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Psalm 127: Enemies in the Gate

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INTRODUCTION

We live in a generation that wants to define family in radically perverse and demented ways. In times like this, it is easy to allow phrases like the traditional family and the biblical family to blur together, as though they were the same thing. But the biblical family is much more militant than the traditional family, and much less sentimental. And this is one of the reasons why the traditional family has had such trouble defending itself against the onslaught of the “brave new family.”

THE TEXT

“Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it: Except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain. It is vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, To eat the bread of sorrows: For so he giveth his beloved sleep. Lo, children are an heritage of the Lord: And the fruit of the womb is his reward. As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; So are children of the youth. Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them: They shall not be ashamed, But they shall speak with the enemies in the gate” (Psalm 127:1–5).

SUMMARY OF THE TEXT

All of our labors are futile unless the Lord gives success to the work (v. 1). The one who builds a house cannot complete it unless the Lord is actually the one building it (v. 1). If the Lord is not protecting the city, it doesn’t matter how many sentries you post (v. 1). It is vain for you to wear yourself out if God does not want to give it to you (v. 2). So when the Lord is building a house, how does He do it? Children are a heritage from the Lord, and His reward is the fruit of the womb (v. 3), but the first principle applies even here. Unless the Lord blesses the child-rearing, the thing is fruitless. The children of one’s youth are described here as the arrows in the hand of a great warrior (v. 4). A man who has a quiver full of loyal children will not be ashamed when he confronts his enemies in the gates of the city (v. 5).

COME NOW, YOU WHO SAY

The Lord’s brother James warns us about our tendency to go in for arrogant planning. “Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, spend a year there, buy and sell, and make a profit”” (James 4:13, NKJV). What we ought to say is quite different. “Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that”” (James 4:15, NKJV). Our lives are in God’s hands, completely and utterly and finally. As Burns put it, “The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men gang aft agley,” which means that they skid sideways.

“Ye have sown much, and bring in little; Ye eat, but ye have not enough; Ye drink, but ye are not filled with drink; Ye clothe you, but there is none warm; And he that earneth wages earneth wages to put it into a bag with holes” (Haggai 1:6).

“Beware that thou forget not the Lord thy God, in not keeping his commandments, and his judgments, and his statutes, which I command thee this day: Lest when thou hast eaten and art full, and hast built goodly houses, and dwelt therein; And when thy herds and thy flocks multiply, and thy silver and thy gold is multiplied, and all that thou hast is multiplied; Then thine heart be lifted up, and thou forget the Lord thy God, which brought thee forth out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage” (Deut. 8:11–14).

If God’s blessing is not resting on it, depend upon it, you will be able to do nothing worthwhile with it. If the blessing of God is present, then both wings can fall of and it will still fly. This is true of farming, of inventing, of painting, of woodworking, of writing, and of anything else that we might decide to do. And it most certainly applies to the building of a house, to the rearing of children.

And it is here that we have to distinguish the difference between genuine faith and high-flying presumption. From fifty yards away, they can both look equally crazy.

NOT A SENTIMENTAL MOVE

We all love the fact that children are a blast, and nobody should mind the fact that we love it. But this psalm is not about the patter of little feet around the house. This is not about your Christmas photo album. The ancient world, when they went to war, had a clearer view of what was at stake than do we (Hos. 13:16; Amos 1:13). A kindergarten class is a packet of warrior seed.

A quiver holds arrows, and a warrior holds arrows in his hand as well. The man who has children in his youth is a man who has grown children when he is still active and in the fray.

ENEMIES IN THE GATE

The city council of an ancient city was found in their gates. It is where their elders sat. It is where decisions were made, and transactions conducted. If a showdown occurred, that is where it would occur. So there are two things to note about this.

The first is that a man is contending with his enemies in the gate, and his sons are there with him. His sons are present in the gates when this happens, and (this is important), they are on their father’s side.

The second thing is that these are not foreign enemies, besieging the city from outside, but rather domestic adversaries, belonging to the opposition. A righteous man, together with his arrows, stands against all enemies “foreign and domestic.” The issue is righteousness, not party, or tribe, or nation. And a blessed father brings his children along with him in their shared loyalty to truth and righteousness. The glue that holds such families together is outside the family. This is fundamental.

Every attempt to get families, or nations, or churches to hold together apart from Christ (Col. 1:18) is idolatry.

CHRIST IN THE GATE

Remember that Jesus is Jehovah, Jesus is Yahweh, Christ is the Lord (Joel 2:32; Rom. 10: 9,13). So unless Christ builds the house, then forget about it. Unless Christ is guarding your nation, forget that too. Your heritage in your children, if it is to be a true heritage, must be from the hand of Christ.

Look to Him for every blessing. Look to Him for every deliverance. Look to Him.

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Psalm 126: Like Those Who Dream

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INTRODUCTION

The word eucatastrophe was coined by J.R.R. Tolkien, and it refers to a deliverance when all was thought to be lost. There was no possible way . . . and then the unbelievable happened. “My chains fell off, my heart was free. I rose, went forth, and followed thee.”

THE TEXT

“A Song of degrees. When the Lord turned again the captivity of Zion, we were like them that dream. Then was our mouth filled with laughter, and our tongue with singing: Then said they among the heathen, The Lord hath done great things for them. The Lord hath done great things for us; Whereof we are glad. Turn again our captivity, O Lord, as the streams in the south. They that sow in tears shall reap in joy. He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him” (Psalm 126)

SUMMARY OF THE TEXT

This is a psalm of the Lord’s turnings (vv. 1, 4). When the Lord turned the captivity of Zion into liberty, it was like a dream, too good to be true (v. 1). But it was true—and resulted in mouths full of laughter, and tongues occupied with singing (v. 2). In addition to this, even the heathen were talking about how kind God had been to His people (v. 2). Where does this kind of gladness arise? It came because of the great things that the Lord had done for them (v. 3). Then comes a plea, turn our captivity again. Do it again this time, the way God could divert the streams of the south (v. 4). Those who sow with tears shall reap with joy (v. 5). The one who goes out weeping, carrying precious seed, is doubtless going to come in again, carrying the heavy sheaves of blessing (v. 6), and doing so in joy.

SOWING AND REAPING AND ADVERBS

The Scriptures are very clear that what you sow is what you are going to reap (Gal. 6:7). If you sow barley, you are going to reap barley. If you sow thistles, you are going to reap thistles. But we learn in this passage that the way you sow is not necessarily the way you will reap. You go out to sow with tears, and you come back in singing songs. You go out, it says, carrying your precious seeds (Ps. 126:6). These seeds are little, few, and easy to carry. They are precious because everything rides on them. Though your load is light, the sowing is accompanied with tears. And then, at harvest, when you are laughing, singing, and shouting to your companions, you are carrying the great weight of sheaves.

THINK FOR A MOMENT

God loves to release His people. He loves to hear their laughter as they come, disbelieving, out into the sunlight. He loves to listen to the songs that they sing when this happens.

Think of Noah and his family coming out of the ark onto dry land (Gen. 8:18). Think of Joseph being brought out of jail, hurriedly shaved, and bustled into Pharaoh’s throne room (Gen. 41:14). Think of Jacob being told, after many years exiled in his grief, that Joseph was alive, and ruling over Egypt (Gen. 45:28). Think of the Israelites in Egypt, laboring in slavery for many years, suddenly released (Ex. 12:37-38). Think of the Jews in Babylon, suddenly hearing about the decree of Cyrus (2 Chron. 36:22). Think of Esther and Mordecai, as they contemplated how God arranged the reversal of fortunes between Haman and Mordecai (Est. 8:1-2). Think of Peter in prison, kicked in the side by an angel, and then escorted out (Acts 12:7ff). Think of Paul in prison in Philippi, escorted out by the city officials (Acts 16:35-39). One of God’s great gifts to His people is the vision of their prison doors swinging out.

PRECIOUS SEED

One of the easiest foolish things in the world to do is that of eating your seed corn. Things are tight, and they look to get tighter. And when that happens, you have to take your seed, your precious seed, and go out and put it in the ground. This is an act of faith under any circumstances, but then you remember that sometimes there are crop failures, and what about . . .? And this is why the one sowing goes out with tears. This is our final hope, our last hope, our only hope, and here I am putting it in the dirt. But the one who does this weeping will doubtless come back in again, staggering under the weight of the sheaves.

TRUST HAPPENS IN STORIES

The message is, of course, that we must trust in Christ. This is what you expect to hear, correct? This is a Christian worship service, and you are listening to a Christian sermon being preached by a Christian minister. You expect to hear Christian things, right? So trust in Jesus.

But trust is something that happens in stories. It does not happen in a timeless void, where God is here and you are there, and then you trust Him. It is not that kind of static or frozen picture.

In order to have the experience of “them that dream,” you need to be in real trouble. You are in exile, or in prison, or in pain, or in some difficulty, or in some other dire circumstance. You don’t know how much longer you can keep on. The pressure is awful, or petty and tedious, or indeterminate, and so you trust, and you trust, and you wait, and then you trust some more. And you wake up, and there those dungeon walls are again.

Remember that God is the one who gives you your trust, but He is also the author of all those external reasons in your life that you are tempted to think of as good reasons not to.

When you were converted, you trusted in Christ while under the burden of your sins. You were here in the story, and trust was the pivot point, and then you were there. When we believe God, what do we call the people who do that? We call them believers. When we refuse to believe God, what do we call people like that? We call them unbelievers.

SHADOW SALVATIONS

The kind of deliverances I mentioned earlier is the sort of thing that God loves to do. He has done it many times, both in scriptural history, and in the history of the church since the close of the canon. But though He does it often, in this life it is not the case that He will do it each and every time. Some believers are faithful to the shedding of blood. There are martyrs. There are Christians who make enormous sacrifices and do not appear to have been delivered in this life at all. What are we to make of them?

We are tempted to think that deliverances in this life are the “real thing,” while our final or ultimate deliverance is a “pie in the sky” sort of thing. But it is the other way around. There is a place where absolutely every believer will come, and will be like those who dream. So these are the shadow salvations, and thatis the final reality. When God delivers His people in this life—as He often does—it is just a foretaste. God is whetting the appetite for what is to come.

“For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us” (Romans 8:18).

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Psalm 125: Like the Mountain of Zion

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INTRODUCTION

This psalm is the next in the psalms of ascent (120-134)—a psalm that would be sung as pilgrims made their way up to Jerusalem. This is a psalm of true assurance . . . for true men.

THE TEXT

“A Song of degrees. They that trust in the Lord shall be as mount Zion, which cannot be removed, but abideth for ever. As the mountains are round about Jerusalem, so the Lord is round about his people from henceforth even forever. For the rod of the wicked shall not rest upon the lot of the righteous; Lest the righteous put forth their hands unto iniquity. Do good, O Lord, unto those that be good, and to them that are upright in their hearts. As for such as turn aside unto their crooked ways, the Lord shall lead them forth with the workers of iniquity: But peace shall be upon Israel” (Psalm 125:1-5).

SUMMARY OF THE TEXT

Those who trust in the Lord are like Mount Zion (v. 1). They cannot be moved or removed, but abide forever. Like mountains surrounding Jerusalem, the Lord surrounds His people (v. 2). He will surround them forever. The oppression of the wicked will not long remain upon the righteous (v. 3), in order to protect the righteous from veering off into iniquity (v. 3). Then comes the prayer—do good, oh Lord, to those who are good (v. 4). Those who are good are those who are upright in heart (v. 4). For those who fall away into crooked ways, their lot is thrown together with that of the workers of iniquity (v. 5). But peace is upon Israel (v. 5).

PERSEVERANCE OF THE SAINTS

Some accuse Reformed theology of offering believers an empty tautological comfort. We say that no saint can be removed from the hand of God, and then, when someone is removed, we say that they were not really a saint.

The criticism claims that this is a version of the “no true Scotsman” fallacy. “No Scotsman would dream of pronouncing Edinburgh the way you do.” “But my Uncle Angus McDougall pronounces it exactly that way.” “Well, he is clearly not a true Scotsman then.”

We do have the initial appearance of this informal fallacy in this psalm. We are told in the first verse that the one who trusts in the Lord “cannot be removed,” and then in the fifth verse we find out what happens to those who are removed—“such as turn aside unto their crooked ways.” But what good is it to be told that those who trust in the Lord cannot be removed when the way you get removed is by ceasing to trust in the Lord? But consider:

“They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us: but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us” (1 John 2:19).

It is not fallacious to say that genuine trust can never be abused or abandoned by the Lord, while at the same time to acknowledging that such trust can be mimicked or counterfeited by the unregenerate. For a time.

THE ROD OF THE WICKED

We see a curious expression in the third verse. The rod of the wicked does not appear to be laid on the backs of the righteous, but rather as a measuring rod on the estates of the righteous. Think of Jezebel seizing Naboth’s vineyard for her husband, and Ahab going down to take possession of it—“the rod of the wicked shall not rest upon the lot of the righteous.” Think of confiscations, eminent domain, or predatory taxation. Those who received the letter to the Hebrews had experienced this sad reality (Heb 10:34).

And remember that in our time, those who rob and steal will do it in the name of human rights. But property rights are human rights.

GOOD FOR THOSE WHO ARE GOOD

We find a prayer in the midst of this psalm. We began with confidence (vv. 1-2). We then heard a promise (v. 3). Then there is this prayer in verse 4. The psalm concludes with a warning (v. 5). So what is the prayer? The prayer is this: “Do good, O Lord, unto those that be good, and to them that are upright in their hearts.”

We know that when and if we are good, it is only by the grace of God. He saved us apart from a consideration of our good works (Eph. 2:8-9), but He saved us with the intention of having us walk in good works (Eph. 2:10). We were created for those good works just as those good works were created for us. We were saved for them, but not because of them.

We also know that when we are good, there is always an admixture of self in it. We know that if God were to mark iniquities, no one could stand (Ps. 130:3). Our goodness is not ultimate or perfect.

But it is real. With these things acknowledged, and fully acknowledged, there is such a thing as Christians walking worthy of their calling (Eph. 4:1; 1 Thess. 2:12, Rev. 3:4). “That ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God” (Col. 1:10).

So take a look at those things you would love for God to bless. Your business? Your family? Now take a look at those things in your life that are yelling at God to do the exact opposite—your browser history? Your catty tongue? Your envious looks? Are you willing to pray this prayer? “Do good, oh, Lord, to those who aregood.” And not just externally good either. Upright in heart.

THE MOUNTAINS OF YOUR SALVATION

The reason God’s people are like mountains which cannot be moved is that they are surrounded by the mountains of God, which cannot be moved. When you are saved by Christ, you are as secure as He is.

Some men are like the sand beneath their beautiful house (Matt. 7:26), and it looks very fine until the storm comes. Some men are like the sea, restless and choppy, casting up mire and dirt (Is. 57:20-21; Jas. 1:6). Some men are like the wind, blowing first this way and then that (Eph. 4:14). But believers are mountains.

And believers are like mountains because they have come to Christ, who is themountain. Christ is the Rock, and His work is perfect, and all His ways are righteous (Dt. 32:4). Becoming like Him includes becoming like this—immoveable.

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Christ and the Monsters of Chaos

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INTRODUCTION

We do not pay enough attention to foundational myths. This is the case both with the fanciful myths of the unbelievers and the genuine myths that are recorded for us in Scripture. While many myths are false, and Scripture treats the word in that way, with myths being described as pernicious, false, and unedifying (1 Tim. 1:4, 4:7; 2 Tim. 4:4; Tit. 1:14; 2 Pet. 1:16), the phrase true myth is nevertheless not oxymoronic.

THE TEXTS

“So God created great sea creatures and every living thing that moves, with which the waters abounded, according to their kind, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.” (Genesis 1:21, NKJV)

“In that day the Lord with his sore and great and strong sword shall punish leviathan the piercing serpent, even leviathan that crooked serpent; And he shall slay the dragon that is in the sea” (Isaiah 27:1).

“For God is my King of old, working salvation in the midst of the earth. Thou didst divide the sea by thy strength: Thou brakest the heads of the dragons in the waters. Thou brakest the heads of leviathan in pieces, and gavest him to be meat to the people inhabiting the wilderness” (Psalm 74:12–14).

SUMMARY OF THE TEXTS

In Scripture, the great dragons of the deep were creatures, and they were formed on the fifth day. They are called tanninim, sea monsters, great sea dragons. Not only so, but God made leviathan for fun. “There go the ships: There is that leviathan, whom thou hast made to play therein” (Ps. 104:26).

But in a fallen creation, these sea monsters became symbols of great wickedness and insolent pride, usually associated with Egypt. And this is why God is described as conquering and defeating them. The exultation over God’s victory over Leviathan in both Isaiah and Psalms is a triumph over Pharaoh. And in a related example, there was another great sea monster was named Rahab. And God describes the crossing of the Rea Sea, and the defeat of Egypt, in terms that are reminiscent of Jehovah’s conquest of that sea dragon.

“Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the Lord; Awake, as in the ancient days, in the generations of old. Art thou not it that hath cut Rahab, and wounded the dragon? Art thou not it which hath dried the sea, the waters of the great deep; That hath made the depths of the sea a way for the ransomed to pass over?” (Isaiah 51:9–10).

The defeat of these sea dragons might be a symbolic description of God dealing with Egypt decisively, or perhaps it is using a primal battle between Jehovah and these sea creatures as an image for describing what He also did to Egypt. When Job curses the day of his birth, he calls upon those capable of rousing Leviathan, which would unhinge everything. “Let those curse it who curse the day, who are ready to rouse up Leviathan” (Job 3:8, ESV).

This is not just some ancient “old covenant” thing. Remember the red dragon with seven heads in Revelation, and which pursues the woman with turbulent flood waters (Rev. 12:3-4, 15)

SOME BACKGROUND

In order to understand all this more fully, we have to grasp the fundamental contrast between the believing and unbelieving mind at this point. For the believer, God is the ultimate and personal starting point. For the unbeliever, the foundation is chaos. Everything began with chaos, and threatens to return to chaos.

The scriptural account begins with God speaking. God speaks, and as a result there was an earth that was formless and void, and then God shaped it according to His good purposes.

But unbelievers do not begin with the Word that was with God and was God, and so they must in some manner begin with the chaos. In the ancient pagan myths, as in the Enuma Elish, it begins with water, and—long story short—Marduk kills Tiamat the watery goddess, and creates heaven and earth out of her carcass. Then man is created to help the gods keep order, and to keep the chaos at bay.

  1. Infinite personal God > Formless & void (tohu wabohu) > Ordered cosmos . . . or
  2. Chaos > Apparent order and design > Ever present option of lapsing

STRUCTURAL DEFECT OR REBELLION?

In the biblical view of the world, when God created all things, He pronounced all of them good(Gen. 1: 4, 10, 12, 18, 21, 25, 31). This would include the sea dragons of the fifth day (Gen. 1:21). Nothing whatever wrong with them. But after the rebellion of man, after we ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the whole created order fell with us. Man was the driver, creation the car, and we crashed it into a tree. This is why the whole creation groans (Rom. 8: 22), looking forward to the day when the sons of God are to be revealed. But some parts of this crashed creation order became identified with the great rebellion. It is hard to imagine packs of hyenas roaming the outskirts of Eden.

But it is important for us to distinguish the two visions. For the Christian, the problem is sin, and the solution is the gospel and right worship. Civilization is fragile, but it is fragile because of sin. For the unbeliever, civilization is also fragile, but it is fragile because of the underlying chaos. This whole thing is built on chaos, chaos is the foundation. In addition, because the unbeliever has no ultimate standard of order, his only hope—when things get intolerable—is to drive it all back down into shambolic chaos again, with the desire that we might get luckier next time. Such pagan religion is driven by a gamblers’ hope.

“Before there was earth or sea or the sky that covers everything, Nature appeared the same throughout the whole world: what we call chaos: a raw confused mass, nothing but inert matter, badly combined discordant atoms of things, confused in the one place” (Ovid, Metamorphoses).

THE ORDER OF CHRIST AND THE CHAOS OF SIN

According to the gospel, the problematic issue is what man did in his rebellion. The problematic issue is not the very nature of the created order itself. And this is why our worship is so important.

“For thus saith the Lord that created the heavens; God himself that formed the earth and made it; he hath established it, He created it not in vain [to not be chaos, tohu], he formed it to be inhabited: I am the Lord; and there is none else” (Isaiah 45:18).

“Let all things be done decently and in order” (1 Cor. 14:40). We want nothing to do with those who walk disorderly (2 Thess. 3:6-7, 11). “For though I be absent in the flesh, yet am I with you in the spirit, joying and beholding your order, and the stedfastness of your faith in Christ” (Col. 2:5).

But remember that in and through the church, God is remaking the cosmos. We are the new way of being human in Christ. And that means we are worshiping God here, this morning, as the sea wall that is holding back the raging flood that wants to inundate the world. But God promised—ironically, with a rainbow—that this was not going to happen again.

“And hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church, Which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all” (Eph. 1:22–23).

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When Our World Falls Apart

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THE TEXT

In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple. 2 Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. 3 And one called to another and said:

“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts;
the whole earth is full of his glory!”

4 And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke. 5 And I said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!”

6 Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar. 7 And he touched my mouth and said: “Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for.”

8 And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” Then I said, “Here I am! Send me.” 9 And he said, “Go, and say to this people:

“‘Keep on hearing, but do not understand;
keep on seeing, but do not perceive.’
10 Make the heart of this people dull,
    and their ears heavy,
    and blind their eyes;
lest they see with their eyes,
    and hear with their ears,
and understand with their hearts,
    and turn and be healed.”
11 Then I said, “How long, O Lord?”
And he said:
“Until cities lie waste
    without inhabitant,
and houses without people,
    and the land is a desolate waste,
12 and the Lord removes people far away,
    and the forsaken places are many in the midst of the land.
13 And though a tenth remain in it,
    it will be burned again,
like a terebinth or an oak,
    whose stump remains
    when it is felled.”
The holy seed is its stump (Isa. 6:1–13).

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