In this first of two episodes, we step into Psalm 107 and trace the journey from spiritual lostness and bondage to the joy of being led, fed, and freed by God’s covenant love. If you’ve ever felt directionless, stuck, or weighed down by your past, this episode invites you to see your life in the mirror of Psalm 107 and rediscover why thanksgiving is the most fitting response to grace.

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Welcome to the Fortifying youg Family podcast.

It can be daunting to navigate through an anti marriage and family culture.

Our teacher will expound biblical principles to help fortify our families and keep these sacred institutions strong.

And now, here's this week's teaching from Sam Wood.

And I want you to turn your Bibles this morning with me to Psalm 107.

And I want to share a message with you on Give thanks to the Lord.

Give thanks to the Lord.

This is Psalm 107, so turn there with me if you would.

And I want to unpack most of this psalm here this morning as we look at it.

But I want to start out with the first three verses and I want to ask you this morning if you are physically able, if you would stand in honor of the Word of God.

I read the Word of God if you're physically able to do that.

And this is every time I go into the Word of God, I think, wow, what a word.

This is his living Word.

And God is here today to speak to our hearts through His Word.

And I come with much anticipation to what God is going to do here in our service, in our hearts through the Word of God.

So look at it with me there.

Psalm 107 and I'll read the first three verses.

O give thanks unto the Lord, for he is good, for his mercy endureth forever.

Let the redeemed of the Lord say so, whom he hath redeemed from the hand of the enemy, and gathered them out of the lands from the east and from the west, and from the north and from the south.

You know, as we look into this psalm, as I unpack this psalm today, I think you will be very, very encouraged by the Word of God.

I know I told my wife Debbie as I studied this over the last month and really digging into this psalm, it's been such an encouragement to me and God as I have meditated upon this psalm, has, I believe, done a wonderful work in my heart and my life through this Word.

And so God has brought me to this psalm today to share with you and I pray that it will be a tremendous, tremendous blessing upon you.

As we look at this psalm, we see first a call to be thankful, a call to be thankful to God, and then we see the cause of being thankful, and then thirdly, the consequences of being thankful.

So we're going to look at those three areas.

If you're taking notes this morning, that is your outline.

The cause of being thankful well, the call of being thankful.

First, the cause of being thankful, then the consequences of being thankful.

So let's first look at the call to be thankful.

We've seen it here.

In the first three verses, it says in verse one, it says to give thanks unto the Lord.

But it doesn't just say that in verse one.

It says it also in verse 18.

It says it in verse 15.

As we'll see in verse 21, verse 31, we are told to praise God, or that word praise in the Hebrew is the same word as thanks.

We're told to praise or give thanksgiving to the Lord.

And we're not told to just give thanks in general.

We're told to give thanks specifically to God.

Amen.

Our God, the Lord God.

Now, as we celebrate Thanksgiving this week, there's a lot of things we'll be thankful for.

Certainly, as we sit down in front of a spread of food, a turkey, cranberry sauce, pumpkin pies, all these kind of things we're going to eat.

We'll be thankful for all that food.

We're thankful for having our family there.

We're thankful for our job.

We're thankful for so many miscellaneous things.

But we need to be reminded of what James says in James, chapter one in verse 17, that every good and perfect gift comes from who?

It comes from God.

God is the author of everything and that we are to be thankful for.

And God is the one to whom this psalmist says to give thanks.

But who does it say to give thanks from?

It says, let the redeemed, specifically is talking to the redeemed of the Lord.

Let the redeemed of the Lord say so.

The call to give thanks is to those who have experienced redemption, those who have experienced deliverance from their sin, and those who have been pardoned from their sins through the precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.

The call is to the redeemed of the Lord who have experienced firsthand God's mercy, God's everlasting mercy, God's everlasting love.

In fact, if you look at verse one there, it says again, give thanks unto the Lord, for he is good for his mercy.

Notice that word mercy in Hebrew is a Hebrew word, hesed.

And we see that Hebrew word hased describes God's covenant love.

All through the Psalms, it describes that word as goodness, as we'll see in this song, as everlasting love, as covenant love.

It's a choice word in the Hebrew language to describe the love of God.

And the redeemed of the Lord are called to say so or to give thanks for.

For the goodness of God, for the mercy of God upon their soul.

Now, it's not surprising that the unregenerate would not be called to say so, because they're not saved.

They don't know this mercy, they don't know this grace.

But we who are redeemed are called to say so.

Church right.

And that's what God is saying this morning.

But not only do we see the call to be thankful in the first three verses, but in verses four through verse 32, the Psalmist shares with us the causes are the cause to being thankful.

The psalmist gives us reasons why we should be thankful, specifically through illustrations of God's redemptive grace.

And he gives us four illustrations that are reflection of actual historical events of the children of Israel and what they experience from their deliverance by the hand of God.

And even though the psalm reflects on actual events in the history of Israel, we who are also redeemed by everlasting grace can join ancient Israel and genuinely sing this song with him.

Now, this illustration or these illustrations are these.

And we're going to look at these.

I'm going to give you what they are.

Then we're going to go and unpack them and look at each one of them specifically.

The first one, we might say are those who are wanderers in the way who experience redemption.

Secondly, those who are prisoners without a pardon.

The third illustration is those who are hurting without a healer.

And the fourth illustration is those who are suffering without a savior.

And in each illustration of redemption, it's beautiful, it's beautifully crafted psalm, because in each illustration of redemption we see their condition.

God gives us a condition of these people in each illustration.

Then we see their cry.

Then we see God's compassion upon them.

And then we see a call to celebration.

So certainly God wants us to see in this psalm our condition.

He wants to see the cry.

He wants to see the compassion of God and the celebration we should have as a result of our redemption.

So let's dive in, let's look at each one of these for just a few minutes here this morning.

Firstly, those who are wanderers without a way.

Look at their condition in verses 4 and 5.

God gives us a condition of.

Of those who are wanderers without a way, verse 4.

They wandered in the wilderness in a solitary way.

They found no city to dwell in.

Hungry and thirsty, their soul fainted in them.

Here we see a description, I believe, of the people who have lost their way.

They have lost their bearings.

They have no clue which way to go, whether to go left, right, right, for it to go backwards.

And as a Result, they're in the wilderness, we might say, and they are without food, they're without water, they're starved, and they're thirsty, and their soul is fainting within them, that is, they're about to give up, they're about to die, they're about to quit.

And I just want to ask you, this morning, as I reflected on this, I thought of a time I was lost in the woods.

Have you ever been lost somewhere before, out in the woods somewhere and didn't know which way to go?

It's kind of a scary thing to happen to you.

I can remember a time when I was out in the woods.

It was getting dark, late in the day, and I knew I had miles to go to get out.

I was out hiking and I'd gotten off the path somehow, and I didn't know which way to go.

And it was getting darker and darker, and I was getting scareder and scared.

I thought, man, I'm gonna have to spend the night out in this national forest.

And I knew there were wolves.

I knew there were bears.

I knew worst of all, there were snakes.

And I knew there were all these kind of things out here in the woods.

And I didn't want to spend the night in darkness, out in the woods, knowing which way to go.

So I thought about that to myself, and I thought, you know, that's a pretty scary thing.

And I really believe this is an illustration.

Certainly it's an illustration of the Israelites when they were wandering out in the wilderness and they didn't know, historically speaking, which way to go.

As we reflect back to their condition, and they were literally without help.

They had no food to eat.

They had nothing to drink.

They were totally dependent.

God and God alone.

The only way they could survive is if God intervened in some way.

And certainly this is an illustration of lost sinners, those who have lost their way in this world, those who do not know which way to go.

They're at an end and come to an end of themselves.

They have no spiritual bread.

They have no spiritual water to keep their soul from perishing.

They're in the wilderness and barrenness of this life.

They're wandering from place to place.

They're wandering from thrill to thrill in this world.

They're wandering from job to job, from marriage to marriage, from relationship to relationship, from experience to experience, just looking for some other new experience without ever finding any true food for their soul, without ever finding any lasting satisfaction.

They're looking, like Abraham did in Hebrews 11 and verse 10, for a city whose builder and Maker is God.

So what do these distressed people do?

The psalmist tells us their condition, but then he shows us their cry in verse six.

Then they cried unto the Lord in their trouble.

Listen, friends, when a sinner comes to God and cries out to God, listen, that's all it takes.

Praise God.

That's all it takes.

If you're sitting here this morning, you're saved.

You can remember that time that you cried out to God by faith.

And folks, that's all it takes to become a child of God by faith.

To cry out to God and say, God, I'm lost in my way.

God, I don't know which way to go.

I'm overwhelmed by my sin and my helplessness.

And God, I need you, God, would you save me?

I trust in Jesus Christ as my Lord and as my Savior.

And let me just point here, folks.

You don't see any works in these verses.

They didn't do anything to work their way out of the wilderness.

These people have nothing to offer God but a desperate cry unto God.

And look at how God responds.

He sees their condition, he hears their cry, and he responds in great compassion.

Look at verse six.

Then they cried unto the Lord in their trouble.

And he delivered them out of their dark distresses and led them forth by the right way that they might go.

Listen to where they're going.

To a city of habitation.

That they might go to a city of habitation.

And notice in verse seven, he led them by the right way.

That is, they didn't know which way to go.

I know before I got saved, I had no clue which way to go.

I knew my soul needed something and I didn't know what to do until God came and took me by the hand.

And he led me into a city of habitation.

And so God takes the wandering sinner by the hand and leads them to a city of habitation.

And folks, let me just say that's pure grace.

That's just the grace of God.

That's just the mercy of God.

Again, they didn't deserve it.

We don't deserve it.

But God is.

Is rich in grace and God is rich in mercy.

What is this inhabited city that's mentioned at the end of verse seven, folks?

I believe it's the city of God.

It's heaven itself.

I'm reminded of Revelations chapter 7 and verse 15, where it says, therefore are they before the throne of God and serve him day and night in his temple.

And he that sitteth on the throne shall dwell among them.

They shall hunger no more.

Neither shall any thirst anymore?

Neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat.

For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters, and God shall wipe away all the tears from their eyes and friends.

These verses and revelations don't describe wanderers without a way in the wilderness, but describes sinners who are saved by the marvelous grace of God in a city of God called heaven.

Because of his great compassion, because of God's great grace, his great mercy, we are called to celebrate.

Look at verse eight.

Oh, that men would praise or thank the Lord for his goodness and for his wonderful works to the children of men.

For he satisfies the longing soul and filleth the hungry soul with goodness.

Praise the Lord.

The redeemed of the Lord are no longer wanderers lost in a barren wilderness with no hope, with no way on the verge of death.

But now they are redeemed saints who have found a heavenly city.

Let the redeemed of the Lord say so.

Church, Amen.

Praise his name.

Hallelujah.

God is good.

Let the redeemed of the Lord say so.

So in this first illustration we see wanderers without a way.

But look at the next illustration the psalmist gives us Prisoners without a pardon.

Prisoners without a pardon.

Look at their condition in verse 10.

Such as sit in darkness, in the shadow of death, being bound in affliction, in iron.

These verses describe a prisoner who is chained in a very dark dungeon, a very dirty dungeon, awaiting execution.

It's very, very dark.

It's very, very dreary.

Perhaps there are chains that he shackled in, and the chains have worn the flesh off of his arms raw.

And he's sitting there in pain.

He's sitting there in misery with no hope, knowing it's just a matter of time until the executioner comes and says, it's your time.

Now you're going to the execution block.

Now you're going to die for the penalty what you have done.

But why are these prisoners bound in chainsaw awaiting execution?

Look at verse 11.

Because they rebelled against the words of God and contemned or despised the counsel of the Most High.

Therefore he brought down their heart with labor.

They fell down and there was no hope, there was none to help.

The Bible says these prisoners in darkness, I believe, depict Israel.

Maybe there's a time in the Israel of history of Israel when it's when they're in slavery in Egypt and they're to make bricks with no straw.

They're in these mud pits and they're desperately trying to Find straw to put in the mud to make these bricks.

It's a very desperate time.

It's a very, very dark time.

Their slave owners were whipping them with whips on their backs, saying, you need to work harder.

You need to keep up your pace.

They were relentlessly working from dawn to dark.

And it was a very, very dark time in the history of Israel as they were prisoners in chains, and they were in a time of very, very deep darkness.

It also could reflect of the time where they're in captivity in Babylon.

And they were imprisoned in a foreign pagan land without any hope.

And there was a continuing haunting thought in their mind.

I wonder if tomorrow will be the day that they will execute me.

I wonder if tomorrow will be the day that the Jews will.

Will go into extinction.

They'll be exterminated from the earth.

And maybe you're here today and you say, well, preacher, I can think of that time when I was in that deep darkness in my life, in my sin, where I had no hope.

I didn't know what to do.

I was distressed.

I didn't know whether to go or whether to come.

I didn't know how I'd ever get out of these chains that were binding me.

You feel surrounded with darkness.

Maybe this morning without hope.

You're here this morning, and you're desperate.

Why were these captives in Egypt, in Babylon?

Why was Israel enslaved in Egypt?

Why was Israel enslaved in Babylon?

Because it says of their rebellion against the words of the Lord in these verses.

The prophet Isaiah had warned them, Jeremiah had warned them, Ezekiel and had warned them if they would continue to rebel against God, they would go into captivity.

They would be chained, they would be imprisoned.

They would be in a time of darkness.

And in verse 12, it says they were proud and they were full of themselves.

They were proud and full of themselves.

And that's what led them to this place in their life.

That is God says in James, I'll resist the proud, but I will give grace to who church.

I'll give grace to the humble.

So we see the condition of a helpless prisoner who has rebelled against God and as a result is captured in the prison of their pride without any hope of release.

And, folks, what do these prisoners need?

They need a liberator.

What do these prisoners need?

They need someone who can cut off the chains that are holding them captive.

They need a king who can pardon them.

They need a king who can set them free.

When these condemned prisoners finally come to the end of themselves and they have no hope, and they see there's nothing they can do in and of themselves.

What do they do?

They cry out to God.

Look at verse 13.

Then they cried unto the Lord in their trouble, folks, many sinners will miss heaven because they were too proud to bow before God and humbly cry out to God for salvation.

But when these condemned prisoners cried out, how does God respond?

He sees their condition.

He hears their cry.

We see this repeated in this psalm.

And he responds with compassion.

Look at verse 14.

He brought them out of darkness and the shadow of death and brake their bands asunder out of the goodness of God, out of the loving kindness of God.

He delivers them out of darkness and he breaks off the chains that are binding them.

The prison doors are opened, the shackles are released and the prisoner is set free.

Not because of anything he had done in and of himself, but in spite of everything he had done.

Folks, this morning, that's nothing but the grace of God.

They had done absolutely nothing to deserve this freedom from this prison of darkness, from these chains of sin that were binding them.

You have done nothing.

I have done nothing to deserve the grace of God, the mercy of God, the compassion of God.

Charles Wesley said, he breaks the power of counsel sin and sets the prisoner free.

Hallelujah.

Isaiah, chapter 42.

And verse six says, I the Lord have called thee in righteousness and will hold thine hand and will keep thee.

I love this and give thee for a covenant of the people, for a light of the Gentiles.

To what?

Open the blind eyes to bring out the prisoners from the prison and them that sit in darkness out of the prison house.

Isaiah, chapter 45.

And verse two continues, I will go before thee and make the crooked places straight.

I will break in pieces the gates of brass and cut in sunder the bars of iron.

Oh, sinner, you may be sitting here in darkness today.

God is calling out to you right now to give you pardon from your sin.

And Jesus said, in him that comes to me, I will in no wise cast out.

God is a loving God.

He's a compassionate God who hears the cry of the desperate sinner.

And because of God's great grace, and because of God's great mercy, and because God has set the prisoner free, has opened the prison doors, taken the chains off.

We're called to celebrate the goodness of God.

Look at it in verse 15.

Oh, that men would praise the Lord for his goodness, for his wonderful works to the children of men.

For he hath broken the gates of brass and cut the bars of iron in sunder.

Praise the Lord, the redeemed of the Lord are no longer condemned prisoners, no longer enslaved in darkness, no longer enslaved in sin.

But we have been delivered from the darkness of our sin.

He has opened the doors.

He has taken off the the chains.

Let the redeemed God says of the Lord say so.

Praise be to God.

He has broken off our chains.

The first two illustrations the Psalmist gives us are wanderers without a way.

He shows us prisoners without a pardon who've been redeemed.

I love the illustrations he gives us here.

And the next illustration is those who are hurting without a healer.

You have listened to the first part of a two part message by Evangelist Sam Wood.

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