[0:00] Psalm chapter 124. Thank you for singing to our good and gracious King, King in need of nothing, empty hand I rejoice. I love saying those words. If they will stick around and let us, maybe we can sing that with them before we leave here tonight.
[0:14] Psalm chapter 124. The theme is the Lord is on our side. The Lord is on our side. I would not dare say those words if it didn't come from Scripture, if God hadn't revealed it and said it that way.
[0:28] I would definitely say that I want to be on the Lord's side. We sing that. We know that. In this passage, it says that the Lord is on our side because of Jesus Christ. We now have Him as our advocate and we have the Lord on our side. And so I'm going to pray before I read this passage.
[0:44] But I want to help you see here for a moment as we look at this how wonderful it is if it had not been for the Lord who was on our side. And we just kind of consider that for a moment if it had not been for the Lord who was on our side.
[0:59] Heavenly Father, I thank you for a church, Lord, that participates in worship. They don't come here to watch, but they come here to participate through singing, through giving testimony, through communicating with one another and sharing prayer requests together and encouraging one another.
[1:17] Father, as I look out and I see my friends here, Lord, what you would say are my brothers and sisters in Christ. Lord, it stirs inside of my heart just an appreciation. Where would we have been without you?
[1:30] And I'm so very thankful for the gospel finding its way. Lord, you sending the gospel to me, that people would faithfully share the gospel with me.
[1:41] Now we have this opportunity. So, Father, I pray that your people will rejoice tonight as a response knowing this and that we'd be able to say, the children of Israel here in this psalm, that we are just overwhelmed by the thought that where we would have been without you.
[1:56] In Jesus' name I pray. Amen. If it had not been, verse 1, if it had not been the Lord who was on our side, now may Israel say, Israel's not here tonight, but you guys are with me, okay?
[2:10] So say these next 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 verses, 6 words here with me in the next verse here. I'm going to read again verse number 1 and then you're going through the first 6 words of verse 2.
[2:21] If it had not been for the Lord who was on our side, now may Israel say, Who was on our side which men rose against us. I probably didn't count very well.
[2:32] Did I? Then they would swallow us up quick when their wrath was kindled against us. Then the waters had overwhelmed us. The stream had gone over our soul. Then the proud waters had gone over our soul.
[2:43] Say those four words with me. Blessed be the Lord which has not given us as prey to their teeth. Our soul is escaped as the bird out of the snare of the fowlers. The snare is broken and we are escaped.
[2:55] Now read verse 8. Our help is in the name of the Lord who made heaven and earth. Let's say verse 8 again. Our help is in the name of the Lord who made heaven and earth.
[3:07] I didn't have this in my notes but as we were saying verses together, it made me think about something that I taught recently in the Baptist Distinctive Class at the Training Center. And one of the questions was why don't Baptist churches often recite different creeds in our services?
[3:23] And we would agree with many of the creeds that could be read. And the answer that was given was to say that it's an area of individual sow liberty. That meaning that maybe we wouldn't agree on the same creed.
[3:36] But that's not the answer. The answer is the priority of God's word. That we don't put any other words on the same category as we do the words of God.
[3:46] So when we're going to say something together, we're going to say the words that are provided for us. Not that it would be wrong that they did that. It's just that for us here, we say that if we're going to say something together, we're going to say the words of the Lord.
[3:59] So with that being said, why don't you read verse with me one more time. Verse number one. If it had not been the Lord who was on our side, now may Israel say.
[4:10] So every time, if you ever had a time in your life where you knew that if God did not intervene, you would be completely hopeless. You can think of some severe moments in your life where you cried out to the Lord and you needed Him to answer it.
[4:26] If you've lived any length of time, you've had those moments where you knew that you were just completely helpless. And those points in life, those moments are very important to look back on and see.
[4:37] But it's more than just those few moments that you realize. Like the song that you probably grew up singing if you grew up in church. We say, I need thee every hour. Most gracious Lord, no tender voice like thine can peace afford.
[4:50] One of the verses says this, I need thee every hour. Stay thou nearby. Temptation lose their power when thou art nigh. I've been in places before where I knew if the Lord didn't work, then nothing was going to happen.
[5:04] And I most certainly was fully dependent on Him. I think about those big moments in life. But there's also just moments in life where temptation seems so strong. That I wanted to give in that God provided for me.
[5:17] For me. You've probably shared your faith before with somebody and asked them, have you ever been saved? And they would say, yeah, I was saved. One time I was playing out in the road and somebody pulled me out in front of a car and now I'm saved.
[5:30] And you're like, well, that is one definition for the word saved. And I'm glad that you were so that we could have this conversation. We would say, no, we're talking about a salvation from something bigger. Something from the wrath of God.
[5:42] Where you put your faith and trust in the Lord. And we speak about that. And the same way that a person could be too, in their understanding of it, they could be too narrow minded.
[5:53] When they think about salvation being from a physical object or from a vehicle and not from the wrath of God. I want to make sure you don't do the same thing in here. When you think about your dependence on the Lord and say, where would I be without Him?
[6:05] It's not just in those major moments of your life. It is in a daily saving us from ourselves. It's in a daily not having a temptation on us that is too great.
[6:15] But offering us a way of escape. We constantly are dependent upon Him. How do we get our bread? He gives us our daily bread. That we're living out of His hand.
[6:27] So in this book, in this chapter here, or in this psalm, the Lord's deliverance of His people and His care is at the heart of the psalm. The psalmist acknowledges that the people are completely dependent on the Lord for their safety and their security.
[6:39] For it was only because the Lord was on their side that they were able to break the oppression of their enemies, escape the snare. We don't know exactly what they're being delivered from in here. We don't know particularly what the story, the setting is.
[6:52] From verses 3 through 5 that we've read where it says, He has given us prey to the teeth. We escaped out of the snare of the fowlers. The snare is broken. We would have been, we have escaped.
[7:04] The help is in the name of the Lord. It is apparently an all-consuming type problem. And in the same passage, it implies or it tells us that there are sides in this world.
[7:17] Who was on our side? And so we could speculate here. There's many times where Israel had people that hated them. So Psalm 83, verses 3 and 4, it says, They had taken crafty counsel against thy people and consulted against the hidden ones.
[7:32] And they said, Come and let us cut them off from being a nation, that the name of Israel may be no more in remembrance. So we don't know. And I think that's a gift.
[7:43] I think it's wonderful when we don't always know. Because in knowing, you may just say, Well, I don't have that exact problem in my life, so this psalm doesn't relate to me. It's an all-consuming type of problem that if God did not work on their behalf, then they would be completely hopeless.
[7:59] They've had many stories like that. In 2 Samuel, it speaks about chapter number 5, verse 17, When the Philistines heard that they anointed David king over Israel, and all the Philistines came up to seek David.
[8:10] And David heard of it and went down to the hold. The Philistines came and spread themselves in the valley of Rephraim. And David inquired of the Lord, saying, Shall I go up to the Philistines? Wilt thou deliver them into my hand?
[8:21] The Lord said unto David, Go up, for I will doubtless deliver the Philistines into thine hand. And David came to Bershom, and David spoke, smoked them there, and said, The Lord hath broken forth upon mine enemies before me as the breach of waters.
[8:37] And so there we are at a place where David is just, they're just surrounding him. He's completely in need. He cries to the Lord. And then it says in verse 21 that they left their images behind.
[8:49] They had brought their images with them to help them in the battle. The enemy had brought their images in the battle. David burdens them. Verse 22, The Philistines came up yet again and spread themselves in the valley once more.
[9:02] And David inquired of the Lord once again. And this is what the Lord told him. He says, Thou shalt go up, but fetch a compass behind them, and come upon them over against the mulberry trees.
[9:13] And this story here, twice now, David has a problem that's completely overwhelming to him. And in both times, he goes to the Lord and says, What should I do?
[9:23] And God directed him differently in the battle, even against the same enemy. And I find that just such a great example for us, and that dependency.
[9:34] Because you may fight something in your life for some temptation, and you may come to something, and you may overcome it in such a way, and God may give it to you, and then you say, I got this. I remember what you told me last time.
[9:45] I got it this way. But David went back and said, Lord, I'm in a similar situation, and I ask you, and God gave him something different. In verse number 24, it says, And let it be when thou hearest the sound of going in the tops of the mulberry trees, that then thou shalt bestir thyself.
[10:02] For then shall the Lord go out before thee, and smite the host of the Philistines. And David did so, as the Lord had commanded him, and smote the Philistines from Geba, until they came to Gezer.
[10:13] Charles Spurgeon, speaking about this, he points out, as it says in verse number 24, Thou shalt bestir thyself. He points out that it said that. Often we think of stirring up other people, but that can become hype and emotionalism in other people's lives, but we have a responsibility to stir up something in ourselves.
[10:35] He says it like this, When we see the work of God happening around us, it is like the sound in the mulberry trees. The rustling sound shall awaken us to prayer and devotion.
[10:46] A time of crisis or tragedy is also like the sound in the mulberry trees. The rustling sound should awaken us to confession and repentance. Now what should I do? The first thing I will do is this, I will bestir myself, but how shall I do it?
[11:01] Well, I will go home to this day, and I will wrestle in prayer more earnestly than I have been wont to do, that God would bless the minister and multiply his church.
[11:12] David here is speaking and demonstrating a dependence on the Lord. Surrounded by the enemy, overcome by them, he goes to the Lord every time that it arises here in the story.
[11:24] And he stirs something up inside of us or in those places of life. Verse 1 and 2 says, If it had not been for the Lord, if it had not been for the Lord, a total dependency.
[11:37] The Lord is not just present, but he is active. The one that is in the manger, that we call Emmanuel, that says God is with us, he is with us today. He is active. All of Israel can say, it says, Now may Israel say.
[11:52] So it starts off as David says this, and then he stops and he says, It isn't just me that can say this. All of you should be able to say this. All of you should be able to join in this testimony and say, If it was not for the Lord, then we would be in the most miserable position.
[12:07] And I can say that for every one of you in here. Those of you that I know your story, or those of you I don't know your story, where you're at right now, if it had not been for the Lord. The protection came from him.
[12:19] They would have been swallowed up in verse number 3 that it said. The waters had overwhelmed them. In Psalm 124 verse 3, They had swallowed us up quick when their wrath was kindled against us.
[12:31] Here in this passage, there's a unique emphasis in this psalm here. Sometimes trouble swallows and devours us. Sometimes trouble overwhelms us like a flood. Sometimes our trouble sweeps us up like a strong current.
[12:44] And David is highlighting their danger. I don't know if you like to play the game Risk in here. It takes a long time. You know, the little board game with the dice and the soldiers.
[12:55] If you were to ever play the game of Risk, I know Grant has a game that lasts like 12 hours. That's every game of Risk. If you were to ever play the game of Risk through the Old Testament, you would know that the children of Israel should not have made it very far.
[13:07] They were constantly being outnumbered here. And David wanted to make sure there's a cause of concern here that they didn't consider that their intelligence or their manpower or how creative or crafty they were was the reason in which they were standing today.
[13:24] But it was the Lord. And so you and I will be involved in the reason we're entangled. Our disobedience puts us in His position, but escape is always going to come by His action.
[13:35] We have to ask Him to do this. David wants them to have an awareness of the Lord's intervention should lead them to gratitude. He wants to amplify the gratitude of the people of God.
[13:46] And he prays for deliverance. And he sings a song about it, about God's past protection. It's a wonderful song that they would sing together. And he would say, Now Israel, say this with us, It had not been for the Lord who was on our side.
[14:01] You know, some song like that should always be in your playlist. That's what we have here in Psalms. We have a playlist. We have a reminder of it. You should have it in your life as well, constantly in your playlist, reminding you, if it had not been for the grace of God, where would we be?
[14:18] And so we saw in Psalm 122 that the tribes would come up and there'd be a testimony unto the Lord and they would give thanks unto the name of the Lord. And that's what's happening here in the Psalm is they're just taking time to give thanks unto the Lord.
[14:32] That should happen when we gather here. The missionaries, they come through, they give updates, but they're giving testimonies. We have services where we do that, but it should not be confined to these hours. We should be constantly reminding one another of God's goodness in our lives.
[14:47] The story here about that, about this Psalm particularly, of a man named John Dury who had been put into jail. He was a minister of the gospel.
[14:58] He was a faithful, he was a pastor, but he'd been put into prison. And in 1582, the Psalm was sung on a remarkable occasion in Edinburgh, Scotland. An imprisoned minister, John Dury, had been set free and was met and welcomed entering the town by 200 of his friends.
[15:15] The number increased to what found himself in the midst of a company of 2,000 who began to sing as they moved up the long high street. Now Israel may say, they sang in four parts with deep solemnly, all joining in the well-known tune and psalm.
[15:33] They were much moved themselves, and so were all who heard. And one of the chief persecutors is said to have been more alarmed at this sight and song than at anything he had seen in Scotland.
[15:45] What a beautiful picture, right? Man had been in prison, and he comes back into town, 200 of his friends grows to 2,000, and they sang Psalm 124, and they had said, if it had not been for the Lord.
[15:58] I believe God wants to hear those type songs, not just in a pilgrim song as they're going to Jerusalem, not just in 1582, but in our lives right now where we live.
[16:11] Nate Wilkerson shared a story recently, recently I read and it shared a man who had come to Christ a few years ago said on his birthday what he wanted was his friends to come to church, and he picked out 15 of his favorite songs.
[16:25] They played, it was on a Friday night, they played 15 of his favorite songs, and afterwards he shared his testimony about how, if it had not been for God, that he would be completely without hope and still miserable.
[16:38] Isn't that beautiful? It doesn't have to just be in Scotland. Everything's beautiful when you say Scotland, right? It sounds beautiful. That's a beautiful picture. The pilgrim song seems beautiful. Your life could be beautiful too as you share and you tell people.
[16:50] God's blessed you in here. God's done a wonderful thing in your life and you need to be constantly reminding people if it had not been for the Lord, it's only the Lord's doing in my life. That gratitude that we should have should be a testimony.
[17:03] And so let his name and reputation be known. Psalm 124, 6 and 7, Blessed be the Lord who has not given us as prey to their teeth. Our soul has escaped as a bird out of the snare.
[17:16] Blessed be the Lord. When we say blessed be the Lord, this doesn't mean that we're bestowing a blessing upon the Lord. It's already been sung tonight. We'll sing it here in a moment. He's not in need of anything, right?
[17:27] But it means that we're thanking and praising him and announcing him as blessed. We're magnifying his name. We're ascribing the attributes and the characteristics that people see here that should know about him.
[17:40] Because people want to take the name of our Lord and they want to bring it down to where they are at. They want to always be diminishing the name of the Lord. But we say blessings upon the name of the Lord. Bestow blessing, thanksgiving, and praise.
[17:53] Then it says they escaped as a bird. We should constantly, the redeemed, we should be astonished upon looking at the greatness of the danger to which we have been exposed to and that the God of heaven has saved us.
[18:08] Here the psalm moves from what might have happened to what actually did happen. And you can note the reputation here. It's said twice. He speaks of escaping. Twice he mentions the snare that is there.
[18:20] Our soul is escaped. The snare is broken. We have escaped. You shouldn't read it monotone. Sometimes I do the Bible in justice. I read it to you monotone. You shouldn't read it or speak it out loud.
[18:33] Twice here, we have escaped. I won't go into detail as I wouldn't want you to go into detail, but I think about so many pivotal times in my life if it wouldn't have been for the conviction of God to say, go here and not this way, if it would not have been for Him.
[18:49] I often feel like I've made as big of a mess in my life as the Holy Spirit would allow me to do that I have kicked and screamed to get to this point in life in the work of sanctification.
[19:00] He's been very long suffering to me. He's been patient with me and strong conviction and we should be grateful. We should never look down upon other people but we say if this was not for the grace of God in our lives, we should say as they do in the Psalms here.
[19:15] And in closing here, our helper is the creator of the universe. Ending on a high note, He is our helper. He saved us from these wonderful things. Let's talk about what kind of helper He is and let me remind you that this is present.
[19:29] This is not just a past tense type of thing. Our help is in the name of the Lord who made heaven and earth. Not just in the past but right now. Your help is in the name of the Lord who made heaven and earth.
[19:42] This confidence is seen in that continual help. It's not just a picture of God of the Old Testament who fights for His people but in the New Testament it depicts our Lord and Savior. 1 John 3, 8 He that committed sin is of the devil but the devil sinned from the beginning.
[19:57] For his purpose the Son of God was manifested that He might destroy the works of the devil. He continues to make war in our heart. The Holy Spirit makes war against sin.
[20:08] Jesus Christ came to overcome the sin and to make war on our behalf. So when we've been delivered from the destructive plans of the wicked we must acknowledge we are completely dependent on the Lord for survival.
[20:21] Apostle Paul makes this question in Romans 8, 31. It's such a wonderful question because we know the answer. What shall we then say to these things if God be for us who can be against us?
[20:34] Not pilgrim song. God was for us. God has protected us. He has done it and He's going to continually doing it. So how do you and I acknowledge our complete dependence on God?
[20:47] It's on Thursday night right before 8 o'clock it's quite easy to say that I'm going to be dependent upon God but very quickly I begin to move away from a dependency upon Him to wanting to try things out on my own.
[21:00] First of all we need to affirm the difference that God has made in our lives and say where would we be without God? If God is for us then who can be against us?
[21:11] That gratitude in our lives looking back and seeing what He has done. So the good news of Psalm 124 is that what might have happened didn't happen if it had not been for Him we would have been completely destroyed but that didn't happen.
[21:27] You might have been trapped in a life of sin that could have destroyed you and taken you and separated you from God for all eternity but that didn't happen. You might have died without Christ and gone into eternity in Him but that didn't happen.
[21:41] The reason it didn't happen is because the evil that Satan desired for you the sin that you were to pay has been absorbed by Christ on the cross and so we say with the children of Israel if it had not been the Lord who was on our side we should be such a grateful people for Him.
[21:59] I'm going to pray this Psalm and then afterwards I'm going to ask you to stand and we're going to sing with all of our heart speaking unto the Lord recognizing that we have nothing to offer Him we come with empty hands but He has been so good and gracious to us if you don't know He has been good and gracious if you can't say if it had not been for the Lord don't leave the night without understanding that if you have have not had your if you have don't have an understanding of what the gospel is you don't have an understanding of what it meant for Him to die on the cross but even if you are a believer in here and you just feel like you're fighting everything on your own that is not the message of the Bible that He is on your side and that He is fighting for you and you can recognize this today let's pray Heavenly Father I thank you for this psalm that is just so beautiful Lord that these pilgrims that would take a journey that as they would be walking to Jerusalem they could sing this and talk about what you've done in the past where they could think about the exodus they could think about all the times that you had brought them out and you did what only you could do in their life
[23:08] Father I pray that my brothers and sisters here think about that as well that no one in here feels like they are a self-made man or woman it wasn't their craftedness that has brought them to where they're at in life but it is you Lord you have delivered us time and time again so Father we pray if it had not been the Lord who was on our side Lord if it had not been you who was on our side when people rose up against us when sin would have swallowed us up quick when the wrath was kindled against us when all the problems of life just seemed to overwhelm us when the stream would have just taken us out and we would have been gone the temptation felt too strong the stress was too strong Lord you delivered us and so we say blessed be your name praise to you Father we say thank you that you had not given us over to this our soul escaped as a bird taken out of a stair Lord you delivered us we were completely incapable of doing that you saved us from the wrath to come in eternity
[24:09] Lord you're saving us from our sin today Lord as we turn to you and so we confess as your people that our help is in the name of the Lord who has made heaven and earth we love you and we thank you in Jesus name I pray Amen