A Brief Study Guide: The Hazards of Life and the Help of the Lord

Sinclair Ferguson, a Scottish man, who serves as Senior Minister for First Presbyterian Church, Columbia, South Carolina tells this fascinating account of a powerful use of this particular Psalm.

The year was 1582 AD. The Scottish minister John Drury had been banished from Edinburgh from his pastoral charge due to his preaching of the gospel. Upon his return to Edinburgh, his friends met him and led him into the city center. The crowd swelled to a group of around 2,000 people. They marched up the High Street singing without accompaniment in four-part harmony this Psalm… Psalm 124! “If the Lord had not been on our side…” Truly, a moving scene and testimony to how the Psalms give us a voice in our times of defeat and victory, joy and discouragement.

Dr. Ferguson concludes his story by sharing the response of one of the men who had persecuted Dr. Drury: “It was the most overwhelming sight he had ever seen in his life.“