Psalms 46:1-3, “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea; Though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof. Selah"

Ever take a real hard look at that passage? It is clearly stating that during an intense trial we are not to fear because our God will be a very present help in this time of trouble. Such love, such overwhelming concern for His loved ones that He goes out of His way to offer us a heavenly hug like this. Can’t you just picture Him holding you in His arms with a smile that goes ear to ear and a warmth that cannot be described in words flowing over you? There is so much love in that passage for His children that I am sure many of His children have stood up in the midst of abject fear only to experience a bolt of courage from Him igniting in them like never before. I am sure many have had that passage on their lips as they died for their faith as well.

Note that in this passage it is speaking of the most intense trial of all time for mankind. It speaks of a prophecied time we as the Remnant of her seed are about to experience. But this trial is not to be an issue for the people of God. It is not to be a time of fear or even slighted concern because He has promised us long in advance it won’t be. It is actually a time for us to shine in His glory before all the Universe.

Just before the end, all creation is to witness a time like no other.

• Revelation 6:14, "And the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together; and every mountain and island were moved out of their places."
• Luke 21:25-27, "…upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring;  Men's hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken.  And then shall they see the Son of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory."

According to Psalms 46 we, the Remnant of God will not be fearing the sights before our eyes this day because we are His people, and His people look with the heart, and not the eye. If you have God locked in your heart, you can’t possible see what the devil is showing as true. Sure it may “appear” scary, but so did Goliath until the smooth stone sunk in his forehead. Only those that refuse to trust the Lord will be experiencing their “hearts failing them for fear” because they have no relationship with this loving God. If He is not locked in the heart, they have nothing there to keep it from failing. The world is what they love, and now that it is convulsing before their very eyes they are collapsing in fear because all they hoped for, all they built, all they loved is being destroyed by the very breath of His coming. All that is making the wicked tremble with abject fear doesn’t affect the people of God in the least because "Only with thine eyes shalt thou behold and see the reward of the wicked." (- Psalms 91:8) This of course takes faith and not just any faith. It takes a Gideon band type of faith wherein even if we are standing in the midst of and looking upon the second coming with all creation convulsing around us, all the mountains shaking like reeds in the wind, with the ocean boiling and spewing massive boulders miles inland, none of this can cause our hearts to be moved in the slightest direction! We will be transfixed upon our God and shout, “…this is our God; we have waited for Him” (Isaiah 25:9) This is why it is both a “great and dreadful day” at the same time. It all has to do with what’s in the heart. If God is there, it is a great day. If God is not there, it is a dreadful day.

How do we get such a faith wherein such awesome movements of His hand only make us glorify Him even more?

• Romans 10:17, "So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God."

Many of you have heard me say this time and time again, still, I must repeat it again and again. We must read His Word each and every day we breath, and not just read it but "Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth." -2 Timothy 2:15

It causes our faith to grow and our wisdom to increase in every verse we understand. Those of you that have been doing this daily already know what I am talking about here. Faith truly does come by reading His Word each and every day. Yes, I too had a very hard time understanding it when I first began many years ago. I never went to school to learn it. In fact, I don’t even have a high school diploma. But does that stop our God from teaching His people? According to Romans 10:17 our God promised to bless us with faith if we read what He took time out of His busy eternity to write for us. With this faith that is granted comes understanding. "For the LORD giveth wisdom: out of his mouth cometh knowledge and understanding." (Proverbs 2:6) This is why Satan has attacked the people of God so much lately by doing all he can to keep them distracted and busy that they don’t have time to study God’s Word. He knows that with faith comes this wisdom because Proverbs 9:10 clearly says, "The fear (or reverence) of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the holy is understanding." When we reverence God, we naturally seek after Him and with that search naturally comes and understanding and knowledge of Him. This is how He designed it to work. If you allow Him to teach you, His Truth is made known to us in such a way that even when the mountains quake all around us, we won’t fear in the slightest bit because He is still God, and He is still in control, and He still knows His children are under His wing, and they are still His main concern. So, let the mountains shake, let the oceans boil, let the stars fall, even so come Lord Jesus!

• Amos 8:11 "Behold, the days come, saith the Lord GOD, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the LORD:"

The majority of Christians we meet today are those that grant the Lord lip service, but rarely do they give Him true worship. They give their reverence to their pastors instead of to their God. In so doing, they naturally have fear in many areas of life because placing ones faith in the flesh is essentially fleeting. Most won’t admit it out loud, but they know how untrustworthy the flesh is because they stand within it themselves and know of its limitations. They know first hand how weak it really is. So when they declare their trust in their pastors over God, they no doubt have that deep seated fear knowing deep inside that he is just a man. Whether they want to admit it or not, they know they cannot look to their pastors to remove the fear they have in life because common sense tells them only God can do this. But they no longer study God’s Word and so they grasp the ropes of sand the pastors offer them instead. They know this first hand in their lives and therefore look at what we share as the Remnant to be an impossible task. This is the desired end result of Satan’s long term attack on them personally. This is what leads them to hate us because they cannot do what they think we do. Without God in their lives daily, they have no clue it is "…through Christ which strengtheneth me." (Philippians 4:13) that all this power to walk without sin is possible. They don’t realize we know it is not our own works. Far too long they have refused His Word in their lives and so they naturally think we have a stronger flesh then they do. This is what eventually leads them to seek our destruction simply because they believe we stand alone in this power they envy. With that thought they think our flesh will be easy prey to their advances and so they attack. Problem with their thought process is, it is Christ our Righteousness and with Him standing by our side we are assured that "No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper…” Isaiah 54:17

Their fear of things to come is nothing more then the end result of the foothold they have offered Satan all their lives. This has them in a stranglehold that they look at as impossible to break free of and it’s all thanks to the constant barrage of fearful sights they have experienced in life. Had they studied the Word of this God we worship they would never have experienced that fear. They remember those scary times in their past, and the fear before them today offers far more evidence to them of their hopelessness then do the moments where God protected them in the past because they never think of Him in the way His people do daily. For example.. When we hear of an accident on the news wherein a person’s life is spared, more often then not the reporter declares the person “lucky.” But when the person dies in an accident the person responding to the reporter usually says “why did God take them?” Or “Why did God allow them to die?” In other words, when those that don’t trust God as do His people are blessed by His hand in escaping death, they proclaim “luck” as their Saviour. But when they die, they blame God as their destroyer. A mindset such as this cannot see the God of the Bible as His people have grown to know Him. This is why they have fear. They simply don’t believe.

Every where you turn you see one fearful thing after another being pumped into the brains of those that allow it residence. It has become so commonplace and second nature to them now that when Antichrist stands before the masses masquerading as Jesus Christ, he will have an easy row to hoe when he offers the multitudes his counterfeit peace. As false as that peace may be, it will become real to those that have been believing the false fear he has been pumping all along. They already trust him, so it will be natural to trust him again. Since they believed the fear hook line and sinker for so long, a simple flick of the spiritual switch will make them easy prey to his false peace and then his mark will be upon them as if it was an absolute blessing from on High.

As we have seen for eons, Satan always appeals to the flesh first. He uses it to his advantage at every turn. Using the fear tactics today is very effective and it works well even on the Christian. Case in point; look at Peter as he was walking IN FAITH towards Jesus on the water.

• Matthew 14:28-29, "And Peter answered him and said, Lord, if it be thou, bid me come unto thee on the water.  And he said, Come. And when Peter was come down out of the ship, he walked on the water, to go to Jesus."

Peter believed Jesus was the Messiah, and Son of God and rightly so. When he stepped out on that water his faith was rewarded with absolute evidence of God’s power working in the life of a mere man. That is when we are most assured to be under attack! It is now that God is glorified and now that Satan must work fast. This is why we go through the trials we do today. We must learn not to trust self before we can be used of God to walk on water, raise the dead or heal the sick. We must learn to be ready for every dart of Hell Satan will shoot at us when we glorify our God the most. Satan concentrated his forces against Peter at that moment because at that moment Peter was glorifying our God with perfect faith. As Peter was walking on that water, we must learn from this and stand firm when we are in the midst of the worst trial, yet still walking in faith with the Lord. Blessings are apparent, miracles are seen, His hand is visible, life is good. This is where Satan fears. Hence, this is where he attacks. We must keep our eyes on Christ and ignore all the manufactured fear we see around us. That is why Peter sank, and that is how some will fail in the future.

• Matthew 14:30, "But when he saw the wind boisterous, he was afraid; and beginning to sink, he cried, saying, Lord, save me."

For only a moment Peter looked away from Christ and allowed Satan to display his power with the wind and the waves. In our lives we have these same trials. Just as the Lord was preparing Peter and those looking on in the boat for their greatest trial wherein their Lord and Master would be crucified, causing them to feel all alone, He is preparing us for the time of Jacob’s trouble. The day is approaching for the apostles where Jesus was about to die and He had to teach them how weak they still were. They had to learn to distrust self 100% and trust their God 100%. The walking on the water was the perfect lesson here. Absolute faith rewarded absolutely, and absolute doubt rewarded absolutely. Yes, some will still be weak in some areas. But what some fail to remember is that even after Peter sank, he did in fact cry out, “..Lord, save me” and the Word says "…immediately Jesus stretched forth his hand, and caught him, and said unto him, O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?" (Matthew 14:31)

Since Satan is the one generating the false fears, he will most assuredly be the one that acts like he removes it when he arrives as the worlds expected Messiah. The people that ignore the fact that our God declared boldly in 2 Timothy 1:7, that He has "…not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind." are allowing Satan to dictate his next move upon them. If they persist in believing Satan’s lies over God’s promises, they will, like Peter, sink in their troubles and cry out to the Lord “save me.” Problem is, since they have given all there reverence to man and only lip service to God, it can only be Satan that will be ready and willing to be the one that pulls them up! This is what his mark will be designed to do. It will be the answer to all their troubles. Or so they will be allowed to believe.

Ask any Christian about the “still small voice” or “hedge of angels” or “hand of God” that has blessed them when they experience what some would consider a scary or impossible situation. This is what lead me to Christ over 2 decades ago. I was dealing with grave situations many would collapse in fear under. But I knew of others that had similar troubles but at the same time were claiming Jesus as Lord. I learned that the peace of Christ was real and I wanted it. Yes, the Christian does get “scared” at times, but the difference is, when we start to pray, we do so WITH REAL FAITH that He not only hears us, but He “immediately” stretches forth His hand to save us as He bluntly illustrated with Peter. When those that have no faith seek His help, …nothing happens because they truly don’t think He is there for them.  It’s like walking into and empty kitchen to find an empty cupboard. Even if you speak out loud to the four walls in the kitchen asking for food, you can’t expect a single morsel. If you don’t believe the Lord is there for you personally, don’t expect Him to be there for you because you’re praying to an empty Heaven. The Lord plainly said,

• Matthew 21:22, "And all things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive."
• James 1:6-8, "But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed.  For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord.  A double minded man is unstable in all his ways."

Satan builds on this doubt and the best method that has worked for him all along is FEAR! This has been going on for eons. Look at Caleb for example. Here was a man with real faith that the Lord would be there for His people in their time of need. While all the people were lead to fear by the terrible report regarding the land of milk and honey when they first came upon it, Numbers 13:30 says, "…Caleb stilled the people before Moses, and said, Let us go up at once, and possess it; for we are well able to overcome it." Caleb had the faith the Lord would bless them with that land. "But the men that went up with him said, We be not able to go up against the people; for they are stronger than we." (Numbers 13:31) Fear was generated and accepted by all that believed the evil report, and as we know, they were forced to wander the desert 40 years until they did have the faith to enter.

As the Remnant Church, we too approach the Promised Land today, and like those in Caleb’s day, before they stepped into the Promised Land, we too are being told all sorts of fearful things about the path before us. Is there not a God in Israel that has displayed His hand before His people for thousands of years? We have personally seen His hand move before in our lives, why do we believe He won’t move today? Or tomorrow? This is why we see so many fearful reports on a daily basis coming from false preachers. Satan knows we understand prophecy, and he also knows we know about the historic facts proving the Bible record valid. He is doing all he can to prevent us from keeping our eyes on Jesus so as to watch his waves of fear instead. Will we sink like Peter, or shudder in fear as did Israel in Caleb’s day?

The Lord has given us prophecy. He has even instructed us to study it in Matthew 24:15. He has given us the easiest way to not only study His prophecies, but He has granted us an open book test on His truth! We know what’s going to happen next regarding Sunday Laws for example, so when SDA Pastors declare the laws are about to pass within days due to certain meetings being held, we know they’re false prophets, and even Roman Catholic priests masquerading as SDA pastors because this is not the order of events laid out before us that they claim will happen. Truth is, the SDA pastors have declared these laws to be passed as absolute twice in the last 6 years alone! The most recent being April of this year when the Pope visited New York. Yet.. still no Sunday Laws. What does your bible say about people that prophecy false prophecies?

The false preachers will continue yes. This is a sign of the times we live in. They will continue to lie and be exposed as liars time and again. But will that stop them from crying wolf and generating as much fear as they can? No. The fact they have been caught dozens of times doing so in just the last few years, yet still have large followings of faithful supporters proves a lot more people then you think are refusing to open Bibles, and even more refuse to check up on the easy to prove false prophets. The false preachers know this and actually count on this to help them spread their false agenda. Those that don’t read their Bibles or study real prophecy help to spread the false predictions about the mark of the beast being enforced before the loud cry, planets crashing into earth in 2012, nuclear war ending all life on earth, global warming causing mass extinctions, and even a flu epidemic wiping out mankind.

Yes the prophecied calamities are already starting. Yes, this does generate fear. But only in the hearts of those that have no trust in God. As remnant believers, we have the assurance that no matter how bad it gets, our God is still very aware we are alive and in need of His protection. You cannot catch this God off guard. Trials will come, but praise the Lord for the trials because they help our faith to grow stronger. When we see ourselves standing firm no matter what, we know that when that great and dreadful day arrives we will be able to stand faithful knowing, “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea; Though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof..." - Psalms 46:1-3

• "…we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience;  And patience, experience; and experience, hope:  And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us." - Romans 5:3-5

Hindsight is truly 20/20 here! When I look back and see how I made it through intense trials, it brings hope to my heart. My experiences in the past have proven to me God is there for me. Knowing He has never failed me before, my hope is solid when I stand in my next trial knowing that I will not be forgotten by the God that promised to be there for me. This is the blessing of every true Christian.

One last thing before closing that may help some of the babes in Christ.

• 1 Corinthians 10:13, "There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it."

When you get time read the book of Job and you will find that the Lord never allows Satan to tempt us in a way we cannot handle. If you are unable to handle a certain attack Satan desires to ht you with, the Lord stops him dead in his tracks and prevents it. The only attacks allowed are those that we can handle, and on top of that, Satan must also make a way for us to escape when he sends us the weakened version of his attack against us. So, memorize that passage and remember, whatever comes you can rest assured that God already knew far in advance of what was coming against you and already set things up for you because "Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world." -1 John 4:4