Psalm 107:8,15,21, 31 "Let them give thanks to the Lord for His unfailing love and His wonderful deeds for mankind."
Text: Psalm 107:1-43
Today, I went running and I began to meditate on a praise and worship song that I use to love to sing. It came to my mind but I do not remember having heard the song in months. I do not remember having sung it in church and it is not a song on any of the cd’s that I have been playing in the past 6 months or a year. As I pushed through every mile of the 40 minutes that I ran, my mind continued to turn back to the phrases of the lyrics of Chris Tomlin's Song called "Forever": "Forever God is faithful! Forever God is strong! Forever God is with us! Forever! Forever! With a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, His love endures forever! For the life that’s been reborn, His love endures forever! Give praise, Give praise. Give praise, give praise!"
Psalm 107 says something pretty close to that exact idea. Here, we have four examples of stories of a particular group of people who become troubled and distressed and are ready to loose their hope in God on account of their trouble. The four groups are the redeemed, the prisoners, the rebellious fools, and the merchants on the sea. When we look at each of their situations we see the troubles they are encountering, that which they are enduring, and those things which they are about to be consumed by. In verses 1-9, the ones redeemed from the foe had been scattered across the land, they had been wandering in wasteland, they were hungry, thirsty, and their lives were going to waste. In verses, 10-16, the prisoners who sat in darkness were suffering alone because they had rebelled against God and His commands and despised the plans of the Most High God. They had to do bitter work and they stumbled and there was no one to help them in their trouble. In verses 17-22, the rebellious fools who had sinned and were suffering affliction on account of their sin hated food and were drawing close to the presence of death. In verses, 23-32, the merchants on the sea who had great responsibilities and projects on account of their foreign trade of merchandise were overtaken by a storm and all the courage they had built up from witnessing previous deeds of the Lord was swept away when they finally came to their wits end because they couldn’t overcome the storm that continued to press against them.
Have you ever found yourself in any of these situations? Are you in one now? In these situations do you sing, “Forever God is faithful! Forever God is strong! Forever God is with us! Forever! Forever!” Do you sing in troubles like these, “With a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, His love endures forever! For the life that’s been reborn, His love endures forever! Give praise, give praise. Give praise, give praise!” I think usually, and often it can become a song which is sung in the deepest part of our heart where we sing instead rather, “Forever God is faithful? Forever God is strong? Forever God is with us? Forever? Forever?” Have you ever sung it like that? Have you sung, “With a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, His love endures forever? For the life that’s been reborn, His love endures forever? Give praise, Give praise? Give praise, give praise?” Yet, the stories of each of these 4 groups testify that in their situations of hopelessness, despair, and trouble they cried out to the Lord. The poet emphasizes their crying out to God by saying, “They cried out to the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress.” This news of hope is found in every one of their stories, in verses 6, 13, 19, and 28. In the gritty hard time, in the hopelessness, separated by land, and time, and culture, and sea, they all cried out to the Lord in the middle of their trouble and the Lord responded the same way to all of them. He delivered them all from their distress.
Everyone of their stories however, does not end with the fact that they were delivered. Each story then has a command both for those who noticed their trouble and for those who experienced the trouble. Again we have another verse that repeats itself 4 times. After the verse that tells that they cried to the Lord in their distress, then comes a verse that follows saying, “Let them give thanks to the Lord for His unfailing love and his wonderful deeds for mankind.” We see in each of these stories this message in verse 8, in verse 15, in verse 21, and in verse 31. If it repeats itself 4 times in the same psalm, it must be important. Here we are told exactly what to give thanks to God about. Often in the middle of trouble, it’s hard to think about what we are thankful for! In the middle of trouble thanksgiving doesn’t come easy. This is the least likely time that we may feel loved. We are tempted not to speak lovingly and we are tempted not to show love to ourselves and to others. God Himself does not appear to be loving, so why should we?
Yet, something within each of these people telling these stories relate that they saw the power of God through His wonderful deeds. Whether they became awestruck in the middle of their crying or whether they were filled with joy when they recognized the Lord’s deliverance, they were all told to give thanks to the Lord for His unfailing love and for His wonderful deeds. If others may have hindered them from letting them give thanks, they were told to keep quiet so these who were saved, who were delivered, and who were given the chance to recognize and experience the love of God may speak words of thanksgiving and testify through their stories about what God had done for them. Let them give thanks to the Lord for His unfailing love!
God displayed His power through wonderful deeds in each of these stories. For the redeemed who were scattered, hungry, and thirsty, He made a straight way for them and led them to a city where they could settle and be satisfied. The prisoners were brought out of darkness, their chains were broken, and the gates of bronze and the bars of iron were broken and destroyed rather than themselves. The rebellious fools who were about to be snatched up by death received the word of the Lord and were healed and rescued from the hand of death and given the gift of life. The merchants on the sea who were at their wits end because of the storm that pressed against them causing them to loose their way witnessed creation becoming subject to the Creator, and heard the raging storm begin to whisper, and felt the crashing waves begin to rock as a hushing lullaby so that when they finally let their anchor down in their desired destination their courage had gone to a new depth. These are stories of God’s power displayed through His wonderful deeds for a people He loves!
God’s love is so great, that all these people were gathered together to live together and to fellowship together in a place He prepared for them. However, in this place that God prepared for those He loved were people who did not love Him. The people that inhabited the place God prepared were wicked. It does not say specifically that God drove them out of that place on account of their wickedness but it does say God took action on them. He turned the rivers into desert and the flowing springs into thirsty ground. The fruitful land became a salt waste and they could no longer live there, dwell there, or inhabit the land. In their wickedness, they neglected to take care of it and most likely the land could not yield back an abundance to aid their needs. In their wickedness they most likely were driven out. The only other option would be that they become the people of the 4 stories coming back into the land having cried out to God and repented and having humbled themselves and declared themselves needy before God.
Verse 35 says that the rivers that were turned into desert in verse 33 were now becoming pools of water. The flowing springs of 33 that became thirsty ground in verse 35 becomes flowing springs again. Here is where the hungry come to live and to be satisfied and here is where the wanderers looking for their home come to settle and find fields and vineyards to work, sow, and plant. Finally, these four stories come together interacting as they yield a fruitful harvest together and take of the blessing of the land together, themselves being blessed by God together. God’s hedge of protection was on them.
All four of these in the stories were given the gift of life and with that life there came a place for them to live. Usually we refer to the place that God has set apart for us to live as Christians as “heaven” and our concept is that this doesn’t arrive until at that point of time in which we experience death and go to be with Jesus in His heavenly kingdom. It sounds like God brought these people to a heavenly place and everything would be great once they got there. The story could have ended on verse 38 and we could have sung very rightly after that, “With a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, His love endures forever! For the life that’s been reborn, His love endures forever! Give thanks, Give thanks. Forever God is faithful! Forever God is strong! Forever God is with us! Forever! Forever!” But the truth is, we then read verse 39 and suddenly we are recalling all the stories of all these faithful and unfaithful men and women who were calling out to the Lord for help in their time of need and trouble and we realize that we don’t cry out to the Lord only once. We don’t stop being a needy people. Oppression, calamity, and sorrow are still around, among us, and sometimes a little to close and this is not the heaven we thought it was. And in our humility we are humbled again to realize, after we tell the stories, that God still loves us again and is still with us as much as He was before and He is still faithful to reveal Himself to us in our pride, and our anger, and our confusion and in our ignorance and in the wanderings when no one is able to reach us and we can’t reach out. The miracle here is in verse 41, “But he lifted the needy out of their affliction and increased their families like flocks.” There is nothing we can do to make the suffering stop but God who sees all things knows when it is time for the people to experience His love through a miracle. He commands it and the affliction stops and the upright see and rejoice while the wicked have to shut their mouth because the evidence of the miracle of God’s power is greater than the wickedness within them.
Psalm 107:43 “Let the one who is wise heed these things and ponder the loving deeds of the Lord. [Forever, amen.]
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