Sunday Morning, January 3, 2020 AM

It's always good to say it. A few announcements as we get started this morning. We're glad to have you here at Sunnyside Baptist Church to worship together today. Looking ahead, in terms of the upcoming week, come back this evening for our evening service that starts at 5 .30.

And then Wednesday, Wednesday will be a big day. We get to resume our church-wide dinner together at 5 .45. So if you can, come for that. If you plan on coming, try and let Jana Brown know so she can kind of plan just the amount of food, what would cover everybody, families, and everybody else.

And then after that, tag for our kids will resume starting at 6 .30. That's going to be in the tag room that's just down the hall. So if you come in these doors and turn immediately to the left, peek in one of the rooms there.

It's one of the first ones you come to. It's really fun looking. So you'll know that that's the tag room there. So we're excited to start back up with that. Lori DeForest, she also gave me an announcement.

After service today, there's going to be a brief meeting for workers. So if you plan on helping to teach in tag or just help out in that after this morning's service here in the auditorium. No, I'm sorry, in the tag room.

So that will be in the tag room after church today. Fighter verses for the week comes from the book of Deuteronomy. Know, therefore, that the Lord your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments to 1 ,000 generations.

Beginning of the new year, if you have any changes regarding church budget information, get that information to Jerry Brown or Patty Hines. Any other announcements before we get started this morning? Yes, ma 'am.

All right.

You might remember, I think it was last fall, we had a special music night here at the church. I think it was in October. We're going to try and have one of those again. We're working on details regarding that.

So if you would like to share either a music or a song somehow, please let Lisa know. Is that good?

All righty. All right.

Well, we're going to have a time of prayer and preparation for worship this morning. And then after we're done with that, Dwight will open us in prayer.

Father, what a blessing it is to come together in the name of your Son, the Lord Jesus. We come together to exalt your name, to rejoice in the work that you've accomplished for us in our salvation through your Son, the Lord Jesus, who gave his life for us.

And we come together to worship you. So help us to worship in spirit and in truth. We thank you for your forgiveness. May we be faithful to confess our sins before you. And as our pastor comes to share your word with us, may he preach your word in the power of your spirit.

And may we be fed and nourished and grow in the grace and knowledge of your Son, the Lord Jesus. And even as we leave this place, may we be better witnesses for your Son, the Lord Jesus. In his name I pray, amen.

Happy New Year. 2020 was a challenging year for everyone. But I trust that through it all, you put your trust in the Lord Jesus Christ and that he was your strength. And we can look forward to him continuing to be our gracious strength for 2021.

And we're going to continue in our passage we read last week. So if you would stand with me for our call to worship, we're going to continue in Psalms chapter 56, reading verses 11 through 13. And to remember to put our trust in God.

Read with me together. In God I trust, I shall not be afraid. What can man do to me? I must perform my vows to you, God. I will render thank offerings to you. For you have delivered my soul from death.

Yes, my feet from falling, that I may walk for God in the light of my life. Our first song is an anthem to the King of the Ages. It's page 72 in your little black hymnals, hymns modern and ancient. King of the Ages.

Scripture reading this morning will be in the book of Deuteronomy chapter 29. We'll start in verse 14 and read through the end of the chapter. Deuteronomy 29, verse 14. I make this covenant and this oath not with you alone, but with him who stands here with us today before the Lord our God, as well as with him who is not here with us today.

For you know that we dwelt in the land of Egypt and that we came through the nations which you passed by. And you saw their abominations and their idols which were among them, wood and stone and silver and gold.

So that there may not be among you man or woman or family or tribe whose heart turns away today from the Lord our God, to go and serve the gods of these nations and that they may not be among you a root bearing bitterness or wormwood.

And so it may not happen when he hears the words of this curse that he blesses himself in his heart saying, I shall have peace even though I know the dictates of my heart, as though the drunkard could be included over.

The Lord that is written in this book would settle on him. And the Lord would blot out his name from under heaven. And the Lord would separate him from all the tribes of Israel for adversity, according to all the curses of the covenant that are written in this book of the law.

So that the coming generation of your children who rise up after you and the foreigner who comes from a far land would say, when they see the plagues of that land and the sicknesses which the Lord has laid on it, the whole land is brimstone, salt and burning.

It is not sown, nor does it bear, nor does any grass grow there like the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah, Abna and Zeboam, which the Lord overthrew in his anger and his wrath. All nations would say, why has the Lord done so to this land?

What does the heat of this great anger mean? Then people would say, because they have forsaken the covenant of the Lord, God of their fathers, which he made with them when he brought them out of the land of Egypt, for they went and served other gods and worshiped them, gods that they did not know that he had not given to them.

Then the anger of the Lord was aroused against this land to bring on it every curse that is written in this book. And the Lord uprooted them from their land in anger and wrath and in great indignation and cast them into another land as it is this day.

The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but those things which are revealed belong to us and to our children forever that we may do all the words of this law. Here we have the word of God. Please pray with me now.

Father, we thank you for this morning. We thank you for giving us this opportunity to come into together in the assembly of the Lord, to worship you, to love you, Lord, to hear your word. Please bless our pastor as he comes and preaches the word.

Please bless us, Lord, that you would give us ears to hear and a heart that seeks to obey, a heart that seeks to love you, Lord, as our true sacrifice, as our heavenly Lord and God. And it's in Jesus' name we pray, amen.

You may be seated. You came in, I hope you picked up the next song. On the podium back there was a copy of Christ, Our Hope in Life and Death. And then after we sing that, we'll go right into Fairest Lord Jesus, which is on page, in your blue hymnal, Fairest Lord Jesus is on page 88.

We'll sing these two songs together.

Praise to the King, isn't it? So appreciate the song selection this morning. And as ever, I am encouraged by the Lord. The way in which scripture gives amen to scripture as we have the various readings and now our text this morning.

So Psalm 115, we'll be looking at verses nine through 18 this morning. As we return to this Psalm after our time in 2 Samuel, considering the prophecies concerning Christ for the Advent season, we still have our Christmas regalia up, and that's just fine.

Some of you are very responsible and have already put away all of your Christmas decorations. And there are ones dear to my heart who don't even live in this state, who leave them up all year long. So that's just fine, that's just fine.

Let's go to the Lord together in prayer. Father, I thank you for gathering us together this morning. I so thank you for the joy we can have today that your son, Jesus Christ, is reigning at your right hand, that you have given all authority in heaven and on earth to him, that he is the heir of all things, and that he has the preeminence in all things.

And we rejoice in his authority, in his life, in his love and in his light today. And I pray that you would help us as we read your word, that you would bless us with your Holy Spirit in a special way, that the scriptures would be made clear to us, clear and engaging to our lives, that you would cut deep to the very heart of the matter in our souls, that you would do your work in us to make the changes that need to be made, and that you would nourish us, for we are hungry for your word, that you would show us your son, Jesus Christ, in his glory and in his goodness, that we would drink deeply of your truth, that we would be satisfied in your son, Jesus Christ, even as you are well-pleased in him.

We ask all these things for the sake of Christ, amen. So Psalm 115, I'll be reading verses nine through 18. Psalm 115, I'll be reading verses nine through 18. Psalm 115 is part of that portion of scripture in the Psalms known as the great Hillel, the great hymn.

Sung by the Jews year after year at Passover, considering who God revealed himself to be in that mighty act of deliverance. They would sing these Psalms before and after their Passover meal, to help them focus on the goodness of God, the faithfulness of God, the delivering power of God.

This was the hymn that Jesus and his disciples sang together when they celebrated the Passover, when Christ made himself the center of Passover. He was the Lamb, the Lamb of God, slain from the foundation of the world for them, for us.

So we've been looking at this great Hillel, and it is the kind of, these are the Psalms that really tell us what we ought to be thinking about when it comes to worshiping God. How does God want to be worshiped?

How would he like us to approach him? What are the things that we ought to consider before we come before God and to praise and worship him? And what are the things that we ought to praise him for? What should we be talking about?

What should we bring into consideration as we give him glory and honor? These Psalms help us and teach us, they instruct us in the basics of worship, show us what direction we ought to go. And we've been looking in Psalm 115 verses one through eight, focusing on this most fundamental characteristic of righteous worship that not to us, but to your name give glory.

This is the starting point of worship, that God gives glory to God and we rejoice in that. We think that's the best. We give a hearty amen to that, that God would glorify God, that God should be all about magnifying his name and anything less is idolatry.

We're on board with that. We want God to be glorified. And we considered in the first eight verses how the pagans will mock the pagans who are obviously more well-informed, more well credentialed, who have a better understanding of how the world works, who aren't so backwards.

They're the ones mocking us and they're the ones who fear absurdities. And worship the useless, the dead gods who have hands and feet that don't move and eyes that can't see and ears that can't hear and mouths that can't speak and throats that can't even make a sound.

And they're the ones trying to mock us. Oh, that's just silly. So last time we were in this Psalm, we talked about the mockery of false gods, how we are to, that the righteous response to absurdity is laughter.

That we are to mock and make fun, to score and to scoff the pagan idols, to show them for what they really are. False gods are futile objects of trust, absurd centers of fear, and all who make them and worship them become just like them, futile and absurd.

So that brings us up to our reading, Psalm 115 verses nine through 18. I encourage you to stand if you're able. So I read the rest of the Psalm, the words of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, through his Holy Spirit, holy men moved by the Spirit to write these words to us.

Oh, Israel, trust in the Lord. He is their help and their shield. Oh, house of Aaron, trust in the Lord. He is their help and their shield. You who fear the Lord, trust in the Lord. He is their help and their shield.

The Lord has been mindful of us. He will bless us. He will bless the house of Israel. He will bless the house of Aaron. He will bless those who fear the Lord, the small together with the great. May the Lord give you increase, you and your children.

May you be blessed of the Lord, maker of heaven and earth. The heavens are the heavens of the Lord, but the earth he has given to the sons of men. The dead do not praise the Lord, nor do any who go down in silence.

But as for us, we will bless the Lord from this time forth and forever.

Praise the Lord.

Amen.

You may be seated.

Have you ever thought about how absurd it was for the tribes of Israel to fear the Canaanites? Have you ever thought about how absurd that was? One of the most absurd moments in the history recorded for us in the Bible.

That the Israelites would fear the Canaanites after God's 10 wondrous plagues defeating Egypt, beating them down so far that God's people plundered the wealth of Egypt as they left after they saw Pharaoh and his army drowned and crushed by walls of water in the same place where they had crossed over on dry ground through the Red Sea.

After they ate bread from heaven and drank water from the rock. After God defeated all of their enemies in the wilderness, king after king with their mighty armies, God won the day clearly again and again.

After God revealed himself as inestimably holy, powerful and fearful on Mount Sinai to the Israelites and provided for the people by pillar of fire and pillar of smoke, heat and light for those wilderness nights, shade and direction for their wilderness wanderings.

When this great and mighty and powerful and only God tells his people, you are going to go into Canaan and you're going to possess this land flowing with milk and honey and you are going to defeat all of the inhabitants there for it's their time of judgment.

Spies go up, check things out and 10 of the 12 come back saying, it's no good, we're doomed. Now that is absurd. Why did they have that perspective? Why did they take that approach? God had been their help and shield in the Exodus.

God had been their help and shield in the wilderness. What did they think? That God's help and God's shield ended at the boundaries of Canaan? That he would no longer be their help and shield? Oh, you see, it was complicated.

It was complicated, right? I mean, other gods controlled those lands in Canaan. That was the realm for other authorities, not the authority of God. That really wasn't his area. You see, Yahweh was good for rescue operations, but not good for conquering campaigns.

He was a wilderness God. He wasn't really a civilization crafting God. He was great for Sinai, just no good for Canaan. Are you picking up on the absurdity of that thinking? Then let us apply wisdom in our own lives.

The Lord is our help and our shield in every area of life. Every area of life. This is essential for us when applying the fear of the Lord. He is not only the God of church and mealtimes and serious situations.

He is the God of everything. If we have rightly and if we have thoroughly mocked the pagan gods, then we should know that there is not a rogue molecule in all of the universe. That God is sovereign over it all and throughout it all, he remains the help and the shield of his people.

So why is it so difficult for us to trust the Lord? It is a struggle. It is a challenge. We catch ourselves not trusting in the Lord. Why am I so afraid? We are often divided in our worldview and thus conquered by illegitimate fear.

We partition God. We keep him for spiritual issues. We call upon him as a last resort. We often do not live as if he is indeed our help and shield. Notice in the text, maker of heaven and earth. Maker of heaven and earth.

Trust now, we have trouble trusting in the Lord. We acknowledge this, we confess this. We catch ourselves not trusting in the Lord and our fear is often exhibited in terms of paralysis or anger, worry.

But trusting in the Lord as our help and shield begins where we see it in our text, that the Psalm leads us to trust in the Lord as our help and shield by praising him accordingly. Where is our God? He is in the heavens doing whatever he pleases.

Our God is a glorious God and deserves all praise. Every other possible thing we could trust in is absurd. God is our help and our shield. The Psalm continually puts our attention upon who God is that we would praise him, honor him, glorify him.

And when we do that, we are building ourselves up as Jude would say, upon our most holy faith. We are establishing ourselves in faith, trusting that God indeed is powerful, that he is indeed our help and our shield.

And so we sing our hymns and we read the Psalms and we speak to one another in the Psalms and the hymns and the spiritual songs. And we tell one another how great God is, how powerful God is, how trustworthy he is so that we will live, indeed live with God as our help and our shield.

And this is the exhortation of the godly in verses nine through 11. The exhortation of the godly in verses nine through 11. Let's hear it again. Oh, Israel, trust in the Lord. He is their help and their shield.

Oh, house of Aaron, trust in the Lord. He is their help and their shield. Oh, you who fear the Lord, trust in the Lord. He is their help and their shield. Let's think about, first of all, those commanded who are being addressed here in this repetition and really what is the heart of the Psalm.

Everything about this Psalm is arranged around these three verses. Israel, house of Aaron, you who fear the Lord. They are all being told the same thing. They are being commanded to trust in the Lord and they're given the reasons why to trust in the Lord because he is their help and their shield.

But first, let's consider who are being commanded. Israel, house of Aaron, you who fear the Lord. When you first read it, you might have a natural inclination to see a narrowing of terms. Israel refers to all the descendants of the sons of Jacob whose name was changed to Israel.

And there were a bunch of them. Now you come to the house of Aaron. Aaron, Moses' brother, the tribe of Levi. So here's Aaron, a descendant of one of the tribes of Israel and he and his descendants are being addressed.

So that's a much smaller group, though there were a lot of priests. And then finally, you have those addressed, you who fear the Lord. And when you read the stories about Israel and the house of Aaron and the people of God in the Old Testament, we discover that there were often only a handful, just a few people who feared the Lord, who worshiped him as he deserved.

And sometimes we find the scripture using the term remnant of this small group within the larger group who really truly feared the Lord. And we see that there were often few, only a few who feared the Lord.

We know that from the times of the judges and the times of Elijah and Elisha and the weeping of Jeremiah the prophet. We can see very often there were just a few who feared the Lord. And we read one of their prayers in Isaiah 63, verse 16.

And they pray this way, for you, we're praying to God, for you are our father. Though Abraham does not know us and Israel does not recognize us, you, oh Lord, are our father. Our redeemer from of old is your name.

It got so bad that even Israel and the house of Aaron, even the official old covenant people of God wouldn't even recognize the God fearers among them.

As legitimate.

It had gotten so bad. Now that is certainly the case in the course of the crumbling of the old covenant. But it helps to remember two things about this psalm. This psalm was written after the exile. It went a remnant of tens of thousands out of millions of Jews in Persia had returned back to Jerusalem.

And why did they go back to Jerusalem? They had instructions from Jeremiah and from Ezekiel. They had great hope from the prophet Daniel and they returned to the promised land. They returned to the city of Jerusalem and they began to rebuild the temple and rebuild the walls.

Why?

They were doing actually very well in Persia. And history records that the most numerous and wealthiest population of the Jews was in Persia, even into the time of Christ. Why did this group go back to Jerusalem and rebuild the city walls and the temple, especially, I mean, why rebuild the city Jerusalem, the city of David, when you had no King of David to sit on the throne?

And why would you rebuild the temple when you had no Ark of the Covenant to put into the Holy of Holies? I mean, what's the deal? Why even do it? Because they were instructed in hope of what was to come.

They went back there because God promised them that in that place at a future time, He would bring to pass the new covenant. So they went back in hope and got things ready and sought to be faithful to prepare themselves for the coming of Messiah.

And so this is the group worshiping, praising, talking to one another in this psalm. Oh, Israel, trust the Lord. He is your help and shield. Oh, house of Aaron, trust in the Lord. He is your help and shield.

Oh, you who fear the Lord, trust the Lord. He is your help and your shield. This is the group that are worshiping God from the rebuilt Jerusalem around the rebuilt temple, worshiping in the hope of what was to come.

And that reminds us of the second thing, that this is a worship service. Priests exhorting the people, people exhorting the priests, and all of them together exhorting those who fear the Lord. It's important to remember that they have been gathered from the nations and it is to the nations that they are turning their gaze.

And these designations actually become formulaic by the time of Christ. You read in the New Testament about the priests, you read about the people of Israel, and you read about another group called the God-fearers.

And who were they? The God-fearers, like Cornelius and others, were Gentiles who had heard the messages, the truth claims of the Old Testament, of the scriptures. And even as Paul told Timothy that these were sufficient to make you wise into salvation, many of them were turning to the same hope of the Messiah that the Jews had, but they were Gentiles.

And so the Jews had a label for them. You must be the God-fearers. Just like Psalm 115, there's your label. There's the children of Israel, there's the house of Aaron, and there's the God-fearers, trusting all in the same God revealed in the word of God.

And so I think that this Psalm, that verses nine through 11, I do not think that there is a constriction of hope here, a moving down to the few and very little. I think there's actually an embrace of an expansive hope.

And it's an expansive hope that God promised repeatedly throughout the Old Testament, through his prophets, that the nations were going to turn their attention to Zion, that they would hear the message that the Jews were saying,.

And they would go with them to Zion,.

And that they would relocate to Jerusalem and praise the Lord in hopes of the Messiah as well. And you can do a search on God's holy mountain in the book of Isaiah, read all these hope-filled passages, for example.

Also this word, Isaiah 49, verses five through six, writing of the Messiah, prophesying of the Messiah. And now says the Lord who formed me, capital me, Isaiah speaking in the voice of Messiah. And now says the Lord who formed me from the womb to be his servant, capital S, servant.

Why did God form him? To bring Jacob back to him so that Israel might be gathered to him. For I am honored in the sight of the Lord, my God is my strength. He says, it is too small a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the preserved ones of Israel.

It's too small, it's too narrow. That is not the intent of the Messiah coming simply to save Israel. He said it from Isaiah, he said, that is too small a thing. That is not the plan. I will also make you a light of the nations so that my salvation may reach the end of the earth.

And so the gospel went to the Jew first and then also to the nations, to the Gentiles. So I think when we read this, the designation, the Israel, house of Aaron, you who fear the Lord, it's interesting that this designation, you who fear the Lord, is actually far more expansive than the label Israel and the label house of Aaron.

It's more expansive. Nations are in view here. And at the same time, it is more precise. It is more precise. It's more expansive than Israel and house of Aaron, but it's more precise than those two labels because here's the good news of the new covenant.

The good news of the new covenant.

Is not that you're born again, not that you're born into a family, but that you're born again into the family of God. It's not about being born into a family. It's about being born again into the family of God.

And it's about having the law of God written on a heart of flesh, heart of stone being removed and the heart of flesh being granted by the power of God and the law of God being inscribed there in the inner person.

God's word pulsing in your life. You fear the Lord. You fear the Lord. What does that mean? It means that everything is weighed upon His scales. What is this worth? Well, we've got to weigh it on the scales of the Lord to find out what that's worth.

Everything is marked on His map. How are we going to locate X, Y, and Z? Either in ethics, philosophy, or anything? Well, it has to be understood according to the word of the Lord. That's when you're born again, you have God's law written on your heart of flesh.

It means that if you fear the Lord, you can't think of anything without reference to God's word. That you trust in the Lord as your help and your shield in every area of life. So that's who's commanded here.

Israel, Aaron, you who fear the Lord. It's an exhortation to the people of God. And they are being told to trust in the Lord. To trust in the Lord. We have a threefold statement here. A few areas in the Bible where we have a threefold statement and every time we do, we are being told how important it is.

The seraphim in the throne room around God in Isaiah 6. Holy, holy, holy. The four living creatures in the throne room in Revelation 4. Holy, holy, holy. So I often would say, well, what is the primary characteristic of God?

Well, I'd say biblically, he's holy. Apparently, that's the most important. And yes, God is love, and God is light, and God is spirit. We're told all these things, but the thing that's most underscored and most emphasized is that God is holy.

And here, trust in the Lord, trust in the Lord, trust in the Lord. You know, I think we need to trust in the Lord. Apparently, this is really important for the people of God. That we need to be told this repeatedly, emphatically.

We're being told this in a way that shows us that this command is vitally important, but it also, being told this three times in a row, shows us that there's a constant need to trust in the Lord. Being told this three times in a row, shows us that there's a universal application of this.

No matter which way we're going, it doesn't matter what timeframe we're thinking, trust in the Lord, trust in the Lord, trust in the Lord. He is your help and shield. So, the emphasis here is such that, obviously, the temptation is to not trust in the Lord.

Obviously, the temptation is to make something else.

Your help and your shield,.

To think that something else is functioning as your most essential security. That's the temptation, that's the difficulty, isn't it? To trust, to trust means, to find your safety in. To trust means to identify as your security.

To trust means to state your confidence in. To trust means to find your absolute dependence upon. And we're being told to trust in the Lord threefold. It should bring to our minds in this repetition, why or what have we been making our help and our shield?

What have we been making our help and our shield? Not the mighty man boasts in his might, the wise man boasts in his wisdom, not the wealthy man boasts in his riches. Some trust in chariots, some trust in horses.

We're to trust the name of the Lord our God. Scriptures are full of warnings, of contrasts, saying, don't trust in these things, trust in God. The King of Israel, according to the instructions in Deuteronomy, was told he was not to acquire for himself large amounts of wealth.

He was not to acquire for himself many horses and chariots, massive armies. Why? I thought that's what kings did. He was told rather to write for himself a copy of God's word because he was to trust in the Lord, not in might, not in wealth, these other things.

What do we tend to make our help and our shield? Well, this is one of the reasons why, I think somebody this morning, I forget who at the moment, gave thanks for the year 2020. And we are told to give thanks in all things.

And when we do, we are afforded an opportunity to give praise to God for his providence. And one of the reasons why we can thank God for the year 2020 is how many of the pillars that we have been making our help and our shield, how many of those things were shook and shown to be unstable and not worthy of our trust?

How much had we, without realizing it, how much had we made a strong economy and a free society? How much had we made the idea of being able to just do what we thought we can do, whatever we wanted to?

How much have we made our help and our shield that was just shook up last year? Trials are very often God's way of knocking our idols off the mantle, saying, now what? Now what? The state is not our help and our shield.

Although he thinks he is, our dear President Trump is not our help and our shield. Science is not our help and our shield. Medicine is not our help and our shield. The Lord, the Lord, the Lord God is our help and our shield.

And his power and his help and his shield do not end at the borders of Canaan. They do not end at the borders of finance, at the boundaries of politics, at the line of science and medicine. The Lord is our help and shield through and through, through and through.

He is not a limited wilderness God. He's not a God just good for rescuing us from sin and hell, but everything else has to be taken care of by people with credentials. The Lord is our help and our shield all the way through.

And so we are commanded to trust the Lord in that way. The exiles who have been trying to rebuild the city and the city walls and rebuild the temple, they have not met with a wide support. If there was a poll taken of the people living in the region about how what they thought about what was going on up there at Jerusalem, it would have been overwhelmingly negative.

All the news reports about who the Jews were, what they were doing, was that they were a scandalous bunch of oppressive thieves. They were horrible people who deserve to be sent back. Everything was against them.

And yet they, in hope of the Messiah, in hope of God's promises, had some very taxing, sometimes boring, hard work to do. They had to rebuild a temple and they had to rebuild the walls. They had to repopulate a city.

They had to get everything moving again. And all the same time, they had to do so trying to be faithful to what the Lord had called them to do and not compromise with the various foreign influences. So no wonder they're saying to one another, trust in the Lord.

Trust in the Lord.

He's our help and our shield. Don't ever forget that. Here, these worshipers have learned their lesson about idolatry. It's worthless. There's no good that can't help you. Trust in the Lord. He is our help and our shield.

He is our help and our shield. That encouraging phrase comes from Deuteronomy 33, 29. This is the comfort for those commanded to trust in the Lord. This is their comfort, that God is a shield of help.

Deuteronomy 33, 29. Blessed are you, O Israel, who is like you, a people saved by the Lord, who is the shield of your help and the sword of your majesty, so your enemies will cringe before you and you will tread upon their high places.

Shield of your help. That's where that imagery comes from. That they're singing about in Psalm 115, comes from here, Deuteronomy 33, 29. And notice that the verse speaks of Israel as a people saved by the Lord.