to Psalm 124. Psalm 124. Psalm of Ascents. We are going to give our attention to this portion of God's Word briefly together tonight. Psalm 124. Please hear God's Word. A song of ascents of David. 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. 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 together. Lord God, our help is in you. You, the one who has made the heaven and the earth. We ask that you would help us now as we hear your word. We pray that you would press it into our hearts and our lives. We pray that you would teach us and instruct us. We pray that you would drive us out of ourselves to Jesus Christ, the one who has caused you to be on our side and has delivered us from enemies far too great for us. Lord, we pray that you would take up the sword of your spirit and use it in our hearts now as we need it. For your glory and our good, we pray in Jesus' name, amen. You've probably all heard, if then, stories before. If I had not gone in for a routine checkup, then they would have never found the cancer. If I had not looked both ways at that intersection, then the car would have crushed me. If our intelligence had not known the enemy's position, then our whole company would have been ambushed. You likely have your own if-then stories from life. The older folks among us probably have a lot more. Most of us, if not all of us, have many such stories of God's grace. If God had not placed that Christian in my class or my workplace, then I may have never heard the gospel. If God had not convicted me of sin, then I would have caused great harm. If the Lord had not sent Jesus to bear my sins to the cross, then I would be lost for eternity. Such if-then stories have been told for a very long time, going all the way back to David, here in Psalm 124. And you can see the pattern here in the psalm. There are two ifs in the opening verses. If the Lord had not been on our side, and then those are followed by three thens. Then, then, then. Then we would have been swallowed up alive. This psalm teaches us to recall and retell such stories. Why? Because they bring honor to God. They strengthen our faith. They are a testimony to the world. They teach us to keep looking to the Lord who is on our side today, no matter what we're facing. The God who's delivered us in the past, who's delivered his people in so many ways. The God who is our only savior and our only help. People of God, are you trusting in him? Are you resting in Him? Are you seeking Him, seeking help in Him? Are you boasting in Him? That is the call of this short and powerful psalm to each of you tonight. God calls you to bless the Lord, who is our help and only Savior. Bless the Lord, our help and our Savior. Praise this God. Trust this God. Because He is on our side through Jesus Christ, and He is our help. Well, let's consider this together briefly tonight as we move through this psalm. Beginning with the first section where David says two times, if it had not been the Lord. Look again at the opening verses. 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. The use of repetition here adds emphasis. Twice, David says, if not for the Lord who was on our side, we would have been totally lost. We would have been defeated by enemies. We would have been swept away. And this is not just a personal reflection for David. He is calling all of Israel to recognize this and to confess this together. He says, let Israel now say, He wants God's people collectively to see how lost they would be without God on their side. And David doesn't give us a particular story. There's no story or event that's named here. And that may be intentional because there have been so, so many times where God has spared his people. David experienced it many times in his own life. Israel could testify to how God delivered them from Egypt, how he sent the plagues, how he swallowed up the Egyptian army as they were pursuing them, how he parted the sea. Think of how God kept Noah and his family from being swept away in the flood. Think of how God's people narrowly escaped annihilation in the time of Esther. We could go on and on through redemptive history, even church history or personal history. giving such stories. And it was never that David was on the right side, or Joshua, or the priests, or the Ark of the Covenant, or fate, or any earthly power. Deliverance came because the Lord was on their side. So many would rise up against God's people all throughout history, and so many still are even today. But because the Lord is on our side, we are preserved. We are never shaken beyond exactly what he allows and ordains. Psalm 124 is the Romans 831 of the Old Testament, if you will. What then shall we say to these things if God is for us? Who can be against us? He who did not spare his own son, but gave him up for us all. And Psalm 124 points us ultimately to the greatest deliverance that God has ever worked for his people through Jesus. For those who were once his enemies, for those who were not on his side because of sin, Apart from Christ, our enemies, the enemies of sin and death and Satan, would sweep us away. Apart from Christ, God would be our just enemy and would swallow us up in just judgment. But because of Jesus Christ, God is on our side, the side of undeserving, hopeless, and helpless sinners. who would have been justly swept away in judgment. God chose to be for us, to love us and save us and be on our side and call us sons and daughters. Psalm 124 teaches us to recall ways God has protected and delivered us big and small, spiritually and physically. We ought to recount these great acts of God and give him praise and testify to the world. We ought to think of where we would be without him. And maybe that describes you tonight. The Lord is not on your side. You have not bowed your knee to him. You have not trusted in Jesus Christ. You will be swallowed up and swept away unless you repent of your sins. unless the Lord is on your side through faith in Jesus Christ. If it had not been the Lord who is on our side by his grace and his love, where would we be? I wonder if there's a story that you could share, maybe even tonight with someone that you're fellowshipping with. Have you shared your testimony lately of how God has brought you out of darkness and saved you? These words, if it had not been for the Lord, should frequently be on our hearts and our lips if we are in the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, such stories should drive us not just to testify to God, to tell these stories, but to bless him and praise him. And that's what David does in the second section of Psalm 124 as he says, blessed be the Lord. Let's consider this second tonight. Blessed be the Lord. Look at verse six and seven. 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. There are two striking images used here to picture God's deliverance and our reasons to bless him and thank and praise him. And the first is a ferocious beast with teeth. God has not given us as prey for their teeth. Remember David who penned this psalm? He used to be a shepherd. And he would be off in the wilderness. And he always had to be on the lookout for animals that would prey on the sheep with sharp and crushing teeth. He had to fend off lions and bears. We as God's people have been delivered like sheep from the teeth of a wild animal. And in that situation, predators, they have the advantage. When they sink their teeth into a sheep, there's usually no escape. That sheep is smaller and weaker and defenseless. And so are we, apart from the Lord. We are small and weak and easy prey for Satan, for God's enemies, apart from his protection and his deliverance. The next picture here is of a bird escaping the snare of fowlers, a bird being freed from a trap. Now, bird trapping is not really a thing today in our parts, but there was a time in the past when birds were often trapped for food, and once that bird was snared, That bird was toast. There was no getting out. Birds can't chew their way out. They can't break free. They're as good as cooked for dinner. Well, so are we, left to our own strength in the face of enemies. But God, who is on our side, breaks the snare. He frees us from the trap. We were powerless to free ourselves, but we have escaped because of His love and His power. And so He is blessed. He is to be glorified and recognized and praised and thanked. Blessed be the Lord. We would have never escaped apart from Him. And I wonder how often do you think of God bringing escape to you, God saving you from sin and death. How often do you think where you would be without God saving you from an eternity in hell? Do you bless him and thank him for it? Do you think of yourself like a sheep in the jaws of a wolf? Or a bird in a snare who has been freed only by the grace and power of God, only by the gospel of Jesus who has broken the snare of our sins, the snare of death. And salvation is all of him. He alone has made us escape. It's not Christ doing a little bit and then we also work ourselves out of the trap. And so blessed be God and me. He alone is to be blessed. We are not birds that have outsmarted the trapper, or sheep who have outrun the wolf. We don't praise or bless ourselves. We boast in and bless the Lord. Think of these pictures, brothers and sisters. Think of your salvation that God has worked. Next time you go to worship, or next time you stop and pray, And bless the Lord for securing your escape from death and hell, from the snare of your own sin. Blessed be the Lord. Well, along with recalling and recounting God's great works and blessing Him for those, we must also confess Him and look to Him as our only help and our only Savior. And we need to do that today. in each age, and that's what David does in the closing line of Psalm 124. He says, our help is in the Lord. Look again with me at verse eight. Our help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth. Now this basic closing line, this beautiful corporate confession of faith, is meant to drive us to our knees together before God. It's meant to lift our eyes to Him who is our only help and only Savior. He's the one who made the heavens and the earth. He's the all-powerful Creator. We can and we must trust this God and take comfort in Him. We can be sure enemies will continue to arise against us. That has been true throughout all of the history of the world against the people of God. Floods will threaten to sweep us away. Satan, who prowls like a lion with teeth, will lay traps for us. But our help in the face of whatever the danger or difficulty or temptation, whatever enemy, however great, our help is in the name of the Lord. The psalmist says the name of the Lord, because God's name is who He truly is. It's who He's revealed Himself to be. Our help is not in a God of our imagination, a God that suits us. Our help is in the God revealed in the pages of Scripture, the true and living God, the God who spoke and formed the vast heaven and earth by the word of His power. He alone is our salvation. He alone is our help and our strength and our safety. Now often God uses means to help his people. But we must always look to him alone. And even those means that he might use find their source in him and his grace and his power. Brothers and sisters, our help is in the name of the Lord, not in modern medicine. Our help is in the Lord, not our constitution or the rule of law. Not a political party or figure. Our help is in the Lord, not military might. Our help is in the Lord, not in a pastor or a church. Our help is in the Lord, not our mom or our dad. even though the Lord may use those means. Our help is in the Lord, not in our salary or our retirement account. Our help is in the Lord, not in our intellect or instincts. Our help is in the Lord, not in our effort or our godliness or our discipline. Friends, what are you tempted to look for ultimate help in? What do you look to for deliverance? Who do you look to for deliverance from? The Lord is the creator of the heaven and the earth. What need could we have that he could not meet? What force on heaven or earth is he not more powerful than? Where is your help? Who is your hope? Brothers and sisters, where are your eyes? Where do you fix your eyes when life gets hard or when enemies surround? Are they on the Lord? What do your lips confess? What do our lips confess corporately? That He is our help? That He is our ultimate help, our only help? Where do your feet run? Do they run to Him? to his word, his worship, his promises, his throne in prayer. John Calvin, as part of his reform of the church in Geneva, helped craft an order of service for worship. And much like our service, they used a call to worship from God's word at the beginning of the service. Well, Calvin's favorite call to worship used far more than any others was Psalm 124, verse 8. Our help is in the name of the Lord, who made the heaven and the earth. And the tune that we're gonna sing here in a few moments was sung nearly 500 years ago in Geneva to Psalm 124. Psalm 124 verse 8 is one of the most frequently used calls to worship in Reformed churches going back to Geneva. And I think it's because it points our eyes together in one direction, to one source of help, to one Savior, one Lord, the creator of all. And in the Reformation, as the Christians gathered for worship, often as refugees or exiles, under constant threat from the Holy Roman Empire, greatly outnumbered, outfinanced, outgunned, they looked to the Lord as their only comfort in life and in death, as their only Savior, their only help. And friends, so must you and I today. So must God's people in every age until Christ returns in victory. And as we close tonight, I want you to think of Jesus singing this psalm. He is why God is on our side, even though we were once his enemies. Even though we were once on the side of Satan. We deserve to be destroyed in judgment. Jesus came to earth and took our sins and was swallowed up for us as he died on the cross. He was swept away in death. The waves of God's wrath went over him. The enemy of death closed its teeth on him. And yet he rose again. And this was how he secured our escape. our salvation for all who trust in Him and look to Him alone as their help and Savior. And so as you recall and recount God's great deeds of deliverance for you personally or for the church collectively, as you boast in the Lord and bless His name, as we look to Him alone for help, remember Jesus. Remember, if it had not been for the Son of God, then you and I would have surely been swallowed up and swept away. Then the maker of heaven and earth would not be our help, but our judge. He would not be on our side, but eternally and rightly and terrifyingly against us. And so, people of God, put your faith in this God. Bless the Lord, our help and only Savior. Bless Jesus. Praise and trust Jesus, who is for us and who is on our side forever. Let's pray. Lord God, we pray that you would use your word in us tonight. Keep us from hearing this and singing this and quickly moving on and forgetting where our help truly is. Lord, help us to recall so many times in the past if it had not been you who was on our side, we would be utterly hopeless. We would have been as prey to the teeth. a bird with no escape. Lord, remind us of what you have done to free us through the Lord Jesus Christ. Let us confess and believe and proclaim that our help is in the name of the Lord who made the heaven and the earth. We do pray this in your name, in the name of Jesus. Amen.