God Keeps His Promises
Psalm 105:42-45
42 For He remembered His holy
promise, And Abraham His servant.
43 He brought out His people
with joy, His chosen ones with gladness.
44 He gave them the lands of
the Gentiles, And they inherited the labor of the nations,
45 That they might observe His
statutes And keep His laws. Praise the LORD!
Maybe today you are feeling
like your whole world is falling apart and no one is there to help you, or even
cares about you. You might be saying like the psalmist in Psalm 142:4; “Look
on my right hand and see, For there is no one who acknowledges me; Refuge has
failed me; No one cares for my soul.” Well, my friend, if that’s the case,
it would be a good time for you to remember that the God who created you, who created
the heavens, the earth, and the universe, is a God who remembers His promises
and always keeps them.
Psalm 105 is a testimony and a
witness to this great truth! The psalmist recalls the history of Abraham, the
father of the Jewish nation, and how God made specific promises to him and kept
every one of them. In the first 15 verses, the psalmist mentions the covenant
promise that concerned Abraham’s seed, Isaac and Jacob and all their
descendants (vv. 8-10). This promise also included a piece of land called
Canaan, that was given to them as an inheritance (v. 11).
The middle section of this
great chapter, he then recounts the Genesis account of Joseph and how God kept
His promise by preserving their seed through him and by their going down into
Egypt during the famine. This is actually another fulfilment of specific
promise that God made to Abraham in Genesis 15:13-14; “Then He said to
Abram: "Know certainly that your descendants will be strangers in a land
that is not theirs, and will serve them, and they will afflict them four
hundred years. And also the nation whom they serve I will judge; afterward they
shall come out with great possessions.”
In verses 26-41, the psalmist
goes on to share the great testimony of God’s servant Moses and the judgments
that He sent on Pharoah and Egypt in fulfilling His promise to deliver His
people after being “afflicted 400 years”.
Now in our closing verses
42-45, the psalmist moved immediately from the Exodus to the conquest of
Canaan. It is interesting that he wrote nothing about Israel's failures at
Sinai (the golden calf), in the wilderness (repeated complaining), and at
Kadesh Barnea (refusing to enter the land). After all, the purpose of the psalm
was to magnify God's great works, not to expose man's great failures. God kept
the promise He made to Abraham and gave his descendants the land, helping
Joshua and his army defeat the enemy on every side. The people of Israel
claimed their inheritance, including the wealth they took from the former
inhabitants (v. 44b).
Twice in the book of Joshua,
after the conquest of Canaan we read; "Not a word failed of any good
thing which the Lord had spoken to the house of Israel. All came to pass" (Joshua
21:45, 23:14). In one of the longest prayers recorded in the Old Testament in
Nehemiah, the Levites also recalled this history (Nehemiah 9:7-15).
God's people live on promises,
not explanations, and it is "through faith and patience" that
we see these promises fulfilled (Heb. 6:12). But God's keeping His promise
meant much more for Israel than victory over the enemy and the acquisition of
riches. It meant accepting the responsibility of obeying the God who had been
so faithful to them. “That they might observe His statutes And keep His
laws” (v.45).
Today, we should not only
remember that God keeps His promises as we consider all that the Lord has done
for us, but we should also determine to love Him and obey His Word!
God bless!
