Word of Salvation – January 2026
THE LORD IS ON OUR SIDE!
Sermon by John Haverland
Text: Psalm 124
Reading: 2 Corinthians 1:1-11
Theme: The people of Israel are called to praise the Lord for delivering them from great danger.
Purpose: To remind you of the dangers we face and urge you to praise the Lord for his great deliverance in Christ.
When you begin an activity it is always helpful to begin well, to make a strong start. A runner wants to be out of the blocks smartly at the beginning of a race. A teacher wants to make a positive and firm beginning to a new school year. A speaker wants a clear introduction at the beginning of a talk that will capture the attention of the audience.
In the same way it is good to begin every worship service strongly and confidently. In our Reformed churches we begin with a call to worship, usually from the psalms, and then the statement of faith in Psalm 124 verse 8, “Our help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth.”
This is a strong beginning. It focuses our attention on the Lord. It reminds us that he is our Covenant God who has drawn us into a relationship with himself, and that he is the Creator and Maker of the heavens and the earth. In every worship service we come into the presence of the Lord our great God!
This opening has a long tradition: the Reformed churches in France, the Huguenots, began their services with this verse of this psalm. It is a great comfort to know that God is our all powerful God and that he is our helper and protector. He can and will deliver us from danger.
This psalm calls us to praise God for delivering us from many dangers in our lives. We will consider the dangers we face and God’s deliverance.
- Our DANGERS
This psalm is listed as having been written by David, but this heading is not in all the Hebrew manuscripts, so this may have been added later.
We are not sure who wrote it. As with many of the psalms we don’t know the exact situation, which means we can apply it to the many and varied situations of our lives. Let’s consider dangers that faced the people of Israel, and the church through history, and us today.
a) A powerful army was attacking Israel. At the end of verse 2 we read, “people rose up against us.”
The Hebrew reads, “When man attacked us.” The Hebrew word for man is ‘Adam’. Here it is a collective singular and refers to a vast number of enemies. Their anger “would have swallowed us up alive! (v 3). The anger of their enemies is described as violent and fanatical; it was intense and unreasonable. This anger is described as a fire that flared, or was kindled against them, and threatened to burn them up!
If David wrote this psalm it would fit well with the beginning of his reign soon after he had been anointed king over all the 12 tribes. The Philistines came up in full force against him to wipe him out, but the Lord helped him, and he defeated them (2 Sam 5:17ff).
It could also refer to a later time when the Assyrian armies were camped outside Jerusalem in the time of Hezekiah but the Lord turned them away (Isaiah 36-37).
In the 4th century AD there was a massive theological attack on the early church by the Arians, who were a 4th century version of the Jehovah Witnesses today. They claimed that Jesus was not the eternal Son of God, but was the first creature God had made or created. In that situation God raised up Athanasius who stood for the biblical truth that Jesus was truly God and truly man in the one person. He gives his name to the Athanasian Creed.
Today the people of God in Muslim countries are being physically attacked and persecuted and the churches are in danger of being swallowed up alive. In our Western world we are also being attacked, not physically but spiritually.
One of the main ideas of our postmodern world is that there is not one Truth, but rather there are many truths: truth is whatever is true for you. Each person has their own personalised version of the truth, and we are told to be tolerant of the worldview and beliefs of everyone else.
But as Christians we oppose this subjective and personalised view of truth. We know that Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father except through me” (Jn 14:6). Jesus makes this clear and exclusive claim, that he is the only way to the Father.
b) v 4-5 describe another danger Israel faced using the imagery of water which is repeated three times, as a great flood, and as a torrent, and as raging waters! This great flood of water threatened to sweep them away! It is an image that is powerful and terrifying. Flash floods were common in Israel, so the people could picture these and identify with this description. We regularly see TV footage of massive flooding in our own country and in other countries of the world.
The prophet Isaiah predicted the Assyrian invasion of Judah and described it as a flood: “It will overflow all its channels… and sweep on into Judah, swirling over it” (8:7f). In the Middle Ages in Europe the church was almost submerged by the flood of superstition and ignorance of the Bible and the false teaching of the Roman Catholic church.
And in the 18th century in Europe the tide of Rationalism swept over the church. This was the view that the world could be examined and understood purely by the human mind and reason and that the truth of the Bible was unnecessary.
In our 21st century we are in danger of being flooded by neo-paganism. The paganism of the ancient world is coming back in different forms. Instead of believing in “the name of the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth” people believe in all sorts of gods and goddesses.
The people of God through history have been attacked by physical and spiritual armies, and have been threatened by the floods of superstition, rationalism, and paganism.
c) And the 3rd danger is described in v 6-7 as animals.
i. Verse 6 celebrates escaping being torn by the teeth of a wild animal. Wolves and bears are capable of killing a person easily. In 2 Kings chapter 2 we read about the prophet Elisha. Some young boys mocked him saying, “Go up, you baldhead!” (v 23). Elisha cursed them in the name of the Lord, and two she-bears came out of the woods and killed 42 of the boys.
This reminds us of how the apostle Peter warned his readers of our dangerous enemy, Satan: “Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith (1 Peter 5:8f).
ii) Verse 7 celebrates being rescued out of “the fowler’s snare”, which is a trap set for birds. Israel had already been caught in the net, but the Lord broke the snare and allowed his people to escape.
We need to be mindful of the snares of the world. The world tries to squeeze us into its mould. It tries to draw us away from the Lord Jesus. It offers us the temptations of power and prestige, of wealth and success. The world is trying to trap you. Be careful of its snares.
And you can be trapped by your own sinful nature. There are the snares of pride, anger, self pity, and addiction in all its various forms – be that of pornography or drugs or alcohol. We know that birds are small and weak and easily trapped; and we as sinful human beings are very like birds – in ourselves we too are foolish and weak and easily trapped.
So be on your guard! “Watch and pray that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak” (Matt 26:41). But we can give thanks to God that he has not given us over to our enemies, but has given us to his Son, the Lord Jesus, and we are in his safe keeping and part of his kingdom.
We have considered the dangers the people of God have faced in the Old Testament and in this New Testament age. We now consider
- Our DELIVERANCE
This great deliverance of God is celebrated at the beginning of this psalm in verse 1; “If it had not been the Lord who was on our side…”
Literally this reads, “If the Lord had not been for us”. If it was not for God being with us and for us we would have been swallowed up, engulfed by the floodwaters, destroyed by the devil, trapped by the temptations of the world and our sinful nature. But the Lord is for us, and he is with us, and will be with us forever.
So the psalm begins with a call to Israel, and to us, to give thanks to God for delivering us, for saving us, for rescuing us!
Verse 1: “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…”
It could be translated: “If God hadn’t been for us – all together now, Israel, sing out! – If God hadn’t been for us….” (E Peterson – Message)
David called on Israel to give thanks to the Lord, to praise the Lord for delivering his people from all their enemies! Give thanks to the Lord, “All together now!”
Time and again God had rescued his people from their enemies. He had done this through Moses and Joshua, and through King Saul and King David; he had guided them through the prophets Elijah and Elisha, and Isaiah, Ezekiel and Daniel; in the time after the exile he had helped his people through leaders like Nehemiah and Ezra the priest.
But most of all he has delivered us in and through his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus is our perfect Prophet, our eternal Priest, and our Great King. He is the fulfilment of all the prophets, priests, and kings of the Old Testament.
Yes, the Lord Jesus is on our side, he is with us and for us! So let us as the people of God say this, and sing this, and shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation!
Verse 6 calls us to do this – “Blessed be the Lord!” It could be translated as “Praise be to the Lord” (NIV).
This phrase occurs 7000 times in the Bible in the Old and New Testaments! It is expressed in various Hebrew and Greek words. It is a repeated exhortation: “Blessed be the Lord! Praise be to the Lord!”
If something is repeated often enough we hope that it sinks in – “wash your hands before you eat; remember to say please; remember to say thank you; look both ways before you cross the street; do not accept a ride from strangers;” and so on….
Here is a repeated command from God – Praise the Lord! Give thanks to him; bless his name! The people of Israel in the Old Testament had every reason to praise the Lord for delivering them again and again.
And we as New Testament Christians have many more reasons to praise the Lord for delivering us from the punishment we deserve because of our sins, and from the temptations of our own sinful nature, and from the attacks of the devil, who is Satan, the Prince of Darkness.
Paul in 2 Corinthians 1:10 wrote that, God “has delivered us from a deadly peril, and he will deliver us.” He was confident that God would “continue to deliver us”. God has delivered us by sending his One and Only Son into this world as a man, which we remember on Christmas Day.
Jesus was born into this world to identify with us, to take our place, to be our substitute, to bear the punishment that you and I deserved to bear, to go through the punishment of hell on the cross, to be forsaken by God so that you and I would never be forsaken by him.
Jesus died on the cross for you and me, for all of us who believe in him. He died as our Saviour and Redeemer. He proved his victory over sin and Satan and death by rising from the dead on the 3rd day! He rose as “the Victor o’er the dark domain” (“Low in the grave he lay”). And having been raised from the dead he ascended into heaven to take his rightful place at the right hand of the Father. From that position of honour he rules and reigns over all things.
The Lord God is the Maker of heaven and earth, but so too is the Son of God – “all things were created by him and for him.” (Col 1:16). In times of physical and spiritual danger remember that “your help is in the name of the Lord”. God’s ‘name’ represents his character, his person; it represents all he is as our Triune God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit! God is willing and able to save you.
In the time of the Reformation the Scottish Presbyterians were persecuted and imprisoned. But in 1582 one of their pastors, John Durie, was set free from his prison in Edinburgh. As he entered the town he was met by 200 of his friends, and this quickly swelled to 2000!
As they walked down High Street they sang this psalm, 124, in 4 part harmony and with great solemnity. It was said that one of his persecutors was more alarmed by this than anything he had seen in Scotland.
We begin each service with these words, and we close this sermon with this great statement of faith, that: “Our help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth”. May this God be your help, through the Lord Jesus Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit!
Amen.