The Psalms were sung on board of the ship when the Pilgrims set sail in the Mayflower. The Bay Psalm Book was the third book printed in America. Until the end of the eighteenth century the Psalms were exclusively sung in churches. It was Psalm 127 that Benjamin Franklin quoted in 1787 as he moved in his request for prayer because of the difficult work in framing the United States Constitution. And if you could have one book, many would say: The one book would be the Psalms.
Join with me in a celebration of God’s Love.
Oh give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever! 2 Let the redeemed of the Lord say so, whom he has redeemed from trouble 3 and gathered in from the lands, from the east and from the west, from the north and from the south. 4 Some wandered in desert wastes, finding no way to a city to dwell in; 5 hungry and thirsty, their soul fainted within them. 6 Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress. 7 He led them by a straight way till they reached a city to dwell in. 8 Let them thank the Lord for his steadfast love, for his wondrous works to the children of man! 9 For he satisfies the longing soul, and the hungry soul he fills with good things. 10 Some sat in darkness and in the shadow of death, prisoners in affliction and in irons, 11 for they had rebelled against the words of God, and spurned the counsel of the Most High. 12 So he bowed their hearts down with hard labor; they fell down, with none to help. 13 Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress. 14 He brought them out of darkness and the shadow of death, and burst their bonds apart. 15 Let them thank the Lord for his steadfast love, for his wondrous works to the children of man! 16 For he shatters the doors of bronze and cuts in two the bars of iron. 17 Some were fools through their sinful ways, and because of their iniquities suffered affliction; 18 they loathed any kind of food, and they drew near to the gates of death. 19 Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress. 20 He sent out his word and healed them, and delivered them from their destruction. 21 Let them thank the Lord for his steadfast love, for his wondrous works to the children of man! 22 And let them offer sacrifices of thanksgiving, and tell of his deeds in songs of joy! 23 Some went down to the sea in ships, doing business on the great waters; 24 they saw the deeds of the Lord, his wondrous works in the deep. 25 For he commanded and raised the stormy wind, which lifted up the waves of the sea. 26 They mounted up to heaven; they went down to the depths; their courage melted away in their evil plight; 27 they reeled and staggered like drunken men and were at their wits’ end. 28 Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress. 29 He made the storm be still, and the waves of the sea were hushed. 30 Then they were glad that the waters were quiet, and he brought them to their desired haven. 31 Let them thank the Lord for his steadfast love, for his wondrous works to the children of man! 32 Let them extol him in the congregation of the people, and praise him in the assembly of the elders. 33 He turns rivers into a desert, springs of water into thirsty ground, 34 a fruitful land into a salty waste, because of the evil of its inhabitants. 35 He turns a desert into pools of water, a parched land into springs of water. 36 And there he lets the hungry dwell, and they establish a city to live in; 37 they sow fields and plant vineyards and get a fruitful yield. 38 By his blessing they multiply greatly, and he does not let their livestock diminish. 39 When they are diminished and brought low through oppression, evil, and sorrow, 40 he pours contempt on princes and makes them wander in trackless wastes; 41 but he raises up the needy out of affliction and makes their families like flocks. 42 The upright see it and are glad, and all wickedness shuts its mouth. 43 Whoever is wise, let him attend to these things; let them consider the steadfast love of the Lord” (Psalm 107:1–43).
1. Why Do We Assume God is Loving? There is not much consensus in regard to Americans view of God in our day. If a hobo hopped on the back of a train that crossed the north end of our parking lot, and he stopped throughout our nation asking one question, “What is God Like?” he wouldn’t find a great deal of consensus. If the hobo were to ask if people believed in the wrath of God or the holiness of God, he would not have many takers. We live in an age where movies such as Contact starring Jodie Foster have presented us an unexplained intelligence that is wise, loving, and gentle with humans. Yet, much of this movie’s message about God is largely undefined as the higher being is an unexplained intelligence is shrouded in mystery. Still, if there is one thing about God that the hobo would discover that nearly everyone agrees on, it is this: GOD IS A GOD OF LOVE. Our hobo friend would find that people all over the United States would define God as one of love who supports you no matter how we live. If people believe in God at all today, the overwhelming majority holds that this God – however he, she, or it may be understood – is a loving being. In fact, Father Andrew Greely, author and sociologist, has reported that when surveyed 75% of Americans prefer to think of God as a friend rather than a King.
Today’s text, Psalm 107, starts where everyone agrees – the Great Love of God. Psalm 107 is relevant because it begins with what so many of us in our day are saying about God – God is a God of Love. Yet, for all of Psalm 107’s relevance to the contemporary age, it says something surprising. Look down at verse 43: “Whoever is wise, let him attend to these things; let them consider the steadfast love of the Lord” (Psalm 107:43). Here we are told not to experience the Love of God but rather consider the Love of God. The word “consider” means to be “puzzled” or “to stare at” or still, “to ponder.” The word “consider” really calls us to figure out the love of God. We are to pause and ponder the richness of the love of God. Now, this is the precise reason why verse forty-three is so surprising. In our day, people don’t have to figure out the love of God, they simply believe God’s love is there to be experienced. It’s like breathing. A person doesn’t have to stop and ponder how to breath. You just breath. Likewise, we believe you don’t have to “consider” God’s Love. God’s love is just simply there for us to be experienced.
Why Do We Assume God is Loving?
Perhaps someone thinks we get this idea about God’s love from the beauty of the world. In the Pulitzer Prize winning Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, Annie Dillard stays put in her cabin by the banks of Tinker Creek in the Blue Ridge Mountains of southwest Virginia, and lets the natural world come to her. She looked at the beautiful world where so many assume they see God’s love as readily evident as one would automatically know how to breath upon entering the world. Yet, she observed something far different from what many of us in our culture see. Although she originally intended to observe the ways of nature and conform her life to it, Annie Dillard saw something far different. This baby boomer hoped to become in tune with nature when she was younger (she was 27 at the time of writing). Yet, in her watching she saw nothing but “violence, absurdity, and waste.” She saw a female preying mantis mating with a male preying mantis all the while she was eating the head off her masculine mate. She was particularly shaken when a giant water bug latched itself onto a frog, injected it with a venom that literally turned the inside of the frog into mush, and then suck it out. She watched the frog’s eyes go dim and the skull collapse as the frog’s brain turned to broth. She said the frog deflated much like “a kicked tent.” And Annie Dillard never got over this time of observing nature in the hills near Roanoke, VA. She concluded that if you look over nature you may discern a powerful Creator and Ruler of the universe but you will not discern a loving God.
If you automatically assume that God’s nature is loving and the idea of a God who judges and sends people to hell offends you, please know you are simply a product of the American culture. Why aren’t you offended by the idea of a forgiving God? It’s because of your location in the world that you are offended by God’s wrath and not God’s love. In other societies, Jesus’ teaching about “turning the other cheek” makes no sense to them. It offends people’s deepest instincts about what is right. For them, a God of wrath and judgment is no problem at all. Yet, this society is repulsed by aspects of the Christian God where Americans both greatly enjoy, while they are attracted by aspects of God’s character that we cannot stand.
My asking this question is my attempt to aim you in a particular direction: You and I don’t have the right to redefine God as we please. Not only do you not have the right not to redefine God as you wish, you’ll not be satisfied with your results. When we do refine God, we fabricate a cartoon character of a god. When we do throw parts of the Bible out that we don’t like, then our Bibles lack authenticity as do the gods we fashion. Such a god is one-dimensional and he or she or it is shallow. Think of a one-dimensional character such as Rambo offering us his monosyllabic sentences or grunts. Such a deity would exist in superficiality. Such a god would be boring, flat, and lifeless. This god lacks the complexity and depth to hurt with us and rescue us as the God of Psalm 107. In the end, recognize what defining God as a friend only means.
We prefer to think of God only as love because we purge anything about God that we find uncomfortable. Our God has been sanitized and democratized. And we are left with God who is incapable of helping us in our time of need.
2. God’s Love is a Loyal Love
Despite our culture’s assumption that God must be loving if He is anything and not because of our culture’s wishes, we discover that the Bible does define God as love. Yet, God’s love is no ordinary kind of love – His love is a loyal love: “Oh give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever” (Psalm 107:1)! Still, there is a wonderful, biblical truth to proclaim this morning: “Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love” (1 John 4:8). “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16).
This Psalm is as rich as it is wide reaching. The words of Psalm 107 embrace travelers in the desert who have lost their way… sick people… prisoners… and even sailors at sear are also among those pictured here. The 278 words of Psalm 107 give of four different spectacular cases. At the heart of the Psalm are these four scenes. These four accounts of human experience deal with the realities of life in all of its fullness. People from all over the world were gathered together from north, east, south, and west – verse three. Look at the four places with me: “in desert wastes” (verses 4-9), “in darkness and shadow of death” (verses 10-16),“near the gates of death” (verses 17-22) and “went down to the sea in ships” (verses 23-32). This whole text is carefully structured in terms of words of hope and redemption and distress and gloom. The Psalm traces the “up’s and down’s” of life.
Yet, Psalm 107 is not simply the story of the high’s and low’s of life. This is not just the story of the trouble we all experience. Instead, it’s the story of God’s strong compassion to rescue His children from the tragedy. This Psalm continues to refrain “he delivered them from their distress” (verse 6, 13, 19, and 28). This text screams with the message that God Delivers.
There are twelve acts of Yahweh mentioned in verses 33-41:
1. He turns rivers into a desert;
2. He turns springs of water into parched ground;
3. He turns fruitful land into salt-marshes;
4. He turns the desert into standing pools;
5. He turns arid land into springs of water;
6. He lets the hungry dwell there;
7. He blesses them so that their numbers grow;
8. He does not let their herds decrease;
9. He brings princes into contempt;
10. He makes them wander in a trackless waste;
11. but the poor He lifts clear of their affliction;
12. Lastly, He turns their families into flocks.
It is these twelve great deeds of Yahweh that make the upright glad and it reduces evildoers to silence. Let’s examine these four centers of distress that God (Yahweh) saves His people from.
The Desert
Not all deserts are made of sand. For some, this desert is loneliness. Others are lost in a cycle of routine futility. Still others have been lost in a desert of affluence, which turns out to be a drier and thirstier land than they ever expected.
The Prison
The drug addict would give anything to be set free from the chains of his habit, but it has booked him. In sober moments, the alcoholic hates himself for the hell that he creates in his own home, but his bottle is like a chain. There are prisoners of addiction – gambling, drugs, and alcohol. There are not many among us who can speak of being delivered from prison literally – though there are some – but all who are followers of Christ can speak of being delivered from the prison house of sin. This prison is what Jesus seems to have had in mind in the synagogue at Nazareth when He spoke of having come “to proclaim freedom for the prisoners” in Luke 4:18. Jesus did not free anyone from a literal prison, as far as we know, but he had freed everyone who has ever believed on him from sin’s shackles. We have been slaves to sin, but by his atoning death we have been forever liberated.
The Hospital
The Lord moves into the places where we often feel He has deserted us. The time when our physical bodies are completely weak and we feel He is nowhere to be found.
The Storm
Sailors soon realize their small stature against the vastness of the open sea. There is no land in sight and no one to rescue them when peril closes in.
A Scottish missionary to India, Alexander Duff, barely escaped with this life on his first voyage to India, when his ship sunk off the coast of South Africa. His library of 800 books was lost, excepting his Bible and Scottish psalm book, which washed up on the shore. When a sailor brought it to him, Dr. Duff knelt in the sand with the other passengers and read the 107th Psalm: “He made the storm be still, and the waves of the sea were hushed.?30 Then they were glad that the waters were quiet, and he brought them to their desired haven” (Psalm 107:29-30)
3. To Experience God’s Love is a Supernatural Experience
“and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us” (Romans 5:3).
Whatever else we say about this experience, let this be said: it is not decisively the work of man, but the work of God. It is supernatural. It is not finally in our power. It is not the product of mere circumstances. It is not owing to a good family of origin. It is owing to the Holy Spirit. You don’t make it happen. The Holy Spirit makes it happen. It’s God’s work. There is something deeply wrong when we have become so psychologized that we think a person with a traumatic, abusive background cannot know the love of God experientially. We give the impression that knowing the love of God is really a matter of good upbringing. But when we take this so far that we obscure the main and glorious truth that knowing the love of God experientially is the sovereign, supernatural work of the Holy Spirit, we have taken it too far.
To balance things out, consider this: is it not also likely that many healthy, well-adjusted, productive adults from self-assured families mistake their own natural sense of well-being for the love of God? And they are therefore worse off spiritually than the broken person who, beyond all expectation, has tasted the love of God by the power of the Holy Spirit?
