The Psalms do not cease to amaze me. I seem to be on a discovery with each psalm I read. There are so many different types of psalms, one for each season of life (highs and lows, good and bad etc.) it appears. Last week at church, my pastor preached on a psalm of lament, Psalm 88 which is the only psalm that does not end on a positive note or with a sense of hope. This week, in my scripture reading, I read other psalms that were more joyful, psalms that were encouraging the subject to sing to the LORD or cry out to the LORD, but the one that stood out to me was the psalm that I will call the “teaching psalm”, Psalm 78. I found that psalm very reminiscent of what the LORD has done in the lives of His people Israel when He brought them into the Promised Land. This psalm is like a history lesson that brings its audience to the mighty acts God displayed throughout the Israelites journey from Egypt to freedom. In today’s post, I would like to discuss the importance of leaving the legacy God requires.
If there is one thing that has not been done well throughout the Bible it is the passing down of good traditions or leaving a good legacy behind, one that will honour God. However, God has shown us in His word that He is a generational God. For example, He is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The particularity with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is that they all left a good legacy to their children, that of the promise and covenant of God to give them the Land of Canaan. Although none of those patriarchs saw that promise come to life, they all believed it and ensured their descendance knew about it and believed it too. When Jacob –who became Israel because he wrestled with God and prevailed (Genesis 32:28)– died, he instructed his children to bury him in the Promised Land (Genesis 49:29-30). Similarly, Joseph, one of the twelve sons of Israel made his brothers swear that they would ensure his bones were carried from Egypt into the Promised Land (Genesis 50:25). This promise and this covenant were what made the identity of the nation of Israel and so it had to be preserved and passed down from generations to generations. When the descendants of Israel (Jacob) finally made it to the Promised Land, God gave them a law that they had to obey and reinstated His covenant with His people just like He had had with their forefathers. God’s law was to be obeyed by His people and so He ordained that it be taught to all from generation to generation: “These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children.” (Deuteronomy 6:6-7). Thus, in the Bible, the objective has always been to preserve a nation that fears God and God alone. This was not always well done as recorded in 1 and 2 Kings or 1 and 2 Chronicles where the stories of the kings of Israel are narrated. For example, the legacy that was often passed down from one king to the next was one the LORD did not approve of. You had many kings who did what was evil in the eyes of the LORD and a few who did what was right. While the people of God were supposed to be a nation whose kings only did what was right in the LORD’s eyes, this was not the case, and it led to the judgement of God on His people because of their sins and atrocities against His holy name. This is what happens when the right legacy is not passed down. But thanks be to God who does not leave us to our own demise but has given us His word so that we would learn from it and not repeat the same mistakes.
As stated in the introductory paragraph, Psalm 78 is one psalm that teaches us how to ensure God’s legacy is passed down to the future generation. By God’s legacy, I mean the fear of God which entails a love of His law, His commandments, His ways and all that He is. In Psalm 78, Asaph the author recounts the wonders of what God had done, and he specifically does it to teach the next generation so that they will put their trust in God and not do what their forefathers did. Asaph is able to trace in a single song how God displayed His great power and performed miracles when He delivered His people from Egypt by dividing the sea in two, making the water stand firm like a wall (Psalm 78:13), guiding them with a cloud by day and fire by night (verse 14), or giving water to His people that came from the rock (verse 15). Asaph continues by telling the audience what the response of their forefathers to these miracles were and how the LORD responded to their disobedience. The entire psalm has seventy-two verses which are filled with raw, unaltered history of the people of Israel with the goal to teach them to fear the LORD. As humans, we do not have many ways to absorb information and retain it except by repetition: whether it is by hearing the same thing over and over again or by reciting the same thing over and over again or by watching the same thing over and over again the end result is the same, you absorb the information and become it. This is what Psalms like Psalm 78 are doing, they tell us the history so that we will not forget and by recounting the stories that many are familiar with, the more we read it the more edified we are and the more strengthen our faith is. I personally like the fact that Asaph detailed the different encounters Israel had with the LORD and their response so that we would see the depth of the love of God for us undeserving people. A psalm like this shows us that history, the events of the past are important to preserve the legacy that the LORD requires.
Christ came into this world and shed his blood on the cross so that whoever believes in him would not perish but have everlasting life (John 3:16). He died so that we could be adopted into the family of God, having a new life given to us and a new identity, being heirs with him (Romans 8:17). This is the legacy we have been given by Jesus, the one to make disciples of all nations and baptizing them into the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey all that he has commanded us (Matthew 28:19-20). As Christians, our legacy is to fear the LORD and ensure the fear of the LORD is carried out into the next generation. We should not be the only generation to know Jesus as our Lord and saviour but we should lay the foundation so that future generations come to believe that same truth. I pray the LORD help us get our priority straight so that we would strive to leave a legacy not as the pagans do but as children of God do. Amen.
A Word Aptly Spoken 