Sermons

. In Times of Disaster (1-5) In the past couple of years, there has been an increase in interest and rise in fascination with our nation’s defenses. Some people are interested in our troops’ morale and how prepared and motivated they are. Others look at the powerful weaponry that we have created to defend ourselves. One place that people look to as a symbol of America’s power to defend itself is the air defense command center located within Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado. Our facilities there are located under 2000 feet of granite. The people who work there probably feel safe from harm. As Christians, we are also safe from harm. As we look at Psalm 46 today, we will see that God is our refuge and strength. He is our refuge and strength in times of disaster, and also during times of opposition. The psalm starts off with a statement of faith in God’s help. The psalmist says, “God is our refuge and strength.” Before anything else is mentioned, the psalmist points out that God’s people are to remember who God is and what he has done for them. God is the refuge of his people, the place for them to go when they feel threatened. He is their strength, the one who gives them power to carry out their work and serve him. This was the faith of God’s Old Testament people. They believed that God was their refuge and strength. This led them to trust God when disaster struck. And God’s Old Testament people, like all other people, had their share of disaster. The verses of our psalm talk about the earth itself falling away under their feet and the heights of the mountains falling into the deepest part of the sea. God’s people suffered through earthquakes. And not only did the land rise and fall against them, but there were disasters involving water too. Verse 3 describes waters that roared and were all foamy from being stirred up. It brings to mind some of the storms that Jesus’ disciples faced on the Sea of Galilee. Disasters involving water were the most serious kind for God’s people. The water supply was the source of life for ancient cities. Everything that was necessary for life had some connection to the water. Water was used for bathing and sanitation. Water was essential for growing food and conducting trade. Any disaster involving the water supply was life threatening. Since water was so crucial, God used some of those disasters as judgments on his unbelieving people. There were times when God told his people exactly why they were suffering a disaster. When Moses spoke to the children of Israel as they were about to enter the Promised Land, he told them that God would withhold rain if they broke the covenant with God. And God held to that promise of judgment. During Elijah’s time, King Ahab had traded worship of the true God for false gods. God told Elijah to pronounce a judgment of drought and famine because of the sin of idol worship. And yet the psalmist gives the reason for God’s people to be at peace. Even when there were natural disasters and all sorts of chaos, God’s people would be at peace. Compared to all the rough and raging waters of chaos in the rest of the world, the water that spiritually sustains the city of God would be calm and flowing normally. It’s important to remember what is being said with this picture language. The city of God is where God dwells, where he lives. God’s dwelling place is with his people. So the city of God is his church. This comparison is also made in Revelation where it speaks about a new Jerusalem. (Ch. 21) The psalmist is reminding us that even in the face of the worst physical hardship, God will spiritually sustain his people. He gives them an even greater sense of protection than we would feel in a bunker under 2000 feet of granite. Spiritually speaking, God is the water of his people. He provides everything that they need to have and maintain life. The ultimate gift of life and peace that God promised his people was the Messiah. God’s people knew that when the Messiah came he was going to rescue them. Although there were dark periods in the history of God’s church, God always remained with his church. That’s why the psalmist can say in verse 5, “God is in the midst of it. It will not fall. God will help it at the lights of the morning.” We also confess that God is our refuge and strength. We share that faith with God’s Old Testament people. We know that we can trust God when disasters occur in our lives. He may spare us like he spared one of our congregations in Arizona from a wildfire. But he may not. He might allow us to lose our job and with it our financial stability. He may allow our health to fail, contracting something as life-threatening as cancer. While God may not come to you or me personally in a dream to tell us that a particular hardship in our lives is a judgment for a particular sin, God still uses those disasters to call us to repentance through his Word. The cause of all hardship and suffering in the world is sin. And we are not free from blame. We are all generous contributors to the load of sin that Jesus bore on the cross. When trouble or hardship comes into our lives, we are tempted to find comfort and strength somewhere other than God’s Word. When we do that, we’re telling God that the help he is offering is not enough, that he’s not powerful enough to deal with our problems. God had to sacrifice his own son to compensate for everything that we as human beings had done. But as citizens of the city of God, we are at peace. God has made his dwelling among us. Just as he did for his Old Testament people, he sustains our spiritual life like a clear, flowing stream of life. God’s ultimate gift of life and peace was his son Jesus, whom he had promised to send to his people long ago. God kept his promise of sending a Savior so that our lives would be safe with him. Whenever Satan attacks us and tries to get us to doubt God’s protection or worry about our lives, we can be sure of God’s protection. God promises that the church, his people, will not fall. As members of the city of God, we can look forward to the new heaven and new earth, because our dwelling place is with the Lord. II. In Times of Opposition (6-11) God is also a refuge and strength for his people in times of opposition. As a nation, the children of Israel suffered opposition from all sorts of other nations. Verse 6 describes the rise and fall of nations, the political upheaval that God’s people would undergo. The kingdom of Israel itself had its rise during David and Solomon and its decline after the split into two kingdoms. The history of the nation of Israel is full of invading powers like Babylon and Rome coming in to take over the land, only to be overthrown by the next conquering nation. Just like the disasters that God allowed to happen to his people, God used this opposition as a judgment for sin. As a judgment on the northern kingdom of Israel, God sent the nation of Assyria to conquer them and take them away into captivity. Later God sent the Babylonians to conquer the southern kingdom of Judah and take its people away into captivity. Yet neither the Assyrians nor the Babylonians escaped God’s judgment either. They themselves were eventually conquered by other nations. The psalmist makes it clear that God is bringing this judgment on anyone who rebels against him. These judgments are the works of the Lord that our attention is drawn to in verse 8. God tells all people to be still and stop rebelling against him because they have no chance of succeeding. God is in complete control. He has the power to completely destroy a nation’s ability to wage war, whether in aggression or self-defense. God promises that he will be exalted over all things, especially when people try to raise themselves up by putting other people down. But even in the midst of the rise and fall of nations, even as a judgment from God, his people still had hope. God not only tells those rebelling against him to be still, but also says to his people, “Relax. You have nothing to worry about. I am in control of all things.” God’s people don’t need to worry about anything because God, who is over everything, is working all things out for their spiritual good. God is the Protector of his people. He gave them the surest defense against sin and the devil by promising a Deliverer. It was this Deliverer that the Reformers looked to during their time of opposition. They were physically attacked for their faith. Martin Luther, among others, had a price on his head. Years after the Reformation, war raged in Europe and many believers suffered for their faith. The Reformers faced a tremendous amount of spiritual opposition, being the objects of ridicule and scorn in many places throughout the world. Yet God was still their refuge and strength. They knew that they were residents of the city of God, and that God would not allow his church to fall. When they were pressed in on all sides and were afraid the Gospel might be lost, they knew that God was their protector and fortress. That conviction of faith is what led Martin Luther to write the hymn, “A Mighty Fortress.” They took tremendous comfort in the fact that the same God who promised a Savior and sent a Savior was the same God who was watching over them. And it’s the same God who watches over us. We also face opposition in our lives as Christians. Many people would like to blame Christianity for some of the political unrest in our world’s history. Some of the hostility and tension in the world today and even in our country are directed against Christians. In other parts of the world, people are openly persecuted for their faith in Jesus Christ. All of this is rebellion against God. But before we do any finger-pointing, we must consider our own rebellion against God. Whenever we put someone down with our words or try to get ahead by stepping on other people, we rebel against a God who is in control of all things. We have no chance of succeeding. At others times we fail to look to God for protection during times of opposition. But even though we sin in these ways, we have hope in times of opposition. God is still our refuge and strength. We don’t need to worry about anything because God, who is over everything, is working all things out for our spiritual good. God is our Protector. He gave us the surest defense against sin and the devil by sending a Deliverer to save us from our sin. There are many places where we feel safe. But even if there were no place on earth where we felt safe, we know that we are safe because God is in control of all things. We know that we are safe because God saved us. He gave the precious gift of life. He reassures us and tells us to rest our worried hearts because he is God over all things. May he always be our refuge and strength. Amen