Go to Psalm 107. Psalm 107. I was kind of planning to preach
this the second hour, and so I was planning on reading the
whole psalm beforehand. I'm not going to do that. So
we'll just take it a little at a time. Begin in verse 1. He says, O give thanks unto the
Lord, for He is good, for His mercy endureth forever. This is why all God's saints
give thanks to the Lord. For He is good, for His mercy
endureth forever. He says in verse 2, Let the redeemed
of the Lord say so, whom He hath redeemed from the hand of the
enemy. and gathered them out of the
lands from the east and from the west and from the north and
from the south. This is talking about those Christ
has redeemed and those he's gathered to himself and it shall be so
of those he shall gather. Our Lord Jesus redeemed His particular
people from the hand of the enemy. He says there, He hath redeemed
from the hand of the enemy. And Christ has redeemed us from
the hand of the enemy. We had some powerful, powerful
enemies. Our Lord came and redeemed us
from the curse of the law. He went to the cross and He willingly
was made a curse for us, for His people, for His elect. And
He redeemed us from that curse so that there's no more condemnation
for His people. And then He came to us with this
gospel and He redeemed us from the power of the devil and the
power of our sin nature. And He keeps on delivering us.
He's going to keep delivering us as we see in this psalm. He'll
keep delivering His people. He delivered us from death. He
redeemed us from death. When He came out of the grave
and went to the right hand of the Father, all His people came
out and went with Him. And so very soon, very soon,
He shall redeem each of us out of this earth into His glory
where we'll be with Him forever. That's the good news of this
Gospel. He hath redeemed us from the hand of the enemy. And each
one He redeemed He shall gather. Some of us here, He's gathered
and He shall gather all. It says out of the lands from
the east and from the west and from the north and from the south.
This is what He says to us, His church. This is what He said.
We're going through this wilderness. We're preaching the gospel. And
this is what He says to us as we're going forth preaching the
word. He says, fear not. This is from
Isaiah 43, 5. He says, Fear not, for I am with
thee. I will bring thy seed. That's
his elect who he's redeemed. They're our seed. He's saying
to you, I'll gather your seed, your children. I'll gather them
from the east. I'll gather them from the west.
I'll say to the north, give up. To the south, keep not back.
Bring my sons from far and my daughters from the ends of the
earth. That's what our Lord's doing right now through the Gospel.
Now, there are four characters in this psalm, or scenarios if
you will, that we can all find ourselves either have been in
them, are in them, or shall be in them. But these four characters
here is showing us how the Lord, no matter what our condition,
no matter where we are, no matter what our problem, how He's able
to redeem and gather His people and keep doing so. In the last
psalm, we saw God's mercy endure forever. We saw that in the last
psalm. His mercy is from everlasting
to everlasting. And the word that emphasized
God's mercy in Psalm 106 was nevertheless. Remember that?
Nevertheless. Was it Thursday night we were
in that psalm? He said they provoked God with
their unbelief. He said Psalm 106 and verse 8. Nevertheless, He saved them for
His name's sake that He might make His mighty power to be known.
He said in verse 44, they provoked God by their counsel, by their
words and what they deemed to do and what not. And He said
He brought them low for their iniquity. He chastened them.
But it says in verse 44, nevertheless He regarded their affliction
when He heard their cry and He remembered for them His covenant
and repented according to the multitude of His mercies. Now
this psalm, Psalm 107, starts out with the same theme, He's
good for His mercy endureth forever. But the word in this psalm is
the word then. Then, we're going to see it four
times. He brings them to cry, and then verse 6, then they cried
unto the Lord in their trouble, and He delivered them out of
their distresses. This is the multitude of His mercies. Now
each one's different. Each of these four characters
are different. But, there's three things that's the same with each
one of them. First of all, they're all in trouble. Every one of
them's in trouble. Secondly, they're going to all
be brought to cry out to the Lord in their distress. And thirdly, then the Lord has
mercy. He has mercy and He delivers
them out of their trouble. Now let's look at these together.
Let's look at these together. First is the wanderer. The wanderer. This is each of God's elect,
you who He's gathered out of the lands. It says, verse 4,
they wandered in the wilderness in a solitary way. They found
no city to dwell in. Hungry and thirsty, their soul
fainted in them. Now that's only the result of
God making us to see our sin. That's the only result of that.
Because as we come into this world by nature, we're right
at home in the world. We're right at home in the wilderness.
trying to feed ourselves in the world and the things of the world,
and we have no longer a thirst after God. By nature that's how we are,
but God made us see we were wandering. He made us see we had no home.
He made us see there was no city to dwell in. He made us see we
were lost without God, without Christ, without hope in this
world. This is where He has to bring every one of His people.
God made us hungry. He made us thirsty. He made it
so we could not feel that hunger and that thirst by anything in
this world and by nothing we did. And that's what He has to
do. He made us to have no strength
in ourselves. He said their soul, then their
soul fainted in them. That's what He has to bring.
He has to bring our spirits down. Bring us so that our souls faint. within us. This is the first
work of God's mercy, the very first work of His mercy. He's
going to bring Gomer into the wilderness and He's going to
discover to us our lewdness. That's what He has to do to show
us how thoroughly, totally ruined we are, how helpless we are to
save ourselves. This has to happen or you don't
need a Savior until this happens. He's going to make us see our
sins. He's going to make us have no comfort and not be able to
find any comfort, not be able to get in from anywhere, no food,
no strength in ourselves, and nowhere else, nowhere else. He's
not going to allow us to find pity or compassion from anybody
or anything so that we find all our trust in Him whose compassions
fail not. He's going to have to bring us
to trust Him who's very pitiful and of tender mercy. So He won't
let us find any compassion or pity anywhere else but Him. And
it's a solitary way. They wandered in a solitary way.
That means alone. Alone. God's got to make us It's
not enough to say we're sinners and it's not enough to say we've
all sinned. He has to make it about us alone.
Me alone, you alone. He has to make us see you alone
and you're the sinner. This is what he has to teach
us. And it's profitable. It's profitable. When He makes
us to be in this solitary way, it's painful, but it's very profitable. Because that's the only time
we really will cast everything on Christ. This thing's not about
just coming to a learning of doctrine like you do schoolwork. It has to be a true spiritual
power of God working in the heart to teach us what we are, to teach
us we can't do one thing to save ourselves. So thoroughly ruined
that we don't see any good in ourselves, not at all. Then,
when He brought you there, then, verse 6, then they cried unto
the Lord in their trouble, and He delivered them out of their
distresses. Verse 7 says, and He led them forth by the right
way that they might go to the city of habitation. When He brings you to cry, that's
the only time we really will cry to Him, when He's brought
us to this place. Then they cried unto the Lord in their trouble,
and He delivered them out of their distresses. He led them
forth by the right way. that they might go to a city
of habitation. The right way is Christ. He's
the right way. It's Christ. And he's the one
that delivers us. He's the one that comes and delivers
us out. He brought us into this distress
on purpose, and he's the only one that can deliver us out of
it. And he does it by leading us to himself to see he's the
one way of acceptance with God, the one way we can be saved.
He's our city of habitation. Listen to this. Are you sure
that's who does this? Listen to Isaiah 48, 17. Thus
saith the Lord, thy Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel, I am
the Lord thy God, which teacheth thee to profit, which leadeth
thee by the way that thou shaltest go. It's Christ. And it's only
then that we're going to praise Him alone. It's only when He's
brought you to this place that you cry to Him alone, and then
when He's delivered you and He did it by Himself, then we praise
Him alone. Look at verse 8. Oh, that men
would praise the Lord for His goodness and for His wonderful
works to the children of men. For he satisfieth the longing
soul, and filleth the hungry soul with goodness." You know,
when he works this, that's when you start wanting other sinners
to know about it. That's when you start wanting
other sinners to experience this too. It's the love of God he
puts in your heart. Because you see, just like Isaiah,
when he saw the glory of the Lord, he said, I'm undone. And I'm a man of unclean lips,
and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips. And when the
Lord revealed Himself to him, the Lord said, Who will go for
us? He said, Here I am, Lord, send
me. And that's what makes you say, Oh, that man would praise
the Lord for His goodness and for His wonderful works to the
children of men. You want to see others praise
Him. You want to see Him get to praise. Because he satisfies the longing
so he's satisfied. He doesn't stop. And he filleth
the hungry soul with goodness. So what's his application of
this right here today? Anybody thirsty? Anybody hungry? He said, oh, everyone that thirsteth,
come ye to the waters. He that hath no money, come ye
buy and eat. Come ye buy wine and milk without
money and without price. Why spend money for that which
is not bread? Why labor for that which won't
satisfy? He says, hearken diligently to
me. Hear the gospel. Hear his words
of life and let your soul delight itself in fatness. Oh, that we
could just hear Christ only. Wouldn't that be good? So much
racket, so much racket, so much distraction, so many people talking,
nobody listening. Oh, that we could just hear Christ
and hear Him in our heart. Blessed are they which do hunger
and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled. Now
listen, He filled the hungry with good things, and the rich,
it's not just earthly riches. That's those that were rich in
their own works and in their own wisdom and they had it all
figured out. He sent them empty away. That's
why he has to make us empty. That's why he has to bring us
into the wilderness and work this work. So that's the wanderer. He has to make us the wanderer.
Then we come to the prisoner. The prisoner, verse 10. He says,
such as sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, being bound
in affliction and iron, because they rebelled against the words
of God and contemned the counsel of the Most High, therefore He
brought down their heart with labor, they fell down, and there
was none to help. Who's that speaking about? Every
single child of Adam. Every child of Adam rebelled
against the words of God and contemned the counsel of the
Most High. What's His counsel? It's His
gospel we preach. We didn't want anything to do
with the gospel. We hated the gospel. We wouldn't stand to
hear that God is sovereign and chooses whom He will. We wouldn't
stand to hear that God sanctifies His people and He keeps us sanctified
and it's by His holiness alone. We wanted glory in all that.
We wanted to say we fulfilled the law and justified ourselves.
We contemned the counsel of God. The justice of God declared us
guilty. The justice of God declared us
guilty. End of story, just guilty. And
held us in the prison. But we didn't know we was in
the prison. till the Lord came in spirit
and worked this in us and made us guilty in our conscience.
When He comes and really gives life and begins to purge us and
make us to hear the gospel, that's when we become guilty in our
conscience. And you can't soothe it. You can try, but you won't
ever be able to soothe it. He's effectual to work this. And when He does it, and this
is not just in the beginning, it is in the beginning, But any
time that we sin against Him, our Lord is able to work this
and make it to where you're guilty in your conscience and you know
it. And He says, so that we're bound with affliction and iron.
It's just like being bound in chains. He brings down the heart
with labor. They fell down and there was
none to help. Verse 13, then they cried unto
the Lord in their trouble, and He saved them out of their distresses. In the very beginning, when the
Spirit of God comes and He convinces us of sin, you remember what
it is? We're going to see this in John
pretty soon. What is it when He convinces you of sin? Does
He convince you that you've stolen? Does He convince you that you've
committed adultery? Does He convince you that, you
know, these things? He convinces us of sin because
you have not believed on Christ. That's what he has to convince
us of. When we believe on Christ, we have no sin. He makes you
to know you have no sin. It's what it is to be justified,
to be righteous. But the sin is this. Outside
of Christ, everything is sin. My nature is sin. Our works are
sin. The very best deeds are sin.
I want to preach a message on what Brother Eric Priest, I was
so blessed by that message when he was talking about the books
and the book. And people have this notion when
they hear what Paul say, God's going to bring us into judgment,
and he's going to judge us according to our works, whether good or
evil. And people have this notion that the scales of justice, and
so all my good is going to be on one side, and all my evil
is going to be on the other side, and I hope my good outweighs
the bad. That's not what he's talking
about. If we're not in Christ, we're going to be judged out
of the books. And you know what's going to happen then? He's going
to put all your evil on one side of the scale and all your good
on the same side. Because it's all evil. It's all
wicked. And that's what he's got to show
us. Our best religious endeavors are sinful. They're sinful. Christ
alone is the righteousness before whom his people will be judged.
And we gotta have Him. We gotta be made to see our sin
as we have not believed on Christ. Until we believe on Christ, everything
about us is sin. Everything. But He convinces
you also of righteousness. That Christ is the righteousness
God will receive. He's the righteousness God accepts. He came into this world and He
served God perfectly. And He did it for His people
and you were in Him, child of God. And everything Christ did,
He says, that's what you did. And then He went to the cross
and He put away all our offenses, all our sin, and justified us. Justified us. When God says you're
justified, that means something. That means you are complete in
Him. He doesn't judge like earthly
judges. When He says you're justified, that means you've got no sin. You're righteous. And He convinces
us, when He shows you that, He convinces you judgment is settled. God has put down your accuser. And nobody, nobody, they can
accuse you in this world, but they can't accuse you to God.
And no charge is going to ever stick with God. Because God sent
His Son and His Son justified His people. And that's when you cry out to
Him for mercy. And when He did, look at verse
14, He brought them out of darkness and the shadow of death and break
their bands in sunder. That's what Christ did on the
cross, but that's what He comes and does to you in person. After
He justified us, God raised Him and He has the glory. This is
why we don't use the means the world uses. It's because the
glory of calling His children that He redeemed out of the prison
house belongs to Christ. And He's doing it through this
Gospel. That's the only way. That is the only way. And he's
not doing it through a false gospel. He's doing it through
the gospel that he sends and blesses to the hearts of his
people. He sent him to hear the groaning of the prisoner, to
loose those that are appointed to death. He said when He talked
about how He was sent forth to preach the gospel, He said, I'm
sent forth to open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners
from the prison and them that sit in darkness out of the prison
house. That's what the Lord said when
He said, I've given you for a covenant to the people that you may say
to the prisoners, go forth and to them that are in darkness,
show yourselves. That's the glory that belongs to Christ. And then verse 15, when He's
done this, That's when we know God is good and at His mercy
endureth forever. If you ever see how sinful you
are, and we know that, we see how sinful we are, and how when
we were ungodly enemies against God, Christ came and laid down
His life for us. That's when you know His mercy
endures forever. If His mercy didn't endure forever,
I'd have been slain a long time ago. Can you say that? Oh, that men would praise the
Lord for His goodness and for His wonderful works to the children
of men. For He has broken the gates of brass and cut the bars
of iron in sunder. That's why we say He is good,
His mercy endures forever. That's what He has done for His
people. Then thirdly, we come to the sin sick. Here's the sin
sick. Verse 17. Fools, because of their
transgression and because of their iniquities, are afflicted. Their soul abhorreth all manner
of meat, and they draw near unto the gates of death. Anytime we
sin, we are playing the fool. Anytime we sin, we're playing
the fool. Transgressing against God, Trusting in our iniquities,
that is our righteousness that don't equal God's righteousness,
it's inequitable. And God's afflicting hand comes
upon his child. But listen now, it is the hand
of mercy. It is the hand of mercy. You
love your children, correct them, don't you? It's the hand of mercy.
And when his affliction comes, it's the hand of mercy. It's
for our transgressions, it's for our iniquities, but God does
it because he's not going to let us perish. He's not going
to let his child run off into the world and sin, but he's also
not going to let his child start looking to our works and to the
things that we've done in religion and trust those things. Either
way, he's going to chase him. He's going to correct. And when
he does this, that's when God, a true fast is when God makes
you to wear, as it says there, they abhor all manner of meat. And this is when he's created
a true spiritual fast in our soul. We're sin sick. We're sin
sick. We see ourselves drawing near
to the gates of death. Remember how Job physically was
about to draw near, but more than that, he saw himself spiritually
as just cast down. And this is where we get, you
know what we need? We need the great physician.
Why would he let us come into that place? No, why would he
bring us into that place? To show us again, the only one
that can heal us is the great physician. And he only uses the
balm of Gilead. There's only one medicine. One
medicine. Then, when he's brought you there,
then, verse 19, then they cry unto the Lord in their trouble.
Are you seeing a pattern here? It's only when God brings us
to this place where we don't have any way of saving ourselves. Then, they cry unto the Lord
in their trouble. and He saved them out of their
distresses. He sent His Word and He healed
them and delivered them from their destructions. Christ is
able to make His child see our need and to draw us to His throne
of grace. Isn't that sad that that's our
condition? We not only have to be made to
see our need, so that by His power we will
actually go to the physician. So we'll go to His throne of
grace and ask for help. He's going to have us ask for
help. And He has to draw us there, and He gets the glory for doing
that. But He's able to humble us under His mighty hand and
to convince us of our foolishness, where we've played the fool.
to make us see our sin and make us see the danger we're in. And
when we cry for Him to heal alone, verse 19, the second part says,
and He saveth them out of their distresses. He sent His Word. How is He going to save you?
What's the balm of Gilead? How does He apply it? Just what
we're doing right here. He's going to send His Word.
He's going to send it to your heart. And they're going to heal
you. And it delivered them from their
destruction. What's the result? Same pattern
we've been seeing, verse 21. Oh, that men would praise the
Lord for His goodness and for His wonderful works to the children
of men. Let them sacrifice the sacrifices
of thanksgiving and declare His works with rejoicing. That's when we'll offer up the
calves of our lips. That's when our thanksgiving
and our worship and what we do will really be from the heart.
When he's worked this far and that's when we thank him from
the heart and that's when we start declaring his works. His works. We stop looking for
our works and everything in this book and what we ought to be
doing and everything in this book. There's a lot you ought
to be doing in this book. And we see it as we go through
the Word, but we have to see it in light of Christ and Him
working in us, because the world says, we've had enough of preaching
Christ, now tell us about these works. They think that's the
strong meat, and what do you hear when you hear their preaching?
You don't hear Christ and Him crucified preached. You don't
hear how God elected a people and predestinated a people and
how He's sovereignly working in His people. And so you end
up with a group of people who just hear about the works and
before long the next generation comes and that's all they've
heard. And next thing you know you have a whole church that's
nothing but people who think they're saved by doing these
works. But we declare His works with
rejoicing. His works. His works. Fourthly, here's the spiritual
sailor. Now our second message is going
to be taken up with this really. Verse 23. They that go down to
the sea in ships, that do business in great waters, these see the
works of the Lord and His wonders in the deep. Scripture speaks about the sea.
And very often it's an analogy, the deep waters and the stormy
waves representing trials. That's what it's a picture of.
And we're on the sea right now. We're seeking our fair haven
on the shores of Canaan. We're going to, we're on the
sea. We're sailing through this life.
We're on our way to that fair shore in Canaan. And there's
a lot of different trials that the Lord sends. And they're just
as frightening as if you was out there in the middle of the
ocean and enduring those serious, serious waves. There's trials
of health. There's trials of poverty. Trials
of wealth. There's trials between brethren.
There's trials amongst family. There's trials in our occupation.
Trials in our own sinful flesh. We could go on and on. But if
you're in a trial, if you're in a trial, God has to give us grace to behold
His works. To behold what He's doing. Why
He's doing it. And to see His wonders. He said
there, they that go down to the sea and ships, that do business
in great waters, these see the works of the Lord and His wonders
in the deep. We have to be brought out into
the deep. We have to be brought into the seas if we're going
to see the works of the Lord. These trials are showing us.
They're as vital to our Lord teaching us the sufficiency of
His grace as this gospel we preach. That's why He's put us together.
Because He's teaching us the sufficiency of His grace. And
His grace is going to be sufficient. He's going to work in the measure
of each of His people. And He's going to keep us clinging
to Him. and with one another. But look
here now. This is verse 25. It says, He
commandeth and raiseth the stormy wind, which lifteth up the waves
thereof. They mount up to the heaven.
They go down again to the depths. Their soul is melted because
of trouble. They reel to and fro. They stagger
like a drunken man and are at their wits' end. Whenever Jonah
disobeyed the Lord, here's the prophet, he's told to go preach
the gospel to Nineveh, and he didn't want to go to Nineveh.
So he went down and took a ship and took off in another direction.
And the Lord let him find a ship, let him find every smooth sailing,
got on the ship, took off, and then the Lord sent a storm. The Lord sent out a great wind
into the sea and there was a mighty tempest in the sea so that the
ship was like to be broken. God's able to rule all providence.
That's what this whole psalm is talking about. It's going
to end up at the end saying God's able to dry up and He's able
to send forth the waters and bless. He can do all of this and He's
ruling all providence to put us in such a place in such a
place that we cannot do one thing to save ourselves. You mean that
has to happen after you believe the gospel? Yes. Yes. It's to remind us again that
the works of our hands are useless to save us. They're useless to
save us. God makes us become sickened
just like you see sick. by our own sins. And there's
no strength in yourself, there's no form you can look to to gain
relief from our sins, or from justice, or from death, or from
any of the trial. It's to bring us to our wit's
end. They're at their wit's end. What's
that? The end of your wits. The end of your wisdom. God will
just make it so that everything, the wisdom you thought you had,
He'll make you scratch your head and say, Lord, I just don't know. I don't know. You know why? Because our wisdom is Christ.
We're just ignorant sinners. We're just ignorant sinners.
We've got to be brought to our wits end. Our wits end. And that's when we see we need
Christ. Then, verse 28, then they cry
unto the Lord in their trouble, and He bringeth them out of their
distresses. He maketh the storm a calm, so that the waves thereof
are still. Then are they glad, because they
be quiet. So He bringeth them unto their
desired haven. What's our desired haven? Christ. We want to be brought into Christ.
And He comes, you see, brings you into His bosom. Oh, that
man would praise the Lord for His goodness and for His wonderful
works to the children of men. Let them exalt Him also in the
congregation of the people. And praise Him in the assembly
of the elders. That's what He's going to have
us do. That's what His church is going to do. He's assembled.
Here's the point of the whole thing. He goes on, I can't go
through verse by verse, but he goes on to say here, God is sovereignly
ruling everything in Providence. Everything. Everything. Let's
just read a little bit of it here. It says, Verse 33, he turns rivers into
a wilderness and the water springs into dry ground. If he needs
to dry up, he'll dry up. And what he's going to dry up
is our sinful flesh and our wisdom and everything that's of us,
he's going to dry that up. A fruitful land he turns into
barrenness for the wickedness of them that dwell therein, and
he turns the wilderness into a standing water and dry ground
into water springs. In other words, he can turn a
desert into an ocean, and an ocean into a desert. And that's
what he's working for his people continually. And he's talking
here about what he's doing for his church. There he makes the
hungry to dwell that they may prepare a city for habitation.
And sow the fields and plant vineyards which may yet yield
fruits of increase. He blesseth them also so that
they're multiplied greatly and suffereth not their cattle to
decrease. Again, then they're diminished. They're diminished.
He doesn't just bring you into plenty and then you're going
to have plenty. He brings you into some plenty and then you're
diminished again. He's going to keep working this
and keep working this. And it says, and they're brought
low through oppression and affliction and sorrow. but he pours contempt
upon princes and causes them to wander in the wilderness where
there's no way. In other words, when he says he pours contempt
on princes, he's ruling the king's heart, he's ruling everything
in providence to bring his child into the wilderness and keep
working this. Yet saith he the poor on high
from affliction. You see that word from, the margin
says after. He menaces you, which means you're
brought low again. But then after the affliction,
He makes you poor, makes you see how poor we are in ourselves
and how rich we are in Christ and He sets us on high again
after the affliction. This is a continual work of grace
and He makes Him families like a flock. He's making families
like a flock. Here's a family like a flock.
Wherever He's assembled His people, there's a family like a flock.
It's what He's doing with His church. What He's doing with
His church. The righteous shall see it. Are
you righteous? Are you made righteous by Christ?
Then you're going to see this. Now listen, this is so. If you're
righteous by Christ, He's your only righteousness. No other
righteousness but Christ. The righteous shall see it. and
they'll rejoice, and all iniquity shall stop her mouth. Whoso is
wise, whoso is wise, who has Christ alone for their wisdom?
Whoso is wise will observe these things. Even they shall understand
the loving kindness of the Lord. That's what all this is. The
loving kindness of the Lord. How did the psalm begin? It begins
with this word. Oh, give thanks unto the Lord,
for He is good, for His mercy endureth forever. Let the redeemed
of the Lord say so. And that's what we're going to
do. Amen. Father, we thank you for your
word and ask you to bless it for Christ's sake. Make us truly
observe these things and know this is what you're working.
Thank you, Lord, for your mighty hand to work this to bring us
to cry unto you. Lord, as painful as it is, we
know it's profitable. And Lord, we ask you to make
us cry to you and you alone. Thank you for answering us. Thank
you for your mercy. In Christ's name we pray. Amen.