Psalm 78, now this is a long
psalm, it's 72 verses, it's the second longest psalm in the psalms,
so it's not easily done in one lesson to do it any justice. But a lot of the information
in this psalm is historical, in fact, it's all historical,
and because of that, it's easier to digest the information that's
there. I wanna read through it anyway,
since we're just starting on this psalm, and then I wanna
try to give you the high-level things that I don't want you
to miss that are not easily seen, but they are there because God
has given us the gospel, and it's through the gospel that
we see these things. So let me point out at the very outset
of this psalm what it says in the first two verses. It says,
Give ear, O my people, to my law. Incline your ears to the
words of my mouth. I will open my mouth in a parable.
I will utter dark sayings of old. Now you might, first of
all, before we read the rest of this, I want to point this
out because it guides us. to understand this psalm. This
psalm is going to give us a historical account of the nation of Israel
from the time that God delivered them from Egypt until the time
of David, King David, the king. And at this second verse you
see here, I will open my mouth in a parable, I will utter dark
sayings of old. That's actually a quotation from
the New Testament. And let me read that to you so
that you can see the basis for the things that I'm about to
say here. In Matthew chapter 13, Matthew 13 and verse 34 says,
all these things speak Jesus to the multitude in parables.
and without a parable speaking not unto them, that it might
be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying, and the
prophet is the prophet who wrote Psalm 78, I will open my mouth
in parables, I will utter things which have been kept secret from
the foundation of the world. All right, so notice in verse
35, Matthew 13, 35, that it might be fulfilled, and that teaches
us that what's said in Psalm 78 was said concerning the Lord
Jesus Christ, who the prophet of Psalm 78 is speaking about,
so that these words here are a parable, Psalm 78, they're
a parable. They are given to us by the Lord
Jesus Christ and He is the one who is the Word of God who's
going to give them to His people. See in verse one it says, give
ear, O my people, to my law, incline your ears to the words
of my mouth. Okay, so with that in view, let's
read through this Psalm together. And I'm going to continue with
verse two. I will open my mouth in a parable. I will utter dark
sayings of old, which we have heard and known and our fathers
have told us. So the psalmist is speaking of
things in the past and he's speaking of things that our fathers have
told us. So keep these things, if you
can, as we read over them, keep them sort of bookmarked in your
mind. the fathers have told us. And
we will see who those fathers are and what they said, but we
know right away that this is the Lord Jesus talking to his
people. He's going to, he asks them to
listen or give ear to his law and incline their ears to the
words of his mouth. Verse four, it says, we will
not hide them from their children. showing to the generation to
come the praises of the Lord and His strength and His wonderful
works that He hath done. So the psalm is talking about
God's praises, things that bring praise to God from His people,
cause for praise from His people, His wonderful works, things that
He has done, His strength, okay? So if you, again, you hold these
things in your, And you're thinking as we go through this, you can
see this is summarizing at the outset here what the psalm is
telling us throughout. Verse five says, for he established
a testimony in Jacob and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded
our fathers that they should make them known to their children.
So you can see that there's this passing down from the fathers
to the children of the testimonies, the law that's introduced to
us in verse one, and here again in verse five, where he calls
it a testimony in Jacob, a law in Israel, okay? Verse six says,
that the generation, this is the purpose for God telling them
this, to pass this down to their children. He says, that the generation
to come might know them even the children which should be
born, who should arise and declare them to their children. So there's
a succession. of telling the law, the words
of Christ's mouth here, that was given to them first by their
fathers and was passed down from generation to them and they need
to pass it down to their children. Verse 7, that they might set
their hope in God and not forget the works of God but keep his
commandments. So the goal in passing down this
message, which again is called my law, my law in verse one,
and the words of my mouth, is that they might, these children
and the children's children in successive generations, would
put their hope in God, not forget his works and keep his commandments.
Verse eight. and might not be, as their fathers,
a stubborn and rebellious generation, a generation that set not their
heart aright, and whose spirit was not steadfast with God."
All right, now the rest of the psalm is going to give a lot
of details about these things, but up to this point, he's summarizing
what follows. And the underlying theme regarding
these people about whom this psalm is speaking is that their
heart was not right with God. As he says here in verse 8, they'd
set not their heart right and whose spirit was not steadfast
with God. They left, they departed from
the Lord. Okay, so now he's going to give
a lot of details here. But let's take what he said so
far and see if we can point out at least one guiding principle
in this psalm. And that is in verse 8. These
people, this psalm is speaking of, were an unfaithful people. They were not faithful. They
departed from the Lord, their spirit was not right, their heart
was not right with God, and their spirit was not steadfast with
Him. Okay? Okay, so that's the first thing.
These people were an unfaithful people. And yet, this is a psalm
about gods? according to what we just read
in verse four, God's praises, God's strength, and God's wonderful
works, which he has done. So let's see how God's praises,
strength, and works are displayed in this psalm, because it has
to be with the backdrop here of an unfaithful people. Verse
nine, and we'll just read through the rest of the psalm, he says,
the children of Ephraim, being armed and carrying bows turned
back in the day of battle. I will point out some of the
historical times that this is mentioning here. If you remember,
Ephraim was the name of one of Joseph's twin sons. He had two
sons, Manasseh and Ephraim. Ephraim was promoted, though
he was the youngest, as being more important in Israel. All of the nation of Israel,
the ten tribes at least, are called Ephraim. So when I say
the ten tribes, I'm excluding the tribe of Judah and the tribe
of Benjamin. But the rest of the tribes are
lumped under this one man whose name was Ephraim. He was the
son of Joseph. Okay, so it says here that Ephraim
was armed and carried bows, but he turned back on the day of
battle. And I think it's referring to the time when God brought
the whole nation through the wilderness just to the borders
of Canaan. and they refused to go in because
only Joshua and Caleb brought back a good report and said that
the Lord has given us this land. The rest of the ten tribes would
not go in. And so Ephraim turned back, even though they were armed,
and even though everything that follows next in this psalm is
going to prove that they should have, and it'll tell us why they
didn't. So again, an unfaithful people. That's what this psalm is describing
here. And the works of God, his greatness. Verse 10, they kept
not the covenant of God, they refused to walk in his law, and
they forgot his works and his wonders that he had showed them,
marvelous things did he, in the sight of their fathers, in the
land of Egypt, in the field of Zoan. The field of Zoan is just
a synonym for Egypt. Verse 13, he divided the sea,
that would be the Red Sea, and caused them to pass through,
and he made the waters stand as an heap, In the daytime also
he led them with a cloud and all the night with a light of
fire. So in the daytime God's presence
was seen in the cloud and at night he was in a light of fire
that hovered over the entire nation and that light of fire
gave them light but it was darkness to their enemies. And that's
one of the themes you'll see in this song, is the difference
that God makes between the people of Israel and the other people. He says in verse 15, now again,
he's cataloging all those things that God did, his wonderful works,
what would bring him praise, and how this was set with a backdrop
of an unfaithful people. He clave the rocks, or split
the rocks, in the wilderness, and gave them drink as out of
the great depths." Now that's phenomenal, isn't it? Here they
are in the desert, and it's these big rocks, and God brought water
out of those rocks, the last place you would expect water
to come from. Remember, God told Moses to smite the rock, and
he did, and God brought so much water, it was as water out of
the great depths. Verse 16, He brought streams
also out of the rock and caused waters to run down like rivers.
So the water, according to 1 Corinthians 10, followed them through the
wilderness. God not only opened the rock
to bring water out of it, but that water was always with them.
Verse 17, and they sinned yet more against him by provoking
the Most High in the wilderness. And they tempted God in their
heart by asking meat for their lust. Yea, they spake against
God. They said, can God furnish a
table in the wilderness? Now, of course, God can do anything.
And they wouldn't ask it because they didn't think he could do
anything, but because they didn't believe that He would do it for
them on demand. In other words, they were demanding.
They were trying to manipulate God by asking this question.
They were tempting Him. They were trying to prove Him.
They were trying to prove him by saying, can you? Are you able? And implied in that question
is, will you? I mean, if you really are, if
we really are your people, then you'll give us, you'll make a
table here for us. That sounds like Satan, right?
The way he tempted Christ. If you are the Christ, he said,
then do these things. If you are the son of God, then
turn these stones to bread. If you are the son of God, then
cast yourself down from this temple and so on. So they're
provoking, they're tempting, they're trying to prove God by
their imaginations. What do we want? We want Him
to furnish a table for us here, just like we had all this food
and variety and abundance in Egypt, at least they say that.
Okay, so you can see this is a very bad thing that they said. And then in verse 20, behold,
he smote the rock, they say, that the waters gushed out and
the streams overflowed. Can he give bread also? Can he
provide flesh for his people? Therefore the Lord heard this
and was wroth. So a fire was kindled against
Jacob and anger also came up against Israel. Because, notice
this is a pivotal verse, they believed not in God and trusted
not in his salvation. So again, this is an unfaithful
people. They didn't believe God, they
didn't trust his salvation. Verse 23, though he had commanded
the clouds from above and opened the doors of heaven and had rained
down manna upon them to eat and had given them of the corn of
heaven. So what he's saying here is that
this bread came from heaven, the bread called manna, and the
word manna was, the bread that God rained from
heaven was called manna because when the people saw it, they
asked this question, what is it? And that's what manna means,
what is it? They didn't recognize it, they
didn't know what it was. and there's deep significance
in that question in the name of this. But let's continue,
verse 25. He says, regarding the manna,
man did eat angels' food. He sent them meat to the full.
Do angels eat? We'll answer that question later,
verse 25. Now, in verse 26 he says, he
caused an east wind to blow in heaven, And by his power he brought
in the south wind, he rained flesh also upon them as dust,
and feathered fowls like as the sand of the sea." When Israel
complained that they didn't have flesh to eat like they had in
Egypt, and they tried to use that as an excuse to murmur against
God and against Moses, and say, we want to go back to Egypt,
we'd rather be slaves in Egypt than free men out here with God
in the wilderness, because we don't have anything to eat, no
flesh, just as manna. And so what God did is he caused
these quails, he brought these quails by sending his wind, and
the quails were so thick that the people couldn't eat all the
quails that come up, but they ate as much as they could, so
much that they were, they gorged themselves. He says in 28, and
he let it fall in the midst of their camp round about their
habitation, so they did eat and were well filled, for he gave
them their own desire, which is what they asked for. They
were not estranged from their lust, but while their meat was
yet in their mouths, the wrath of God came upon them and slew
the fattest of them and smote down the chosen men of Israel."
Alright, so these people who were unfaithful, among them were
these chosen men of Israel who were called here the fattest
among them, because they were more greedy than the others. They were supposed to be the
leaders and yet they were more greedy and God killed them in
this plague that he brought because they complained against God.
The manna wasn't enough for them. They needed flesh. God brought
flesh and then he killed them after he gave them what they
wanted. That's not good, right? It's not good when the Lord gives
us what we want and it's not God's will. Remember, Balaam,
he asked the Lord, do you want me to go curse Israel for Balak? He wants to hire me for that,
and the Lord said no. But then Balaam kept asking,
and finally the Lord gave him leave to go, but it wasn't good. Verse 31, the wrath of God came
down upon them, or came upon them, and slew the fattest of
them, and smote down the chosen men of Israel. For all this,
For all this, even though God judged them this way, proving
that they were wrong in their hearts and in their heads, for
all this they sinned still and believed not for His wondrous
works. Even though He had done all these
wonderful things, they didn't believe Him. They didn't believe
in God. They didn't trust His salvation. They were an unfaithful
people. Verse 33. Therefore their days
did he consume in vanity. They wandered around in the wilderness
for 40 years, and their years in trouble. When he slew them,
then they sought him, and they returned and inquired early after
God." So when God brought these judgments where he would kill
thousands of them at one time, then the people turned to seek
the Lord, but he says, In verse 35, they remembered that God
was their rock and the high God their redeemer. Nevertheless,
they did flatter him with their mouth, and they lied to him with
their tongues, for their heart was not right with him, neither
were they steadfast in his covenant. So that's almost the same thing
as we read a minute ago. Verse 38, but he, notice this,
this is where the praises of God, the wonderful works of God,
his strength is seen here, notice in verse 38, but he being full
of compassion forgave their iniquity and destroyed them not. There
were many who died, but the entire nation didn't die. He remembered,
he goes on, destroy them not, yea, many a time turned he his
anger away and did not stir up all his wrath, for he remembered
that they were but flesh, a wind that passes away and comes not
again. How oft did they provoke him
in the wilderness and grieve him in the desert? Yea, they
turned back and tempted God and limited the Holy One of Israel.
They remembered not his hand, nor the day when he delivered
them from the enemy, how he had wrought his signs in Egypt and
his wonders in the field of Zohan. So he's gonna go back now, having
talked about what they did in the wilderness and these different
temptations and the death, the judgment, and the fact that they
still didn't believe God, he's gonna revisit the fact that they
forgot what he did for them in Egypt. Notice, he says in verse
44, and that God had turned their
rivers into blood and their floods that they could not drink. So
every place there was water in Egypt was turned to blood, they
couldn't drink it. Verse 45, He sent down every
sorts of flies among them, which devoured them, and frogs, which
destroyed them. He gave also their increase to
the caterpillar, the Egyptians. what they were growing in the
field, their increase. God brought caterpillars to eat it all up.
And their labor to the locusts. Everything they had worked for
was eaten up by these bugs. He destroyed their vines with
hail and their sycamore trees with frost. He gave up their
cattle also to the hail and their flocks to hot thunderbolts, lightning.
He cast upon them the fierceness of his anger, wrath, and indignation
and trouble by sending evil angels among them. This is what God
did to the Egyptians. He sent evil angels among them.
Now, whether or not these were demons or devils, or if they
were just angels bringing God's evil judgments, they call them
evil because they're bad for the people they come to. They're
not wrong in themselves, but for the people who experience
them, they're evil. And so he's talking about the fact that God's
angels did this. Verse 50, he made a way to his
anger. He spared not their soul from
death, but gave their life over to the pestilence. Talking about
the Egyptians. and smote all the firstborn in Egypt, the chief
of their strength, in the tabernacles of Ham." Ham is another word
that means Egypt because the Egyptians descended from Ham,
one of Noah's sons. Remember Ham, Shem, Ham, and
Japheth. And Ham was the one who sinned
against his father when he went out and told his brothers what
he saw in Noah's tent. He goes, in verse 52, but made
his own people." Notice, after all these judgments that he brought
on Egypt, he says in verse 52, in contrast to that, God made
his own people, the Israelites, to go forth like sheep and he
guided them in the wilderness like a flock. So God treated
Israel like his own sheep and guided them even in the wilderness. And he led them on safely so
that they feared not. But the sea overwhelmed their
enemies. Again, a big contrast. Plagues
on Egypt, the sea killing Egypt, the plagues didn't come on Israel
and the people of Israel passed through the sea on dry land.
Verse 54, and he brought them to the border of his sanctuary
even to this mountain which his right hand had purchased. This
mountain being Mount Zion, Jerusalem, where that is in the land of
Canaan. He cast out the heathen also before them and divided
them in inheritance by line in the land of Canaan. He cast out
the heathen and gave their lands to the Israelites." That's distinguishing,
isn't it? The Egyptians, first he destroys
them with the plagues. Second, he destroys them in the
Red Sea. And then third, in Canaan, he
casts out the heathen and gives Israel their land. He divided
them and inheritance by line and he made the tribes of Israel
to dwell in their tents. Yea, they tempted and provoked
the Most High and kept not his testimonies, but turned back
and dealt unfaithfully like their fathers. They were turned aside
like a deceitful bow. When you shoot an arrow, you
want it to go straight. A deceitful bow is a crooked
thing. It doesn't shoot straight, it shoots crooked. You never
hit your mark. These people, as it says in Romans 3.23, they
fell short of the glory of God. And this is true of all of us.
But what these people did when they reached Canaan, the land
that God promised to give them, that they actually served the
idols They served the gods of the people of that land. Now
God destroyed the Canaanites because of their idolatry and
gave their land to Israel. And yet Israel, so spiritually
stupid, they went in to Canaan, even though God gave them that
land and took it away from the heathen, and they served the
idols, the gods of the heathen that were in the land of Canaan.
And what did they think was gonna happen to them? They were like
a crooked bow. For they provoked him to anger
with their high places, high places were places they worshiped
the idols, and they moved him to jealousy with their graven
images. When God heard this, he was wroth and greatly abhorred
Israel, so that he forsook the tabernacle of Shiloh, the tent
he placed among men, and delivered his strength into captivity and
his glory into the enemy's hand. If you remember, in the days
of Eli, the ark of God was taken, the Philistines took it, that
was his glory, his strength. He gave his people over also
unto the sword, and was wroth with his inheritance. Many of
them died by the hand of their enemies. The fire consumed their
young men, and their maidens were not given to marriage. Their
priests fell by the sword. Their widows made no lamentation.
The priests didn't carry swords, but these priests died by the
sword, shows the cruelty of the enemy. that God allowed. Then the Lord awakened as one
out of sleep. So after all this wickedness,
and they turned to their idols, yet the Lord, as a man who was
sleeping, wakes up, and suddenly he comes upon their enemies,
says, the Lord awaked as one out of sleep, like a mighty man
that shouts by reason of wine, and he smote his enemies in the
hinder parts, he put them to a perpetual reproach. the hinder
parts. That's your weak place. God attacked
them from behind. He attacked their behinds is
what he did is he gave them hemorrhoids, the philistines and many other
things like that. He plagued them in their private parts and
it wasn't pleasant. Moreover, he refused the tabernacle
of Joseph and chose not the tribe of Ephraim. Remember, Ephraim,
the tribe of Ephraim, just means the entire ten tribes of Israel. But, verse 68, he chose the tribe
of Judah, the Mount Zion, which he loved, Judah. Why did he choose
that tribe? Well, that's the tribe from which
David came, which he's going to say next. But he built his
sanctuary like high palaces, like the earth, which he has
established forever. He chose David, also his servant.
He took him from the sheepfolds, from following the youth, great
with young. He brought him to feed Jacob,
his people, and Israel, his inheritance. So he, David, fed them according
to the integrity of his heart and guided them by the skillfulness
of his hands. So God rejected the 10 tribes.
He chose David. David was the one God chose to
guide his people, to feed them, and to do this by the integrity
of his heart and skillfulness of his hands, which he did. Remember
all the victories that David won over the enemies, delivering
them from their enemies that were upon them because of their
idolatry. All right, so that's a summary of the history of Israel
from the time they came out of Egypt. God brought them out of
Egypt to the time they went into Canaan and until the reign of
King David. Okay? And as I said, this is
a summary of an unfaithful people. But notice how many times, though
they were unfaithful and though God visited them because of their
sins, He did not destroy them. He did not destroy them. In fact,
He spared them in His mercy. And He brought them into that
land He promised to give them. Okay, so that's the theme. An
unfaithful people and a faithful God. That's you can summarize
this song with these with that title and unfaithful people and
a faithful God his Praises the praises of his people his strength
for them and his wonderful works to save them Okay, so now I want
to give you a I just want to give you some overview. Sometimes
I save the spiritual application until we go through each line,
and then we try to bring it out. But I want to give these things
to you at the outset here, because I think you're familiar with
the history of Israel. If you have any knowledge of
the Old Testament, if you've read it through, you can see
the time from the Exodus when Israel was brought out of Egypt
through those ten plagues God brought on them, and through
the Red Sea, through the wilderness, and into Canaan. So let's talk
about this now. First of all, I want to point
out to you that this psalm, as I said, is a summary of an unfaithful
people and a faithful God. By God's grace, each one of us,
and I'm talking about myself mostly, Each one of us must see
ourselves in the sins of Israel. the sins of this Old Testament
Israel, which they committed against God. God was good to
them. God did all these things for them. He redeemed them from
Egypt, brought them to the Red Sea. The judgment that came on
their enemies destroyed them, but the judgments that came upon
their enemies and destroyed them were turned for the salvation
of Israel. And then he led them through
the wilderness to their promised inheritance. So each of these
things is important, but the first thing we see here is that
God is faithful, and it's by his grace that he shows us our
sins in their sins, in their unfaithfulness. We see our own
unfaithfulness. It's never right for us to say,
oh, look at those unfaithful people. They were so unfaithful. I'm glad that I'm not like that,
because that means that the Lord will be gracious to me. But that's
not the message here. It's not, well, because you are
faithful, the Lord is going to be gracious. It's because God
is faithful. You see, that's the reason we're
not consumed. Remember Lamentations 22, 23? It's because of the Lord's mercies
that we're not consumed. Great is His faithfulness. And
so God is faithful. That's the reason we're not consumed.
We're unfaithful. He's faithful. Okay? So He saves
us by His grace and He saves us by salvation that is in Christ
alone. This we learn from the New Testament.
He must save us, we can't save ourselves, and if He does, it'll
all be by His grace, according to His covenant that He made
with His elect in Christ, and He will do it all for His name's
sake. That is the message of this psalm,
okay? Our unfaithfulness, God's faithfulness,
His faithfulness to His covenant, His faithfulness to His name,
to His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. The second point I want to bring
out here is the Lord Jesus Christ is the one who's speaking in
this psalm and he's speaking about the history of Israel and
since he calls it a parable or dark sayings, it shows us that
God deliberately guided the writers of scripture to record certain
things because those things teach spiritual lessons and that's
For some reason, that was not something I ever learned as a
young person. But God's word is written to
teach spiritual lessons from physical things. And so the Lord
Jesus Christ did that in the New Testament. And the parables
had a double effect. It hid the truth from those who
were not given eyes to see, but it made the truth known to those
who were. Jesus said to you, it is given
to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God, but to them which
are without, it is not given. Remember, that was in Mark chapter
four or so. And throughout the New Testament,
Jesus said that. Parables? Hide the truth from those who
are not Christ's people. And it reveals the truth, because
the Lord explains it, to those who are His people. And we're
gonna see how the Lord does that here in a minute. Okay, so the
message of this psalm, and here's a very, very important statement.
The message of this psalm is the gospel of Christ. The spiritual
lessons in this psalm are the gospel. And so this message of
an unfaithful people and a faithful God is about Christ saving grace
towards His people. This is the Lord Jesus Christ.
It was He who was with that congregation in the wilderness, in the cloud,
in the fire, in the rock, in the waters, in so many ways,
which the New Testament tells us. All right, so this message
of this psalm is the gospel. The next thing I want to say
is that the people in this history are the physical nation of Israel,
meaning they are the physical descendants of Abraham. But within
that large group of physical descendants of Abraham, there
were two groups of people. The first were those who perished
in the wilderness like Korah, Dathan, and Abiram when the earth
opened up and swallowed them. Or like those that the plague
came on when they complained and the serpents came and bit
them. Or like so many other plagues that God brought to destroy many
of the Israelites, excuse me. So the people who perished in
this history correspond to the unbelieving, the unbelieving
Jews in particular, but the unbeliever. But the people in the psalm who
put their hope in the Lord, and who were forgiven, though they
repeatedly sinned against the Lord, and those that the Lord
says in verse 38 are, He is their God, their rock, their redeemer,
those are God's elect. Those are the remnant chosen
out of that physical nation, and they represent all of God's
elect, the remnant out of all nations. They are the true children
of Abraham, which we'll see that in what follows. So the redeemed
people of Christ were redeemed by his blood. And here's the
other big point in this psalm, is that there's no difference
between them. They're not better than those
who perished. In themselves, they are no better. Were the Israelites better than
the Egyptians? No. Why did God spare Israel
and deliver them from Egypt but destroy the Egyptians? Because
God had a favor to Israel. He had a purpose for them. He's
going to use that nation to teach us how he has a favor in Christ
towards his people. It's in Christ. His favor, his
grace, his blessings are all in Christ. And so that's the
message there of that history. Now, here's another thing I want
you to see here. In the first verse, he says,
give ear, O my people, to my law. Incline your ears to the
words of my mouth. Now, as soon as we read the word
law in scripture, we immediately think of what? Well, the Ten
Commandments and everything else that Moses said. He said, you've
got to do this. that you gotta do this to live,
and if you don't do this, you're not gonna live, you're gonna
die, and it's not gonna be a pleasant death, it's gonna be a death
of cursing and wrath. In fact, you have to not only
do this, but you have to do it all the time, and you can't fail
one time. Cursed is everyone who continueeth
not in all the things which are written in the book of the law
to do them. So we immediately latch on to
that word law and we think this has to do with that old covenant
law, doesn't it? Is that what he's talking about
here? Well, the fact is, is no. The law here and the words of
Christ's mouth, he's talking about here, is the gospel of
the Lord Jesus Christ. And I'll prove that here as we
go through this. But I'm not gonna take time to
prove it right now, okay? I'm just giving you these high-level
observations from the entire psalm. Things that are really
true of the entire Old Testament, but are particularly brought
out in this psalm of Israel's history. The second thing I want
to say here is not only is the law and the words of the mouth
of the prophet here, which is Christ, he's a prophet, the gospel
of Christ, but also notice that in this psalm, towards the end
of the psalm, in verse 68, to the end of the psalm, he talks
about how God refused and rejected Ephraim, but he chose Judah. And you know that as you read
those verses there from verse 68 through 72, he's talking about
David. David came out of that tribe
of Judah. But David is the one through whom Christ came. So
in scripture, and this is not the only place, but when God
talks about David, it's really just a reference to Christ himself,
who was David's son and David's Lord. And so what we need to
understand here is that the David mentioned here is just a reference
to Christ himself. And if you see it in that light,
then you see that this psalm is concluded with the fact that
even though this people were unfaithful, God gave his son,
Christ, who was the son of David, to be their king and to, by his
own integrity, as it says in verse 72, to feed them, the integrity of his heart and
to guide them by the skillfulness of his hands because he's their
shepherd, like David was a shepherd. He's the king and the shepherd
king. And so that's Christ. So the psalm is about the Lord
Jesus Christ, and it's the words of his mouth that are unfolding
to us the parable of Israel's history in terms of what the
gospel is. And he's telling us here at the
end, he's reaffirming this by showing that he appointed Christ,
who would come through the tribe of Judah, and he would lead the
true people of Israel to their inheritance. Notice verse 71.
He took David from following the youths great with young.
He brought him to feed Jacob, his people, and Israel, his inheritance. The unbelieving Israel were not
his inheritance. God's inheritance doesn't fade
away. The church is his inheritance,
so this is something to keep in view here. It's in Christ,
David, in this psalm, that we are given to God in a way that
will never be separated from him. Then I want to say this, that
God has, and this is, if you look at verse, let's see, where
is this? In this Psalm, I've lost my place here. Oh boy. He smote them, He gave
them, they remembered not. Let's see. Oh yeah, verse 38. Verse 38,
notice this is recurring throughout this psalm and the Old Testament
too. He says, but he, being full of compassion, even though their
heart was not right with him, in verse 37, and neither were
they steadfast in his covenant, verse 38 says, but he, being
full of compassion, forgave their iniquity and destroyed them not.
Yea, many a time turned he his anger away and did not stir up
all his wrath. So here what we see is that the
Lord has forgiven a people, and the people he's talking about
here are not those who perished in the wilderness, but those
who were the remnant out of Israel, like Joshua, like Caleb, like
Moses, like Miriam, and many others. Not all of them, but
not many of them. Okay? Alright, so they were forgiven. He saved them from their sins
and saved them in spite of their sins that were against Him. There
are many provocations. He saved them because He had
made an everlasting covenant with them. And this is very important. This is very important. And maybe... I've got a couple more minutes
here. Let me get to that next. Let me go to the next point here,
I want to say. One of the other guiding high-level lessons here
in this psalm is that these historical places in the psalm, Egypt, for
example, or the Red Sea, or the wilderness, or Canaan, all these
physical, historical places refer to a spiritual thing. They're
either spiritual kingdoms, or they're spiritual conditions,
or they're spiritual blessings. So let me just talk just briefly
about that here. Egypt was a physical place, a
physical kingdom. And yet, in scripture, Egypt
represents false religion, it represents sin, it represents
death, it represents bondage to sin and death, and it represents
the tyranny of the devil. who rules in the hearts of men
and holds them in bondage, men of this world. And then the whole
deliverance of Israel from Egypt represents what? Well, the way
God delivered them is by the Passover. Remember that night? And what does the Passover teach
us? Christ is our Passover, who was
sacrificed for us. Remember 1 Corinthians 5, chapter
5, verse 7? So if Christ is our Passover,
sacrificed for us, to deliver us, what did he deliver us from? Sin, and death, and Satan, and
this present evil world in our flesh. It was by the blood of
the Lamb, wasn't it? And so Egypt represents these
things, and the redemption of Israel from Egypt represents
our redemption by the Lord Jesus Christ, by his precious blood.
So that's the first place here in this psalm. That's an interpretation
of the parable that the gospel gives to us, which is why I say
this is a parable about the gospel. And the second thing is, that there was the wilderness. Remember the wilderness? Well,
there's the Red Sea. The Red Sea, what happened at the Red
Sea? Well, it was going to be judgment. They couldn't get through
it. The Israelites couldn't get through
it. The Egyptians certainly didn't go through it. They perished
in that, and it was a judgment for Egypt, but it was actually
opened up and made salvation to the nation of Israel. And
it was done so when Moses held up his rod and God divided the
sea, made the water stand up like a heap. And this is exactly
what salvation is, isn't it? In the Lord Jesus Christ, we
pass through the judgments. Remember what Jesus said in John
5 and verse 24? He said, whosoever hears my words and
believes on him that sent me has everlasting life and shall
not come into judgment or condemnation but has passed from death to
life." Passing through the Red Sea is passing from death to
life because the judgment has passed on us and it happened
in the Lord Jesus Christ. Okay, so that's the Red Sea.
Then there's the wilderness. And what does the wilderness
represent? Well, it's our life in this body, this body of sin,
our flesh, while we're in this world. As long as we're in this
world, we are in this body of death. And so these people wandered
in this wilderness. It was a desert. It was a wild
place with nothing that would support life. God had to bring
miraculously what was needed for their life into that wilderness. And that's exactly what he does
in our salvation. And what were those things, those
provisions that God brought? Well, there was the rock that
was split open when Moses hit the rock, just as the Lord Jesus
Christ, because God's law judged him and he was cursed by that
law. His blood shed. This was our life, wasn't it?
He said, I am the bread from heaven. If you eat my flesh and
drink my blood, you have eternal life. And if you don't, you don't
have life. And he also said, if any man
thirst, let him come to me and drink. And out of his belly shall
flow rivers of living water, which he spake of the Spirit,
which was given when the Lord Jesus Christ finished our salvation
on the cross. So the rivers that came out of
the smitten rock, the streams that flowed out of that smitten
rock, are the waters of life that come to us out of Christ
who was crucified for us. The rock was smitten because
the law came, Christ was under the law and he had to endure
the curse of the law. And then of course the manna
that came from heaven, that was the Lord Jesus Christ, the bread
from heaven. And the fact that it was called angel's food shows
us that even the angels live and their highest privilege is
to serve Christ and his people. because that's what he did. He
gave himself as the bread for his people by the will of God.
So all these things are, again, they're teaching us these spiritual
truths, the gospel. Canaan was a promised land, and
God brought them into Canaan by Joshua. And it was by Joshua
overcoming the inhabitants of Canaan in war. And Joshua is
the name Jesus in the New Testament. Jesus, our Savior, the captain
of our salvation, by his death overcame our enemies and gave
us an eternal inheritance, eternal life, and eternal glory. So Canaan
is heaven. It's our eternal salvation. It's
the land of salvation in Christ. It's all the blessings of God
that are ours in Christ. So you can see that the places
in the Psalm are pointing to a spiritual place which would
be a condition or a kingdom or a blessing from God which are
ours in the Lord Jesus Christ. And then we also encounter a
number of enemies in this psalm, Egypt, the Canaanites, and people
during the wilderness as well. And all of those enemies have
lost their ability to hurt God's people because Christ has died
for them. No one can lay one charge to
those God has justified. No one can condemn one for whom
Christ died. And then, finally, the last point
I want to make here is all those in this psalm who put their hope
in God, those are God's elect. Those are those who hear the
gospel, the message of this psalm, which is unfolded to us in the
New Testament. And they not only hope in God, look at verse 7,
and we'll close with this, in Psalm 78, verse 7. that they
might set their hope in God and not forget the works of God but
keep His commandments. So there's a connection between
not forgetting His works and keeping His commandments. And
what does this mean here? Does it mean that they kept the
Ten Commandments? No, because no one ever did that except Christ. What it means is that In the
gospel, when we believe the words of Christ, which is the message
of the gospel, what he did to save his people by the will of
God when he offered himself for their sins, when we believe Christ,
when we trust his salvation, then we keep his commandments.
In 1 John 3, 23, this is his commandment, that you believe
on the name of his son and love one another. And John 6, 29,
he says, this is the work of God that you believe on him whom
he has sent. So we're gonna see these things more as we go through
this psalm in some detail. I'm not gonna try to unpack every
verse in this psalm, but I just want you to get these overall.
overarching things, an unfaithful people and a faithful God. The
Lord Jesus Christ is that faithful God. He's their high rock. He's
their redeemer. And even though we are sinful
and repeatedly sinful, the Lord saves his people because of his
faithfulness to his covenant, which is called the law here,
and his faithfulness to his own name, to the Lord Jesus Christ.
We're forgiven for Christ's sake. And so I hope that as we go through
this, you'll see the gospel now. Let's pray. Father, thank you
for your word. Thank you that the Lord Jesus
Christ has fulfilled it. Thank you that even though we
fail repeatedly, continuously in all that we do and think everything,
yet you have saved us and we now can Join in the praises of
your people, of your greatness, your strength, and your wonderful
works in the Lord Jesus for us. What a Savior that he would save
us from such horrible sin over such a strong enemy when we have
no strength of ourselves. and do it all for His eternal
purpose, a covenant He made with His Son, promises He gave to
us in Christ, and do it for His name's sake, that the Lord Jesus
Christ, because of His obedience unto death, would be glorified,
seated in the highest place of authority and power and glory.
In Jesus' name we pray, amen.