A sermon based upon Psalm 46, CEB
By Rev. Charles J. Tomlin, BA, MDiv, DMin.
Flat Rock-Zion Baptist Partnership,
August 4th, 2019
I used to sing a song with my youth group, over and over that goes:
“Sometimes in our lives we all have pain, we all have sorrow.
But if we are wise, we know that there is always tomorrow.”
You probably know that song; “Lean on me!” Christoph loved to sing that song. He was one of the brightest, politest, promising young men, I’ve ever met. He told me that he truly enjoyed being with the others in our Christian youth group, but he also reminded me: “I’m not a bit interested in becoming a Christian.” He explained that while he respected the Christian Faith, to him the time for Christianity has past. It may have been the way people coped with reality at one time in human history, but today, he suggested, there are so many better, more advanced ways to have faith or to be ethical and good. He was planning to go some kind of social work, where he could, as he so idealistically said, “really do some good in the world.”
I’ve thought about that conversation many times. I especially thought about it in conjunction with a ethics class I once conducted on the campus of Mitchell College. While teaching a Christian Ethics class for Gardner-Webb, I asked all the students in that class why they were studying Christian Ethics. One middle-aged man explained that he was studying to become a Methodist minister. He explained further, that wanted to leave the world of social work, because, he said, “he felt as if he was continually going round in circles with people” and he felt he wasn’t really doing any good at all.
I don’t think either of these cases is about ‘the grass being greener on the other side’. I do believe Christoph was sincere about what he believed. I also believe the middle-aged man was on to something that the young man would one day find out. When you finally get beyond all your young excitement and idealism, especially when you start to realize that you may not be able to change the world. At that time, you will either become cynical about everything, or you will finally learn what the Psalmist declared in Psalm 46: ‘God will be exalted among the nations’…. ‘Behold the works of Lord’…. “Be still, and know, that he is God!” What the psalmist means is not theoretical, it’s not idealistic, nor is it complicated. What he is saying, is what we will all know eventually: God is our only true hope.
Today we are going to pick up where we left off last week; with the Psalmist challenging himself, and us, to ‘hope in God’. Psalm 46 reinforces ‘why’ we must hope in God. While we may start out in life thinking that we hold the ‘world by it tail’; or that ‘sky as the limit’, the day will come when dreams crash; when the world you’ve always imagined, or experienced, will fall apart before your eyes. This Psalm intends to put hope into our hearts, so that when that day comes, we can find refuge and strength in Israel’s God.
A HELP ALWAYS NEAR….(1)
It is very important for us to understand that before the Psalmist gives us his own very descriptive pictures of the ‘worst that can happen’, he reminds us that God is ‘always near’. What is unique here, particularly about Israel’s God, is that this is no ‘fair-weather’ God. As the Psalmist says in the beautiful King’s English, He ‘is a very present help in a time of trouble’.
Interestingly, Psalm 46 was a ‘war’ or ‘battle’ Psalm in ancient Israel. It was the Psalm Israelite soldiers sang as they prepared to march into battle against enemies coming and to kill and destroy. Can you imagine, chanting, singing these words, perhaps while saying to yourself, as George Washington did in the recent Broadway play, Hamilton; “We are out-gunned, out-manned, out-numbered, and out-planned!” How do you move ahead when life feels stacked against you?
The Psalmist wants us to know, that no matter what happens, God is there. It is precisely because God is his refuge, his shelter, and his strength, that the Psalmist had assurance of hope and his faith that was his great trust. What about you? Where do go and who do you turn to when the reality shakes your own world?
During Martin Luther’s stand against the mighty power of the Roman Catholic Church, this Psalm was Luther’s favorite. He even wrote a hymn that was based upon it, which is still sung and beloved by Christians around the world:
‘A Mighty Fortress Is Our God, a bulwark never failing.
Our helper He, amid the flood of mortal ills prevailing…
In the second verse he adds:
‘And though this world, with devils filled, should threaten to undo us,
We will not fear, for God has willed His truth to triumph through us.
Finally, as the hymn comes to a close, Luther admitted that even though he believed that God’s truth would finally triumph in this life, he may not. This is why his hymn does not simply end triumphantly, but also very realistically:
….Let goods and kindred go, this mortal life also; The body they may kill: God’s truth abideth still, His kingdom is forever.”
I realize that this great hymn is not a Baptist favorite; for it’s much more somber than “Leaning on the Everlasting Arms”. But the claim being made in Luther’s hymn is the ultimate reality that we need to be ‘pasted’ into our soul, now, during good times, so that we can find a way to hold on to hope, even during the most difficult times. This ‘claim’ is that God is our refuge. He is our strength. Only God is our shelter against the great storms of human life.
Can you say that, and mean it, especially when the opposing winds howl, or when your own world falls apart? Have you prepared your own heart for that?
I know many people make much less of church and spiritual faith during good, healthy and happy times. But as the novelist suggests, when ‘the center does not hold’, what will you hold on to? You may easily put ‘faith’ into the back seat now, but there will be a time when we all will cry, , “Dear Jesus, take the wheel!”
In his bold and brazen book, The God Delusion, outspoken British atheist, Richard Dawkins explained why he is ‘almost certain there is no God.’ Did you hear what the honest, outspoken atheist said? He is ‘almost certain’! He knows that he can’t say he ‘absolutely certain’ because he has to admit ‘there is no way to prove or disprove God.’
Believing or trusting in God, is always about having faith. As Hebrews 11 rightly says, “Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen’. There are always as many reasons not to believe, as there are reasons to believe. The nature of life and faith is that we always have to choose. Having faith in God is always a choice, just like for Richard Dawkins, having faith in human science is his choice. What intrigues me most about Dawkins atheism, however, is not his dismissal religious faith, he that he still admits that human beings ‘need some kind of comfort in life’. He religiously believes that science is right choice for comfort. All I can say to someone who is so sure, is ‘good luck with that! You’re going to need it!
Wasn’t it science without religious and moral restraint that encouraged the rise of Nazism? Wasn’t it also a passionate, but spiritually bankrupt materialism that gave us an economically bankrupt communism? Atheists, or even people who feel that God is no present help at all, may not want to admit it, but even the freedom to be an atheist, is allowed and granted by a faith that allows God to be the final judge. I find it humorous, that the atheist, should be thankful, but he is a fool with no one to thank.
Unless a ‘very present’ God helps us; unless this God is involved in our world and in our lives, sustaining, caring, and calling forward, and toward his eternal self; unless this kind of God is the one true God, then nothing matters. It is only this God, Israel’s God who is our ‘present help’ gives us hope and the assurance that everything matters.
As someone has written, there’s a lot of difference, when you make a space in the phrase, “God is nowhere!” When you make a space between the “w” and the “h”, and you say “God is now here!”, then you leave the nowhere, and find the ‘now here’ God, that makes everywhere matter. Is your God, not just in your mind, but also in how you live your life, a nowhere God, or is he a “now here” God?
If you recall, on September 11, 2001, when three American airliners where hijacked by radical Islamic terrorists, the world watched in shock and horror, as two of them crashed into those twin towers located in the heart of New York City. But we not only witnessed the crashing down of two major skyscrapers, but we also saw the images of people leaping from those buildings, and heard the sounds of spouses calling loved ones, saying their final goodbyes. Most of us who lived through that time, will also recall how, at least for a short time afterward, church and synagogue attendance was revived and renewed.
What this temporary revival was saying, is that, if we will ‘be still’, then we will know, as the Psalmist says, that Israel’s God is our only true hope; not just yesterday, but also today and tomorrow too. AS the Lord told Moses from the bush that burned without burning up: My name is “I am”. Jesus, as the Christ, also took this name, “I Am” for himself. The true, God revealed to Israel, not once, but again and again, wants to the be a ‘now here’ God. Israel’s God wants you to be acknowledged as always present in our lives, not only in times of trouble, but also when times are good. This God revealed to be ‘ever present’ (NIV) wants to be your ‘very present help’.
THERE IS A RIVER…. (4)
The picture the Psalmist chose to paste this understanding of an ever-present God into our minds and hearts is that of a ‘river’. “There is a river, whose streams gladden God’s city, the holiest dwelling of the most high” (v 4). The ‘river’ as an unlimited supply of life-giving water was one of the most powerful images of hope in ancient Israel. As was most of the middle east, Israel was limited in either rainfall or constant water resources. Water was even scarcer in and around Jerusalem. Had it not been for one single natural spring, the Gihon, the city of Jerusalem would have never been built or inhabitable (1 Kings 1:35ff). The Jordan River was some 21 miles away through desert that was both deserted and dangerous.
It is hardly any wonder then, that the physical need for water was often connected to people’s spiritual needs. In Israel’s mind, Eden was envisioned as a garden with two ‘rivers’ flowing through it (Gen. 2: 10). The great prophets imagined that one day, God’s eternal glory and righteousness, would flow like a river or an ever-flowing stream (Amos 8:8, Isaiah 59:19). And in the final heavenly vision of the Revelation of Jesus Christ, John imagined heaven coming to earth, as a city, which has at its center a ‘river’ that brings healing to all the nations (Rev. 22:1).
By using this image of a ‘gladdening’ river, the Psalmist pictures God’s unique healing resources (cp. 2 Kings 5:1ff), because in the Scriptures, God’s healing power is always related to God’s saving power. So, if Israel’s God is our still a ‘very present’ healing and saving hope in this world, what does this mean, and how does it work?
Back in May, 1983, the Chicago Tribune ran a story of Dustin Gilmore,15-month old son of David Gilmore, who came down with flu-like symptoms in April 1978. The Gilmores took Dustin to their church and the pastor prayed for him. Their church believed that faith alone heals diseases, and to go elsewhere for help — like a doctor — would show a lack faith in God.
Over the next few weeks they prayed faithfully as the little boy’s temperature climbed, prayed when they noticed he no longer responded to sounds, and prayed harder when he finally went blind. On the morning of May 15, 1978 the Gilmores went into their son’s room and found their son dead. Again they prayed, for their church also believed the power of prayer can raise the dead. But Dustin Gilmore was not resurrected. An autopsy revealed the infant died from a form of meningitis that could have easily been treated by proper antibiotics.” If God promises to be our ‘healing river’ that can gladden our hearts, how do we explain when a person prays for healing, or simply for God’s help, and it seems to them; as it can to you and me, that God is ‘not a very present help’, because the healing doesn’t come.
Now, of course, some Christians will dare to argue that parents didn’t possess enough faith, that if only they had really believed their son would still be alive. Others might call their faith foolishness; saying they should have immediately taken their child to the doctor. Still, even they were making the wrong choices, they did this while they were still trying to make good choices. They loved their little boy while they also wanted to obey God, to believe God, and yet there was no healing. When you have hope in God, and you want to believe that God is a ‘very present help’ to you, and that hope in God is a ‘healing river’ for us, what does, and what should this mean?
Maybe you also struggle, especially in an age of scientific miracles, to answer what God presence and healing promise means. Especially when the doctors aren’t sure what to do, or when they tell you there’s nothing else they can do, how is God still a very present help, or a healing river of hope?
One of my favorite all time preachers, Tony Campolo, once told this story about being in a church in Oregon where he was asked to pray for a man who had cancer. Campolo prayed boldly for the man's healing. That next week he got a telephone call from the man's wife. She said, “You prayed for my husband. He had cancer.” Campolo thought when he heard her use the past tense verb, but before he could think much about it she said, “He died.”
Campolo felt terrible. But she continued, “Don't feel bad. When he came into that church that Sunday he was filled with anger. He knew he was going to be dead in a short period of time, and he hated God. He was 58 years old, and he wanted to see his children and grandchildren grow up. He was angry that this all-powerful God didn't take away his sickness and heal him. He would lie in bed and curse God. The more his anger grew towards God, the more miserable he was to everybody around him. It was an awful thing to be in his presence.
But after you prayed for him, a peace came over him and a joy came into him. Tony, the last three days have been the best days of our lives. We've sung. We've laughed. We've read Scripture. We prayed. Oh, they've been wonderful days. And I called to thank you for laying your hands on him and praying for healing.” And then she said something incredibly profound.
She said, “He wasn't cured, but he was healed.”
When the Psalmist says God is his healing river of hope, he did not mean that we would get sick, die, or win every battle. The river of hope flows forward, not backward, and it never remains in the same place. It was the same way, even in Jesus own healing ministry. For in the gospels, Jesus never intended to physically heal everybody, but Jesus’ miracles were always signs how the river would keep going forward toward and even greater, more sustainable, spiritual healing; a healing that was ‘eternal in the heavens’, but could begin now, within the human heart.
This is why the old biblical word for healing was not to sozio, to save, but ‘therapueo’, to cure. Physical healing is ‘therapueo’, like physical therapy, because a cure in this world is always a very temporary way to heal. But the biblical idea God’s saving power in the gospel of Jesus Christ, carries a more determined and permanent concept of being delivered and rescued once for all. When God cures, we are only cured for a while. But when God saves, he heals to make us ‘whole’ from the inside out. While God may say either ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to our immediate need for healing, God always says ‘yes’ to our ultimate need; the need for God. This is the ‘ultimate direction’ that God’s healing river always flows.
BE STILL, AND KNOW….
The sure way to know that God heals and saves is ‘to be still’.
You can’t know the God of the Bible when the only ‘noise’ in your life is about you; only about your wants, your wishes, your desires, or your plans. An old saying goes, “If you want to make God laugh, tell him YOUR PLANS.” That’s not Scripture, but it makes a point: Your plans’ may be YOUR ‘immediate’ hopes, but can never be YOUR ‘ultimate’ hope. Without hope in God, there is nothing ‘ultimate’ about you, or your plans. Without God, you and your plans are nothing but ‘an evaporating mist’ in morning air.
When the ancient Greek dictator Antiochus, invaded and conquered Israel, he wanted to make his own point that he was ruler, and Israel’s God had no real power over him. He dared to enter Israel’s mysterious and forbidden space, the holy of holies, where only the High Priest could go once a year. After entering and exiting, the dictator told Israel’s religious leaders: “See, there’s nothing there. Your God is dead. Your God can’t save you, because your God didn’t stop me.
This is, of course, the position of many people today, who still say, either with their lips or their lives: “God, you are nothing! You can’t stop me! I’ll live my own life! I’ll go my own way!” And I guess, in a way, they are right. God doesn’t stop us. We can live the life we want, just like we want, just like we plan, and just as we wish. But one day, not just our plans, but we too, will become still and silent. Then, WE WILL KNOW. Or perhaps, I should say, WE WON’T KNOW anything at all, except perhaps, we will know, as in Jesus’ parable, the rich man knew. Because we didn’t want to know, we will one day have to know what we have missed. For only when your God is ‘now here’ God, will you avoid the ‘nowhere’ of where life will eventually go, without him.
Waldo Emerson us some wisdom, similar what the Psalmist wrote, when he said, “Let the hours be silent so the centuries can speak.” In the last ‘century’ what still speaks the loudest in my mind is what happens when a people forget God, and what still happened to one person of faith, who never forgot: speaks the loudest Written on prison walls at Auschwitz, these words were discovered, that were written as the last thought of a Jewish person of faith, facing the unthinkable:
”I believe in the sun, even when it is not shining.
I believe in Love, even when I’m all alone.
I believe in God, even when he is silent.
Even in the midst of most tragic of circumstances, God is still present…
Isn’t this what the Psalmist was also saying? No matter how his circumstances turned out, he discovered that: God is our refuge and strength, a help always near in times of great trouble….
6 Nations roar; kingdoms crumble. God utters his voice; the earth melts.
7 The God of Jacob is our place of safety…
That’s enough (be still!)! He is enough! Know that He is God (Ps. 46:1-7, 11 CEB)
A wealthy and successful man in Atlanta lived his life only by his motto: "Take the short cut." He once described having a life of wanting it all, and getting it. Then also described the ultimate despair he felt. He woke up one morning to the harsh reality that all of his goals in life had been accomplished and he still felt incomplete and "empty" inside.
What would be worse, struggling to reach all your goals in the hope of finding all you wanted, only to discover that everything you accomplished and got, was still not enough? That wealthy and very accomplished man was on the brink of suicide when he finally made one more discovering in the moment: He discovered, that “the heart is always ‘troubled’ and ‘restless’ until it finds its rest in God."
Like the Psalmist, when that man’s life became still enough, he came to know what he really needed to know all along. What about you? Amen.
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