Remember His Mercies

…they remembered not the multitude of Thy mercies… – Psalm 106:7

Children forget what they learn unless they understand it. They may pass the School Board standards, and yet in a few years they may know very little. The capacity for forgetting in some children is amazing. Many even among grown-up people have splendid memories for forgetting. Alas! it is the case with certain of the Lord’s people. That which we do not understand we readily forget. When a child understands his lesson thoroughly, it will be fixed in his memory; but if he has merely learned the words, and has not entered into their senses, do you wonder that his lesson slips away? So was it with Israel in Egypt and at the Red Sea. Those sentences follow each other in true logical order: “They understood not Thy wonders in Egypt; they remembered not the multitude of Thy mercies.” A grievous thing is this, when God sends mercy, and mercy, and mercy, and mercy, and mercy, and mercy-heaps of mercies, loads of mercies, hills of mercies, mountains of mercies, worlds of mercies, and yet men forget. His mercies are more than the stars, more than the drops of dew, more than the sands on the seashore, and yet we do not remember. This is a mournful and inexcusable fault!

Mercies should be remembered. It is a great wrong to God when we bury His mercies in the grave of unthankfulness. Especially is this the case with distinguishing mercies, wherein the Lord makes us to differ from others. Light, when the rest of the land is in darkness! Life, when others are smitten with the sword of death! Liberty from an iron bondage! O Christians, these are not things to be forgotten! Abundantly utter the memory of distinguishing mercies! Discriminating grace deserves unceasing memorials of praise. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2204.cfm

Knowing and Understanding

Our fathers understood not Thy wonders in Egypt… – Psalm 106:7

They ‘understood not His wonders in Egypt”, because their hearts were hardened by their association with a proud, worldly, idolatrous and yet cultured nation, and they had turned aside from the spiritual faith of their fathers. Wonders were wrought, and they saw them, and were amazed; but they did not see beneath the surface, nor perceive the Lord’s meaning in them. The fact is, dear friends, these people had no deeply spiritual work upon their hearts. Beloved, I pray to God for you who are newly called out from the world, that the first working of grace in your souls may be deep, true, clear, and lasting. I would have you not only know but understand. Depend upon it- a man’s after-character is very much shaped by the mode of his conversion. Why do some turn back altogether? It is because their change of heart was not that thorough radical conversion which involves the creation of a new nature. They felt certain superficial impressions which they mistook for the new birth, and they made a hasty profession which they could not afterwards maintain. They were not thoroughly saved from the dominion of sin, or they would have held on till the end. Many professing Christians of whom we have a good hope that they will prove to be sincere, never had any deep conviction of sin, nor any overwhelming sense of their need of Jesus: hence they have seen little of our Lord in His glorious offices, and all-sufficient sacrifice, and have gained no thorough understanding of His truth…I am afraid for you if you have only a flimsy experience, a skin-deep conviction, a blind man’s apprehension of heavenly light. No wonder if very soon you forgot, and afterwards rebel. Let us pray to God that both in ourselves, and in those whom we bring to Christ, the work of grace may be deep and thorough; and may our faith in Jesus be sustained by a clear understanding of the gospel, and of our Lord’s dealings with us! ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2204.cfm

Trust in Your Unchanging God

Nevertheless He saved them for His name’s sake, that He might make His mighty power to be known. – Psalm 106:8

The (Hebrew children) did not see that their God by all His wonders was pledging Himself to them. After having done so much for them, He would not leave them. Could He have brought them out of Egypt to kill them at the Red Sea? They even dared to say that this was their suspicion. Oh, the slanders of unbelief! But if they had understood His wonders, they would have seen that He who had done such great things for them had bound Himself to perfect His purpose, and to bring them into the land which He had promised to their fathers. “Ah!” you say, “they were very stupid.” I do not defend them; but what about yourselves? Have we not been mistrustful? Have we not said in our hearts, “He will yet fail us, and our faith will be disappointed”? Alas, great God, we blush and are ashamed! But listen—

“Determined to save, He watched o’er my path
When, Satan’s blind slave, I sported with death;
And can He have taught me to trust in His name,
And thus far have brought me to put me to shame?”

Will the Lord lose all that He has wrought in us, and for us? Is He like to the foolish one, who began to build and was not able to finish? Does the Eternal revoke His resolves? Does the Almighty turn from His purposes? Is it not said, “The Strength of Israel will not lie; for He is not a man, that He should lie, nor the son of man, that He should repent”? O believer, learn this lesson well; and trust in your unchanging God: thus shall you understand His wonders in Egypt. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2204.cfm

Lord, have mercy upon us!

Our fathers understood not Thy wonders in Egypt; they remembered not the multitude of Thy mercies… – Psalm 106:7

The tribes of Israel did not see in all this the claim which the Lord had upon them. As a people, they belonged to Him who had made them a nation. Because of what He had done for them, the Lord took up a peculiar position to them, which He would have them acknowledge. Remember how, in the twentieth chapter of Exodus, before the Lord proclaims His ten commands, He says—”I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.” By this, Jehovah separated them to be His people, and He declared Himself to be their God. During the plagues, He marked His special love to His own; for when the Lord sent a thick darkness over all the land, we read, “But all the children of Israel had light in their dwellings.” When the cattle of Egypt died, Pharaoh sent and found, upon inquiry that “there was not one of the cattle of the Israelites dead.” When the firstborn of Egypt fell dead beneath the angel’s sword, the sprinkled blood of the Passover lamb secured to all Israel protection from the midnight slaughter; and men were made to know that God did put a difference between His chosen and the men of Egypt. Yet the favored people did not understand it: the truth was conspicuous enough; but they did not perceive it as they ought to have done; neither did they practically show that they were the Lord’s people, and that He only was their God. The like slowness to take up our true position, we may see and mourn in ourselves. After all the Lord’s wonders of grace towards us, we do not exalt Him as our God, nor serve Him as His people, as we ought to do. Lord, have mercy upon us! ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2204.cfm

May the Holy Spirit Teach Us

Our fathers understood not Thy wonders in Egypt; they remembered not the multitude of Thy mercies… – Psalm 106:7

Beyond all question, (the Israelites) ought to have recognized Jehovah’s love to them. By so much as the plagues were terrible to Egypt, they were gracious to His people. Though the Israelites were a race of down-trodden slaves the Lord loved them. He moved heaven and earth to liberate them: He not only made the very dust of Egypt alive for them, but He sent swift angels out of heaven to avenge the wrongs of His chosen. The orbs of heaven and the creatures of earth—all were brought to bear upon God’s great purpose of grace towards Israel. Truly said the Lord, “I gave Egypt for thy ransom: Ethiopia and Seba for thee.” It was love, wondrous love to Israel, which made the Lord to show His signs in Egypt, His wonders in the land of Ham. Why did they not become lovingly obedient in return for such favors? Why were they hard of heart, and stiff of neck, and unwilling to be led of the Lord their God? Alas! they understood not what the Lord was doing for them.

To you, beloved, it may be that the same fault can be laid. God has done great wonders for believers; but it may be, we have not yet learned His power so as to trust His might; nor His sovereignty, so as to submit to His will; nor His love, so as to rejoice in His faithfulness. Alas! we have but little understanding; nay, worse, we have none at all except as the Lord, the Holy Spirit, teaches us to profit, and instructs us, as children are instructed. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2204.cfm

Believe and Hope in God

Our fathers understood not Thy wonders in Egypt… – Psalm 106:7

We find Israel broken down by utter hopelessness. Moses spoke to them again, but we read, “They hearkened not unto Moses for anguish of spirit, and for cruel bondage.” They had been so brutally crushed by the Egyptians, that they had lost all heart. Slavery had killed all the manhood of their race: they were abject, timorous, and crouching bondsmen. The last ounce that breaks the camel’s back was laid on them by Pharaoh, and they could no more listen to words of hope. Moses said he had come to deliver them; he told them they should be brought out with a high hand and an outstretched arm; but they could not think it possible; they shook their heads and turned a deaf ear to what they regarded as vain words. Hope had fled. They understood not that God could, by any possible means, deliver them from the gigantic power which held them down. Alas! this also has been the case with us; and perhaps is the case with some here at this moment. You are so sad and so depressed that you cannot believe in salvation. Your presumptuous hopes lie dead in heaps round about you, and you cannot believe that you will ever be saved. “Oh!” say you, “there may be mercy for anybody else, but there is no mercy for me. God can forgive the chief of sinners, but He will never forgive me.” …You dare not hope that He has ordained you unto eternal life, that He will put His Spirit within you, and that He will give you power to become children of God, and joint-heirs with Christ. Your very sorrow for sin has made you incapable of understanding God’s wonders of grace. This is a painful state of mind.

Was there a single weak point in what God had done for them? They had no ground whatever for their disbelief. O brothers, let us never distrust our God until He gives us ground for so doing; and that will never be. C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2204.cfm