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Amen. All right, kind of a longer psalm
this evening, so let's dig right in. Look down there at verse
number one where the Bible reads, 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, which we have heard and known and our fathers have told
us. And excuse me, this psalm is
just starting off. referencing dark sayings which
is mentioned a few times in scriptures and sometimes people are just
a little maybe not certain what that means it's not actually
very difficult but sometimes the dark sayings are a little
bit harder to understand but they're also deep in wisdom so
there's knowledge and understanding in the dark sayings, but they're
not always necessarily just the most clear, but they are wise. And one of the most famous, I
guess, references would be found in Proverbs 1, 6, where the Bible
says to understand a proverb and the interpretation, the words
of the wise and their dark sayings. And we see this right off the
bat, this referencing of the dark sayings, the law, and then
expressing, hey, we've already heard and known this stuff from
our fathers. And then verse number four 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. And this is a point I just wanna
park it on briefly because there's so much to get to this evening. but the importance of showing
the generation to come the word of the Lord, the law of the Lord,
the wisdom of the Lord held in the dark sayings, and that tradition
of passing it down. And I'll tell you what, this
is... imperative for us as believers to be teaching our children about
God, about the Bible. This is something that you need
to take so much more serious than just bringing your children
even to church. Okay? Yeah, absolutely. Bring
your children to church. Let them hear the Word of the
Lord. Hear the Bible expounded. Hear the wisdom of the dark sayings. Hear the Proverbs of Solomon. Hear the Psalms and all the great
words and wisdom in the Law of God. And to begin to understand
this and be part of their life from day one. Look at verse number
five. The Bible says, So God commanded
the law, he gave the law to his people, to Israel, and then commanded that they
need to teach that to their children. He's saying, look, this is part
of the law itself. Like I'm giving you this great
law. I'm giving you this great wisdom. I'm instructing you the
right way to go. And you need to make sure that
you also are teaching your children. Keep your place here and turn,
if you would, to Deuteronomy chapter number six. Deuteronomy
6, and while you're turning, I'll just read the next verse.
We already read the entire passage, but Psalm 78 6 says that the
generation to come might know them, talking about the law of
the Lord. He commanded to make known to their children that
the generation to come might know them, even the children
which should be born. who should arise and declare
them to their children. It's a generational passing of
knowledge and instruction that cannot be replaced by anyone
because it's the duty of mom and dad at home to be teaching
and raising your children every single day in the nurture and
admonition of the Lord. You are the number one person
that is responsible for how your children turn out. And, you know,
something that I have expressed continually over with my children. Look, just because I'm the pastor
of the church, I don't rely just on my children hearing what I
have to say on a Sunday or on a Wednesday and then that's it
and we never talk about the Bible, never talk about Scripture. You
need to keep teaching regularly, continually. Make sure they're
hearing it. Make sure that you could answer
their questions. You help them to understand it.
It's not just, believe me, when I teach my children, it's not
exactly the same as me preaching here in church, right? The style
and the method is a little bit different because I'm dealing
more closer to one-on-one, right? I'm dealing with a smaller group
and trying to help them to understand and help them to get these things. And it's something that is so
important, and I've taught them, even in their school, because
we homeschool them, but before they do anything else, their
number one responsibility is to read the Bible. And I just
preached recently on a subject of getting wisdom, how the Bible
puts an emphasis on wisdom. You get smart, be intelligent,
just to know more. It's so valuable in your life. But I'll tell you what, before
any of the other education, the most important wisdom that my
children can receive is that from the word of God. if they
never fully became as wise as I would like them to be as far
as knowing a lot of other things in the world or learning a lot
and becoming super successful by the world standard, if they
just grew up and understood the Bible and understood how to be
a good, godly person, if they're a hard worker, say men or women,
they grow up to be young men, young women that work really
hard, that are people of their word, So when they would say
something, people will actually respect and believe what they
have to say, that they have character, that they can do things, they
could be humble. All the attributes, all the characteristics that
are taught in scripture. If my children could possess
those things, that would make me happy. That's my ideal of
success. It has nothing to do with how
much money they make or any of that other stuff that the world
wants to look at, which is why I put an emphasis on the Word
of God, because you're gonna get the most valuable teaching
and training from God's Word. It teaches us how to live, how
to be moral, how to be good, how to live our lives, being
honest, all these various things. But these things don't come naturally. We're naturally sinners. So you
need to make the investment of teaching your children, which
is why, like the Bible said in Psalm 78, referencing, look,
God made that part of his law. He's like, you have to teach
them the law, and it's even in the law that you have to teach
your children. Look at verse number one in Deuteronomy chapter
six. The Bible says, now these are the commandments, the statutes,
and the judgments, which the Lord your God commanded to teach
you, that you might do them in the land where you go to possess
it. that thou mightest fear the Lord thy God, to keep all his
statutes and his commandments, which I command thee, thou, and
thy son, and thy son's son, all the days of thy life, and that
thy days may be prolonged. He's saying, I'll bless you,
this is good for you, learn my laws, teach them to your children,
teach them to your children's children. Make sure they all
know this, because that's going to lengthen your days. That is
going to prolong your days. Hear therefore, O Israel, and
observe to do it, that it may be well with thee, and that ye
may increase mightily, as the Lord God of thy fathers hath
promised thee, in the land that floweth with milk and honey, Hear, O Israel, the Lord our
God is one Lord, and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all
thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.
Look, this is part of the law. You need to love God with all
your heart, and your soul, and your might. And you know, we
need to be teaching our children the same thing. Teach them the
importance of their own relationship with the Lord. Not just your
relationship with the Lord, not mom's, not dad's, but their own. And help them to establish that
relationship with the Lord. And when they're younger, when
you're raising children, as they're younger, you have to just make
rules for them that they just have to follow no matter what.
But the goal is that you're not raising children that only do
the things that you're teaching, only read the Bible, because
if they don't, they're gonna be punished. You wanna cultivate
and nurture your children to want to know more, to want to
learn, to want to read the Bible, to want to serve God. So it's
not always easy finding that balance, and we're never gonna
be perfect at it, but you have to be thinking about this, because
if you just raise your children by rules only, When they leave
the house, if you don't have their hearts, if their hearts
aren't towards the Lord and towards Jesus, they're just gonna abandon
what you've made them do for the first 18 years or however
long of their life. They need their own walk with God. That's
what's going to keep them for a lifetime. And you need to make
it your priority to help to instill that love of God in their hearts
and in their life, which means you're gonna have to be able
to answer questions. You're gonna have to help them to understand
things. You're gonna have to show them Real world examples. Show them what happens when people
get into sin. Show them the truth of sin and
not the facade that Satan wants them to see. What the world's
gonna put out there of, oh yeah, you can sin and there's no problem
and everything's fine and they're the cool people and everything
else. So show them this is what really, look, this is what the
word of God says, son. Hey daughter, look, this is what
the book of Proverbs says. Look at what the Bible's saying right
here and look how it plays out in real life. Teach them these
things. It takes time. But it must be, it's critical
to be done. Don't get so busy, and especially
dads, don't get so busy providing for your family that you're not
actually involved in any of the raising of your family. Look,
providing for your family is a tough job. It is. And you're
gonna have to work as much as you need to work to be able to
support your family. But look, don't let that come
at the, it shouldn't ever have to come at the expense of the
actual raising of your children. Now look, moms in a biblical
family are gonna have the most impact and they're gonna spend
the most time with the kids and they're gonna be raising the
children, but you know what, then you gotta make sure that
your wife is also trained and ready and where she needs to
be spiritually as well to have that important job. And I'm speaking
a lot to the men because God has put men in the position of
authority and responsibility. It's not just authority, it's
also the responsibility. Men, fathers, dads, it's your
job. You are the responsible. At the
end of the day, you are responsible for how your house is run. And
the Bible teaches in 1 Corinthians 14 that the women are supposed
to keep silence in a church, and if they'll learn anything,
they can ask their husbands at home. So that means that you
are responsible for being able to teach your wives as well.
When they have questions and they want to understand the Bible,
you're there to answer them. And you're there for your children.
And then that way, you know, they could be teaching the children
even more while you're not there. This is so critical. Let's keep
reading here. The Bible says in verse six, and these words
which I command thee this day shall be in thine heart. and
thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children. Diligently
means you are putting a lot of focus and effort into this. It's
not you're flippantly teaching them to your children, or whenever
you have time, you teach them to their children. As we keep
reading, we're gonna see, no, you're gonna be making the time
all the time. Teach them diligently unto thy
children, and shalt talk of them, look at this, when thou sittest
in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when
thou liest down, and when thou risest up. It sounds pretty important
to me. If God's saying, when you get
up in the morning, when you go to bed at night, when you're
traveling by the way, look, you need to be talking to them about
this stuff. You need to be teaching them. And you know, it's not
gonna be some big, drawn out, long Bible study necessarily
and a full sermon every day of the week. You're gonna be giving
them doses of truth. You're gonna be dropping words
of wisdom on a regular basis. doing a little instruction here,
a little instruction there. And look, kids don't have a super
long attention span in general anyways. So you're gonna have
to be dropping a lot of these, but in order to do that, the
word of God needs to be in your heart. In order to be doing that,
you need to be getting right with God. You need to have God's
word in your heart. You need to be spiritually grown enough
to be able to recognize a lot of opportunities to teach your
children on a regular basis. Day to day to day. So you need
to have your face in this book. And I was talking earlier about
winning over the hearts of your children and getting them to
wanna have their own relationship with the Lord. Look, if you're
a good mom, if you're a good dad, your children will emulate
you. I mean, they emulate parents anyways. The better parent you
are, the more they're gonna want to be like you. Children grow
up and it's just natural for them to want to be like mom and
dad. So you want to help them to instill in their heart a good
love for God, a good love for the Lord, and have their own
walk with God, then how about you have your own good, solid
walk with God, that you're genuine, you're sincere, it's not just,
oh yeah, dad shows up to church on Sunday and then the rest of
the week it's like a different guy. You can hide that from everyone
else. You can hide that from people in church, but you can't
hide that from your kids. We need to make sure that the
generation to come knows the Lord, as Psalm 78 is stating. Let's go back to Psalm 78. reiterating verse number six,
that the generation to come might know them, even the children
which should be born, who should arise and declare them to their
children, that they might set their hope in God and not forget
the works of God, but keep his commandments. 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." We need to be teaching our children
to not be stubborn and rebellious like previous generations have
been, older generations that have not kept the Word of God,
but they need to have their heart right. The Bible says whose spirit
was not steadfast with God. That means we need to make sure
that our heart is steadfast with God. And what does steadfast
mean? It means consistent, it means you don't give up. If you
are steadfast, you are consistent, you are going to continue and
you don't give up. And the job of teaching your
children the Christian life can be a tough road to walk. It's
not easy, but you know what? You just got to make sure you
don't give up. Keep your heart steadfast. Keep focused. Keep
on track. And when you slip, get right
back up again. Just show you're going to have
bumps and you're going to have the hiccups in this life. Don't
let that set you back and get you out. Just get right back
around again. Look at verse number nine, the
Bible says the children of Ephraim being armed and carrying bows
turned back in the day of battle. So it was bringing up just this
group of people's tribe, the children of Ephraim, excuse me.
Look, they were armed, they had bows, they had the tools, they
were well-equipped, their fathers had given them different things,
maybe carnal things, but they turn their back in the day of
battle. You can have the weapons of war, but if you don't have
the heart You're going to turn back. You're going to flee. You're
going to run. You need to have the heart. You need to be able
to move forward and fight in the day of battle. And when you're
raising children up to walk in the way of the Lord, it's a spiritual
battle. They're going to be facing difficulties. They're going to be facing, you
know, people, different pressures from different people. to get
them to change their belief, to get them to abandon their
faith, to get them to give up. And you need to teach your children
not just to give them the weapon, don't just give them the Bible,
but help them to know how to use it. Help them to be courageous
and strong and rooted in their faith so that they have the character
and the strength to not turn back in the day of adversity. When the time of trouble comes,
they could stand firm and stand strong. That investment needs
to be made. The children of Ephraim, look,
they were one of the biggest tribes in Israel too. They were
extremely blessed physically. They're a huge tribe, but you
know what? Even though they had everything they needed, they
turned their back. And then what good was it all
for? What good is it all for, dads, if you wanna, you're gonna
work and just make sure your children has every electronic
device, every other thing, all these other tools, you're gonna
equip them with all this stuff, and they have no character and
they have no love of God, and then they just turn their back
on the things of God and just go off into the world. You lost
the battle. You lost the war. You need to
prepare your children for battle. The spiritual preparation is
way more important than providing the tools. And of course you
need weapons to fight a war. But think about this, whose is
the battle anyways? Who really wins the battles?
God wins the battles. We just need to stand. The Bible says to, you know,
to gird up your loins, to put on the armor of God and having
done all to stand. Stand therefore. We need to teach
our children to stand. not to waffle, not to compromise,
not to go back on the word of God, just be able to stand. And
look, God will bring the victory. You don't have to be the one
waging the wars and doing that stuff. Just look, make it through,
stay faithful, stay steadfast, and God will bring the victory.
And of course, we want to equip them as much as possible and
give them the tools they need. In the spiritual battle, we have
the word of God as our sword. But they need their faith. They
need the truth. They need the gospel of the preparation
of the gospel of peace, right? So their feet shod. All the elements
of that spiritual armor. it's parents' job to equip them
with all of those things. Let's keep reading here in Psalm
78, verse 10. They kept not the covenant of
God and refused to walk in his law and forgot his works. Again, now referring to the previous
generations who were trying to raise their children the right
way, say not like our fathers, not like the people who had already
turned their back on the Lord. They didn't keep God's covenant.
They refused to walk in his law. It's not that they didn't know
him, They knew the law and they refused to do it. 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. He divided
the sea and caused them to pass through, and he made the waters
to stand as in heap. In the daytime also he led them
with a cloud, and all the night with a light of fire. He claved
the rocks in the wilderness and gave them drink as out of the
great depths. He brought streams also out of
the rock and caused waters to run down like rivers." Now, This
is all referring to the salvation of the children of Israel out
of Egypt, when God saved them out of Egypt from being bond
servants, from being in bondage and freed them. And all of these
great mighty works that God did when he showed himself strong
in Israel. Look, this is one of the main
themes or main events in the whole Bible. The events that
happened in Egypt when Moses led the children of Israel out
is referred to over and over and over and over again. It's
when God just without a doubt just showed his power, his might,
his authority, and all the wonderful things that he did. These great
miracles illustrating even greater truths and greater spiritual
truths. Just because this happened a
long time ago, we should still be teaching our children this
stuff and make them know, look, these are real things. These
aren't just fairy tales. This isn't just story time. This
isn't fiction. This literally happened. And make the Bible real for them.
help them to know and not just read over it and dig into the
word of God and teach them and say look you know you could be
out you see this big boulder you see this big stone you see
this big rock well you know what God did when the people were
wandering and they were thirsty and they have anything to drink
because God was just leading them and they just had to trust
God and just follow God, wherever God was gonna have them go, they
were just following. And when they just didn't have
any resources, they didn't have any water, they couldn't just
carry everything with them. You know what God did? God had
Moses smite this rock here, and you know what? A whole stream
of water came flowing out of this rock. And God provided for
them. even in a situation that look
impossible. These are the truths that, look, our children need
to understand this because God just doesn't do this every day.
He's not doing it every day. And it's folly for people to
think so highly of themselves, oh, if God doesn't strike the
lightning right here in front of me right now when I say to
do this, that he's not, you know. People come up with all these
stupid things to try to tempt God. But look, he's already done
plenty of things for us. There's not a continual need
to prove to every single person who's ever existed on this earth
physically by showing some great miracle to that person individually,
every single person, every one of the, I mean, who knows? I
don't even know what an estimate of the total number of souls
who've ever existed on this earth is over the past 6,000 and some
odd years. of people being born and dying
every day on this plan mean it's it's who knows i don't know it's
it's a really high number felt that much it's it's a lot of
people billions trillions hunt i mean quadrillion to what it
like whatever the number is god's not gonna have to show himself
improves up every single person because he's already done enough
he's already done very extremely significant things to show like
look this None of this could just be explained away. None
of it. These miracles of God. We need
to be teaching our children this. Don't forget all the marvelous
things God does. We see he provided them guidance. He was there to lead. He led
the children of Israel out. He used Moses, but he was a light
in the darkness. God was able to shine the light
so that they can see. And he was also a cloud of protection
against the enemies that in the daytime, the enemies couldn't
find them day or night. They were continually protected
by God while God illuminated them. God showed them the way.
He also provided the protection. When you're gonna walk by faith,
God will look out for you. God will protect you. And even
in an impossible situation, God is able to do the impossible. Parting a sea, impossible. No one could do that. Technology
today can't even do that. There's not like a fan strong
enough or whatever, you know, to get some wind to try to make
waters just stand up like a heap, the Bible says. So you could
just have this perfect path and you could have water on this
side and water on this side. You could just literally walk
through a sea on dry ground, not in the muck. Bible says in verse number 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. Yeah, they spake against
God and said, can God furnish a table in the wilderness? Behold,
he smote the rock that the waters gushed out, and the streams overflowed.
Can he give bread also? Can he provide flesh for his
people? And if you know this story, you
know this is when the children of Israel were longing after
the meat. And oh, man, this manna. God
fed them with angels' food. And we're going to read a little
bit more about that here in just a minute. He provided for all
of their needs. He literally brought water out
of a rock. When they're thirsty, it's like, and they still had
the gall to complain and to be asking for meat. Now, the Bible
says, asking you shall receive, but you know what? In your prayer,
you need to make sure you're not praying for things just to
consume it on your lusts. So when you have needs, God supplies
your needs and you can go to God and ask God for your needs. But if you have some lust that
you just wanna satisfy some craving of a lust in your heart, you
don't go to God and ask for those things. That's a wicked thing
to do. And these spoiled brat attitudes going, oh man, we had
it so good in Egypt. You were slaves. You didn't have
it so good in Egypt. And now you're talking about
the food that you ate while you were a slave. And oh man, you're
out here in the wilderness. God, you don't even have to work
for your food. You just go pick it up off the
ground. They asked meat for their lust,
the Bible said there in verse number 18. And then have this
attitude. Oh yeah, well hey, God was able
to bring water out of a rock, but can he furnish a table in
the wilderness, huh? Can he provide us with meat?
Like what a wicked attitude, especially after seeing all of
the things that God has already done. to just tempt the Lord. It's a wicked and an ungrateful
attitude. And especially these miracles,
because what did God do? He offered true life. There was
a fountain of living water. Like obviously physically they
needed to survive by getting physical water. They needed to
drink water to survive. But that was representative of
the eternal life that's offered through God. the rivers of living water, which
again, is gonna be symbolized in the end times as well. With a new heaven and a new earth,
there's gonna be the stream that provides life. I mean, it's so
symbolic throughout the scripture, but God's providing the spiritual
meat, God's providing the spiritual drink, and what do they care
about? The carnal things. They care about the flesh. They
care about the eating of flesh. You're like, oh yeah, God can
save the soul, but can he provide for my flesh? So stupid. Verse number 21, therefore the
Lord heard this and was wroth. Wroth means he was full of wrath.
There's a past tense. He was angry with them. So a
fire was kindled against Jacob and anger also came up against
Israel. because they believed not in
God and trusted not in his salvation. So obviously he was angry over
them wanting, you know, first murmuring, complaining, not being
content with what God was giving them. But at the end of the day,
what God was most angry about is that they still just didn't
even believe in him. It says they didn't believe in
God and they didn't trust in his salvation. 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, man did eat angels' food. He sent them
meat to the full. And of course, Jesus, when he
came down, said, I am the bread from heaven, right? He's basically
referring to himself, Moses gave you manna, but I'm the bread
of life, I'm the bread of heaven, which a man eat of this bread,
he's never gonna die, right? Their fathers died in the wilderness.
They ate of that physical food, they ate the manna, but that
manna was representative of Jesus Christ, and God's angry because
he's like, look, I'm giving you the spiritual meat, I'm giving
you the spiritual drink, and you're rejecting it, and you're
looking for another answer. Like, look, it's grace, you don't
have to do anything for it. I'm giving you the water, I'm
giving you the food. Eat and be satisfied. And they're
like, no, no, no, that's not good enough. We want something
else. And that's what makes God mad. And people know the truth.
People hear the truth. Hey, look, it's a free gift.
It's salvation. It's by grace. You don't have
to work for it. You don't have to jump through
any hoops. You don't have to go to church and be baptized
and do all these other things in order to be saved. Just accept
it's a free gift. God loves you. Take the gift.
I did it all for you. No, no, no, I don't want that.
No, no, look, no, I gotta do, that's not enough. I gotta do
something else. I gotta do more. That makes God
angry. That makes him angry. He gets
full of anger and wrath, which is why the Bible says in John
3, 36, he that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life, and
he that believeth not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath
of God abideth on him. God is wroth with people that
are given the corn from heaven, yet don't trust in the Lord. Verse 26. He caused an east wind
to blow in the 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. And remember, there was this
huge multitude, million, over a million people in the desert,
and they're asking for this flesh. And even when God told Moses
that like, look, tomorrow they're gonna have their flesh, Moses
is like, like, really? Like, are you gonna do this?
And God's like, What, do you think there's anything that's
too hard for me? Like you've already seen what I can do. Do
you really think I can't provide flesh? Of course I could provide
flesh. He was just offering them salvation
and keeping them alive and they want more. He's like, you know
what? I'm gonna give them the wicked intent. I'm gonna give
them the desires of their heart. I'm gonna let them feast and
let them satisfy their lust. And take note of this too, because
if you have this lust in your heart, you wanna scratch some
itch, some flesh desire that you have, God might just let
you get indulged in that. But it ain't gonna go well for
you. Verse 27, he rained flesh also
upon them as dust and feathered fowls like as the sand of the
sea, and he let it fall in the midst of their camp round about
their habitations. So they did eat and were well
filled, for he gave them their own desire. He gave it to them. They were not estranged from
their lust. Oh, you wanna go and get involved
in lust? God'll let you do that. 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. Be careful what you desire it
just may be given you. And if you want to see a little
bit more about this story, I'd love to turn if you would to Numbers chapter 11.
It's such a powerful story. And you talk about a story we
ought to be teaching our children. Yeah, Numbers 11. Seriously, I'm not kidding. And I bring this up frequently,
and I bring this up at home frequently, because kids need to understand
the difference. And especially in such a rich world that we
live in right now, God has blessed this nation as a whole tremendously. And yes, there are people who
suffer and go through horrible things, and that doesn't change,
but the amount of wealth that exists in this country is just
astronomical. It really is. It is insane how
good people really have it. And it surprises me how people
can be so upset and so down in the mouth, oh, I don't have this
and this, and have such a poor attitude about things, and think
that they're so, oh, I'm so poor and everything else, and like
everybody's walking around with a stinking computer in their
pocket. Everybody is. I mean, kids are walking around
with these things in their pockets and more, right? And you've got
food in your cupboards. You've got refrigerators keeping
things preserved. The amount of work and effort
that's required to actually have plenty of food is so small. And
we're talking about humanity as a whole, for all existence
of mankind. People have it so good. Watch
your mouths when you go to complain. And Numbers 11 teaches this story
to the utmost. God supplies your needs 100%. Seek ye first the kingdom of
God and his righteousness and all these things shall be added
unto you. All these things is the food and the clothing. Okay,
the necessities of life. But you know what? God wants
your heart. God wants you serving him. And God definitely doesn't
want you to have a spoiled brat entitled attitude that makes
you think that you just deserve everything. Look at verse number 18 and numbers
11. The Bible says, and say thou unto the people, sanctify yourselves
against tomorrow and ye shall eat flesh. For you have wept
in the ears of the Lord, saying, who shall give us flesh to eat?
For it was well with us in Egypt. Oh, how quickly their memory
fades of Egypt. Oh, it was well with you? God
saved them out of Egypt. I mean, talk about a slap in
the face to be complaining in the ears of your savior that
saved you out of slavery to be like, oh yeah, it was good when
I was a slave. What? I mean, imagine that in
just physical sense. Imagine there was somebody who
was enslaved. Think about the child trafficking
stuff, right? Happens. There's people, there's
kids, there's teenagers, they get locked up in houses and are
literal slaves to do horrible things and treated awfully. Imagine being the one to free
that person and save them and take them out of that and be
like, hey, come. And you could come and live with me. And you
don't have that much, but you're able to provide them with food
and shelter and safety. And then they're like, after
a few weeks or a year or something, you've been trying to help them.
And then they're just like, Really? We're having oatmeal again? I mean, what are we having for
dinner, rice? I had it real good when I was
locked up. I mean, at least the guy gave
me whatever. I was a Chick-fil-A or something. Whatever. I mean, just think
about how nuts that is, right? How crazy that would be for someone
to have that attitude and then start complaining to you who
saved them that you're not doing enough for them. You're not giving
them enough. This is what happened. This is
exactly what happened. God saved them from being abused,
from being enslaved and freed them and completely freed them
and gave them all they need. And they're gonna complain. Look at verse 19. It says, ye shall not eat one
day, nor two days, nor five days, neither 10 days, nor 20. So this
is another opportunity for God to show just how awesome he is
also. Because Moses was asking like,
how can you even feed all these people for one day? Like, how
could you even give them that one little, you know, like everybody
to have meat? Like, how can you provide so
much meat? They're in the wilderness. It's
like a desert. Like, where are you going to find all of this
food? Like, are you gonna slay Leviathan and bring him out here
and chop him up for everyone to eat? You know, like, like
it's just, it's just a massive amount of people. And with so
many people, God's like, you know what? It's not gonna be
a day. It's not gonna be five days. It's not gonna be 10 days
or even 20 days, but a whole month. So he said, they're gonna
have so much food. Everybody's gonna have so much
food, so much flesh to eat. You're gonna have it for a whole
month. Look at this, until it comes out at your nostrils. Like,
I'm gonna give you so much food. I mean, just imagine like God,
like he's gonna shove it in your face until it's just coming out
your nose. Like, oh, you wanted flesh to
eat? Here, here you go. This is figuratively what God
is doing. He's saying, you're going to
get so much, and I'm just going to overload you on this lust
that you wanted so bad, and you're going to get so deep in this
now that you're going to hate it. The thing that you wanted
so bad that you were going to say slavery is worth eating. I mean, think about it. Would you be willing to trade
your freedom for a meal? People do it, look at Kane. Look
at Kane, Esau. Kane, Esau. Kane is a different
story. Esau sold his birthright. until it come out of your nostrils,
verse 20, and it be loathsome unto, meaning you hate it, because
that you have despised the Lord which is among you and have wept
before him saying, why came we forth out of Egypt? Like, why
did we even come out of Egypt? I can't have any chicken. I just
have this manna. That's what they're saying. Jump
down to verse 31. And there went forth a wind from the Lord and
brought quails from the sea and let them fall by the camp. as
it were a day's journey on this side, and as it were a day's
journey on the other side, round about the camp, and as it were
two cubits high upon the face of the earth. And the people
stood up. I mean, that's like three feet
tall. Like, that's how much fell. It's like three feet deep. And the people stood up all that
day and all that night and all the next day, and they gathered
the quails. It took them all that day, all
that night, and all the next day just to collect all the food
that landed in camp. They didn't have to go on some
big hike to get it or anything. It's literally just all around
them. And it's taken them a day and
a half, 36 hours, to just gather up the food. He that gathered least gathered
ten omers, and they spread them all abroad for themselves round
about the camp. And while the flesh was yet between
their teeth, e'er it was chewed. So they're just digging into
this, and it's literally still in their mouths. It says the
wrath of the Lord was kindled against the people, and the Lord
smote the people with a very great plague. He let them have
their lust, But then comes the repercussion, then comes the
payment for their lust. And he called the name of the
place, Kibrathoteba, because there they buried the people
that lusted. And I don't remember if it, I
think it says it in Psalm 78, but like he killed the fattest
of them, right? The ones who were lusting the
most. The ones that were just so given over to that lust. He's just like, no. These are the stories. This is
what the Bible saying, don't forget these things. Teach them
to your children. Don't forget the wonderful works.
Don't forget what God does for you. Don't forget the goodness
of God. And look at the punishment, look
at what, is outside of that, when you reject the Lord, when
you're rebellious, when you're stiff-necked, when you're thinking
that slavery might be a good idea, when people, and look,
the Bible will teach you, okay, physically, slaves, it's unlikely
that any one of us is physically gonna be threatened with becoming
a slave, like the slavery that happened in America is over and
has been abolished, and it's not looking like that we're gonna
head back to that system anytime soon in this country, right?
But slavery still exists and is full well in the form of sin. The bondage and the slavery to
sin that exists is very real. And that is a slavery you don't
want to try to get back into. If you've already had a victory,
you've already conquered maybe some sins and gotten some sin
out of your life, some addictions, some alcohol, some smoking, whatever
that may be, don't start to think back and be like, oh man, I remember
how good it was when I used to do this, thus and so. Oh, I used
to live this way or, you know, don't be a fool. Because you
were in bondage. You give yourselves over to sin,
you are in bondage. And that's what the word of God
teaches. And that's the truth, by the way. Don't go having these
fond memories of being a slave. Back in Psalm 78. Oh, no. My timer died. I think we're going to do a part
one and a part two on this psalm. I was already kind of thinking
it might happen. So don't worry. Verse number 32 though, look
at this verse. For all this they sinned still and believed not
for his wondrous works. Therefore their days did he consume
in vanity and their years in trouble. And you know, when you
just refuse to believe God and want to just go after your lust
and go after these things, your days are vanity. Your days are
meaningless. Living for the lusts of the flesh,
living for the world, living for money, living for these gratifications
of your flesh is vain. It's empty, it's meaningless. I mean, at the end of the day,
the word of God is going to provide you with the best, most meaningful
life. that you can have in this life.
It's gonna provide you the most peace. It's gonna provide you
the most comfort. It's gonna provide you the most
direction. It's gonna provide you the most
joy. If you could implement the truths found in the word of God,
you literally will have the best life that you could possibly
have here on this earth. Because the people that the world
projects as having the best life on this earth, it's not really
the best life. It's a facade. It's fake. It's
an illusion. The billionaires and multimillionaires
and the people who have all this stuff and all the money, it's
not nearly what you think it is. It's like fake book. It's
a projection of what people want you to see. But you don't get
to see behind the curtain. You don't get to see the real
life. You don't get to see the miserableness and the shallow
relationships and everything else that goes along with all
of that money. And people ignorantly think,
oh, that wouldn't happen to me. It's like, you know what? You
have no idea. You know what's found in Proverbs,
in the book of God's wisdom, is to make me not rich, that
I'm gonna forget the Lord, and say, who is the Lord, and just
don't make me poor, so that I'm gonna be tempted to steal and
blaspheme the name of the Lord. And obviously I'm paraphrasing
that, but there's wisdom in just, God, please give me what we need.
Like Jesus taught the prey, Lord, give us this day our daily bread.
God, please just help me, give me some bread today so I don't
have to be hungry and I can focus on doing the things that really
matter. Not only would your life be vanity,
like verse 33 says, it says, but they're years in trouble. you want to ignore the wisdom
of God and you want to step away from that, you're just asking
for trouble. Trouble will come and be sure
your sin will find you out and trouble comes your way. When
you continue to live your life in unbelief, it just amounts
to vanity and trouble. And that's what they said. They
didn't believe, they have all these opportunities, they don't
believe, and you know what? Now their days are just consumed
in vanity and trouble. And I think I'm gonna stop it
right about there, because we're about halfway through this psalm. And I don't normally do this
on a Wednesday night, but I know it's been going on for a while,
and there's a lot more to cover. It's a very lengthy psalm. So
we're gonna have a part two, Next week, but there is so much
to learn in this psalm in this first half. Seriously the you
know, if you walk away with nothing else The net the generation to
come needs the Word of God Now more than ever or now as much
as ever at least Don't neglect The the need and
the sacrifice necessary, because it is a sacrifice. It's not good
enough just for you to walk right. You need to instill that in your
children in the generation to come. If you don't have any children,
how about being a good role model and teaching the generation to
come still? Through your actions, through
your life, through your words.
Psalm 78 - The Generation to Come
Series Psalms
| Sermon ID | 111223527495315 |
| Duration | 50:35 |
| Date | |
| Category | Bible Study |
| Bible Text | Psalm 78 |
| Language | English |
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