October is a gorgeous time of year in New England, as well as much of the rest of the world.  In Iraq, the soldiers are sighing with a little relief from the blistering privations of April-September as the rainy season sets in.  The kids tend to think of October as the month of candy and pumpkins, Halloween having already dotted the commercial landscape since early September.   I think of October in intensely Christian terms, though.  Especially October 31^st!

It was on 31 October, 1517 that a fairly obscure pastor and theological scholar began what we call today the Protestant Reformation.  In an age when pastors were suggesting you could purchase forgiveness of sins, both past and future, by buying “indulgences” from the Pope, Dr. Martin Luther abruptly suggested that Jesus alone purchased our forgiveness with His Work on the Cross.  The so-called “Ninety-Five Theses” were a set of propositions from the Scriptures against the sale of indulgences, against the teaching by the Church of Rome that sinners can purchase their salvation.  Luther nailed these theses to the door of the beautiful Castle Church of Wittenberg, where he was a pastor and resident Biblical scholar in the University of Wittenberg.

Yesterday’s devotion was about a favorite command at the conclusion of a favorite Psalm.  Many American Christians know well that the old hymn A Mighty Fortress is Our God was written by Martin Luther, the little Augustinian monk whom God used to begin that great doctrinal cleansing of the Church of Jesus Christ in the early 16^th Century.  But few will know or recognize Psalm 46 as the Text from which Luther got his great hymn.  So the story goes, when Luther would call for A Mighty Fortress, he would say, “Let us sing the Forty-Sixth Psalm.”

Psalm 46:10 (NAS)

10         “Cease striving and know that I am God;

I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.”

The Command

As we saw yesterday, today’s command is part of a complex of two imperatives:  1) “relax” or “cease” and 2) “know.”  Some might be surprised that “cease striving” is really “relax” or “loosen up.”  Buckle your seatbelt: the implied causal relationship between the command to “relax” and the command to “know” is even more foreign to the cultural climate in which we communicate today.  Knowledge is supposed to produce inner calm in the storms of life.  Two words apply here:  Rest assured.

It is strange to our ears that someone commands knowledge in the same way that we find strange the command to “relax” during times of adversity.  But if you think about it, every examination you ever took in school was someone holding you responsible to know something.  God commands you to know something about Him personally. God is God.  This is the ultimate manifesto on the Divine Self-identity.  Man is to recognize and assume the truth of God’s character. No less than thirty-five times in the OT we have this word, YADA’ (יָדַע) in the imperative (command) mood.  Knowledge is a fairly common thing to demand of someone else!  The three times knowledge is commanded of man in the Psalms, it is always concerning God: Know something about the Creator!

“Know that the Lord Himself is God; It is He who has made us, and not we ourselves; We are His people and the sheep of His pasture. ” (Psalm 100:3, NAS)

“But know that the Lord has set apart the godly man for Himself; The Lord hears when I call to Him. ” (Psalm 4:3, NAS)

These kinds of commands confirm my oft-stated observation that every human being is designed by God to be a theologian, which is one with knowledge of God.  Everyone—whether believer, unbeliever or “agnostic”—is a theologian of some sort, according to Romans 1:18-19.  Obviously not everyone is a good or even honest theologian, but everyone knows something about God as the Creator, according to the Scriptures.  These commands to know God as the Creator and the Author of a perfect, loving plan are reminders that help us contextualize our struggles in this life.

Knowledge Vs. Knowledge: A False Dichotomy

Sometimes I will hear of a teacher or preacher down-playing or denouncing the objective side of biblical knowledge in an effort to encourage personal engagement with God.  I think the goal is typically to keep believers from falling short of the fullness of a personal walk in reliance upon their Creator.  The preacher’s goal may be noble, but often the argument amounts to the non-Scriptural choice between the objective and the relational. The fact is, knowing God is impossible without knowing about God as He has revealed Himself.  God gives us the facts about Himself so that we can rely on Him.  So it is in Ps 46:10: “Relax [because you] know that I am God.”  The tendency to reject the facts of God’s biblical revelation of Himself in favor of a closer walk with Him is an absurd reflection of our innate laziness.  This kind of calculus is like trying to choose between putting gasoline in your car and driving it.  With proper planning and priorities, there is plenty of time and opportunity for both, and you have to do both to get where you want to go.  Don’t get hung-up at the filling station as if that is the goal.  “NO LOITERING!”  Also, don’t pass the filling station by as if you can keep on running indefinitely without filling up!  “NEXT GAS STOP: 200 MILES”

The Content of the Knowledge

It is very helpful to note that there is specific content which the believer is commanded to know.  “Know that I am God.” The point about God being God has to do with the response within creation to the Creator:  “I will be exalted among the nations; I will be exalted in the earth.”  Both the nations and the entire earth will glorify God.

Martin Luther, by standing firm on the Truth, opposed himself to the greatest powers of his day.  His life was in great peril from both Pope Leo X and the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V at one point, and many feared he would be burned at the stake as a heretic.  John Huss, a generation before Luther, had suffered exactly that fate in nearby Bohemia for teaching the truth of God’s saving grace through faith alone in Christ alone.  After being excommunicated by the Pope, Luther’s friends kidnapped him and hid him away in the Castle Wartburg for nearly a year, lest someone arrest him and drag him before an inquisitor of the Roman Church.  He remained faithful to God despite the greatest threats.  All the world seemed arrayed against this little friar, yet he held to the Scriptures with God as his only true protection.  Psalm 46:10 held special significance for him, as it will for all who consider God their fortress of protection.

A Rationale

Today instead of the “Three Thoughts” I suggest the following logical thought process to help your perspective in dealing with adversity, as demonstrated in Psalm 46:10.

1.       The entirety of God’s creation will glorify Him.  This is the purpose for which He created it and the destiny towards which all of history is advancing.

2.      Consider that all the people in your life that oppress and threaten your peace of mind are part of that creation and so fit into that purpose and destiny somehow, though we may not understand how for the moment.

3.      If you belong to God, focus on His Character and His Attributes rather than the suffering you encounter or especially the persons or circumstances that are causing it.  Specifically from Ps 46, remember that God is Sovereign and Omnipotent.  His strength to protect you is infinite.

4.      Trust the God Who is there.  Consider that even in the crisis, His plan is going on perfectly and His exaltation—your purpose—is being accomplished.

Passage to Pray: Psalm 46

Memory Verse:  Ps 46:10-11

““Cease striving and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.” The Lord of hosts is with us; The God of Jacob is our stronghold. Selah. ” (Psalm 46:10–11, NAS)