Psalm 46
1 God is our refuge and strength,
always ready to help in times of trouble.
2 So we will not fear, even if earthquakes come
and the mountains crumble into the sea.
3 Let the oceans roar and foam.
Let the mountains tremble as the waters surge!
4 A river brings joy to the city of our God,
the sacred home of the Most High.
5 God himself lives in that city; it cannot be destroyed.
God will protect it at the break of day.
6 The nations are in an uproar,
and kingdoms crumble!
God thunders,
and the earth melts!
7 The LORD Almighty is here among us;
the God of Israel is our fortress.
8 Come, see the glorious works of the LORD:
See how he brings destruction upon the world
9 and causes wars to end throughout the earth.
He breaks the bow and snaps the spear in two;
he burns the shields with fire.
10 ¡§Be silent, and know that I am God!
I will be honored by every nation.
I will be honored throughout the world.¡¨
11 The LORD Almighty is here among us;
the God of Israel is our fortress.
Hebrews 12:25-29
25See to it that you obey God, the one who is speaking to you. For if the people of Israel did not escape when they refused to listen to Moses, the earthly messenger, how terrible our danger if we reject the One who speaks to us from heaven! 26When God spoke from Mount Sinai his voice shook the earth, but now he makes another promise: ¡§Once again I will shake not only the earth but the heavens also.¡¨„T 27This means that the things on earth will be shaken, so that only eternal things will be left.
28Since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be destroyed, let us be thankful and please God by worshiping him with holy fear and awe. 29For our God is a consuming fire.
A lot more than buildings of mortar and steel were shaken up by the events of this past Tuesday. America experienced a shaking that reached into it’s very roots. The assumption that "it can’t happen here" has been jolted out of us. The belief that even when a terrorist attack succeeds, its damage will be limited and isolated has been demolished. "Airport security" has become an oxymoron. Confidence in our intelligence services and national defenses has fallen. And any lingering notion that being on the side of fairness and freedom and justice for all was any kind of insulation against massive tragedy is now banished forever. Gone are the days when all we had to fear was fear itself. To use FDR¡¦s words, this day will go down in infamy. This is the Pearl Harbor of this generation.
Michael Elliot, writing for Time, was not exaggerating when he wrote, "For Americans, September 11, 2001, will go down in history as a day the world changed."1 We have been shaken to the core.
We preachers like to think we can draw "lessons" from the events of life, and this horrific event, being so dramatic and traumatic, seems to offer an obvious one: No human defense is certain, and no human life can be guaranteed by any agency of earth. Only God is unshakeable and the only unshakeable place is the kingdom of God itself. The writer of Hebrews says as much: "Therefore we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken."2
But the problem is, while we who are people of faith can assent to that on a "spiritual" level, in the nitty-gritty of our lives--that place where we reside most of the time--that affirmation doesn’t connect very well. Yes, we who follow Christ are citizens of both an eternal kingdom and an earthly nation, but what, in any terms that help us now, does that dual citizenship really mean?
The people of the Old Testament had to struggle to understand that as well, and one place we see it is in Psalm 46. The psalm sings about the city as though it were absolutely untouchable: 2 So we will not fear, even if earthquakes come
and the mountains crumble into the sea.
3 Let the oceans roar and foam.
Let the mountains tremble as the waters surge!
5 God himself lives in that city; it cannot be destroyed.
God will protect it at the break of day.
[ "though the earth should change, though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea; though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble with its tumult ... God is in the midst of the city; it shall not be moved." ]
With the bringing of the Ark of the Covenant there, and the subsequent establishment of the temple in that city, the people came to understand Jerusalem as the place God had chosen to reside. For them, it was "the city of God," and thus unshakeable.
Now it’s fine to have a location that serves as a visible symbol of God’s presence. But it’s another thing to rely on the symbol for salvation rather than on the presence of the God the city symbolized.
It seems, however, that that’s what happened. Jerusalem did eventually fall, specifically to the army of the Babylonians, and when that happened, the people of the city must have felt much as we Americans did on Tuesday, and continue to feel today. We look at great symbols of our country - twin towers that symbolize free trade, a root fact of our way of life, and a five-sided building that signifies national military might, our assumption of national security - and we have a sense of despair.
What the people of ancient Jerusalem missed is that while God was in the midst of the city, he called them to trust not a place but a Presence. And if they had paid attention to their history, they’d have seen that the dwelling place of God was never static. In the wilderness, it was represented in the moving pillar of cloud and pillar of fire and by the Ark of the Covenant carried along with the people. Later, a shrine at Shiloh became God’s dwelling.
So what made them think that after the temple was built that God’s presence would be forever thereafter localized there? Perhaps it was because the temple seemed such a permanent structure, with its massive stones and overlays of gold. But like the twin towers, it was eventually brought down.
And then the people were marched away to exile in Babylon. No temple, no shrine, no Ark of the Covenant. But there, separated from the city of God, they found that God was just as present.
Today, while there are those within Judaism who want the temple rebuilt, others have a view not tied to brick and mortar. Rabbi Pesach Schindler of Jerusalem put it as "we have all our spiritual centers within us. That is where the temple should be built."3 Or, to put it another way, the city of God is a place within, and our ultimate confidence is in the holy Presence in that "place."
During the last week of June, my wife, my sister, my neice and I went to New Jersey to Liberty State Park and took the ferry to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. My niece had been wanting to go to the Statue of Liberty so we took her there as a birthday present for her 10 th birthday. Liberty State Park is just across the harbor, from Manhatten. The boat was crowded with sightseers, and as we chugged across New York harbor, we of course saw the twin World Trade Towers standing there, gleaming brightly in the warm sunshine. They looked very solid, and we could not have imagined what would soon happen to them.
I overheard a conversation a woman was having with someone. She was a native New Yorker and she was moving away because of her husband¡¦s job transfer. She was asked why she was on the tour. "It’s a last loving look at the city," she said. "It’s got to last me for a long time. I’m taking it with me."
That’s an example of what it means to be a citizen of a spiritual city. There is that to which we trust our souls that does not depend on outward circumstances.
In this life, we must dwell and work and shop and learn and even worship in material structures. We have to travel in machines made by human hands. We have to trust our well being to these things even knowing that there is no guarantee that they can withstand every force, malevolent or otherwise. It is part of the risk of living, and we really have few alternatives.
So in the meantime, while we are caught in this temporal time warp, how do we cope? Where is God in this crisis? My God, why do you let this happen? Why did you not stop those planes, cause a miracle to happen?
In his spiritual autobiography, William Barclay, the venerable Scottish scholar, tells the tragedy of losing his 21-year-old daughter and her fiance who were drowned in a boating accident. He writes, "God did not stop that accident at sea, but he did still the storm in my own heart so that somehow my wife and I came through that terrible time still on our own two feet."
Barclay also tells of receiving an anonymous letter about his daughter’s death. It said, "I know why God killed your daughter. It was to save her from corruption by your heresies." Barclay says, "If I had known the writer’s address, I would have written back in pity, not anger, saying, as John Wesley once said, ’Your God is my devil.’"
The Bible teaches that this is not a perfect world. Because there is sin in the world people do wrong things and suffering results. The Bible is brutally honest about this. Notice this verse:. Eccl. 8:14. Read it with me. ¡§Sometimes something useless happens on earth. Bad things happen to good people, and good things happen to bad people.¡¨ (NCV) What he¡¦s saying here is that we don¡¦t always get what we deserve. There are two mistakes that you can make regarding disaster. One is to think all the good things that happen to me prove I¡¦m good, and that all the bad things that happen to me prove I¡¦m bad.
In Luke 13, Jesus is talking about two tragedies that happened in His day. He said you know there were a bunch of innocent people up there worshipping at the temple and they came in and were brutally slaughtered. And he said there was a tower that fell on eighteen people and killed them. And He posed the question, ¡§Who sinned, that caused this tragedy?¡¨ Was it a result of their sin? And then He answered His own question. He said, absolutely not, absolutely not! Now, that doesn¡¦t negate cause and effect. Most of the problems we have in life are our fault. Would you agree with that? The vast majority of them are. We do reap what we sow, but not always.
But sometimes we suffer innocently. You see, not everything that happens is God¡¦s will. When I hear people talking about the hijackings, plane crashes and building collapses and they say, ¡§Well, it must have been God¡¦s will¡¨, I have a spiritual term for that. ¡§Baloney!¡¨. Don¡¦t blame God for the events of this past Tuesday. God¡¦s grieving too. God¡¦s will is not always done.
Now my purpose this morning is not to explain suffering, because that would take me a whole series of what God says about the many, many reasons and causes, but to instead talk to you about how to handle it, and through some Bible readings that I share with you, I hope to help you see where God is in all of this.
That¡¦s how I have to respond to this week¡¦s tragedy¡XGod did not cause this but these events did not happen apart from God.
So the question then becomes: Where is God in this crisis? Is there anything in the world that is permanent? Is there anything that is reliable that never changes? Where is our security?
The answer is in James 1:17 "Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows." Circle that. Phillips: "...with God there is never the slightest variation or shadow of inconsistency." I want to assert today that in the midst of this crisis: God never changes. In Malachi 3:6 "I the Lord do not change!" He is always the same. He always has been; He always will be. Everything else in creation changes except God
This morning I want us to focus on three things about God that never change¡Xno matter what is happening in the world around us
I. GOD’S LOVE FOR ME NEVER CHANGES
I need to remind myself of that. Jeremiah 31:3, God says, "I have loved you with an everlasting love." Circle "everlasting love".. God’s love is consistent and it is continual.
The Bible says God always acts like Himself. He never changes. He never acts out of character. Psalm 119:15 "Your love never changes, so save me!" Nobody ever says, "What’s got into God today?" God never changes. God is always Himself.
The point is I never need to doubt God’s love. No matter what happens, no matter what I do, no matter what I feel, God’s love for me never changes. Romans 8:38 "Nothing will be able to separate us from the love of God." You can go to bed tonight, get up tomorrow morning and God has not changed His mind about you while you were sleeping.
. So when tragedy strikes or when we pray and don’t get an immediate answer or when things don’t go your way, just remember God’s love for you hasn’t changed one bit. .
II. GOD’S WORD NEVER CHANGES
The laws, the principles, the commands are timeless. Isaiah 40:8 (Living Bible) "The grass withers and flowers fade, but the Word of our God shall stand forever." The Bible is always fresh. It is always relevant, up to date, never obsolete. Anything that man writes eventually becomes obsolete, dated. At the rate of scientific discovery, by the time a science textbook is printed it’s already obsolete. Look at the computer manuals that no longer work -- just a couple of years and they are outdated. Whatever man writes eventually changes.
Matthew 24:35 Jesus said, "Heaven and earth will pass away but My words will never pass away." There has never been any book that has been more attacked, criticized, ridiculed, burned and outlawed than the Bible. Yet today all of those ceasars, dictators and fanatics are all dead. The Bible is still around. It has stood the test of time because His word never changes. Psalm 119:152 "Long ago I learned from your statutes that you established them to last forever."
Alan Shepherd, the very first American astronaut in space, was asked by a reporter just before he got into the capsule: "What is the one thing you’re depending on most in this space venture?" His answer was classic, "I’m depending on the fact that God’s laws never change." What if the rotation of the earth was inconsistent? What if gravity reversed every other day? When He made the whole universe, He established some universal laws. They never change. They never have and they never will. The reason we can study science is because it is predictable. We can study some verifiable facts of life of physics that do not change.
Just as God has established the universe to operate on physical laws there are moral laws and spiritual laws that God has set up that we cannot ignore. Because they do not change. If we ignore them we have chaos.
Matt. 5:24 "Everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock." Jesus said there are two ways to build a house. You can build it on sand or you can build it on a rock. If you don’t build it on a solid foundation the whole building will eventually tilt and fall over. You’ve got to have a solid foundation for your life. If you want to have stability when the stresses of life come on your life you’ve got to build it on something that never changes.
God’s love for me never changes and God’s word never changes. It will always be the right thing to do. It may seem hard, unreasonable, unpopular. But it is always the right thing to do. Doesn’t that simplify life? Instead of asking, "Who should I believe?" How many of you believe everything you read in the paper? see on TV? read in the Bible? Why do we spend more time watching the TV or reading the newspaper -- something we don’t believe -- than reading the Bible -- something we do believe. It just doesn’t make sense.
The point is, if I want to have security in my life in an uncertain world, it comes from building my life on God’s unchangeable word.
If you want to have more security in your life when you’re under stress memorize scripture¡XPresident Bush quoted from Psalm 23 in his speech to the American people Tuesday¡Xit brought reassurance to me to hear those words¡X¡§Though I walk through the dark valley of death, I will fear no evil.¡¨
When Jesus was out in the desert being tempted by the devil, "Jesus, why don’t you turn these stones to bread," Jesus didn’t pull out His pocket old Testament looking for a verse that said, "Don’t tempt the Lord your God." He didn’t have to pull out a Bible. He just simply said, "Satan, the Bible says `You shall not tempt the Lord your God.’" He had it memorized and it helped Him. Granted, He did write it. That does give Him a little advantage. But the fact is if you want stability in your life you’ve got to base it on these things that don’t change.
III. GOD’S PURPOSE FOR MY LIFE WILL NEVER CHANGE
No matter what happens to you, in you, through you and around you in this world, God¡¦s purpose will never, never change. Isaiah 14:24 "The Lord Almighty has sworn, `Surely as I have planned it, so it will be, and as I have purposed, so it will stand.’" God is at work in human history. History is really his-story. God’s story. What is the world coming to? It’s coming to the very climax that God has planned from the very beginning. I’m not sure what all that involves.
I do believe that God will have the final word in this tragic week and that God is writing the final chapter of history. I do know I don’t know all what the future holds but I do know who holds the future. It is a coming to the planned climax. The Bible says nobody knows. Even the Son of Man doesn’t know. Only the Father which is in heaven.
If someone ever comes up to you and gives you a date that the world will end, you’ll know that’s not going to happen. That’s not the date. The Bible says, "No man knows the day or hour." Fortunately, I’m on the winning side. That’s the good news. It is inevitable that we’re going to end up on the winning side.
Psalm 33:11 "His plans endure forever; His purposes last eternally." Do your plans ever change? How often do they change? Why do your plans change so much? Two reasons: Because you don’t have the perspective or foresight to know everything that’s going to happen. Maybe now you know what you didn’t used to know. Now that you know something different your plans have changed. That’s one reason.
The other reason your plans change is maybe you don’t have the power to implement the changes you had intended to do. Ran out of time, money, energy, effort -- whatever. So your plans change. Since God is omniscient -- God knows everything -- and since He’s omnipotent -- God has all power -- His plans never have to change.
I Samuel 15:29 "God is not a man. He does not change His mind." Are there some times in the Bible that say God changed His mind? Yes. Because it wasn’t God who changed, it was the people who changed. God told Ninevah, "If you don’t repent, I’m going to destroy the city." He didn’t destroy the city. God changed His mind. God never changes His will, but He does will a change.
The point: Habakkuk 3:6 says, "His ways are eternal." God does not have a Plan B for my life. Think of the biggest mistake you’ve ever made. Then think of the biggest sin you’ve ever committed, that thing you regret the most. Then think of the biggest disappointment you’ve ever had. Do you think God knew about those in advance before you ever did them? Yes, He did. Since He knew those were going to come up anyway He has woven that into His plan for your life. He included them. Romans 8:28 "All things work together for good."
Good or bad God can somehow turn them around and bring good out of them. They all fit into a plan. That means no matter what has happened in your life you’re still on Plan A. God has not changed His mind and God’s purpose for your life has not changed.
What is God’s plan for my life? John 10:10 says that God’s plan for your life is that you might have life. "I have come that you might have life" Jesus said. He wants you to enjoy life. Live it and not just exist. Then in Romans 8:29 it says God’s plan for your life is to become like Jesus Christ. You learn to think like He thinks and feel like He felt and act like He acts. Become like Jesus Christ.
It all begins with a relationship. Romans 10:9 "If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved." Something else that has never changed is God’s plan of salvation. For two thousand years there is only one way to get to know God and that’s through Jesus Christ His son. God’s invitation to you has never changed. He wants you to come to Him and establish a relationship with His Son Jesus Christ.
In your life, between now and when you die, however long that is, you will experience many stressful changes in your life. Our country and our world has changed¡Xwe don¡¦t have to worry about nuclear war anymore. We have met the enemy and it is us¡Xwhat happened this week is a result of our own sinfulness¡Xit¡¦s a dramatic example of evil and man¡¦s inhumanity to man.
I can say that I don¡¦t feel very secure in trusting human institutions and governments to protect me as I once did. Everything is tentative now. I have a trip to a conference on Spirituality in Arizona next month? Will I be able to fly there? If so, I think about how different security procedures will be and how safe will I be?
My question becomes: How am I going to respond to those changes? I can’t prepare for them because they aren’t predictable. I don’t know what they’re going to be. How are you going to handle them? What’s going to be the source of security in your life?
Three things to remember -- They can become spiritual anchors for your soul in a changing world.
1) God will never stop loving me. I won’t understand all that is going on but no matter what --No matter what happens, He loves me.
2) God’s word is always relevant in a changing world..
3) God’s purpose for my life is bigger than the tragedy of this past Tuesday. Acts of terrorisn can’t change God’s purpose. It has not changed God’s purpose for your life and his plan for his kingdom.
Psalm 125:1 "Those who trust in the Lord are as steady as Mount Zion, unmoved by any circumstance." That’s what I call stability. Unmoved by any circumstance. Security, stability, confidence come from being anchored in an unchanging God. When everything around us is changing in this society where nothing remains the same, there is one thing that never changes and that’s God and these aspects of His life.
Therefore, as citizens of this world that is frightening at times, we can look forward to that other citizenship, that other city. The New Testament calls it the kingdom of God, and it is both something that is yet to come in its fullness and that is already here.
Times like this national tragedy remind us of that. The terrorists showed us a lot about the nature of evil, but the reactions of ordinary people to it demonstrated a good bit of kingdom behavior. There has been a lot of it. Reactions considered typical of New Yorkers, including irritation at stalled traffic and peevishness at indecisive pedestrians, were muted. And people walking to escape the destruction were met with small acts of kindness from complete strangers.
The proprietor of a Chinese delicatessen was out front handing out bottles of water. A hardware store owner gave out dust masks. With no subways or buses or taxis running in the area, some drivers gave rides to frantic pedestrians. Many people waited patiently in lines to give blood and others volunteered to help in other services to the injured.4 Rescue workers risked their own lives - and many lost them - to help others. And there were many more good deeds.
I believe our nation will survive the awful attacks of this week, though the cost to us as a people is high. I believe we will find comfort from each other. We will probably find at least some of those behind the crime and may even, in the long run, be able to make terrorism so costly to perpetrators that it will diminish. I certainly hope so.
But whatever comes, if we trust God, our citizenship in the city unshakeable remains secure, and that helps us live in this world with hope, and courage, and even joy.
Prayer:
Are you stressed out because of all the events of this week? Has it been a little hectic for you lately? Are you feeling a little uptight about the uncertainty of the future? Would you like a rock solid foundation on which you can build a stable, secure life? Then I invite you to pray three things: "God, I believe that You love me. I accept Your love gift of Your son, Jesus Christ. Father, I commit myself to learning and obeying Your unchanging word. I want to build upon the unchanging message and promises of hope and security in your word God, I want to commit myself to cooperating with Your plan for my life. Help me to learn from the terrible events of this week. Please forgive my sins and help me to repent lest I hurt others with my actions.. God as I live as a citizen of this world and country, help me to live also as a citizen of your kingdom in this world and the one to come. Lord, I want to be a part of the new heaven and the new earth. In the name of Jesus who is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Amen
