Back in the 1800s, there was a famous preacher by the name of Peter Cartwright. Cartwright was known to be a very bold and uncompromising preacher, and one day the President of US - Andrew Jackson - was going to visit his congregation. But the elders were concerned and warned Cartwright: “You need to be careful when you preach. We don’t want you to offend the President of the US.”
Satisfied that they’d convinced him not to embarrass the President, the elders retired to the back of the sanctuary. When Cartwright got up to speak, the first words out of his mouth were these: “I understand that President Andrew Jackson is here this morning and I have been requested to be very guarded in my remarks. Let me say this: Andrew Jackson will go to hell if doesn’t repent of his sin!”
The entire congregation was appalled. The Elders were angry, and they ALL thought to themselves: “How could our preacher publicly offend the President of the USA?
After the service, Andrew Jackson walked up and met Cartwright face to face. Jackson had been a General in US Army, the hero of the Battle of New Orleans – and he was a man you did not mess with. Jackson sternly looked that preacher in the eye and said, “Sir, If I had a regiment of men like you, I could conquer the world!”
THAT IS THE MESSAGE OF GOD! (showing a meme by Mark Driscoll) “Death is real, Sin is real, Evil is real, Pain is real, God is real, Salvation is real, Forgiveness is Real, and Healing is real.”
THAT’S THE MESSAGE!
John Wesley once said the same thing: “Give me one hundred preachers (who believe that!!!) who fear nothing but sin, and desire nothing but God, and (they) will shake the gates of hell ….”
In this morning’s text, we read the words of a man named Asaph. Asaph confronted Israel with the reality of sin and the importance of desiring nothing but God. And he essentially told Israel (see footnote) you need to pay attention, because if you don’t - people will go to hell!
Asaph feared nothing but sin and desired nothing but God!
Here in the 78th Psalm Asaph used the name of the tribe of Ephraim to represent the attitudes of the entire nation, and he declared: “The Ephraimites, armed with the bow, turned back on the day of battle. They did not keep God’s covenant but refused to walk according to his law. They forgot his works and the wonders that he had shown them.” Psalm 78:9-11
He said that they had turned back in the day of battle… but I don’t think he’s referring to a MORTAL battle with a physical enemy. I think he’s talking about a MORAL conflict with spiritual consequences. He says Israel hadn’t KEPT God’s covenant. They’d refused to WALK according to the Law. They’d FORGOTTEN what God had done for them. God had armed them for a SPIRITUAL battle, and they just walked away. They surrendered. they threw down the weapons of righteousness and gave up to the enemy.
In this Psalm, Asaph told of the number of times that the Israelites had grumbled and complained against God. Times when they’d made sacrifices to pagan idols. Times when they’d done evil and immoral things… thinking that God wouldn’t care. But of course, God did care… and the people suffered because of their disobedience.
You know, I’ve heard a number of preachers (over the years) who have railed against the immorality and sin in our nation. They beat up on their audience and tell them what losers they are because they stood back and let it happen. They’ll berate their audience saying “You need to change your lives.”
And there’s a time for that kind of thing, but Asaph doesn’t seem to be focusing on his audience’s sins, as much as he was telling his audience how they could turn the tide. How they could defeat evil. How they could fix what was broken in their nation.
He says: “Give ear, O my people, to my teaching; incline your ears to the words of my mouth!” (Psalm 78:1) Pay attention, and I’ll tell you how you can prepare for the battle!
And how were they going to prepare? Asaph said that … “(God) appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers to teach to their children, that the next generation might know them, the children yet unborn, and arise and tell them to their children, so that they should set their hope in God and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments; and that they should not be like their fathers, a stubborn and rebellious generation, a generation whose heart was not steadfast, whose spirit was not faithful to God.” Psalm 78:5-8
So, how do you turn the tide of evil in this world? Well, you teach your children about God!!!!
Years ago, Ronald Reagan made this powerful observation: “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass (freedom) to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States --- where men were free.”
In other words: That which is important – whether it is freedom or faith – is never more than ONE GENERATION away from extinction. Your children (grandchildren, nephews and nieces) won’t pick up your faith by osmosis. It’s not something that will flow into their bloodstream. It’s taught… not caught.
And that was what Asaph saying here. Speak to the children about God.
Well, how do we do that? Well we learn from Israel’s mistakes – mistakes WE don’t want to make.
1st – they didn’t take THEIR faith seriously --- Asaph writes: “(Israel) flattered him with their mouths; and they lied to him with their tongues. Their heart was not steadfast toward him; they were not faithful to his covenant.” Psalm 78:36-37
They were pretending to be righteous, but they weren’t serious. There’s a word for that: it’s called “hypocrisy.” It’s hard to tell kids about God if you and I not serious about God ourselves. When we’re hypocritical about our faith, it kind of “leaks” through.
Someone once said “Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them.” James Baldwin
So, the question is… what does hypocrisy look like? Some of the most obvious is when a Christian gets drunk, or uses a lot of foul language, or tells dirty jokes. Or when they mistreat people down at the store, or wherever.
But some of the LESS obvious forms of hypocrisy is when kids watch us skip church because we see it as optional. Or complaining about decisions the church has made. Or when they hear us speaking bad things about others in church. Christians ought not to talk bad about others. God says we need to fix the issues we have with each other, rather than let them fester.
Basically, hypocrisy is behavior that would make a kid say “why would I want YOUR GOD? “Why would I want to go to YOUR CHURCH”? “If you’re not happy with your God & His church, and you’re not committed to your faith, why would I want to do that?”
You don’t want to push kids away… you want to entice them, excite them, challenge them, and draw them in to Jesus with your passion. Let’s face it - if it’s not important to you… it won’t be important to them.
Another of the mistakes of ancient Israel did was that they didn’t think their God could do anything. Psalm 78:41,42 (NKJV) says: “(They) limited the Holy One of Israel. They did not remember His power.” The ancient Israelites often questioned whether God had any power, and they lived their lives as if GOD DIDN’T EXIST!!!
There are people who are like that today. There are people who go to church all their lives and never bother with God because – for them – He really doesn’t exist.
ILLUS: Have you ever seen one of those Jack-in-boxes? You turn the crank, and you turn it, and you turn it… and suddenly JACK EXPLODES out of the box. Kids love it because they never know when it’s gonna happen. They know it’s going to happen… they just don’t know when! And it’s the anticipation of that explosive power that intrigues them. You and I need to believe in a God of EXPLOSIVE POWER, and we need to find a way to communicate God’s power to the young. THEN, they’ll learn to love Him and learn to expect to see Him in their lives.
If you act like God can’t do anything, why should children believe in Him? How can you convince them that God has power? Well, you can tell stories out of the Bible, or you can tell stories of how God has worked in your life, or in the lives of others. OR, you can tell stories about how God worked in their lives. Just help them see a God with explosive power… and they’re lives will never be the same.
ILLUS: Years ago, I was the Dean of a week of camp for 4th and 5th graders in Ohio, and a young couple in our church had volunteered to be in charge of games that week. The camp was just a few miles from their home and they’d come and run the games and then go home to sleep in their own beds. Christie (the wife) was “very” pregnant, and the first night of camp was “very hot”, and when Christie got up the next morning she found that her uterus had bled a bit the night before… and that was not a good thing. They went to the doctor that morning and he was not encouraging. He explained that the child had detached from the uterus during the night and that there was a slim chance the child would not survive. He suggested that she go home and stay in bed in the hopes the child would reattach itself to her uterus.
Gary (her husband) dutifully came to camp to run the games, but he was very distracted. He asked me if I would pray for Christie (he didn’t like to pray out loud) and I explained that if he was ever going to pray aloud… now was the time. Then we announced the problem to 4th and 5th graders during one of their worship times, and I asked them to pray for Christie.
The thing about 4th and 5th graders is – if you ask them to pray, they take it seriously and they prayed for Christie all during the day. The next day, Gary and Christie went back to the doctor… and he shocked them by announcing that baby had reattached itself to the womb and that there were no problems now. They could go back to doing what they’d done before they’d come to him the first time. So they returned to camp and told the kids about God’s miracle. The youth there had taken part in a miracle because God had answered their prayers for Christie. And there were more baptisms that week than I’d ever seen before or since.
The LAST MISTAKE Israel made was to believe God didn’t care for them. Psalm 78:38-39 “But He, being full of compassion, forgave their iniquity, and did not destroy them. Yes, many a time He turned His anger away, and did not stir up all His wrath; for He remembered that they were but flesh, a breath that passes away and does not come again.”
You and I need to talk to kids about a God who forgives us. A God who wants to love us. And maybe we can do that by explaining to them how God forgave US when we failed. Or tell them about why we decided to become Christians. Or – maybe – just use a teachable moment.
ILLUS: About a year ago, my grandson Benjamin came to me and asked “If I tell you what I did… will you still love me?” He was more worried about my loving him than he was about whatever he’d done. And I used that incident to tell him about God and his love for us.
CLOSE: So, essentially, we turn the tide of evil… by teaching the children about God. We do it every week here at Sunday School and Jr. Church, and our midweek JAM program, and with our older Youth in church. And you have the opportunity to do that every week with your neighbor kids and with your own kids (and grandkids, nephews and nieces). But our goal is to get children to want our God. To want His love and His forgiveness and to obtain a place in heaven. And to do that, we need to communicate to them how much WE need Jesus.
ILLUS: I read the story of an old-time evangelistic meeting where speaker was explaining what it means to abide in Christ and to trust Him completely. Concluding his message, he REPEATED this phrase several times, “No matter what our circumstances we need to keep on saying, ‘For this I have Jesus.’
Unbeknownst to him, the young lady who’d playing the piano that night had just received a telegram before the service that read, “Mother is very ill; take train home immediately.” Suddenly she was overwhelmed with fear. She’d never traveled that far alone before. She wasn’t sure whether her mother would live or die. And she had no control over what was going to happen next in her life.
But then she’d heard the words “For this I have Jesus…” and it touched her heart. She said “When I saw heard those words, I knew that that message was meant just for me. My heart looked up and said, ‘For this I have Jesus.’ And instantly a peace and strength flooded my soul.”
That is the message we need to speak to the children. We need to tell them of a God who has power, and who can love us, and who can change OUR lives. And that will help turn the tide of evil in this world.
INVITATION
Footnote: The Psalm is addressed to “Ephraim” (the name of one of the 12 tribes of Israel) which many commentaries believe is a term used here to describe the entire nation of Israel. They represent the errant attitudes that were an undercurrent amongst the tribes even in the days of David (when Asaph lived).
We’re told that Asaph was a man who was skilled in music, who probably led worship in the house of God during the days of King David and that he was a "seer" (or prophet of God). If you do a search – you’ll find Asaph wrote 12 of the Psalms. This Psalm is the 2nd longest in Scripture (right behind Ps. 118)
