Psalm 106
Let’s hear God’s word together.
This is Psalm 106, and it begins this way. Praise the Lord, O
give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his steadfast
love endures forever. Who can utter the mighty deeds
of the Lord or declare all his praise? Blessed are they who
observe justice, who do righteousness at all times. Remember me, O
Lord, when you show favor to your people. Help me when you
save them. that I may look upon the prosperity
of your chosen ones, that I may rejoice in the gladness of your
nation, that I may glory with your inheritance. Both we and
our fathers have sinned. We have committed iniquity. We
have done wickedness. Our fathers, when they were in
Egypt, did not consider your wondrous works, and they did
not remember the abundance of your steadfast love, but they
rebelled by the sea, at the Red Sea. Yet he saved them for his
name’s sake, that he might make known his mighty power, He rebuked
the Red Sea and it became dry. He led them through the deep
as through a desert. So he saved them from the hand of the foe
and he redeemed them from the power of the enemy. And the waters
covered their adversaries. Not one of them was left. Then
they believed his words. They sang his praise. but they
soon forgot his works. They did not wait for his counsel,
but they had a wanton craving in the wilderness and put God
to the test in the desert. He gave them what they asked,
but sent a wasting disease among them. When the men in the camp
were jealous of Moses and Aaron, the Holy One of the Lord, the
earth opened up and swallowed Dathan and covered up the company
of Abiram. Fire also broke out in their
company and the flame burned up the wicked. They made a calf
in Horeb, and they worshiped a metal image. They exchanged
the glory of God for the image of an ox that eats grass. They forgot God, their savior,
who had done great things in Egypt, wondrous works in the
land of Ham and awesome deeds by the Red Sea. Therefore, he
said he would destroy them. Had not Moses, his chosen one,
stood in the breach before him to turn away his wrath from destroying
them. And they despised the pleasant
land, having no faith in his promise. They murmured in their
tents and they did not obey the voice of the Lord. Therefore
he raised his hand and he swore to them that he would make them
fall in the wilderness and would make their offspring fall among
the nations, scattering them among the lands. And they yoked
themselves to Baal of Peor. They ate sacrifices offered to
the dead. They provoked the Lord to anger with their deeds. and
a plague broke out among them. Then Phinehas stood up and intervened,
and the plague was stayed, and that was counted to him as righteousness
from generation to generation forever. They angered him at
the waters of Meribah, and they went ill with Moses on their
account, for they made his spirit bitter, and he spoke rashly with
his lips. They did not destroy the peoples
as the Lord commanded them, but they mixed with the nations.
They learned to do as they did. They served their idols, which
became a snare to them. They sacrificed their sons and
their daughters to the demons. They poured out the innocent
blood, the daughters of their sons and daughters. And they
sacrificed to the idols of Canaan and the land was polluted with
blood. Thus they became unclean by their acts. They played the
whore in their deeds. And the anger of the Lord was
kindled against his people and he abhorred his heritage. And
he gave them into the hand of the nation so that those who
hated them ruled over them. Their enemies oppressed them
and they were brought into subjection under their power. Many times
he delivered them, but they were rebellious in their purposes
and they were brought low through their iniquity. Nevertheless,
he looked upon their distress. When he heard their cry for their
sake, he remembered his covenant and he relented according to
the abundance of his steadfast love. He caused them to be pitied
by all those who held them captive. Save us, O Lord, our God, and
gather us from among the nations, that we may give thanks to your
holy name and glory in your praise. Blessed be the Lord, the God
of Israel, from everlasting to everlasting. Let all the people
say amen. Praise the Lord. Amen. This is God’s word. A couple
of things before we dive into this. One is this is the end
of book four. So how did Psalm 106 just end? with a doxology. Every final
psalm of every book of the psalms ends with a doxology. Psalm 106,
48 is a doxology you’ve probably sung before. Also remember Psalm
106 pairs up well with last week’s Psalm 105. Psalm 105 showed us
God’s goodness to Israel, and now Psalm 106 shows us Israel’s
stinky behavior towards God. They kind of pair up good and
together. When I was a freshman in college,
we had to take an English composition class where every morning we
had to turn in a 500-word paper, which isn’t much, it’s two paragraphs,
on that night’s assignment from the previous class. Well, this
was a pretty tough professor and I was scared to death of
him and I kept getting C-minuses on my papers and I wasn’t happy
with that. So when I told my parents about the situation,
they said, well, go in and see him. Well, do you think I wanted
to go in and see? The professor for whom I was
writing C-minus papers, all I could think of was his red ink and
my papers that I couldn’t write worth a hoot. So I go in to see
him. And wouldn’t you know it, it
didn’t get much easier, for on his desk was a jar. And on the
jar was etched these words, ashes of problem students. So I thought
for sure, I’m a problem student, I’m a C-minus writer. Here I
am coming in to see them and asking them how I can do better
and this isn’t helping much. But wouldn’t it be sweet, those
of you who are teachers, did I skip your name tonight when
I prayed for teachers? You didn’t notice, you didn’t hold it against
me. Yeah, I know you teach. But wouldn’t you like to? Well,
it’s a terrible thing to say. Do something with your problem,
students. No, you wouldn’t, because you’re
compassionate and kind, right? But wouldn’t it be nice just
to annihilate people that cause us trouble? We had a thing in
the car when we were growing up on the way to school. My dad
had an old Jeep, and he bought these two little switches at
a store up in Maine when we were traveling one summer. One was
a switch that said missile launcher. And then the other one was called
Ejector Seat. And so whoever was in the front
seat on the way to school lived under the threat of being ejected
by this mysterious switch. And then if there was a car in
front of us, we could hit the missile launcher, and it would
annihilate anybody in front of us going slow or making us late
to school. And we had lots of great fun with those two switches.
And I assumed that when he traded the car in, the switches went
with the car. Hopefully somebody else had a good time. But wouldn’t
we like to just get rid of problems? It’d be easier that way, wouldn’t
it? Problem customers, problem. family members, problem people,
just get rid of them. And isn’t it wonderful? This
is the pastor’s greatest passage right here. The earth opened
up and it swallowed Dathan and all who rebelled against the
leaders of Israel. You guys who’ve been elders,
wouldn’t you just like that, the earth to open up? And all
problem congregation members, they get swallowed up. The problem
is none of us would be here, right? That’s what we know. But
that’s not the way it is, and we’re thankful. For God, as you
see from this Psalm, he puts up with our mess. And as we read
through Psalm 106 tonight, you can look at it geographically,
God putting up with Israel in Egypt, God putting up with Israel
in the wilderness, God putting up with Israel in the promised
land. In every one of those geographical areas, he delivered them, and
what thanks did he get? None. They rebelled, they whined
about the water, they whined about the bread, they whined
about the quill, they whined about their tents, they whined
about Moses and why did he get to be the leader and why couldn’t
it be them? I would imagine if they did take Moses’ job, they
wouldn’t have wanted it for much longer. But over and over and
over, God’s people rebelled and what’s the culmination of their
rebellion? When they say, we don’t need you, God, what did
they end up worshiping? They made a calf. They made idols.
They sacrificed their children to the idols and to the gods
of the land of Canaan. And on and on their sin went. And what we understand from this
passage is that God is most merciful to us. Excuse me, his children. We’re ungrateful. We’re unbelieving.
We’re discontent. We’re envious, idolatrous, rebellious.
full of lust, we murmur, we disobey, and we provoke the Lord. I hope y’all appreciated it like
I did, but Nick, your prayer tonight, walking through the
Ten Commandments, right? That’s a good way to confess
your sin, isn’t it? We’ve been idolatrous. We’ve taken God’s
name in vain. We’ve not kept the Sabbath. We’ve
dishonored those in authority over us. murdered, committed
adultery, we’ve lied, we’ve stealed, we’ve coveted, all the commandments
we’ve just shattered. And guess what? God still loves
us. And why is that? The verse 45
reminds us he keeps his covenant. He doesn’t throw us away. He
doesn’t disregard his covenant. We could be an ash heap, we could
be a bone dump, but because of his covenant love, his mercy
endures. And so we’ll put a little title
on tonight’s message, Sinners in the Hands of a Merciful God,
and aren’t we glad, aren’t we glad he’s merciful? Just briefly,
I know the time is late tonight, but think about this passage
in three cycles, sin, judgment, and deliverance. God’s people
sin, he delivers them, but it’s only after he judges them. Sin
and judgment and then deliverance. And then there’s three locations
where these things take place. Egypt, the wilderness, and the
promised land. And some have said that these
geographical places are symbolic of the Christian faith. In Egypt,
we’re in our sin. In the wilderness, we are delivered,
but not yet wholehearted after God. And then in the promised
land, we receive the newness or the fullness of life. You
could look at it as being in Egypt in sin, being in the wilderness,
you know, this walk to heaven as pilgrims, and then the promised
land, heaven, the new heavens, new earth. I guess that’s a way
to look at it. I don’t know how helpful that is. But the big
picture here is God’s long suffering. and our ongoing ingratitude. Isn’t that characteristic of
God and us? His ongoing long-suffering and our continuous ingratitude. And so I want us to just take
a quick peek at verses 1 to 5 and then 40 to 46, and it will help
us understand the middle. Some of you have said before,
maybe like me, you read the book of Job and couldn’t you just
skip the middle? and read chapters 1 and 2 maybe, and then read
like chapters 39 and 40, and skip all the fighting with God
stuff and all the idiot counselors that he had, and you could get
the gist of it. Well, God wrote those middle parts for good reason,
and he wrote all these middle parts as Paul says in Colossians,
or I’m sorry, in Corinthians and in Romans, these things were
written for our instruction. We need to pay attention to the
evil, the wickedness of the old covenant people because it instructs
us. But if you look at verses one
to five and then 40 to 46, you have these bookends, so to speak,
on the three cycles of sin, judgment, and deliverance
in Egypt, the wilderness, and then in the promised land. These
12 verses speak of lots of wonderful things. Think for a moment about
God’s people, though, not just in the history of Egypt, wilderness,
and in the promised land, but think about throughout the kingdoms,
throughout the kings. What do God’s people continually
do? They continually sinned. What did God graciously continue
to do? He sent them prophets. He sent them graces. He sent
them mercies. He sent them warnings and they
continue to sin and we’re grateful for his covenant. But what does
God eventually do with sin? He judges it. Now we talked tonight
about justification for a moment. Is our sin pardoned? Yes. But do there remain temporal
judgments when we continue to sin? Sure. You blow your money
and get into debt. You’re going to have to get out
of debt, right? You break certain ethical laws or moral laws, they
come with consequences. You break the civil law, you’re
going to probably end up in the slammer, as it were. There are
still judgments for our sin, not condemnation, right? But
there are still judgments. And what’s the judgment most
likely the people of God are under in Psalm 106? exiled in
Babylon. You kind of get a hint of that
in the later verses, like 47, save us, O Lord, and gather us
from among the nations that we may give thanks to your holy
name. So there’s always judgment, but there’s always deliverance. God provides a way home out of
these places of judgment. But let me ask you this, just
simply put, do you see your sin? And do you see God’s mercies?
And do you see his long suffering? If you do, that’s a mighty good
thing that you see. But what do you do? Do you take
that long-suffering for granted and say, well, if he’s that long-suffering,
I can get away with more. What does the Apostle Paul said?
Since grace abound, we sin more. He says, by no means. God, God
forbid it. And so we need to remember that
his mercies towards us, his mercies towards Israel, they’re because
of his faithfulness to his covenant. The only reason he doesn’t, swipe
us off the face of the earth, or we don’t end up in the jar
of problem people, right? The ashes. It’s because of his
oath, his covenant, the blood of his own son, the Lord Jesus.
God is gracious. God is merciful. So as we enter into the Thanksgiving
season, we want to remember God has put up with a lot of junk.
He has, hasn’t he? Which of us Which of us, if our
kids treated us the way we treated God, would say, hmm, that’s okay. We’d probably throw them out
of the house, wouldn’t we? Probably turn them out on their nose and say,
that’s enough, we’ve had enough of that, you and your rebellious
spirit. But what is God’s grace? He continues
to be kind and merciful. And so I hope you’ll think on
these things and be thankful to God for his mercies that are
ours in Christ. Let’s look to him in prayer.
Lord, we thank you for just a moment or two to recount the wickedness
of your people and the kindness of your mercies. Help us to remember
these things and to be thankful that you do not treat us as our
sins deserve, but you treat us as your dear son, the Lord Jesus,
and what a blessing that is. So help us to be thankful. Help
us to be appreciative. Help us to, out of gratitude,
live a life that’s pleasing in your sight. Hear us as we pray
in Christ’s name. Amen.