I'd like to have you take your Bibles and turn to Psalm 120. The text this evening is Psalm 121, but you really have to have Psalm 120 and 122 because they bracket that psalm and that gives us the context. Children, when I was little, we all knew what the shortest psalm was. Because when we were asked to read at the table, we often wanted to pick the shortest psalm, which was, yeah, you know that too, don't you? It's 117. And the longest psalm, that's 119. And right after Psalm 119 come 15 psalms. And if you look at your Bible, underneath the number of the psalm, you will find the words, a song of ascents, a song of going up. And sometimes it was believed that these psalms were sung when people came from Babylon back to Israel. But David wrote some of them. So obviously, they were sung a long time before captivity. And Jesus would have sang these songs on his way to Jerusalem when he was 12 years old. Because that's what they would sing on the way to Jerusalem when they would go up for special feasts and things like that. In my Bible, I had listed Psalm 121 as a traveler's psalm. And I had a little note by it that said, roadside assistance. Before you put that in your Bibles, you should listen to the sermon. And if they're the church Bibles, don't put them in, period. Psalm 120, Song of Ascents. In my distress, I called to the Lord, and he answered me, Deliver me, O Lord, from lying lips and from a deceitful tongue. What shall be given to you, and what more shall be done to you, you deceitful tongue? A warrior's sharp arrows with glowing coals of the broom tree. Woe to me that I sojourn in Meshach, and that I dwell among the tents of Kedar. Too long have I had my dwelling among those who hate peace. I am for peace, but when I speak, they are for war. Psalm 121. I lift my eyes to the hills from where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord who made heaven and earth. He will not let your foot be moved. He who keeps you will not slumber. Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. The Lord is your keeper. The Lord is your shade and your right hand. The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night. The Lord will keep you from all evil. He will keep your life. The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forevermore. Psalm 122, a song of a sense of David. I was glad when they said to me, let us go to the house of the Lord. Our feet have been standing within your gates, O Jerusalem. Jerusalem built as a city that is bound firmly together to which the tribes go up, the tribes of the Lord, as was decreed for Israel to give thanks to the name of the Lord. There thrones for judgment were set, the thrones of the house of David. Pray for the peace of Jerusalem. May they be secure who love you. Peace be within your walls and security within your towers. For my brethren's and companions' sake, I will say, Peace be within you. For the sake of the house of the Lord our God, I will seek your good. As I said, the passage this evening is really Psalm 121. As I began to study that psalm, this sermon took on a whole different direction than I intended or that I thought it would. And I've entitled the sermon, We Are Living in the Best of Times. And if you looked at the title of the sermon, maybe tonight or even this morning, you must have said, that must be a tricky title or something. There's something wrong with it. Doesn't the consistory vet these guys that preach? Does he live in Meadowbrook? That he thinks that we are living in the best of times? I mean, he doesn't even say as Dickens did, these are the worst of times and the best of times. He doesn't do that. He says we are living in the best of times. How can that be? It must be a trick. All one has to do is look around. Better yet, you could just look at the verse that the psalm that was read this evening, Psalm 120, save me from lying lips. That's what he says. He'll save me from lying lips. That's the kind of world we live in today. We live in a world that is flooded with lies, all kinds of lies, from the lowest to the highest, all the way to the president, from Nixon's Watergate to Clinton's. I did not have sex with that woman. To Obama, if you like your health care, you can keep it. I mean, we are just flooded with lies, from the highest to the lowest. It is so bad that we don't even think it's bad anymore. We joke about it. When do you know a politician is lying? When his lips are moving. That's the kind of world we live in, man. How do you get this title? We are living in the best of times. And we have so many lies today, we don't even think it's bad anymore. I mean to say we kind of live with it, but truth is what holds society together. And when we think about that, if that is true, then woe to me that I live in Meshach and dwell in the tents of Kedar because we live in a lying world and that world is about to implode. And then we haven't even talked yet about the morality, I mean other moral issues. I mean, we have been witnesses to riots. We have been witnesses to beheadings. We have been witnesses to robbery. We hear about abortions. We know about school shootings. I mean, it is one thing after the other. When you think about the filth that comes into our homes through television and through computers, I mean, it is wicked. It is terrible. We can't even define marriage. the institution is being run by the inmates. You look around, it is terrible. As a matter of fact, World Magazine, before the election in October, I think on its cover, I know, on its cover it says, is the world out of control? And there was a survey, I think it was held, I don't know if it was held by Fox or not, and the language isn't mine. I almost apologized for it, but a majority of the people thought, quote, this country is going to hell in a handbasket. How can you talk about we are living in the best of times? Our world is falling apart. And then we haven't talked yet about Christians and the persecution that they suffer. In three quarters of the world today, Christians are under moderate or severe persecution, jailed, beaten, beheaded, children taken from them, jobs lost. How can you even suggest that we are living in the best of times? And I am suggesting that because the wickedness of this world reminds us that we are pilgrims. Reminds us that we are pilgrims. In Pilgrim's Progress, you remember he was asked, What is your name? And he said, My name was Graceless, but now it is Pilgrim. So that's what this psalm is about. It is about a pilgrim's journey. It's not just a traveler's psalm. It's not going from here to Iowa. It's about living in a wicked, wicked, spiritually beleaguered world. That's why these are good times, because they remind us of that. That's what this writer of Psalm 121, he was a pilgrim. He was living in a spiritual wilderness. He was on his way to Jerusalem. and he suggests in the next psalm what a joy this will be to get to Jerusalem. And he uses some very wonderful language for that. He talks in verse 3 about Jerusalem being firmly compacted together. Very strange language, but the idea is that it wasn't torn apart. It wasn't torn apart by war, by fires, or by division. Architecturally, it had a grand design. It wasn't like the county where you can have a house like a hotel in one place and a house like a hovel in the next. No, it was more like a planned community with houses and parks and sidewalks and trees. And that's how it was. He looked at Jerusalem, what a joy it was to get to that city, not only physically together, but spiritually as one. And he goes on to say, Here the tribes go up to meet old friends to worship, verse 4. At last, they can hear God's word explained. He was in a desert. He was in a wilderness. They didn't have synagogues. They didn't have Bibles. They didn't have preachers. I was glad, he begins this psalm, when they said to me, let us go to the house of the Lord. Here they would hear the promises of God. Here they would hear about forgiveness. They would have the Aaronic blessing. They would be able to sacrifice. Their sins would be declared forgiven. What a joy that would be. Verse 5, there are the thrones of judgment. There are thrones for judgment. Justice would be rendered. Decisions would be made. There God's anointed king sat. So he's looking forward to being there. But that's what Psalm 121 is about. It is anticipating that. He is a pilgrim on his way to Jerusalem to be with God's people, to be with God himself in his temple. That's why we still sing this song. Because we are still pilgrims. We are still pilgrims, hopefully making some progress. We are still heading for a far country. That's what Peter suggests when we get to 1 Peter. He says to us, to God's elect, strangers in the world, scattered throughout Bithynia and Asia and Cappadocia and all those different countries. Elect, strangers, scattered, pilgrims. In chapter 2, he says, I urge, chapter 2, verse 11, he says, I urge you as aliens and strangers in this world to abstain from sinful desires which bore against your soul. We are still aliens. We are still pilgrims. That's why we are living in the best of times, because the mask has been taken off. We don't talk about Thanksgiving anymore. It's Turkey Day. Christmas on the Prado has been changed to December nights on the Prado. Prayer has been banned in public schools. The Bible has been banned. The Ten Commandments are banned. The crosses are banned. The mask of the devil has been taken off. We know the kind of land we are living in. It hates God, and it hates the people of God, even though it pretends it doesn't. That's the kind of land we are living in. It is wicked, it is vulgar, it is violent. And it forces us to know that we don't belong here anymore. Sometimes we think about the good old days, you know. The good old days was the family sitting around television and watching Little House on the Prairie. Good old days, maybe for some of you, is when Warren Swelk wasn't a resort, but it was a TV program on Saturday night. It was a TV program where the hottest instrument was the accordion about, you know. And there were no lewd jesters. There was no groping. There were no four-letter words. There was no erotic clothing. It was a program that everybody could watch. We all could catch a star and get the good life. And the good life was a house and a spouse and a few children and a city in which you could have your children run around the street safely. And I'm not being quite fair, but when I say the most pressing need to the church seemed to be to redeem the movies and the dance. And it was unreformed to saying, this world is not my home. I'm just a passing through. It was not reformed. It was too fundamentalistic because we are part of this world and we've got to renew it and redeem it. Christ has redeemed it. We don't redeem it. I submit to you it was a dangerous world. is a world in which we did not realize that we were pilgrims and it was hard to pray, Come, Lord Jesus, Jacob, quickly. But today the violence and the grossness and the wickedness and the immorality and the spiritual minefields and the open hostility to the things of Christ and to the things of God are obvious and it doesn't allow us to be carefree. It doesn't allow us to forget that we are pilgrims in a wicked, wicked, God-hating world. Jesus said, if they hated me, they will hate you. It was the best of times because the mask has been ripped off. Young people, you are in a spiritual battle today. Don't forget it. You are being asked every single day to surrender, to surrender to that wickedness. A little bit at a time. They don't ask for your whole soul. They just want a little bit of it. But tomorrow it will be a little bit more. These are the best of times. Because they remind us that we are pilgrim. We have to sing this song again. And read this psalm again. And be reminded of those things. Children, when your parents were little, it was a long time ago, when they were little, there was a movie, I think it was on TV, it was called E.T., E.T. And E.T. was the person from another planet, and he came on some kind of spaceship and landed in the backyard, And this boy made friends with this E.T. who was from another planet. I think he was all green. Most Martians are green because they eat green cheese. You know that. But he was called E.T. because he was an extraterrestrial. He was an alien. He didn't belong on this earth. And he was such a popular little, it was such a popular movie that they even made little toys of E.T. If you took that little toy and you pulled the string in the back, it would say, I'm E.T. Technology was pretty good in those days, so they could do that. Anyhow, that was an alien. He didn't belong here. He belonged on Mars. That's what the Bible is telling us, that we really don't belong on this earth. Our home is not on Broadway or in Vista or San Marcos. Our real home where we will spend eternity is in heaven. And that's where we're going. We're going to heaven. We're on our way. And heaven is often called the New Jerusalem. And that's why the songs about Jerusalem or the Bibles talk about Jerusalem mean something to us because it reminds us of that New Jerusalem that we're going to. where there will be no more pain and no more tears and no more grandparents dying and no more sickness and no more teasing and no more broken arms and no more bad graves. And best of all, no more sin. It will be with Jesus. That's what this psalm is about. It's about being an ET, an alien. And then it is also about, Since it's a dangerous world, like traveling on the freeway, we're told to put on our seatbelts on every street. As a matter of fact, this psalm reminds us that it's dangerous in this world that we're living. Your parents know that, too, and they've been teaching you that. I suppose some of you even have parents that taught you the same prayer that I was taught when I was little, when I went to bed. Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord my soul to keep. some of you probably have that same prayer because your parents know that God has to watch over us. That's the other thing about this world that we live in. It reminds us not only that we are pilgrims and aliens, but it reminds us that where we have to look for help, that's the second thing that we notice here, and that we look for help to the Lord. And I said that this psalm was about travelers. It was a traveling psalm, and it was a psalm about roadside assistance. I don't know where I got that idea. It's not roadside assistance. We don't want roadside assistance in this work. Roadside assistance is just that. It's just assistance. And when you call up and you say, well, I need some help, and they say, well, how far out? Where are you? Well, I'm in Van Buren County. Oh, no, we don't go out that far. Or you say, they say, are you out of gas? And we say, no, we're not out of gas. I think my timing belt broke. Well, we don't do that. That's roadside assistance. It's often disappointing. But this psalm is talking about complete coverage. Complete coverage. That's what this psalm is about. On a very, very dangerous trip. The psalmist in Psalm 121 looks at the hills and the mountains and we're not told what he is seeing. I mean to say, does he see Jerusalem in the distance? Does he see Jerusalem on a high hill and it is hot and he is thinking about how he is going to finally make it to that high city? Is he looking at the mountains? Is he wondering if there are robbers there? Is he looking at the hills and wondering about the road he still has to travel and wondering whether he's going to get heat stroke because it is so hot? Or is he worried about having to spend another night out because it will be dark and he's afraid of the darkness? Is he looking to the hills because that's where his neighbors look, his wicked neighbors, they look to the hills for Baal to help them? Well, we're not told in this passage what he's actually thinking about, but he is facing dangers. And whatever dangers he is facing, he asks, where does my help come from? That's a question that we ask, too. We think about the world that we face. We think about the dangers ahead of us. We think about raising our children. We think about the church. We wonder how the church can stand in the Middle East, how the progress of God's kingdom will continue, and we wonder whether it can survive, and we ask what the psalmist asks. Where is my help coming from? And the answer is here, and it is very, very simple. It is not complicated. He says, my help is in the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth. And you know what? He could have stopped right there. He didn't need, you could stop right there. You don't need 16 other texts. You could stop right there. It is like Psalm 23. When you get to Psalm 23, the Lord is my shepherd. That's all I want. It doesn't quite go like that, but that's the idea. The Lord is my shepherd. That's all I want. My help is in the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth. I don't know if you sense how sweet, how sustaining, how encouraging that word Lord is. It is all in capital letters, as you notice. And if you notice the Psalms, it is filled with the word Lord with capital letters. Capital L, capital O, R, and D. And it all refers to the same name of God, the name Jehovah or the name Yahweh. For I will say to you the name Father. Because that word Lord, when it's all in capital letters, I'm submitting to you tonight, is equivalent to our word Father. To that which we pray when we say our Father. We don't come to God and say, Sir, holy, holy, holy, the omniscient, the unknowable, the unmovable, the unmovable mover. We don't go to God like that, says Jesus. He commands us to pray, our Father. And that's where we stop. We stop right there. And the Catechism asks us, why did Jesus command us to pray, our Father? Because Christ wanted to ensure that at the very beginning of our prayer, he would kindle within us a childlike awe and lust. That because of Jesus, God is our Father. And just as our fathers will not prohibit any good thing to come to us, even more than that, our Heavenly Father will take care of us. We pray we have to stop right there. Don't hurry to the next petition. That's the idea of this word, Lord. For us, the word Father is an intimate name. It is a personal name. It is a name that belongs only to us. To those who, John chapter 1, verse 13, 14. He came to his own and his own received him not, but to those who received him, to them he gave the right to become children of God. We pray the Lord's Prayer. It's not a public prayer. It's not a public prayer. Sometimes when we have to pray in public, you know, at a city commission meeting or something, and we wonder, well, what are we going to pray? We don't want to be too sectarian. And so, well, I guess I'll just pray the Lord's Prayer. The Lord's Prayer is not a public prayer. The Lord's Prayer is meant for his children. And his children are those who are united to Jesus Christ and to Jesus Christ alone. When you pray, says Jesus, pray. the Father, the King of the universe. Stop there and relish that. That's the idea of Psalm 121, when he says, my help is in the Lord. He doesn't say Adonai. He doesn't say El Shaddai. He says, my help is in Jehovah, Yahweh, the Father, because that's what God was to the Israelites. the Egyptians couldn't call him Lord the Egyptians could call him holy, holy, holy or the unknowable or the unmoved mover or whatever they could not call him Lord but Israel could call him Lord because he had chosen them out of all the families of the earth the very fewest not because they were the most certainly not because they were the most godly because of God's mercy he chose them and that's why the psalmist here immediately almost notice how quickly he goes from himself in verse 4 he who watches over you will neither slumber nor sleep behold he who watches over Israel will neither slumber nor sleep maybe he couldn't recall any special lights on the way to San Marcos or Damascus Maybe he couldn't recall any special healing mercies. He could recall that the Lord was the Lord of Israel. He had befriended them. He had adopted them. He had delivered them. For Israel, he had destroyed the firstborn. For Israel, he had opened up the first up of the Red Sea. For Israel, he destroyed Pharaoh's army. For Israel, he appeared on Mount Sinai. For Israel, he rained manna from heaven. For Israel, he caused the sun to stop. For Israel, he destroyed nations. That was his Lord. He who keeps Israel is my keeper. He sensed the confidence that he has there. He was part of Israel. He was circumcised. He was not a little Philistine, however you want to pronounce it. He wasn't a little heathen when he was born. He was a child of an Israelite. He was circumcised. He was part of the community of God. He was part of the church, if you will. We would say the same thing today. We have been baptized. God has put his sign and seal and promises upon us. He had all the rights of the citizens of Israel. my help is in the Lord. Do you sense how sweet that is? Do you sense? Is that the sweetness that you savor when you say, my Father or our help is in the Lord? And then he adds, who created heavens and earth? And if Father demonstrates his love and his intimacy for the Israelites, this next phrase demonstrates his power and his ability. I love my kids but I can't do everything for them. I love my kids but I can't do everything I want. But that's not true of my Heavenly Father. He is not inhibited in any way. He is the creator of heaven and earth. Abraham's Lord is my Lord and Abraham's Lord was the covenant keeper and Abraham's Lord was the creator of heaven and earth and the same thing is true for me. And God does not let us forget that. We pass that by and we're looking for another proof text but God does not allow us to forget it as his people. He reminds us of it every Sunday again and again and again. Think about how the worship service starts. the call to worship the salutation you forgot something you forgot something there is what officially is called the votum but it is what the preacher says between the call and the salutation congregation of Jesus Christ our help is in the Lord who made heaven and earth grace to you and peace. You see, God doesn't want us to forget that. And as we come as weary pilgrims on a Sunday morning, we are reminded that our help is in the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth. And when we come at night and we are facing another week, and we wonder how we can face this God-hating, Christ-hating, Christian-hating world, we are asked what you believe. And you say, I believe in God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth. And you can stop right there with your worrying. Then we remember what we read in the Heidelberg Catechism about that. What do I believe when I say that? That the eternal Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who out of nothing made heaven and earth and everything in them, who still upholds and rules them by his eternal counsel and providence, is my God because of his Son. I trust him so much that I do not doubt that he will provide whatever I need for body and for soul. He will turn to my good whatever adversity he sends me in this world. He is able to do this because he is almighty God. And he desires to do this because he is faithful, faithful, faithful father. I look to the hills and I see all the dangers around and I wonder about my children and I wonder about the church and where do I look? Am I looking to the Republican Party? Am I looking to the political system? Am I looking to the military? Why do I live in fear? My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth. And when you think of all the troubles out there, you say, Oh, if only I had such a big faith. If only I had such strong faith. My friends, the problem isn't with your faith. The problem is with your God. You have a small God. When your faith is in the Lord who made heaven and earth, it has to be big. It has to be big. He is the Lord who made heaven and earth indeed. He not only watches you, he watches over Israel. He watches over his people. you are his people that's what we are told in Galatians 3 believers in Christ are the seed of Abraham for the seed of Abraham God remembered his promises God killed the firstborn of Egypt God opened the sea God caused the sun to stand still God brought manna from heaven God revealed himself on Mount Sinai for his people No, God sent his son. What is there about Lord you don't understand? If he is your Lord, you have everything. If he's not your Lord, you have nothing. Amen. Heavenly Father, if my help comes from you, the maker of heaven and earth that is all I need to know that you are my father because of Jesus your son and you will watch over my coming and going from now on and as far as forever to our triune God that longs all praise and adoration now and forever Amen Thank you.