Three main pillars uphold this vision of God in Psalm 46. It gives us God, so that we might not fear, but have real peace of soul in crisis by knowing him. The power in this psalm is in its vision of God. This psalm will always be ready, because our God is always ready - which leads to what specifically this psalm tells us about our God. He can help in your trouble, however catastrophic it seems. If God can handle the world’s ultimate undoing, and the nations raging against his own chosen people, he can handle your crisis. Know for the first time, or learn afresh, that he is God, and that as Jacob had him as his covenant God, so do we, and all the more, in Christ. That’s where we’re headed: Stop raging and scurrying and plotting. And then there’s the all-important verse 10: “Be still, and know that I am God.” Verse 4: “the city of God.” Verse 5: “God is in her midst.” Verse 5: “God will help.” Verses 7 and 11: “the God of Jacob.” His covenant name, “the Lord,” appears in verses 7, 8, and 11. The entire psalm rings with the name of God. But rather, to God.Ī very present help in trouble. Not to our anxious strategies to avoid pain and loss. Not to our best efforts to fix the problem. Whatever trouble comes, Psalm 46 tells us, with its first word, where to turn. If God’s people can be without panic when the ground shifts, and the seas rage, and the nations rage, then we can face any crisis with confidence. “If God’s people can be without panic when the ground shifts, and the seas rage, and the nations rage, then we can face any crisis with confidence.”Īnd into this particular chaos, this crisis, these life-or-death threats to the city of Jerusalem, Psalm 46:2 says, amazingly, “We will not fear.” That’s how God means to help us with this psalm - to displace fear with confidence, to give us stable ground under our feet even in crisis.
It’s a picture of natural cataclysm, perhaps even of end-times catastrophe. Verses 2–3 mention how “the earth gives way,” “the mountains moved into the heart of the sea its waters roar and foam,” and “the mountains tremble at swelling.” The stable, secure earth and mountains are being overtaken by the restless, raging, unstable, dangerous sea. The earth and mountains, typically images of stability, are shifting. Verse 6 says that “the nations rage, the kingdoms totter,” and then in verse 9 we hear of war, bows, spears, and war chariots (or perhaps carts for making siegeworks against the city). The first and perhaps original threat is hostile nations, threatening Jerusalem. Psalm 46 casts the crisis in two life-or-death threats. And they are ready-made for our crises today. These words were not written for only one crisis, but many. This may not satisfy our curiosities, but it does show us the timelessness of our God. The particular crisis that gave rise to these verses is left unidentified. This psalm gives us a crisis-ready vision of God. Psalm 46 was composed in a time of crisis, and it is preserved for us today for our crises. But a national crisis in the modern world - playing out far away, in the news and on our screens - can be a far cry from a personal crisis. It may have been a national crisis that inspired Psalm 46. We reach for catastrophic language, as Psalm 46:2–3 does, to put words and concrete images to the tumult in our own souls. We might describe it as our world being turned upside down. We might say that it felt like the very ground beneath our feet was shaking. I suspect that most of us - if we’ve lived long enough - can look back on some moment in our lives, some time, some season (if not many!) that we would identify as a crisis. Have you ever had a time in your life that you would call “a crisis”? Some in this room might be in a time of crisis right now.
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