Psalm 105
We Give Thanks

 Thanksgiving 2000

I invite you to turn with me to Psalm 105. The contemplation of God’s mercies to us is essential to our ability to thank Him as we ought.

      Why are you thankful today? What are you here to give thanks for? Why do we give thanks? We may be here very mindful of family blessings of various sorts that God has given to us today—children, grandchildren, healthy parents, healthy children, happy relationship with our spouse—there may be many thanks on our hearts as we gather in this place for family blessings. We may be thankful for material prosperity; the Lord may have blessed us individually or we may sense that even if it has been somewhat of a lean year for us, we nevertheless live in a land of great prosperity all things considered. We may be thankful for other national mercies, that we live in a free land still, and that despite all the concerns of these last days, there are not tanks in the streets, there are not battle lines drawn, and the peace holds.  We may come here today with many things on our hearts that we’re thankful for, but God wants us to make sure that we are contemplating the most important things as we come to give Him thanks, and we will not be the thankful people that we ought to be unless we contemplate the real and the deepest reasons for which we ought to give thanks, and that’s why I want to turn us to the Psalms, this Christian book of thanksgiving and experience, and the 105 Psalm, and think with you for a few moments about the directions for thanksgiving found here.

      Let’s hear God’s holy and inspired word in Psalm 105: 

O give thanks to the LORD, call upon His name; make known His deeds among the peoples.
Sing to Him, sing praises to Him; speak of all His wonders.
Glory in His holy name; let the heart of those who seek the LORD be glad.
Seek the LORD and His strength; seek His face continually.
Remember His wonders which He has done, His marvels and the judgments uttered by His mouth, O seed of Abraham, His servant,  O sons of Jacob, His chosen ones!
He is the LORD our God; His judgments are in all the earth.
He has remembered His covenant forever, the word which He commanded to a thousand generations, the covenant which He made with Abraham, and His oath to Isaac.
Then He confirmed it to Jacob for a statute, to Israel as an everlasting covenant, when they were only a few men in number, very few, and strangers in it.
And they wandered about from nation to nation, from one kingdom to another people.
He permitted no man to oppress them, and He reproved kings for their sakes:
"Do not touch My anointed ones, and do My prophets no harm."
And He called for a famine upon the land; He broke the whole staff of bread.
He sent a man before them, Joseph, who was sold as a slave.
They afflicted his feet with fetters, he himself was laid in irons; until the time that his word came to pass, the word of the LORD tested him.
The  king sent and released him, the ruler of peoples, and set him free.
He made him lord of his house and ruler over all his possessions, to imprison his princes at will, that he might teach his elders wisdom. Israel also came into Egypt; thus Jacob  sojourned in the land of Ham.

And He caused His people to be very fruitful, and made them stronger than their adversaries.
He turned their heart to hate His people, to deal craftily with His servants.
He sent Moses His servant, and Aaron, whom He had chosen.
They performed His wondrous acts among them, and miracles in the land of Ham.
He sent darkness and made it dark; and they did not rebel against His words.
He turned their waters into blood and caused their fish to die.
Their land swarmed with frogs even in the chambers of their kings.
He spoke, and there came a swarm of flies and gnats in all their territory.
He gave them hail for rain, and flaming fire in their land.
He struck down their vines also and their fig trees, and shattered the trees of their territory.
He spoke, and locusts came, and young locusts, even without number, and ate up all vegetation in their land, and ate up the fruit of their ground.
He also struck down all the firstborn in their land, the first fruits of all their vigor.
Then He brought them out with silver and gold, and among His tribes there was not one who stumbled. Egypt was glad when they departed, for the dread of them had fallen upon them.
He spread a cloud for a covering, and fire to illumine by night.
They asked, and He brought quail, and satisfied them with the bread of heaven.
He opened the rock and water flowed out; it ran in the dry places like a river.
For He remembered His holy word with Abraham His servant; and He brought forth His people with joy, His chosen ones with a joyful shout.
He gave them also the lands of the nations, that they might take possession of the fruit of the peoples' labor, so that they might keep His statutes and observe His laws, Praise the LORD!

 Amen.  And thus ends this reading of God’s holy and inspired word.  May He add His blessing to it.  Let’s pray. 

Our Lord and our God, we bow before You this day, and we thank You for this word.  Stir up our hearts to thankfulness, even in the contemplation of this, Your truth.  Speak to us of eternal things, things of Christ, and as we are united in Him by faith, enable us to hope for the city which has foundations, whose architect and builder is god.  These things we ask in Jesus’ name, Amen. 

You may have noticed as we read through that Psalm, that the first 15 verses David chose to be part of the words that he spoke during his enthronement ceremony, we’re told in the Chronicles.  David went to these words, and we’ll see why he went to these words in a few moments, but one of the things that stand out is the repetition of matters for praise: the repetition of matters for thanksgiving, reasons why we ought to give thanks, which are heaped up by the Psalmist in this great Psalm.

      I’d like to consider those things with you today, in fact, I think you’ll see eight distinct sections in this psalm which provide for us matters of praise.  If you’ll look at verses 1-7, you’ll see general directions for praise.  Then, the specific reasons why we ought to praise God, the things for which our  thanksgiving is anchored, are successively listed for us in the sections that follow.  In verses 8-11, we see thanksgiving for God’s covenant.  In verses 12-15, we see thanksgiving for God’s watch care over His people. In verses 16-22, thanksgiving for God’s revealed design in providence.  In verses 23-25, appreciation for even God’s dark providences.  In verses 26-36, thanksgiving for God’s judgment against the wicked.  In verses 37-45, thanksgiving again for God bringing Israel out of Egypt because of His covenant. And then, finally, in verses 44-45, thanksgiving for this blessed hope, for the conquest that God has given to His people, and for the purposes of our redemption.  And I’d like to walk through these with you today, because I think there’s a lot to help us as we stir up our own hearts to praise. 

I. A call to praise God with the whole of our being.
      First, look at verses 1-7.  Here we see a call to praise God with the whole of our being.  The Psalmist gives us nine imperatives in just five verses, and if you look at those imperatives that he heaps up in those first five verses, they constitute a call for us to praise God with the whole of our being, to praise Him with the whole of our memory, with the whole of our hearts.  He’s calling for whole-soul praise of God, and we learn here that we ought to praise God for who He is, for what He has done, and for who He has made us to be.  Look at verses 1-5, and there are nine directions.  Give thanks to the Lord, call on His name, make known His deeds among the peoples, sing to Him, speak of His wonders, glory in His holy name, let the heart of those who seek Him be glad, seek the Lord and His strength, and remember His wonders.  Over and over, the Psalmist piles up these directions for praise, and each of those individual directions has hidden within them specific clues for how to stir up our hearts to thanksgiving.

      For instance, isn’t it interesting, that in verse 5 he calls us to remember what God has done. It’s so easy to forget what God has done, isn’t it? Especially when we are in times of hardship. It’s as if all the things that God has done for us have evaporated, and all that we can remember is what we are surrounded with, and we seem to be surrounded in desolation. And so, it is doubly important for the saint, when he is in that particular place of desolation to remember what the Lord has done and to seek in remembrance of what the Lord has done, an oasis in the middle of an experiential desert. And so the Psalmist gives us clues as to how we can stir up our hearts.

      But notice also in verse 6 that he reminds you of who you are. Having given you those divine directions on how you ought to praise Him, he reminds you who you are. “O seed of Abraham, His servant, O sons of Jacob, His chosen ones…”—that’s who you are. He’s reminding you that, by faith, you are the children of Abraham. You are the seed of His choice; you are His people. He has chosen you for His inheritance. And isn’t that, in and of itself, a matter of thanksgiving, despite who we are,  despite our sinfulness, as we’ve already prayed this morning, that He has chosen us to be His people. And so, the Psalmist reminds us of who we are, even as we prepare to praise.

      And then two very important little phrases in verse 7. Notice what we are told here. What is it that the sons of Abraham, the sons of Jacob, lift up to the Lord in thanksgiving here? He is the Lord our God. Do you remember what God had spoken to Israel at Sinai? Before He ever gave them the Ten Commandments, He said a preparatory word. He said a word of introduction before the commandments were given. And what was that word? “I am the Lord your God.” Do you see that the first phrase of verse 7 is the people of God’s response to what God has said to them? He said to them, “I am the Lord your God.” They say back to Him, “Yes, indeed, you are the Lord our God,” or, as it is put here, “He is the Lord our God.” So God speaks declaring who He is and His people echo back to Him. “Yes, Lord, that is precisely who You are. You are the Lord our God who brought us out of the land of Egypt and out of the house of bondage.”

      Notice, my friends, and it’s made clear even in this passage where the imperatives of praise are being given, that God never calls on us to praise Him without reason. We always praise God with reason. That’s very important. It is not uncommon today to have songs of praise to God wherein there is never mentioned the reason for why we praise God. That is a very unbiblical pattern. God never asks us to praise Him without asking us to contemplate the reasons we ought to praise Him. And if we ever disjoint the praise of God from the basis of the praise of God, we will find our thankful heart evaporating because we are all too quick to forget the reasons why we ought to praise God. So, even here, as God calls us to praise, He reminds us of all the reasons why we ought to praise Him.

      Notice one more thing. In the second half of verse 7, the Psalmist goes on to say, “His judgments are in all the earth.” Friends, this is a declaration of God’s universal sovereignty. This is a declaration that God’s supreme court rules over all of heaven and earth. I suspect that if I were to take a poll, there would be many in this sanctuary today, who are glad that the Florida Supreme Court judgments are not in all the earth. But the Psalmist is declaring that God’s judgments are in all the earth. In other words, there is no place in the world where His judgments are not binding, final, authoritative and valid. God’s judgments are in all the earth; He is the Sovereign. And for that reason, as well as the fact that He is our covenant God, and that we are His covenant people, we ought to praise God. The Psalmist doesn’t finish there; that’s just his preface. He wants to take us back through the history of Israel and run it up to that point in time in order to remind us of the specific reasons that we ought to praise God. And I think there are some things in here that might be of great encouragement for you to contemplate. Let’s walk through them briefly this morning. 

II. Thanksgiving for God’s covenant.
      First of all, if you look at verses 8-11, you’ll see that Thanksgiving is anchored in God’s binding commitment to us, and in the inheritance He has promised to us. We ought to praise God because of the certainty of His covenant promises, and because of His inheritance. Notice again, in verse 8, “He remembered His covenant. He has remembered His covenant forever the word which He commanded to a thousand generations.” We need to remember that He remembered. We need to remember if we’re going to have thankful hearts, we need to remember that He remembered and that He remembers. Again, when we are in times of hardship, it is easy to think that the Lord has forgotten us. The children of Israel cried out at the end of Exodus 2, and we’re told that God remembered the covenant that he had made with Abraham. We are being reminded here again of that in the Psalm. “He has remembered His covenant, the word that He made to Abraham.” The promise He made to Abraham. And it is so important for us, as well, to remember that the New Testament makes it amply clear that this promise to Abraham is a promise to us. What is the point of the Book of Galatians, but to make it clear that we as those who have faith in Christ Jesus, are heirs of the promise that God has made to Abraham. Yes, this is the story of Israel, but as believers, this is our story. We are all part of these covenant promises, and we ought to praise God because of the certainty of those promises; just as God was certain and sure and faithful of the fulfilling of His promises to His people in the Old Testament, so also He is faithful in fulfilling His promise to us.

      And here, if you look at verse 11, you also see a mention of that land of Canaan, which God has promised in His covenant with Abraham. And this promise of Canaan points to the city that has foundations. And, of course, it points ultimately to fellowship with God Himself. Just as He has chosen us for His inheritance, so also, Paul says in Romans, chapter 4, that He has given us the world as our inheritance; and, of course, beyond that, He has given Himself to us as our inheritance.

      And so, why ought we to be thankful? We ought to be thankful because of the certainty of God’s covenant promise and because of the inheritance that He has in store for us. That’s fuel for praise; that stirs us up to praise. 

III. Thanksgiving for God’s watch-care over His people.
      But, he is not finished; he goes on to verse 12-15. And there he reminds us that thanksgiving is anchored in a realization of God’s sheltering watch care. He reminds us a little bit of the history of the patriarchs. They wandered about, a very small band. They could have easily been taken advantage of, conquered, destroyed, or wiped out. Yet God reminds us that even though they were few and strangers in the lands in which they dwelt, His sheltering watch-care protected them. And also, so we ought to praise God for His gospel protection, for His special providence over us. Though the patriarchs might not have always realized it, God was watching over them to keep them. And though, we might not always realize it, God is watching over us to keep us.

      This realization may be the thing that motivated David to use this Psalm. Think of David. He knew what it was to be forgotten by everybody else. He knew what it was to dwell in the wilderness. He had been given the promise of God to be the King of Israel, and yet, he had dwelled as an exile, as a fugitive, as an enemy of the state in the deserts for so many years. And suddenly, here he is on his way into Jerusalem to be enthroned. And his mind immediately goes to Psalm 105. I wonder if it is this very truth—that God protected the patriarchs in the wandering years in the wilderness—that motivated David to lift this psalm up to God as a psalm of praise in his own circumstances. Because so often in David’s own expressions of his experience, for example, he had refused to take the initiative in crowning himself king, but had waited for God to provide what He had promised to him. Now God, in His promises provided it, and David goes back and remembers God’s providences over him. My friends, are you mindful of God’s providential protection of you?

      Do you realize that God is sheltering you day by day? Do you realize that when you get to glory, there will be a thousand, thousand incidents that you have never known about that will be revealed to you in which you will see how God has protected you. Are you mindful of that? We see that in His providences amongst His saints in time’s past. Do we realize that it is just as true for us today? Do we lift up our hearts in thanksgiving? Or, do we only see those things wherein we think, “What’s going wrong here? Where was God when I needed Him?” God, in His gospel protection, has a special providence over us.     

IV. Thanksgiving for God’s revealed design in providence.
      Then in verses 16-22, notice here that thanksgiving is anchored in a contemplation of God’s revealed providential designs. This is the story of how God came to bring about a famine in the land of Canaan to bring the children of Israel down into Egypt to prepare the way for them through Joseph. And we ought to thank God for His providential designs. We don’t always know what God is doing in our lives, and so it is very important for us to reflect upon it when God’s providence is revealed to us. And one of the places where God’s providence is revealed to us is in His word. Sometimes we don’t know what God is doing in our lives; we don’t know why God is doing what He is doing in our lives. We may have a general conception, but we don’t have any idea of the specific purposes for which He is doing something in our lives and in those times it’s very important to go back and to reflect upon His providence where it is revealed. Here the psalmist is reminding you precisely why God did what He did in Egypt. In this instance God’s wisdom is revealed by preparing the way for His people through Joseph. And so the psalmist is actually providing a reason to praise God. “God, you had good reason to do what You did in taking the children of Israel down in Egypt, and preparing the way through that godly, but unrighteously-accused man, Joseph.” You had good reason for doing what you did; you are a wise and good and loving and caring God.

       Over and over, in both Old and New Testaments, the sovereignty of God, the providence of God, is coupled with God’s care, concern, and compassion for His people. Because we are tempted to think that God’s providence is an unfeeling fate, especially when we are experiencing inexplicable tragedy. And so, over and over God reminds us that His providence for His people is an expression of His compassion. That is what He does right here. His wisdom and His compassion are revealed in His providence. But it gets tougher, friends, you turn further on to verses 23-25, and you see that thanksgiving is anchored in an appreciation of God’s revealed providential designs even when they are hard. Here I want you to not three things. 

V. Thanksgiving for God’s dark providences.
      Look at these verses in 23-25. The psalmist is teaching us that we ought to give thanks, we ought to praise God for His providential designs even when they involve hardship and pain for ourselves. Look at three things that you see here. First, it is explicitly said, with apology, that it was God’s plan for Israel to be in Egypt. And that means that it was God’s plan for Israel to be oppressed. In fact, the Psalmist gets even more explicit than that. The first thing he says is that it is God’s plan for Israel to be in Egypt. But notice also that we are told in verse 24 that He caused Egypt to hate Israel. And then we’re told again that He caused Egypt to deal deceitfully with Israel. Now, let me just remind you that John Calvin didn’t write that phrase. That’s the Bible. God caused that hardship. And I don’t know what hardship you’re facing right now. It’s tempting, isn’t it, to alleviate our angst over a situation by pushing God out of that situation. “God, You had nothing to do with that.” And the Psalmist doesn’t take that route with the oppression of Israel and Egypt. He says, “No, Lord, You caused Egypt to hate Your people. You caused Egypt to deal deceitfully with Your people. You caused Egypt to oppress Your people. No apology; You did it.” And he tells us that because he wants us to understand that God has wise purposes even in those dark providences. And I don’t know what the dark providences are that you’re dealing with in this year. Some of you I know, but most of us hide these things from one another. But I know this: even those things are matters of praise. How else could a broken- hearted Job have fallen on his face and said, “The Lord gave. The Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.” Even His hard providences are a matter for praise. 

VI. Thanksgiving for God’s judgment of the wicked.
      And then in verse 26-36, we see thanksgiving being anchored in our contemplation of God’s righteous judgments revealed, in this case, revealed in the plagues of Egypt. And we ought to praise God for His just judgments against His enemies and ours. The plagues of Egypt were signs and wonders that revealed God’s power, His righteousness, and His sovereignty, and served as warnings against wickedness. Here the psalmist praises God for these—for His judgments, for His wrath visited against the wicked. And Christ too, in His redeeming work, has torn down the strongholds of Satan and performed the redemptive work of destruction on our behalf, and we ought to praise God for that. To praise Him that He has vanquished powers and principalities, that He has made a public mockery of all in the spiritual world which was arrayed against Him; and He has done it as part of our redemption. And we are a part of that story too, if you understand the Book of Ephesians.

VII. Thanksgiving for His covenant faithfulness.
      But he’s not done. In verses 37-43, he tells us that thanksgiving is anchored in a contemplation of God’s work of redemption by the covenant. If you look at verses 37-43, he’s reminding us that we ought to praise God for the deliverance that He has accomplished for us. He tells us that that deliverance started with His covenant love. He set His covenant love on us. He tells us that that deliverance was accomplished because God remembered His covenant with Abraham. And ultimately, my friends, that deliverance was accomplished for the sake of the covenant, for the sake of our communion with God forever. And so, it began with His covenant love; it continued as He remembered His covenant promise; it was accomplished through the shed blood of the Passover lamb; the blood of the covenant literally brought Israel out of Egypt, and that reminds us that our redemption is in Christ who is the Passover Lamb; and that redemption is one which leads us into an enjoyment of the fellowship of God forever. We ought to praise God for the deliverance He has accomplished for us in Christ. 

VIII. Thanksgiving for His promise of redemption.
      And then the Psalmist concludes in verses 44 and 45, praising God for the conquest that He has accomplished for us, and reminding ourselves of what we were made for. Our hope is in the land which God has given to us as our possession; the place prepared for us by Christ. There’s a reason why He said to His disciples, “I go to prepare a place for you.” There’s our hope. There’s the land of conquest that God has given to all His people.

      And in verse 45, he concludes with these words. “So that they might keep His statutes and observe His laws, He gave us the conquest that we might be what He made us for.” That is, those who glorify Him in their obedience. All the blessings are heaped on us so that we might be what He made us to be—a kingdom of priests, a holy nation, a nation that does the will of the Lord. And do you see again that same thing that we saw during the prayer conference in John 17? The linkage between sonship and inheritance, and service and obedience, wherein we are given all the blessings of God in order to be what He originally made us to be and what He re-created us to be in redemption--those who glorify Him and enjoy Him forever. We have plenty of reasons to be thankful today, and the Psalmist has just reminded us of them again. Let’s pray. 

      Our Lord and our God, we are not as thankful a people as we ought to be, and perhaps it is because we have not reflected upon who You are and what You’ve done, and what You hold in store. So, we ask that, by Your Spirit, you would sanctify our hearts to glory in You, to be grateful for You and for Your grace, and so become a thankful people. Hear our prayers then, bless our land, forgive our sins, all for Christ’s sake. Amen.