Psalm 46
Never was there a time in the history of the world when Christians needed more to have a true knowledge of God, of His love, His power, His purposes, His ways than the present time.
Like a well-cut cameo Psalm 46 stands in an arresting way in this connection.
It is widely known as Luther’s psalm, not that Luther wrote it, but that he profited by it in no ordinary measure. In dark days when difficulties and dangers beset the intrepid reformer’s steps he would turn to his great friend and brother in Christ, Melancthon, and say, “Let us chant the forty-sixth Psalm, Philip”; and in this exercise his heart would be strengthened in faith and confidence in God.
Let us look first at the interpretation of this wonderful psalm. It has in view the sufferings and deliverance of the remnant of Israel in the great tribulation. It is divided into three sections, the close of each marked by the word Selah.
The first section, verses 1 to 3 inclusive, gives us (1) the confidence of the JEWISH ELECT during the great tribulation; (2) their terrible circumstances in that time.
The second section, verses 4 to 7 inclusive, gives us (1) the millennium of rest the godly remnant will enter into; (2) the affirmation of God’s help; (3) the power of the enemy described; (4) the vigour and completeness of Christ’s intervention on behalf of His people; (5) the confidence that the contemplation of all this gives to the heart.
The third section, verses 8 to 11 inclusive, gives us (1) the nature of Christ’s intervention from the enemy’s point of view; (2) its true meaning and result from the divine side; (3) an exhortation and an affirmation as to God and His purposes; (4) the confidence that the contemplation of all this gives to the heart.
The Psalm begins well. The word GOD is the first articulate syllable that breaks the silence. No wonder that with such a start we should immediately find such words as “our Refuge and Strength, a very present help in trouble”—a strong Tower to run to for safety, an unlimited power to still the heart in the face of fearful perils, and that just when needed, “a very present help in trouble.”
“Therefore.” Happy deduction! Splendid reasoning! GOD! GOD!! GOD is superior—infinitely superior—to every possible hostile circumstance or combination of circumstances.
Could there be a more graphic description of the horrors of the great tribulation than is compressed in verses 2 and 3? What a divinely inspired pen-and-ink sketch! The mountains carried into the midst of the sea—everything that is solid and stable engulfed and carried away by the wild uncontrolled will of man, energized by Satan and governed by lawlessness and hatred of God and His interests.
The late great war and its aftermath has furnished us with illustrations of the state of things that must be engendered by war waged on the colossal scale that Scripture prophesies for the last time.
Yet amid such scenes the quiet confidence of His people will be in God.
But behind all this will be the great hand of God, using the tribulation to bring repentance and restoration to His sorely afflicted people, and carrying them into the rest that remains for the people of God.
So we turn from the terrific upheaval of things, from the mountains being flung into the midst of the sea, from the tottering of all that is stable and steadfast, and its being swallowed up by the raging of the nations; from the roar and swelling of the angry sea; we turn from that tempestuous scene, and passing the “Selah” of verse 3 we find ourselves in a very different scene—in the presence of a river, that is water flowing peacefully between its ordered banks, fertilizing, beautifying, blessing the land through which it flows. The roar of the tempest has ceased, the battling with the elements is over, and we are now beside “waters of quietness” (see Psalm 23:2, marginal reading).
We are left in no doubt as to what is meant by the river. It is connected with the city of God, Jerusalem, and with the sanctuary, the temple. (Ezekiel 47:1-12; Zechariah 14:8; Joel 3:18.)
It will be an actual river with actual streams, with a symbolical meaning. It will be the outward and visible sign that the glory of the Lord has returned to the temple, and that from the presence of the Lord will flow forth blessing, not only to the land of His choice, and the people of His land, but east and west to the whole world. What a day will that be!
Verse 5 is the promise that will greatly comfort the godly remnant in the hour of their sore trial, and prepare them for the deliverance God will effect.
Verse 6 gives us in seven graphic words the whole power of the enemy in those days: “The heathen raged, the kingdoms were moved”; and in a similarly powerful and graphic seven words we get the Lord’s intervention and its immediate result: “He uttered His voice, the earth melted.”
Verse 8 gives us the result of that intervention from man’s standpoint. The coming of Christ at the end of the great tribulation will be the signal for the most awful happenings. Seismic occurrences of the most terrible character will take place. Cities will be levelled to the ground. If terrible happenings will have transpired this will be still more terrible.
Yes; but we know the end. It is the terrible knock-out blow that is to end the fight. It is the war to end wars. It is the war that alone can justly bring peace. Men may dream that the late terrible war is to end war, that never again will men be so foolish as during 1914-1918, that the League of Nations is to bring in the millennium, but the nations are simply building a pretty building of ideas upon a seething volcano of unrest and lawlessness.
No; there can be no millennium without Christ; there can be no peace save as founded on righteousness.
But the day is coming when the last terrible single stroke of Christ’s arm will bring in desolation on man’s aims and plans—man’s as energized by Satan—but it will break the bow, and cut the spear in sunder and burn the chariot in the fire.
No wonder we hear the voice of God,
“Be still and know that I am God:
I will be exalted among the heathen,
I will be exalted in the earth.”
Every question is settled:
“The Lord of Hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge.”
There is nothing more to be said. In the individual life of Jacob, the enlightened will be able to trace a typical likeness to the history of the Jewish nation as a whole, and the God who could be the God of a crooked stick like Jacob can and will be the Refuge of His erring but then repentant people.
And surely what can happen in such unparalleled circumstances to a whole people can happen to an individual in his little circumstances. The God who is sufficient for the whole universe can care for a sparrow, and the God of Psalm 46 is enough for you and for me.