Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction - The Need for a Refuge

Please open your Bibles to Psalm 46.

In the late 70’s a special effects company began in Hollywood called ILM

ILM stands for Industrial Light and Magic.

ILM was the pioneering group that began because they produced special effects for blockbuster movies in the late 70’s through the early 90’s.

The company was formed and got its first break while producing Star Wars in 1977.

They excelled at creating models and developing equipment and techniques that could make those models come to life on the screen.

They were the experts in making the impossible possible until around 1993.

In 1993 Jurassic Park was released.

Jurassic Park used computer animation to make their dinosaurs come to life.

Almost overnight, the model workers for ILM were obsolete.

Those models were no longer needed.

Computers were doing the job.

Jobs were lost.

Those model workers went from captains of their industry, to old fogies in an instant.

They thought their jobs were secure.

Sadly, ILM is not alone.

There is a need for security in this world.

We never know what is coming around the corner.

One moment you are at the height of power.

The next yesterday’s news.

Some people think that money will buffer them from change.

Others put their hope in an object or a treasure.

A home.

A car.

Martin Luther understood that men need a refuge to hide from the uncertainties of life.

He concluded that man made attempts at security will not suffice.

In his famous hymn, A Mighty Fortress, he said these words:

Let goods and kindred go,

This mortal life also;

The body they may kill:

God’s truth abideth still;

His kingdom is forever.

Those words come from today’s Psalm, Psalm 46.

Let’s read it now.

Read Psalm 46.

This Psalm gives 3 confidences you need to endure the troubles of life.

There is a confidence in God.

There is a confidence in His Word

And there is a confidence into eternity.

First, this Psalm teaches you need Confidence in God (v.

1-3)

There are certain things in life that seem constant.

The sun rises in the east, sets in the west, we can count on that.

Mountains stand eternal.

In a world filled with change, we are looking for stability.

We look for those things that will never change.

That’s why verses 2 and 3 are so shocking, “Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change And though the mountains slip into the heart of the sea; Though its waters roar and foam, Though the mountains quake at its swelling pride.”

We look to the mountains as stability in this world.

We think they are unchangable.

Especially here in Southern California, every inch of undeveloped land is turned into a Starbucks, but those mountains climb to the heavnes.

There was a man named Harry Truman.

Not the former president, this is a different man.

He owned a lodge on Mount Saint Helens, up in Washington.

The lodge featured a lake and was home to memories and family vacations.

Then the mountain start rumbling.

Tremors began to shake the majestic summit.

There was a volcano that was becoming active.

Those who lived on the mountain began to evacuate.

Truman would not budge.

The world begged him to leave.

Musicians wrote songs about him.

School children wrote letters to him pleading with him to leave.

He said it would take a team of mules to get him off that mountain.

He was convinced that St. Helens was too big to fall.

He believed that the eruption was going to be on the other side of the mountain, but he would be untouched.

May 17, 1980 was the last time anyone saw Harry Truman.

On May 18, 1980 the mountain exploded throwing 200 square miles of forest into oblivion.

He thought the mountains were immovable.

What does the Psalmist say?

“Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change.

And though the mountains slip into the heart of the sea; Though its waters roar and foam, Though the mountains quake at its swelling pride.”

The Psalmist is describing cataclysmic change.

Genesis describes how things were created.

God summoned land to emerge out of the water.

The author of Psalm 46 is describing a reverse process of the mountains returning to the water.

He who created the mountains, can uncreate them.

These mountains rise immovable in the sky above the constant change beneath.

And yet the Psalmist describes the unchangeable changing.

Those things that we look to for security, collapsing.

What do we have to learn.

First there is change, and this change is dangerous.

You will face change.

You may even suffer.

Christians get sick.

Christians lose their jobs.

Christians die.

How does the Psalmist say we are to respond to change?

Look again at verse 1, “God is our refuge and strength, A very present help in trouble.”

Trouble is real.

It’s going to come into your life.

You might even be in it now.

This Psalm doesn’t give 10 steps to resolving conflict in your life.

Instead, the Psalm makes God the spotlight.

There is turmoil and chaos in this world.

It’s real.

It’s present.

Yet, despite the hurt, the pain, and the suffering, those who look to God, are not fearful.

Verse 2, “Therefore we will not fear … though the earth should change.”

Change in our environment is real.

It’s real in our lives.