Will you please turn to Psalm 46? We will read the whole psalm.
To the chief Musician; of the sons of Korah; set to Alamoth. A Song.
God is our refuge and strength,
A very present help in trouble.
Therefore will we not fear, though the earth do change,
And though the mountains be moved in the heart of the seas;
Though the waters thereof roar and foam,
Though the mountains tremble with the swelling thereof. Selah.There is a river, the streams whereof make glad the city of God,
The holy place of the tabernacles of the Most High.
God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved:
God will help her, and that right early.
The nations raged, the kingdoms were moved:
He uttered His voice, the earth melted.
The Lord of hosts is with us;
The God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah.Come, behold the works of the Lord,
What desolations He hath made in the earth.
He maketh wars to cease unto the end of the earth;
He breaketh the bow, and cutteth the spear in sunder;
He burneth the chariots in the fire.
Be still, and know that I am God:
I will be exalted among the nations,
I will be exalted in the earth.
The Lord of hosts is with us;
The God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah.
May we look to the Lord.
Our heavenly Father, how we praise and thank Thee that we are privileged to remember and to worship our Lord this morning. We do praise and thank Thee, knowing that we are in Thy presence and Thou art with us.
We only ask at this moment that there may be no veil upon our hearts, that we may truly behold Thee, the glory of the Lord with unveiled face, that we may be transformed from glory to glory according to His image, even as by the Lord the Spirit. So we just present ourselves to Thee for Thy working this morning. In Thy precious name. Amen.
Lately, we have been considering together these songs of the sons of Korah. As you remember, the sons of Korah were those who were spared from destruction when Korah and his party were swallowed up alive into the earth.
These sons who were spared knew the mercy of the Lord. They had gone through deep experiences, and these may be called the sons of the cross. Out of their deep experience, they became singers in the house of God. They knew how to sing from the fullness of their hearts.
Psalm 46 is another psalm of the sons of Korah. Of course, we mentioned before that they may not have been the people who wrote these psalms; they might or they might not. But at least they were those who sang these psalms in the house of God.
This psalm is set to Alamoth. The word Alamoth means virgin. So probably this psalm is to be sung with high notes, because it is a song of victory, a song of great rejoicing.
In the preceding Psalm 45:14, we read:
She shall be led unto the king in broidered work:
The virgins her companions that follow her
Shall be brought unto Thee.
In Psalm 45, we find the marriage of the King and the Queen. It typifies the marriage union of Christ and His Church. The virgins here speak of believers as individuals. When we look at believers individually, they are virgins; but when we look at believers collectively, they are the Queen.
So, following the preceding psalm, we have this psalm to be sung with virgin voices. In other words, these virgins are to sing the victory of the Lord.
We know that Scripture never speaks of the people of this world as virgins, because, so far as spiritual sense is concerned, people in this world are considered before God as adulterers and adulteresses, defiled by this world system. Only those who are redeemed of the Lord are virgins, because they are washed by the precious blood of the Lamb, and they are as virgins unto God.
You remember Paul said in 2 Corinthians 11 that he was jealous over the believers with a godly jealousy. He had espoused them as a virgin to one man, which is Christ. And he said that he feared lest the enemy should entice them away from the simplicity that is in Christ.
So we who are the redeemed of the Lord, who are purchased by the blood, are virgins in God’s sight. It is for us to keep our virginity, our chastity, before God. We have been espoused to Christ. We are waiting for Him. We are waiting for that day when there will be that marriage union.
But before that day comes, we as virgins must keep our virginity, our chastity, to the Lord. Yet we know it is not an easy task. The enemy, the world, and the flesh—everything tries to corrupt us and destroy our chastity toward God.
But thank God, through it all, we find that God is able to keep us until the day of Christ. So this is the background of this psalm. Out of every trouble, out of all kinds of temptations, through the tempest and the rolling sea, God is able to keep those who are His until that day. Therefore, it is sung as a song of victory.
This psalm is considered Luther’s psalm. We know Martin Luther, the great reformer, and how Luther and his companions were willing to sacrifice their lives for the work of God in the Reformation.
Now, we may think that Luther and his companions certainly knew no fear and had no time of despair, for certainly they were lion-hearted. But if we know human beings, Luther and his companions, when they were faced with all these problems, difficulties, trials, and persecutions at the time of the Reformation, sometimes their hearts grew faint.
Luther was said to have told his companion Melanchthon—who was a younger man than Luther and the theologian of the Reformation—“Let us sing Psalm 46.” Together they would sing this psalm.
Luther had a special translation. Of course, it was in German, but it has been translated into English. I will read two stanzas of it because it gives you a feeling of what it was like when Luther and Melanchthon sang Psalm 46:
A sure stronghold our God is He,
A timely shield and weapon;
Our help He’ll be and set us free
From every ill can happen.And were the world with devils filled,
All eager to devour us,
Our souls to fear shall little yield;
They cannot overpower us.
I repeat it:
A sure stronghold our God is He,
A timely shield and weapon;
Our help He’ll be and set us free
From every ill can happen.And were the world with devils filled,
All eager to devour us,
Our souls to fear shall little yield;
They cannot overpower us.
As they sang, their spirits were lifted, and they were able to go on with God’s work of Reformation.
This psalm is divided into three parts, and you can readily see it because all three parts end with a Selah. As we mentioned before, Selah means a pause, a rest. But it is not a passive thing; it is a very active pause and rest.
Why? Because it is to be quiet for a time, to meditate upon what has been sung before, to gather up everything of the past, and to strive to strike a higher note as you begin. So it is not a passive pause; it is a very active rest.
The first part, from Psalm 46:1-3, speaks of the tempest. The second part, from Psalm 46:4-7, speaks of the secret. The last part, from Psalm 46:8-11, speaks of the calm, or victory.
The virgins begin to sing this psalm with a declaration. It is a declaration of their faith, of their full confidence in God.
God is our refuge and strength,
A very present help in trouble.
God is our refuge. In order to understand this, we have to go back to the historical background.
Before the children of Israel arrived in the Promised Land, God commanded Moses that, after the children of Israel arrived in Canaan, they should set apart cities of refuge: three cities on the east side of the Jordan and three cities on the west side of the Jordan, altogether six cities of refuge.
These cities of refuge were taken from the cities that were given to the Levites, because they had no inheritance among their brethren; the Lord was their inheritance. But they were given these cities and fields so that they could live there and cultivate the ground and make their living.
If you read Numbers 35, you will find that these cities of refuge were set apart for those who might kill people unintentionally.
If a person should kill another person intentionally, according to the law, it was life for life. But sometimes there were accidents. For instance, a person might be cutting down a tree, and as he was cutting it, perhaps the axe head would fly off and kill somebody. Now, he did not do that intentionally.
Because of that, God said such people could flee to these cities of refuge before the avenger of blood caught up with them. When he fled into the city of refuge, the assembly would judge between him and the avenger. If it was proven that it was without intention, then his life was to be saved.
He was to remain in the city of refuge until the high priest died. Then he could go back to his own inheritance. But if, before the high priest died, he left the city of refuge and was found by the avenger of blood, he would be killed. That was the ordinance of the Old Testament.
Here the psalmist says, “God is our refuge.” In a sense, we are chased by our enemies: the world, Satan—the god of this world—and the flesh. All these are our enemies. They try to devour us. They try to defile us as virgins.
When we are surrounded by all these evil forces, they try to ensnare us, tempt us, lead us astray, defile us, and make us impure toward our Lord. What can we do?
We do not have the strength to resist these temptations. We do not have the power to fight against the world. We do not have the power to fight against Satan, the god of this world. How can we keep our chastity before God?
There is one way: we must flee to the city of refuge. Our city of refuge is Christ. We must flee to Christ, because if we flee to Christ, then we are safe, secure, and protected.
Colossians 3 says that our life is hid with Christ in God. So far as God is concerned, and so far as the redemptive work of Christ is concerned, we are in Christ. Our life is hid with Christ in God. We are in Christ, and because we are in Christ, we are protected.
But so far as our experience is concerned, sometimes we are abiding in Christ and sometimes we do not abide in Christ. Brothers and sisters, we need to see that truth has two sides.
On the one side is the objective truth: that which Christ has accomplished for us on Calvary’s cross. It is done. It never changes. It is eternal. We are in Christ. By God, ye are in Christ. Our life is hid with Christ in God. Therefore, nothing can touch us. This is our position.
But truth has another side, which is our subjective experience. So far as our subjective experience is concerned, there is always that word in. We are in Christ positionally, but conditionally, we can either abide in Christ or sometimes we may not abide in Him.
To abide simply means to make our home in Him. Sometimes we make our home in Christ; sometimes we wander. When we wander, then we lose the protection. When we run away from Christ, temptations ensnare us, the world entices us, and even Satan, the enemy, attacks and hurts us.
So it is very essential for us believers, as virgins, to abide in Christ, to stay in the city of refuge. As long as we stay in the city of refuge, we are preserved. This is the preservation of the saints: we are preserved.
In the Old Testament, the high priest would die because he was a human being. But in the New Testament, our High Priest never dies. The Bible says Christ is our High Priest; He ever liveth, making intercession for us, and He is able to save us to the uttermost.
Thank God, we have a city of refuge, and we have a High Priest who never dies. Therefore, it behooves us never to leave the city of refuge. We should stay in the city of refuge forever. We should abide in Christ and never for a moment leave Him.
If we do so, we find that we are saved from the hands of the enemy. This is the way to keep our virginity, our chastity, toward that one Man, Christ. This is the only way.
But here it says, “God is our refuge and strength.” He is not only our refuge, but He is also our strength. Refuge is negative: it keeps us safe and protects us from evil. Strength is positive.
In other words, He is not only our refuge, but He is also our strength. Not only can we hide in Christ and be protected, but in Him and by Him we have the strength to overcome our enemies.
This is what you find in Romans 8. Paul says, “In all these things we are more than conquerors.”
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or anguish, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
Even as it is written,
For Thy sake we are killed all the day long;
We were accounted as sheep for the slaughter.
Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us.
It is true that in this world we have tribulation, but the Lord said, “I have overcome the world.” So through Him who has loved us, we are more than conquerors.
Then in 2 Corinthians 2:14, Paul said:
But thanks be unto God, who always leadeth us in triumph in Christ, and maketh manifest through us the savor of His knowledge in every place.
He always leads us in triumph in Christ.
Philippians 4 says, “I can do all things through Christ who strengtheneth me.” So, brothers and sisters, we find that not only is our Lord Jesus our refuge—we can hide in Him and be protected—but our Lord Jesus is also our strength. Through Him who strengthens us, we can do all things.
On the one hand, we need to learn the lesson that without Him we can do nothing. I think it is a lesson we have to learn. Sometimes we think we can do many things, and we try to do them until we are defeated, until we learn the lesson and come to see that without Him we can do nothing.
But, brothers and sisters, this is only half of the lesson. Without Him we can do nothing. If we only learn that lesson, then we will tend to be very passive. “Well, we can do nothing, so do nothing.” We just sit there and become passive.
But there is the other half of the lesson: “I can do all things through Him who strengthens me,” because He is my strength. So we need to learn the other side of the lesson: I can do all things through Him. He is my strength.
“A very present help in trouble.” God has not promised us that we can go through this world without any distress or without any problem. But He does promise to be a help in distress.
A sister, Annie Johnson Flint, wrote a beautiful hymn. I will quote one verse only. It has three verses, I think, but I will quote one verse to show you what she wrote:
God hath not promised skies always blue,
Flower-strewn pathways all our lives through;
God hath not promised sun without rain,
Joy without sorrow, peace without pain.But God hath promised strength for the day,
Rest for the labor, light for the way,
Grace for the trials, help from above,
Unfailing sympathy, undying love.
God has not promised us skies always blue, flowers strewn all the way of life, sun without rain, joy without sorrow, or peace without pain. He has not promised that. He has not promised that we will have no trouble and no problem.
But He has promised strength for the day—every day. He promises to give us strength for the day, not for tomorrow, but for the day. He has promised rest for the labor, light for the way, and grace for the trial.
He has not promised that there will be no trial, but He said, “My grace is sufficient for thee.” He has promised help from above—help in distress—unfailing sympathy. We have a High Priest who sympathizes with us, and undying love.
So here we find in our Lord Jesus a very present help in trouble. Whenever you need Him, He is there. He is truly our friend. A friend in need is a friend indeed, and He is truly our friend.
This is the declaration of the virgins. They declare that they have found this true in their lives. In all their distresses, they find in God their refuge and their strength, their help, a very present help. What a declaration it is.
Then, following this, they describe the tempest—what they have gone through:
Therefore will we not fear, though the earth do change,
And though the mountains be moved in the heart of the seas;
Though the waters thereof roar and foam,
Though the mountains tremble with the swelling thereof.
There is no need to fear, because we know that He is our refuge and strength. How important it is that, in our life experience, when we go through all these things, we may learn to know Him as our refuge and strength.
Or, to put it another way, we will never learn to appreciate Him as our refuge and strength until we have gone through all these distresses. So thank God for all these disturbances, because through them all we are able to experience Christ in a way that we would never experience Him otherwise.
Then the thought begins to change. From Psalm 46:4-7, it tells us of a secret. Why is it that when the sea is rolling and the waves are rising, when the mountains are shaking, you can have such strength and such peace?
There is a river, the streams whereof make glad the city of God,
The holy place of the tabernacles of the Most High.
God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved:
God will help her, and that right early.
Notice the contrast. Outside, you find the sea foaming and roaring. If you are in the sea when it is foaming and roaring, why, it is a terrible thing.
I do not know if you get seasick, but I have to confess that I get seasick when I think of going on a ship. This literally happened once. I was in England, and that morning we were to cross the English Channel to go to Switzerland for a conference.
At breakfast, when I was thinking of crossing the English Channel, I got seasick. I was so ashamed of myself that I did not dare tell anybody. After breakfast, I slipped out, went to a drugstore, bought some seasick pills, and took them.
Of course, we had to take the train from London to Dover. After the train, we got on the ship, and it was so calm that there was nothing to it. But I got seasick whenever I thought of the sea.
But anyway, you find the sea roaring and foaming, with such turbulence around you. Yet in the city there is a river. There is a contrast. The river is in contrast with the sea.
The sea speaks of turbulence, foaming, and roaring; but the river speaks of a steady, quiet flow.
There is a river, the streams whereof make glad the city of God.
Of course, this river runs from Genesis to Revelation. In the book of Genesis, you find that God planted the garden of Eden, and out of Eden came a river to water the garden. This river divided into four branches, and they literally covered the earth.
This is the river of God. Then you find that when the children of Israel were in the wilderness, there was no water, but a river came out of the smitten rock and followed them all the way through the wilderness for forty years.
Then you remember in Ezekiel 47, the prophet Ezekiel saw in vision the holy city, Jerusalem, and the temple. Out from the throne came a river. It flowed out from the throne by the side of the altar, underneath the threshold of the east gate, and the water began to flow out.
The prophet began to measure the water: one thousand cubits, and the water came to the ankles; another thousand cubits, and it came to the knees; another thousand cubits, and it became waters to swim in.
This water flowed into the Dead Sea and healed the Dead Sea. Then there came all kinds of fish, and along where the water flowed, all kinds of trees came up. In other words, it is a river of life.
Then you remember our Lord Jesus said in the Gospel according to John:
If any man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink.
He that believeth on Me, as the Scripture hath said,
From within him shall flow rivers of living water.
Then you come to Revelation 22, and you find that in the New Jerusalem, the holy city, a river of water of life comes from the throne of God and of the Lamb. It flows through all the city, and wherever the river of water flows, you find the tree of life in the middle of the water, as well as on both sides of the river.
This speaks of the Spirit of life.
Dear brothers and sisters, you find that the metaphor changes. In the first stanza, God is our refuge. In other words, we are in Christ. We are in Christ, and we learn to abide in Christ in order to keep our chastity toward Christ.
But in the second stanza, the metaphor changes. It is not only that we are in Christ; it is Christ in us. The river is in the city.
Now, of course, this speaks collectively, but whether collectively or individually, it is the same. Here you find the virgins are like the city of God. Yet here you find a river in the city.
There is a river. Its streams make glad the city of God. It is in the city. So it is not only that we are in Christ, but it is also Christ in us. It is not only that we abide in Christ, but that He abides in us.
If we abide in Him and He abides in us, then we bear much fruit. Thank God, the Spirit of God is in us, and the Spirit of God is that river of life.
It is always flowing. There is no end to its flow. He is never exhausted. And how satisfying His water is.
So, dear brothers and sisters, we find a secret. The secret is that the Spirit of life is in us, individually and collectively. Because the Spirit of life is in us, Christ abides in us by His Spirit.
As He abides in us, you find there is an inexhaustible supply of life. Life swallows up all death. Life overcomes everything, because it is resurrection life.
God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved.
If God is for us, who can be against us? If He is enough, He is enough, and He is in us. That life overcomes everything. That is why it says, “God will help her, and that right early.”
It is true that He allows the evening, even the dark night, to come. It is true that sometimes we have to go through life experiences as death. But out of death comes resurrection. The night is far gone, and the dawn is coming.
In other words, the dawn speaks of resurrection. At the dawn of the morning, out of death, you will experience the resurrection life of the Lord. That is the secret of overcoming everything.
Then, in the last stanza, we have the calm:
Come, behold the works of the Lord,
What desolations He hath made in the earth.
He maketh wars to cease unto the end of the earth;
He breaketh the bow, and cutteth the spear in sunder;
He burneth the chariots in the fire.
Be still, and know that I am God.
When we are in the tempest, we learn the secret of the abiding Spirit of life. When we learn that secret, we enter into stillness. We are still and know that He is God.
Whenever a temptation comes, whenever a distress comes, whenever a problem comes, we tend to go out and try to fight against all these things. We know these things are tempting us and seeking to lead us away from Christ.
In order to keep our virginity and our chastity toward God, we do not want to lose it, so we fight against these things. As we go out to meet all the distresses, temptations, and problems, we find that we are strained and stressed. There is unrest within us.
Even if we fight with all our strength, oftentimes we find that we are no match for them. It is true: we fail. In other words, when the tempest is raging outside, we are raging within too.
Not until we learn the secret, not until we learn to hide in Christ, not until we draw upon the river of life within us—not until we realize this—will our attitude become one of stillness.
Instead of striving and struggling, we will rest in faith. We will be still and watch God working.
“Be still, and know that I am God.” God is God, and He is well able not only to cope with all these situations, but to overcome them. He will bring glory out of these problems, if only we will be still.
Instead of doing it ourselves, if only we will be still and watch Him do it, that is all we need to do. Then there will be calmness.
In Isaiah 30:15, we are told:
For thus saith the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel,
In returning and rest shall ye be saved;
In quietness and in confidence shall be your strength.
By returning and rest shall ye be saved. In quietness and confidence shall be your strength. This quietness is a confidence. We have perfect confidence in God. He is our refuge. He is our strength. We have confidence in Him, and because we have confidence in Him, we shall overcome. This is the secret.
The Lord of hosts is with us;
The God of Jacob is our refuge.
We are told that when John Wesley died, it was a Tuesday. As he was dying, he did not even have the strength to speak. We are told that he tried to speak, but he could not.
Finally, it seemed as if he gathered all his strength, and he said, “The best of all is, God is with us.”
Then, after a while, he raised his hand and shouted aloud, “The best of all is, God is with us.”
This may sum up his life. The life of Wesley can be summed up just with this: “The best of all is, God is with us.”
Dear brothers and sisters, do remember this: God is real. We are in Him. He is with us. Nothing can separate us—nothing can separate us from the love of God, because it is in Christ. It is not in us; it is in Christ.
If God is with us, who can be against us? He is well able to keep us until that day. But the question is: do we commit ourselves to His keeping? Do we flee to the city of refuge? Do we draw upon His inexhaustible resources of resurrection life?
If we do, then we will find that He will keep us blameless and pure unto the day of Christ. This is what Paul often says in the Epistles: that we may be kept pure and without blemish unto the day of Christ. That means the time when we shall appear before Him at the judgment seat.
We are not able to keep ourselves, but He is able to keep us. We commit ourselves to His keeping, and if we commit ourselves to His keeping, you will find that He is fully committed to us. So may the Lord help us as we walk through this life.
Let us pray.
O heavenly Father, we do praise and thank Thee that even though in this world there is tribulation, Thou hast not promised skies always blue. But we do praise and thank Thee that the Lord said, “I have overcome the world.” Therefore, in Thee we have peace.
O Lord, we ask that we may learn this precious blessing. Instead of trying to strive and struggle to overcome by ourselves, which we cannot do, Lord, we ask that Thou wouldst teach us the lesson of abiding in Thee, of hiding in Thee, of drawing upon Thee as our resource, of being still and knowing that Thou art God.
O, how we praise and thank Thee that if we are committed to Thee for keeping, Thou art faithful and Thou art able to keep us through that day. So may we learn this lesson, and may Thy name be glorified.
We want to be kept pure for Thyself. In the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.