Pilgrim’s Progress is an allegory about the Christian life. Christian, the main character, is on a journey from the City of Destruction to the Celestial Country. Early in the story, he persuades a man named Pliable to come along with him, and as they’re walking, Christian tells him about all the things they have to look forward to when they reach their destination. But they soon run into trouble. Bunyan says: “Now I saw in my dream, that just as they had ended this talk, they drew nigh to a very miry slough [a deep, muddy swamp], that was in the midst of the plain; and being heedless, did both fall suddenly into the bog. The name of the slough was Despond. Here, therefore, they wallowed for a time, being grievously bedaubed with dirt; and Christian, because of the burden that was on his back, began to sink in the mire. The said Pliable, ‘Ah, neighbour Christian, where are you now?’ ‘Truly,’ said Christian, ‘I do not know.’ At this Pliable began to be offended , and angrily said to his fellow, ‘Is this the happiness you have told me all this while of? If we have such ill speed at our first setting out, what may we expect ‘twixt this and our journey’s end? May I get out again with my life, you shall possess the brave country alone for me.’ And with that he gave a desperate struggle or two, and got out of the mire on that side of the slough which was next to his own house: so away he went, and Christian saw him no more.”
We saw that Psalm 120 is a song for starting out. We begin our Christian lives with a realization that this world is not what we had hoped. It’s full of lies and deceit and violence. It’s a place where the wicked prosper, where bullies usually don’t get what they deserve, where the strong take advantage of the weak. We begin our pilgrimage crying out in despair: “Woe to me that I dwell in Meshech, that I live among the tents of Kedar! Too long have I lived among those who hate peace.” This world is not a benign place, so we cry out to God and begin our pilgrimage toward that better place which He has promised.
So we begin our pilgrimage, like Christian, out of the City of Destruction and toward the Celestial Country. But almost immediately we encounter problems. When I was a new Christian, I saw an evangelistic movie in which one of the most notorious characters commits his life to Christ. And as soon as he finishes praying to receive Christ, he says, “now all my problems are over.” He quickly learns that this is not the way it works, and the same is true for us. On our pilgrimage to the New Jerusalem we often find ourselves in trouble and in need of help. Our first inclination is to fall back on old ways of solving our problems, like Pliable did when he turned back and gave up the journey, and like the Psalmist does in verse one. He looks desperately around to the hills, asking where his help is coming from. John Calvin says “such is the inconstancy natural to us, that so soon as we are smitten with any fear, we turn our eyes in every direction, until faith, drawing us back from all these erratic wanderings, directs us exclusively to God” (Calvin’s Commentaries, vol. 6, p. 63). When this happens, we need this reminder–and we need to keep pulling ourselves back to it–our help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth.
The first thing to notice in this Psalm is that setting out on pilgrimage puts us at risk. Verse three says “He will not let your foot slip,” and in verse 6, “the sun will not harm you by day nor the moon by night.” These are hazards travelers would have faced in ancient Palestine. “A person traveling on foot can, at any moment, step on a loose stone and sprain his ankle. A person traveling on foot, under the protracted exposure to a hot sun, can become faint with sunstroke. And a person traveling for a long distance on foot, under the pressures of fatigue and anxiety, can become emotionally ill, which was described by ancient writers as moonstroke (or by us as lunacy)” (Eugene Peterson, A Long Obedience in the Same Direction, p. 35).
When we turn our backs on the world and set out to follow Jesus Christ, we often expect things to go together smoothly. We’ve been on the wrong path, and now we’re on the right one. It only makes sense that this path should be smoother. But very soon we encounter problems that are a direct result of our decision to follow Christ. If we had stayed where we were, these things wouldn’t have happened. Many people turn back at this point, like Pliable did. In the Parable of the Sower, Jesus talks about the seed that falls on rocky ground. “The one who received the seed that fell on rocky places is the man who hears the word and at once receives it with joy. But since he has no root, he lasts only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, he quickly falls away” (Matthew 13:20-21). Jesus’ assumption here is that trouble is going to come because of the Word of God. Following Christ leads us to face problems we wouldn’t have faced otherwise.
When the Lord sent Ananias to baptize Saul the Persecutor, he said: “This man is my chosen instrument to carry my name before the Gentiles and their kings and before the people of Israel. I will show him how much he must suffer for my name” (Acts 9:15-16). Listen to how Paul later describes himself to the Corinthians: “It seems to me that God has put us who bear his Message on stage in a theater in which no one wants to buy a ticket. We’re something everyone stands around and stares at, like an accident in the street. We’re the Messiah’s misfits. You might be sure of yourselves, but we live in the midst of frailties and uncertainties. You might be well-thought-of by others, but we’re mostly kicked around. Much of the time we don’t have enough to eat, we wear patched and threadbare clothes, we get doors slammed in our faces, and we pick up odd jobs anywhere we can to eke out a living. When they call us names, we say, ‘God bless you.’ When they spread rumors about us, we put in a good word for them. We’re treated like garbage, potato peelings from the culture’s kitchen. And it’s not getting any better” (1 Corinthians 4:9-13, The Message). Paul was so aware of the difficulties God’s people face in this life, that he said “If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men” (1 Corinthians 15:19). Setting out on pilgrimage for the New Jerusalem puts us at risk.
But the second thing to notice here is that God Himself promises to watch over us. The idea that God is watching over us, or guarding us, is repeated six times in these eight verses. The basic idea of the word translated “watch” is, “to exercise great care over” (Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament, vol. 2, p. 939). God exercises great care over us. The one watching over us, exercising great care over us, is the Maker of heaven and earth, not a created being.
Verses one and two draw a sharp contrast. The Psalmist begins: “I lift up my eyes to the hills–where does my help come from?” If you’re reading from the King James Version, this contrast isn’t there: “I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help.” It sounds like his help is coming from the hills. But all the other versions and commentators I consulted agreed with the way this is rendered in the NIV. The hills were places where sacrifices were offered to Baal. They were places of idolatry. The Psalmist is in trouble and he looks around in desperation, “where is my help going to come from?” And his first reflex is to look toward the high places, where so many in his society were turning for help.
We aren’t surrounded by high places today, but the temptation to idolatry is still there. I often hear things like: “I don’t need to go to church to worship God. I feel close to Him when I go out for a hike. I worship Him by enjoying His creation.” It’s a great thing to enjoy God’s creation, but when I hear this sort of thing I’m usually aware that the person is not really worshiping God at all. People who say these things are usually worshiping nature. But then, who do they call upon when they’re in need of help, when they’re at the end of their resources? “A look to the hills for help ends in disappointment. For all their majesty and beauty, for all their quiet strength and firmness, they are, finally, just hills” (Peterson, A Long Obedience, p. 37). We need help from the one who created those hills.
His watchful care is also constant and uninterrupted. It isn’t hindered by weakness or finiteness: “he who watches over you will not slumber; indeed, he who watches over Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.” The high places were mainly occupied with Baal worship. Until the deportation to Babylon, this was the main threat to the worship of God in the nation. The Psalmist here is probably making an implicit comparison between the worship of God and the worship of Baal. In 1 Kings 18, the prophet Elijah has challenged the prophets of Baal to a contest. They are to call on their god, and Elijah will pray to the God of Israel, and the one who answers with fire is the true God. After the prophets have been crying out to Baal for the whole morning, Elijah begins to taunt them: “‘Shout louder!’ he said: ‘Surely he is a god! Perhaps he is deep in thought, or busy, or traveling. Maybe he is sleeping and must be awakened.’ So they shouted louder and slashed themselves with swords and spears, as was their custom, until their blood flowed. Midday passed, and they continued their frantic prophesying until the time for the evening sacrifice. But there was no response, no one answered, no one paid attention” (1 Kings 18:27-29). Throughout the period of the Kings, Israel was constantly reverting to Baalism. It had immense popular appeal, and it often gave them ecstatic experiences. Baalism gave them exhilarating times of celebration. But Baal was an idol, not a true god, and when they came to him with their problems, “there was no response, no one answered, no one paid attention.” The Psalmist is saying that the Lord is there and is constantly attentive to our cries for help. He doesn’t slumber or sleep.
He also won’t lose interest in us. We may believe all the right things about God, and we may have a true perception of His infinite majesty, but if we don’t know that He cares about us, knowing something of His greatness only makes Him seem more distant and unapproachable. We need to hear what he says in vv. 7-8: “he will watch over your life; the Lord will watch over your coming and going both now and forevermore.” Here’s how it reads in The Message: “He guards you when you leave and when you return, he guards you now, he guards you always.” God has set His steadfast love upon us, and He is committed to caring for us over the long term. Here’s how committed God is to caring for His people: “‘Though the mountains be shaken and the hills be removed, yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken nor my covenant of peace be removed, says the Lord, who has compassion on you’” (Isaiah 54:10). God’s steadfast love and care are more stable and certain than the mountains, where so many are turning for help.
The third thing to notice in this Psalm corrects a possible misunderstanding: the promise here is not that bad things will never happen to us, but that God will accompany us and nothing will separate us from Him or from His purposes. This Psalm needs to be read in the light of the rest of Scripture. Some have been guilty of taking passages like this one and teaching that God promises to protect us from difficulties. They even take the next step and assert that when we encounter difficulties in our lives it’s because of disobedience or lack of faith. If we were really faithful as Christians, He would take care of us and prevent these things from happening.
This is what Job’s three friends thought. Job was a godly man. Everyone looked up to him and came to him for advice. But then everything started going wrong, and within a very short time all his children were killed and he lost all his wealth. He was suffering terribly, so his three friends came to comfort him. But they also came with advice. They assumed that he was being punished by God for something. Otherwise, how could these things be happening. As the book progresses, their arguments become more and more accusatory as they counsel him to repent and be reconciled to God. If Job were as righteous as everyone thought, surely God would have prevented all these horrible things from happening.
In the fall of 1977, I arrived in India after a long overland trip from Belgium. We spent a few days in Delhi, then three of us traveled to Agra (the location of the Taj Mahal) to meet some teams that were gathered at a church for a series of meetings. When we got to the church, no one was there, so we walked to a nearby restaurant to get something to eat. None of us knew how to choose a restaurant in India, and we didn’t make a good choice. During the meal I looked up at the rafters and saw a rat crawling back and forth over our heads. Two of us were careful to avoid drinking the water, but I noticed that one of the guys (a Malaysian named Tak) was drinking water very freely so I said something about it. He replied that God protects us from sickness, and we only need to trust Him. After that day we went to separate teams, but I met Tak six months later in Nepal. He had hepatitis, and a couple of us on the team caught it from him.
There are verses in the Bible which, if we let them stand by themselves, sound like they’re promising perfect health. That’s why those who preach the health and wealth gospel are able to support their teaching with some appearance of faithfulness to Scripture. In looking at a passage like this one, we not only look at it in itself, we also look at it in the light of other Scripture. It comes to us, not standing by itself. It comes to us as part of God’s Word. It comes to us as part of the book of Psalms. And the most common type of Psalm is the lament, a cry of anguish in the midst of suffering. Most of the Psalmists were suffering, and there’s no indication that their suffering is a sign of weak faith.
What is the promise here? Here’s what John Calvin says on this passage: “The sense then is, that although God’s people may be subject in common with others to the miseries of human life, yet his shadow is always at their side to shield them from thereby receiving any harm” (p. 67). Bad things happen to us, just as they do to others. We live in a fallen world. But God promises that the things that happen won’t undermine His purposes for us. Here’s Eugene Peterson: “The promise of this psalm–and both Hebrews and Christians have always read it this way–is not that we shall never stub our toes, but that no injury, no illness, no accident, no distress will have evil power over us, that is, will be able to separate us from God’s purposes in us” (A Long Obedience, p. 38). He says this a little later: “All the water in all the oceans cannot sink a ship unless it gets inside. Nor can all the trouble in the world harm us unless it gets within us. That is the promise of the psalm: ‘The Lord will keep you from all evil’.... The only serious mistake we can make when illness comes, when anxiety threatens, when conflict disturbs our relationship with others is to conclude that God has gotten bored in looking after us and has shifted his attention to a more exciting Christian, or that God has become disgusted with our meandering obedience and decided to let us fend for ourselves for awhile, or that God has gotten too busy fulfilling prophecy in the Middle East to take time now to sort out the complicated mess we have gotten ourselves into. That is the only serious mistake we can make. It is the mistake that Psalm 121 prevents: the mistake of supposing that God’s interest in us waxes and wanes in response to our spiritual temperature” (A Long Obedience, pp. 38-39). We live in a fallen world, and we are subject to the same struggles that plague everyone else here. But we have the promise that God watches over us, that He will stay with us until the end, that He will guard our souls until we see Him face to face.
Listen to what Paul says in 2 Corinthians 4: “We are pressed on every side by troubles, but we are not crushed and broken. We are perplexed, but we don’t give up and quit. We are hunted down, but God never abandons us. We get knocked down, but we get up again and keep going. Through suffering, these bodies of ours constantly share in the death of Jesus so that the life of Jesus may also be seen in our bodies. Yes, we live under constant danger of death because we serve Jesus, so that the life of Jesus will be obvious in our dying bodies” (2 Corinthians 4:8-11, New Living Translation). His life is full of difficulties. God is with him, but that doesn’t mean God keeps him from facing problems. But in the midst of all the problems, God is faithful and is keeping him.
We need to arm ourselves with the realization that we are going to encounter problems, some of which will be directly caused by our commitment to Christ. Peter says: “So then, since Christ suffered physical pain, you must arm yourselves with the same attitude he had, and be ready to suffer too” (1 Peter 4:1, New Living Translation). If we expect God to keep us from problems, our faith will be shaken when difficulties come into our lives. Our faith is shaken, because we’re trusting God for something He hasn’t promised to do. Since we’re assured in God’s Word that we will face difficulties, we can pray in advance for strength to endure them patiently when they come.
But that doesn’t turn us into fatalists or cynics. We have this assurance that the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth, is there to help us. Some translations and commentators suggest that this Psalm was sung antiphonally by groups of pilgrims, and that verses one and two were sung responsively. The result was: Question: “I lift up my eyes to the hills–where does my help come from?” Response (spoken by the leader or another group): “Your help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth.” Whether this is the case or not, it illustrates the fact that we can help one another in this way. When we’re in difficulties, everything gets out of perspective, and we need to hear from others these words: “Your help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth.”
Eugene Peterson has an excellent book on the Psalms of Ascent, entitled A Long Obedience in the Same Direction. Here’s how he ends his discussion of this Psalm: “Psalm 121, learned early and sung repeatedly in the walk with Christ, clearly defines the conditions under which we live out our discipleship, which, in a word, is God. Once we get this psalm in our hearts it will be impossible for us to gloomily suppose that being a Christian is an unending battle against ominous forces that at any moment may break through and overpower us. Faith is not a precarious affair of chance escape from satanic assaults. It is the solid, massive, secure experience of God who keeps all evil from getting inside us, who keeps our life, who keeps our going out and our coming in from this time forth and forevermore” (p. 41).
Hugh Latimer lived in England during the Reformation and he also was acquainted with difficulty and danger. He said this: "When I sit alone, and can have a settled assurance of the state of my soul, and know that God is mine, I can laugh at all troubles, and nothing can daunt me." Some time later, he was condemned to death at the stake by Mary Tudor (the daughter of Henry VIII). As the fire was being lit, he called out to a friend, who was suffering the same fate, "Be of good comfort, Master Ridley, and play the man; we shall this day light such a candle by God's grace in England as I trust shall never be put out." He had armed himself with the expectation that he would face difficulties because of his faith. He was able to laugh at all troubles; when he faced problems he didn’t think God had deserted him. His faith was “the solid, massive, secure experience of God who keeps all evil from getting inside us, who keeps our life, who keeps our going out and our coming in from this time forth and forevermore.” He lived in hope and was able to die with a sense of joyful anticipation.
The promise of Psalm 121 is the same as the end of Romans 8: “Can anything ever separate us from Christ’s love? Does it mean he no longer loves us if we have trouble or calamity, or are persecuted, or are hungry or cold or in danger or threatened with death? (Even the Scriptures say, ‘For your sake we are killed every day; we are being slaughtered like sheep.) No, despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, who loved us. And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from his love. Death can’t, and life can’t. The angels can’t, and the demons can’t. Our fears for today, our worries about tomorrow, and even the powers of hell can’t keep God’s love away. Whether we are high above the sky or in the deepest ocean, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:35-39, New Living Translation). No matter what difficulties we’re called upon to face in our Christian lives, our help is in the name of the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth. May He strengthen us with this assurance.
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