God is our refuge and strength.
A psalm of war and peace
The psalm is divided into three parts, as the Selahs at the end of the third and seventh verses indicate. The first is shorter by one verse, but, were the refrain added to it--it has been said that it was once there--then the psalm stands with a symmetry almost unique. As it is, it has not many rivals. This treasure-house of sacred emotions is built of polished stones, and they are fitly set.
1. The first part teaches us to test and try our faith. The singer anticipates a wider storm, and in imagination launches forth in troubled seas. He imagines a break-up, the sea prevailing on the shore, mountains shaken with the swelling thereof; yet through all his faith remains, and he calmly trusts in God. By anticipation he makes preparation for such a crisis, and disciplines his soul to face such an emergency. Our faith is not for an hour or a day: it is to be our mainstay through life and in the hour of death: it is meant to steady and strengthen us in every calamity, however sad, and in every crisis, however sudden. Let us do with it as men do with the anchor chain--try it in fair weather, subject it to a strain greater even than it will likely be called on to bear. Many a faith, once strong, is allowed to rust into weakness, just through sheer neglect.
2. The second part teaches us wisely to remember and profit by the past. Jerusalem had been besieged by the mighty Sennacherib, and delivered miraculously; and the remembrance of the experience strengthened their faith. That night, when the foe surged around her and beleaguered her gates, was a night of omen and portent; but the watchers, in the stillness of the night, still heard the sound of Siloa’s brook as it rippled and tinkled through the silence; and they knew that God was with them. We, whose national life is seldom perilled either when the heathen rage or kingdoms are moved, must never forget that there are mercies as great surrounding us as if our path was more troubled. When the summer sun shines and the moon walks forth, we have in them as great tokens of His goodness as was displayed in the deliverance of Jerusalem. Pity the man whose life has gone well with him and who cannot say, The Lord is good: He has been with me.
3. We learn from the third part rightly to act with regard to the present. The time of war is over, its fierce flame has spent itself in desolation. We walk over the battlefield, and feel the silence which has fallen. Then the Divine command comes: “Be still, and know that I am God.” All the peace there is on earth has risen out of the storm of war. Its hills were shaped into beauty amid the storms of nature: the grass grows from the detritus and wreck of storms: our liberties have all been purchased in war: Jesus Christ Himself comes from Bozra with dyed garments.
4. Such was the song of war the Hebrew singer sang; now it is the song of the gospel of peace and of victory; for “peace hath her victories no less renowned than war.” By the heading, “A Song upon Alamoth,” you will see this was a song for the dance, a song for the women to sing. It could be given to those with the gentlest hearts and silentest lives, as well as to those who had brave deeds to do. It was eminently Luther’s psalm, on which he founded his own hymn, and is plainly fitted to be a song of the Church. (J. A. Black, M. A.)
The moral mirror of the good
I. The earthly scene of the good is that of tumult and opposition.
1. To remind us of the constant presence of moral evil.
2. To heighten our aspirations for a peaceful future.
II. The present resources of the good are adequate to every emergency.
1. Their resources are in God.
2. Their resources, being in God, are ample.
(1) They are ever present, lie is ever present: “God is in the midst of her”; we have no distance to go.
(2) They are ever certain. “God shall help her, and that right early,” or at the breaking of the morning. Deliverance is often delayed till the last moment, but it will come. Abraham in offering Isaac; Israel at the Red Sea, etc.
III. The spirit of the good may, even now, be calm and triumphant. “We will not fear.” We will “be still, and know that He is God”; and more, we will sing in the fiercest tumult, “The Lord of Hosts is with us,” etc. (Homilist.)
God our refuge
There is an allusion to the cities of refuge.
I. What God is to the Christian.
1. A refuge, which greatly excels those cities of Israel which were appointed for refuge to the man-slayer. It is in Jesus: is very near to the guilty; believing brings him into it at once: it is not temporary, but eternal: those refuges were only for the innocent, but this for the sinful: those were only for protection, not for liberty; only the death of the high priest made the refugees free, but this, how different: those were of no avail to the feeble and weak, they were not helped in any way to escape.
2. Strength: through His Spirit promises means of grace.
3. A very present help in trouble: such as the day of contrition, of temptation, of trial, of death.
II. The confidence the believer has in God.
1. He says he “will not fear.” Inside the city of refuge the refugee was safe: so the soul in Christ (Romans 8:1).
2. God, being his help and strength, the want and loss of everything is supplied.
3. This absence of fear is not temerity. They have abundant reason for saying, “Therefore will not we fear.” (Pulpit Analyst.)
Man’s refuge, strength and help
The author of this psalm is unknown, but the occasion, it is almost unanimously agreed, was the deliverance of Jerusalem from the army of Sennacherib. Christians in all ages have drawn encouragement and strength from its promises and triumphant declarations. Luther, in trouble, was accustomed to say to his friend Melanchthon, “Come, Philip,. let us sing the forty-sixth psalm”: when his face would brighten like the sky after a summer shower. Even the profligate Byron, infidel, yet true poet, breaks forth in lofty strains as he tells us how “The Assyrian came down like a wolf on the fold.”
I. God as a refuge. God’s children often need such refuge. A bird pursued by a hawk took shelter in the bosom of a man, who said to it, “I will not kill thee nor betray thee to thine enemy, seeing thou hast fled to me for sanctuary.” Christ came into this world that the soul hunted by the fierce hawks of temptation and sin might have a safe refuge.
II. God as the strength of the believer. Many would be Christians if they could only be assured that they would be eminent Christians. God never promises that, but only strength and grace. We are entirely dependent on Him for this. It has enabled men to--
1. Endure great trials.
2. To conquer. As the old crusaders put upon their bannered cross, “In hoc signo vinces,” so many a believer to-day faces and conquers his enemies in the strength that God gives.
III. God is also a very present help in trouble. This world, beautiful as it is, has its dark and gloomy side. No one is exempt from trial. A motherless little girl was asked, “What do you do without a mother to whom to tell your troubles?” She replied, “My mother told me before she died to go to the Lord Jesus. She said that He had always been her friend, and that if I would go to Him He Would always be my friend.” “But,” said the questioner, “He is a great way off, and has so much to do; He cannot attend to you.” “I don’t know how much He has to do,” said the child, “but He has said He would take care of me, and I believe He will.” Would that we all had the faith of this orphan child. (Robert Bruce Hull.)
The safe shelter
There are many who make their wealth their refuge. Others trust in their health and strength. They say, “Look at this strong arm, this robust chest, and this firm body! Talk of death: ah! ah! see my strength!”
I. The character of our God offers to us a sure refuge, for there is no deception in Him. You have had fathers and mothers whose noble testimony to the character of God has been before you. They trusted in Him; and were their lives a failure?
II. Our father God is a refuge from all the attacks of satan. Our Father will not allow the devil to battle with His children above their tiny strength.
III. Our Father is a refuge from the wicked desires of our hearts.
IV. Our heavenly Father is our refuge from the allurements of the sinful world. Keep as far as ever you can from the paths that lead so many to a ruined life and an agonized death.
V. In Jesus we see that god is our shelter from the smitings of a convicted conscience.
(W. Birch.)
A very present help in trouble.--
Sure help
Since the days of King David the forty-sixth psalm has been a song of comfort for God’s people. It was the song of the Christian martyrs of Europe, and of the persecuted Quakers of this country; and when our English dragoons pursued God’s people in Scotland as if they were wild beasts. We cannot all bear trouble alike. Some men pass through deep waters without apparently feeling it very much, while others appear old almost before they are young men in years. Trouble comes in different ways. Sometimes through trade or business. When you lose your money, why should you also lose your peace? If your joy rests on your money, I would not give twopence for it. God is never so near as when we are in trouble. If this be so, let us march bravely under our burden, like Christian soldiers. Others may have trouble because they are vexed by a few enemies. If you are successful in any great and good work, men of feeble and envious mind will seek opportunities of showing their spite; but it ought not to vex and annoy you. And others may be in some trouble because of bereavement. (W. Birch.)
Our present help
Some years ago on fine Saturday afternoons it was my custom to scamper in the fields with some of our fatherless children. Once we went round by Salford to Weaste Lane, returning by the river bank and the adjoining fields. We were very weary and hungry when we reached Throstle Nest, and much disappointed to see no ferry-boat there to carry us across the river. After shouting to the opposite side until we were hoarse, we gave it up in despair, and I said to the children, “What shall we do?” Little Annie, a tiny girl with golden hair, replied, “I don’t care, while you are here!” Does our God ever forget to attend to the requests of His people? When He has been very busy with revivals in ten thousand worlds, does He say to His angels, “Ah, angels, I am sorry I forgot to attend to that poor man in his trouble”? No, no! Our God never forgets. He is always a present help in time of trouble.
I. The Lord is our present help when we are tried by temptation. When Joseph was being tempted every day, the wife of his master may have said, “Nobody shall know”; but God was Joseph’s present help in that continual temptation. “How can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?” The fact of God’s presence is the most powerful remedy against every temptation.
II. The Lord is a present help when we are enduring trouble. All God’s people are tried. If we were not tried we should not be worth much in the battlefield of faith. Only tried veterans can be relied on in a difficult enterprise. “These are they who came out of great tribulation.” If you are tried, be not disheartened; remember that God will be a present help to enable you to bear up in every trouble. It is God’s will to try us, because it is the only way to make us meet for the grandeur of heaven.
III. Our God is a present help when we are striving to attain a noble life. Notice the student working hard, long after the midnight hour has struck. See, be binds a wet cloth round his head to calm the fever of his brain; and the world says it is all right; yet when they see a man struggling to overcome bad passions and acquire virtue, they have but little sympathy; but God beholds all your weary battles, and encourages you with His presence.
IV. Our God is our present help when he assures us of salvation. You may have heard of a ship which sailed off from a sinking vessel and left the crew and passengers to perish; but our God, in Christ, shall leave no sinner to perish in the ocean of iniquity, without making an effort to rescue him. Whosoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. You may reply, “Ah, but, sir, Christ would refuse me, because my soul is diseased.” Some insurance societies might refuse your body, but Christ will never refuse any man’s soul. A man who is in very bad health, and in despair about his life, goes to a physician and tells him all about his case. Having listened to all lie has to say, the doctor comes up to him with a cheerful face, saying, “Well, I can guarantee to cure you.” Why, the man goes away almost better! Now, Christ says to every soul that is diseased with sin, “I can cure you.” And He has cured myriads of such souls. (W. Birch.)