Psalm 106 is scheduled for reading today, October 17th, in the Bible Reading Calendar authored by Robert Murray M‘Cheyne.
It is beyond me to go through this Psalm and give a verse by verse comment but I will try and highlight some important observations.
Spurgeon
C H Spurgeon in his ‘Treasury of David’, rightly notes that ‘This Psalm begins and ends with Hallelujah.’
The opening verse has a reference to the goodness and mercy of the Lord. But then it focuses on the failures and disobedience of those people to whom the Lord has shown Himself most gracious, merciful and longsuffering.
And yet, despite their terrible wilfulness and defiance, the grace of God eventually triumphs amongst His people.
The last verse records the shout of victory and joy that will finally be the portion of God’s people.
“Blessed be the LORD God of Israel from everlasting to everlasting: and let all the people say, Amen. Praise ye the LORD,” verse 48.
However, what dreadful unfaithfulness is recorded again and again between the two Hallelujahs! It is a record of the acknowledged wickedness of Israel throughout many generations.
“We have sinned with our fathers, we have committed iniquity, we have done wickedly,” verse 6.
It also goes into details of the many occasions of rebellion against the Lord.
I. GOD’S PEOPLE OUGHT TO LIVE WITH AN AWARENESS OF THE TENDENCY AMONGST US TO FORGET OUR DEPRAVITY AND THE SINS OF FORMER GENERATIONS AND FOOLISHLY DISOBEY GOD IN THE SAME FASHION AS OUR FOREFATHERS!
The Psalmist says: “We have sinned with our fathers, we have committed iniquity, we have done wickedly,” verse 6.
1. Is there that awareness amongst us Free Presbyterians today? There was in earlier times and it was accompanied back then by the most passionate desire to be delivered from the follies of the past and to be kept from engaging in the like again.
2. Failure to give due consideration to the history of God’s people as recorded in the Bible results in the repeat of former sins!
“Our fathers understood not thy wonders in Egypt; they remembered not the multitude of thy mercies; but provoked him at the sea, even at the Red sea,” verse 7. It is ever the preacher’s task to press home the history of the ‘failures’ of our fathers in order that they might be preserved from following in their sins.
“For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope. Now the God of patience and consolation grant you to be likeminded one toward another according to Christ Jesus: that ye may with one mind and one mouth glorify God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,” Romans 15:4-6.
3. Dear Christian, please be aware of our utter ‘forgetfulness’ of God’s mercies. “And he saved them from the hand of him that hated them, and redeemed them from the hand of the enemy. And the waters covered their enemies: there was not one of them left. Then believed they his words; they sang his praise. They soon forgat his works; they waited not for his counsel: But lusted exceedingly in the wilderness, and tempted God in the desert,” Psalm 106:10-14.
Is that forgetfulness amongst us today? If there is an ‘unawareness’ amongst today’s generation of Free Presbyterians, may it not be the failure of the older generation of ministers faithfully, in obedience to God’s Word, to ever highlight God’s goodness to former generations?
It was by that goodness we are today in possession of the fruits of past blessings. But let this be forgotten and we will soon lose them all!
“Beware that thou forget not the LORD thy God, in not keeping his commandments, and his judgments, and his statutes, which I command thee this day,” Deuteronomy 8:11.
Please note how ‘forgetfulness’ manifests itself — “in not keeping his commandments, and his judgments, and his statutes.”
That which the Free Presbyterian Church was commanded of God to do, back in 1951, I fear that many are showing a forgetfulness of His instructions!
II. A PARTICULAR EVIDENCE OF A FORGETTING OF THE COMMANDMENTS OF GOD IS GIVEN IN VERSES 34-35.
“They did not destroy the nations, concerning whom the LORD commanded them: but were mingled among the heathen, and learned their works.”
1. Israel was commanded by the Lord to destroy the Canaanite nations. This was not an act of xenophobia, but was a judgment against their idolatry and its resultant depravities and perversions!
“Defile not ye yourselves in any of these things: for in all these the nations are defiled which I cast out before you: and the land is defiled: therefore I do visit the iniquity thereof upon it, and the land itself vomiteth out her inhabitants. Ye shall therefore keep my statutes and my judgments, and shall not commit any of these abominations; neither any of your own nation, nor any stranger that sojourneth among you: (For all these abominations have the men of the land done, which were before you, and the land is defiled;) That the land spue not you out also, when ye defile it, as it spued out the nations that were before you,” Leviticus 18:24-28.
“Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When ye are passed over Jordan into the land of Canaan; Then ye shall drive out all the inhabitants of the land from before you, and destroy all their pictures, and destroy all their molten images, and quite pluck down all their high places: And ye shall dispossess the inhabitants of the land, and dwell therein: for I have given you the land to possess it,” Numbers 33:51-53.
2. The Psalmist says that Israel ‘mingled’ themselves with those they should have destroyed. “But were mingled among the heathen, and learned their works. And they served their idols: which were a snare unto them. Yea, they sacrificed their sons and their daughters unto devils, and shed innocent blood, even the blood of their sons and of their daughters, whom they sacrificed unto the idols of Canaan: and the land was polluted with blood,” verses 35-38.
They ‘engaged’ with them and thus learned their evil ways and adopted their ungodly practices.
I believe that I can honestly say that the spirit of outright contention against the apostasy that was embraced by our founders in 1951 and which was followed for many years, is no longer the spirit seen in the actions of some ‘forgetful’ Free Presbyterians!
Instead of seeing those evangelicals, who have defied God’s commands and remained in the apostasy and have worked for its furtherance, as being worthy of condemnation, there are those who embrace them as if they were not in disobedience!
By so doing they are extolling and endorsing their disobedience and encouraging other Free Presbyterians to adopt a similar attitude.
That will bring down the Lord’s judgment upon us and we will pay the price of that which Israel endured to her sorrow!
Such ‘mingling’ with the disobedient will bring about an adoption of their evil ways.
What folly did Israel become guilty of? Is there not a like folly seen today? Do not Christian parents defy God’s command to raise our children in accordance with His Word.
“And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord,” Ephesians 6:4.
“But continue thou in the things which thou hast learned and hast been assured of, knowing of whom thou hast learned them; And that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness,” 2 Timothy 3:14-16.
Christian parents today, in their thousands, ignore their ‘separatist’ profession and the Bible they say they believe and obey, and send their children past a Free Presbyterian Christian school to be educated under the ungodly instructions of Bible-rejectors in accordance with a curriculum designed to promote the errors and perversion of society today!
Surely it can be seen that a terrible harvest will follow this wickedness.
3. The judgment of God is real and must not be trivialised and made light of! “Therefore was the wrath of the LORD kindled against his people, insomuch that he abhorred his own inheritance. And he gave them into the hand of the heathen; and they that hated them ruled over them. Their enemies also oppressed them, and they were brought into subjection under their hand. Many times did he deliver them; but they provoked him with their counsel, and were brought low for their iniquity,” Psalm 106:40-43.
To casually ignore the import of these words is tantamount to denying Hell! If we act in a manner that suggests we don’t believe the Lord would ever act as these verses state, how can we truly believe that the Lord is capable of inflicting the infinitely more horrific punishment that Hell is?
“The Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity; and shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth,” Matthew 13:41-42.
A failure to rightly understand how utterly and horrendously offensive to God sin is and the resultant wrath that it promotes, will result in a very wrongful underestimating of just how the Lord will respond to persistent and deliberate disobedience of His law!!
The world today disdains any view of a God of Justice and Wrath and sadly all too many Christians have become influenced, indeed, infected by that dreadful notion!
Dear Christian, read carefully and medit toatively this Psalm, for I believe you will find many sad parallels with today’s ‘Christendom’, which must be abandoned with full repentance.
Rev Ivan Foster (Rtd)
17th October 2026