The Wisdom Journey

Pause Instead of Panic (Psalms 45–47)

• Stephen Davey

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What if the loudest headline isn’t chaos but a coronation? We journey through Psalms 45–47 to move from panic to peace, from tight places to steady hope. Psalm 45 opens with a royal wedding that points beyond ancient Israel to Christ the King and the joy of a redeemed bride. Hebrews echoes its center line—Your throne, O God, is forever and ever—so we ground hope in the deity of Jesus and the permanence of his rule.

From ceremony to shelter, Psalm 46 meets us where life feels cramped and out of control. God is our refuge and strength does not promise escape from the storm but presence within it. We name our althoughs—loss, betrayal, illness, uncertainty—and learn the rhythm of selah: pause, slow down, and remember who stands with us. The psalm lifts our eyes to a promised city where God dwells with his people, wipes every tear, and ends pain. That future steadies the present; peace on earth will come, and peace in the heart can begin now.

The arc crescendos with Be still and know that I am God—an invitation to stop striving and surrender the illusion of control. Psalm 47 then throws open the doors to celebration: clap your hands, all peoples. The Lord ends wars, reigns over the nations, and sits on a holy throne. Christian hope is not fragile optimism; it is the certainty of a reigning King who will finish what he began. Walk with us through these psalms and trade anxiety for anticipation, striving for stillness, and fear for worship.

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SPEAKER_00:

Have you ever experienced the feeling of panic? Maybe you found yourself in a scary situation. We live in uncertain times and it can be unsettling. But one thing is certain. God is in control. He reigns over all his creation. Psalm 45 through 47 teach us that we have a refuge in him now. This is the wisdom journey. Stephen Davy is teaching from these Psalms today in a lesson he's called Pause instead of panic.

SPEAKER_01:

Many years ago, newspapers were commonly sold by vendors on street corners. It wasn't unusual to see some child with a stack of papers calling out to people to uh, you know, read all about it, read all about it. Well, these children were nicknamed newsies because they were delivering the news. Well, back in those days, after a newspaper was printed, sometimes uh an extraordinary event would take place and newspapers would quickly print what they called an extra, that is a smaller edition. Then they'd hire these young kids for a few pennies a day to get out there and call out extra, extra, read all about it. Something's happening, and you've got to find out what's going on. Well, you know, that kind of urgency and excitement is the same feeling I get when I read these next few psalms. These psalms are big news, and you don't want to miss what they have to say. Now, Psalm 45 is the publication of a wedding song for a king and his bride. It could have been originally for the wedding of Solomon and the daughter of Pharaoh. It could have been written for the wedding of King Hezekiah and his bride or some other Israelite king. We're not exactly sure. But we do know that it serves as a prophetic wedding picture of the bride of Christ being taken into the palace of the Lord. In fact, the writer of the book of Hebrews is going to quote Psalm 45, verse 6, and directly apply it to Jesus Christ. God the Father is speaking to God the Son, and quotes this verse in Hebrews chapter 1 and verse 8. It says this, Your throne, O God, is forever and ever. The scepter of uprightness is the scepter of your kingdom. Now, this is one of the most powerful verses in the New Testament that declares the deity of Jesus. God the Father himself, in that text, calls Jesus God and refers to the throne of the Lord as eternal. One day the redeemed are going to be presented to the Lord Jesus as a bride proceeding down the aisle toward her groom. You can just see the wedding procession here in verse 13 as Psalm 45 comes to a conclusion. He writes, All glorious is the princess in her chamber, with robes interwoven with gold, in many colored robes, she is led to the king with her virgin companions following behind her. I think those are the bridesmaids. With joy and gladness they are led along as they enter the palace of the king. Now with that we enter right into Psalm chapter forty six. And this particular psalm we're given a superscription, this heading here that tells us that the psalm is to be set or sung according to Alamath. Alamoth is a Hebrew word that means young women. Now we're not exactly sure, but this psalm might have been sung by the soprano section of the choir. Psalm 46 is intended to be soothing and calming and reassuring to the believer. And it really is, as we go through this. The psalm is divided here into three stanzas, and each stanza ends with the word sila. Again, sila is actually a musical notation that means pause and reflect. So the composer is essentially saying here at the end of each stanza, I want you to stop a moment and I want you to think about what you've just heard, or maybe what you've just sung. Sila means slow down and think this through. I want to stop here and pause just long enough to say the average Christian needs to do more pausing, less panicking. I I don't know about you, but but I personally need more sila in my heart and life. Stanza one opens here in verse one. God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. The word here for trouble is from a Hebrew verb that means to be restricted, to be cramped, to be in a narrow place, to be stuck in a tight spot in life. And we all suffer from spiritual claustrophobia, don't we? We don't like to be stuck. Well, this text means that God may not promise you the absence of feeling stuck. Trouble, frankly, is a part of life. Sometimes there's there's no way out of it. There's no way around it. You're just gonna have to go right through it. The psalmist says when you're there and you're having to go through that tight, restricted place, God is your confidence. God is your strength. God is going through it. He's an ever-present help in that kind of trouble. Now, how bad can that trouble be? Well, verse 2 says, Though the earth gives way, though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam, that sounds like a lot of trouble to me. This is quite a storm. I couldn't help but notice the repetition of the word though. Though this is happening, God is your refuge and strength. Though could be rendered although. Although there's a storm, God is your strength. I wonder right now in your life what that although might happen to be. Maybe you're saying, although I've just gone bankrupt, or although my job just ended, although a close friend betrayed me, or although our retirement savings were lost, although my marriage ended, although the doctors had to say no, although a loved one just died, although that accident just occurred, although although God was present, in spite of everything, God is available, and God is aware. Think about that. Well, stanza number two begins here in verse four. There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God. Now this verse here has prophetic implications. Not only is God our present refuge, the city of God will one day be our permanent refuge. Revelation chapter twenty-one, verse three describes it. Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain any more, for the former things have passed away. Wow, imagine that. Beloved, one day there will be peace on the earth. In the meantime, uh there can be peace in your heart as you trust God who is in control. So Sila just just think about that today. Stanza number three now begins, and it's a promise of coming peace on earth. Verse 9 tells us that the Lord makes wars cease to the end of the earth. He breaks the bow and shatters the spear, he burns the chariots with fire. This is a prophetic promise of the coming kingdom of God through Christ. And when Jesus is going to bring all war to an end, by the way, God gets blamed today for war on earth. And let me just remind you, God doesn't start any war on earth between nations. You know, mankind's capable of taking care of that all by themselves. But one day, we're told here, God will end all war. Now it isn't gonna happen because the nations, you know, make some kind of resolution and or smoke a peace pipe or whatever. Those things don't last long enough for the ink on the peace treaty to dry. It isn't gonna happen because the right person is sitting in the White House or in one of the parliaments of our world. No, this is only gonna happen when Jesus is seated on his throne in the coming kingdom. But let me tell you, the psalmist isn't just speaking about our troubled world. He's actually addressing our troubled heart. Verse 10 says, Be still and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth. Be still. In the Hebrew language, that's a term that literally means relax. Stop panicking. In other words, stop trying to manipulate everything around you. People, circumstances, stop trying to orchestrate all the events of your life to work out perfectly. Stop trying to be in control of everything. Be still. You could render it stop striving. That's another way of saying stop trying to play God. Just know that He is God. And and if God can take care of the nations, can He not take care of you? This is going to replace panic with peace in our hearts. It leads us into a joyful sense of anticipation. In fact, as we move into Psalm 47, we're given a prophetic picture of the end of days and the kingdom of Jesus on earth. Verse 1 just sort of issues uh this invitation to all the citizens of this coming kingdom who've acknowledged by faith the Lord Jesus Christ as King. And let me read to you the invitation. Here it is. Clap your hands, all peoples. Shout to God with loud songs of joy, for the Lord, the most high, is to be feared, a great king over all the earth. What a day that's gonna be as Jesus reigns over his millennial kingdom on earth. Let me tell you, this is the headline of all headlines. Here's the extra, extra we need to read today. In fact, verse 8 shouts the news: God reigns over the nations. God sits on his holy throne. Well, that's a great place to stop for today. Until our next time, beloved, may the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.

unknown:

Amen.

SPEAKER_00:

Thanks for listening to The Wisdom Journey with Stephen Davey. To learn more about us and access all of our Bible teaching resources, visit wisdomonline.org. Our phone number is 866-482-4253. And you can email us at info at wisdomonline.org. Stephen developed this daily program to help you know what the Bible says, understand what it means, and apply it to your life. So please join us next time to continue the wisdom journey.