What does it mean that God is our refuge and strength and an ever-present help in trouble (Psalm 46:1)?

(V. 1). We do well to notice the little word "our" in the opening verse. It is true that God is a refuge; but believers can say, "God is our refuge." The world has those to whom it looks for protection, and guidance, in the time of trouble. Believers have in God their refuge from the storms and distresses of life. Moreover, God is our "strength" in weakness, and "a very present help in trouble." The better and more exact translation is, "a help in distresses very readily found."

(Ps. 46:1). We do well to notice the little word "our" in the opening verse. It is true that God is a refuge; but believers can say, "God is our refuge." The world has those to whom it looks for protection, and guidance, in the time of trouble. Believers have in God their refuge from the storms and distresses of life. Moreover, God is our "strength" in weakness, and "a very present help in trouble." The better and more exact translation is, "a help in distresses very readily found."

The Psalm begins well. The word GOD is the first articulate syllable that breaks the silence. No wonder that with such a start we should immediately find such words as “our Refuge and Strength, a very present help in trouble”—a strong Tower to run to for safety, an unlimited power to still the heart in the face of fearful perils, and that just when needed, “a very present help in trouble.”

Psalm 46 gives us one most simple truth, but a most solemn and weighty one - one much needed by Christians in the heavings of this world, and in the tendency to seek relief by human effort. "Be still, and know that I am God." That is the exhortation. The encouragement is this: "God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble." But if GOD takes this character, the waters may rage and be troubled, and the mountains shake with their swelling; we can be still. For no matter what power or swelling there is, if God be there, our refuge. Only we must wait, and wait till He comes in: and here it is faith is tried. Hence, "and know that I am God." This may be by the exercise of patience, or the resisting the tendency to human effort. But the truth sustained in the psalm is a most blessed and precious encouragement, which no one trouble can touch; for trouble is at the utmost from the creature, and God is God. But it implies that nothing else is a refuge, and this is perfect reliance, and implies that all else may be against us.

96 The great point is, that it is God as such who is our refuge and strength. He does not say, "The Lord" (Jehovah): further on in the psalm, where relationship is in question, he does. Here the point is, that it is God in His nature contrasted with man - indeed with every power; for if God be for us, who can be against us? Faith gets hold of this. He is a refuge, where we may resort for safety; and He is strength, so that no adverse power can reach or succeed against us. It supposes that trouble, yea, insolent swellings of power, are there; but He is a present help. This secures fully; but the help is not always a present apparent one. But God Himself is looked to; and the fact that we are left wholly to Him, and that no other resource is there, makes all the power of evil immaterial to us; for it is nothing against God. "What is this confidence?" said the king of Assyria to Hezekiah. Other help we might calculate and compare the value of. This only requires faith, "Ye believe in God."

"God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble." A refuge is a place to flee to from impending and known danger. A sinner's fleeing for refuge to Christ implies a sense of imminent danger: He is everlasting security from impending judgment; He is the true city of refuge from the avenger of blood (Num. 35:13, etc.). He is also the strength of His people in their conscious weakness. He does not always deliver us out of our troubles, but sustains us in them, and carries us through them, which is far better, and enables us to say in our feeble measure, "Even so Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight" (Matt. 11:26). Mary and Martha could never have known the present sympathy and resurrection power of the Lord Jesus Christ if they had not experienced the death of their brother. It was when sickness, death, the grave, and corruption, had each done its worst and seemed to have robbed them for ever of their beloved one, that the Lord stepped in, and showed them Himself as they had never before known Him. The sisters had sought the Lord in their trouble, and such is always its effect where there is real faith. Blessings tend, because of what we are, to elate us; and we run off with them to enjoy them, and forget God. Trouble brings us to our knees. It is good when our blessings also have this effect. See the beautiful example of this in Gideon (Judges 7:15). He did not rush off elated to tell the hosts of Israel the cheering tidings he had heard, but first worshipped, ere returning to the host. God was a very present help to him in his trouble; and such was the effect. But the Psalmist goes on to say "Therefore will not we fear though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea" etc.

Is it not well, dear Christian reader, to deal closely with our hearts, in the presence of God, on this deeply-practical and momentous subject? It is easy to speak of our own. weakness; but do we so feel it day by day and continually, that we are compelled to look to God for strength? Is it a realized fact with us, that in us, that is, in our flesh, dwelleth no good thing; and because of this, are we cast upon the power and goodness of God? Surely it is a precious reality to have God for our refuge and strength, waiting on and for Him, because He has been, and is, and will be, "a very present help in trouble;" and such always prove that "blessed is the man whose strength is in thee." If God be our refuge, we shall find either that He will give us deliverance from the trouble, or help in the trouble; but blessing it will be, present blessing, in some way or other. It may be painful to find every other refuge fail us, all other streams dry, every cistern broken, and lover and friend stand aloof; but God being really our refuge, we shall find Him our strength, and a very present help. Trials, more or less, we must all have but what unspeakable blessing there is in making God our refuge! What relief! What rest How truly the following lines express the utterance of many tried souls who cleave to God in their sorrow: "Other refuge have I none; Hangs my helpless soul on Thee: Leave, oh, leave me not alone Still support and comfort me. All my trust on Thee is stayed; All my help from Thee I bring; Cover my defenceless head With the shadow of Thy wing!"

To have the sentence of death in ourselves so thoroughly as to reckon ourselves to have died indeed unto sin, and to be alive unto God in our Lord Jesus Christ, will necessarily bring forth such exercise of soul as to cast us upon God, His power and goodness, and prove that He is our "strength, and a very present help in trouble." Surely policy is not faith, nor are human contrivances the Spirit's path. Faith casts each care upon Him who careth for us, though pride and unbelief may take it up again.

The title of the psalm is remarkable: “A song upon Alamoth.” A note in the Scofield References says “Some have thought the Alamoth, virgins, were a temple choir singing antiphonally to the Sheminith, or male choir.” And it has been said that “the singing of this virgin choir shows that even the feeble virgins may sing in a day of peril without fear because “the mighty One is on their side.” it is the consciously weak that can sing this song of faith for their whole strength is in the Lord. “To them that have no might He increases strength” (Isa. 40:29).

We commend the psalm specially to the Christian women; their steadfast faith and hope is a great help to the church of God and to His servants. The wife of George Whitefield used to stand behind him when the mob threatened him and say, “Play the man for God, George.” The psalm does not celebrate natural courage, not even faith but the greatness and absolute reliability of God—“God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore will we not fear.” It is what God is that drives away the fear—God greater and nearer than all circumstances, God greater than all foes, “God for us.” We may dwell too much on faith and lose sight of God we may even put our trust in prayer instead of in the God to whom we pray. If we know God our faith will be active, if we know His care, His love, His wisdom, His power, we shall pray and shall believe while we pray, but it will be God Himself and not our faith or our prayers that will be important to us

Keeping for the moment to the prophetical aspect of things, Psalm 46 seems to find its fulfilment immediately after the appearing of the Son of Man, and before Israel's deliverance from her foes is completed. The beast and his western hosts have been dealt with (Rev. 19:11-21), and this they joyfully proclaim; yet the horizon is far from clear, a black cloud threatening from the north (Ezek. 38, 39); but as to it they are calm and confident, feeling assured that He who has done so much for them already will not fail to complete what He has begun. So they say, "God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore will not we 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" (ver. 1-3). Tremendous language this! If "mountains" and "the sea" may be viewed symbolically here, as in other parts of the prophetic word (Rev. 8:8; Jer. 51:25; Dan. 7:2-3), general revolution and subversion of authority is referred to. The people of Israel will see much of this before the appearing of the Lord Jesus: here they say that if yet more of it is to be witnessed they will not fear, because of what God is for His people. Let everything that is stable be overthrown, their hearts will be confident. How different the experience where God is not known — "distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring; men's hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth" (Luke 21:25-26).

Here let us pause, and apply this to our own hearts. We are living in troublous times, when those who seek to be "men of God" have in many things a very painful path to tread. Are our hearts restful and calm simply and solely because we know what God is for us? Or do we suffer our hearts to be discouraged by reason of the way? Mark, He is "a very present help" — One always at hand. This cannot always be said of human helpers. In a time of distress and need one's truest friend might chance to be in the Antipodes, and so be inaccessible when most wanted, but this could never be true of our God. Oh, to grasp the fact with a more simple faith, that we have to do with a "living" God, and a "very present" God ! (Read 1 Kings 17:1; Heb. 13:5-6).

But such as really know God as their refuge find Him also their strength, and a very present help in time of trouble. And how blessed for such as are conscious of their own weakness to know where to turn to find real strength; for it is not less true now than in Isaiah's day, that "He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might He increaseth strength."

And surely what can happen in such unparalleled circumstances to a whole people can happen to an individual in his little circumstances. The God who is sufficient for the whole universe can care for a sparrow, and the God of Psalm 46 is enough for you and for me.