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Sermon: God on Your Side Date: September 3, 2023, Morning Text: Psalm 124 Series: Psalm Preacher: Josh Sheldon Audio: https://storage.googleapis.com/pbc-ca-sermons/2023/230903-GodOnYourSide.aac
Well, good morning church.
We'll look this morning at Psalm number 124.
Before I read that before I have you stand and read this for you.
Have you ever asked yourself or been asked by somebody where was God.
Where was God in all this whatever this is have you ever asked this where was God?
When I lost my job, where was God when my bank card bank account was emptied?
Where was God when I was sick or a loved one was ill and did not get better.
Where was God in all this as I prayed as I fell on my knees as I went on my face before him and
pleaded with? him.
For help in my job and keeping my home and keeping my marriage my children.
Where was God in all this?
When all the sign became homeless and all the while I was crying out to him.
Yet these things happened to me, where was God have you ever asked that?
If not out loud with your voice in your heart.
Have you ever known someone to come to you and say where was God when and then fill
in the blank?
If you've ever asked questions like that or been asked questions like that.
We have an answer in the scripture That tells us where God was even in those hard times in these those times that
as we're in them.
They're just we have to admit can be horrible jobs
Relationships health whatever is falling apart and we're praying.
We're saying where is God now and why am I not delivered from this?
Where is God?
Where was God?
We look at Psalm 124 this morning and The people of Israel are going to actually
answer this question for us.
So I would have you stand for the reading of Psalm 124
and God willing as we go through this song we will be able to answer ourselves and know where was God.
Psalm 124 a song of a sense of David if
it had not been the Lord who was on our side.
Let Israel now say if it up in the Lord who was on our side.
When people rose up against us.
Then they would have swallowed us up alive when the angles kit when their anger was killed and kindled against us.
Then the flood would have swept 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.
This is the word of the Lord.
Please be seated.
So we have a people returning from exile.
Who make this proclamation if it had not been the Lord who was on our side?
Now there's a bit of housekeeping just so you know where I'm coming from in this psalm.
There's many good commentators who believed this psalm was written by David.
And so the enemies rising up against them would have been the Philistines or mainly the Philistines.
I Take a different view along with many good scholars.
That this psalm was written by the exilic people of Israel while they're in their 70 years of
captivity in Babylon.
So it's exilic or it's post exilic and then it would have had context it would have had meaning as they returned
to Jerusalem.
And that's the way I take this and we need to understand that that I'm going to preach it as a Psalm written during the exiled times
a psalm written for this people as they are being returned to their land after they paid the price
for their sins as it were as it says in Isaiah 40.
Comfort comfort my people speak tenderly to Jerusalem.
Tell them that their iniquity has been pardoned and she's paid double for all her sins.
This is that people coming back.
And their first proclamation here.
We need to stop and take note if you've ever wondered and asked yourself in my hard times in these difficulties and in these
prayers I held up.
Here's the people answer that question for you.
They say if I did not been the Lord who was on our side had it not been Yahweh who was on our side and
what do they mean by if it had not been?
Stop and think about this for just a moment.
Because what they're saying is What they're saying is that it was the Lord
who's on their side.
It was the Lord looking back.
The Lord was with us every step of the way.
It was the Lord had it not been the Lord.
Then these things which we will delve into in a little bit of detail later.
These things would have been so much the worse.
So if it had not been Yahweh who was on our side, it was Yahweh.
It's a conditional it's saying seeing that.
Not if it could possibly be that he had been or if maybe he will be sometime.
No, no.
No, that's not at all what they're saying seeing that Confirming this for you
that Yahweh the Lord was on our side and then this leader.
Whoever it is.
It may have been cultic for the temple.
Probably not but this leader the one who starts this he calls upon Israel.
He calls upon the church saying Say it with me now.
Let Israel now say if it not been the Lord who was on our side.
Because they suffered together all the things in their captivity as a people.
And we could just as easily say today If it had not been Jesus who in our sight seeing that it is Jesus was on our side
who is now on our side and let the church now say Praise God that it is Jesus who was on
our side.
Praise God for that.
It was the Lord who was on their side and the whole congregation Together affirms this
cry.
It is the Lord who had been on our side.
The Lord you see is on your side even in your dark times.
Even in your darkest times.
What would this people looking back on?
If you read through the book of Jeremiah, especially the last several chapters, they were looking back upon disaster
the darkest of times.
Times of near cannibalism as they were starving to death as God sent the Babylonians to
Conquer Jerusalem to break down the walls to bring this people captive.
Their women were ravished their sons were slaughtered Jerusalem was broken down the
temple was ravished and desecrated and Then they were taken
captive.
They were led away with the eating mites on the road saying raise it raise it do more to them.
Punish them even more and this is that people who went into that captivity and for 70 years lived in that foreign land and now On
their way back now coming out of that time.
They look back on the disasters on the hardest of times.
Perhaps not replicated until 70 AD when the temple was fully destroyed by the Romans centuries after this.
But at that time no such disaster had ever befallen a people especially this people of God.
And so as they set by the streams in Babylon in Psalm 137
and they cried out and said this is like a dream was all tears and our captors
come our captors come and they they tease us they they Make it worse with their their
boasts against us and saying come on sing us some songs.
They look at those times and they look back and they say it was the Lord who was on our side because had it not Been
you see he brought these hard times because he's on their side.
He brought these hard times.
He come he made them pay for their sin.
He sent Babylon to be the judgment against them simply and because he was
on their side.
And sometimes it's only looking back upon these things that we lead ourselves into really.
Meaning we we sin.
We enter into these things that we know are wrong and we enter and then God with his Loving and disciplining
hand gives us these hard times.
And sometimes you get worse as we fail to listen and the God brings more difficulty and
Providence to us never leaving us.
But during all this he's doing this for you.
Even as he did for the Jews back then his disciplining hand as
hard as it can be is Because he is on your side.
Because Jesus is on your side because God wants you to be more like Jesus Christ and whatever he needs to do in
his Providence in his loving the fatherhood of you he will do.
As hard as it is to go through.
Whatever difficulty he brings to us to show us our sin to bring us to repentance.
Can we not cry out?
We have Jesus Christ Who didn't come for centuries that till centuries after this can we not cry out with
them?
Seeing that is the Lord who was on our side and had he not been had Jesus not been how much
more would this have been?
You see through the darkest times through the hardest times.
We're even we're praying out to God.
Whatever he needs to do to bring us more and more into conformity with his will he will do because he is
With you and will never leave or forsake you.
This is the cry of this people in about 516 BC that many years before
Christ.
Rejoicing as it were looking back on all the difficulties.
Can you not look back and see the hard times that God brought to you and how coming through them
there for your good?
How the difficulties that you have experienced in the Lord in your prayer still and praying out to
God and yet not being delivered.
And praying again and not being delivered and even in that time, you know, he's saying where is God?
Why isn't God with me?
But when God delivers you and brings you through.
Like the dream state that the psalmist would would have for the exiles when they were finally delivered from Babylon.
Can you not look back and see that it was God's guiding hand throughout it all whether it be your health
your job your relationships.
All to bring good to you as he did to them as hard as it all was God was
They can look back and see that if you look at verse 3 now.
Well, it was finished verse 2.
It would not been the Lord who was on our side and then we say when people rose up against us.
This is the Babylonians.
They did rise up against them Because God sent them but they did as people rise up against them.
He said when people rose up against us Verse 3 now then they would have swallowed us
up alive when their anger was kindled against us.
Then the flood would have swept over us.
You notice something there.
They do not say that.
It wouldn't have happened.
They don't say that we wouldn't have had danger of being swallowed alive.
They don't say that we didn't have to go through a flood that there weren't torrents.
A Torrent is something that you think of in the desert.
You know.
We have those dry lands those dry canals called wadis and all it takes a little bit of rain and it's out of control.
You don't want to put your toe in there because it'll suck you in and you're gone.
I used to hike in the Sierras quite a bit and it was like that in some of those things where the snow melt was Coming down so fast.
You didn't want to put very much of your body in there because it would suck you away.
And this is the torrent.
It's out of control.
It's raging as where it's like water that has a personality as reaching to swallow you up.
It does not say that they didn't go through the difficulties.
Notice what they say then.
It would have swallowed us up alive when their anger was kindled against us their anger kindled against them because the Lord sent them.
Yes, they had enemies the greatest power on earth at the time the Babylonians and their anger was kindled against Jerusalem.
But it was all God's will and looking back.
It was because God was for them.
God was on their side.
But what would have happened then.
The flood would have swept over us.
Not we would have gone through the flood.
It would have swept over us and would have drowned us drowning and deep waters in the ancient Near East mind
being some of the darkest and most dangerous the most mysterious kind of thing they could think of drowning being the worst
kind of death the depths being that dark and Dangerous place because creatures could
come up and you wouldn't see them until the last couple feet.
That's the way they viewed it.
They went through the flood, but the flood didn't go over them as it could have.
They went through a torrent, but they came out the other side the raging waters.
The anger of Babylon against them the destruction of Jerusalem the raising of the temple.
Would have been so much worse had gone up beyond our side and it's looking back.
We see all the possibilities in the hard times.
We see what could have happened had God not in his hand restrained the flood against us.
Usually where's that flood in that torrent that danger of being swallowed life come from is not our own
blunders.
Is it not our own unwillingness to look to the scriptures?
To pray before we step out.
To not listen this people was in Babylon.
Why?
Read the end of Chronicles.
2nd Chronicles chapter 36.
God says he woke up early as it were.
God doesn't wake up.
Because I rose up early and sent you prophet after prophet after prophet, but you wouldn't listen.
I sent them to you because I'm on your side.
I sent them to you because I love this people whom I redeemed from Egypt.
Yet you would not listen.
Until God as it were.
Reluctantly though God doesn't do anything reluctantly, but as it were sends judgment against them.
Could have been so much more if there had not been a restraining hand and.
Even so you read out elsewhere in Scripture that God would judge Babylon simply because they didn't show restraint.
He didn't send them to be cruel to the people.
He didn't send them to ravish the women to slaughter the sons and yet they did so and so they get punished
for that.
And looking back on all that prophecy and all these experiences that they had as We can
in our own lives as many of you can even now.
What are you going through?
How hard is it.
How many times have you prayed and have you asked yourself?
I believe in his son Jesus Christ.
I know he died for my sins.
I trust the cross.
I believe I will be resurrected and following a resurrection like his.
I Believe what the Bible says about Christ and the salvation I have in him and the faith that God gave me as if I believe.
All these things why has God not delivered?
Well God is not obligated to deliver us from our
difficulties simply because we have a greater faith than our neighbor is he.
God doesn't have to do anything.
And yet.
How much worse would these things have been.
I think of the blunders in my own life?
Excuse me.
And I can look back even to those times before I was a Christian before I confessed Christ.
And I can see oh my goodness.
If if something hadn't held me back from that raging water, which I was voluntarily jumping into.
What's that something?
Of course then it was something.
Now I look back and that was God preserving me for the day of salvation.
So look back and all the dangers that I faced and sometimes some very very difficult ramifications of them
consequences.
I Can say God was on my side?
I could show you if you ever have the time for and it would take some time point by point and month by year by decade even
I Should have God was on my side even before I confessed his son.
Had it not been for God who on my side how much worse?
How much more would have happened?
They didn't avoid the flood the torrent.
But God was there in it holding it back as he has.
Joe's where you with Job.
Where were you when I made everything?
Where were you when I created and can you tell the floodwaters meaning the oceans the seas?
This far no further.
Can you tell a grain of sand you will stay dry and that tidal wave
will come and not a speck further.
That's the God who's on their side and that's the God who held it back.
That's the God who even as unrestrained as Babylon was in their cruelty in their victories.
How much more would that have been.
And they can look back and say that see the Lord does crease discipline upon us not cruelty.
He could increase discipline on you for your good because he's on your side.
But not ultimate disaster.
Well, sometimes we resist sometimes we won't recognize.
Oftentimes we won't go to a brother or a sister or pastor and find out Spiritually what's happening and look to his word and see if we can
understand it that way and so it becomes more and more intense.
But we can look back and say what would have swept over me if God had not been there for me.
God decreased discipline not cruelty.
And you could decrease discipline for you and for me and for all of us because he's for us.
See because he's for you.
He's on your side and giving away of escape.
In verse 6 he said blessed be the Lord who has not given us as prey to their teeth.
He didn't give us as prey to their teeth.
That reminds me of what Peter says about the devil.
He says your adversary is like roaring lying prowling around looking for someone to do our someone to actually
Use as prey someone to tear apart to consume and this is the kind of cruelty that they went through
with Babylon.
He says they would have swallowed us alive.
Why would it be swallowed alive?
Well in the one hand we can look at how much more Babylon could have done.
I think this idea of being swallowed alive takes us all the way back to the book of Numbers.
Do you remember the Korah rebellion?
When Korah and his cohort said Moses you've gone too far.
Moses why do you think the Lord speaks only through you and they have that whole contest with the the
Lanterns that they take or the lights that they bring and God chooses which one.
And what happens is when Korah is Identified as a rebel as a sinner
Who is blaspheming the name of God the earth swallows him up?
Remember that the earth opens up and swallows his whole clan alive.
This is I think they're referring to here.
We've been swallowed alive.
If it hadn't been the Lord who was on our side would have gotten what we deserve for our sins before when we went to idols
and Astral -poles and refused to hear the prophecy matter of fact tortured and killed the prophets you read
that in Jeremiah.
We was led into that cistern full of mud and was left there just to sink further and further like quicksand.
They would have been swallowed alive the earth would have opened up and God would just consumed him.
So I'm done with this people as he told Moses I'm going to destroy this people after they went after the golden calf.
I'll make another people through you Moses.
Oh Lord, what would happen to your reputation?
Should you do that?
And God relented.
I would've been swallowed alive.
The earth would have opened up and just done away with us.
But they say we have escaped like a bird from the snare of the fowlers.
It's an interesting picture we have here.
Now you think of a little bird caught in a snare?
And I'm not going to have time and I wouldn't be able to verbally picture for you what these snares look like but it would be a a loop of some
kind of twine with a Loop on the end of it and not that would tighten as soon as it gets touched.
And here's this little bird caught in it poor helpless little bird.
Caught in this snare.
There's nothing they can do about was a bird have they don't have hands.
A little bird Doesn't have a beak that's gonna be able to saw through us a bit of line even a bit of the string
he's caught and All you can wait for is to starve because he's caught or for somebody
to come and release him from that because he's gonna put Him in a pot.
He has no hope that poor little bird.
We have escaped like a bird.
They were the bird.
They were caught in the snare of the fowler.
They were taken captive to Babylon.
They went through all this.
This is we've escaped.
The snare is broken here's it's in the passive and we have escaped.
Something came down someone came down and broke the snare.
Someone was on their side.
Yahweh was on their side.
They escaped from the snare of the fowlers because God if you read in the end of 2nd Chronicles in the beginning of the book Of Ezra,
what does it say there?
Says the God by his spirit moved Cyrus the king of Persia the conqueror of Babylon.
To give a decree.
That the Jews should be able to go back home.
That Jews will be released with all the implements of the temple to rebuild the temple and restore proper worship.
I Didn't quote it.
I gave you kind of a summary of that first couple paragraphs in in the book of Ezra or the end of 2nd Chronicles.
That's how they escaped.
There were little birds.
They didn't accomplish this themselves and We look at ourselves.
Have we escaped you know the book of Hebrews speaks of the devil keeping us in bondage
because of our fear of death.
It's like that fear of death Bonds the whole world in fear and people who go through so many
things it takes so many drugs.
There's homeopathic methods and there's workouts and all kinds of things you can do to extend your life.
Why because they fear death?
Because death has no answer to them because it's only that like the deeps in the ancient Near Eastern thought that I described a
moment ago.
It's you don't know.
It's only dangerous and dark and I can't get my arms around it.
So I'm afraid of it.
But has not Jesus Christ Taken us out of that snare out of that bondage
fear of death now.
Because Jesus Christ lives and because he lives we will live.
He's resurrected and we'll follow in a resurrection like his.
We have escaped from that Snare of the fowler from the snare of the devil from the fear of death.
They say here we've escaped like a bird from the snare of the fowlers.
Remember they went through that snare they were caught.
They were desperate.
They were hopeless.
They had no choices in the matter.
But they've escaped they were made to escape.
God gave them a way of escape.
Do you know yourself a sinner?
Do you know The ultimate price of sin is death for the wages of sin is death.
But the gift of God's eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
That snare is around your ankle if you know not Jesus Christ and you're like a little bird like a helpless little bird
fluttering with your wings with no body part that you can reach down and Open the snare
and get yourself released.
You can't do anything about it By faith in Jesus Christ.
But faith in the Lord Jesus who on the cross paid the price for your sins is a snare broken
and only by him.
That's God on our side.
He was on our side When he sent us through the hard times can we not look back even in this church
and see some of the difficulties we went through and Now that we've come out the other side of them at least for a time
We can look back say God was on our side.
God was refining us.
God was building us up.
God was molding Jesus as a body and as individuals in this place.
I say blessed be the Lord.
We've escaped like a bird from the snare of the fowler.
The snare is broken.
We have escaped and Then to verse 8 our help is in the name of the Lord who made heaven
and earth.
Our help is in the name of the Lord who made heaven and earth is now the third time in these Psalms of ascents.
These 15 Psalms that were sung on their way back to Jerusalem the third time that they speak of God
Who made heaven and earth as their help?
I?
Look to the hills word from where it comes my help.
My help comes from the Lord who made heaven and earth.
Here in Psalm 124.
Our help is in the name of the Lord who made heaven and earth and this set of 15 Ascent
Psalms Ends with that may the Lord bless you.
From Zion who made heaven and earth the Lord made everything and is this Lord who is On their side
throughout all their difficulties.
Why did they bring up Lord making heaven and earth?
I think it has to do with the fact that he made heaven and earth and he made you.
He made all of us and the idea is if he was on our side when he made us.
How much more is he on your side when he remade you in Christ Jesus?
Does not the Apostle Paul say in 2nd Corinthians 5 17 if anyone is in Christ.
He's a new creation.
Behold the old has passed away and the new has come.
It's not God on your side in all that if God made us if he made the earth so that the
earth.
In Ephesians Chapter 3 he made the world so that the church would exist on this world and proclaim the glories of the
Lord Jesus Christ.
Is he not on our side.
It was has to take us back to Romans chapter 8
classic passage many of you are very familiar with.
Apostle Paul writes.
What then shall we say to these things.
What shall we say to God's calling?
Well, shall we say to God's sovereignty?
Well, shall we say to God's grace and calling broken sinners to praise sinners to his son Jesus Christ and giving them
salvation.
What shall we say to all of these things?
But then shall we say to these things if God is for us who can be against us.
He who did not spare his own son, but gave him up for us all how will he not also with him graciously?
Give us all things.
God is on your side.
God is on your side in the dark times.
God brings the dark times even as he did to Israel in the Exile the destruction of Jerusalem
and the exile.
He's with you in the hard times.
Why is he with you.
Because he loves his people.
Because he loves his church.
That's all true.
Is he on my side because I'm worth keeping.
See on your side because of something good in you says oh I need this one to continue on because this
one gives me so much credit.
No.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
He who did not spare his own son his own Jesus Christ his own beloved is only begotten.
He was not spared him but sent him to the cross.
Gave him up for us all.
He gave Jesus Christ to die for our sins.
He sent his son to redeem this people.
To redeem us from the snare of the fowler.
To redeem us from the raging waters and the flood that was going over our heads.
If he sent him and sent him to the cross for us.
How will he not also with him graciously give us all things.
Why is God on your side?
Well, not because of me and not because of you.
And also I almost want I never do this.
Put my cupped hand to my ear and ask for a response.
Why does God do this.
Because of whom does God get on your side?
Why is God on your side because of whom and the class?
Said Jesus thank you got more over here than I did out there where the kids are because of Jesus.
He did not spare his own son.
He gave us his son so we look back and we say well God now gave me his son.
If God is on my side enough to give me faith to Believe in Jesus Christ.
How could he not have been on my side and now fill in the blank?
When my job collapsed.
My savings had to be emptied.
When my marriage had difficulties when my health abandoned me fill in the blank if God now
is on your side.
So much so that he gave Jesus Christ.
How could he not have been on your side in all those pastimes.
Why is he on your side because you're in Christ Jesus his son.
Why is he on your side because he's on Jesus's side.
Why is he on Jesus's side because Jesus is only begotten son is only beloved.
Who shall bring any charge against God's elect if God is for us?
How can anyone charge us of Jesus Christ paid for your sin if God was on your side in putting you in Christ Jesus?
Ephesians 1 3 he chose us in him before the foundation of the world.
To be redeemed in him if God was on your side with that.
Who shall bring any charge against God's elect?
God was on my side.
You charge me with sin.
I will answer for my sin.
I'll repent of my sin.
The church has discipline about sin.
All that is true.
Someone comes up and says you're just a lousy sinner and says it with that sneer and that cynicism.
No, you don't put up with that.
You say no God is on my side and no charge can come against me.
That Jesus Christ on the cross didn't pay for God is on my side.
It is God who justifies who is to condemn Christ.
Jesus is the one who died more than that who was raised.
Who's at the right hand of God who indeed is interceding for us who shall separate us from the love of Christ?
Shall tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword as is written for your sake?
We are being killed all the day long.
We're regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.
No in all these things.
We are more than conquerors through him who loved us for I'm sure that neither death nor life nor angels nor rulers nor things
present.
Or things to come nor powers nor height nor depth nor anything in all creation.
We'll be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ.
Jesus.
Our Lord is the Lord on your side brethren.
He is if you're in Christ Jesus.
Why is the Lord on your side brethren because you're in Christ his son.
God is on our side through all your dark times through all your difficulties even in those how hard it
is to say I'm going through this because God is On my side and God who looks at us
on 139 as a father to his children.
He knows that in those times.
It's hard to say God is on my side.
Most of you know that my wife is very ill right now.
She has one kind of cancer.
And she has a tremendous amount of pain, which is why she hasn't been here for the last few weeks nauseating pain.
She's tougher than most of us tougher than me yet.
It makes her cry.
Right now it's hard to say God is on my side.
Right now it's hard to keep my eye on Christ and not look forward more
to the answer of the biopsy.
These things are hard dear ones.
Not just me, but we all go through things like this.
We all have these difficulties.
And during the difficulty, it's so hard to say God is on my side, but it's so hard, but God is on my side.
But it's so difficult.
And yet this people these Jews 500 years before Christ.
Look back as a God was on our side through it all.
I Know now.
Whatever comes we will look back and say God was on our side.
God was molding us into Christ.
And that's not just me because I'm some paradigm of excellence you who've known me for some 20 -something years, you
know, I'm not.
But we're all in the same boat.
We all have these things we go through and brother.
We must look and say because of Jesus Christ.
Because I am in God's only beloved son and God is on his side building his church forming
his people into the image of his son because of all that because of Christ Jesus not because of me because of
Christ and what he did in his perfect life and his perfect sacrifice for me because of him
because of Jesus Christ.
God is for me.
If God is for me.
Who can be against me.
And the resounding answer is no one?
Nothing.
No entity no power.
No spirit.
No person.
Not even myself when I accuse myself when you accuse yourself.
Not even you can bring a charge against yourself that Christ Jesus didn't pay for because God is
on our side.
Amen.
Let's pray Heavenly Father.
We thank you for this word that you give us.
We thank you father for the sureness We have that you are certainly for us that you are with us father because of Christ
Jesus and because of what you were doing In us because of him and through him molding us
evermore into that people.
The Lord as we look back on these hard times these difficulties you've given us.
We thank you for them because we can look and say through all that as hard as they were.
God is on our side through it all.
Whatever comes father may we make that proclamation with the scripture if it had not been the Lord Jesus Christ who
is for us.
Then we fill in the blank and say thank God and praise God and hallelujah to God that God is on our
side.
And he was with us in Jesus name.
You.