Spiritual Amnesia: The Unfailing Grace for a Forgetful People
Introduction: The Stories That Shape Us
Today is September 11th. It's a date that, for many around the world, is not just another day on the calendar. It’s a day for remembering. It’s a day to tell a story of tragedy, of heroism, and of a world that changed in a moment. That single date is a powerful reminder that stories have power. Forgetting our defining stories is dangerous; it leads to repeating our greatest mistakes and losing the wisdom gained through hardship.
This is true for nations, but it is profoundly true for our faith. We are a people shaped by a story. Psalm 78 is one of the longest psalms because it is a divinely commanded history lesson. It is a raw, unvarnished story that God commanded His people to tell their children and their children's children. It is not a fairy tale of perfect heroes; it is the honest story of a people with spiritual amnesia and the God whose memory of grace never fails.
This psalm is God's lesson plan, teaching us why we must tell our story, what our story looks like, and where our story ultimately finds its hope.
I. The Mandate: Why We Must Tell the Story
The psalm begins not with a story, but with a command to listen and a charge to teach. Asaph, the psalmist, makes the purpose of this long history lesson crystal clear.
A. A Command for Intergenerational Faithfulness
He insists that the story of God's works is not a private secret to be kept, but a sacred inheritance to be passed down. Verse 4: "We will not hide them from their children, shewing to the generation to come the praises of the LORD, and his strength, and his wonderful works that he hath done."
This is not a passive process. Faith is not passed down through genetic osmosis. It must be intentionally shown, spoken, and told. It's the sacred duty of parents and elders to sit down with the young and tell them, "Let me tell you about our God. Let me tell you what He has done."
B. The Goal is Godly Hope
But what is the ultimate goal of all this storytelling? It’s not just to create good historians. Verse 7 gives the beautiful, four-part answer: "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."
The goal is to give the next generation a spiritual anchor. In a world of shifting values and confusing philosophies, the stories of God's faithfulness are what allow our children to set their hope in something solid, to remember His power in their own trials, and to break the destructive cycles of the past.
II. The Pattern: What the Story Reveals
When we look at the actual history the psalm recounts, we see two powerful, competing cycles at work, a tragic human pattern and a glorious divine one.
A. The Cycle of Human Forgetfulness
The bulk of this psalm is a painful, repeating pattern of human failure. I call it the "Miracle-Murmur-Mercy" cycle.
God provides a miracle: He splits the Red Sea. He brings water gushing from a rock. He rains down manna from heaven, which the psalmist calls "angels' food."
The people forget and murmur: Incredibly, in a short time, they "forgat his works, and his wonders that he had shewed them" (v. 11). Forgetting His past provision, they grumble about their present circumstances, test His patience, and fall into rebellion.
God shows mercy, which begins the cycle again.
This is a painfully honest diagnosis of the human condition. We suffer from spiritual amnesia. We pray desperately for a financial breakthrough, and when God provides it, a few months later we are consumed with anxiety about money, having completely forgotten His faithfulness. We see God heal a loved one, and the next time a cough starts, we descend into faithless panic. This psalm holds up a mirror, and in it, we see ourselves.
B. The Cycle of God's Faithful Compassion
But woven into this tragic story of human failure is a far more powerful and stubborn story of divine grace. After every account of rebellion, there is a glorious "But God..." moment. The most beautiful is in verses 38-39: "But he, being full of compassion, forgave their iniquity, and destroyed them not: yea, many a time turned he his anger away... For he remembered that they were but flesh."
This is the central contrast: we kept forgetting His goodness, but He kept remembering our weakness. His memory of His own covenant love is the antidote to our spiritual amnesia. God's grace is more relentless than our rebellion.
III. The Hope: Where the Story Leads
After recounting generations of this painful cycle, the story could have ended in final judgment. Instead, God acts in sovereign grace to break the cycle and provide a lasting hope.
A. God's Sovereign Choice
The psalm says, "the Lord awaked as one out of sleep" (v. 65). After centuries of the people's failures, God Himself intervened decisively. He rejected the unfaithful centers of power and in grace, He chose a new place, Mount Zion, and a new tribe, Judah, from which His salvation would be known.
B. God's Shepherd King
Most importantly, God chose David his servant. He took him from the humble occupation of caring for sheep and made him the shepherd of His people, Israel. God’s ultimate answer to the faithlessness of the flock was to provide a faithful shepherd. David, though a flawed man, was a man after God's own heart who would lead the people with skill and integrity.
C. The True Shepherd
This choice of a shepherd-king in the Old Testament is a giant arrow pointing us forward to our ultimate hope. The cycle of human forgetfulness was only truly and finally broken by the coming of the perfect Shepherd-King, Jesus Christ. David, the first shepherd-king, failed. But Jesus, the Good Shepherd, is perfect. He is the one with a pure heart, who is always steadfast in His covenant. He is the one who lays down His life for His forgetful sheep. David was the promise; Jesus is the glorious fulfillment.
Conclusion: Be a Storyteller of Grace
Psalm 78 is a call for us to be honest historians of our own faith. We must remember and we must tell the whole story: our repeated failure due to spiritual amnesia, God's relentless faithfulness and compassion, and the ultimate hope we have in our perfect Shepherd, Jesus.
What is your role in this great, ongoing story?
Remember: Take time this week to intentionally recall a specific "manna moment" in your life—a time when God clearly provided for you. Write it down so you don't forget.
Repent: Honestly confess to God not just your individual sins, but the root sin of forgetting His goodness and grace in your life.
Tell: Who is the "next generation" in your life? Your child, a younger believer, a non-Christian friend? Find an opportunity this week to tell them a piece of your story. It doesn’t have to be a sermon. It can be as simple as, "Let me tell you about a time I was so worried, and how God showed up." Be a storyteller of His unfailing grace.
