Deliverance Series

INTRODUCTION

• SLIDE #1

• What do you tend to do when things in life get difficult? Where do you run, to whom or what do you turn?

• One lesson I have learned in life is who I need to turn to when I need deliverance and who to thank!

• We are entering the Thanksgiving holiday season.

• Today we will begin a new three-week series entitled Dependent-Psalms of Thanksgiving!

• This three-week series covers three different psalms expressing thankfulness, gratitude, and a heart positioned toward God and his faithful actions toward his people.

• A thankful heart is always a dependent heart. How do we continue to thank God amid dry seasons?

• The authorship and exact dating of Psalm 107 are unknown; however, given the circumstances of this Psalm, it appears that it was written around the time the Jews were released from Babylonian captivity in 537 BC.

• This Psalm is a Psalm of thanksgiving for toward God for His deliverance of the people from exile.

• God used Babylon to punish the nation for their deliberate disobedience towards Him.

• Life was not easy during this time for the nation, nor was it supposed to be, yet even in the midst of punishment, God had His hand on the nation was planned on delivering them when the time was right.

• The key idea in this passage is that God is willing to restore those who call on him, even through a variety of circumstances—wandering, self-inflicted pain, or rebellion in this case.

• There is a relational aspect: God continues to help his people only after they have acknowledged their circumstance and called upon his name; we have a God who expects us to call on him and ask for help.

• There is no room for pride or "self-help." His faithfulness and loyalty to his people are displayed in three different situations within this portion of the passage, which we will examine together today.

• Even though there are times when the Lord allows us to suffer the consequences of our own sins (for example, David’s sin with Bathsheba), we can find comfort in knowing that his mercy still can extend to the depths of our issues.

• The big idea for the message today is simple, God’s mercy is cause for thanksgiving; when we cry out to him, he can restore us, even when our troubles are the result of our own sin.

• Let begin by reading Psalm 107:1-3

• SLIDE #2

• Psalm 107:1–3 (CSB) — 1 Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; his faithful love endures forever. 2 Let the redeemed of the LORD proclaim that he has redeemed them from the power of the foe 3 and has gathered them from the lands— from the east and the west, from the north and the south.

• SLIDE #3

SERMON

I. We need to depend on God for deliverance from our foes.

• The nation of Israel had been in captivity for about 70 years, the Prophet Jeremiah warned the nation before their captivity started in 605 that they would be in captivity to the Babylonians because of their disobedience to God.

• I love verse 1. Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; his faithful love endures forever.

• This is coming from people who were under the bond to their foes for 70 years.

• It would have been easy for them to be angry because of the fact that God allowed them to be carted off to Babylon.

• When we are under the hand of our foes, we cannot lose heart, and we cannot lose faith in God's ability to deliver us from the hand of our enemy.

• The people whom God has saved are to thank Him because He rescued them from their enemies—literally, “the hand of the enemy” (verse 2b).

• The Hebrew word can be taken to mean trouble. So sometimes our foes or enemies are not just people, but circumstances. In this context, it speaks of the nation of Babylon.

• The phrase used in verse two that he has redeemed them from the power of the foe can mean that God can redeem (DELIVER) us from foes or circumstances.

• The nation needed God to deliver them, just as he delivered them from Egypt under Moses.

• Verse 3 says and has gathered them from the lands— from the east and the west, from the north and the south

• The exiles have been “redeemed” from the hand of the foe (v. 2b), the Babylonians. But their return could have come from all parts of the earth.

• The Israelites were scattered by the Assyrians (c. 722 B.C.) as well as the Babylonians (c. 597–586 B.C.).