20. Whence Cometh Your Help, Psalm 121

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Hymns: RHC 87 I Know Whom I Have Believed, 91 The Lily of the Valley, 104 All That Thrills My Soul

Psalm 121:1-8

 1 A Song of degrees. I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help. 2 My help cometh from the LORD, which made heaven and earth. 3 He will not suffer thy foot to be moved: he that keepeth thee will not slumber. 4 Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep. 5 The LORD is thy keeper: the LORD is thy shade upon thy right hand. 6 The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night. 7 The LORD shall preserve thee from all evil: he shall preserve thy soul. 8 The LORD shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth, and even for evermore. Psalm 121:1-8 (KJV)

 Whence Cometh Your Help

 (1) The Christian’s help is from the LORD (v1-2a)

        (a) For He is Creator (v2b)

        (b) Faithful Protector (v3-6)

        (c) Saviour (v7-8)

 

INTRODUCTION

What do you do when you are in trouble? Whence cometh your help? We want to meditate on this theme that for Christians our help comes from the LORD. Some trust in chariots and some in horses but we trust in the name of the LORD.

The psalms were written out of life’s struggles and therefore they speak well to the heart of God’s people who struggle today. Dear friends, are you struggling in life? Do you often come to your wit’s end and do not know what to do anymore?

The psalmist affirms with his heart and confesses with his mouth by penning this psalm that His help comes from his LORD. The psalmist tells us how his LORD is a reliable helper by reminding us of our LORD credentials.

Have you sent anyone off to the airport before? If you have, you will know that we are quite helpless to provide for the needs of the person who may leave for long periods of time either for work, studies or migrating to a foreign land. Whence cometh their help? Psalm 121 is a truly blessed traveller’s psalm, to remind us that in our temporal sojourn on this earth, it is God that sustains and keeps us by His power. We cannot be with our loved ones but our LORD can!

Psalm 120-134 is a collection of fifteen psalms of ascent called “a song of degrees” which you will see in the preface of the psalm. These psalms were sung on pilgrim journeys to Jerusalem. These psalms are best taken as processional hymns, hymns sung by worshipers as they approached Jerusalem and the temple. Psalm 121 is a pilgrim’s song sung as the worshippers climb the steps in ascending degrees to the temple at Jerusalem to celebrate the festivities of the Jews. This is a psalm of worship and consecration. Pilgrims make their way to the temple to renew their faith and trust in God. The Jewish pilgrims sang on their way up to Jerusalem (about 2700 feet in elevation, 5 times the height of Singapore’s highest point the Bukit Timah Hill at 538 feet. Pilgrims would journey to Jerusalem on 3 prescribed annual occasions (1) Feast of Unleaven Bread (2) Feast of Weeks/Pentecost/Harvest (3) Feast of Ingathering/Tabernacles/Booths.

(1) The Christian’s help is from the LORD (v1-2a)

1 <<A Song of degrees.>> I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help.

“I will lift up mine eyes to the hills from whence shall come my help.”

This is his announcement in verse 1 which is also the theme of the psalm – the source of the psalmist’s help. When he is distressed and troubled, he will pray and look to God. He would lift up his eyes heavenward.  The petitioner lifts up his eyes to the hills, looking beyond the hills, to His LORD, enthroned in heaven, protecting His people. (Emphasize)

The mountain and hill are the symbol of stability, security and safety, a refuge, a strong hold and a fortress. This imagery provides the picture that God is the most reliable helper. Why is God a reliable helper? This psalm will tell us the answer so that we may like the psalmist affirm our faith in Him.

Coming for worship each Lord’s Day and mid-week prayer meeting week after week is an affirmation in the heart of the seeker that we need God and is dependent on Him to live this earthly life.

The lifting of the eyes is a gesture of worship as the pilgrims’ approach God. It is an act of acknowledging God, a most wonderful prayer posture of a trusting heart without hassle. The lifting up of the eyes is a renewal of trust in God and in Him alone. The traveller begins by lifting his eyes to the hills. In the back of his mind, he contemplates the dangers of the journey of life that lie before him. The struggles in his life still weigh in his heart whenever he contemplates and thinks about his problems. Do you come this morning with some burden in your heart? Like the psalmist, we may be led to ask, “Where will my help come from?” His reply is “My helper will come from my LORD”. Is this your heart’s conviction?

The lifting up of the eyes is the praying posture of the saint. Is this your habit? While the outlook may be gleam and bleak, there is always hope in the up-look!

This word “to lift” is the same word “to carry”. To give your troubles to the LORD for He will help you carry them. Our Lord Jesus says, “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” (Matthew 11:28)

The lifting up of the eyes is the light yoke of the Christian. Every trouble that we have we can bring to our LORD. “I am poor and needy: make haste unto me, O God: thou art my help and my deliverer; O LORD, make no tarrying”. (Psalm 70:5)

Notice the word “LORD” or capital “LORD” speaks of a personal relationship the psalmist has with his God, it is the covenant name of the God of Israel. It identifies the vibrant relationship that the psalmist has with his God.

How is your relationship with your heavenly Father? Do you call upon Him and speak to Him often, or is He only an SOS helpline? Do you take time to cultivate that relationship by the careful study of God’s Word or is it merely a courtesy call each time until we are really in trouble!

Safety and confidence are in the living yet invisible God is the message of the psalmist.

At the early onset of Israel’s existence in the Promised Land, they were often harassed and oppressed by the Philistines who would come and raid their land, bringing countless sufferings and untold miseries. Samuel was the leader of God’s people at that time. Israel was still a theocracy and not a monarchy. Theocracy means God rules.

The invisible God was their King, their great commander who leads them through every trouble. This is a significant testimony for our learning from Israel’s history. Because our LORD is also the invisible God, how can we trust in this invisible God? “We cannot even see Him, how can He help us?” These are often the words of one who has not an experiential knowledge of their God. Israel at that time had gone after the strange gods of the land and one such god was called Ashtaroth the god of war.

The scene opens when Samuel exhorted the people of Israel to put away their strange gods and the Bible tells us that Israel did put away Baalim and Ashtaroth and served the LORD only.

It was at that time that the Philistine army gathered themselves to attack Israel. Samuel said to the people of Israel, gather all Israel together and I will pray for you unto the LORD.

And so, the people prayed and fasted on that day and confessed their sins before the LORD, “we have sinned against the LORD” they cried.

When the Philistines heard that Israel was gathered together, the lords of the Philistines sent their men to fight Israel and the people were afraid and cried to Samuel, cease not to cry unto the LORD our God for us that He will us help out of the hand of the Philistines.

Samuel took a lamb and offered it for a burnt offering wholly unto the LORD and Samuel cried unto the LORD (emphasize) and the LORD heard him (emphasize), the Bible recorded.

And as Samuel was offering up the burnt offering, the Philistines drew near to battle against Israel but the LORD thundered with a great thunder on that day upon the Philistines and discomfited or humiliated them and they were smitten before Israel. And the men of Israel courageously pursued after the Philistines and smote them and defeated them.

Then Samuel took a stone and set it before Israel as a memorial and called the name of it “Ebenezer” “The Stone of Help” saying, Hitherto hath the LORD helped us or “thus far, until this time, until now” hath the LORD helped us or the LORD has yet again helped us. The living God that helped Israel is that same invisible and yet living God that we call upon today!

Dear friends, we cannot see our God. But the knowledge of who He is will help us to have faith and confidence in our LORD. This faith and confidence in God’s ability to help us must be kept alive in our hearts.

The word “help” if you look in the Thesaurus gives the various shades of meaning – it means “assistance, aid, support, relief”, it means “comfort, benefit, advantage, a good thing”. It also means “to assist or deliver from suffering or assistance that relieve from difficulty”.

So the pilgrim begins by lifting his eyes to the hills, in the back of his mind, he contemplates the dangers of the journey of life that lies before him and is led to ask, “Where does my help come from?” in verse 1. His reply in verse 2 “My help comes from the LORD, the Maker of heaven and earth. The Source of the Pilgrim’s hope and thus perseverance and endurance in difficulties is the fact that he knows that God is His Maker and the Maker of all things. He has the power can make good my life again. This is the first truth we want to meditate on in verse 2.

(a) God is Maker (verse 2)

2 My help cometh from the LORD, which made heaven and earth.

The LORD indeed is our help. But how often when we evaluate how as Christians we face trial and testing, invariably we find ourselves looking for help everywhere other than God. Why is that so? Ever so often we let our problems overwhelm our heart and we begin to doubt God’s ability to help us.

Here the psalmist in verse 2 is affirming that the origin and authorship (BDB) of his help is from the invisible unseen God this is seen by the phrase “cometh from”. It is from two prepositions “from and “with” or beside”. The word “cometh” is placed there by the King James translator to supply the source of our help. His help comes from His LORD who is with or beside him. You do not have to look very far. Our Lord is with us is that important thought that psalmist is conveying.

The Christian life is filled with temptations and trials. Every temptation seeks to seduce us to satisfy the flesh and every trial gives to us hardship which we have to endure. This is the Christian’s fiery furnace of purification.

Who is the author and source of your help? When we come to worship every Lord’s Day, we are in the cooperative will of God, where we determine in our hearts as the psalmist, that our help is from the LORD, where we are able to receive God’s direction and guidance through His word and in prayer.

Therefore, in the face of uncertainty and crossroads in life, the psalmist here affirms his faith in the LORD, His God, here is emphasized the covenantal relationship.

Have you broken a piece of glass before? It may be impossible to put back those pieces of broken glass, shattered into small pieces, humanly speaking. But not with God, no matter how far we have departed from God, how much we have broken the heart of God, how wracked and broken our life may be, there is a way back to God, He is able to help us when we come to Him. If we will only come with brokenness of heart, He will accept us! He is a God of the impossible. Able to mend any relationship that we may think is impossible to mend. Able to mix any problem that we may think is impossible to fix.

Therefore, the psalmist said because He is my Maker, therefore, I am confident He is able to help me, to restore my broken life again.

Remember in Jeremiah 18, Jeremiah went to the potter’s house and there he was caused to hear God’s words. He saw the potter making a work on the Potter’s wheel. The vessel that he made was marred in the hand of the potter, so he made again another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make it. Then the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah, in verse 6 “O house of Israel, cannot I do with you as this potter? saith the LORD. Behold, as the clay is in the potter’s hand, so are ye in mine hand, O house of Israel.”

The people of Judah, in which the message was directed, said in verse 12 “There is no hope: but we will walk after our own devices, and we will every one do the imagination of his evil heart.” What a sad state of rebellion with God’s people at that time before God will judge them by the Babylonians.

Dear brethren, the psalmist is reminding us that our Maker is able to make right our lives again if only we will come back to Him and trust Him!

Notice in verse 1-2 we see the psalmist writes in the first person. But from verse 3-8, the psalmist will use the second person, you will notice “thy” and “thee” repeated throughout verse 3-8. In verse 1-2, I believe he is affirming from his own experience the faithfulness and trustworthiness of God and verse 3-8, he is recommending this God to you and me.

We see from verse 2 that we can rely on our LORD because He is our Maker, He has also the power to make good our lives when we seek Him.

(a) He is Faithful Protector (verses 3-6)

We shall see now from verse 3-6 that the LORD is not only our Creator, but he is also our Faithful Protector, we can rely on Him to guard and protect us and our families.

Psalm 121:3-4 He will not suffer thy foot to be moved: he that keepeth thee will not slumber. Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep.

3 “He will not let your foot be moved He will not slumber who keeps you.”

4 “Behold, He will not slumber and will not sleep who keeps Israel.”

 Verse 3-4 represents two parallel thoughts with two different constructions to convey the same thought – God’s ability to keep His people that He is our faithful protector, ever watching out for well-being.

Verse 3 begins with the negative particle “not” in the original as the first word, to give to us the emphasis. “No way will he allow your foot to be made unstable.” It is a prohibition not objectively based on fact but the subjective denial of a wish. This word “not” expresses strong emotions of the psalmist when he affirms that his God will not give him over to the whims and fancies of the enemy. It conveys a sense of deep conviction that something cannot and will not happen (322 Gesenius). It is a prayer of faith (568, Waltke) that will be answered because it is in accordance to who our God is. His power guides the foot steps of the psalmist that he may not trip over the stumbling blocks in life’s pathways.

This is a statement of determined faith. He will not suffer or permit, yield, tolerate, set, put me to be shaking and tottering. Be not stable. To give way, to give up! But He will cause me to take good steps of safety. Verse 3 tells us the LORD is our able protector. This verse is written with an urgency that conveys the great conviction of heart. God will allow Himself to slumber so that He is unable to keep us. He will not allow us to slip.

Verse 4, the psalmist is saying, look, I want you to know for a fact that He that keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. In verse 4, the negative particle “not” is a different word “lo”. It refers to the objective denial of a fact, a ‘legislative’ word. The subject which is God is prohibited from doing the action or being in the state described by the verb, that is, “to be drowsy, to slumber to sleep”. It is the strongest way to convey the impossibility of such an event. He that keeps Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep.

The literal translation of 4 is “He shall not be drowsy/slumber and He shall not go asleep that keeps/watches Israel. God does not need any periodic relief from His watchful care over us. He who watches/keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. He shall not be slack and fall asleep in protecting us His children. Dear friends, there are times when we are sleepy and tired and worn out from the many cares of life, we cannot care anymore, we are exhausted. God is not like us. His steadfastness in caring for us does not suffer lapses. This is such a wonderful promise from Scripture, isn’t it? Verse 4 tells us He is consistent, constant, protector who is always there for us.

Remember how single handedly Elijah challenged the 450 Baal prophets at Mount Carmel 1 Kings 18:21 “And Elijah came unto all the people, and said, How long halt ye between two opinions? if the LORD be God, follow him: but if Baal, then follows him.”

The Bible says 1 Kings 18:26 “And Baal prophets took the bullock which was given them, and they dressed it, and called on the name of Baal from morning even until noon, saying, O Baal, hear us. But there was no voice, nor any that answered. And they leaped upon the altar which was made.”

1 Kings 18:27 “And it came to pass at noon, that Elijah mocked them, and said, Cry aloud: for he is a god; either he is talking, or he is pursuing, or he is in a journey, or peradventure he sleepeth, and must be awaked.”

Elijah called upon the LORD and immediately fire descended from heaven to consume the offering. 1 Kings 18:37-39 “Hear me, O LORD, hear me, that this people may know that thou art the LORD God, and that thou hast turned their heart back again. Then the fire of the LORD fell, and consumed the burnt sacrifice, and the wood, and the stones, and the dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench. And when all the people saw it, they fell on their faces: and they said, The LORD, he is the God; the LORD, he is the God.”

God never sleeps and is ever alert to deliver His saint from any trouble. May we take heart that God answers prayer as He did when faced with the greatest challenge to His name. The idols of this world are indeed dumb idols, they cannot help us! But not our God!

What comfort it is for us to know that when we are tired out, we are at our wit’s end, we are totally exhausted and unable to think anymore, God is not tired, neither is He sleepy, He remains faithful and awake as our keeper. This is the word “shamar” repeated six times which means “to watch, to keep, to preserve”. Hence the King James translator rightly used “keepeth” in verse 3 and verse 4, “keeper” in verse 5, “preserve” 3 times in verse 6 and 7 that fits the context. What comfort and relief this truth must be for the Christian!

Psalm 121:5-6 The LORD is thy keeper: the LORD is thy shade upon thy right hand. The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night.

5 Your keeper the LORD, the LORD is your shade on your right hand.

6 By day the sun shall not smite you nor the moon by night.

God is our ever present protection. “By faith, we put ourselves under his protection and commit ourselves under His care.” (Matthew Henry) What a comforting thought this truth gives to us. God Himself has undertaken to be our Protector. (Matthew Henry) The word “shade” is the word for “shadow”. Shadows are never an image of sinister darkness in the Bible. Rather, in the heat of Palestine, shadows are pre-eminently an image for protection or refuge provided by the LORD. Nothing either of the day or of the night can harm us when God is keeping guard over us is the thought that stills every worrying heart. Verses 5-6 describes the activities of life, whether in the day or in the night, things can happen to us, but the overarching thought is God’s protective care over His people round the clock.

This picture is vivid when we recall the Exodus how after delivering Israel from the bondage of Egypt God provided a cloud to shade them from the sun by day and a pillar of cloud of fire by night from the cold.

Exodus 13:21-22 “And the LORD went before them by day in a pillar of a cloud, to lead them the way; and by night in a pillar of fire, to give them light; to go by day and night: He took not away the pillar of the cloud by day, nor the pillar of fire by night, from before the people.”

Our LORD is our reliable helper because He is Creator and He is also our faithful protector. If we are still not convinced, the psalmist provides us this third thought. He is not only Creator and faithful protector but also Saviour.

(c) He is Saviour (verse 7-8)

Psalms 121:7-8 The LORD shall preserve thee from all evil: he shall preserve thy soul. The LORD shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth, and even for evermore.

God’s protection is a complete and all the way. Notice, the LORD preserves us from “all” evil. The word “all” is all encompassing and thorough. He shall preserve thy soul – for how long? Forevermore! Here is a picture of the character of God’s salvation. It speaks of the permanence of it. When Jesus purchased our redemption on the cross, it is a permanent redemption, reconciling us to God. The broken relationship due to sin has been mended permanently. This relationship with Jesus Christ, our God, is an eternal one. The psalmist is reminding us of this permanent redemption we have received. When we become a child of God, we have the seal of God on us which cannot be taken away whatever the cleverness of the devil. When we are saved, God is with us all along the pathway to heaven, we are never alone. This is the benediction given by Jude at the close of His Epistle to help us to visualize better this third thought.

Jude 1:24-25 Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy, To the only wise God our Saviour, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen.

Dear friends, “In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.” (Proverbs 3:6) When we obey Him by acknowledging and coming to Him for help, He will not fail to help us!

Only Jesus has that power to preserve us forever for He is God. We must sincerely acknowledge Him as our LORD. In our going out and our coming in, if we think truthfully, so many things can go wrong, yet they did not, because we have a most wonderful Saviour who keeps and protects us all the way until we are transported to heaven.

What should our response be? It must be of praise and worship and a resolve to follow our LORD.

Whence cometh your help? My help comes from the LORD for the LORD is Creator, He is Faithful Protector and He is Saviour. Let us pray.

Our heavenly Father, help us to trust in Thee and not be afraid. For the LORD Jehovah is our strength and our song and our salvation. May the Truth of Thy Word strengthen the hearts of Thy people this I pray in the blessed name of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.