PSALM 107 - Our Help In Ages Past

Introduction

Before winning the lottery, Alex Toth lived a modest life in Florida and worked as a golf course groundskeeper. By all accounts, his life was ordinary and financially constrained. After winning $13 million in 1990, Toth’s behavior changed quickly. He purchased multiple homes and expensive cars and made impulsive purchases. He also stopped working entirely. Within a few years, his spending escalated while his income shrank. By the late 1990s, Toth was broke. He faced legal trouble repeatedly and relied on food stamps to survive. He died penniless in 2008. (Retrieved from https://www.moneytalksnews.com/real-life-lottery-winners-who-lost-it-all/, Accessed August 8th, 2026)

In order to avoid squandering a treasure, you have to have a plan for keeping it. Lottery winners and others who suddenly come into enormous wealth need advisors and financial planners in order to keep from wasting their money. Over the past few weeks we have been reading through psalms that urge us not to squander the treasure we have in the lovingkindness of God toward us. Last week we were given a warning about the spiritual calamity we risk when we squander God’s gifts of faithful love by forgetting His grace:

Psalm 106:43 LSB

Many times He would deliver them; But they were rebellious in their counsel, And so they sank down in their iniquity.

If Psalm 106 is the cautionary tale of a people who brought spiritual bankruptcy on themselves through forgetting and despising the grace of God toward them, then Psalm 107 is a pattern for treasuring the lovingkindness of YHWH toward you; to be faithful with the extraordinary treasure He has given you in your salvation.

And the way that Psalm 107 calls us to be faithful with the treasure we have been given is to declare what God has done for us—we see this in the first two verses of our text:

Psalm 107:1–2 LSB

Oh give thanks to Yahweh, for He is good, For His lovingkindness endures forever. Let the redeemed of Yahweh say so, Whom He has redeemed from the hand of the adversary

What are the redeemed to do? The ones whom YHWH has redeemed from the hand of the adversary? They are to say that He is good! They are to testify to His goodness, to tell about what He has done.

Christian, if you are to wisely steward the treasure God has given you in your salvation; if you don’t want to waste this good gift, then

Live your life as an OBJECT LESSON of God’s LOVINGKINDNESS toward you

In most of your Bibles Psalm 107 will be marked off as the beginning of “Book 5”—the fifth “movement” of the five-part cantata that is the Psalms. The psalms in Book 1 were compiled to describe the reign of the Anointed King—this is where we find most of the psalms of David. Book 2 describes the reign of the Anointed King beginning to spread beyond the borders of Israel; that the reign of the Anointed One will spread over all the earth. Then Book 3 takes a dark turn: it appears that the reign of YHWH over His people has failed—psalms of lamentation about the fall of Jerusalem and mourning over the triumph of the enemies of God’s people because of their rebellion and rejection of His covenant. Book 4—the book we just finished last week—are psalms that are compiled to call God’s people back to the foundations of the covenant: Remembering His faithfulness, submitting to Him in obedience and worshipping Him in truth.

As we saw, Psalm 106 ends on a hopeful note:

Psalm 106:47 LSB

Save us, O Yahweh our God, And gather us from among the nations, To give thanks to Your holy name And revel in Your praise.

Here in Psalm 107 we begin the Fifth and final Book in the psalter: Psalms that declare the certainty of the reign of YHWH’s Anointed One. These psalms begin to merge the image of the earthly throne of David in Jerusalem with the heavenly throne of YHWH through the coming Anointed One, describing the Kingdom that is coming when He appears.

We see the transition between these two sections in the way Psalm 107 picks up after the end of Psalm 106—where Psalm 106 is a prayer that YHWH will gather His people from the nations, Psalm 107 is a song of rejoicing over how He has rescued them from the nations:

Psalm 107:2–3 LSB

Let the redeemed of Yahweh say so, Whom He has redeemed from the hand of the adversary And gathered from the lands, From the east and from the west, From the north and from the south.

The people returning from exile have come back to the foundations of covenant faithfulness to YHWH, and Psalm 107 is a retelling of all the ways that He has been faithful; it is their testifying to all of His faithful acts of salvation.

Here in the first three verses of the psalm we read

I. The TESTIMONY of the Redeemed (Psalm 107:1-3)

There are two acts of YHWH that the redeemed are called to testify to in these verses: First, that

YHWH has PURCHASED them (v. 2)

Psalm 107:2 LSB

Let the redeemed of Yahweh say so, Whom He has redeemed from the hand of the adversary

This is another reference to the Hebrew slaves being bought out of their slavery in Egypt; that they came out of slavery under the blood of an innocent Passover lamb that had been slaughtered for their protection and purchase. The redeemed belong to YHWH; they are His people, His property. He is their Good and merciful master Who loves them unconditionally. And this is a reason to rejoice!

The second element of the testimony of the redeemed is that

YHWH has GATHERED them (v. 3)

Psalm 107:3 LSB

And gathered from the lands, From the east and from the west, From the north and from the south.

In Psalm 106 the redeemed were crying out to be gathered out of the lands from which they had been scattered:

Psalm 106:47 LSB

Save us, O Yahweh our God, And gather us from among the nations...

And here they are testifying that He has brought the back to Jerusalem—He has brought them back to His holy mountain in Zion. Book 5 of the Psalms depicts the merging of the earthly throne of the the Anointed descendent of David with the heavenly throne of YHWH Himself—and this verse shows us that as God is bringing those thrones together one of His aims is to gather His people to Himself. He delights to have His children gathered with Him; He rejoices to call them out of all the nations where they have been scattered and bring His family together around His throne, so that where He is, we may be also!

So as you life your life as an object lesson of God’s lovingkindness toward you, live as a redeemed and gathered child; reckon your life as having been bought for you by Christ’s blood; see how you have been called out of the world to be part of His own family.

I hope you have picked up on the pattern through the past several psalms; A few introductory verses about the lovingkindness of God, then a long middle section that shows our relationship with God’s lovingkindness for good or ill, and then a conclusion that brings it all together again with an exhortation for how we are to respond to His faithful steadfast love.

What we see starting in Verse 4 is a series of very carefully-crafted refrains that retell

II. The RESCUE of the Redeemed (Psalm 107:4-32)

in several different ways. If you look carefully at each of these paragraphs you will see a couple of verses repeated in each section, like a repeated refrain. The first is found in Verse 6, 13, 19 and 28—if you like to make notations in your Bible, you can highlight these verses to help see the pattern:

Psalm 107:6 LSB

Then they cried out to Yahweh in their trouble; He delivered them out of their distresses.

The second repeated verse comes in at Verses 8, 15, 21 and 31, and it says

Psalm 107:8 LSB

Let them give thanks to Yahweh for His lovingkindness, And for His wondrous deeds to the sons of men!

If you want you can highlight or underline those with a different color so that you can see the pattern throughout the psalm.

Whether you highlight those verses or not, you can start to pick out the pattern of each section. We’ll look at the first stanza in Verses 4-9 and then we will be able to pick out the theme of the following stanzas after that.

So here’s how it plays out: Verses 4-9 describe

HUNGRY WANDERERS filled (vv. 4-9)

Listen for those verses in this stanza of the song:

Psalm 107:4–9 LSB

4 They wandered in the wilderness along the way of the wasteland; They did not find an inhabited city. 5 Hungry and thirsty, Their soul fainted within them. 6 Then they cried out to Yahweh in their trouble; He delivered them out of their distresses. 7 He led them by a straight way, To go to an inhabited city. 8 Let them give thanks to Yahweh for His lovingkindness, And for His wondrous deeds to the sons of men! 9 For He has satisfied the thirsty soul, And the hungry soul He has filled with what is good.

This is obviously a callback to the wandering of Israel in the desert; that they were hungry and thirsty yet He filled them with bread from Heaven and water from the rock. How many of you see yourself in this stanza? Before you knew Christ you were lost—you wandered through life with no direction, not knowing where to go; empty and aimless. Is that your story? That you were redeemed out of your aimless empty wandering when you cried out to God for deliverance? Then give thanks to YHWH for His lovngkindness and His wondrous deeds that redeemed you out of your empty wanderings and satisfied your emptiness with Himself!

Some were hungry wanderers redeemed by YHWH’s lovingkindness, and some were

Rebel PRISONERS FREED (vv. 10-16)

by His mighty acts. See the same pattern in Verses 10-16:

Psalm 107:10–16 LSB

10 There were those who inhabited darkness and the shadow of death, Prisoners in affliction and irons, 11 Because they had rebelled against the words of God And spurned the counsel of the Most High. 12 So He subdued their heart with labor; They stumbled and there was none to help. 13 Then they cried out to Yahweh in their trouble; He saved them out of their distresses. 14 He brought them out of darkness and the shadow of death And broke their bands apart. 15 Let them give thanks to Yahweh for His lovingkindness, And for His wondrous deeds to the sons of men! 16 For He has shattered the doors of bronze And cut through the bars of iron.

The hungry wanderers in the first stanza were merely lost—but the prisoners in this stanza were suffering because of their rebellion. They had brought their calamity on themselves (think back to Psalm 106). They had spurned the counsel of the Most High; they had ignored God and rebelled against His word—they knew what He was telling them and they deliberately ignored it.

And such were some of you! You used to look down on “religious” people as weak, superstitious losers. Perhaps you saw the steadfast faith of your own parents or grandparents and wrote them off as earnest but misguided, and you wanted no part of their God. But the time came when your trouble and distress and helplessness overwhelmed you; when everything had fallen apart and you had no one else to turn to; you cried out to the God you had rebelled against, and He heard your cry! He brought you out of the darkness and death you were shadowed in, He cut through the chains of sin and rebellion that had bound you, He set you free from the patterns of self-destructive sin that were imprisoning you and He showered you with His steadfast unfailing love!

In the never-failing lovingkindness of YHWH, hungry wanderers are filled, rebel prisoners are freed, and

IGNORANT FOOLS are rescued (vv. 17-22; cp. Ps. 53:1)

Psalm 107:17–22 LSB

17 Ignorant fools, because of their way of transgression, And because of their iniquities, were afflicted. 18 Their soul abhorred all kinds of food, And they reached the gates of death. 19 Then they cried out to Yahweh in their trouble; He saved them out of their distresses. 20 He sent His word and healed them, And provided them escape from their destructions. 21 Let them give thanks to Yahweh for His lovingkindness, And for His wondrous deeds to the sons of men! 22 Let them also offer sacrifices of thanksgiving, And recount His works with joyful singing.

Elsewhere in the Psalms we are given a definition of a fool:

Psalm 53:1 LSB

1 The wicked fool says in his heart, “There is no God,” They act corruptly, and commit abominable injustice; There is no one who does good.

From the rebels who knew God but rebelled against His will, now we come to the atheists—the ones who don’t just say that God is irrelevant, but deny that He exists altogether. The people who are glad (they say) that God doesn’t exist because now they are free to do whatever they want because there are no consequences: no Judgment Day, no one to answer to, no punishment for “sin”, just uninterrupted indulgence of every desire and every craving.

But the psalmist warns about what happens when fools begin living as if there is no God; when they give themselves over to satisfying whatever desire they have—it ruins you:

Psalm 107:17–18 LSB

17 Ignorant fools, because of their way of transgression, And because of their iniquities, were afflicted. 18 Their soul abhorred all kinds of food, And they reached the gates of death.

Ask anyone who has ever let their God-denying desires to run free in their lives; anyone who has really lived as if there was no God; so many times people are utterly ruined by the cravings and desires that they put on the throne of their life. In their foolish denial of God’s existence, their self-destructive desires can bring them to the brink of death.

But see the lovingkindness of YHWH—when they cry out to Him in their trouble, He saves them! For you who have come out of that past—where you had given free reign to every self-destructive desire and craving and lust and appetite and indulgence that ever tugged at your heart—for you who had nearly destroyed yourself and those around you by your foolish ignorance—you know the kind of affliction the psalmist is writing about here.

So do what the psalmist calls you to in Verse 22—offer sacrifices of thanksgiving, and recount His works with joyful singing! There is no song so sweet in the ears of God than the song of a redeemed fool praising Him for His lovingkindness! So sing and rejoice in His mighty work that redeemed you!

The steadfast lovingkindness and never-failing mercy of YHWH sees hungry wanderers filled, rebel prisoners freed, ignorant fools rescued, and it sees

AMBITIOUS ACHIEVERS awakened (vv. 23-32)

Verse 23 doesn’t describe people who are lost or wandering or imprisoned or delf-destructive—here the focus is on men of trade and business and industry:

Psalm 107:23–24 LSB

23 Those who go down to the sea in ships, Who do business on many waters; 24 They have seen the works of Yahweh, And His wondrous deeds in the deep.

They are not rebelling against God, they are not wandering aimlessly, they are not spending their lives in wild self-destructive indulgence. They are the respectable people; the business owners. They are disciplined and ambitious, educated and hard-working. They do not rebel against God or hate Him or deny Him so much as they give Him a polite nod as they pass by on the street: They are going about their business, and He is going about His. The ones who are cordial and pleasant in their denial: “Well, I’m certainly happy for you that your faith is so important in your life; I can see how it gives you so much peace and stability; but my life is just fine without that kind of spiritual component.”

And so what does God do for these self-sufficient, hard-working achievers? He gets their attention!

Psalm 107:25–27 LSB

25 He spoke and set up a stormy wind, Which raised up the waves of the sea. 26 They went up to the heavens, they went down to the depths; Their soul melted away in the calamity. 27 They staggered and swayed like a drunken man, And all their wisdom was swallowed up.

See how YHWH brings them to the end of themselves with calamity and fear and a demonstration of how fragile and weak their grasp on life is!

Psalm 107:28–31 LSB

28 Then they cried to Yahweh in their trouble, And He brought them out of their distresses. 29 He caused the storm to stand still, So that its waves were hushed. 30 Then they were glad because they were quiet, So He led them to their desired haven. 31 Let them give thanks to Yahweh for His lovingkindness, And for His wondrous deeds to the sons of men!

Christian, were you one of the complacent, self-sufficient deniers of God until He woke you up? Did He bring you down to the point where all of your wisdom and self-sufficiency was swallowed up by His calamities in your life until you cried out to Him? Then rejoice in His lovingkindess that awakened you from your ambition and pride—praise Him and thank Him that He loved you too much to let you walk away from Him!

Live your life as an object lesson of God’s lovingkindness toward you: He has purchased you, He has gathered you to Himself, He has redeemed you out of your emptiness and rebellion and foolishness and self-sufficient pride.

Now starting in Verse 33 the carefully-crafted stanza pattern shifts; in the last ten verses of the psalm the psalmist describes

III. The WISDOM of the Redeemed (Psalm 107:33-43)

I say this because of the last verse of the psalm:

Psalm 107:43 LSB

43 Who is wise? Let him keep these things, And carefully consider the lovingkindnesses of Yahweh.

The psalmist says that it is wisdom to carefully consider these things; to keep them in mind and keep them before our eyes. Don’t squander the treasure of lovingkindness and grace that God has lavished on you by not holding fast to these things.

These last ten verses split neatly into two paragraphs that each remind us of the kind of wisdom that we are called to have in light of all of His lovingkindness toward us—wisdom about Him. Look at everything this psalm has told us about the lovingkindness of YHWH—it purchased us, it gathered us to Himself, it rescued us out of all kinds of darkness and destruction. If this is the lovingkindness of YHWH, then we can always be sure that

He PREPARES a PLACE for His people (vv. 33-38)

What is wisdom that knowledge of YHWH’s lovingkindness produces? The wisdom of knowing that the prosperity and ease of those who hate God is not to be envied because it is fading!

Psalm 107:33–34 LSB

33 He makes rivers into a wilderness And springs of water into a thirsty ground; 34 A fruitful land into a salt waste, Because of the evil of those who inhabited it.

And it is wisdom to know that God’s lovingkindness is always at work for His people, even when all they can see is a wasteland!

Psalm 107:35–38 LSB

35 He makes a wilderness into a pool of water And a dry land into springs of water; 36 And there He causes the hungry to inhabit, So that they may establish an inhabited city, 37 And sow fields and plant vineyards, And produce a fruitful harvest. 38 Also He blesses them and they multiply greatly, And He does not let their cattle decrease.

Christian—the wisdom that you gain from carefully meditating on the steadfast faithful love of God for you means that you will never be envious at the well-watered plains of the wicked, and you will never despair of the dry wasteland you sojourn through. Because YHWH’s lovingkindness will always prepare your place!

Treasure up the knowledge of God’s lovingkindness in your life, Christian, and you will see that

He PRESERVES the LIFE of His people (vv. 39-41)

This wisdom doesn’t flinch or cower or despair when evil rises or when oppression and sorrow weighs down on you. Because YHWH is faithful to His people!

Psalm 107:39–41 LSB

39 But when they decrease and are bowed down Through oppression, evil, and sorrow, 40 He pours contempt upon nobles And makes them wander in a pathless void. 41 But He sets the needy securely on high away from affliction, And makes his families like a flock.

The steadfast love of YHWH never fails—even in the face of injustice, oppression and evil. Even when you are hated for the Name of Christ; even when those who rule are set against Him in arrogance and high-handed rebellion, His lovingkindness will never fail you! He keeps you secure, and He nurtures and grows and cultivates His people as their Good Shepherd Who protects them and feeds them and lets them dwell securely in the middle of a hostile world.

Notice in Verse 42 there are only two possible responses to seeing the steadfast love of God:

Psalm 107:42 LSB

42 The upright see it and are glad; But all unrighteousness shuts its mouth.

The upright heart—the one who loves God and delights in all of His faithful acts of love—is glad to see and ponder and treasure His works. But unrighteousness shuts its mouth—the ungrateful and complaining heart can’t admit any kindness on God’s part.

Christian, see here that if you are going to be faithful with the extraordinary treasure He has given you in your salvation, you don’t have the option of keeping your mouth shut! Don’t squander this great treasure of lovingkindness that YHWH has blessed you with—live your life with the wisdom that comes from seeing and recounting and treasuring all of the steadfast faithful covenant love that He has poured out on you in your life.

Let me make three suggestions based on this psalm of how to make your life a living demonstration of the lovingkindness of God. First: a life that is an object lesson of God’s steadfast love is a life that delights in being gathered with God’s redeemed people. Beware of people who say they love Christ but can’t stand Christians; who can be easily drawn away from gathered worship on the Lord’s Day—just as He delighted to gather His people from all the nations that they had been scattered to, so He delights to gather His people in worship every week. This is what we acknowledge at the beginning of each Sunday morning—that we have been called by Him to worship, we have been gathered here by His voice. So delight in gathering with God’s redeemed on the Lord’s Day.

Second: delight in God’s power to redeem anyone! Once again, Oswald Chambers comes to mind: “I never met the man I could despair of after discerning what was in my heart apart from the grace of God”—He is the God Who redeems the lost and hungry, He is the One Who redeems the scornful rebel; He is the One Who redeems the embittered atheist and the hard-driving ambitious achiever; the one consumed by their self-destructive sin, the one sunk so deep in despair and self-loathing that they are ready to slip into their grave. YHWH delights to redeem all of them! So Christian, love them and delight in them as well! There is no one beyond the reach of His redeeming power—no one. So set the same love and delight on the sorriest of sinners as was set on you by your Redeemer when you were far beyond anyone’s reach but His!

Third: Set your heart and mind and soul on the sure and unbreakable promises of your redemption as you journey through a dark and broken world. It doesn’t mean that the darkness goes away; it doesn’t mean that the clouds will all break and the sunshine will pour in and every shadow will disappear. But it does mean that you have real hope through it all. Hope that the lovingkindness of God will not fail you; hope that His purposes for you are to set you securely, to bring your affliction to an end, to right every wrong that you have suffered, to mend every broken heart and dry every tear someday.

Do you have that hope this morning? Do you belong by faith to the redeemed children of YHWH? If you see yourself in this psalm as the rebel, as the hungry wanderer, as the bitter fool who has lived as if there is no God, as the driven, self-righteous achiever—that same promise repeated over and over in that refrain is just as true for you:

Cry to YHWH in your trouble and He will bring you out of your distress! He has opened the way to His mercy seat; He has torn the veil in two that separates you from His lovingkindness! The perfect Lamb of God, the eternal Second Person of the Trinity, Jesus Christ the Son of God took on human flesh and died as a man under the righteous wrath of God against your sin to buy you out of your captivity to your sin and the death that you deserve!

Psalm 107:16 LSB

16 For He has shattered the doors of bronze And cut through the bars of iron.

Call on Him for freedom today; He will save you out of all your distress, He will make you whole, He will give you a new life, and He will put a song in your mouth to give thanks to Him for His lovingkindness and His wondrous deeds to you through your Savior, Jesus Christ!

BENEDICTION

Jude 24–25 LSB

24 Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to make you stand in the presence of His glory blameless with great joy, 25 to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, might, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.