Introduction: The word ‘phobia’ is not found in this passage. I use it because as I read this Psalm (remember that we looked at the first 10 verses yesterday) I think that somehow the Israelites have developed an understandable but nevertheless irrational fear of their neighbours! Irrational because God gives explanations, promises and hopes which should leave them trusting God not in depressed fear of their enemies! What is a ‘phobia’? A brief description is that it is ‘An extreme, uncontrollable, and often irrational fear.’ In some ways, from time to time, it is good to step outside yourself and balance the situations of your life one against another and with God being the enlightener work out where you are, and dispel any irrational attitudes! Sometimes ‘to dispel’ will need repentance. At other times it will need taking God’s promises as if they are real! – for they are real! In stepping outside themselves, I wonder if the Israelis thought about why God said, ‘Fear not, you worm Jacob, you men of Israel!‘ Was God calling them ‘maggots’? Was God insulting them? Was God referring to earthworms which live in the dirt and are constantly being eaten by many animals, used on fish hooks, ground into nothingness by passing enemies, or elephants or whosoever! Was God using ‘worms’ to describe the insignificance of man in the scheme of the Universe? Does the juxtapositioning of the two phrases ‘you worm Jacob‘ and ‘you men of Israel‘ have significance? Is it a call to develop some ‘backbone’? What does God promise ‘His people’? I have underlined some of the promises which God makes to His People, and highlighted in gold a summing up of God’s promised provision for Israel. Some phobias can be assigned to the past by trust!
11 Behold, all who are incensed against you
shall be put to shame and confounded; – a shamed enemy!
those who strive against you
shall be as nothing and shall perish.
12 You shall seek those who contend with you,
but you shall not find them;
those who war against you
shall be as nothing at all. – a defeated enemy
13 For I, the LORD your God,
hold your right hand; – a constant companionship with God.
it is I who say to you, “Fear not,
I am the one who helps you.”
14 Fear not, you worm Jacob,
you men of Israel!
I am the one who helps you, declares the LORD;
your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel. – Redemption.
15 Behold, I make of you a threshing sledge,
new, sharp, and having teeth;
you shall thresh the mountains and crush them,
and you shall make the hills like chaff;
16 you shall winnow them, and the wind shall carry them away,
and the tempest shall scatter them.
And you shall rejoice in the LORD;
in the Holy One of Israel you shall glory. – Total victory.
17 When the poor and needy seek water,
and there is none,
and their tongue is parched with thirst,
I the LORD will answer them; – as summed up in the following – total provision.
I the God of Israel will not forsake them.
18 I will open rivers on the bare heights,
and fountains in the midst of the valleys.
I will make the wilderness a pool of water,
and the dry land springs of water.
19 I will put in the wilderness the cedar,
the acacia, the myrtle, and the olive.
I will set in the desert the cypress,
the plane and the pine together,
20 that they may see and know,
may consider and understand together,
that the hand of the LORD has done this,
the Holy One of Israel has created it.
Psalm 121:4-5; 7 Indeed, he who watches over Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. The Lord watches over you — the Lord is your shade at your right hand. The Lord will keep you from all harm — he will watch over your life.
Prayer: Near the cross! O Lamb of God, Bring its scenes before me; Help me walk from day to day, With its shadow o’er me.