God's People Like Mt. Zion

Guest (Male): In perilous times, the inhabitants of Jerusalem needed to know that God was with them. The writer of Psalm 125 drew a word picture to compare the strength and protection of the Lord to the mountains that surrounded the city. Welcome to The Bible Study Hour, a radio and internet broadcast with Dr. James Boice, preparing you to think and act biblically. Like the inhabitants of Jerusalem, we live in a perilous world, and the social and moral decline we see in Western civilization only serves to drive home the truth of that decline. Join Dr. Boice as he studies the 125th Psalm and the comfort it afforded the inhabitants of that ancient city and still provides believers today.
Dr. James Boice: I do not think there's ever been a time in history when the majority of people in the majority of lands considered themselves to be secure, because this is an uncertain world. There have always been diseases and crime and wars, but still, these seem to be particularly insecure times for us in the West. I think there's a very good reason for it. It's not just that we're witnessing a particularly strong outburst of crime or that there are many diseases in our day that frighten people, some without cure, or that economically times are uncertain, many organizations downsizing and people losing jobs. It's not just that. The real problem in our day is that we're witnessing the decline of Western civilization. Our culture is falling apart. These are the new dark ages. Things that we used to take for granted, things like honesty and courage, concern for other people, self-discipline, responsibility, hard work, all of these things are beginning to fall away. We're witnessing what many people have called a new barbarism or a new dark ages. This summer, I was reading a fascinating book by Thomas Cahill about the role of the Irish in preserving classical literature during the Dark Ages from the time of the fall of the Roman Empire until some conquests actually harmed life in Ireland. I was struck early on in the reading of that book by a paragraph in which Cahill describes all of the things that were going on in the latter days of the Roman Empire just before its collapse. The point of all of that is that each of these things, every single thing he describes, has a parallel to what we read about day by day in our newspapers and know very well. Let me just read you this paragraph. He talks about the changing character of the native population brought about through unnoticed pressures on porous borders; the creation of an increasingly unwieldy and rigid bureaucracy whose own survival becomes its overriding goal; the despising of the military and the avoidance of its responsibilities by established families; the lip service paid to values long dead; the pretense that we're still what we once were; the increasing concentration of the population into richer and poorer by way of a corrupt tax system and the desperation that inevitably follows; the aggrandizement of executive power at the expense of the legislature; ineffectual legislation promulgated with great show; the moral vocation of the man at the top to maintain order at all costs while growing blind to the cruel dilemmas of ordinary life. You would think in reading that and hearing Cahill talk about the waning decades of the Roman Empire that he was reacting to the Republican and Democratic national conventions in the United States this summer. These are problems with which we're all familiar, and they're real problems. If people feel insecure today, they have very good reasons to feel insecure. Even Christians, if they're thinking about it at all, should be worried. That's where our Psalm comes in. It's the sixth of the Psalms of Ascent, and it's speaking of the security that believers have in God even in bad times. It compares them, using some powerful imagery, to Mount Zion, which is bedrock high and secure upon which Jerusalem was built and is therefore unshakeable. Moreover, it says Jerusalem is surrounded by other mountains, and the author of the Psalm compares those to the way God surrounds His people. The point of it is that the civilization of these people in this particular period of their national history had collapsed just the way ours is collapsing. They were trying to rebuild it, but even as they did, they needed to know, first of all, that God was beneath them as a bedrock foundation on which they could build if they were really His people, and secondly, that God was surrounding them in order to protect them from their enemies. Those who trust in the Lord are like Mount Zion, which cannot be shaken but endures forever. As the mountains surround Jerusalem, so the Lord surrounds his people both now and forevermore. There's a false kind of confidence in Jerusalem, which the people had exercised before the final destruction of that city by the Babylonians. They reasoned this way: Jerusalem is God's city, God will never abandon His city, therefore if we live in Jerusalem, we're always going to be safe. That's a kind of false confidence, and that is not what the Psalmist is talking about here. He knows better than that; history has taught them all a great lesson. What he is saying here is that Jerusalem is a symbol of God and the power and the stability of God. If people learn to build on Him, they can be secure even as He is secure. Let me give you some biblical illustrations. First of all, I think of Peter. There was a time early in his life when Peter had been in a boat crossing the Sea of Galilee. He saw Jesus walking on the water, and so he reasoned if Jesus could do that, then by the power of Jesus, I can do it too. He said, "Lord, invite me to come to you." Jesus did; he began to walk upon the water, but he soon was looking at the water rather than the Lord and he began to sink. Peter at that stage in his life was a very unstable man. Peter learned something. He learned that although he was unstable, Jesus Christ was not, and he could build on Jesus. If he did that, he was going to be secure. Jesus taught him that. Matthew talks about it in the 16th chapter, when Jesus was trying to clarify his disciples' understanding of who he was. He began by asking them what all of the people roundabout were saying about him, and they said, "Some say you're Jeremiah, or some say you're Elijah, or some say you're one of the prophets." When he had gotten them thinking along that line, he made it personal and said, "But now who do you think that I am?" Peter, who sometimes had very foolish things to say, actually got it right this time. He said, "You are the Christ, the son of the living God." Lest the other disciples think that somehow this was just Peter speaking out of his own empty head, Jesus said for the benefit of the others that Peter had it right because the Holy Spirit had actually revealed that to him. He said, "You're not saying that of yourself, but the Holy Spirit has made that clear. In other words, I really am the Christ, the son of the living God." He said to Peter something that in my judgment has been greatly misunderstood down through the history of the church. He said, "You are Peter, and upon this rock, I will build my church." People have misunderstood that because on the one hand, they've assumed that what Jesus was saying is that Peter was going to be the first pope and therefore he was going to be the rock upon which the church would be built. Protestants generally say it wasn't Peter himself, but it was the confession of Peter, because Peter had confessed that Jesus was the Christ. Where anybody will confess that, then God will build upon that. But it seems to me that still gets it wrong because it places stability in the clarity of our own profession. Peter himself explained it. Peter must have heard that a million times. What does that mean? Are you really the rock? Peter must have said again and again, "No, I'm not the rock; Jesus Christ is the rock." That's what that was all about. He asked me who I thought he was, and I said you're the Christ, the son of the living God. That's a way of saying you're the one upon whom the church is going to be built. What Jesus meant when he referred to me as the rock was sort of a contrast; he used the masculine form, Petros, which had to do with a stone or a rock. He was really saying, "Peter, you're a little stone, but I'm the rock." The bedrock upon which the church needs to be built. Peter explains that in my opinion in his first letter in the second chapter. Never once in any of Peter's speeches or in his own writing does he ever refer to himself as the rock. He refers to Jesus as the rock. Moreover, in this great second chapter of his first letter, he does it by three quotations from the Old Testament. He was saying even this isn't my own idea, it's the teaching of the Bible. He refers first of all to Isaiah 28:16. It's the verse that talks about God laying a stone in Zion, a chosen and precious cornerstone, and it adds, "The one who trusts in him will never be put to shame." Peter says that's what Jesus is: a chosen stone, a cornerstone, a precious stone. The one who puts their faith in him will never be put to shame. You have to build on him; that's what building on him means or trusting in him means. He quoted a second text; it's Psalm 118:22. It says, "The stone the builders rejected has become the capstone." That refers to a time in Israel when stones were being set up to the construction of the temple in the days of Solomon. A stone came up that they didn't know what to do with; they laid it aside and forgot it. Later on, they needed a capstone and they sent down to the builders for it, and the builders said it was already sent up. They found it, and so it became a proverb: "The stone the builders rejected now has become the capstone." Jesus applied this to himself, and that's where Peter learned it. Jesus was telling a story about tenant farmers who were entrusted by the owner to manage the fields and the vineyards and then at harvest time give the proper share of it to the owner. When harvest time came around, he sent servants, and the servants were mistreated; they didn't want to give anything to them. Finally, he said, "I'll send my son; they'll respect my son." He sent the son, but they said, "Look, this is the heir. If we kill him, then we'll inherit the fields and the vineyards for ourselves." So they killed the son. Jesus at that point said to those who were listening—that is, to the religious leaders who hated him—"What's he going to do to those wicked tenants?" They said, "When he returns, he's going to have them killed and then he'll give the field to those who know how to manage it well." Jesus says that's exactly right. He was talking about them, of course. Then he brought in this quotation from the Psalm. He said, "Haven't you ever read, 'The stone that the builders rejected has become the capstone'?" There wasn't any question in that kind of a setting what Jesus was saying. He was saying I am the stone upon which God is going to build true religion; this is where true Christianity is going to be found. Peter heard that and he knew it, and so he knew that the stone was Jesus Christ. There was one last text; he refers to Isaiah 8:14. "A stone that causes men to stumble and a rock that makes them fall." I think Peter the preacher is coming through there, because you see he's already made his point: Jesus is the stone, he's the foundation, he's the rock, not me. He always applies it, which is what a good preacher will do. Instead of just saying you have to trust Jesus, he warns them about what will happen if you don't. This stone, which is solid enough upon which you can build a whole life, will also cause you to stumble if you don't build upon it. What he's talking about stumbling, he's not just talking about losing your balance a little bit, he's talking about stumbling and falling down, which spiritually has to mean the loss of spiritual life. "You're going to perish," he says, "unless you believe on Jesus." There's no doubting what Peter was teaching. Peter was teaching and had learned exactly what the Psalmist was teaching when the Psalmist said, "Those who trust in the Lord are like Mount Zion that cannot be moved because God is a solid foundation." Now there's a second image that is brought in here, and that is the image of God surrounding His people in order to protect them, and doing it invisibly. We can't see the spiritual forces that are there to protect us. I think here of another great story in the Old Testament; it has to do with the prophet Elisha. Elisha lived in Israel in the days when Ben-Hadad was the king of Syria, and the king of Syria was trying to attack the Jewish nation. Whenever he got his armies together to go and attack the Jewish armies, the Lord revealed to Elisha what he was about to do. Elisha told the king of Israel, and the king of Israel deposed his troops in a way to resist the assault. Naturally, Ben-Hadad thought that he had a traitor in his camp, so he got all of his officers together. He says, "Look, all of our moves are known to the enemy; as soon as we do something, they're there ahead of us. Somebody's been telling them what's going on." They knew what was going on; they told Ben-Hadad the truth. They said, "No, it's not a traitor, it's that they've got the prophet there, Elisha. And God is telling the prophet what you're doing, and then he tells the king." "Well," said Ben-Hadad, "if that's the case, I guess we better do something about Elisha. Where is he?" He was in Dothan with the young man who's his servant. "Well," he said, "let's go there and take him into custody." They arrived by night, surrounded the whole city. In the morning when the young man woke up, his servant, he went outside the city presumably to draw water, rubbing his eyes, undoubtedly he was still sleepy. He looked up and there were all the armies of the Syrians with their chariots in the hillside around Dothan. He rushed back inside the gates of the city and he confronted his master. He said, "Oh, master, what in the world are we going to do?" He explained it to him, and Elisha had this great line. Elisha said to him, "Don't be afraid; those who are with us are more than those who are with them." Then he prayed that God would open the eyes of the young man to see the true state of affairs. When God did, he saw that the hills surrounding Dothan were filled with the angels and the chariots of God protecting the prophet. I suppose that that's what was in the mind of David when he wrote in Psalm 27, "The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him and he delivers them." Indeed he does. He delivered the people of Israel in that day. God struck the army with blindness; they didn't know where to go. Elisha said, "Where are you trying to go?" They said to Dothan. "Well," he said, "here, I'll help you get there." He took them into Samaria, into the camp of their enemy. When their sight came back, there they were surrounded by the armies of Israel. The king wanted to kill them; Elisha said, "No, you didn't win the battle, God delivered them into your hand. Treat them well and let them go." That's what they did. The end of the story says after this the Syrian bands stopped raiding Israel's territory. Those who are with us are greater than those who are with them. Or to put it in the language of the Psalm, "The Lord encamps around those" or "surrounds his people as the mountains surround Jerusalem." Do you believe that? Do you really believe that? We live in a dangerous world, of course; a person would have to be blind to be unaware of that. But the ones who are with us, the one who is with us, is greater than those who are with them, and that is God Himself. If you belong to God and you're trying to serve Him, God is under us as a sure foundation and He is around us to protect us from any enemies we may have. There's more to the Psalm. You see, the person who wrote this, whoever it was, knew that it's not under perfect conditions that the people of God have to exercise faith in God as their foundation and their defense. The next two stanzas, the remainder of the Psalm, acknowledge this and speak in particular about the presence of the wicked in Israel and their threat to righteous persons. What's the situation here? We can't be sure; a number of the commentators think that it fits the age of Ezra and Nehemiah best when the people were back in the land, but the land was still under the ultimate control of Persia. When the people were threatened by the little city-states roundabout, the city-states of Samaria and Ammon and the peoples of Arabia and so forth, that certainly is a good setting for it. You can understand how it would be written in those times. But we need to see that this is a description of the state of the people of God at any period in history. We live in the world by God's decree, but we don't run the world. The world for the most part is in the hand of secular magistrates: kings, presidents, and princes. Sometimes we have Christians that get into offices like that and function well, and we're glad for that, but generally that's not the case. Generally, Christians live under secular governments, and our responsibility to the secular government is to submit to them—it's said very clearly in Scripture—and to pray for those who are our leaders. That's why here at church Sunday by Sunday we pray for those who are in positions of authority. But the state doesn't always perform well; we know that. The state is often corrupt. The corruption of the state is often a great danger for believing people, and the Psalmist speaks of some of the dangers here. The secular power often uses its power to do evil, and that often draws even believing people into its meshes and they get entrapped and do evil too. Secondly, sometimes the secular environment actually corrupts the allegedly godly people, and the Psalmist is aware of all of that. What does he do? Well, in these last verses, he responds this way: they have a promise, a prayer, a warning, and a blessing. First of all, the promise. The promise is that the wicked will not rule over the people of God forever, but that there will be a deliverance. Wasn't that encouraging? Isn't that a good thing to know when you're up against hard times, when you're facing evil, when people who have no moral or spiritual sensitivity at all are out to get you and make life difficult for you? Isn't it good to know that that's not going to last forever? That's what the Psalmist is saying here. You can take His promise in several ways, and probably it has been down through history. In Nehemiah's day, it would have been a promise that those who were exercising power and control over the nation would not do it forever, but that one day the people would actually have their own government. For most of us, as I indicated a moment ago, it's a promise that our present problems won't last. Maybe not even for very long here, but certainly not forever. Perhaps in the greatest scope of things, it would have to do with the return of Jesus Christ—that this world order will not continue as it does forever with those who are wicked being in power and the powerful exercising unjust control over those who are weak or inferior, but rather God will intervene in time to make it all right. That's a great encouragement, and so we look forward to that day. Secondly, there's a prayer. The prayer is for the godly who have to live in such times because the Psalmist is aware that it won't always be easy. The prayer is in verse four: "Do good, O Lord, to those who are good, to those who are upright in heart." Even in these bad times, God do them good. It's worth noticing that there's a difference here between the way he handles the ungodly and the way he speaks about those who are trying to follow God. When he talks about the wicked, what he has to say is a prediction. The wicked are not going to last forever; judgment will come. Why? Because it's a moral universe; God is a good and just God, and so evil certainly is going to be punished. He can predict that with absolute certainty. When he talks about those who are trying to follow after God, he's not giving a prediction here but rather we have a petition, we have a prayer. He's asking God to do good to them. Why is that? It's because if you think of it spiritually, none of us really are good. The only godliness that the godly have is by the grace of God. None of us have done anything that deserves any good from God. God is a good God, he's a gracious God, and we're delighted to know that and to find it. We don't come to Him saying, "God, we've done so-and-so, so you have to do so-and-so," we predict that way. No, we always come saying, "Oh, God, be gracious to us, God be good to us. You're a good God, we look to you for your goodness, but we don't come with any claim of our own." That's exactly what the Psalmist is doing here. The wicked get punished in time, and sometimes a lot sooner than you would expect. The great Athanasius, the church father, said when he heard that Julian the Apostate, the last great persecutor of the church, had died—which he did at a relatively early age—"That little cloud has quickly passed away." He got what he deserved. You see, those who are following after God are not looking for what they deserve; we're looking for God's grace, and so we ask for it. Thirdly, verse five, there's a warning: "But those who turn to crooked ways, the Lord will banish with the evildoers." That's for those who think they're righteous. That is for those who associate with the people of God, those who go to church, those who attend classes, maybe even those who read their Bible. It's saying simply being in the company of the godly doesn't make you godly. It's a warning to make your calling and election sure, to make sure that you really do belong to Jesus Christ, that you really are trying to obey God, and you really are coming to Him not on the basis of your own righteousness but on the basis of His grace. Finally, at the very end of the Psalm, the last line in verse five, there's this blessing. The blessing is a great shalom: "Peace be upon Israel." I think the Apostle Paul had that verse in mind in the sixth chapter of Galatians, verse 16, where he refers to Christians as the Israel of God. It's a good way to use the term because even here in the Psalm, the word Israel doesn't refer to absolutely every Jew. It's the true Israel, that is the godly or following after God, building upon Him, surrounded by the mountains that symbolize God. Paul picks it up the same way. He says the true Israel, that is people who are following after God in the church today, they're the Israel of God. The blessing is for them: peace upon those people. That peace is God's peace, and it comes to us not because we're able to achieve it or earn it, but by the grace of God through His work in Jesus Christ who died for us to make peace by His blood on the cross. When you go back to the beginning of the Psalm and you realize that the word Jerusalem has as the second half of it, Salem, which is shalom, it has to do with that same idea of peace. The whole Psalm comes together at that point. What we are told is that those who are trusting in God shall not only be like Salem—that is, Jerusalem, which is firmly established—but that they will have Salem or shalom too. We say peace be upon God's people. Let me conclude this way. I mentioned when I started this book by Thomas Cahill about the role of the Irish in preserving civilization during the Dark Ages. One section of that book in a very lively way tells the story of Saint Patrick, the young Roman who by the direction of God brought Christianity to Ireland. He had been captured as a young boy when he was 16, taken away to Ireland. He worked there as a slave for an Irish chieftain in those wild days. He did it for six years, but then he was delivered, made his way back to his own land in Britain and to his own family, but there felt the call of God to return to Ireland, which he did. He went as a missionary to that people. He went back. Now behind him lay the whole wreck of Roman civilization. Before him lay those wild, uncontrolled Irish tribes. He had no security at all. He couldn't go back and be secure; he couldn't go forward and be secure. All he had was God. Yet he went forward with God, trusting Him, and he served in Ireland for more than 30 years as a missionary, literally by the blessing of God transforming that country. Thomas Cahill says as he summarizes what was going on that behind as the Roman lands went from peace to chaos, in Ireland by the grace of God the country was moving rapidly from chaos to peace. It's because Patrick saw the collapse of the civilization not as something about which he should wring his hands in dismay but rather as an opportunity for the proclamation of the gospel. So should we see the opportunities of our day. Where did he find any security or comfort in that time? We don't have many things left in writing that come directly from Saint Patrick, but one thing that seems to be genuine is a prayer of his, sometimes referred to as Saint Patrick's Breastplate. It's a long prayer, and I can't read it all, but let me read a portion of it because it shows the confidence in God that was expressed by this great man. I arise today through God's strength to pilot me. God's might to uphold me. God's wisdom to guide me. God's eye to look before me. God's ear to hear me. God's word to speak for me. God's hand to guard me. God's way to lie before me. God's shield to protect me. God's host to save me from the snares of devils, from temptations of vices, from everyone who shall wish me ill. Christ to shield me today against poison, against burning, against drowning, against wounding so that there may come to be abundance of reward. Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me, Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me, Christ on my right, Christ on my left, Christ when I lie down, Christ when I sit down, Christ when I arise. I arise today through a mighty strength. That's what you and I need. These are insecure times; let's not pretend otherwise. But ours is a great God. The Psalmist expressed it well when he said, "Those who trust in the Lord are like Mount Zion which cannot be shaken but endures forever." So it is. Amen. Let's pray. Our Father, we're thankful for your presence with your people: around us, beneath us, over us, in us, working through us, and in all those many ways that we are generally unaware of and but poorly understand. Our Father, our lack of understanding or appreciation doesn't make it any less. We pray that you would give each one faith in yourself and in Christ our Savior in order to stand secure in such times even as the Psalmist did in his, to the praise of the glory of your great grace. Amen and amen.
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