This is a remarkable psalm, it reminds us that God’s gospel has always been told. David, who wrote this psalm around 1000 BC clearly understood it. The psalm became the inspiration for the hymn, ‘Praise my soul the King of Heaven’. This was written in 1834 by Henry Francis Lyte, an English clergyman famously known for writing ‘Abide with Me’. It reminds us that all Christians must learn to repeatedly give thanks to God.
When the Israelites fled from Egypt God established festivals such as the Passover to commemorate their liberation from slavery and their exodus to freedom. The Festival of Weeks celebrates the giving of the Torah to Moses on Mount Sinai and the Feast of Tabernacles marks the 40 years the Israelites spent wandering and living in temporary shelters in the desert after the Exodus. These were inaugurated so that God’s people would never forget what God had done for them and why they exist. However Israel kept forgetting God’s acts of salvation and the reason why they had been chosen.
In the New Testament we are also told that we must keep remembering what God has done for us in Christ and to be overflowing with thankfulness for what God has done for them.
Psalm 103 is a beautiful perspective of the understanding of David, one of God’s people and so it applies to all those committed to Jesus Christ. It is also relevant to those who are not yet Christians as it describes the essence of what being a Christian means and what it is like to be a Christian,
Background
When this, the 4th book of psalms, 90-106, was composed they are deliberately arranged to teach and remind us of particular lessons.
Psalm 90 describes mankind’s particular problem, God is angry at our sin. We are on ‘death row’. It is very frank:
“We are consumed by your anger and terrified by your indignation. You have set our iniquities before you, our secret sins in the light of your presence.” Psalm 90:7-8
Psalm 99 explains that this is a problem because of God’s holy character:
“The Lord reigns, let the nations tremble;” Psalm 99:1
Moses, Aaron and Samuel spoke to the Lord and he responded. There is hope:
“Lord our God, you answered them; you were to Israel a forgiving God, though you punished their misdeeds.” Psalm 99:8
The problem is clear. How can God be a holy, perfect ruler of the universe and yet be a forgiving judge? How can he be both at the same time?
Psalms 101-102 supplies the answer. God’s blameless king, his Messiah, will come and suffer God’s wrath on our place. God looks down on the plight of mankind and his answer is that his man, in his prime will have to die.
“The Lord looked down from his sanctuary on high, from heaven he viewed the earth, to hear the groans of the prisoners and release those condemned to death.” So the name of the Lord will be declared in Zion and his praise in Jerusalem when the peoples and the kingdoms assemble to worship the Lord. Psalm 102:19-22
God’s people from every nation will then praise the name of this person who has become our Saviour. He will be worshipped as Jehovah, the Lord, because he gave his life for us.
“In the course of my life he broke my strength; he cut short my days.” Psalm 102:23
Psalm 103
This beautiful psalm summarises this good news. It is full of praise because of this great unmerited rescue.
Do not forget God’s mercy to me (v. 1-5)
The first five verses are David’s personal thoughts. He starts
“Praise the Lord, my soul; all my inmost being, praise his holy name.” Psalm 103:1
He is telling himself what he needs to remember. He recognises that a real faith that comes from God cannot be half-hearted:
“Praise the Lord, my soul, and forget not all his benefits.” Psalm 103:2
This is a lesson we all need to keep remembering. God doesn’t want a cursory unmeant ‘Thanks!’ or ‘Sorry’ such as a child will grunt when ticked off by a parent. He wants a genuine, heartfelt gratefulness. The next three verses describe what specific benefits he is thinking of:
“. . . who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion, who satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.” Psalm 103:3
David was probably remembering his awful sins, his seduction of Bathsheba and the subsequent murder of her husband, Uriah the Hittite, just as we can all look back on our sinful actions and thoughts.
In the context of this book that emphasises the holiness of God, this is stunning news. God has seen all our iniquities and we deserve to be consumed by his wrath, terrified by his awesome righteousness but now David says:
“Praise the Lord . . . who forgives all your iniquities.” Psalm 103:2
‘Praise the Lord’ comes six times in this psalm. David is thrilled about what he has learned of the grace of God. He has an eternal guaranteed future because now God can forgive all his iniquities. He knows he is now acceptable to God because this person would become his substitute, a sacrificial lamb. Isaiah said later about the Messiah who would not only rule but become a ‘suffering servant’:
“Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.
We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.” Isaiah 53:4-6
We are healed of many diseases in this world but in the next there will be no disease and no death. ‘Redeemed fro the pit’ means saved from even death. In Psalm 90 we are all reminded that our days are numbered but here there is confidence of a secure future. Illness and suffering are the result of being in a sinful world, but in God’s eternity there will be no sickness or suffering as there will be no sin. The apostle John repeats this teaching:
“"He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away." Revelation 21:14
In Psalm 90 Moses pleaded with God to turn their fate around. Now we read that in this new world all God’s people will be crowned, as we are all children of God. We will experience this love in a different dimension to that which we can know now. There will be no more problems faced by the elderly, we will be full of energy. Just as an eagle soars on air so will we soar in the energy of God’s presence.
“. . . and crowns you with love and compassion, who satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.” Psalm 103:4-5
We learn something of the perfection of this mercy of God in Psalms 101-102. God’s blameless king is facing God’s wrath in our place. This is the perfect solution to the problems of Psalm 90.
Several of my grandchildren are preparing for exams. Some are preparing very hard indeed and doubtless they are the ones who will do well. However, where God’s judgment is concerned we are so far below his standards that we have no hope of passing through hard work, another solution is needed. We need God’s grace.
A young deserter was brought before the emperor Napoleon who ordered that he should be shot. At this point the young man’s mother came forward and begged for her son’s life pleading:
“Have mercy upon him.”
The emperor retorted:
“He doesn’t deserve any mercy.”
The woman correctly responded:
“If he deserved mercy, it would not be mercy.”
This way of thinking is foreign to many today where many think, ‘If you deserve it you should get it, if you don’t deserve it you shouldn’t get it. However when it comes to our relationship with the almighty, all-holy god we cannot ever warrant acceptance - it can only be through mercy that we are forgiven
In the Insect House of London Zoo there is a class fronted cage for there Black Widow spider. This spider is very small yet a bite can kill a person in a day. It is reassuring that a notice nearby says that there are ample supplies of an antidote in the same building. In the same way David looks forward to a perfect solution that is available to those harmed by sin. There is forgiveness, there is a certain healing in the future, we are rested from death and compassion and satisfaction will be restored. No wonder David can’t restrain himself and keeps saying ‘Praise the Lord.”, the antidote to our problem is available. He also adds:
“Praise the Lord, my soul, and forget not all his benefits.” Psalm 103:2
How often God’s people frequently forget the Lord.
“. . . be careful that you do not forget the Lord, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery." Deuteronomy 6:12
“Be careful that you do not forget the Lord your God, failing to observe his commands, his laws and his decrees that I am giving you this day. Otherwise, when you eat and are satisfied, when you build fine houses and settle down, and when your herds and flocks grow large and your silver and gold increase and all you have is multiplied, then your heart will become proud and you will forget the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.” Deuteronomy 8:11–14
“Does a young woman forget her jewelry, a bride her wedding ornaments? Yet my people have forgotten me, days without number.” Jeremiah 2:32
“When I fed them, they were satisfied; when they were satisfied, they became proud; then they forgot me.” Hosea 13:6
“They forgot the God who saved them, who had done great things in Egypt…" Psalm 106:21
“The Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord; they forgot the Lord their God and served the Baals and the Asherahs.” Judges 3:7
Shakespeare assessment one of the coolest expressions of human selfishness is the failure to say thank you.
“Blow, blow, the winter wind, they are not so unkind as man's ingratitude.”
He wrote this famous lyric from William Shakespeare’s play, As You Like It (Act II, Scene VII). Sung by the musician Lord Amiens, the song contrasts the harshness of winter weather with the deeper, more painful sting of betrayal and ungrateful friends. His play King Lear illustrates this. The King voluntarily advocates all his noble titles and property in favour of his three daughters. The later finds himself in poverty and homeless because these daughters callously reject him. The king then says
“Ingratitude, thou marble-hearted fiend. How sharper than the cirque tooth it is to have a thankless child.”
Many parents today can sympathise with King Lear over the way their children have treated them. This is the complaint that the Lord had with the children of Israel and it is the same complaint that he has with many churches today.
David calls on himself:
“Forget all his benefits . . .”
This includes the fact that his sins have been forgiven..
Do not forget God’s mercy to us. (v.6-17)
David now tends from his own experience to that of the people of Israel. The showing of God's mercy is entirely consistent with his character. God is so different to us we say one thing and do another, he doesn’t.
“The Lord works righteousness and justice for all the oppressed. He made known his ways to Moses, his deeds to the people of Israel” Psalm 103:6-7
Always God who takes the initiative. It is he who makes known to his people the news of salvation. He confirms this news by the miraculous deeds he is involved in. Moses demonstrated God’s awesome power through the miraculous, just as Jesus was to do in remarkable ways.
David then reminds us that our salvation depends on the character of God. He repeats what God told said on Mount Sinai about his character (Exodus 34:6) - he is compassionate and kind. He will not always accuse us:
“The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love. He will not always accuse, nor will he harbour his anger forever; he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities.” Psalm 103:8-10
Derrick Gardner writes in his commentary about these verses:
“These very human terms point the contrast between God's generosity and the heavy-handed wrath of man, who loves to keep his quarrels going and to nurse his grievances. God, infinitely wronged, not only tempers wrath but tempers justice. - though at what cost to Himself, only the new Testament would reveal.”
Our anger can be vicious, but as Psalm 90 teaches, although the holy God is fully aware of all our sin and it makes him very angry, there is hope. David explains where this hope lies:
“For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us. As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him” Psalm 103:11-13
We all need to understand this. Our greatest need is to be forgiven our sin which is such a massive offence to God. Without his forgiveness we will be separated from him for eternity. To be forgiven we have to ‘believe’ in him which means to genuinely acknowledge Jesus as my God and Saviour. The apostle John keeps reminding us of this:
“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” John 3:16
Jesus exemplifies this love of God that we do not deserve:
“For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.” John 3:17
He goes on to remind us of the gravity of the decision we all make:
“Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.” John 3:18
Why don’t people believe? In essence it is because we want to remain independent of our God and creator:
“This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.” John 3:19
In Kenya there was a young man brought up in a very poor village family. The parents were not well of but they managed to pay for his primary and secondary education, the uniform and other expenses. They sacrificed nearly all they had for their son. He left much of the farming on their small homestead to his aging parents. He was a bright lad and all this sacrifice was worth it when he managed to get a place at university. After three years he was going to graduate. The parents felt so proud. They put on their best clothes, that were second hand and far from smart, caught the rickety buses up to Nairobi and found their way to the university. They were thrilled. They Ould think of no greater honour than to stand beside their son who now had a degree.
But the lad had changed during those three years.. When he saw his parents in their bedraggled clothes he felt ashamed. His friends from college came from much more successful families and he wanted to be one with them instead. So he walked away from his parents, not even acknowledging them. How those parents must have felt. They had sacrificed so much but he, in his pride, decided to walk away and disown them.
"How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child!”
This famous line comes from William Shakespeare's play ‘King Lear’. The aging king expresses his deep anguish and betrayal after his ungrateful daughter, Goneril, turns against him. He compares the emotional agony caused by her disrespect and lack of appreciation to the physical pain of a venomous snake bite.
The gospel is that although we have all treated God in this way, he remains full of love and is slow to judge and stands there waiting for us to return to him. The choice is ours.
“But from everlasting to everlasting the Lord’s love is with those who fear him, and his righteousness with their children’s children - with those who keep his covenant and remember to obey his precepts.” Psalm 103:17-18
The gospel has never changed since the beginning of time. Those who repent and turn to serve the living God will be accepted, forgiven and given the status of being righteous.
How can anyone who has grasped this love not join David and be overflowing with gratefulness:
“Praise the Lord, all his heavenly hosts, you his servants who do his will. Praise the Lord, all his works everywhere in his dominion. Praise the Lord, my soul.”
Paul reminds his readers of this same gospel:
“So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.” Colossians 2:6-7
Recurrent themes in Psalm 103
The Need for Grace
This is the repeated thermal of this psalm:
v. 2, 8, 10, 11,12, 13,
Who receive this grace?
Four times in this psalm David stresses that there is a condition for receiving God’s grace:
“. . . so great is his love for those who fear him.” Psalm 103:11
“As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him; for he knows . . .” Psalm 103:13-14
“ . . . the Lord’s love is with those who fear him, and his righteousness with their children’s children.” Psalm 103:17
The evidence of this love
Real love is always followed by a desire to know how the other thinks and a longing to please them.
“. . . with those who keep his covenant and remember to obey his precepts.” Psalm 103:18
“. . . who obey his word.” Psalm 103:20
“. . . you his servants who do his will.” Psalm 103:21
BVP
