well with the lord's help i'd
like to draw your attention to the opening verses of that psalm
psalm 107 the psalm that we read together this psalm in some bibles
you will find that it is marked book five the book of psalms
has been divided for many long years into five sections It is
presumed that Ezra the priest in the time of the restoration
of the children of Israel from the land of Babylon to return
to their own country and to rebuild the temple that Ezra divided
the book of Psalms into five sections. The first book is the
first 41 Psalms, the second book is Psalm 42 to 72, and then book
three is 73 to 89, and then book four is Psalm 90 to Psalm 106,
and then book five, Psalm 107 to 109, and 50. And each of those sections
of the book of Psalms ends with a doxology. The last verse of
the previous Psalm, Psalm 106, the doxology is, blessed be the
Lord God of Israel from everlasting to everlasting and let the people
say Amen. And Psalm 150 as a whole can
be classed as a doxology, praise ye the Lord,
praise God in his sanctuary praise him in the firmament of his power
and he concludes this psalm by saying let everything that hath
breath praise the Lord, praise ye the Lord there is that sense
of praise, there is that sound of praise throughout the book
of psalms we have no other information about this psalm except to say
that it is possibly written either by David or by Ezra himself who
it seems took it on the work of editing the book of Psalms
when it was first compiled all those many years ago and it commences
with these words of thanks unto the Lord for he is good what
period of history it was written in matters not but there is this
principle in which the people of God are encouraged to give
thanks to almighty God and in this psalm there are indications
of those things for which we ought to give thanks. So the
psalmist goes on to say, let the redeemed of the Lord say
so, whom he has redeemed from the hand of the enemy. But the first thing we would
seek to consider is the construction of this psalm. It is divided
into various sections. And there is that repetition
of certain verses. For example, verse six, then
they cried unto the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them
out of their distresses. We have the same words in verse
13, in verse 19, and in verse 28. And each section of the psalm
ends either one or two verses after those words that are spoken
by the psalmist. And there is also the repetition
in the eighth verse, so that men would praise the Lord for
his goodness and for his wonderful works. to the children of men,
which is repeated in verse 21 and also in verse 31. So there
are various sections in this psalm. The verses 1 to 9 seem
to me to be the first section, then verse 10 through to verse
16. The second section, 17 to 22. The third section, verse 23 to verse
32. The fourth section, and then the last section, verses 33 to
verse 41. showing how the Lord deals with
his people. And then the final conclusion
in verses 42 and verse 43, the righteous shall see it and rejoice
and all iniquity shall stop her mouth. Whoso is wise and will
observe these things, even they shall understand the loving kindness
of the Lord. Both the first verse and the
last verse commends by reminding the children of Israel that they
are a covenant people with a covenant God. For every time you see the
word Lord in capital letters in the scriptures, it is reminding
the children of Israel and also the people of God today. that
we are engaged in a covenant work by Almighty God, the Holy
Trinity, Jehovah, the Living God, working out the salvation
of his people to the glory of his name. And so we look first
of all at verse one where we see three particulars set out
before us. First of all, we have the covenant
of God shown us. Give thanks unto the Lord. Lord
again being there in capital letters. And then the character
of God, for he is good. And then we have the compassion.
of God for his mercy endureth forever. So firstly, brought before our eyes as we
read this passage of scripture is the covenant which has been
established by the Lord with his people. We have the covenant
of God set before us in the time of
Noah. Genesis 9 and verse 11, and I
will establish my covenant with you. This is the covenant of
the earth, that the Lord has entered into a covenant with
the earth and with the people that dwell upon this earth for
we are all the creatures of the living God we have all been created
by him as the natural children of our great forefather Adam
we are created by him by natural descent and the Lord has entered
into that covenant with with the people of this world and
I will establish my covenant with you this is the token of
the covenant which I make between me and you and every living creature
that is with you for perpetual generations and he goes on to
say that seed time and harvest and cold and heat shall not fail
while the earth remaineth. There is that covenant, that
covenant with the earth that bears witness to the living God. And if we turn to the first chapter
of the epistle to the Romans, we see how that mankind has dealt
with that covenant. that professing themselves to
be wise they became fools and changed the glory of the uncorruptible
God into an image made like to corrupt human and to birds and
four-footed beasts and creeping things wherefore God also gave
them up to uncleanness through the loss of their own hearts
and to dishonour their own bodies between themselves who changed
the truth of God into a lie and worshipped and served the creature more than the creator
who is blessed forever. Amen. And that little word Amen
means so be it. God is to be blessed. God is
to be thanked for all his goodness to us and yet we are an ungrateful
people as a people, as a nation, as the inhabitants of this world
we are an ungrateful people and we have turned our backs against
almighty God remember how a psalmist speaks in the second psalm as
those who have turned their backs upon the Almighty God against
the Lord. The kings of the earth set themselves
and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against
his anointed saying, let us break their bands asunder and cast
away their cords from us. And the psalmist says concerning
those who reject the law of God, he that sitteth in the heavens
shall laugh the Lord shall have them in derision and no matter
what man may try no matter how man might try to govern the nations
of this world the Lord will have them in derision until we come
to that time when we are brought to acknowledge the rightful reign
of Almighty God and that time will come that time will finally
come We know not the day, we know not the hour, we know not
the year. but the time will come when the
earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the
Lord as the waters cover the sea what a mercy it is that we
have as the people of God the glorious future before us in
that covenant that has been made with the earth the covenant that
I would draw your attention to is there in Genesis chapter 15
and verse 18 I've put the wrong reference
down but it is I'm looking in the book of Exodus it's in Genesis
chapter 15 and verse 18 where it says in the same day the Lord
made a covenant with Abram saying unto thy seed have I given this
land from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river
Euphrates and the covenant that was made with Abraham was the
first signs of the covenant of God's everlasting grace that
he made because Abraham believed God, it was counted unto him
for righteousness and the Apostle Paul goes on to speak in the
epistle to the Galatians how that covenant is the covenant
by which we are saved remember how it tells us in 2 Samuel chapter
23 in verse 5 of that covenant there's David
speaking on his deathbed although my house be not so with God yet
he hath made with me an everlasting covenant ordered in all things
and sure for this is all my salvation and all my desire although he
make it not to grow that everlasting covenant it is a covenant of
which the Lord Jesus Christ is the surety he is the guarantor
of the covenant why is he the guarantor of the covenant? because
he has prayed the price in full he has paid for the redemption
of sinners and the psalmist goes on later in this psalm in the
next verse let the redeemed of the Lord say so whom he hath
redeemed from the hand of the enemy if we have time we'll come
on to look further at that redemption that the Lord Jesus Christ is
the surety of that everlasting covenant and he says concerning
this a covenant that it is an everlasting covenant ordered
in all things now if you look in that verse you'll see that
the word things is there in italics, which means that it's not there
in the original Hebrew. It's not there in the original
Hebrew, and it's been put there by the translators of our authorized
version to clarify the word-for-word translation of our Bible. But the actual Hebrew says, ordered
in all, everything. Everything is ordered in the
everlasting covenant of God. The time of our birth, the place
of our birth, the place that we have grown up, the instruction
that has been given us by our parents, the instructions that
we received in Sunday School, the instruction that we receive
week by week, the preaching of the gospel under which we come
week by week, it is ordered, everything is ordered. And remember
how Paul speaks concerning the people of God, he writes to the
Roman church, or the church in Rome I should say, he speaks
to them and he says, and we know Romans chapter 8 and verse 28
and we know that all things work together for good to them that
love God to them who are the called according to his purpose
ordered in all things and says there in 2 Samuel 23 it is ordered
in all things and sure it is sure it is certain it can be
depended upon men make promises and with the best will in the
world they are unable to keep their promises circumstances
may prevent someone fulfilling the terms of the promise that
they have made to a friend or a relative and with a heavy heart
they go to that person to whom they have made the promise and
say I cannot keep that promise because of such circumstances
I cannot keep that promise at all and almighty God he is able
he is able and he is capable and he is willing to keep that
promise to all his people. They shall be my people, they
shall be my people, ordered in all things and sure. What a certainty
there is for the people of God. And David goes on to say, this
everlasting covenant is ordered in all things and sure. And he
says, for this is all my salvation. For all my salvation. Again,
the words this and is are not there in the original. For all
my salvation. Yet he hath made with me an everlasting
covenant ordered in all. and sure for all my salvation."
In other words, there is nothing left, nothing left for me to
do. There is nothing for me to do,
simply to receive the promises of God and to believe as Abraham
did. to believe that that's a salvation
that is in the Lord Jesus Christ. Remember how the Lord Jesus spoke
to his disciples on the evening before he was taken and and crucified. He said, I am the way, the truth
and the life. No man cometh unto the Father
but by me. Here is the certainty then of
our salvation. It is a covenant, a promise. You remember how in the Gospel
according to Luke, Zechariah, he had been serving in the temple
and he had been struck dumb by the angel because he disbelieved
the promise of the angel concerning the birth of his son, John. And when it came to the child
being named, he said his name, is John he wrote on the tablet
because he was unable to speak and he wrote saying his name
is John and his mouth was opened immediately and his tongue loosed
and he spake and praised God and goes on to speak about the
wonder of the salvation that has been promised in the Lord
Jesus Christ. Blessed be the God of Israel
for he has visited his people and redeemed his people. He is speaking prophetically
there of the Lord Jesus Christ even though he had not yet been
born and incarnate upon this earth. But he goes on to say
that we should be saved from our enemies and from the hand
of all that hate us to perform the mercy promised to our fathers
and to remember his holy covenant what a mercy it is that there
is that covenant of grace and it is then that covenant if you
and I have been called by grace if you and I are saved by grace
it is in that covenant we stand and it is certain and it is sure
what a mercy and so the psalmist exhorts us to give thanks unto
the Lord He is reminding the people to whom he is writing
this psalm that God is a covenant God and he completes this psalm
by saying, who so is wise and will observe these things, even
they shall understand the loving kindness of the Lord. the loving
kindness of Jehovah, the loving kindness of the Triune God, the
loving kindness of the Covenant God. So that's the first thing
that is declared for us in this verse, in this psalm. And then
he goes on to speak about the character of God, for he is good. This is one of the attributes
of God. Attributes are the characteristics
of a certain person or a certain item. For example, if we think
of a diamond, one of the attributes of a diamond is that it is hard. It is one of the hardest substances
in the world. It cannot be destroyed very easily. another attribute is that it
refracts the light and so when you look at a diamond it sparkles
the light does not pass through it it just stays when a light
is shone in the diamond it just reflects and it reflects in the
colours of the spectrum the rainbow and the rainbow again speaks
of the covenant here is the character of God he is good when you think
about the character of the gods of this world they're far from
good in the scriptures we have references to Moloch we have
references to Chimosh and other pagan gods and they're not good
for their devotees had to sacrifice to them they sacrificed their
children to these gods and yet they were unable to answer there
was Bel and of course on Mount Carmel Bel was unable to answer
simply because he doesn't exist in Isaiah we read of Bel and
Nebo and Bel Bell boweth down, Isaiah 46 verse 1. Bell boweth
down, nebo stoopeth, and their idols were upon the beasts and
upon the cattle. Your carriages were heavy laden,
they are a burden to the weary beast. They stoop, they bow down,
they could not deliver the burden, but themselves had gone into
captivity. And what Isaiah is saying is that these gods These
gods are nothing but the fruit of the corrupt imagination of
men's evil hearts. They are unable to save. They
are unable to carry the burden that is laid upon them. They
are unable to take the burdens from sinful man. because they
are unable to save. They bow down in the presence
of the living God. Remember how the God Dagon fell
off his stoop or was pushed off his stoop, plinth I should say, in the presence of the Lord when
the Ark of the Covenant was placed in the Temple of Dagon. He fell,
he fell down before the living God because our God is good and
our God is good because he provided that way of salvation way back
in the book of Genesis when man sinned there was that promise
that was made and I will put enmity between thee and the woman
and between thy seed and her seed it shall bruise thy head
and thou shalt bruise his heel that's the promise That's the
first promise of the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. That he
would come and that he would destroy Satan. He would destroy
sin. We used to sing a song, a hymn,
many years ago. One verse said, I would say,
Jesus is stronger than Satan and sin. Satan to Jesus must
bow. What a mercy it is that there
is a day coming when sin will be finally dealt with in our
lives. when we will be made perfect
but we have that spiritual life that is perfect there is that
new creature that is perfect but we have that old nature within
Gadsby I think in one of his hymns says but own my heart a
sink of sin it is full of sin we know something do we not of
the plague of sin We know something of our waywardness. We can truly
say with the hymn writer, prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, prone
to leave, the God I love. But we have a God who is good. He sent the Redeemer who came
was found incarnate. I love those words that are written
by the Apostle Paul in the second chapter of the Epistle to the
Philippians. Let this mind be in you which
was also in Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God, thought
it not robbery to be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation
and took upon him the form of a servant and was made in the
likeness of man and being found in fashion as a man he humbled
himself and became obedient unto death even the death of the cross
what a mercy that in the goodness of God all those years ago, two
thousand or so years ago the Lord Jesus Christ came to this
earth he laid his glory by he wrapped him in our clay and marked
by him and I the latent Godhead lay. are God contracted to a
span incomprehensibly made man there is the covenant of God
there is the character of God and then there is the compassion
of God for his mercy endureth forever that phrase crops up many times in the book
of Psalms Psalm 118 verses 1-4 I will give thanks unto the Lord,
for he is good, because his mercy endureth forever. Again, that
word endureth is not there in the original, but has been put
there by the translators to make more sense and give a clearer
understanding of what the psalmist is saying under the inspiration
of the Spirit of God, because his mercy forever. His mercy
endures forever. His mercy is forever. And when
we think about that phrase forever, those two words, it means it
goes on and on. The last verse of John Newton's
hymn that is by an unknown pen, by an unknown writer, says, when
we've been there, 10,000 years, bright shining as the sun, with
no less days to sing God's praise than when we first begun, goes
on and on and on and on. It never ends, it never ends. What a mercy it is that the character
of our Lord Jesus Christ and the person of the Lord Jesus
Christ and the work of the Lord Jesus Christ is sufficient to
engage the tongues and the hearts of the redeemed of glory for
an infinity of endless years and it will never end. For he is good for his mercy
endureth forever likewise in psalm 136 you know the psalm
all 26 verses has the phrase for his mercy endureth forever
it's a theme that is worth repeating we hear people speak and they
tell the same stories every time we meet them In our innermost
being we think to ourselves, do we not? Oh no, not again. But when we think about the mercy
of God, it is good to repeat, it is worth repeating, because
it tells us of the mercy of God. his compassions last forever. Remember those words that are
there in the Lamentations of Jeremiah. Jeremiah, Lamentations
chapter 3. And verse 22, it is of the Lord's
mercies that we are not consumed because his compassions fail
not. And Jeremiah goes on to say,
the Lord is my portion. The Lord is good unto them that
wait for him. It is good that a man should
both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord. It
is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth. And so on, he goes over the mercy
of God, what a mercy it is if we are made the recipients of
the mercy of God and that mercy is extended to everyone who has
been given in covenant bond to the Lord Jesus Christ all that
the Father giveth me says the Lord Jesus all of them, every
one, all that the Father giveth me shall come to me, and him
that cometh unto me I will in no wise cast out. So there is
that exhortation here, O give thanks unto the Lord for he is
good, for his mercy and it goes on in this psalm to give reasons
as to why we should give thanks to Almighty God. Well, we don't
have time this evening to consider any of those reasons, so with
the Lord's help, I'll continue on the Lord's Day in the morning
to consider some of the reasons that have been given as to why
we should give thanks to Almighty God. there are many reasons there
is an infinity of reasons not least of which is that when we
lay our heads on the pillow at night that we have that expectation
of waking on the morrow but if not if not then we have that
expectation of waking on the morrow that eternal morrow that
eternal heaven It is for every one of those for whom the Lord
Jesus Christ and every one. Not one hoof shall be left behind,
it says in Exodus. Not one hoof, nothing belonging,
nothing pertaining to the children of Israel was to be left behind.
And every one of the church, they shall be ransomed and they
shall be redeemed. And they will be there in heaven. Why? Because the price has been
paid. The price has been paid in full.
There is no debts, no entrance fee into heaven because the price
has been paid in the precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. Will the Lord add his blessing
to these few thoughts for his name's sake? Amen.