PSALM 78 - The Tragedy of Forgetfulness

Introduction

A couple of years ago we took a trip with our homeschool co-op to the Johnstown Flood Museum. Part of the trip was a visit to the remains of the South Fork Dam, which burst after many days of heavy rainfall on May 31st, 1889. We got to hike around the site, and see there the remains of the breastwork, along with plaques to memorialize the tragedy and the combination of bad decisions that contributed to it—a fish screen designed to keep stocked fish from escaping through the spillway that clogged and contributed to the overflow, the hunting lodge member who years before had six 2-foot wide emergency drainage pipes pulled out and sold for scrap, and so on.

One of the most tragic mistakes involved one of the South Fork Hunting and Fishing Lodge members (who owned the dam and the lake), John Parke. Early in the day on May 31st, he and a group of fellow lodge members were frantically working to shore up the rapidly failing dam. Twice Parke raced by horseback to the nearby telegraph office in South Fork to send warnings to authorities in Johnstown that the dam was going to fail and that they should try to evacuate the city. But the telegraph operators had heard so many false alarms about the dam that they never passed the warnings on to Johnstown. And so, at 2:50 that afternoon, the dam breached and 20 (M) million tons of water roared down the valley destroying everything in its path, decimating Johnstown, taking 2,208 lives (including 99 entire families) and causing the equivalent of a half a (B) billion dollars in damage. They did not share Parke’s urgency, and thousands of people died in part because they did not believe his warnings.

Psalm 78 is very much written in the same spirit—Asaph is making an urgent call to be heard, because the catastrophe he is trying to avert is far more terrible than a flooded city—he wants to prevent future generations from forgetting God! That catastrophe is portrayed for us in the Scriptures—just look at the history of Israel in the Book of Judges:

Judges 2:10 (ESV)

10 And all that generation also were gathered to their fathers. And there arose another generation after them who did not know the Lord or the work that he had done for Israel.

Asaph’s urgency in this psalm is to accomplish three things in the lives of his hearers—to put their hope in God, to remember His works, and to obey Him:

Psalm 78:7–8 (ESV)

7 so that they should set their hope in God and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments; 8 and that they should not be like their fathers, a stubborn and rebellious generation, a generation whose heart was not steadfast, whose spirit was not faithful to God.

And so the way I want to frame this psalm today is that Asaph is calling us to

Live as an example of OBEDIENT, GRATEFUL HOPE in God

This is the question before you this morning: What will the generations that come after you learn about God from your example? What do your attitudes, actions and priorities demonstrate about Who God is to those who look up to you? Whether it is your children or grandchildren, or perhaps newer Christians that are watching your example, or even those who haven’t yet become Christians—is God a God to be obeyed or disregarded? Is He a God Who deserves your gratitude, or are you constantly demonstrating disappointment in Him? Are you putting your hope in Him, or do your priorities and actions reveal that you don’t trust Him?

Asaph is driving home the importance of remembering God and His works, and so one of the major threads that weave through this psalm is his description of

I. The FAILINGS of a FORGETFUL people

In verses 9-11 Asaph singles out one particular tribe of Israel as an example of the kind of forgetfulness that he is warning against:

Psalm 78:9–11 (ESV)

The Ephraimites, armed with the bow, turned back on the day of battle. They did not keep God’s covenant, but refused to walk according to his law. They forgot his works and the wonders that he had shown them.

As you scan down through the structure of this psalm, you see that there is another reference to the tribe of Ephraim in verses 67-68:

Psalm 78:67–68 (ESV)

67 He rejected the tent of Joseph; he did not choose the tribe of Ephraim, 68 but he chose the tribe of Judah, Mount Zion, which he loves.

So what we can see from this is that this entire psalm is, on one level, a description of Ephraim’s forgetfulness and disobedience, but used by Asaph on another level to describe the effects of sinful forgetfulness on all of God’s people.

The choice of Ephraim is an important one, because through Ephraim’s story Asaph can demonstrate the failings of a people who forget Who God is and what He has done. When Israel first conquered Canaan in the books of Joshua and Judges, Ephraim was the largest and most powerful tribe of the Twelve (you see that in the way the Ephraimites were upset with Gideon for not getting their permission to attack the Midianites in Judges 8). This importance of Ephraim is also highlighted by the fact that the tabernacle of YHWH was erected in Shiloh, which was Ephraimite territory.

So Ephraim was an illustrious, powerful tribe at the beginning of Israel’s history in Canaan. But Asaph goes on through this psalm to show how they fell from that position of prominence because they forgot God. In the verses we just read, we see one of the failings of a people who forget their God--they are

A COWARDLY people (vv. 9-11)

They had pre-eminence among the tribes, they had military might, they had the presence of the tabernacle in Shiloh, but when they forgot God and Who He is they turned into cowards. When the going got tough, they ran for the tall grass. And Asaph warns that this was because they refused to obey Him, and they forgot His wonders, how He had led them out of Egypt with His mighty hand (vv. 12-14).

A people who forget their God are a cowardly people, and in the following verses Asaph looks back through Ephraim’s history to show that they were

A DISCONTENTED people (vv. 17-31)

No matter how much God had done for them, it wasn’t enough...

Psalm 78:19–20 (ESV)

19 They spoke against God, saying, “Can God spread a table in the wilderness? 20 He struck the rock so that water gushed out and streams overflowed. Can he also give bread or provide meat for his people?”

As we have studied the accounts of the Israelites in the wilderness, we have often wondered at how a people who had seen so many miracles could possibly doubt that He could feed them—yet this is exactly what we see in Psalm 78 (and exactly what we see that tempts our own hearts.) No matter how much God has provided for you and cared for you and rescued you, the temptation is always to whine about what He hasn’t given you—like the old woman walking along the beach when a giant wave crashed in and swept her little grandson out to sea—she fell to her knees and begged God to return him to her, and the next wave brings him back and deposits him on the beach. Whereupon the woman looks up to heaven and says, “He had a hat...”

The Ephraimites forgot—wilfully forgot—all of God’s provision for them. A forgetful people are a discontented people. And as Asaph goes on in verses 32-37, we see that a forgetful people are

A HYPOCRITICAL people (vv. 32-37)

Because of their refusal to believe Him, verse 33 says

Psalm 78:33 (ESV)

33 So he made their days vanish like a breath, and their years in terror.

Which then, says Asaph, got their attention:

Psalm 78:34–35 (ESV)

34 When he killed them, they sought him; they repented and sought God earnestly. 35 They remembered that God was their rock, the Most High God their redeemer.

Which sounds as though they had come to repentance for their unbelief—but the next two verses go on to show that this wasn’t repentance, it was hypocrisy:

Psalm 78:36–37 (ESV)

36 But they flattered him with their mouths; they lied to him with their tongues. 37 Their heart was not steadfast toward him; they were not faithful to his covenant.

And what a tragedy it is when people come to God believing that they can manipulate Him into doing what they want! How many pews are filled on Sunday morning not with worshippers, but with flatterers who believe that if they just tell God that He is worthy of worship that He will buy it and give them what they want—as if He cannot see into the very depths of their treacherous, deceptive souls.

A people who refuse to remember Who God is and what He has done are a cowardly, discontented, hypocritical people. And a people who forget who God is will always eventually become

An IDOLATROUS people (vv. 56-59; cp. Rom 1:21)

In verses 42-55 the psalmist gives a detailed, blow-by-blow of how God delivered His children from the false gods of Egypt by bringing plagues that showed the helplessness of the Egyptian idols. And yet—even after Egypt and its gods and goddesses of rivers and crops and cattle lay in smoldering ruin—even then, the people of Ephraim (and the rest of the tribes of Israel)

Psalm 78:56–58 (ESV)

56 ...tested and rebelled against the Most High God and did not keep his testimonies, 57 but turned away and acted treacherously like their fathers; they twisted like a deceitful bow. 58 For they provoked him to anger with their high places; they moved him to jealousy with their idols.

First at the base of Mount Sinai with the golden calf, and generations later in Canaan with the Baals and the Ashteroth—Ephraim forgot the Most High God—and they suffered the consequences for their forgetful failings:

Psalm 78:59–61 (ESV)

59 When God heard, he was full of wrath, and he utterly rejected Israel. 60 He forsook his dwelling at Shiloh, the tent where he dwelt among mankind, 61 and delivered his power to captivity, his glory to the hand of the foe.

In 1 Samuel 4-5 we read the account of how the Ark of the Covenant was taken from Shiloh into battle with the Philistines, who routed the rebellious Israelites and took the Glory of God in the Ark into the hand of the foe. But even then, the Philistines had better memories of God’s power than the Israelites!

1 Samuel 4:7–9 (ESV)

7 the Philistines were afraid, for they said, “A god has come into the camp.” And they said, “Woe to us! For nothing like this has happened before. 8 Woe to us! Who can deliver us from the power of these mighty gods? These are the gods who struck the Egyptians with every sort of plague in the wilderness. 9 Take courage, and be men, O Philistines, lest you become slaves to the Hebrews as they have been to you; be men and fight.”

Asaph writes this psalm to demonstrate how dangerous it is to be forgetful of the power and glory of God, to be forgetful of His call to obey Him. We are called to live as examples of obedient, grateful hope in God—the second major thread that runs through this psalm, alongside the failings of a forgetful people, are

II. The MEDITATIONS of a FAITHFUL people

Woven together with the descriptions of the forgetfulness of Ephraim are passages that describe God’s unfailing, gracious care for them. To live as an example of obedient, grateful hope in God means that you do not forget how

He has graciously RESCUED you (vv. 12-16; 45-55)

In verses 12-16 Asaph reminds Ephraim of how God had graciously rescued them from death in the desert:

Psalm 78:12–16 (ESV)

12 In the sight of their fathers he performed wonders in the land of Egypt, in the fields of Zoan. 13 He divided the sea and let them pass through it, and made the waters stand like a heap. 14 In the daytime he led them with a cloud, and all the night with a fiery light. 15 He split rocks in the wilderness and gave them drink abundantly as from the deep. 16 He made streams come out of the rock and caused waters to flow down like rivers.

And then starting in verse 45 Asaph goes into great detail about how YHWH delivered them from slavery in Egypt by His power:

Psalm 78:44–46 (ESV)

44 He turned their rivers to blood, so that they could not drink of their streams. 45 He sent among them swarms of flies, which devoured them, and frogs, which destroyed them. 46 He gave their crops to the destroying locust and the fruit of their labor to the locust.

A faithful people will not forget how God has rescued them; a faithful people will meditate on His power to save them, will look back and recount how He brought them through “dangers, toils and snares”. Set an example of grateful hope in God, grounded in His past faithfulness to rescue you from death and your slavery to sin.

A faithful people meditate on God’s gracious rescue—and God’s Word written by Asaph here goes on to instruct you to meditate also on how

He has graciously SUSTAINED you (vv. 23-32)

In verses 23-32 Asaph points back to how God

Psalm 78:23–25 (ESV)

23 ...commanded the skies above and opened the doors of heaven, 24 and he rained down on them manna to eat and gave them the grain of heaven. 25 Man ate of the bread of the angels; he sent them food in abundance.

And when they complained that they were tired of manna, God went further, providing them with meat as well:

Psalm 78:27–28 (ESV)

27 he rained meat on them like dust, winged birds like the sand of the seas; 28 he let them fall in the midst of their camp, all around their dwellings.

Asaph’s message is clear—don’t forget all the ways God has sustained you, how He has provided for you. Delight in telling stories of the ways He saw to it that your needs would be provided for, even when you couldn’t see a way through. Echo the words of the psalmist in Psalm 37:25:

Psalm 37:25 (ESV)

25 I have been young, and now am old, yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken or his children begging for bread.

Don’t be like the Ephraimites, whining about God’s provision while their mouths are full of the meat He sent—don’t sit in the midst of the abundance of God’s provision for you and complain that He doesn’t care for you. Remember how He has graciously sustained you—and remember how

He has graciously CHOSEN you (vv. 67-72)

That is the point that Psalm 78 comes to at the end of the song—Ephraim was set aside because of their sinful forgetfulness; their refusal to remember God and His gracious provision, their refusal to obey Him and keep His commandments:

Psalm 78:67 (ESV)

67 He rejected the tent of Joseph; he did not choose the tribe of Ephraim,

They were set aside from their position of power and influence; they considered themselves the most important tribe in Israel, but because they forgot God and refused to obey Him with joyful gratitude, God took away their influence; He “removed their lampstand” because they forgot their first love for Him.

And instead of proud, forgetful Ephraim, God set His love on a humble shepherd boy:

Psalm 78:68–71 (ESV)

68 but he chose the tribe of Judah, Mount Zion, which he loves. 69 He built his sanctuary like the high heavens, like the earth, which he has founded forever. 70 He chose David his servant and took him from the sheepfolds; 71 from following the nursing ewes he brought him to shepherd Jacob his people, Israel his inheritance.

Not because of anything Judah had done; not because they were more faithful or more holy or more righteous than any other tribe—God set His love on them by His own sovereign choice. It wasn’t because David was more handsome than his brothers that God chose Him out of the sheepfolds—it was God’s own free and gracious choice.

And when that truth really lands on you—that there was nothing in you that caused God to set His electing love on you; that there was no reason whatsoever that you should be delivered from death and Hell except for His sovereign choice; that the only reason you responded to His call to salvation was because He chose you before you chose Him, then that truth creates a gratitude in you that nothing will ever erase. It is impossible to forget God’s gracious work in saving you once you come face to face with the truth that He didn’t have to.

Psalm 78 draws us in all of these ways to remember God’s goodness to us, to meditate on His faithfulness and His grace so that we will not sin by forgetting all that He has done for us. Asaph wants to avert the tragedy of forgetfulness; the catastrophe of the next generation forgetting the wondrous grace of God because they did not see you remembering it.

Look around this room, and see the generations of God’s people represented here. Consider the believers that are looking up to you as you walk with God in Christ: Who are you showing them God is? Are you standing firm in the boldness that comes from knowing that your God is a God who topples empires so that His children can be free from slavery? Or are you showing by your timidity and silence that you don’t believe God is willing or able to protect you?

Are you known for telling the next generation stories of God’s faithful provision and care, or do you have a reputation for complaining about your life and making it known that God has sent you one disappointment after another? Do those who are following you in the Christian life know you as someone who has a deep and abiding and sincere love for God and His faithfulness to you in Christ, or can people see the mask slip, that you make a good show of faithfulness on Sunday mornings, but everyone knows what you are really like when you aren’t in church? Is it clear to everyone that knows you that God is your refuge, He is your strength, He is your provision and joy—or do your affections for Him fall well behind your commitment to your career or your leisure or your family or your home?

It would be a tragedy of untold proportions if your forgetfulness of God’s faithfulness, your cowardice, discontent, hypocrisy and idolatry convinced those watching you that God is not worth worshipping.

And yet—what God’s Word demonstrates here in this psalm is that even in the depths of His people’s forgetfulness, God graciously provides redemption! Even as He sets aside the proud, forgetful tribe of Ephraim and chooses Judah, He does so in order that all of the tribes of Israel would have a shepherd!

Psalm 78:70–72 (ESV)

70 He chose David his servant and took him from the sheepfolds; 71 from following the nursing ewes he brought him to shepherd Jacob his people, Israel his inheritance. 72 With upright heart he shepherded them and guided them with his skillful hand.

Christian—see here woven throughout this psalm the great and precious promises that God made to His people, that even though they had sinned so greatly against Him by forgetting Him—He would remember His promises to them! David was a king to shepherd Israel in the wake of Ephraim’s faithlessness, but he was only a shadow of the King to come—the King who is

III. The HOPE of a REPENTANT people (v. 38; Rom. 3:25; 1 John 2:2)

In Christ we have the fulfillment of the promise God made to His people in Psalm 78:38:

Psalm 78:38 (ESV)

38 Yet he, being compassionate, atoned for their iniquity and did not destroy them; he restrained his anger often and did not stir up all his wrath.

Romans 3:25 tells us that this is exactly what Christ did for us:

Romans 3:25 (ESV)

25 whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins.

As Asaph tells the cautionary tale of faithless, forgetful Ephraim and their fall from prominence and God’s gracious choice of David and Judah, there are glimpses the whole way through this psalm of the great treasure a repentant people have in Christ. See in verse 15:

Psalm 78:15 (ESV)

15 He split rocks in the wilderness and gave them drink abundantly as from the deep.

Christ is your WATER from the ROCK (v. 15; 1 Cor. 10:4)

The Apostle Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 10:4 that the rock in the wilderness was a picture of our Rock of Salvation:

1 Corinthians 10:4 (ESV)

4 ...For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ.

Moses struck the rock that gave the people water in the midst of the desert; Jesus Christ was the Rock that was struck to give us His flowing blood to give us spiritual life from our death of sin.

Look in verses 24-25:

Psalm 78:24–25 (ESV)

24 and [God] rained down on them manna to eat and gave them the grain of heaven. 25 Man ate of the bread of the angels; he sent them food in abundance.

See here Christian:

Christ is your MANNA from HEAVEN (vv. 24-25; John 6:49-51)

Jesus told the Jews im John 6--

John 6:49–51 (ESV)

49 Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. 50 This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. 51 I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”

The bread that Ephraim ate in the wilderness could keep them alive for a time—but the Bread of Life that you partake of in Christ gives you life eternal!

In verses 71-72 the psalmist sings of David, who:

Psalm 78:71–72 (ESV)

71 from following the nursing ewes he brought him to shepherd Jacob his people, Israel his inheritance. 72 With upright heart he shepherded them and guided them with his skillful hand.

David was a shepherd who saved his sheep from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear—but Christian

Christ is your GOOD SHEPHERD (vv. 71-72; cp. John 10:11)

Who rescued you not from a bear or a lion—He rescued you from the wrath of God Himself!

John 10:11 (ESV)

11 I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.

He laid down His life, suffering the wrath of God that you deserved for your stubborn rebellion, your unfaithful spirit, your fickle heart. All of your cowardice, all of your hypocrisy, all of your complaining, all of your idolatry—it was laid on Jesus, the spotless Lamb of God, Who was struck by God on that Cross so that His blood flowed for the washing away of your guilt when you come to Him in repentance and faith. There was nothing—there is nothing—that you can do to cleanse yourself, to atone for your own guilt, to make right what your guilt has put wrong. It is only through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ that once and for all purchased your pardon for all of your offenses against God.

It is customary to talk—especially in Baptist churches—about issuing an “altar call”. From time to time someone will ask me if I give “altar calls” at the end of my sermons. But I want to suggest to you that, if Christ is the final sacrifice for sin—and He is—then there are no more altars necessary! The root word in Hebrew for “altar” means to slay or slaughter. There is no “altar” in this church—because the Sacrifice that atones for your sin was slaughtered two thousand years ago!

But what do we have in the front of this room? It’s not an altar; it’s a Table! Because we culminate our worship not by bringing a sacrifice to atone for our guilt—we come to the Table that commemorates the Final Sacrifice that took away our guilt! And so there is no “altar call” here—only a “Table call”. A call to come and celebrate the Sacrifice that delivered you from the penalty and power of your sin; that washed away all of your guilt and shame; that sealed you as a precious son or daughter of God; that fills your life with unquenchable joy and obedient, grateful hope.

And if you do not have this assurance today; if you look at this Table and realize that it wasn’t set for you because you have no share in the sacrifice it celebrates, then please come talk to me after the service—or at least someone else here who is a member. Don’t put off making this hope sure in your life; don’t procrastinate when it comes to knowing that you have had the record of your sin wiped away by the blood of the Lamb. Don’t leave here today without knowing—really knowing—that you belong by faith to your Savior, Jesus Christ!

BENEDICTION

Jude 24–25 (ESV)

24 Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, 25 to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.

QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION:

Read Psalm 78:1-8 (look especially at verse 7) What are the three things that he wants this psalm to produce in his readers’ lives?

How does the story of the tribe of Ephraim help Asaph communicate the perils of forgetting God? What are some of the consequences of forgetting God’s works and commandments that this psalm warns about?

What are some examples of how God has personally provided for you or rescued you in the past? Are you more likely to tell stories of God’s provision, or tell of how you overcame your own problems? What does this reveal about your view of God?

Why is it so important that younger believers have a strong example of obedient, grateful hope in God? How can you demonstrate that kind of example to those who are watching your Christian walk?