We're going to be considering the same kind of contrast we just considered in our last verse. Therefore, kings and judges, learn anxiously to serve your God. Kiss the Son and worship Him, lest ye perish in the way. But blessed are all who trust in Him. Yea, supremely blessed are they. Psalm 46, Psalm 46 will be the text that brings us to consider those very things this evening. We'll be reading the whole of our psalm, but I'll be focusing particularly through it using the lens of verse 10. Psalm 46, I'll be reading with you from the NIV and then be preaching mostly from the text of the ESV. Before we read, let's ask the Lord to bless His Word. Our Father, we do love Your Word and pray that it would be a light to us on life's path. That whatever may come our way, whatever trouble may assault us, we might stand firmly in what You have said. That we might rest in Your work, that we would trust in Your Word, and that we would live out Your will for us. Help us to this end, dear Lord. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Psalm 46, beginning with verse 1. God is our refuge and strength and ever-present help in trouble. Therefore, we will not fear. Though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging. There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God. The holy place where the Most High dwells. God is within her. She will not fall. God will help her at break of day. Nations are in an uproar. Kingdoms fall. Yet He lifts His voice. The earth melts. The Lord Almighty is with us. The God of Jacob is our fortress. Come and see the works of the Lord. The desolations He has brought on the earth. He makes wars cease to the ends of the earth. He breaks the bow and shatters the spear. He burns the shields with fire. Be still and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations. I will be exalted in the earth. The Lord Almighty is with us. The God of Jacob is our fortress. So is the reading of God's Word. you may have noticed in the news this past week, we once again were and are faced with a whole new list of things that might concern us. Of course, there is the ongoing news of war in the Middle East, disturbing news. And disturbing, though it be, it's not alone. There's much more to hear. I was amazed that reports came through of Italy, quote, the government collapsed there with lack of confidence in the political system and the majority vote of that ancient country. Turmoil in the Middle East, turmoil in Italy and in Europe, turmoil in the church, the Anglican church, that church of England, put out an ultimatum this week to her American sister, the Episcopalian Church, telling them to finally repent of blessing same-sex unions. Or after two years of pleading for that repentance, there would be severance. There's turmoil all around us. There's turmoil in the economy, ecclesiology, family. It's all around us and we get caught up into this flood of information, this flood of news. And our thoughts, our affections, our lives, we're drawn into it, aren't we? A dear friend of mine has CNN on all the time and when not in front of the TV has NPR news on. And we get drawn in to the news of this world and to the noise that it all creates. And the trouble we can face in this is that we can lose sight. In this torrent of trouble, we can lose sight of Christ, we can grow anxious, and our faith can suffer. Yet Psalm 46 reminds us that in this confusion, God is exalted. God is exalted in the messes of life. Kind of in a remarkable parallel to Genesis 1, I think, that the Lord speaks in our text much like He speaks there, where in Genesis 1 we have the void of creation. We could see in a more wooden translation the chaos of what was then. God speaks, and there is order, there is structure, there is purpose. And in very much the same way, God speaks in the midst of chaos in our song. Be still. Silence. Know that I am God. I will be exalted. I will be exalted among the nations. I will be exalted among the earth over all kings and kingdoms, over all rule and authority, from the hearts of man to the gates of hell. God will be exalted. This evening, I want to look specifically at that verse, verse 10, and consider the rest of the psalm and other scriptures through it. We'll have two simple points. The first, God will be exalted among the nations. Second, God will be exalted for his people. And the cadets have a motto in which they talk about reverence. And if you're listening carefully, we'll talk about reverence briefly this evening as well. I'll give you a hint. It's in the second point. If it were more appropriate, I'd say you could say like, Amen, when you hear it. But you can think that when you hear it. And you'll know you'll be tracking with the sermon. First of all, this evening, let us consider point one, how God is exalted among the nations. Psalm 46, if we think about its context and where it came from, it likely was born out of a time when God's being exalted among the nations and God being exalted for His people was highly in question. As it says in the subtitle, it's a psalm of the sons of Korah. They came after David, sometime after David, probably during the reign of Jehoshaphat or Hezekiah. we read that there were waters raging, mountains shaking in verse 1 and verse 2, and the whole earth itself seemed ready to give way. Maybe the closest parallel we could imagine of such turmoil would be the earthquakes that we've either experienced or heard of or hurricanes in the south. Other natural disasters that would lead a poet to say that the mountains are falling into the sea, the waters are raging, and the earth itself seems to be undone. And in addition to that, chaos of creation, verse 6 brings this nightmare chaos to almost a climax. when it talks about the raging and warring of nations. Again, in verse 6. It describes a time that was very much like that time described in 2 Kings 18-19, when the sons of Korah would have been writing during the reign of Hezekiah. And kids, if you want a good story, 2 Kings 18 and 19 is a good story. Epic proportions this story. In fact, it's not just a good story, it's a true story. It's a story about God defending His people. Well worth you to turn to this evening or this week and to seriously consider. It talks about how Hezekiah, that good king of Judah, popular, prestigious, and successful in so many ways, was confronted by the evil adversary Sennacherib, the king of Assyria, 2 Kings chapter 18. The Assyrians, they had already leveled the nations of Gozan, Haran, Resphah, Eden, Hamath, Arpad, Hanna, and Eva. And now in our chapter, they come in mass against Jerusalem and the people of God and the tension builds. Would Hezekiah go out and level the enemies of God? Sadly, he does not. And rather, we read how he trembles before this enemy force. And Sennacherib, the king of Assyria, we read he's in an uproar. He's raging against the king, Hezekiah. He's raging against Jerusalem. He's raging against God Himself. He openly mocks the king, threatens the people, and blasphemes God. Verse 28 of chapter 18 says, Thus says the king, the great king of Assyria, Do not let Hezekiah deceive you, for he will not be able to deliver you out of my hand. Do not let Hezekiah make you trust in the Lord by saying, The Lord will surely deliver us and this city will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria. Do not listen to Hezekiah for thus says the king of Assyria, Make peace with me and come out to me. Then each of you will eat of his own wine and each of you his own fig tree and each one of you will drink the water of his own cistern. In other words, you'll have peace and prosperity until I come and take you away to a land like your own land, a land of grain and wine, a land of bread and vineyards, a land of olive trees and honey, that you may live and not die. Do not listen to Hezekiah when he misleads you by saying, the Lord will deliver us. Has any of the gods of the nations ever delivered his hand, his land out of the hand of the king of Assyria? Where are the gods of Hamath and Arapod? Where are the gods of Seth, Hennah, and Eva? Have they delivered Samaria out of My hand? Who among the gods of the lands have delivered their lands out of My hand that the Lord should deliver Jerusalem out of My hand? And so His raging goes. And verse 36 says, But the people were silent. The people were silent. In 19, verse 22, finally, the Lord responds. The Lord responds. The Lord speaks in the midst of this chaos and confusion. The word of the Lord goes forth in 19, verse 22, saying to Sennacherib, Whom have you mocked and reviled? Against whom have you raised your voice and lifted your eyes to the heights? Against the Holy One of Israel. By your messengers you have mocked the Lord and you have said with my chariots, I have gone up to the heights of the mountains, to the far recesses of Lebanon. I felled its tallest cedars, its choicest cypresses. I entered the farthest lodging place, its most fruitful forest. I dug wells and drank foreign waters and I dried up the soil with the sole of my foot all the streams of Egypt. But have you not heard, O Sennacherib, that I determined this long ago? I planned it from days of old what now I bring to pass that you should turn fortified cities into heaps of ruins while their inhabitants shone of strength are dismayed and confounded and have become like plants of the field and like tender grass, like grass on the housetops, blighted before it is grown. But I know you're sitting down and you're going out and coming in and you're raging against me. Because you have raged against me and your complacency has come into my ears, I will put my hook in your nose and my bit in your mouth and I will turn you back on the way by which you came. Do you know what happened? The great king of Assyria comes toe to toe with the great king of heaven and earth. And that night, according to verse 35, the angel of the Lord went out and struck down 185,000 of the Assyrian army and the Lord says, Silence! Be still and know that I am God. You who would rage, you who would mock my name and abuse the office that I have given you, be silent. And this Word of God in Psalm 46 continues with power today. Be still and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations. I will be exalted in the earth. The text doesn't say a few nations or a part of the earth. The text says the nations and the whole of the earth. God will be exalted, praised, honored and adored among all the nations throughout all of the earth and it's even happening today. It's happening today. Maybe not like He did in 2 Kings 18. He may not come with that kind of visible power and authority today, maybe. But you see, that's the test of our faith. Do we believe that the Word of God is going forth with power and is returning with the fruit that God intends? Do we believe that God is reigning as judge and king and deliverer of His people even today? You see, if we have these eyes of faith, we can see how God is working with the same power and authority over every ruler and authority and dominion even today. Yet this stunning rebuke to the nations, how God will be exalted over the nations, this stunning rebuke to the nations is good news for all who will respond in faith. Among His enemies, God will be exalted as a great warrior with a bloody sword, the judge who demands their very life. Yet among those of every tribe, tongue, and nation who hear His Word and believe, He will be exalted for them. He will be exalted as Savior. This is the great hope of missions. This is the great hope of missions that God has promised and is committed to exalt Himself among the nations. Exalted as judge. So there will be justice for the martyrs. There will be payback for the blood of those who give their life for the sake of Christ and the church. Those lives are not lost. And Christ will respond to those thousands who sit below His throne crying, how long, how long it will come. He will be exalted as Judge and He will be exalted as Savior. Savior for His people through the Gospel of Jesus Christ. He will be exalted for His people On the one hand, the sovereign power of God brings desolation and devastation to His enemies. But on the other hand, the sovereign power of God is at work to bring help and hope for His people. Help and hope through the power of Jesus Christ and His Gospel. You see, it's because we believe the Gospel that we can sing with confidence verse 1 of our text that God is our refuge and strength. A very present help in trouble. And we can continue with the refrain of verse 7 that the Lord of hosts is with us. The God of Jacob is our fortress. And conclude the song with confidence. Verse 11, again the refrain that the Lord of hosts is with us. The God of Jacob is our fortress. We can be confident that God is with us. In the Hebrew, Imanu. You can fill it out. Emmanuel, he's with us in Christ Jesus. It's in Christ Jesus that God is with us. That we have the help and hope and almighty fortress we need to stand against the foes and confusions of this life. Because of the Gospel. Through the Gospel. we come to see how God's exalted majesty, sovereignty, and mercy are truly for us who believe. Friends, because this confidence, this help, and this hope comes to us through the Gospel, let us be all the more diligent to be still before the Lord. To not be carried away this way and that way. To not let our minds and our attention and our affections be brought away with the currents of this life. To discipline our minds when we come on the Lord's Day to hear the Gospel, to think and hear the Gospel. Who of us can't relate to the temptation of sitting and trying to listen, but being brought this way and that way to this news clip or this experience, and we miss the gospel. We don't hear it. We have ears, but we don't have ears to hear, because we can't be still and listen to our Lord. what he's calling us to is a still, silent, reverential awe before him. A quietness, not for the sake of quietness alone, as yoga exercises would have us do. You know, they picked up on this. Life's busy, life's demanding, so let's do yoga. And that brings us to think within, internally. Enjoy the silence, one website told me. Psalm46.10.com Enjoy the silence and you'll begin to hear the wind and the trees and the birds and finally realize the aching of fulfillment that you've long been anticipating. That's not what this psalm is about. That is missing the whole point of a still, silent, reverential awe before the Lord, waiting, anticipating for Him to speak into the chaos of our lives so that we can be reminded of His power for us in the Gospel. While news of earthquake, flood, war, immorality and death threaten to undo us, While the raging of sin and Satan draw the battle lines against our churches and our families, let us be still with that reverential awe before the Lord, knowing that He is not threatened or challenged by these things. He rules over them. He sits in the heavens and does what He pleases and scoffs at those proud kings and rulers while working for us. Let us be still with this silent reverential awe and know, let us know and grow in knowing that He is God. We are not an ignorant people. We are not a foolish people. We are not a wishful people. We are a people of faith who know and grow in the knowledge that Jesus Christ is God and that through His life, death and resurrection He has brought devastation to the gates of hell and all of His enemies and anything and everything that would threaten us as His people. while building for us an everlasting and almighty fortress that cannot be shaken. The heavenly Jerusalem that can never perish, spoil, or fade away that Peter so eloquently describes in chapter 1. With that imagery in mind of a fortress of the heavenly Jerusalem and the new Zion to come. Listen to Psalm 48. Just two chapters over. Verse 9. O Lord, we have thought on your steadfast love in the midst of your temple. As your name, O God, so your praise reaches to the ends of the earth. Your right hand is filled with righteousness. Let Mount Zion then be glad. Let the daughters of Jerusalem rejoice because of your judgments. Walk about Zion. Go around her. Number her towers. Consider well her ramparts. Go through her citadels that you may tell the next generation that this is our God. This fortress, this power, this ability to defend. This is God. Our God forever and ever. He will guide us. He's with us forever and ever and ever. Brothers and sisters in Christ, in the chaos and confusions of life, may God so be exalted among us, a believing people in our God and fortress, Jesus Christ. Amen. Dear Father in Heaven, may the words that we have heard, may those words of Your own mouth not leave our minds and hearts without changing, without transforming us, without strengthening and encouraging and as necessary rebuking and confronting us. May none leave this evening, dear Father, without being impressed with the reality that You will be exalted. May everyone here, dear Father, know that exaltation, that exaltation that You are for us in Jesus Christ. In His name we pray. Amen.