If the Lord Had Not Been on Our Side: Psalm 124

If the Lord Had Not Been on Our Side

Psalm 124

We have experienced seasons in which the combined forces of earth and hell must have made an end of us had not omnipotent grace interfered for our rescue.
Charles Spurgeon

“If it had not been the Lord who was on our side…then the flood would have swept us away, the torrent would have gone over us” (Psalm 124:2,4). In this Psalm, David looks back over the years of war and troubles that he faced and lifts his voice in gratitude, recognizing the Lord as the One who has been the great Warrior of Israel. As one of the psalms of ascent, the Israelites would have remembered numerous times in their history that the Lord’s presence and His aid were the decisive factor in the victory over their enemies. It gives me a thrill when I read the Old Testament and I see the Lord fight for His people. Odds against them or filled with fear, outnumbered or surrounded by the enemy, whatever terror they faced, when the Lord fought for them, they were victorious. 

Consider one of the most famous deliverances. When Moses and the Israelites were being pursued by the Egyptians after they left Egypt, Moses says to the people, “Fear not, stand firm, and see the salvation of the Lord, which he will work for you today. For the Egyptians whom you see today, you shall never see again. The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to be silent” (Exodus‬ 14‬:‭13‬-‭14‬). And the Lord did. He overthrew the Egyptians in the midst of the Red Sea. Or consider the time when Moab and Ammon rose up against God’s people and they sought help from the Lord. God told them through Jahaziel, “Do not be afraid and do not be dismayed at this great horde, for the battle is not yours but God’s…You will not need to fight in this battle. Stand firm, hold your position, and see the salvation of the Lord on your behalf, O Judah and Jerusalem. Do not be afraid and do not be dismayed. Tomorrow go out against them, and the Lord will be with you” (2 Chronicles‬ ‭20‬:‭15‬, ‭17‬). And the Lord overthrew their enemies in such a way that they did not even enter the battle, but when they arrived the corpses of their enemies were lying on the ground and none had escaped. 

In many cases, Israel had to engage in the battle, and the Lord entered the battle with them and they were victorious in the fight because He fought for them and with them. What about us today? We are not usually entering a physical battle to defeat our enemies. But as believers, we are engaged in spiritual battles. 

“Christians are engaged in a spiritual battle (Eph. 6:10-20) that is beyond their resources to fight successfully. Thus, our only hope is in God’s help” (Longman). This is the hope of Psalm 124 for the believer. The Lord is with us and for us in the spiritual battles we face. However, how many times do we face our everyday challenges and the deep valleys of suffering and deal primarily with the physical things we can see and forget about the unseen forces? Are our troubles like icebergs in that the part we see is but a small portion of the battle which is unseen? “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places” (Ephesians‬ ‭6‬:‭12‬). We are wrestling with spiritual forces. Are we even aware that we are in that battle, or are we distracted by the “flesh and blood”? Is our vision so full of what is right in front of us that we aren’t even aware of the deeper issue, the deeper battle? We must deal with the physical realities: the people we are in conflict with, the sickness that is attacking our body, the commitments we must fulfill. But we can’t be short-sighted and forget that, in prayer and armed with the Word of God, we must fight the spiritual battle that lies behind every earthly conflict. 

For the believer, we have a Divine Warrior on our side. One, who with the mere breath of His mouth, slays His enemies and brings them to nothing (2 Thessalonians 2:8). We have an undefeated champion on our side. Every strategy successful. Every plan executed to perfection. “This invisible aid is shown to be more real and more potent than the most advanced equipment of the day” (Kidner). His help is more real and more powerful than everything we are facing. If He were not on our side then our troubles would sweep us away. The raging waters of affliction would go over us. But our God is for us and our God is with us. We all have times we can look back on and realize that if God had not been on our side, if He had not been for us and with us, our troubles would surely have overtaken us. We can rejoice and be thankful for His faithfulness! And in our current hard places, we can confidently know that though people rise up against us, or raging waters of affliction come toward us, we will not be swallowed up or swept away because our God is for us and He is with us. The Lord, who made the very heavens and earth, is on our side. 

Let’s pray through Psalm 124 in gratitude for God’s past deliverances on our behalf, and let’s commit ourselves to pray about the spiritual battles behind our current troubles.

124:1-5 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. 
Father, we pray:
▫️We thank You today for Your help throughout our lives. Specifically, we thank You for when You delivered us from _________. Without You on our side, we would have been swallowed up, the flood would have swept us away. But You intervened! 
▫️We bring our troubles to You. You see the things we see: the anxiety, the worry, the financial strains, the relational problems, the ________. You see it all. And You see beyond all the things we can see, and You know the spiritual battle that is taking place. We need Your help to stand firm against the schemes of the devil. He wants to destroy and kill, and he will use whatever means necessary to accomplish his purposes. But we are asking You to enter the fight as our great champion and overrule his schemes with Your power and might. 
▫️Make us strong in You and in the strength of Your might. On our own and in our own strength we are powerless against the spiritual forces of wickedness. There are strategies and powers that we cannot see. We do not claim to understand all the mysteries of unseen things, but we know that You have Your ministering spirits that You send to minister to those who trust in You. Your angel encamps around the one who fears You and rescues him (Psalm 34:7). We are asking You to come to our aid and fight for us and with us. We need You.

124:6-8 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.
Father, we pray:
▫️We are asking for Your mercy in our situation. We want to escape from the trouble we are in. We want to escape from the snare that has been set for us. We want to be free. Provide for us a way of escape. Be with us in this fight. Enable us to live in holiness and godly sincerity, not according to fleshly wisdom but in the grace of God, so that even in this, we will conduct ourselves in a way that brings glory to You (2 Corinthians 1:12).
▫️You have been our help our whole lives. We have made it this far only because of You. We praise You for Your help in _______. If You had not been our help, we would have surely been overtaken and overwhelmed. Today, we need Your help in ________. In faith, we look to You to arm us with the weapons we need to fight the spiritual battle that we cannot see. Make us strong in You. Make us diligent in prayer and grounded in truth. Help us to not get distracted or focused on the physical things we can see, but give us the ability to look beyond that and to not be ignorant of Satan’s schemes. Fight for us, Lord. We need You.

May the Lord do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, for His glory and our good. In Jesus’ name. Amen. 

Scripture quotations are from The ESV Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway. Used by permission. All right reserved.

Photo credit to cristianpalmer

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