When God Restores Us 7: If the Lord Had Not Been on Our Side

This podcast is brought to you by Walnut Grove Lutheran Church in Langley, DC, in the hope that it will draw you closer to the one who loves you most.

Seems so long ago now, but it wasn't then.

Parents used to warn one another: do not let your children go see Alice Cooper.

Now, if you don't know, Alice Cooper is known as the godfather of shock rock.

And his concerts would be macabre events filled with things like an electric chair, a working guillotine, and he'd demonstrate that it did work, fake blood, and a nine-foot boa constrictor, which would be wrapped around Alice's neck.

Looking back, I can see why my mom would not let me go see Alice Cooper.

So you can imagine my surprise when years later I learned that Alice Cooper had experienced a dramatic change in his life and was now a professing follower of Jesus Christ.

He was raised in a Christian home, his dad was a pastor, but he abandoned Christianity as a young adult.

His high school band was discovered by Frank Zappa, and he had a string of hits in the 1970s.

He fully embraced the rock lifestyle, and his drug of choice was alcohol.

His drinking got so bad that in 1977 his wife Cheryl got him into a New York sanitarium.

For a while he stayed sober.

But then around 1980, he relapsed, this time with cocaine as well as alcohol.

And by 1983, he was waking up vomiting blood.

A doctor told him that if he stopped drinking, he'd probably record another 20 albums, but if he didn't, in two weeks he'd be playing with his friends Jim Morrison and Jimi Hendrix up in heaven.

His family had him hospitalized, and this time when he came out, he never went back to alcohol or drugs again.

Alice Cooper gives God the credit for miraculously healing him of addiction.

The pattern of deception that usually accompanies an addict, even those struggling in recovery, was gone.

Eventually, even the doctors began to agree that Cooper's miraculous healing was due to God.

In an interview, Cooper said, I look at my life and I think, how is it possible that I didn't die?

The dramatic turnaround in Alice Cooper's life is an inspiring testimony of the power of God.

I mean, if God can save Alice Cooper, God can save anyone.

But how does his story of hope apply to us?

Like our challenges and problems look different from his, but they're just as real, those challenges.

Maybe we are hooked by some substance or behavior like he was, or maybe our biggest challenge is something altogether different.

Perhaps a treasured relationship seems to be broken beyond repair, or parenting has us so tired that we can barely function, or chronic illness never seems to improve, or there's a problem at work or school which fills our heart with anxiety day and night.

And God is not giving us a miraculous cure.

We may wonder, God did a great thing for Alice Cooper, so why hasn't he worked like that for me?

And it isn't only personal.

Some of the floodwaters we face, we face together.

Many of us can remember a time when churches were full and Christianity had a profound impact on Canadian society, but now we live in a time when many churches are in decline and the Christian perspective doesn't carry much weight anymore with those around us.

In view of these realities, how can we live with a wholehearted confidence that the Lord is on our side?

And for God's answer to this question, let's open our Bibles or Bible apps and turn to Psalm 124.

And as we do that, we notice that the heading above this Psalm calls it a song of ascent.

That means that it was one of 15 psalms that God's people would have sung as they traveled to Jerusalem for one of the three annual pilgrimage festivals.

This is a song of praise for a great rescue.

Now note that Israel's danger wasn't a bad habit or a chronic illness.

It was an enemy that threatened to destroy all of God's people.

They described that threat as being swallowed alive, having water over their heads, and being caught like a bird in a trap.

And though our challenges are different, we know those feelings.

Alice Cooper asked, How is it possible that I didn't die?

3,000 years ago, Israel asked the same question as a community of faith and answered it with a beautifully crafted if-then statement.

If the Lord had not been on our side, what would life look like?

All Israel had to do was look back and they knew the answer.

Throughout their history, they were smaller and weaker than the powerful enemies that surrounded them and were bent on destroying them.

By any human measurement, the Israelites were outmatched.

They were easy prey.

If the Lord had not been on their side, what would have happened?

The Israelites would have remained slaves in Egypt with no hope in freedom.

And if they had made it to the wilderness, they would have perished from starvation.

And if they had gotten somehow to the promised land, they would have been crushed by any of the Canaanites, Philistines, Midianites, or Ammonites.

Old Testament scholar Hans Joachim Krauss put it this way: if the God of Israel, even for only a moment, turned away from his chosen people, they would be cast into total destruction by their voracious lurking enemies.

Let's put ourselves into the shoes of God's people by speaking the first five verses of Psalm 124 together.

I'll start us off by reading the first line, and then I invite you to read the rest.

If the Lord had not been on our side, let Israel say, if the Lord had not been on our side, when people attacked us, they would have swallowed us alive when their anger flared against us.

The flood would have engulfed us, the torrent would have swept over us, the raging waters would have swept us away.

Can you feel the dread in those words?

Swallowed alive.

Water over your head.

Swept away.

That is what life would be like if the Lord were not on the side of his people.

But the psalm is imagining a world that never happened.

Now think of it this way: a little over a hundred years ago, before insulin was discovered at the University of Toronto by Frederick Banting and Charles Best, type 1 diabetes was a death sentence.

If insulin had never been discovered, some of the people in this room or people we love would not be alive today.

I wouldn't have been born.

Because my grandfather on one side of the family had diabetes, and my great-grandfather on the other side also had diabetes.

But the people we love are here, and I'm here.

And that tells us that something happened in Toronto all those years ago.

Psalm 124 works in exactly the same way.

If the Lord had not been on our side, we would have been swallowed alive.

But we weren't swallowed, we're still here.

So the Lord must have been on our side.

Now from the outside, it should have been easy to pick off God's people.

What their enemies could not see was that the God who made heaven and earth was faithfully standing with his people and preserving them.

God is always in control, but we see it most clearly when he steps in to rescue his people.

And when Israel saw this, they did the only fitting thing.

They thanked and praised God.

Praise be to the Lord who has not let us be torn by their teeth.

Remember, they were easy prey.

And the predator had bared its teeth towards them.

But God would not let that predator bite.

And notice what Israel is thanking God for.

It isn't a victory they won.

It's a disaster that never came.

I wonder how many disasters God averts in our lives, and we never notice.

The accident that almost happened.

The test result that came back clear.

The illness that could have been so much worse, but it wasn't.

Much of God's care for us goes unseen precisely because the disaster was averted.

It never arrived.

And Psalm 124 is teaching us to stop and bless God for those rescues, too.

And then the Psalm gives us another picture.

We have escaped like a bird from the fowler's snare.

The snare has been broken, and we have escaped.

Centuries after David, God's people lived through exactly that.

In 701 BC, Sennacherib, the king of Assyria, invaded Judah and surrounded Jerusalem.

And in his own royal records, he bragged that he had shut up King Hezekiah, the king at that time in Jerusalem, like a bird in a cage.

But read 2 Kings 19 and you will see how that story ended.

The Lord struck the Assyrian camp, Sennacherib went home, and Jerusalem was spared.

The bird flew free.

And notice how the bird escapes.

It doesn't break the snare by flapping its wings harder.

The snare is broken, and then the bird escapes.

Alice Cooper tried to get free in 1977, and for a while it looked like he had, but the snare was still there.

And by 1983 it nearly killed him.

And when he finally got free, he didn't give the credit to his own willpower.

He gave it to God.

Some of us know what it's like to flap and struggle against a trap that we cannot break.

Psalm 124 tells us that breaking the snare is the Lord's work.

He is the one who sets us free.

And then Psalm 124 ends by looking forward.

Our help is in the name of the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth.

Looking back at what God has done in the past gives Israel confidence for whatever comes next.

Now, in the Bible, a name is more than a label.

It stands for who a person is, their character and their reputation.

When God revealed his name to Moses at the burning bush, he did it in the middle of rescuing his people from Egypt.

And later he described himself as the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness.

So when Israel says, our help is in the name of the Lord, they are not putting their hope in some vague higher power.

They are trusting the God with a track record, the very God they have just finished remembering in verses 1 through 7.

And notice who this God is, the Maker of heaven and earth.

Israel has just described their enemies as a flood and raging waters, but the God who made heaven and earth is the one who set boundaries for water at creation.

He told the sea, this far you may come and no farther.

Whatever flood is rising in your life, it is not bigger than the one who made the waters.

That brings us back to our question.

What about when the deliverance hasn't come yet?

And here it helps us to remember that Israel's story wasn't only a string of near-misses.

For in 586 BC, Babylon did destroy Jerusalem, and God's people were carried off into exile.

The worst really did happen.

But even then, the Lord was still on their side.

And two generations later he brought them home.

And once again, these pilgrims sang the songs of ascent on the road to Jerusalem.

Sometimes God's help pulls us out of the flood, and sometimes it carries us through it.

And that's true for us here today as well.

For Alice Cooper, God's help came suddenly.

For many of us, it comes slowly through doctors and counselors, through a treatment program or a recovery group, through a friend who calls every week, through a spouse who won't give up on us the way Cheryl wouldn't give up on Alice.

And that help is no less God's help.

Our help is in the name of the Lord who comes in a moment or over many years.

So what does this mean for our lives?

Well, I'm pretty sure, maybe let's take a survey here.

How many of us know how to worry?

Yeah.

Yeah, we all know how to worry.

And what is worry?

What is worry?

Let's think about this.

It's thinking about the bad things that could happen, holding on to them in our minds, and then letting those things shape the direction of our lives.

Psalm 124 flips worry on its head.

God's people thought about the bad things that didn't happen.

They saw them as proof of God's care, held on to that care in their minds, and then let that shape the direction of their lives.

You could call it worry in reverse.

So let's look back and remember all the ways God has carried us, both as individuals and as a church family.

God has been very, very good to us.

So if you are in over your head right now, don't carry it alone.

Psalm 124 is a we song.

It's not a me song.

I want to encourage you to reach out to someone in this church family this week and let us stand with you.

Sometimes the help that the Lord sends has a face and a name.

Now when Alice Cooper was asked in a different interview, who is Jesus Christ to you, he replied like this.

He said, He's the core of everything.

He's life itself, he's the light.

He draws you in.

It's nothing you can explain in words.

It's something that happens to our heart where all of a sudden you realize who this is.

And you realize I'm not worthy of this.

And yet, still, being hung on the cross, he knew my name.

And that made me go, how can I not believe in this?

He changes your heart.

Those are Alice Cooper's words.

He knew my name.

Psalm 124 tells us that our help is in the name of the Lord.

And the good news of the gospel is that the God whose name is our help knows our names.

In Isaiah 43:1, God tells us, Fear not, for I have redeemed you, I have called you by name.

Isaiah 43:1

You are mine.

In Jesus Christ, the Lord came to be on our side in the deepest way possible.

Sin and death were the flood that would have swallowed us all.

But on the cross, Jesus let those waters go over his own head so that we would not be swept away.

And on Easter morning, the snare of death itself was broken.

If the Lord had not been on our side, we would have no hope.

But he was, and he is, and in Jesus Christ, we have escaped.

So this week, every time you catch yourself worrying, flip it.

Stop and finish this sentence.

If the Lord had not been on my side, remember one disaster that didn't happen and thank God for it.

Train your heart and your mind to trust in God's loving care.

And then when the waters start to rise, you will remember what God's people sang on the road to Jerusalem.

In fact, let's say those words together right now, the way God's people have for centuries.

Our help is in the name of the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth.

Amen.

Let's pray.

Dear God.

Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you for all the times you have rescued us and for all the disasters you have averted and for all the floods you have pulled us through.

You are a faithful and loving God.

You are a rescuing God.

And so we pray, Lord, that you would help us to keep our eyes fixed on you and follow you wherever you lead.

We pray that your hope, your life, your truth, your joy would reflect from us into the lives of those around us so that more and more and more people would know you and your saving love for them.

In the precious name of Jesus, we ask this.

And all God's people said, Amen.

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Thank you and God bless us.