Psalm 107

Thanksgiving to the Lord for His Great Works of Deliverance

James F. Gauss, Ph.D.

May 4, 2023

No. 274

Sometimes as Christians and a people of prayer we get discouraged.  We pray hard and often in the midst of affliction or spiritual darkness, yet see very little tangible results.  I am likely one of millions of Christians who experience such emotion occasionally and even frequently.  Yet, I am a firm believer in prayer and answered prayer.  Why?  I have seen numerous miraculous answers to prayer that were not coincidence or mere happenings.  Some of the things I pray about may not happen in my lifetime, but that does not stop me from praying about them.

Recently, I have been reading through the Gospel of Luke, and at the start of chapter 18 Jesus shares the parable of the persistent widow.

“There was in a certain city a judge who did not fear God nor regard man.  Now there was a widow in that city; and she came to him, saying, ‘Get justice for me from my adversary.’  And he would not for a while; but afterward he said within himself, ‘Though I do not fear God nor regard man, yet because this widow troubles me I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she weary me.’” (Luke 18:2-5).

Like all His parables, Jesus was providing His disciples a teachable illustration on the consistency of prayer.  “Then the Lord said, “Hear what the unjust judge said.  And shall God not avenge His own elect who cry out day and night to Him, though He bears long with them?  I tell you that He will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will He really find faith on the earth?’” (Luke 18:6-8).

The consistency and persistency of prayer is as important as the prayer itself.  We are never to give up; never give the devil a foothold; not one square inch.  Pray without ceasing!

This parable reminded me of the great Psalm 107 where the psalmist recounts some of the trials and tribulations of the Jewish people.  How, because of their rebellion against God, they were constantly getting themselves into deep predicaments.  Once they realized their difficulty and that they had no answers to relieve their situation, then they cried out to the Lord God and He had mercy on them and delivered them.

Right now, in America, and in the Church in America, it feels in many ways that we have reached the end of our proverbial rope.  It seems like there is no way back.  No way to redeem what we have lost.  And, maybe we have gone too far away from God.  Maybe America has fallen so far into the pit of debauchery that we are beyond redemption.

However, through repentance, there is always hope in God and through God.  He always has a way forward, upward and out of our sinful morass.  It does, however, take consistent and persistent prayer of the faithful petitioning God for His forgiveness and mercy.

Remember, “The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9).

Psalm 107. 

Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for He is good!
For His mercy endures forever.
² Let the redeemed of the Lord say so,
Whom He has redeemed from the hand of the enemy,
³ And gathered out of the lands,
From the east and from the west,
From the north and from the south.

⁴ They wandered in the wilderness in a desolate way;
They found no city to dwell in.
⁵ Hungry and thirsty,
Their soul fainted in them.
⁶ Then they cried out to the Lord in their trouble,
And He delivered them out of their distresses.
⁷ And He led them forth by the right way,
That they might go to a city for a dwelling place.
⁸ Oh, that men would give thanks to the Lord for His goodness,
And for His wonderful works to the children of men!
⁹ For He satisfies the longing soul,
And fills the hungry soul with goodness.

¹⁰ Those who sat in darkness and in the shadow of death,
Bound in affliction and irons—
¹¹ Because they rebelled against the words of God,
And despised the counsel of the Most High,
¹² Therefore He brought down their heart with labor;
They fell down, and there was none to help.
¹³ Then they cried out to the Lord in their trouble,
And He saved them out of their distresses.
¹⁴ He brought them out of darkness and the shadow of death,
And broke their chains in pieces.
¹⁵ Oh, that men would give thanks to the Lord for His goodness,
And for His wonderful works to the children of men!
¹⁶ For He has broken the gates of bronze,
And cut the bars of iron in two.

¹⁷ Fools, because of their transgression,
And because of their iniquities, were afflicted.
¹⁸ Their soul abhorred all manner of food,
And they drew near to the gates of death.
¹⁹ Then they cried out to the Lord in their trouble,
And He saved them out of their distresses.
²⁰ He sent His word and healed them,
And delivered them from their destructions.
²¹ Oh, that men would give thanks to the Lord for His goodness,
And for His wonderful works to the children of men!
²² Let them sacrifice the sacrifices of thanksgiving,
And declare His works with rejoicing.

²³ Those who go down to the sea in ships,
Who do business on great waters,
²⁴ They see the works of the Lord,
And His wonders in the deep.
²⁵ For He commands and raises the stormy wind,
Which lifts up the waves of the sea.
²⁶ They mount up to the heavens,
They go down again to the depths;
Their soul melts because of trouble.
²⁷ They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man,
And are at their wits’ end.
²⁸ Then they cry out to the Lord in their trouble,
And He brings them out of their distresses.
²⁹ He calms the storm,
So that its waves are still.
³⁰ Then they are glad because they are quiet;
So He guides them to their desired haven.
³¹ Oh, that men would give thanks to the Lord for His goodness,
And for His wonderful works to the children of men!
³² Let them exalt Him also in the assembly of the people,
And praise Him in the company of the elders.

³³ He turns rivers into a wilderness,
And the watersprings into dry ground;
³⁴ A fruitful land into barrenness,
For the wickedness of those who dwell in it.
³⁵ He turns a wilderness into pools of water,
And dry land into watersprings.
³⁶ There He makes the hungry dwell,
That they may establish a city for a dwelling place,
³⁷ And sow fields and plant vineyards,
That they may yield a fruitful harvest.
³⁸ He also blesses them, and they multiply greatly;
And He does not let their cattle decrease.

³⁹ When they are diminished and brought low
Through oppression, affliction, and sorrow,
⁴⁰ He pours contempt on princes,
And causes them to wander in the wilderness where there is no way;
⁴¹ Yet He sets the poor on high, far from affliction,
And makes their families like a flock.
⁴² The righteous see it and rejoice,
And all iniquity stops its mouth.

⁴³ Whoever is wise will observe these things,
And they will understand the lovingkindness of the Lord.

Finally, as Christians we must continually remind ourselves, that “we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 6:12).

To do such battle we must put on the whole armor of God and carry on spiritual warfare—not on our own, but enjoined by fellow believers near and far (see Ephesians 6:10-18).

Related.

A Prayer for Repentance in the Church

The 7 Churches of the Book of Revelation

Will America and the Church Become a “Byword”?

Proclamation 97

Revival in the Church. When will it come? Part 1

Revival in the Church. When will it come? Part 2

Proclamation 97

Posted on February 10, 2022

Proclamation 97—Appointing a Day of National Humiliation, Fasting, and Prayer

March 30, 1863

By the President of the United States of America

A Proclamation

Whereas the Senate of the United States, devoutly recognizing the supreme authority and just government of Almighty God in all the affairs of men and of nations, has by a resolution requested the President to designate and set apart a day for national prayer and humiliation; and

Whereas it is the duty of nations as well as of men to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God, to confess their sins and transgressions in humble sorrow, yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon, and to recognize the sublime truth, announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history, that those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord;

And, insomuch as we know that by His divine law nations, like individuals, are subjected to punishments and chastisements in this world, may we not justly fear that the awful calamity of civil war which now desolates the land may be but a punishment inflicted upon us for our presumptuous sins, to the needful end of our national reformation as a whole people? We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven; we have been preserved these many years in peace and prosperity; we have grown in numbers, wealth, and power as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us, and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us.

It behooves us, then, to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins, and to pray for clemency and forgiveness.

Now, therefore, in compliance with the request, and fully concurring in the views of the Senate, I do by this my proclamation designate and set apart Thursday, the 30th day of April, 1863, as a day of national humiliation, fasting, and prayer. And I do hereby request all the people to abstain on that day from their ordinary secular pursuits, and to unite at their several places of public worship and their respective homes in keeping the day holy to the Lord and devoted to the humble discharge of the religious duties proper to that solemn occasion.

All this being done in sincerity and truth, let us then rest humbly in the hope authorized by the divine teachings that the united cry of the nation will be heard on high and answered with blessings no less than the pardon of our national sins and the restoration of our now divided and suffering country to its former happy condition of unity and peace. In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the city of Washington, this 30th day of March, A. D. 1863, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty-seventh.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

By the President:

WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State .

Source: Abraham Lincoln, Proclamation 97—Appointing a Day of National Humiliation, Fasting, and Prayer Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/203143

Dr. Gauss’ Note: At the time of President Lincoln’s Proclamation, the Union forces were losing the war against the Confederacy. Lincoln knew that a divided nation could not stand for long and it was essential for the Union to prevail. Not long after Lincoln’s call for humiliation, fasting, and prayer on April 30, Union forces were able to win two major battles that destroyed the Confederacy. The first was the long siege of Vicksburg where Confederate troops controlled the movement of troops and supplies along the Mississippi River. The battle raged from May 18 to July 4, 1863, with the Union army of Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant overcoming the Confederate troops of Lt. Gen. John C. Pemberton. This gave the Union complete control of the Mississippi River and cut the Confederate forces off from the West.

To the north, Gen. Robert E. Lee decided to advance on Gettysburg in Pennsylvania, believing that a sound victory there would cut off the Union and force them to surrender. However, the same day Vicksburg fell to the Union, Gen. Lee was retreating to Virginia after his sound defeat at Gettysburg on July 3 at the hands of Maj. Gen. George Meade and his Army of the Potomac.

With these two major victories for the Union forces, as well as those in Arkansas and Tennessee, the winds of war turned decidedly in the Union’s favor.

Today, 159 years later, America once again is on the brink of a civil war; a division of thought, philosophy, spiritual wellness and rule of law. We are living in a very dangerous time; the most dangerous in the nation’s history. It is a time when the government that is supposed to be “of the people, by the people, for the people” has turned against the people.

I have no allusions that the current occupant of the White House will be as insightful, spiritual or concerned for the nation’s survival as President Lincoln. Division seems to be his mantra and purpose.

However, the pastors and Christian leaders across America have an opportunity to do the same: to call for a day of humiliation, fasting and prayer; a call for repentance on behalf of the Church and the country. What better day, than April 30, 2022, to commemorate a time when our young nation desperately needed God’s intervention. We need His intervention more now than ever before. But, is it too late?