Perhaps II John 4 and III John 4 don’t apply to me as directly as they did the Apostle John, but I’ll still use them. The Apostle wrote two separate letters in which he said in one: “I have NO GREATER JOY than to hear that MY children walk in truth.” And earlier he wrote: “I rejoiced GREATLY that I found of thy children walking in truth, as we have received a commandment from the Father.” I sometimes feel that same emotion, and I did to a small degree last week.
Judy and I spent last Sunday in the joyful company of our old friends, Reynaldo and Fe Buenaventura. We met them that day at the Baptist church they are now attending in Calgary. After the service, we had lunch with them, and we were joined by Reynaldo’s brother and sister, both of whom we have known and loved since they were teenagers. Later, we returned for the evening service at Western Baptist, before driving to the Buenaventura house for a snack and to spend time with their beautiful daughter, Frecia, and her handsome son. I don’t ever remember seeing Brother Reynaldo any happier or closer to the Lord than he is right now. But in the 37 years since Judy and I left Canada, that family has endured a variety of terrible trials. And yet, as I say, they are closer to their Saviour than they have ever been. As we drove around Calgary, Reynaldo talked excitedly about the love and the Sovereignty of God. And several times Psalm 46:10 was mentioned. And now you know how the Holy Spirit brought this message to my heart for tonight.
The Psalmist said, “Be still, and know that I am God.”
Before we return to this exhortation, I’d like to take you back to Elijah up there near the top of Mount Carmel. In I Kings 18 the prophet had invited King Ahab and the leaders of Israel to stand before the Lord. You know the story about the 400 prophets of Baal and the failure of their idolatry. Then Elijah took the opportunity to challenge the people to look to Jehovah – the one true and living God. And he prayed, “Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, and of Israel, let it be known this day that our art God in Israel, and that I am thy servant, and that I have done all these things at thy word. Hear me, O Lord, hear me, that this people may know that thou art the Lord God…”
That event took place during terrible days for Judah and Israel. The nation was violently divided, just as the United States today is divided fifty ways from Sunday. With Queen Jezebel’s help, King Ahab’s weakness and the priests’ ineptitude, Israel was filled with as much idolatry as America is today. Poverty, ordained by God, filled the land just as it does our own country. And the people had become so dispirited, they were prey for every kind of temptation possible to man. Sin filled the country-side like a plague of locusts, devouring everything in their path. So God made Israel to become an illustration of hundreds of preceding and succeeding nations. Those people needed to know the Lord; they needed to be reminded that Jehovah is God. And our nation desperately needs to know the Lord as well. We need to pray as Elijah did: “Hear (us), O Lord, hear (us), that this people may KNOW that THOU art the LORD GOD…”
But here is the thing that my Filipino brother and were discussing: Every true child of God KNOWS that his Heavenly Father is God. We know that there is a God in heaven, even as the devils know there is a God. The Bible-believing, church-going people of Israel and America had this truth drilled into their heads. Nevertheless, our text from Psalm 46 is written to those people – to saints of God; to well-taught people.
It is to THEM the Holy Spirit says, “Be still, and know that I am God.”
Just as I Kings 18 is typical of our world today, the references in this Psalm are as relevant today as ever. These are days of trouble (verse 1), and many are filled with fear (verse 2). Verse 3, the waters of the Atlantic roar and are troubling to our nation, producing devastating hurricanes. Meanwhile, the heathen are raging (verse 6) and are at war (verse 9) – including ungodly Israel. Like every other day and age, God’s saints need a refuge and a very present help in trouble (verse 1).
Last week, Judy and I spent hour after hour driving through some of the most rugged mountains in the world. Those mountains rose thousands of feet nearly straight up from various valleys, displaying dozens of strata – rock layers – all twisted together and sometimes themselves pointing toward Heaven. In looking at them, I was reminded that those huge monoliths were not formed by volcanic action as are many of the mountains in this part of the world. They were created by the fingers of God squeezing solid rock and pulling it upwards. And last week, over the tops of those craggy peaks the clouds were flying, driven by 100 mph winds. Tuesday we visited one of Canada’s highest water falls, cascading almost straight down more than 1,200 feet. And we visited some beautiful, placid, peaceful lakes, nestled in valleys so tight that the wind couldn’t touch them. They couldn’t help but instill a peacefulness to the soul – the soul of both believer and unbeliever. Psalm 46:2 says, We will not fear “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. Selah.” Because, “there is a river, the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God, the holy place of the tabernacles of the most High. God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved.” Verse 7 – “The LORD of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah. COME, BEHOLD the works of the LORD, what desolations he hath made in the earth,” and what glorious things as well.
But again, going back to what Brother Buenaventura and I were discussing – Despite theologically knowing that our Saviour is the Almighty God – “Elohim”… only 1 or 2 percent of believers ever stop – really stop – long enough to consider what it means when the Bible says that “Jehovah is God.”
I’d like us to slow down long enough to consider the exhortation: “Be still, and know that I am God.”
Studying this scripture isn’t the same thing as studying the Lord, but it points us in the right direction. It is extremely important that we get to know the Lord – to really know Him. For example, the Lord Jesus prayed, “This is life eternal, that they might KNOW THEE the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.” Without knowing God through Christ there is no eternal life. But there is “knowing God” and there is “KNOWING God.”
Judy and I were reading one of Spurgeon’s devotions yesterday where he was talking about giving both our new fruit and our old stored and preserved fruit to the Lord. The preacher pointed out that among the old fruit there is that initial faith we placed in the simple facts about salvation. It is so rudimentary; so elemental; and yet so important. But that faith and that knowledge – that old fruit should become new and better fruit throughout our lives. Paul wrote to the Ephesians, “I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ… That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man; That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, May be able to COMPREHEND with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; And to KNOW the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God.”
A few years ago, someone gave us a little machine which plays the soothing sounds of rain, a stream, or the lapping of waves on a beach. We turn it on when we go to bed, so that it might fill our bedroom with ambient noise to help us sleep. Usually it works quite well, but sometimes the sounds of that rain confuse us and even wakes us up. In a similar way, our lives today are filled with so much ambient noise that we can’t hear the voice of God. The Psalmist is exhorting us to stop, and turn off the outside voices, in order to hear the voice of the Lord. We need to be still in order to know – to really know that God is GOD.
That passage in Ephesians refers to the important subject of the love of God. It is a divine attribute we need to understand to some degree, but which we will never fully understand. But then Paul goes on to something perhaps even more important – the sovereign omnipotence of God. After talking about knowing God’s love, his next sentence is: “Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us…” God is all powerful and able to do the exceedingly miraculous, because He is sovereign over all things. He is capable of creating the universe, and on earth to pinch together a chain of rugged mountains stretching from the Yukon, through North America and down the spine of South America. But He is also able to remove those mountains and carry them into the midst of the sea (verse 2). Furthermore “the king’s heart is in the hand of the LORD, as the rivers of water: he turneth it whithersoever he will.” What little we really know about the love of God, is equaled by what little we know of the sovereignty of God
But we cannot trust God for His miracles until we know Him properly. Is this why we don’t see those miracles? We cannot worship the Lord properly, if we don’t know Him as He is. We cannot enjoy our Saviour, if we haven’t been drawn into His very nature. Is this why there are so many unhappy saints? We cannot effectively serve the Lord as we should without knowing Him. I think it is safe to say, we cannot be the children of God we were meant to be until we know the Lord more than we do as babes in Christ.
Therefore it is imperative that we “be still” once in a while. This “be still” is an interesting Hebrew word. It is translated “be still” in only this verse. But the other 45 times it is used, and the other dozen ways it is translated, teach us quite a bit. It is most often translated “to be feeble,” and following that it is “to fail, “to weaken” and “to be alone.” Putting some of the other translations into this verse illustrates the true character of what it is to “be still.” “Be FAINT, and know that I am God;” “Be FORSAKEN, and know that I am God.” “Be FEEBLE, and know that I am God;” “Become SMALL, and know that I am God.” At one point last week, driving through the Canadian Rockies, Judy said something like, “Doesn’t this make you feel really, really small?” “Small” might be too big a word.
The Holy Spirit is telling us, “Become totally emptied, in order to know that I am God.” I don’t know about you, but I’m not sure that I have ever been totally emptied in this way. Furthermore, I realize that this is something I need and should want, but I’m not sure that I can handle it. I read this verse, and I see that it is an exhortation; this is a command to voluntarily “be still.” This is not something we commonly do. For example, we may love a really good Bible conference, and think of it as a high point in our Christianity. But I’m not sure that we will ever experience “be still” in the midst of an exciting conference or revival. It may lay in shadows and prayer closets behind a revival, but not out in the open church service. This “be still” is not a public activity; it is personal, private and an intimate relationship with the Lord. In fact, this word is translated “to be ALONE” four times as often as it is “be still.” Are we willing to plead with the Lord, as individuals, for this enfeebling and weakening?
More often than not, because we will not voluntarily yield ourselves to Lord, He will force it upon us. Ironically, after Elijah prayed: Hear me, O Lord, hear me, that this people may know that thou art the Lord God…” After the prophet prayed for Israel to stop and to recognize that Jehovah is God, the Lord had to force Elijah, himself, to be still in order to learn the Lord more fully. Out in the wilderness, down at Sinai, the prophet was weakened, alone, faint and enfeebled. And in that condition, he learned that Jehovah is God. Then after experientially learning that truth, he was in a place where he could be more useful to the Lord.
God may force us to stop all our busyness, by putting us into the hospital, or at home with a prolonged debility. Or living in our wilfulness and sin, God may ordain that our sin put us into jail for a while, really knocking the stuffing out of us. He may leave us “alone” and still by taking our dearest treasure from us, forcing us to see only Him.
And then, whether voluntarily or enforced, God will be exalted in our hearts and in the world. “Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the heathen; I will be exalted in the earth” – verse 10. This is what the world needs – it needs to see God exalted. And this is what WE need. This is where we need to be. This is where the Lord wants us to be.