Tell to the Coming Generation (Psalm 78)

A couple of weeks ago I went to my family doctor for what they call the annual physical. I don’t know why they call it annual, because nobody I know goes every year. If you’re like me you avoid that thing as long as you can, and when you go you go reluctantly. You know what’s coming. You’re going to get poked and prodded and examined. The doctor is going to ask you uncomfortable questions, and give you advice you probably don’t want to hear. I would probably go get a physical more often if they told me to cut down on my vegetables and to start eating more cookies.

In any case, they asked me about my family history. They wanted to know about the medical history of my parents and brothers and sister. The reason is that a lot of our health is a matter of genetics. The 23 chromosomes you received from your mother and the 23 chromosomes you received from your father combined to make you who you are, and doctors like to know what you inherited so that they know what you’re passing on to your children.

The psalm we just read is not concerned with your DNA. But it is concerned with what you and I are passing to our children. Verses 1 to 3 are kind of like the receptionist from the doctor who keeps calling to say it’s time for an appointment. They are trying to get our attention so that we listen to what this psalm has to say.

My people, hear my teaching;
listen to the words of my mouth.
I will open my mouth with a parable;
I will teach you lessons from the past-
things we have heard and known,
things our ancestors have told us.

The psalmist is saying, “Listen up! This is going to be really important. You need to pay attention to this.”

Verses 2 to 4 tell us what the psalmist wants to talk about. The psalmist is concerned that we learn “lessons from the past.” Verse 4 says:

We will not hide them from their descendants;
we will tell the next generation
the praiseworthy deeds of the LORD,
his power, and the wonders he has done.

Verses 6 and 8 continue this theme:

so the next generation would know them,

even the children yet to be born,

and they in turn would tell their children.
Then they would put their trust in God

and would not forget his deeds

but would keep his commands.
They would not be like their ancestors-

a stubborn and rebellious generation,

whose hearts were not loyal to God,

whose spirits were not faithful to him.

What is the psalmist saying? I believe he’s saying three things that we desperately need to hear. One: about our responsibility. Two: about our failure. Three: about the hope we can have despite our failure.

First: We have a responsibility not just to our generation, but to future generations.

Over and over in this passage the psalmist reminds us that we have a responsibility that extends beyond ourselves to the next generation.

So:

• verse 4 – “we will tell the next generation”
• verse 5 – “he commanded our ancestors to teach their children”
• verse 6 – “so the next generation would know them”
• again in verse 6 – “and they in turn would tell their children”

Last week, Robin shared with us that we have 50,000 people living within two miles of this church. He reminded us of the staggering responsibility we have as a church for sharing the gospel with these people. These are people in our community who are not in relationship with God, and who have not heard the gospel. Feel the weight of this. We’ve been placed in this community with the charge to make disciples, to take the gospel to people in our community.

The psalmist reminds us that our responsibility is not just to the people who live around us. There are generations yet to come: our children, our grandchildren. We need to tell them about “the praiseworthy deeds of the LORD” because we want them to put their trust in God. And we want to tell people in this community about the Lord not only because we went them to trust the Lord, but because they will have children and grandchildren. We want people in our community to trust the LORD, knowing that they will be changed, and God-willing their children will change, and their grandchildren, and so on.

There was a man named George McCluskey. When McCluskey married and started a family, he decided to invest one hour a day in prayer, because he wanted his kids to follow Christ. After a time, he expanded his prayers to include his grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Every day between 11 a.m. and noon, he prayed for the next three generations.

As the years went by, his two daughters committed their lives to Christ and married men who went into full-time ministry. The two couples produced four girls and one boy. Each of the girls married a minister, and the boy became a pastor.

The first two children of the next generation were boys. One became a minister; the other became a psychologist and author – James Dobson.

We have a responsibility to the 50,000 people around us. But we also have a responsibility for future generations.

We will not hide them from their descendants;
we will tell the next generation
the praiseworthy deeds of the LORD,
his power, and the wonders he has done.
(Psalm 78:4)

That’s what the psalmist is saying. We have a responsibility for the next generation. But he’s also telling us something else:

Second: We have failed.

Now, I’ve heard some people talk about their pasts. Every time I hear their stories, their life has been even more dramatic. The obstacles they faced get bigger, and their victories greater. I would love to be able to tell stories about great exploits, of how well we have lived and served.

But that’s not what the psalmist says in this psalm. He says that we have a message, and the message is one of our failure, and God’s grace. Verses 7 and 8 give us the burden of this psalm, both positively and negatively:

Then they would put their trust in God

and would not forget his deeds
but would keep his commands.
They would not be like their ancestors-

a stubborn and rebellious generation,

whose hearts were not loyal to God,

whose spirits were not faithful to him.

The psalmist charges us to fulfill our responsibility to the next generation. He then holds up the past as a mirror so that we can see ourselves, and he says: history must not repeat itself. He’s relentless in making his point. From verses 9 to 64 he recounts failure after failure on the part of Israel.

• In verses 9 to 16, he says they turned back in the day of battle, forgetting all that God had done in delivering them from Egypt. They could talk about God’s power in the past, but it made no difference in the present. They were cowards despite God’s power.
• In verses 17 to 31, he says they sinned even more in the wilderness. The more God gave, the less they appreciated it. They murmured and complained. They failed time after time despite God’s miraculous provision.
• In verses 32 to 39, it looks like they finally repent, but their repentance is only skin deep. God disciplined them, and they repented for a while. But it was all a lie. Yet God showed compassion and restraint despite their disobedience.
• In verses 40 to 53, the psalmist emphasizes, again, their continual ingratitude for the deliverance God had provided for them. “How often they rebelled against him in the wilderness…Again and again they put God to the test; they vexed the Holy One of Israel” (Psalm 78:40-41)
• Finally, in verses 54 to 64, he says they were ungrateful for the promised land.

There you have the entire history of Israel up until that point. Over and over again: they sinned, they rebelled, they forgot.

Don’t forget that this is a psalm. This is Israel’s songbook. I don’t think we have any songs like this today. Maybe we should. Why would Israel sing a song reminding itself of all of its failures, and of God’s patience?

I think it’s because the psalmist wants us to examine ourselves, and to remind ourselves that we’re in danger of repeating history. We’re supposed to learn from the past and to remind ourselves that we have a pretty good track record of blowing it. This is also a reminder that our strength is not in ourselves, and our story is certainly not about how great we are. There is a hero in the story, and it’s not us. It’s God, who extends grace over and over.

Most of all, this psalm is part of worship to call us to something better. Don’t let history repeat itself. Let’s not make the same mistakes. Repent. Remember. Respond in gratitude to the deliverance God has given you. Do so for the sake of the next generation.

This is an especially timely message for us after last week. In a sense, we’ve had our history recounted for us. We’ve been reminded of our strengths, but we’ve also been confronted with some things for which we need to repent. The psalmist is saying: don’t let the future be like the past. Don’t repeat all the mistakes you’ve already made.

So, the psalmist says, realize that we have a responsibility to the next generation. And realize that we have a track record of failure. Learn from the mistakes from the past. But the psalmist has one more thing he’d like to tell us:

Finally, he tells us where we can get hope despite our failure.

If you’re gotten this far in the psalm, you’re looking for some hope. It’s been kind of gloomy. It’s like getting in trouble with a teacher at school, and having that teacher list all the times you’ve failed, all the times you’ve talked in class, all the times you’ve blown it, and then hearing, “Now tomorrow’s a new day.” Even if you want to do better, you know that it’s not looking good. In class the next day you’re probably going to repeat the same patterns you’ve been repeating for years.

Up until the end of this psalm we’re not left with a lot of hope. But in verses 65 to 72 there’s a new beginning. God wakes up as from sleep. He beats back his enemies. He chooses Mount Zion, which is in enemy hands, and captures it and reigns there. And then he gives them their greatest king, king David, who “shepherded them with integrity of heart; with skillful hands he led them” (Psalm 78:72). All of this is undeserved, completely by grace. Their record is nothing but shame, but God emerges as their last and best hope.

Now we know it doesn’t end there. Even after David, Israel persists in its sin. Eventually a new and better King arrives. The chosen tribe mentioned in verse 68 refused its rightful King, and did so in the chosen city. Yet God more than kept his promise. We have a King who is evidence of God’s continuing grace, and who is evidence that God has not given up on his people. Where we have failed, he has obeyed. The King who came lived perfectly. He took our sins to the cross. He rose again triumphantly from the grave to give us new life. He reigns at the right hand of God, and offers eternal life to all who trust in his name.

For the sake of this generation and the next one, it’s time. It’s time to repent of the sins of the past, and to not let history repeat itself. It’s time to renew our hope in Him despite repeated failure. This is going to take all of us. It’s time to tell to the coming generation the glorious deeds of the Lord.