A SONG OF THE TEACHER
Songs Of The Savior-Our Messiah Revealed In The Psalms
by Doug Goins
Sometimes when a student of the Scriptures is studying in preparation for
ministering to others, they have the wonderful experience of having God
speak very directly to them prior to discovering anything they might have
to say to the others. It doesn't always happen that way, but when it does
it is encouraging and strengthening. That happened to me last week. It helped
me remember why it is that I do what I do. The passage I've been working
on to share with you, Psalm 78, is a song of the great Teacher Jesus, the
Wisdom-Speaker who brings words of eternal life.
I am committed, as all the pastors at PBC are, to making the Scriptures
the center of our counseling, teaching, preaching, and leading. But sometimes
the spirit of the age can discourage me, and I can begin to second-guess
why I'm spending so much time and energy in the subtleties of the word.
Our generation wants us to be therapists, not preachers; it wants us to
be program directors, not biblically directed counselors and teachers. I
am so thankful that God stiffened my spine last week as I studied through
this passage, saying, "You're doing the right thing-this is
what is central." I hope I can share with you some of my renewed enthusiasm
for this very great responsibility of teaching words of eternal life-that
is, to people who want to hear. As we will see, another of the important
points that comes out of this passage is that what we get out of the teaching
of the word depends on the heart desire we bring to it.
Matthew 13 presents a compelling picture of Jesus Christ as the Teacher.
It opens with a picture of Jesus on the shoreline of the Sea of Galilee
at the village of Capernaum. The crowds were pressing in, so anxious to
hear Jesus' words that he had to get into a boat and move some distance
out so that he could see the crowd and they could hear him. Jesus taught
that day in parables-he painted word pictures, told stories. He told several
stories about the kingdom of heaven, about God's supernatural presence and
power and activity in our lives and in our world. He said the kingdom of
God is like a field where a farmer sows seed. Then he told stories of good
seed and bad seed, crops that were abundant and crops that withered and
died. He said the kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, so tiny you
can hardly see it, that grows into an enormous tree. He said the kingdom
of God is like leaven, a simple substance that when mixed with dough has
a powerful effect. Those stories that Jesus told helped his hearers understand
the supernatural dynamic of the kingdom of God among them.
At the end of one of the stories in verse 9, Jesus said, "He who has
ears, let him hear." He was implying that it is possible to listen
to stories about God and heaven without really heeding the spiritual issues
behind the words that are being spoken. Jesus' invitation was to hear everything
he said as life-giving and life-enhancing, as the source of life itself.
He also talked about how blessed were the eyes of the people who were able
to see, the ears of those who were able to hear. Then he said, "...Many
prophets and righteous men desired to see what you see, and did not see
it; and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it" (vs. 17). That
reminds us of King David of Israel, the prophet who wrote in Psalm 40 about
his own personal experiences, but ended up speaking truth that went far
beyond his experience. He wrote empowered by the Holy Spirit in anticipation
of what was to happen a thousand years later in the coming of Jesus the
Messiah. David introduced us to the Passion-the atoning work, the death
on the cross-of Jesus and how important it is for us (see Discovery Paper
4424).
The authority of the messianic teacher
Now we're going to be introduced to another prophetic anticipation in
Psalm 78. This time the prophet is going to talk about the teaching ministry
of Jesus Christ. There is a quote in Matthew 13:34-35 from Psalm 78:2: "All
these things [summarizing his preaching ministry, for that day at least]
Jesus spoke to the multitudes in parables, and He was not talking to them
without a parable, so that what was spoken through the prophet might be
fulfilled, saying,
'I will open My mouth in parables;
I will utter things hidden since the foundation of the world.'"
Matthew says that the psalm was predictive of the words that came out of
the mouth of Jesus. We're going to look only at the first eight verses of
Psalm 78, which is the introduction. It is messianic, focusing on the teaching
ministry of Jesus, the One who was to come.
The superscription of Psalm 78 says it is a maskil of Asaph. Whenever
you see a word in Hebrew in your English Bible, it means the translators
didn't know what it meant. Part of the reason this word is confusing is
that it has two different roots. One root has to do with wisdom, learning,
and instruction. So perhaps this a didactic psalm of instruction. But the
word maskil also has a primitive root having to do with music, with
skill in creating harmony. So rather than going either way, to be accurate
the translators simply say maskil.
But when we see who wrote the psalm, Asaph, we get a clue as to the meaning
of the word maskil, because Asaph was a choir master, a leader of
Levitical musicians under King David in the time of temple worship in Israel.
First and Second Chronicles tell us that he had great impact as a leader
in worship in Israel. He was the composer of twelve different psalms that
are in our psalter. He was not only a theologian, someone who wrestled with
God's presence and activity and power through history, but also a skilled
musician. So I would suggest to you that what we're going to enjoy together
is really theology expressed through music. Asaph combines clear understanding
of God and his works with great poetic skill as he creates beautiful word
pictures.
The first eight verses of Psalm 78 fall into three sections. Verses 1-3
introduce us to the authority of the messianic Teacher. Verses 4-5 present
the content of his teaching. And finally verses 6-8 speak of the purpose
of the messianic Teacher.
In verses 1-3 there is a call to attend, to listen carefully. It talks about
the enthusiasm of the teacher as he speaks parabolically, creatively. And
finally it says he speaks in historic continuity; there is nothing innovative
about his ministry.
Listen, O my people, to my instruction;
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.
There are basic keys here that help us understand how to blend all of Scripture
together from Genesis to Revelation, because these three verses tie together
Moses as a teacher in the Pentateuch, and Jesus himself. Asaph stands in
the middle as a wisdom teacher, looking back to Moses and looking forward
to Jesus, which says that Scripture is connected as a wonderful whole. It
takes us "back to the future," if you will.
In Matthew 13, in our passage here, and in the writings of Moses (Deuteronomy
32:1-2), the phrase "the words of my mouth" is used (as it is
throughout the Old Testament) to speak of Torah, God's instruction that
has been placed in the mouth of the teacher. So the teachers are not speaking
on their own authority or making things up. They are speaking as God informs,
teaches, and directs them. So the Teacher says here, "Listen, O my
people, to my instruction," or "what I have to share with you
is a gift from God."
In verse 1 there is a command to listen and then a second command to incline
their ears. Both of these verbs are built on the noun "ears."
It really means to stretch out your ears, to pull them wide open so you
don't miss anything. Jesus himself, as we read earlier in Matthew 13, uses
these same subtleties of Old Testament language when he says, "If you
have ears, use them. Don't miss out on the important things that I have
to say to you." It is possible to miss them!
In working through this last week I was reminded of the first Little League
baseball coach I had in Westfield, Indiana when I was about eight or nine
years old. His name was Paul Bardsley. Paul was a high school student, a
catcher on the varsity baseball team. Because I idolized Paul, I wanted
to be a catcher. I was a little fat kid who was really uncoordinated, yet
Paul treated me with great care, helping me get my equipment on and teaching
me catching technique. He was very personal in relationship. But there were
times in our practices when he would stand up and say, "Listen up,
men!" We were a bunch of little squatty nine-year-olds, yet he honored
us as his men as he called us to attention, his point being, "I have
important things to say to you, and if you don't pay attention you're the
ones who will suffer in the long run." He was a great coach and teacher
because he treated us like important people, but he was tough in confronting
us about important issues that we needed to take seriously. That is really
what the teacher is doing here. He is giving a strong command to work hard
at listening.
He talks in verse 2 about teaching in parables, word pictures and stories
that don't allow us to stay passive, that pull us in. When I was in college
and graduate school it was said of the monological lecture format that it
was possible for the information in the notes of the professor to go to
the notes of the student and then back to the test of the professor without
ever entering either one of our brains. That really is a possibility in
passive listening, in the transferring of information for its own sake.
But the parabolic method of Jesus' teaching doesn't allow that because it
really is learning in process. Jesus said, "Those who have ears to
hear [active listeners] get involved." People would ask Jesus, "What
did you mean by that?" The disciples asked, "Why do you teach
in parables?" (see Matthew 13:10). The listeners were pulled into
his teaching. And for people like that who cared about truth and wanted
to understand, he revealed eternal meaning. But they had to be people who
were genuine learners, who really wanted it to make a difference in their
lives.
Matthew 13 tells us the strange fact that Jesus told stories to hide truth
as well as reveal truth. He did want people to understand about heaven and
hell and God's love and judgment and salvation. But he said, "For whoever
has [that is, whoever acts on what he hears and knows], to him shall more
be given, and he shall have an abundance; but whoever does not have, even
what he has shall be taken from him" (13:12). The more some people
hear, the less they will understand. It is as if there is a law of diminishing
returns; it will make less and less sense. And the people Jesus was talking
about are those of us who sit under truth with no intention of doing anything
about it. Jesus warns us that this is dangerous because our thinking will
start to get muddled; things will become less clear. What we might have
actually understood five or ten years ago will not make sense anymore. For
people like that who become increasingly insensitive to truth, the message
of Jesus can be dulling and damning, the seed of death. "For the heart
of this people has become dull" (13:15). But to people who listen actively
with enthusiasm for what Jesus has to say, it is the message of life; it
is liberating. And the more they learn, the more life makes sense, and the
more they want to know.
That is great news.
Verse 2 of Psalm 78 uses the word utter, which means literally to bubble
over. It is as if the teacher is so full of life and good news that he just
can't keep a lid on it. It bubbles out of him; he has an attractive enthusiasm
for what he does.
Finally, verse 2 says that there is nothing superficial about what he has
to say. Jesus talks about uttering dark sayings, things that have been hidden
since the creation of the world. He deals with the riddles of life, mysteries,
secret things. These are the things that are most important to us, the deepest
issues with which we struggle in ourselves and in our relationships. Jesus
doesn't want to just make us feel better by entertaining us. He wants to
change our lives. So he asks us whether we as learners are willing to go
deep with him and wrestle with these issues.
Although our Teacher says in verse 2 that these things are secret, in verse
3 he says that they really can be understood, because they have been made
known by the spiritually sensitive fathers of previous generations. We see
again a wonderful continuity between Moses, the wisdom teacher of Asaph,
and then a thousand years later Jesus. They all stand in solidarity. God's
word is always new yet old. It is the continual unfolding of that which
has already been.
Remember the creativity and practicality of Jesus' teaching in the Sermon
on the Mount (see Steve Zeisler's Matthew series, Discovery Papers 4403-4416).
The concluding statement in the Sermon on the Mount talks about how astonished
the people were because Jesus taught with authority, not like the scribes
(Matthew 7:28-29). He didn't have to refer to other authorities; there was
an authority within him. Yet it rang true to Old Testament revelation. His
teaching was compelling and powerful, but it was not innovative. He said
himself several times in the gospels that he was completely committed to
the absolute authority of the whole of Old Testament truth. Matthew 5:17-18:
"Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did
not come to abolish, but to fulfill. For truly I say to you, until heaven
and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass away from
the Law, until all is accomplished." I have heard Christians say that
they believe that Jesus brings new truth in the gospel. But the real point
of Jesus' teaching ministry is that in him truth is made clear, revealed
and explained. His teaching displays truth that has been God's gift from
the very beginning. Nothing has changed.
To summarize the authority of the teaching ministry of Jesus, he had the
ability to arrest attention and demand that we listen to something life-changing
and amazingly important. He had enthusiasm and creativity in communication.
Finally, he acknowledged that he stood in a stream of historical continuity.
When I was in junior high school I had a Sunday School teacher for two years
who embodied that authority. Her name was Jo Kennison. She was a young high
school teacher who taught drama, literature, and English. She had a Sunday
School class of twenty squirrely, squirmy, easily distracted junior high
boys and girls. I was one of those junior high boys, who was about ninety-nine
percent hormones. Any Sunday School teacher's ability to arrest my attention
was pretty phenomenal. But there was something about Jo's absolute conviction
of who she was in Christ. She had the ability to demand attention and order,
to demand that we listen and interact. She had the ability to draw things
out of students that still amazes me as I look back through the years. There
was creativity in the way she engaged her students, but she was not an innovator
in what she taught; it was grounded in biblical revelation.
You may know that I have a great love of church history, and since my teenage
years I have read voraciously about God's activity through the two thousand
years of our history as his people in the church. It was Jo Kennison who
introduced me to that great heritage as a seventh grader, if you can believe
it. Seventh graders interested in church history? But it happened. I remember
her reading and telling us great stories from the history of the church
that always focused on God's sovereignty, goodness, and faithfulness to
his church. She once told the story of how Charles the Hammer led French
Christian troops in a decisive battle on the border between France and Spain,
which turned back the Islamic invasion of northern Europe, and of how God
used that battle to protect and preserve Christianity in Europe. That arrested
my attention. So I thank God for Jo Kennison, for her enthusiasm and her
commitment to the authority of the Scriptures, and for how much she emulated
our great Teacher Jesus.
Word-based teaching of God's greatness
Let's move on to verses 4 and 5 and the content of what the Teacher says.
You can be the most creative person in the world, but if what you say is
meaningless or erroneous or dangerous, then creativity doesn't count for
much.
We will not conceal them [these wonderful mysteries] from their
children,
But tell to the generation to come the praises of the LORD,
And His strength and His wondrous works that He has done.
For He established a testimony in Jacob,
And appointed a law in Israel,
Which He commanded our fathers,
That they should teach them to their children....
In these verses Asaph summarizes the important things about God's character
and activity that must be communicated to each new generation. And he says
we are not to conceal truth, but continually communicate God's revelation
of himself and his saving activity throughout human history and in our own
lives.
Now, Asaph wrote for fathers and mothers. He was concerned that parents
understand how important it was to teach their own children. He wanted them
to take seriously their responsibility before the Lord so that each generation
would grow up bathed in life-changing truth. Ron Ritchie has a wonderful
sermon in print on these eight verses in Psalm 78, entitled Our Changeless
Lord's Instructions to Parents (Discovery Paper 3722).
But what I want to emphasize here is the teaching of this eternal wisdom
by Jesus Christ, our great Teacher. There are two things that stand out
in verses 4 and 5 about the essential content of his message. First, in
verse 4 there are three phrases that basically summarize God's activity.
The first phrase is "the praises of the Lord," or his glorious,
praiseworthy deeds. Second, it talks about his "strength," his
might or power. And third, it talks about his "wondrous works,"
or his wonderful, marvelous activity. Eugene Peterson in his paraphrase
of the Psalms says this is Yahweh's "fame and fortune, the marvelous
things he has done." We can consider all the powerful works of God
that have been done in Jewish history, the miraculous interventions that
are worthy of praise and thanksgiving, the events at which his chosen people
could marvel: the Exodus from the nation of Egypt, the giving of the Law
at Mount Sinai, the conquest of the land of Canaan under Joshua, the deliverance
of the nation through the powerful Judges God raised up, the uniting of
the tribes under David. But none of those marvelous works can compare with
the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ by which he brought salvation
to us as individuals. And that event had clear meaning in all of Jesus'
teaching as well.
In John 5 there is an interaction between Jesus and the Jewish leaders,
who were upset over his healing ministry. The power of God was being clearly
demonstrated in wonderful works, and they didn't like it. They also didn't
like Jesus' claiming personal authority from his Father for what he was
doing. He said to the leaders (5:17), "My Father is working until now,
and I Myself am working." He was saying, "The God of the Old Testament's
"wondrous works" is still expressing himself, and I am part of
that expression." John 5:18 says that as a result they decided to kill
him. Listen to Jesus' final response to them (verses 19-21):
"Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of
Himself, unless it is something He sees the Father doing; for whatever the
Father does, these things the Son also does in like manner. For the Father
loves the Son, and shows Him all things that He Himself is doing; and [here
is the heart of it] greater works than these will He show Him, that you
may marvel. For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life,
even so the Son also gives life to whom He wishes."
Jesus was saying, "The resurrection will be the most amazing, awe-producing
event in human history. You're going to marvel!"
Just as Asaph called the people of Israel to marvel at the great works of
God, the resurrection invokes in us awe and wonder and praise of God for
his amazing deeds. Jesus told truth that anticipated his own death and resurrection.
There is a sense in which he knew that the resurrection would authenticate
everything he said.
The second thing that stands out about the essential content of the Teacher's
message, in verse 5, is that it is word-based; that is, the Old Testament
word of God is exalted.
"For He established a testimony in Jacob,
And appointed a law in Israel."
He teaches the commandments of God, the witness of God. Often in his teaching
ministry Jesus would quote the Old Testament: "...For this is the Law
and the Prophets."
So two things comprise the content of what the teacher says: the activity
of God, the character of God, and the power of God exploding everywhere,
which means that the teacher has to have eyes to see God at work; and the
word of God itself, the Torah, the Old Testament, which is filled out and
completed by the New Testament.
I thought this week of another teacher I had who taught as Jesus did. I
grew up in a small church in a little farm town in central Indiana. Victoria
Davis was my Sunday School teacher in elementary school. She was a little
white-haired lady who seemed too fragile to be teaching kids that full of
energy. But when she talked about the strength of God and the awesome, praiseworthy
deeds of God-and she was a great teller of Old Testament stories---she had
an enthusiasm, an excitement, a conviction. She believed what she was talking
about. I can remember her getting energized when she talked, as if she had
become Super-Teacher! It was amazing to watch. She knew the God she was
talking about, and she believed every word that the Scriptures said, which
she was communicating to us.
A part of our Sunday School curriculum was Scripture memorization. There
are pros and cons of that. One negative is that it can be a competitive
thing in which children store up as many verses as possible without having
a clue as to what they mean, just so they can win. But Victoria never introduced
competition. When we memorized a verse, it was a verse she had explained
carefully so that we understood the context for it and what it meant. We
hid God's word away in our hearts. She conveyed a great reverence for the
word of God. It was obvious that Victoria loved the Bible; it wasn't just
information that she was passing on. She had steeped herself in it her entire
life. So it had an ownership over her that was wonderfully compelling.
Trusting, remembering, obeying
We come now to the purpose of the Teacher in verses 6-8. The Teacher knows
why he is doing what he is doing: He wants to present God's character and
his activity so clearly that each new generation will come to know him beyond
a shadow of a doubt and will live in grateful submission to him. The end
of verse 5 says that parents should teach their children the word of God,
the testimony of the Law...
...that the generation to come might know, even the children
yet to be born,
That they may arise and tell them to their children,
That they should put their confidence in God,
And not forget the works of God,
But keep His commandments,
And not be like their fathers,
A stubborn and rebellious generation,
A generation that did not prepare its heart,
And whose spirit was not faithful to God.
In verse 7 there are woven together three purposes of the teacher, or what
the teacher wants to see happen in the lives of the learners. These are
presented as positive goals, while in verse 8 the purpose of the teacher
is presented as a negative statement, a warning about consequences if we
don't take the truth seriously.
Let's look first at how the Teacher wants to help us learn in verse 7. First
of all, he speaks of learning to put our confidence in God, setting our
hope on God and putting our trust in him. And he is talking about personal,
practical confidence in and complete reliance on the God who is with us
and for us and involved with us-not just intellectual or theological assent.
That personal trust in God was a basic issue in Jesus' teaching ministry.
Without it, Jesus said, we live lives that are driven by anxiety. In Matthew
6:30 Jesus defines that as "little faith," and the result of little
faith is not living that is God-confident, but a lifestyle of anxiety about
physical and material needs-worrying about the future, fearing for our health
and welfare.
Listen to the Teacher, Jesus himself, in a wonderful paraphrase by Eugene
Peterson in The Message. :
"If you decide for God, living a life of God-worship, it
follows that you don't fuss about what's on the table at mealtimes or whether
the clothes in your closet are in fashion. There is far more to your life
than the food you put in your stomach, more to your outer appearance than
the clothes you hang on your body. Look at the birds, free and unfettered,
not tied down to a job description, careless in the care of God. And you
count far more to him than birds.
"Has anyone by fussing in front of the mirror ever gotten taller by
so much as an inch? All this time and money wasted on fashion-do you think
it makes that much difference? Instead of looking at the fashions, walk
out into the fields and look at the wildflowers. They never primp or shop,
but have you ever seen color and design quite like it? The ten best-dressed
men and women in the country look shabby alongside them.
"If God gives such attention to the appearance of wildflowers-most
of which are never even seen-don't you think he'll attend to you, take pride
in you, do his best for you? What I'm trying to do here is to get you to
relax, to not be so preoccupied with getting, so you can respond to God's
giving. People who don't know God and the way he works fuss over these things,
but you know both God and how he works. Steep your life in God-reality,
God-initiative, God-provisions. Don't worry about missing out. You'll find
all your everyday human concerns will be met.
"Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don't
get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow. God will help you
deal with whatever hard things come up when the time comes."
This is what it means to "put their confidence in God."
The second purpose of the teacher is to help us learn, in the second phrase
in verse 7, to "not forget the works of God," or his deeds. Two
things are addressed here: cultivating humility before him and a grateful
heart, in order to guard against the danger of forgetting the works of God.
For me, at least, being thankful doesn't come very naturally, and it doesn't
sustain itself very well over the long haul. Remember the story of Jesus'
healing the ten lepers in Luke 17. Jesus was surprised and personally saddened
that only one of them, a Samaritan, came back to thank him. He had restored
everything to them: their physical health, their families, their place in
the community, and their place in worship. In Jesus' own life in the gospels,
over and over again we see him saying, "Father, thank you" for
all kinds of things-relationships, physical provisions, intimacy with the
Father. Jesus not only taught thanksgiving, but he modeled it wonderfully
in his own life.
The third purpose of the teacher in verse 7 is to help people learn to keep
God's commandments. We're back to the Bible again-not just knowing biblical
truth, but surrendering to it, living in dependence on the Scriptures. It
is a matter of cultivating an obedience to the revealed will of God. In
the gospels Jesus placed himself and his teaching on the same level of authority
as the Old Testament (see John 12). And he claimed that he was doing it
out of obedience to his Father. He said in effect, "I'm not just another
good teacher whose morality you can compare and contrast with anybody else's.
I am presenting absolute, ultimate, final truth." He taught his disciples
in the upper room on his last night on earth that obedience to his commandments,
his own teaching, would be evidence that they really did love him. We say
we love him do we do what he asks us to? Do we follow the revelation of
the word of God even though it's tough?
Verse 8 presents the purpose of the Teacher negatively. It is the sounding
of an alarm, a warning against self-destruction. It calls us to self-examination.
And it describes a three-fold cord of dereliction. First, he warns us not
to be stubborn and rebellious. It is possible for God's people to develop
patterns of rebellion, disobedience or bullheadedness. Remember, the Bible
says the wages of that sort of attitude is death, ultimately, in all kinds
of dangerous ways.
The second warning in verse 8 is against faithlessness, or fickleness. That
is really what is meant by the phrase "...a generation that did not
prepare its heart." Their hearts weren't steadfast. It describes a
generation with no firm purpose. The root word means physical infirmity
or ill health. We can make ourselves sick spiritually and emotionally by
disregarding the clear word of God.
Finally, the last word: "...[a generation] whose spirit was not faithful
to God." Their hearts weren't fixed steadfastly. They never stayed
true to God. It describes people who can't be trusted to do the right thing,
who say one thing but do another. And the warning is that patterns like
that will cause us to suffer in the long run.
At least in my young adult life, the teacher who most consistently conveyed
the purpose of Jesus in terms of helping us understand God-confidence, focusing
on God's activity and power within us and through us, calling us always
to biblical obedience, and warning about the consequences of rejecting truth,
was Ray Stedman. As a young man I sat under Ray's preaching and teaching
at the Mount Hermon Conference Center. He always clearly and simply opened
up truth, making things that were complicated plain, making truth accessible,
and always pointed us to God's ultimate purpose in our lives of wanting
to be everything to us.
The remainder of the Psalm, which you can read on your own, is an elaboration
of these purposes of the teacher. Asaph reviewed the history of Israel up
to the time of David so that the people of his day could learn from the
experiences, both bad and good, of the generations before, so they wouldn't
repeat the failures of history. But this psalm becomes as well the psalm
of our great messianic Teacher.
There is an alternation back and forth in Psalm 78 of people hearing truth
from God, benefiting from God's provision, such as the manna in the wilderness
and his deliverance out of Egypt, experiencing God's grace; and then distancing
themselves from it, rejecting it, throwing up barriers. We see the same
thing happening in the teaching ministry of Jesus in the gospels: "Teacher,
we want to hear from you, we want to press around you, but we don't really
want to follow everything you say. We'll be selective in what we like. We'll
pick and choose."
But Jesus kept teaching with authority, conviction, and confidence. He knew
who he was, he knew why he was saying what he was saying, and he knew that
what he was saying was life-changing, supernatural in power. He always told
the truth purposefully. I am really thankful for this pure wisdom of Jesus.
I told you at the beginning how much it affected me this week in bringing
me back to who I am and why I do what I do, to the power of the word of
God.
Jesus was effective and authoritative. It's amazing that Jesus' effectiveness
was predicted a thousand years before by the Levitical musician Asaph. In
his commentary on Psalm 78, John Calvin, the great voice from the Reformation,
still challenges us today to hear the psalm, to hear Jesus speaking through
the gospel and respond: "If in this psalm there shines forth such a
majesty as may justly stir up and enflame the readers with a desire to learn,
we gather from it with what earnest attention it becomes us to receive the
gospel, in which Christ opens and displays to us the treasure of his celestial
wisdom."
In John 6:48-51 Jesus claimed that he was the bread of life and related
it to God's provision of manna in the wilderness, which is referred to here
in Psalm 78. The people received it, but then tired of it and complained
about it. There was the same response in John 6 to Jesus' own claims about
himself. There was consternation, confusion, and finally violent opposition
and rejection. As a matter of fact, John says poignantly (verse 66), "As
a result of this, many of his disciples withdrew and were not walking with
him any more." People who had made confessions of loyalty to Jesus
decided to bail out. Then Jesus turned to the twelve, his inner circle of
relationship and ministry, and asked them if they were going to leave, too.
And Peter made a great confession of faith and of submission to Jesus as
the Teacher. He said (verses 68-69), "Lord, to whom shall we go? You
[alone] have words of eternal life. And we have believed and have come to
know that You are the Holy One of God." I pray that this will be our
confession as well.
Catalog No. 4425
Psalm 78:1-8
Second Message
Doug Goins
March 5, 1995
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