“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. 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. Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth. The LORD of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah.”
Psalm 46:7-11
Today’s Scripture passage contains one of the most famous and best-loved verses in all the Bible. “Be still, and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10). Those who have obeyed this, one of the LORD’s simplest yet profound commands, are first to testify to its efficacy. Man was created specifically by God to respond to His word in a way no animal ever could or ever will. Man, with divine help to be sure, can understand and believe God’s special revelation to the saving of his once damned soul, the soothing of his shattered nerves, and the quieting of his anxious mind. “Hurried, worried, harried, and buried,” sums up the North American experience. This of course goes in spades for us living in the 21rst Century, in which the Western world has taken a radical, disastrous, and sudden shift toward tyranny. Psalm 46:10 is not a command to disengage completely with the world, ignoring its problems and pretending they don’t exist. Rather, God would have us to seek and believe His word on the matter. We are to come to the place where we know, without any rational argument or deliberation, that God’s interpretation of the world is objectively certain; His promises to us who love and trust Him are sure and steadfast (Hebrews 6:19). We are not to think, however, that Christianity is irrational, that it is somehow contrary to reason. Nothing could be further from the truth! Rather, we are to understand that God alone is truly ultimate. God’s character, revealed in His holy word and in the Person of His Son Jesus, just is the standard of right reason and right moral conduct. It makes no sense to test the word of the One Who speaks on His own authority, whose word carries its own credentials, when it is He Who determines what amounts to a proper test for truth in the first place! The command to “be still” in today’s verse passage reminds us of God’s great deliverance in the days of Moses, when God’s servant commanded the fearful Israelites: “Fear ye not, stand still, and see the salvation of the LORD, which he will shew to you to day: for the Egyptians whom ye have seen to day, ye shall see them again no more for ever” (Exodus 14:13). God’s people have always had their enemies in the world, but as today’s verse passage reminds us, this is only for the moment. Let us rest in God’s promise that even now “our salvation nearer than when we believed” (Romans 13:11). Praise the Lord!
God bless,
Pastor John
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