God is amazing! Psalm 106 begins and ends with praise. Everyone should praise God for He is truly amazing, and yet the psalmist asks the question, “who can declare all his praise?” The answer is in v3 – only those who do righteousness at all times.
Who is that? The rest of the Psalm shows us that it’s not Israel! Time and again they failed. The psalmist retells the sad story of failure after failure. Even after God brought them out of Egypt with 10 awesome plagues, they rebelled at the Red Sea and talked about returning to Egypt. But God delivered them, they sang His praise, and then forgot about Him again! Back to grumbling. Grumbling about the food, the leadership and then while Moses was receiving the 10 commandments, they exchanged the glory of God for an image (v22-23). How could God put up with them? He provided an intercessor. Moses stood in the gap and turned God’s wrath aside.
There was more failure. They failed to believe that God could give them the promised land, even though they had seen God bring them out of Egypt, they feared the Canaanites. They failed by going after Moabite women who led them into the worship of Baal. So God sent a plague that could have wiped them out. But thankfully one man stood in the gap. One man who was zealous for the glory of God. Phinehas stood up and intervened (v30).
But God’s people continued to turn away from Him. They failed to drive out the inhabitants of the promised land. They intermarried with them which led them to turn away from God’s way to the point of even sacrificing their own children (v37). How could God put up with this? He punished them by sending them into exile.
And yet, He didn’t give up on them, why not? Look at the wonderful words in v45:
For their sake he remembered his covenant, and relented according to the abundance of his steadfast love.
God is amazing. The Psalm ends with the words of another man who stands in the gap and prays for God’s salvation for His people (v47). The Psalm began by asking “who can declare God’s praise?” The answer was only the one who is always righteous. When Jesus sang this Psalm, He knew that He was the only righteous one, and as he considered all the failures of God’s people, He did not give up, but stood in the gap as our perfect mediator, praying for salvation for God’s people. His prayer was answered through His own sacrificial death.
Because of Jesus we can be counted as those who are righteous, clothed in the righteousness that Jesus gives us and so despite our many failures, we can declare God’s praise and be confident of His salvation.
Light and Momentary Troubles 
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