Sermon: Sunday, 13th July, 2025
Speaker: John Johnstone
Scripture: Psalm 46
Sometimes our lives plunge into chaos and darkness. Perhaps you are fit and healthy, hardly ever seeing a doctor, but then you receive a life-changing diagnosis and you know nothing will ever be the same again. Perhaps you lose of job you have had and enjoyed for many years, and you don’t know what way to turn. Death brings chaos in its wake. Perhaps your relationship with your spouse or child is really good, but then through death, you find yourself all alone. When the poet W H Auden lost a loved one he wrote the poem ‘Stop all the clocks’. He felt as if the whole world was now meaningless and that there was no hope: ‘The stars are not wanted now; put out every one, Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun, Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood; For nothing now can ever come to any good.’ There is no light for the poet in the darkness of death. These are circumstances he cannot cope with and he has no where to turn. Proverbs 27: ‘Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring.’ (Proverbs 27:1) What if tomorrow brings you an extremely tough circumstance? What if you are in such a time right now and are struggling to cope? How should we respond to these things as Christians? At such times, one place we can turn is to Psalm 46. The Sons of Korah have gone through experiences that have tested their faith. How did they respond?
1. Faith in life’s chaos
This Psalm opens with an amazing confidence in God (verse 1): ‘God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.’ Actually the Hebrew says ‘troubles’ (plural). In other words, our lives are full of troubles, but time and time again, God proves to be there with us to help and support us.
‘The righteous person may have many troubles, but the Lord delivers him from them all.’ (Psalm 34:19)
Such confidence in God is not glib, but borne out of experience. We go through a crisis, and somehow in the darkness, God sends his light and supports us and gets us through it. We know he has carried us. And that experience of God’s grace allows us to look ahead with confidence. This was David’s logic before he went to fight Goliath; ‘The Lord who rescued me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will rescue me from the hand of this Philistine.’ (1 Samuel 17:37) David remembers God’s faithfulness in the past and that allows him to look to the future trials with great faith. For us here this morning, we need to actively remember the ways the Lord has been with us in crises, so that when the next one comes (and it will) we will instinctively know what to do. We will take shelter in our God. We will pray to him for help and grace.
In verses 2-3, the Psalmist thinks the unthinkable and imagines that the most stables things in life, the earth and the mountains, give way and collapse into the sea. Even if that happens, we will still trust in the Lord. Let me be clear, sometimes there are things in our lives that we thought of as permanent and stable and immovable and yet they can be taken away suddenly. Things that are not supposed to happen happen. Those campers at a Christian camp in Texas swept away by a freak storm. The many Christians thrown into jail just because they follow Jesus. You are struck by physical or mental illness. A pandemic hits the country and we find ourselves staying at home for months at a time. What if something happens this year which feels like the mountains themselves are falling into the sea? What if we we have to face our worst fears?
One writer helpfully put it this way: ‘In this Psalm our what-ifs become even-ifs. Rather that focusing on the fearful circumstances, we focus on the God who has promised to be our refuge and strength.’
I remember walking out to Cramond island, a tidal island in the Firth of Forth. Suddenly, a huge storm blew up and we desperately wanted somewhere to take refuge. Fortunately, there was a WW2 structure where we could shelter and keep the driving rain and powerful winds at bay. It was a huge relief. After 30 minutes the storm subsided. The thing is, most of life’s storms last for far longer than 30 minutes. Some will remain with us our whole lives. And it is our belief that the only secure shelter for us is not the relief which money brings or even other people, but ultimately in the Lord himself.
Daniel’s three friends faced being thrown into the fiery furnace by King Nebuchadnezzar, they shelter in the right place. They place their trust in the right person. They did not despair amidst the chaos: ‘If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to deliver us from it, and he will deliver us from Your Majesty’s hand. But even if he does not, we want you to know, Your Majesty, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up.’ (Daniel 3:17-18) Do you know what it is to shelter in the Lord? He is our refuge, protecting us from the attacks of the evil one. And he is our strength, pouring out his grace into our hearts in supernatural ways.
Why is the Lord the only true refuge? And what makes him so special? The refrain in verses 7 and 11 answers that question for us: ‘The Lord Almighty is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress.’ The Lord ‘Almighty’ also means the Lord of hosts. This means that God has all the resources of the universe at his disposal for us! He is able to command the hosts of angels to do his bidding. Remember the words of Jesus: ‘Do you think I cannot call on my Father, and he will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels?’ (Matthew 26:53)
The ‘Lord’ is God’s special covenant name, reminding us that he has promised to always be our God and the one supplying the help we need. Sometimes we wonder if God would really presence himself with us in our troubles. Why would he help someone like me. Well, he is the God of Jacob, that twisted deceiving character. God takes people like that and becomes a refuge for them!
2. The reason for our faith (vs 4-5)
The city of God mentioned in verse 4 is Jerusalem. What river runs through the city of Jerusalem? There is no such literal river. The river symbolises God’s grace. Because God is with his people in a special way, there flows from him an endless supply of life-giving water for all of his subjects. This is a wonderful picture of blessing. This river supplies the waters of God’s grace, not to a few, but to all the homes in this city. As New Testament Christians, this river speaks to us of the Holy Spirit, who comes to dwell within every single Christian, giving life-giving power and strength. Perhaps this river looks back to the beautiful river in Eden. And perhaps it looks forward to that river in Heaven, when Eden is restored: ‘Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. No longer will there be any curse.’ (Revelation 22:1-3)
In verse 6 we are told that the kingdoms of the earth will fall. This will never happen to the Kingdom of God. ‘God is within her, she will not fall.’ (Psalm 46:5) Martin Luther was great friend’s with the Greek scholar Philip Melanchthon. Melanchthon was a more anxious character than Luther, and would often worry about the cause of Christ, especially in times when they faced great opposition. Often Luther would say to Philip: ‘Come now Philip, let us sing the forty-sixth Psalm’. One day when Melanchthon was concerned whether the church would even survive, Luther said to him: ‘If we perish, Christ must fall too; he is in the midst of us’. In other words, because God is within his church, she will not topple. We do not need to be afraid. Luther was rubbing the logic of Psalm 46:5 into his own situation.
I love the image in the second half of verse 5: ‘God will help her at break of day.’ So often in the Bible, there is darkness, but then the Lord bursts through in the dawn, changing everything and bringing in shafts of light to the situation.
Think of the amazing Old Testament picture of salvation in Exodus: ‘Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘Stretch out your hand over the sea so that the waters may flow back over the Egyptians and their chariots and horsemen.’ Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and at daybreak the sea went back to its place. The Egyptians were fleeing toward it, and the Lord swept them into the sea.’ (Exodus 14:26-27) Salvation comes at daybreak.
Think of Mary Magdalene going to the tomb ‘while it was still dark…’ (John 20:1) But then the light comes as she meets the risen Saviour at the break of day.’
Think of Psalm 30: ‘…weeping may stay for the night, but rejoicing comes in the morning.’ (Psalm 30:5) For those of us in dark times right now, know this: we usually do not feel God is early bringing his help, but he is never late. When the time is right, at the breaking of the dawn, the darkness will give way to light, and the Lord will prove himself faithful once again.
3. Our faith in God will be vindicated when he is exalted on the earth
When we read in verse 6 that ‘the nations are in uproar’ it has a contemporary feel to it. Jesus reminds us: ‘You will hear of wars and rumours of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of birth-pains.’ (Matthew 24:6-8) However, God is the one ultimately in control of all of history. The wars which seems totally chaotic will be stopped by the voice of God: ‘He lifts his voice, the earth melts.’ (Psalm 46:6) While now humanity seems to endlessly enter into wars, the day will come when the Lord will enforce peace by coming again to the earth, and destroying these weapons of war: ‘He makes wars cease to the ends of the earth. He breaks the bow and shatters the spear; he burns the shields with fire.’ (Psalm 46:9) The truth is, all wars will never cease on earth because of wise international diplomacy. Wars will cease when Christ returns, destroying the weapons of his enemies once and for all, and ensures the eternal safety of his people.
Verse 10 is the most famous verse in this Psalm: ‘Be still, and know that I am God…’ But the question is, who is the Lord speaking to here? Is he calling us to go off to a quiet place in a forest and to take our Bibles out? I don’t think so, though that is a great thing to do! In verse 10, God seems to be speaking to his enemies, the warring nations that have been in uproar. He commands them to be still, in other words, to stop their futile attempts to harm God’s people and to pretend they can live in rebellion against God without consequences. Be still. Lay down your arms. Know that it is the Lord who is in control of history and no one else.
Our Psalm moves to a conclusion with the magnificent prophecy in verse 10: ‘I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.’ Surely, the New Testament equivalent of this verse is found in Philippians: ‘…at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.’ (Philippians 2:10-11)
That is where history is going. We can take shelter in the God of all history.