The Grace of God (Psalm 125)
We are not told who wrote this psalm or when it was composed. Verse 3 could suggest that the Israelites had recently experienced deliverance from captivity, and this has led some to argue that the psalm was written after the restoration from the Exile. This may be the case, although it can also be said that the psalm could have been written after any period of captivity that the Israelites had known. What this background does point to is the faithfulness of God to his promises – that, although he has to chastise his people when they backslide, eventually he restores them. It is this permanent principle that makes the Psalm so precious to believers in all ages.
Obviously the arrangers who placed the psalm among the psalms of ascent regarded it as a suitable psalm for the pilgrims to use as they attended the annual feasts in Jerusalem. Going to these feasts gave them the opportunity to walk around the city and observe the natural defence that the surrounding mountains gave to the city. As they did so, they compared these natural defences to the spiritual protection that they had in God. (These people are an example to us of using the natural world as illustrative of God’s activities in the life of his people.)
One gets the impression that these pilgrims regarded their time in Jerusalem at the feasts as a spiritual oasis. On the other side of the mountains were their enemies, on this side of the mountains there was spiritual provision and other pleasures which they could enjoy in safety. In our church services, we have the opportunity to walk round the spiritual city of Zion and observe how secure God’s people are as they travel through this world as pilgrims. These occasions should be spiritual oases for our souls.
The definition of God’s people (v. 1)
The psalmist says that the defining mark of God’s people is that they trust in the Lord. While we do not know when the psalm was written, it was placed in this group of psalms of degrees after the exiles had returned from Babylon. They may have been tempted to trust in political leaders such as the rulers of the Persian Empire who were favourable towards the Jews. Or they may have been tempted to trust in their religious leaders to gain favour for the nation with God. The point that the psalmist is making is that only those who trust in the Lord will experience the blessings of the Lord. God’s people are not only saved by faith, they also live by faith.
We are so used to this description of the Lord’s people that we are liable to forget its simplicity. Faith is based on information but it does not need a great intellect; the believer with a smaller intellect can live by faith just as much as the believer with a greater intellect. Faith is strengthened by experiences, but it does not need profound experiences in order to function. It is far better to have small conviction of sin that leads a person to Christ than to have great conviction of sin and not come to Christ. What matters as far as faith is concerned is the object of one’s faith.
The Lord’s persevering grace (v. 1)
The first blessing that the psalmist mentions is the permanence of the believer – he or she cannot be removed. Removed from where? Many answers could be given to this question. They cannot be removed from the state of justification, of being right with God. From the moment they first trusted in Christ, they have been accepted in him. His righteousness has been imputed to them by a judicial act of God and this act will never be rescinded. No matter what happens, either by their own failings or by the devil’s accusations, they cannot be removed from this standing in God’s presence.
Similarly, they cannot be removed from membership in the family of God. At that first moment of faith when they were justified, they were also adopted by God into his family. They were taken from the position of slaves to sin and adopted into God’s family, with all the rights of sonship. This position of intimacy and importance is never removed from them. They are all children of God permanently.
Of course, the reason why they will never lose their position as justified children of God is the faithfulness of God. He is true to his covenant commitments to them. It was his will to give them these great blessings that flow from faith in Christ, and he will never change his mind. When they sin, as they often do, they sometimes wonder if God will cast them off. It is here that faith comes into exercise and steadies the soul. Believers focus on the perfect character of God and not on their own imperfect character. Faith takes hold of the unchangeable saving acts of God.
The Lord’s protecting grace (v. 2)
The psalmist was aware that God’s people had many enemies; in fact they were surrounded by them. Yet between them and their enemies was a secure defence, the Lord himself. Just as the city of Jerusalem has a natural defence in the range of mountains around it, so God’s people have a spiritual defence in God.
Our enemies are the world, the flesh and the devil, and they are constantly looking for ways to attack God’s people. Sometimes they adopt guerrilla tactics and try and sneak in unawares; at other times they adopt open warfare and launch fierce and prolonged assaults against our souls. These attacks are being planned and mounted continually. Often we are unaware of them because the Lord stops them long before they reach us. Yet at other times we are only too aware of their assaults; nevertheless when such attacks occur we are as secure as we are when the Lord intervenes and stops the attacks early. Our security is not found in a lesser degree of hostility by our enemies but in the Lord.
Our spiritual enemies have a variety of ways of attack. One is overt opposition. The history of the church has included prolonged periods of persecution. During these times the church has often seemed to be on the verge of extinction. The devil’s agents seem about to win the battle. Yet the church is not destroyed. Another way of attack is spiritual decline. A church collectively as well as individual believers has often been in a period of spiritual decline. That seems to be the way with the church in Britain at the present. We are like the church in Sardis in which the crucial things were ready to die. But although decline seems irreversible, we will only think that there is no remedy when we take our eyes of God. The cause of God is constantly under his eye.
The psalmist assures his fellow believers that they cannot be destroyed by their enemies. God is always protecting them. Every divine attribute is active in their defence, be it his wisdom (full knowledge), his power (infinite ability), or his love (merciful, personal and everlasting). No enemy that is formed against them can prosper. They can say with Paul in Romans 8:38-39: ‘For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.’
The Lord’s preventing grace (v. 3)
The psalmist says in verse 3 that ‘the rod of the wicked shall not rest upon the lot of the righteous; lest the righteous put forth their hands unto iniquity.’ At the time the psalm was written, a danger facing the Israelites was that they would resort to inappropriate ways of obtaining deliverance. They faced the possibility that their actions would not be ‘actions of faith’; instead they could come under the influence of national pride (perhaps becoming equivalents of the later zealots who were prepared to assassinate and murder their enemies) or they could have asked for help from other nations (in Jeremiah’s time he had to rebuke the officials who argued that Judah should seek help from Egypt against Babylon). When the psalmist says that the Lord will remove the rod of the righteous, he is giving an Old Testament version of Paul’s teaching that the Lord will provide a way of escape for his tempted people (1 Cor. 10:13).
The root cause of such wrong actions is impatience. They are an attempt to bring about the end result ahead of the timing that God intends. Believers in every kind of situation are prone to this response. They experience an unjust circumstance, they know they are being wronged, they know they could utilise inappropriate ways of solving it, and they are tempted to do so. Yet such action becomes iniquity, says the psalmist, an expression of unbelief. It is better for them to wait on the Lord in prayer, asking him to defend their cause, because he is able to bring about the desired result at the best time. When I was young, I saw a butterfly coming out of its cocoon. So I decided to help it and split open the cocoon. I thought the butterfly was free, but I discovered that my actions had made it unable to fly. I think that sometimes the reason why believers cannot fly is that they have pre-empted the Lord’s timing and used unsuitable methods to obtain their goal. We can never make spiritual progress by disobeying the Bible.
In the exilic background of the psalm, the Lord eventually delivered his people (there is a graphic picture of such a deliverance in the next psalm, 126). And whatever we are facing in providence today – as individuals, as a congregation, as a denomination – is under the Lord’s control and he will eventually sort it out. It is a an expression of strong faith to wait for the Lord.
The Lord’s providing grace (v. 4)
The psalmist turns from speaking about God to speaking to God. His practice here is one that we should imitate. When we have been meditating on God or thinking about his promises or actions in the Bible, we should turn these thoughts into relevant prayers. The author knows the people of God are in need of his continual provision.
There is great energy in this prayer. The verb used by the psalmist is an imperative. Of course, he is not commanding God to perform good actions; his reverence is seen in his plea, ‘O Lord.’ Yet he does pray with vigour. He is an example of the Saviour’s words in Matthew 11:12, that the violent take the kingdom of heaven by force.
What does he pray for? He prays that those who are upright in heart, who are trusting the Lord and exercising patience as they wait for him, will enjoy his good things. In the language of Psalm 23 he wants the Lord’s goodness to follow them wherever they go. The goodness of the Lord includes many things: the assurance of his love, the comfort of the scriptures, the sense of his shepherding care, the awareness of his sovereignty, and many more such things. What a range of spiritual benefits is found in that small word ‘good’! What a variety of blessings we can pray for one another to receive.
The Lord’s providential grace (v. 5)
In verse 5, the psalmist reminds us of another important principle. If people choose wrong paths or crooked ways, the Lord will shepherd them as well, except he will lead them into the paths of destruction. This is a reminder that sinners cannot oppose God and get away with it. In a sense, God gives them the path that they chose, which is solemn. Such removals are acts of divine kindness to his church. When his enemies fail to repent and instead persist in opposing his people, the Lord eventually intervenes and removes those who have been attacking his kingdom.
The Lord’s peaceful grace (v.5)
The final aspect of divine grace that is mentioned in the psalm is the blessing of peace: ‘peace shall be upon Israel.’ We should note the certainty of it and the comprehensiveness of it. Peace will be theirs wherever they are and it will be theirs at all times. The peace of God is not merely the absence of hostilities.
When a conflict ceases between two warring countries, the new situation is termed peace. Yet both countries can be in ruins, their inhabitants can be in mourning, their economies can be devastated, their futures can be uncertain. That is not peace. How different is the relationship between God and sinners when peace is made. Instead of being ruined, the sinner leaves the ruins behind him; instead of mourning his losses, he now rejoices in his new relationships; instead of being poor, he has become immeasurably rich; instead of having a vague future, he now enjoys the security that comes from the promises of God. These blessings, and many more, are included in the peace of God.
The psalmist reminds us that in difficult situations, we can know the riches of divine grace: God’s persevering, protecting, preventing, providing, providential and peaceful grace. It is not surprising that he is called the God of all grace (1 Pet. 5:10). And he is our God.