Psalm 78- Lessons from History
*This blog is part of our weekly, virtual Bible Study through the book of Psalms. Join us on Monday Mornings for our Conversations with Christians Engaged Show. Register here.
By Hon. George Flint
Several years ago, as part of an accountability exercise, I was asked to prepare a chart of my spiritual history, a rendering in diagram form of my spiritual journey. If you prepared one for yourself, I predict that your diagram could well look much like mine -- A few times on the mountain, where God met me and I Him, with the outcome being an outpouring of love for my fellow neighbor, excitement about the future, and a deep desire to know God more; most of the time, however, my diagram reflected me in the valley, using my own devices to achieve the world’s version of peace and prosperity, and sometimes barely able to recall the mountaintop experience or even God’s miracles in my life.
The pattern of our spiritual history seems to be this -- God does a great miracle, we rejoice, we forget, and things return to a worldly normal, where God is barely acknowledged (even if we have time to step away from our busyness to attend to His will for our lives).
This is the history reflected in Psalm 78, where the Psalmist twice reports of God’s redemption of His people from slavery in Egypt, delivery across and through obstacles, into the land which had been promised. Perhaps it is repeated twice so that if we don’t get it the first time, maybe … God does a great miracle, the people rejoice, the people then turn from God and question His greatness and power and willingness, the people turn to their own devices in search of their own wicked desires, and God cleanses the people, forgives them, and restores them.
Why must we repeat this cycle, individually and collectively, over and over again? Is it something built into the human condition and therefore “uncorrectable?” Well for sure our disobedience through Adam was baked into our internal structure, but then as Christ’s own we know that through His obedience unto death, we are placed into a position where we now have freedom to obey God … or not.
It is said that failure to understand history means that we are doomed to repeat it. Throughout Psalm 78, in the recitation of God’s history with His people, there are glimpses into God’s solutions to our struggle, solutions which if followed by us will help us avoid the doom of repetition of history. In fact, throughout Psalm 78 the Psalmist suggests that, if we do these things, we will no longer live the life of ups and downs, but one in consistent victory in Christ. These things are:
Engage. “…telling to the generation to come the praises of the Lord…” [Ps. 78, vs. 4b]. In other words, engage with our children and tell them the history of our people and God. Tell them your history. When we do so, we recall the history to our present mind and are reminded of God’s miracles and mercy. We recount that history to our children in love and truth and in so doing strengthen our bond to them and reinforce in our minds and theirs that the history is true. In engaging our families, we teach them about God and about their place in God’s world. And we enable and encourage them to in turn engage their world and their children. “…That they may arise and tell them to their children, that they should put their confidence in God, and keep His commandments.” [Ps. 78, vs. 6b-7].
Trust in God and His salvation. In Psalm 78, the Psalmist presents what happens when there is no trust – “And in their heart they put God to the test by asking food according to their desires. And they spoke against God; they said ‘Can God …’ Therefore, the Lord heard and was full of wrath … Because they did not believe in God and did not trust in His salvation.” [Ps. 78, vs. 18, 19b, 21a, 22]. The absence of trust results in a questioning of God and His ways; the absence of trust causes us to lean upon our own understanding. Did Christ save me? The answer ought to be “yes” or “no,” but we live our lives like the answer is “maybe,” “probably,” “mostly” or something else short of an unqualified “yes.” When we trust God, the valleys and mountains of our lives become irrelevant to our joy and our strength and therefore do not become spiritual valleys. If we do not engage others with God’s truth; perhaps it is because we believe, sort of, that the person we are talking to is more powerful than God, has more wisdom than God, and can affect our lives more than God can and does. Trust in Him and we will have the strength, love, and power to engage and break the cycle of history.
When we repent, repent for real. Again, in Psalm 78 this is presented in a somewhat reverse fashion – “When He killed them … they remembered that God was their rock, and the Most High God their Redeemer. But they deceived Him with their mouth and lied to Him with their tongue..” [Psalm 78, vs. 34a, 35-36]. For lying to God, one almost assumes that the result is not a valley, but the grave. However, as Psalm 78 reports, God (again) “forgave their iniquity, and did not destroy them…” [Ps. 78, vs. 38] We need to be reminded that it is because God is merciful that (a) we are saved in the first place and (b) we get to experience a new mountaintop after having resided with the pigs in the valley for a while. Nonetheless, if we want to remove the spiritual valleys from our lives and be empowered to engage, being truthful with God and turning away from sin is strong medicine to restore us to right relationship with Him.
Reject idols. There are a number of shiny objects the world places in front of us, anyone of which can become our idol – fame, fortune, and power are three. The result can be a deep valley from which there is a slow, slow climb back out, as the Psalmist reminds us in describing the fate of Ephraim – “For they provoked Him with their high places [altars,] and aroused His jealousy with their graven images [idols]…He put on them an everlasting reproach. He also rejected the tent of Joseph, and did not choose Ephraim, but chose the tribe of Judah…He also chose David, His servant…” [Ps. 78, vs. 58-59, 66b-68a]. As I write this, we celebrate the Christmas season, a time to recall the birth of Christ through the line of David and the tribe of Judah. One great truth to come from Psalm 78 is that no matter how disobedient we are (or Israel was), God will, if necessary, pass His lampstand from one (Ephraim) to another (Judah). When we are weak in our engagement, when we are attempting to represent God from a low place (a spiritual valley), perhaps it is because we are chasing after idols rather than God.
We are told to engage our families, our neighbors, our social groups, our institutions, and our governments with the love and truth of Christ. That is very hard to do when you are in a valley. To avoid living in the valley, (1) engage and tell the story, (2) repent for real, (3) reject idols, and (4) truly trust in God. These are the lessons of history, the lessons of Psalm 78.
Against such people of God, the gates of Hell will not prevail.
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