Sonshine

John 3:16 🇨🇦 ✝️ / Former Sikh, now follower of Jesus Christ, King of kings and Lord of lords. Farmers feed cities.

[Sonshine @Doubleobrown]

Dear idiotic people mocking #CharlieKirk's death...

What'd you think was gonna happen to you as you mocked a man who was ass*ssin*ted for his view? You thought your actions had no consequences?

You are now unemployed or in the process of becoming one.

Hope it was worth it.

[Sonshine @Doubleobrown]

@JoshuaBarzon 3

[Sonshine @Doubleobrown]

@TruthSeek01011 🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣

I bawling my eyes out!! 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

[Sonshine @Doubleobrown]

@401_da_sarpanch Maybe he has inspirations of being the next SpaceX test flight? 🤔

[Sonshine @Doubleobrown]

@bettybloodclot @TheDeportReport And its been sitting vacant there for the past 2+ years... tear that station down. An eyesore.

[Sonshine @Doubleobrown]

@TheRobertBshow The Lord is Risen, happy Resurrection Sunday, bro.

[Pastor Rich Bitterman @w_bitterman]

The Tomb Could Not Hold Him

There’s a sound you never forget. The groan of a house splitting at its seams in a storm. The silence after a door slams for the last time. The stillness in a hospital room where no one breathes anymore.

Some call it trauma. The Bible calls it trouble.

Psalm 46 was written for the rubble, for the funeral, for the moment after your world implodes and you are still standing, barely. It is not a song for good days and a song for the day everything seems to end.

And that is why it belongs at Easter.

Because Easter did not begin with lilies and brass and bright clothes. It began with trouble. It began with darkness at noon, with the earth shaking under the weight of divine judgment, with a crucified Christ hanging dead before a watching world. A sealed tomb and the awful silence that follows when hope appears to have been buried.

Psalm 46 was written for that kind of morning.

--Selah: Stop Here and Feel the Weight--

Three times this Psalm says Selah...it is the tightening of the chest. God pressing your shoulders down and saying, Do not move too fast. Let this hit you.

The Psalm opens with an earthquake: “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear though the earth gives way...” (Psalm 46:1-2)

The image is violent. Mountains sliding into the sea. Waters roaring. The earth trembling under your feet. It is what grief feels like. It is what it feels like when the bottom drops out and you realize you cannot hold your world together.

This is also what Good Friday felt like.

The sky went dark as the ground shook. The Son of God was pierced. The One who opened blind eyes and raised the dead was Himself laid in a grave. If there was ever a moment when it looked like the earth had given way, it was there at the cross.

But Psalm 46 says, “Therefore we will not fear.”

How can sinners stand still when the earth shakes?

Only if God Himself is our refuge.

--The Trouble Beneath All Other Trouble--

I was 42 years old when God brought me to Himself. One night I prayed alone. No preacher in the room and no one calling me forward.

I had heard the gospel before...enough to nod in the right places.

But that night the fear of God fell heavy. Not the fear of getting caught, but the fear of being known fully, utterly, and justly.

I had sinned against Him. Not once or just in general. But all the way down. Every day. In every breath.

I did not have to walk an aisle. I begged for mercy.

And I found Him.

Or better yet, He was not lost. I was.

That is the deepest trouble Psalm 46 speaks to. Not merely outward trouble, but the inward ruin of a man who has sinned against a holy God. The great quake is not only around us. It is in us. We are the problem. We are the guilty.

And this is where Easter becomes more than a holiday, because the God I feared is the very God who gave His Son for sinners like me.

--Where Do You Run When You Are the Problem?--

It’s a strange twist that the God I feared is the only place I could run. That is still true and maybe even more true at Easter than anywhere else.

The Judge I tried to ignore is the only One who could save me.

“God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.” (Psalm 46:1)

There is no ladder to climb and absolutely no distance to cross by your own strength. He is very present.

And Easter tells us how He made Himself present.

He took on flesh. He stepped into our trouble. Entered our sorrow and He bore our sin.

He did not save us from a distance. He came near enough to be betrayed, beaten, nailed, buried, and raised.

Jesus Christ is not merely the messenger of refuge. He is the refuge Himself!

The cross shows us that our sin is worse than we imagined. The resurrection shows us that His power to save is greater than we dared to hope.

--A City Under Siege, and a Stone Rolled Away--

Verses 4 through 7 shift the image.

“There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God...” (Psalm 46:4)

That line should not exist in a city under siege. Besieged cities do not have fresh water. They get cut off. Starved out. Choked down to nothing.

And yet here is a river.

That is what Easter is like.

A sealed tomb should stay sealed. Dead men should stay dead. Hope, once buried, should stay buried.

And yet here comes life.

There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God because Christ did not remain in the grave. The tomb could not hold Him. Death could not master Him. The stone was not rolled away so Jesus could get out as though He were trapped. It was rolled away so the world could see that the grave had already lost.

The river still flows. Quiet. Steady. Life-giving.

It flows through the church of Jesus Christ. Through every sermon faithfully preached while every trembling saint who still clings to the Word.

It flows through every sinner who falls at Christ’s feet and rises forgiven. Through every funeral where believers bury their dead in hope.

Because Christ lives, the river has not dried up.

Because Christ lives, the city of God shall not be moved.

--The Real Enemy Was Never Rome--

Let's be clear. The deepest enemy on Easter morning was not Rome or Pilate.

Behind all of it stood the serpent.

The ancient deceiver. The accuser. The murderer from the beginning.

The cross looked, for one dreadful moment, like his victory. The Son of God dead and the Shepherd struck. The disciples scattered, women weeping, or the tomb sealed.

But that was not Satan’s triumph. That was his doom.

At the cross Christ bore the curse. In the resurrection Christ broke the back of death. The serpent struck His heel, but Christ crushed his head.

That is why the church survives. Not because she is clever or fashionable. She survives because her Head is alive.

“God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved.” (Psalm 46:5)

The risen Christ is in the midst of His church. That is why hell cannot swallow her.

--Fire That Will Not Go Out--

I remember reading Pilgrim’s Progress in seminary. Christian saw a fire burning against a wall while a man kept throwing water on it, trying to put it out. But the flame would not die. Behind the wall, unseen, another hand kept pouring oil on the fire.

That is the church and also is every true believer.

That is Easter power.

The world throws on its water. Persecution. Mockery. Temptation. Weariness. Fear. False teaching. Even death itself.

And still the fire burns.

Why?

Because behind the wall stands a living Christ.

We do not hold on to Him by the strength of our own fingers. He holds on to us with nail-scarred hands that death itself could not pry open.

And yet the church lives.

There is a river.

There is a risen Christ.

The End of All Wars Began at the Empty Tomb

Then Psalm 46 shifts again:

“Come, behold the works of the Lord... He makes wars cease... He breaks the bow, shatters the spear, burns the chariots with fire.” (Psalm 46:8-9)

This is about final victory!

Easter is not the whole end of the war, but it is the decisive turning point. The resurrection is the public declaration that Christ has won. Sin has been answered. Death has been broken. Satan has been judged. The King has stepped onto the field, and the outcome is no longer in doubt.

The weapons will burn and The lies will end. The accuser will be cast down and the graveyards of the saints will one day be emptied.

Because Jesus walked out of His tomb, every promise of final victory stands on solid ground.

And then comes the stillness.

“Be still, and know that I am God.” (Psalm 46:10)

This is the command of the conquering God. Be silent. The battle and victory belongs to Him. The glory belongs to Him.

At Easter, heaven says to a frantic world, Enough.

The tomb is empty.

The Son is risen.

Be still and know.

The God of Jacob Still Takes in Men Like Us

Three times the Psalm returns to this line:

“The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge.”

Not the God of polished men. This is the God of Jacob.

Jacob the schemer and the liar. This is Jacob the man who limped because God had to break him before blessing him. That Jacob.

That is the kind of God who raises the dead and receives sinners.

A God who would look on a guilty man, buried in his sin, and say, Live.

God...who gave His Son to die for the ungodly and raised Him again for our justification.

Easter is for Jacobs.

For broken men and guilty women. Weary saints. Failing disciples. Fearful hearts. People who have no case to make and no strength to stand on.

The Lord of hosts is with us. The God of Jacob is our refuge.

Selah.

Stop there.

Feel the weight of it.

Because the earth will shake.

The trouble will come, but the grave will open for every one of us unless Christ returns first.

For those who belong to Jesus Christ, the refuge still stands.

The river still flows.

The tomb is still empty.

And the God of Jacob still shows up.

Selah. Selah. Selah.

Let the song end as the stillness settle.

And let your knees hit the ground.

[Sonshine @Doubleobrown]

@w_bitterman Blessed Resurrection Sunday, Pst. Rich! ✝️

[Pastor Rich Bitterman @w_bitterman]

A close walk with Christ is not found in dramatic moments.

It is often found in ordinary repentance, honest confession and a renewed willingness to follow Him in daily life.

[Sonshine @Doubleobrown]

@TheRobertBshow If I was an American, I'd vote for you. 🙏🏻👏🏻

[Sonshine @Doubleobrown]

@Ken_FiveSolas Bruhhhh.... 🤤🤤🤤🤤

[Sonshine @Doubleobrown]

@l3v1at4an @TorontoPearson @TorontoPearson hires only the best and brightest. No wonder Canada is in a mess.

[Sonshine @Doubleobrown]

@w_bitterman Keyboard warriors like this so-called "Christian". They're everywhere. They pay lip service to Christ, but their hearts are so distant from Him.

[Sonshine @Doubleobrown]

@CitImmCanada Start with Brampton, Mississauga, Surrey, all of Alberta, eastern provinces.

And when you're done there, go through those places again.

Fraudulent marriages, fraudulent student visas, fraudulent sponsorship, and on and on....

[Sonshine @Doubleobrown]

@CitImmCanada Oh! Now you guys care about immigration and citizenship frauds???

Fools.

[Glenn Meder @GlennMeder]

1/ Imagine a system where every word you say online is monitored. Every purchase you make is logged. Every place you drive is tracked. And if you step out of line — your money is turned off. No court. No hearing. No appeal.

That system is being built right now. And most people have no idea.

[Sonshine @Doubleobrown]

@MarkCarneyEgo @theJagmeetSingh would enjoy putting Tommy Douglas in jail and give him MAiD...

[Sonshine @Doubleobrown]

@w_bitterman @MarkJCarney There is absolutely nothing Carney can do to silence the church of Christ.

The rocks will cry out when the church goes silent.

[Sonshine @Doubleobrown]

@GasPriceWizard Not in Grey/Bruce, Dan. Just drove by six (6) gas stations... drove north to Owen Sound this AM... all of them were at 163.9. By lunch time, 166.9. On the way home, all are at 169.9. By tomorrow, 170+++... they keep taking advantage of people.

[Sonshine @Doubleobrown]

@GasPriceWizard Most stations in Bruce/Grey counties jack up the prices by 7-10 cents the night before, then bring it back down a few pennies the next morning. Back to 1.65.

[Sonshine @Doubleobrown]

@w_bitterman 😂