THE GOD THAT DOETH WONDERS

The psalmist commences by acknowledging that the Lord had answered his prolonged prayers, v. 1. He then recounts those trying times. This is the proper order in all testimony.

His hand had been outstretched in prayer in the night, and did not slacken in sustained importunity, v. 2 R.V. He recalled God’s way in sacred history, and in the songs of joy that he himself had experienced in past seasons of darkness. But God seemed so inactive right now, so the remembrance of His past doings made the present more inexplicable. The psalmist refused to be comforted!

But he bestirs himself to challenge his latent unbelief: can God cast off for ever? Is His unfailing love totally finished? Has He expunged me from His memory? Can His plighted word fail? Has He closed the affection of His heart?

“No!” is the only answer to these rhetorical questions. God cannot fail or be inconsistent with Himself. The infirmity is that of the speaker; the breakdown is his alone, v. 10.

Having so confronted himself, he will remember the right hand of the most High, and the wonders of old, together with His doings now. As the psalmist does so, the “I”, so prominent hitherto, gives place to “thou”. God comes into focus, and problems are reduced to their real relative size.

He can now exclaim, “who is so great a God … that doest wonders”, the wonder of making a great obstacle (the Red Sea) to become a way of deliverance, vv. 16, 19, the wonders of His leading, providing and keeping in the desert ahead. Surely all things work together for good.

For the psalmist in his present experience, the greatest wonder from the God that does wonders is that “so great a God” patiently bore with him, and was turning his melancholy into quiet assurance, v. 13. Yea, “many, O Lord my God, are thy wonderful works which thou hast done, and thy thoughts which are to us-ward”, 40. 5.

What further persuasion can we, who live this side of the Lord’s cross and entrance into glory, bring to bear upon life’s perplexities? “That thy name is near thy wondrous works declare”, Psa. 75. 1.