The Bible Study Hour

Guest (Male): Psalm 124 is a Psalm of intervention and preservation. And it can be summed up in four short words: if, then, but, and therefore. If God had not been on our side, then we would have perished. But the Lord has been with us. Therefore, we will praise him.

Guest (Male): Welcome to The Bible Study Hour, a radio and internet broadcast with Dr. James Boice, preparing you to think and act biblically. Psalm 124 has been called a wonderful psalm of God's protective care. It's a psalm of great imagery of a calamity that might have occurred had not God intervened. But the psalm is even more than that. Join Dr. Boice as he explores this psalm of preservation and points us to a deeper meaning: the intervention of Jesus Christ and his deliverance from the calamity of our sin.

Dr. James Boice: Some of you may know that before I went to seminary, when I was still in college, my undergraduate major was English literature, especially English poetry. I love English poetry. I've memorized a lot of it over the years, and one of the poems that I have tried to memorize, but haven't succeeded in memorizing completely, is that well-known classic by Rudyard Kipling that bears the title, "If."

Most of you have heard it, I'm sure. It goes something like this: If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you; if you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, yet make allowance for their doubting too; if you can wait and not be tired by waiting, or being lied about, don't deal in lies, or being hated, don't give way to hating, and yet not look too good, nor talk too wise.

The poem goes on that way for four stanzas, and then it concludes with the four very well-known lines: If you can fill each unforgiving minute with sixty seconds' worth of distance run, then yours is the world and all that's in it, and what is more, you'll be a man, my son.

I think that's pretty great poetry. At any rate, it comes to my mind now because of Psalm 124. It's the way Psalm 124 begins. It begins with the word "if." As a matter of fact, that word "if" introduces not only the first verse, but it introduces the second verse as well. And it's really, in its own way, the theme of the whole first stanza, verses 1 to 5.

But the psalmist isn't thinking about becoming a man or what it means to be a man. He's thinking about God and the way God has kept and preserved his people. And so his psalm goes like this: "If the Lord had not been on our side"—and then he pauses, he wants everybody to be with him in this, and so he asks for the whole congregation to join in—"let Israel say it: If the Lord had not been on our side when men attacked us, when their anger flared against us, they would have swallowed us alive."

This psalm is a wonderful psalm of God's protecting care of his people when they were suffering some great national calamity. But it's also for us because it's a reminder that any security that we have, either in life in terms of our health or physical well-being, as well as any security we have in spiritual matters, not only for this life but for eternity, is found in God. In its own way, this psalm out of the Old Testament is a biblical statement of what we know theologically as the doctrine of God's persevering grace and power with his saints.

Now, I said that this probably has to do with deliverance from some national calamity. It reads that way, and so it's worth pausing at least at the beginning to get the context and say, well, what was this? Here the psalmist writes about men who were attacking us, about God being on their side in that kind of a danger. These people, he said, would have swallowed us alive; they would have swept us away. But because of God, we're escaped like a bird out of the fowler's snare. Where do we find anything like that in Israel's history?

A number of the commentators, including perhaps the most distinguished of the conservative commentators, think this has to do with the deliverance of the people from Babylon. This is the view of H.C. Leupold, the Lutheran commentator that I've referred to many times, and also J.J. Stewart Perowne, whose major argument, a very good one, has to do with the place of this particular psalm in the collection of the psalms of ascent.

He says this: The last psalm was the sigh of an exile in Babylon, waiting in absolute trust and dependence upon God for his deliverance. This psalm is the joyful acknowledgment that this deliverance has, in fact, occurred. In the next psalm, that is 125, we have a description of the safety of the new colony restored to its native land and girt around by the protection of Jehovah. Alexander McLaren thinks that's what it's all about. It's most naturally taken as the expression of the feelings of the exiles on their restoration from Babylon.

Well, that may well be. It seems to me that there are probably two problems with this view. First of all, as you read the language of the psalm, it sounds very much like what's involved here is a near military disaster and some kind of military deliverance. After all, "men were attacking us" is what it says. That doesn't quite sound to me like deliverance from captivity, which didn't have anything to do with warfare deliverance, but rather the goodwill of Cyrus, who was led to release the people from Babylon by the power of God.

And for that matter, we're not even sure that these psalms have to do with the deliverance from Babylon. That's a popular view, and it may be true, but it's far from determined. Other people have looked at it and said, yes, we see that, and so probably we have to look for some other circumstance. Some have traced it to the time when David returned with his armies from the desert after they had defeated the armies of his rebellious son, Absalom. And perhaps it could have fit there. Some have even traced it to the days of Queen Esther and the deliverance that the people experienced from the evil plots of Haman, and perhaps it could have fit there.

I would like to call your attention to a feature, however, and that is the title line, which says here not only a song of ascents but also "of David." There are four of these psalms of David in the psalms of ascent, and I think we have to take that seriously. Now, I acknowledge that there's weak manuscript evidence for that. Most of us aren't very concerned about manuscript matters, but this title "of David" is missing in a lot of the manuscripts, including some of the Hebrew manuscripts.

So it may not actually belong there; it might have slipped in later. You have to be careful about such things. But if we are to take it seriously, then we get a setting from David's life which fits the psalm exactly. It's when he was first becoming king. When this talks about a national calamity, that would be the danger that was posed to the infant and at that time very weak nation by the Philistines. You recall that they were the great enemies in the days of David's predecessor, King Saul.

Saul had been fighting the Philistines on all fronts, and finally his armies were defeated by the Philistines, and in that great battle that was the end of that era, Saul and his son Jonathan were killed. David was now in a position to become king, but David was anything but in a strong position, and the Philistines, of course, set out to capture him. We're told about it in 2 Samuel, the fifth chapter. We're told there that they spread out in large numbers in the valley of Rephaim.

Derek Kidner thinks that that's what this is about—the time when the enemies of the nation attacked and nearly overcame them. And it's out of that kind of danger that David himself literally wrote a psalm now that, of course, gets incorporated and used later among the psalms of ascent to say, if God had not been with us, we would surely have been swallowed up alive.

It's a very beautiful and moving psalm, and the chief reason for it are the images that occur here, one upon another. There are six of them. Most of them, four of the six, occur in the psalm's first stanza, which is asking this question, what if? What would have been our fate if the Lord had not been on our side? Indeed, let Israel say it: What would have happened if God had not been on our side?

Then the images come in to answer that question. The first is this picture of an animal swallowing its prey. We'd have been like that, the psalmist says. The enemy was fierce; they had set out to destroy us. If God hadn't intervened, that's what would have happened. We would have been swallowed up by them, just like an animal devouring its prey. Now, in Israel's days, long history, that enemy could have been any number of surrounding nations.

The Philistines would be, in my judgment, the best of all examples, the occasion for the psalm. But it could have been the Babylonians or the Assyrians or any of the others as well. We, however, when we read it, can hardly help but think of our great enemy, the devil, who Peter tells us in his first letter goes about like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. Couldn't we say, should we not rightly say, and remember always, if the Lord had not been on our side, we would have been devoured by him? The devil would have swallowed us up like an animal devouring its prey.

The second image is of a flood which is engulfing its victims. It's an image that's elaborated on in verses 4 and 5, and it's a frequent figure in the Old Testament for sudden life-threatening dangers. I made a list of examples of that, and there are literally scores of them. I won't give all the texts to you now. Now, there's a reason why that was so popular. In the rugged, dry mountainous area of Palestine, whenever it did rain, and the rain descended down upon the mountains, it was conveyed inevitably by a series of little interlocking rivulets and gullies until finally all the water would come pouring down into what are known as wadis—a dry riverbed, but in times of rain or storm, suddenly filling up with water.

That's what Jesus was referring to at the very end of the Sermon on the Mount when he talked about building your house on sand. He said, anybody who has any brains doesn't build it on the bottom of a wadi, because suddenly the rains come down, the waters flow, the floods rise, and everything's engulfed. Now, shouldn't we say also, if the Lord had not been on our side, troubles in life would have engulfed us just like that?

That's what happens. We talk perhaps often about being buried in troubles or perhaps overwhelmed with the burdens of our daily existence or our work or our responsibilities. Isn't it true? Can't we say it also, if the Lord had not been on our side, we would have been submerged by the floods of the troubles of this life?

How about the third image? It's linked to the other one, but it's not exactly like it. Verse 4 talks about a torrent which is rushing over everything. Now, you see, the image before is of quickly rising floodwaters, so you're submerged. Now you've got this lateral motion of the torrent that sort of comes bearing down on you, crushing everything and then sweeping away. There are strong words in the Bible that describe the troubles of life like that.

In the New Testament, we have the Greek word *thlipsis*, which is often translated trouble or tribulation. It has to do with pressure. Ever feel pressed down by circumstances? Ever feel the weight of life? The Latin word, which is the equivalent of it, occurs in Latin translations of the Bible: *tribulum*. And it's even stronger because a *tribulum* was a threshing sledge. It was the instrument used at harvest time that you dragged over the grain in order to separate the grain from the chaff.

Many of us would say the troubles of life have been like that for us. They have come over us like a threshing sledge, grinding us down. And we would have to say as Christians, if the Lord had not been on our side, we would have been destroyed utterly.

How about the next image? In verse 5, it has to do with waters sweeping everything before them. It's not only now you see a flood that engulfs everything, or a torrent that sweeps everything before it. Now you have this powerful image of waters that simply go by and rush on and leave you devastated there by the roadside. Couldn't we say if the Lord had not been on our side, we would have been like that?

When we move to the last two of these six images, we get into the part of the psalm, the second stanza, which is actually thanking God for his deliverance. You see, the first half of it is the "if." If God had not been on our side, this is what would have happened. The second stanza actually thanks God, but two more of the images occur there anyway; they're part of the picture.

The first picks up on this image of the animal with its prey, and here we have an animal not only devouring its victim, but actually grinding on its bones. I suppose that's what King Darius expected to find when he went to the lions' den to see what had happened to Daniel. He liked Daniel and he had wanted to preserve him, but he was tricked into actually casting him into the lions' den. The lions' den was used to consume victims. It was a way of execution, and the king had a very troubled night.

And early the next morning, he went to the den and he called out in the direction of the lions, not really expecting Daniel to be there: "Daniel, has your God whom you serve been able to deliver you from the mouth of the lions?" I suppose he expected to hear the lions grinding on the bones. What Daniel might have replied would have been something like this. He could have said, "If the Lord had not been on my side, I would have been ground to pieces by the lions."

What he did in fact say was, "My God sent his angel and he shut the mouths of the lions; they have not hurt me." Can't we say that quite accurately? If the Lord had not been on our side, our enemies would have ground us into little pieces, swallowed us up, and spit out the bones.

And then there's a final image. This is that of a bird entangled in a trap, suddenly released when the trap is broken. There's an old seal still in existence in this country, but was brought over by a Huguenot who was escaping from some of the persecutions in that country years ago, in France years ago. And this seal is interesting. It has the image of a net on the bottom. It has a bird soaring upwards, and then it bears as an inscription the words of verse 7: "My soul is escaped even as a bird out of the snare of the fowler."

You see, this Huguenot refugee who came to America was aware that he had almost been trapped. But God had set him free; he'd escaped. And can't you and I, any of us at least, say that of various circumstances in our lives? If the Lord had not been on our side, we would have been trapped forever, like a bird ensnared in a netting. But God has been on our side and he has set us free.

Now, those are only external physical things, but I want to talk about spiritual things, too. We have to do that, how could we not, if we're talking about the devil and his traps? What about sin and its punishment? Can't we say if God had not intervened in Jesus Christ to bear our punishment in our place so we might not have to suffer for it, we would have been consumed, we would have been swept away, we would have been lost? But God has done all of that for us.

And so we say, as Paul now does in the eighth chapter of Romans, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. What about keeping on the path of discipleship? We think about that particularly when we're thinking of these psalms of ascent; they're discipleship psalms. What would have happened to us if God had not been on our side?

Well, we have an illustration of it in the New Testament in the case of Peter. Peter was very boastful. He thought he could stand all by himself, that he was certainly going to follow Jesus and follow him to the end. But God spoke to him. Jesus said to him, "You know, this very night you're going to deny me three times." "Oh no," said Peter, "I'm not going to do that." But Jesus said, "Yes, you will."

And then he added: "You would be swept away. Satan wanted to do that with you. He wanted to take you like grain, grind you and blow, and like chaff, you'd all be gone." But he said to Peter, "I've prayed for you, that your faith might be strengthened. And so when you're converted, when you turn back again—I know you're going to turn away—but when you turn back again, strengthen your brethren." And that's what happened.

When Jesus spoke to Peter on that occasion, it's significant that he used the word Peter. You know he had given Peter the name rock, but he spoke to him as Simon—that is, the weak individual he was. And he speaks that way to you and me. He says, James or Mary or Susan, Mike, whatever your name may be, you're weak. I know you're weak. I made you. I know what you're made of.

And unless I stand by you and intercede for you and help you, you're going to be swept away. Satan will certainly succeed with you; you won't persevere to the end. But he said, I've prayed for you. You're one of mine. I'm going to see you through to the end. And so we look to that and we say, oh, isn't it wonderful that Jesus Christ, the one who has walked the way before us, intercedes for us in order that we might walk it too?

What about our work for Christ? We don't want to spend a lifetime doing work that doesn't matter at all in the end, it's all just sort of blown away and useless and doesn't leave any mark upon eternity. But certainly that's what's going to happen if we do it all by ourselves. Even Moses, the great Moses, who left such a tremendous mark on the people of God in the Old Testament period and is quoted many, many times in the New Testament, even Moses of that great 90th Psalm said, praying to God: "Establish the work of our hands upon us; yea, establish thou the work of our hands." He wanted it to last, you see.

And God is able to make it last; he does. What about death? Death too in the Bible is sometimes pictured as a flood that sweeps over us and washes us away and carries us into oblivion. What do we say about death? David in the 23rd Psalm said, "Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil because you are with me."

And Paul, writing about death and the resurrection in that great 15th chapter of 1 Corinthians, spoke of the victory. "O death," he wrote, "where is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting? The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law, but thanks be to God, he gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." We think of all those things. Don't we say with the psalmist, if the Lord had not been on our side, we would have been perished utterly?

But you see the point of the psalm is that God is on our side. And that's where it moves in the second stanza. The second stanza is a stanza of thanksgiving. It calls on us to praise the Lord. But that's what it means. We praise the Lord because we're giving thanks to him for helping us in just all those situations we've already mentioned. We praise God because we are thankful to him for his many material and spiritual deliverances.

Now, notice the sequence of thought between here and the earlier verses. I think you can catch it by the use of these short connecting English words: first the word "if," then the word "then," then the word "but," finally the word "therefore." It would go something like this. First: If the Lord had not been on our side. Secondly: Then we would have perished. We have different images for that. Third: But the Lord has been on our side. And then finally fourth: Therefore we will praise him.

You know, it bothers me in the evangelical church today that there is so little real thanksgiving to God. Sometimes we have services that we call praise services and we make a lot of noise and repeat a lot of things over and over again. But it seems to me there's very little articulation of what it is that we're really thankful for. And when you hear Christian people in common speech talking to one another, many times, not always, but many times, there's very little real thanksgiving for what God has done.

What's the problem? I think the problem is right here. It's in the sequence, you see. We have experienced so much of the grace and the power and the keeping care of God that we simply take it all for granted. And what we really ought to do is begin to think in terms of the sequence of the psalm. Well, yes, God has taken care of us, fine. We let it all go, we're not very concerned about it at all, we just go on with our lives. But think: if he had not been for us, what would have happened? We would have perished. But he has been for us. Therefore, you see. Therefore, let us be thankful. That's what we have here.

Now we come to the very end, the very last verse, verse 8: "Our help is in the name of the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth." That's the final testimony. It's an echo of what we saw in Psalm 121. In my Bible, it's right across the page. It's exactly the same thing. We're told that in the 18th century, the French Protestants, the Huguenots that I mentioned earlier, always used this verse when they began their public worship: "Our help is in the name of the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth."

Why did they begin with that? Obviously, because they knew they needed help. They were in danger of their lives, their fortunes, and their families. And they said our help is in the name of the Lord when they began. Now, that's a place not only on which to end but also to go as we leave here this morning. We ought to bear that in our mind. Is our help really in the name of the Lord? Is your help in the name of the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth?

Think of that last verse with emphasis upon each part. First of all, our help is in the name of the Lord, not other people, not governments, not ourselves, but our help is in the Lord. Why? Because only the Lord is adequate. He is omniscient; he knows everything. He knows all about us; he knows all the circumstances of our lives. He is all-wise; he knows what to do in all those circumstances. And he is omnipotent; he has all power. He can do everything that's needed. And he is gracious and merciful. We need a God like that because we need mercy. We have one in our God, made known to us in Jesus Christ. Our help is in the name of the Lord.

Secondly, our help is in the name of the Lord. Everything comes to us from the Lord, but here particularly our help, and we need help because we are awfully weak people. We're unable to stand like Peter even for a moment unless God stands with us and upholds us and undergirds us and carries us through. Our help is in the Lord and we have a great help in him. One of the scholars just spells this out in an interesting way. He observes that we have in God help as troubled sinners. We've been delivered from the punishment and guilt of our sin. We have help as dull scholars who can't understand God's Word by ourselves, but God gives us understanding.

We have help in our witness as we don't know how to bear witness well with other people, but God takes our trembling words and infuses them with his power and brings people to faith in Jesus Christ. We have help as inexperienced travelers on life's journey; we need help to find the right path and walk in it. We can't do that by ourselves. We have help as feeble workers; we are unprofitable servants at best. But Jesus Christ works through us and establishes the work of our hands.

And then finally, the last point of emphasis: our help is in the name of the Lord, our help is in the name of the Lord. How about this one? *Our* help is in the name of the Lord. I don't know about other people; I trust that they will trust the Lord too. We hope they will, we pray that they will. But as for us, our help is in the name of the Lord. And it's in the Lord that we trust; we trust day and night. We look to the past and we say, the Lord has helped us. We look to the present and we say, the Lord is helping us now. We look to the future and we say, he will help us forever until he brings us finally home to glory.

And so we say this is our testimony. We don't know about others, but this is where we stand. Look at that verse again, verse 8, last verse of the psalm. I wonder if you can say it with me this morning as a great testimony. Let's read it together: Our help is in the name of the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth. Amen.

Let's pray. Our Father, we thank you that we've had time to study this great psalm together. We see our situation portrayed there graphically in these images, and we think about it in terms of all of the particulars of our lives. We confess that if it had not been for you, we wouldn't even be here, let alone be Christians and going on this journey to which we've been called by Jesus Christ. But you are with us. You have been, you are, you will be. Therefore, we do not fall. We persevere, and for that reason, we give you the glory and we say thank you, thank you, thank you. And amen.

Guest (Male): Thank you for listening to this message from The Bible Study Hour, a listener-supported ministry of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals. The Alliance is a coalition of pastors, scholars, and churchmen who hold to the historic creeds and confessions of the Reformed faith and who proclaim biblical doctrine in order to foster a Reformed awakening in today's church. To learn more about the Alliance, visit Alliancenet.org. And while you're there, visit our online store, Reformed Resources, where you can find messages and books from Dr. Boice and other outstanding teachers and theologians, or ask for a free Reformed Resources catalog by calling 1-800-488-1888.

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