Sermon
Psalm 105:1-45
A Matter of Perspective
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Psalms 105:1-45
A Matter of Perspective
The sermons from now until the end of November will come from the Psalter readings in the lectionary. We’ve listed them in the bulletin for your benefit. The psalms were the songs of Israel, and, as I’m sure you’ve already discovered, they’re full of emotion, inspiration, prayers and praise. So, I encourage you to read the psalm before you come to church and let the words of the psalmist prepare you for worship each week.
The psalm for today is Psalm 105. Charles Spurgeon sums it up nicely in his commentary:
“The first verses are full of joyful praise, and call upon the people to extol Jehovah, Ps 105:1-7; then the earliest days of the infant nation, are described, Ps 105:8-15; the going into Egypt, Ps 105:16-23, the coming forth from it with the Lord’s outstretched arm, Ps 105:24-38, the journeying through the wilderness and the entrance into Canaan.”
That’s Psalm 105 in a nutshell. We’ll hear about these events in the life of Israel in the sermon today. What I’d like for you to take note of is the psalmist’s interpretation. Instead of focusing on the down side, he shows us how God used painful circumstances to bless the people of Israel.
What I hope to show is that it’s a matter of perspective: The difference between a life of hope and a life of despair has to do with how you interpret your life experiences – whether you focus on the trials and tribulations – or the ways in which God uses those trials and tribulations to bless you and draw you closer to himself.
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Let’s begin. As Spurgeon pointed out, the first seven verses call the people of Israel to praise God. He writes,
“Give thanks to Yahweh! Call on his name!
Make his doings known among the peoples.
Sing to him, sing praises to him!
Tell of all his marvelous works” (Psalm 105:1-2).
From here, the psalmist rehearses a brief litany of Israel’s journey of faith. It begins with Abraham. You know the story. God told Abraham,
“Get out of your country, and from your relatives, and from your father’s house,
to the land that I will show you.
I will make of you a great nation.
I will bless you and make your name great.
You will be a blessing” (Genesis 12:1-2).
So, Abraham took his wife, Sarah, and their nephew, Lot, and their servants, and journeyed into the land of Canaan – just a small family on their way to God-knows-where.
The scripture goes on to say, “The Canaanite was then in the land.” (Genesis 12:6) Well, duh! Of course, there were! What would you expect, that the land would be uninhabited? From the get-go, Abraham and his little family had to deal with those who were already living there.
In time, his family would grow, but it’d be a while. Not until the third and fourth generations – Jacob and his twelve sons and their offspring – would the family grow to an appreciable size. Even then, the people of Israel will be minute compared to the Canaanites and the other tribes.
So, can you imagine how the people of Israel felt living in the land of Canaan? They grew up being told they were God’s chosen people, but they had little to show for it. They were small in number, dependent on the goodwill of others, mostly powerless to defend themselves.
Here’s where the psalmist gives us his first interpretation. Instead of bemoaning the fact that the people of Israel were the runt of the region, he points out how God watched over them and protected them from the other tribes. He says,
“When they were but a few men in number,
yes, very few, and foreigners in it.
They went about from nation to nation,
from one kingdom to another people.
(God) allowed no one to do them wrong.
Yes, he reproved kings for their sakes,
‘Don’t touch my anointed ones!
Do my prophets no harm!'” (Psalm 105.12-15).
The people of Israel prospered and grew in the land of Canaan. Then disaster struck. A terrible drought struck the region – much like the drought we’re having today, only worse. Theirs would last seven years. In that time, the sheep and cattle would die, the crops would fail, the water would run out. They faced the prospects of starvation.
Can you imagine how they felt toward God at this point? “Lord, what are you doing to us? We’re your chosen people. How could you let this happen? Did you lead us all the way down here to let us die?” Again, the psalmist interprets this tragedy in a positive light. He says,
“He called for a famine on the land.
He destroyed the food supplies.
He sent a man before them.
Joseph was sold for a slave….
(but) Yahweh’s word proved him true.
The king sent and freed (Joseph);
even the ruler of peoples, and let him go free.
He made him lord of his house,
and ruler of all of his possessions;
…Israel also came into Egypt.
Jacob lived in the land of Ham.
He increased his people greatly,
and made them stronger than their adversaries.
He turned their heart to hate his people,
to conspire against his servants” (Psalm 105:16-24).
God not only saved his people from starvation, he gave them a place of privilege in the land of Egypt, and they prospered and grew even greater than before. The drought turned out to be a blessing in disguise.
Then the tide turned. The Pharaoh died. Joseph died. Jacob died. No one was left to see that the people of Israel were given their proper place of honor. The Egyptians began to look on the Israelites as foreigners, who were taking advantage of them. So, they treated them with contempt, until finally, the Israelites were forced to serve the Egyptians as slaves.
They lived as slaves in Egypt for 430 years – roughly ten generations, or more. That’s a long time to live in slavery, especially when you’re told that you’re God’s chosen people. It makes you wonder: What kind of God can subject his people to this kind of punishment?
Once again, the psalmist helps us interpret the experience. He says,
God “sent Moses, his servant,
and Aaron, whom he had chosen.
They performed miracles among them,
and wonders in the land of Ham….
He struck also all the firstborn in their land,
the first fruits of all their manhood.
He brought them forth with silver and gold.
There was not one feeble person among his tribes.
Egypt was glad when they departed,
for the fear of them had fallen on them” (Psalm 105:26-38).
The Egyptian captivity set the stage for the Passover and one of God’s mightiest acts – the Exodus. Moses led the people out of Egypt, through the waters of the Red Sea, and into the wilderness. They were on their way to the Promised Land. God had come through once more. Not only that, but God himself would lead them through the wilderness with a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. (Psalm 105:39)
Then disaster struck. They ran out of food and water. Surely, they must have thought God had deceived them. They turned on Moses. They wanted to go back to Egypt. But, again, God came to their rescue. The psalmist writes,
“They asked, and he brought quails,
and satisfied them with the bread of the sky.
He opened the rock, and waters gushed out.
They ran as a river in the dry places.
For he remembered his holy word,
and Abraham, his servant” (Psalm 105:40-42).
So, they pressed on toward the Promised Land. Sure enough, after wandering in the desert for forty years, they reached the River Jordan. They were home, at last. But, as fate would have it, the Promised Land was already taken. Not only was it inhabited, it was occupied and heavily defended. Scouts were sent in. They came back and reported,
“We aren’t able to go up against the people;
for they are stronger than we….
The land, through which we have gone to spy it out,
is a land that eats up its inhabitants;
and all the people who we saw in it are men of great stature….
we were in our own sight as grasshoppers,
and so we were in their sight” (Numbers 13:31-33).
Can you imagine how the people of Israel felt at this point? They’d come so far. They’d been promised a land flowing with milk and honey. Now they were at the threshold, but the door was barred. All they had to show for their long journey was worn-out sandals and broken hearts. Once more, the psalmist helps us see what happened through the eyes of faith. He writes,
“He gave them the lands of the nations.
They took the labor of the peoples in possession,
that they might keep his statutes, and observe his laws.
Praise Yahweh!” (Psalms 105:44-45).
By the power God, the walls of Jericho came tumbling down, then the city of Ai. In time, the people of Israel were in control of Canaan from Dan to the north to Beersheba in the south. God had proven himself, once more, as a mighty God, strong in battle and ever-faithful to the covenant he’d made with Abraham.
This is a far as the psalm goes. Had it been written later, it could’ve included the Assyrian Conquest, the Babylonian Exile and the Roman Occupation; or, in our day, the Holocaust. You get the point: The people of Israel experienced incredible hardships, pain and loss; yet, God never abandoned them. In the words of Lamentations,
“It is because of Yahweh’s loving kindnesses that we are not consumed, because his compassion doesn’t fail.
They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.
Yahweh is my portion, says my soul; therefore will I hope in him”
(Lamentations 3:22-24).
Here’s how the psalm speaks to me: Life is full of setbacks and disappointments, failed attempts and missed opportunities. No one is immune from the harsh realities of death, disease and disaster.
When tragedy strikes – whether it’s the death of a loved one, the loss of a job, the pain of divorce or the reality that your dreams are not likely to come true – you have a choice: You can lick your wounds and have yourself a pity party, or you can turn to God and live by faith.
I can’t think of a better example of one who lived by faith than Maureen Emerson. By the time I met her, Maureen was in her 80s and homebound, but her life was anything but over. Everyone told me what a joy she was to visit, and she was. She had an upbeat, positive attitude. She smiled a lot and laughed at my corny jokes. Plus, she was thankful for the little things. “I got the sweetest card the other day,” she’d say, “… you’ll never guess who called yesterday” … “just look at the birds – they’re building a nest outside my window … what fun!”
Maureen was totally bedridden, her body twisted and gnarled by effects of rheumatoid arthritis. I could only imagine the pain she endured. But I never heard her complain. If she was hurting, she kept it to herself. She didn’t talk about her aches and pains; instead, she asked about others, “worse off than me,” as she put it.
What makes Maureen stand out in my memory, even to this day, is that, as a young woman, she was a professional ballerina. When she wasn’t on stage, she was teaching ballet at her own school of dance.
Ballet was her life, a life for which she was eternally thankful, even though it was now a thing of the past.
What I hope you’ll take home with you is this: It’s a matter of perspective. Like the proverbial glass that’s both half-empty and half-full, life is filled with both challenges and celebrations. How you choose to look at it is up to you.
Just know this: To focus on the negative leads to a life of despair; to focus on the mercies of God leads to the hope of a new day and the promise of a brighter tomorrow.
Natalie Sleeth expressed this beautifully in an anthem entitled, Hymn of Promise. It goes like this:
In the bulb there is a flower; in the seed, an apple tree;
In cocoons, a hidden promise: butterflies will soon be free!
In the cold and snow of winter there’s a spring that waits to be,
Unrevealed until its season, something God alone can see.
There’s a song in every silence, seeking word and melody;
There’s a dawn in every darkness, bringing hope to you and me.
From the past will come the future; what it holds, a mystery,
Unrevealed until its season, something God alone can see.
In our end is our beginning; in our time, infinity;
In our doubt there is believing; in our life, eternity,
In our death, a resurrection; at the last, a victory,
Unrevealed until its season, something God alone can see.
Whatever is going on in your life today, look to God. Call on his name. Sing praises to him. Tell of all his wonderful works.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
SCRIPTURE QUOTATIONS are from the World English Bible (WEB), a public domain (no copyright) modern English translation of the Holy Bible.
Copyright 2011, Philip McLarty. Used by permission.