LIKE OUR FATHERS?
Psalm 106: 1-12
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A PRESBYTERIAN PSALTER - by Pastor Max A Forsythe |
One of the trials of public education these days is to discover, by legal and politically correct means, if your students have learned their lessons at all. In fact as we are moving towards more "excellence" in education, if our attitudinal adjustors have their way, students will not have their high school diploma until they have achieved political correctness. Sadly, this political correctness is not consistent or predictable enough for any student to carry on the same idea for even twelve years duration. This year's faddish concept will be old hat within eighteen months., and an opposite concept will be de rigueur instead. You see, the ideas of the political correct crowd are not only evolutionary in context but content as well. You never ever know for sure what the lesson is that the PC crowd has in mind at any particular moment.
How much simpler are the demands of the true faith once given to the saints. The Lord God of the universe has made His laws, regulations, and commands well known. These requirements have been consistently presented many thousands of years. And He goes even further than making them known, by the power of His Holy Spirit, He helps us to learn the essential lessons. Yet, we are slow, hesitant students who do not want to listen and learn, we are hard headed, resistant to change and amazingly dull when it comes to the lessons of grace. Accordingly, Derek Kidner entitles our psalm today as one where "Not one lesson was learnt". However, for all the human failings noted in this psalm, it is God's extraordinary long suffering that emerges as the real theme.
Our psalm portion today may be divided into three sections. In the first three verses there is the opening portion of praise. Verses four and five contain a personal plea from the heart of the psalmist. Verses six to twelve begin the long litany of human failure which is the apparent focus of this litany. In the opening exhortation to prayer, praise is the first focus. This is always the first claim in our worship. "Praise the Lord", is the first reminder of our psalm. In this calling we should be reminded to give total and absolute confidence to the Lord our God.
Our psalmist encourages us to give thanks for the goodness of the Lord and to praise Him because His love endures forever. But, he also asks who can give adequate praise? "Who can proclaim the mighty acts of the Lord or fully declare His praise?" Spurgeon admits that we cannot say one tenth so much for Him as His own character and acts have already done. Further, he suggests that the questions of this verse can never be answered in our days on earth. Blessings, however, come in the maintenance of justice and in our attempts to honor God with our obedience. Now pause and think a minute about your personal contribution to justice and obedience over the course of your life!
Now, look at the the psalmist's response to that thought in verses four and five. By his own admission, the writer of these verses humbly petitions that he be shown favor and given aid, even as the Lord comes to save His people. In short, our psalmist, like Paul and others, sees himself as the chief of sinners desperately in need of the common grace of salvation. How very much is this attitude necessary for the building of of Christ's Church today. Wherever we turn in the charismatic, liberal, catholic, evangelical or even reformed traditions there is a general lack of humility. All branches of the Christian faith fail in the overconfident assertion that they understand the revealed mind of our Lord.
Like the thief on the cross, like the penitent sinner in the New Testament, we must all regularly acknowledge that we are in need of God's mercy. "Remember me, O Lord ... when you save them." How unmindful we are whenever we thoughtlessly count the sins of others and miss confessing the sin that is ours. Like Israel over the millennia we must move on into the content of this prayerful psalm and admit the words of verse six: "We have sinned, even as our fathers did; we have done wrong and acted wickedly."
Let us work through the summary of sin in these verses and ask the Lord to show us how we too have sinned in exactly the same manner. Verse seven is an indictment of those who even having witnessed the miraculous deliverance from Egypt and all the signs and power there displayed did still revolt against the Lord's leading. Like our spiritual fathers there in the desert we too, earnestly desire to go our own way. We do not really want to be led by the Lord, and like our whole culture we would willingly reject any and all lawful authority.
Verse eight reminds us of the mercy of God's salvation. Just as Israel was saved at the shores of the Red Sea in spite of their intransigent behavior so too are we saved in the same manner described here: "He saved them for his name's sake, to make his mighty power known." We don't like to be reminded of that too often, practically the whole of Christiandom wants to believe that the Lord saves those who deserve to be saved! We who are born slaves of self-centered sin would rather not have salvation by His terms. And yet, even the wicked people in Israel learned to believe His promises and even they sang his praises there by the sea.
One older Pastor observed on this verse that these Israelites were very much like his congregation that hailed from the Missouri "Show Me" school. Israel would not believe the promise until they saw it fulfilled. How shallow was their faith. And so they sang. But there was barely a chance for breath between their singing and their continued sinning. Do we need to be reminded about the historic farm animal that also made Missouri famous? Well, there is an awful lot of plain cussed muleheadedness around these days.
And as we pause this one day in seven to believe His promises and to sing His praise, let us be reminded that the glory of God is greatly enhanced as we appreciate his long suffering patience towards us in that even while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. But by the same token, let us humbly admit our predilection for sin and wherever possible in our lives let us be earnest and diligent not to magnify the glory of the Lord's mercy towards us by the means examined in this psalm. Like a design and motto that I once saw attributed to John Calvin, "my heart I give to you Lord promptly and sincerely." Will you do that this day and all days? Amen.
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Resources Used: |
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Kidner, Derek. |
Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries: Psalms. | |
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Spurgeon, C.H. |
The Treasury of David. | |
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IBS: The Holy Bible, New International Version (1984) | ||
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Psm 106d |
10 February 91 & 15 July 95 | |