Psalm 105 - God saving His people

On Saturday, I read and studied Psalm 105. It is a beautiful description of how the almighty God sovereignly saves His people, against all the powers of sin, the world and Satan. It also demonstrates beautifully God's sovereignty over evil and how all evil serves the good of the elect (Rom 8:28). In short, it is a magnificent, breath-taking view of God's glorious work in salvation, as He makes His Name known among all nations, to the praise of His glory!

The Psalm begins with a command to "give thanks unto the LORD", to "call upon his name" and to "make known his deeds among the people" (vs 1). Then, as a way of carrying out this command, the psalmist commands us to... sing Psalms (vs 2)! And of course, for what else would a Christian sing in worship to God than that which is written by God Himself for the very purpose of being sung in praise! I can't believe that previously I rarely ever sang the perfect Psalms, but instead sang songs written by fallible men, many of which were quite shallow or contained false doctrines. See my previous blog entry on the beauty of Psalm-singing.

Verse 3 then commands us to "glory... in his holy name", which I will gladly do: I glory in my God who unconditionally elected me unto salvation by faith before the foundation of the world; I glory in my God who decreed even evil for the sake of His own glory and to serve His children's good; I glory in my God who saves everyone that He loves; I glory in my God who sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to die for my sins and in my place, such that I know that nothing will ever separate me from God; I glory in my Saviour Jesus Christ who is such a mighty Saviour that not one for whom He died perishes; I glory in the Holy Spirit who dwells in me, having made me alive to Christ while I was yet dead in my sins and busy hating God; I glory in the new heart which God's Spirit gave me, by which I exercise faith; I glory in my weaknesses and sins (which I hate passionately), for they serve to show God's power and grace; I glory in Christ who will one day return to judge the living and the dead, to redeem His people and to destroy Satan and his children.

The psalmist then commands us to seek God and to remember His deeds, and in order to help us remember God's deeds, he then recounts the story of Israel's redemption from Egypt.

The psalm is about the covenant of God, that one covenant of grace which God has gradually revealed until it was fully unveiled at the coming of Jesus Christ; the covenant by which God saves all His elect children in love, beginning with Adam and including me, hallelujah! "He hath remembered his covenant forever", vs 8.

This covenant of salvation is established in the line of generations, such that God saves families: "ye seed of Abraham his servant, ye children of Jacob his chosen" (vs 6, also 9-10, Ge 3:15, 17:7, Ac 2:39, 16:31). As God says regarding the New Covenant, "I will save thy children" Isa 49:25, which promise is fulfilled according to election as described in Rom 9:6ff. And so it is with joy that, if the Lord will grant me children, I will have them baptised as a sign that God has promised to save my children according to election.

God's immeasurably-great love for His chosen people Israel, into which we believing Gentiles are now ingrafted, as prophecied in the Old Testament and explained in the New (e.g. Gal 3, Rom 10:17), is amazingly portrayed in the following ways:

1. That God decrees evil to serve the good and the salvation of His beloved children: It was God who "called the famine" which covered most of the known world at that time in order to bring Israel to Egypt; it was God who "sent Joseph before them" by moving Joseph's brothers to sell him as a slave (Ge 50:20, cf 2Sa 24:1)
2. That the reprobate serve the salvation of the elect: the holy, almighty LORD doesn't just "create people to destroy them", far be such offence from God! No, God decrees the sins of the reprobate so that He is just in condemning them, and He creates them to serve the salvation of His beloved children who, by nature, are just as wicked. That God decreed for the reprobate to be wicked (see also Rom 9:20-23) is seen clearly in this Psalm: it was God who "turned [the Egyptians'] heart to hate his people" and to oppress them. That the reprobate serve the good of the elect is seen in that Israel "inherited the labour of the people", that is, they took all Egypt's gold and silver, and when they finally inhabited the promised land, all the cities were built and all the agriculture set up for them.
   

And what was the purpose of God sending the famine, placing Israel into Egypt and decreeing for the Egyptians to hate and persecute them? The following glorious reasons:

1. God showed the greatness of His power to Egypt and the whole world in devastating the world-power at that time without so much as a single shot being fired (so to speak), through the 10 plagues culminating in the slaying of every first-born and eventually the drowning of Pharaoh and his army in the Red Sea. To top it off, the Egyptians gave their hated Israelite slaves all their gold and silver (vs 37, cf Ge 12:35)! God loves His people so much that He fights for us against our enemies.
2. God showed that He cares intensely for His people. When Israel journeyed through the desert, he gave them a cloud to shield them from the heat of the sun in the day, and fire to give light in the night (vs 39); each day He rained bread and birds from heaven for their food, and caused water to come out of rocks to sustain them (vs 40-41).

All in all, this reminded me of the following and gave me the following challenges:

1. That God choosing me is not because I am in any way better than others, because I am just as wicked as Pharaoh, Judas and Hitler by nature, but that I am chosen of mere, pure grace - this reminds me that I should never be proud towards unbelievers or anyone else, but should always be humble (contrary to Arminians, who think God chose them because of their foreseen faith and/or think they are going to heaven because they "made the right choice").
2. That God causes all things, even evil, to work for my good and the good of all God's people all across the world, and that even the persecution of the Church by Satan and the world has been decreed by God to serve our salvation.
3. That I am to praise and worship God with all my being for His own infinite perfection and worthiness, and for the glorious way He reveals Himself through the redemption of His people.

May God Almight be praised.

I would heartily encourage all my readers to take 1 hour and read through Calvin's commentary on this Psalm.

The Horror of Division

Last Monday, a lasting doctrinal dispute in the Christian Union of which I am a part of has finally resulted in the formation of the Reformed CU, which is under the supervision of the Limerick Reformed Fellowship, both of which I am a member of.

This division has been, and is continuing to be, exceedingly painful. I love those in the CU which I left very much, and it breaks my heart to have this division. This pain, of course, is aggravated by my own sinful wretchedness and the mistakes of the past, and the times I have sinfully hurt others in the CU.

Even more than this is my heart broken by the lack of knowledge of the God of Scripture in the Church. So many believers are in churches where they are not fed the truths of Scripture, but are instead given "that which is trodden down" and "that which is fouled"; they are fed by lies such as "God wants you to be healthy/wealthy" and "God loves you but you can still go to hell".

My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge, Hos 4:6

Most sadly, the glorious Gospel of God's sovereign elective grace is no longer proclaimed, if not outrightly denied; the love of God has become a weak love that throws most of its objects into hell; the sufficiency of God's Word is denied to the plain believer, who is told that he must seek extra-biblical revelations, speak in "tongues" (gibberish) to know he is saved and must follow the "leading of the Holy Spirit" by which is meant the fickle emotions of our sinful flesh.

My heart breaks. Out of love for God and love for my fellow believers, I have joined the Limerick Reformed Fellowship to be a witness to the truths of God's Word. For the same reason, I have joined the Reformed CU.

My prayer is that the Lord would bring about the true unity of the saints, that is, unity around Truth, as opposed to unity around compromise and falsehoods.

I sang Psalm 102 this morning, as a prayer for the restoration of Zion (the Church) and the deliverance of God's children from the lies of Satan.

 1  Lord, hear my pray'r, and let my cry
      Have speedy access unto thee;
2  In day of my calamity
      O hide not thou thy face from me.

   Hear when I call to thee; that day
      An answer speedily return:
3  My days, like smoke, consume away,
      And, as an hearth, my bones do burn.

4  My heart is wounded very sore,
      And withered, like grass doth fade:
   I am forgetful grown therefore
      To take and eat my daily bread.

5  By reason of my smart within,
      And voice of my most grievous groans,
   My flesh consumed is, my skin,
      All parched, doth cleave unto my bones.

6  The pelican of wilderness,
      The owl in desert, I do match;
7  And, sparrow-like, companionless,
      Upon the house's top, I watch.

8  I all day long am made a scorn,
      Reproached by my malicious foes:
   The madmen are against me sworn,
      The men against me that arose.

9  For I have ashes eaten up,
      To me as if they had been bread;
   And with my drink I in my cup
      Of bitter tears a mixture made.

10  Because thy wrath was not appeased,
      And dreadful indignation:
   Therefore it was that thou me raised,
      And thou again didst cast me down.

11  My days are like a shade alway,
      Which doth declining swiftly pass;
   And I am withered away,
      Much like unto the fading grass.

12  But thou, O Lord, shalt still endure,
      From change and all mutation free,
   And to all generations sure
      Shall thy remembrance ever be.

13  Thou shalt arise, and mercy yet
      Thou to mount Zion shalt extend:
   Her time for favor which was set,
      Behold, is now come to an end.

14  Thy saints take pleasure in her stones,
      Her very dust to them is dear.
15  All heathen lands and kingly thrones
      On earth thy glorious name shall fear.

16  God in his glory shall appear,
      When Zion he builds and repairs.
17  He shall regard and lend his ear
      Unto the needy's humble pray'rs:

   Th' afflicted's pray'r he will not scorn.
18      All times this shall be on record:
   And generations yet unborn
      Shall praise and magnify the Lord.

19  He from his holy place looked down,
      The earth he viewed from heav'n on high;
20  To hear the pris'ner's mourning groan,
      And free them that are doomed to die;

21  That Zion, and Jerus'lem too,
      His name and praise may well record,
22  When people and the kingdoms do
      Assemble all to praise the Lord.

23  My strength he weakened in the way,
      My days of life he shortened.
24  My God, O take me not away
      In mid-time of my days, I said:

   Thy years throughout all ages last.
25      Of old thou hast established
   The earth's foundation firm and fast:
      Thy mighty hands the heav'ns have made.

26  They perish shall, as garments do,
      But thou shalt evermore endure;
   As vestures, thou shalt change them so;
      And they shall all be changed sure:

27  But from all changes thou art free;
      Thy endless years do last for aye.
28  Thy servants, and their seed who be,
      Established shall before thee stay.