Brother Gary Sunday Evening 1/5/14

Brother Gary Sunday Evening 1/5/14

Psa 48:8  As we have heard, so have we seen in the city of the LORD of hosts, in the city of our God: God will establish it for ever. Selah.

Psa 48:9  We have thought of thy lovingkindness, O God, in the midst of thy temple.

The thought on my heart is ‘Selah’, in the thought of stopping, pausing, considering and receiving.  One of the commentaries that I read told that it is always important to read the verse before and after the word Selah. 

David dealt with what he had heard and seen.  He acknowledged that he had seen this when he was worshipping. Then he dealt with the thought, “Dear God we are thinking of thy loving kindnesses.”  The loving kindnesses of God are in the plural form. 

Stop and consider how great the Lord is and how greatly to be praised:  verse 1.

It is amazing what praising will do.  Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised in the city of our God and in the mountain of His holiness.

It is so important that we never let ourselves become isolated but come together in thanksgiving, adoration, and worship.  Not discrediting the trials of life, the temptations or persecutions that individual’s suffer:  It is important that we come in these situations and let the saints help us know that there are a lot of good things going on even in the stormy situation.

It is important that we pause.  It is wonderful that this scripture says to stop and consider:  beautiful for situation.  I was thinking of Isaac, the youngest in this audience this evening.  How beautiful it is for every situation in our life to be in Mount Zion. 

As there would be those that would look upon the families here with saved mom and dad and think that it is a perfect situation with chickens, a dog, etc.  All of that without God does not make a beautiful situation.  We must have God.

As we journey, we must have a view of this word, Selah, to stop and consider.  For every one of us this Mount Zion is beautiful for situation.  Pause.  This world puts us on an escalator.  We have a right to step off of the escalator. 

All the pressure that is put on you and on me, the things we feel closing in: “We have to get this or that done.”  The Word of God comes and says, Selah, stop, pause, consider.  The Word of God comes in, beautiful for situation.

As difficult as the situation that Sister Dorothy is in with her sister sick: stop and consider, seek God and say, “God what will you do in this situation?”  We will all be faced with situations this next week where we must step off of the escalator. 

God is known in her palaces for a refuge:

As I studied on the thought of palaces, I thought, “What could that mean?”  It means where God dwells and meets with His people. 

We could bring out the Old Testament pattern of worship.  I think that it is so beautiful and awesome every time I go back to the temple worship and I look there where the lamb was slain and an offering was made.

In my own personal experience that took place many years ago; it is very real and beautiful today.  Because you and I know what God did for us when we repented and turned from our sin and were broken before God and reached the place, “God I have no one else to blame for my sin but myself; I sinned.”  Then think of the blood being applied.

When you think on the thought of ‘Selah’, the story has been told over and over again.  Often people have found that their place of refuge is because of the blood of Christ. 

The haven of rest:  I have anchored my soul in the haven of rest. 

Jesus paid the price for our sin.  You come to the laver.  It is wonderful to wash.  You come to the door and it is wonderful to have an invitation, “Come and worship.  Come in.”  In the Old Testament they made sure that the bread was fresh, the oil and the spices.  They made sure the lamps were lit and there was oil in the lamps. 

God is in His palaces.  We will need the bread of life, the light, this week.  Every one of us that have paid the price on the golden altar and giving our body as a living sacrifice for God:  That place where we go back to and remember, “Lord, I remember how I counted the cost.” 

I don’t go there without envisioning my mother preaching on sanctification and preaching of how everything must be put on the altar.  My mother told how she put everything on the altar, her children and her husband.  She had to put her family on the altar.  She had to come to the place that “If the family doesn’t support me I will go on serving God.”  It is a big step but it must be taken by all people. 

I remember her telling me that when she started out to serve God her mother said, “Helice if you don’t plan to go all the way then you might as well give up right now.”  She said, “I plan to serve God and go all the way.”

She was married to a Kelly.  The Kellys are known to be riotous and fighting.  My dad was not always kind about my mother being saved.  He fought it.  She went right on serving God.  She wept her way through with the blood of the lord Jesus Christ to be cleansed from the carnal man.

I trust in these later days with the gospel that we see many men and women where they find the place of the golden altar and pay the price measuring in every way and loving God supremely.  “When first I started to seek the Lord, I’m glad that I counted the cost.”

How God meets us while we are paying that price and weighing in these balances.  Unless you have been put in a certain place then you cannot weigh in those balances.  Those that are married and not a widow cannot say yet, “I’ll go on and serve you as a widow.” 

Some in this audience have suffered some injustices.  The only thing to do is go to the golden altar and say, “God though the losses I claim you.” 

Let the losses go. The main thing is that you don’t let the losses keep you out of heaven.  The God I know usually gives back much more than we ever lose.  If we make heaven we will leave it all behind anyway.

When we fully surrender to God, He says, “Come in to the Holiest of Holies.”  This is where God meets with us at the mercy seat.  The struggle is over: “I’ve settled it and I’ve paid the price.  Perfect love abounds.  He loves me and I love him.  I totally know that His choices are right.  I may not understand it but I know.”

In Psalms 77 it says that God’s footprints are not seen.  There will be times in the Holiest of Holies that he will say, “This is what I want you to do.”  You will wonder, “God is that what you want? Yes you are right.”

We will find ourselves in situations where we look for God and don’t find his footprints but He is there.

Those palaces are a refuge.  God has a refuge for every one of us.  A refuge is a place where we can go and the storm is out there.  We see the storm from the refuge.  The storm is raging.  Let me encourage you:  Know the refuge for the storms will rage.

The world has the cliché that ‘Everything is fine.’  They are liars.  Don’t believe it; it is not that way.  The storm is raging.  Dear ones there is a refuge.  There is a hiding place.  There is a place that God has prepared for His own.

As I began to work on this lesson, I was shocked, amazed.  Someone entrusted us with an old select hymn book.  I found a lot of songs on refuge.  You look in the evening light at p 165: “I have a sure and safe retreat to which I always flee; from every storm of life I meet ‘tis Christ the rock for me.”

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if in 2014 in every storm I fled to the refuge?  I lost no time?  I had no sleepless nights and in every storm I flew to the refuge?

Though tempests rage and wild winds blow whom can I trust but thee?  I feel secure from every foe in Christ the rock for me.

Come stormy wind and rolling sea, come fire and tempest shock I’m in that cleft once made for me, In Christ the solid Rock.

“Come stormy wind?”  Brother Warren you are asking for the storm?  Maybe the thought was that the storm would come.  There is a refuge.  There is a retreat.  You and I will never find it by wishing that we are somewhere else. 

We will find the place of refuge by first saying, “Selah, I will stop, pause, consider, listen, and receive.”

I believe that this song was written because that brother had had severe storms.  It was not written because He was trying to entertain Hollywood.  It was written because he felt the storm.  He chose to ‘Selah’.  He found “God is known in her palaces for a refuge.” 

You and I are blessed to have a refuge in Christ.