Shakespeare and the Psalms | Psalm 46

This message explores Psalm 46 and reminds us that God is our refuge, strength, and ever-present help in every season of life. Through the imagery of chaos, earthquakes, raging waters, and war, the psalm declares that while the world may feel unstable, God remains unshaken. The message emphasizes that God loves to rescue His people, even when His rescue doesn't happen on our timeline or in the way we expect. Rather than allowing fear to dictate our lives, we are called to trust God's character, remember His faithfulness, and find lasting joy and security in Him alone. 

This message also provides practical encouragement for facing fear by reminding us to "talk back" to our fears with the truth of who God is. Instead of trusting our own strength or searching for fulfillment in temporary things, we are invited to surrender to God, who is our refuge, protector, King, fortress, and source of true strength. Ultimately, this message teaches that courage grows from confidence in God's character, and that real strength, peace, and joy are found not in controlling our circumstances, but in trusting the God who faithfully leads us through them.

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SPEAKER_01 0:00

Alright, so let's go ahead and dive right in Psalm 46. I have the new living translation. It will be on the screen if you want to follow along in your phone or your Bible. Here we go. Let's read it together. Psalm 46 from the sons of Korah, verse 1: God is our refuge and strength, always ready to help in times of trouble. So we will not fear when earthquakes come and the mountains crumble into the sea. Let the oceans roar and foam, let the mountains tremble as the waters surge. A river brings joy to the city of our God for the sacred home of the Most High. God dwells in that city, it cannot be destroyed. From the very break of day, God will protect it. The nations are in chaos and their kingdoms crumble. God's voice thunders, and the earth melts. The Lord of heaven's armies is here among us, the God of Israel is our fortress. Come see the glorious works of the Lord. See how he brings destruction upon the world. He causes wars to end throughout the earth. He breaks the bow and snaps the spear. He burns the shields with fire. Be still and know that I am God. I will be honored by every nation. I will be honored throughout the world. The Lord of heaven's armies is here among us. The God of Israel is our fortress. What a beautiful psalm. What a powerful psalm. And when I think of Psalm 46, here's what I think about. Romeo, oh Romeo. Where for art thou? Romeo. Just like you, I think of Romeo and Juliet. Which is exactly what I saw on your faces when we read through Psalm 46. You thought, oh yeah, I saw that Leonardo DiCaprio movie in the 90s. You're like, oh, I had that English teacher who made us read that in school. Here's why I think of Romeo and Juliet. Your Bible was not written in English. For some of us, that may be brand new information. For others, we are familiar with this. Your Bible, in its original language, as a library of books compiled over time, is written really in three languages: Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic. And most of us do not speak any of those fluently. And so over time, as the message of these literary works that were compiled as this inspired Word of God we call the Bible, was put together, it was translated into different languages to get that message out. And in 1604, a new English translation was commissioned to be produced by a man named King James the First. In 1604, King James I commissioned this production of a new translation of the Bible, what would become known as, you may know it, the King James Version of the Bible. How many of us are familiar with the King James Version, right? Okay. Maybe at Christmas time you read the Christmas story, or at Easter you read certain things, or you are familiar with certain verses that are likely a part of that version of the Bible. Well, here's something interesting about King James. King James I was a big fan of William Shakespeare, the notable author whose works like Romeo and Juliet and others we have read, maybe we've seen plays, maybe we've been in the play. Any Hamlets in the room, right? Like maybe you're familiar with him. Well, as a result of King James', you know, appreciation for William Shakespeare, William Shakespeare became a staple in the royal court in London at this time. He would be a regular visitor. He would come and he would read and he would spend time with King James. And there is a literary legend out there that says King James asked William Shakespeare to give his own editing credits to this translation of the Bible that he had commissioned because he had such respect for him as an author and a member of the literary society that King James goes to William Shakespeare and says, I would like you to help edit this, to make sure that the words flow as poetically as they need to, specifically in the Psalms. And so here's what the literary legend is. In literary legend, we may be taking liberties there. Some may call it a conspiracy theory, but in the literary world, in some kind of biblical folklore, as you might call it, you're going to notice something interesting about the King James Version of Psalm 46. If you start with the very first word in the King James Version of Psalm 46 and count 46 words in, you will get to this word here. Shake. And if you start at the very end of Psalm 46 in the King James Version and work yourself backwards 46 words, you are going to get the word spear. At the time this translation was being published, William Shakespeare would have been 46 years old. So some believe in this folkloric literary legend, or some may call it conspiracy theory, that William Shakespeare signed his name to the King James Version of the Bible in Psalm 46, because when he was 46, he made sure that the translation ended up with the thesaurus of English words that we had at our disposal to say shake spear. Now I have no idea if that's true. I have no idea if that's true. But it's fun. And it's a reminder to us that God's word reaches people in every language, in every place. Because God's word is precious and powerful. Now, I don't know if William Shakespeare actually did that, but here's what I do know. Psalm 46 was written by a group of people who were called the sons of Korah. Sons could loosely translate there as descendants, right? The descendants of Korah. He was the great-grandson of a man named Levi. If you know anything about Old Testament history, especially Old Testament uh Judaism as far as temple uh procedures and protocols and that type of history is concerned, Levi was a that you would call it Levitical priest, Levi. So it was a priestly figure, it's a priestly name, it's a priestly family. They helped oversee parts of the temple. Korah is the great-grandson of Levi. And when Korah was, I guess, kind of coming about and gaining influence, he decided in the times of Moses and Aaron, who you've heard of, Pharaoh, Pharaoh, let my people go, the Exodus, that Moses and Aaron, Korah decided that he didn't like the way things were being led, and so Korah actually led a coup, a rebellion against them, and a basically a fight broke out. And essentially what happens, we read this in the Old Testament in the book of Numbers, chapter 16. As a result of this rebellion, there's a battle, and Korah was, as the Bible writes, swallowed up by the ground. Like one of those you can maybe picture it in a movie where the earth separated and he fell in and then he was gone. It's in there. It's in Numbers 16. It's a very epic tale. You'll read that. But the sons of Korah were spared from that fate. God had clearly a different plan there. And over time, the descendants of Korah, as they continued through time and generation, would find favor with King David, and they would be brought back into the temple to serve as temple assistants. Now, I want to give an aside to this real quick that it's not a part of the messages. And even if it were, quite frankly, there's communion juice on my notes anyway, so I wouldn't know. But on an aside to this, uh I have conversations with people sometimes, and it goes a little something like this, and maybe you've experienced this. Maybe this is you. Well, Scott, I come from a long line of fill-in-the-blank. So I'm probably just predisposed to being this way. Yeah, but you know, Scott, look, I get it. You know, I come from a broken home. You know, my parents were divorced, their parents were divorced, my aunt and uncles are divorced, and so, you know, I just think, all right, I mean, I'll try this marriage thing out and we'll see if it works or not. And because, you know, it's probably gonna happen to me too. Or maybe I talk to people who say, yeah, but I come from a long line of alcoholics, and so I'm probably just predisposed to this, and so I've just accepted that that's probably going to be me. Or, you know, you know, my parents did this, and I mean, I guess I'll just keep paying the price for that. Can I can I encourage you with this? Because I sit in that boat too, right? Of, you know, blended family, that sort of thing. And I I want to encourage you with this. The sons of Korah didn't actually have to pay for the sins of their father. Just because people generationally in your family have gone before and made some decisions or dealt with some things doesn't mean you can't have victory or freedom in that area. And I think somebody just needs to hear that. Again, it's not even a part of the message, but in a group this size, some of us probably struggle with that. Well, I'm predisposed to this, and so no, no, no, no. If God has freedom and victory for you in an area of your life, it doesn't matter what's been done to you or before you. You get to choose how you want to follow Jesus and the choices you make. And he may have freedom and victory for you. All right. That wasn't a part of the message, but we wanted to take a detour real quick because I thought somebody might need to hear that. So the sons of Korah, they write different psalms, and you'll see that. If you read through the Psalms, which I hope you're doing this summer, you're gonna see some that were written by the sons of Korah. Now you know who they are. These are descendants of this man Korah. They were temple assistants, they served, and they would write songs to be uh essentially, as they would guard the temple, they would write songs so people would end up singing them in the temple. And a lot of people, you know, through scholarly research think that this particular psalm, Psalm 46, was written after a particular battle with an Assyrian army. We don't know exactly which battle. In any case, what we do know is that the sons of Korah wrote Psalm 46 to celebrate the rescue and deliverance that God provided them. And when I say rescue, there's a word that everyone in the room has likely heard if you've been in church for 30 minutes, and it's this word salvation. We've said that, right? Salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. That word salvation in its original language is rescue. And that is a constant theme throughout scripture, that God provides a rescue in the Old Testament, in the New Testament, as God would deliver his people and in the New Testament, as God would send his son Jesus to make a way for a rescue so that any who believe in him would have eternal life with God by grace through faith in Jesus. That is the rescue the gospel gives. And so it is a constant theme. And Psalm 46 resonates that theme deep into its words, and it has practical things we can pull out. Even if you look at Psalm 46, verse 1, God is our refuge and strength, always ready to help in times of trouble. I'm gonna ask you this question. Don't answer it out loud, but be honest with yourself. On the inside, do you believe God is always ready to rescue? I would ask it like this Do you believe God loves to rescue? It's a real question, and it's easy to answer. Well, of course, yeah, because I'm in church, I'm a Christian, yeah, I've read this, but seriously think about it because oftentimes people, when they get honest with God, that belief that God loves to rescue starts to dwindle or diminish or dilute itself a little bit. You know why? Because God doesn't rescue us at certain times and in certain seasons the way we want him to rescue us. He doesn't, and that's real because God doesn't operate on our timeline. And he doesn't do things the way that we always want him to do things. So what ends up happening? Incidentally and often accidentally, we kind of drift further away from this belief that God loves to rescue, but he is always ready. Again, he may not rescue you the way you want him to at this time in this season. But if you are a follower of Jesus and you have put your faith in him, he has provided rescue for the eternity of your soul, and that hope alone is something to hold on to to remind you that God loves to rescue. So I want to encourage you with this. When God does not operate on your timeline, when God does not do things the way you really want Him to do in this moment or in this season, I want you to consider this piece of encouragement that do not let delayed deliverance keep you from believing or trusting that God loves to rescue. It is in his nature to rescue. It is why he sent his son. So when life is tough and not going the way you want it to, hold on to that hope that the eternal rescue God has provided is evidence for us to believe that he loves to rescue, even in the day today. Hold on to that. It's practical. You can do that from Psalm 46, 1. And then in the next verse, we're gonna read something that that is directly impacted by this truth, this belief we hold on to that God loves to rescue. He says this, or I should say the authors say this, the writers of this song, verse 2, so we will not fear when earthquakes come, when the mountains crumble into the sea. They almost say, Bring it on, let the oceans roar and foam, let the mountains tremble and the waters surge. We will not fear. I'm gonna give you a piece of advice here that will it will help you in many seasons of life. You ready? Sometimes you're going to have to talk back to your fears. Fear does some weird stuff in our minds, it will convince us of things that are not true and it will keep us stuck in a place we don't want to stay. Fear will lie to you. Fear will oftentimes reveal to you what your faith is really in. Well, this situation is out of control, and so I'm afraid because I can't control the outcome. Well, then is your faith in God's ability to lead you, or is it in your ability to control the outcome of all situations, including other people's choices? See, fear will lie to you, and fear will lead you if you let it. So sometimes you're going to have to talk back to your fears, just like they did. Our oldest is uh older now, but when she wasn't older and she was little, hmm, they used to be like that, and it was great. And they got that little voice, and it's so precious. When she was little, uh, she was at that age where we started to ask her to clean up her own toys after herself. It's learning that responsibility. And the house we lived in at the time had uh stairs, there were two levels, and there was like a bonus room upstairs. And one day we had asked her, we said, Hey, listen, kiddo, we need you to go, you know, pick up your stuff upstairs in the bonus room. And she said, No, I don't want to do that. I'm too scared. And we said, Look, it's gonna be fine. There's nothing up there, it's just toys. Go for it. And so we kind of left that be. We we gave that directive and kind of went on about our business, and we're kind of keeping an ear out to see, like, is she gonna do it, you know? And you know, as the little ones do, they kind of they gotta psych themselves up, right? It's like it's like one of those. And then out of nowhere, we just hear that precious little voice up the stairs saying this God is with me. God is with me, God is with me. It was beautiful, and we're laughing and crying and smiling and all at the same time, and it evokes that. But you know what? Sometimes in life we have got to remind ourselves God is with me. You gotta talk back to your fears. There's real help in that. It doesn't sound necessarily overtly spiritual to say that. No, no, no, no, no. Give me the ultimate solution to fear. I want to be able to wear the shirt that says faith over fear, so then I know that I've got it. Do you know what faith over fear really means? It means not being stuck in your fear, not believing the lies that fear tells you. It means reminding yourself as you talk back to your fears and tell them the truth that God is with you. God is with you, God is with you. I'm struggling to forgive this person because I don't know that the relationship will survive the fracture that it is. I don't know that we have the humility and it's not worth it. They're not gonna do this and and they don't love me, and I don't, and and and no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. They are made in the image of God. God wants you to reconcile, God wants restoration, God wants you to experience his grace. Okay, don't stay stuck. Take those steps. God, I don't know what this outcome is going to be, and I just I don't want to take a chance on this. Look, I know what obedience says, but I really don't like what I gotta do because I'm afraid that it's not gonna go the way I want it to. And what does God say? Trust me. Is your way better or is my way better? Okay, God, that's right. We have thousands of years of human history proving to us that your way is better. So we take steps. You wanna have faith over fear? Learn to talk back to your fears. And maybe you have those up the stairs moment to clean up your toys in life. God is with me. God is with me, God is with me. It's real practical in Psalm 46. Through these powerful words, they go on. A river brings joy to the city of our God in verse 4. Now, here's the thing: we read that and we think, okay, river's great. I used to float down a river when I was a kid. That was fun, and you know, we would find tadpoles and it was great. Okay, I get it. But when you put yourself in the shoes of the original audience who would be reading this psalm, a river meant something unique. So I'll I'll do a little drawing for you because it's second service, and you guys will appreciate this, I'm sure. This is a river. In case you didn't know. That's what a river looks like. And and there would be what, you know, people who lived around a river with houses. These are houses, also in case you didn't know. And these are people. I got kicked out of art in the eighth grade, so you'll have to forgive me. Okay, now here's the thing about a river. A river brought life to a city. Do you know why? Water is life, it's a source for a lot of things. And we understand this on a basic level, but back then, when this was written, this was powerful. A river that would be running through a city, as cities were oftentimes built around bodies of water because they knew the people knew that waters, rivers brought life because they brought strength, they brought sustenance, they brought vitality to the city. A river brings joy. Why? Because it brings vitality. And it says a river brings joy to the city of our God. God Dwells in that city, it cannot be destroyed. It brings joy. Here's what I see a lot of people doing in life. We're looking for life, pleasure, fulfillment, joy in all the wrong places. How much money we have, how much status we have, how much clout we have, how much attention we get, what our titles are, and what happens. None of those rivers do anything but eventually dry up. And you got to keep chasing and searching and chasing and searching. But God, who has told you you matter more than anything to him, faith in him is a river that brings life and joy, and it never dries. And so ask yourself, does my joy come from God? Or am I trying to produce it on my own and find it in all the wrong places? Maybe the reason that you feel depleted in that area of your life is because you're building your life around dry river beds that are never going to bring vitality, hope, strength, and life to you. The way a life surrendered to God will give you. And that's the thing I think most people don't realize. Strength actually comes from surrender. For the Christian, this formula for strength in your life involves a posture of surrender. It's a recognition of God's way being better than ours, and that God's way being safer for the soul. Otherwise, we start to rely on our own strength in every situation. Thus, we face limits in every situation because we think we can do it on our own. Here's the truth: we need God. We cannot produce joy on our own. People have been trying to fabricate joy and purpose and peace through external accomplishments, achievements, and acquisitions for thousands of years. But when we rely on our own strength in every situation, our strength inevitably falls short. So for the Christian, strength comes from surrender. Walking through life with a posture that recognizes that God's way is better than ours, that his best is better than ours, that his priorities are what matter most. Following his lead. It's something most people miss. But the reality for the Christian life is that strength comes from surrender. So there's very practical things in this very powerfully beautiful psalm in Psalm 46 to remind ourselves that God is our refuge and our strength, that we will not fear, we will talk back to our fears, that we will understand where joy comes from, where peace comes from, where life, vitality, victory, freedom, where that actually comes from. Satisfaction for the soul. God is the source. So practically, what do we do with this? How do we take the powerful words of Psalm 46 and understand what to do? Because you get to the end and you see places like the Lord of heaven's armies, and you're like, that sounds pretty metaphysical, and we're talking spiritual warfare here, and that's a thing that exists. And while we won't delve deep into that, it is a reminder for us that good and evil is real. They really exist. And as a Christian, we believe that even though the world is kind of scary sometimes and it's easy to be afraid of kind of when it comes to an end, we put our hope that God will have the final say. But also, I want to encourage us how to embrace that hope, not just in this belief that God will have the final say, but to lead us through the everyday. How do I do that, Scott? How do I talk back to my fears? What do I do? I'm going to give you an exercise, and we're going to assign some words to who God is, and I'm going to leave it up on this board. So after the service, if you want to take a photo with it or you want to write it down, even in the moment, that is fine. This is super practical. Lace up your shoes with it, faith, because in Psalm 46, as we read that God is our refuge and our strength, we will not fear. They're lifting this up as praise and declaration to God, recognizing that life and joy comes from him, recognizing that not only will he have the final say, but he has the ability and love for us to lead us through the every day. Notice what Psalm 46 says about God. It says this that God is our refuge. God is our strength. He is our help. He is king. Refuge meaning tower, a place you go to, meaning you have to surrender where you are to the tower that provides the refuge. The strength from the refuge does not happen unless the person surrenders to the protection, the rescue, and refuge provides. God is our protection. God is our fortress. Maybe you grew up with the song, a mighty fortress is our God. That is taken from Psalm 46. Here is one to remind yourself: God is powerful, and God is to be honored. Here's the encouragement for all of us as we take these beautifully crafted, powerful words from the sons of Korah in Psalm chapter 46. When you deal with things that trouble you, things that scare you, things that maybe sometimes just knock you down. When fear wants to creep in or hover over you, when life is tough and you face obstacles, remember God loves to rescue. And maybe for some of us, it's the practical exercise of when we encounter those things that we break out this list. God is refuge, God is strength, God is help, He is king, He is protection, He is fortress, He is powerful, and He is to be honored. That's it for today. I'm gonna pray. We'll wrap it up. You can linger in the lobby before we see you Wednesday or next week. Pray with me. God, thank you again for this day. Thank you for the provision. Thank you for the protection, for the refuge, for the help, for being our king, for being the mighty fortress in our lives, because God, I know we all need it. I pray that practically this would reach people and that what we learned here we can take with us, maybe even today, as some of us are walking through some very difficult, difficult things. Maybe for some of us it's the hardest thing we've ever been through in our entire life. And we need to remind ourselves that you love to rescue, even when the rescue might not look like we want it to look or what we think it should look like, that we would trust that you love to rescue. So, God, may your word teach us and lead us this week as we dive into it and cling to it. So in your name we pray. Amen.

SPEAKER_00 30:43

Thank you so much for joining us today at Sunrise Church. We hope this message encouraged you and blessed you. If one of the ways that you choose to worship with us here at Sunrise is by giving online, there's a link right here that you can follow and it'll take you to that payment portal. Everything that you donate helps not only go towards reaching people in the greater San Diego area, but also all around the world through our ministry partner. If you want to get further connected, whether in person or online, you can email this email right here, and either myself or some one of our team members will be there to answer it and help you get connected in any way that you need. Thank you so much for joining us, and we'll see you next time.