Who Ya Gonna Call?
I know many of you like to travel and many of you travel by car. A trip by car takes longer than a trip by airplane so you have a lot more time to think, visit, sightsee, imagine, and sing. When you travel with children, you have to keep them from getting bored. And when you travel on long trips you may do a lot of singing as one way of keeping them entertained.
I can understand that because I often sing in the car on trips to keep myself entertained, too. There’s just something about singing being conducive to a journey, whether it be by car or a long walk. One thing about kids is they often like to sing the same songs over and over and over again. I know right now Wendy is thinking, “It’s not just little kids that like to sing (or listen) to the same songs over and over.” That’s true, because I’ll pop a CD in and listen to it for a week or two (or three) before changing to another. So I can relate to the Israelites in that respect.
You see, this is a Psalm that Israelites would often sing, probably over and over, while making their yearly pilgrimage to worship in the temple in Jerusalem. For many, this was a long trip. But it was also a treacherous trip. The miles were long and the traveler was vulnerable.
They had no interstate on which to travel or a motor club to call on their cell phones if they were in trouble. They couldn’t charter a bus or a jet to quickly take them to where they were going. They had reason to fear. They wanted to feel the same safety and protection that we still want today.
So, they would sing this song. Psalm 121 was written to remind God’s people of how He protects them in times in danger. We see this in the first two verses, which serve, as an introduction. Will I lift up my eyes to the hills, one asks, where the pagan temples could be seen upon the mountaintops? Where does my help come from? The answer is our theme this morning: “My help comes from the Lord”.
When trouble comes: We must look to the Lord. Our God is vigilant. Our life is in his hands. We must look to the Lord: “I lift up my eyes to the hills-- where does my help come from? My help comes from the LORD, the Maker of heaven and earth”
Do you remember watching those old westerns and how hostile Indians would sometimes surround the wagon train. And it seemed as if all hope was gone for the wagon train. Then they would look off to the distant hills and see a dust cloud rising in the sky and they knew then that there was help on the way.
They knew from the distant dust cloud that the cavalry was on their way to rescue them. Soon they could see the soldiers approaching with their swords drawn and they could hear the sound of the bugler’s trumpet as the soldiers headed for the wagon train.
Help was on the way. The cavalry came to their rescue.
The word for “help” also signifies protection. God is being pictured as our guardian. The dangers before us may not be the same as the ones they faced, but our unchanging God still protects us from danger. The writer of Psalm 121 helps us to understand that when trouble comes we must not look to anything or anyone for ultimate protection, except God!
For the traveler going to worship in Jerusalem, there were many dangers. One of those dangers was that of falling. When verse three says, “He will not allow your foot to be moved,” that verb often translates “slip”. A person could fall and sprain an ankle, or break a leg or hip. When was the last time you tried to walk a hundred miles through mountainous territory on a broken ankle? Now for us, this seems petty, but for them, it was a major concern and a very real and possible danger. So God promised his fearful children that He would not “let their foot be moved”. This doesn’t mean that God forbids them (or us) from sinning. It doesn’t mean that they didn’t (or we won’t) have to face sometimes dreadful consequences for our actions. It does mean that God nourishes us, not only through the harm that others would do to us, but even the harm we might bring upon ourselves.
All of us want to feel safe, especially given what happened just a few months ago. We want to feel protected from foreign invaders so we emphasize the importance of a strong defense. We want to know that we are protected from danger. We want policemen protecting our streets so we will feel protected at home. The restaurants we attend have safety inspections so we will feel protected when we eat. The cars we drive have to meet safety standards so we will feel protected in case we are in an accident. But where does our safety really come from? Does it come from our policemen, inspectors, or a strong national defense?
Some of you right now have little ones and, if you don’t, you remember what I’m about to talk about. We have little plastic plugs that fit into the electrical outlets to keep the child from finding out what happens when they place their little fingers in them. There are plastic or wood “baby gate” in doorways, small hooks in drawers and on cupboard doors to keep the child from being able to open those doors and reach more harmful things. We use a special baby seat to buckle them in when they ride in cars, to keep them from wandering around while your driving. My car has automatic door locks so the doors can’t be opened accidentally. It has window locks, so the child can’t open the window or close it on their fingers. It seems like everywhere you look, there are things dedicated to, not only to protecting the child from others, but also from protecting the child from him or herself. Where does safety really come from? It comes from God. God protects us not only from evil in this world around us, but from ourselves, as well.
You might ask, how is God able to do this? Verse four says God will neither “slumber nor sleep”. When a person is asleep, they are unconscious, unaware of what is going on around them. Many people in Old Testament days believed that their false gods occasionally slept and had to be awakened. But this is not so with our God. Because He never sleeps nor slumbers, He is aware of every step you take in your life, and supports you when your foot would “slip”. Jude 24 says that our Lord “is able to keep you from falling.” God can do this because He is a 100%, 24/7/365, fully alert, ready for anything, never on vacation or break, full-time God.
As somebody much more clever than me once said, “Has it ever occurred to you that nothing ever ‘occurs’ to God?” Nothing ever catches our God by surprise. Not skinned knees, not parking tickets, not dashed hopes, not cancer scares, not marital problems, not financial setbacks, not even the occasional day at work when nothing goes wrong! What?!? You don’t have days when nothing goes wrong? It’s true! Nothing ever catches your God by surprise; he never sleeps, he never slumbers.
Another dangerous reality for the traveler was sunstroke. They didn’t have air-conditioned cars to ride in. The heat was often stifling, the dust just hanging in the air. These were the circumstances in which they had to travel. God protects us from our circumstances not only because He is aware, as we saw in our first section, but also because He is always present. The same word, which we see here translated “shade”, also translates “shadow”. God is like our shadow. Your shadow follows you every moment of the day. There is virtually nowhere to go to escape it. As long as there is light, you have a shadow. In fact, the only way to hide it from view is to retreat to darkness. When you are walking in the light, the shadow is clearly seen, walking with you, wherever you go. God has promised us “Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the world.”
So God is “your shade at your right hand.” That’s like He is always standing at our right hand, right here. No matter where we go, what situation we face, how we feel, who opposes us, the pain we suffer, no matter what the world throws at us, God is right here. Man, what a relief and comfort that is, knowing that God is right here, next to us. And the neat thing about that is that, when we get tired, beat down, feeling weak, just can’t make another step, all we have to do is just lean on Him. He will support us and shelter us. Just as God sheltered them from their circumstances, He shelters us from ours as well. No you might be saying, “Okay John, but what about those sprained ankles or broken bones and such? Where was God sheltering them in those circumstances?” Fair enough. My answer is, “Think about what might have happened to them if God hadn’t been sheltering them?” My point is, if God is there, there is nothing in our circumstances that should cause us to fear, for He is Lord over them. God is in control.
The American Indians had a unique practice of training young braves. On the night of a boy’s thirteenth birthday, after learning hunting, scouting, fishing, and various other skills, he was put to one final test. He was placed in a dense forest to spend the entire night alone. Until then, he had never been away from the security of the family and the tribe. But on this night, he was blindfolded and taken several miles away. When he took off the blindfold, he was in the middle of a thick woods and he was terrified! Every time a twig snapped, he visualized a wild animal ready to pounce. After what seemed like an eternity, dawn broke and the first rays of sunlight entered the interior of the forest. Looking around, the boy saw flowers, trees, and the outline of the path. Then, surprised, he saw a man standing just a few feet away, armed with a bow and arrow. It was his father. He had been there all night long. Just like our Father.
Many times we’re terrified. We visualize all sorts of things about to pounce on us; things we can’t see or maybe don’t understand. We want to call out to someone for help. The question is, “Who ya gonna call?” In a mid 80’s movie the answer to that question was “Ghostbusters”. This movie was about para-normal phenomena. Spooks. Spirits. Ghosts. People couldn’t see them and they certainly didn’t understand them. So they would call this company called Ghostbusters to get rid of the ghosts. People would depend on these “Ghost-busters” to keep them from any harm being done to them by the ghosts.
Of course, we know who will really keep you from all harm. Our scripture tells us. The Lord will keep you from all harm — he will watch over your life; the Lord will watch over your coming and going both now and forevermore.
Six times in this psalm, the songwriter speaks of the Lord keeping him.
v. 3: he who keeps you will not slumber;
v. 4: he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.
v. 5: The Lord is your keeper.
v. 7: The Lord will keep you from all evil; he will keep your life.
v. 8: the Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time on and forevermore.
The message of this 2,500-year-old psalm,
this song of ascent, is that
God will keep you, because he cares for you. He loves you.
One day a man took his little son to the top of a high hill. He pointed in every direction -- north, east, south, and west. And he said,” Son, God’s love is as big as all of this.”
The little boy looked around and at his dad and said, "And just think dad, we’re right in the middle of it all.” Oh Yeah, our God is an awesome God and His love is an awesome love and we’re right in the middle of it all. So “who ya gonna call” when you have problems, doubts, fears? Are ya gonna call “Ghostbusters”? And don’t wait for the cavalry to show up. Look to your right and call out to God. And I guarantee you won’t have to call to out too loud, either, because He’s always…… right here.
