Praise the Lord, we’re not dead  

   Where would you be today if you were not a Christian? Do you ever stop to wonder that? If you think back to your life to the point in which God transformed your heart and you became a follower of Jesus, if that moment had never happened, where would you be today?

Some people have dramatic stories where they were living a life of crime and substance abuse and this question is extremely easy, they’d say, “If it wasn’t for Jesus, I’d be dead right now for sure.” I’ve met many people with that testimony. But many of us may have been raised in moral homes where our families were either Christian or at least they lived by some Christian ethical principles. We might say something like, “I don’t know where I’d be. Perhaps, my life wouldn’t be that much different. Maybe I would just spend less time in church. But I’d probably still have lived a life where I try to be kind and do good to my neighbor.”

It’s to this second person that I think this psalm is written. When it was written, this psalm was for the Jew who had forgotten how things could have turned out differently for them, to someone who had known peace for most of their life and had forgotten how dangerous the world was. Today, we read it as people who often mistakenly assume that we are capable of leading our lives in a pretty decent direction without the Lord’s help. That his help is merely a supplement to our already well oriented and self-motivated life. 

But the Scriptures tell us if we believe we could have handled things reasonably well without God is an absolute lie. If it had been for the Lord, we’d still be entirely spiritually dead and incapable of pleasing him in the slightest. And to the Christian here today who has forgotten how things could be drastically different if it wasn’t for the Lord, this psalm reminds us that if you’re able to sing these words, it means you’re both not dead spiritually and you’re not dead physically. It’s worth praising God over.

Main Point – Praise the Lord, we’re not dead  

Prayer

What’s the first thing we must remember if we are to praise the Lord for our life?

Point #1 – Our enemy wants us dead (vs. 1-5)

     We have another psalm written by David as our superscription tells us. David’s life was a life full of enemies and escaping from them. There are instances over and over of him escaping from king Saul who wanted to kill him among others who wanted to kill him. But you’ll notice that in our psalm David is speaking on behalf of the nation. He keeps saying we have escaped. So this isn’t an instance where he was personally being hunted, but more likely a time when he’s leading the nation and they are being threatened with destruction from someone else. Sometimes it was the Philistines. Sometimes it was the Ammonites. Sometimes it was the Arameans. They had very clear enemies who wanted to destroy them. So this psalm is written as a general song about how God had delivered David and Israel from their many enemies.

What’s particularly helpful to remember is how the wars and battles in the Old Testament were extremely spiritual in nature. Every nation had their own local god. This was not a time where everyone sought to worship in whatever way they wanted and the god you prayed to was a matter of personal choice. No. If you were an Ammonite then you worshipped Molech. If you were a Syrian then you worshipped Baal and so on. That’s because they understood their deities as beings who lived in that specific region. So when Israel fought against the Philistines, it wasn’t merely a battle for more land and resources (although it certainly wasn’t less than that). It was also a battle to prove that your god is stronger than their god. If we as representatives of our god are able to overpower you as representatives of your god then clearly our god is the strongest one and the other gods are weak and worthless. That’s why you see the Israelites doing things like bringing the ark of the covenant with them into battles. It was a representation of God’s presence and they of course wanted God with them when they fought. The Philistines rejoice when they captured the ark and they put it in the house of their god, because they felt this was proof positive that their god was stronger. In other battles you see things like the Moabite king making a sacrifice to his god in the middle of the battle because he appears to be losing.

With that context, let’s look at verses 1-5 again.

READ VS 1-5

It’s unusual for us to think of ourselves as having enemies. It’s unusual to think of people who want to kill us. In fact, this is a problem I’ve encountered all throughout the psalms. Over and over throughout the psalms we read of enemies who want to crush the author and murder him. It will say things like “ruthless men seek my life!” And I always think to myself, that’s not my experience. I don’t have anybody actively plotting to end my life, at least not that I’m aware of. I don’t have people shooting arrows at me and giving me poison for food. But this pops up over and over again in Psalms. In our passage in verse 3, there are those who “would have swallowed us up alive.” 

In this instance it is again helpful to consider the spiritual nature of the battles David was engaged in and the battles that we are engaged in. Is there a battle raging right now to prove whose god is the strongest? Absolutely there is. It may not be gods like Dagon and Chemosh and Molech who are going against Yahweh, but is the god of materialism. It is the god of independence and autonomy. It is the god of pleasure. It is the god of comfort. Every one of these gods is trying to demonstrate that they have more to offer than our God Yahweh. Every one of them is battling to prove that your hope in life is in serving them, that they can deliver you from your troubles and that they can offer the greatest riches in your future. And if you don’t bow down to them, you are demonstrating that their gods are weak and worthless. Then the anger of their representatives will be kindled against you and they will absolutely seek to swallow you up alive.

     When you demonstrate that God is your only hope in life and death, that he is the one who is ultimate authority over your life, and that only he can satisfy your heart, you will gather enemies. For instance if you simply try to live a holy life, if you avoid watching certain movies, avoid listening to certain songs, if you avoid wearing certain styles of clothing, if you prioritize your schedule around the church and around spending time with God, you will be mocked. Sadly, you will not only be mocked by those who are not Christians, but by those who call themselves Christians as well. “Yeah, it’s good that you want to put in effort to obey God, but what you’re doing seems like a little too much. Dial it back a little. Stop being so strict and prude.”

That’s because when you live in such a way that demonstrates you find God to be the most glorious and delightful prize you can seek, you’re also saying that the prizes, delights, and gods of everyone else are weak and even worthless. You’ll make enemies doing this. Enemies that would rather you stop fighting for your God and showing their god up. They’d rather you be silent.

     But it’s not merely enemies of people that we have to be wary of. This text reminds us that we have a spiritual enemy. In Ephesians we’re reminded that we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against spiritual powers, against Satan. And I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but Satan is stronger than you. If you fight against him yourself, you will lose. 

Look at verses 4 and 5. Our psalm compares our enemies to a flood that sweeps over us. Israel has many dry river beds that are only flowing during the rainy seasons. As a result, one thing that often takes place is a flash flood. One moment the river is dry and the next a raging torrent is bursting through with incredible force. Flash floods are extremely deadly. You cannot fight them. You do not put on your mean face and dig your feet into the ground and stand strong against it. You will lose.

     And Satan is an enemy that is extremely interested in your destruction. He wants to end every instance of you giving glory to God. If you are demonstrating in any way that your greatest delight and satisfaction in life comes from God alone then he wants to silence you. And I assure you, you’re not strong enough to stop him. Maybe he’ll crush you like a flash flood with something sudden or maybe he’ll fool you and trap you. Later we’ll read that David’s enemy was trying to trap him like a bird. Has Satan trapped you with an addiction? Has Satan trapped you with a bad habit? Has he trapped you with your own great pride so that you’re so afraid of what people think about you that you could never confess your sin or choose to live differently? These are all means of silencing you. The enemy wants you dead. He wants to swallow you up and sweep you away. So that the power of every other god seems greater than the power of your God.

     Yet, we are not swallowed up. We have not been swept away. And Christians are not trapped. Why?

Point #2 – Our Lord sets us free (vs. 6-8)

READ VS 6-8

     Did you hear that? The snare is broken. David compares our condition to being like a bird that was trapped by a fowler, just a word for someone who catches birds. The bird was trapped. The bird’s doom was sure. But then someone comes along and cuts the rope. He frees it from the trap. This is a bird who has no hope. The next event in its life is guaranteed to be becoming dinner for the fowler. He will become prey for their teeth. But then a rescuer comes along. The snare is broken. And it’s unexpectedly freed.

Now admittedly David is likely talking about some sort of battle and war situation here. Israel was probably battling another nation and it seemed like they were about to be defeated, but at the last moment God saved them. This happens multiple times throughout the Bible. In fact, it seems to be the way that God prefers to act in saving his people. Bring up an enemy that is too big for them, have them fight against the enemy in futility, get to the point of absolute desperation with seemingly no hope, and then deliver them.

The simple application here is that it’s never too late for God to save someone and no one is ever “in too deep” or “too far gone” to be saved by God. Because sometimes God delivers us from evil and sometimes God rescues us from evil. Let me explain the difference. Sometimes he shows the bird where the snare is and it’s able to avoid being trapped by it altogether. He delivers the bird from the snare. Other times he allows the bird to get trapped. He allows it to reach the point of absolute desperation. Then at the last possible second he rescues the bird from the snare. 

     Honestly, this is frustrating to me. I would much rather be delivered from evil and never experience it then have to go through it for a period of time and then later be rescued. Does God sometimes save us from ever getting trapped by a specific sin? Yes, of course. There are plenty of sins you haven’t fallen prey to. But are there other sins that we definitely get trapped by? Sadly, yes. And maybe we get trapped by them for a long time. Many of you are thinking of that sin right now. You’ve tried to quit drinking, but it just keeps coming back. You know you should control your mouth, and sometimes you do for a little bit, but then the words just jump out again. Or maybe your battle isn’t the sins that you need to stop doing, but maybe it’s the sin of not doing something you’re supposed to be doing. You’ve tried setting aside some time for reading your Bible, but you always quit after a few days. Or you know you ought to be generously giving away your time and money for the good of others, but there’s still so many things -I- want to do with that time or with that money. Maybe I’ll be generous later. 

     And once sin grabs a hold of you for a long enough time, you just resign yourself to it and think there’s no hope here. This is the end for me. Things have gotten too bad. This is the snare I’ll be in until I die. And it’s true. It is the place you’ll die. It is the sin you’ll take with you all the way to your grave. You aren’t strong enough to fight it. Satan will overpower you and defeat you. 

     That is, if the Lord had not been on our side. But the Lord IS on our side. The Lord does rescue. And I don’t want to say that tritely or in some sort of cliche way. But it’s so easy for us to forget that. 

     David himself knew that God was on his side. Do you remember the whole David and Goliath story? Goliath is this enormous giant and everyone in Israel’s army is terrified of fighting him. But David says, “The battle is the Lord’s and he will give you into our hand”. He knew God was on his side and he had absolute confidence.

Did you ever wonder what would have gone through David’s head if that first stone he threw at Goliath missed? Do you think David’s confidence would have wavered? Or what if Goliath had actually gotten in a couple jabs or hits first? Do you think David would have thought “I was completely wrong about this. God does not deliver. He does not save. I’m doomed.” Honestly, I don’t think so. Do you remember in that story that David picked up five stones for his sling, not just one? There’s a good chance he thought the battle might be a bit more prolonged than it actually was. I’m sure if his first stone missed he would have said, “Ok, I guess God wants to save us with the second stone not the first.” And if all five stones missed, he would have thought, “This is great. God is going to save us in some other miraculous way that I can’t even predict.” But the kind of faith he had wasn’t an “I’ll cross my fingers and hope this works” kind of faith. It was absolute unshakeable confidence.

From the moment David was a boy until the moment he died an old man and the king, he knew that God was a God who delivers and who saves and he never doubted it. Look at the consistency of his belief here. 1 Samuel 17:37, this is what David when he’s a young boy says before fighting Goliath:

And David said, “The Lord who delivered me from the paw of the lion and from the paw of the bear will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine.”

Later on David is being pursued by King Saul and Saul wants to kill him. On one occasion, he says this to Saul in 1 Samuel 26:24:

“May my life be precious in the sight of the Lord, and may he deliver me out of all tribulation.”

After Saul dies, David becomes the new king of Israel and he faces all kinds of turmoil within his nation. At one point his own son starts a rebellion against him and tries to steal the throne, but God saves him and David says,

“You delivered me from strife with my people;

    you kept me as the head of the nations;” - 2 Samuel 22:44

And finally when David is an old man and is practically on his deathbed, with that same confidence that he had when he ran to fight Goliath as a child, he says:

“The Lord lives, who has redeemed my soul out of every adversity.” - 1 Kings 1:29

It didn’t matter how bad things go or what shape he was in or how tall his enemy was, David had that same consistent certainty. God alone delivers and God always delivers. There may have been times when David was on the run. David was hiding in a cave. David’s own son wanted to kill him. But even in those moments. He knew God always rescues in the end.

     Can we have this same confidence? Can we be certain God will be our deliverer? If you’re a Christian then the answer is a resounding YES! And even more so than the confidence David has because while certainly he had seen God save them in the past, David was ultimately looking forward to a complete and perfect salvation he knew would come in the future. We have the great benefit of being able to look backward and see that the salvation has already happened. Christ has already defeated sin. We have already been rescued from our greatest threat and every other danger is petty by comparison. We can have confidence that he’ll continue to save and continue to rescue.

     And what is the only stipulation? What are the only requirements necessary to be rescued by God? You call out to him. You trust him. And you wait. Maybe he delivers you before you fall into the snare. Maybe he rescues you after you fall into the snare. But the Lord will always set you free. No place is too far for him to reach. Nothing is stronger than him. Verse 8 reminds us “Our help is in the name of the Lord who made heaven and earth.”

     If your rescue is certain, if your confidence in God is unshakeable, how does our heart respond right now?

Point #3 – Our heart bids us praise (vs. 6a)

     This is just a small line in our psalm, but it’s right in the middle. The way Hebrew poetry works is that sometimes they’ll use a structure where the middle of the poem holds the most important line and this is one such psalm. At the very center of Psalm 124 in verse 6 it says, “Blessed be the Lord”.

“Blessed be the Lord.” That’s why he wrote this psalm. He wants everyone to praise God. You can see it in verse 1 too - “Let Israel now say”. He’s calling everyone together. He’s telling them to all think about the same thing. Remember that great deliverance God provided, now use that as the source and the motivation for worship and thanksgiving.

     Don’t forget, this is a Song of Ascents. They’re on their way to Jerusalem for a festival. They are on their way to worship. The only reason they are able to sing praise is because they’ve been freed or at the very least they have confidence that they will be freed. For the Jews this salvation story went all the way back to Egypt. They were slaves under Pharoah. They had no strength or hope for saving themselves. And then in a miraculous way that no one expected and with relentless power God saved them. And he continued to save them through a wilderness. He continued to save them against multitudes of enemies. And now they are able to go to the house of the Lord and worship. Will there be more enemies and more problems after David’s life is over? Absolutely. Would they have to do battle with their own sinfulness in addition to battling others? You bet. But are they still able to celebrate and praise with confidence? YES! Because God had freed them in the past and we will free them again in the future. He always frees.

     This is why Christians gather on Sunday mornings to sing. We worship the one who set us free. Blessed be the Lord. But let me ask a question to some of you. There are some here who simply don’t sing. The words come up on the screen, the piano plays, the worship leader directs us, and you just stare. Why? Why is that?

Think about it. And don’t feel like you have to defend yourself to me. I’m not the one who has commanded you to sing. The Lord is. So, seriously consider your heart. If Jesus were to stand next to you in worship and say, “Why is it that you don’t sing to me?” What would your answer be?

     Would you say, “Oh I don’t have a very good voice”? I’m not so sure that he would care about that. Maybe you would say, “I don’t really like this song very much.” I think Jesus might just lift a single eyebrow to you at that one. I think the reason many of us don’t sing is a bit deeper than the superficial reasons. There are problems deep in our hearts when it comes to singing. In fact, I think you’ll find the same problem in the hearts of some people who do sing as well. What is the disconnect? What’s the difficulty with our singing?

     When you read this psalm, when you read Psalm 124, I think you can recognize the joy in David’s heart. He sees what would have happened to him and then he sees what did happen to him. He sees the destruction that he was headed for, but then he sees the freedom and salvation that God accomplished. And his response to this is intense joyfulness. If you’ve ever had a day where you’re experiencing intense joyfulness for any reason, you’re just skipping around all morning, dancing while you make your coffee or while you brush your teeth, then you know that you’re probably singing something. It doesn’t matter much what it is either. You’ll sing a horrible cheesy song with gusto when you’re filled with joy, And it’s because you the song itself isn’t really the point, the expression of your joyfulness is the point.

So when you experience difficulty singing in church, our response should not be “I’ll participate once the style changes” or “If we had a higher quality set then I would be more willing to sing”. Instead we should pray, “God, fill my heart with greater joy in what you’ve done so that it overflows with singing. God, help me to remember what I was saved from and help me to recognize what I’ve been saved to. And on days when I’m not feeling joyous, God, fill me with hope in the salvation I know is still coming, so that when I can’t sing for joy, I can sing for hope.”

     Because Christian, this psalm perfectly describes the salvation that comes through Jesus Christ, a thousand years before he arrived. 

“If it had not been Jesus Christ who was on our side, let the church now say, if it had not been Jesus Christ who was on our side, when sin rose up against us it would have swallowed us alive. When Satan’s power was against us, when death was hovering over us, when God’s own wrath was justly kindled against us, then we would have been swept away. Like the destruction in the days of Noah’s flood, every one in this room would have been crushed with no ability to resist.

But blessed be the Lord, who has not given us up to the consequences of our own sin. We have escaped from death, from the fires of hell, the snare is broken, the curse is broken, and we have escaped. Our help is in the name of Jesus Christ, who came from heaven to earth, to freely give his life in exchange for ours. Blessed be the Lord.”

Praise the Lord, we’re not dead. Instead we’re far from it.

Let me pray and we’ll sing praise to that God right now.