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.