BE STILL AND KNOW
#048 BE STILL AND KNOW
Scripture Psalm 46:1-11 NIV Orig. 8-18-63 (1-76)
Rewr. June 30, 1991
Passage: God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.
2 Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea,
3 though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging.[c]
4 There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy place where the Most High dwells.
5 God is within her, she will not fall; God will help her at break of day.
6 Nations are in uproar, kingdoms fall; he lifts his voice, the earth melts.
7 The Lord Almighty is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress.
8 Come and see what the Lord has done, the desolations he has brought on the earth.
9 He makes wars cease to the ends of the earth. He breaks the bow and shatters the spear; he burns the shields[d] with fire.
10 He says, “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 Almighty is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress.
Purpose: To share a Sunday evening message to encourage my people to be tuned in to things that are spiritually beneficial.
Keywords: Healing King and Kingdom Satan, Influence
Timeline/Series: Psalms
Introduction
Reading from a commentary on The Psalms, I came across a story from the pen of Dr. G.H. Morrison, a great scholar, archaeologist of the Bible land and its people. He told of a time when an archaeological dig was underway in the Biblical city of Shechem. He wrote that beneath that ancient city were flowing streams of water. Dr. Morrison said that during the busy hours of the day there was no evidence of those streams. The topography of Shechem was dry, the weather oppressively hot. But when night descended upon the city it was different. The streets and bazaars were quieted, the noise and confusion of busy people was stilled. In that quietness, the humming of those buried streams could be heard.
Years ago we took our little girls to Ridgecrest for the first time. We were staying in a cottage across the highway, and just at the base of one of the mountains. A small brook cascaded down the mountainside just behind the cottage. During the day, unless the girls dragged us out back to wade, we were oblivious to it. But at night, through our bedroom window, came the therapeutic sounds of that stream to our tired bodies.
Most of us have already mapped out our plans for tomorrow and the rest of the week. Do you suppose that some of the things that would otherwise be a healing blessing to us, we will not enjoy because we have programmed these things in a separate mode? We will be so busy with lesser things, that things of the Spirit will go unnoticed.
I. The Only Place to Begin is in Consideration of the Pace at Which We Live Our Lives. V2 “Though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea; Though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof.”
It is a text drawn straight out of the 20th Century. Is it Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines that continues to wreak havoc? Is it the sound of tanks, ripping cars and trucks apart? Is it the silence of malnourished children calling out their plight?
Elijah had a similar experience. I Kings 19: He had seen God work a miracle, but he heard the threat of a vindictive woman, Jezebel. In the wilderness, he encountered wind, earthquake, fire. There came finally, “a still small voice.”
The loud voices of ill will linger. Bertrand Russell: “All the labors of the ages, all the devotions, all the inspirations, all the noonday brightness of human genius, are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system.” H.G. Wells: “The end of everything we call life is close at hand and cannot be evaded.”
Even many with a religious bent saw Operation Desert Storm as the first phase of Armageddon.
The Psalmist saw in physical exercise the social upheavals of our day. Eastern Europe is being thrown upon political unrest. Today’s news magazine devoted its entire copy to racial unrest: “Only educated, white men” escape. Closer to home is the theological unrest dividing most denominations.
II. Then There is Consideration of the Pause. V10 advises “Be still and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth.” What better time to pause and reflect than on the occasion of an anniversary? Be still and consider what these 22 years have meant: A church at the far edge of a great city has become a potentially great church ministering in a neighborhood of roughly 50,000 people through a handful of committed people. There is a relationship of sharing with 350 member families, with at least 350 other families being touched by ministries.
Meanwhile, out on the periphery there are those who want the church to lie down and play dead. And there are some that are capitulating to the world and any church, Riverside included, must face that as a viable option. If some so-called religious leaders had their way, the choice given to the church would be whether the information on the tombstone listed suicide or murder.
The “Be still” of the Lord God didn’t mean throwing in the towel. It meant, “Be reminded again, as others have had to be, whence cometh your strength.” The word means to “relax.” One is reminded of the Sabbath-rest.
But remember, this was a purposeful cessation of activity. It is nice sometimes to cast away all responsibility, but for the Christian the cessation is to be creative. Too many people take an unwarranted sabbatical. Bible Study last week was a case in point. It was announced. It was on the calendar. We still had less than 15% representation of deacons.
I have a kind of dream for us for this year. It is that we can spread our necessary administrating out wide enough that enough people can share in it that it is no longer our priority; it is that we can minister rather than ADminister.
Vance Havner wrote in “Christ for the World” that “the trouble with churches today is that they have too much supper room and too little upper room.” What better place to “be still” than when we come into God’s presence? One person asked her pastor to tone down the “prelude” because she couldn’t hear what her friend in the pew ahead said.
III. Consider, Finally, the Peace it Institutes. V11 “The Lord God of Hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge.” We have a poor concept of peace these days. We think of peace as a state of warlessness. But peace is a state of personal experience in which we are called and challenged to express a life-altering faith in God. I like Mark’s account in Mark 4:36 of the stilling of the storm on the Sea of Galilee. “And He said unto the sea, ‘Peace, be still.” Then to the disciples, ‘Have you not yet faith?’”
We know that God has promised His people peace. Yet far too many of us live in total frustration because we cannot get those around us to live like we want. Isaiah 54:17 “No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper; and every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment thou shalt condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord, and their righteousness is of me, saith the Lord.”
Read anew the tragic accounting of peace in Luke 19:37f. Jesus came near to Jerusalem, with the disciples rejoicing in what was seen. “Blessed be the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!” The Pharisees told Him to rebuke His disciples because this is no time for peace. He said to them “If these should hold their peace, the stones will cry out.” He came to the city and wept over it. “If thou hadst known . . . the things which belong to thy peace! But now they are hid from thine eyes.”
Paul would late learn the meaning of Jerusalem’s proffered peace, which the Pharisees and publicans, and too many prophets, priests, preachers, and other pretenders miss. “I have learned in whatever state I am, therein to be content.”
CONCLUSION
Would that I could communicate to you the real meaning of St. Francis of Assisi’s prayer:
Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
Where there is sadness, joy.
O, Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
To be consoled as to console,
To be understood as to understand,
To be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive,
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.