Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 1950
“God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea; though its waters roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with its swelling.” Psalm 46:1-3.
THIS Psalm is a song for all Israel—for all who are truly the chosen of God, called to be His own people—should exhibit a fearless courage. The peace of God which passes all understanding should keep the hearts and minds of all who rest in God. If, indeed, the Lord is our refuge and strength, we are entitled to seek after a spirit which shall bear us above the dreads of common men. It is not every man that can sing this Psalm—he must belong to the believing company, he must have God to be his God—and he must, like Israel, have learned the art of prevailing prayer, or else he cannot sing the song of peace amid commotion and calamity. No man can truly sing this Psalm but those who are redeemed from the earth.
While this is a Psalm for all Israel, it is specially marked as committed to the charge of the sons of Korah. Korah, Dathan and Abiram perished because of their presumption—they went down alive into the pit—and the earth closed upon them. They and all that appertained unto them were swallowed up. But we are astonished to read, “Notwithstanding, the children of Korah died not.” I attribute their singular escape to the Sovereign Grace of God who spared them when their kinsmen were destroyed. They were made singers in the courts of the Lord and surely they would sing with peculiar emphasis these words, “Therefore we will not fear, though the earth be removed.” They saw the earth open her mouth and swallow up the offenders of their household while they were preserved by Sovereign Grace. Surely the tears must have stood in their eyes when they sang this verse and thought of the opening gulf at their feet. The circumstance under which a man is saved will influence the rest of his life. To be saved of God from between the teeth ofjudgment is a rescue so special and vivid that the subject of it learns to sing aloud unto the preserving Lord! Delivered from so great a death, Believers learn to trust that the Lord will yet deliver them. When conversion is especially remarkable, the music of gratitude is pitched in a high key and the converts reach notes which are impossible to others. It is for sons of Korah to sing, “Therefore we will not fear.”
It is significant, also, that this Psalm was to be sung “upon Alamoth,” which, in all probability, means that it was to be set to music suitable for virgin voices. The hallelujah at the Red Sea was chiefly in the hands of Miriam and the maidens of Israel—she took her timbrel and the daughters of Israel followed after her, singing unto the Lord. This is a Psalm of the same sort. You virgin souls, arise and sing unto God, your refuge and strength! Awake, you hearts that follow the Lord fully in the fervor of your first love, and lift your voices to the Lord! Come, you that have been kept pure and unde-filed in your words and ways, you whose hearts are chaste to the love of Jesus Christ—you are called upon above all others to sing, “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea.”
It was because Luther’s heart was chaste towards God and his whole mind virgin towards Divine Truth that he delighted to sing this Psalm. In the days of the most furious opposition he was known to say to Melancthon, “Come, let us sing the 46th Psalm and let the devil do his worst.” So, too, when Luther was dead, Melancthon heard a girl singing this Psalm and he said to her, “Sing on, dear daughter, mine, you know not what comfort you bring to my heart.” We read of the armies of Gustavus Adolphus singing this Psalm before their victory at Leipsic. So, you see, the young, the simple, the guileless may sing that which nerves warriors for the battle—
“God is our refuge and our strength, In straits a present aid;
Therefore, although the earth remove, We will not be afraid.’
This morning, as I shall be enabled, I shall say a little, first, upon the confidence of the saints— “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.” Then I will speak upon the courage which grows out of it—“Therefore we will not fear.” We shall close with a brief survey of the conflicts to which that courage will be sure to be exposed—“Though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea; though its waters roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with its swelling.”
I. First, then, let us carefully consider THE CONFIDENCE OF THE SAINTS.
God’s people have a sure confidence. Other men build as best they may, but true Believers rest upon the Rock of Ages. Their confidence is altogether beyond themselves. In this song there is nothing about their own virtue, valor, or wisdom. The heathen moralist boasted that if the globe, itself, should break, his integrity would make him stand fearless amid the wreck. But the Believer has a humbler, though a truer reliance. Though the earth is removed, he is undismayed. And this does not arise from his own personal self-sufficiency, but from God, who is his refuge and strength. He is fearless, not because of his original stoutness of heart and natural firmness of will, but because he has a God to shelter and uphold him. If he does not fear calamity, it is because he fears God and God, alone.