Psalm 46

Psalm xlvi. gives ns one most simple truth, but a most solemn and weighty one — one much needed by Christians in the hearings of this world, and in the tendency to seek relief by human effort. “Be still, and know that I am God.” That is the exhortation. The encouragement is this: “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.” But if God takes this character, the waters may rage and be troubled, and the mountains shake with their swelling; we can be still. For no matter what power or swelling there is, if God be there, our refuge. Only we must wait, and wait till He comes in: and here it is faith is tried. Hence, “and know that I am God.” This may be by the exercise of patience, or the resisting the tendency to human effort. But the truth contained in the psalm is a most blessed and precious encouragement, which no one trouble can touch; for trouble is at the utmost from the creature, and God is God. But it implies that nothing else is a refuge, and this is perfect reliance, and implies that all else may be against us.

The great point is, that it is God as such who is our refuge and strength. He does not say, “The Lord” (Jehovah). Further on in the psalm, where relationship is in question, he does. Here the point is, that it is God in His nature contrasted with man — indeed with every power; for if God be for us, who can be

.against us? Faith gets hold of this. He is a refuge, where we may resort for safety; and He is strength, so that no adverse power can reach or succeed against us. It supposes that trouble, yea, insolent swellings of power, are there; tmt He is a present help. This secures fully; hut the help is not always a present, apparent one. But God Himself is looked to; and the fact that we are left wholly to Him, and that no other resource is there, makes all the power of evil immaterial to us; for it is nothing against God. “What is this confidence?” said the King of Assyria to Hezekiah. Other help we might calculate and compare the value of. This only requires faith. “Ye believe in God.” Against this help all effort is unavailing; only Ave must wait for it. Human effort shuts this help out. It is another kind of resource which is not faith. God may command activity, and faith acts confidently. But this is never man’s way; and when the matter is in God’s hands, when there is not a duty, then our part is to be still, and we shall soon know that He is God. Human effort only spoils all. No human planning is ever right. God will come in, in His own time and way. There are duties. When there are, do them: but when the power of evil against us is there, and there is not a duty, the path is to be still. Human efforts prove want of faith and restlessness, and planning is mere flesh. Elsewhere we have seen that integrity is needed to trust God, because it is God’s holy nature which is trusted. This absolute trust is called for when the power of evil is rampant, and endurance till deliverance is the path of the saint. There is another thought here.

THK PSALMS. — PSALM XLVII. lo7

God (the Most High over all the earth) has a dwelling-place, where the rivers of His grace refresh: then the city of God, Zion and the temple; now the Church. There the streams of refreshment run, and Be will preserve her (not now as Zion, the city of God’s solemnities, but in a better way), and there He enters into the proper character of His own relationship. And there He gives peace, having destroyed all the power of the enemy. Then will he who has waited know who is Cod — we in yet brighter and holier scenes.