declare who He is. Let's gather with His people to declare together who He is, to follow His word, and then go out and tell Him to others. I've attached a song.

This is actually an old song. I don't know how long yet as of the time I'm recording this. I think it was probably 50s or 60s.

One little chorus that I grew up singing from, this song from Psalm 48 verses, I think, one and two. And I hope that it would be an encouragement to you. Thanks for tuning in today and hope to see you next episode.