Psalm 46: Be Still and Know That I Am God

Introduction

What do you do when the thing you were counting on lets you down? When the rug is pulled out from under you and everything seems turned upside down? Adam Ramsey, one of the pastors of Liberti Church Gold Coast in Australia, asks this question in the fourteenth message of a series on the Psalms, back from a month of family leave.

He opens Psalm 46, a psalm Christians have treasured for centuries, one read in times of conflict, tragedy and great uncertainty, and often at funerals. At the heart of this text lies a question: who is God to his people?

The preacher draws out two truths. In the opening verses, God's presence is our only guaranteed refuge. In the closing verses comes an invitation: be still, and know your God. "It is one of the most important lessons we learn, but also one of the hardest, isn't it?"

Message outline

1. When everything suddenly falls apart

The pastor tells, "purely hypothetically," about the vacation of a lifetime in Europe with his family, saved up for years, with his eldest daughter, who is 18.
On the last week, in Iceland, he runs an impromptu race in a parking lot with his 16-year-old son to show he is still in shape. Two snaps, like gunshots behind his legs: both hamstrings are torn, four hours from anywhere inhabited.
"That's the moment you realize you are the dumbest forty-something on the planet," with no warm-up, in the cold, out of pride.
For the first two weeks, he walks at a speed "somewhere between a little old man and a penguin." A man who loves striding quickly through airports learns something else: the power of the words "Be still, and know that I am God."
To be still before God is to face our humanity and our limits, a season we would not have chosen, and to learn trust anyway. "It is learning to let God be God, and to trust him in our present situation."

2. A song for dark days

Psalm 46 is not a gentle song. The pastor says he loves what he calls "firing squad songs": the ones that come to a believer's mind when facing the firing squad because of their faith, like Paul and Silas singing in prison, or when someone goes through life's hardest moments in palliative care. Songs with a note of defiance, a defiance grounded in trust in God and in praising him.
About ten years after posting his 95 theses on the door of the church in Wittenberg, Martin Luther wrote the hymn "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God" based on this psalm.
He wrote it in the midst of great difficulties: discouragement, anxiety about the future, tinnitus, and in 1527 an epidemic that struck many people in his town.
His biographers report that he often said to his friend Philip Melanchthon: "Philip, let's sing Psalm 46." A way of turning our eyes from what worries us back to what God is for us.
The psalm ends with the only commands addressed to us: to behold the works of God (verse 8) and to be still before him (verse 10), remembering who he is.

3. A help that never fails in trouble

"God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble" (verse 1). A refuge is a safe place from enemies and life's setbacks, a fixed point in a world that changes and passes away.
The word "Selah" appears three times. No one knows for certain what it means, but the preacher leans toward a musical term that invites us to pause and meditate on the words we have just sung or prayed.
Look at where God is a help: in trouble. Sometimes he keeps the trial from coming, and we love that. "But God never promised we would be delivered from all suffering in this life, but that he would bring us through it."
This is what Jesus says before the cross: "In the world you have trouble; but cheer up! I have overcome the world" (John 16:33).
Joni Eareckson Tada, paralyzed at 17 after a diving accident, wrote that suffering forces us to be alone with ourselves. It examines us, sifts us, and asks: "Who are you really?"

4. Therefore we will not be afraid

Verses 2 and 3 describe a collapsing world: the earth removed, the mountains carried into the heart of the sea, the waters roaring. The psalmist paints the worst possible scenario.
Some people prepare for every crisis by thinking about it constantly. But we live in a broken world, and worst-case scenarios really do happen. "Not 'if,' but 'when.'"
You may think you are strong, have a plan, have thick skin or money, and dodge like Floyd Mayweather. One day, circumstances will corner you and send you to the canvas. There, on your back, eyes on the sky, you discover who you are and learn to trust God.
Where will you go when you lose someone you love, when bankruptcy comes, a painful breakup, chronic pain, a child who strays, or the reality of your own death?
The psalm's answer: "Therefore we won't be afraid." God is not a distant help; he is very near and all-powerful.
Charles de Foucauld, a priest who died a martyr in the Sahara about a hundred years ago, said that the only thing we absolutely owe God is to be afraid of nothing. If God is who he is and is faithful to his promises, you have no need to be afraid. The antidote to every fear is God's presence.

5. A river in the midst of the city

In verse 4, the tone shifts: after the mountains thrown into the sea, "There is a river, the streams of which make the city of God glad." Then: "God is in her midst. She shall not be moved" (verse 5).
The psalmist is probably remembering the events of 2 Kings 18 and 19 and Isaiah 36 and 37. Hezekiah, one of the few good kings of Israel, sees the Assyrian army of Sennacherib besiege Jerusalem to starve it out.
The Assyrians shout insults in Hebrew from the walls and send a letter mocking God: what will your God do? "Hate mail already existed in 700 BC." Hezekiah takes the letter into the temple and prays. By morning, 185,000 Assyrian soldiers are dead (2 Kings 19:35).
"Yahweh of Armies is with us" (verse 7). The pastor prefers the translation that speaks of the armies of angels: the Lord of heavenly armies is with us. "If God is for us, who can be against us?" (Romans 8:31).
John Wesley, before his conversion, crosses the Atlantic with Moravian believers. During a violent storm, everyone panics except them. He notes in his journal that while the English were screaming, the Germans kept on singing. They knew their God.
Jerusalem had no river. Before the siege, Hezekiah had a 500-meter tunnel cut through the rock, from the Gihon spring to the Pool of Siloam, where the blind man of John 9 washed. The river of verse 4 is therefore an image of God's presence, which soothes and gives peace, life and hope.
This image recalls Eden, where humanity enjoyed God's presence without interruption, and foreshadows the new creation, with the river of the water of life and the tree of life in Revelation 22. "If God is in your midst, he will prove sufficient."

6. Come, see the works of the Lord

"Come, see Yahweh's works" (verse 8). God makes wars cease, breaks the bow, shatters the spear and burns the chariots in the fire. This is the psalmist's confession: God wins, he has the situation in hand, and he takes care of you.
If the psalmist had reasons to look back and move forward with confidence, how much more do we, who live on this side of the cross, after the fulfillment of the promises in Jesus Christ.
Come and behold Jesus: his righteous life given for us, his death for the forgiveness of our sins, his resurrection as the guarantee of your future, every promise fulfilled in him.

7. Be still, and know that I am God

In verse 10 (verse 11 in French Bibles, which count the psalm's title as verse 1), it is no longer the psalmist speaking about God: it is God speaking to us. "Be still, and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations. I will be exalted in the earth."
It is a humbling command: what we bring, at bottom, is our trust. "True Christianity is not God wanting you to bring him all your strength. True Christianity is God wanting to give us his strength. He receives all the glory and we receive all the joy."
This is the purpose of every worship service, every God-centered sermon, every retreat and every Sabbath: to stop doing God's work for him and to learn to know him.
Being still does not mean doing nothing. It means taking a posture in which God acts through you. You become a peaceful presence in an anxious world, someone who hands out hope at work or at school.
For God's people, this word brings comfort. For those who have made themselves his enemies, it says: you are not God, stop fighting me and come find your refuge in me. "That is what it means to become a Christian."
"The three most dangerous words you can say are: I've got this. The most powerful words you can hear from God are: I've got you."
The pastor ends with the last words attributed to Jonathan Edwards, the American theologian: "Trust in God, and you need not fear."

Key takeaways

God's presence is our only guaranteed refuge, a help that never fails in trouble.
God did not promise to spare us all suffering, but to bring us through it with him.
The antidote to every fear is God's presence in the midst of his people. If he is in your midst, he will be enough.
On this side of the cross, we have even more reason to behold the works of God and to move forward with hope.
Being still before God is not inaction: it is ceasing to do his work for him and trusting him.

Personal application

What are you counting on right now, apart from God, to keep standing?
Which "worst-case scenario" fills your thoughts, and what would change if you remembered that God is in your midst?
In what area are you trying to do God's work for him, telling yourself "I've got this"?
Which works of God, in the Bible and in your own story, can you take time to behold this week?
How can you be a peaceful, hope-bearing presence tomorrow at work or at school?

Verses cited

Frequently asked questions

What does "Be still, and know that I am God" mean in Psalm 46?

For Adam Ramsey, being still does not mean doing nothing at all. It means taking a posture in which God acts through you, letting God be God and trusting him in your present situation. It is the only command addressed directly to the reader in the whole psalm.

Does God promise to spare us all suffering?

No. God is a help "that never fails in trouble." Sometimes he keeps the trial from coming, sometimes he allows it. He never promised to deliver us from all suffering, but to bring us through it, as Jesus announces in John 16:33.

What is the historical background of Psalm 46?

The preacher thinks the psalmist is remembering the siege of Jerusalem by Sennacherib's Assyria in the time of King Hezekiah (2 Kings 18 and 19, Isaiah 36 and 37). Hezekiah took the mocking letter into the temple and prayed, and God delivered the city.