If you have your Bibles, we are in Psalm 46 today. We are in Psalm 46. We are in Psalm 46, and we'll be going through the whole psalm today, but we're going to just read through verse 3 to begin. This is the reading of God's word, Psalm 46, to the choir master of the sons of Korah, according to Alamoth, a psalm. God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth gives way, though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble at its swelling. Selah. The word of the Lord. Please have a seat. Saints, we've been going through this series and it's really been so needful as we've been talking about the world and what the Lord has taught us about the state of the world, those spiritual dynamics that are at work. It's been so needful, but I just wouldn't blame you if it also was a bit heavy. Because when we consider the world, we're not actually considering a happy, thriving place. We're not talking about a place that's safe for us or stable for us. Actually, just so much of the world is just devoted to sort of the opposite of what we believe in, what the Lord has given us to pass along. And so I don't blame you if there's also been a sense of heaviness as we have been going through this passage. There are many troubles, many, many troubles associated with living in this world. As your brother, as your pastor, I bear a responsibility to prepare you for those, but I also don't want you burdened beyond where you're meant to be. And today we're reminded of something we very much need to hear, When we're living in this difficult world, when we're facing its hostility and facing its conforming influence, are we alone? Are we facing this alone? Do we have to take on this just powerful, grievous world all by ourselves? Is all that hostility just pointed at me and you? All that pressure is just bearing down on me and on you by ourselves. Now, I think you've sensed the answer to the question, but let's just flesh it out before we move past it. Because if we are alone, everything gets a whole lot harder. Everything is so much more difficult because, man, if I have to face off against this world, just me, If you have to face off against this world, just you, you just feel the weakness. You feel that obvious conclusion that you lack the strength to take on such a challenge. You're not enough. You see the world at every turn. advancing all of its causes. You see yourself in the mirror and it's so obvious. Oh, I'm too weak for this. The child of God who believes they're alone in this world not only feels the weakness, but then the conclusion from the weakness. If I have to take on all of this, the stress rises up. It's then that conclusion, that just anxious conclusion that says, I can't do this. I will be crushed. I will fail. I will fail myself. I will fail God. I will fail in this great battle. And then you feel the stress rising because it's just you versus this unbeatable enemy. And that stress bears its fruit. And then it's just outright anxiety, outright despair, this anxiety that plagues you, that invades your peaceful thoughts, that keeps you from sleeping, this despair that just makes you want to give up because what's the point? I can't do this, so why try? We realize it's actually incredibly bleak. If we have to face this world all by ourselves, and that's the way that many of us think we're facing it. So again, I could give you the Bible test, and I could say, what's the right answer? Are you alone in this world? And you would say, no. But day by day, and especially in those dark times, your heart gives a different answer. Your heart says, I am alone. I am alone and this is all falling apart. We find that so often there's that gap between what we say we believe and what we sort of, we'll say thoroughly believe. What we believe deep down. Many of us are bearing up under exactly this bleak situation. I am weak, I am stressed, I am anxious, I am falling apart. What hope is there? So today, today is a day for good news. Today is a day not to say, oh, the trouble doesn't exist. No, obviously the trouble exists. Today is to say, people of God, in the midst of the trouble, you are never alone. Our God is always with us. And so we return to a classic, an absolute classic of the Psalms, Psalm 46. I wouldn't be surprised that any number of you have whole parts of this memorized. If this is your first time hearing this Psalm, then I am thrilled I get to share it with you. Psalm 46 is absolutely given to people in their trouble. But it is good news for people in their trouble. And it has everything to do with God being with his people. What happens when God is present with his people in their troubles? Hear the good news one point at a time. In those first three verses we just read, God's presence gives his people confidence when facing fearful troubles. God's presence gives his people confidence when facing fearful troubles. Amazing first couple of lines. If you can commit these to memory, God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. To say that God is our refuge It's to describe Him like a shelter, a shelter that you might hide in against a storm, a shelter that you might hide in in the face of war. God is our refuge, is the way that He protects us from all the troubles of life. He is our refuge and He is our strength, the psalmist says. That is to say, we know God is strong, He's almighty. He has all power. Yet, He is our strength. He is the God who actually brings His strength and strengthens us. He strengthens the weak. He empowers the weak to be able to act in those times of trouble. He is our refuge. He is our strength. He is our very present help in trouble. Which is to say, he is the God who has proven himself to be a help to his people in their times of need. One of the most basic lessons you could learn from reading the Bible is watching how God keeps helping his people. Time and time again, we see God helping his people, helping him in different ways across different ages, but always showing himself to be his people's help. As one commentator said, God is what help is all about. We then have this mighty God devoted to his people's help. We're seeing good news rising up out of the darkness already. And the way the Psalm goes from verse one to verse two is this. Verse one is to say, this is who our God is. He is our refuge, our strength, our very present help in trouble. And because this is who he is, that's what the therefore is gonna do. Therefore, this is how we're going to view things. Therefore, this is how we are going to respond. And so, if you have that kind of God as your refuge, your strength, your very present help in trouble, what makes sense as your response? That's what the psalmist is going to say here. In verses two and three, he's going to say, because of who God is, his people won't fear even disasters. That's the picture he's going to paint, a disaster, an absolute worst case scenario. He takes mountains. Mountains, when you view creation, there's just this sense of that's secure. That is as secure as anything can be in all of creation. That's how we all view mountains. That's how they viewed mountains. Just picture the terrifying scene of, can you picture those mountains on our west, the Sierra Nevadas, right? Can you picture one day just watching them sinking? Sinking, sinking, sinking in the awful sound of something so mighty falling. I, for one, I would find it actually just incredibly, ah, unsettling to look to the West and see nothing. Just that absence would be scary to me, not to mention watching it happen. The psalmist paints a picture of the most secure thing in creation just falling into the sea. And the sea then, the sea was often viewed as the source of danger and chaos, right? And so then you have the most secure thing falling into the most dangerous and chaotic thing. You see the sea then roaring, foaming, the chaos swelling, the danger so present. That's a picture for you. And he's giving us this picture, which may simply be to say, even in the face of natural disaster, we wouldn't fear. I suspect that more than just natural disaster, while it would be true that all of this would apply to how believers would view natural disaster, I suspect that he's going a little further than this in saying these are actually metaphors for war. These are metaphors for human chaos, because that's the direction the rest of the psalm is going to go. He's painting this picture, whether it's a disaster of the natural sort or of the human cause sort, and he's saying in the worst case scenario, in the most terrifying situation, even then, because of who God is, God's people do not need to fear. Good news, good news if you've ever heard it. You have a God so powerfully committed to taking care of his people, to keeping them safe, that it's like the terrifying things of the world are just defanged by God. And so the believer, knowing their God, looking at the worst situation in the world, can say, I won't fear you because of who my God is. You see, the way that God's presence gives his people confidence when facing fearful troubles, that right there would be enough to lift our spirits and shine light into a dark world. But the psalmist is going to give us even more. We'll see in verses 4 through 7 that God's presence gives his people confidence when facing enemies. Hear how the psalm continues, verse 4, then through verse 7. There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy habitation of the Most High. God is in the midst of her. She shall not be moved. God will help her when morning dawns. The nations rage. The kingdoms totter. He utters his voice. The earth melts. The Lord of hosts is with us. The God of Jacob is our fortress, say La. We see the way that God's presence gives his people confidence, even when facing their enemies. So, walk through this picture here. As one commentator was saying, this is one of the most beautiful lines in the Psalms, and at the same time, one of the least understood. There's a river whose streams make glad the city of God. We all kind of know that's nice. That's lovely. That's even encouraging. And if someone said, now what's that mean? I don't know. The idea is of God being present with his people. He's in the midst of his people. Unlikely, this is a picture of Jerusalem's source of water. So you build a city, especially back then, it depends on what source of water is there. Just for normal life, not to mention in times of war. God is present with his people like that critical supply of water. He is that critical supply, that critical source of provision and safety for His people. And because He is there present with His people, His people will not be moved. His people will not be moved. And it's here that we're beginning to flesh out this idea that this seems to be a psalm that was written about a time of war. About a time when Israel had been invaded, even Jerusalem was facing attack. And we actually have a famous story of that. We don't know if it's the exact one that inspired this psalm. But Assyria had an infamous invasion into Israel. They were just coming and wiping everything out. And they made their way all the way to Jerusalem, laying siege to it. And it was this incredibly bleak situation for the people of God as they're looking out from their walls, surrounded by an army that they couldn't handle. In situations like this, what kept Jerusalem safe? You see, it's not their source of water, although that would have been necessary. Nor is it their walls or their soldiers, although those things all play their role. What kept Jerusalem safe? It was their God. Their God was there in the midst of them. And so mountains may fall into the sea, but God's people, with God in their midst, will never fall. God will actually be their help in the darkest of times, and that's when you get these pictures of morning dawning. I just can't get enough of the sunlight, day spring, light in the darkness imagery in the Bible. It is everywhere, people. Everywhere. And here, he's talking about God being their help in dark times. God will help her when morning dawns, is what verse five says at the end. So the morning dawning, this is a common picture of God helping his people. And it takes into account like a constant picture that we all understand. If you wake up in the middle of the night and it's absolutely pitch black, you still know that dawn is coming. You still know that sun's going to rise. The morning is coming. I trust that none of you have ever woken up in the middle of the night and said, oh no, the night goes on forever. We just know the sun always comes again. The sun always comes again. That sun will rise. And God is now going to use that picture for our encouragement to say, in the darkest troubles, the people of God know the very same thing about God's help. When they wake up and find themselves in the darkest of nights, when they look around and think, this is as dark as it could be, as bleak as it could be, what the psalm is saying, the darkness is not a reason to doubt God's help. The darkness is actually a reason to expect God's help. And that is a perspective that will transform trials. There you are in the dark, there you are in the suffering, and you are thinking, I actually am more expecting God's help now. Some of us would take the opposite conclusion to our great despair. It's so dark, the night goes on forever, God's never going to help me. That's not what God's word would ever tell you to believe. God's word would say, in the dark, expect God's help. Expect that sun is going to rise, that the morning will dawn and God will help his people. God will help his people in their dark times, and God is greater than their enemies. God is greater than their enemies. And so then we have, in verse 6, this picture of the nations raging. Well, the nations are raging, and that's actually, there's all these common words here. The nations are raging just like the sea was raging. Just like the sea was roaring at the people, but they will totter, that is to say they will fall, and that is just like in verse two as well, the mountains fell. God's voice is actually powerful enough that when he speaks, the earth could melt. It's always so marvelous to consider how God is so different from us. Our words can't do this. The most powerful our words can be is to convince someone else to do something. God's words actually have power. God's words create, and God's words could even destroy. And so we have this picture here of a voice that is so powerful that it could make the earth melt. All you're supposed to see there is this thing that you thought was totally solid, the earth. And a power that is so great that it could make the most solid thing that you have ever conceived of, it could make it melt. That is the power of God, sheer power. We have no idea what power looks like. If all we're thinking about are power plants and bombs and whatever, oh, we have no idea what true power is, what God's power is. That is the power that he brings to the defense of his people. And so you could be surrounded by an army a million times more powerful than you And you could still look at them and say, you are a tiny little flea compared to the power of my God. Again, a perspective that will transform your trials. And you're beginning to see then how good of news, how great of news it is, what verse seven says, that the Lord of hosts is with us. The God of Jacob is our fortress. Lord of hosts, that's actually two words worth translating. Lord on the one hand, when it's in all capital letters we know, that's how Bibles will say Yahweh. Yahweh was that name that God revealed himself by, his covenant name. Yahweh of hosts, we don't use host like this anymore. Host is like an army. So to translate this, you could say Yahweh of armies. is with us. And actually that helps to convey something a little bit. If you have someone on your side that has armies, you're in a different category of help, right? Yahweh of armies is with us and we get that sense of his power, not just his own power, but what kind of armies can God rally? Well, he could obviously rally the strongest of human armies. He could direct them as he pleases, use them as he pleases. He's also got angelic armies at his disposal. So you have the most powerful being in existence with the most powerful armies you could imagine and the most powerful armies you can't imagine, and that God is with you. Do you begin to feel the good news? Yahweh of armies is with us, the God of Jacob is our fortress. God of Jacob, then, is looking back at the history of the people of God. It's to look back and remember that God, not because they deserved it, but simply because he was loving, decided, I choose this people, starting with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. I am going to set my love on them. People say, why are you gonna love them? And God's gonna say, because I love them. Not because they're great, because they're not that great. But yet I will love them. When the God of Jacob is your fortress, when that's proclaimed to you, it is a reminder that God is being loyal to his commitment to love the people of God. He's saying, I am doing this because I have promised to love you all, and I am faithful to that promise. And so we have Yahweh of armies in all his power, God of Jacob, that loyal fatherly love of God set on a people who didn't deserve it. That is the God who is with us. That is the God who is the powerful fortress of his people. And the fortress, you might picture a castle or something, and I guess it could be, but the main idea is a high place, a place that is so high that it is inaccessible. So it is safe. It is lifted out of the danger. That is what God is to us. In all his power, in all his love, child of God, that is who God is to us. And so you can feel the joy. You can feel the hope of proclaiming to yourself and proclaiming to all the people of God, this God is with us. What great news! And so we see that God's presence gives us confidence in the face of enemies as well. And it's with the last section of the psalm, verses 8 through 11, that we see that God's presence gives his people confidence for the future. Here are the last words of this psalm. Picking up in verse eight, God's word reads like this, come behold the works of the Lord, how he has brought desolations on the earth. He makes wars cease to the end of the earth. He breaks the bow and shatters the spear. He burns the chariots with 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 fortress. Selah. We see God's presence giving his people confidence for the future. And if you are to measure our anxieties, so many of them are exactly here, the future. What about the future? Will I be ready for the future? Can I handle the future? What about my loved ones in the future? We find the future is exactly where our anxieties so often live. And so this is good news that God's going to speak to this. What the Lord is saying here, first, is the way that he totally defeats his enemies. He totally defeats his enemies. So as the psalmist continues, come behold the works of the Lord. He's encouraging us not merely to see what has been done, but actually to look ahead to the certain things that God is going to do. These things, even though they lie ahead, are certain to us because God is faithful. God always does what he says he is going to do. So we can look at them almost as if they've already been accomplished. That's how faithful God is. Come behold, see how he has brought desolations on the earth. And you may hear that and think, I'm not sure that's a great thing. Why is this good news that God brings desolations on the earth? You have to understand this is in the context of the enemies of the people of God, surrounding the people of God, attacking the people of God. This is when the very existence is on the line. When you have an enemy mightier than you can defeat, it actually is incredible news to know that there is a God who will totally defeat his enemies. For the people of God surrounded by a hostile world, this is actually incredibly good news. You face a mighty enemy, but your God is mightier. And when He fights, He always wins. He completely wins. A mighty army could be wiped out by a God so powerful as this. It's a great encouragement to the people of God. Now, what about the people on the other side? So we remember that the people of God, they're not the people who are most deserving. They're not the best people. We've got so many problems. We're the people of God because God decided to love us despite us deserving the opposite. But what that does leave the world with is sort of a two-part designation, those who are the people of God. who He has saved, who have trusted in Him, who follow Him. And then there are those who are not. And the psalm is going to paint a rather stark picture of a sense of what it means to be with the people of God. That's deliverance, that's refuge, that's shelter, that's hope. What it is to be on the side of the enemies of God, that is utter defeat. That is complete desolation as you face an enemy far too powerful for you. We find then that this one line tells us both of the encouragement to the people of God, but also a great fear for his enemies. It is a fearful thing to be opposite God on the battlefield. That is not where you want to be. Now as God totally defeats his enemies, he also brings total peace to the earth. That's how the picture's gonna keep going. He makes wars cease to the end of the earth. He breaks the bow, shatters the spear, burns the chariots with fire. This is a picture of total peace. Wars, done. No more praying for wars because there are no more wars. Weapons, broken. Now, I was just thinking how any number of us, you like weapons. You think, I don't want to lose my weapons. See, this is the thing, though. Why would you ever rejoice in your weapons all being shattered and taken away? You would rejoice if there were no more enemies, and that's the reason why. We think about what a concession it is that we have weapons, use weapons. It's what you do because the world is violent and evil. But actually, in our heart of hearts, we dream of that time where no one has to be on guard, where you leave the windows open and the doors unlocked. You dream of a time so peaceful, so absent of enemies, that none of those preparations are needed. That is the peace that our God is going to bring, a peace where there are no more weapons because there are no more enemies. only God could bring that kind of peace. It is then that God says, in this famous, famous line, be still and know that I am God. Be still and know that I am God. Which is to say, stop what you are doing. Be still, let your hands down, Stop what you are doing. And again, this speaks to the people of God and those who are not yet the people of God will say. To the people of God, it could be as simple as this. If you are doubting Him, look at this God, look at what He can do, look at what He is committed to doing and stop doubting Him. Stop doubting your God. On the other hand, if you are fighting Him, and that's kind of our instinctive state, we fight the things of God, we fight His word, we fight His law, we fight His standards, His goals, His purposes, all of them, we're at least digging in our heels and resisting, if not actively just going to war with them. To be faced with this kind of God, so overwhelmingly powerful, That God actually would say to everyone who was opposed to him, everyone who was fighting him, be still, stop fighting me. Stop fighting me. See God for who he is. This is a call to faith. Stop what you are doing. See him for who he is and trust him. He says, all of creation is going to bow down to me. All of creation will bow down to him. His people will bow down in joy. It is an absolute joy of a thought of that day of being in that holy, majestic presence, and absolutely, I want to hit the ground before my God. His people will bow in joy. His enemies will bow and defeat. All of creation will bow before Him, and in the end, creation will do exactly what it has always been meant to do. It will glorify Him. See, that's not something we say of ourselves. I am never meant to be glorified. You are never meant to be glorified. But there is one who is always meant to be glorified, and that is God. The purpose of all of this is that he should be glorified and God can proclaim, this is coming about. This is going to happen. In the end, God will be glorified. And so the psalm will close with that glorious refrain one more time. The Lord of hosts is with us. The God of Jacob is our fortress. That is, the God of peace is with us and the God of victory is with us. The glorious King is with us. And so we have confidence because of His presence in the face of disasters, in the face of enemies, in the face of the future. And so that speaks to you today, that speaks to us today. In the fearful troubles of this world, God is always with his people. God is always with his people. And so his presence is our great comfort in the midst of our trials. And you are going through trials right now. These are the things that we know about and we're praying about. These are the things that you haven't told anyone about. And still they are on your shoulders. Still they bear you down. Child of God, you are never alone. God is with us. And so when your troubles make you feel like all the lights have been turned out, and there you are in the darkness, your instincts telling you you're alone, you're alone, you're alone, The Word of God says to you and is meant to proclaim to you in every dark night of your life, you are not alone in your troubles. As we consider this hostile world, we consider its power, we consider its just persistence, we consider the ways that it's going after the truths of God. Good news, Christian, we are not alone. We are not alone. He who is with us is greater than he who is in the world. We are never alone. His presence, our great comfort, and because he is with us, his presence then replaces our fear with confidence, replaces our fear with confidence. You consider the things that we fear in the world. There are all these things we fear. We fear attacks, we fear crimes, we fear lies and manipulations, we fear poverty, we fear struggles, we fear conflict, all these things in our hearts that we fear. And the Word of God today is saying, our God is greater than what we fear. Our God is so great that as He enters the room, so to speak, your fears are afraid of Him. and they go running. That is the greatness of our God, greater than any fear. He is so great that even in the dark, what used to be fear by faith is transformed to confidence. When you are believing this, when you are seeing your God for who He is, you too can be in that place of saying, though this is a pretty scary situation, I know who my God is and I will not fear. I will not fear because of who He is. I will not fear because I have every expectation that He helps in the darkness. He specializes in helping in the darkness. Now what about those that are not the people of God? We always have that heart for those who are not walking with the Lord, have not trusted in Jesus for that work He did to save sinners. See, if you're not one of the people of God, it's just the thing you have to hear is you need to be made right with your God. He's not our God and you get some other God or some other situation. He's all of our God. And you need to be made right with Him. And there's a way to be made right with Him. There you stand, guilty of your sins, but the Lord says, I can save you from that. That's where Jesus enters in. See, to become a part of the people of God, it's not that we're all country club members and we bought our way in. To become a part of the people of God is to say He bought us. He bought us with all our sins, with all our crimes, with all of our rebellion. Our part in it is to trust in the One who will save us from our sins. Jesus Christ who died on our cross to save sinners and rose from the dead. That's our part. He does all of the rest and frankly, He helps us with our part too. If you're not one of the people of God, you need to be made right because where you are right now, you are on the side of the raging nations. You are on the side of the kingdoms that are tottering. You are on the side of those fighting God who will have to hear His voice in power. But He would save you. Today He would save you. He has no pleasure in the death of the wicked. His pleasure is that you would turn to Him in belief. you can be a part of the people of God. Now you who are there already, brothers and sisters, disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ, what we are reading about here, I hope you understand, this is the great work that Jesus has begun to fulfill. These are the hopes, not that we have outside of Jesus. All of these hopes that we're talking about are fulfilled in Jesus. So the great hope of this psalm, what is it? It's God's presence. It's God saying, I will be with you and God's people being able to shout from the rooftops, the Lord of hosts is with us. So you realize how big a deal it is that Jesus's name was Emmanuel. God with us. Jesus is fulfilling these promises by what he has done and what he is doing. You see how special it is then that in that great commission at the end, the Lord would say to his people, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. Jesus is the fulfillment of the God who is with us. Jesus is the one who was greater than any disaster. We saw him, actually. Still the wind and the waves, simply by speaking to them. The seas can rage and the seas can foam. Jesus Christ can say, be still. And even the seas listen to him. We have seen the Savior who is greater than any disaster. We have seen a Savior who is greater than the ultimate disaster, that is death. And He overcame death too. He rose from the grave and we knew He had won. He's greater than any disaster. He's greater than any enemy. He faced off with Satan one-on-one. Satan was trying to cheat. Satan was trying to kill him. Couldn't land a single blow. What a joy it is to read of that great temptation and watch our Savior dismantle the champion of the other army. He is greater than any enemy. Greater than Satan. He's greater than the world. He's overcome the world as well. We find all of our enemies defeated in Jesus Christ. And Jesus Christ is then also the Prince of Peace. He is the one who will bring everlasting peace. That perfect shalom that we've only heard and dreamt about. That day when there will be no more weapons because there are no more enemies. That is Jesus as well. Child of God, be still and know that He is God. In a dark world, we have this amazing hope. The Lord Jesus Christ is with us. The God of Jacob is our fortress. Let's pray. Our Father, what wonderful things you've given us. Wonderful things. We thank you. Give us the faith to find our refuge and our strength in our Lord Jesus Christ. And we pray that all those who are not yet taking refuge in Jesus Christ, Lord, give them the faith. We pray that you would do this great work for them and for us alike. We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.