The enemy wants to keep me from drawing near the Master. Thankfully he’s powerless to stop me.
Have I misled you? I just spoke of these Songs of Degrees as being about going up to the house of the Lord to worship. And what does the first one say? “In my distress I cried to the Lord, and He heard me. Deliver my soul, O Lord, from lying lips and from a deceitful tongue” (Ps 120:1-2). But I think this actually aligns with the believer’s experience. When we set about to pray, or worship, or study the Word, we find an enemy in the way. In fact, to go from earth to heaven we must pass through that region called the heavenlies where our battles are fought (Eph 6:12). As far as Hezekiah was concerned, this was exactly his situation. Sennacherib and his men had come up against Jerusalem. They were using their tongues as weapons of war, seeking to undermine Israel’s trust in the Lord (see 2 Ki 18:28-35; 2 Chron 32:17). “What shall be given to you, or what shall be done to you, you false tongue?” he asks (Ps 120:3). He had already tried to pay Assyria off (2 Ki 18:14-16), but to no avail. You can’t make deals with the devil. His attacks are as sharp as piercing arrows, as hot as burning coals (Ps 120:4). The psalmist seems far from where he wants to be—the House of the Lord. He feels like he’s in “Meshech,” away to the north on the shores of the Black Sea, and “the tents of Kedar” (v 5), far south in the land of the Bedouin. Do you feel like that? At a distance from His dwelling, among hostile forces? Is this your testimony? “My soul has dwelt too long with one who hates peace” (v 6). What fellowship can we find when all around us is nothing but trouble? “I am for peace; but when I speak, they are for war” (v 7). Unlike the journey to Jerusalem, we can flee in a moment into our Savior’s arms, where we belong and peace reigns.