THE PAUSE THAT REFRESHES
Psalm 46: 1-11
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A PRESBYTERIAN PSALTER - by Pastor Max A Forsythe |
Of course it is the fall of the year, the clocks have just barely been changed and a full moon was out this week, so it is to be expected that the week would be interesting to say the least. For this and other scheduling reasons, I have chosen to pass by our series on the third commandment and the second half of the twenty-fourth psalm for today. Not only are the worldly troubled in our time, but certainly even the church is becoming hard pressed as we sense the withholding of God's Spirit from the ordinary affairs of the world on a day to day basis. It has been my experience this fall that even ordinarily exuberant individuals are feeling the rough edge of something they aren't quite certain of! And the exceptionally worldly seem to go off the deep end with every phase of the moon instead of only once a month as became common in the early seventies!
In my first church I was involved in a study of the book of Revelation. As we began discussing the end of time, one young lady became very distressed. She wondered how we as Christians could face the predicted events that often affect every generation. Again, during Desert Storm more than one person was persuaded that the last battle was about to be waged. And at this point in time, as we draw near the end of one millennium to the beginning of another, many people are confused, and some even a little concerned.
It is well that we as Christians have the Lord's Day to put things into the proper perspective. By hearing His word and sharing our concerns with Him, we are indeed strengthened to put up with the minor inconveniences of living in the midst of those who know not our God and King. Spurgeon writes that this particular psalm is one that should encourage us: "Happen what may, the Lord's people are happy and secure, this is the doctrine of the Psalm, and it might, to help our memories, be called [a] song of holy confidence ..." Let us look carefully at the three portions in this psalm of confidence.
In the first part of the psalm, we have the statement of where we should turn in times of trouble. There is also here the guarantee that He is sufficient, even if the earth should change. In spite of all natural disasters, God is still in control. Of course, we read about disasters all the time, volcanoes, earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes and floods. El Nino watchers are waiting to inform us of any potential problems. And the president has promised the "earth is warming" fretters that he will take appropriate action to turn down the temperature sometime in the future.
In the psalm we see that the city of Jerusalem may remain stable even in the midst of turmoil, political and climatic. In the second part of this psalm beginning in verse four we see that symbolically, there is a source of water for the thirsty. Even if Jerusalem were surrounded, there was the underground stream that gladdened the hearts of the people. And beyond that source, there was the presence of God Himself in their very midst. The Old Testament makes much of that presence or as the Hebrew calls it "the Shekinah". Now I do not want to confuse the quieter wholesomeness of earlier decades with God's nearer holiness but there is something going on in our day and time very much like what Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn observed of the rulers in his homeland: "God has deprived them of reasoning power in order to destroy them..."
And in the process of their growing weaker during the sixties, he was encouraged to stand up for the faith once given to the saints. "I see that in the last few years I have grown stronger and braver, that I dare to put out my horns more and more often, that today I can bring myself to write things that three years ago seemed deadly dangerous." And so he was strengthened to stand against the Soviet system. By his example we should know that God is sufficient even in the worst of political situations! Well does our psalm announce in verse six that "Nations are in uproar, kingdoms fall; he lifts his voice, the earth melts.
In those choice words we are prepared for the last division of this psalm where we are reminded of the Lord's work. Yes He is with us, He is our fortress and we are encouraged to look for the hand of the Lord in the desolations visited upon the kingdoms of this earth. Verse nine is indicative of the means of destroying chemical weapons in our time and even the destruction of a significant portion of the nuclear weapons that once worried. But beyond all the increased general security of our decade, there is the lesson for which we have gathered even today. Look at verse ten for the heart of this psalm. See there the personal instructions for each of us. "Be still, and know that I am God:" The first word in this verse is translated several ways:
"Let be then", "Stand silent", "Stop fighting", "cease striving".
The word in Hebrew means to relax. So our instructions for this Lord's Day and every Lord's Day is to relax and be refreshed! Remember some years ago, one of our soft drink company's advertisement campaign: "The pause that refreshes"? Well, this word can be translated as "Pause a while". Pause in the midst of strife and be relaxed. This is how The Jerusalem Bible translates the verse:
"Pause a while and know that I am God, exalted among the nations, exalted over the earth!"
Isn't this time we spend here in the presence of our Lord just such a pause> A pause that spiritually refreshes us. Let us know today that God is heaven, that He will protect His own people and that in time everything will fall into the proper place. Now we can relax and realize that the worldly show of desperation and desperate lives can be beyond our experience because in the refreshment of worship we are stilled, comforted and encouraged by the very Spirit of our God and King. Amen.
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Resources Used: |
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Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr. |
The Oak and the Calf. | |
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Spurgeon, C.H. |
The Treasury of David. | |
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The Holy Bible, New International Version. International Bible Society (1973, 1978, 1984) | ||
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Psm 46a |
18 September 88 & 16 November 97 | |