God our only refuge

I am not surprised that many of you and we arrive here this afternoon and there is a residue in our spirit of anxiety, because there is a kind of anxiety that is kind of subliminal that is thrown at us. We are not aware of it but it is there. Who can see those images of floods and destruction in the Caribbean and their mind is not affected in some way. And sometimes the last images we consume before going to bed are images from the internet, of a car that is carried away by the water or a house that is destroyed or a palm tree dancing before the attack of the winds. And that stays there, they are very graphic images that affect our subconscious, they take away our peace, they affect us in many different ways.

And we come here and declare blessings from God but there is also a hurricane there many times in our emotions and it does not surprise us that our sleep is light and we wake up awake with a start. And one wonders why if I'm fine. We are not fine. There are things that are affecting our neurology.

And that is why I believe that it is necessary that we use the antidote of the word of God at this time. And my desire is that by declaring certain things it is like medicine on the people of God. May these words serve as a spiritual massage for us. Amen. May the ointment of the word of God soften our hearts but also to prophetically declare that God is in his temple. Amen. God is on his throne. Hallelujah! And his feet are on the ground. And Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever. Hallelujah! He doesn't change.

He did not forget the earth when those hurricanes were raging or when Isis was conquering cities and nations in the Middle East. The Lord is on his throne, his eyes are still watching and his church the gates of hell shall not prevail against her in Jesus name we declare it.

I love psalm 46 which was the source of my meditation early this morning when many of you were wrestling with the sheets, at 5 in the morning your pastor was wrestling with the word, in the most positive sense, like Jacob with the angel, squeezing her to release the blessing for her people. What a great man God has in you. I'm not playing. On the contrary, if he were wise he would have his sermon prepared beforehand but there is so much going on that he sweats it out early in the morning.

Psalm 46. I invite you to go to that precious word and that this word of the psalmist wash over your lives right now. May it shower them with its reassuring and promising message. God is our refuge and strength, say the people of God Hallelujah! Our early aid in tribulations. Stand up and read it with me. Let's start again. get ready. Read it from there.

“God is our refuge and strength. Our early aid in tribulations. Therefore, we will not fear even if the earth is removed and the mountains are transferred to the heart of the sea. Give the Lord a big round of applause. Glory to God. Have a seat. Hallelujah! We declare it with faith. Although its waters roar and turbulence, says the psalmist, and the mountains tremble because of its gravity. Glory to the name of the Lord. We will be able to continue reading this beautiful psalm.

It is a psalm of total confidence in the power of God and his faithfulness to those whom he loves.

who he loves And that is why this psalm is a good antidote, it is a good spoonful, an elixir, a syrup of peace and hope for us. Because in few psalms, and that is why it is one of the most favorite psalms of the people of God, there is such a graphic, direct, and sustained declaration of God's faithfulness.

And that is why we need in these uncertain times to look towards that almighty God. That mountain that is there in National Geographic came to my mind this morning, what is it? Yosemite. Brother Julio is a great consumer of geography magazines and many other things as a scientist that he is. And in that newspaper, in that issue of National Geographic, there was a mountain, Yosemite, it's practically a mass of rock, hundreds of feet high and hundreds of feet wide. You can fire a cannon at him and he doesn't even know. It is a petrified giant that exemplifies something firm, something unshakable, something invincible, powerful, reliable. It's been there for thousands of years and possibly will be – I'm not going to say thousands of years because I believe that Christ is going to come before that, but it will be there until the earth is earth.

And yet, the psalmist says here that even though the mountains are transferred and the earth is removed and the mountains transferred to the heart of the sea, God will always continue to be our refuge and our strength. Today, many things that seemed quite stable are turning out to be unstable. For the moment, I am thinking of the European Union, for example, which is a solid organization, made up of very strong and very responsible and highly functional nations. And yet, recently a piece of that mountain collapsed with the departure of England, the United Kingdom, the detachment of that... and there have been fears that other parts will dismember as well.

Stable things are being removed in the world, governments, the United States, you see what is happening today with President Trump and some who think, how is it possible that in this nation there is this, there is that. This nation that would already seem like it has surpassed all these things, that firm mountain is like being transferred to the mountain of the sea.

And so many other things of that kind. But the psalmist says, God is our refuge and our strength. God is our refuge, is our refuge. And what the psalmist is doing here is something very important that we have to do. When times become uncertain, the word of the Lord advises us to turn our gaze towards God. I see this psalm as an exposition of contrasts, contrasts of stability and contrasts of instability, contrasts of fragility, and contrasts of strength.

And this word of the Lord invites us to take our eyes off fragility and changeability and set our eyes on what never changes, on what is never revealed as fragile and open to circumstances. That is why that psalm begins with one of the strongest statements, God is our refuge and our strength. And we have to learn as Christians, brothers, more and more every day to put our trust in God and not in men, not in our technologies, because technology is not capable, there is the thing, is that man feels always confident.

The 21st century is the time of trust in the things that we can provide ourselves. Nowadays, we are able to control a lot the effects of nature, we go into our houses and we have air conditioning or heating. We violate the laws of gravity, we don't violate them but we learn how to manipulate them and we lift animals that weigh thousands and thousands and tons, and hundreds of tons and set them to travel across the sky and send people to the moon. We have so many things that protect us, submarines from the water, and things like that, and I believe that the trust of man, the temptation of man is to put his trust in these things and in himself that he is capable of controlling all these things. .

What's going on? A hurricane comes and suddenly one discovers how fragile we really are. Because with the force of a hurricane that is 300 miles wide and one knows how long, and that eye that is like an eye of death, gloomy and severe, directing all its force around and moving its army, its compact and powerful army and tough and you can take a strong city like Miami or if you got here to New York, imagine, or Boston, what would happen?

And for the moment the man discovers that the only thing he can do is run away. The only thing he can do is monitor the movement of that sinister being. And try to predict where it will go so that people run away from it, but there is no way, there is no explosive that can be thrown, sometimes I have fantasized, if one could get into a science fiction airplane and throw A bomb that makes all those winds undo. One day maybe but definitely nowadays no one can do that. All they can do is measure it, try to determine its trajectory and get as far away from it as possible and take cover.

Where is the lordship of man, where is the strength of man? At that moment we discover that we are totally contingent, that we are totally exposed to the elements of nature. A hurricane, a blizzard, a landslide, things that remind us that after all we are mere creatures in the hands, we are not going to say of God, but of this world, of nature.

And in those moments we have to put our gaze on God and not only in those moments but always, brothers. Because when times of trial and difficulty come, look, sometimes there is no time to get spiritual and fill the churches. Because this psalm is a preventive call to become so saturated with the divine image and the values of the spirit and eternity, that we do not have time to look at the ghosts and specters that are behind us.

And I have felt in this psalm, among other things, a call from the word of God to saturate our mind, our conscience, our sensitivity with the values of the word of the Lord so that our mind is so saturated with that conscience of our Almighty God that when tribulations come we are as if bathed in a covering of peace and protection and preventive confidence in him.

I have found, brothers, that as never before in the history of humanity, it is no longer time to play at being evangelicals or to be church people. A man arrived this morning at the 9 o'clock service and had just been converted and bore all the marks of a life scarred by suffering and emotional deformities. He lives in another part of the United States and I hope he's not here, he doesn't speak Spanish anyway, so he can't understand me. He said something very significant to me, “I'm tired of church,” and he had all the laziness of the people in the world, and I told him, “Welcome to the club. I am also tired of the church, because the church does not save.”

Churches do not create saints and men and women of God. The institutions... if you set your sights on a church you are leaning on a very fragile and weak reed. churches betray us, pastors disappoint us, institutions have never been suitable shelters. The only one is God. I told him, “Turn your gaze on Christ. Make sure that now that you have accepted the Lord, study the word of God, pray, communicate with God directly. Create intimacy with God and with the things of the spirit. Do not lean on an institution, institutions have never been a good refuge for a person, God is."

And the time, brothers, of the people to place their refuge and their trust in a church, an institution, in a pastor, in a deacon of the church, in a spiritual grandmother, and those times have passed. If you are not filled with the oil of God's spirit and his word, you will not survive the pressures of this time, because they will continue.

Who would think that this is going to disappear at the moment and that we have now entered times, I would say, irreversible, brothers. And there are already decades that we are seeing that increase and the progression of the things that we see. It is rather time to put on spiritual boots and for the little game with ecclesiastical dolls to come to an end and for Christians to begin to live committed to the tools and instruments and utensils of the temple of God, his word, adoration, sanctification, meditating on the things of the kingdom, despising our life until death as the word of the Lord says.

I want this church to be filled with the living dead, all of us here dead, wandering in the world but alive for Christ, dead for the world. Amen. That we already give our lives to the Lord and that we dedicate ourselves to radically seeking God, because that is the only thing that will keep us going. When you fill up on the word of God, when you take your dose of spiritual and biblical heroism every morning, when you go like an addict and take your biblical insulin every morning, that's where you are. Amen.

That is where the hope is, the strength. I do not dare to leave my house without praying, without seeking the throne, the grace of God, do not leave without entrusting your children to the Lord, your house, your marriage, your health, your finances, because the world is full of terrible things and we need to be so possessed of that image of God who is our refuge, our strength, our quick help in tribulations, that there is no time to meditate too much on the ghost that is near us waiting for us.

Brothers, you have to fill your sensitivity. Part of being effective in the Christian life is an almost mechanical matter, it is a matter of whether you eat the word of the Lord, that you reprogram your mind with the concepts of the Bible because otherwise the concepts of the world will get into your mind. Sometimes one is sleeping and one's sleep is interrupted by cell phone lighting. How many has that happened to you? the cell phone turns on and it's a news item from the Associated Press telling you that so many people died in such a place and that there was a terrorist attack in such a place and you are filled with anxiety and your mind is poisoned by so many things, the newspapers, the news. Journalists are having an incredible party at this time because there is material to be tirelessly commenting on.

Irma is the best thing that has happened to the newspaper industry in this nation. And we are the target of all that speculation, of all that interview and interview of the interviewers and interview of the interviewers who interview the interviewers. And there is a consumption and our mind... but we have to oppose to that the meditation on the word of the Lord. You have to make that verse, God is our refuge and our strength, a reason for meditation. Repeat it, put it in your mind, declare it, sing it. Consume the word of the Lord. Worship the Lord.

Our homes have to be full in this time of worship. We have to oppose death threats to the promises of life that come from the word of God. And if you are a part time Christian, you are going to have problems during this time, you are not going to survive, because times are bad, says the word of the Lord. Times will come, says the Bible, when the world will be filled with doctrines, with demons, and people will be running from one place to another looking for a word, looking for a teaching.

And we have to be consumers of the word of the Lord, of the positive images and promises of the word in many different ways. Our homes have to be delivered to the Lord more every day. Christianity part of time is long gone, my brothers. God is looking for consecration and total surrender of our lives. I know that myself, as a pastor, I feel that call from God to give myself more and to seek more of the word of the Lord and give everything I can so that my life can be used more for the Lord.

You have to do the same. We are all in struggle, brothers. And I believe that this psalm is an invitation, an affirmation to look at what is strong and to look away from what is contingent, to declare, God is my refuge and my strength. I put my trust in him, he is my quick help, therefore I will not fear even if the earth is moved and the mountains are transferred, although the waters roar and turbulence, and the mountains tremble because of the roughness of the waters, I I will say, God is my refuge and my strength.

You have to fight to find that enclosure within your spirit and your psyche in which you hold on to God and place your trust in him and you know that he is your hope. The Bible is full of such statements.

I was thinking of psalm 20, for example, a psalm that begins, the psalm of David, says:

"Jehovah hear you in the day of conflict, the name of the God of Jacob defend you, send you help from the sanctuary and from Zion sustain you."

But I especially love verse 7 and verse 8 that invites us to remember what we have to do, brothers. Don't wait for something dire to happen here in Boston before you start looking in the Bible for promises that give you strength. No, prepare before, stock up before. That is why that beautiful psalm, 20:6 says:

"Now I know that the Lord saves his anointed, he will hear it from his holy heavens with the saving power of his right hand."

An invitation to focus on the power of God but says, "These trust in chariots, those in horses, but we will remember the name of Jehovah our God."

Hallelujah! One can say, these trust in their war tanks and their intercontinental rockets, others trust in their great technology and their ability to make great discoveries about the nature of the earth and the genome or different things that make up nature, but we will remember the name of the Lord our God.

Because man discovers that all his knowledge is not capable of giving him the peace that his interior needs. There are enemies that no nuclear weapon or any technological capacity can penetrate. The technologist and the computer expert when he finds himself alone and naked before a mirror, with a cancer diagnosis or with a woman who wants to leave him or children who do not love him, is totally devoid of strength and needs something more, needs hope, you need a sense of eternity, you need to know what is going to happen on the other side, you need to know that you are not alone, that there is something else that can help you.

We cannot put our trust in human things. And we continually have... the Christian's fight is that, always, always, always, reprogram our neurology in such a way that we learn how to trust in the Lord, how to take our gaze off human things and put it on the help that only comes from part of God It is a process of… I have no problem saying that I need to program myself in a different way through the word of the Lord, so that I can trust not in cars, horses, tanks, technology, airplanes, psychiatrists, knowledge of the human neurology or brain or human chromosomes, whatever, but in the power of my God, in the word of the Lord.

I will remember these things, I will remember them, I will celebrate them, I will rehearse them, I will meditate on them, I will affirm them within myself, I will declare them day and night, before going to bed I will put my dream in the hands of the Lord. And when I get up I will put my life and my work in the hands of the Lord. When I go out on that road full of violence and unexpected things, I am going to ask that the angels of the Lord cover me, take me, guide me. We will have memory.

Those who trust in mackerel falter and fall, but we get up and stand. Hallelujah! Glory to the Lord. The child of God grows in the midst of crises and tribulations. I don't know about you but, brother, I really feel excited, I feel eager to see what God is up to at this time. God is up to something. God is doing something in the world at this time and as never before I feel that God is putting his little finger, a little tip, on the earth and the earth is feeling and it is smoking because the scepter of God is touching it with its farthest extremity . And man is feeling and I say glory to God so that this proud and arrogant humanity that thinks it knows everything understands that they are contingent creatures in the hands of the Lord.

And the more fragile we feel in God, the stronger we will be in him and we will grow then, brothers. Do you know what is the best time for church? The times of crisis. We will be standing. This is the time for the church to stand up. This is a market, as it says, of the church. You know there are buyers markets and sellers markets. We preach the Gospel and the market for the Gospel is good at this time because people feel fragile, people need the word of the Lord. And God's people prosper in those times. We have to be telling you in Christ there is hope for you. He is the refuge.

Churches have to be shelters for people because there is no shelter today. One sends the children to school, there is no refuge in the schools. What's more, it leads them to the church and doctrine of demons they sometimes find in the churches. He sends him to the university and he comes out worse than when they entered. There is no shelter.

The church is for me, every day we have to be creating churches that are, I call them, substitute societies where people can come and find here family, culture, education for children, community, good advice, comfort, meaning for life. , interpretation of life events, companionship and support for each other, generosity, love, sincerity, partying, glory to God why not, joy. The churches have to become societies as complete as the world out there. The only thing with Christ as the foundation and his word. And the church rises.

This is the time for strong churches, healthy churches, brothers, we have to create something that the world will look out of the window and be jealous of, like little boys looking at sweets through a window. May the world see smile, love, mercy, generosity, goodness, sincerity, the fruit of the spirit, different communities living together. There is division out there today, the church has to be a place where different races and socioeconomic levels meet, love and kiss each other, generations, where all these things that are signs of division in society, in the church must meet and join.

That's what I love about us. Here we have different communities that live like oil and water out there, they cannot be seen. Maybe they don't hate each other but they don't get together either. But here we see people of all colors, races, socio-economic levels in the morning there is everything. An African who is 6'6 dressed in his tribal outfit and a faded white in his three piece suit. Glory to God. A homeless person and another who has three houses, glory to the Lord because the races meet and the church becomes a place of unity, a place that is a reflection of the kingdom of God and people can find here a glimpse, a flash of what one day will be the kingdom of heaven.

And we have to work. You are part of that miracle, each one of us. You are responsible for a little piece of that miracle. Every time you greet someone you don't know and introduce yourself, God bless you, brother, welcome to church. I don't know if I know you but it's good that you're here. And you call someone who is lonely and you invite someone to your house to eat because it is someone who has all his family in his country and he is here alone. Every time you share how they were done with the victims.

In fact, in Houston we have already sent that money to a Latino church that is working there to restore victims. Every time you cooperate with the young people so that they have their retreats and with the children and you give yourself a voice as a volunteer for I wanna or work with the children, Sunday school, you sacrifice yourself for those things. Understand, my brother, my sister, that this is what you are doing, you are contributing to create an alternative society, governed by the values of the Kingdom of God.

And I need you to maintain that sense of vision. I think a lot of people don't volunteer for all the activities we have because they haven't learned to take a sense of vision. What they see is cleaning noses with little boys but they do not see themselves sowing a seed for a future man who will bless the Kingdom of God and the church. You have to change your mind. Future missionaries, future evangelists, one day you are preparing them, you are discipling them. Never miss an opportunity to bless a child, lightly pass your hand on his head and see a strong man blessing him and exemplifying love for God. Many times our little children see women, and glory to God for the sisters, but men today in this time when sexuality is so distorted need men with hair on their chests who say, I love Christ too and I love you . Put your hand on it, you smell holy masculinity.

And we have to work on that. you are a missionary You are an evangelist. You are called to build the kingdom. This church has to be a substitute for the kingdom, for the values of the Kingdom of God, that shows the world that not everything is history and circumstances but that there are other eternal things, that the Kingdom of God is being built by the church of Jesus Christ during this time.

We have to take our eyes off the things of the world and put our eyes on the things of the Kingdom of God. It's time to lose our life. The Bible says that whoever loses his life will gain it and whoever loses his life will gain it for eternal life. And whoever wins it due to circumstances and career and money things and all this, will ultimately lose it.

We have to lose our life to gain it. We have to take our eyes off properties and things. Brothers, we do not know what awaits in the future, what things are going to happen, but I want you right now to give to the Lord everything that you love and everything that you value, starting with your body first and your life and that do an exercise of dying to the world. If God allows your life to perish today you know that you are going directly with Christ, it is rather a liberation.

I ask the Lord myself that I say this, what would I do if like Houston we lost, not to mention our house, we lost documents, photographs of loved ones, books we love and the memories of our lives, if we lost those things, could I still kiss the hand of God as Job did when he lost everything? We could truly say, no, God is in his kingdom, God is my refuge and my strength and I will not fear even if the earth is moved and the mountains are transferred to the heart of the sea.

We have to do those preventive exercises, brothers. Preventive spirituality exercises where we can then trust, look, trust in the Lord, because certainly the foundations of our material happiness are becoming more and more fragile every day. And our gaze has to turn towards the Lord even though the mountains roar and the waters are troubled.

Verse 4 says, from the river its currents rejoice the city of God. The idea is, there is a river that cheers, streams cheer the city of God, the sanctuaries of the dwellings of the Most High. God is in her midst, she will not be moved, God will help her at dawn. That statement is between two parallel statements, it is a sandwich of trust with two pieces of bread of mistrust and tribulation.

Moving mountains, roaring seas. In the other verses later, nations that are in contortions, kingdoms that waver, earth that melts, but in the middle it says, there is a river whose currents make glad the city of God, the sanctuary of the dwelling places of the Most High.

Brothers, I want to put my mind today and yours in that river, which is the river of God, the river that Revelation shows us at the end of the story. At the end of the story we are told of a river that we can possibly swim in, we can drink from its waters, a river that will run through the nations.

That city of which the psalmist speaks is Jerusalem. Wherever there are men and women of God, wherever the church is, there is a Jerusalem because we are preservative elements, we are the salt of the earth, we are the light of the world, we are yeast. Boston is blessed because the church of God is in it.

Amen. In our prayers they should go to bless this city, to be condoms here, to bless the wandering people, to bless the young men disoriented by sex and by crime and violence and the false community, the young women who believe that with a little boyfriend they have already acquired their femininity again or they found their destiny. The devil deceives them and the church has to be preaching alternatives, blessing, praying, preserving so that this river of God runs.

That river that one day will be a reality. In Revelation 22 the prophet says in a visionary moment, "God then showed me a clean river of the water of life." There is water of life and there is water of death, says the Bible. There is a water that destroys, the water of hurricanes and the water of the doctrines of men, but there is a clean river of water of life, resplendent like crystal that came out of the throne of God and of the lamb.

Ezekiel also saw a river in chapter 47, a river that came out of the temple, like from the foundation of this church in that parking lot below us, I have always visualized a river of life going north, south, and west. east and west and filling the city of Boston with the word of God.

This church is a reservoir of blessing energy for this city, but there is also a river that one day will bless all nations and in the middle of the city street and on either side of the river was the tree of life that produces 12 fruits giving its fruit every month and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations, and there will be no more curse and the throne of God and of the lamb will be in it and his servants will serve him and they will see his face and his name will be on their fronts. There will be no more night there and there is no need for light from lamps or the sun because the Lord God will cleanse them and they will reign forever and ever.

I believe that this was the river that the psalmist was speaking of in a prophetic vision. That river that runs from the sanctuary of the dwellings of the Most High. And we have to set our sights not on the hurricane, not on the rough sea right now that is threatening the cities of Florida and other cities further up, not the river and the water that has destroyed structures in many different nations. I want to set my sights on the eternal river, the river of life, the river that flows from the word of the Lord and that is the water that I want you to drink, my brother, my sister.

God is telling you, my people, look at me at this time. Lower your head for a moment. Visualize the river of God, the river of life that God wants you to... that is the river that has to feed you, not the river of continuous news, the flow of disconcerting and disturbing information, the river of the word of God, of adoration, the river of eternity, the river of health that God wants for his people.

Father, we want to drink from that river, drink from the waters, drink from your waters, Lord. You invite us to look at you this afternoon. Oh, Lord, that your people consume the food of your word, of your truth, that we swim in that river, that we submerge ourselves in that river, Lord, so that you can do your work. I invite you if you have not yet put your feet in that river this morning where you are, say, Lord, I put my faith in you, I put my faith in eternity, I put my faith in Jesus Christ, I take my eyes off men and I put it in you and I want to be a servant or a servant of yours. I want to walk for you, live for you, I want my gaze to be so focused on you that I don't have time to look at other things, intimations of death or destruction.

Give your life to the Lord and give it wholeheartedly and fully, fully. Commit to the Kingdom of God right now. Renounce everything else and confess Jesus as your Lord and savior and ask him to bathe you and fill you up, and then start eating the word of the Lord. Keep seeking more of the Lord. Commit to study the word and to be a consumer of the things that can make you a man or a woman filled with the Holy Spirit.

Right now invite Christ to enter your heart, invite the Holy Spirit to fill your life, immerse yourself in the waters and do not stay with the water up to your ankles, let it reach your waist, let it reach your knees, let it cover your shoulders and then turn into a river that you have to swim in because it's so deep. It is growth, the image of Christian life.

Invite Jesus, invite the word of the Lord to fill you right now and commit to living that radical life in Christ Jesus. Father, we bless you, we adore you, we thank you Lord, we commit ourselves to you, Lord, we commit ourselves to your word. Thank you for the fidelity of your promises. We adore you, Lord. Get us out of here saturated with the image of a faithful Christ, a God who is refuge and strength and soon help all tribulation.

Thank you because we are firm in you, we are safe in you, Lord. Get us out of here protected by your word and bring out your blessed people, Lord, to live victorious lives and be resources for your kingdom in the mighty name of Jesus and the people of God say, amen. I bless you my brothers, the grace of the Lord be with you.