So again a very good morning to all of you. Perhaps good afternoon or even good evening to some of you. I think by now most of us are rather used to this form of worship where we follow online, but hope we don’t get too used to this form of worship because we must remember that it is just not normal. We mustn’t get too used to not physically meeting, not too used to not seeing people, not too used to not partaking of the Lord’s communion as we are unable to do so for a long time. And so, let us continue to look to the Lord, to plead and ask that He may restore our lives back, that there might be some normalcy. Normalcy in a good sense that we might be able to once again to gather as God’s people to worship Him.

Now we are encouraged, I believe, by the hymns that we sang just now. Hymns that reminds us of great truths of the Scripture, that reminds us of our need of the Saviour and in times like these that we really have an anchor in our Lord Jesus Christ. We are encouraged by the reading of Psalms (Psalm 108), and we want to continue to be encouraged by the Word of God even now as we look to His Word again. So I’ll like to continue to look at the Psalms by drawing your attention to Psalm 124. As I said, I want to encourage you with these words of the Lord. I believe here in this psalm there is something so very special to speak to all of us again in times like these. So let me just read the psalm.

Psalm 124, here is a psalm of a song of ascents, and this is a psalm of David. Now I’m reading beginning in verse 1. It says: ““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 men rose up against us, then they would have swallowed us alive, when their wrath was kindled against us; Then the waters would have overwhelmed us, the stream would have gone over our soul; Then the swollen waters would have gone over our soul.”

Blessed be the LORD, Who has not given us as prey to their teeth. Our soul has escaped as 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. Now let us again bow in prayer.

“Our dear Father in heaven, indeed we need encouragement. We need assurance. And therefore, we come to You and we come to Your Word, and we pray that in these times when many are discouraged and affected by the pandemic and the dangers around us, affected by the loss of job, affected by the inability to meet people or even to see our loved ones. We come now, O Lord, and look to You for encouragement and pray O Lord that You might through Your Word again speak to us. And so we commit the rest of this time unto Your hands, for we pray and ask in Jesus’ name, Amen.”

Now there is an old song called “Imagine”, and I believe that those of you who are my age alright might remember that well-known song written by John Lennon. But I guess that even the younger generation have come to know this song because it’s made popular again today. In the song, John Lennon wrote: “Imagine there is no heaven, it’s easy if you try. No hell below us, above us, only sky. Imagine all the people, living for today. Imagine there is no countries. It isn’t hard to do. Nothing to kill or die for, and no religion, too. Imagine, that is what the writer of the song ask us to do. Imagine, now this is what the psalmist is also asking us to do. He’s inviting us to just imagine for a moment what life would be like apart from God’s intervention.

I think it is a good exercise from time to time for us to actually think for a moment and to imagine what life would be like if God were not on our side. Where would you be? Perhaps you would not even be a Christian. You’ll be walling up by your sin or what might happen to you. You know there are many things that happen to people every day. Some are crushed perhaps by a falling stone or building or killed in an accident. Now many things could have happened to us. Imagine if these things happened to us. Now this is a good exercise as I say also if you are perhaps depressed at the moment because of your situation. Now imagine, the psalmist says. Perhaps it could have been worse. It could have been worse.

But it is also a good exercise for those who are perhaps are having it so good. You are in your comfort zone. You feel rather comfortable. Now we should learn to appreciate that it is indeed by the grace of God that you are enjoying the blessing that you are enjoying. If that were taken away from you, imagine what would have happened to you. And so the first thing I want to say about this psalm is the psalmist is inviting us to imagine life otherwise. Now the second thing I want to say about this psalm is that this psalm is meant to encourage us who are believers. Are you a Christian? Have you come to trust in the Lord Jesus Christ? Is Jesus Christ your anchor in this time of your life?

Now this psalm as I said is meant to encourage us who are believers to remind us that because we are believers, God who is in control of all things is on our side. In other words, there is a God, and He is for us. Now as we look at this psalm, we can see that this psalm is actually quite neatly in a sense divided into two parts. And so we shall look at them in turn. The first is in the first five verses. Now listen as I read again these verses. “If it had not been the LORD (the psalmist says) who was on our side”. And then he encourages the whole nation of Israel (the Israelites) to say the same. He says: Let us all say. Let us all who are the people of God say so.

“If it had not been the LORD who was on our side, when men rose up against us, then they would have swallowed us alive, when their wrath was kindled against us; Now then the waters would have overwhelmed us, the stream would have gone over our soul; Then the swollen waters would have gone over our soul.” The psalmist is using imageries here. Words, picture words to help us understand the kind of dangers that might have happened to us if the Lord was not on our side. Now he is saying that to the people of God, the children of Israel and ask them to think about this.

In other words, for us to understand really what the psalmist is saying here, we must first understand this that there is a God and that everything, including our lives, all the circumstances of our lives, are governed and ordered by God. There is a God, and everything, including all that is happening to us in our lives, are governed and ordered by the Lord. Now listen to what Paul said in the book of Acts chapter 17. Acts chapter 17, and he said this to the philosophers of his days.

Acts chapter 17, beginning in verse 24, and Paul said this: “God, who made the world and everything in it, now since He is the Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands. Nor is He worshipped with men’s hands, as though He needed anything, since He gives to all life, breath, and all things. And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings”. You heard what Paul said to the people then about God that this is God. He says there is a God, and this is a God who made everything- the world and everything in it.

And this is the God, he says in verse 25, He is the One who gives us life and breath and all things that you are alive today. It is because of God’s doing. He is the One who gives us every breath that we breathe in. And He is the One according to verse 26 that has determined our preappointed times. He determines when we will be born and will die or get sick. Everything about our lives, God has predetermined. Now that is the first thing to grasp in order to understand what the psalmist is trying to say here that we must understand as Paul tells us that there is a God, the true and living God, and He is in absolute control of all things.

He’s the One who gives us life, He is the One who protects us, and He is the One who takes away life. Now the prophet Isaiah says the same thing about God in Isaiah chapter 46. Isaiah chapter 46 and reading verses 9 and 10. This is what the prophet said: “Remember (in verse 9 of 46)”. “Remember the former things of old, for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like Me”. What kind of God is He? Verse 10: “Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times that are not yet, saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will do all My pleasure,”. My counsel shall stand. All His plans will come to pass, that is what it means. God will accomplish whatever pleases Him. He has a plan, and He will carry out that plan.

And that plan includes everything in the universe, and that plan includes everything about your life. What is happening to you now is included in His plan. Whether you are alive or dead is up to Him. He predetermines everything. Now this is a truth that many has failed to grasp, thinking that we are the determiner of our own destiny, that whatever happens to us is within our means, it is in our hands. No, my friend. That is not true. Everything that is happening to us is because of God. Because of God. Therefore we must understand as the Bible tells us that nothing happens by chance. There’s no accident in our life. There’s no such thing as lucky or unlucky as Solomon writes in Proverbs 16: “The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the LORD.”.

In other words, Solomon is saying that even when you throw the dice, when it drops down, it’s God who determines alright what it turns out to be. It is God who determines everything. Every single thing, every minute thing, the smallest to the biggest events in our lives are determined by God. Now that is crucial for us to understand. And what the psalmist is trying to help us see is that once you understand that as the people of God, it brings tremendous encouragement to us. Now sometimes we think things are not in our hands. We are not in control, and therefore it is not a good thing. Let me tell you, it is a good thing that things are not in your control but it is in God’s control. It is in God’s control.

Now the question then is: What would happen if this God who decides everything, who determines everything that will happen to you. If this God is not on your side, if this God who determines everything is not on your side, this is what the psalmist first invites us to think about. He says imagine if this God is not on our side. That’s what he means in the first two verses: “If it had not been the LORD who was on our side”. If He had not been on our side, can you imagine what life would be like for you? The consequences, the psalmist says here, would then be unimaginable. Have you ever thought about that that if God who controls everything is not on your side, have you ever thought about that? What would that mean to you?

It would mean, the psalmist says, the consequences will be terrible. Terrible. And that’s why we see he uses picture words in verses 3 to 5. Then he said we would have been swallowed up alive when the enemies come, whatever the enemies might be. But when it comes, it could be in the form of people. It could be in the form of viruses. When it comes, can you stop it? Nothing. It would have swallowed us up. It will like the flood as it were, a tidal wave that comes and we’re being sweep away by the tsunami of the tidal waves. And that is the picture. We are utterly helpless. What can you do when the tsunami comes at you? It can even remove buildings. What more to take you away and take your life away?

Even the tiniest thing, we have no way to fight. Things that we cannot see- bacteria, virus, we cannot see these things. Now that is what the psalmist is saying. It would be terrible. It would be terrible, that’s what he says here. Now perhaps the psalmist here is thinking of some incidences in the history of the Israelites. Perhaps he was thinking of Exodus chapter 2. Exodus chapter 2. Now turn with me for a moment to Exodus chapter 2, and I’ll like to read the last few verses there beginning in verse 23 of Exodus 2. Now it says here concerning the situation or the condition of the children of Israel at that time.

Verse 23: “Now it happened in the process of time that the king of Egypt died. Then the children of Israel groaned because of the bondage, and they cried out; and their cry came up to God because of the bondage.”. Verse 24: “So God heard their groaning, and God remembered His covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. And God looked down upon the children of Israel, and God acknowledged them.”. Now this perhaps is one of those instances that the psalmist had in mind. He is asking this nation, the Israelites, and said: Do you remember the time when you were under bondage, your spirit was crushed by the Egyptian slave master? Can you remember those days when you were groaning and you were crying out for help?

It was intolerable- the pain and the sufferings. Perhaps some people, some of us might be going through some pain and suffering like these. But the psalmist is reminding them: Did you remember? Do you remember the time when you were groaning in pain? And you know what? God came to your aid. Why? Because He was on your side. He said imagine if God was not on your side, you would have been crushed by the Egyptians. Imagine if God was not on your side, He wouldn’t have raised Moses to be your saviour. Imagine if God was not on your side.

Now Moses could have been thinking of that (Mistakenly mentioned “Moses”, supposedly “David”). But God was on your side, and that’s why He sent the plagues, and that’s why He raised Moses, and that’s why He did so many of these things. Or perhaps the psalmist was thinking of First Samuel chapter 17. First Samuel chapter 17, and here we read of this account, this well-known account in First Samuel chapter 17, beginning in verse 4. Verse 4 of First Samuel 17 says: “When a champion went out from the camp of the Philistines, named Goliath, from Gath, whose height was six cubits and a span.”. The writer here takes time to describe this man, Goliath. Verse 5: “He had a bronze helmet on his head, he was armed with a coat of mail, and the weight of the coat was five thousand shekels of bronze.

And he had bronze armour on his legs and a bronze javelin between his shoulders. Now the staff of his spear was like a weaver’s beam, and his iron spearhead weighed six hundred shekels; and a shield-bearer went before him. Now then he stood and cried out to the armies of Israel, and said to them, “Why have you come out to line up for battle? Am I not a Philistine, and you the servants of Saul? Choose a man for yourselves, and let him come to me. If he is able to fight with me and kill me, then we will be your servants. But if I prevail against him and kill him, then you shall be our servants and serve us.””.

Do you remember the time, the psalmist seems to be saying to the Israelites? Do you remember the time when the whole army was standing before this man called Goliath and the army of the Philistine? Do you remember he said in verse 10: “And the Philistine said, “I defy the armies of (Israel) this day; give me a man, that we may fight together.” And then when Saul (verse 11) and all Israel heard these words of the Philistine, they were dismayed and greatly afraid.”? There was a threat. There was the enemy. Perhaps the psalmist was thinking about that when he said: “When men rose up against us”.

The men could be the Egyptians during the days when they were in bondage. The men here could be the Philistines when Goliath appeared before them, and the whole of Israel, we are told, were in fear. Were in fear. And the psalmist says if the Lord had not been our side, imagine what would have happened to us? You see, the story of Goliath is a story about God on our side. That is what the psalmist is reminding them. And the psalmist could just go on incidents after incidents of the history of the people of God. Can you reflect as a child of God in time pass again and again, you can testify to this great truth that God is on your side? And that is the challenge. That is the question he was posing to the Israelites. Do you remember that?

Time and time again if God had not been on our side, what would have happened to us? Worse things could have happened. Now we are not exactly sure the specific situation or incident that David had in mind when he wrote this psalm, but it really doesn’t matter because in any situation if God is not on our side it would be terrible. In any situation, if God is not on our side, then we are finished. We are doomed. That is what the psalmist is saying in the first place. What if God is not on our side? Then the second thing the psalmist says here in this psalm is this. So first, he asked them or asked us to imagine God is not on our side.

And then secondly, from verses 6 through 8, he says: “But blessed be the LORD, Who has not given us as prey to their teeth. Our soul has escaped as 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.”. Now listen to what the psalmist is saying. I said this psalm is meant to encourage us who are the people of God. If you are a child of God, you have this assurance because you are a child of God, because God is your God. God is on our side. God is on our side, and therefore the second thing he wants to say in this psalm is that but thank God!

Imagine if God is not on your side, but he says thank God that God is on our side. Now do you realise that as God’s people? Do we realise that as a church that God is on our side? Can we not say this morning: Praise the Lord or Blessed be the Lord who has not given us as prey to their teeth? Praise God. In other words, God is on our side. Now Exodus 14 is a great example of this. We flip over now to Exodus chapter 14, we see this truth clearly in the lives of again the people of God.

Exodus chapter 14, beginning in verse 10: “When Pharaoh drew near, and the children of Israel lifted their eyes, and behold, the Egyptians marched after them. So they were very afraid, and the children of Israel cried out to the LORD. And they said to Moses, “Because there were no graves in Egypt, have you taken us away to die in the wilderness? Why have you so dealt with us, to bring us up out of Egypt? Is this not the word that we told you in Egypt, saying, ‘Let us alone that we may serve the Egyptians’? For it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than that we should die in the wilderness.””.

They understand their precarious situation now. The Egyptians are coming after them angry, and they are going to finish them off. They understand their situation. Verse 13: “Then Moses said to the people, “Do not be afraid.””. And that is what Psalm 124 is saying to us. We know the situation is terrible. We know the dangers are all around us, and they are coming nearer and nearer at us. But do not be afraid, Moses said. Do not be discouraged. Why? Moses said to the people: Do not be afraid. Why? Because he says: “Stand still, and see the (deliverance or the) salvation of the LORD, which He will accomplish for you today. For the Egyptians (the enemies that are coming at you) whom you see today, you shall see them again no more forever.”.

The dangers that you see coming at you, God can easily remove that danger from your life. That is what Moses is saying to the people, to encourage them. Verse 14: “The LORD will fight for you”. The Lord is on your side, “and you shall hold your peace”. You see, can you not see as people of God in whatever situation you might be, whatever danger, can you not see that God is there for you? God is for you, not against you. And so we read in verse 30: “So the LORD saved Israel that day out of the hand of the Egyptians, and Israel saw the Egyptians dead on the seashore.”.

They saw with their eyes their enemies who at one time looked so formidable, they were coming at them, they think that they would be crushed. But because the Lord is on their side, and now in verse 30 they saw the Egyptian dead, drowned by the same water that saved them. Now, that is what the psalmist is saying. Now what does this call to mind? What does this tell us this morning? Now it calls to mind this or it reminds us of this. It reminds us of God’s covenant commitment to His people. It reminds us of God’s covenant commitment to His people, and that is what verse 8 is about. Psalm 124:8- “Our help (the psalmist says) is in the name of Yahweh”.

That is a reminder. Where comes our help? Why should God help us? It is because of His covenant commitment to His people. You might remember just now when I was reading from Exodus 2. Remember when they were in that situation, they were enslaved by the Egyptians, they were groaning in their pain and suffering, we are told in Exodus 2:24- “So God heard their groaning, and remembered His covenant with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob.”. God remembered His covenant. In other words, God has made a promise that He will never leave us nor forsake us. That is a promise from God that He will never let His people perish. He will always- always save His people, even from the greatest of dangers in this world. No danger is big enough to thwart God’s plan. No, nothing.

God is able to help us in the greatest of our danger. Our help is in the name- the name of the Lord, the name of the name Yahweh, meaning to say that is the covenant name of God. That is the name that reminds us of God’s promise to us that He will always be with us, that He will always keep us safe, that He will always save us. Always. God never forsake His people. Now that is what is at the heart of our relationship with God. Do you have a relationship with God? Are you His? And what is at the heart of this relationship? It is His covenant love for us. His love for us is an eternal love. It’s a love that is forever and ever. It is an unceasing love. It is a love that is completed and utterly faithful to us.

That is what the psalmist is reminding us here in verse 8. Our help, our encouragement, our comfort is in the fact that our God is a covenant-keeping God. And it is in appreciation of this that causes Paul to exclaim in Romans 8:31. Now this is in Paul’s mind when he writes this. Romans 8:31- “What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?”. Now Paul probably had this psalm in mind when he writes these words that God is for us. And if He is for us, now what and who can be against us?

Verse 33: “Who shall bring a charge against God’s elect?”. Verse 34: “Who is he who condemns?”. Verse 35: “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?”. Who? What? Nothing! Nothing can take us away from God’s love. Nothing can take us away from God’s commitment to us. He is utterly, completely, totally committed to us. Are we totally, utterly committed to Him? What kind of a relationship is this that we have with God? What kind of a relationship? And this is what the psalmist is saying. It goes right to the heart of our relationship with God. But how do we know, you might ask that God is utterly committed to us? We want proof. We want evidence that God is completely committed to us, that He is utterly for us.

Verse 32 of Romans 8, Paul says: “He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all”. And you still say that God is not for you when He has given us His very best, and we still doubt Him that He is not for us? How do we know that God is utterly for us? It is this: It is the cross of Jesus Christ. God did not spare His Son, but He sent Him to the cross to die for us. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. That is the proof. That is the evidence that God is on our side- that God is on our side. If God had not been on our side, there is no limit to the catastrophe that Israel would have known.

If God is not on our side, there is no limit to the catastrophe that we would face. And therefore you see the psalmist writes: “Then we would have been swallowed up”. We would have been overwhelmed by the flood. We would have been given as prey. We will not escape if God had not been with us. Can you imagine on the Day of Judgement the danger, the catastrophe that is before us, and that is hellfire. The hellfire. But God is for us. We will be saved from that. We shall not be overwhelmed. We shall not be swallowed up. That is what the psalmist is saying. And I say, he is writing this psalm to encourage the people of God, the Israelites. And this psalm this morning is meant to encourage us.

And I believe that the truth of these psalms is quite clearly depicted in the words of this hymn “Be still, my soul: The Lord is on thy side. Bear patiently the cross of grief or pain. Leave to thy God to order and provide; In every change, He faithful will remain. Be still, my soul: Thy best, thy Heav’nly Friend through thorny ways leads to a joyful end.” And the second stanza. “Be still, my soul: Thy God doth undertake to guide the future, as He has the past. Thy hope, thy confidence let nothing shake; All now mysterious shall be bright at last. Be still, my soul: The waves and winds still know His voice who ruled them while He dwelt below.”

So we shall now respond to the Word of God by singing this beautiful hymn, hymn on your screen and in the hymnal is Hymn 40: “Be Still, My Soul”.

Let us close in prayer.

“Our Father in heaven, indeed we want to thank You again for Your precious Word to encourage us. Indeed we can’t imagine if God had not been on our side what would have happened to us. And we want to praise You and thank You that because we are Your people that You are utterly committed to care for us and to keep us safe. And so, Lord we pray that we may learn to glory and rejoice in this great truth and move forward in life with great encouragement and confidence because indeed Your name is Yahweh, God who has promised us and God who keeps His promise, for these, we pray in Jesus’ name, Amen.”

This transcript has been lightly edited for readability.