You who are thirsty and hungry out on that wandering barren desert with no way to go and no map, no direction, no path to an inhabited city, no hope for resources, cried out to God. He gave you everything you needed. Certainly, you are obligated to give him thanks. Yeah. Welcome to Grace to You with the Bible teaching of John MacArthur.
I'm your host, Phil Johnson. It's been rightly said, it is not only by grace alone that we become God's people, but by grace alone we remain His people. The question is, if you've experienced that grace, How should you respond? What attitudes should characterize your life if you've been saved? John MacArthur answers that today as he continues a week of timely, Thanksgiving-themed messages.
So now if you have your Bible handy, turn to Psalm 107 and follow along as John begins today's lesson.
Well, let's open our Bibles back to Psalm 107. Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for he is good. For his loving kindness, which is an Old Testament word that sort of combines grace and mercy. is everlasting. Let the redeemed of the Lord 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.
There is that opening direct call to give thanks to God. After then, that opening call of those three verses. The Psalm gets very interesting. There are four illustrations of God's redemption. Four illustrations running from verse 4 to 32, and we're going to cover them all this morning.
That surprises you, but it can be done, and we will do it. Four illustrations of God's redemption. First, God's redemption is like a lost caravan being led to a safe city. God's redemption is like a captive prisoner in a dungeon. waiting execution, being set free.
God's redemption is like a sick person with no appetite on the brink of death recovering full health. And God's redemption is like a doomed sailor. Being rescued from a life-threatening storm. Those are the four. Magnificent pictures that are given here to illustrate God's redemption.
Each of them is poignant, each of them is graphic, each of them is an analogy illustrating the blessedness of God's redemption, how He rescues sinners out of dire circumstances.
Now each of the four illustrations has four parts. And we're going to take the same little four-part outline to unfold each. First of all is the predicament. And that describes the situation they were in. Secondly, the petition, that's the cry for deliverance.
that came from them. Thirdly, the pardon, the merciful Redemption that God granted. And fourthly, The praise, predicament, petition, pardon, praise, just those four will unfold each illustration. Let's take the first one, Lost in a Wilderness. Lost in a wilderness.
And here we meet the restless soul. Here we meet the aimless people wandering all over the place with no particular direction in mind, having lost their bearings, not knowing where they're going. Restless, aimless, lost sinners running out of food, starved and thirsty, wandering hopelessly in a trackless desert, trying to find a city they cannot find. A city that would provide food and water and rest. and joy and fellowship and safety.
Let's look at their predicament in verses 4 and 5. They wandered in the wilderness in a desert region. They didn't find a way to an inhabited city. They were hungry and thirsty. Their soul fainted within them.
This could well depict Israel in the wilderness for 40 years after the exodus from Egypt as they wander around in the desert in circles aimlessly, restlessly. It is also true, however, that the imagery could describe Israel in Babylon. Because Babylon, of course, is a desert place. But beyond that, this imagery can also describe any troubled, destitute, forlorn, lost sinner, any wandering, aimless sinner struggling to find his way in the trackless barrenness of sin. With no soul-supplying spiritual bread and no soul-supplying spiritual water, and no hope but to perish in the wilderness.
So sinners wander. They wander looking for a place of safety. They wander looking for a place of refuge, a place of security, a place of fellowship, a place of joy, a place of provision. They find it not. And so the wandering sinner is in a predicament.
In verse 6, we find that this sinner comes to a petition. Then they cried out to the Lord in their trouble. Israel cried to the Lord in Egypt, and he heard them and delivered them. Israel cried to the Lord in Babylon, and he heard them and delivered them. Cyrus made a decree that sent them back to the land.
They illustrate then sinners, sinners of every age, of any time, even today, who recognize their aimlessness. Who comes to the end of their restlessness, who realize their hunger and their thirst, who know their deprivation. Who have a grip on the danger of their condition. And in the midst of their desperation, they finally recognize that's who they need, that only God can provide that refuge. And so they cry out to him as all of us did in our lostness.
And how does God respond? The third point is the pardon. From the predicament to the petition and then the pardon, this is so wonderful. Verse 6, he delivered them out of their distresses. He led them also by a straight way to go to an inhabited city.
When the sinner cries to God, he answers. When Israel called to God, he answered. He heard Israel. He brought Israel out of Egypt. He heard Israel.
He brought Israel out of Babylon. When the sinner comes to him and cries, that's all it takes. There's not any works here. This is all about loving kindness, which is the Old Testament word chesed, meaning grace or mercy. And that's where the sinner has to come.
He offers nothing, he brings nothing, he has nothing to offer. No works, no achievements, no accomplishments. He just says, I am dying. And he cries to God. It's reminiscent of what Jesus said when he said, Come unto me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you what?
Rest, take my yoke upon you and learn of me, for my yoke is Easy, and my burden is light. The way is the way of grace, not the way of works. And when the sinner comes and cries to God, God pardons the sinner. And that leads to the fourth point. That kind of goodness, that kind of grace, that kind of mercy carries an obligation.
And what is the obligation? Verses 8 and 9. Let them give thanks to the Lord for his loving kindness and for his wonders to the sons of men, for he has satisfied the thirsty soul and the hungry soul is filled with what is good. You who are thirsty and hungry out on that wandering barren desert with no way to go and no Map, no direction, no path to an inhabited city, no hope for resources. Cried out to God, He gave you everything you needed.
Certainly, you are obligated to give Him thanks. For that grace. What could deserve more the thanks of God's people? Then we are safely led to that inhabited city. What is that inhabited city?
It's heaven. The heavenly city. And we have a straight path, and we're on it. Headed. To that city.
And even though we haven't gotten to the city yet, the king who is in charge of that city has sent resources to us. to help us on our journey, to enrich us on our journey, so that we lack nothing. The second illustration is locked in a prison. Lost in a wilderness and locked in a prison. Verses 10 to 16.
If the word restless Marks the first illustration, the word miserable marks this one. This is misery. The predicament in verses 10 to 12: there were those who dwelt in darkness. and in the shadow of death. Prisoners in misery and chains.
What you have here is someone in a dungeon on death row waiting imminent execution. It is pitch black, dark. They are in the very shadow of death, which means their execution is looming near. They are in chains, and the consequent misery and filth of that condition is depicted. And people in ancient times knew well what horrors that kind of imprisonment.
Produced. Why are they there, verse 11? Because they had rebelled against the words of God and spurned the counsel of the Most High. Therefore he humbled their heart with labor. They stumbled and there was none to help.
The predicament could speak of Israel being in Egypt. They stumbled. They had to make bricks. They had to make bricks without straw. It was hard, hard labor.
It was a kind of darkness. It was definitely the shadow of death. Even the angel of death came. They were prisoners in a foreign land. They had a miserable kind of existence as slaves in Egypt.
But beyond that, this is the illustration of any sinner who is in the misery of the dungeon of his own making, who himself has rebelled against God, disobeyed God's word, disregarded God's word, found life to be hard, found himself stumbling and falling and helpless and dark. All that slavery, servitude, and a dungeon existence could bring about, the sinner experiences spiritually. Adam and all his posterity have rebelled against God and his word. The whole race is imprisoned in a dungeon of darkness. Sitting in its own filth, life is hard, life is unfulfilling.
All of Satan's pledges and promises are only lies, and they only afflict sinners with more cruelty and pain. The soul of sinners then is confined to the prison of iniquity, guilt, and dissatisfaction, bound with chains too strong to be broken, and living in total darkness. Sinners are confined then to the deepening misery of their own lust and their own passion, which becomes like so many tormentors inflicting them even more. and all they can look forward to is execution. In that condition, we come in verse 13 to the petition, and this is where we all had to come.
Then they cried out to the Lord in their trouble. Somebody might say, well, it's probably a hopeless cry if you've lived your life like that. If you've been a rebel against God. If you've been wandering in the wilderness of sin, What used to cry out to God? But Israel cried to God for deliverance and it came.
And they went back and rebuilt their land. And when the imprisoned sinner is so humbled, And so recognizes his own filth. That he pleads with God for deliverance because there's nowhere else to turn. Then comes number three, the pardon. Verse 13 again.
He saved them out of their distresses. He brought them out of darkness and the shadow of death. and broke their bands apart. This is grace, folks. This is absolute pure grace.
There's nothing achieved here, there's nothing offered except. the wreckage of life. This is grace at its most graphic. This is loving kindness, which is grace. God loves to set sinners free from their prisons.
And he does it suddenly and instantaneously just because they ask. What do you tell a sinner? Who's at this point? Cry out to God. And ask for redemption.
Ask Him to forgive your sin. Jesus said, Him that comes to me, I'll in no wise cast out. He hears the cry of the desperate sinner. And that leads us to the fourth point in the second illustration, and it means that such deliverance. Brings an obligation.
The obligation is praise. Verses 15 and 16. Let them give thanks to the Lord for his loving kindness and for his wonders to the sons of men. For he has shattered gates of bronze and cut bars of iron asunder. The only proper response to grace, to grace redemption, is thanks.
The third illustration. Lost in a wilderness, locked in a prison, thirdly, languishing in a sickness. Languishing in a sickness. Verses seventeen to twenty-two. Another picture of lostness.
It's the picture of a person who is sick. and depressed. The predicament, verse 17 and 18, fools, because of their rebellious way, again, there's always culpability. There's a reason why people are in this condition. It's because they rebel against God.
And because of their iniquities, we're afflicted. That's the consequence of sin. They were so afflicted, here's the severity: their soul abhorred all kinds of food. And they drew near to the gates of death. The predicament is: Israel is like a sick person with a fatal disease in their Babylonian captivity, and redemption would be like some kind of healing.
But they've lost all hope, they've lost all appetite, they don't want to eat, they don't even want the very food that could give them life and sustain them. Sickness then pictured as so severe that there is a loss of appetite and nearness to death. The imagery also has, of course, application beyond Israel. Sinners are sick. And sinners have a deadly, incurable ailment.
And some of them have lost all interest in what is true and what is right and what is good, what could be the food to sustain their life. They're hopeless. And they're on the brink of death. There's a consequent loss of appetite for life or anything else, there's a consequent depression.
So sinners are like lost wanderers, restless and aimless. They're like prisoners chained and held in dungeons, waiting death. They're like depressed neurotics who can't cope. And in each case, death is imminent. But some sinners in the throes of the horrors of this sickness.
Make a petition. Verse 19. Then they cried out to the Lord in their trouble. Remember, they were rebellious, they were iniquitous. They were fools.
And now they're in desperate condition. And they cried out to the Lord in their trouble.
Somebody might say, that's not fair. You're right. That's not fair. That's grace. That's grace.
They cried out, and the third point, pardon, came. Verse 19. He saved them out of their distresses. It says that every time. It doesn't give any qualifications.
It just says he delivered them out of their distresses. He saved them out of their distresses. Why? Because they what? Asked.
You understand that? That's grace. Because they asked. Not because they did anything else, they just asked. They cried out in desperation.
And when the sinner realizes he's lost and starving. And when the sinner realizes he's bound in a dungeon and doomed to execution, and when a sinner realizes he has a fatal disease from which there is no cure. That level of desperation produces the petition that brings the pardon. Sinners sick with their guilt, sick with their anxiety, listless, depressed, and troubled, without an appetite for divine food, and having no inclination even for virtue, nauseated by the scripture, nauseated by the bread of life. may still call on the great physician, the restorer, and the redeemer.
who will come to them and intervene with full healing. All these sinners are sick. But they were healed. By grace. And that leads to point four: the obligation.
Verse 21. Let them give thanks to the Lord for His loving kindness. and for his wonders wonderful acts to the sons of men. Let them also offer sacrifices of thanksgiving. and tell of his works with joyful singing.
It's what we do when we come together to worship. You understand that? Some people don't understand what the church is. It's a group of redeemed sinners that gather together to thank God for their redemption. It's what we are, it's what we do.
to praise him, to offer sacrifices of thanksgiving. to tell of his works with joyful singing. is wondrous to the sons of men. And so, praise is the right response. to the goodness of God.
Lost in a wilderness, locked in a prison, languished in a sickness, that's us. And finally, life threatened in a storm. This last illustration portrays the terrors of sinners. As they really understand their condition, some just drown. But some sinners get a grip on their condition.
By the mercy of God, they're brought to understand it. Look at their predicament in verses 23 to 27. Those who go down to the sea in ships or do business on great waters. They have seen the works of the Lord and his wonders in the deep. Talking about the ocean here.
People who do their business on the sea, who travel all the time on the kind of ships in the ancient world that were so frail. do their business on great waters. They know what it's like. Verse 25: They've seen the works of the Lord, for he spoke and raised up a stormy wind. They knew what it was to be in a stormy wind which lifted up the waves of the sea.
They rose up to the heavens. They went down to the depths. Their soul melted away in their misery. They reeled and staggered like a drunken man and were at their wits' end. That simply means they had nowhere to go.
There was no solution. They were at the end of any wise response. All their wisdom literally was swallowed up. This requires very little comment. This is a situation where a ship is in a storm.
Israel's captivity was like a storm at sea, like Jonah's experience with the sailors headed for Tarshish. And there's nothing I hear, understand from my reading, nothing more frightening than being on a sinking ship. Uh being on a An airplane headed for the ground in a crash is not as frightening. The time, of course, is very brief. The defense mechanisms built into you called shock, I understand, sort of enter into that.
Because it's such a an immediate imminent death. But people who talk about these kinds of things The fear of death. Say that the most frightening kind of death is the death in a storm with the imminent possibility of drowning, and all the time to imagine that consequence because you might be in that storm for days or even weeks. As we read in Acts 27, was the experience of the Apostle Paul. It is such a severe trauma that it says it caused their souls to melt.
Literally, Terror seized their hearts. No harbor, no rescue, no hope. Just a relentless, smashing, frightening storm. And certainly, the Babylonian captivity seemed like a relentless storm that swept the nation and threatened to drown it all. Certainly for the sinner, every sinner living apart from God is in a storm-tossed sea of terror.
Without hope. The world, in fact, is a sea to sinners, and it's a troubled sea. Temptation, sorrows, and sufferings are its waves. And the prince of the power of the air is its stormy wind. And heaven is its only safe harbor, but it can't be reached by all the sailors' efforts.
The violence of life, the uncertainty of life pictured as the waves rise to the heavens and sink to the depths, the tremendous rise and fall in this little ship. Going to the heights and plunging to the depths, the agitations of life, the elevations and depressions of the mind, the impending death. can produce terror in the sinner. The sinner may respond with that petition. Look at it in verse 28.
When they've come to the end of their wits, when all wisdom has been swallowed up and there's nowhere to turn. Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble. There it is again. No rescue. Possible.
Humanly. And they called on the LORD. And here comes grace again, and he brought them out of their distresses. Just that matter of fact, just that sudden, instantaneous, and immediate. He brought him out.
He caused the storm to be still.
so that the waves of the sea were hushed, Then they were glad because they were quiet.
So he guided them. to their desired haven. That depicts the rescue. The people in the caravan found the city. The people in prison were set free.
The ones who were sick were made whole. The people in the storm were safely led completely out of the storm into a haven. From the restless, miserable, sick. fearful lives Headed nowhere with no resources, hopelessly, aimlessly wandering toward death and hell. God Came.
We called on him. He rescued us, restored us. Redeemed us. He led us to a city, a heavenly city. Out of prison to freedom, from deadly sickness to eternal health, from terror to safety in the harbor of his own glory.
And again, what's our obligation? Look at it. The last point: pray is again, verse 31. Let them give thanks to the Lord for His loving kindness. and for his wonders to the sons of men.
Same response. Folks, we're called to thanks in this. credible sum because we are these people. We are these people. We are the wanderers.
We are the prisoners. We are the sick. We're the sailors. We've been rescued. And the only appropriate response is to give thanks.
And verse 32 says this. Let them extol him. Here's the sum of it. in the congregation of the people. and praise him at the seat of the elders.
The seat of the elders was the place where the elders taught. The congregation gathered. What he's saying is: do that when you come together. That's what we're supposed to be doing. We come together today and we sing, now thank we all our God with heart and soul and voices, right?
It's what we do. That's worship. That's worship. This is a summons to an incessant gratitude. For the grace of our salvation.
You see the desperation of sinners, and we have nothing to commend ourselves with, and all we do is cry out, and God delivers us. How can he do it? He can do it because of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. who paid for the sins of sinners. And because he took your place and died your death and paid for your sins.
God can give you His forgiveness and His deliverance. For those of us who have received that deliverance, this is a call to thanks. But there are some of you who have not. You're still wandering in the trackless wilderness. Hungry and thirsty and perishing.
You're still in the darkness of the dungeon waiting execution. You're still on your deathbed with a fatal illness. You're still in a life-threatening storm that's going to drown you. But I have some good news for you. Here is an invitation from the prophet Isaiah that is a good way to finish our message.
Isaiah 55, 6 and 7. Seek the Lord while he may be found. Call upon him while he's near. Before it's too late, before you've gone under the waves for the last time. Before you have lost Your way for the last time and have nothing to sustain your life before you breathe your last breath, before you are taken to the executioner, call upon the Lord while he may be found, while he is near.
Let the wicked forsake his way. The way you're going, and the unrighteous man, his thoughts, the way you've ordered your own life. and return to the Lord, and he will have compassion on him. And return to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. That is one of the great invitations of the scripture.
Most of us have done that. We've come to God. and he pardoned all our sin. because of what Christ has done for us.
So I say to you, let the redeemed of the Lord say thanks. And for those who aren't redeemed, call upon the Lord and be rescued. and join us who thank him for his redemption. You're listening to Grace to You, the Bible teaching ministry of John MacArthur. Thanks for joining us today.
Well, on this day after the Thanksgiving celebration here in the United States, the holiday focus is now squarely on Christmas. And maybe you'll be doing what a lot of people will be doing today and this weekend, and that is shopping for Christmas gifts for your loved ones. And to that end, we want to remind you about some gifts that are easy to purchase and most important, they will have lasting spiritual value to the recipients. First is our flagship resource, the MacArthur Study Bible. It has dozens of charts and maps and twenty five thousand footnotes that explain what Scripture means by what it says.
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Now for the entire Grace DU staff, I'm Phil Johnson. Watch Grace TU Television this Sunday on DirecTV Channel 378, and then be here Monday when we return to a brand new series. called John MacArthur's Most Memorable Sermon. It's another half hour of Unleashing God's Truth one verse at a time. on Grace to You.
