Latest / Tabernacle Talk - A Bible Study Podcast with Pastor Bryon Self / Psalm 107 - Our Redeeming God

Transcript

Psalm 107 - Our Redeeming God · Tabernacle Talk - A Bible Study Podcast with Pastor Bryon Self

• 0:00
  Welcome to Tabernacle Talk. Tabernacle Talk is a Bible study
• 0:03
  podcast brought from Tabernacle Baptist Church in Essex, MD.
• 0:07
  I'm your host, Brian Self. We hope this podcast encourages
• 0:10
  you to know Christ, grow in his word, and show his love to
• 0:14
  others. Let's dive right in.
• 0:15
  Welcome back to Tabernacle talk. Today we are in Psalm one O 7.
• 0:18
  We are beginning book 5 of Psalms, the very last book.
• 0:24
  I don't know whether to say fortunately or unfortunately,
• 0:27
  this particular book of Psalms goes from Psalm one, O 7 all the
• 0:32
  way over to Psalm 150. And so we are going to be in
• 0:37
  book 5 of Psalms for a good minute.
• 0:39
  And I love the Psalms. They are always such a source of
• 0:42
  life and encouragement to me being able to hear from God's
• 0:46
  people, God's people's songs of the past that they went through
• 0:50
  the emotions and difficulties that I'm going through.
• 0:54
  And so it gives me words to be able to express in prayer and
• 0:58
  praise to God. So we're going to go through
• 1:01
  Psalm one O 7 today and I might read through.
• 1:06
  Yeah, well, I'll read through and I'll stop along the way and
• 1:10
  we'll have a great time of it. Thanks for tuning in.
• 1:13
  I know we are now on a weekly schedule till we get to Psalm
• 1:16
  119 and then we're going to go back to that weekdays and
• 1:20
  looking forward to that time. But Psalm one O 7 says this.
• 1:24
  Give thanks to Yahweh for He is good.
• 1:28
  His faithful love endures forever.
• 1:31
  That faithful love, that's that Hebrew word has said.
• 1:34
  It's that covenant, steadfast, loyal love.
• 1:37
  It endures forever. Let the redeemed of Yahweh
• 1:41
  proclaim that He has redeemed them from the power of the foe
• 1:46
  and has gathered them from the lands, from the east and the
• 1:48
  West, from the north and the South.
• 1:52
  What a comfort that this is, that our God who's worthy to be
• 1:55
  thanked for His goodness, for His enduring, steadfast,
• 1:59
  faithful, covenant, loyal love towards us.
• 2:02
  He has not just left us where we were and He is also one that had
• 2:09
  to pay a price for us to be redeemed, but we are the
• 2:13
  redeemed of the Lord and so we are to proclaim that He has
• 2:16
  bought us back from the power of the foe.
• 2:20
  Who is this foe? It is Satan, it's sin and death.
• 2:25
  It is all that is evil in the world, whether both in our
• 2:31
  world's general fallenness that we get disease, we die and
• 2:34
  that's not really a a sin thing. That's a death thing.
• 2:38
  We mistreat one another and we live in defiance of God.
• 2:43
  That's sin. And Satan all throughout our
• 2:47
  lives is working and operating so that he can devour and
• 2:51
  destroy us. And he wants to accuse us before
• 2:54
  our God. And so we have this foe, this
• 2:57
  enemy that is everything set against God.
• 3:01
  And God has bought us back that our rightful owner, our Master,
• 3:06
  our Lord is God. He is Yahweh, He is Jesus
• 3:10
  Christ. And we don't belong to Satan.
• 3:12
  He has no power or authority over us.
• 3:15
  Instead, the one who has power and authority over us is Jesus
• 3:19
  Christ. And so we are to proclaim our
• 3:21
  redemption that we don't belong to this world anymore.
• 3:25
  We don't belong to the power of death.
• 3:27
  We don't belong to sin anymore. Instead, we belong to the
• 3:31
  Savior, and I love in verse three that God has gathered us
• 3:34
  from all of the lands, from every corner of creation.
• 3:38
  We have been brought back into relationship with God.
• 3:42
  So then in verse 4 through 9, verse 10 through 16, verses 17
• 3:49
  through 22, and verses 23 through 32, the psalmist then
• 3:55
  looks at what does it look like to be redeemed from the power of
• 4:01
  the foe in different life circumstances.
• 4:03
  And so there's some of these things that are even reminiscent
• 4:06
  of different people, different individuals stories within the
• 4:11
  Old Testament. And so I'll highlight a couple
• 4:13
  of those as we go through. But it might be even as we go
• 4:16
  through that you kind of identify with some of these and
• 4:19
  you go, yeah, I've been in that spot in my life.
• 4:22
  And if that has happened to you, if if you have been saved by
• 4:25
  Jesus, then you are to proclaim to others that you have been
• 4:30
  redeemed by God. You have been bought back with
• 4:33
  the price of his life. All right.
• 4:36
  Verse #4 Some wandered in the desolate wilderness, finding no
• 4:42
  way to a city where they could live.
• 4:44
  The wilderness. You can think of it as kind of a
• 4:46
  desert area. I grew up in Colorado, went to
• 4:50
  College in the Mojave Desert in California, and then worked for
• 4:55
  five years as an associate pastor in kind of the desert ish
• 5:01
  area of Washington State. And so I know about wilderness.
• 5:05
  I know, hey, if I was just out here on my own, I would probably
• 5:10
  pass away pretty quickly there. There's not water.
• 5:14
  You have some very hostile wildlife, whether that is
• 5:17
  scorpions, snakes, different things like that.
• 5:21
  So especially in Scripture, the wilderness is a place where you
• 5:24
  cannot live for long. It's a dangerous place.
• 5:28
  It's a place that you go to when you're totally at the end of
• 5:31
  yourself. Very often you've been kind of
• 5:34
  cast out of society or been cast out by your family, and so you
• 5:39
  end up there in the wilderness and there is no human help.
• 5:44
  So here's these people. They wandered in the desolate,
• 5:47
  desolate wilderness, finding no way to a city where they could
• 5:50
  live. They were hungry and thirsty.
• 5:52
  Their spirit, their spirits, failed within them.
• 5:56
  Then they cried out to Yahweh in their trouble.
• 5:58
  He rescued them from their distress.
• 6:02
  He led them by the right path to go to a city where they could
• 6:05
  live. Let them give thanks to Yahweh
• 6:08
  for His faithful love and His wondrous works for all humanity,
• 6:12
  for He has satisfied the thirsty and filled the hungry with good
• 6:16
  things. You can think certainly about
• 6:18
  the children of Israel as they are in the wilderness, and God
• 6:22
  provides food for them. He gives them mana, and later on
• 6:25
  He gives them quail when they demand it.
• 6:28
  When they are thirsty in the wilderness, He gives them fresh
• 6:32
  water, even water from the rock that he gives, as well as
• 6:36
  finding springs. And So what a joy that our God
• 6:39
  cares about our temporal needs and he wants to, He wants to
• 6:44
  meet those needs. Now that doesn't always mean
• 6:47
  that God will put us in perfect scenarios or situations.
• 6:51
  In fact, there might be days where we go hungry, where we are
• 6:56
  thirsty. You can think about Jesus in the
• 6:58
  wilderness for 40 days and there he suffered hunger.
• 7:03
  You can also think about the Lord's Prayer.
• 7:06
  Give us this day Our Daily Bread that you don't have to ask for
• 7:10
  something that you already have. And so sometimes there will be
• 7:14
  physical needs that need to be met.
• 7:16
  And so we can ask the Lord. I hear they cry out to the Lord
• 7:19
  in their trouble, and God can rescue us from our distress.
• 7:25
  And I love that He, he verse #7 He led them by the right path.
• 7:29
  You know, the Lord is my shepherd.
• 7:30
  He leadeth me by still waters. He restores my soul, all of
• 7:35
  that. So He leads them on the right
• 7:37
  path, the paths of righteousness, for His name's
• 7:39
  sake, to go to a city where they could live.
• 7:42
  And we can think so often in Scripture, what's talked about
• 7:46
  is that city where we live. It's a good city.
• 7:49
  It's not a city like when you think of large urban centers
• 7:55
  today, you might think it's dangerous to live in Chicago or
• 7:59
  in Baltimore or New York or in last Angeles.
• 8:03
  You might think it's kind of dangerous to live in those
• 8:05
  locations. But the city that we are going
• 8:08
  to live in with God is the New Jerusalem, it is Zion, it is
• 8:12
  God's perfect city with a perfect ruler who is always just
• 8:16
  and where there is no crime or evil within that city.
• 8:20
  And that's where we're headed. Verse #8 Let them give thanks to
• 8:24
  Yahweh for His faithful love and His wondrous works for all
• 8:26
  humanity. For He is satisfied the thirsty
• 8:29
  and filled the hungry with good things.
• 8:31
  I think about what Jesus said, blessed are those who hunger and
• 8:34
  thirst after righteousness, for they will be filled.
• 8:40
  And I'm thankful that God wants to meet the needs of our soul
• 8:42
  and our spirit, that we would be right and walk in right
• 8:44
  relationship with him and others.
• 8:46
  And He cares about our temporal needs and invites us to pray for
• 8:50
  those. Then verse #10 You have other
• 8:53
  people. So you had the people that were
• 8:55
  out in the wilderness that were hungry and thirsty.
• 8:57
  Then verse 10 Others sat in darkness and gloom, prisoners in
• 9:02
  cruel chains, because they rebelled against God's commands
• 9:06
  and despised the counsel of the Most High.
• 9:09
  He broke their spirits with hard labor.
• 9:11
  They stumbled and there was no one to help.
• 9:14
  I can think even of Manasa and his story.
• 9:17
  I believe that one is in Second Kings and then likely Second
• 9:21
  Chronicles as well, where he was a wicked king.
• 9:24
  He ruled for a long time period, but he did what was wrong in the
• 9:29
  sight of God, even going so far as to sacrifice some of his
• 9:33
  children on altars to false gods and burning them alive.
• 9:38
  And so as a result, God had him captured by the Babylonian
• 9:42
  Empire. And so he was brought into
• 9:45
  slavery and imprisonment as a result of his rebellion against
• 9:49
  God. And so he knew what this was
• 9:51
  like. Or you can think about Samson,
• 9:54
  who through his sexual immorality and his perpetual
• 9:58
  lying, he was captured and he was blinded and and put into
• 10:03
  chains by the Philistines. So there are people like this
• 10:07
  that through their bad behavior they have ended up in tough
• 10:11
  situations in life. But God still cares about those
• 10:14
  people and He wants to redeem them.
• 10:16
  We can read that in verse 13 And on.
• 10:18
  Then they cried out to Yahweh in their trouble.
• 10:20
  He saved them from their distress.
• 10:22
  He brought them out of darkness and gloom and broke their chains
• 10:26
  apart. Let them give thanks to Yahweh
• 10:28
  for His faithful love and His wondrous works for all humanity.
• 10:32
  For He has broken down the bronze gates and cut through the
• 10:36
  iron bars. One of my favorite hymns is the
• 10:39
  song and Can It Be? I believe that one's written by
• 10:43
  Charles Wesley, if I recall correctly, and it has a verse
• 10:47
  long. My imprisoned spirit lay fast,
• 10:50
  bound in sin and nature's night. Thine eye defused A quickening
• 10:56
  ray, a living ray. I woke, the dungeon flamed with
• 11:00
  light. My chains fell off, My heart was
• 11:03
  free. I rose went forth and followed
• 11:06
  the my chains fell off, my heart was free.
• 11:10
  I rose, went forth and followed thee.
• 11:13
  And I think that that him verse likely took some inspiration
• 11:19
  even from these verses. I'm thankful that God doesn't
• 11:21
  leave us in the results of our failures, but instead He's the
• 11:26
  God that still wants to redeem our broken story.
• 11:31
  Then verse #17 He says fools suffered affliction because of
• 11:36
  their rebellious ways and their iniquities.
• 11:39
  They loathed all food and came near the gates of death.
• 11:43
  That is, there are people that because of their sin, they even
• 11:48
  hate their own life, and they come close to suicide.
• 11:53
  They come close to just not wanting to live anymore.
• 11:58
  And God is there for those people.
• 12:00
  Verse #19 Then they cried out to Yahweh in their trouble.
• 12:04
  He saved them from their distress.
• 12:07
  These are people that are fools. They were rebellious.
• 12:09
  They were iniquitous, and yet God loved them and He saved
• 12:14
  them. Verse #20 He sent His word and
• 12:18
  healed them, that they recognized who they were because
• 12:22
  of what God said. And that's where we find our
• 12:25
  identity. We don't find our identity in
• 12:28
  our actions, our greatness, in our friends, in our family, and
• 12:32
  what we can produce. Instead, we find our identity in
• 12:35
  the Lord. So here He sent His word and
• 12:39
  healed them. He rescued them from their
• 12:42
  traps. Let them give thanks to Yahweh
• 12:45
  for His faithful love and His wondrous works for all humanity.
• 12:49
  Let them offer Thanksgiving sacrifices and announce His
• 12:52
  works with shouts of joy that those that were near the gates
• 12:56
  of death at the beginning, now they are shouting for joy for
• 13:00
  who God is. Then verse 23, others went to
• 13:04
  sea in ships, conducting trade on the vast water they saw.
• 13:09
  He always works his wondrous works in the deep.
• 13:13
  So here the sea is very often talked about.
• 13:16
  Even in Genesis 1, it's being used as a picture of chaos, of
• 13:22
  death, that the sea is one of the most dangerous places on
• 13:26
  earth. That it wants to, if you will,
• 13:28
  destroy the ships, destroy the sailors.
• 13:32
  And so you can think even of tsunamis as well, that it even
• 13:34
  wants to destroy those that are close to the land.
• 13:37
  And so here as these men, they are conducting trade on the vast
• 13:41
  water, they see amazing things that are happening.
• 13:45
  And verse 25 He spoke. The Lord spoke and raised a
• 13:49
  stormy wind that stirred up the waves of the sea, rising up to
• 13:53
  the sky, sinking down to the depths, their courage melting
• 13:57
  away in anguish. They reeled and staggered like a
• 14:01
  drunkard, and all their skill was useless.
• 14:04
  Then they cried out to Yahweh in their trouble, and he brought
• 14:08
  them out of their distress. That here these people that are
• 14:12
  in the middle of chaos and uncertainty and possible death,
• 14:17
  that God saves them as they cry out to him.
• 14:21
  Verse #29 I love this. He stilled the storm to a
• 14:25
  whisper and the waves of the sea were hushed.
• 14:30
  They rejoiced when the waves grew quiet.
• 14:32
  Then he guided them to the harbor.
• 14:34
  They longed for Man. This makes me think of Jesus and
• 14:37
  what he did in quieting the storm and is a very explicit
• 14:42
  mention by Matthew, Mark and Luke that Jesus is God, He is
• 14:47
  Yahweh, He is the one that walks on the water.
• 14:50
  He steals the storm with a whisper.
• 14:53
  Peace be still, if you remember. And the storms go down, and then
• 14:58
  he guides them to the harbor that they are aiming for.
• 15:01
  And what a joy in our life when Jesus calms the storm within us
• 15:06
  and in the circumstances of our life.
• 15:09
  Verse 31, Let them give thanks to Yahweh for His faithful love
• 15:12
  and His wondrous works for all humanity.
• 15:15
  Let them exalt Him in the assembly of the people and
• 15:18
  praise Him in the counsel of the elders.
• 15:20
  If God has saved you, if He has rescued you, if He's been good
• 15:23
  to you, if He has helped you to not die, you ought to tell other
• 15:27
  people people about it tell other people of the ways that
• 15:30
  God has been good to you. Verse 33 he turns rivers into
• 15:34
  desert, springs into thirsty ground and fruitful land into
• 15:38
  salty wasteland because of the wickedness of its inhabitants.
• 15:42
  He says just because a an area is currently really able to
• 15:49
  sustain life when people are wicked, it turns that place into
• 15:53
  a place of death. And so God can, if you will,
• 15:56
  take away blessing here, rivers, springs and fruitful.
• 16:00
  And he can take all of those things away if the people are
• 16:04
  making the land a place of death, a, a wilderness due to
• 16:08
  their wickedness. And then versus 35 and 36 and,
• 16:12
  and on, he turns a desert into a pool, dry land into springs.
• 16:18
  He causes the hungry to settle there and they establish a city
• 16:22
  where they can live. They sow fields and plant
• 16:24
  vineyards that yield A fruitful harvest.
• 16:27
  He blesses them and they multiply greatly.
• 16:30
  He does not let their livestock decrease that places where you'd
• 16:34
  go, man. There's no way anything could
• 16:35
  live there. Or if you will, kind of
• 16:38
  devotionally in your life and mine.
• 16:41
  We have areas of our life where we go, yeah, God could never
• 16:44
  bring life out of that heartache or out of that situation, or God
• 16:49
  could never use me to accomplish this or that for his Kingdom.
• 16:53
  And the truth is, God can turn the deserts into pools of water.
• 16:58
  He can turn the dry land in the springs, and He can make our
• 17:01
  life a place of life and flourishing for other people.
• 17:05
  Verse #39 When they are diminished and are humbled by
• 17:09
  cruel oppression and sorrow, He pours contempt on nobles and
• 17:13
  makes them wander in a trackless wasteland, but He lifts the
• 17:17
  needy out of their suffering, and makes their families
• 17:21
  multiply like flocks. The upright see it and rejoice,
• 17:25
  and all injustice shuts its mouth.
• 17:28
  Let whoever is wise pay attention to these things and
• 17:32
  consider you always acts of faithful love, that even when
• 17:36
  people oppress us, God is able to bring shame and oppression
• 17:41
  back on their head and to set us free and to help our families to
• 17:46
  grow. And it makes the upright in
• 17:49
  heart, the people that see God working, they rejoice in it.
• 17:53
  And it shuts up the mouth of those that are wicked, that are
• 17:56
  unjust, and they are silenced through seeing what God
• 18:00
  accomplishes time and time and time again.
• 18:02
  Then I love verse 43. If you're wise, pay attention to
• 18:06
  all this and consider what God does through His acts of
• 18:09
  faithful love today. Will you and I recognize what
• 18:14
  God has done in our lives, His salvation of us, His forgiveness
• 18:18
  of us, His providing for our needs and the fact that He turns
• 18:23
  barren wastelands in in our lives in areas that we thought
• 18:28
  could never be good or God honoring or glorifying.
• 18:32
  And he has turned it all for good.
• 18:35
  And so our response give thanks to the Lord for he is good for
• 18:39
  his faithful love endures forever.
• 18:42
  I've included in the show notes for this, the song we give
• 18:46
  thanks from, Psalm One O 7 written by Sovereign Grace
• 18:48
  Music. And I hope that it's an
• 18:50
  encouragement to you. See you next Wednesday.