The “key” words today … “They remembered not.”

Israel, dissatisfied with the Lord, “forgot” all His Benefits.

Out Text continues to be Psalm 78.

Now we’ve arrived at verses 42-51, a unity, a paragraph.

“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 Zoan: and had turned their rivers into blood; and their floods, that they could not drink. He sent divers sorts of flies among them, which devoured them; and frogs, which destroyed them. He gave also their increase unto the caterpiller, and their labour unto the locust. He destroyed their vines with hail, and their sycomore trees with frost. He gave up their cattle also to the hail, and their flocks to hot thunderbolts. He cast upon them the fierceness of his anger, wrath, and indignation, and trouble, by sending evil angels among them. He made a way to his anger; he spared not their soul from death, but gave their life over to the pestilence; and smote all the firstborn in Egypt; the chief of their strength in the tabernacles of Ham.” Wow, a lot to sinfully “forget!”!

The Hebrew verb “to remember” is “zakar,” meaning “to call to mind.” But also “to mention!” Then 6 times it is translated “to think.” Ponder, re-live God’s goodness!

But Israel “let them slip,” those great deliverances God effected on her behalf.

By the way, we too often do the same thing.

Let’s notice the list, proving God did not forget!

They forgot God’s Hand, His Power!

Essentially in this Text, they forgot the “plagues” God poured upon Egypt.

The word used for those miracles, “signs,” means “signals.” Or “tokens.”

Such as … the rivers being turned into blood!

The flies and frogs, which did not infest the area where the Jews lived!

They did not remember the locusts and the hail either!

Apparently they also failed to recall the “deaths” of Egypt’s firstborn boys!

Ten plagues, all from the Hand of God … to defend the Nation of Israel … no longer emphasized in the national psyche. Historical revisionism!

By the way, as is often the case in Bible “parallel” accounts, we learn some new things here. For example, Moses in Exodus did not write about the frost! Psalm 78:47 I mean: “He (the Lord God) destroyed their sycomore trees with frost.” Amazing!

Also verse 49 tells us that God sent … “evil angels among them.”  We might call them “guardian angels,” further shielding Israel!

How could they forget?

Psalm 103:2-5 adds to the chorus: “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and FORGET NOT ALL HIS BENEFITS: Who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases; Who redeemeth thy life from destruction; who crowneth thee with lovingkindness and tender mercies; Who satisfieth thy mouth with good things; so that thy youth is renewed like the eagle’s.”

Precious!

Hebrews 2:1 warns us too, New Testament Christians … “Therefore we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard, LEST AT ANY TIME WE SHOULD LET THEM SLIP.”

Enough has been said, surely!

— Dr. Mike Bagwell

Don’t forget!

 

Today we look at a paragraph of Psalm 78, considering the “fickleness” of the children of Israel. Her “wishy-washiness” toward God, anyway.

Israel, traveling through the desert, the wilderness, on the way to her Homeland in Canaan … consistently sinned then repented … then sinned and repented again … habitually repeating the process for years!

Here’s how Asaph recounts the history: “When he (God) slew them (the people of Israel), then they sought Him: and they returned and enquired early after God. And they remembered that God was their rock, and the high God their redeemer. Nevertheless they did flatter Him with their mouth, and they lied unto Him with their tongues. For their heart was not right with him, neither were they stedfast in His covenant. 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. For He remembered that they were but flesh; a wind that passeth away, and cometh 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.” Psalm 78:34-41

Folks, this is absolutely one of the greatest records of the longsuffering, patience and grace of God I’ve ever read!

Yes, God indeed disciplined His people, “killing” some of them for flagrant rebellion, disobedience. But when they realized their wrongdoing, they repented and God “showed mercy” on them!

Still, Israel’s sorrow was insincere! They “flattered” God, apparently a synonym for “lying” to the Almighty! The Hebrew verb “to flatter” used here means “to open wide” one’s mouth! Jesus said it best in Matthew 15:8 … “This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me.” So sad, yet true today in many places. BIG words … DIVIDED hearts!

They were not “steadfast,” the Hebrew word “amen,” meaning “faithful, believing, established.”

Look at the line above where God did not stir up “ALL” His wrath! Had He done so, none would have survived! He “tempered” his judgments!

Isaiah gives us a perfect illustration of God’s Wisdom in this matter of “graduated” discipline. “Doth the plowman plow all day to sow? doth he open and break the clods of his ground? ²⁵ When he hath made plain the face thereof, doth he not cast abroad the fitches, and scatter the cummin, and cast in the principal wheat and the appointed barley and the rie in their place? For his God doth instruct him to discretion, and doth teach him. For the fitches are not threshed with a threshing instrument, neither is a cart wheel turned about upon the cummin; but the fitches are beaten out with a staff, and the cummin with a rod. Bread corn is bruised; because he will not ever be threshing it, nor break it with the wheel of his cart, nor bruise it with his horsemen. This also cometh forth from the LORD of hosts, which is wonderful in counsel, and excellent in working.” Isaiah 28:24-29, little grain is not threshed as heavily as the course grain!

God knows!

Then, lastly today, note the two verbs “provoked” and “grieved”  They did both to their God, our God. “Provoke” translates “marah,” meaning “to be rebellious, contentious, disobedient.” And “grieve” is “atzsab,” meaning “to hurt, vex, cause sorrow!” These sound much like Paul’s two verbs about our mistreating the Holy Spirit in our lives, “grieving” and “quenching.”

Yet through all today’s Text, I repeat … God is kind, gracious and forgiving!

That’s His Nature.

Part of Nehemiah 9:17 tells us in sum, a prayer to the Lord: “Thou art a God ready to pardon, gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness ….”

Amen!

— Dr. Mike Bagwell

 

A “hard-hearted” people, so were the Jews who left Egypt headed for Canaan.

Never really appreciating, loving the Lord as they should have.

A lot like us today, I might add. Too many of us.

And I never realized how Psalm 78 (one of 12 Psalms in the Old Testament attributed to Asaph) so depicts Israel’s sins during that desert sojourn.

Today we’ve reached verses 30-33 in our journey.

“They (the Jews) were not estranged from their lust. But while their meat (quail they had demanded) 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. 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.” Psalm 78:30-33

The verb “estranged” means “to go away from.” To treat as something you don’t know. To be “foreign” to that entity. The noun “lust,” which they would have merely called “hunger,” is the Hebrew word for “greed,” desire that strong! We’d say an “obsession.”

God became “angry” at them, a word meaning demonstratively angry, red in the face, breathing hard! And God “killed” many of them! Two verbs being used here, “slew” and “smote down,” both pretty violent.

Here’s Moses’ account of the event: “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 all that day, and all that night, and all the next day, and they gathered the quails: he that gathered least gathered ten homers: and they spread them all abroad for themselves round about the camp. And while the flesh was yet between their teeth, ere it was chewed, the wrath of the LORD was kindled against the people, and the LORD smote the people with a very great plague. And he called the name of that place Kibrothhattaavah: because there they buried the people that lusted.” Numbers 11:31-34

Still … after all that chastisement, discipline from God … “For all this they sinned still, and believed not for his (the Lord’s) wondrous works.”

Wow!

Reminds me of Proverbs 29:1, where the Holy Spirit wrote: “He, that being often reproved hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy.”

So, knowing the “heart” of this people … God could not bless them as freely as He would have desired! Oh, the cost of unbelief, doubt, not trusting God and His Word! “Therefore their days did he (God) consume in vanity, and their years in trouble.” The noun “vanity” means “vapor,” an empty bubble kind of thing! And “trouble” is “dismay, alarm, terror!” God as a “Terrorist!” But in training His Own people.

I’m ready to say it.

Yes, sin has “wages.”

Both for the “sinner” and for the “saint.”

The unrepentant sinner faces hell-fire.

The erring saint faces God’s hand of discipline, as our Father in Heaven.

Truly, Hebrews 12:6-7 thunders loudly here. “My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him: for whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.”

Let’s consider ourselves warned!

— Dr. Mike Bagwell

If you have been enjoying this series on Psalm 78, let me know. I’d love to hear from you.

 

Psalm 78, all 72 verses, reviews the history of Israel, her spiritual history anyway. And emphasis is placed on that little Nation’s strong, selfish, often sensual desires!

Like the time they “lusted” after meat, not God’s choice, “manna!”

Psalm 78:26-29 tells us. “He (the Lord) caused an east wind to blow in the heaven: and by his power he brought in the south wind. He rained flesh (meat, quail specifically) 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.”

They grumbled until they got their own way!

Yes, God miraculously sent them “meat,” called “feathered fowls” here.

Lots of meat, “birds” counted as “the sand of the sea!” Virtually innumerable!

And they ate.

And they were filled.

“Enough” of that manna stuff!

Yes, God … “gave them their own desire.”

But then Psalm 106:15 adds of the same incident: ““And he (the Lord, aqain) gave them (the Israelites) their request; but sent leanness into their soul.”

See that? They got what they wanted!

Even from the Lord!

But they paid a price for it!

“Leanness” to their own souls!

And “leanness” (in Hebrew “razon”) means: “scantiness,” or even “a wasting away!”

Wow!

If we keep “pushing” for something that is against God’s Will … we just might persuade Him to grant it!

To our own detriment.

— Dr. Mike Bagwell

 

God is upset!

At the Nation of Israel, whom He loves dearly.

Such words as “wroth,” then “anger,” as well as “fire” are used of the Lord’s Attitude toward His people! On Psalm 78:21-25 I base my conclusion: “Therefore the LORD heard this, and was wroth: 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. 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.”

Wow!

But just “what” did the Lord hear? To bring such an intense response to His Heart? “Therefore the LORD HEARD this, and was wroth ….” In a word, “grumbling,” the Jews complaining against God’s provision!

The Hebrew verb translated “wroth” is interesting. It’s spelled “abar” and means something like “to leave, depart, to go somewhere else!”

And “anger” is the noun “aph,” a part of one’s nose, the “nostril!” Meaning that God is breathing hard, red in the Face, visibly disturbed!

For just a little grumbling, dissatisfaction, craving a certain kind of food?

YES.

Look at our Text again. God had been so good to Israel! He had controlled the clouds on their behalf. At least the “Shekinah Glory” Cloud, protecting the people, warming them when it was cold and cooling them when it was blistering hot there in the desert!

The Lord had also “opened the doors of Heaven” as well. And “rained” food down upon the children of Israel. It was known as “manna.” A daily (except the Sabbath) miracle! And a double portion the day before the Sabbath, no lack whatsoever!

The Psalmist Asaph here has man eating “angels’ food,” a beautifully poetic phrase. They could eat “to the full,” probably eliminating any dietary deficiency or morbid obesity as well!

Yet the people were not appreciative!

They craved something else to eat!

Back to yesterday’s verses, “fish and onions and garlic,” the flavors of their former days in Egypt, years of slavery if you recall. They apparently didn’t!

But how does God view such “minor” defection?

Such a “human” thing to do?

In today’s Scripture God viewed their actions as follows: “They BELIEVED NOT in God, and TRUSTED NOT in His salvation.”

Wow!

Unbelief … that God could properly care for them, sufficiently. To the point of satisfaction! Craving other than God’s chosen provision!

Lack of trust … in the Almighty, All Wise One!

Refusing His “salvation,” a noun actually meaning “deliverance” (3 times in the Old testament), “welfare” (1 time), and “health” (3 times).

Folks, God wants our trust!

Our faith placed in Himself!

And our loyalty!

Back to Commandment number one: “Thou shalt have no other gods before Me.” Exodus 20:3

Do I trust Him as I should?

Do you?

Even down to the little daily issues of life?

Paul even said this: “Whatsoever is not of faith is sin.” Romans 14:23

What a Lesson to learn!

What a series of thoughts to ponder today, Thursday, January 7, 2016.

— Dr. Mike Bagwell