He will save His city

Our next section of Psalm 48 tells us that God saves His city and will establish it forever:

For, behold, the kings arrived,
They passed by together.
5 They saw it, then they were amazed;
They were terrified, they fled in a hurry.
6 Panic seized them there,
Anguish, as that of a woman in childbirth.
7 With the east wind
You smash the ships of Tarshish.
8 Just as we have heard, so have we seen
In the city of the Lord of armies, in the city of our God;
God will establish her forever. Selah (Psalm 48:4-8)

We touched on this before, but God will save His city from powerful foes. He will save us, as well, when powerful enemies unite to destroy us. Let's look more closely . . . .

Verse four give us an image in our mind's eye; these kings join forces and begin to look over the city. They are looking for potential weak spots, sizing it up for the siege and the plundering. They are confident - no, make that arrogant -- as they first look it over. In their pride, they think they have found "easy pickings." 

But then, they are amazed. They are terrified. They turn and run away! If we ask the scholars about the Hebrew words here, they tell us there are four very terse verbs right in a row here. It's kind of like when Caesar said "I came, I saw, I conquered." 
Except these kings came.

They saw.

And they fled in panic.

We see two metaphors in the psalm that describe the kings' fear. First, they were in anguish like a woman in childbirth (v. 6). This refers to the severe pain of childbirth, and the anguish of body and mind that a woman feels (replaced by joy, when the baby is born, but that's another story). The psalmist also compares the kings' fear to being like ships on the Mediterranean Sea. The ships known as the ships of Tarshish traveled great distances, the scholars say. They had to be sturdy and extremely well-crafted to make the voyages. Some say they went all the way to the coast of Spain, and the Bible says the voyages really were quite long:

The king had a fleet of trading ships at sea along with the ships of Hiram. Once every three years it returned, carrying gold, silver and ivory, and apes and baboons. (I Kings 10:22)

These must have been the strongest ships afloat, but the psalmist says that when God raises up a powerful wind, even these mighty ships are like toys or matchsticks, tossed about and broken up by the sea.

As believers, we can expect to be targeted by powerful enemies, but we can look to God alone and trust in His deliverance.

In verse eight, the psalmist tells us that Israel had heard the stories of how God in the past had delivered His children from destruction. Now they had seen it firsthand. 

You are from God, little children, and have overcome them; because greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world. (I John 4:4)

Isn't that the testimony of every true child of God? We heard that He saved others, and we trusted in Him -- and He was faithful to save us! It's not just a story we heard . . . . it's personal now. It's something we've experienced. We can add our story to that of millions of others, that the Lord of hosts has rescued us from sin and from Satan. He's placed His Spirit within us. We are His dwelling place, and He will establish us forever.

Amen!