Psalm 107
Let’s hear God’s word together.
This is Psalm 107. This is also the beginning of
book five, the last book of the Psalter. And these are also connected
backwards to 106, 105, 104. It begins this way. O give thanks to the Lord, for
he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever. Let the
redeemed of the Lord say so, whom he has redeemed from trouble
and gathered in from the lands. from the east and from the west,
from the north and from the south. Some wandered in desert wastes,
finding no way to a city to dwell in. Hungry and thirsty, their
soul fainted within them. Then they cried to the Lord in
their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress. He
led them by a straight way till they reached a city to dwell
in. Let them thank the Lord for his
steadfast love, for his wondrous works to the children of men.
For he satisfies the longing soul, and the hungry soul he
fills with good things. Some sat in darkness and in the
shadow of death, prisoners in affliction and in irons. For
they had rebelled against the words of God. They had spurned
the counsel of the Most High. So he bowed their hearts down
with hard labor. They fell down with none to help.
And they cried the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them
from their distress. He brought them out of darkness
and the shadow of death and burst their bonds apart. Let them thank
the Lord for his steadfast love, for his wondrous works to the
children of men. For he shatters the doors of
bronze, he cuts in two the bars of iron. Some were fools through
their sinful ways and because of their iniquities, they suffered
affliction. They loathed any kind of food,
they drew near to the gates of death. Then they cried to the
Lord in their trouble and he delivered them from their distress.
He sent out his word and healed them and delivered them from
their destruction. Let them thank the Lord for his steadfast love,
for his wondrous works to the children of men. And let them
offer sacrifices of thanksgiving and tell of his deeds in songs
of joy. Some went down to the sea in
ships, doing business on the great waters. They saw the deeds
of the Lord, his wondrous works in the deep. For he commanded
and raised the stormy wind, which lifted up the waves of the sea.
They mounted up to heaven. They went down to the depths.
Their courage melted away. in their evil plight. They reeled
and they staggered like drunken men and were at their wits end.
Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble and he delivered
them from their distress. He made the storm be still and
the waves of the sea were hushed. Then they were glad the waters
were quiet and he brought them to their desired haven. Let them
thank the Lord for his steadfast love, for his wondrous works
to the children of men. Let them extol him in the congregation
of the people and praise him in the assembly of the elders.
He turns rivers into a desert, springs of water into thirsty
ground, a fruitful land into a salty waste because of the
evil of its inhabitants. He turns a desert into pools
of water and a parched land into springs of water. And there he
lets the hungry dwell and they establish a city to live in.
They sow fields and plant vineyards and get a fruitful yield. By
his blessing, they multiply greatly and he does not let their livestock
diminish. When they are diminished and
brought low through oppression, evil and sorrow, he pours contempt
on princes and makes them wander in trackless wastes. But he raises
up the needy out of the affliction. He makes their families like
flocks. The upright see it and are glad and all the wickedness
shuts its mouth. Whoever is wise, let him attend
to these things. Let them consider the steadfast
love of the Lord. I want to begin tonight by asking
a question. Has God answered your prayers? Has he answered your prayers?
Particularly, has he answered the prayer when you pray, give
us this day our daily bread? Last week when we studied this
in the morning in Luke’s gospel, we considered what Martin Luther
said is enclosed or included when we ask for daily bread and
his list includes food, clothing, money, goods, house, land, property,
believing spouse, good children, trustworthy servants, faithful
magistrates, favorable seasons, peace, health, education, honor,
true friends, and good neighbors. Has God given you those things?
Something to think about. Another question, has God carried
you through the years? Don’t look back just over this
year, but over a decade at a time or so. Has God carried you through
the years? As you live east of Eden, outside
the Garden of Paradise, you live in a sin-filled world with ups
and downs. It’s all under God’s sovereignty,
but I think we can all say this, God has been faithful. You may
wonder about it in the heat of the moment, but as you look back,
you can say God has been faithful. And something these last handful
of Psalms, and including 107 tonight, have taught us is that
God is a God of steadfast love. It’s a special Hebrew word that
you’ve probably heard, the word hesed, God’s unchanging, dependable
faithfulness and love. Sometimes we say it, he loves
us with a love that will never let us go. Psalm 107 helps us
see that from a different perspective. These last couple of psalms have
had different historical perspectives. Tonight, Psalm 107 is most likely
in response to the last Psalm, verse
47 and 106, where it says, save us, O Lord, our God, and gather
us from among the nations. This is probably an answer to
the prayer of the captives in Babylon. And so you look at what
we’re taught, look at verses one and two, and then we’ll look
at verse 43. Verses one and two, Command us
this way. Oh, give thanks to the Lord for
he is good. His steadfast love endures forever.
Let the redeemed of the Lord say so, whom he has redeemed
out of trouble and gathered in from the lands, from the east,
the west, the north and the south. Then jump all the way over to
verse 43. Whoever is wise, let him attend to these things,
let them consider the steadfast love of the Lord. So verses one
to three, and then all the way to verse 43, you’ve got 40 verses
or so in between that are going to tell us four or five different
ways God’s people have been cared for by God himself through his
steadfast love. You could look at this from the
perspective of the returnees from Babylon. You could look
at this from the perspective as some have done. This was a pilgrim psalm. Here
it is Thanksgiving, and we land on Psalm 107. The pilgrims, the
first Puritans who landed in America in 1620, they looked
at Psalm 107. I think you’ll see why as we
make our way through it. They looked at this as their psalm,
but you may also look at it as your psalm as you see God and
what he has done. One of the other things you’ll
notice in this psalm, in addition to verses one to three and then
verse 43, there’s a refrain. You may have noticed it in verse
eight. Let them thank the Lord for his steadfast love, for his
wondrous works to the children of men. And it appears also in
verse 15, the exact same words. And then it pops up again in
verse 21, and it has an addition, which is verse 22, let them offer
sacrifices of thanksgiving and tell of his deeds and songs.
So God’s been good to you, bring a sacrifice and tell everybody
about it. And then notice the last time
this appears, it’s in verse 31, It’s the same first couple words,
and then you get the addition of verse 32, let them extol him
in the congregation of the people and praise him in the assembly
of the elders. So one of the things we learn
from this Psalm is as we thank God for his steadfast love, it’s
probably good to write these things down. It’s probably good
to think about them, to count them, to name them one by one,
but we’re to offer God sacrifices of thanks. We’re to offer our
tithes, his offerings, our very lives to God, but we’re also
to tell of his deeds and songs of joy. We’re to extol him in
the congregation and praise him in the assembly of the elders.
And so something to think about before we dive into the couple
ways God has saved his people is, do we do that enough? And
one of the things I would say as a way of encouragement is,
we provide the opportunity. That’s why we have this wonderful
hymnal. I don’t know how much y’all think about it, but it’s
wonderful to have a hymnal full of Bible. It makes it really
easy for me to plan a worship service. I don’t know if y’all
caught it today, but after we had a sermon on a very specific
topic, which was Christ has forgiven us, therefore we should be forgiving
like Christ, what did we have in our hymnal? we had the exact
hymn about that passage. It wasn’t sentimental. It wasn’t,
you know, some, you know, wonderful, happy thought. It was a Bible
hymn based on that specific verse. And it’s wonderful to have a
hymnal. It’s wonderful to be part of a heritage of faith that
gives us the words to do exactly what Psalm 107 tells us, to sing
about it and to tell about it. Well, let’s look at a couple
of the ways, there are four ways really God has saved his people. You pick up in verse four through
nine, you’ll see that he saves the homeless. Verse four says,
some wandered in desert waste. They found no way to a city to
dwell in. They were hungry, thirsty, their
souls fainted within them. They cried to the Lord in their
trouble. He delivered them from their distress and he led them
by a straight way till they reached a city to dwell in. then the
refrain let them thank the Lord and then verse 9 he satisfies
the longing soul and the hungry soul he fills with good things
I doubt any of you have ever been driven from your homes you’re
not refugees from a war-torn country you know in America probably
the worst thing is you could lose your you could lose your
home in a sense maybe from not paying your mortgage or not paying
your rent. But I imagine most of us haven’t been driven from
our homes or been lost. I doubt many of us have ever
been without shelter or without family. But maybe you have been
restless and unsettled. Maybe you have not had a home,
not a house, but a home. Maybe you’ve not had a family.
Maybe you’ve been fatherless or motherless, or you’ve been
homeless in the sense that You don’t have a place to belong.
And that’s far worse, isn’t it, than not having shelter. It’d
be one thing to be homeless with your family, but to be homeless
in a big old house or family-less in a big old house, that would
be a different matter. And this truth reminds us that
God always looks for the widow. He looks for the orphan. He brings
home those who are lost. We’re reminded of this great
truth in the parable of the lost son, he was of a mind to go out
and to sow his wild oats and found himself in dire straits
after some time eating the food of the pigs. And he came to his
senses and he realized that even being a servant in his father’s
home was way better than being restless and unsettled and homeless. And so he came back to the father
who welcomed him and brought him back into the family. So
God takes care of the homeless. There’s another group of people
that he takes care of. You find it in verses 16. He
takes care of the captives. Look at verse 10 and the verses
that follow. Some sat in darkness and in the
shadow of death, prisoners in affliction and in irons, for
they had rebelled against the words of God. They spurned against
the counsel of the most high. So he bowed their heads down,
their hearts down with hard labor. They fell down with none to help.
Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble. He delivered them
from their distress. He brought them out of darkness, out of
the shadow of death. He burst their bonds apart. And there’s
the refrain with them. Thank the Lord. And it speaks
in 16. He shatters the doors of bronze
and he cuts into the bars of iron. A little more than a month
or so ago, Bill and I got to go hear Andrew Brunson speak
at chapel at Reform Seminary. And he talked about his many
hardships being in prison and really being brought to a low
point spiritually. He wondered if God had deserted
him, but he got to a low point physically. He wasn’t eating.
He lost so much weight, couldn’t sleep at night, but he also got
to a very low point mentally. He said, you nearly go insane
in prison. And I doubt, any of us have ever
experienced that. If you have been to jail for
the night, don’t raise your hand. But I doubt many of you have
experienced a Turkish prison or an ancient Near Eastern prison,
which was a dark dungeon that was probably smelly, unclean,
no lights, and quite hopeless. You go to prison nowadays, you
get to read the paper, you get to watch cable news, which that
could be a form of prison, I would think, especially of late. But
you get to eat three meals a day, and you’re not, well, you actually
get treated better than probably most of our veterans and most
people in society live. Prison’s a whole different story
back in these days. But for two years, Andrew Brunson
was in prison. He wondered were his prayers
heard, politics were in play, but it was all about God’s timing
and God has freed him and what a wonderful thing that is. But
God and the scriptures speak of all of us being under another’s
tyranny. I mean, after all, the rescue
from Egypt was a picture, not just of God rescuing people from
a wicked nation, but rescuing Christians from the tyranny of
the devil and the bondage and enslavement that we have before
Christ under Satan. And so God has granted all of
us release just as he has brought all of us wandering homeless
people home. The third category of people
that he saves in this passage are the sick. You’ll find that
starting in verse 17. Some were fools through their
sinful ways and because of their iniquities, they suffered affliction.
They loathed any kind of food. They drew near to the gates of
death. Then they cried to the Lord into their trouble and he
delivered them from their distress. He sent out his word and healed
them. He delivered them from their destruction. In the refrain,
let them thank the Lord for his steadfast love and his wondrous
works for the children of men. And then you get the addition,
let them offer sacrifices of thanks and tell of his deeds
and songs of joy. These were sick. I lost my train of thought there.
I know what I’m trying to say here. Have you been so sick,
I thought it said 80 sick, my messy handwriting. Have you been
so sick that you felt sick unto death? Maybe your bones hurt
badly, maybe you had heart trouble, maybe you were having surgery,
you’re having this removed or that treated, but were you so
sick that you You just wanted to die. You lost complete hope. Sometimes we have scares, but
maybe they’re not scares under the closeness of death. I think
back through other eras, through maybe eras in history where there
were plagues, there were black deaths, there were no doctors,
there were no modern health care systems. We have it pretty good
within not too distant of where we sit tonight. You can be at
Baptist Hospital in an hour. You can be at Duke Hospital in
45 minutes if God requires it. You could be at UNC Hospitals
maybe in 45 minutes. We even have our own local place.
There’s a couple in Greensboro that aren’t too far away either.
But we have a network of health care that’s pretty phenomenal.
And for a person to get sick and die in this era is, well,
it could be a rare thing. but back in the ancient near
east people were sick and they were sick unto death often and
lived to younger ages even little ones born into the world may
not make it and so this is a different era this word is speaking of
but God heals them and we’re mindful that Jesus is the great
physician who takes us from death to life and he makes us whole. We’ve seen this in our study
of Luke with all the wonderful miracles. We see a leper, but
not only are they free of leprosy, they’re spiritually free from
their unbelief. And on and on it goes with the
blind or the lame and all the rest. God heals their body and
their spirit. And so they’re well in this life,
but in the life to come. And then there’s a strange set
of people that he saves. These people aren’t strange,
but maybe to us, it’s a weird category, but it’s the seafaring
whom he saves next. You find that in verses 23. And
after that, it says, some went down to the sea in ships. They
did business on the great waters. They saw the deeds of the Lord,
his wondrous works in the deep. He commanded and raised the stormy
wind, which lifted up the waves of the sea. They mounted up to
heaven and they went down to the depths. Their courage melted
away in their evil plight. They reeled and staggered like
drunken men, and they were at their wits end. They cried to
the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them from their
distress. He made the storm be still, and the waves of the sea
were hushed. Then they were glad that the waters were quiet. He
brought them to their desired haven. Let them thank the Lord
for his steadfast love, for his wondrous works to the children
of men. Let them extol him in the congregation
of the people, and praise him in the assembly. of the elders,
the seafaring, or this group that he saves. And I’m not sure
if you know this, but in the ancient Near East, the sea was
a place of unknowns. People didn’t know how deep it
was. They didn’t know what was under that murky water. They
were afraid of the sea, and only the best and bravest would sail
on ships. I remember one time, When I was
younger, our family got this idea that going deep sea fishing
was a good idea. It was a good idea once. We popped
our little pill, and it didn’t help a bit. And this was on the
calm waters. I mean, this was, you could still
see Myrtle Beach in the distance. I mean, not that that’s so comforting.
But we went out, and never again close to shore is just fine.
But maybe you’ve seen a movie like The Perfect Storm. where
the swells, you go down, down, down, and then you go up, up,
up, and down, down, down, all that with lightning and wind
and raging rains. Could you imagine that in a day
and time where there’s no Coast Guard, there’s no radio, there’s
no SOS, there’s no life jackets, there’s no helicopter that will
come and save you? So to be a seafaring person in
the ancient Near East was literally to be one of the best and the
bravest. And this passage speaks of those
who were in those pitches and swells of the sea. They thought
they would be swallowed up by the bottomless ocean. They thought
they were lost and gone. But the storm subsided. There’s
a little hint in verse 29. He made the storm be still of
Jesus calming the waters and we don’t want to over spiritualize
these things about being homeless and captives and sick and seafaring. But maybe you’re in the midst
of some difficulty in your life. The swells seem high, they seem
to pitch and to pull and you seem like maybe you’re gonna
be lost if Jesus doesn’t calm the storm. We remember that he’s
the one that made the wind and the waves. And he can rebuke
the storms, even the ones in our own personal lives. Then the last little section
doesn’t really have a bunch of people to think about, but if
you look in verses 33 to 42, it speaks of the ups and downs
of life and God being the Lord of all. It says, he turns a river
into a desert. He turned springs of water into
thirsty ground, a fruitful land into a salty waste because of
the evil of his inhabitants. So land, Land doesn’t produce
because of the wickedness. Then on the opposite, he turns
a desert into pools of water. He turns a parched land into
springs of water. There he lets the hungry dwell.
They establish a city to live in. They sow fields and they
plant vineyards and they get a fruitful yield. By his blessing, they multiply
greatly, and he does not let their livestock diminish. When
they are diminished and brought low through oppression, through
evil and sorrow, he pours contempt on princes. He makes them wander
in trackless waste. But he raises up the needy out
of the affliction and makes the families like flocks. The upright see it and are glad,
and all the wickedness shuts its mouth. Several years ago
when I was going through a hard time after leaving a church,
my neighbor, who I don’t think was a Christian, just observed
our family’s life. And I told him after about a
year that I had been unemployed and out of the church and those
sorts of things, and told him a little bit about what we were
struggling with. And this is a man who’s not a Christian,
I’m pretty sure. He said, Brian, it all evens out. He says, just
keep on riding it. And he was talking about life
is just full of ups and downs. This man was probably in his
mid-70s at the time. Life is full of ups and downs.
Just keep riding it, and it levels out, it evens out. And this was
not a Christian man with not a Christian worldview saying
this, but that’s in a sense what this passage is teaching. There
will be days of wickedness, days of godliness. There will be days
of plenty, plenty of, and there’ll be days of want. There’ll be
days of sickness, days of health. There will be dangers, toils
and snares. There will be ups and downs and losses and crosses.
And Psalm 107 reminds us that God gets us through them. Psalm
107 is an answer to Psalm 106 verse 47. This is an answer to
the prayer of the captives in Babylon getting to return to
Israel, getting to go back to a city. This is a story of pilgrims
on their way to the city of God, and they accept from God’s hand
whatever He brings them, whether it be good or whether it be evil,
knowing that He’s working out all things for His own purposes. And we’re reminded that Jesus
trusted God. Jesus had to go through quite
a bit in order to be our Savior. He had to leave the riches of
heaven. He had to become a man. He had to live under the curses
of this life. He had to endure the The suffering
from the hands of men, he had to endure the shame and the pain
of the cross, even the grave for a time in order that we might
be saved. What do we take away from this?
Well, verse 43, I think is the answer. Whoever is wise, let
him attend to these things. Here we are at Thanksgiving week.
And we could get sucked into our two-day work week. We could
get sucked into getting the meal ready on Wednesday, all the groceries
bought. We can wake up on Thursday and get in a big old hurry. And
we can get into Good Friday and Bad Saturday, whatever it is,
Black Friday, Black Saturday. It’s black all year long, I think,
now, because they keep sending ads. But we can get into all
of that, and we can be a fool who doesn’t attend to these things.
And what does Paul say in Romans 1 about the fool? He does not
acknowledge God or give thanks to him. And so as you prepare
this week for Thanksgiving, don’t be a pagan who forgets who gave
it to you, and don’t be a pagan and a thankless fool, but be
wise and attend to these things and thank the Lord for his steadfast
love. Let’s look to him in prayer.
Lord, we give you thanks for Psalm 107, reminding us of how
good you have been to all kinds of people throughout all the
ages. We’re mindful of how good you’ve been to us. So give us
time this week to stop and to think and to thank you and to
come back next week and tell the congregation as we sing your
praises, how good you have been to us. We thank you for your
blessings in Christ’s name. Amen.