Listen up, little ones
Listen for the words us and our.
Reading
Psalm 124—Unless the Lord Had Been on Our Side.
Keys for kids
- God is on our side.
- God’s people face troubles.
- We bless the Lord for saving us.
Questions
- What dangers does this Psalm speak of?
- How do we know if God is on our side?
- How did God rescue Jesus?
Notes
(Today’s notes are from a commentary on the Psalms by Christopher Ash) We do not, cannot, and are not meant to know what episode in David’s life first prompted the psalm. …This song, writes Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg, is “useful to the church of all ages in similar circumstances.”
David experienced many narrow escapes (e.g., 1 Sam. 21:1–23:29; 2 Sam. 5:17–25; Ps. 60). Other escapes for the church of God, before and after David, include (1) Noah (Gen. 6–9, linking with imagery of floodwaters in the psalm), (2) the exodus (Ex. 14–15), (3) Hezekiah’s Jerusalem (Isa. 36–37), (4) return from Babylonian exile (a second exodus from a captivity that threatened the existence of the church), (5) the book of Esther, and (6) the postexilic community under attack (Neh. 4:7–23).
All these prepare us for the life of faith lived for us by Jesus, who experienced many escapes from danger (e.g., Luke 4:30; John 7:32, 45–46; 8:59; 10:39) and then one final astonishing escape, from death itself, in the resurrection. Jesus is the true Israel who sings this psalm (“Let Israel now say,” Ps. 124:1). As our federal head, he now leads his church in celebrating the greatest of escapes, from sin and death itself, and in rejoicing whenever God grants to Christ’s people any escape from a danger that threatens the church.
Swedish Method questions
Praise
Psalm 124, 133a
Prayer
- Thank the Lord that he is on our side.
- Pray for the reading and preaching of God’s word tomorrow.
- Pray for a member of our church, for your family, and for a non-Christian friend/family member.