God Loves Prisoners
Remember, the objective of Psalm 107 is to invite us in to experience the steady and sturdy love of God so that we might burst with thankfulness unto Him. The psalm works to this end by using images and stories that expand our understanding of God’s love. The particular image the psalm uses is that of a compass (v. 3). With this image the psalm illustrates that God loves people from all over the map—from east to west, and from north to south. In the body of the psalm are four stories about people that God delivered out of the overflow of his always and forever love. These stories reveal a God who doesn’t just love people from all over, but a God who pours out His never-giving-up love on all kinds of people. The reach of God’s love has no bounds! God loves all kinds from all over! Along with wanderers, one particular kind that God draws into his divine love are prisoners.
Psalm 107’s second story takes us into the grime of a prison. As we would expect, the main characters in this story are prisoners in afflictions and in irons (v. 10). According to the psalmist, these prisoners are such because they had rebelled against the words of God, and spurned the counsel of the Most High (v. 11). Simply, prison was the result of living contrary to God’s good design, so God humbled their hearts (v. 12). The story, though, does not end there. With no where else to turn, the prisoners cried out to God, and He delivered them. He brought them out. He burst their bonds apart. With their new found freedom, the redeemed prisoners are invited to thank the Lord for his steady and sturdy love (v. 15-16). God loves prisoners!
In Romans 6, Paul describes the natural human condition as enslaved to, or imprisoned in sin and death. But to the praise of God’s grace, through faith in Christ there is freedom. We know that when Jesus was crucified our sinful nature was crucified with him so that we would no longer be imprisoned in sin and death. Jesus was raised bursting our bonds apart, sawing in two the rods of death. By His grace, we are now freely obedient from the heart to obey God’s word, and live according to His good design. Through faith in Jesus Christ, spiritual prisoners are set free. This is no less than a powerful spiritual metaphor of the transforming power of the gospel, but it is also more than mere metaphor.
For some, rebelling against God’s good design has landed them behind spiritual and physical bars. However, the story of Psalm 107 reminds us that the kind of people who have landed themselves behind bars are the kind of people the triune God loves. The Father sent his Spirit anointed Son to be crucified and raised for the kind of people that fill our county jails and prison systems. God loves prisoners, and so should we. Christians, freed by the grace of God in Jesus Christ, can look at jails and prisons as special places to display and declare the gospel. We can display the gospel by advocating for humane living conditions and just sentencing. We can declare the gospel by commissioning our Spirit-filled brothers and sisters in Christ to work and serve in these places with gospel news to bring. These are only a couple of ways, suggestions if you will, that we can love the kind of people God loves.
