Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

John Paton was a missionary in the New Hebrides Islands.

One night hostile natives surrounded the mission station, intent on burning out the Patons and killing them.

Paton and his wife prayed during that terror-filled night that God would deliver them.

When daylight came they were amazed to see their attackers leave.

A year later, the chief of the tribe was converted to Christ.

Remembering what had happened, Paton asked the chief what had kept him from burning down the house and killing them.

The chief replied in surprise, "Who were all those men with you there?" Paton knew no men were present--but the chief said he was afraid to attack because he had seen hundreds of big men in shining garments with drawn swords circling the mission station.

What we see here in this illustration is a divine deliverance of John Paton and his family.

They were in a situation in which their very lives were in peril, but God provided a way out much like he did in the story we are going to look at tonight! is one of the most popular psalms in scripture and has been the basis for hundreds, if not thousands of songs over the course of the last several hundred years.

We sang of several of these songs tonight.

This great psalm is thought to be a hymn of celebration, most likely after the defeat of the Assyrian army.

This psalm celebrates the city of God, Zion, as the city in which God has pledged Himself and will bless the entire world (a fulfillment of the Abrahamic Covenant made in ).

Furthermore, this psalm contains in it one of the most well-known “memory verses” in the entire Bible- “Be still and know that I am God”.

Tonight, we will be looking into this text as well as the context by which it was most likely written, so please turn in your Bibles to Psalm, chapter 46.

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God’s Power over Nature (1-3)

The first point (as designated by the musical notation, “Selah” which means to pause and reflect upon what was previously said) that the psalmist makes is that God has power over the natural things of this world.

There was a constant fear of instability in the ancient world.

People desired to congregate with people of similar ethnic backgrounds and to be in situations of strength rather than weakness.

With that in mind, consider the psalmists illustrations in verses 2 and 3.

The earth changes, the mountains slip into the sea, the waters roar and foam and the mountains quake.

Think of the security provided by a mountain in this era.

An army of hundreds could defend itself against a force of thousands.

The security provided by a mountain extends beyond the realm of the battlefield, though, as mountains also provide a sense of navigation for travelers as well.

People could see a mountain while in the desert and have a better understanding of where they stand in relation to their destination.

Mountains also were the place where many civilizations (Greeks and Jews) believed their god/gods to reside!

This was due to the fact that the mountains were closer to the “heavens” and the Greeks believed their gods to reside on Mount Olympus while the Jews had a special connection to Yahweh on Mount Sinai as Moses was given the 10 commandments.

Mountains were sacred, they were land markers, they were fortresses and they were stable in a chaotic world.

In the Ancient world, Mountains represented stability and the Sea represented chaos

If the world were to lose these peaks, there would be a lack of reference points on the Earth and it would appear as though Chaos had won the day.

Furthermore, while these mountains appeared to represent a sense of stability and control, the sea represented chaos.

To many nations, chaos was something controlled by a power or god.

Similar to the scene found in Egypt with the plagues: The God of Israel proved time and time again to be superior to all other “gods”, however people continued to doubt and believed that chaos still had power.

Think about this, with each plague, the God of the Israelites proved to be more powerful than the Egyptian god.

The plagues went from Egyptian god to god and eventually led to the defeat of Rah (the Egyptian Sun god) and the Pharaoh (a living god to the Egyptians) with the death of his first-born son.

To the normal ancient near east person, this would have given them reason to fear, however for the Christian there is no reason to fear because the God of the Jews is greater than the power/ruler of chaos.

All of these statements regarding chaos illustrate how there is no hope for the individual involved, yet the psalmist states that the believer will “not fear”?

How radical is this?

What basis would the psalmist have to make such a bold claim?

Whenever a natural disaster arises around us, we are often to feel these thoughts of helplessness.

However as we will see in the coming verses, we have no reason to fear because the Lord of Hosts is with us through the fire.

The City of God (4-7)

The psalmists second section talks about the City of God and how it differs from the outside world.

As impressive and mighty as mountains and the kingdoms of the world are, they pale in comparison to the power and might possessed by the creator, Yahweh.

The city of God is only protected because He says so and because His presence is there!

We might wonder how this can be because we know that later on, Jerusalem would be captured a few generations after this psalm is penned.

This goes to show the covenantal blessing between Yahweh and Israel.

Whenever Israel would follow and obey the law, they would be blessed.

However, as we know from the law was a shadow and Jesus is the substance itself, likewise, just as God is in the midst of Zion in , He now is inside each and every one of His followers (not strictly in a temple).

There is now a heavenly community that gentiles, like us, can be a part of rather than a mere locality on the Earth.

This is our call to be a light into the darkness whenever challenges and chaos arises!

As verse 4 proclaims, there is a river that makes glad the city of God.

Jerusalem was one of very few ancient cities that was not located on a river.

Water, meanwhile, was a highly valued commodity in Palestine at this time (and it remains very precious today) so this led to a problem for the Kings of Judah.

Hezekiah at this time had an underground water system that made water readily available, however he knew that God was their river and He provided them with the water of life as bears out.

Water is a common metaphor in the Old Testament and Isaiah, during the reign of King Ahaz, compared an incoming Assyrian invasion to an overflowing river – devastating in nature.

Yet he said that their God was like a quiet river and would bring them peace as say.

God’s people have always depended on spiritual resources that come from God alone (think of Moses and manna coming from heaven or the pillar of fire and cloud of smoke, just to name a few).

Jerusalem was the holy city, set apart by God and His sanctuary was located there, however those things did not guarantee Israel a victory!

The king and the people had to turn to the Lord in confession and faith.

This psalm is written in a chiastic form which means that the climax of the psalm is not found at the end (as is common with modern debate and rhetoric) but rather in the end with a steady build up and a steady decline.

Paul uses this structure time and time again in his arguments in books like 1 Corinthians and Ephesians.

Because of this use of chiasm, the center or climax of the psalmist’s point is found in verse 7. Verse 7 finalizes this second point by stating that the “Lord of Hosts is with us” – Emmanuel, God is with us.

No matter what the circumstances in our lives, we may drink at the river of His joy and blessing and find the peace and strength we need.

Listen to the words of Lamentations 3:21-26

“This I recall to my mind

Therefore I have hope.

The LORD’S lovingkindnesses indeed never cease,

For His compassions never fail.

They are new every morning;

Great is Your faithfulness.

“The LORD is my portion,” says my soul,

Therefore I have hope in Him.”

The LORD is good to those who wait for Him,

To the person who seeks Him.

It is good that he waits silently

For the salvation of the LORD.”

We have hope because just as God was in the midst of His city and had power over the nations and angels of darkness, God is still with us through His Holy Spirit and He is still in control over all powers, both earthly and heavenly.

Now this does not mean that God is some genie that will always be there to rescue you or help you out when you ask Him to.

One of the most common arguments used by Atheists is “why do bad things happen to good people if there is a God?” What this text shows is that it is the Lord who is our refuge in the storm!

There will be adversity and just because God has “moved mountains” in the past doesn’t make Him obligated to “Do it again” – no, rather what defines a Christian is having joy in the adversity and knowing that God is in control.

Even if He doesn’t deliver us from our temporary obstacle, He has delivered us from our rightful destination.

Our hope in Christ should not be predicated upon His saving us from our daily worries, it should be predicated in Him saving us from eternal separation from Him in a place called hell.

It’s not, “God you have to do it again”, it’s, “I will praise you even if you don’t because I know you are worthy and deserve my praise”.

As Paul puts it in , we “boast in our persecution”.

Whenever we hear the word “boast”, we immediately assume a negative meaning to the word because our society (generally) frowns upon boasting in ones own accomplishments.

However, in Biblical times this was something completely normal!

Honor was something so important and identity was found in your “group” so to boast in your identity was to elevate the status of your group.

When Paul says to “boast in our persecution”, though, he sets Christianity against the norm of his day.

No other religion or ethnic group would boast about their God in their persecution, in fact many Palestinian groups would associate persecution with the wrath of a god (small “g”).

To Paul, and to the Psalmist, we are to maintain our hope and to boast in our God even in the face of persecution.

As Christians we boast what?

Our Persecution

The Works of the Lord (8-11)

This final passage starts with the psalmist proclaiming, “come behold the works of the Lord”.

Come behold the works of the Lord.

In order to gain a better perspective of what the psalmist is talking about here, we must turn to .

Here what we find is King Hezekiah and the Israelites being surrounded in Jerusalem, having lost many of their other cities to the invading Assyrians.

Jerusalem was surrounded by 185,000 of the most fearsome warriors of their day and it was only a matter of time before the Israelites would be forced to surrender.

Hezekiah prayed to the Lord of Hosts, however he does not place his own safety first, he focuses on the character of God! Rather than selfishly beg for his life to be spared, he prays that God will reveal Himself to all nations –so that they all might know who the One true God is.