Give Thanks To Our God Of Great Wonders

Sermon Transcript

We will first read 2 Timothy 3:1-5. It will set the stage for our text. Paul is writing to Timothy, his protégé, his disciple. He said, “But know this…” or “pay attention to this, Timothy” “…that in the last days…” which we believe we are living in “…perilous times…” or “dangerous times” “…will come: for men…” or “mankind” “…will be lovers of themselves…” or “selfish” “…lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having a form of godliness but denying its power.” And Paul says to Timothy, the teacher or pastor, “And from such people turn away!”

We can all agree that this is a gnarly list. It certainly does describe the days we are living in. But I want to point out one word in this list. It’s the word “unthankful.” Who would have thought that in this list that includes “lovers of themselves” or “lovers of money” or “boasters” or other things like “unforgiving…slanderers…brutal,” Paul would include the characteristic of being “unthankful”? Who would have put being unthankful on the same level as all these other characteristics? Few of us would. Yet Paul does, because it’s an indicator of the wickedness of the heart of mankind.

You and I, as we move full-steam ahead toward Thanksgiving, it may be that many of you have already begun to make plans with your family as to where you’re going to gather, at what time, what you’re going to eat and what you’re going to do. And because of that, many of you have already begun to deal with the family drama.

What you and I want to do is to make sure, as we are heading toward Thanksgiving, that we are not characterized by the things that people “in the last days” and “perilous times” are characterized by. If anyone ought to be thankful, it’s the people of God. So we will be looking at Psalm 136 to remember why we should be thankful and to give us some reasons to be thankful.

I have two, main divisions in Psalm 136. Verses 1-3 I titled Give Thanks. And in the second division, verses 4-26, I titled Great Wonders.

Our first division says:

“Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for He is good!
For His mercy endures forever.
Oh, give thanks to the God of gods!
For His mercy endures forever.
Oh, give thanks to the Lord of lords!
For His mercy endures forever.”
You will notice right away what becomes most obvious: it’s the line that is repeated in every single verse of Psalm 136, which is “For His mercy endures forever.” This was not a psalm that was just to be read in a church setting, but it was a psalm that was written for group worship.

The psalmist uses three, different titles to point to God. He says, “the Lord,” in verse 1; “the God of gods,” in verse 2; and “the Lord of lords,” in verse 3. He uses different titles that reveal to us something about God. In verse 1, the word “Lord” is in all capitals. This indicates that it is the name “Jehovah.” Some people pronounce it “Yahweh.” This name indicates that He is “the self-existing One” or “the eternal One.”

This is a hard concept for us, because everyone and everything that we know has had a beginning. So to consider that God has always been, has always existed, is a difficult thing to understand. We can’t fully wrap our brains around that. Perhaps we’ll understand it when we are with Him face-to-face in heaven. Everything in creation came from Him; He is the One who created all things (Colossians 1:16).

Verse 2 has His second title: “the God of gods.” Notice the psalmist starts with a capital “G” and ends with a small “g”. The word “God” here is the word “Elohim.” It means He is “the strong One.” It can also indicate that He has the strength of an oak. By saying He is “the God of gods,” it says that He is the strongest. But as far as idols are concerned and perhaps earthly titles that are ascribed to some earthly rulers who can consider themselves “gods,” our God is the only true God. Here we are told to give thanks to the Elohim, or the strong One. He is above all the strong ones; in other words, He’s the strongest.

Then in verse 3, we are told that He is “the Lord of lords.” Notice here that the word “Lord” is an upper case “L” but the rest of the word is in lower case. This “Lord” is the title “Adonai.” It means “sovereign” or “all powerful over all things.” So it means to give thanks to the sovereign over all sovereigns on the earth who are sovereigns or who consider themselves to be sovereigns or gods. Caesar was considered to be a god.

The psalmist is telling us here that the God that we worship and belong to is over everything. He is Jehovah, Elohim, Adonai; the self-existing One, the strong One, the sovereign One.

The other interesting thing in verse 1 is that he gives us a reason right away why we are to give thanks to God. He says, “for He is good.” Then he goes on to say, “For His mercy endures forever.” In my translation, the word “endures” is in italics. That tells us that this word was not in the original text. It was added by the transcriber in the English copies to help us understand the flow of the verse.

What is “mercy”? Mercy is me not getting what I deserve. I deserve the judgment of God. Yet I haven’t received that. At the ripe, old age of 20 years old, God had mercy on my, poor soul. I was living in disobedience to him, but instead of judging me—He is righteous and has the right to do so—He had mercy on me and saved me. So that’s what it is indicating here; that we should “give thanks to the Lord, for He is good” but also because “His mercy endures forever.”

I love mercy. And this is a verse I have quoted often; many times from this pulpit and with your high school students in the high school room. I like how Psalm 51 opens. David penned that psalm. It is a psalm of repentance. He says, “Have mercy upon me, O God, according to Your lovingkindness, according to the multitude of Your tender mercies.” God doesn’t have just one mercy. It’s not, “Well, I’ll give you mercy one time, but after that, you’re on your own.”

We, as the imperfect people of God, struggle with sin. But God has mercy on us on a daily basis. And here we are told that His mercy “endures forever.” He is always merciful. We love that about Him.

But it may be, as we head toward Thanksgiving, that you are facing the holidays for the first time in your life without a spouse or a loved one, who has gone on to be with the Lord. And you may hear a preacher get up here and say, “You need to be thankful.” You may have a smile on your face, but your heart may be saying, “For what reason do I have to be thankful? He took that person I love!”

The psalmist says that it’s not because of something you possess that you should be thankful; it’s because of who God is. Do we ever think about that? We are most often thankful for the things that we possess, the things that I can hold in my hand—whether that is a child, a spouse, a car, a house, a job, money or food or whatever.

But have you ever considered stopping and just being thankful for who God is? The fact that He’s the self-existing One, that He’s the strong One, that He’s the sovereign One?

That’s what the psalmist is telling us here; that we have lots to be thankful for. We belong to God. The hardships and difficulties you may be experiencing in the dark times are temporary. Your tent is wearing out, and we’re going home soon. Then you’re going to be with God for eternity. Then the temporary things that you could grasp and hold onto will be long gone, a distant memory and you won’t care. So the psalmist, right out of the gate, is telling us to be thankful to the Lord and giving us some reasons why.

But you still may be wondering, “Well, what’s the big deal?” So let’s move into our second, main division, from verses 4-26, which I titled Great Wonders. In this section, the psalmist is going to give us some reasons to be thankful.

Beginning in verse 4, it says, “To Him, who alone does great wonders.” You may have a favorite athlete, who is playing today in a football game or in some other sport, and you may think that he or she is the greatest ever. You may consider them to be such a wonderful person, but it is God alone, who is the one who does great wonders. If there are wonders that are to be considered great, they are to be measured against the wonders that God does.

The first of the great wonders will take us from verses 5-9. The first one is that He spoke the world into existence.

Note what the psalmist did. He first told us that we are to give thanks to the self-existing One. He could not have spoken the world into existence, if He did not exist Himself. Again, that’s a hard concept for us to wrap our minds around. You think, Where did God come from? And as you consider what the Bible teaches, that He is eternal and didn’t have a beginning and doesn’t have an end, it doesn’t make sense to us. We may think that’s not possible, but it is possible, because that’s who God is.

Verse 5 says, “To Him who by wisdom made the heavens…” I’m not going to read the second part of each verse, which is “…For His mercy endures forever.” Verse 6 says, “To Him who laid out the earth above the waters.” It’s interesting that the psalmist, writing this thousands of years ago, used the phrase “laid out” in our English Bibles. The phrase means that He “stretched out the earth above the waters.”

Some of you may love science or be scientists. And scientists found out what God already knew. As they studied the universe and the planets, they found out that the universe is expanding. And it is expanding from one point, but they don’t know where that point is, because they can’t travel that far. And in this psalm, written thousands of years ago, it says that God stretched out the earth, stretched out the universe, put everything where it belongs.

Let me give you some information I recently learned about the universe and our earth and us. The earth travels around the sun about eight times the speed of a bullet fired from a gun. Incredible! That’s why scientists have told us that if the earth were ever to stop spinning immediately, we’d all be flung out into outer space. We try to get pictures of these great, fall sunsets, but they disappear very fast.

Another fact is that there are more insects in one, square mile of rural land than there are human beings on the entire earth. And they’re all trying to get into your food pantry. Isn’t that incredible?! And there is a lot of rural land in our area.

Here’s one more: a single, human chromosome contains 20 billion bits of information. If written in an ordinary book in an ordinary language, it would take about 4,000 volumes to hold all the information. Creation is incredible! He spoke the world into existence.

Verses 7-9 deal with the planets, the sun, the moon and the stars. “To Him who made great lights.” And here are the great lights: “The sun to rule by day…The moon and stars to rule by night.” God created those and put them where they are in the universe. What an incredible thought! He’s the self-existing One.

What else did we learn about God? We learned that He is the strong One. Look at what verses 10-15 tells us. This is the second sub-point. What did He do? He released His people from slavery. “To Him who struck Egypt in their firstborn.” This is described in the book of Exodus. But I recommend you start in Genesis and then go on to Exodus. The first, five books of the Bible are incredible.

What the psalmist is referring to here is when God used Moses to go back to Egypt and lead His people out of slavery. The firstborn sons of the Egyptians died because of Pharaoh’s disobedience to the Lord, to his refusal to let God’s people go. In case you object to this, it was the last of several plagues visited on the Egyptians. Each time the plague intensified. God warned Pharaoh through Moses that if he didn’t let the people go, He would send another plague. There were locusts, water that turned to blood and many other plagues. But each step of the way, Pharaoh hardened his heart. The plagues intensified until the last plague was visited on the Egyptians, because Pharaoh had still not relented and let the people go. So the death of the Egyptian firstborn was what it finally took for Pharaoh to release God’s people.

And that’s what verse 11 says: “And brought out Israel from among them.” God saved His people from slavery. And notice how He did it in verse 12: “With a strong hand, and with an outstretched arm.” Elohim is the strong One. In verse 13, it says, “To Him who divided the Red Sea in two.” After the Israelites left Egypt, God split the Red Sea in two and opened it up so His people could cross it and escape from the Egyptians, who decided to go after the Israelites.

And the word “divided” here is the idea of slicing through something with a sword. It was the same word used when Abraham cut the animal in two. The psalmist is writing this to show us God perfectly slicing the Red Sea in two, so His people could walk through. Miraculous! It was a great wonder.

But I like that God saved the people “With a strong hand, and with an outstretched arm.” We are talking about the children of Israel here, but this is true of us too. There are people who were addicted and enslaved and thought they never would be able to break free from those addictions and slavery. Yet God, in His multitude of tender mercies, came “with a strong hand, and with an outstretched arm,” reached down in the gutter and saved your sorry self. He had mercy on you. It’s the same thing; it’s the same God.

He goes on, in verse 14, to talk about saving His people from slavery. “And made Israel pass through the midst of it,” which is the Red Sea. Verse 15, “But overthrew Pharaoh and his army in the Red Sea.” He used the same Red Sea He used to save His people to then destroy the Egyptians, who were coming after Israel. They hadn’t had enough, so they were coming after Israel for more and God dealt with the enemy.

And didn’t God do that for so many of us? People we thought we’d never be able to break free from. People who had us trapped and enslaved. Things that were consuming us. But God had mercy on us. How wonderful to remember that He set us free.

Another great wonder, in verses 16-22, is that He safely led His people. “To Him who led His people through the wilderness…To Him who struck down great kings…And slew famous kings…Sihon king of the Amorites…And Og king of Bashan.” These verses are telling us that He provided protection for His people.

And all of us, even Christians, have had times in the wilderness. And if you haven’t, they’re coming. We cannot fully understand or benefit from God if we have not been through the wilderness, if we have not been tested. We cannot fully understand who He is.
All of us experience wilderness times, times of wondering and wandering. We look around and say, “Is God really there? I don’t really see Him. All I see around me is jungle or forest, or I see enemies. You keep telling me He’s here, but where is He?!” It’s not until after and we have 20-20, hindsight vision that we see Him. “Oh, there He was; He was leading me.”

Several years ago when I was at another church in San Bernardino, I was tasked with leading a small group of Christians from there to join U-turn and Revival on a mission trip to the Philippians. On that trip I first met Pastor Cisco. He was this mysterious guy off in the background. That’s how he operates. I like that.

In the Philippians, we all jumped in a river boat and were going up a river to a little village called Canupay. We pulled up to some stairs that were almost vertical. We went up the stairs and started to hike back into the jungle toward this village. And it wasn’t long before some of the team became exhausted and had to stop. And one of my team members had to stop.

Pastor Cisco, being a medical guy, stopped and told the exhausted ones to sit down and hydrate. He checked everybody. I’m waiting around to see how one of my team members, a young lady, was going to do. And the rest of the group took off toward the village. Cisco told me he was going to take all these exhausted ones back down to the boat; he didn’t want to push them further on the trek. I said okay, but I still wanted to get to the village. I asked him, “How do I get there?” He told me, “There are stones on the ground; just follow those.” I saw the stones, so I said, “Okay” and started to walk. And he left with his group.

By this time, the first group was already at the village. I thought it was right around the corner, but there was nothing but jungle. And it wasn’t until I found myself in the middle of the jungle—in the middle of the wilderness—that I looked around and realized that no one knew I was out there in the Philippine jungle. And I hadn’t bothered, before I left for the Philippines, to find out if they had predators like snakes and tigers. And now I’m in the jungle alone. And all I could think of was, “Man, I hate Cisco!”

I had never looked so hard for stones! I found them and made my way to the village. I thought Cisco loved me. I thought we were brown brothers, but he just left me! He sent me out into the jungle. But God was good.

We sometimes have those spiritual events in our lives. We look around, and all we can see is doubt and jungle, forest and wilderness. We’re not sure where God is. The psalmist proclaimed that He “led His people through the wilderness.” He gave them protection. And He’ll do it again.

Verses 21-22, which is still part of God safely leading His people, says that He gave them provision. These verses are interesting, considering what’s going on in our world today. It says, “And gave their land as a heritage…A heritage to Israel His servant.” Everybody’s arguing right now as to whether Israel should be in the land or whether they have the right to exist. And even Christians have gotten mixed up in this debate, because they love to follow the world and say what they say. And the Christians are trying to figure out if Israel is right, should we support them, if they are really God’s people, if the church replaced them.
The psalmist said that God “gave their land as a heritage.” God gave it to Israel. It’s right there. I didn’t make it up. The psalmist wrote it thousands of years ago. And as you go on through the Scripture, nothing has changed.

So God safely led his people and gave them protection and provision. And He has done the same thing for us. It’s a reason to thank Him.

What He does lastly, in verses 23-25, is to give us a summary of the entire psalm. Still speaking about God, it says, “Who remembered us in our lowly state.”

The holidays have a way of bringing out the very worst in families. It may be in our extended family or even in our very own kids or parents. Maybe they have forgotten us—people we dearly loved—and moved on. As we move closer to the holidays, some of us are absolutely dreading the holidays. I get it. That may mean that for the first time, you’re sitting at a table without your spouse, without your loved one, without your child that you lost. Maybe you’re looking forward to an empty table. It’s a lonely dinner because it’s just you; everybody else has forgotten you.

I have wonderful news for you: the psalmist proclaims that God “remembered us in our lowly state.” You say, “I get it. But I can’t wrap my arms around that!” But if we have nothing else to be thankful for, we can be thankful for the fact that He “remembered us in our lowly state.”

What else did He do? Verse 24, “And rescued us from our enemies.” Isn’t that incredible?! There were things in our lives that we thought we would never be able to escape. Yet God set us free. He rescued us.

And finally, verse 25, “Who gives food to all flesh.”

So God does three things: He “remembered us in our lowly state”; He “rescued us”; and He replenishes us.

Some of you may be looking forward to a lonely holiday. There will be nobody else at your table. But you’ve got the Lord. I get it; you can’t wrap your arms around that thought. But it’s great news. And the temporary things that we are dealing with will pass. Our tent is wearing out, and we’re going home very soon. We’re going to be with the Lord, so the holidays, the things we own, our possessions and even the people in our lives we won’t be worried about. We’ll be complete. Isn’t that a wonderful thought?!

The psalmist ends, in verse 26, the same way he started: “Oh, give thanks to the God of heaven!” He told us in verses 1-3 to give thanks to God. If He is “the God of heaven,” He certainly can deal with our earthly issues. He is sovereign, He is strong, He can carry those burdens, that heavy heart that you have. He cares for you. So the psalmist ends with, “Oh, give thanks to the God of heaven! For His mercy endures forever.”

This psalm was not just for personal reading or for personal contemplation, although we can do that, and we certainly should. But it was meant for group worship. It was meant to be a call and response. There was either an individual or a group of worship leaders, who would call out the first line, such as “Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for He is good!” and the believers would together respond with “For His mercy endures forever.”

That is what we are going to do. I will read the first part of each verse, and you will respond with “For His mercy endures forever.”

Psalm 136

“Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for He is good!
For His mercy endures forever.
Oh, give thanks to the God of gods!
For His mercy endures forever.
Oh, give thanks to the Lord of lords!
For His mercy endures forever:

To Him who alone does great wonders,
For His mercy endures forever;
To Him who by wisdom made the heavens,
For His mercy endures forever;
To Him who laid out the earth above the waters,
For His mercy endures forever;
To Him who made great lights,
For His mercy endures forever—
The sun to rule by day,
For His mercy endures forever;
The moon and stars to rule by night,
For His mercy endures forever.

To Him who struck Egypt in their firstborn,
For His mercy endures forever;
And brought out Israel from among them,
For His mercy endures forever;
With a strong hand, and with [a]an outstretched arm,
For His mercy endures forever;
To Him who divided the Red Sea in two,
For His mercy endures forever;
And made Israel pass through the midst of it,
For His mercy endures forever;
But overthrew Pharaoh and his army in the Red Sea,
For His mercy endures forever;
To Him who led His people through the wilderness,
For His mercy endures forever;
To Him who struck down great kings,
For His mercy endures forever;
And slew famous kings,
For His mercy endures forever—
Sihon king of the Amorites,
For His mercy endures forever;
And Og king of Bashan,
For His mercy endures forever—
And gave their land as a heritage,
For His mercy endures forever;
A heritage to Israel His servant,
For His mercy endures forever.

Who remembered us in our lowly state,
For His mercy endures forever;
And rescued us from our enemies,
For His mercy endures forever;
Who gives food to all flesh,
For His mercy endures forever.

Oh, give thanks to the God of heaven!
For His mercy endures forever.”