Well please do take your Bibles in hand and turn with me to Psalm 46. Psalm number 46. If you’re using the pew Bible in the pew rack in front of you, that will be on page number 471.
Well it is practically impossible to preach on this psalm without mentioning the famous reformer, Martin Luther. Luther loved the Psalms, so much so that he called it “the little Bible,” as it deals with practically every theme we encounter in the Christian life. And it is said that Psalm 46 was his favorite psalm. And his famous hymn, “A Mighty Fortress is Our God” is based on this psalm. We don’t know exactly when he wrote the hymn, but many scholars believe that he wrote the hymn as he was on his way to the Diet of Worms. And as you’ll know, the Diet of Worms was a large church assembly; Martin Luther had been summoned there to answer to charges of heresy. And the Roman Catholic Church wanted him to renounce his views. They wanted him to renounce what they viewed as his heretical views. And of course the stakes were quite high, as heretics were often executed in that time. And Luther stood his ground. He refused to recant his views and he famously reported to have said, “Here I stand. I can do no other.”
As we look at the theme of this psalm, it is clear why Luther would have chosen to write a hymn based on it. In fact, he would return to this psalm quite often in the darkest of times saying to his friends and fellow believers, “Come, let us sing the forty-sixth psalm and let them do their worst.” Luther’s famous hymn has encouraged many believers throughout the last five centuries, but if you look down with me at the superscript or the title and instructions of this psalm, you’ll find that Luther was certainly not the first to sing this psalm. It is in fact labeled, “A Song,” and it is, “To the choirmaster.” And we don’t know exactly what “Alamoth” means that you see there, but it is likely a musical term or perhaps the name of a melody. And “the Sons of Korah” were something of a musicians guild within Israel, and so it is clear that this was meant to be sung from its very moment of composition and it has been an encouragement to believers since well before the days of Luther.
Now as we look at this psalm there are several ways that we could choose to outline it. We could put it under one large heading of just “God’s presence.” Or we could say that same thing in more practical and concrete terms as far as humans are concerned from our perspective and put it under the heading of “The believer’s confidence.” Those would both be fitting outlines. But this morning we will look at this psalm one stanza at a time and we’ll look at it under the headings that fit the theme of those individual stanzas. So we’ll see in the first stanza, which is verses 1 to 3, calamity. In the second stanza, verses 4 to 7, comfort. And in the third stanza, verses 8 to 11, conquest. So calamity, comfort and conquest. Now that we have our roadmap set out before us, we will turn to our text. But before we read, let’s once again turn to the Lord in prayer.
Heavenly Father, how we need, especially now, Your Holy Spirit. Lord, we ask that as we turn to Your Word that Your Holy Spirit would be working in this room, in our hearts and minds, and that we would see what You have for us in Your Word today. It’s in Jesus’ name that we pray, amen.
Psalm 46. This is God’s Word:
“To the choirmaster. Of the Sons of Korah. According to Alamoth. A Song.
God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear though the earth gives way, though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble at its swelling. Selah
There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy habitation of the Most High. God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved; God will help her when morning dawns. The nations rage, the kingdoms totter; he utters his voice, the earth melts. The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress. Selah
Come, behold the works of the Lord, how he has brought desolations on the earth. He makes wars cease to the end of the earth; he breaks the bow and shatters the spear; he burns the chariots with fire. ‘Be still, and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth!’ The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress. Selah”
Amen. May God add His blessing to this the reading and hearing of His holy, inerrant and infallible Word.
Many of you are familiar with the story of Louis Zamperini. He was an American Olympic athlete who later served in the military during World War II. And that war, as it did for so many, would change his life forever. As if war itself was not terrible enough, Louis had times where the plane he was flying in was shot at, and he could feel the cold air coming in through the bullet holes in the fuselage. He survived several such flights before eventually being shot down into the ocean. And he made it onto a raft with two other of his countrymen, only to begin the slow and painful process of starvation. There was no food; there was no fresh water that was available. Making matters worse, enemy aircraft would occasionally fly by overhead and, seeing the raft, would shoot at it. And they would jump in the water to make the raft at least appear to be empty, only to find sharks circling below them. Eventually, after setting a record for survival on the open ocean in a raft, he was picked up by the Japanese Navy. And on the one hand, it was surely a relief to be rescued, but on the other hand, life was not about to get much easier. The result of this rescue was that he ended up in a camp for prisoners of war. Food and water there was not much more plentiful than on the raft. And one of the guards took special notice of Louis. For whatever reason, this guard began constantly abusing Louis for sheer sport of it. He lived through more suffering than most of us can imagine.
Psalm 46 is for people like Louis. This psalm is for people who seem to be struck by wave after wave of hardship. This psalm is for those who are in trouble. This psalm is for the anxious and worrying Christian, but also for the Christian who is actually seeing their worst fears become their realities. This psalm is for us. Whether it’s a never ending stream of internal thoughts and mental anguish, or the pressure of external circumstances that we face, this psalm is for those who are experiencing a calamity.
While it opens with this statement of confidence in verse 1, it goes on to describe an unfathomable calamity. Look with me at verse 2. “the earth gives way,” “the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea.” And to the Hebrew mind, mountains are the most unshakable, immovable, most reliable thing you can find on the earth. The opposite of that stability was the idea of the sea. The Israelites were not a seafaring people, and even when you look at accounts of boats, like in the book of Jonah, and it describes the men rowing as hard as they could to shore, the Hebrew doesn’t actually have a word for rowing. So it describes them digging because these are not a seafaring people. The sea represents chaos and disorder. Verse 3 gives us a description of the waters. They are foaming, they are roaring and churning all around. Waves are rising and falling. It’s reminiscent of the flood. So in these verses, we have the most unshakable thing on earth being consumed by the chaos and confusion of the sea. So the psalmist here is giving us a picture and telling us to imagine the most improbable and unexpected thing in the whole world is happening.
But not only that, this is actually an undoing of the created order. Think back to Genesis 1. What does God do on the third day of creation? Genesis 1 tells us. “And God said, ‘Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear.’ And it was so.” So as God spoke the world into existence by the Word of His power and brought order to creation, He gathered up waters and separated land from sea. And the psalmist is describing the undoing of that creative act, the reversing of day three of creation, as even mountains are moved back into the heart of the sea. So there’s physical danger we see here. Where can one possibly be protected from this? And as the de-creation of the world is described, there is certainly internal anguish here as well. He is describing the worst possible scenario. He is describing a calamity. But look back at verse 1. It says, “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore, we will not fear.” Because God is our refuge and strength, we will not fear, even when the worst thing imaginable eventually happens. And how important is it that God is both our refuge and our strength. A refuge is a shelter. It’s a fortress that protects us from external threats. God is able to physically protect us from any kind of external circumstance we may face. God is our refuge. But God is also our strength. Often what we are facing is not just what presses in on us from the outside, but rather the problems that come from what we lack ourselves, within. When we hear our own voice vocalizing our own doubts. When our fears swell up inside of us. When we are too exhausted to sleep. When tears seem to never stop flowing. God is not just our refuge; God is our strength.
And what does God offer to us as our refuge and strength? In verse 1, we see that “God is a very present help.” Now the way that we typically think of this word “help” in English obscures the meaning a bit of the meaning here. If you asked someone to help you load some heavy boxes into a moving truck, they’re not in charge. They’re only helping because you need an extra hand to get the job done. If we think about the idea of help in this verse from that perspective, it makes it sound like, “I’m pretty close. I’m almost there. I’ve almost got it all together. I just need a little bit of assistance. A little bump to my own efforts from God with this one thing and I can do the rest myself.” But what is meant here by “help” is not just what gets us and our good works over the hump. This help, this is God doing what we are not able to do. God doing what we can’t.
But what good is that kind of help if it is not available to you? Look back down at how this help is described. This help is “very present.” Now there are some very pedantic people, perhaps even in our midst, that don’t like phrases like this. And if you tell them that some song that you heard was super unique, they’d say, “There’s no such thing as super unique. Unique is already one of a kind!” They’d say, “There’s no such thing as super unique. You can’t be super unique. The phrase doesn’t work. You can’t be super unique. You can’t be extra special or particularly singular. So how is God very present? You’re either present or you’re not! How can God be very present?” Well the emphasis is on God’s willingness to be found. That ought to inform how we live our lives. We can pray for hours a day about everything that we face because God is very present and willing to be found. He’s not tired of our prayers. But we can also pray short, one-line prayers because we don’t have to go looking for Him. He is very present and willing to be found.
If you are a faithful Christian, you can keep coming to God because He is very present and willing to be found. If you are a backslidden Christian, if you are the one who has wandered from the Lord, or if you have only come to church today because your mom said, “It’s Mother’s Day and you have to,” you don’t need to have intended to find God. God is very present and willing to be found. The ability to find God and to turn to Him in faith and repentance has nothing to do with our own nearness and everything to do with the fact that God is very present. He is there when we face calamities. We’ve seen in this first stanza a calamity. Christian’s can deal with calamities in our lives because of who God is. We don’t fear calamity because our faith is not in seemingly unshakable earthly things, but because God is our refuge and strength.
Now let us consider the second stanza here under the heading of “comfort.” Look with me at verse 4. “There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy habitation of the Most High. God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved; God will help her when morning dawns. The nations rage, the kingdoms totter; he utters his voice, the earth melts. The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress.” This stanza is almost shockingly different from the first. It is an unexpected plot twist. It’s like a rollercoaster in the dark that makes you feel like you are swooping down to the right and all of a sudden makes a sharp turn to the left. We’ve gone from an apocalyptic vision of calamity to a description of the comfort and security that is found in God’s dwelling place. We’ve gone suddenly from grief to grace.
None of this is by accident as the psalmist is using this sharp contrast and several reversals in this stanza to help make his point. First, you see the water described here is no longer a frothing, foaming, chaotic sea, but rather it is a river that makes glad the city of God. All is well. All is in order under God’s rule. Second, we see that this place where God dwells shall not be moved. The psalmist has just used that word in the previous stanza, right in verse 2, to describe the mountains moving into the heart of the sea. And verse 6 that we just read, you see that kingdoms totter. And the Hebrew word used here is the very same word – the word “to move.” But the place God dwells shall not be moved. So the author of this psalm is contrasting God’s dwelling place with these mighty kingdoms and unshakable mountains. And they are nothing by comparison to God’s dwelling place. We see that God has authority over the biggest and the strongest forces in nature, and also over the fiercest and greatest political powers. Come what may, the people in the city of God are safe.
So why are people in this place so secure? Because God is in the midst of her, and this is the holy habitation of the Most High. This word for “habitation” is the same word that is used for the tabernacle. What makes God’s people His people? Well, the fact that He dwelled among them. What makes us God’s people? Jesus Christ tabernacled or dwelled among us. He redeems us, and His spirit is in us. He has said to us, “I will be your God and you will be My people.” He dwells with us. That was true then and it’s true now. He is the same yesterday, today and forever.
Verse 7 punctuates this idea. This is the refrain of the psalm, this repeats at the end of the psalm as well. But it confirms that God is the same yesterday, today and forever when it identifies the Lord as “the God of Jacob.” This is a reminder that God established a covenant with the patriarchs – with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob – centuries before this psalm was written. He was faithful then, He was faithful when this psalm was written, and He is still faithful to us in His covenant today. So even though the mountains move, the nations rage, and kingdoms totter, the church is safe in Jesus Christ who is Immanual, God with us. He is, as we sang, “the fount of every blessing with streams of mercy never ceasing.” He gladdens us as He has brought us from death to life. He gave up the perfect comfort of heaven so that we might be comforted. Jesus Christ, the author and the perfector of our faith, He is with us. What a comfort that is.
So we have seen calamity in the first stanza, in the second we have seen comfort, and now we turn to the third stanza under the heading of “conquest.” Look with me at verse 8. “Come, behold the works of the Lord, how he has brought desolations on the earth. He makes wars cease to the end of the earth; he breaks the bow and shatters the spear; he burns the chariots with fire. ‘Be still, and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth!’ The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress.” Again, the psalmist points us to the works of the Lord as the grounds or the firm foundation on which our confidence can stand. His victory is shown here as complete. The imagery of spear breaking and chariot burning is an image of total conquest. In the ancient world, it was common practice to demonstrate a resounding victory in battle by gathering all of the arms and armor of the enemies and burning it in a huge pile. One Roman emperor even had a medal pressed with this exact image on it to commemorate one of his victories. That’s the picture that we find here. Nothing is left. The Lord is completely victorious.
So when verse 9 says that He will “make wars to cease to the end of the earth,” it is not saying that the Lord comes as an envoy to negotiate peace. No. Wars will cease because there won’t be any enemies left at all. This is how Christ executes the office of a King – “He restrains and He conquers all His and our enemies.” And so while utter desolation at the hand of Almighty God is a terrible thought, there is comfort here as well. There is a clear, concrete end to all suffering that we experience in this lifetime. It comes to an end because the whole cosmos is moving towards final judgment and the new heavens and the new earth. It’s what the choir just sang about – that there will be no more death, no more pain, no more tears. We are living in what the New Testament writers frequently refer to as “the last days,” meaning there is only one action of God’s redemptive plan that is left, and that is Christ’s second coming that will usher us into eternity. We see that wars will cease and God will be exalted. But this peace comes through judgment.
Lastly now, as we look at verse 10, take note of this phrase, “Be still.” Now this is the kind of verse that we often find printed on things at Hobby Lobby – soft pillows, coffee mugs, floral artwork, notebooks, whatever the case may be. And out of context, we often think of “Be still and know that I am God” as a call to the contemplative life. We think of it as a comforting line in a psalm for the suffering. Indeed, we have already said that this is a psalm that contains much comfort for the believer. This psalm is for people who are suffering, but it is also a psalm for people who think that they have it all together. God is calling out to those who reject Him, “Be still and know that I am God.” He is calling out to those who believe they can earn God’s favor or who believe they can find another way to God. “Be still and know that I am God.” Do you hear God calling to you this very morning?
In the context of the Lord’s conquest over all His enemies, this verse is actually a haunting warning to anyone relying on anything else for salvation other than Christ Himself. This psalm does not give any third options. You are either in Christ, you are hidden in Him, depending solely on Him for salvation, or you are among the conquered. The end is coming and He will be exalted. Will you go to war against Almighty God and be forced to bend the knee? Will you try and usurp the glory of our King and live as if you can win this battle on your own? Or will you receive and rest upon Jesus Christ alone for your salvation as He is offered to us in the Gospel? As Martin Luther wrote in his hymn, “Did we in our own strength confide? Our striving would be losing. Were not the right Man on our side, the Man of God’s own choosing. Dost ask who that may be? Christ Jesus it is He! Lord Sabbaoth His name! From age to age the same. And He must win the battle!”
I’ll close with this. The English evangelist and preacher, John Wesley, was lying on his deathbed on March 2, 1791. He was eighty-seven and his health had been declining for years and he was now sick with pneumonia. His family, his friends, his colleagues surrounded him. And as he was dying, struggling even to breathe, he said these words – “The best of all is…” Now you can imagine his friends and family leaning in. What’s he going to say? What’s he going to say? What is the best of all? He was eighty-seven – no small feat in the 18th century – and had lived a full life. He really took the idea of open air preaching mainstream. He delivered hundreds of sermons each year and often preached multiple times per day. It is estimated that he traveled over 250,000 miles back and forth across Britain on horseback. He wrote extensively and was published. He played a significant role in shaping the abolitionist movement in Britain. He wrote hymns and he also edited, published and compiled many of his brother, Charles’ 6,000 hymns, many of which are in our Trinity Hymnal that we sing still. He had his friends and family with him – so what was it? What of all that full life was the best? He said, “The best of all is God is with us.”
Christian, whatever you may face this week, God the Father is on His throne, governing all His creatures and all of their actions. Jesus Christ is sitting at His right hand, interceding on your behalf. And the Holy Spirit dwells within you, comforting, guiding and empowering you to die unto sin and live unto righteousness. God is with us. When we are brought low, God Himself lifts us up. When we are poor, God Himself makes us rich with every spiritual blessing. When affliction is pressing in on us from every side, God Himself is our comforter. And in the end, whatever enemy may assail us, even death itself, we can face it because God has won the battle. God is with us. He is our refuge and strength and He is very present.
Let’s pray.Heavenly Father, how grateful we are to You for Your presence. How grateful we are to You that You sent Your Son to dwell among us. How grateful we are to You that as Christ ascended on high, He did not leave us without a comforter, but sent the Holy Spirit. Lord, we ask that You would give us a sincere sense of that now, whether that would trouble us as we have not yet repented, or whether that bring us great comfort because all we have left is relying on You, Lord. We ask that You would make Your presence known to us today. It’s in the name of our Savior, Jesus Christ, that we pray. Amen.