Psalm 46 - Secure in the Storm

to bring out the worst of our emotions. And the emotion that we most commonly feel in a time of crisis is fear. It really is. When you're in crisis mode, you have a lot of fear. There's an old chapter in Psalms that is written to describe what to do in times of crisis. How to deal with the fear that comes in times of crisis? It is Psalm 46. And I want us to focus our attention this morning on Psalm 46. Actually, this is a great song that is written much like we would write a hymn today. It's written in a hymn kind of format. If you're looking at Psalm 46, you can see that it has three verses, three stanzas, and the chorus is repeated twice. Take a look at the Psalm and you see a hymn format here. The first three verses are the first stanza. And then you have, after verse three, that little word, say-la, which means pause. Stop. Think about this for just a moment. It's actually a musical notation, a musical rest, but it means to stop and think. And then second stanza, verses four through six, then you have the chorus for the first time in verse seven, and another stanza. Stop. Pause. Think about this. Then stanza number three of the hymn is in verses eight through ten, with the chorus repeated in verse eleven, the same chorus we saw in verse seven, the Lord Almighty is with us, the God of Jacob is our fortress. It's a great song written in a hymn kind of format, but it was a song that was written in the midst of a crisis. Some believe that it was the crisis that happened when Israel was surrounded by the Assyrian armies, actually Judah, the country of Judah, and city of Jerusalem, surrounded by the Assyrian armies. But we really don't know what kind of crisis it was. It's not stated for us. And so really, I think the Psalm is designed to be a Psalm that fits any crisis. And what the Psalm does is it helps us to see that even in the crises of life, we can trust God. Now this sign in front of this house, this picture was taken by Bob Farley, a member of our church, when he was down in Louisiana helping after Hurricane Katrina. And you can see the house in the background is absolutely destroyed. The sign that somebody put up front was grace that brought us safe thus far, and grace will lead us home. What is it that enables people when they lose everything? When they go through a crisis where they lose their home, all their possessions can put up a sign like that in front of their house. Grace will lead us home. What is it that causes people to be able to see the grace of God and trust Him and lean on Him in times of great crisis? What is it? It's what the Psalmist found in Psalm 46. This Psalm was not written by David. It was written by the sons of Kara who were actually music leaders in the temple worship. And it says in the beginning of the Psalm at the heading there, it's according to Alamoah, which is a musical instrument, or possibly a musical pitch, a high pitch. I believe that this song was intended to be sung by the soprano section in the temple. But it was a song and it's a song that helps us know where to find security in the storms of life. When the crises come, whatever the crisis may be for you, when it comes you can find security in the storm of life. Some of you are in crisis right now. Some of you have been through a great crisis recently. Some of you will find a crisis in your life in the future. No doubt all of us at one time or another will face what we would call a crisis situation in our lives. It may have to do with health issues. It may have to do with the financial crisis where you're facing the loss of everything, maybe the loss of a job. It may have to do with a family crisis, with a child or a spouse or a parent. It may have to do with any number of things, but when you face crisis in your life, where do you turn? How do you respond? How can you respond like this person in this picture by extolling the grace of God even in the midst of losing everything? Well, we'll see in Psalm 46. Let's look at what it was that the psalmist found that gave him security in the storm of life. The first thing you found security in is in the first three verses, the first stanza of the song, if you will, and that is we can find security in his protection. Let's look at verse 1 where the psalmist talks about the kind of protection that God makes available to us. Verse 1, God is our refuge and strength and ever-present help in trouble. That's the kind of protection we have. God is our refuge. That's external protection. Refuge is a hiding place. It's a place to crawl up under and get out from under the elements that are affecting you, the thunderstorm, the rain, snow, whatever. That's a refuge. So God is our external protection. He provides external protection for us, but he also provides internal protection. He is not only our refuge, he is also our strength, and the word has to do with the inner strength that enables us to do what we need to do in times of crisis. To make the right decisions, to take the right actions, to keep going, to do what we need to do. The strength to keep going in crisis is found in our God. He is a refuge. He is a strength, but it is not only an external protection, an internal protection, it is also a constant protection. The verse says he is an ever-present help in trouble. The idea is that God is there when you need him. Whenever you are in trouble, the word trouble has to do with pressure, feeling constricted, feeling closed in by the difficulties and stresses of life that you are under. And when you feel that way, God is an ever-present help. He is always there to protect you. His protection is unchanging. It's eternal. It's external. It's internal. It is also constant. Native Americans used to have a very interesting right of passage for 13-year-old young men in the tribes of Native Americans across our country. A long time ago, what they used to do when a young man turned 13. On the night of his 13th birthday, the warriors in the tribe would take the young man out several miles away from their village. He would be blindfolded the whole time, and they would take him down into the midst of a dark, dense, deep forest, and then they would leave. And the training that he has been taught, all of his boyhood years, is supposed to be put into practice that night. First of all, he is supposed to take the blindfold off and secure himself there in the darkness until it gets light enough for him to begin to see where to go, and he is to be able to find his way home. He has no clue where he is, but all of his training will come into practice, and he is supposed to be able to find his way home. You can imagine the fear, the terror of being in the middle of a dark, forest, in the middle of the night, no artificial light around, and every rustle of leaves might mean an animal. Every sound, a breaking twig, could mean someone else coming. You can't see enough to know what's going on around you, and so the young man waits there through the night. And when the first rays of dawn begin to come over the horizon, and he can begin to distinguish objects, he can begin to tell what the forest looks like, where maybe he should go. But he would also see, to his amazement, off to the side, the profile of an adult male, who turned out to be his father. For you see, as a part of that right of passage, unknown to the 13-year-old young man, his father has been stationed 20 or 30 yards away, and has stayed there throughout the whole night. In case anything does happen, he is there to protect his son. And that's exactly what God is for us. He is a refuge, a strength, an ever-present help in trouble. And no matter whether we can see him or not, regardless of whether or not we can sense his presence, he is always there waiting to provide the protection we need, the help we need in times of crisis. That's the kind of protection we have. But notice if you will also the result of that protection in verses 2 and 3, because God promises to be our refuge, our strength, an ever-present help. Here's the result, verse 2. Therefore, because of what's in verse 1, therefore we will not fear. Fear is driven out by taking refuge in God, our refuge, by drawing from God our strength, the strength we need to keep going in crisis. By calling upon him for his ever-present help in time of trouble, when we do that, we have the ability to make it through any difficulty and fear will vanish. The typical, the most normal response in any crisis is fear. That is the way we typically respond in any crisis and we get afraid of all kinds of things. You know, there are lots of fears that are probably represented in this room today. I have read statistics that say, the number one fear in surveys almost consistently, the number one fear of people is the fear of public speaking. One young man was given a part in a school play. He was supposed to recite the famous Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death speech of Patrick Henry. And as a part of the school play, he was supposed to recite that speech. Well, when it was his turn to get up and say this by memory, he had practiced and he had drilled on this thing, he knew it backward and forward, but he was as nervous as could be when he got up in front of everybody. His knees were shaking, their beads of pressuration breaking out on his upper lip, his throat was dry and getting constricted and he just was kind of all real nervous about this thing. And he got to the great line at the end of the speech and evidently got confused with something he had heard in health class rather than history class. And he blurted out, give me puberty or give me death. And sure enough, he died right there on the stage. I mean, he just literally wilted right there. We're afraid of all kinds of things or lots of fears that we have. But no matter what fear you may have, the Bible says that fear will vanish when you trust in the God who is your refuge, strength and ever present help in time of trouble. Now in this context, the fear is the fear of natural forces. Did you see that in verses two and three? The Psalmist says, therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea. You know, that's earthquakes, tsunamis, things like that. Verse three, though it's waters roar and foam, hurricanes and flooding and the mountains quake with their surging that's volcanoes. Even if all those things would happen, we will not fear if we recognize God as our refuge and strength and ever present help in time of trouble. Even fear of natural disasters and we have seen the awesome destructive power of natural disasters in our world in the last year, haven't we? The tsunami in Southeast Asia, which took a couple hundred thousand lives, the hurricanes and the southern part of our country, which devastated much of our southern coast, the earthquake in Pakistan, which took dozens of thousands of lives, and we've seen the awful destructive forces of nature and how fearful they can be. But I want you to see that what the Psalmist is talking about is something on a greater scale even than that. He's not talking about local disasters, he's talking about the whole world being consumed in this. He's talking about the whole world giving away, the whole earth giving away, all the mountains falling into the heart of the sea, all the oceans roaring and foaming, all the mountains quaking with the surging. Some commentators refer to this as an uncreation in the sense that all of creation is reversed and it's like the whole world is going nuts and the whole world is going crazy with natural disasters all at the same time. Even if that would happen, he says, we will not fear. Now how does that apply to you and me? I think it applies this way when your whole world seems to be caving in. When everything seems to be coming in on you and your whole world is caving in and life as you know it will never be the same. Fear can be driven out by trusting in God's protection. When infidelity has blown your family apart, when a terminal disease has its icy grips around your heart, when a loved one dies and leaves you devastated, I mean when life is never going to be the same for you again. When your world caves in, when the whole world seems to come in on you, fear can be driven away by trusting in his protection. That is the protection that makes us secure in the storm. But the psalmist goes on in this song to declare that not only are we secure in his protection, we are also secure in his presence. In verses 4 through 7 he talks about the presence of God. Now in verses 4 through 6 the actual second stands of the hymn, he tells us about the presence of God. And he describes the presence of God in four or five different word pictures. Let's just read them and then we'll go back and see what they're talking about. Verse 4. There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy place where the most high dwells, God is within her, she will not fall. God will help her at break of day. Nations are in uproar, kingdoms fall, he lifts his voice, the earth melts. Now in several word pictures the psalmist describes what the presence of God is like. He says first of all that it is like rivers, he says there is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, city of God's Jerusalem. He says there is a river whose streams, the word means irrigation ditches. So unlike the foaming, roaring, destructive waters in verses 2 and 3, these waters are waters that bring refreshing, that bring sustenance, that bring blessing and rejoicing. This is a river that has irrigation streams off of it, that bring great blessing to the land. Now the only thing is Jerusalem doesn't have a river, it has no rivers. So obviously the psalmist is speaking symbolically. He is basically talking about the streams that come from God that provide us with refreshing and sustaining blessing. Let me give you a couple of other examples in the scriptures of what this means. There is a precedent for this symbolic use of the river which Jerusalem doesn't have a literal river. There is a precedent for this in Psalm 36. In Psalm 36 and verse 8 the psalmist is talking about all the blessings that we get from God and he says they feast on the abode. If you feast on the abundance of your house you give them drink from your river of the lights. It is not talking about a literal house, a literal feast, not talking about a literal river, it is simply saying these are like, this is what the blessings of God are like. It is like sitting down at a feast and having more than enough to sustain you. It is like wanting a drink of water and finding a river, having more than enough to sustain you and bless you and be an encouragement to you. That is what the blessings of God are like. So the presence of God is described as a river. By the way the New Testament describes the presence of God in us in terms of a river, spring of water, streams of water from within. Jesus talked about that in John chapter 7 when he said whoever believes in me as the scripture has said streams of living water will flow from within him. By this he meant the spirit whom those who believed in him were later to receive. So what the Bible teaches is that God's presence in us in the person of the Holy Spirit is like a continual stream of water that is living water, that means it continually flowing. Continual stream of water that we can drink from to find our parts, souls, satisfied. No matter what the crisis is, God's presence is with you in the person of His Holy Spirit to give you a constant stream of water to sustain you and strengthen you for that crisis. So we can trust His presence. His presence is also likened in verse 4 to a holy place. He says the holy place where the most high dwells. Obviously that's speaking about the tabernacle or the temple. The place where Israel came together to worship and the holy place inside the temple courts was the place where God literally manifested His presence among His people by coming down in a visible way that they could see with smoke and fire. And His presence, the Shakine of glory, would be in the holy place in the temple and God was making His presence known. Now we don't have that today in the same way because there's a different temple than what there was in the Old Testament. We don't need a literal building to manifest or symbolize the presence of God. And we're all thankful that we have buildings like this to gather together, to worship God, to hear instruction from His Word. But we don't need a building for God to manifest His presence because you know where the temple of God is today? It's you, right here. Paul says that in 1 Corinthians chapter 6, when he says, do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have received from God and he goes on to exhort us to glorify God in our bodies because our body is the new temple of the Holy Spirit. It's not a building anymore, it's not a holy place inside of building. It's our own bodies where the Holy Spirit dwells. So what he's saying is the presence of God is always with you because when you trust Christ as your Savior, the Holy Spirit comes into indowell you to maintain an abiding presence with you at all times. So again, we're reminded of the presence of God. He's like a river from within, refreshing water. He's like a temple. He dwells within us by His Spirit. Notice the next word or phrase that describes His presence. Verse 5, God is within her. She will not fall. Now again, as a promise to the city of Jerusalem, God is within her. God didn't dwells Jerusalem in a special way. Now tragically, that would later come to be taken by the Israelites as kind of a magic potion to keep them from any enemy ever taking the city of Jerusalem. And the prophet Jeremiah had to warn the people, don't count on the fact that you're living in Jerusalem and it has the temple for protection against the Babylonians because you've been disobedient to God. So that ought to teach us something. Yes, God is within us too, but it doesn't mean that we can't fall because His presence is made real to us by our obedience to Him. Don't ever think that just because you're a Christian, you can live any way you want to and life will turn out great. If you mess up, if you start becoming disobedient to God, you're going to reap the rewards of your own actions. Whatsoever man so's, that surely also reap. But God's protection through His presence with us is manifested when we are obedient to Him. He is within us and we will not fall as we obey Him and His Word. Notice the next phrase, verse 5, God will help her at break of day. Now daybreak as when armies got busy. There wasn't much night warfare in Bible times. They didn't have the equipment to do that with, the equipment to see the enemy and so forth. So most of the time battles would begin with the breaking of the day. And what he's saying here is when the enemy comes at you full force, when the battle starts, I will be there. I will be there to protect you. So God's presence is there when the crisis is at its worst, when the enemy attacks with a full frontal assault, God is there. And then notice verse 6, one more, expression of His presence. Nations are in uproar, kingdoms fall, which indicates that nations can be just as chaotic as nature back in verses 2 and 3. Same words are used, uproar and fall. When nations are all bent out of shape against each other, notice at the end of the verse, He lifts His voice, the earth melts. Now there will come a day when that will literally happen. When this earth will be melted by the fervent heat of the judgment of God. That's not what He's talking about here. I don't think He's talking again symbolically about the fact that when God speaks, no other enemy can stand. They just melt away. So God is present with us. He is always present with us. And His presence that is demonstrated in these beautiful word pictures is the same for us as it was for Israel. We can always count on God being with us and in us, at all times, God's presence is there. Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a great German writer and theologian and pastor. He ministered in a very chaotic time in Germany's history. The 20s, 30s, 40s when Nazi party became the ruling party. And there was so much that was going on there. Bonhoeffer is still considered one of the great writers in the area of discipleship and Christian living today. Some of his books are, they seem even better today than they were back when he wrote the great, great man of God. In 1935, he had taken a pastorate in London to get out of Germany. And he felt convicted about the fact that he had abandoned his people. So he went back to Germany, came to the States for a short time in 1939, went right back to Germany in the depth of the crisis that was going on there. He became the, not only a pastor there, but also the president of a seminary in Germany. And he was arrested for his faith and put in prison. A prison for Dietrich Bonhoeffer and those who were with him was not a very pretty place. It was not a place where you were ever expected to receive any help or be rehabilitated in any way. It was a place where you were just locked away to die. And he was in prison for five or more years. The prisoners were not allowed to talk to each other. And they developed an intricate system of tapping on the walls, which would communicate messages. And the message they had for God with us was three quick taps on the wall. God with us. God with us. And they would constantly encourage one another that way. On April the 6th, 1945, Bonhoeffer was led from his cell to the gallows where he would be hung. And everybody else in that prison was clanging on their walls. Bonhoeffer went to his death knowing that the encouragement of those other prisoners was strengthening him. God is with you, Dietrich. God is with you. And it doesn't matter what kind of crisis you go through, even if you are facing death, even an unjust death. Whatever may happen to you, God is with you. We can trust His presence. That's the presence of God. Described beautifully in the Scriptures. But then in the chorus of this song in verse 7, the psalmist wants us to know a little bit more about the God who is present. He wants us not only to revel in the presence of God, but he wants us to know what you know a little bit about the God who is present. Here he is. He is described in verse 7 in two ways. The Lord Almighty is with us. That's a great expression. Great name for God. Lord Almighty. God Almighty. Literally it's the Lord of hosts and the hosts that are described here, it's an army. It's a word for army. The hosts that are described here are no doubt as in other places in the Old Testament, angelic hosts. So he's the Lord of the angel armies. That's what it really means. In fact, if you have a copy of the message, Eugene Peterson's translation which is in very, very modern English, he translates this Hebrew word this way. Yahweh, sabah, the Lord of hosts, he translates the Lord of the angel armies. That's exactly what it means. He commands the angel armies. By the way, Martin Luther composed his great hymn. The mighty fortresses are God from this psalm. And some of you have sung that Psalm for years and stumbled across that word. Lord sabah oath is his name. It's taken right out of this verse. It means the Lord of the angel armies. He commands the armies of heaven. That's the God who is with us. He has the armies of heaven at his disposal, all of the angels. And you know the Bible does talk about the fact that angels do minister to us. They are ministering spirits sent by God to help us. Psalm 104 and Hebrews 114. Both talk about that. That the angels sometimes minister to us. In times of great crisis, God brings that army to surround us. I know that happens. I don't always know how to explain that, but I know that it happens. The Lord of the angel armies is sometimes present through the ministering angels that he has sent around us. Some of you have been around loved ones when they pass from this life into eternity into the presence of God. And maybe you've witnessed this before. I've seen it a number of times in those who are with folks who are dying. See this quite often for believers where there is a sense that that person see something the rest of us can't see. They are aware of something in the room that the rest of us don't see. Now I'm not trying to be spookier mystical here. I believe that at times like that, God may very well give dying grace in the form of allowing that person to see that he's going to be transported directly into the presence of God. The angels are there in that room. I really think that may happen. I know Jim has experienced this a lot too. He's with people who are in the hospital and sick and dying. I remember being with just recently Jay Harvey. Just a couple days before he died and Jay was not able to communicate very much at that time, but very, very clearly from his hospital bed there in his home. He would look beyond everybody else and focus on something and he would reach up like that. I don't know what he was doing except I think maybe Jay was seeing those angel hosts that God had sent to assure him that everything was okay. That dying grace, that peace, that many people experience at a time of death. I think it's attributed to the fact that the God who is with them is God Almighty. Lord, look Lord of the armies, angel armies. He is with them in those kinds of crises. John Patton and his wife were missionaries early on way many years ago in the islands of the Pacific, specifically New Hebrides Island. They were graduates of Moody Bible Institute. When we went off to the mission field, books were written about them now. They're great missionary heroes, but the story is told of early on in their ministry. When nobody else from the Western world was working in that part of the world, they had built them a place to live and were trying to reach out to the tribes in their area. One night, a whole group of men from one of the tribes surrounded their house with torches and they just knew that their intent was to burn down their house and kill the missionaries. The Pattons prayed all through the night they prayed for God's protection. When the sun rose the next morning, they looked outside, they hadn't heard anything, they looked outside and saw that nobody was there. Years later, the chief of that tribe came to know Christ as his Savior. One day, when John Patton was talking with that chief, he asked him, he said, you know, many years ago, a bunch of your warriors surrounded our house, why didn't you do anything? The chief said, well, who were all those men you had with you? Patton said, there was nobody with us, it was just me and my wife in the house. We were praying for God's protection and the chief insisted that they saw up to 100 men surrounding that house, all with drawn swords, strong, large, fearsome-looking men. That's the reason they fled. They were not going to bother the missionary. Now, you know, I'm convinced those kind of things happen. I'm not trying to get real mystical here, but I'm convinced sometimes God demonstrates His presence as Lord of the Angel Armies. And His presence through His ministering spirits is very real sometimes. Now, please don't go out looking for angels and say, oh, I saw Angel yesterday. Don't take it that way. Don't go crazy on me here. But I do believe that sometimes God in crisis situations does manifest His presence in ways that are very real, very powerful. But not only is God Almighty, the Lord of the Angel Armies, notice in verse 7, He also is the God of Jacob. The God of Jacob is our fortress. Now, if the Lord Almighty is intended to show us that the God who is present is the one who rules the angels, then the God of Jacob is intended to remind us that the one who is present with us is the one who can change anybody's life. Now, if anybody's life needed changing, it was Jacob's. You read the story of Jacob in the book of Genesis, verses 25 through 50. It's the mother of all soap operas. It really is. I mean, you read the stuff that goes on in Jacob's life. It's wild. I mean, Jacob deceives his brother, or deceives his father into thinking that he is his brother so he can steal the birthright from him, which was a special blessing to the oldest son. Jacob wasn't the oldest son, but he steals the birthright. And because of that, his brother gets so hop and mad at him that he wants to kill him and Jacob has to run away from home. So Jacob finds himself back in the area where his parents grew up and he's working for a man named Laban. And he makes a deal with him. I worked for him for seven years, give me one of your daughters as my wife. And he had his eye on Rachel. She was a good looking one. But when he got married and they had all these thick veils and stuff they wore the next morning, the veil is lifted and there's her ugly sister. Leah, I mean, this is the mother of all soap operas, believe me. And so he continues to work for Rachel. And finally, he works 20 years for Laban gets his wages changed a bunch of times, gets cheated out of a bunch of stuff. Finally decides he's going to leave in the middle of the night. Pages family, get his stuff, get out of there. And so he does. He gets out of there. And Laban chases him, catches up with him. And Jacob thinks he's going to kill him, but they finally make a peace treaty and decide to go their separate ways. And then Jacob's got to face the old enemy of his brother who he thinks still hates him enough to want to kill him. And as he's getting ready to get back into his home country, he gets word that your brother, Esau's coming and he's got 400 men with him. Now that doesn't sound like a welcoming party to Jacob. And so he starts sending all these gifts to his brother to try to pacify him and help smooth things over. And it's that very night that God sends an angel to do battle with Jacob. And Jacob's life is a battle with Jacob. And Jacob's life is a battle with Jacob. And Jacob's name is changed from Jacob, which means to his savior, which means to prince with God. And from that day on, Jacob's life would not be the same. God changed his life. I mean a life that really needed to be changed. God changed it. You know, the God who is with us is the God who can change your life, no matter what kind of past you've got. No matter what you've done, no matter what's happened to you, no matter how, hey, why are your life has been. God can change your life. He's that strong. He's big enough to do that. And so that's the God who is with us, the God who is present. You know, we can trust the presence of God. But we can also trust thirdly his power. And the psalmist in the third stanza goes on to talk about the power of God. Look at this with me, if you will, please. Verses 8 and 9 describe his power in the world. Come and see the works of the Lord, the desolations he has brought on the earth. He makes wars cease to the ends of the earth. He breaks the boat, shatters the spear, burns the shields with fire. Now this is not just a local deliverance of Judah's army from some other invading army. This is a worldwide deliverance. Did you notice the phrases there? The works of the Lord, the desolations he has brought on the earth, makes wars to cease to the ends of the earth. I think this is looking ahead to the time when Jesus Christ will come back and put an end to all war. And all of man's armies will be defeated and Jesus Christ will set up his own kingdom on this earth. I think it's kind of a glimpse forward to that time, to the time of the millennial kingdom, the reign of Christ on this earth. You know, one of the things we can take comfort in in God's power is that in the end we know He wins. Really is true, in the end He wins. Whatever it may look like at any particular point in earth's history, in the end God wins. I love Psalm 2. We didn't include it in this series of favorite Psalms, but it's one of my favorites and maybe someday we'll get to it. Psalm 2, look at what God says about this. Why do the nations conspire and the people's plot in vain, the kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers gather together against the Lord and against His anointed one? Let us break their chains, they say, and throw off their fetters. This is the nations in tumult, in warfare, trying to gain supremacy on their own, do away with God, with God, what God says, God's plan for history, all of that. Let's forget, we want to be number one, the nations of the world who tried to conquer the world have always felt that way. Now how does God feel about that? Look at the next three verses. The one enthroned in heaven laughs. The Lord scoffs at them. Then he rebukes them in his anger and terrifies them in his wrath, saying, I have installed my king on Zion, my holy hill. And that's a direct prophecy of when Jesus is placed as king and Jerusalem in the millennium. Okay, now here's the point of that passage. All the nations of the world can think they're superpowers or they've got this or that big armies can conquer anybody and God just looks down to the last. He just looks, he laughs at that. He scoffs at that and someday he will show them that they are no match for his power because he will set his own king in Zion, in Jerusalem. It's kind of like an ant crawling up out of an ant hill and saying, I think I'll overthrow the army of the United States of America. We kind of laugh at that. Poor old ant. What does he know? God looks at us and laughs and scoffs at our great power. His power is so awesome. There's nothing on this earth to compare to it. His power in the world, but notice verse 10, his power in our hearts as well. Verse 10, be still and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations. I will be exalted in the earth. Now there are several ways that the Psalmists could have said, be still. At least four different Hebrew words could communicate that concept of be still, but they all have a different slant in meaning. The word used here is the word to rebuke a troubled and restless world. The idea is really kind of a military one or a forceful one. It would be, we could translate it something like this. Seize and desist, or we could even use the military term. Attention. In other words, the idea is stop what you're doing, be quiet and listen to who the real power is in this universe. And that's God. All these nations conspiring together, trying to make war and all of that. And God says, stop and know who God really is. It's the idea of a parent trying to separate two kids who are fighting or a teacher trying to separate kids on the playground who've been fighting. And basically you say stop and listen to me. Well that's what God is saying here. Stop all your fighting and all of your pressuring to try to get stuff done and climb the ladder to be number one. Stop all that and listen to me. I am God. But the same thing is true in our hearts. It's not really the idea of, you know, become, be quiet. It's the idea of stop, stop your frantic working to try to get everything worked out to try to solve your own crisis. Stop your frantic worrying and fretting about how everything is going to work out. Stop. Be quiet. Be still. And listen to the one who is God. I like to think of it in this way because the result of it is that God has exalted among the nations. I will be exalted in the earth. I kind of like to think of it this way. It's a tight basketball game. One team has been ahead most of the game and they've frittered away their lead and they're playing sloppy and the other teams catching up and the coach calls a timeout. He gets the players over on the bench and the players are bickering at one another because somebody didn't pass him the ball or didn't make the right shot or didn't follow the play through like they were supposed to. They're fussing at the refs and the coach sits them down and says stop. Be still. I'm a coach. Now I'm going to draw out a play. If you do what I say, you will win this game. So they're listening. They're looking at him. They go out on the court. They execute exactly the play that is drawn out and they win the game and the coach gets carried off on their shoulders. That's the idea behind the word exalt to lift up and it's almost as though if we would just stop and let God demonstrate his power, then everybody would see him being carried off the court and the attention the glory would go to him rather than us. But when we are involved trying to work out our own schemes and solve our own crises and we're all frantic and worrying and fretting about trying to get it done. We're not stopping and letting God be God and letting him demonstrate his own power. And then he ends with that chorus once again in verse 11. The Lord Almighty is with us. The God of Jacob is our fortress. Say, think about that. Is God big enough to deal with world crises? Is God big enough to solve problems in the Middle East, in the far East, in South America, in the United States? Is God big enough to deal with world crises? The question in itself is a foolish question. Yes, he's big enough. Is God big enough to deal with the crisis in your life, whatever it may be? Financial, work related, personal, family related, health related, whatever it is? Is God big enough? Yes. Yes. A thousand times, yes, he's big enough to handle the crisis in your life. Will we trust and be secure, find our security in his protection, in his presence, in his power? That's the real question. I referenced earlier in this message, Martin Luther's great hymn, a mighty fortress is our God. He wrote that hymn based on this chapter. Took the thoughts out of this chapter, put them into a hymn that he wrote in the early 1500s. It's an old hymn, some of the language is old, but it still speaks just as powerfully to us today. And I want to use it to summarize this chapter in what it says. A mighty fortress is our God, a bullwork never failing, our helper he amid the flood of mortal ills prevailing. For still our ancient foe doth seek to work us woe, his craft and power are great and armed with cruel hate on earth is not his equal. Did we in our own strength confide our striving would be losing exactly what Salvation is talking about. We're not the right man, capital M, we're not the right man on our side, the man of God's own choosing. Just ask who that may be, Christ Jesus, it is He. Lord, sabbath oath his name from age to age the same, and he must win the battle. And though the world with devils filled should threaten to undo us, we will not fear. For God has willed his truth to triumph through us. The Prince of Darkness grim, we tremble not for him. His rage we can endure for low his doom is sure one little word shall felt him. That word above all earthly powers, no thanks to them abidedeth, the spirit and the gifts are ours through him who with us, sideeth, let goods and kindred go. This mortal life also, the body they may kill, God's truth abidedeth still. His kingdom is forever. Let's pray. Father, we are grateful to you that you are a God who can be trusted. You are a God who has promised us protection. You've promised us your presence. You've promised us your power. Help us to trust you and to allow you to demonstrate that you are God that you are exalted in all the earth. We are to help us to stop our frantic efforts at trying to solve our own crisis. Help us to trust you. Give us wisdom to do what we can. We are to help us to trust you through it all. Now Lord, I pray especially for any who may be here this morning who have never realized their need of Jesus as their Savior, help them to see that they are facing the greatest crisis of all time and eternity, death apart from you. I pray that they would realize as they trust you, protection you offer in the cross that they can be saved. May they make that decision even today. In Jesus' name, amen.