The Snare Is Broken
What praise sounds like when it remembers.
Incense & Oil · Part 2 · Psalm 124
Psalm 124 is a song you sing on the far side of something. It begins with honest need, remembers a rescue, and ends with the whole congregation saying it out loud together. In eight short verses, it shows what praise sounds like when it remembers.
1. Begin with need (verses 1 and 2)
If it had not been the LORD who was on our side—let Israel now say—if it had not been the LORD who was on our side when people rose up against us.
(Psalm 124:1-2, ESV)
When someone says, "If it had not been for the Lord," something is implied. Disaster would have come. Calamity, difficulty, destruction. The psalmist does not start with how strong Israel was. He starts by admitting how close they came to being finished. That is where honest worship begins: in a clear-eyed recognition of our need. And notice, he does not stay there. He says it twice, and then he turns the whole congregation toward it: let Israel now say. The psalmist declares it, and then invites all of Israel to say it with him. This is not a private memory. It is a song the whole family sings together, because every one of us has a story that starts with "if it had not been the Lord."
2. The waters that should have taken us (verses 3 to 5)
Then they would have swallowed us up alive, when their anger was kindled against us; then the flood would have swept us away, the torrent would have gone over us; then over us would have gone the raging waters.
(Psalm 124:3-5, ESV)
Why stack three pictures of drowning? Because the psalmist is calling something back. In Scripture, water that rises and sweeps away is the picture of judgment and total loss. It goes all the way back to the flood in Genesis, when the waters covered the earth. It runs straight through the Red Sea, when the walls of water fell on Pharaoh's army. Israel knew what it was to stand on the far side of waters that should have consumed them. The psalmist is saying: that is our story. The flood came for us, and we are still here, and we did not get ourselves out.
3. The bird and the broken snare (verses 6 and 7)
Blessed be the LORD, who has not given us as prey to their teeth! We have escaped like a bird from the snare of the fowlers; the snare is broken, and we have escaped!
(Psalm 124:6-7, ESV)
Here the song turns. "Blessed be the Lord." And then this image: a bird out of a trap. Think about where a bird shows up over the waters. After the flood, it was the dove that came back to Noah with an olive leaf, and that was the first sign that the judgment was over and life was coming back (Genesis 8:11). Ever since, the dove has been the picture of peace, and the picture of the Holy Spirit himself. So the bird in verse 7 is hope. The bird is freedom. And the line that matters most is this: the snare is broken. The bird did not just slip out of the trap. The trap itself cannot be reset. Whatever had a grip on you does not get to hold you again.
Paul puts it this way: "Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom" (2 Corinthians 3:17). And John says, "He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world" (1 John 4:4). That is the freedom of a broken snare.
4. Help that holds everything (verse 8)
Our help is in the name of the LORD, who made heaven and earth.
(Psalm 124:8, ESV)
The song lands here. Not on how we escaped, but on who our help is. The one who pulled us out of the water is the one who made the water. The one who broke the snare is the one who made heaven and earth. Nothing that rose up against you is bigger than him.
Praise was always a response
Here is what I love. The very first song of praise recorded in Scripture is sung at the water's edge. Israel crosses the Red Sea, the waters close behind them, and Moses and the people sing: "I will sing to the LORD, for he has triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider he has thrown into the sea" (Exodus 15:1). Then Miriam takes a tambourine and leads the women in the same refrain. That song was a response. God acted, and his people answered him in praise, and that pattern is imprinted on Israel's history from the very beginning, and Psalm 124 is a pilgrim song that reaches all the way back to that shoreline and says: remember.
So this week, go up with remembrance. Say it out loud, with your church family: if it had not been the Lord who was on our side. Name the waters. Name the snare that is broken. And let praise be your response.
This Sunday at GateCity Buckhead, Son Byrd and Angel will share their own "if it had not been the Lord" stories. Come worship with us.