We Will Not Fear
Psalm
46:1- 10 - "God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in
trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the
mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and
foam and the mountains quake with their surging.
SELAH
There is a river whose
streams make glad the city of God, the holy place where the Most High
dwells. God is within her, she will not fall; God will help her at break
of day. Nations are in uproar, kingdoms fall; he lifts his voice, the
earth melts. The Lord Almighty is with us; the God of Jacob is our
fortress.
SELAH
Come see the works of the Lord, the desolations he has brought
on the earth. He
makes wars cease to the ends of the earth; he breaks the bow and
shatters the spear, he burns the shields with fire. Be still and know
that I am God; I will be exalted among the natioons, I will be exalted
in the earth."
Pslam 46:11 "The Lord Almighty is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress."
SELAH
Selah, Selah, Selah
So we come to the end of our life-giving Psalm. Tomorrow we begin considering the great comfort the Scriptures give about the end times.
There are three features of this Psalm which catch our attention as we close, and not only catch our attention, inform our minds and warm our hearts.
The first is that little thrice-appearing word "Selah."
Bible teachers are uncertain as to the exact meaning of this little word. Some think it is a musical instruction - take a pause, up the tempo, that sort of thing. Others think it is a thought instruction; pause and think about what has just been said or sung.
If the meaning of Selah is "pause and think about what you have just read or sung" we are being taught implicitly what the psalms also teach elsewhere explicitly: meditate. The book of Psalms opens, Psalm 1, with the key to blessedness in this world. A man or woman who wants their life to be fruitful strong and blessed will not only delight in God's Word, he or she will meditate on it day and night.
In our culture "meditation" is a strange and even despised word. For sure biblical meditation does not mean emptying your mind - in fact it means precisely the opposite. It means mulling over, considering from different angles, squeezing out all the juice - much as we have been doing with Psalm 46 these last ten days.
I once heard meditation described as doing with a Bible verse what a camel does with his food (the image may not be pleasant but the analogy sure is accurate!) He chews up his food again and again and again, to extract the maximum nutrients from it.
That is meditation!
You head off to work in the morning or go to sleep with one single Bible verse - or even one sentence - in your mind. Try this. You go over it again and again, both to understand and to apply it to that very day, your very situation in life. It enters your soul, it becomes part of your world-view, your way of thinking, it waters your soul.
Do you meditate? We can't use the excuse "I have no time" anymore, can we now! (We couldn't use it before: on the Day of Judgement should we try to use that lame excuse God will point to the hours we spent on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Netflix, etc., as witnesses against the "I didn't have the time" cover-up.)
We know Jesus meditated. Proof? When tempted in the desert, Scriptures poured out of him, Scriptures that were stored in three decades of meditation on God's Word.
Sing, Sing, Sing
Selah, could, on the other hand, refer to a musical term. Take a pause, up the tempo, change the key, etc. A reminder of the power of music. When I was a lad a book was making the rounds in Christian circles "From Prison to Praise." (Books come and go, The Book remains.) The jist of this then must-read book was that praising God did our souls good and I think the author went further (perhaps further than Scripture?) and suggested that an imprisoned soul would be set free by praise.
He may have overstepped the mark, but not by much, for music has immense power. That's why in Italy they are singing from the balconies to one another across the streets to lift their communal spirits. That's why people are gathering in virtual choirs across the world. Singing lifts the spirit! In just the ordinary world.
It is no accident that the Bible's prayer book - the book of Pslams - is also the Bible's song book. Singing releases those happy endorphins - and before a killjoy frowns at this fact, let's remember that our biochemistry have been designed by God - but singing also releases the imprisoned soul ("sing" appears 67 times in the Psalms, lyre 12 times, harp 8 times, tambourine 4 times, and (thankfully?) the cymbal once.) Paul and Silas were both praying and singing hymns to God from their prison cell in Philippi (Acts 16:25). These men, though bruised and beaten on the outside were doing their inner souls good by praying and singing God's praises.
Is praise a missing jewel in your spiritual life?
I ask myself.
I ask the brothers more than the sisters, because for some reason men find it more difficult to sing than men. Perhaps that's why they are, on average, the grumpier sex.
The Lord Almighty is with us
The God of Jacob is our refuge
(x2)
And finally, before we say au revoir to our nurturing Psalm 46, we cannot but notice the twice repeated verse 10 (see verse 7). To repeat something, as every parent will concur, is to really mean it, to reinforce it, to put it in capitals, bold typeface, to say "I am serious about THIS."
The message the psalmist wants to communciate with us through this psalm is that whatever the future holds, God is and will always be with us.
Confession: every day I go to the John Hopkins University Coronavirus data centre. I check out the big red number on the left which is the total number of worldwide cases (over 500,000 this evening) but more importantly, I look at the little curve in the right hand corner, which shows you how fast the number of cases is rising. This is what the little graph looks like today:
Someone I know, perhaps someone in my family, or someone in my church fellowship, or even me, will pass from this world to the next due to Coronavirus. This is not the time for pious pretence.
We could become fearful - and I hope the mere presentation of this curve does not unsettle you.
But if the LORD Almighty is with us, we have literally nothing to fear. "Therefore we will not fear."
Let's end with Paul's triumphant note of confidence from Romans 8. Read each line, real slow.
"If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written,
“For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord."
A SONG FOR THE DAY
We
end this series of meditations on Psalm 46 with a glorious hymn of
confidence in Jesus Christ the King, our King. Why don't you sing it out
loud? Go on!
The Lord is King! lift up thy voice,
O earth, and all ye heavens, rejoice;
from world to world the joy shall ring,
'The Lord omnipotent is King!'
The Lord is King! who then shall dare
resist his will, distrust his care,
or murmur at his wise decrees,
or doubt his royal promises?
The Lord is king, child of the dust!
The Judge of all the earth is just
Holy and true are all his ways
Let every creature speak his praise.
He reigns! ye saints, exalt your strains;
your God is King, your Father reigns;
and he is at the Father's side,
the Man of love, the Crucified.
Come make your wants your burdens known
He will present them at the throne
And angel bands are waiting there
His messages of love to bear.
One Lord and Saviour all
secures;
He reigns, and life and death are yours;
Through earth and heaven one song shall ring,
'The Lord omnipotent is King!'
You can watch it here.
A PRAYER FOR THE DAY
Our gracious Father in heaven, and Lord Almighty,
We lift up to you all those who suffer under this present pestilence. We pray for those in authority over us that they may make wise decisions.
We thank you for the confidence of Psalm 46, and even more for the confidence of Romans 8. We thank you that since God has given us his beloved and most precious Son, we can be sure that he will freely give us the much smaller things we ask for - such as strength and faith and hope and a calm heart.
We ask that you will overule and bring great good out of this crisis. May the hearts of many be turned to you, and may those who have drifted away return to you.
We thank you that nothing can separate us from your love, expressed in and through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Help us in these days not to fear but to trust in you - whatever may come.
We ask these things in the Name of Jesus Christ
Amen.
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