In this video, Pastor Chuck Smith discusses the importance of seeking refuge in God. He begins by reading from Psalm 94 and emphasizes that God is our ultimate refuge and source of strength. Pastor Chuck encourages listeners to experience the love and grace of God in their lives and to share that love with others. He also addresses the topic of Halloween and provides a DVD resource for Christians to learn more about its origins and potential spiritual deception.

Oh, let the Son of God enfold you With His Spirit and His love Let Him fill your heart and satisfy your soul Oh, let Him have the things that hold you And His Spirit like a dove Will descend upon your life and make you whole Welcome to The Word for Today A broadcast ministry of Pastor Chuck Smith Of Calvary Chapel, Costa Mesa, California Pastor Chuck is currently leading us on a verse-by-verse venture Through the entire Bible And on today's edition of The Word for Today We'll be continuing our study of God is our refuge As we pick up in the 94th Psalm, beginning with verse 1 And now, with today's message, here's Pastor Chuck Smith The 94th Psalm is a psalm that I can identify with quite well I find myself often in the position of the psalmist Wondering why God is so patient And why God is so long-suffering And why God allows evil people to get by With the things they are doing My desire to see the judgment of God Fall upon the wicked Oh, Lord God, to whom vengeance belongeth For God said, vengeance is mine I will repay, saith the Lord Oh, God, to whom vengeance belongs God's told us that we're not to take vengeance We're to commit those things to the Lord But God, if vengeance belongs to you, then show yourself Do something Lift up yourself Thou judge of the earth And render the reward to the proud Now, that doesn't mean a good reward That means a reward that is fitting to what they have done Repay them Get them back Lord, how long shall the wicked triumph? Jesus said an interesting thing In a parable, he was talking about There was a certain servant He was sort of the accountant for his master But he had been juggling books And he was caught And his master said, okay, you know Clean the thing up, you're fired So, realizing that he was going to get fired He began to call the creditors in And he said, how much do you owe my master? Hundred dollars here Let me change that, make it fifty How much do you owe my master? Fifty here, let's make it twenty-five And he began to do all these favors For the debtors of his master Now, the Lord, when he found out what he did Commended him, not for his honesty But for his shrewdness You see, he had enough sense Realizing that I'm going to be out of a job soon And if I, you know, ingratiate these people to me Then I can go around and borrow some money from them You know, they owe me one, kind of a thing So, he took advantage of his present situation To set himself up for the future Now, that was what was wise What he did was corrupt and dishonest Probably thrown in jail for it But he was taking advantage of his present situation To set himself up for the future Now, Jesus said, that's what we should be doing Here we are on earth Here we have the opportunity to serve the Lord We ought to be taking advantage of our present situation To set ourselves up for the future That is for eternity Jesus said, lay not up for yourself treasures on earth Where moth and rust corrupt and decay Where thieves can break through and steal But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven But the only place you can do that is here When you get to heaven, you can't lay up treasures in heaven Now, what Jesus is saying is that you should take advantage Of where you are now, the position you have now To make your exchange into the currency of heaven There are no banks at the gates of heaven Like you have in the airports that says change, you know You take advantage of what we are able to do now Laying up our treasures in heaven For you see, the gold which is so valuable to you here Has no value in heaven at all And so taking advantage of the present opportunities Of serving God Investing our lives in the things of God So that when we perish, we are received into the eternal kingdoms Or into the eternal kingdom And so, at the present time, it would seem that God allows the wicked to triumph In this world, it seems that they are wiser And that's what Jesus said in the parable The children of this generation are wiser than the children of light It seems like every case that the ACLU takes, they win Corrupt as they are Lord, how long are you going to allow the wicked to triumph? How long are you just going to let them utter these perverse things against you? Let them go on in their pride boasting about the evil that they are doing and that they have done Bragging about evil We hear it in the world So many times we hear fellows bragging about their evil exploits He said, they break in pieces your people, oh Lord, they afflict your heritage They put down the Christian They make fun of you because you seek to serve the Lord They mock They speak with derision They slay the widow and the stranger, they murder the fatherless And yet they say, the Lord shall not see God really doesn't care They say that God is detached from his creation That God just created and now he stepped back and just let the thing go And sometimes it would appear that way Because God does allow the evil people to go on and to prosper in their evil ways But the psalmist addresses the brutish among the people and the fools You misunderstand God When are you going to wake up? When are you going to be wise? Think about it logically He that created the ear, can he not hear? One of the marvelous capacities we have is the hearing capacity These three little bones that pick up these vibrations as we speak Transfer these vibrations into your brain That are then cataloged by your brain Into the references that have already been planted there And these odd vibrations coming into your brain are interpreted by your brain into thoughts and ideas Now that's weird God created that capacity And language is an interesting kind of a covenant or agreement between us That certain sounds mean certain things And as long as we're in agreement on this we can communicate Now when we were in Austria We had a horrible time when we lost our luggage Trying to communicate to the conductor what had happened He didn't know any English and I didn't know any Dutch And we were both frustrated And he would talk to other people and I'd think How in the world is he communicating ideas with those weird sounds? My brain wasn't picking up on anything There was no reference to plug into Language is an interesting thing The hearing capacities are fascinating Because my brain catalogs you see and classifies And records and puts in the file These sounds so that I have a reference when I hear the sounds again I have this reference as the brain decodes the vibrations It goes into this system of references And it flashes into my mind the understanding of the thoughts and the ideas That are being communicated Otherwise every time you'd talk it would be like babbling to someone If you didn't remember it there would be no reference points You couldn't communicate so you've got to catalog those sounds You've got to put them in the file And the process of communicating in language As David said we are fearfully and wonderfully made And that my soul knows right well But God who created the ears surely he can hear He created the eyes and again The eyes taking these pictures 18 of them per second Impressing them on this jelly which comes into the brain again As vibrations at various frequencies And my brain interprets them as colors and as faces And again this great hard catalog system that I have there in the brain You see someone's face and you say I know him Where do I know him from? I know that person What is his name? And you try and try and try to recall and it's just not there And then tomorrow when you're driving down the street John, oh yes, John Thomason, sure you know My brain's been working on it all the while And it finally flashes it's got the right cars I love it The one who created the eyes, the seeing, can he not see? He that chastises the heathen Shall he not correct? You think you can get by without God's corrections? He that teaches man knowledge Gives us the capacity of learning, the capacity of knowing He is the one that created those DNAs and all the storage banks in the brain Do you think that God doesn't know? And yet this is the feeling that many people have concerning God God doesn't see what I'm doing, God doesn't hear what I'm saying God doesn't know what I'm doing Wrong You're uncultured, you're undeveloped You're a fool If you think that God doesn't see and God doesn't know and God doesn't care The Lord knows the thoughts of man But he knows that they're empty, empty-headed Think of all the empty thoughts that we think God knows that the thoughts of man, they're empty Even those profound thoughts God says, oh how empty Blessed is the man whom you chasten And you teach him out of your law The Bible tells us not to despise the chastening of the Lord This is the correction Now God doesn't punish his children, he does correct his children The chastening process is not a punishing process Sometimes it's painful But the idea is never that of punishment, the idea is always of correction And we should remember that as we deal in the training of our children We should not seek to punish them, we should seek to correct them To correct their behavior Sometimes we get those things confused And we're guilty of punishing God corrects But whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth It's a part of the expression of God's love that he cares enough to correct us The Bible says that if you don't correct your child, you hate him Why? Because you're destroying him A child left to himself will bring reproach to his parents The iniquity of the world is bound up in the heart of the child But the rod of instruction will drive it from him Dr. Wildersmith said the pushing back of those frontiers The importance of it And the Lord pushes back those frontiers in our life He allows difficulties, he allows hardships, he allows pain All of a part of the process of God correcting me Teaching me Blessed is the man whom the Lord chastens That you may give him rest from the days of adversity Until the pit be digged for the wicked Now the idea was, Lord, how long before you're going to really take care of the wicked? How long are you going to allow them to go on prospering and triumphing? But God will teach us, he will instruct us I go through trials The wicked don't seem to have the same trials that I have Why? Because they're not God's children And God is preparing the pit for them And so God is watching over me I go through adversity, but they are being prepared For destruction, for the Lord will not cast off his people Neither will he forsake his inheritance But the Lord will not cast off his people, judgment shall return to the righteous God will bring judgment And judgment can be good and judgment can be bad According to where you are You know, you can go to court and get a judgment from the court That will give you back your property Or you can get a judgment that will take away your property And so the judgment that God gives to his people is good The upright heart will follow it Who will rise up for me against the evildoers? Who will stand up for me against the workers of iniquity? Unless the Lord had been my help, my soul had almost dwelt in silence No one seems to stand up for me when I really need it But the Lord, he will stand up for me, he will be my defense And when I said my foot slips, thy mercy, Lord, held me up Lord, I'm falling God's mercy holds me In the multitude of my thoughts, within me, thy comforts delight my soul And so our thoughts race when we're in trouble A million miles a second They're almost as fast as the speed of light As I'm trying to figure things out And I find this turmoil within But then God steps in and he comforts my soul Shall the throne of iniquity have fellowship with thee Which frames mischief by thy law? Can there be fellowship light with darkness? They gather themselves together against the soul of the righteous They condemn the innocent blood Boy, what a thought as far as abortion What could be more innocent than an unborn child? And they condemn the innocent blood But the Lord is my defense And my God, he is the rock of my refuge And he shall bring upon them, the wicked, their own iniquity And shall cut them off in their own wickedness Lord, how long? Their day is coming As in the 92nd Psalm Foolish and brutish That they be exalted or that they seem to be getting by They will be destroyed forever Yes, the Lord our God shall cut them off The day of God's righteous judgment shall come You can count on it We'll return with more of our verse-by-verse study through the book of Psalms in our next lesson as Pastor Chuck Smith continues with A Call to Worship And we do hope you'll make plans to join us But right now, I'd like to remind you that if you missed any part of today's message or perhaps you'd like to order a copy for that special friend or loved one you can do so by simply contacting one of our customer service representatives and they'd be more than happy to assist you with the ordering details Simply call 1-800-272-WORD and phone orders can be taken Monday through Friday 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Pacific Time Once again, our toll-free number is 1-800-272-9673 And for your added convenience, you can order online anytime when you go to TheWordForToday.org And while you're there, be sure to browse through the additional resources that include Bible studies, commentaries, CDs, DVDs, and so much more Once again, that's The Word for Today online at TheWordForToday.org And for those of you who still prefer to write you can use our mailing address, which is The Word for Today, PO Box 8000, Costa Mesa, California, 92628 And be sure to include the call letters of this station with your correspondence And now, before we close out today's program I'd like to remind you that Don Stewart has been in the studio with us all week answering some of the many questions we get on the subject of Halloween And Don, this listener would like to know Are there any other names associated with Halloween that we, as Christians, should be aware of? Originally, it was called Samhain, or that's Gaelic for the end of summer That was the holiday the ancient Celts or Druids celebrated And then what happened in the history of the Church when Christianity sort of took over in Western Europe the name was changed to All Hallows' Eve because All Saints' Day was moved to November 1st to try and placate the pagans at that time who wanted to celebrate something supernatural on that night of October 31st And so since All Saints' Day or All Hallows' Day was November 1st All Hallows' Eve was October 31st And All Hallows' Eve became shortened to Halloween or Hallow Evening or the Hallowed Evening That's the name that came about from that Thanks, Don And we certainly appreciated having you in the studio this week sharing with us some of your expertise on the subject of Halloween And now, on behalf of The Word for Today we'd like to thank all of you who share in supporting this ministry with your prayers and financial support And be sure to join us again next time as Pastor Chuck Smith continues his verse-by-verse venture through the Psalms That's right here, on the next edition of The Word for Today And now, once again, here's Pastor Chuck Smith with today's closing comments May the Lord be with you and strengthen you by His Spirit in your inner man And may He give to you a spiritual revelation that you might know the exceeding riches of His love and grace towards you in Christ Jesus that you might comprehend what is the length, the breadth, the depth, the height to know the love of Christ which passes human understanding May you experience that love as He works in your life this week and may you share that love with others as you go forth as His witness to the world God make you a shining light and a powerful witness for Jesus Christ Hey, let's go to that house Yeah, the lights are on Wait, you got more candy than I did No, I didn't Yeah, you did Pastor Chuck and Don Stewart have released an informative DVD entitled Halloween, Innocent Fun or Spiritual Deception This DVD will educate and equip you with helpful information about Halloween to defend the faith As a Christian, should I be involved in things that have the origin? I don't think there's anything wrong with, you know people dressing up as witches with black hats or goblins Ancient Celts would go about house to house wearing masks pretending they were the dead relatives of the people of the house To order this Halloween DVD hosted by Pastor Chuck and Don Stewart call The Word for Today at 800-272-WORD or visit us online to watch a preview at thewordfortoday.org This program has been sponsored by The Word for Today in Costa Mesa, California