Letter To Our Children
by Pastor Joe | June 7, 2023 | Letters To Our Children
June 7, 2023
They willfully put God to the test
by demanding the food they craved.
They spoke against God;
they said, “Can God really
spread a table in the wilderness?
True, He struck the rock,
and water gushed out,
streams flowed abundantly,
but can He also give us bread?
Can He supply meat for His people?”
When the Lord heard them, He was furious;
if we are faithless,
He remains faithful,
for He cannot disown Himself.
So, it’s time to lift my brow and remember better days.
Satisfied in You
The Sing Team
Hello friends.
“Do you remember when we…?” is one of those questions often followed by a super long conversation. What you did, who was there, and where you were will likely be part of the talk. In this way, remembering stories from your past makes it much harder to forget them.
Remembering is a large lesson in this 78th Psalm. The second longest Psalm, in the Old Testament. Let’s take a deeper look.
What kind of Psalm is this?
The ascription (the sentence below the title Psalm 78) tells us this Psalm is a maskil. A maskil is a teaching Psalm intended to give the readers wisdom. The wisdom given is not from looking ahead and learning something new but from looking back to remember something old.
Who wrote it and why?
Asaph is the writer. He was King David’s primary worship leader, and he is showing how the northern kingdom (Vs.9 the people of Ephraim), although God gave them so much more than they needed along with a place of high privilege, they were continually faithless to God. They did not keep God’s covenant and refused to live by His law. (Vs.10). They continually did not trust God—doubted Him. They spoke against God; they said, “Can God really spread a table in the wilderness?” (Vs.19) In time, they were unseated by the tribe of Judah.
King David was from the tribe of Judah and not Ephraim. Therefore, Asaph is writing to answer the question, why is it that so often in history, the more God blesses us, the less we tend to trust Him? In a phrase, why is it so amazingly hard to trust God and take Him at His word?
They and He
As you read through this Psalm, the words, they (the people of Ephraim) and He (the Lord God Almighty), are each repeated many times.
Asaph shows how they kept rebelling and not trusting He, even though He performed miracles, and He gave them all they needed to live a full and bountiful life. Here are two examples.
They forgot what He had done,
the wonders He had shown them.
He did miracles in the sight of their ancestors
in the land of Egypt. (Vs.11,12)
Yet He was merciful;
He forgave their iniquities
and did not destroy them.
Time after time He restrained His anger
and did not stir up His full wrath.
He remembered that they were but flesh,
a passing breeze that does not return. (Vs.38,39)
He never gives up!
All spared and Lord willing, I want to preach Psalm 78 this summer. There is much more to learn, and I am excited to learn it. However, for now, this is what we need to know.
If you look at God's history with His people with just human eyes, it's an all-too-common story. We human beings have a lot of trouble believing God's word, taking God at His word, trusting God, and making decisions to that same end. However, God never gives up on His people. He puts His hand on the plow of our redemption and refuses to turn back.
The rhythm of the story in Psalm 78 is God redeems, God blesses, His people disobey, and this excites God's wrath, but His wrath doesn't have the last word. He shows compassion and prompts mercy. The people take His mercy for granted, and the cycle begins all over again. But God never gives up on His people. He has determined to save, and He will, He did.
In all the fickleness and riddles of our daily experience, He is the faithful God. He sent His Son Jesus so that in all our disobedience, His perfect obedience will stand as our substitute before the throne of God. In all our unfaithfulness, and mistrust Jesus stands before God’s throne with perfect faithfulness on our behalf. (A table in the wilderness.) The Gospel really is good news. Christ will confirm us to the end so that we are blameless on that day when we stand before God.
And He guarantees right up to the end that you will be counted,
free from all sin and guilt on that day when he returns.
God will surely do this for you, for He always does just what He says.
I am praying for you and your families to have an extraordinarily peaceful and meaningful summer break, using your imagination to the praise of God’s glory.
With all my love in the Lord Jesus Christ,
Joe