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Sermon preached on Psalm 106 by Rev. W. Reid Hankins during the Morning Worship Service at Trinity Presbyterian Church (OPC) on 11/19/2023 in Petaluma, CA.
Sermon Manuscript
Rev. W. Reid Hankins, M.Div.
As our nation celebrates the Thanksgiving holiday this week, we as Christians remember today the importance of being thankful to God. Psalm 106 reminds us of this. Interestingly, this psalm starts out sounding like a psalm of thanksgiving, but quickly turns into a national confession of sin. We’ll see how the psalm relates those two things, contrasting thanksgiving with the evil of ingratitude.
Let us begin by looking at the opening verses and how they call for God’s people to give God thanks. Verse 1 begins by saying, “Oh give thanks to the LORD, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever.” There, we are commanded to thank God for his steadfast love. This is that Hebrew word, hesed, sometimes also translated as “mercy” or ”lovingkindness”. It describes God’s covenant loyalty he shows to his people in blessing them and caring for them. It has in mind not just God’s disposition towards his people, but how God acts in good ways towards his people. His actions are an expression of his love, kindness, mercy, and loyalty. So, Psalm 106 calls us to thank God for such hesed.
Now when verse 1 says that we are to “give thanks”, the idea is that we are supposed to be specific. The word of “give thanks” in the Hebrew is literally about “giving voice” in praise to what he has done for us. That requires us to remember and recognize in gratitude the specific things he has done for us. Implied is that we keep these things in mind as we go forward and continue to have a heart of appreciation for what he has done in our past.
We see this idea in verse 2 also. It talks about uttering the mighty deeds of the LORD. To utter them, is to acknowledge them verbally. Verse 2 also says this in a rhetorical fashion, asking, “Who can so utter the mighty deeds of God?” In other words, we will fall short in our thanksgiving because there are so many things to thank God for. We should try to give voice to all the things God has done, but we realize we can always say more.
If you’d like an example of what this looks like, just look at the previous psalm. Psalm 105 complements our psalm by doing exactly what it calls for. It goes through an identifies various things God has done for his people as a way to thank and praise God. Each example it gives of something God has done for them is an example of God’s hesed that he has shown his people. So, Psalm 105 is a wonderful example of how to give voice to some of the things God has done for his people.
Verses 3-5 then turns to speak more broadly of the blessing and gladness of God’s people who follow Him. Yet, I can’t help think about this in light of this call for thanksgiving. Living a godly life includes living a life of thanksgiving. It’s the wicked heathen who according to Romans 1:21 who are unthankful. So, when I read here in verses 3-5 of God’s blessing upon his people and the gladness that comes from God, I think of this all together. A thankful life is a blessed and glad life. Think of the reciprocal nature of that. We thank God for his blessings and he blesses us in our thanksgiving. How glad it is to know the Lord!
And yet, then we come to verse 6. This is where the psalm dramatically changes tone. Verse 6, the psalmist says, “Both we and our fathers have sinned.” Interestingly, he doesn’t focus on the sins of himself and his own generation. He will allude to the affects of their own sin when we get toward the end of the psalm. But after admitting their own sin, he then goes into a rather extended history lesson where he identifies eight examples of their sin. This historical list of sins spans the time from the Exodus, through the Wilderness Wandering, through the Conquest of Canaan, and into the time of the Judges and beyond.
Again, think of how this contrasts Psalm 105. That psalm gives a history lesson about all the good things God has done for us his people. That serves to identify and thank God for such things. Our psalm began by saying that was a good thing to do and how blessed God’s people are when they do that. But, then, the psalm turns to give a sort of reverse history lesson. We’ll see in this list of sins the opposite will happen. While God through history does things that he should be thanked for, time and time again God’s people fail to thank him the way they should and instead fall into sin in the context of their ingratitude. What results is that God’s people find themselves not blessed and glad but humbled and chastened. Psalm 106 highlights what happens when we don’t remember and give thanks to God for the sorts of things that Psalm 105 highlighted.
The first historic sin the Psalm confesses is in verse 7. It remembers the Exodus when the people got to the Red Sea and saw that the Egyptians were in pursuit and how they began to grumble, afraid they would die, and lamenting they ever left Egypt. Verse 7 calls that rebellion against God. It connects that with their not remembering the all the mighty plagues God had already brought upon Egypt. If God had done had all those mighty victories over the Egyptians before, why should they doubt God’s protection now? Indeed, God graciously showed them his power by parting the Red Sea to save them, Exodus 14.
The second historic sin the Psalm confesses is in verse 14. There it remembers how the people grumbled in the wilderness over not having meat to eat. But did they not remember how God had just saved them supernaturally by parting the Red Sea? Would it had been too difficult for God to supply them meat, if they would but humbly ask in prayer? But no, they put God to the test and while God did send them quail to eat, he also afflicted them with a plague as a chastisement, Numbers 11.
The third historic sin the Psalm confesses is in verse 16, referring to Numbers 16 where Korah and others opposed the leadership of Moses and Aaron in the time of the Wilderness Wandering. Even though God had already used Moses and Aaron to clearly represent him and his power before the people, they were jealous and coveted their position. They didn’t have gratitude for all that Moses and Aaron had done for them, let alone for the God who had worked through them. So, God had the ground open up and swallow Korah and his house to their deaths.
The fourth historic sin the Psalm confesses is in verse 19, referring to the infamous golden calf incident. That is in Exodus 32 when the people begin to grumble that Moses was up on the Mount Sinai for too long when he was getting the Ten Commandments. And, of course, the second commandment specifically said that God did not want to be worshipped by an idol or an image. Yet, Aaron makes that golden calf and says that it is the god who brought them out of Egypt. They then worship it. Despite Aaron identifying the golden calf as representing God, verse 20 says that it nonetheless replaced God with the image of an ox, stealing God’s glory. It’ like crediting the Exodus to this golden calf instead of God!
I wanted to pause for a moment and make a timely application from this sin as we approach the Christmas season. The Bible repeatedly says we shouldn’t worship God via images, nor even make them, as the second commandment teaches us in two parts. So, my timely application is that it’s during this season that many well-intention Protestants and especially many Roman Catholics try to honor God through various images and statues of Jesus. But let us remember that God would not have us to make pictures of him, and that includes Jesus since Jesus is God.
Now, one might reply, “But God did give a picture of himself at the incarnation.” Yes, that is true, and if Jesus were here in person, we should worship him. But he is not physically here for now, and there is no way anyone can know what he looked like. Artistic renderings of Jesus inherently add to the Biblical revelation of Jesus, and we know we should not be trying to add to Scripture. Someone might feel like they can’t celebrate Christmas as well without images of Jesus, but I would argue that you can celebrate Christmas the best without them. Christmas celebrates the first advent of Christ, when God appeared to man in Jesus so people could actually see him. The first advent of Christ causes us to look forward to the second advent of Christ. That is when the Bible says we will go from faith to sight, when we’ll finally be able to see Jesus face to face, 1 John 3:2. It’s our Christmas expectation to be able to see Jesus, but we have to wait until the coming Christmas – Jesus’ return. By analogy, think of how you have to wait until Christmas to open up your presents to see what you got. It’s good to want to see Jesus. But we’ll have to wait until his second advent, then we’ll get to see him.
Now while this is an official position of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, I know this is not the conviction of every Protestant. If you aren’t there yet, I understand, but I would encourage you to be thoughtful of others in the church who do hold this, especially in the context of church functions. But, I hope I’ve given you something to consider as we approach another joyous holiday season.
The fifth historic sin here is in verses 24-25. After the Exodus, Israel sent spies into the Promised Land to spy out the land. And they came back in great fear of the giants in the land and the strong military fortifications. This caused the people to again grumble, afraid they would die, Numbers 14, not having faith that God would fulfill his promise to give them the land. God chastened them by making them wander in the wilderness for forty years until their children grew up who believed that God would give them the victory.
The sixth historic sin here is in verse 28 when the men of Israel during the Wilderness Wandering period engaged in sexual immorality with Midianite women at Peor who then get them to worship Baal. Here, Israel shows no appreciation for God when they so easily turn after a false god. God brought a plague upon them again for such spiritual infidelity.
The seventh historic sin here is in verse 32 when Israel again grumbled against God in the wilderness when they found themselves without water. God did graciously give them water there at Meribah, nonetheless their grumbling was described as rebellion by Moses and Aaron. This time, their wickedness even contributed to Moses’ failure there. That is when he struck the rock instead of talking to it, like God had commanded. This psalm speaks of how their grumbling so angered Moses that it contributed to his sin. It also mentions how Moses spoke rashly. Right before Moses performed the miracle to provide water, his words seemed to personally take the credit for it, instead of giving God the credit where it rightly stood.
The eighth historic sin is recorded in verse 34. There it remembers how when the people of Israel finally conquered the Promised Land and destroyed the Canaanites that they did not complete the job. God had made it very clear to them that they needed to completely wipe out the Canaanite peoples. This would be God’s hand of judgment against them for their great wickedness, but it would also protect Israel from their pagan influences. But Israel didn’t fully destroy them. The result is there starting in verse 36, that they began to intermarry and mix with these Canaanite peoples. This resulted in them luring Israel astray after their false gods with their idol worship, and even their abominable child sacrifices. The psalm says that such false worship was actually the worship of demons, which Paul also quotes in 1 Corinthians against idolatry in his day. The result of this intermingling with the pagan peoples resulted in the dynamic described in verses 40-45. God would allow another nation to attack and subjugate them, until they cried out in repentance and God brought them salvation and allowed them to return in peace to their land. This was a dynamic seen especially in the time of the Judges, but it continued in many ways throughout the monarchy until ultimately Israel was destroyed and exiled by Assyria and Babylon.
In our third and final point for this morning, I’d like to further connect the dots here with the theme of forgetting versus remembering. Why did Israel commit these eight sins? The psalm repeatedly paints it in terms of forgetting. Verse 7, they did not remember the abundance of God’s steadfast love for them. It’s actually hesed in the plural there; they forget God’s many heseds he’d shown them. Verse 13, they forgot God’s works. Verse 21, they forgot God their Savior who had done great things for them. Think about how bad it is to forget all the good things someone has done for you. That’s called ingratitude. If God does so many amazing things for you, and you keep forgetting that he has done all those things, then that is certainly ungrateful of you.
This is what we’ve seen in this psalm. For example, if they had remembered what God did with the ten plagues so they could escape Egypt, then they wouldn’t have grumbling at the Red Sea with the Egyptian military chasing behind them. They would have remembered and known God was mighty to save, and they would have trusted God instead of complaining. The same could be said in the wilderness when they found themselves without meat or water. Likewise, they wouldn’t have been ungrateful toward Moses and Aaron and by extension against God, if they remembered all that God did for Israel through Moses and Aaron. Similarly, if they remembered how much the one true God had done for them, they would never have gone after idols and other gods. Our psalm shows us what happens when you are so ungrateful as to forget all God’s done for you.
This is how the psalm ties together the two topics of thanksgiving and confession of sins. The psalm shows what it’s like for a people to not be thankful. Our psalm highlights a history of ingratitude. If instead of being thankful to God, you forget what he’s done for you, you’ll end up doubting God, disobeying God, and turning away from him toward other religions. That does not have a good outcome.
Yet, in Israel’s case, their evil ingratitude did not result in their complete destruction. For while they kept forgetting, God kept remembering. Verse 45 concludes the section on their sin and God’s judgments that he had been putting upon them, by saying that God nonetheless remembered his covenant and relented because of his steadfast love. Through the generations he would preserve a remnant saved by grace. He would not forget his promised covenant of grace that he swore by his own name, even if many in Israel did forget.
That then brings us to the application for our psalm today. What God had done in the past for these wayward Israelites, the psalm asks God to do in their day. The psalmist asks God to remember. That’s the plea given to God in the opening of the psalm in verse 4. And it’s explained further at the end of the psalm, in verse 47. Look there with me. They psalmist says, “Save us, O LORD our God, and gather us from among the nations, that we may give thanks to your holy name and glory in your praise.” This psalm takes this historic confession of sin and says that in their day they too have sinned in similar ways. They too in their day have then found themselves scattered among the nations in God’s chastisement. But it asks God to yet again remember them, and to save them, to gather them up from all the nations and set them again in a place of gladness as the blessed people of God.
Notice what the psalmist says will be able to happen then, if God will save them like this. They will be able to give thanks to God. See how the psalm comes full circle? If God would restore them out of their folly of ingratitude, they would then be able to respond with thanksgiving afresh. So, this really is a psalm of thanksgiving, in the big picture. Because, God has answered the plea of verse 47. God brought the salvation prayed for there. That salvation arrived in Jesus Christ, and ever since then, God has been gathering all his elect people together out of all the nations, to set them a place of blessing and gratitude. That includes even us, the elect from the nations.
What then is our clear response and application? Let us remember the saving works of God. Let us remember them by giving voice to them in thanksgiving. Let us remember them when troubles come, so we trust God instead of grumbling. Let us remember them by looking to live in the good ways God instructs us to live, believing his ways are best. Let us remember them by never turning to idols, but worshipping him in Spirit and in truth.
Let us conclude them with verse 48. Blessed be the LORD, the God of Israel, from everlasting to everlasting! And let all the people say, “Amen!” Praise the LORD!
Amen.
Copyright © 2022 Rev. W. Reid Hankins, M.Div.
All Rights Reserved.
