Be Still for What? [B]

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Transcript:

Well, if you would turn with me back to Psalm chapter 46 again tonight, we’re going to take another look at this passage where we’re told to be still. And this morning I shared with you how it is very often used, or should I say misused, to promote the idea of switching off our brains and just getting to know God through feelings or experience. I talked about several things this morning.

I talked about prayer, talked about doctrine, talked about various things. The main point of this morning, if I didn’t make it clear enough, the main point of this morning is that this verse is used to promote the idea, whether it’s in prayer, whether it’s in teaching, whether it’s in knowing right from wrong, that this verse is misused, along with some others, to promote the idea that just whatever we feel like. We hear more and more often these days that there’s really no such thing as objective truth.

Or even if there is such a thing as objective truth, who’s to say that what you say is objective truth and what I say? Who’s to say which one is right? I had to read when I was working on it, when I was working on master’s classes, I had to read a book called Christian Apologetics by Norman Geisler.

And a lot of it was just way over my head. I mean, I thought I knew lots of stuff until I started reading this book and just could not wrap my mind around some of the things that he was presenting and arguing. But he wrote two chapters, I think, in his book dealing with how foolish it is to say there’s no such thing as absolute truth.

You mean absolutely no absolute truth? I mean, that’s an absolute statement in and of itself. Or dealing with the idea, well, there may be absolute truth or there is absolute truth, but we can’t really know it.

so you know enough absolute truth to know that we can’t know absolute. Do you see how those, they don’t make sense. Those are self-defeating arguments.

This idea we can’t really know the absolute truth so we just feel our way through everything. Just be still and just let God reveal it to you or let the feelings come or just be still. That’s not what God’s word teaches.

We’re taught to be renewed in our minds. God takes the mind and knowledge very seriously. It’s not to say that feelings don’t count, that experience doesn’t count, but what counts most is what we can see and what we can know is objective truth from the Scriptures.

Who’s to say who’s right and wrong? God is. And God in His Word, I believe there’s enough evidence to convince me that God’s Word is true.

Not only that, there’s enough evidence to convince me that over time God’s Word has not been changed altered. You know, there are some, and we may need to talk about this at some point, but you get all the manuscripts together that they have from ancient times of parts of the Bible. There are some differences.

They do not all say exactly the same thing. That was a little distressing to find that out. But when you look at all the thousands, and there are thousands and thousands of variants, thousands and thousands of places where all these manuscripts differ on what the scriptures say, 99.

9% of them have to do with something, spelling or punctuation. People misspell stuff all the time. If you’ve ever been on Facebook, you know that’s true.

And yet most of the time, you still get the meaning. You still understand what they were trying to say. Of that remaining fraction of a percent, none of them really affect doctrine.

So yeah, there’s plenty of evidence to me, not only that we can believe God’s word, but that we can believe that what we hold in our hands today is God’s word that has not been changed. over time. And that, you know what, I know there are people who would not be convinced tonight whatever I told them.

That’s fine. There are people who disagree with me on it, but I’m telling you, for me, as skeptical as I am about a lot of things, I’ve seen evidence enough to convince me that this is God’s word, that it’s objective truth from God, and that regardless of what I feel or what my experiences may be, this is the standard that he set, and it’s the standard that we follow. I would love to feel my way through life, but that’s not what we’re taught as Christians.

That’s not what this verse teaches. Let’s look again at Psalm 46, starting in verse 1. We actually look at the whole chapter here, just briefly tonight, or try to.

Verse 1 says, God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Okay, we look at that in conjunction. Look at, what am I trying to say here.

We need to consider verse 10 in light of every one of these other verses we look at, where it says, be still and know that I’m God. Keep that verse in the back of your mind as we read through each of these and say, okay, how do each of these inform what verse 10 means? Be still and know that I’m God.

How does God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in time of trouble. How does that affect the meaning? Well, obviously they’re talking about the need to run to God, be still and know that I’m God.

If he says God is my refuge, maybe at some point I need to stop running and take refuge in God. Just be still and let God be God. A very present help in times of trouble.

Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed, though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea, though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof. Okay, let’s look at some of the imagery in this passage. I realize that this is a poem and a song that David wrote, and oftentimes songs and poems have flowery language, but folks, it doesn’t mean that it’s incorrect language.

It’s in God’s Word, and he gives us this image here of the earth being removed. Now, that can mean a few different things. As he’s talking about mountains being carried into the sea and so forth.

It could be the earth. The very ground we stand on is being washed away. Sometimes the Bible speaks of earthquakes.

I know we have them all the time. The only one I ever remember feeling here in Oklahoma was a few years ago, and it shook so hard early in the morning. It woke me up and shook me out of bed, and I thought, what is going on?

It was hard enough that it shook me out of bed, but not so hard that it lasted long enough that I knew after I was awake that it was an earthquake. I just, really for a minute I thought somebody had hit the house. It’s very scary.

I said, why are you telling that story? Because it’s very scary, ladies and gentlemen, when the earth, the ground we stand on, what is supposed to be always there, always the same, unshakable, immovable, the foundation we stand on, when it suddenly is no longer there. If you’ve ever been in an earthquake, especially if you’ve been out in California, you’ve been somewhere and you’ve been in a bigger earthquake than that little one I experienced, we all experienced, you know it’s a terrifying thing if suddenly the ground, I mean we take it for granted, we assume the ground is going to be there and the ground is just going to be the ground.

And when the ground stops being the ground and turns into a roly-poly, it’s a frightening thing. At that point, what is there to hold on to when even the ground is shaking? So he gives us this image of the earth being removed and the mountains being carried in the midst of the sea.

Flood water sweeping through. That’s not so far-fetched. We were driving back through the Arbuckles last night and we could see, even in the dark, why they had I-35, one of the lanes, shut down.

Because those flood waters that came through, there were some massive looking rock slides there through the Turner Falls area. You have water come through and even mountains. I would have never thought anything could move the arbuckles and yet there it was parts of them had come cascading down with the waters and he talks here about the mountains being carried into the sea mountains should be permanent wouldn’t you think they’re they’re there they’re always there the same mountains we can see are the same mountains our grandparents looked at they’re just they’re there they’re permanent they’re they’re pretty hard to move and yet he talks about mountains being carried into the sea into the midst of the sea and the waters themselves they roar and they’re troubled and the mountains shake flowing in the waters.

What he’s painting here is a picture of great turbulence and insecurity. We’re talking about a world where up is down and down is up and we don’t know where we’re going. We don’t have anything firm left to hold on to.

Everything in our world is in an uproar. If you want to know what he’s talking about in the beginning of this chapter, that’s exactly what it is. He’s talking about God being a refuge when everything else in our world is in an uproar.

We sometimes trust in our homes, we trust in our bank accounts, we trust in these things that we’ve put around us as our security. I’ve got a few dollars in the bank, I’ll be okay. Folks, what’s happened in Greece in the last few weeks?

Their monetary system has collapsed. If something’s not done, it’s going to have a domino effect and it’s going to take a lot of Europe along with it. Suddenly people have got, well they’re not dollars, they’re euros.

They’ve got a few euros in the bank, but they can’t even get to them. 67 euros a day you can get out of the banks, out of the ATMs in Greece. Suddenly, I’ve got a few dollars in the bank, but it doesn’t buy me the security, the peace of mind that it used to.

It’s not there for me. My home, well, y’all have seen it different times. I’ve seen several times living in more.

Your home can be there one hour and gone the next. Your whole neighborhood. You can be going through a neighborhood where you’ve lived for 40 years and not recognize a thing.

That security can be gone. Well, my job. My job will always be there.

How many recessions do we have to go through before we realize that those things are not necessarily as permanent as they used to be? And it’s not just finances and jobs. We build security around us with all sorts of things.

And we think this is something that’s permanent in my life. This is something that’s unchanging. This is something that’s always going to be there.

This is a kind of security for me. And a lot of times we fail to realize it can be gone in the blink of an eye. when our entire world and I don’t necessarily mean the whole world I mean my world your your world our little corner of the world our little life when everything in it is upside down and it can happen so fast when everything that we used to cling to to know who we are or to know what’s going on around us or to make sense of the things that we’re looking at when everything is in an uproar where do we turn?

Where is our security then? He says, God is a very present help in times of trouble. There’s a river, verse four, the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God, the holy place of the tabernacles of the most high.

God is in the midst of her. She shall not be moved. God shall help her.

And that right early. You know, God is in the midst of his people. Whether We’re in the heavenly city with God or whether we’re talking about His presence with us now.

God is in the midst of His people. And God, by His very presence, is able to preserve us, to protect us, to provide for us, to make glad His people. And because of this, it says in verse 5, God being in the midst of her, she shall not be moved.

Now, we are sometimes shaken. We’re sometimes tossed about by circumstances and trials in our lives, whatever they may be. I would be surprised if there’s anybody in this room who’s never been through a period of your life where you felt that way.

That if you could say tonight, no, I’ve never been through a time where I felt like everything was in an uproar. I would be very surprised and I’d say, hang on, because it’s coming. We all get to a point in life where we’re shaken, but it’s nice to know.

It’s beyond nice to know. There’s a comfort and a reassurance in knowing that something in our lives, something in our little world cannot be shaken. Something cannot be moved.

And that something is the God that we cling to. He is immovable. It’s not that we’re immovable or that we’re unshakable.

It’s that He’s unmovable, unshakable. We may get to a point in life where no longer is there that job to cling to for security. No longer is there the bank account to cling to for security.

No longer is that family member, that loved one there to cling to for security. And what else do we have to hold on to? We have a rock that can never be moved.

It says that God is in the midst of His people. In the midst of her, she shall not be moved, and God shall help her. And that right early.

God is always there. He’s always there right on time to help His people. That right early.

God is never late. I love the story of Lazarus. You remember the story of Lazarus.

Word is sent to Jesus. Lazarus is dying. We need you to come.

And Jesus waits and waits and waits until finally Lazarus is dead. And Jesus says, okay, now we’re going to Bethany. And Lazarus’ sister tells him, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.

And there’s even a song about it that says even four days late, he was still right on time. You know what? By man’s perspective, God showed up four days late, but he was right on time to say, Lazarus, come forth.

He was right on time to show his power. It would have been one thing for him to show up in time to heal Lazarus. Lots of people could and have faked healings.

You don’t believe me that that’s possible? Look at the amount of money that pours into televangelists who fake healings all the time. Some of them have been caught.

Some of them have been caught and still are faking healings and people are sending them money. I don’t get it. I’ve never seen anybody fake raising the dead.

Now that’s a story that gets written down and remembered 2,000 years later. You know what? He was right on time to demonstrate His power.

In our lives, ladies and gentlemen, it doesn’t matter how late we think God may be. God is early on His timetable, and God is right on time to demonstrate His power when it comes to bringing help and healing and security for us. Again, it may not ever, I say this all the time, it may not make sense.

It may not look like what we expect it to look like. But according to God’s plans, He’s always right on time. The heathen raged.

The kingdoms were moved. He uttered his voice. The earth melted.

Israel is a tiny little country. Even at the greatest expanse of its territory under Kings David and Solomon, it was still a tiny little country on the world stage. We look through their history and realize that the only times they were ever conquered is when God warned them ahead of time that he was going to let it happen.

We look at Israel today, and they went to war immediately after they declared their independence. It was a tiny little country. I think at that point, at its widest in 1948, it was nine miles across.

I’m sorry, not at its widest, but at its most narrow point, it was nine miles across. 1948, attacked by all of its neighbors. Still managed to survive and expand its territory.

In the 1950s, another war was launched against Israel. They survived. In 1967, Israel went to war.

It was over in six days. And they survived. 1973, there was a sneak attack during one of their holiest days.

They survived. That’s just an example. But it says here, the heathens raged.

The heathen raged. The kingdoms were moved. He uttered his voice.

The earth melted. What I’m getting at there is just take Israel as an example. There is no explanation.

There is no explanation for how Israel survived as a kingdom through the centuries that it did beforehand. There’s no explanation for how Israel has survived time and time again since 1948, but for God holding back the attacks, but for God strengthening the people. And I’m not saying God necessarily approves of everything Israel has done in its modern history, but I am saying there’s no explanation for how Israel as a nation, that tiny little country surrounded by millions and millions of people who want to see its demise, how it would survive except for God and his providential care.

And we look back in David’s day. It’s not hard to see the heathen raged. Even in their day, they were surrounded by people who hated them, who wanted to destroy them.

The heathen raged all around them. In their day, it was Egypt and it was the Moabites and it was the Ammonites and it was the Philistines and the Assyrians and the Babylonians and they all wanted a piece of Israel. They all wanted to destroy them.

And there were more ites than just those. The heathens raged, the kingdoms were moved all throughout history. One country conquers another, this one splits into more, and these merge, and these.

. . It’s a mess.

I looked at a timeline the other day where somebody had done a timeline of all the major countries of the world, and watching the twisting of it, and this one breaks apart, and then these two get together, and it just looks like a bunch of worms as you go through the timeline, and you see the lines of the different countries weave in and out of each other. Borders changed and power shifted. And yet God was always there with his people.

It doesn’t matter how much the heathen rage is around us. It doesn’t matter how much the power of this world shifts or the circumstances around us shift. How much turmoil, how much chaos there is outside.

If God is with us, we’re not moved. I don’t mean that geographically, that we’re not moved. That we’re impenetrable.

that this country or any other will never fall. But I mean as God’s people, nothing can happen to us that He doesn’t allow. The kingdoms were moved.

He uttered His voice. The earth melted. Yes, the heathen raged.

The heathen in all His violence and all His power got what He wanted until God spoke the words of His mouth and the very earth melted. That, ladies and gentlemen, is power. Not the raging of heathen armies.

not the circumstances and trials of our lives, but the word of God. The Lord of hosts is with us. The God of Jacob is our refuge, Selah.

Come behold the works of the Lord, what desolations he hath made in the earth. Come see, come see the power of God. Not only that, come see the power of God over the people who think they are the most powerful people on earth.

The desolations he’s made among the enemy, come see what he’s done to Pharaoh. Come see what happened to the Assyrians. Come see what happened to the Babylonians.

Come see what happened to the Ammonites and the Amalekites. Come see what happened to all of them. They thought they were powerful.

Everybody feared and trembled at the sound of their name and look what God brought to them. Come see the desolations that he’s made in the earth. He maketh wars to cease unto the end of the earth.

He breaketh the bow and cutteth the spear in sunder. He burneth the chariot in the fire. All of the things that the world depends on to make its power known.

God is able to break the bow. God is able to burn the chariot. The chariot was like the tank of their day.

Chariots were bad news. Chariots were frightening. God burned the chariots with fire.

All of this is full of imagery, full of poetry, but it’s still a very practical biblical point that there is no power on earth that is too great for God to handle. And immediately after making this point over and over and over again, Talking about the natural world, the mountains crumbling into the sea and the sea being, and then talking about the nations of the world, kingdoms moving, but God melted the earth and the desolations that he’s made and breaking the bow and cutting the spear and burning the chariot. Immediately after making this point repeatedly, that there is no power on earth too great for God to handle, he then says, be still and know that I am God.

I will be exalted among the heathen. How? By demonstrating his power and taking care of his people.

I will be exalted in the earth by demonstrating his power and taking care of his people. When you look at this, and then he says again in verse 11, the Lord of hosts is with us. The God of Jacob is our refuge.

When you look at verse 10 in context, in the context of what he’s saying throughout all of chapter 46, It is not telling us just be still and feel your way through your experiences with God. It is telling us that we serve a God of real and unimaginable power. Who is so far beyond the power that it takes to handle any of our circumstances in life.

Then what do we have to worry about? Just be still and know that he’s God and let him handle it. because He will be exalted among the heathens.

He will be exalted in the earth. I don’t know about you, but I find that interpretation a whole lot more comforting than just feel your way through it. It’s okay.

There’s a lot of uncertainty in that. There’s a lot of, well, how will I know what the truth is? How will I know if I’m right here?

How will I know what I’m supposed to do? There’s a lot of uncertainty in that. There’s a lot of certainty in knowing that God is more powerful than any of the problems that we face.

I’d much rather, ladies and gentlemen, I’d much rather go with the biblical interpretation of this. So what it’s saying, I’m going to share five things with you as quickly as I can and then we’ll be dismissed. First of all, being still means trusting God in times of trouble.

Here’s what this passage does mean. Being still means trusting God in times of trouble. God is our refuge, a very present help in times of trouble.

Therefore, will not we fear. The only reason we don’t fear when we’re in trouble, The only reason for us not to fear when our entire world is upside down is because God is a refuge and a very present help in times of trouble. Only for that reason can we be still and not fear.

So be still doesn’t mean turn off your brain and feel your way through it. It means trust God when you’re in trouble. Second of all, being still means trusting a God whose presence is unshakable.

We’re able to trust Him because nobody, hear me on this, nobody can break Him. Nobody can shake him. Nobody can take him by surprise.

Nobody can overwhelm him. His presence is unshakable. When God is present with us and our circumstances get to be too much for us to handle, God doesn’t get nervous and run away.

God does not abandon his people. In contrast, verse 4 says, There is a river. The streams whereof shall make glad the city of God, the holy place of the tabernacles of the most high.

God is in the midst of her. she shall not be moved. It talks about the city of God.

It talks about God’s people not being moved. It’s not because we’re unshakable. It’s because He dwells in us and He’s unshakable.

We serve a God whose power is unshakable. That’s why we’re able to be still. Third of all, we trust a God whose timing is impeccable.

I talked about this already a little bit. God is never behind. It says that He shall help her.

God shall help her, verse 5, and that right early. God’s never late. God never forgets to step in and help us when we need it.

Why can I be still? It’s because not only do I know that God can handle anything, but I know His timing is just right to do it when I need it most. Fourth of all, we trust a God whose power is undefeatable. He can’t be defeated.

Talked about Him being unshakable means He doesn’t turn and run away from us. He doesn’t abandon His people when times get tough. Folks, more than just being with us, he handles the problems. He’s able to handle anything the world throws at him.

The heathen rage, the kingdom’s moved. It didn’t matter. It did not matter.

He uttered his voice, the earth melted. There’s not a power in heaven or earth that can defeat God. They can’t do it.

You know, Satan’s been. . .

Everybody thinks Satan and God are of equal power. Or not everybody, but you hear that sometimes. It’s what we call dualism.

It’s not true. we see in the scripture Satan who is thought to be so powerful and I guess when it in comparison to us he is powerful I mean we need to take that seriously but he’s thought to be so powerful almost omnipotent you realize he can only touch us if God allows him to if Job taught us nothing else Satan can’t do a thing to us without God’s permission without God allowing it to happen It doesn’t mean God causes it, but God may allow it. And with all this supposed power, he’s been making war against God for over 6,000 years now.

He hadn’t won yet. And we know the end of the story. He and his entire cadre of demons are going to be thrown into the lake of fire, and they’re just going to have to deal with it because God said so.

If Satan can’t defeat him, my problems and your problems can’t defeat him either. This world can’t defeat him. We trust a God whose power is undefeatable.

And finally tonight, we trust a God whose glory is unassailable. We trust a God whose glory is unassailable. We can be still in His presence because we know He’s never going to leave us, because we know He’s going to step in at just the right time, because we know nobody can defeat Him, and because we know that He’s going to do whatever is necessary.

We know that He’s going to do whatever the right thing is, whatever is going to bring Him glory. It does not glorify God to see His people destroyed. It doesn’t glorify God to see his people defeated.

It doesn’t mean that we’re always going to get what we want. Please understand me on that. Folks, when he talks about breaking the bow and cutting the spear and burning the chariots, all of the power of this world, he then says, I will be exalted among the heathen.

I will be exalted in the earth. We can be still and know that he’s God. We can rest trusting in God.

Even when the world is going haywire, going nuts around us, We can rest in God. We can be still and trust in His power to deal with it because we know that no matter what, it’s going to work out to His glory. It’s going to work out to His glory.

He will be glorified. Folks, we can trust God. That.

I don’t care what you hear from a preacher on TV or radio. I don’t care what the book says or what a friend says on Facebook. That’s what this passage is about.

Knowing that we can trust God. How in the world can I stand still? How in the world can I stand still and immovable and not be shaken when the world is all swirling around me in a big chaotic mass?

It’s because I’m right here and I know who God is. And I know his power. And I know his glory.

And I know his faithfulness. Folks, we can trust a God who is as strong and as faithful as he is. He’s promised.

He’s promised to take care of his people. And we can always take him in his promises.