Latest / Reformed Thinking / Let the Redeemed of the Lord Say So (Psalm 107) | Charles Spurgeon

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Let the Redeemed of the Lord Say So (Psalm 107) | Charles Spurgeon · Reformed Thinking

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Welcome to Reform Thinking, Today's Monday 2026 O three O 9
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and we have a really rigorous deep dive into the source
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material prepared for you today. We really do.
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Yeah, our mission today is to analyze Psalm One O 7, but we
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are not going to look at it in isolation.
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We're not treating it like just some ancient poem disconnected
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from, you know, intense theological scrutiny.
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We are examining this text through the analytical lens of
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Charles Spurgeon. Massive, I mean truly massive,
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multi volume work. The Treasury of David, along
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with the vast array of historical commentators quoted
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within its pages. Quite a collection.
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It really is. So if you are someone who loves
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gaining knowledge thoroughly and you want a rigorous look at how
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this ancient text maps the human condition alongside the absolute
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sovereignty of God, you are in the perfect place.
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We're calling you the learner today.
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I. Like that?
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So we are going to examine a Song of Thanksgiving.
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Our sources divide this text into a prelude, followed by 4
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vivid, distinct pictures of human distress and divine
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rescue. Specifically, we'll look at
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Wanderers in a desert, prisoners in a dungeon, the sick of
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death's door, and Mariners in a terrifying storm, and then
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concluding analysis of divine Providence.
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Yeah, and it is a phenomenal text to investigate.
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We really must establish our theological perspective right
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from the opening bell, though. When we look at this text,
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especially through the eyes of Spurgeon and the Puritan
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commentators he gathers, we are analyzing it from a distinctly
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Reformed viewpoint. This is not a text about human
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free will managing to rescue itself from a tight spot.
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It just isn't. It is a text about the sovereign
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God stepping into human situations of total inability
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and dispensing grace. The Westminster Confessions
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principles regarding the total depravity of man and the
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unconditional grace of God are visible in every single stanza
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here. We are talking about humanity in
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a state where it cannot save itself and a God who does all
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the saving. He initiates, he sustains and he
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completes the rescue. OK, let's unpack this right from
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the beginning. Section 1 covers the first 3
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verses, the call to praise and the gathered redeemed.
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The opening command is so familiar to anyone who grew up
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around the church. Oh, give thanks unto the Lord,
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for He is good. Right.
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Sounds simple. It sounds like a basic call to
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worship. But then we read the commentary
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from William Romaine, an 18th century evangelical stalwart,
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and he points out that God's mercy is eternal.
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He says it was established before the foundation of the
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world and the covenant of grace. Because man is sinful, God's
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goodness must manifest as mercy to save us.
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It is not just a general benevolence.
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It is targeted, saving mercy. Before we move into the
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specifics, how should we conceptualize this covenant of
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grace that Romaine brings up? That is a crucial distinction to
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make immediately. Romayne argues that God's mercy
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had no beginning and shall never know an end.
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Our sin required that goodness should display itself to us in
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the form of mercy. In the Reformed understanding,
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God is essentially, perpetually and superlatively good, but for
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a fallen, completely depraved human race, that goodness would
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mean strict justice, which would mean our utter destruction
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unless that goodness was funneled through the covenant of
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grace. This covenant was made between
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the Persons of the Trinity before time began, meaning God's
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mercy to His elect was planned before the 1st sin was ever
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committed in Eden. It is a free grace, completely
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unmerited by the recipients. God did not look down the
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corridor of time, see who would choose Him, and then decide to
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be merciful. The mercy is the cause of our
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choosing Him, not the result. That reframes the entire concept
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of gratitude. Doesn't.
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It it really does. You are not just thankful for a
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good day or a fortunate event, you are thankful for an eternal
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decree that secured your soul. And here is where it gets really
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interesting, especially regarding how we talk about this
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mercy. The very next verse says, let
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the redeemed of the Lord say so. Right, right.
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We use the word redeemed all the time in modern Christian
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circles. It gets plastered on coffee mugs
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and T-shirts, often losing its historical weight.
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But you look at the biblical concept of the kinsman Redeemer,
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which Romaine brings out so beautifully in his notes.
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In ancient Israelite law, the Redeemer, the goyal, was the
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nearest male relative. Yes, If you were sold into
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slavery because of debt, He paid the ransom.
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If you were murdered, He avenged your blood.
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Christ is presented as the ultimate kinsman who pays the
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price with his blood and conquers Satan.
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The substitutionary aspect of this cannot be overstated.
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Romaine outlines the three parts of this office to show how
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Christ perfectly fulfills the legal requirements of the Goel.
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First, we were brought into slavery by our own sin,
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accumulating a debt to God's justice that we could never
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repay in a million lifetimes. 2nd, we were effectively
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murdered by Satan, who introduced the spiritual death
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that corrupted our nature. Third, we lost our inheritance,
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communion with God, and the right to eternal life.
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The Most High God uniting divinity and humanity in one.
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Christ stepped into the role of our nearest kinsman by taking on
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human flesh. He paid the ransom to free us
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from the slavery of sin. He overcame death and Satan to
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avenge our ruin, and He restored our lost inheritance.
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Wow. This is not a potential
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redemption where He just makes salvation possible.
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It is an actual, accomplished redemption.
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His unaided arm wrought the deliverance.
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And because of that accomplished fact, there's a requirement of
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public testimony. John Trap, a brilliant English
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Puritan known for his incredibly punchy commentaries, makes the
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point that the redeemed have a duty to confess this truth, not
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just secretly, but social, Trap writes.
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The giving thanks is all the rent God requires of us.
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Think about that phrasing. He expects that since we have
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the comfort of his blessings, he should have the honor of them.
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The text demands that we say so. It is an outward vocal
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declaration. It makes me wonder, though, why
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is the vocalization so heavily stressed?
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Why isn't a silent internal gratitude sufficient?
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What's fascinating here is a communal nature of the Reformed
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faith. Internal gratitude is necessary,
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sure, but public deliberation is what builds the church and
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magnifies God's glory among the nations.
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When Trapp talks about it being the rent God requires, he is
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highlighting a principle of stewardship.
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OK, you do not own your salvation.
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You are a tenant of God's grace. Paying the rent means publicly
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acknowledging the landlord. If a captive is freed from a
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horrific dungeon, it would be unnatural for them to remain
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entirely silent about the one who broke the chains.
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The vocalization acts as a witness to the unredeemed and an
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encouragement to the fellow redeemed.
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Which logically connects to who specifically is doing the
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speaking. The text says God gathered them
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out of the lands from the east, West, north, and South.
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Or as the original text says, for the South, the sea.
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We must connect this to the doctrine of effectual calling.
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EW Henkstenberg, the German theologian, offers a fantastic
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insight here. He notes that the Son of God
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collects the nations from the four corners of the world.
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This is not a haphazard gathering or a general
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invitation that goes out into the void hoping someone
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responds. It is a divine, irresistible
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gathering of the elect into one flock.
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Hankston Berg's insight anchors us right back in the Westminster
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Confession. When the Holy Spirit applies the
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work of redemption to a specific individual, that call is
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effectual. It cannot fail.
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God actively collects His blood bought flock from the remotest
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regions of rebellion. Natural man is entirely deaf to
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the spiritual call of the gospel.
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You can shout it from the rooftops, but without the
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internal regenerating work of the Holy Spirit, the external
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call falls on deaf ears. Effectual calling means God
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grants the ears to hear and the new heart to respond.
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He gathers them from the east, West, North, and South, meaning
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geographical barriers, cultural differences, and varying degrees
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of personal sinfulness present 0 obstacles to God's sovereign
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gathering. So what does this all mean for
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us as we look at the first of the four pictures of distress?
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This brings us to the lost travelers in the desert.
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Covering verses 4 through 9, the text paints A bleak scene.
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They wander in a wilderness. There was burning sand, no
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track, no path to follow, and they find no city to dwell in.
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They are entirely lost. If you have ever been lost, even
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just in a large city without your phone, you know that rising
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panic. The multiply that by 1000 they
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are in a wasteland with no landmarks.
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To understand this spiritually, we turn to JC Philpott's
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analysis. Philpott identifies this
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wanderer as the awakened Sinner. Before God begins a work of
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grace in someone's heart. They are quite comfortable in
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the world. The path is broad, and they do
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not feel lost at all, right? They are entirely content with
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the mirages the desert offers. But when the Holy Spirit awakens
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a soul to its true state, it is driven out of its worldly
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comfort, much like Lot was driven out of Sodom.
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Yet at this early stage of conviction, the Sinner lacks the
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clear testimonies of heaven. They cannot find comfort in the
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world anymore, and they have not yet found the assurance of
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salvation in Christ. They are caught in a barren
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middle ground. Philpott points out that this is
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a solitary way, and that concept of isolation is absolutely
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terrifying. Solitude intensifies misery.
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If you are lost in a desert, the lack of human company, the lack
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of sympathy, accelerates your despair.
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We see this psychological weight analyzed by Timothy Rogers.
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He wrote extensively on melancholy in the Puritan era.
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He observes that afflicted people seek solitude because
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their disposition changes, society dismisses their pain,
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and, most crucially, they apprehend themselves as single
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out for God's peculiar displeasure.
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Timothy Rogers's insight is exceptionally sharp because he
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himself suffered from severe clinical depression.
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He understood from agonizing personal experience that when
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the human soul is under severe conviction or affliction, it
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feels entirely alone. The solitary way is the way of
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despair. The person feels that no one
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else has ever experienced their specific corruptions, their
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specific doubts, or the specific fiery darts of Satan aimed at
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them. They believe their guilt is
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unique, which drives them further into isolation.
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They withdraw from their friends because they feel like
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hypocrites, and they withdraw from the church because they
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feel like reprobates. The wilderness offers no food,
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no water, and no shelter from the burning sun of God's justice
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above or the barren sands of carnality below.
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That vivid picture makes the physical breakdown describe next
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completely logical. Verse 5 says hungry and thirsty,
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their soul fainted in them. The supply of food is eaten, the
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water bottles are empty. The awakened conscience is full
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of unsatisfied cravings. The soul tries to feed on his
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own, works its own resolutions to do better, but it is like
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trying to eat sand. Exactly.
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I mean, absolutely. And then here's where it gets
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really interesting. Verse 6 says, Then they cried
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unto the Lord in their trouble. They did not cry out when they
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first got lost. They did not cry out when they
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were just a little tired or mildly inconvenienced.
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They cried out when their souls fainted, when they were at the
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absolute end of themselves. The timing of that cry
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highlights human stubbornness and total inability.
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We will not turn to God until every other Ave. is exhausted.
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We are chronic self saviors. The commentator of Venema
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analyzes the Hebrew root of the word used for cry here.
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It is not a polite request whispered in a quiet sanctuary.
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The root denotes a crash like Thunder.
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It is a violent Tempest of emotion.
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It is a shriek of absolute desperation.
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It is the sound a soul makes when it realizes that if God
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does not step in at this precise second, destruction is
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absolutely certain. It is the death rattle of
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self-reliance. I love how Peter Smith frames
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this. He preached A sermon before the
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English House of Commons in 1644 which is just wild to think
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about preaching A sermon like this to a governing body.
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He laid out the sequence of the church's lot.
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He said that trouble is the believers trade of life.
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Just like a musicians trade is singing, the Christians trade is
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suffering and affliction. It is what drives us to that
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thunderous cry. And when they cry, God delivers
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them. He leads them forth by the right
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way to a city of habitation. William J breaks down with this
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city of habitation implies, and it is the perfect antidote to
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the solitary wilderness. Yes, William J details 3 aspects
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of this city. First, it implies repose.
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The wandering is over. There is rest for the exhausted
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conscience. The frantic search for self
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justification ends at the cross. Second, it is a social state.
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They are no longer walking a solitary way.
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They are fellow citizens with the Saints.
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The isolation of conviction is replaced by the communion of the
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Church. 3rd, It implies magnificence.
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It is not a temporary tent pitched in the sand.
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It is a permanent, glorious city built by God.
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From a Reformed perspective, this shows that God does not
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just rescue the Sinner and leave them in a neutral state.
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He translates them completely from the barrenness of nature
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into the abundant security of grace.
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He does the finding, He does the leading, and He provides the
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city. We have seen the sheer isolation
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of the open desert, but Spurgeon sources take us from that barren
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wilderness into something much be more claustrophobic.
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Let's look at the next image, the prisoner in the dark.
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This covers verses 10 through 16.
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The scene shifts dramatically. These souls are sitting in
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darkness, in the shadow of death, bound in affliction and
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iron. And unlike the Wanderers, where
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the cause of their wandering wasn't explicitly stated, here
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the text gives us the root cause of their bondage in verse 11
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because they rebelled against the words of God and condemned
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the counsel of the Most High. This verse is a textbook
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illustration of total depravity. The bondage is not accidental.
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It is not a stroke of bad luck. It is the direct result of
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willful hostility toward God. The text says they contemned,
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meaning they viewed with utter contempt the counsel of the Most
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High. Wow.
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This is the natural inclination of every human heart descended
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from Adam. We think we know better than the
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judge of all the earth. We view God's decrees not as
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wisdom to be followed, but as restrictions to be despised.
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The natural man looks at the moral law of God and sees a
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cage, not a protective boundary. As a result, God gives the
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rebellious over to their adversaries.
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The iron fetters of sin, habit and eventual judgement are the
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inevitable result of rejecting the authority of the Creator.
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The word contend is so strong it is not just ignorance, it is
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arrogant and the response from God is severe.
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Verse 12 says Therefore He brought down their heart with
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labor in eastern prisons. Historically men were made to
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labor like beasts of the field. They had no liberty and no rest.
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God actively humbles the proud. Yes, he does.
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Venema has another fascinating linguistic note here on the
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Hebrew root for the word weakening or bringing down.
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He says it describes a process of compressing the wings of a
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bird so it falls to the ground, or shriveling a man's fingers so
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he cannot work. But I have to ask.
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That imagery of compressing the wings feels incredibly severe
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for someone reading this. It might almost sound cruel.
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How did these Puritan commentators reconcile that
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severity with God's goodness? That is the precise tension the
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Puritans excelled at explaining. That imagery of compressing the
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wings is striking, but it is a severe mercy.
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The Sinner wants to soar in their pride, boasting of their
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autonomy and self-sufficiency. They're flying toward their own
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destruction, intoxicated by the altitude of their rebellion.
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God, in his goodness, compresses those wings.
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He allows the weight of their sin and the crushing reality of
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the law to ground them. He shrivels their ability to
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rely on their own works. If he let them keep flying, they
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would plunge into the abyss. The text states they fell down
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and there was none to help. John Yield points out the
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theological weight of that phrase.
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Let's hear it. It perfectly describes total
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inability. The Sinner is prostate.
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The entire created universe offers zero assistance.
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The Sinner cannot help themselves, and no other
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creature can save them. The humbling is the necessary
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prerequisite to the rescue. Which makes jail delivery so
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spectacular when they finally cry out in their trouble again.
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Only when their hearts are brought down and their hopes are
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completely dead, God saves them. He brings them out of darkness
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and breaks their bands in Thunder.
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He breaks the gates of brass and cuts the bars of iron.
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This is the doctrine of irresistible grace in action.
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I picture a dungeon with heavily fortified doors where the locks
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have rusted shut. Absolutely.
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The captive cannot break iron chains from the inside.
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The deliverance must come from the outside.
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The judge himself must execute the jail delivery.
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Sinners are doubly fettered in heart and hand.
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When God's grace invades that prison, it shatters the
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spiritual bondage permanently. As Spurgeon notes, the Lord does
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not leave the soul in darkness, nor does He permit the powers of
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evil to re enslave the liberated captive.
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What He does is done completely. Brass and iron are like toe
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before the flame of divine grace.
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The irresistible nature of this grace means that when God
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decides to free a captive, no amount of demonic resistance and
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no amount of the sinner's own residual stubbornness can keep
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those iron bars intact. Moving from the dungeon, the
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text brings us to a hospital bed.
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Verses 17 through 22. Pete, the third picture of
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Distress, the sensic soul at death's door.
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The text introduces this group bluntly.
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Fools, because of their transgression and because of
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their iniquities, are afflicted. I appreciate how direct the
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Psalms can be. It does not soften the blow.
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It diagnosis the illness without any bedside manner.
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The terminology is highly deliberate.
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In biblical literature, the fool is not someone lacking
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intellectual capacity, it is someone operating in moral
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rebellion. All sinners are.
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In the sense fools, sin is the direct cause of the spiritual
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sickness. The text notes that men, by a
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course of transgression, afflict themselves and they are fools
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for their pains. They drink the poison of sin,
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expecting it to bring them joy, and are shocked when it brings
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spiritual necrosis. This applies universally to our
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natural state, but as the commentators note, even
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believers can sometimes play the fool and bring spiritual
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lethargy and fatherly discipline upon themselves by wandering
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into known sin. And the symptoms of the
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spiritual sickness are fascinating because a physical
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symptom is used as a spiritual metaphor.
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Verse 18 says their soul abhorred all manner of meat.
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Their appetite entirely departs. Think about having a severe flu
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or undergoing intense chemotherapy.
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The very thought of your favorite food makes you gag.
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Venimic explains that the appetite itself becomes a
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loathing. When the exhausted body
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desperately needs nourishment to survive, the stomach turns
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against the very food. They could save it.
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Joseph Carroll applies this spiritually.
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He knows that earthly comforts, gold, silver, friends are
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completely tasteless on a deathbed.
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Carol's commentary cuts straight to the bone.
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When a soul is under severe convictions, sliding down to the
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gates of death, the things that once brought immense pleasure
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become nauseating. The wealth, the status, the
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worldly relationships offer absolute 0 comfort.
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When facing the reality of eternal judgement, the soul
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rejects all superficial comfort, right?
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Tell a man who feels the weight of God's wrath that his bank
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account is full, and he will look at you as if you are
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insane. The only meat that will go down
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upon a sickbed, as Carol puts it, is Christ.
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Richard Sibbs adds to this by examining the phrase the gates
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of death. He points out that death is
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personified as a tyrant sitting in the gates, which represents
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authority, jurisdiction, and strength.
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The soul is under the jurisdiction of this tyrant,
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completely paralyzed by despair, unable to swallow any worldly
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cure. So how is this terminal case
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cured? The patient is at death's door,
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abhorring all food, entirely unable to heal themselves, and
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under the jurisdiction of the tyrant of death.
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Verse 20 provides the answer. He said His word and healed
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them. JJ Stewart Peron and William
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Romaine provide some heavy theological analysis here.
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This word is not just a spoken phrase.
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It is not just a prescription written on a pad.
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It is the personal word, the second person of the Trinity,
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Jesus Christ. This is a beautiful
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Christological reading of the Psalm.
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The word by which the heavens were made is the same word sent
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to heal the spiritual dead. George Swinnick makes a
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brilliant observation regarding this.
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He says that friends may speak, ministers may speak, even angels
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may speak, but it is all in vain.
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The wounds of the conscience are incurable by creaturely words.
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You can have the most eloquent pastor in the world preach to a
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sin sick soul, and it will accomplish nothing without the
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Spirit. But when God speaks the Word,
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when He sends Christ through the inner working of the Holy
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Spirit, the dying soul revives. Conscience is God's prisoner,
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and only the one who shuts up can let out the divine
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prescription. Is the intervention of the
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eternal Word coming with healing might in the direst extremity?
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OK, let's look at the fourth picture of distress, Mariners in
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the Storm, covering verses 23 through 32.
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From a literary standpoint, this is stunning.
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Alexander Carson calls this section the very soul of poetry
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and an August representation of the Providence of God.
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It really is beautifully written.
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The imagery is wild. The Mariners see the wonders of
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God in the deep. God commands the storm.
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The waves mount to heaven and go down to the depths.
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The sailors reel to and fro, stagger like drunken men and are
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at their wits end. To appreciate this you have to
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put yourself in the shoes of a 17th century sailor.
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There is no GPS. There are no Coast Guard rescue
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helicopters. You were in a wooden vessel,
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completely at the mercy of the elements.
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It is a phenomenal depiction of an environment where human
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control is completely nullified. A sailor on the open ocean in a
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hurricane has no illusions about being the master of his own
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fate. The text makes it explicitly
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clear who is in charge. Verse 25 says, For he commandeth
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and razeth the stormy wind. God is the author of The
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Tempest. Spiritually, this mirrors the
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experience of the believer tossed into the sea of soul
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trouble. Doubts, fears, and anxieties
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lift their heads like angry waves only when the Lord allows
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the storm ones to beat upon us. And as the text notes, their
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soul is melted because of trouble.
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Their courage simply evaporates. But wait, doesn't that make God
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the author of the storm? If He commands the wind that
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melts their courage, how do we understand His goodness in the
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midst of that terror? That is the paradox of
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Providence. God authors the storm not to
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destroy the Mariners, but to shatter their self-reliance,
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which brings up the efficacy of extremity.
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Daniel Pell observes quite bluntly that sailors take up the
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duty of prayer when death stares them in the face.
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He says God hears more from an afflicted people than a people
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at ease. They only cry out when they are
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at their wit's end. And John Reither analyzes how
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praying at Sea actually honors God's attributes in a unique
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way. I want to hear more about
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Reither's analysis because the idea of honoring God while you
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are terrified of drowning seems counterintuitive.
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Reiter's analysis is incredibly pastoral.
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He points out that crying out in a storm honors God's
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sovereignty, acknowledging that He alone can say to the proud
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waves so far and no farther. It honors His wisdom because the
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sailors are acknowledging that while all visible ways of escape
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are blocked, God knows how to deliver, and it honors His
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faithfulness. When you are sinking, holding
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onto the promise of God is the only lifeline available.
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The storm strips away all reliance on human navigation,
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human strength, and human wisdom.
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You are left with nothing but the attributes of God.
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When you pray from the bottom of the wave, you are confessing
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that God is bigger than the ocean.
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And then comes the sudden rescue.
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He maketh the storm. A calm.
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Phil of Henry Goss provides an illuminating analogy here using
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the Portland breakwater. For those unfamiliar, a
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breakwater is a massive stone barrier built in the ocean to
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protect a harbor from the force of the waves.
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Goss talks about how in a fierce scale, a safe harbor is
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invaluable. The massive waves are held back
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and the ships inside the breakwater ride with perfect
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security. Christ does the harbor of refuge
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for Tempest toss sinners. The storm of God's wrath broke
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over Him, acting as the ultimate breakwater so that we can enjoy
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the calm. The contracts is immediate and
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miraculous. He commanded the storm, and now
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he ordains a calm. The waves bow in silence at his
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feet. The Mariners are brought to
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their desired haven. From a theological standpoint,
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this highlights that the same sovereign dominion that ordains
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our trials is the precise force that secures our peace.
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We would be wrecked if not for his preserving hand.
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The great pilot of the sea guarantees that his elect will
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successfully steer through the voyage of time and be moored
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safely in the river of life above.
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Let's pan out now from these individual scenes.
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We move from these four specific pictures of distress into a
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broader view of the sovereign Providence of God.
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Covering verses 33 through 42. We're looking at the wheel of
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Providence. God alters the physical and
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political landscape at will. He turns rivers into a
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wilderness, and water springs into dry ground for the
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wickedness of those who dwell there.
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This section deals with the absolute sovereignty of God over
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both nature and nations. When God deals with rebellious
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men, He can instantly deprive them of the blessings they feel
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most assured of. Joseph Hall has a quote that
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perfectly captures this reality. What does he say?
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He says the former blames the weather, a churlish soil, a wet
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seed time, a blustering autumn, but it is actually a displeased
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God fetching the elements to his own wise drifts and purposes.
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There are no secondary causes that operate independently of
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the first 'cause every drought, every economic collapse, every
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shift in political authority is directly managed by the hand of
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Providence. It's so easy to act like that
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farmer today. We blame the stock market, we
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blame the algorithm, we blame bad luck or political opponents.
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We look at everything on a horizontal axis, but they're
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also massive reversals of grace on the vertical axis.
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Verse 75 says he he turns the wilderness into his standing
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water and dry ground to water springs.
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This is a perfect summary of Reformed.
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Soteriology. God works changes by His own
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innate force. He does not rely on the soil to
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produce the water. He creates life and fruitfulness
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where there was only a sandy waste.
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It is a work of pure creation and we see this in human
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hierarchies as well. Verse 40 says he pours contempt
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upon Princess, while verse 41 says he sets the poor on high
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from affliction. Joseph Irons provides A crucial
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commentary here. He asks, how high is the poor
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man set? He has set on high above the
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curse, above the grip of Satan, and above the reigning influence
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of sin. God empties the proud and
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elevates the spiritually bankrupt.
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This requires a certain kind of vision to understand, which
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brings us to the final verse of the Psalm, verse 43.
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Whoso is wise and will observe these things, even they shall
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understand the loving kindness of the Lord.
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John Collins just makes a sharp distinction here about what true
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observation means. He says many people see events,
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but they do not see Providence. That is the dividing line
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between worldly wisdom and spiritual wisdom.
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Worldly wisdom brings an acute wit to find natural, political
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or economic causes for why things happen.
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It sees the event but is blind to the author.
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Spiritual wisdom brings a trembling, humble heart to
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acknowledge the mighty God acting in and through those
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events. To understand the loving
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kindness of the Lord, you must look past the physical
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circumstances and see the eternal covenant keeping God
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orchestrating every detail for His glory and the good of His
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people. And William Romaine gives us the
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ultimate application of this text.
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He says true wisdom is applying these verses to yourself.
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It is realizing that you were the wanderer lost in the desert.
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You were the prisoner bound in iron.
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You were the sick man abhorring all food at death's door, and
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you were the mariner reeling in the storm at your wit's end.
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If you read this Psalm as a history of ancient Israel, you
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miss the point. It is the biography of every
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redeemed soul. Recognizing your own total
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depravity in these pictures is what makes the intervention of
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irresistible grace so glorious. When you recognize that you
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contributed nothing to your rescue but the sin that made it
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necessary, your understanding of God's loving kindness shifts
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from an abstract concept to an intensely personal reality.
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So what does this all mean? As we summarize our deep dive
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into the source material today, from the desolate, pathless
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wilderness to the terrifying, uncontrollable storm, the
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constant variable is God's sovereign intervention and
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rescue of His elect. Every scenario portrays human
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helplessness. Every resolution portrays divine
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omnipotence. And the application for your
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daily life is immensely practical when your current
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circumstances feel like an uncontrollable Tempest or an
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iron prison you cannot break out of human logic will offer you no
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peace. But recognizing the absolute
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sovereignty of God, knowing that the one who commands the storm
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is the same kinsman Redeemer who shed his blood for you, brings a
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peace that defies human understanding.
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The trial is not random. It is the right way to a city of
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habitation. I want to leave you with a final
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thought to Mull over building on something from verse coming to
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and let them sacrifice the sacrifices of Thanksgiving.
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We often treat theology as an academic pursuit.
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We view our understanding of sovereign grace as a private
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intellectual exercise. Yes, too often.
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But the text frames gratitude as a sacrifice.
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What if the highest expression of a rigorous theological mind
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isn't writing a commentary or winning a theological debate?
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What if it is the willingness to publicly, vocally sacrifice your
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pride to sing God's praises? The text demands the redeemed
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say so. Consider how your private
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understanding must now demand a public doxology.
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Thank you for joining us today for Reform Thinking.