A Refuge When Your World is Crashing Down

Summer in the Psalms ‘23

Allen Snapp

Grace Community Church

August 20, 2023

A Refuge When Your World is Crashing Down

I want us to turn to Ps. 46. This is a psalm that I have often shared with people when they were going through a hard time.

God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. ² Therefore we will not fear though the earth gives way, though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea, ³ though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble at its swelling. Selah ⁴ There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy habitation of the Most High. ⁵ God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved; God will help her when morning dawns. ⁶ The nations rage, the kingdoms totter; he utters his voice, the earth melts. ⁷ The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress. Selah ⁸ Come, behold the works of the Lord, how he has brought desolations on the earth.⁹ He makes wars cease to the end of the earth; he breaks the bow and shatters the spear; he burns the chariots with fire.¹⁰ “Be still, and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth!” ¹¹ The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress. SelahPs. 46:1-11

There is a movie called The Lake House – you may have seen it – and the premise is two people start to correspond to each other through a mailbox at a lake house where they both lived at different points in time. Eventually they realize that they are separated by two years: Alex lives in 2004, Kate lives in 2006 and the letters they find in the lake house mailbox somehow travel back and forth over those two years of time. The letters Kate finds in the mailbox are from two years in the past, the letters Alex finds in the mailbox are from two years in the future.

The reason I mention that movie is to illustrate an important point for us to keep in mind. I’m always grateful when someone comes up to me after a message and says something like, “you really read my mail this morning” because it means the Lord had a timely word for them from His word that morning.

But sometimes God speaks a word that doesn’t read our mail today, it reads our mail two years from now. Or two months for now. Sometimes God speaks a word that may not hit home now but God is speaking it now so we can tuck it away in our hearts and be prepared for the future.

Let me give you an example of how this happened to me. There was a time when I was single when I was attending a small home church. One Sunday morning the pastor preached a message on parenting. That message definitely wasn’t reading my mail: I had no kids, I had no wife. But God spoke something really precious from His word that morning about how I wanted to parent when I was a parent. The letter came about 10 years early, but I tucked it away for the future and allowed God to use it to form some convictions about parenting in me that I never forgot.

Psalm 46 is a psalm about crisis. Where can we go when our world falls apart? It’s a great message for any season of life but it’s specifically to those whose world is being rocked. Let’s jump over verse one for a minute and we’ll come back to it cause I think we’ll better appreciate it when we place it in the unique conditions the psalmist is talking about. He describes cataclysmic disaster in verse two:

though the earth gives way…

Literally it says though the earth “changes”. Our world can change overnight. What do we do – where do we go- when everything we know and assume will stay the same, suddenly changes?

though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea, ³ though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble at its swelling.  Vv. 2-3

Mountains were considered a symbol of immovable stability and the sea was a symbol of chaos and danger. The mountains – all that is stable and immovable and secure – is falling apart and being swallowed up by the sea. Stability is swallowed up by chaos.

In 1958 a powerful earthquake off the coast of Alaska triggered a rockslide of about 90 million tons into the narrow inlet of Lituya Bay which caused a megatsunami wave that pushed water up the inlet’s banks washing out trees up to an elevation of 1700 feet. Scientists call natural calamities like it “impact events”.

I’m sure the people of Maui would call the fires that have decimated their world an “impact event”. can Many had to jump from cliffs into the ocean to escape the fire. Over a hundred people are confirmed dead and over 1500 people are missing. Homes destroyed, livelihoods burnt to ashes. Their earth changed, their world has been rocked. And it happened without warning.

The world is a tinderbox in a hundred ways. Natural disasters and national crises. Nations can rage, kingdoms can totter, wars can break out unexpectedly. Impact events can seemingly come out of nowhere sometimes affecting large amounts of people at once, and other times impact events hit our lives privately. No one else knows it, but inside we feel like our world is crashing down around us.

Where do we go to be safe when crisis hits our lives, when our world comes crashing down? Verse two makes an almost impossible claim: therefore we will not fear. When mountains are falling into the sea, when the world falls out from under us, fear seems like a pretty natural reaction. If you’re ever gonna fear, the world coming to an end seems like a pretty good time to do it.

That brings us back to verse one with a greater appreciation for the truth it’s declaring to us about God.

1. God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble (vs. 1)

When our world is falling apart, we find a refuge in God strong enough to keep us safe. In Christ we have a rock strong enough to stand on when the ground beneath our feet is moving. God is big enough to keep us safe no matter what! If our homes were to burn down tomorrow, we know that Jesus is preparing an eternal home for us. If the world were to cease tomorrow, those who trust in Christ will live forever in his eternal kingdom. God is a refuge strong enough for us to take shelter in.

God is a very present help in trouble. He’s right there with you, eager to help. The word “help” conveys God doing for us what we aren’t able to do on our own. When we can’t solve the problem on our own. When we can’t fix things on our own. When we can’t protect ourselves on our own we can call on God. We can cry out “help!” knowing God is a very present – an always present – help in times of trouble.

As that massive wave off the coast of Alaska rushed into the Lituya Bay inlet, Howard Ulrich and his seven year old son were anchored in the inlet when the earthquake woke him up. He watched as a wave over 100 feet high rushed towards them. He tried to lift the anchor but it was stuck. He threw a life preserver to his son and told him to pray.

In that moment, with calamity all around them and a wall of disaster rushing towards them, their refuge wasn’t the boat. Their refuge was God and their prayer was a call for help. As the wave lifted them up, the anchor chain broke and they crested the wave and somehow the boat was still floating on the other side. They made a harrowing escape through the inlet and were rescued soon after.

⁴ There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy habitation of the Most High. ⁵ God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved; God will help her when morning dawns.

This is the second time water is mentioned. The first is the raging, churning sea but this is a river that bring life, that makes our hearts glad even when our world is crashing down.

Verse 4 is centered around Zion, the city of God., the place where the Most High lived. He’s talking about Jerusalem, the city where the temple was. The city where God chose to be in their midst. Now we know God’s presence and blessing is no longer limited to a physical location, but to a Person, His Son Jesus Christ and when we believe in Christ, He takes up His residence in us by the Holy Spirit.

He is with us so we won’t be moved – even when our world is moved – God will help us (there’s that word again) when morning dawns. Weeping may last the night but joy comes in the morning as we see the hand of God helping us.

2. God will either be our Refuge or He will be our Judge

⁶ The nations rage, the kingdoms totter; he utters his voice, the earth melts. ⁷ The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress. Selah⁸ Come, behold the works of the Lord, how he has brought desolations on the earth.⁹ He makes wars cease to the end of the earth; he breaks the bow and shatters the spear; he burns the chariots with fire.

The psalm then toggles back and forth between those who make God their refuge and those who rage against Him. Those who belong to Him and those who oppose Him. There is no other ground, we are either for Him or against Him. Sin has set us in opposition to God and Jesus came to end the hostility and reconcile us to God as our Father.

This psalm was probably written at a time when Jerusalem was being attacked, very possibly by the Assyrians as recorded in Isaiah. War was probably the “impact event” the Jews were facing when this psalm was written. Things looked hopeless. Nations were raging, kingdoms were toppling, war was upon them.

But God reminds them – and us – He isn’t a passive observer or being swept along by circumstances beyond His control. God is sovereign over all, He is the Lord of armies, He is the Judge. Ultimately every impact event is either permitted by Him or caused by Him. God will not have us think of Him as a helpless bystander.

There’s war, there’s rage, there are kingdoms tottering, but it’s His judgment that is falling on the earth: the earth melts…He has brought desolations on the earth…He breaks the bow, shatters the spear and burns the chariots with fire. The last word belongs to God.

But those in Christ can know that He is with us, He is our fortress and our refuge, especially from His judgment. The biggest impact event this world is hurtling towards won’t be man-made. It won’t be climate change or nuclear war. It will be God’s judgment consuming everything and everyone who doesn’t take refuge in Jesus.

As Jesus hung on the cross, God’s judgment swept over him like a furnace as he took the judgment our sins deserved. The cross is ground zero for God’s judgment. And it’s ground zero for God’s love as He gave His Son in order to save us from judgment. Judgment is coming to this earth and Judgment Day is coming to every man, woman, and child. The only safe place is to be in Christ. If you haven’t already asked Jesus to be your Savior, God is appealing to you today: don’t trust in yourself or in man to save you. Trust in God’s Son Jesus to save you from all harm and from the coming judgment.

God will either be our refuge or He will be our Judge.

Finally we come to this beautiful verse: ¹⁰ “Be still, and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth!”

Sometimes we just need to be still. In stillness we need to listen for God’s still small voice. In stillness we need to anchor our soul to the only One strong enough to hold us together when our world is falling apart.

We live in a noisy, distracted, fast-paced world. Constant noise leaves us shallow. Shallow in our thoughts, shallow in our character, shallow in our faith. There’s a time to shout God’s praise, but sometimes we need to be still and let our faith go deep and our thoughts of God go high.

Don’t just read the Bible, meditate on it. Let these truths go deep. Pray but don’t just set aside a few minutes to pray but talk to God throughout the day, lifting your needs, your cares, your dreams, your fears, your loved ones, your soul to God. Worship God through songs that speak biblical truth to your soul and help us know that God is God. Help us exalt His name when otherwise we spend so much time exalting our name and our agenda. And sometimes we should just be quiet, be still and know He is God.

This is a psalm I’ve read to many people who were facing a crisis and it brings such comfort. For someone this psalm might be reading your mail today. But some of us just got a letter from the future encouraging us to prepare now by letting the roots of our faith go deep. God says, be still…be still… be still…and know that I am God. One day I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in all the earth. And I am your refuge and a very present help in your time of trouble.