124. We continue this morning with our study through these Psalms known as the Psalms or Songs of Ascent. The Song of Ascent. Let me begin by reading this Psalm once again, and then we will take a few minutes to go through it. The Song of Ascents of David, and I'll comment on that again in just a moment. If it had not been the Lord who was on our side, let Israel now say, if it had not been the Lord who was on our side when people rose up against us, then they would have swallowed us up alive when their anger was kindled against us. Then the flood would have swept us away. The torrent would have gone over us. Then over us would have gone the raging waters. But blessed be the Lord who has not given us as prey to their teeth. We have escaped like a bird from the snare of the fowlers. The snare is broken and we have escaped. Our help is in the name of the Lord who made heaven and earth. Let's pray. Father, as we come to your word, your most holy word, inspired and inerrant in every part, we pray, God, that we would be ready vessels to be filled with your word and then used in your service. We would pray these things for the sake of your great name and for the sake of your son who came and suffered on our behalf. In his name we pray. Amen. The psalm that we're looking at this morning is widely believed to be one of John Calvin's favorite psalms. in his church there in Geneva. He began every worship service with verse 8. This is how he began every worship service. Our help is in the name of the Lord who made heaven and earth. That's a good beginning, isn't it? A good place to start. Our help is in the name of the Lord who made heaven and earth. And it was so sung by the people of Geneva. You know that during the Reformation, especially various parts of the Reformation, there was much persecution, especially the reformed people. And Geneva became like a fortress city, wasn't it? People, believers from everywhere came to Geneva. And it was a walled city. And it's been said that as the people came up to the city of Geneva and stood outside the gate, they could often hear inside Psalm 124 being sung. Our help is in the name of the Lord. But not just anyone, it is He who made heaven and earth. This has been a pilgrim song ever since it was written. And it is for persecuted and suffering and discouraged people. It is, as I said, a song of ascents, and so it is one of the 15 songs that have been collected to be sung by Israel as they made their way to Jerusalem on those holy days. You know, Jerusalem had holy days. And from holy days comes our word, holiday. they were on a holy day when they went to worship together. And it is a psalm of David. There are 15 of these songs of ascent, and four of them are ascribed to David. Four. One is ascribed to Solomon. So that means 10 of them are anonymous, right? We just don't know who the writer is. And that's OK. That's the way apparently it was intended to be, right? We don't know who the writer is, but there are five we know. Four were written by David and one by Solomon. And that's interesting and even helpful as we think about this psalm. Scholars have poured through the life of David and compared language here with different events in the life of David. And it is generally believed that this psalm was written in response to some events that occurred in, well, 1 Samuel, 2 Samuel, even mentioned elsewhere. Probably, it goes back to, you remember when David killed Goliath, that whole scene, right? Remember that the Philistines had come against Israel. They had surrounded them. And they were going to put an end to Israel once and for all. That was it. They were going to wipe them out. They weren't going to exist any longer. They'd had enough of these people. But God raises up David, doesn't he? And if you follow the narrative, follow the story along through 1 and 2 Samuel, and even in Chronicles, through David, the Lord raises him up. And against all odds, they rout the Philistines, don't they? A relatively small band destroys a large band. These people who had set themselves to devour, to destroy, to annihilate God's people. God raises up David, gives him the strength, and they go in and destroy the Philistines and put them to shame. They run them out, don't they? But remember that one of the great sins of David followed. David told Joab, go out and number the men, number the soldiers. Let's find out how many of us there are. Now, through that story, we discover that it wasn't just that David was keeping track of something. But it's more sinister, you might say, than that. David wanted to know, well, how many of us are there? Let's think about it. Let's think about how great we are. Let's think how many there are of us. No wonder we defeated our enemies. Now, as it turned out, there were over a million fighting men. But Joab, he resisted that. He told David, no, don't do that. In essence, he's saying, what are you trying to learn? What are you going to know? Are you going to boast in how many people there are? For a moment, David forgot it was the Lord. This is considered one of David's sins. He wanted to number the people, and so was God pleased with that? No. As a result, God brought a pestilence and killed 70,000 of them because of what David did. As if to say, I can take some of those away from you, you don't need them. You're going to count how many there are and you're going to boast in how many fighters you have? No. And it may be, many scholars think, that as a result of that whole thing, that David pens this psalm. If it had not been the Lord, see a tone here? If it had not been the Lord who was on our side, and then he pauses, and now let Israel say. This would be a place, you know when those Cantor when the worship leader of Israel wouldn't would have led the people in this this song This is what they would have done. The leader would have said if it had not been the Lord who was on our side pause Let Israel now say and this is when everyone else would join in and you can see that he now said the it changes to the plural it if it had not been the Lord who was on our side when people rose up against us and All Israel would join in now. The leader would say, it was the Lord's on your side, now everybody say it, and they would all recite it. Because it wasn't about David. It wasn't about David's strength and David's ingenuity and David's leadership. It wasn't about how many men they had. Looking back over it and seeing his sin and just It was the Lord. It was the Lord. And so that seems to be the context and the historical background for this psalm. Which is also interesting because there's 500 years between David and the pilgrimage to Jerusalem. This was always Israel's history, wasn't it? Were there always people against Israel? I mean, right from the beginning. There were people who had greater in number and greater in might and strength, weren't there? Isn't that one of the things that God told them? Look, I didn't choose you. I didn't set my love upon you because you were great and mighty and there are more of you now. You're the least of people. That's always been Israel's case. It's always been the case for the people of God. They're the fewest in number. And they seem very weak. Isn't that true even today? I mean, Paul even said, God hasn't chosen the mighty and the rich and the big people. God often chooses the foolish people, the weak. Why? Because he gets more glory. It all points directly to him. It's always been Israel's history. It's always been the people of God's history to be persecuted, to suffer, to be opposed. And that was before David's time, and it carried on from the time of David to the time when they sang these songs, and it continued even after this. So here's what this psalm was all about then. It's really pretty easy. I said several weeks ago that these songs of ascent are really pretty easy to understand if you just read it a few times and get a sense of what the psalm is saying. So here's what the psalm is saying. What if? What if God was not on our side? In fact, that takes up the whole first part of this psalm. What if? I remember a few years ago, I don't think they're still being played, I don't really know, but do you remember a few years ago, I don't remember if it was IBM or Hewlett Packard or somebody, but that was kind of their marketing plan at the time. What if? I remember commercial people sitting in a meeting and somebody says, what if? And it ends, right? What if? A guy was riding down a dusty, I think, desert road in a convertible. You could tell he was thinking, and all of a sudden he had an idea, and he pulls off into this old dilapidated abandoned gas station. There's a phone booth, and all you can hear him say is, ìWhat if somebody's thinking, right?î Well, what if? What if God was not on our side? You ever think about that? I know you do. Have you ever said something like, well I don't know what I would do if the Lord wasn't on my side? How do people live without the Lord? What do we say? What if? What if I didn't have the Lord? You've said that, you've heard other people say it. What would it be like to live without the Lord? Well, he answers that question through a couple of metaphors. And the second half of the psalm is this, but he is. What if the Lord was not on our side? Transitions into, but he is. The Lord is on our side. Let's take a look at this psalm in these two parts. What if, and but he is. Well, we can see in verse two, if it had not been the Lord who was on our side, when people rose up against us, then what? Well, here's the answer. We have two metaphors here. Then they would have swallowed us up alive when their anger is kindled against us. This first metaphor is a metaphor of a devouring beast. A devouring beast. A beast that can swallow its prey whole. And you think, wow, a beast who can swallow its prey whole. Swallowed us up. That's the idea. A beast who can swallow its prey. There are some animals and reptiles that can just gulp their prey down. In the Bible, there's a story of a great fish who swallows Jonah whole. And so this is a devouring beast who can swallow its prey whole. Now, it says here, swallowed us up alive. Now, in the King James, I understand that it uses the word quick. Not quickly. Swallowed us up quick and it's the idea of quick, you know, sometimes we talk about being quickened being made alive Well, that means swallowed us up quick or swallowed us up alive Swallowed us up alive which gives the sense of even though it's not talking about speed and yet it carries with it some speed doesn't it and Alive, just, I mean, it doesn't take time to chew because that comes a little bit later. It doesn't take time to chew and tear apart. It just gulps, gulps its prey right down. Well, this is a metaphor, not literally. It's not as though David is talking about cannibals or beasts of prey wandering around who are just going to swallow him up or swallow the Israelites up. But it's a metaphor of quick destruction. Swallowed up. Just like Korah. Remember Korah and his great sin and the earth swallowed him up. And so speaking of a beast of prey, a devouring beast who can just swallow up whole living creatures. Well, that's what it would be like if the Lord was not on our side. We would be swallowed up. Not only would it would be like a a devouring beast, but it would be like a destroying flood. Then the flood would have swept us away. The torrent would have gone over us. Then over us would have gone the raging waters. A destroying flood. Now some think that maybe this is a reference to the events at the Red Sea. Israel went by on dry ground, right? And it closed up and swallowed up and destroyed all of Pharaoh's men. Could be something like that. But probably just the general idea of being, you know, drowning in a sea of water. It might seem a little strange when you think about the Middle East and you think about that part of the world. You think of it as an arid, dry area and most of the time it is. There are times when the rains come and they come heavily and the snow and the mountain melts and the combination of the water running out of the mountain and the rains coming, what would happen? It would flood the area. Little streams, little brooks would become wide, large, raging waters. They understood what that was like. You've seen the destruction here in our own country. For instance, when the mighty Mississippi swells its banks and whole towns are sometimes just wiped out. You remember the tsunami that came and destroyed tens of thousands of people. Many of you, like myself, visited Louisiana and Texas when the hurricanes came. It was an amazing destructive power of water. It's not like you could stand out there and say, you just stop. You're not going to take my house. You can't do that, can you? You're helpless. I remember being on the shore there, and one of the senators had a house right there on the shore, a big large place, and the only thing that was left were the studs, and the house was just empty. Two-story massive home, just studs. Everything else was gone, completely gone. Where was it? Out to sea. I mean, over and over, I told several weeks ago about a time when we were looking for a house that we could maybe, we wanted to partner up with some people and help them recover from the storm and went and visited this one house and in the middle of the living room was a telephone pole. Whole telephone pole right there in their living room. Where did that come from? Through the back of the house. It was a big, it just came right in. You're helpless. The power of water. Well, that's what the metaphor is here. If the Lord was not on our side, we would be drowning. We would be destroyed by the powerful water, the flow of evil in this world. We're helpless and we can do nothing. The flood would have swept us away. The torrent would have gone over us. Then over us would have gone the raging waters. And this is just a metaphor, isn't it? To be drowning. Hopeless and helpless. Drowning. Well, that's another illustration of what it would be like if the Lord was not on our side. If the Lord was not on our side, let everyone think about this. If the Lord was not on our side, it would be like a devouring beast that just swallowed us up whole. Powerless, helpless, nothing we can do about it. It would be like mighty waters, the floodwaters that would come and sweep everything away, and we would be drowning. That's what it would be like if the Lord was not for us, if the Lord was not on our side. But then there's a change in verse 6, where he begins to say, but the Lord is on our side. Blessed be the Lord. Blessed. Oh, praise be to the Lord. Glory be to the Lord. Let's all sing hallelujah. You know, that's what this psalm would be like. If the Lord is not for us, this is what happened. But blessed be the Lord. Glorify his name. Praise him. Because he has not given us as prey to their teeth. Now, there's a couple of metaphors here again. And the first is like prey in their teeth. Now, the first metaphor was being gulped down. But here it's a metaphor, an image of a prey caught in their teeth. It would be like Jurassic Park, T-Rex. He just catches you with his teeth and shakes you and rattles you until you're dead, and then he swallows you down. Caught in their teeth. You've got an image of that, right? You've seen that. When I was a little boy, we had a cat named Tiger. Terrible cat. Hated that cat. I think he sometimes drug kids home. I don't know. And he was always coming home with rabbits and squirrels and mice and all kinds of creatures. And he would just bring them home and drop them. It's like, oh boy, he's out hunting again. But you get that image of this animal caught in the teeth. Well, that's the image here. Praise be to God. Glory to Him. He has not given us as prey to their teeth. Because that's what they would do, right? We would be like prey caught in their teeth if it was up to them. But He has not. He has not given us to that. In verse 7, to use another metaphor, we have escaped like a bird from the snare of the fowlers. The snare is broken and we have escaped. Now there aren't a lot of people today, at least not in our land, who capture birds like they used to with a snare. Oftentimes they would use a net and they would place it over a pit or they would string it from tree to tree and birds would come and land there or fly into it. Their wings would get caught, their legs would get caught, and they would be ensnared in the net. So that's the image here. We've escaped like a bird from the snare of the nets. And so a few birds, they were able to shake themselves loose and disentangle themselves. But we have escaped like a bird from the snare of the fowlers. The snare is broken. We've escaped. It's been broken. And there's that image of a bird just thrashing around and struggling and trying to get out. And maybe the net is broken and he's able to escape. And again, it's just a metaphor. It's an illustration of the fact that God has not allowed us to be ensnared. Very common language in the Old Testament, in fact, are a number of places where this language is used. David himself speaks of this in another psalm, I think a couple of psalms, where he speaks of the snare of the fowler. So here it's used to be an illustration, to help us get a picture of the fact Praise be to God. He has not abandoned us. The Lord is on our side. Whether we have been saved and spared from their teeth or whether we have been spared from the snare of their nets, we have escaped. And then, finally in verse 8, it's just a declaration. Used metaphors to illustrate the fact, and now verse 8 just declares the truth. Our help is in the name of the Lord. What if the Lord was not on our side? We would be helpless. Helpless. But the Lord is on our side. Our help is in the name of the Lord. And just imagine David penning this. If it is true that he was writing this as a result of recognizing his great sin and just coming humbly to confess the fact that our help is in the Lord. He is the only reason we are alive. He is the only reason we have not been destroyed. He is the only reason we have not drowned. He is the only reason we have not been ensnared. Because the Lord is on our side. He is our help. And our help is in the name of the Lord. You know, I'm sure many of you could just tell me what this means. Well, in essence, when we talk about the name of the Lord, we're talking about the character, the nature, the attributes, all that the Lord is, is represented in His name. You remember God had said, this is my name and it's Yahweh, but God has many names and his names reveal much about him. But it's all about the reputation and the honor and the fame of who God is. God has a name. God has a reputation. He has revealed himself. We know what he's like. And so our help is in the name of the Lord, all that He is. He is our help. And then as it were, to punctuate the fact that He made heaven and earth. And in fact, if we were to say, could you in one word say what What David has in mind here, when he's talking about the name of the Lord, it would seem to be that he has in mind the sovereign power of God. The one who made heaven and earth. He follows it up, doesn't he? Our help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth. Now if you have the Lord on your side, the one who made heaven and earth, he has all power, all might, all authority, he owns everything, he is the king of everything. And if he is on your side, then what do you have to fear? He made heaven and earth. God's people opposed, and oppressed, and discouraged, and people talking about, and trying to trip up. And yet, in the end, the Lord saves us from all of these things, delivers us from all of their devices. He made heaven and earth. He can spare you. He can keep you. He can deliver you. Let's back out of the psalm for just a minute and look at just some of the bigger ideas here. Beyond the history of Israel and specific events, but the big picture is that God is for all of his people. God is for all of his people. Always has been, hasn't he? We're not left out of this by no means. Who is on our side? The Lord is on our side. What is his name? What is he like? He is the one who made heaven and earth. Now all of us, in fact, are born helpless, aren't we? Because ultimately, the biggest problem that we all have is the problem of sin. And without help, we would be destroyed. And if the Lord was not on our side, we would be destroyed. Without God, we have no power to change, no power to save ourselves. And our only hope, our only help is in Christ. God delivers, God saves, God redeems in Christ. in the New Testament, as well as the Old. But in the New Testament, Satan is described for us in various kinds of language. We're very familiar with, in fact we read about it earlier in Ephesians chapter 6, the fact that Satan is described as, in 1 Peter and James, as a roaring lion. He's a roaring lion. Some pray he will gulp whole, and others he will just catch in his teeth and shake them until they're dead. And his devices, his schemes are many, aren't they? And they're dangerous. And we as believers are reminded of these things. Because in ourselves, we cannot resist him. We cannot fight him in ourselves. And yet, Peter and James both say, resist the devil and he will flee from you. Not because of you, but because of who is in you. Satan's not afraid of me. He's not afraid of you. But he knows who God is. He knows who Christ is. And He knows that He lives within you. He is your strength. He is the source of your power. And when you put up a fight and resist Him in the strength that God provides, as Paul says, be finding your strength in the Lord and His almighty power and wrestle and fight against Him. Because He who is in you is greater than he that is in the world. We should remember that 1 John 3, verse 8 would fill in a blank for us. Jesus came to Blank, you know if I give you a piece of paper, and it just says Jesus came to and there's a big blank There are several things you could write in there, right? But according to first John 3a Jesus came to Destroy the works of the devil That's why he came To destroy to overcome, to put to death the works, the power, the authority of the devil. If we're to resist the devil, it's because of Christ who is in us who came to destroy the works of the devil. Remember Christ on that great coronation day of his on earth where he baptized and then the spirit leads him out into the wilderness to be tempted, doesn't he? And there he's tempted of the devil and yet is victorious. He resisted and he now lives within you. So how do we access that kind of power? The Lord is our help, but can we access that power to overcome? Well, the first thing we would say is we access that power by knowing the Lord. The new birth. Being born in the Spirit of God so that we by faith believe in Christ. And then Christ comes to live within us. We have to know the Lord. But according to Scripture, even the Scripture that we read earlier, that not only must we know the Lord, but we must know what it is to fight and resist the evil one. We have a role to play, we have a responsibility to, as it were, go kicking and screaming all the way. No, you will not have me because of Christ who lives within me. And I have the strength, I have the power, the authority to overcome. But we have to be involved in that, don't we? The Spirit of God lives within us to empower us, to strengthen us, that we can put up a fight. The Word of God comes to us to strengthen us, to encourage us, to build us up, to empower us, to fight the devil. But if we don't know the Lord and we're not accessing the resources of strength, then we remain weak and almost helpless. Some people struggle all their lives, even believers who are weak in the faith, and they struggle all their lives against sin and just never seem to overcome. And it's almost a maximum. They're not accessing all of the resources, the means of grace, the means of strength, the means of growing. So first we have to know the Lord, but we have to use all of the means of grace to strengthen us in the fight. That's our responsibility. One of the things I'm going to speak of next week, one of those spiritual affirmations, This is how people change. We're all to be transformed, right? By the renewing of our minds. Our minds are being renewed by the Word of God. And we are giving ourselves over to the Word of God. The fear of the Lord, like we've been talking about for a few weeks, living in the fear of the Lord is to live in reverent obedience to the Lord. Without that reverent obedience to the Lord, we're gonna struggle. We're gonna be weak. Now, the Lord will never let us be lost. We have a great shepherd, don't we? Who is shepherding the sheep because there is a wolf, there is a lion out there ready to devour us. If the Lord is our shepherd and he will shepherd his sheep safely home, none will be lost. And yet, it's not that we just give up and let the Lord do it all. We understand our responsibility. We're accessing all the means of grace so that we might be strong in the Lord. Without God's help, we would be helpless. We would be lost, like a devouring beast or a destroying flood. We would just be swallowed up or carried away. But the Lord is our help. He will not let us be destroyed. He will strengthen us and help us all along the way. And for our part, we're accessing that strength in whatever way God has provided. So, this psalm, a pilgrim psalm, a song to be sung by pilgrims as they make their way either to Jerusalem or to the celestial city. What if? What if the Lord really wasn't on our side? We would be helpless. But He is. He is. And He will not let us be destroyed. He will strengthen us. He will keep us. He will preserve us. And He has done everything and given us everything that we need to remain strong. Praise the Lord. Blessed be the Lord as David pens here. Blessed be the Lord. Praise His name. Glory to Him. Hallelujah. The Lord is on our side. Amen to that. Let's pray. Father, we thank You. for the encouragement we receive from these songs. We thank you for your word, the way that it instructs us and changes our minds and encourages and lifts us up. Pray that it would also challenge us. Yes, we cannot survive without you, but to know that you've also given us resources. to be strong. I pray that we would avail ourselves, that we would use them much as we fight against the evil one. In the name of Christ we pray, Amen.