Psalm 107, we'll read together
the first eight verses. Give thanks to the Lord, for
he is good, his love endures forever. Let the redeemed of
the Lord say this, those are redeemed from the hand of the
foe. those he gathered from the lands, from east and west, from
north and south. Some wandered in desert wastelands,
finding no way to a city where they could settle. They were
hungry and thirsty, and their lives ebbed away. Then they cried
out to the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them from their
distress. He led them by a straight way
to a city where they could settle. Let them give thanks to the Lord
for his unfailing love and his wonderful deeds for men. For
he satisfies the thirsty and fills the hungry with good things. This morning's message was, well, I was attracted to this
text by looking at the title of a message preached by Brother
Scott Richardson. I listened to the first few minutes
of it. Of course, Brother Scott's been with the Lord for several
years now, but it's one of the nice things of living in the
modern age. They recorded things, and now
they got them up on the Internet, so I can listen to Brother Scott
preach, even though he's been gone now for four or five years.
But it was this text of Scripture in verse 8 Let them give thanks
to the Lord for his unfailing love and his wonderful deeds
for men. Now in the King James, it reads,
all that men would give thanks to the Lord, give praise to the
Lord for his mercy and his wonderful deeds for the
sons of men. Now, I like the way the King
James frames that. I do not have enough education
in the Hebrew language to be able to look at it and try to
distinguish which is actually a better rendering of it. I don't
know that there's a whole lot of difference. As we see it in
our translation, it's simply an exhortation. Let them Let
those who have experienced His mercy, His goodness, His love,
let them praise Him for it. But I know this, that as a believer
in our Lord Jesus Christ, and all you here who are believers
in the Lord Jesus Christ, does not your heart also long that
all men would recognize the goodness of the Lord and give Him thanks
and praise for that? Wouldn't this world be such a
wonderful place if it were filled with people who continually give
thanks to the Lord for all His goodness? Now mostly the world,
and unfortunately even us, most of our conversation or most of
our talking is about what we don't like about what's going
on. What we find fault with. You
look in the newspaper, and it is pretty much a record of all
the things that happened in the last day that we don't like. Some place got robbed. Somebody
died. Some politician came to power,
and any time a politician in our country comes to power, that
means about half the country's upset. This law was passed. That law was passed. Here's the
weather report. Yeah, it's gonna be nice today,
but tomorrow, the temperature's gonna drop, the rain's gonna...
Always something, and this is, as the old phrase goes, if it
bleeds, it leads, and that means in the newspaper or any media
business, that which will attract people's attention and get them
to read your paper or watch your newscast or click on your link
is if it's got something bad in it. If you put up a headline that
says pretty good day overall, nobody's going to pay any attention.
All that men would praise the Lord would give thanks to the
Lord for his goodness and for his wonderful deeds for the sons
of men. This psalm begins with the words,
give thanks to the Lord. It is a command, an exhortation,
give thanks to the Lord. And do we not have a lot of reason
to give Him thanks? Now I know that some of you are
going through some pretty serious troubles. We all got some troubles
going, some more than others. Some days our lives seem to be
carefree, but anybody that's lived any significant time knows
that a carefree day is just God giving you an opportunity to
take a breath before some more troubles, small or great, come
along. Job said, Man is born to trouble
as the sparks fly upward. But brethren, no matter how much
trouble we may be experiencing right now, none of us are experiencing
the amount of trouble we deserve. Every one of us has it better
than we deserve to have it. You say, how do you know that?
Well, number one, we're not in hell. That's what we deserve. We're
not there. So right now, even if you're
not a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, you are being treated
better than you deserve. And if you are a believer in
the Lord Jesus Christ, you already know that. You're being treated
better than you deserve. Let us give thanks to the Lord
because He's being good to us. Every breath we take is a gift
from God because we don't deserve the breath we take. Every time
our heart beats and moves His blood around in us to keep us
alive, We're getting something better than what we deserve.
The Lord's being good to us. And you say, well, I've got a
headache. Yeah, but it's not as bad as it could be. And one
thing about a headache. It proves you're alive, doesn't
it? Dead people don't have headaches. I don't want to make little of
our troubles and I don't want to stomp on whatever troubles
you may have as though they're not real and as though they're
not an occasion for sorrow and grief. That's all true. But we
all got it better than we deserve. I could go this far. We all have
it much better than we deserve. We could put too muches on there.
We got it much, much better than we deserve. Why, we live in the
United States of America. We may think that things are
falling apart in our culture, and maybe they are. But right now, compared to the rest of the world,
you and I live in the lap of luxury. I get kind of tickled
at people that keep on talking about the 1%, you know, and the
1%. They think that they ought to
be taxed very heavily and distributed to the rest of us 99%. And what
those that are clamoring for that don't understand, if you
live in the United States, you are the 1% compared to the rest
of the world. Our poor people are like kings
compared to the rest of the world. You and I have it so good when
it comes to things pertaining to this life. We hear about Our brothers and sisters being
sick and we think about all they're going, oh, they've got to have
surgery, you know. Oh, they're taking this medicine, isn't it?
Boy, it costs a lot of money and all this kind of stuff going
on. Yeah, oh, that seems kind of bad, but is it not a wonderful
thing that such things exist? How would you like to need that
surgery and not be able to get it? So I had to buy a new pair
of glasses last week. Cost me money. Aren't you glad
that glasses exist? Well, if I do that, you all do
look a little bit better. But, uh, can you imagine me trying to
read the scriptures to you? If I didn't have these, I'm looking
here and all I see is that just fuzzy things on a page. I don't,
I'll admit, I don't like paying for these things. I thank God
they exist. We got to put gas in our cars
and we may complain when we go to the gas pump, I got to buy
gas for this thing again. Aren't you glad you got a car?
It's amazing. Most of us have one, two, maybe
more vehicles in our household. And pretty much anytime we want
to, when we got the time, we can go out there, fire that thing
up and go wherever we want to go. That's something else. And brethren, these are just
the things that pertain to this life. We have nice homes. We have families. We have friends. You and I, we've
got a church, a place where we can meet with others who believe
like us. We can hear a message from the
scriptures preached and not just a message where we take some
scrap of scripture and try to make some inspirational message
out of it or not some list of do's and don'ts to live by. We
open these scriptures and by the grace of God we see Christ
in them. Do you realize how few people
in the world have that privilege? Do you realize how few people
in the world even care? Do you realize that there are
some out there who would love to have what you and I have,
and the Lord has not yet provided it for them? Because they're
alone where they live so far as being believers in the Lord
Jesus Christ. Oh, we of all people should give
thanks to the Lord and the acknowledgement of the fact that He is good. In our studies in Sunday School,
when we've been going through the various doctrines of the
Bible, and we just last week finished up the section on God
Himself. And the last part of that study
on God Himself was His righteousness and goodness. You say, aren't
righteousness and goodness the same thing? No, they aren't. And the easiest way to point
that out is that Paul says, for a righteous man probably nobody
would die. Maybe for a good man. What's a righteous man? Well,
he's someone, he always does what he's supposed to. But he
probably won't do anymore. What's the good man? The good
man is the man who goes beyond what the law may require of him.
what goes beyond his responsibilities, and does good for other people. An example, the Lord, when He
was given out the parable, He did not give out the parable
of the righteous Samaritan, He gave out the parable of the good
Samaritan. Now three men passed by that
fellow lying in the ditch. All three were righteous. Only one was good. A priest went
by and he sees this man laying there and he's afraid he's dead.
And they don't want to get too near a dead person because that'd
make them unclean. So he walks to the other side
of the road. Now that priest acted righteously. The man lying
in the ditch had no claim on him. He had no obligation to
that man. And he acted according to the
law, which said, don't touch a dead man. He went right on
around him and went on his way. the righteous priest. Then came
a Levite who was of the same tribe and while he may not have
been of the line of Aaron he was of the line of Levi and he
goes by and he sees that dead man for the same reason he gives
him a wide berth and the whole time he's acting in keeping with
the demands of righteousness but he's going to let that man
die But along comes a Samaritan who in the eyes of the Jews were
not righteous, they were unclean, they were filthy. But you know
what it is about this Samaritan? He's good. Because he looks on
that guy and he doesn't think that he might be dead, I better
not touch him, I'd be unclean. He does not say, well, he probably
got himself into that trouble. He probably was flaunting his
riches and that's why some thieves attacked him and left him for
dead. It's his fault he's there. He
didn't say anything like that. But rather he looked at that
man and he saw his trouble and his heart was moved for him.
He had mercy towards him, pity towards him. He goes over there,
he lays hands on him, he checks him out, finds out he's alive,
binds up his wounds, pours in oil and wine. You know, wine
was their antiseptic, oil kind of, it was just their medicine
of the day. He puts that man on his donkey
and takes him to a place Back then, you know, they had inns,
but inns kind of were hospitals. It's where you could leave someone
and they'd get a little bit of care, whatever care they could
give back then. But he leaves him there and leaves some money
behind for the innkeeper and says, you take care of him until
he can go on his way. Now, friends, that's what it
is to be good. And it says here, give thanks to the Lord, not
because he's righteous. Now, that's good enough reason
to praise him. But, oh, give thanks to the Lord
because he's good. He's more than righteous. He
does more than what we might say obligation would lay upon
him. Yes, he always gives to a person what he deserves. He
always renders to a man his due, but he does much more than that
in goodness toward his people. Give thanks to the Lord for he
is good, his love. And that word translated love,
you could translate it a lot of ways, kindness. In the King
James, it's most often translated mercy. But it indicates that
attitude of heart when you see someone or something, some animal,
that's hurt or in need. If you are a Facebook addict,
as I somewhat am, you see a whole lot of videos go by. You know
which ones I like most? I just saw one the other day.
When humans find a poor animal in a condition he cannot get
himself out of, Especially if you find out that this animal
is suspicious of man and tends to be violent towards men. And
yet, this person or persons, they'll stop. I saw one, they
found a wolf in a trap. Now most of us say, sorry wolf,
but I'm not coming close enough to you to get you out. You got
yourself in it, you're going to have to deal with getting
out of it. Why? Wolves are dangerous. But these men, they felt sorry
enough for that wolf. And they had some equipment and
they got that little noose-like thing around his neck and tried
to hold him. They kept him from hurting them, did what was necessary
to subdue him so they could do him good. And that wolf was so very much
like we are in the face of the goodness of God. We're still
so afraid of him. As soon as they let that wolf out, he took
off like a shot. But I did notice one thing. He got about 50 yards
away and he turned around and gave a look, and then he took
off. Who knows what would happen if he ever saw those men again.
But God is good. His pity, His mercy, His love
endures forever. Though we are like wolves caught
in a trap, caught in the trap of our own sin, snapping at God
even as He comes to our aid. growling at him, protesting his
goodness. Why? Because we're too stupid
to realize what it is. That's why that wolf was so upset.
He probably figured those two men that were coming for him
were coming to finish him off. And quite often the sinner, when
he's caught in his sin, and as God begins to approach him, he
sees God is coming to finish him off. And he begins to growl. He doesn't like God in the first
place. And now God looks dangerous. He doesn't know God is good.
Yeah, he's dangerous, but he's good. Yeah, he could destroy,
but he's good. We growled and we snapped. Thank God he is greater than
us. And he could hold us at bay even
as he saved us from the mess we got ourselves in. This psalm
was written as a psalm of praise to God as He has brought back
the Israelites from their captivity. It says in verse 3, those He
gathered from the lands, from the east and west, from the north
and the south, when God had scattered the Israelites there
in the days of Nebuchadnezzar. Nebuchadnezzar took some off
to Babylon, he took some off to here and off to there, and
some ran, some ended up down in Egypt. Jews were scattered
all over the world. And God brought them back from
the four corners of the world and put them back in a city and
gave them a temple again and restored them. And he did so
out of the goodness of his own heart, because it was their own
foolishness and rebellion that had gotten them in trouble in
the first place. Now we'll look at what it describes
here and apply it to our condition and see if this will not move
us indeed to praise the Lord and work us not only a motivation
to praise him because of what he's done for us, but to have
a longing in our heart that all would come to acknowledge the
goodness of the Lord and give him his due praise. Verse four,
some wandered in desert wastelands, finding no way to a city where
they could settle. They were hungry and thirsty
and their lives ebbed away. They cried to the Lord in their
trouble. He delivered them from their distress. He led them by
a straight way to a city where they could settle. is God began
to call back the people. Officially, it was through the
hand of Cyrus, the king of the Persian Empire. And he wrote
an edict. And he says, time for the Jews
to go back to their land and to rebuild their city and rebuild
their temple. But you know, the way back was
not easy. Just because Cyrus said they could go, doesn't mean
they had the power to get it done. Some of them wandered in
desert wastelands. It had been 70 years since they'd
been sent out. Most of them who came back never
did learn the way. They couldn't say, well, I remember
70 years ago we took this road and then we took this road. They
just headed back. And they had to go through the
wilderness. You and I, we got highways to follow. We got a
GPS device we can put in our car, tells us exactly how many
miles we gotta go, tells us what road to get on, warns us when
it's time to turn. They had no such thing. They
were not travelers, but they started toward home. And they
wandered around in the wilderness, finding no way to the city where
they could settle. Couldn't find their way. Does
that remind you of anybody? Was there not a time when the
Lord had stirred up in your heart a desire for Him, a desire for
His salvation, but you just didn't know the way? Or maybe even somebody
had told it to you, but still it wasn't making any sense to
you. And you were just kind of wandering around. And for a minute you thought
you understood, and you walked a while, but then no, wait, this
isn't it. And so you go this way a while. And you're out there
in the wilderness because God has called you to himself, which
means you had to leave what you had before. And for a time you
were cut off from the religion of your past, and yet now you're
not really arrived at where you thought you were going. It's
a wilderness. No place to settle. And in fact,
brethren, this describes all believers throughout their lives
to some degree. Like Abraham of old, we are the
Hebrews, which means the tent dwellers. Here we have no enduring
city. God has called us out of our
ur of the Chaldees, like Abraham. He's called us out of whatever
station we had in life. In particular, he's called us
out of whatever spiritual home we had, and we left. And yes,
we sort of have a map in our hands of the scriptures and we
listen to preaching. And yet in this world, is it
not a wilderness? For those who believe God, when
was the last time in this world you ever found something that
could restore your soul? As you travel through this world,
when was the last time you came upon something that actually
strengthened you on the inner man and caused you to be more
confident? There's nothing here that'll
do that. When I say here, I mean in this natural world. It's a
wilderness to the believer. We've got no enduring city. I
thank God we've got this place we can come to and gather and
kind of huddle up as wanderers together, as pilgrims together. But this, brethren, this little
church, it's just our tent. The city which has foundations
awaits us. It says, they were hungry and
thirsty and their lives ebbed away. Now that may sound bad,
but you know what our Lord said? He said, blessed are those who
hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled. You
say, I've lived in this world now for such and such a years.
I've lived some of them as an unbeliever. I've now, you know,
when I lived as an unbeliever, it seemed like I was more satisfied
than I am now. As a believer, I find this place
to be without good food and without sufficient drink. I'm hungry,
I'm thirsty. Thank God if you live in a state
of hungering and thirsting for something you can't find here. Can't remember which theologian
it was, but he made this statement. He says, the very fact that I
hunger and thirst for something I can't find here tells me I
was created for another place. another place. If you ever become content, well,
that's not the right word. We can learn contentment even
as we wait. If you ever are satisfied in
this world, that's when it's time to get worried. I know we've
got our days when everything seems to be going fine and we're
But what I'm saying is this, if you can find something in
this world that fulfills you, then you are a creature of this
world. They hungered, they were thirsty,
their lives ebbed away. Then they cried out to the Lord
in their trouble. Now here's something I've noticed
about me and it's probably as true of you as it is of me. I'm
most prone to call out to the Lord in trouble. That is when
I perceive my trouble. It would be good if we could
learn in times of blessedness and ease to speak words of blessing
as loud and as often as we spoke our words of lament and crying
out in the days of trouble. Unfortunately, it's just not
in our nature to do that, is it? We'll spend day after day
after day asking God for something, crying out for his mercy, and
finally the day of deliverance comes, and he brings us what
we asked for and delivers us from our trouble, and we say,
thank you, and that's the last of it. How many days do we cry
out? Maybe that many days we need
to learn to give thanks. for what has been given to us.
But nonetheless, they cried out to the Lord in their trouble.
And I love this second line, how quickly it falls upon it.
On the first line, he says, and he delivered them from their
distress. Do you see the goodness of the
Lord here? They cried out, he delivered. They cried out and he didn't
say, take a number. He didn't say, here's some forms
to fill out. mail them to such-and-such a
place and maybe somewhere down the line the right person will
pick it up and put that in another box. He delivered them. You and I, in all of our troubles,
we have access to the very one who has power and authority to
deliver us in our troubles. Unfortunately, we have this tendency
to think that the powers that be in this world have the power
to help us. But you notice this, even though
they don't have much power to do us any good, you can't even
get to them. I mean, I seriously doubt that
you could easily get an appointment with one of our state senators,
much less a federal congressman or a senator or the President
of the United States. Do you think for a minute that
we could write to the Supreme Court of the United States and
say, I got a problem. Could I see you guys at 9 o'clock?
No. But you and I? We who believe,
we have blessed access, full access to boldly come to the
throne of grace, to God upon His throne, to God upon His gracious
throne, and there to pour out our need and find mercy to help
us in the midst of our need. And you can be sure of this,
if you call, He will answer. Now, I don't want to give you
the idea that everything you ever ask for, God's gonna give
it to you, and here's why. He's wiser than us. I was praying just the other
night about some of my own difficulties. I said, Lord, won't you just
deliver me from this? So frustrating. Makes everything
so much more difficult. But even as I was praying, And
this is something I've prayed for years and years and years
about the same thing. I realize that there's a reason
that the Lord has not delivered me from this particular trouble.
And he might not ever in this lifetime. That doesn't mean I'm
going to quit asking. But he doesn't deliver, he has
not delivered. Because contrary to what I might
think naturally, it's better that I have this struggle than
that I not have it. Now that's what it means to live
by faith. You know, Sight would think on
this, I know that the Lord is good because he did the things
I want him to do. He did the things that I thought
was best. And so the Lord is good. Faith says this, I will
tell the Lord what I want, but I will believe that whatever
he does, that's best because he is good. You may be having some struggles
right now, maybe some really serious ones. You may have some
ongoing struggles. Struggles that really are just
part and parcel of your nature. And you say, oh Lord, deliver
me from that. I hate being that. I hate doing
that. I hate what it makes me act like. You know something? If it were
good for you to deliver you from that, the Lord would do it. The Lord would do it. I may be
the most scatterbrained man ever to be able to walk. And I keep saying, Lord, if you'd
just deliver me from this way of thinking that makes me go
in 50 different directions at once, I could sit down here at
my desk, I can open up this book, I can come up with an outline,
I can get up there Sunday and I could deliver a nice, neat,
organized package to these people, and I wouldn't toss and turn
Saturday night wondering what in the world I'm gonna say. These
are my notes, by the way, for this morning. That's how well
I can study these days. Several texts of scripture, that's
it. And I'm not saying that to brag, at least I hope I'm not.
I'm saying that because I would desperately like to have five
or six pages of neatly organized notes so that when I got up here,
I knew, well, I can go through the notes and I got something
for you. But no, normally speaking, I get up here and I say, Lord,
I'm going to open my mouth, you better fill it, because I don't
know what's going to come out of it. And I say, Lord, wouldn't
it be better? And the Lord said, no. Why not? Because if I let you do it that
way, you'd think you were doing it. You would think that that message
was good because of your preparation. I can tell you this, folks, if
you ever get anything out of what I said, it didn't come from
me. It's just not there anymore, that mental faculty for organizing
all this information. I don't know what it is. may
cause you grief. But I know this, if you belong
to the Lord, whatever frustrations you face, it's better that you
have them than that you not. You say, how do you know? Because
the Lord is good. And if it would be better for
you not to have them, you wouldn't. You wouldn't. He delivered them
from their stress. He led them by a straight way
to a city where they could settle. Oh, and our spiritual wanderings,
not knowing which way to go. We cry out to the Lord and the
Lord says, this way. And we might say, but I can't
see you. He said, yes, but you can hear
my voice and you can follow my voice. The Lord Jesus Christ
said, my sheep hear my voice, and they follow me. It doesn't
say, my sheep see my form and follow me, they hear my voice.
Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the message, the voice of
Christ. And God has called us in the
preaching of the gospel, and from that voice we follow Him
by a straight line. You say, yeah, but I still don't
know where I'm going. Can you hear? He calls you to
himself. He calls you to his blood and
righteousness. You say, I'm a sinner. He says,
come after me. I'm righteous. You say, but I'm
such a fool. He says, come after me. I am
wisdom. You say, but I'm so weak. He says, follow me. I am power. You say, I'm so far from God.
And he says, come to me. I'm at his right hand. And though we seem to grope in
the darkness, yet we hear his voice and we just keep going
straight as we can. He leads us by a straight way.
The Lord says, I am the way. He is the way and he is the destination. And he is the directions there.
He led them by a straight way to a city where they could settle.
And brethren, there we settle. We settle in Christ. He is our
eternal habitation. Verse nine, he satisfies the
thirsty and fills the hungry with good things. I like that,
it doesn't say he just fills the hungry. If you're anything
like me, you pretty much want to be filled, but you're not
always wanting to be filled with good things. I particularly like candy,
brownies, and cake. The Lord fills and even satisfies
with good things. I'm trying desperately hard to
do a diet, and it's not working so good. I eat good things, and
I don't feel filled. I want some of those things that
really I shouldn't have so much of. The Lord fills us and satisfies
us with the good things, the good things of His grace, the
good things of His Son, the good things of Christ. That's why we don't need, and
I'm not necessarily preaching against some of the more flashy
displays of music and stuff at other churches. I'm just saying,
the reason that you and I don't feel compelled to try to produce
that and to go after it is why the good things of the gospel
fill us. We don't say, you know, there's
just something missing. No, there's not. Not to us. Somebody accused, and I can't
remember which one of our preacher brethren it was, he said, I've
been listening to you a long time, and you know, what you're
saying is true, but there's just something missing. No, there
isn't. Not to the sheep, not to those
who hunger and thirst after righteousness, not to those whom the Lord delivers
in His goodness, because He's filled them with the good things
of Christ. Well, that's just one of four
places in this Scripture, this Psalm, where it says, would give thanks to the Lord
for his mercy and his wonderful deeds for the sons of men. My
original intention had been to get to all of them. Obviously,
that's not going to happen. Brethren, read the rest of this
psalm. Find yourself in it. Find yourself in those where
it says, verse 10, someone sat in darkness and deepest gloom,
prisoners suffering in iron chains. You remember that? You remember
being in the darkness of religion, the darkness of legal bondage,
the chains of trying to please God or somehow another work up
a righteousness or some frame of mind that would testify to
you that God loved you and had something good? Do you remember
that you rebelled and despised the counsel of the Most High
and that you'd been subjected to bitter labor? Oh, but the
day came when God worked something in you that it doesn't work in
everybody. And you didn't know where it came from at first,
but you began to cry out. And God heard you. And he broke
down the gates of bronze. He broke the iron chains. He
set you free and made you sons. We've all been fools by our rebellious
ways and brought near the gates of death. But God made us cry
out and he delivered us. Oh, how good the Lord is. Wild wolves caught in a trap, hateful of
the one who comes to deliver us. And even as he approaches,
we snap at him. We try to get away from him.
Oh, isn't the Lord good? He was not chased away by our
barking and our snapping. Nor did he become frustrated
by our attempts to run away. But he subdued us. He set us
free. And he did one thing for us that
those men in that video couldn't do for that wolf. He changed
our hearts. We went from being a wolf to
being a lamb. He took away that wolfy, rebellious,
angry against God heart. He pacified us and made us sheep
of the shepherd and we heard his voice and we followed him
home. Oh, that men would give thanks
to the Lord for his goodness, for his mercy. and for his wonderful
deeds for the sons of men. And by the way, that word translated
men is Adam, for us sons of Adam. Adam the rebel, Adam the failure,
Adam the fallen. The Lord is good. May his name
be praised.