Ps 106 – God is faithful even when we’re not

The really encouraging thing about Psalm 106 is that God is faithful to us even when we are unfaithful to him.  This psalm catalogues the repeated failures of the people of Israel, but yet at every turn God hears their cry and is willing to restore them.

• A history of failure

For example, v8-11 records that when the people rebelled against God at the Red Sea, God dramatically rescued them and destroyed the Egyptians who were pursuing them:

Yet he saved them for his name’s sake, to make his mighty power known.  He rebuked the Red Sea, and it dried up; he led them through the depths as through a desert.  He saved them from the hand of the foe; from the hand of the enemy he redeemed them.  The waters covered their adversaries; not one of them survived.

It is no surprise that in the next verse we read,

Then they believed his promises and sang his praise. (v12)

Of course they did!  We can almost imagine them on a spiritual high, thinking “We’ll never doubt God again!”

But yet in the very next verse,

But they soon forgot what he had done and did not wait for his counsel.  In the desert they gave in to their craving; in the wasteland they put God to the test. (v13-14)

We see the same cycle repeating itself over and over again throughout their history.  The people were faithless, but yet God remained faithful to his promises.

• A God of faithfulness

Verse 44-45 says,

But he took note of their distress when he heard their cry; for their sake he remembered his covenant and out of his great love he relented.

And so, we need to remember that God is faithful.  We can be tempted to forget God.  In our lives we can fall into the same trap as these Israelites did: remembering God when we are in a fix, only to forget him as soon as things get better.  However, the antidote is to remember that God is faithful to us.  We need to remember that God remembers his covenant.  God has promised to be with his people and to save them for his name’s sake (v8).  He remembers us because of his great love and he is always ready to hear our prayers when we pray to him.

This week, remember that God remembers, and there is no greater evidence of his remembering than the price that he was willing to pay to make us his own.