When we look back and we trace the experience of God's people down through the centuries, there is, I think it's fair to say, one experience, one thing that we really all have in common, albeit to varying degrees. And that is that by virtue of our belonging to the Lord Jesus Christ, we will experience, again to varying degrees, opposition, hostility, hardships, and even persecution in a fallen world. the original context or the occasion of this particular psalm that we're looking at together this evening. Psalm 46 along with Psalms 47 and 48 is generally thought to have been that time in 2 Kings chapter 19. when I don't know if you remember, but the ancient city of God, Jerusalem, was under imminent threat from the Assyrians. The ruthless king of Assyria at that time, King Sennacherib, he was threatening to utterly destroy the city, as he had done, of course, with many other cities. But God then came and He reassured Hezekiah through the prophet Isaiah. He reassured Hezekiah, who was the king in Judah at that time, that He would turn back the enemy and that He would deliver His people from their hands. And of course, as our God always is, He was faithful to His Word. And He delivered His people even at the 11th hour. Well, the truth is we can't be 100% sure that that was the precise occasion, context of this psalm. But whether we think about that particular moment of deliverance in history about 700 years before Christ, or whether we think about the experience of the early Christians in the first century under Emperor Nero, Or whether we think about the many trials which have faced the church over the last 2,000 or so years. The point really is that you don't have to think too hard to realize that those who are citizens of heaven, those who belong to the kingdom of Christ, will always be at odds with a world which is at enmity with our God. Acts 14, verse 22, through many tribulations, we must enter the kingdom of God. Jesus said, if the world hates you, keep in mind it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world. But I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you. And of course, if all of this sounds very abstract to us, somewhat removed from our individual experience of the Christian life as those who live in the relative safety and the security and the peace of a place like the United Kingdom and even here in the great city of London, Well, we only need to consider the fact that apparently something in the region of 900,000 believers have been martyred in the last 10 years for their faith. in Jesus Christ. To see that the Church of God, the Bride of Jesus Christ, is always under attack. It just comes in different ways at different times and in different places. Sometimes it comes in the form of physical violence from without. Sometimes it comes in the form of apostasy and false teaching from within. Sometimes it comes with all of the pressures of political correctness, the state's rejection of biblical morality, its redefinition of what is good and right and proper and true and honoring to the God who created the heavens and the earth. But always, always there is pressure and opposition at the hands of an unbelieving and a fallen world. And yet, and yet, it is precisely in the light of that same timeless reality that God inspired the 46th Psalm. And God says to his people in every generation, these momentous words of verse 10, Be still and know that I am God. Stop, he's saying, and remember who I am and what I have done. Or as Alec Mottier paraphrases, relax and know that I am God. You think about the opposite response to this verse, verse 10. What happens to us when trial and adversity comes knocking at the door of our lives, which if it hasn't done already, it will do, if you continue with Christ. What do we do when we feel that we are under fire, when we are facing days of uncertainty and even danger? on account of our faith, we become anxious, don't we? We become troubled, we become fearful, even, in a sense, unbelieving. We feel that we are being tossed to and fro. We're like a small ship on a violent ocean. that here is Almighty God, the God who knows the end from the beginning. And He says right into that particular experience, just as the Lord Jesus Himself would say, do you remember later on when He was in the Sea of Galilee and He said to His disciples, take heart, it is I. Do not be afraid. So here he says, be still and know that I am God. And what is so helpful about this great psalm is that whereas this verse, verse 10, really provides us with what we might think of as the great imperative of the psalm, the thing that we are to do, we're to be still and know that he is God. What the rest of the psalm does is that it then points us to the indicatives, the truth about God himself that we need to keep in mind as believers if we're going to be able to obey that imperative. In other words, what you and I most desperately need in the hour of turmoil and adversity is not just the bumper sticker, that says, be still and know that I am God. Not that you'll see many of those perhaps in London today in any case. But what we need is to understand the basis on which that is actually going to be realized and possible and exercised in the course of our lives. And so what is it that we must understand and remember? What is God impressing upon us here as his covenant community that we must hold in our minds and keep hold of by faith that we might truly rest in him amidst all the storms of this life? Well, again, I want to focus on three things this evening, and each of them happen to begin with the letter P. First of all, we are being reminded of God's sovereign protection and his preservation of our lives in the gospel. You notice here that at the start of the psalm, in verse 1, it says God is our refuge and our strength. Literally, God is for us, a refuge and protection. And then at the end of the psalm, in verse 11, we read the God of Jacob, that is the covenant God, is our fortress. And so the psalm both begins and it ends, it is top and tailed, it is bookended, if you like, with this same declaration concerning God's absolute and sovereign protection, His preservation of His people. Now what does that really mean? Clearly, At one level, because God is sovereign over all things, we can therefore say that he is the one who protects and he upholds our lives in a physical sense. He is the God who sustains our bodies and our minds from one day to the next. He is the God in whom we live and move and have our very being. But then as we've just been thinking about, we know, don't we, that that is not always going to be the case. There are times when in the mystery of God's hidden and yet perfect purposes, he even allows the physical suffering and even destruction of his own dear saints at the hands of evil men. And so the ultimate protection, the ultimate security which has to be intended here and which applies exclusively to the people of God in Jesus Christ is not our temporal or our physical security in this world because we can never be sure of that. Instead, it is the eternal security of the soul which is ours in Jesus Christ. When Paul said, if God is for us, who can be against us? He wasn't saying that because God is for us, it's therefore the case that no person will ever be against us. That would be to deny the testimony of Scripture and the very experience of the saints down through the generations of history. No, what he was saying was that because God is for us in the gospel of His beloved Son, therefore, no matter what evils and threats may happen to come our way in this lifetime, remember he's saying that in the final analysis, it is of absolutely zero consequence. Why? Because nothing and no one, not even death itself, can separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus, our Lord. And of course, this is precisely why this particular psalm was such a favorite of the reformers in the 16th century. Sometimes it's referred to as Luther's psalm because it's the one which, of course, inspired him to write the great hymn, A Mighty Fortress Is Our God. But why? Why was it such a favorite at that particular time? Why was it such a treasured psalm to these great men and women of old? Well, because it reminded them that as they took their stand for the truth of God and His Word against all of the corruptions and the evils and the hostilities and the threats of the medieval church, no matter what came against them, nothing could prise these men and women from the secure grasp of their Lord and their Master. Jesus said, I give them eternal life and they will never perish. No one can snatch them out of my hand. Do you remember the Apostle Peter likewise in 1 Peter speaks of this inheritance, this inheritance which is ours by grace and through faith and in Christ. What is this inheritance? It's an inheritance that he says cannot perish, spoil, or fade, kept in heaven for you. And what difference does this make to our lives? Well, look at verse two. Therefore, therefore we will not fear. We will not fear, even 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. In other words, even if all creation literally erupts, which in a sense it will, and there is literally again no physical security left, Yet even then, he's saying we will not fear. Why? Because God, our covenant-making and sovereignly saving God, is our refuge and our strength, and in Him we have this eternal preservation and protection of the soul in Christ Jesus our Lord. You think about that moment in Exodus chapter 12, The angel of death had been sent to judge and to destroy the firstborn of every home in Egypt. Every single family would suffer destruction, judgment, death, apart from the people of God whose homes were marked with what? With the blood of the lamb. Friends, that's how it is for you this evening if your faith is in the Lord Jesus Christ. When you really stop and you think about it, the worst attack, the worst threat that we could ever face is not actually persecution or hardship or the oppression that comes in this world. It is instead the wrath of God Himself. That's the worst thing. That's the thing that should be feared more than anything else. but thanks be to God. If our trust and our faith is in the Lord Jesus Christ, then his precious blood has saved us from that wrath so that now we have the assurance of his fatherly protection for all eternity. So this is the first thing, the protection and the preservation of our lives in Jesus Christ our Lord. The second thing we're reminded again in that same context of the battles which are always raging in a fallen world to greater and lesser degrees is then the presence of God with his people. First of all, you notice this same pattern as before verse one at the beginning of the psalm. God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. And then again at the end in verse 11, the Lord of hosts is with us. But then not only that, look at what it says in the middle of the psalm in verses four and five. 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. Now notice the contrast that's being made here between verse three and verse four. Whereas on the outside of the city, the waters are roaring and they are foaming so that even the mountains tremble at its swelling. In other words, it's wild out there. It's ferocious. It's frightening. It's threatening. Yet on the inside of the city, There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God. Why should this city of God not be moved amidst all of the calamity and the violence that would so often surround her? Why should the people of God today, the church of Jesus Christ, never really be in great turmoil amidst all of the hostilities and the hardships and the persecutions of the present hour? Well, the answer to that question is that this stream, which flowed down from the fountain of Siloam and into the city of Jerusalem thousands of years ago in a physical sense, is a stream which continues to flow into the church of Jesus Christ in every generation in a spiritual sense. And this is why the psalmist says immediately thereafter in verse 10, God, in other words, God himself is in the midst of her. She shall not be moved. Do you remember how this same imagery continues on into the New Testament? Do you remember how Jesus Himself would speak in John chapter 7 about the outpouring of the Holy Spirit and the presence of the Holy Spirit in the lives of God's people? Do you remember how He described that presence? How did He describe this presence of God's Spirit with His people as streams of living water. Later on in Revelation 22, the Apostle John, he takes up the same imagery as he describes the Kingdom of God after its final consummation. And he says this, he says, Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of this city. And so here is the glorious truth, that the Lord himself is present with his people by his Spirit amidst all of the storms of the present age. Think about it, friends, think about that. The One who is the font of every blessing, the eternal anchor of our souls, the source of light and all goodness and of life's self is with us. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. Why not? For thou art with me. And behold, says Jesus, I am with you always to the very end of the age. Doing what? Comforting, strengthening, emboldening, sanctifying, reassuring all of the saints amidst the evils of a fallen world. As one man of old put it, he said, here is the river of God that flows from his throne and which no enemy can ever cut off from the church of Jesus Christ. The presence of the living God with the people of God, even to the very end of the age, when we will be in his presence, in his kingdom. So first of all, this stillness before God is down to the assurance of his sovereign protection and his preservation of our lives in the gospel of Jesus Christ. That assurance is then strengthened by our knowledge of his presence with us as his people every day in every circumstance. And finally, the third basis on which we can be still as we trust in this Lord is as we remember the power of God, the power of God to deliver His people from all that is evil on the last day. Look at verses six and then eight and nine. It says, the nations rage, the kingdoms totter. he utters his voice, the earth melts. Come, behold the works of the Lord, how he has brought desolations on the earth. He makes war cease to the end of the earth. He breaks the bow and shatters the spear. He burns the chariots with fire. And again, notice the contrast that's being made here. Yes, the nations may rage, and the kingdoms may totter, and indeed they will, and they do. But God utters His voice, as He did in 2 Kings chapter 19. God uttered His voice and sent the angel of death And what happened? 185,000 in the camp of the Assyrians were destroyed in a flash. God utters his voice and the earth melts. Think, the psalmist is saying, think about the sovereign power of your God and how the power has already been made manifest and demonstrated in world history. He is the one who brings desolations on the earth in an instant. tsunamis, earthquakes, all kind of so-called natural disasters, fires raging in different lands, and yet at the same time, he is the one who simply says the word, and world wars are brought to an end. Now again, why is this so important for us to remember, to hold on to as Christian men and women this evening? It's important, indeed vital, because it is by this same power, the same power by which Christ himself was raised the dead, it is by that same power, the authority, of God's sovereign word that he will one day end the war of all wars. And he will at last deliver his people from all that is evil into the glory of his everlasting kingdom. As long as we live in this world, as long as this earth continues to trundle on, there will always be an opposition to the work of God and to the people of God. An opposition which is ultimately inspired and led by the enemy of God himself, namely Satan. We know that he is a defeated foe. We know that the battle has already been fought and won. by the life, death, and resurrection and ascension into glory of our Lord and Master, Jesus Christ. But He is still at work. The nations will always be raging. The peoples will always be plotting. The kings of the earth will always be taking their stand and setting themselves against the Lord and against his anointed, as it says in the second Psalm. But friends, what is the Lord himself saying to us this evening in Psalm 46? Look at the second half of verse 10. I will be exalted among the nations. I will be exalted in all the earth. In other words, whilst the nations will rage, whilst the devil of hell will conspire to do his very worst, Yet because of God's covenant of redemption and because of his almighty power to fulfill that covenant of redemption, as has already been testified to and demonstrated in the resurrection of his son, therefore, there is coming a day when every knee will bow. And every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. To the glory of God the Father. I will be exalted among the nations. I will be exalted in all the earth. And what did our Lord Jesus say himself? I will build my church. And not even the gates of hell shall prevail against her. Dear friends in Christ, what are you fearful of this evening? Maybe you look out into a nation and you wonder how the church will be able to survive and prosper amidst all of the confusion, heresies, immorality, which is being promoted in our own day Maybe you look at the church itself and you wonder how it can survive amidst, as I say, heresies, the onslaught of liberalism and false teaching, which is often so prevalent. Maybe you think about your own life and you feel to yourself, you think to yourself, well, I've not really made great spiritual progress. in recent years, and so you wonder, am I ever going to get to that place of final deliverance from all that is sinful, from all that is evil, from all that conspires against the life of godliness, the life which deep down I really want to live for my God and my Savior. Well, whatever your situation, whatever your circumstance, if you are a believer in Jesus Christ this evening, then God says, be still and know that I am God. How will we do this? How will we experience this reality in our daily walk when we are surrounded by unbelief, surrounded by work colleagues, perhaps family members, a city, a nation that is lost and chasing after all that is dark all that is against what we want to live for. How will we do this? We'll do this by remembering the God who has promised to protect and preserve us in the gospel. We'll do this by remembering that he who began a good work in us will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. We'll do it by remembering that this God is always present with the church which bears his name in every situation and even to the very end of the age. And finally, we will do this by remembering and holding on, holding on with both hands to the promise, the promise that this great God and Savior will one day, He will one day finally deliver us by the power of His righteous right hand into the eternal glory of His own kingdom. In the words of 1 Thessalonians 5, 24, He who calls you is faithful, and He will surely do it. He will surely do it. Friends, we have a great God in heaven, and He is sovereign, and He has brought you to Himself by sovereign grace. He has given you the gift of faith to believe on His Son. and he will finish the good work which he himself has begun in each one of us. He will protect our souls and preserve us until that great day when he finally delivers us from this world and all of its evil into the glory of his eternal kingdom. To him be the glory and honor and praise both this night and evermore. Let us pray together. our God and our Father in heaven, we again find ourselves humbled and yet filled with joy and thankfulness for all that you have accomplished already in the person of your son and for all that you have promised to do in the future. on account of his ascension into glory and his being seated even now at the right hand of the majesty on high. And that glorious promise that he will one day return to judge the living and the dead when there will be this solemn and final separation between the sheep and the goats. when all who have bowed the knee to King Jesus in the present age will be able to spend eternity itself in the presence of your glory, surrounding the throne of the Lamb who was slain for our sins, declaring His praise in that glorious place where there will be no need for the sun, for the very light from the face of our Savior will illuminate our environment through every moment and eternally so. Our Father and our God, we pray that you would press these truths home in our hearts. We pray that these truths would result in fruitfulness in our individual lives. We pray that these realities of who you are and what you have promised and all that you have done would rise up within us such that we would be emboldened in the faith, that we would be humble yet confident, standing firm in the faith, ready always to proclaim the excellencies of our Lord Jesus Christ with those whom we meet from one day to the next. We pray this night, our Father, if there be anyone here this evening who has not come to call on you for salvation. O Lord, how we plead with you that you would grant the grace of repentance and the faith to believe. O Lord, let no one be presumptuous in this place. We never know what can happen from one moment to the next. We can be here one moment and soon to eternity. the very next day or the next hour. Help us, therefore, to number our days that we might gain a heart of wisdom. O Lord, grant a holy reverence for who you are. Grant saving faith, Lord, to those who are perishing. Father, we pray that you would continue to bless the witness of this congregation of your dear saints here in the center of this huge city. Our Father, encourage each one. Watch over them in the days to come, even this coming week. Protect them, O Lord, from evil and from harm. Lord, help each one in the daily battle with sin. Grant great faith. Grant great prayerfulness. Help us all, Lord, to be diligent in the study of your word. And as we search the scriptures, may we see you more and more. May we understand your will for our lives, and may we walk according to your will. Forgive our sins. Lead us according to your righteousness, even for your own namesake. For we ask all of this in the glorious and the majestic name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.