From Desperation to Deliverance: The Promise of Psalm 107

Dannah Gresh: If you’re wondering why God is allowing your painful circumstances to continue, here’s Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth with hope for you.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: I don't know how exactly it's going to work in your situation and in your trouble, but I want to assure you that God's Word promises that in His time and His way, He will deliver you.

Dannah: This is the Revive Our Hearts podcast with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, coauthor of You Can Trust God to Write Your Story, for May 7, 2026. I’m Dannah Gresh.

Before we begin today, here’s your reminder that today is the National Day of Prayer. What a sweet thing to celebrate! Would you take some special time today to pray for our nation, our leaders, and our churches? There’s so much brokenness in our world today, but we have a God who heals, redeems, and restores. Let’s cry out to Him for that. 

Now, throughout 2027 and 2028, Nancy is going to walk us through our whole Bible—from Genesis to Revelation. We’re calling this journey “Wonder of the Word,” and we’re getting pretty excited about it over here at Revive Our Hearts. That’s why today, we’re sharing a preview of that journey with you. 

Nancy has recorded teaching on Psalm 107, and it’s such a beautiful session. If you’re a woman who’s enduring desperate circumstances, you’re about to receive some rock-solid hope from God’s Word. 

Let’s listen. 

Nancy: Here at Revive Our Hearts we often talk about freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ. You may have heard us say that before. When you hear those words, maybe you think, I'm not so sure. You think about the challenges that you're facing at this season of your life. Maybe you think about the baggage that you've got from your background or how you grew up. Maybe you think about the struggles or sinful patterns that just seem to keep hold of you, and you think, Freedom? Fullness? Fruitfulness? I'm not sure I relate to that. Is that really possible for me? Well, I want to tell you the answer is yes, you can experience true freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ. 

Today, we want to look at a psalm, Psalm 107, that gives us an Old Testament glimpse of those qualities and how they can be real in our lives. This is a song of the redeemed people of God. Now, if you've got your Bible open, you'll see that it's a pretty long psalm, 43 verses. So we're not going to read or look at the entire psalm. I'm going to pick out some highlights. But I believe that this will be an encouragement to you. I want to encourage you to follow along in your Bible if you're able to do that at this time. 

So, the first three verses in Psalm 107, this is an introduction. It begins with this phrase in verse 1, “Give thanks to the LORD.” Give thanks to the Lord. We see this often in the Psalms. We want to stop here and ask, “Why should we give thanks to the Lord?” And the psalmist gives us two reasons. First of all is the character of God, who God is. It says: 

Give thanks to the LORD, for He is good. 
His faithful love endures forever.” (v. 1) 

Your Bible may say, instead of “faithful love,” it may say “steadfast love,” or may say “loving kindness.” We talk about this word a lot because it's a very common word in the Old Testament Hebrew. The word is hesed, the covenant-keeping love of the Lord. His faithful love endures forever. He is good, and He has His never-ending love and mercy for us. So we give thanks to the Lord because of who He is, His character. 

But then secondly, we give thanks to the Lord because of what He has done for us. Look at verse 2: 

Let the redeemed of the LORD proclaim
that he has redeemed them from the power of the foe. 

Now, a little bit of historical background to this psalm. After decades of exile and distress in Babylon, God had rescued His people, and He had brought them back to their homeland, back to the land of where Jerusalem was in Judea, the capital city. 

God had restored them. He had redeemed them. He had rescued them from their captivity and brought them back home. 

I want to just remind us that when we find ourselves tempted to be discouraged, to doubt God, to want to give up; we need to counsel our hearts with the reminder of who God is. He is good. He has His faithful covenant-keeping love for us. It never ends. That's who He is, and also what He has done for us. Thanking Him for His redeeming work in our lives, how He has delivered us from the snatches of Satan and sin, and has rescued us from our lost condition. 

So the introduction, we give thanks to the Lord for who He is and because of what He has done. Now, beginning in verse 4, all the way through verse 32, we have the main body of the psalm. It breaks down into four stanzas, four sections, four scenes. We're going to talk about each of those. If your Bible is divided into paragraphs or parts, you'll see those as we go along. 

But these four scenes are really four ways of describing the trouble, the distress from which God's people have been delivered. The immediate context for this passage is what the Israelites had been through, being exiled to Babylon, being brought back to their homeland. But this psalm is not just an ancient history lesson. 

If you're a child of God, then this psalm is also your story. It's my story. And these accounts we're going to look at these four scenes, they reveal the condition of every heart apart from Christ. Every human being is in the condition, the distress, the trouble we're going to look at. Apart from Christ, that's where we would all be.

This account describes His redeeming work on our behalf, what He has done for us. It describes the impact and the implications of the gospel in each of our lives. 

Now, each of these four scenes throughout Psalm 107 describes the same progression. There are four parts to that progression, and you see it four times. So in each scene, there's first, distress. We'll look at that in just a moment. Then there's this desperate cry to the Lord. “Help!” is the way we could summarize that. Distress, and then this desperate cry, and then deliverance. God delivers His people. And then the fourth part of that progression is, give thanks. Give thanks because of what God has done. So we have distress, desperate cry, deliverance, and give thanks.

Now, I want you to remember these four things, so wherever you are, however you are listening, I want you to try those: distress, desperate cry, deliverance, and give thanks.

Could you do it one more time? And this is what we're going to be looking at through this whole session. First there is distress, then there's a desperate cry, and then there's deliverance, and then there's thanksgiving, giving thanks. 

Now, each of these four stanzas, each of which has that progression, each stanza ends with the same chorus. You'll see that the first time in verse 8: 

Let them give thanks to the LORD
for his faithful love and his wondrous works for all humanity.

You'll see that phrase, that sentence, that chorus, not only in verse 8, but also in verse 15, and then again in verse 21, and again in verse 31—at the end of each of these four stanzas. Let the people who've been through this progression, let them give thanks to the Lord for His faithful love and His wondrous works for all humanity. 

Now, I want us to take most of the rest of our time just looking at these four parts of this progression, beginning with distress. I want us to see how it works out, how it's described in each of these four stanzas. So the distress. We have throughout this psalm four descriptions of desperate human need. Sometimes the trouble that these people find themselves in is the consequence of their own sins. They made their own mess, and that's why they're experiencing these consequences . . . but not always. Sometimes the distress is just the result of living in this fallen, broken, sinful world, and that affects all of us in ways that we can't control, but we're part of this human race, and so we experience trouble and distress. 

Look at the four kinds of trouble and distress that are described in these four sections. First of all, in verses 4–9, we see what I'm going to call wanderers. People who are wanderers. Look at verse 4. 

Some wandered in the desolate wilderness,
finding no way to a city where they could live.
They were hungry and thirsty;
their spirits failed within them. (vv. 4–5)

They're in distress. They're lost. They couldn't find their way home. They were isolated from community with God's people. They were hungry; they were thirsty. They had used up all their resources. They had no means of survival. There was no way for them to go on. They were weary. They were exhausted. They were spent. They were in distress. These wanderers. That's the first group.

Now we come to the second group in verses 10–16. All of these are descriptions of different ways of looking at life without the gospel, life without Christ, life for those who are not in Christ. So first we have wanderers. Then beginning in verse 10, we have prisoners. 

Others sat in darkness and gloom—
prisoners in cruel chains—
because they rebelled against God's commands
and despised the counsel of the Most High.
He broke their spirits with hard labor;
they stumbled, and there was no one to help. (vv. 10–12)

They're in distress, imprisonment, bondage. They're in darkness. Their labor is toilsome. It's hard. They're burdened down. And how did they get into this condition? Well, it says that they rebelled against God's commands. They trusted their own wisdom more than they trusted God's wisdom. He's the Creator of the universe, but they rebelled against His Word, and they chose to walk in their own way, rather than in God's way. And by the way, that's true of all of us. Remember in Isaiah 53 where it says: 

All we, like sheep . . . have turned—every one—to his own way. 

Away from God's way and to our own way. As a result, we become captives, prisoners, slaves, to sin and to self. We develop addictions and habitual sins, and sometimes those are outward and very obvious. 

I think of a twenty-four year-old single woman who wrote and said to me, “I have struggled with sexual sin almost all my life.” She said, “I want to throw this sin off so I can be more intimate with my Savior.” She's in distress. She's a prisoner. 

Another twenty-two year-old woman wrote and said, “I need prayer! I'm struggling with abuse/addiction of alcohol. About two months ago I tried to commit suicide, but praise God my sister found me. I've stopped drinking, but I still struggle with the temptations.” 

Now, maybe the things that hold you hostage or keep you a prisoner aren't that outward; they may be. Maybe it's things in your own heart: maybe it's anger, maybe it's an irritable spirit, maybe it's unforgiveness, maybe it's bitterness, but these things make us prisoners. This is the distress, wanderers, prisoners. 

And then beginning in verse 17, we have fools. And I'm using that word because that's what it says in verse 17: 

Fools suffered affliction
because of their rebellious ways and their iniquities.
They loathed all food
and came near the gates of death. (vv. 17–18)

So these are people with intense, debilitating affliction—physical, emotional, mental, spiritual distress. They can't eat. They feel like they're at death's door. And we learn that these wounds are caused by their foolishness, by their rebellion, by their sin. 

We've all experienced the consequences of our sin and what it does to wreck our lives. We're fools, apart from the redeeming grace of Christ. So we have wanderers, prisoners, fools, and then, beginning in verse 23, number four: we have sailors. Verse 23: 

Others went to sea in ships,
conducting trade on the vast water. 

They're traveling. They're carrying out business. They're assuming that they're going to be safe, they're going to come back home from work that day. But verse 24: 

They saw the LORD's works,
his wondrous works in the deep.
He spoke [the Lord did] and raised a stormy wind
that stirred up the waves of the sea.
[Who caused this storm? God did.]
Rising up to the sky, sinking down to the depths,
their courage melting away in anguish [they're in a horrific storm at sea],
they reeled and staggered like a drunkard,
and all their skill was useless. (vv. 24–27) 

Your translation may say they were at their wit's end, desperation. They're in trouble. They're in distress. Their ships proved to be no match for the storm that God raised up. They realized that they were not the master of their own fate, circumstances beyond their control, and as a result, they were brought to their knees, to a place of utter dependence upon God.

I'm sure you can remember a situation—maybe a long time ago, maybe not so long ago—where you were at your wit's end. You had no idea what to do, and all your skill was useless. You couldn't fix the problem. Maybe you're facing that now . . . you can't fix the problem. You're overwhelmed. Maybe it's financial distress, maybe it's distress in your marriage. Maybe it's distress with a prodigal son or daughter or grandchild. Maybe it's your health. You're in distress. And that little boat that you're doing life in, it's bouncing around on these troubled seas, and you are at your wit's end, and you're terrified. You don't know what to do. You're in distress. 

So in all four of these scenes, these situations, the people were in distress. And what came next? A desperate cry. Their distress caused them to turn to the Lord, to look up. There wasn't anything else they could do. There wasn't any way they could survive. So they cried out to the Lord. 

And look in each of these four instances, how the psalm records that. The wanderers, verse 5: 

. . . hungry and thirsty,
their spirits failed within them.
Then they cried out to the LORD in their trouble. (vv. 5–6)

Look at verse 12, about the prisoners. 

He broke their spirits with hard labor;
they stumbled, and there was no one to help.
Then they cried out to the LORD in their trouble. (vv. 12–13) 

And then the fools, verse 18: 

They came near the gates of death.
Then they cried out to the Lord in their trouble. (vv. 18–19)

The sailors, starting in verse 27: 

They reeled and staggered like a drunkard,
and all their skill was useless.
Then they cried out to the LORD in their trouble. (vv. 27–28) 

You see a pattern here? I hope you do. It's really clear. When did they cry out to the Lord? When they were in trouble, when they were in distress, they experienced the painful discipline of the Lord, and in some cases for their own sin. They had fallen. They couldn't get back up. There was no one who could help them. There was nowhere they could turn, nowhere they could look, but up. Then they cried out to the Lord in their trouble. 

I want to remind you and me that the trouble you and I find ourselves in is not intended to destroy us. The trouble you are in right now in your life is not intended to destroy you. It is a mercy. I know it may not feel like a mercy, but it really is. It's designed by God to upend and disrupt your life. 

You were going on thinking everything was fine. You were fine. You were just coasting through this life. The sun was shining. You had money in the bank. Your husband loved you. Everything was good, and you weren't motivated to cry out to the Lord. When do we get motivated to cry out in desperation to the Lord? When we're in desperation, when we're in distress. 

The troubles that you are in are designed to bring you to the end of yourself and make you desperate for God. There's nothing you can do. You can't solve this problem, you can't fix this person. You can't change this situation. You're desperate for Him. If you've listened to Revive Our Hearts over the years, you've heard me say many times: anything that makes me need God is a blessing—no matter how hard it is, any distress, any hard place, any desperation, anything that makes me need God is a blessing. It brings me to the end of my own resources and makes me turn to Him.

What is that thing in your life? Think about your life right now. What is making you need God? Where's an area of distress, something you can't handle, you can't fix, you can't change. This is the time to cry out to the Lord. Distress, desperate cry, and then deliverance—divine intervention, deliverance. Verse 6: 

They cried to the LORD in their trouble;
he rescued them. 

In some of these scenes, it says “he saved them from their distress.” You'll see this in each of these four scenes: verse 6, verse 13, verse 19, and again at verse 28. When they cried to the Lord in their trouble, he didn't ignore them. He rescued them. He delivered them. He saved them from their distress. 

When they cast themselves upon the Lord and upon His mercy, they were not disappointed. He met them, each of them, at their precise area of need, just as He reaches you and me at our precise areas of need. Look at the wanderers, verse 7. 

He led them by the right path
to go to a city where they could live.

They were lost. They were wandering. But he led them when they cried out to Him. They were hungry, and they were thirsty. But verse 9 says: 

He has satisfied the thirsty
and filled the hungry with good things.                                                                            

When did all that happen? When they cried out to the Lord in their distress, in their trouble.

What about the prisoners? They had been in chains. They couldn't get free. They couldn't get loose. They were captives, but when they cried out to the Lord in their trouble, what happened? Verse 14: 

He brought them out of darkness and gloom
and broke their chains apart. . . .
For he has broken down the bronze gates
and cut through the bars. (vv. 14, 16) 

He delivered them when they cried out to Him in their trouble. What about the fools who were sick because of their folly and their rebellion and their sinfulness? What happened when they cried out to the Lord in their trouble? Look at verse 21. It’s one of my favorite verses in all of God's Word. It says: 

He sent his word and healed them.

That's the wonder of the Word. That's a glimpse of God's grace here in the Old Testament. He sent His Word to those who were in trouble, who were at their wit's end, who had no idea what to do. He sent His Word, and He healed them; He delivered them; He rescued them; He redeemed them from their trouble. 

And then the sailors in the storm, when they came to the end of themselves, they're like, “We are not going to live. We are not going to get out of here alive. We're never going to get back home to our family. The storm is too much.” But they cried out to the Lord in their trouble. And what did He do? He delivered them. Verse 29: 

He stilled the storm to a whisper
[the one who stirred up the storm stilled the storm],
and the waves of the sea were hushed.
Then he guided them to the harbor they longed for. (vv. 29–30) 

God delivered them. Distress, desperate cry, and then God's deliverance and divine intervention.

Now, maybe as you read a passage like this, and you might think, Well, I have cried out to the Lord in my trouble, but He hasn't delivered me. I'm still in my trouble. I'm still in distress. I'm still in this desperate cry phase. 

Well, I want to just remind us, I don't know how exactly it's going to work in your situation and in your trouble. But I want to assure you that God's Word promises that in His time and His way, He will deliver you. He will deliver you in the way that will bring Him the greatest glory and will be for the eternal good of your soul.

 

If you're still in that storm, then you've got to trust that He knows when to tell the storm to be still, and that eventually He will bring you safely to your desired haven. Think about that hymn we sing:

’Tis grace has brought me safe thus far, 
and grace will lead me home.

Not always in the way we would script it, not always in the timing that we would long for, but God will deliver those of His children who cry out to Him in their trouble. 

Then I just want to point out that Jesus is the One who rescues and delivers us from our distress and our trouble. He is our Redeemer. Of course, He's not named here in Psalm 107. But as we put this in the context of the New Testament, the gospel: 

• We see that for those who are lost wanderers, He is the way. 
• For those who are hungry and thirsty, He is the bread. 
• And then He is the water of life, who meets their needs. 
• He is home for those who are away from home. He says to the weary, “come to me . . . . and I will give you rest” (Matt. 11:28). He's the Redeemer of the wanderers. 
• He's the Redeemer of the prisoners, those who are in bondage. Luke 4 Jesus said, "He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives” (v. 18). 

That's what the gospel does. It breaks the chains. It breaks the bars that have kept us imprisoned to ourselves, to Satan, to this sinful world. We sing that hymn from Charles Wesley. He breaks the power of canceled sin; He sets the prisoner free. Who does that? Jesus does that. He is the Redeemer of the prisoners, and: 

• He's the redeemer of fools who are sin sick. They've cried out to him. And then Isaiah, 53 tells us we are “healed by his wounds.” He suffered so that we could be delivered from our sin, sickness, from our foolishness. He sends His Word, and He heals us. Jesus, the wounded healer, is our Redeemer. 
• And for those who are storm tossed, it's Jesus who is our Redeemer. He is the One who speaks peace to the storm, as we see Him doing in the New Testament when the disciples were terrified. “How are we going to get out of this alive?” Jesus raises up the storm, and then he stills the storm in His way and in His time.

So we have distress in each of these four scenes. 

We have a desperate cry in each of these four scenes. 

We have the deliverance, the divine intervention. 

And what does that lead us to? Thanksgiving, giving thanks. 

We have this chorus that is repeated four times. You see the first one in verse 8. 

Let them give thanks to the LORD
for his faithful love and his wondrous works. 

These people who've been in distress, these people have cried out to the Lord in their trouble, these people who've been redeemed and delivered and rescued, that's who he's talking to. Let them give thanks to the Lord for His faithful love and His wondrous works. 

Listen, this wasn't luck that He got you out of your trouble. This wasn't some human intervention. This isn't something you concocted or figured out. You couldn't figure it out. That's why you were crying out in desperation. So we look up to the One that we cried out to, the One who has delivered us, and we say, “Thank You. Thank You for delivering me. Thank You for setting me free. Thank You for bringing me home. Thank You for feeding me and meeting my needs.” Let them give thanks to the Lord for His faithful love and His wondrous works.

My friend Charles Haddon Spurgeon said it this way: 

They must be horrible ingrates who will not honor such a deliverer for so happy a rescue from the most cruel death. Preserved life deserves lifelong thankfulness.

Right. Lifelong thankfulness. And then another old time Puritan commentator said it this way: 

A soul redeemed demands a life of praise. 

Have you been redeemed? Have I been redeemed? Then we should be living a life of praise upward to the Lord. We give thanks to Him, thanks to the Lord, but that also goes outward. Look at verse 22: 

Let them offer thanksgiving sacrifices [to the Lord]
and announce his works with shouts of joy.

We are to thank God for His redeeming work, and then we are to tell others what He has done for us—His redeeming love and grace. I saw this whole progression illustrated so beautifully in a note I got from a woman a number of years ago. She said, years ago, back in the early days of Revive Our Hearts: 

“I was a heap of a mess on my kitchen floor as you spoke about loving your husband. [She was in distress. Her marriage was in distress.] This past week, I was once again a heap of slobbering mess, but it was out of pure joy, thanksgiving, adoration, worship, and praise to my heavenly Father for His unending and undeserved faithfulness, grace, and mercy. The Lord has restored my family and my marriage; He has rescued me out of the slimy pit of self; and every day I have the glorious opportunity of speaking biblical truth into the hearts of discouraged women. 

Here's a woman who was in distress. She cried out to the Lord in her desperation. He delivered her, not instantaneously. He didn't just wave a wand and her marriage was all healed. But through a process, God redeemed and rescued and restored her heart and her marriage. And now she's giving thanks. She's telling others who are discouraged and need to hear, “Here's what God did for my soul. He can do it for yours.”

Well, beginning in verse 33 through the end of this psalm, we have this conclusion, which highlights the sovereignty of God over all of life. We see a God who is active both in judgment and in mercy, a God who reverses circumstances to humble the proud and to lift up the needy. Verse 33:

He turns rivers into desert,
springs into thirsty ground,
and fruitful land into salty wasteland
because of the wickedness of its inhabitants. (vv. 33–34)

Your life may be comfortable. You may think everything's going swimmingly well. But if you're not right with God, He can easily change the course of your life and bring you into distress. But then this encouragement that whatever discipline God brings about, whatever distress He brings about, He is also the one who can restore. Look at verse 35: 

He turns a desert into a pool,
dry land into springs.
He causes the hungry to settle there,
and they establish a city where they can live.
They sow fields and plant vineyards
that yield a fruitful harvest.
He blesses them, and they multiply greatly. . . .
He lifts the needy out of their suffering
and makes their families multiply like flocks.
The upright see it and rejoice,
and all injustice shuts its mouth. (vv. 35–38, 41–42)

Now, you may be in a hard place. If you're not now, you will be at points. You may not understand every reversal that takes place here in this earthly life, but here's what I know. We can trust His hand, and we can trust His heart. 

He is with you. He wants to restore you, redeem you, make you fruitful, and do it for generations to come, and establish you that there may be fruit from your life for years to come. So final verse, verse 43: 

Let whoever is wise pay attention to these things
and consider the LORD's acts of faithful love.

Wisdom sees the hand of God, both in hardship, distress, and in deliverance. So pay attention to what God is doing. Don't waste your sorrows. Learn to trace His steadfast love, His faithfulness, even in times of difficulty.

So if you're lost, you're wandering, you're in some form of prison, you're sick, you're storm tossed; cry out to the Lord. Look up to Him. Cry out to Him in your desperation. 

Has He redeemed and delivered you from your trouble? Thank Him. Praise Him and tell others people are hurting. I was talking just this morning with a woman who needed to hear a part of what this psalm is about. She's hurting. She's got needs. I shared with her some of what God has been doing in my life. Share what God has done for you, and then tell others. He can heal you. He can set you free. He can give you freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ. Amen? Amen.

Dannah: That’s Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth reminding you that freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ is possible—for you. For your weary and discouraged friend. For every woman who cries out to him. 

That’s what we’re all about here at Revive Our Hearts. As we come to the end of our fiscal year, we’re asking the Lord to help us finish strong—not just for the numbers, but for the women waiting on the other side of this ministry. Our goal this month is $1.4 million. Would you prayerfully consider helping us get there?

We’ve been navigating a financial shortfall, not because listeners haven’t been giving generously (we truly have such a generous Revive Our Hearts family!) but because the need is outpacing our ability to meet it. Every day, women are searching—in their homes, on their screens, in quiet desperation—for something solid to stand on. We know what that solid ground is. We just need the resources to reach them. This is not a moment to pull back. It's a moment to press forward.

She's waiting—in English, in Hindi, in Spanish, in Mandarin. She's the college student who has never known what it feels like to be free. She's the young mom running on empty. She's your granddaughter, growing up in a world that is telling her her worth is performance-based, her identity is negotiable, and truth is whatever she makes it. Revive Our Hearts exists to tell her something different.

If God is prompting you to give, this is a key moment to invest. Every dollar given for our $1.4 million goal goes directly toward closing the current budget shortfall—keeping initiatives alive, resources moving, and the light of Christ shining where darkness lives. We don't want to pause a single effort that is helping women find the freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ Nancy shared about.

Would you end the ministry year with us, would you help us step into the God-sized vision of what comes next?

All month long, when you give, we’ll send you our new booklet from Nancy, titled Called to Thrive. It’s not a long read—it’s an easy-to-absorb tool. Nine short devotionals that walk you through what it actually looks like to live free, full, and fruitful in Christ. If you’ve ever thought, I know this is true but I don’t feel it in my day-to-day life, this booklet is for you. To give and request yours, visit ReviveOurHearts.com, or call us at 1-800-569-5959. 

Tomorrow, we’re gearing up for Mothers Day Weekend together. We’ll hear from Nancy and several Revive Our Hearts listeners as they honor their moms, and we’ll celebrate the gift of godly mothers. I hope you’ll join us for that on Revive Our Hearts. 

This program is a listener-supported production of Revive Our Hearts in Niles, Michigan, calling women to freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ.

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