Bobby Bosler: Welcome to the Thee Generation Podcast. I’m Bobby Bosler and I’m speaking to you today from Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin, where I and my family have been for a few weeks here. I think many of you were able to join us for the Thee Generation Youth Night, and I wanted to thank you for joining us for that.

I shared some statistics in the intro to the last podcast. And by the way, I did also want to mention that we do have the recording of the Thee Generation Youth Night, as well as several other videos on our YouTube channel, so make sure you head on over to check that out. Also, I do want to say our TG Talks have been on hold temporarily.

I won’t go into the details, but if you think of it, pray for the Basler household. We’ve had a little bit of a challenging week here this week with some issues in our trailer and has definitely dominated our attention. But I’m looking forward to this weekend.

For those of you that are not aware, Falls Baptist Church has put out really a call to prayer. And this call is something that obviously we in our church are going to be taking seriously this evening. In fact, as of the time of this recording, in just a few minutes, many men are going to gather, and we’re going to seek the face of God for direction in how He would have us to reach the world this summer.

Our church is going to be gathering together and not only having preaching on prayer. We have Dr. Rick Flanders with us, and he and Dr. Jim are going to be challenging us about prayer. But we’re going to spend time in prayer.

In fact, we’re going to be spending all afternoon in prayer and having an early service about four o’clock in the evening. And really our focus this Saturday through this coming Wednesday is to seek the face of God. And I’ll be honest with you, I’ve been totally distracted.

There’s a certain sense in which I feel unprepared in many ways in my heart. And yet I know that God has something for me. And in fact, as I was just meditating and preparing my heart for things here over the last couple of days, I came across a verse in Psalm chapter 33.

I’m going to read these verses, and I think you probably know that psalms are in poetry form. And in the psalm here, the psalmist is actually giving a little bit of teaching and then a prayer. And I say that because that kind of frames what he has to say.

In Psalm 33 verse 16, he says this. He says, there is no king saved by the multitude of an host. A mighty man is not delivered by much strength.

And horse is a vain thing for safety. Neither shall he deliver any by his great strength. And I’m going to get into what follows this here.

But what the psalmist is doing is he’s teaching us a principle. No matter how many armed men or how strong or how many resources you have available to you, That is never what delivers you. Now, I know many of us who are listening live in America, and America is what’s considered a superpower on the world stage.

As an American, I recognize that it’s easy to think that we can do anything that our minds set to doing. We have nearly unlimited resources, we think. We have the American spirit, and it’s easy to think that if we’ll just try hard and get our people to working, there is no obstacle that we can overcome.

And yet God has brought us face to face with a virus, and though we’re starting to get on the other side of things, my burden, and I believe the burden of the psalmist here, is that we would not look to our own human resources for our deliverance. Some people might look at this and say, well, hold on a second. He says no king is saved by the multitude of an host.

In other words, no king is saved by a really big army. And yet we’ve all seen times when a really big army has won the day. Or he says a mighty man is not delivered by much strength.

And yet we could probably think of times when we’ve seen a really strong man whoop somebody trying to mess with him. He says a horse is a vain thing for safety. And yet, especially at this time, horses would have been actually a really big deal for safety.

You could outrun your enemy and a number of things. He says, neither shall he deliver any by his great strength. And again, it seems as if those things would be things that would actually bring us deliverance.

But the solace is reminding us that though we have really helpful resources at our disposal, ultimately, they are never what brings us deliverance. That’s what he gets to in verse 18. He says, behold, the eye of the Lord is upon them that fear him, upon them that hope in his mercy.

What’s his eye on them for? Verse 19 tells us, to deliver their soul from death and to keep them alive in famine. So here he’s setting up the principle here.

He’s saying, listen, you think that your resources are going to deliver you? Well, I’ve got news for you. It doesn’t matter how many resources you have.

They ultimately are not what delivers you. But I want you to know God’s eye is watching for people with certain characteristics so that he can deliver them. In other words, deliverance comes from the Lord.

What does God look for for someone that he’s going to deliver? It says his eye is upon them that fear him. This is a person who cares what God thinks.

This is a person who’s very aware of what God says and wants to please God. This fear is not just a reverence and a respectful attitude. It’s an attitude that takes God’s will into consideration.

we can say this is a person that is totally surrendered to God. And it also says that the eye of the Lord is also upon them that hope in his mercy. You’ve probably heard before the Bible word for hope is confident expectation of something in the future.

That’s the idea as a noun, but as a verb, it’s to confidently expect something in the future. Or you could say, you could also paraphrase it, it’s to trust or to rely on God with confidence to do something for you. So these people, they’re not only are they totally surrendered to God, it’s very appropriate to say they’re hoping, they’re depending upon him for him to give them what they don’t deserve or to not give them what they deserve.

And so our human resources in this time of coronavirus or whatever the challenge is that you’re facing, they are not the answer. Being totally surrendered to God and totally dependent on his mercy is the answer. When someone fears him and hopes in his mercy, it says God, his eye is towards them to deliver their soul from death and to keep them alive in famine.

In other words, God wants to deliver you from whatever it is that you’re facing. I recognize maybe a lot of us are in a difficult state right now. Maybe you’re trying to plan for the future and you’re not sure how to plan.

Believe me, I understand that. But if you will surrender to God and hope in his mercy, God can deliver you from whatever the uncertainty is that you’re facing. Now in verse 20 and 21, the psalmist gives his response to these facts, the fact that our human resources aren’t the end game and God is looking for those that are surrendered to him and dependent upon him to deliver them.

He says, our soul waiteth for the Lord. He is our help and our shield. For our heart shall rejoice in him because we’ve trusted in his holy name.

And he says, here’s our heart’s response. We are not looking to the government or to our horses or to our armies to deliver us. or can I say to our doctors or whatever it might be, he is the one who can help us.

He is the one who can shield us from harm. We will choose, instead of getting all worked up and anxious about whether our resources are going to work, we’re going to rejoice in him because we’ve trusted in his holy name. Did you know, young person, you can rejoice in this time of trial because you’ve trusted in his holy name.

You say, how can I rejoice? I don’t feel like rejoicing. You can rejoice because God is faithful.

God loves you. And if you will surrender to him and depend upon him, he will take care of his servants. The last verse of the chapter here, verse 22, is a prayer.

It’s a short prayer note, but it simply says, Let thy mercy, O Lord, be upon us according as we hope in thee. And the prayer is simply, O God, please show us your favor. O God, show us your divine, faithful love.

as we depend upon you, as we count upon you to deliver us in the future. That kind of sounds like Thee Generation. I don’t know about you.

But, you know, young people, I really just want to be an encouragement to you. The answer is not figuring out the answer. The answer is humbling ourselves before the Lord and seeking his face because ultimately he’s the only one that can rescue us from whatever challenge we’re facing.

As our church joins together for prayer, I really want to encourage you young people to band together, whether it’s with your family or with spiritually minded friends or your youth leaders, band together in prayer. I’m actually toying around with doing a Zoom prayer meeting. I know we talked about doing one earlier with our Let’s Go Viral campaign, and we might actually wed the two potentially coming up here this week.

And so just keep your ear to the ground. I may be sending out a notification or an invitation to a Zoom prayer meeting at some point. So just keep your ear to the ground on that.

But honestly, young people, let’s surrender to God. Let’s fear him. And let’s count on him.

Let’s hope in his mercy. Because ultimately, God, not the government, not the doctors, God is our only hope. Let’s seek his face together, shall we?