The Unblinking Hinge of the Cosmos Text: Psalm 136:26
Introduction: The Great Hallel
The psalm before us, Psalm 136, is what the Jews called the Great Hallel. A Hallel is a song of praise, and this one is great indeed. It is a corporate, liturgical, responsive song. You can see the structure immediately. The lead singer makes a declaration about God, and the congregation responds, twenty-six times, with the unblinking and glorious refrain, "For His lovingkindness endures forever." This is not a vain repetition; it is a profound and stubborn insistence. It is the metronome of reality. Creation? His lovingkindness endures forever. The Exodus? His lovingkindness endures forever. Smoting great kings? His lovingkindness endures forever. Giving their land as a heritage? His lovingkindness endures forever.
This is covenant renewal worship. This is the people of God recounting their history, and at every point, affixing the great seal of God's character to the event. This is how we are to understand our lives, our history, and the history of the world. We are to look at every event, from the creation of the heavens to the buttering of our toast this morning, through the lens of this glorious, bedrock truth. God's covenant faithfulness, His hesed, is the hinge upon which the cosmos turns.
Our secular age, of course, has a different refrain. Their refrain, chanted in the halls of academia and the halls of government, is something like, "Because autonomous man is the measure of all things." Or perhaps, "Because the material world is all there is, was, or ever will be." And they look at the same historical events and they see chaos, random chance, the collision of blind, pitiless forces. But the Christian sees the hand of a sovereign Father, and he sings. The world sees a meaningless series of unfortunate events; we see a symphony of covenant love.
The final verse of this great chorus brings the entire anthem to its crescendo. After rehearsing God's mighty deeds in creation and redemption, from the splitting of the Red Sea to the provision of daily bread, the Psalmist directs our thanks to the highest throne in the universe. It is the capstone on the monument of praise.
The Text
Give thanks to the God of heaven,
For His lovingkindness endures forever.
(Psalm 136:26 LSB)
The Object of Our Gratitude (v. 26a)
The first clause is a command, an exhortation, a summons to worship.
"Give thanks to the God of heaven..." (Psalm 136:26a)
First, consider the act: "Give thanks." Thanksgiving, in the Bible, is not a sentimental feeling we work up when things are going our way. It is not a polite "thank you" for the trinkets. Biblical gratitude is a disciplined, theological, and polemical act. It is a declaration of dependence. To give thanks is to confess that you are a recipient, not a self-made man. The autonomous man of the Enlightenment cannot give thanks; he can only congratulate himself. The materialist cannot give thanks; he can only describe the impersonal forces that produced a particular outcome. Only the creature can truly give thanks to the Creator.
This is why ingratitude is the native tongue of the unbeliever. Paul tells us in Romans 1 that the fundamental sin of mankind is that "although they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks" (Rom. 1:21). Ingratitude is the taproot of all idolatry. When you refuse to thank the true God for your life, your breath, your food, and your salvation, you will inevitably start thanking something else, even if it is just your own cleverness. Thanksgiving is therefore spiritual warfare. It is planting the flag of God's sovereignty over every square inch of your life.
Second, consider the object of our thanks: "the God of heaven." This is not a generic title for some distant, ethereal deity. This is a title of absolute sovereignty. Daniel used this title when he stood before Nebuchadnezzar, the most powerful man on earth, and declared that it is the God of heaven who "removes kings and establishes kings" (Dan. 2:21). This is the God who sits enthroned above the circle of the earth, for whom the nations are a drop in the bucket (Is. 40:15, 22). He is not the god of the soil, or the god of the sea, or the god of the local tribe. He is the God of heaven. His jurisdiction is total. His authority is absolute. He is not running for reelection.
To give thanks to the "God of heaven" is to confess that everything that happens under heaven is under His sovereign decree. This includes the good, the bad, and the ugly. This is why we are commanded to "give thanks in all circumstances" (1 Thess. 5:18). Not for all circumstances, but in them. We can do this because we know that the God of heaven is weaving all things, even the malice of our enemies and the consequences of our own foolishness, into a glorious tapestry for our good and His glory (Rom. 8:28). Our thanksgiving is not conditioned by our circumstances; it is grounded in His character and His throne.
The Reason for Our Gratitude (v. 26b)
The second clause provides the unshakable foundation for the command. Why are we to give thanks to this sovereign God of heaven? What is the basis for our unending praise?
"For His lovingkindness endures forever." (Psalm 136:26b)
This is the twenty-sixth time this refrain has appeared in this psalm. The Holy Spirit is not stuttering. He is driving a stake into the ground. He is teaching us to be stubborn about this one thing. The reason we give thanks to the sovereign God is that His sovereignty is not a cold, impersonal, deterministic force. It is the sovereignty of hesed. It is the sovereignty of covenant faithfulness. It is the sovereignty of a Father's loyal, unrelenting, undefeatable love for His people.
The Hebrew word is hesed. We translate it as lovingkindness, or mercy, or steadfast love, but no single English word can carry the freight. It is a love that is defined by a promise, a covenant. It is a love that says, "I will be your God, and you will be my people." It is a love that does not depend on the loveliness of the beloved, but on the faithfulness of the Lover. It is a love that pursues, disciplines, redeems, and glorifies. It is the love that sent Christ to the cross for us while we were yet sinners (Rom. 5:8).
And this hesed "endures forever." It does not have an expiration date. It does not fluctuate with our performance. It is not here today and gone tomorrow. The mountains may be thrown into the sea, the empires of men may rise and fall, our own hearts may grow cold and faint, but this one thing remains: His lovingkindness endures forever. It is an objective reality, as solid and immovable as the throne of the God of heaven Himself.
This is the death of all our fears and the foundation of all our hope. Why do we give thanks when the diagnosis is grim? Because His lovingkindness endures forever. Why do we give thanks when our children wander? Because His lovingkindness endures forever. Why do we give thanks when the culture rages and imagines a vain thing? Because the God of heaven holds them in derision, and His lovingkindness for His church endures forever.
Conclusion: The Unending Song
This psalm, and this final verse, is a call to see the world aright. It is a call to interpret everything through the grid of God's sovereign, covenantal love. The world says, "Give thanks for nothing to no one, for all is vanity." The Scriptures say, "Give thanks to the God of heaven for everything, for His lovingkindness endures forever."
This is not just a call to a private feeling of gratitude. This is a call to corporate, public, liturgical confession. This is a song we are to sing together, as the people of God. When we gather on the Lord's Day, we are reenacting this psalm. We are recounting the mighty acts of God in Christ, and we are responding with this great, stubborn refrain. In our prayers, in our songs, in our feasting at the Lord's Table, we are declaring to one another and to the watching world that the God of heaven reigns, and that His hesed is the central fact of history.
And because this is true, our future is one of certain victory. The God of heaven has established a kingdom that shall never be destroyed. That kingdom is advancing, and it will fill the whole earth. Our task is to live as grateful citizens of that kingdom, to teach the nations to sing this song. We are to be a people whose lives are characterized by this robust, defiant, joyful thanksgiving. For in giving thanks to the God of heaven, we are simply getting in tune with reality. We are joining the song that the cosmos has been singing from the beginning, a song that will only grow louder and sweeter, until that day when every knee bows, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, to the glory of the God whose lovingkindness endures forever.