![stronghold kingdoms faith points stronghold kingdoms faith points](http://teamgreen.tv/wp/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/1533508F-69F1-4C6C-A794-CB64E762728D-e1548071768120-768x1024.jpeg)
There is a river, whose streams make glad the city of God….God is the midst of the city it will not be moved God will help it when the morning dawns.ĭerek Kidner comments that ‘ the city of God is one of the great themes of the Old Testament … God’s choice of Zion, or Jerusalem, had been as striking as his choice of David, and the wonder of if keeps breaking through’ (Kidner, Psalms, Vol.1, p.175). Psalm 46 moves from the upheaval of the material world to human turmoil. Indeed, verses 2 and 3 exhort us not to fear, even if the world around us is undone, for God remains supreme over every facet of his creation – the earth, the mountains, and the seas. In him alone we find a secure shelter and the power within to address any situation. The opening lines of Psalm 46 speak of the unchanging God who is our refuge and strength.
![stronghold kingdoms faith points stronghold kingdoms faith points](https://d2urhn0mmik6is.cloudfront.net/site/_images/products/large/3010.png)
However, as the biblical narrative unfolds, we become aware of the reality and the depth of wickedness.Īs a side note, if we insist we’re here by chance and are nothing but atoms in an ordered cohesion bumping around in time and space, evil and suffering have no meaning for there is no transcendental moral compass. God didn’t create evil but, because he didn’t make us robots, he allowed it. The larger biblical epic records the intrusion of evil into God’s good creation (Genesis 3).
![stronghold kingdoms faith points stronghold kingdoms faith points](https://gamepedia.cursecdn.com/strongholdkingdoms_gamepedia_en/a/a4/Church.png)
He alone is our security and our strength. God’s supremacy and presence with his people is never thwarted. God continues his work even in the midst of the chaos. Indeed, the Psalm introduces a theme we overlook today – namely, the ultimate dissolution of the present world order by its Creator. It can never be said that the Bible knows nothing about catastrophic events – and not least human evil and its devastating effects on this world. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging.Ĭreation in turmoil. In the Wall Street Bible talks I was giving at the time, I spoke on Psalm 46 which begins: God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. He continued: And I pray they will be comforted by a power greater than any of us, spoken through the ages in Psalm 23: “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil, for You are with me.” Bush, then President, called for prayers for all who had lost loved ones. In his address to the nation that evening, George W. Over three thousand men and women died that day. People on that flight prayed the Lord’s Prayer as the plane crashed into a field in Pennsylvania. A further flight intended for more destruction was thwarted by the selfless heroic efforts of passengers. It is easy to forget that commercial airliners were used as missiles to crash into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon. Twenty years on it is easy to put aside the hideous acts that cut short the lives of people going about their daily affairs. We saw the dust, the ash and the paper on the streets and felt the eerie silence when we were later able to leave our building. We experienced the shaking of our apartment building, similar to that of an earthquake, and the midnight darkness when the first tower collapsed. We heard the scream of the second jet flying low overhead and what sounded like a sonic boom when the south tower was hit. We felt the shock when the first tower was hit from the north. We had awakened that Tuesday morning to clear blue skies and the sparkling waters of New York Harbor. Twenty years ago Judith and I were living three short blocks south of the Twin Towers in Downtown Manhattan.