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Having Faith in Troubled Times

Published September 17, 2026 Uncategorized Leave a Comment
Tags: Psalm 46, Shaking earth, Troubled times

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TEN PSALMS THAT WILL CHANGE YOUR LIFE

Psalm 46: Faith in Troubled Times

Introduction. Human experience is never free from trouble. Earthquakes, wars, economic upheaval, personal loss, national instability, and the quiet erosions of daily life all press upon us. The people of God have always lived in such a world. Psalm 46 was written out of that reality. It doesn’t deny the trembling of the earth or the roaring of the waters. Instead, it lifts our eyes to the God who remains unmoved when everything else shakes. This psalm is a confession of faith forged in crisis, a declaration that the living God is both present and sufficient when human strength fails.

The superscription tells us it is a song of the Sons of Korah, set “according to the alamoth,” probably indicating a high-pitched or energetic musical setting. Whatever the original musical form, the content is clear: In the midst of upheaval, God Himself is the refuge of His people. We will take a look at Psalm 46 along its natural division.

God’s protection, Psalm 46:1 – 3.

God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. [2] Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, [3] though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging. (Psalm 46:1 – 3 | TNIV)

This psalm opens with one of the most familiar and comforting statements in all of Scripture: “God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.” Notice the three-fold description. He is our REFUGE – a place of shelter and safety when danger threatens. He is our STRENGH – the power we lack when our own resources are exhausted. And He is an EVER-PRESENT HELP – not a distant deity who must be summoned from afar, but One who is already near, already available, and already engaged on behalf of His people.

The word “trouble” here is not mild inconvenience. The Hebrew word carries the sense of tight places, distress, and pressure that squeezes the life out of a person. Into that pressure the psalmist places God Himself. Because God is a refuge, strength, and ever-present help, the next statement follows with logical force: “Therefore we will not fear.”

The “therefore” is important. Faith is not a denial of reality; it’s a response to a greater reality. The psalmist doesn’t claim that earth will never give way or that the mountains will never fall into the heart of the sea. He paints the most extreme picture imaginable – the solid ground dissolving, the most immovable feature of creation toppling into chaos, the waters roaring and foaming in violent surge. Even if the very foundations of the created order collapse, the people of God need not fear.

Why? It’s because their security does not rest in the stability of the earth but in the character of God. Mountains may quake, but God doesn’t. Seas may rage, but God remains the same. This not stoic indifference; it’s confident trust. The believer is not asked to pretend that trouble isn’t real. He is invited to look through the trouble to the God who is greater than the trouble.

These opening verses confront a modern assumption – that safety is found primarily in favorable circumstances, strong institutions, or personal competence. Psalm 46 relocates our security. It’s not that circumstances never shake; it’s that God is never shaken. When the ground beneath our feet feels unstable – whether through illness, a broken relationship, financial pressure, or cultural chaos – we are called to the same confession: God is our refuge and our strength. He is not just available in theory; He is ever-present in the actual moment of need.

When fear arises, the first movement of faith is never frantic problem solving but a deliberate recollection of who God is. We speak the truth of verse 1 to our own hearts. We remind one another that the One who is our refuge has not moved. The trembling of the earth doesn’t diminish His strength. The roaring of the waters doesn’t drown out His nearness. Faith in troubled times begins here: With the settled conviction that God Himself is enough.

God’s provisions, Psalm 46:4 – 7.

There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy place where the Most High dwells. [5] God is within her, she will not fall; God will help her at break of day. [6] Nations are in uproar, kingdoms fall; he lifts his voice, the earth melts. [7] The Lord Almighty is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress. (Psalm 46:4 – 7 | TNIV)

The mood of the psalm shifts in verse 4. From the chaos of roaring waters and quaking mountains, we are brought into a scene of quiet gladness: “There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy place where the Most High dwells.”

Jerusalem had not great river like the Nile or the Euphrates. Its water supply was modest. Yet the psalmist speaks of a river that gladdens the city of God. This is more than geography; it’s theology. The true refreshment of God’s people does not come from natural resources but from the presence of God Himself. The river is a picture of the life, joy, and sustenance that flow from the dwelling place of the Most High.

Verse 5 drives the point home: “God is within her, she will not fail; God will help her at the break of day.” Because God is within her, she will not fail. Help will come – not eventually, not after a prolonged delay, but “at the break of day,” at the first light when the night of threat seems longest.

The contrast with the nations is sharp: “nations are in uproar, kingdoms fall; he lifts his voice, the earth melts.” Human power structures rage and collapse. Political systems rise and disintegrate. Yet a single word from God is enough to melt the earth. The same voice that spoke creation into being can reduce the proudest kingdoms to nothing.

Then comes the refrain that will end the psalm as well: “The Lord Almighty is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress.” Two names are joined here. “Lord Almighty” (Yahweh Sabaoth) speaks of the God who commands the hosts of heaven – the sovereign ruler over all powers. “The God of Jacob” refers to the covenant God who binds Himself to a flawed and often failing people. The transcendent Lord of hosts is also the immanent God of Jacob. He is both infinitely powerful and personally committed.

Here the psalm moves from general protection to specific provision. God doesn’t merely keep His people from falling; He supplies what they need to flourish even the midst of surrounding chaos. The river of His presence gladdens the heart. His nearness steadies the soul. His covenant faithfulness becomes the fortress in which His people dwell securely.

This has profound implications for the life of the church and the individual believer. The “city of God’ is no longer limited to ancient Jerusalem. In Christ, the people of God become the dwelling place of the Most High by the Spirit. The river of living water that Jesus promised now flows within and among His people. Gladness is not dependent on the absence of national uproar or personal difficulty. It’s dependent on the presence of God.

When nations rage and kingdoms totter, the church is not called to panic or to place ultimate hope in any earthly power. We are called to remember that God is within us. We will not fail. Help is on the way. The Lord Almighty – the commander of heaven’s armies – is with us. The God who chose and kept Jacob is our fortress still.

Practically, this means that the ordinary means of grace – the Word, prayer, the fellowship of believers – are not optional extras in troubled times. They are the channels through which the river of God’s presence continues to make us glad. Neglecting them is like turning away from the only reliable source of refreshment while the world burns. Faith in troubled times drinks deeply from the provisions God has already given.

God’s preeminence, Psalm 46:8 – 11.

Come and see what the Lord has done, the desolations he has brought on the earth. [9] He makes wars cease to the ends of the earth. He breaks the bow and shatters the spear; he burns the shields with fire. [10] “Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.” [11] The Lord Almighty is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress. (Psalm 46:8 – 11 | TNIV)

This final division of the psalm issues an invitation and a command. “Come and see what the Lord has done, the desolations he has brought on the earth.” The psalmist doesn’t invite us to admire human achievement. He calls us to observe the sovereign acts of God in history. God isn’t a passive observer of the world’s conflicts. He is the One who brings desolations upon the earth according to His purposes. He makes wars cease to the ends of the earth. He breaks the bow, shatters the spear, and burns the shields with fire. Military hardware and human strategies ultimately bend to His will.

Then comes the climactic word: “He says, be still and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.”

“Be still” is not primarily a call to quiet contemplation, though that’s part of it. The Hebrew carries the sense of “cease” or “stop” or “desist.” It’s a command addressed to both the raging nations and to the anxious hearts of God’s people. Stop our striving. Stop your frantic efforts to control the outcomes that belong to God alone. Cease the uproar. Know – acknowledge, recognize, submit to the truth – that He is God.

The result is certain: God will be exalted among the nations. He will be exalted in the earth. This isn’t a hopeful wish; it’s a divine declaration. History is moving toward the public display of God’s supremacy. Every knee will bow. Every tongue will confess. The question is not whether God will be exalted, but whether we will acknowledge His preeminence now, in the midst of trouble, or only later when resistance is no longer possible.

The psalm closes with the repeated refrain, “The Lord Almighty is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress.” What began as a confession in the face of cosmic upheaval ends as a settled confidence in the God who rules over all. The same God who protects and provides is the God who will be exalted. His preeminence is not threatened by the trouble of this present age. It is demonstrated through them.

This final section really reorients our perspective. Troubled times can make God seem small and our problems large. Psalm 46 reverses the scale. God is not diminished by the chaos; the chaos is temporary, and God remains supreme. The call to “be still” is therefore a call to faith that rests in God’s sovereignty rather than in our ability to manage the crisis.

For the believer, this means that even when we cannot see how God is working, we can know that He is God. We can cease our anxious striving and trust the outcomes to Him. We can look at the broken bows and shattered spears of history and recognize the hand of the Lord. And we can live with the quiet confidence that the God who is with us now will one day be openly exalted in all the earth.

Conclusion. Psalm 46 doesn’t offer a technique for avoiding trouble. It offers a God who is sufficient in the midst of it. Protection, provision, and preeminence – these are the realities that sustain faith when human experience is marked by upheaval.

Now, the earth may give way. Mountains may fall. Nations may rage. Kingdoms may collapse. Yet the people of God need not fear, because God is their refuge and strength, an ever-present help. A river of gladness still flows His presence. He is within His people, and they will never fall. He will be exalted among the nations. He will be exalted in the earth.

The Lord Almighty is with us. The God of Jacob is our fortress.

In every generation, this confession remains the anchor of the soul. When trouble comes – and it will – let s return again and again to the truth of this psalm. Let’s speak it to our own hearts. Let’s sing it with the congregation. Let’s live it before a watching world. For the God who inspired these words is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He is still our refuge. He is still our strength. He is still an ever-present help in trouble.

Therefore, we will not fear.

Three Minutes With Mike

Published September 17, 2026 Uncategorized Leave a Comment

Joseph and Judah as Types of Christ

Published September 16, 2026 Uncategorized Leave a Comment
Tags: Jacob, Joseph, Types

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TWO BROTHERS,
ONE MESSIAH

Joseph and Judah as Types in Genesis 37–50

Why Genesis Will Not Choose Between Them

The last third of Genesis looks, at first, like Joseph’s book. He is the beloved son, the dreamer, the prisoner, the vizier. Then the narrator cuts away to Judah and Tamar, and later lets Judah talk longer than anyone else in the reconciliation scene. When Jacob dies, the two longest oracles in chapter 49 fall on these same two sons. Judah receives the scepter. Joseph receives the double portion and the language of a vine attacked and kept.

That pairing is the argument of this study. Joseph and Judah are not rival candidates for “the” type of Christ. They are two windows on one later Person. Joseph shows the shape of a rejected son who saves. Judah shows the line, the lion, and—after a long repentance—the first human offer in Scripture of a life in another’s place. The New Testament will not split those offices between two messiahs. It will name one man from Judah’s tribe who walks Joseph’s road.

A Word about Types

A type is a person, event, or institution that God has so ordered that it anticipates a greater reality in Christ. It is not a code in which every detail must match. Joseph is not sinless in the way the Gospels claim Jesus is; Judah is not a lion except in Jacob’s poem. Typology works by pattern and intensification, not by photocopy.
Two distinctions keep the comparison clean. First, Judah’s oracle in 49:8–12 is prophecy: it predicts a ruler from his line. Joseph’s story is pattern: it rhymes with a life still future. Second, Judah the man is both ancestor and, in one scene, type. The scepter promise is about his offspring. The speech in Genesis 44 is about the man himself. Mixing those without a comma produces confusion.

Joseph: The Beloved Son Who Saves the Brothers Who Sold Him

“Joseph is a fruitful vine, a fruitful vine near a spring, whose branches climb over a wall.
With bitterness archers attacked him; they shot at him with hostility. But his bow remained steady, his strong arms stayed limber, because of the hand of the Mighty One of Jacob, because of the Shepherd, the Rock of Israel.” (Genesis 49:22–24, NIV)

Jacob’s poem is already interpretation. The narrative has shown the attack: brothers, Midianites, Potiphar’s house, the forgotten prison. It has shown the fruit: two sons, bread for the world, a family kept alive. The poem names the cause. The bow stayed because God stayed—Shepherd, Rock, Almighty.

Read beside the Gospels, the pattern is old and strong, and the church has seen it since the fathers.

Beloved and sent. Jacob loves Joseph and sends him to his brothers (Genesis 37:3, 13–14). The Father’s voice over Jesus is “This is my Son, whom I love,” and the Son says He was sent to the lost sheep of Israel (Matthew 3:17; 15:24).
Hated without cause that holds. The brothers cannot speak a kind word to Joseph. “He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him” (John 1:11).

Sold for silver. Judah’s idea sets the price at twenty shekels (Genesis 37:26–28). Judas sets Jesus’ price at thirty (Matthew 26:15). The numbers differ; the merchandise is a brother.
Counted dead, then raised. The robe is dipped in blood; Jacob says “Some ferocious animal has devoured him.” Joseph is not dead, but he is dead to the family. Jesus is dead indeed, then alive. Prison and the pit are not Calvary. They are the rhyme.

False accusation and silence. Potiphar’s wife lies; Joseph leaves his garment and does not defend himself in the text. Jesus is silent before accusers (Isaiah 53:7; Matthew 27:12–14).

Two others in the place of bondage. Cupbearer and baker share Joseph’s custody; one is restored, one hangs (Genesis 40). Two criminals share Jesus’ cross; one is remembered (Luke 23:39–43). The parallel is suggestive, not a proof.

Exalted to the right hand, given a name, feeding the nations. Pharaoh sets Joseph over all Egypt. Every knee in that court bows. Grain goes out to a starving world. Philippians 2 and John 6 are the later music of the same theme.

Unrecognized, then revealed. The brothers stand before the man they sold and do not know him until he says, “I am Joseph.” The Emmaus road and the locked room are not copies of Genesis 45. They are the same shock: the rejected one is the living one.

Forgiveness that tells the truth about God. “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives” (Genesis 50:20). Acts 2:23–24 will say it of the cross: handed over by God’s set purpose, raised from the dead.

Joseph is also unlike Jesus in ways that matter. He tests his brothers at length. He takes an Egyptian wife and an Egyptian name. He weeps, maneuvers, and delays. The type is a sketch, not a portrait. What the sketch will not let us miss is this: salvation comes from the brother who was thrown away, and the thrown-away brother does not repay in kind.

Judah: The Scepter, and the Man Who Learned to Stand in the Gap

“Judah, your brothers will praise you; your hand will be on the neck of your enemies; your father’s sons will bow down to you. You are a lion’s cub, Judah… The scepter will not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet, until he to whom it belongs shall come and the obedience of the nations shall be his.” (Genesis 49:8–10, NIV)

Judah’s first gift to the type is lineage. The Messiah will be “the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David” (Revelation 5:5). Matthew will not blush to write Tamar and Perez into the opening paragraph of the Gospel. The royal promise runs through a scandal Genesis refuses to hide.

Judah’s second gift is a human story of collapse and substitution. In chapter 37 he is the salesman: “What will we gain if we kill our brother and cover up his blood? Come, let’s sell him.” In chapter 38 he leaves the family, takes a Canaanite wife, withholds a son from Tamar, and falls into the trap he helped set. His sentence over her—“Bring her out and have her burned to death”—is the old world’s justice. His confession—“She is more righteous than I”—is the beginning of another world.

By chapter 43 he is the one Jacob can hear. Reuben had offered his two sons as surety. Judah offers himself. “I myself will guarantee his safety; you can hold me personally responsible for him” (43:9). In chapter 44 the guarantee is cashed. Joseph’s cup is in Benjamin’s sack. Judah steps forward and speaks the longest speech in Genesis.

“Now then, please let your servant remain here as my lord’s slave in place of the boy, and let the boy return with his brothers. How can I go back to my father if the boy is not with me? No! Do not let me see the misery that would come on my father.” (Genesis 44:33–34, NIV)

This is the first clear offer in the Bible of one life in the place of another. It is not atonement. Judah is not dying for Benjamin’s guilt; he is taking Benjamin’s chain. Even so, the shape is the gospel’s shape. An elder brother who once traded a favored brother now refuses to lose the next favored brother. He will stay in Egypt so that the father will not be broken a second time. Joseph weeps when he hears it. The family is saved not only because Joseph forgives, but because Judah has become a different man.

That is why the scepter can rest on him without being a joke. Leadership in Israel will not be raw force. It will be, at its best, the willingness to bear another’s cost. David will be a man after God’s heart and a man who needs mercy. The greater Son of David will not merely offer to stay in the pit. He will go into it.

Side by Side

The table is a help, not a tally. Read across, then ask which column the Gospels are singing in a given scene.
Theme Joseph Judah

What he cannot be The promised king from Judah The rejected-and-raised vizier of the story
What he uniquely shows How God writes good through the brothers’ evil That the King will come from a repentant line and will stand in the gap

The Irony Genesis Wants You to Feel

Joseph’s dreams said the brothers would bow. They do. Jacob’s blessing says the brothers will praise Judah and bow to him. They will, in David’s court and in the world’s confession of David’s Son. The man the brothers already bow to is not the man from whom the scepter will come. Genesis lets that tension stand. Joseph is the preview of the kind of king Judah’s line must finally produce: not a seller of brothers, but a savior of them.

One Gospel Coalition reading of the Joseph story puts it sharply: Jacob’s language of bowing in 49:8 has already been used of Joseph. The coming Judahite Messiah is cast in Joseph’s mold. He will be the sort of ruler the rejected son already was—hidden, then revealed; wounded, then feeding the nations. Judah supplies the pedigree. Joseph supplies the plot.

Two Messiahs, or One?

Later Jewish reflection, facing texts of a suffering figure and texts of a reigning king, sometimes spoke of two anointed ones: Messiah son of Joseph, who fights and may die, and Messiah son of David, who reigns. The Talmud can read the mourning of Zechariah 12 as grief for a slain Messiah son of Joseph (Sukkah 52a). The tradition is not uniform. Maimonides can describe the Messiah without the Joseph figure at all.

Christians do not need to baptize every later midrash. They do need to notice that the puzzle is already on the table in Genesis. Suffering-then-exaltation sits in Joseph’s chapters. Royal permanence sits in Judah’s oracle. The New Testament’s claim is that the puzzle is one Person. Jesus is “the Lion of the tribe of Judah” and “the stone the builders rejected.” He is David’s son and the brother sold for silver. He rides the donkey of Zechariah 9 and the clouds of Daniel 7. The church did not invent the two portraits. It confessed that they share a face.

Where the Types Must Stop

Joseph does not die for sin. His blood is not a covenant. His brothers’ bowing is political and familial, not the worship of God. Judah’s offer in chapter 44 is noble and still finite: he would be a slave, not a sacrifice that takes away guilt. Neither man is born of a virgin, keeps the law without fault, or rises from a sealed grave. Typology that forgets this becomes a parlor game.

What remains after the limits are honored is enough. God has told the family, before Sinai, before David, before the prophets, what kind of salvation He writes. It will come from inside the family, not from Egypt’s throne as a final home. It will look like a son sent and refused. It will look like a brother who steps forward when the cup is found. It will look like a king whose right does not lapse. And it will look like fruit that grows on a vine the archers could not kill.

A Closing Word

Stand at Jacob’s bed one more time. On his right, as it were, the vine that was shot at and still climbed the wall. On his left, the lion who will not lose the staff. Between them the rest of the sons, blessed according to what is appropriate. The church does not have to award the prize to one brother. It has to look where both brothers point. The rejected son is the King. The King is the rejected son. Praise belongs to Judah’s offspring. The nations will obey him. The brothers who sold him will live because he would not sell them back.