Psalm 124
August 9, 2026
preached by Paul Jeon
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Time of Reflection Quotations

“Through many dangers, toils and snares I have already come:
‘tis grace has brought me safe thus far, and grace will lead me home.”

~John Newton, “Amazing Grace”

“The real glory is being knocked to your knees and then coming back. That’s real glory. That’s the essence of it.”

~Vince Lombardi, American football coach

“You don’t really suppose, do you, that all your adventures and escapes were managed by mere luck, just for your sole benefit?”

~Gandalf to Bilbo, in The Hobbit

“The consolation of fairy-stories, the joy of the happy ending: or more correctly of the good catastrophe [eucatasrophe], the sudden joyous ‘turn’ […] is a sudden and miraculous grace: never to be counted on to recur. It does not deny the existence of dyscatasrophe, of sorrow and failure: the possibility of these is necessary to the joy of deliverance […] Joy beyond the walls of the world, poignant as grief.”

“For I coined the word ‘eucatastrophe’: the sudden happy turn in a story which pierces you with a joy that brings tears […] the Resurrection was the greatest ‘eucatastrophe’ possible in the greatest Fairy Story – and it produces that essential emotion: Christian joy which produces tears because it is qualitatively so like sorrow, because it comes from those places where Joy and Sorrow are at one.”

~J.R.R Tolkien, English writer and academic

“What we like to do is we try to protect ourselves from ever having to go through the valley of the shadow of death. […] But if Jesus really is your shepherd […] wouldn’t you kind of want to go through the valley of the shadow of death? […] There ought to be this side [of us] that’s actually excited about it and going, ‘Okay, this is going to be cool. I’m going to see God come through in some ways where he wasn’t coming through. I’m going to see this other side of the shepherd that I didn’t see by the still waters.’”

~Francis Chan, American pastor, on Psalm 23

“We can’t outrisk His faithfulness”

~Ocean and the Ghost, “Can’t Outrisk”

Sermon Passage

Psalm 124 (NIV)

¹ If the LORD had not been on our side—
let Israel say—
² if the LORD had not been on our side
when people attacked us,
³ they would have swallowed us alive
when their anger flared against us;
⁴ the flood would have engulfed us,
the torrent would have swept over us,
⁵ the raging waters
would have swept us away.
⁶ Praise be to the LORD,
who has not let us be torn by their teeth.
⁷ We have escaped like a bird
from the fowler’s snare;
the snare has been broken,
and we have escaped.
⁸ Our help is in the name of the LORD,
the Maker of heaven and earth.

Exodus 13:17-18, 14:1-4 (NIV)

¹⁷ When Pharaoh let the people go, God did not lead them on the road through the Philistine country, though that was shorter. For God said, “If they face war, they might change their minds and return to Egypt.” ¹⁸ So God led the people around by the desert road toward the Red Sea. […] ¹ Then the Lord said to Moses, ² ‘Tell the Israelites to turn back and encamp […] ³ Pharaoh will think, ‘The Israelites are wandering around the land in confusion, hemmed in by the desert.’ ⁴ And I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and he will pursue them. But I will gain glory for myself through Pharaoh and all his army, and the Egyptians will know that I am the Lord.’

Romans 5:6 (NIV)

⁶ You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly.