Please turn in your Bibles this morning to Psalm 124, Psalm 124, right about in the middle of your Bible, page 656 in the Pew Bible. We take up our series again of the Songs of Ascent, a series of songs sung by God's people on pilgrimage to worship. And as we've seen, these songs remind us that we too are pilgrims on our way to worship the Lord. We're on our way to heavenly Zion where we'll congregate around the Lord Jesus Christ and worship Him face to face, body and soul. But until that day, as citizens of the heavenly Jerusalem, we congregate around the throne of grace here in this world through faith. Especially as we gather as one body for worship, corporate worship, body worship, even as we are right now. Psalm 124 speaks to us as the people of God, here together, as a whole, as the church, about our experience as pilgrims. As I read it, you will note that all the pronouns are about us and our, not about me or I. This song challenges our forgetfulness of God's grace and leads us to praise God for His faithfulness. Do we need His challenge? Do we need His challenge? We do. We are forgetful. We are forgetful. Even the most vivid memories are but a pale reflection of the actual events that we remember. Think of a time when you were completely helpless or someone you love or in grave danger or overwhelmed by fear. Remember a time. Do you have it? How vivid is that memory? Does it seem like it was just yesterday? Even if it seems like it was just yesterday, it's not the same as if it were right now. For ever since that moment when the Lord intervened to help or to deliver or to relieve you, the world, the flesh, and the devil have conspired to reconstruct history in your mind, to cloud your memory of God's intervening grace, and to undermine your thankfulness and praise to God. We are a forgetful people. We need this challenge. Do we need it's leading, it's leading to praise our God. We do. Because we thank and praise God for His help only when we're convinced and trust that His grace alone is sufficient to uphold us. Not only to save us once and for all, but also to guard us and to keep us every day of our lives. And because we're forgetful people, we're not always convinced. We're not always trusting. And therefore we need this song to lead us to praise. So these two ways, Psalm 124 assures us that the Lord is our help. It begins in verses 1 through 5 by answering this question. What if he was not? And it ends in verses 6 through 8 by leading us to praise because we trust that he is. Hear now the word of God, Psalm 124, a song of ascents. Of David. If it had not been the Lord who was on our side, let Israel now say, if it had not been the Lord who was on our side when people rose up against us, then they would have swallowed us up alive when their anger was kindled against us. Then the flood would have swept us away. The torrent would have gone over us. Then over us would have gone the raging waters. Blessed be the Lord who has not given us as prey to their teeth. We have escaped like a bird from the snare of the fowlers. The snare is broken, and we have escaped. Our help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth. So says God to his people. The Lord is our help, but what if he was not? Giving no particulars, the psalmist invites Israel to call to mind times when the people had risen up against them. When their anger was kindled against them. When the people of God were attacked and oppressed and all looked like it would be lost. Times such as in Egypt, when the people, once favored under Joseph, were enslaved as a nation. Or closer to David's time when the Philistines attacked Israel and overthrew the armies of Saul so that Saul and Jonathan were both killed. And he invites us today to remember even more as we look back over the history of the church in the world. Big events and small, but big ones that come to mind when Rome drove the church into the catacombs. When Islam expanded throughout the Middle Ages. When the Philistines, I'm sorry, when communist governments outlawed the church. All was feared lost. All seemed hopeless. And events like these highlight the absolute opposition between the Lord, who is God, and fallen men's effort to dethrone Him and to destroy His people. It's been going on ever since the garden, since the serpent, and Adam. And it will continue until the end of days. With such things in mind, he begins by saying and invites the people of God to join him in saying, if it had not been the Lord who was on our side, then things would have gone very badly. Then they would have been swallowed up alive. Like a monster, big and powerful enough to gulp them down with a single chump. Children, you remember the story of Jonah, how he was swallowed by a great fish. Then they would have been overwhelmed, as with a flood. A flash flood, as through a slot canyon. Pastor Gordon sent me a picture from a slot canyon this week. It was beautiful. And it's beautiful until the flood comes through. And it comes through without warning. And it comes through like a freight train. And it sweeps away everything in its path. The flood would have swept us away. The torrent would have gone over us. Over us would have gone the raging waters. If it had not been the Lord who was on our side, they would have eaten us alive. They would have overwhelmed us like a flood. With these two images of sudden and complete destruction, we are pressed to recognize and to remember the fact that without the Lord's gracious help, The people of God would be destroyed. The church of Jesus Christ would be no more. The world continues to oppose the Lord and his people. As do the devil and our very own flesh. Jesus warned that in the world we would have tribulation. Peter warned our adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour. And Paul warned that the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God. It does not submit to God's law, indeed it cannot. There's a war going on. And we're up to our necks. If the Lord was not on our side, the world, the devil, and our own flesh, would prevail. The church and all our members would be swallowed up alive and overwhelmed as with the flood if the Son of God had not come into the world to save sinners. If he had not lived the righteous life that we're obliged to live. If he had not died the accursed death that we deserve to die. If he had not been raised on the third day for our justification. If he had not ascended to the right hand of God to assume his throne. if he'd not poured out the Holy Spirit on the church to apply his work then as Paul says our faith is futile and we would be dead in our trespasses and sins be destined to perish in the grave and be subject to God's wrath and the torments of hell if in Christ we have hope for this life only we of all people are most to be pity Paul said the Holy Spirit by these images has stopped us in our tracks to have us consider how forgetful we are of our need for the Lord's saving and preserving grace and of his faithfulness as our refuge and strength of very present health and trouble we're forgetful and the psalmist calls us to remember and to think about and to ponder what it would be like if indeed the Lord was not our help so that we might repent of presuming on Him even as we trust for help in power and in wealth and in knowledge and in technology in chance but most of all in ourselves. The Lord is our help but what if He were not? well having challenged us with this graphic reminder of what would happen if the Lord were not our help the psalmist turns in verses 6 through 8 to lead us in praising the Lord because he is our help the Lord is our help and we trust that he is how can we be sure because of what he shows us in verses 6 and 7 again by images with snapshots. Two images of sudden, unexpected, and complete salvation that encourage us to recognize and remember the fact that the Lord has helped His people by saving us by His grace alone. The first image in verse 6 is that of the Lord snatching His people out of the jaws of death. It is the Lord who has not given us this prey to their teeth. He did not give Daniel to the prey of their teeth when he was cast in the lion's den for worshiping the Lord instead of worshiping a human king. And in the same way, the Lord has not given His people into the jaws of sin and death, but instead has given us righteousness and eternal life to all who trust in Jesus Christ so that on the last day this will come to pass. Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting? The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God who gives us the victory through Jesus Christ, our Lord. The Lord has not given us as prey to their teeth, not even the teeth of death. The second image in verse 7 is that of the Lord setting His people free by breaking their bonds. it's the image of a fowler now there's a word we use a lot a fowler is a hunter of fowl ducks and geese with nets and traps he captures them alive because he wants to use them for his own purposes maybe to harvest their eggs or to fatten them up for the marketplace but he hides and waits to capture his prey in Jeremiah chapter 5 the Lord compares wicked men to fowlers They lurk like fowlers in wait. They set a trap. They catch men. In 2 Timothy 2, Paul describes the devil like a fowler who captures men in a snare in order to make them do his will, to hold them captive. And it is the Lord who has freed his people from such bondage. Just as the Lord broke the bondage of Egypt, that enslaved his people Israel and set them free from the tyranny of Pharaoh. He has broken the bonds of sin and death that enslaved his saints and has set us free from the tyranny of the devil. We have escaped like a bird from the snare of the fowlers. The snare is broken and we have escaped. How so? The death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Paul explains it in Romans chapter 6. that through faith in Jesus Christ we are united with Him and we know that our old self was crucified with Him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing and so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin. And therefore, because Jesus Christ has delivered us from this body of death, Paul says in Romans 8, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free from the law of sin and death. And Jesus himself promised that if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. The Lord alone has and will deliver his people and preserve his church until he comes again in glory to bring us home to himself. And in the meantime, the stability and the vitality of the church and her members is not bound up in our own strength. We are forgetful. We are plagued by sin. But it is bound up in the strength of the Lord who has promised that the gates of hell shall not prevail against his church. That does not mean our lives will be trouble-free, and we all know that, do we not? but it does mean that all of our troubles that in all of our troubles the Lord is our help so that we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us if God is for us who can be against us nothing will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus the Lord is our help we trust that he is and therefore with the saints of all ages we worship Him. We worship together. We worship as His people. That's why we come here together on the Lord's Day to worship our God as His people called by His name and set free in Jesus Christ. And in verse 6 of our text He puts praise on our lips. Blessed be the Lord. Blessed be the Lord. humbled by and grateful for his saving and preserving grace in Jesus Christ, we willingly bend the knee. We willingly praise his name publicly to be known as those who have been saved by grace through faith in Jesus. Verse 8 leaves us with this abiding promise that the minister often announces, as I did to you this morning when God greets us in worship. Our help is in the name of the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth. The Lord alone is able to help his creatures made in his image. He is the one true God, the creator and the sustainer of all things, who alone is all-powerful, all-knowing, all-wise, all-present, all-good. I could go on. And the Lord alone is willing to help his people. not only by sending His only begotten Son into the world to save us, our gracious Savior, Jesus Christ, to set captives free and to give life to the dead, but also by pouring out the Holy Spirit in the church, our faithful guardian, comforter, keeper, to keep and guide us as we make our pilgrimage home. He does so through the means of grace, the preaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ. and the administration of the sacraments when we gather together in worship. These are given to the church. This proclamation, this celebration is given to the church. And we come together to receive them from his hand. Let us come, therefore, to the table of the Lord this morning. Set for us in the presence of our enemies, the world, the devil, our own flesh, and receive through faith by the working of the Spirit the body and the blood of Jesus Christ to nourish our souls under eternal life, to strengthen our faith and to equip us more and more to trust in the Lord with all our heart and not lean on our own understanding and to acknowledge Him in all our way. Let's pray. Our Father in Heaven, you have reminded us again this morning not only of how forgetful we are, but how faithful you are. We thank you that you are our help. That you have set us free once and for all from sin and death. And that you keep us and guard us every step of the way as the church in Jesus Christ, his bride for our wedding day when his return. Thank you, Father, that you accommodate our weakness along the way. That you give us your word like this to remind us of your work for us, of your grace to us, and your forgiveness of us when we forget these things and live as if they are not true. We thank you, Father, that you have proclaimed the goodness that you've shown us in Christ today and that you will proclaim to us your goodness in the sacrament that celebrates his giving his life for us, your people, that we might be set free and preserved into eternity. We thank you for these things in Jesus' name. Amen.