Confidence in a Refuge

Introduction - The Need for a Refuge

Please open your Bibles to Psalm 46.

In the late 70’s a special effects company began in Hollywood called ILM

ILM stands for Industrial Light and Magic.

ILM was the pioneering group that began because they produced special effects for blockbuster movies in the late 70’s through the early 90’s.

The company was formed and got its first break while producing Star Wars in 1977.

They excelled at creating models and developing equipment and techniques that could make those models come to life on the screen.

They were the experts in making the impossible possible until around 1993.

In 1993 Jurassic Park was released.

Jurassic Park used computer animation to make their dinosaurs come to life.

Almost overnight, the model workers for ILM were obsolete.

Those models were no longer needed.

Computers were doing the job.

Jobs were lost.

Those model workers went from captains of their industry, to old fogies in an instant.

They thought their jobs were secure.

Sadly, ILM is not alone.

There is a need for security in this world.

We never know what is coming around the corner.

One moment you are at the height of power.

The next yesterday’s news.

Some people think that money will buffer them from change.

Others put their hope in an object or a treasure.

A home.

A car.

Martin Luther understood that men need a refuge to hide from the uncertainties of life.

He concluded that man made attempts at security will not suffice.

In his famous hymn, A Mighty Fortress, he said these words:

Let goods and kindred go,

This mortal life also;

The body they may kill:

God’s truth abideth still;

His kingdom is forever.

Those words come from today’s Psalm, Psalm 46.

Let’s read it now.

Read Psalm 46.

This Psalm gives 3 confidences you need to endure the troubles of life.

There is a confidence in God.

There is a confidence in His Word

And there is a confidence into eternity.

First, this Psalm teaches you need Confidence in God (v. 1-3)

There are certain things in life that seem constant.

The sun rises in the east, sets in the west, we can count on that.

Mountains stand eternal.

In a world filled with change, we are looking for stability.

We look for those things that will never change.

That’s why verses 2 and 3 are so shocking, “Therefore we will not fear, 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.”

We look to the mountains as stability in this world.

We think they are unchangable.

Especially here in Southern California, every inch of undeveloped land is turned into a Starbucks, but those mountains climb to the heavnes.

There was a man named Harry Truman.

Not the former president, this is a different man.

He owned a lodge on Mount Saint Helens, up in Washington.

The lodge featured a lake and was home to memories and family vacations.

Then the mountain start rumbling.

Tremors began to shake the majestic summit.

There was a volcano that was becoming active.

Those who lived on the mountain began to evacuate.

Truman would not budge.

The world begged him to leave.

Musicians wrote songs about him.

School children wrote letters to him pleading with him to leave.

He said it would take a team of mules to get him off that mountain.

He was convinced that St. Helens was too big to fall.

He believed that the eruption was going to be on the other side of the mountain, but he would be untouched.

May 17, 1980 was the last time anyone saw Harry Truman.

On May 18, 1980 the mountain exploded throwing 200 square miles of forest into oblivion.

He thought the mountains were immovable.

What does the Psalmist say?

“Therefore we will not fear, 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.”

The Psalmist is describing cataclysmic change.

Genesis describes how things were created.

God summoned land to emerge out of the water.

The author of Psalm 46 is describing a reverse process of the mountains returning to the water.

He who created the mountains, can uncreate them.

These mountains rise immovable in the sky above the constant change beneath.

And yet the Psalmist describes the unchangeable changing.

Those things that we look to for security, collapsing.

What do we have to learn.

First there is change, and this change is dangerous.

You will face change.

You may even suffer.

Christians get sick.

Christians lose their jobs.

Christians die.

How does the Psalmist say we are to respond to change?

Look again at verse 1, “God is our refuge and strength, A very present help in trouble.”

Trouble is real.

It’s going to come into your life.

You might even be in it now.

This Psalm doesn’t give 10 steps to resolving conflict in your life.

Instead, the Psalm makes God the spotlight.

There is turmoil and chaos in this world.

It’s real.

It’s present.

Yet, despite the hurt, the pain, and the suffering, those who look to God, are not fearful.

Verse 2, “Therefore we will not fear … though the earth should change.”

Change in our environment is real.

It’s real in our lives.

But those who trust in the Lord will not fear.

Many times people approach crisis and they say I need to do something.

You go to your pastor, and you say, “fix me.”

You go to a counselor and you say, “Solve my problems.”

This Psalm gives us hope, “God is our refuge and strength, A very present help in trouble.”

Hope is found by directing your attention to God Himself.

Life is not aimless.

There is a God who is sovereign over His creation.

You look to Him.

You have big thoughts about Him.

You hide in Him.

The reward is exactly what the Psalm says, you have a refuge, a fortress, a strength that allows you to continue going even when things are hard.

Next there is a Confidence in God’s Word (v. 4-7)

Let’s move on to the next stanza in this Psalm, verses 4–7.

The second stanza opens in an interesting fashion.

Look at verses 4–5.

Read verses 4-5.

It describes the city of God.

It’s a peaceful city.

A river provides water into the city.

Water was and remains critical within cities.

As long as the water is flowing, life will continue.

This city is the dwelling place of God.

He is in the midst of this city.

He remains in the city.

He can be counted on just as surely as when the night falls a morning is coming.

As the sun rises in the morning, the Lord remains in that city.

But then the camera pans out from the city.

It begins on a quiet stream, zooms out to a glad and joyful city, and then you see what is outside the walls of the city.

The Psalm describes this city is under seige.

An ugly assault is going on outside of it.

Her enemies have gathered.

Verse 6 says, “The nations made an uproar,”

There is not much context to understanding when this Psalm was written.

It seems as if it was written during a time of crisis for Jerusalem.

Jerusalem had a tumultuous history.

Isaiah described a time when the Assyrians laid seige to Jerusalem.

Later on the Babylonians did the same thing.

We instantly think that this city is Jerusalem.

Unfortunately, she fell in 586 BC.

She was rebuilt along with a second temple by the time Jesus arrived, only to be reduced again to nothing in 70 AD.

This city are the people of God.

In Matthew 5, Jesus said that we, His church exist as a city on a hill.

And like this city on a hill, sometimes it feels as if we are the last bastion of sanity in a crazy world.

It can feel as if the nations around us have laid seige to the church, and just waiting for us to crumble.

Every day we read the news, watch movies and TV shows and the message is clear, true Christianity will not be tolerated.

The world preaches a message of tolerance for everything, except what is good and holy.

The nations made an uproar.

The first stanza of the Psalm described God’s sovereignty over creation.

He created it.

He can uncreate it.

The world is not crumbling out of control.

It is in His control.

There is language of those majestic mountain tops that seemed immovable, and like Mt. Saint Helen’s they easily can melt into the sea.

Landscapes change.

And if creation can change, so can nations.

There are nations that like the mountains seem immovable.

We call them super powers.

These super powers go where they want and do what they want.

Babylon was one of these super powers.

Joel and Habakkuk describe them as a locusts that devour and cannot be stopped.

Babylon was who destroyed Jerusalem that first time.

Shockingly, Babylon fell in one night.

Daniel 5 records Belshazzar proudly and blasphemously celebrating his role as leader of a super power.

That very night, he was killed, and the Persians took over Babylon and her empire.

On December 25, 1991, another immovable superpower fell, the mighty Soviet Union.

On one day there was a cold war between the USSR and the west.

The next day 11 independent republics popped up on the map.

Verse 6, “... the kingdoms tottered; He raised His voice, the earth melted.”

Babylon and the Soviet Union were two mountains of nations that tottered and melted in an instant.

What causes the nations to totter?

The voice of the Lord.

Verse 6, “He raised His voice, the earth melted.”

Kingdoms come and kingdoms go, even the mightiest of nations is not immune to the power of God.

It may feel like we are the under dog and that the world is enclosing around us, laying seige.

It may seem as if our days are numbered.

And where do we find our hope?

In the Word of God.

In the Bible we learn of God’s victories in the past and His promises for the future.

No where in there do we see God flinching at the world’s powers.

Verse 7 comforts us, “The Lord of hosts is with us; The God of Jacob is our stronghold."

Are you tired?

Conceal yourself into the Word of God.

Are you scared?

Hide in the shelter of the Word of God.

Are you worried?

Cover yourself in the Word of God.

That’s why it’s important to be in this book and to be in it often.

Not once a week.

Every day.

Look again at verse 4.

“There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God.”

The city of God is glad.

The people of God are glad.

The people of God are categorized and described as glad and joyful.

Though outside, in the world, the mountains totter, and the nations are in commotion, what is the city of God?

Glad.

We are a joyful people because of a confidence that we have in God Himself.

It’s always interesting to me how people want hope.

They want joy.

It’s available.

Where do we find it?

By gazing upon the God of the Bible.

Who with a word raised the mountains.

With a word will collapses the mountains.

With a word raises nations.

With a word melts the nations.

The application is to look to God.

He’s the main subject of this Psalm.

And by abiding in Him, we have a confidence.

Then we come to the final stanza of this Psalm, which gives us a Confidence into Eternity (v. 8-11).

This stanza begins with a command, then has a couple more at the end.

This Psalm has addressed what life in this world is like.

There is chaos.

There is conflict.

You’ve experienced these things.

What is the solution?

It’s not to look inward.

It’s to look upward.

God is the spotlight, the main subject of the entire Psalm.

It is describing who God is, and who He is in relation to the rest of the world.

That’s why this final stanza begins with a command, “Come behold the works of the Lord,”

Do you think life is spinning aimlessly out of control?

“Behold the works of the Lord.”

We need this.

You need this.

This is written to those who are worried about politics and the direction of a nation.

We get together and talk about life and start talking about politics.

And what do we do?

We complain.

We complain about what California is like.

We complain about the governor.

We complain about the president.

We complain about the Democrats.

We complain about the Republicans.

We complain.

Our complaining says a lot about what we believe about the sovereignty of God.

Because we may affirm the sovereignty of God on paper, but our complaining says something different.

The Psalm refocuses our thoughts and attitude of the world.

“Come, behold the works of the Lord”

Psychology says to look inward.

Disney says to listen to your heart.

What does the Psalmist say?

Behold the works of the Lord.”

What does your attitude say about what you think about God?

What does your complaining about secular things say about what you think about God?

Have you ever tried to find a connection to your theology and your complaining?

Big thoughts of God will:

Drive away fear.

Bring calm in an anxious world.

Bring joy to the downtrodden.

It’s interesting, we look to the works of God, and specifically the Psalmist moves forward in time

Typically, we look to God’s actions in the past, but here we move forward.

he second half of verse 8 into verse 9, “ … Who has wrought desolations in the earth. 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.”

This is an eschatological confidence.

From our current vantage point things seem dire for the believer.

We see the world’s opposition to God.

Verse 8 introduces us to God, “Who has wrought desolations in the earth.”

God will bring peace, but not with a gentle persuasion, but in an act of devastation.

That word for desolations in verse 8 means a dreaded horror.

It’s not just defeat.

It’s a brutal defeat.

It’s something you don’t want to imagine.

Zechariah 14 describes the return of Christ.

Listen to Zechariah 14:12 “Now this will be the plague with which the Lord will strike all the peoples who have gone to war against Jerusalem; their flesh will rot while they stand on their feet, and their eyes will rot in their sockets, and their tongue will rot in their mouth.”

That’s a dreaded horror.

Christ will come in power.

He will come as a conqueror and will remove evil from this earth.

And it is in this context that verse 10 gives 2 imperatives, 2 commands, “Cease striving and know that I am God;”

Some translations say, “Be still and know that I am God.”

Don’t confuse this command to be like a yoga instructor telling you to breathe deep and listen for some still small voice.

He’s just “wrought desolations in the earth.”

Cease striving is a command for silence.

This is a command for surrender.

The context of this is war.

“Cease striving ...”

Verse 9 said, He breaks the bow, cuts the spear in two and burns the chariots.

The weapons of the world are useless against the Lord.

Cease striving … lay down your arms and surrender.

Philippians says that one day every knee shall bow and every tongue confess.

The only question for you is will you bow your knee out of adoration, or as a conquered foe?

I hope that you have this confidence into eternity.

You see this confidence in the final line of the Psalm.

“The Lord of hosts is with us; The God of Jacob is our stronghold.”

God was still the God of Jacob at the time of this Psalm being written.

Jacob was way dead by then, but God was still His God.

There is a resurrection.

To be absent with the body is to be present with the Lord.

This is a hope for eternity.

A confidence for eternity.

Jesus proved this reality when He rose from the grave.

Now He is seated at the right hand of the Father.

He is the God of Jacob.

If you call yourself a Christian, you worship the God of Jacob!

Do you have an eternal hope in a crumbling world?

Your faith, your confidence, your hope is not wasted on an eternal God.

He is the one constant in all that there is.

Creation is temporary.

Nations are temporary.

But He is eternal.

He has no beginning or end.

This Psalm is meant to inspire you and give you confidence to endure life.

It relieves us of thinking that our efforts are of any strength or value.

And instead it makes God the main subject of His story.

We find this hope in the Bible, His Word.

For the Christian it means everything to us.

We stand under Christ.

He is our refuge.

He is our stronghold.

He is our hope.

Out of all the dangers in this world, nothing can separate you from Christ.

Pray