Psalm 106:1 Praise ye the LORD, O give thanks unto the LORD; for he is good: for his mercy endureth for ever.
How good is your memory? It probably depends upon what a “good memory” means. Sometimes people remember things that are anything but good, things they ought to forget. They may have a vivid memory, but it is not good. Other times people have a hard time remembering what happened yesterday. Whether you have long-term or short-term memory depends on a number of things, but memory is very important. It is what connects what has been to what is and allows us to have a perception of our world as it actually is today.
Psalm 106 talks about our memory and God’s memory. It puts things aright to see the importance of both. Psalm 106:1 says, “Praise ye the LORD, O give thanks unto the LORD; for he is good: for his mercy endureth for ever.” We are to thank God for His mercy. What follows is the story of Israel’s rebellion and how often they have forgotten.
The psalm says in verse 7, “Our fathers understood not thy wonders in Egypt; they remembered not.” So, Israel did not understand because they did not remember. They had not taken note of what God had done, so they feared about what would happen in the future. Verse 13 says, “They soon forgat his works; they waited not for his counsel.” Why did they not wait for God? Why were they impatient? They had forgotten that God had always taken care of them before.
Verse 21 says, “They forgat God their saviour.” Verse 24 says, “Yea, they despised the pleasant land, they believed not his word: but murmured in their tents, and hearkened not unto the voice of the LORD.” You find over and again this lapse of memory, this fear of an unknown future because of a lapse of memory of what they had seen, what was past tense, and done.
We have a hard time knowing what to expect in the future, but we can always take note of what God has done in the past and realize that that this same God is undiminished going into the future.
So, what is memory? We have two kinds of memory here. One is our lack of memory, and the other is God’s abundance of memory. For instance, verse 45 says, “And he remembered for them his covenant, and repented according to the multitude of his mercies.” They forgot God, but God never forgot them. The reason that this is important is because the psalmist ends the psalm by saying, “Save us, O LORD our God, and gather us from among the heathen, to give thanks unto thy holy name, and to triumph in thy praise.”
What you find here is that mercy is when God remembers us, and gratitude is when we remember Him. Psalm 25 says, “Remember, O LORD, thy tender mercies. “ Psalm 25:7 says, “Remember not the sins of my youth.” The psalmist is basically saying, “God, remember me. O wait, don’t remember me.” What does he mean? He means, “God, remember me in your mercy, but don’t remember my past sins.”
Thank God we serve a God Who can remember us without acknowledging our sins against us once we have trusted the LORD Jesus! When we confess any break in fellowship with God, we can confidently take a step each day into the future.
So, memory matters! Mercy is when God remembers us, and gratitude is when we remember Him.