When I was growing up, my best friend, Rocky, and I went for a hiking every opportunity we had. The part of California where we lived wasn’t as populated then, and it was a relatively easy thing for us to just walk up into the hills and spend the day, or the weekend, out in the woods. One day we were walking down a dry creek bed (most small creeks dry up in the summer in California), when someone far above us started rolling rocks down the hill. We were in a fairly deep canyon, so we couldn’t climb out of the creek bed easily, and the people above us were rolling the biggest rocks they could find. Most of them were at least the size of a basketball. There wasn’t much use in yelling, because the rocks were making too much noise. But the creek bed was full of large boulders, many of them 10-15 feet across, so we quickly crawled under one and took refuge there until the storm was over. The rocks that were coming down the hill were dangerous. One of them could very easily have killed us. But we had easy access, right where we were, to a place of refuge. That’s how the psalmist describes our God. In this world we’re in considerable danger, but God’s people find, in Him, a safe place of refuge.
Martin Luther’s hymn, “A Mighty Fortress,” was inspired by this psalm. One commentator says this: “I gained a new insight into the sense of these words after a visit to the Wartburg Castle near Eisenach, where Luther lived in hiding for ten months in 1521 and 1522. ‘A half-hour,’ says the sign just out of Eisenach, as one begins hiking up the hill. After weaving back and forth through woods and rocks, one arrives finally at the Wartburg. Ein’ feste Burg, that is, a mighty fortress, and so it is indeed: situated high on a hill, majestic, sturdy, solid, a place to live in security and safety, a place to get a new perspective on things. Such is the Wartburg–and our God is something like this, said Luther in his hymn” (James Limburg, Psalms, p. 153). That’s how this psalm begins: “God is our refuge and strength, and ever-present help in trouble.” Listen to how it reads in The Message: “God is a safe place to hide, ready to help when we need him.” What Rocky and I needed when those rocks started coming down the mountain was a safe place to hide, and there was one readily available. The psalmist is saying that God is a safe place to hide; He’s right there when we need Him, and He’s ready to help.
In the first section of this psalm, verses 1-3, we can see that God is our source of strength and stability when the created world seems out of control. When we see the power of creation displayed, we realize how small and frail we are. I drove through the Himalayan foothills once during the monsoon season. I had driven into the mountains from Kathmandu to meet another driver, who had come from India. We met halfway between Kathmandu and the border and switched vehicles, then both returned the way we had come. About halfway back it started raining hard, while I was still on the narrow mountain roads, and it looked like the mountains were dissolving. Several times I drove through muddy waterfalls, pouring down from the bank above the road, and there was mud everywhere, running down the sides of the mountain. There are frequent landslides that time of year, and I realized it wouldn’t take much for the road to come loose and slide away beneath my truck. There wasn’t anything I could do but to pray and keep driving.
John Wesley, early in his life, made a very unsuccessful attempt at missionary work in Georgia. On the ship to America, there were some Moravians whose faith impressed him. They were willing to do menial jobs, serving the other passengers, and they seemed to have something he himself lacked (this was before his own conversion, before he understood the gospel of free grace). During the voyage, there was a violent storm, and while he and others were afraid for their lives, the Moravians “calmly sang a hymn of trust and praise” (George Whitefield, by Arnold Dallimore, vol. 1, pp. 145-46). Wesley was trying to serve God, but he didn’t know Him. These Moravians knew God, and they found Him to be their “refuge and strength, and ever-present help in trouble.” Their faith was like that of Habakkuk, who said: “Even though the fig trees have no blossoms, and there are no grapes on the vine; even though the olive crop fails, and the fields lie empty and barren; even though the flocks die in the fields, and the cattle barns are empty, yet I will rejoice in the Lord! I will be joyful in the God of my salvation. The Sovereign Lord is my strength!” (Habakkuk 3:17-19a, New Living Translation). God is our source of strength and stability when the created world is out of control.
But there are other hazards in this fallen world. Actually, the thing that prompted Habakkuk’s bold statement of faith was the realization that God was planning to use evil people to punish Israel for their rebellion. In the second section of this psalm, verses 4-7, the psalmist declares that God is our protector and refuge from the violence of other people. Here’s verse 6 in The Message: “Godless nations rant and rave, kings and kingdoms threaten, but Earth does anything [God] says.” Psalm 2 sounds similar: “Why the big noise, nations? Why the mean plots, peoples? Earth-leaders push for position, Demagogues and delegates meet for summit talks, The God-deniers, the Messiah-defiers: ‘Let’s get free of God! Cast loose from Messiah!’ Heaven-throned God breaks out laughing. At first he’s amused at their presumption; Then he gets good and angry. Furiously, he shuts them up....” (vv. 1-5a, The Message).
Satan said to Eve, in the Garden, “God knows that your eyes will be opened when you eat it. You will become just like God, knowing everything, both good and evil” (Genesis 3:5, NLT). “You will become just like God.” We’re living in a world that has succumbed to that temptation, and the violence and evil that we hear about every day are the fruit of refusing to bow before the lordship of He who alone is truly God. The violence is there; the psalmist takes note of it: “Nations are in uproar, kingdoms fall.” But that’s not the whole story. In the midst of this world that is intent on going its own way, and which is under the control of spiritual wickedness in high places, God has placed His people, those He has redeemed, and He is caring for them.
Notice the contrast between the waters of verses 2&3 and those of verse 4. In the early verses, the waters rage and foam. They’re violent and destructive, similar to the nations in verse 6. Verse 4 is a deliberate contrast: “There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy place where the Most High dwells.” This river is a picture of God’s presence in the Temple. It looks forwards to this at, the end of Revelation: “And the angel showed me a pure river with the water of life, clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb, coursing down the center of the main street. On each side of the river grew a tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, with a fresh crop each month. The leaves were used for medicine to heal the nations” (Revelation 22:1-2, NLT). Despite the chaos of the surrounding nations, God is with His people. He dwells among them: “God is within her, she will not fall; God will help her at break of day.”
The psalmist is also aware that things won’t always be as they are now. In the third section, vss. 8-11, we see that God will continue to be our safe dwelling place in the future: “Come and 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.” Scripture is full of this future perspective; that’s why it comes up again and again in the passages we study. The present state of the world is temporary. Things won’t always go on in this way. God has allowed the world to go its own way for now, but a day is coming when He will say, “Enough.”
Verse 10, “Be still, and know that I am God,” sounds like an invitation to quiet, restful meditation, an invitation to sit down beside the still waters and cultivate an awareness of God’s presence. It sounds at first like the kind of disconnected, other-worldly spirituality that people sometimes criticize. But these words are spoken in a very explosive context: “He makes wars cease to the end of the earth; he breaks the bow and shatters the spear.” The earth is rushing toward destruction, and God is exercising His sovereign Lordship, bringing it all to a close. Verse 10, directed toward those nations that are in an uproar, says something like this: “Desist! and confess that I am God” (NAB). “Stop, understand who you are to who I am, and bow before my sovereign Lordship. It’s more of a command than an invitation. It might help to put an exclamation mark after the words “Be still!” Directed toward God’s own people, it says something more like this: “Step out of the traffic! Take a long, loving look at me, your High God, above politics, above everything” (The Message). The effect is different depending on who is receiving it. But in both cases, those words are spoken into a context of frenzied activity, and they remind us of something we forget when everything starts to go out of control: God is God, and we are not. Be still! And know that I am God. He knows what He is doing, and soon this brief life will be over and we’ll be forever in His presence. He’s accomplishing His purposes in ways we’re unable to see right now. Stop! Know that He is God and that He is at work in ways beyond our understanding. The psalmist is looking forward to that day when God will indeed bring all warfare and violence to an end. He’s so certain of it that he speaks of it as already happening: “Come and see the works of the Lord, the desolations he has brought on the earth.”
Our source of strength and stability in a world like this is God Himself. That’s the point of the refrain in verses 7 & 11: “The Lord Almighty is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress.” That’s what gives us stability in the present and hope for the future. The words, “The Lord... is with us,” are from the same Hebrew word which is translated, in the New Testament, “Immanuel,” which means, “God is with us.” The name for God is different. In Immanuel, the general name for God, El, is used, and in the refrain of Psalm 46, the covenant name, Yahweh, is used. But otherwise it’s the same word. The thing that sets God’s people apart is that He dwells among them. There are other things that result from His redemptive work among us, but the most fundamental thing, the thing that matters most is this: that we are a people among whom God dwells.
Of course, we often lose sight of Him. Something similar happened to the disciples while Jesus was still among them in the flesh. They were crossing the Sea of Galilee, and He was in the boat with them. “The next thing they knew, they were in a severe storm. Waves were crashing into the boat–and he was sound asleep! They roused him, pleading, ‘Master, save us! We’re going to drown!’ Jesus reprimanded them, ‘Why are you such cowards, such faint-hearts?’ Then he stood up and told the wind to be silent, the sea to quiet down: ‘Silence!’ The sea became smooth as glass. The men rubbed their eyes, astonished. ‘What’s going on here? Wind and sea come to heel at his command!” (Matthew 8:24-27, The Message).
Sometimes we forget that He’s there. Or it feels like He’s asleep in the back of the boat, not paying any attention to what is going on. When we find ourselves in trouble and in need of shelter, we need to cry out to Him. We need to seek refuge in Him. He’s a “very- present help in trouble,” but that won’t help us much if we don’t turn to Him for help. Cry out to Him like the psalmists do, saying “Get up, God! Are you going to sleep all day? Wake up! Don’t you care what happens to us?” (Psalm 44:23, The Message). You may hesitate to pray in that way, but those words are right out of the psalms, which train us to pray differently than we would on our own.
Here’s the problem: “God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.” But we often lose sight of this truth and when we’re in trouble we start looking elsewhere for help. No matter what is the source of our trouble: whether it’s the destructive power of creation or the wicked purposes of evil people, God is able and willing to help us. He doesn’t always help us in the ways we want or expect. But He always acts in perfect wisdom and love. He has been rescuing His people for thousands of years, and we look forward to a day when we will see Him face to face and live in His presence forever. Pray this psalm often, and cry out to God when you are in trouble and in need of refuge. “The Lord Almighty is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress.”
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