God is Our Refuge, Our Strength, and Our Help

Transcript

GRM 1251
12/06/2020
God is Our Refuge, Our Strength, and Our Help
Psalm 46
Gil Rugh

We are going to Psalm 46 in your Bibles, Psalm 46. Say this many times because the word of God is always pertinent and relevant but this psalm speaks in special ways to the situations that we are going through in these days, uncertain times, unsettling times, times causing people great concern, sometimes fear. A virus they keep working on to get under control, we have the ups and downs with that, it affects all of us one way or another, some of us in greater ways. Some of our church family have had to deal with the difficulties with having that virus, others dealing with other kinds of physical problems, and the economic problems that go with it. The uncertainty in the political situation in the country, for some they’re concerned a great disaster looms on the horizon. Things may get worse, there is an element of truth in all of it, they may get worse, there may be more difficult times.
There is a growing opposition in the world, that we ought not be surprised but it’s disappointing, to anything that is biblical, anything that is godly, and even our country becomes more comfortable , more open in declaring their ungodliness and their opposition to anything that might be considered biblical. That all serves to put pressure on us as God’s people. You know, I’m reminded James 1 says count it all joy my brethren in when you come into various trials. That word ‘various,’ multiple-facetted, multiple-colored trials, trials of a variety of kind, because different trials impact all of us in different ways. Sometimes we are involved with a friend or family member going through a trial and we can encourage them and share the scripture with them but it’s not impacting us personally so we have the position of being able maybe to not be as emotionally dragged into that time. Then a trial comes into our life that is particularly pertinent and striking at our hearts, and we find ourselves unsettled. That is one thing that trials are good for us, we learn to trust the Lord and find Him faithful in a variety of situations and a variety of circumstances. While we don’t enjoy pain, we don’t enjoy suffering, we come to appreciate as we look back on it, it was a time of growth.
That is what Psalm 46 is about. It is a time of uncertainty, there is fear, there’s not the clarity that we like in our life that brings a certain settledness, yes, I’m expecting this, I planned for this. When things come that everything seems to be thrown in the air we can be brought to a place of fear. I don’t know what to do, I don’t know how this will work out, I don’t know how we will handle it. Psalm 46 was written to remind the Jewish believers and even remind the unbelievers in Israel of the greatness of the God that was the God of Israel. For the unbelievers living in rebellion, they were in a frightful position, a hopeless position, they needed to turn to the God of Israel. For believers they needed to settle their confidence in God, every trial brings us that challenge and that opportunity. We sometimes get caught up in the trial and its problems. We need to stop and say this is another opportunity for me to grow, for me to trust the faithful God that I serve and to learn how He will bring me through this or give me the grace to endure it. Don’t want to miss the blessing of the trials. God is challenging Israel in Psalm 46 with their situation, it's a discouraging situation, but it's a psalm that's pertinent for not only Israel but to all of us.
This was a psalm that impacted Martin Luther significantly. Out of this psalm he wrote the hymn that we often sing, “A mighty fortress is our God, a bulwark never failing, our helper He, amid the flood of mortal ills prevailing.” It’s a psalm that reminded him through all the trials and difficulties he went through. He penned that song that was really a reflection of Psalm 46 that he found so encouraging. We do today, not only in reading the psalm, it was a psalm to be sung, and you have that in the heading of the psalm, the last words there, “A Song.” This was to be sung regularly as the Jews came to worship at the temple and it would be impressed on their mind and like we do with our songs, we often go away and we end up singing them or singing parts of them as those truths are impressed on our mind. So that was the impact of Martin Luther so long after it had been written by David, and it’s for us today.
What the psalm is telling us is the only place of security in an uncertain world, in a world filled with opposition and trial, is our God and He is an unchanging, faithful source of help, strength, and protection. You will find a repeated phrase in this psalm, it starts out with it, it ends with it, and it comes up in the middle. Let me just read that to you, Psalm 46:1, “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.” Come down to verse 7, “The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our stronghold.” You will note he is saying exactly the same thing he said in verse 1 only with different words (we will talk about that). Then he closes the psalm in verse 11, repeating what he just said in verse 7, “The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our stronghold.” What this psalm does is it was sung as we often do with portions of the word of God. Have you ever been going through something and you were dreading it, its all you could do from being overwhelmed with your fear, your uncertainty, and so you just keep repeating a verse over. Lord, I remember You promised I will never leave you or forsake you. I know You said I never will leave you, and you keep repeating that. Why? You are constantly reminding yourself, because you know what? We have good theology, or we should, but the challenge comes to put that theology into practice under pressure. So that is what God through the psalmist is challenging Israel to do.
He’ll walk through. The first three verses in that first stanza tell us that when the world all around us and the world under us Is disintegrating and collapsing we are safe because God is our God. Then in verses 4 to 7 when attacks come from the outside from enemies we are secure because God is our God. Then in verse 8 to 11 he will change our focus, you know verse 8 says, “Come, behold,” look, see this, then he is going to tell us how it all comes out, God is sovereign, we will watch as the Lord destroys His enemies and keeps His people. It puts everything in perspective, based on our theology of God. Let’s face it, we all can quote verses, we all can talk confidently about God, but when the world collapses in on us, our own world, and we can be overwhelmed and are so squeezed we can’t move as he is going to speak of, that is when we put our theology to work.
Let’s pick up and look at this first section. The setting of the psalm is Israel, and particularly Jerusalem, is under special assault, don’t want to forget that but it moves beyond that. Perhaps attacked by an enemy army, this effects everything, the security of the people, even their food and water. What about their family? If we are overwhelmed with the enemy, what will they do to us? There is fear, and so Israel has this psalm to draw them back to God. The first three verses are in many ways the strongest because as often happens with poetry there is some hyperbole with it. The hyperbole speaks in such a language this is the worst it could happen and here it's not just hyperbole because it speaks of what some day will happen, that is a future day that we will talk about. But what if everything around us crumbles? Verse 1 starts and we want to be sure we’ve got the pieces of this, “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.” The focus is on God, you have to get that, not on our problems, not what the particular difficulty is. First, we have to stop, that's why often I encourage you sometimes you just need to stop, get aside, and get your attention focused back on God, who is He, what He promises. Three particular words here, He’s our ‘refuge,’ ‘strength,’ and ‘help,’ that is key. A refuge, He is our protection there, a fortress around us, if you will. He is our strength, an inner fortitude that enables us to hold up, to keep going. He is our help, He provides everything we need. You note that word, “a very present help,” and you can get a variation of the translation in verse 1, an abundantly available help, He is always there in every situation.
So if He is like a fortress around me, my refuge, the one in which I retreat, the Jews could understand this because you know what happened? Many of them lived out in the farming areas around but the city was built as a fortress with high walls like Jerusalem which would be in view here as we will see. When enemy armies where coming to act, the people moved in from their farm home and centered in the city because that was their place of refuge. Those walls in those days provided protection and in there then you needed the strength. If you get in there and your strength fails you’re still in trouble, but God is the strength now and a help, everything needed will be provided for him in trouble. If you note in the margin, that word ‘trouble’ could be translated ‘in tight places.’ When you are under pressure, when you are squeezed in and can’t move, that feeling like I can’t catch my breath, I feel like I am paralyzed, that is the kind of trouble you are talking about here. God is the refuge, the strength, the help, there is nothing outside. You need protection, you need inner strength, you need provision? When you’re in the tightest place you have no place to turn, no place to go, that is the God we have. So we have established who He is and what He does for His people to start with. You don’t start here then you are just out here floundering around coming up with solution after solution which only often compounds the difficulty.
Note the next line, “Therefore,” if that’s our God, that’s our theology, that is what we believe, and that is what we know, “Therefore we will not fear.” Now that’s where the problem comes, verse 1 we all say amen, it’s the ‘therefore’ when it comes to applying that, that we sometimes get a little woozy. Do you have any idea what I am going through, you have any idea what’s happened? No. But you know who does? Back to verse 1, God, it is all under control, I am His, He is our refuge, our strength, our abundant help in time of pressure. Therefore, unless He fails, I have nothing to fear. Well, it’s not that simple. How many times have I heard ‘life is not that simple?’ We like to complicate it which just brings us worthless excuses, doesn’t it? Or we turn to the world and that is what Israel was doing, they thought help had to come from the outside because this is one of those situations where God is not sufficient. God, I can’t see Him, but the army is sitting out there and they may come in anytime.
First, let’s put this on a broader scale, a bigger scale that any of us have had to endure. “We will not fear,” well, you know how big my problem is, no, but let’s talk about it as big as it could get. “Though the earth should change and though the mountains slip into the heart of the sea; though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains quake at its swelling pride.” If the world begins to disintegrate… we’ve all seen on news broadcast or something people caught in an earthquake, some of you may have lived on the west coast and experienced that and know what it is like when the ground moves under your feet. You see people that happened to in major earthquakes, they are turned into complete terror. What do you do when the ground under me is moving, the buildings around are falling? Think of this earthquake in such a magnitude you see the mountains starting to slide away, where do you go? In the world around me, the world under me, it’s convulsing, well, that is not enough to make me afraid, that wouldn’t make me fear. Sometimes when we go to Colorado we can look out and see Pike’s Peak. And I think of a verse like this and I think what would I feel like all of sudden everything was moving around me, the earth was shaking and I watch the mountain just start to slide away, then, you know, you have floods and everything coming? I would say, oh my, this is an interesting day. I tell you I would be running for the stairs, not the elevator because I don’t want to get caught in the elevator, cause I got to get down to solid ground. But you know what, there is no solid ground, it is moving, too. So you see people running down the streets screaming when you see it on the newsreel. Where do you go? This is why I say he starts out here and says I want to bring it and show you a magnitude that we have never seen, no one has never seen it on a worldwide scale to this level. Now, it is true that it will come someday. All these things, we get a preview of coming events, we will see this throughout this psalm. Here he is just telling something that is hyperbole, that is, if an army is surrounding the city the mountains aren’t moving away, the ground is not shaking, floods aren’t overwhelming them -- but there is a figurative way things are happening this way.
Come over to Isaiah 24, we are going to see a couple of times, and I don’t have time do to every reference but there is similarity to the prophet Isaiah to the Psalm 46 and what Isaiah would prophesy. So much so that some think Psalm 46 was written in the time of Isaiah, the king Hezekiah. If it was written in David’s time it is 300 years earlier. I see no reason to say it had to be written in that time because God’s revelation is from God, He could have revealed 300 years earlier what He will reveal even more fully to Isaiah. In Isaiah 24, we are going to get carried now to the future time. We always have to look at the future, read the last chapter, the book of Revelation. Here is what he is talking about, look at verse 3 of Isaiah 24, “The earth will be completely laid waste and completely despoiled, for the Lord has spoken this word.” He puts it completely laid waste, completely despoiled, “the earth mourns and withers, the world fades and withers, the exalted of the people of the earth fade away.” Why? God is judging the pollution of its inhabitants as He goes on to say.
Come down for time, there is no escaping verse 17, “terror and pit and snare confront you, O inhabitant of the earth. Then it will be that he who flees the report of disaster will fall into the pit, and he who climbs out of the pit will be caught in the snare; for the windows above are opened, and the foundations of the earth shake. The earth is broken asunder, the earth is split apart through, the earth is shaken violently. The earth reels to and fro like a drunkard and it totters like a shack, for its transgression is heavy upon it,” and so on. When God brings that time of judgment for the world as we have studied in Revelation, the inhabitants of the world, their heart will fail them for fear, they will cry for the rocks to fall on them they are so terrified. But the believer has confidence and we as God’s children won’t have to go through this but there will be believers in that time. Those who had not trusted Christ and, as you are aware, do not experience the rapture of the church and are saved in that seven year period, they will be here, during that. They will have to claim the reality of Psalm 46, it won’t be hyperbole for them, for thus it reminds us of God’s sufficiency, it will be a clear statement to them as they go through it, you don’t have to fear. God, even in pouring out the wrath on the earth, is still their protection, their strength, and their help even though many of them will be martyred. God hasn’t failed, His purposes are just being realized. How much more so for Israel when this was written and for us today. Its why Luther could write about it, what an encouragement to him, “a mighty fortress is our God, a bulwark never failing.” So my situation isn’t exceptional and outside of what God deals with, that is the foundational statement here.
When we come to verses 4 – 7 he has moved from this broad all-encompassing worldwide environment, let’s get down to a specific, and the specific is the city of Jerusalem being under assault and the people have retreated there. Sometimes what happened to Israel and it was a growing problem, they looked at the physical things as their safety. So we’ve got an impregnable city and we have ample supplies. As we will see we have water so we are good. Their confidence was transferred from the God of Israel to their situation, like if we are not careful. Nothing wrong with planning, Proverbs tells us to learn from the ants, they store up, so we are not saying ‘planning.’ But we are not moved and motivated by crippling fear, we still use good sense, I take advantage of opportunities.
Last week I told you I had a toothache, I don’t have a toothache today, God cleared it up, the dentist pulled it out. Where do I go? Lord, if You don’t want me to have this toothache, You will take it away. I don’t think that way, I think God has made a provision. I went to one dentist and he worked on it and said maybe you should go see another one. I went to another one and they gave me two options, the best one they said was get rid of it. That is what Marilyn recommended anyways and I always do what she says. I waaaaa… (imitating sounds of trying to talk while dentist working in mouth), you know dentists always talk to you when they are working on your mouth. They get cranking on my tooth then I hear crack, then the dentist says, ‘oh no, that is not good.’ I was sitting in this chair with her fingers half down my throat, then I think it dawned on her what she said, ‘oh, it’s going to be alright, we can fix it, it will be okay.’ I am half comforted, it just broke to pieces, now I am going to have to get it all out. It all ended up fine.
But what? We go and get help so we are not talking about the health and wealth approach, if God doesn't want you sick. I go to the dentist and he recommends a certain prescription that will help with whatever physical concern, I do it. Many of you experienced surgery that has helped you, so we are not talking about that. But whatever does come into my life God will be sufficient for. I’m not turning all my confidence… my confidence is there is an opportunity here maybe for this to be fixed but I’m trusting God’s sovereignty in it. I’m going to pursue with what is available but it’s ultimately not in their hands, they are not God. You know, we complain a lot about the weather and the weather man as though it’s his fault the weather comes out like it does, but just human like us, he uses the tools at his disposal to give us an idea of what it will be but he has no guarantee. We know the God of the weather.
So the first three verses have established God’s sovereignty and I love it, it ties in. That it gets as bad as it could be and the world dissolves, “God is our refuge and strength, and very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear,” and don’t quote verse 1 without verse 2, “Therefore we will not fear,” that is our theology put into practice. That is why I need troubles cause my theology is pie in the sky theology until it comes down to where I am, Gil do you really believe God is sovereign at this time in your life? You know this pressure, it’s going to crush me, I am in despair. Well, wait a minute, lets back up, what’s your theology? Yeah, I know God is God, He is sovereign, He is a refuge, He is a strength, He is a help, I know it, quit telling me that. Well, therefore do not fear.
So we come to verses 4 – 7 and this is the opposition of enemies, it comes from the outside in, you know, but there is attacks coming, people are worried about that. We have heard on the news relentlessly this is the greatest, most important election our country has ever seen. Now they’re talking disasters could come, and I don’t know, it may be. You know what happens when more people are open and continue to persist in the rebellion against God, God turns them over, Romans 1, to their own sinful desires. So they sin more and more until God says enough, now judgment comes. That is what happened to Israel, Assyria will come and conquer and carry away the northern ten tribes, never to be regathered again in any significant way until a future day, and then ultimately Babylon will come because the southern kingdom didn’t learn and judgment comes, even on God’s people. And its coming on a world, world-wide, we just read in Isaiah. Here is verse 4, a very familiar verse and its been used in poetry and songs, “There is a river whose streams make a glad the city of God.” Now people retreat to the city and that is their refuge and that is their place of safety and that was good commonsense but that is where it stopped. They weren’t looking to God for their deliverance so they ignored God’s help. There is a river because you know what a city needed and most of the cities in biblical times were built on rivers. Why? Because if you are going to retreat into a city and you don’t have any water how long is the water going to last? Some of you stockpile water because you think in a crisis what would happen if we didn’t have any water, how would we drink, and you can only last so long without water. So they built the cities along water, remember the city of Babylon had water running right through the center of the city, that way they could close the gates and build around. They had plenty of water until the Persians dammed up the water and came in under the dry riverbed one night while the Babylonians where partying, trusting the refuge of their city, and the Babylonians were conquered.
So here Jerusalem is under attack, Jerusalem is not built on a river. A number of you have traveled to Jerusalem, the spring of Gihon is there and it supplies some pools. Some of you have been in the tunnel of Hezekiah, built in Hezekiah’s day, they built a tunnel out to get to this spring. So armies that would come up to attack the city didn’t know there is water pouring into the city, so they were safe. Spring of Gihon, called the pool of Siloah, it became transliterated into Greek the pool of Siloam. We are familiar with that when we get to the New Testament. This was a river who streams make glad the city of God, this was a refuge for them, and God provided. There would have been a literal stream, but this stream here becomes in the Bible, and you see this through the Psalms, water becomes often a picture of God’s provision. We are refreshed because Jerusalem is a desert kind of place and water is a necessity and the refreshing of water becomes a picture of God’s provision. And that’s even so here, there was a literal spring that provided water but it will picture beyond. Just read this, “whose streams make glad the city of God” and that is Jerusalem as we all know, it is used that way a number of times, “the holy dwelling places of the Most High.”
Most High is a name. We won’t take time to go back but in Genesis 14, remember Abram, after delivering Lot from capture when he had moved to Sodom and Gomorrah, meets an interesting person, Melchizedek, he was the king of Salem and priest of the Most High God. That is the first time the Most High is used. That is an expression and we know from the book of Hebrews Melchizedek becomes a type of Christ because Melchizedek was the king of Salem which would become Jerusalem when David captured it and made it the place where God’s residence would be, where the temple would be rebuilt. God would manifest His presence among His people and on the earth. But this man was not only king of Salem, he was the priest of the Most High God. When Christ came He was of the descendent and the tribe of Judah but not of the tribe of Levi so Christ was not qualified to be a priest under the Mosaic Law. The kingship and the priest to it where kept separate, the king was of the tribe of Judah, the priest was of the tribe of Levi. But Christ would be king and priest, Melchizedek became a type of that, he is the king of Salem, he was the high priest of the Most High. So this is connected to that city of Jerusalem back in that very early time and early reference -- the Most High -- and for the Jews who were saturated with those five books of Moses, the Most High. That was when Melchizedek is the king and priest, reminder of God’s dwelling there now.
“God,” verse 5, “is in the midst of her, she will not be moved,” God’s provision. I want you to come back to Isaiah 8, Isaiah is easy to get to, you jump through Proverbs and into the book of Isaiah the next big book, Isaiah 8. We had in Isaiah 7 a prophecy of the virgin birth, where the virgin will conceive and bear a son and His name will be called Immanuel, which translated means ‘God with us.’ We won’t do the context here but even in the context of Assyria is a treat to the northern kingdom which is conquered by Assyrians and then the southern kingdom. So the Assyrians come in, as the armies did they come in through the north and down, they conquer the northern kingdom, they are ready to take over Jerusalem and this is the kind of context. And Isaiah has children who are to be signs, their names, Maher-shalal-hash-baz, that is a name not used yet in our nursery so if you are looking for something unique… The name of it, you have it in the margin, “swift is the booty, speedy is the prey,” pictures something going to happen. We pick up with verse 5, “Again the Lord spoke to me further saying, ‘Inasmuch as these people have rejected the gently flowing water of Shiloah.’ ” That is what we saw, remember the waters that supply Jerusalem, Psalm 46, come from the spring of Gihon that feeds the pool of Shiloah. Those waters that came in to refresh and sustain Jerusalem where a constant reminder of God’s provision for them but here he is using those gentle flowing waters. Remember later he talked about in verse 3 the waters overflowing and their churning, the world and its destruction. Here they have rejected those gentle flowing waters. The waters are a representative of God’s provision and power; we know that because they say in rejecting the gentle flowing waters of Shiloah, verse 6, “and rejoice in Rezin and the son of Remaliah.” So you see those flowing waters represent God and His provision but they have turned away from that, they’re looking to earthly armies, these two kings with their armies, they’re calling for them come and rescue us.
And now look at verse 7, “Now therefore, behold, the Lord is about to bring on them,” the Assyrians will overflow like a flood. Rezin and the son of Remaliah, they can’t stand against the Assyrians, they were no help and no hope. God is bringing about them “the strong and abundant waters of the Euphrates.” Now the Euphrates River is not going to flood all the way over to Israel, Euphrates is where the Assyrians are coming from. Nineveh, it’s capital over there. So it pictures this army like a flood, it’s just like you’d see in a picture of flood waters and in our day with cameras you can see it moving, the flood waters. That is the picture of this army of hundreds of thousands marching, “the strong and abundant waters of the Euphrates.” “Even the king of Assyria and all his glory,” so you see he even identifies the connection here, what is being symbolized, “it will rise up over all its channels and go over all its banks. Then it will sweep on into Judah, it will overflow and pass through. It will reach even to the neck; and the spread of its wings will fill the breadth of your land, O Immanuel,” God with us. Yet all of this, you know what’s going to stop that flood at Jerusalem? Immanuel! You know the story of what happened, the Assyrian army gathers outside the walls, more than 200,000, that is an army, Jerusalem is surrounded. It is like a flood that has come in and is ready to break through the walls and overflow the city in destruction. And the Assyrians remind the Jews on the walls, don’t trust your God thinking He will deliver you, none of the other gods of the other nations could deliver them and your God can’t either.
Well, Isaiah took that to the Lord and the Lord intervened. You know what happened? Assyrian army decided to get a good night’s sleep and the next morning, remember the number, 180,000 Assyrian soldiers didn’t wake up, they were dead. No fight, no war, God spoke the word, good night, this is your last night, there is no dawn, they are dead. The Assyrian king decided, yeah, maybe I’ll go back home with my remnant. He took what was left of his army and went back home, went into the temple of his god, Nisroch, and his own sons murdered him. The mighty Assyrian army, nothing to God, He speaks the word, He doesn’t have to have a battle and even give Israel’s army victory, there is going to be no fight cause dead men don’t fight and I’m the God who gives life and takes life. So that is the picture and you see the picture of the waters.
Let me take you, if you didn’t leave yet, verse 9, if you did leave just listen to Isaiah 8:9, “Be broken, O peoples, and be shattered; and give ear, all remote places of the earth,” everybody, Israel and everybody else, ought to pay attention, this is the God Immanuel, God with us, that should mean something. Quit looking to worldly solutions, worldly help, “Gird yourselves, yet be shattered; gird yourselves, yet be shattered. Devise a plan, but it will be thwarted; state a proposal, but it will not stand.” Now God and His people can speak confidently. When your confidence turns to God, I don’t care what you come up with, I don’t care what you plan, Immanuel, God is with us. If God is with us who can be against us. I mean, we make these statements but in our own little world, if we are not careful we begin to come apart, we fear. I’m concerned, I don’t want us believers to fear, I don’t want you to be afraid. Now, you don’t have to be afraid, the virus can be severe, if it is wiser for you to be at home that is where you ought to be, but don’t be there because you are petrified you might get the virus. Don’t have any fear, use the wisdom God has given you. If I had certain afflictions I would stay home, it would be stupid… God’s wisdom is not stupid. I don’t walk out on Interstate 80 in the traffic because God is with me, He can build a fortress around me so no cars will hit me. Splat. Why? So we keep this in balance but by the same token I know what is in my heart, I know when I’m afraid. I may cover it up so other people think it’s for other reasons but I know when it’s fear that drives me and that I have to deal with or I am out of step with God’s will for me and that is not good.
When you put your confidence in God and He is with you, it changes everything, look at verse 13, “It is the Lord of hosts,” we are going to pick up that name, Yahweh Sabaoth, Jehovah of hosts, as you have it in English translation, Lord of hosts. “It is the Lord of hosts whom you should regard as holy. And He shall be your fear, and He shall be your dread.” He is our safety, He is the one we turn to. I don’t fear men but I do fear God. I fear dishonoring Him, I want to be afraid of disobeying Him. Lord, if You are leading me through this trial, if You’ve brought this into my life for Your refining purposes then I draw upon the strength You provide; it may not be the fortress to keep me from it but you will be the strength to see me through it, You will provide everything I need. What’s Psalm 23 say? “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil for You are with me.” That is one privilege we have that we should claim as believers in an uncertain world, in a world that is afraid. It is driven by fear along with other selfish, self-centered motives but we are not unsettled.
Come back to Psalm 46, he talks about the city here, the city of God, that’s Jerusalem, the river of life that flows, you saw the picture in Isaiah 8, most will be familiar. But Ezekiel 47 carries us to the time when Christ will come to earth and rule, to destroy His enemies. You know what Ezekiel 47 those 12 verses 1 through 12 talk about, the river that will flow out from Jerusalem, out to water, provide abundant provision. I take it, it will be a real river but it will be a real river that reminds that all the provision, all the help, all that is needed, comes from the God who is enthroned at Jerusalem. You get the same picture in Zechariah 14:8, and the same time period. And then jump to Revelation 22:1, don’t go there but just in your mind, Revelation 22:1, now we have the new heaven and the new earth and the new Jerusalem. You know what is coming out from the throne of God in the new Jerusalem? The river of the water of life… is constant reminder that physical water that’s so important to sustain Jerusalem was a provision of God and a reminder that all comes from Him. We don’t want to miss the significance and the picture, we have an abundance, all I have has come from the hand of His grace. And as Job had to say when God took all ten of his children with one blow, the Lord gives,the Lord takes away, blessed be the name of the Lord, that is all you can hold onto sometimes but it’s plenty. It is enough because God is enough.
Come back to Psalm 46, look at what he says as we go on, verse 5, “God is in the midst of her, she will not be moved; God will help her,” there is our word ‘help.’ “God will help her,” that carries us back to verse 1, the second line, ‘a very present help,” the One who supplies everything necessary, all I would need. He knows my circumstances, He knows my situation, He knows me. I can tell other people you don’t understand, you don’t know what I am going through, but I can’t tell God that. He is the help as He was for His people except they persisted in looking for their own solutions. “The nations made an uproar, the kingdoms tottered; He raised His voice, the earth melted.” The mighty Assyrian army marches in and the Old Testament often puts it ‘God thundered;’ here we have God raised his voice, the same idea, meaning God spoke up and when He spoke… And when we talk about His thunder its usually in judgment cause that thunder gives that awe, that rumble. Here God raised His voice, the earth melted. He created it. The nations make an uproar. You think God is sitting up there trying to figure out how to sort out this election and who is going to win and who’s going not to and who will be in power and what that means and how we’re going to get this worked out? Gabriel, you got your angels working on this? Not at all; everything down to the second is on time with God and under His control.
Note verse 7, “The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our stronghold,” don’t forget that, quit making the same mistake over and over and over again. Know what God had to tell the southern kingdom Judah after the northern kingdom ten tribes were carried away into captivity by Assyria? It’s the southern kingdom, didn’t learn anything. They didn’t say oh, we need to keep our faith in our God and honor Him. No, they just repeated what the northern ten tribes would do. Sin makes you stupid. That is why you never want to get off-track cause you never know how stupid you will end up; you end up saying that was the dumbest thing that I could have ever done. You probably didn’t start out there, you just started out questioning whether I'll do what God told me to do now. That what Israel… well, we are not denying our God but the practical thing is, let’s get Resin and the son of Remaliah and their armies over here, we will work it out. In Jeremiah in chapter 4 God says through Jeremiah (years later we are down to the Babylonian captivity) God said you didn’t trust Me anymore, you put your trust in other things. God knows our heart, He knows… well, oh no, I trust God and I know He is in charge, but in our heart we are really trying to make as much provision for ourselves. No problem with making certain provisions but we know in our heart when we have bowed our heart to God and we are willingly submissive and only want His will and when we don’t and that has to be resolved.
So come to verse 8, what do we do? I always tell you read the last chapter, we have read Revelation, we have studied it. “Come, behold,” this is intention, attention getter, it is a strong thing, I want you to come here and see, watch, look at this, focus down here on this. But he is going to talk about how God will destroy all enemies so we better be still and know that he is God. “Come, behold the works of the Lord, who has wrought desolations in the earth. He makes wars to cease to the end of the earth.” We are in a future time, God defeated the Assyrians for the Jews on this occasion but that wasn’t the end of wars. They didn’t go to the end of the earth and the Babylonians would come and defeat the Jews, then the Romans would sweep in after the Greeks and the Persians, and the empires come and go according to the plan of God. There will come a time… those defeats that God did like with the Assyrians were just a demonstration of what He could do and what He would do for His people who trusted Him. We read the Old Testament and say why wouldn’t Israel just trust their God? He proved Himself over and over again, even the pagan nations could rehearse what He did to Egypt with the plagues. Somehow we have short memories and Israel did. If Israel had no excuse how much smaller, weaker are our excuses? We have the completed revelation. “He makes wars to cease to the end of the earth; He breaks the bow and cuts the spear in two; He burns the chariots with fire,” it’s going on. You can read Isaiah 9:6, 7 with behold, onto us a child is born and a son is given and the government will rest upon His shoulders, and all wars and all conflicts are done because the enemies are done and He reigns over all the earth.
“The Lord of hosts,” we want to pick up that name without leaving it, “The Lord of hosts is with us”; that is Jehovah Sabaoth, and when you studied the names of God may learned it that way, the word Yahweh, Sabaoth, the hosts. Remember, and again we don’t have time to go and look at these references but in II Kings 6, you ought to go back and read it, encourage you. Elisha has a servant, the armies have come to capture Elisha cause that pagan ruler hears that Elisha has been giving prophecies and so Israel’s armies always ready. The servant of Elisha said, what are we going to do? His heart was filed with fear. What did Elisha say? Lord, open this young man’s eyes so he can see. What did he do? He looked and all the hills around them were surrounded with the hosts of the Lord, the angelic armies. What did Jesus say on the cross? I could call upon My Father and He would send myriads and myriads of angels. God was sovereign, in control, even as His Son hung on the cross. Ten thousands of ten thousands of angels would have appeared at the word of God, no problem there. Wasn’t if the disciples would have been better armed or if this happened or that had happened. No, be still.
Come down to verse 10, “Cease striving” and you note, in the margin of your Bible, it says, “let go, relax,” I love that. The King James has, “Be still, and know that I am God.” Now everybody in the world needs to stop and think about that. “I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.” You cannot win against me, you better stop, give it thought, see what I am going to do, repent and turn to me, and for His people relax, everything is under control. God will be exalted. Oh, look what is going to happen, look at this, we got all these laws being passed and they’re opposed to biblical truth, and what’s going to happen to our kids and our grandkids. Well? Well, everything would have been okay if we had gotten this kind of president, if we get this kind of House of Representatives, and this kind of Senate, and this kind of Supreme Court, then we could breath easy. Where is my faith? Is God God or is He not? Am I happy the world is sliding down? No, but I am pleased God’s word is true and He says we are going from bad to worse cause we are going to end up in the seven years of tribulation. Have we forgotten our theology? I would like to not to get there too quickly, but remember the rapture is coming before the tribulation so even so, come Lord Jesus.
So how do we end? Where we began, “The Lord of hosts is with us,” the God of angelic armies, He is by our side, He never leaves us. I will never leave you or forsake you. He has told them at the Great Commission at the end of Matthew 28, I will be with you always, even to the ends of the earth. There will never be a time and never a place He is not with me, He is not with you as a believer, relax. We will not fear, be still, know I am God, know it by putting it into practice, just don’t know it as a verse you can quote, know it because I put it into practice, and you will have to keep knowing it because God keeps bringing trials and every trial is a new challenge. Will I handle this trusting God or will I try to fix it my way cause it is the way I want it to be and when you get down to it, I really don’t want it to be the way God wants it to be? Better to trust Him and let Him do His work.
Let’s pray together. Thank you, Lord, for the grace revealed in Your Word, the grace of Your love for us. You loved us when we were lost in our sin and it is an eternal, unending, unbroken love, every moment of every day. You are with us, You care for us, You protect us, trials come but only according to Your will for us. Lord, may we not lose sight of the ultimate end, the day of victory and we will share in that victory because we share in the wonders of the salvation You have provided. Pray for any here that can’t be still, who can’t be relaxed, who can’t know and do not know that You are God, may this be a day of salvation when they place their faith in Christ, in whose name we pray, amen.