Let’s remember God’s works.
[Psalms 105]
One of Henry Nowen's books is "The Living Reminder." In that book, Nowen recommend that we must be the reminders of Jesus' healing. If we as ministers are the ones who remind Jesus, the first task is to access the broken memories of the past and provide room for them to come back into the light without fear. The minister's great mission is to constantly connect human stories with God's stories. It is healing that reveals that the wounds we humans are most closely connected to the pain we suffer directly from God. Therefore, to remember Jesus Christ vividly is to reveal that our little suffering is in line with the story of the tremendous suffering God suffers in Jesus Christ. ‘Healing doesn't essentially eliminate pain. Our suffering is a part of greater suffering, our sorrow is a part of greater sorrow, and it is to reveal that our experience is a part of the greater experience of Christ who has spoken “Was it not necessary for the Christ to suffer these things and to enter into His glory?” (Luke 24:26) (Internet).
Indeed, as I have to do this healing ministry, I personally reconsider the content of this writing by Henry Nowen, and two words came to my mind: ‘remembrance’ and ‘commemoration’. What does it mean to remember? According to Henry Nowen, ‘To remember is to bring events from the past into the present and to commemorate them here and now.’ This is what Brevard S. Child said: ‘The act of remembering is realizing the past for a generation that didn't exist when the event occurred. This allows people to experience intimately the great works of salvation. … In the past, despite the temporal and spatial separation from the realm of God's revelation, the gap disappears through memory, and the excluded people share the work of salvation again’ (Nowen). We have to train these memories. Since we remember the works of salvation that God gave us in the past, we must commemorate those events in our present life. Then, amidst any adversity, suffering, and wounds, we can stand up and walk toward the heaven boldly with the assurance of salvation, praising God with thanksgiving through the grace of God's salvation.
In Psalms 105:5, the psalmist says, “Remember His wonders which He has done, His marvels and the judgments uttered by His mouth.” He is exhorting us to remember God's works. What does the God's works here refer to? It refers to all the wonderful things that God did to fulfill the promise of giving the land of Canaan to Abraham (vv. 8-11). So, what are all the wonderful things that God did to give Abraham the land of Canaan that He promised? Several things can be found in Psalms 105:12-44:
First, when the Israeli patriarchs who received this promise were living as strangers in the land of Canaan at the time they received the promise, they were wondering about from nation to nation, from one kingdom to another people (vv. 12-13). At that time, God protected them in order to fulfill the word of promise given to Abraham (vv. 14-15).
Look at Psalms 105:14-15: “He permitted no man to oppress them, And He reproved kings for their sakes: ‘Do not touch My anointed ones, And do My prophets no harm.’” God protected the small number of Israelites who weren’t able to settle in the land of Canaan from being harmed by the kings of the land of Canaan. One example is the Bible story that God protected Abraham and Sarah. In Genesis 12:10-17, when Abram and his wife Sarai, who received the word of promise during the famine, went down to Egypt to sojourn there because of the severe famine. Since Sarai was a beautiful woman, he told her to say that she was his sister so that he wouldn’t get and live. So later she was taken into Pharaoh’s house. At that time, God struck Pharaoh and his house with great plagues so that Abram could bring his wife Sarai back. A similar story appears in Genesis 20:3-7. At that time, Abraham said Sarah his wife was his sister in a place called Gerar. So when the king of Gerar Abimelech took Sarai, God came to Abimelech in a dream of the night and told him, “Behold, you are a dead man because of the woman whom you have taken, for she is married” (v. 3). By doing so, God protected and delivered Abraham’s wife Sarah. In this way, God not only gave Abraham the word of promise, but also protected Abraham and his wife Sarah in fulfilling His promised word.
Second, God sent Joseph, one of Jacob's sons, to Egypt beforehand, when a small group of Jacob, his children, and descendants were not settled and were wondering here and there, and sent the famine in order to break the whole staff of bread in order to fulfill His promise to Abraham (Ps. 105:16-17).
Isn't it weird how God, who gave Abraham the word of promise, didn’t allow Abraham's grandson Jacob, his children, and his descendants to continue to live abundantly in the land of Canaan, flowing with milk and honey, but caused famine to come to them and made them needy? This is a word that we cannot well understand with our common sense. This cannot but be a subtle providence of God for fulfilling the word He promised to Abraham. That providence of God is that God told Abraham “Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, where they will be enslaved and oppressed four hundred years” (Gen. 15:13), and in order to fulfill that promise to Abraham, He caused the famine in the land of Canaan, where the Israelites were living (Ps. 105:16), and Joseph was hated by his older brothers and sold him as a slave to Egypt (v. 17), and his father Jacob, his children, and all his descendants came down to Egypt to live (v. 23) and made the Israelites great prosperity there (v. 24). Isn't God's providence amazing that He who greatly prospered Jacob's children and descendants (70 people) (v. 12), a small group who were living in the land of Canaan, in the midst of suffering in Egypt. Look at Deuteronomy 10:22 – “our fathers went down to Egypt seventy persons in all, and now the LORD your God has made you as numerous as the stars of heaven.” In the end, God promised Abraham that he would multiply his descendants like countless stars in the sky (Gen. 15:5), and he fulfilled that promise in Egypt in suffering. The God who made a handful of Israel (Jacob) and his children and descendants in need through famine eventually brought them all down to Egypt and made them prosper greatly in the painful life of slaves, making them stronger than their enemy Egypt (v. 24). This God was fulfilling the word of promise to Abraham in His providence.
Third and last, God delivered the Israelites who had greatly prospered in Egypt 400 years later in order to fulfill the word of promise given to Abraham (Ps. 105:26-43). He led the Israelites, the descendants of Abraham, to the land flowing with milk and honey, the land of Canaan (v. 44).
When God made the Israelites prosperous in Egypt and made them stronger than the Egyptians (v. 24), the hearts of Pharaoh and the Egyptians changed and hated the Israelites (v. 25). Eventually, when the Israelites cried out to God in tribulation and persecution, God sent Moses and Aaron to Egypt and caused ten plagues through Moses so that they were able to come out of the Egypt with silver and gold (v. 37). And God brought them out of the wilderness with the pillars of cloud and fire (v. 39), and He satisfied the Israelites with the bread of heaven, that was quail, and with water flowed out of the rock (vv. 40-41). Psalms 105:42 tells the reason why God did this: “For He remembered His holy word With Abraham His servant.” God faithfully fulfilled the promised word because God remembered the holy word that he had promised to Abraham. So He delivered the Israelites from Egypt. “And He brought forth His people with joy, His chosen ones with a joyful shout” (v. 43). Then, why did God fulfill His promise to the Israelites? What was the purpose? The purpose is written in verse 45: “So that they might keep His statutes And observe His laws, ….” Because God gave Abraham the word of promise and fulfilled it, he made Abraham's descendants, his chosen Israelites, to obey His word.
As I meditated on all the amazing things God did to fulfill His promise to Abraham by giving the land of Canaan to his descendants in three ways, I tried these applications. In the process of fulfilling the word of Matthew 16:18, which is the promise the Lord gave to our church, I am confident that our God is surely protecting us. Furthermore, when we think of the word of promise that God will protect us, the reason that gives us great comfort and strength is that we have become strangers in this wilderness while allowing us to enter the true land of Canaan, heaven, the promise given to us in Jesus Christ. In addition, I believe that the Lord is still fulfilling the promises of Abraham by making the spiritual children of Abraham who are living in this wilderness-like world to be multiplied and be numerous like stars in the sufferings of heaven. Through such sufferings, we must keep walking toward heaven, the land of promise, trusting in Him who cuts off all the things we depend on and makes us completely dependent on Him in need.
God has given us the grace of salvation. What is its purpose? The purpose is obeying the word of God. We are God's chosen people who were saved from Satan's kingdom like Egypt. And we are now strangers walking in the wilderness toward the kingdom of God. In our yearning for a better homeland, we must obey the Word of God. As we live according to the word of the Lord, we must not swerve to the right or the left. In the meantime, I hope and pray that we be able to thank God like the psalmist (v. 1a), to sing and to declare His saving works (vv. 1-2) and to seek His face and power, as we move toward the heaven (vv. 3-4).
After I sang the hymn “I am pressing on up ward way” during Wednesday night prayer meeting,
James Kim
(As I desire to be drawn by the Word of God's promise)