What a story Psalms 106 and 107 tell together, the former detailing the sins of God’s Old Covenant people, and the latter describing their consequent suffering and God’s salvation.
My approach to Psalm 106 is to list the ways in which the people sinned, for it gives us a better understanding of our own sin, ways that we offend God and allow our actions and attitudes to come between us and God. The list is full of things we don’t normally refer to as sin. This is important, because we need to understand that if our enemy can’t tempt us with the obvious sins, that is, we’re not vulnerable to the temptation to steal or commit adultery; then he will tempt us where we are vulnerable. That will be in some of these less obvious ways which we don’t often mention; perhaps we don’t even consider them as sin. Nevertheless, they will separate us from God, so we need to be aware of them and get them out of the way.
I’ll get the list started with what the psalmist said they did or didn’t do. They:
- Did not consider God’s wondrous works that He had done on their behalf
- Did not remember the abundance of His steadfast love
(Are these really sins? Recall how important remembering was to God: He made that clear in His requirements to observe holy days with remembrance. Not to do so when it wasn’t specifically commanded as yet might not be a sin for them at the Red Sea, but for us who know that our remembering is important to God, our failure to do so can’t be good for the relationship. A seeker, one who wants to know God, will be doing these things.) We see why considering and remembering are important, because their failure to do so caused them to rebel.
- Rebelled against God by accusing instead of trusting
- Did not wait for God’s counsel, but put Him to the test. Psalm 107 says that they “rebelled against the words of God and spurned His counsel.”
- Exchanged the glory of God for the image of one of His creatures. That was an attempt to diminish His glory.
- Forgot Him who had saved them so wonderfully in Egypt
- Despised God’s good provision for them by having no faith in His promise
- Murmured
I encourage you to continue the list through the psalm and prayerfully consider what God might be saying to you about your own attitudes and behavior, and what they reveal about your heart.
Hopefully you noticed the repetition of the key idea of Psalm 107 as you read: “Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble, and He delivered them from their distress… Let them thank the Lord for His steadfast love, for His wondrous works to the children of man!” Each time the key idea is repeated, it describes what God did each time to deliver them and why they should thank Him in light of what the deliverance reveals about Him. The way to look more closely at Psalm 107 is to make a list of the ways God delivered them, and understand what a hero He is.
- He led them by a straight way till they reached a safe place to dwell (This demonstrates that He knows the straight way when we don’t even know which way is forward. His goal for us is a safe place.)
- He satisfies the longing soul and fills the hungry soul with good things. Note this does not say that He fills the hungry person – it speaks of a hungry soul. Do you want to be filled with all the spiritual blessings God has for His New Covenant people? Then you need to be a hungry soul. If you don’t know what that looks like, if you’re not sure whether you are or what you should do to be a hungry soul, ask God and expect Him to answer you with blessed reassurance or conviction, for He wants you to know where you stand with Him.
- He brought them out of darkness and the shadow of death. He has done that for us as well, in a totally different way!
- He burst their bonds apart. He has done this for us as well, not just freeing us, but obliterating those bonds of sin.
- He shatters the doors of bronze and cuts in two the bars of iron. These were the toughest materials known in that day, impenetrable by the technology of the day. What looks impenetrable to you today that He has the power to shatter and cut in two?
Why don’t you continue the list?
Don’t miss that their cries to the Lord were the key to their getting delivered every time. If He reveals something to you in these psalms that needs to be made right with Him, please don’t delay in crying out to Him!