Pray with me please. Gracious
and merciful Father, Lord you have told us that your mercy
endures forever. Your word tells us that you did
us in our mother's womb and our experience tells us what a great
blessing our mothers are to us. They have loved us and cared
for us. Loved us and cared for us even when we were rebellious
and disobedient. And yet as our mothers, they
still love us. They still care for us. Your
mercy, dear Lord, endures forever. We thank you, Lord, for our mothers,
mothers who have shown us their love. But as a wonderful thing
as that is, is a marvelous blessing as it is. We praise you, Lord,
for sending us a savior. Your mercies to us endure forever.
We have raised our fists, Lord, in your face, much as we did
with our mothers and fathers. But your mercies endures forever.
And so, Lord, all we can do is to fall on our knees, praising
and worshiping you, because your mercies endure forever in Jesus
Christ, our loving Savior. Amen. Open your Bibles, please,
to Psalm 136. Today's Mother's Day. It's a
day that we've set aside to remember our mothers. And we all do remember
our mothers, don't we? We remember their love for us
when we weren't always lovable. We remember their sacrifices
for us when they could have been selfish instead and lived for
themselves, giving us what they gave us, everything. that could
make our lives better and more comfortable. I know that you
each had a wonderful mother. You may not have always appreciated
her, as you should have, but you love her. Whether she's living
or dead, you still love her. She probably wasn't a perfect
mother, but she loved you and she cared for you even before
you were born. And she continues to love and
care for you if she's still living. No matter what you do or even
whether you have loved her in return. I see a picture in that. I see
a picture of Christ in that. The Lord Jesus Christ who in
his great mercy and love was sent by God to save sinners.
Sinners like you and me. Save us from our sin. His mercy
endures forever. It's a little long to read, but
I would like to read the 26 verses of Psalm 136. And as I read,
I ask you, if you would please, follow along in your Bibles.
And as you follow along, I ask you to think about the many mercies
that God has shown you all of your life. I mean, He has shown
you mercy whether you are a believer in Him or not. He has shown you
a great many mercies that I think your mothers are one of those
mercies. You may still be a rebellious sinner just as you've been a
rebellious son or daughter, but I know that God has blessed you
with many blessings because His mercies endure forever. I pray
that you know, by God's grace, that all of your blessings, every
single one of your blessings come to you from God, and that
the fountain of God's mercy is the Lord Jesus Christ. In thankful
praise and worship, the psalmist says to us, O give thanks unto
the Lord, for he is good, for his mercy endureth forever. O
give thanks unto the God of gods, for his mercy endureth forever.
O give thanks to the Lord of lords, for his mercy endureth
forever. To him who alone doth great wonders,
for his mercy endureth forever. To him that by wisdom made the
heavens, for his mercy endureth forever. To him that stretches
out the earth above the waters, for his mercy endureth forever.
To him that made great lights, for his mercy endureth forever.
The sun to rule by day, for his mercy endureth forever. The moon
and stars to rule by night, for his mercy endureth forever. To
him that smote Egypt in their firstborn, for his mercy endureth
forever. And brought out Israel from among
them, for his mercy endureth forever. With a strong hand and
with a stretched out arm, for his mercy endureth forever. To
him which divided the Red Sea into parts, for his mercy endureth
forever. and made Israel to pass through
the midst of it, for his mercy endureth forever. But overthrew
Pharaoh and his host in the Red Sea, for his mercy endureth forever. To him which led his people through
the wilderness, for his mercy endureth forever. To him which
smote great kings, for his mercy endureth forever, and slew famous
kings, for his mercy endureth forever. Sihon king of the Amorites,
for his mercy endureth forever. And Og the king of Bashan, for
his mercy endureth forever. Indeed the land for a heritage,
for his mercy endureth forever. Even a heritage unto Israel his
servant, for his mercy endureth forever. Who remembered us in
our lowest state, for his mercy endureth forever. And has redeemed
us from our enemies, for his mercy endureth forever. who giveth
food to all flesh, for his mercy endureth forever. And O give
thanks unto God of heaven, for his mercy endureth forever. As I read that psalm, I see something
that I find very interesting. It jumps right out at me. Do
you see what I see? Do you see what I see that is
different and unusual about this song? I know you do. The last half
of each verse is exactly the same. It's repeated over and
over again for 26 verses. And each verse ends with the
same words. For His mercy endureth forever. And yet, to me, it doesn't seem
to be done in vain repetition. It sort of emphasizes the main
idea of the psalm. God's mercy endures forever. I've been in churches where they
did something like this in their worship services. The congregation
would say the same phrase each time the priest would read from
a prayer book. I think the phrase they repeated,
I'm not sure about this, maybe some of you can help me with
it, but I think the phrase that they repeated was, the Lord bless
us and you. When I'd hear that response by
the congregation, it always seemed to me to be like a vain repetition
because they said it over and over again, at least 26 times,
well maybe not that many. But the words, for His mercy
endureth forever, Don't seem like that to me here in this
song. The first hymn that we sang as we began our worship
this morning was a hymn entitled, Great is Thy Faithfulness. And
after each verse of that hymn, we sang the chorus which says,
Great is thy faithfulness, great is thy faithfulness, morning
by morning new mercies I see, all I have needed thy hands have
provided, great is thy faithfulness Lord unto me. So I guess, as
I think about it, that maybe Psalm 136, with its repeated
choruses after each verse, really isn't so unusual at all. These
words in Psalm 136, for His mercy endureth forever, are something
like a chorus to each verse, aren't they? We have a lot of
hymns in our hymn book which are arranged in exactly the same
way. We sing the verse, And after each verse we follow with the
same chorus which emphasizes the theme of the hymn. And like
the chorus in Psalm 136, the chorus I think adds a great deal
of beauty to the hymn. It helps to make it more moving.
It helps to make it more effectual. It helps a slow-witted individual
like me to understand what God is trying to say in this Psalm.
It doesn't seem at all like vain repetition to me. Does it to
you? I talked to a man last week.
He had read Psalm 136 and as he read it he told me that he
skipped the chorus. He said it just sounds repetitious.
He skipped the chorus. But to me the chorus doesn't
seem repetitious. The chorus emphasizes the main
theme of the psalm. and it does it in a beautiful
way I think so that the psalmist by the inspiration of the Holy
Spirit is saying and emphasizing by repeating 26 times the truth
that God's mercy God's mercy endures forever and that's a
marvelous mercy isn't it God's mercies are repeated and illustrated
in this psalm so that we can see them as it were with a continual
emphasis from the beginning to the end of the psalm, and that
only reminds me of God's great mercies to me in Christ, which
have been continually provided to me all the days of my life. It's a joy for me to sing God's
praises, because His mercy has endured forever in my life. Even
though I didn't deserve it, God has still poured out His mercy
and His love to me for every single day of my life. I'm reminded
as I read this psalm that in every particular favor that we
receive from God, we ought to remember that the source of those
mercies is always and continually Jesus Christ. And I believe that
God would have us remember that only in Christ His mercy endures
forever. Many of God's mercies to us,
in fact, are temporary. But God's mercies to His people
endure forever in Christ. And the everlasting and continuing
mercy of God in Christ is very much to the honor and glory of
God because God's eternal mercy is given to sinners saved only
by God's grace. Because we constantly need God's
mercy, His mercy is a continual comfort to us. I suspect that
this phrase, His mercy endures forever, will be something that
we're going to sing in eternity for eternity in heaven. But whether
we sing it in heaven or here on earth, the truth of it should
add to the joy of our hearts. God's mercy does endure forever. They have endured all of our
lives, and if we're in Christ, We have every reason to believe
that God's mercies will continue to endure forever. Turn in your
Bibles please, keep your place in Psalm 136, but turn in your
Bibles please to 2 Chronicles chapter 5 and verse 13. This
most excellent sentence, that God's mercy endures forever,
is magnified above all other truths concerning God. Not only
by the repetition of it here in Psalm 136, But because if
we have received and if we do continually receive God's mercies
in Christ, these love tokens, and I'm going to call them love
tokens because God's mercy is a love token to us. These love
tokens to us are our acceptance by God in Christ. In Solomon's
time, when they sang these words, for his mercy endures forever,
Scripture tells us that the house of God was filled with a cloud.
A cloud that indicated the presence of God being with them. That's
what the cloud signified. In 2nd Chronicles 5 verse 13
it says, And it came even to pass, as the trumpeters and singers
were one, to make one sound to be heard in praising and thanking
the Lord. And when they lifted up their
voice with the trumpets and cymbals and instruments of music, and
praised the Lord, saying, For he is good, for his mercy endureth
forever, that then the house was filled with a cloud, even
the house of the Lord. That cloud represents the Lord. And while you're in 2 Chronicles,
turn please to chapter 20, verses 21 and 22. In the time of Jehoshaphat,
when they sang these same words, praising God for His past mercies
to them, I believe that they must have sung them from their
hearts, They sang them from their hearts, believing that their
mercies in the past had all come from God. And so we read that
once again, God was merciful to them, and God gave them victory
in their battle because His mercies endure forever. In 2 Chronicles
20, verses 21 and 22, it says, And when he, when Jehoshaphat,
had consulted with the people, he appointed singers unto the
Lord, And that should praise the beauty of holiness. That's
God's holiness. These singers that he appoints
are going to sing and they're going to praise God for his holiness.
As they went out before the camp and to say, this is what they're
going to say, praise the Lord for his mercy and do it forever.
And when they began to sing and to praise, the Lord said, ambushments
against the children of Ammon, Moab and Mount Seir. which were
come against Judah and were smitten. God mercifully gave Israel a
victory, not because they sang this song, but because his mercies
endure forever. I don't think they were praising
God falsely in these two incidences that I've just read about in
2 Chronicles. I don't think that God was merciful
because they were singing magical words, some kind of a mantra
or something like that. But they sang God's praises because
Israel was remembering that God had been merciful to them in
the past, and on that basis they could expect that God, who had
shown his love to them before, would continue to show his love
to them in this whatever situation that they were in. They were,
by faith, genuinely singing God's praises for His mercy to them. And God's mercy endures forever. God continued to be merciful
to them. But hearing again that God came
into Israel's presence in the temple and that God gave them
victory in their battle should be enough to cause any believer
to sing God's praises because it reminds us about all of the
times when God has been merciful to us. Has God been merciful
to you? Do you look back and see all
of your life God has been merciful to you? Oh, I pray that you can. Only unbelievers, only those
who don't attribute the mercies that are shown to them, attribute
those mercies to the one true almighty sovereign God, only
somebody like that would fail to praise God for his mercy to
them in Christ. We who believe We, to whom God
has been continually merciful all of our lives, we who know
the source of God's mercy to us, should make this our life
song to God, not just for today, but forever, because His mercies
do still endure to us and will endure to us eternally. We not only know it by the faith
of Christ, we have also experienced God's mercy. All through our
lives we have experienced God's mercy because we know that Jesus
Christ is the source of all of God's mercy to us. Maybe the
first time that we ever really sang God's praises was when we
were in the house of God and God made his presence known to
us in our hearts and so we sang his praises. And maybe the second
time that we praised God for his mercy to us in Christ was
when God enabled us to conquer the enemy that so besets us.
Or when we saw that with God-given eyes of faith, we saw that God
had conquered sin and death as our substitute when He died for
us on the cross. But if God has been merciful
to you, then I know that you can look back in your life and
see that God's mercy endures forever. and give God the credit
for all those times when God was merciful to you and you didn't
even know it. You didn't even know that it
was the work of God in your life. So as believers, as the church
of God, we must praise, we have to praise God for all His mercy
to us. We can't do anything else. God,
as the psalmist does in verses 1 to 3, as the great and good
God that He is in Himself, or as we see Him in Christ, we have
to praise Him. We will praise Him. We cannot
do anything else. Second, we must praise God as
the Creator of the world, as the psalmist does in verses 5
to 9. Then third, because God has saved us in Christ, we must
praise God as Israel's God and Savior, or as the Church's God
and Savior, as the psalmist does in verses 10 to 22. And fourth,
we must individually praise God as our Redeemer, as the psalmist
does in verses 23 and 24. And fifth, we must praise God
as the great benefactor of His whole creation. who is God over
all, blessed forevermore, as the psalmist does in verses 25
and 26. Some people may not consider
themselves to be believers, but still, they should praise God
for all of His mercies to them, because God is the source of
all mercies, and His mercies do endure forever. Turn please
to Hebrews 13 and verse 15. The duty which the Holy Spirit
calls us to here, again and again He calls us here, is to give
thanks continually to God for His continuing mercy to us. We are to offer the sacrifice
of praise continually to God, not Not offer just the fruits
of our labors, but we are to offer to God the fruit of our
lips, giving thanks always to God's name for His mercy to us
in Christ, because His mercies endure forever. In Hebrews 13,
15 it says, By Him, therefore, let us offer the sacrifice of
praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips, giving
thanks to His name. We are never so earnestly called
on by the Holy Spirit to pray and to repent as we are when
we are called on to give thanks to God because it is the will
of God that we should abound most in the most pleasant exercises
of the church which is praising God and praising God is the work
of the church in heaven too. Now if you'll follow along in
Psalm 163 Looking at the verses, starting
back with verse 1, taking you all the way back to the beginning.
Notice first who it is that we must give thanks to. In verse
1 it says that we are to give thanks to the one Lord our God
that we receive our good from. We are to give thanks to the
Lord, to Jehovah, to Israel's God, the God of gods, the God
whom angels adore. were to give thanks to our God,
the Lord Jesus Christ, whom we worship in spirit and in truth,
because we worship Him and give thanks to Him, because He is
good. His mercy endures forever. He
is good. And in verse 2 it says that we
are to give thanks to God, to Thee God, The God from whom magistrates
derive their power, and by whom all pretended deities, or false
gods, are and shall forever be conquered. And in verse 3 it
says that we are to give thanks to the Lord of lords, the sovereign
of all sovereigns, the stay and the supporter of all supports.
We are to give thanks to the Lord Jesus Christ for His mercy
endureth forever. And in all of our adoration,
in all of our praise, We must have an eye to God's excellency
as it transcends all things in Christ and look to His power
and to His dominion because it is incontestable and uncontrollably
supreme. His mercy endures forever. There is no greater mercy, there
is no greater love. But we must give thanks to God
not as the Pharisees did who made all of His thanksgiving
end in his own praise is when he said, God I thank Thee that
I am not as other men, but we should direct all of our thanks
and praise to God for His mercy and His glory. Our love for God
should cause us to give thanks to God for His goodness and mercy
to us, just as the psalmist does in verse 1. We must give thanks
to the Lord not only because He does good, but because He
is good, as it says in verse 2. All of the streams of God's
mercy must be traced back to the fountain of God's mercy,
which is the Lord Jesus Christ. And not only because He is merciful
to us, but because His mercy endures forever. And it will
be shown also to those who will come after us, because His mercy
endures forever. And we must give thanks to God
not only for that mercy which is now handed out to us here
on earth, but we must give thanks for that mercy which will endure
forever in the glories and joys of heaven. We must give thanks
for the instances of His power and His wisdom. In general, as
verse 4 indicates, we should give thanks to the Lord of Lords
because He alone does great wonders of mercy. The way that this song
of praise to God was written seems to me to be very wonderful.
Does it seem that way to you? But of course it is wonderful,
isn't it? It's wonderful because God wrote it. It's His song. It's written by infinite wisdom.
As we read it, the effect that it has on our hearts, to me,
is wonderful and exciting. I hope it is to you. It's wonderful
and exciting because it has the infinite power of God to make
it effective in our hearts. God alone does marvelous things.
No one besides the one true God can do such marvelous things.
And He does them without the assistance or the advice of any
other. God is merciful because He's
merciful. He's merciful because He's good. He doesn't get any help. He does
it all Himself. More particularly, as it says
in verse 5, God made the heavens, and when He stretched out the
heavens over our heads, and in them we not only see God's wisdom
and power, but we taste His mercy in their kind influences on us.
As long as the heavens endure, the mercy of God endures in them,
in the heavens. Because He makes His sun to rise
on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just, and
on the unjust. In verse 6 God is praised because
he raised the earth up out of the waters when he caused the
dry land to appear so that it might be a fit habitation for
man. And in this also his mercy to
man still endures because God gave the earth and all that the
earth produces to the children of men. Not because they're believers
but because they're his creation. And in verses 7 to 9 we see more
reasons for praising God because when God made both the heavens
and the earth, He arranged a connection between them, notwithstanding
the distance between them, by making the sun and the moon and
the stars, which He placed in the firmament of heaven, to shed
their light and influences on the earth. The sun and the moon
and the stars are called the great lights because they each
appear that way to us in the sky. The astronomers could tell
us that the moon and the stars and the
sun are as big as, that our moon and stars and the sun are as
big as, not as big as many of the stars and other suns and
moons. But that's because they're near
to the earth. They seem to be bigger because
they're so close to us. The sun and the moon are said
to rule, not only because they govern the seasons of the year
and the tides of the sea, but also because they are useful
to the world, providing heat and light. And so, as our benefactors,
providing heat and light, the sun, the moon, and the stars
are the best rulers, which I think is a very interesting thing to
see. They are our best rulers. Let's look at that in the scriptures.
Turn to Luke 22, verses 23 to 25. On the last Passover night, Jesus
told His disciples that one of them was going to betray Him.
And beginning in Luke 22 verse 23 it says, And they, the disciples,
began to inquire among themselves, this is the question they asked
themselves, which of them it was that should do this thing?
Which of them is going to betray Jesus? And then immediately it
says something I find very interesting. In verses
24 and 25 it says, And there was also a strife among them,
about which of them should be accounted the greatest. Which
of us is the greatest? Which of us who are the disciples
of Christ are the greatest? They first talk about their rewards,
and they talk about who is going to betray Christ, but then they
ask, who is the greatest? Who is going to have the greatest
reward in heaven? And in verse 25, Jesus said to
them, the kings of the Gentiles exercised lordship over them.
And they of the Gentiles exercised lordship over them. And they
that exercise authority upon them are called benefactors. We give praise, don't we, to
those who rule over us? But only when they are benefactors.
Only when they provide for our needs. But not when they seek
to do us harm. We wouldn't praise somebody,
some ruler over us that tried to do us harm. We don't praise
them if they are unable to provide for our needs. It isn't the exercise
of power that makes for greatness. God isn't great because He is
powerful, but God is great and we praise Him because He is a
great benefit in all that He does. His mercy endures forever. Turn please to Joshua 10 and
verses 12 and 13. I give you all this information
about the sun and the moon and the stars in order to get to
these two verses, Joshua 10 verses 12 and 13. The empire, if I can
call it that, of the sun and the moon and the stars is a divided
empire. The sun rules by day and the
moon and the stars rule by night. And yet they are each subject
to God's direction. And they are completely, the
sun, the moon, and the stars are completely at the disposal
of God who uses them for good. That's why we praise God for
His mercy, which endures forever. And we don't praise the sun,
the moon, and the stars. Although the heathens do worship
the sun, the moon, and the stars, don't they? But they don't know
God. They worship the sun, the moon,
and the stars. They do not worship God. And yet it is God who is
the true and the only benefactor that is able to use all things
for good. And His mercy endures forever. And so we praise God and no other. In Joshua 10, beginning in verse
12, when Israel was in great need, it says, Then spake Joshua
to the Lord in the day when the Lord delivered up the Amorites
before the children of Israel. And he said, in the sight of
Israel, Joshua said, in the sight of Israel, Son, S-U-N, Son, stand
thou still upon Gibeon, and thou moon in the valley of Ahelon. And the sun stood still, and
the moon stayed, until the people had avenged themselves upon their
enemies. Is not this written in the book
of Jasher? So the sun stood still in the
midst of heaven and hasted not to go down about a whole day. Now turn to John 19 verses 10
and 11. Making the sun and the moon stand
still was the mercy of God. It was the mercy of God which
allowed Israel to defeat their enemies And it was the same with
those rulers which the Gentiles idolized. God used them to accomplish
His will for His church. All of God's creation serves
God. All of God's creation is subject
to God's will. All of God's creation exists
for the benefit of God's people. In John 19, beginning in verse
10, verses 10 and 11, When Pilate said to Jesus, knowest thou not
that I have power to crucify thee, and I have power to release
thee? And Jesus answered Pilate, and
he said, Thou couldest have no power at all against me, except
it were given thee from above. We praise God not so much for
his power, but because he uses his power mercifully. Was it
merciful to send Jesus Christ to the cross? It was merciful
to me. God came here to die for the
sins of His people. And so back in Psalm 136, as
it says in verse 9, we can praise God that He made the moon and
the stars to rule by night. Why? Because His mercy endures
forever. And then looking at verses 10
to 22, This song of praise goes on to remind us of more reasons
why we should praise God for His mercy that endures forever.
In verse 10, the great things, the great mercies which God did
for Israel when He formed them into a people, when He formed
them into a church, if you will, and then He set up His kingdom
among them. Those mercies are mentioned here
as they are often mentioned other places in the Psalms as instances
both of the power of God and of the particular kindness or
the mercy that God had for Israel. And one of those I suggest is
in Psalm 135, verse 8, which says about God, who smoked the
firstborn of Egypt, both of man and beast. Do you see God's mercy
in that? That God would smote the firstborn
child of every man and of every beast. But we should give thanks
to God because as verse 10 says, He brought them out of Egypt.
That was a mercy which long endured in Israel's heart and in ours
because the redemption of God's people by Christ was pictured
by that Passover. It was pictured by the blood
of the Lamb which were put on the doors of the Israelites. And that mercy, that redemption
does indeed endure forever. Because the redemption of Christ
is an eternal redemption. The redemption of God is the
greatest mercy any sinner ever knows. How could he not, if he
knew the redemption of God, how could he not praise God for all
eternity for his salvation? It's interesting to believers,
I think, that out of all the plagues of Egypt, none of those
plagues are mentioned here in Psalm 136, where it talks about
God's mercies, except the death of the firstborn, because that
was the conquering plague. It was by that plague, that plague
of the Passover, that plague of the death of the firstborn,
that God, who out of all of the plagues distinguished the Israelites
from the Egyptians, At last brought his people out from among the
Egyptians, giving them a new life, a life free from bondage. God set his people free with
a strong hand and a strong arm stretched out to reach far and
to do great things. His mercy endures forever. But I ask you to look at God's
mercy, which was shown that night in a way that you might not have
thought about it before. These miracles of mercy as God
did them that Passover night proved that God had given Moses
a commission to deliver the law to Israel. And it was the mercy
of God which put Israel under a lasting obligation to obey
that law that Moses delivered. As God said in Exodus 20 verse
2, I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of Egypt,
out of the house of Bonvich." And he said that as God had given
him the law to give to the people. The law was given to God's people,
which condemns them of their sin. But that law pointed to
God's mercy too, because it was God who made a way for them,
a way through the Red Sea, which obstructed them, just as the
law obstructs us, because we can't keep it. The Red Sea obstructed
Israel. The Red Sea got in their way
when Israel first set out on the journey to the promised land.
And it is God who sent Jesus Christ to make a way for God's
people to return back to God when they were separated from
God by their sin. Turn to Jeremiah 34 in verse
18 and let me show you what I mean. By the power which God has to
control the common course of nature, to control his entire
creation, God divided the sea into two parts. Two parts which
opened a pathway between these two parts for his people to cross
over. Two walls of water with dry land
going through the middle. That should have been enough.
But then God made Israel to pass through those two parts. God
made them walk through those two walls of water so that they
were able to enter into a covenant relationship with Him. God made
them go through the water is what I want to emphasize to you.
In Jeremiah 34 verse 18, God said, And I will give the men
that have transgressed My covenant, I will give sinners, in other
words, which have not performed the words of the covenant, which
they made before me, when they cut the calf in twain, the sacrificed
calf, they cut it in two, and passed between the parts thereof.
Do you see that? They cut the calf in twain, they
cut it in two, and then they passed between the two parts
of it. God not only divided the Red Sea, but he gave his people
the courage that they needed to go through it when it was
divided. which was an instance of God's power over men's hearts,
just like as the dividing of the water proved His power over
the waters. And to make it a miracle of justice as well as mercy,
that same Red Sea, which was a dry path for the Israelites,
was a grave to their pursuers. Pharaoh and his army died in
those waters, just like all sinners die under the law. Now look back at verse 16 of
Psalm 136. There in the sea, which is a
picture of the covenant law of Moses, God shook off Pharaoh,
his host, and his host, where they died in the sea. They died
under the law. But after Israel had crossed
over between the two parts of the calf, cut in twain, as we
read in Jeremiah 34.18, God led Israel, God led His church through
a vast howling wilderness. And that too was God's great
mercy. As verse 16 of Psalm 136 says,
we give praise to Him which led His people through the wilderness,
for His mercy endureth forever. It was there in the wilderness
of sin that God whose mercy endures forever, led His people, fed
His people, And do you know that mercy from God which is Jesus
Christ? Do you know about feeding on
Jesus Christ? Being led by Jesus Christ? Their
camp was fed and it was fortified by God's mercy with a constant
series of miracles for 40 years. And although they sinned and
they wandered there through that wilderness, they were not lost. And so the mercy of God and the
constancy of that mercy is revealed to the glory of God. Because
they often provoked Him in that wilderness. They often grieved
Him in that desert. These verses are speaking in
pictorial language. They're describing God's mercy
that endures forever. And it's a description of the
church's pilgrimage today as we wander through this wilderness
that we're in. In verses 17 and 18, It tells
us that God destroyed powerful kings before His people to make
room for them. God didn't just put those kings
away, but He smoked them and He slew them. And in that we
see God's wrath against those kings. But His mercy, His never
failing mercy, was a sure mercy to Israel just as it is to God's
church today. And what glorified God and magnified
God's mercy was that these kings were great and they were famous
kings. And yet God subdued them, God killed them, just as easily
as if they had been the least and the weakest of the children
of men. They were famous and powerful kings, but that didn't
keep them secure, that didn't keep them from the justice of
God. The greater and the more famous
these kings were, the more evident that God's mercy to Israel appeared
and the more God was glorified. Even God's enemies are made to
glorify God. Then in verses 19 and 20 of our
psalm, Sihon and Og are particularly mentioned. They're mentioned
because they were the first two kings that were conquered on
the other side of the Jordan. It's good to enter into the detail
of God's favors and not to look at them all together. And we
should in each instance see these mercies that God's mercy endures
forever. God is praised for His mercy
in verses 21 and 22 because He gave His people the possession
of a good land for an inheritance. In 1 Corinthians 10.26 it says
that the earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof. The
earth and all that is in it belongs to God. He created it all. So according to God's will, He
took the land from one people and He gave it to another just
as it pleased Him to do it. The iniquity, the sin of the
Amorites was now full. And so it was, their land was
taken from them and given to Israel. Israel was God's servant,
and though they had provoked Him in the wilderness, yet God
intended to have His people serve Him. His people serve Him. Just as God said to the Egyptians,
let my people go, so God also says to the Canaanites, let my
people go, let my people go in, so that they might serve me.
And this God's mercy to his people endures forever, because it was
a figure of the heavenly Canaan. It's a picture of the mercy of
the Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life, that we should serve God,
praising God for all eternity, because his mercies endures forever. And then in verses 23 to 26,
God's everlasting mercy is celebrated. We see that in verses 23 and
24 where we see the great redemption of God's church pictured by the
many redemptions that God worked for the Jewish church out of
the hands of their oppressors. In the years of Israel's servitude,
their condition was in a very low estate. But God remembered
them and He raised them up as saviors. First he raised up the
judges, and then in time he gave them their great King David,
by whom God gave them rest from all their enemies. But we who
are God's church today, especially we have reason to praise God
in this great redemption of the universal church, which is pictured
by Israel and her judges and kings. We today have a great
deal of reason to say, as verse 23 and 24 says, He remembered us, the children
of men, in our lost estate, for His mercy endureth forever. He
sent His Son to redeem us from our enemies, from sin and death
and hell, and from all of our spiritual enemies, for His mercy
endureth forever. He was sent to redeem us, not
the angels that sin, but to redeem us for His mercy endureth forever. Then in verse 25 it says that
we have reason to praise God in the provision that God makes
for all of the creatures. He gives food to all flesh. God's providence is another instance
of God's mercy. Wherever God has given life,
He gives food, which is agreeable and sufficient for the needs
of His people. And God is a good housekeeper. He provides for
a large family, I think. Now turn please to Romans 9 and
verse 23. In all of God's glories, in all of God's gifts, verse
26 says, we should give thanks to the God of heaven because
His mercy endures forever. We should praise God because
God is a glorious God and when we praise the God of heaven,
we should praise Him for the glory of His mercy. The riches
of God's glory are displayed in the vessels of His mercy.
Romans 9.23 says that God reveals his mercy so that he might make
known the riches of his glory on or by the vessels of mercy
which he had aforeprepared of the glory. God's mercy which
is in Jesus Christ also reveals God to be the great benefactor
because every good and perfect gift is from above. and from
the Father of Lights, the God of Heaven, and so we should trace
every stream of God's mercy to the fountain of mercy, which
is Jesus Christ. The individual mercies of God
may perhaps endure for only a little while, but the mercy that is
of God through His Son, Jesus Christ, endures forever, because
the mercy that is in Christ is an inexhaustible fountain of
mercy. that endures forever in Christ. May God cause us all to continually
praise God for the mercies that He has given to us in Jesus Christ. Amen.