I'm just like you. I'm a man just like you are if you're a man. I'm a person. Just like everyone out there, I'm a lot of things in this life. I'm a worker.

I'm a friend. I'm a leader in a local church. I'm a husband, and I'm a father. But I'm convinced from my understanding of scripture that marriage and fatherhood are my primary callings. And it's because of the clarity and the overwhelming amount of content that the scripture gives to these two things.

Our callings as men are so crystal clear, are so abundantly described in the scriptures, that I would gladly put aside all of these other things that I am to give the core of my energy. I would gladly resign my post as an elder in a local church. I'd gladly change jobs if I had to, because it's so clear from the scriptures that a husband and a father has these particular responsibilities and duties that have been given to them by God. They're so critical in the life of the church and in the life of the world. This is a beautiful passage that we have in Psalm 78.

And the author of Psalm 78, Asaph, is calling us. When I say us, I mean husbands and fathers. He's calling us to open our mouths, to be full of content for blessing in our homes. And when we do open our mouths, what are we to say? Well, Asaph answers it in great detail in Psalm 78, But Paul also addresses the question.

In 2 Timothy 3 Paul writes this to Timothy, but you must continue in the things which you have learned and been assured of knowing from whom you've learned them and that from childhood you have known the holy scriptures which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. All scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work." And so the words of Paul here to Timothy serve as a great New Testament introduction to a great Old Testament psalm. In Psalm 78, Asaph, the psalmist, is exhorting fathers to use the incomparable Word of God as a mighty weapon for the training and equipping of their children and for their children's children. And Paul writes to Timothy that the Holy Scriptures are able to make us wise for salvation through faith in Jesus, that they're profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, resulting in what? Resulting in maturity and resulting in usefulness of the here.

And isn't this what we want for our children? That our children would have a right understanding of God, that they would have faith in Christ, and that they would be made mature, that their progress would be evident, their progress would be evident to all, that they would be mature and that they would become useful. This is what our weekend is about. It's not about learning nifty fatherhood techniques that will make our home life more neat and tidy, our children more obedient, our churches having just minor adjustments made to the institutional side of them where at the heart of it, Nothing changes. This is about our quest to be humble under the mighty hand of God and allow His Word to be a mighty instrument in our homes for bringing our children in faith and then to maturity and then to usefulness in the kingdom of God.

Let's pray. Heavenly Father, as we approach this text that you've given us, we give you thanks for your word. How good it is that you have not left us to our own devices, but you've given us a rich repository of truth for our blessing, for our good. Help us to approach it with a desire to be under its authority, to be conformed to it, so that we might receive the good that you intended for your people when you gave this psalm to Asaph. We praise you for giving us your word.

We're thankful for it. We desire to be faithful stewards to it by being obedient in faith. In Jesus' name, Amen. Going into the study, I was generally ignorant about Asaph, the author of Psalm 78. And my study has really opened my eyes of what a significant figure that Asaph was.

He wrote 12 of the Psalms. So he wrote roughly 10% of the Psalms. And if you want to go back, if this time proves to be a blessing to you, and You want to go back and see more of what Asaph wrote. He wrote Psalm 50, and then he wrote Psalm 73 through 83. And of the 150 Psalms, other than Psalm 119, our Psalm for today, Psalm 78, is the longest.

So it's a rich deposit, and it's a long deposit. And it tells fathers much of what they need to do about how we should be operating in our homes. Asaph was a Levite who King David appointed to minister before the Ark of the Lord. And this is shown in 1 Chronicles 16. I'll read some portions of it.

And he appointed some of the Levites to minister before the Ark of the Lord, to commemorate, to thank, and to praise the Lord God of Israel. Asaph the chief, and then there's a list of names. And then continuing in verse 37. So he left Asaph and his brothers there before the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord to minister before the ark regularly as every day's work required. So King David puts this contingent of men to minister and praise before the ark of the Lord.

Doesn't that sound like a good job? That's the job I want. Sign me up. And Asaph is leading this contingent of men. Now, we fast forward about 300 years.

David reigned about 1, 000 BC. And so 300 years later, around 700 BC, Hezekiah assumes the throne of Judah. And he begins to reform Judah, and he begins to reform Jerusalem. And there is a return of temple worship for the people of God. Second Chronicles says this.

Moreover, King Hezekiah and the leaders commanded the Levites to sing praise to the Lord with the words of David and of Asaph the seer. So they sang praises with gladness, and they bowed their heads and worshiped." And so during the time of King David, Asaph was a great blessing and gave this great deposit that 300 years later proves to be a blessing. And then thousands of years later, we again have it to look at it and to see what God would say to fathers about how we should operate in our home. We're going to spend quite a bit of time in verses one through eight. Obviously, There are 72 verses.

We can't go verse by verse, nor would you have that desire tonight. But we will go verse by verse in 1 through 8. So if you closed your Bibles, you should open up your Bibles again and keep your fingers in 1 through 8, because we will be going verse by verse. And I'd like to read it again so that we're laying our eyes on this critical portion of the text. Psalm 78 verses 1 through 8.

Give ear, O my people, to my law. 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. We will not hide them from their children, telling to the generation to come the praises of the Lord and his strength and his wonderful 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 make them known to their children.

That the generation to come might know them, the children who would be born, that they may arise and declare them to their children. That they may set their hope in God and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments. It may not be like their fathers, a stubborn and rebellious generation, a generation that did not set its heart aright and whose spirit was not faithful to God." So let's break this down verse by verse. Verse 1 we see it's an exhortation. Asaph says, give ear, listen to what I'm saying, I'm going to tell you something that's pivotal, and so he exhorts the people to incline their ears to his instruction.

And then in verse 2, he says, I will open my mouth. And this is the takeaway. Modern evangelical men have become great repositories of treasure, but there's no dispensing. We hear wonderful sermons. We do our individual Bible study time.

And yet, when it comes time for the deposit to be given to our children, who are our charges? We're silent, and it's outsourced to someone else. Brothers and sisters, this is wrong. Asaph says, I will open my mouth. And he's exhorting fathers to open their mouth to tell the great history of God to their children and to impart this blessing of the Word of God to the next generation and the next generation and the next generation.

Verses 2 and 3, when Asaph says parable, he's communicating that he's going to use these historical stories from our fathers to teach important lessons that our children need to know. God has given us these stories for a specific purpose. And Paul addresses this in 1 Corinthians. He talks about the great stories that Asaph is referencing in Psalm 78. Paul says this to the Corinthians.

Moreover, brethren, I do not want you to be unaware that all our fathers were under the cloud, all passed through the sea, all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink, for they drank of that spiritual rock that followed them. And that rock was Christ. But with most of them, God was not well pleased, for their bodies were scattered in the wilderness. Now these things became our examples to the intent that we should not lust after evil things as they also lusted. And do not become idolaters as were some of them.

As it is written, the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play. Nor let us commit sexual immorality as some of them did and in one day 23, 000 fell nor let us tempt Christ as some of them also tempted and were destroyed by serpents nor complain as some of them also complained and were destroyed by the destroyer. Now all these things happened to them as examples and they were written for our admonition upon whom the ends of the ages have come. Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall." Paul says that these tales of God's faithfulness in the Old Testament, and not only God's faithfulness, but the people of God's unfaithfulness are for our warning and our admonition. And in verses 4 and 5 then, Asaph turns to the multigenerational purpose of all of what he's saying, that the next generation would know God, His praises, His strength, and the rich history of His wondrous works and His faithfulness towards His people.

Here's the thing with the next generation. It's just like tomorrow. It's always a day away, isn't it? The next generation is out in the future. And when a baby is born, it's not the next generation anymore.

The baby is here. The next generation is still out in the future. What that means for us is when we think in terms of multi-generational faithfulness, We think in terms of the next generation. Our work is never done. There's never a time where we ride off in the sunset in our Winnebago to go to the ends of the Earth for our own pleasures, because there's a deposit to be given to the next generation.

Our work is always before us. And it's not a burden, but it's a blessing that God has given to us. John Calvin says this. What we have been taught by our ancestors, we should endeavor to transmit to their children. By this means, all pretense of ignorance is removed.

For it was the will of God that these things should be published from age to age without interruption so that being transmitted from father to child and each family they might reach even the last family of man The end for which this was to be done is shown that they might celebrate the praises of Jehovah in the wonderful works which he hath done." Isn't this a beautiful way of saying it, that God's intent is that this great deposit of his faithfulness would be known from generation to generation, from age to age, so that it would even reach the last family on earth. In verses 5 and 6, we see that this multigenerational purpose has been commanded by God. It says this, verse 5, for he established a testimony in Jacob and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers, that they should make them known to their children that the generation to come might know them the children who would be born that they may arise and declare them to their children don't you see that this is an imperative this is not a divine suggestion This is a divine commandment that fathers would rise up and take the word of God in their hands and impart it faithfully to their children.

Let's count the generations here. Which he commanded our fathers, generation one, that they should make them known to their children, second generation, that the generation to come might know them, the children who would be born, third generation, that they may arise and declare them to their children, for generations, 100 years of passing down the faithfulness of God, the message of hope in Christ from generation to generation for 100 years, and then another 100, and then another 100, so that 1, 000 generations might know of the faithfulness of our God. Isaiah said exactly the same thing which should not surprise us. Isaiah says this, as for me says the Lord this is my covenant with them My spirit who is upon you and my words which I have put in your mouth shall not depart from your mouth nor from the mouth of your descendants nor from the mouth of your descendants' descendants says the Lord from this time and forevermore so the message is If you only teach your children to know God, then the job is half done. God has something bigger and something more glorious for you and for me than that.

I need to be telling my children the great things of God. And as best as I know how to see the gospel effectively planted in their lives so that they would turn their hearts Godward that there would be repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ as Paul says in Acts 20 and this is critical and this is obviously step one isn't it obvious that that's step one but it's a multi-step process This is a train the trainer program. We're training trainers. Our children are going to arise and be parents. And so we're training the trainers.

I don't know if any of you have ever, in conjunction with your work, gone to an outside training class. You just meet at a hotel and you learn about something. Those generally for a one or two day is $200, $300. But if you sign up for a train the trainer program, are they $200 and $300? No, they're $1, 000.

They're $1, 500. Why? Because there's more course content? No. Why?

Because there's more time involved? No. It's because there's more value. When you're going and they train you to then pass it on within your company, they know that the value goes way up. And it's the same in the kingdom of God.

We're in a train the trainer program so that it's not just imparting it to our children, but we're training a trainer so that they're ready when it's their turn to take the word of God into their hands and faithfully impart it to their children. These things aren't foreign to them. They know that it's natural to them because they saw it. They were on your knee and they learned it. Verse 7 is the punch line.

Verse 7 is the punch line. It gives us the end game. That they may set their hope in God and not forget the works of God but keep His commandments. That they may set their hope in God. Let's be crystal clear.

Faith is at the center of Psalm 78. Faith is at the center. Confidence in God that they may set their hope in God. Not head knowledge, not good behavior, not baseball and apple pie and Chevrolet and all the things that we can affirm, but faith in God, confidence in Him. This must be the goal of our instruction, that through the recounting of the faithfulness of God to His people and through the recounting of the unfaithfulness, that they would know their God, that they would see Him as a faithful covenant-keeping God, and that it would give them confidence.

Every morning when they wake up, they would know. Every night when they go to bed, they would know that their God is faithful, that they can put their hope in Him. Verse 8, Asaph says, and may not be like their fathers. And may not be like their fathers. So we see two prongs here.

One is we teach the history of God. We teach about God and what He's done in history. His greatness, His goodness, His faithfulness, His wrath, His discipline, His mercy. And we teach so that our children will have confidence in him, that they'll trust him and have a true understanding of him. Isn't this a problem today?

Don't we have a whole generation rising up who have a defanged, declawed God who's small and who's easily manipulated? This is not the God of the Bible. And so we teach about God. We teach about the histories that God has given us so that our children will have a right sense of God. So they won't create an idol and then worship it, but they'll worship the God of the Bible.

And that's one prong. And then on the other prong, we teach the history of our fathers, how they provoked God, how they gave him lip service, how they grumbled against him in unbelief, how they disdained his provisions and abandoned our God to follow after idols. We teach so that our children might avoid the terrible sins of our fathers. There's great, great value in negative examples and we shouldn't neglect that. We should teach about God so they know He's faithful, so they'll put their hope in Him.

And we should teach about our fathers so they'll know how unfaithful they can be, so that they see the negative examples and what happens when people abandon God, when they grumble against Him. So a summary of verses 1 through 8. Five main points. One, we're exhorted to listen. This is important instruction.

Asaph has high regard for his counsel here, and he's calling the people to listen. Number two, this is a history lesson with the purpose that all generations might know about God and thereby put their faith in Him. It's a history lesson with a very specific purpose and the purpose is hoping in God. Number three, passing on this history lesson isn't a suggestion. It is a commandment.

Asaph gives it as an imperative. Number four, passing on this history lesson isn't enough. Our calling is to train the trainer. Four generations Asaph gives his visibility to. He's calling us to multi-generational faithfulness.

Number five, obedience here helps to keep us and our children from the sins of our fathers. We must understand the history of Israel so that we can understand the seeds that are in our own heart and we know to flee from these things. So God has given us a message for the generations. And what does God desire this multi-generational message to be? What should be the content of our message?

I'm going to scroll through these. There are five things. And really, this is just looking through the rest of the verses in Psalm 78 multiple times and then just categorizing them. If you did the same exercise, you'd come up with a very similar result because you see dominant themes emerging. And these are the dominant themes.

There are five of them. One, don't forget. Number two, God has been faithful to His people. Number three, learn from the sins of our fathers. And by the way, if you're getting writer's grant, don't worry, we're going to go back through these point by point.

So don't worry. Learn from the sins of our fathers. Number four, God judges his enemies and he disciplines his children. And lastly, God is full of mercy. Number one, don't forget, Asaph hammers this home time after time.

In verses 9 through 11 we see this, the children of Ephraim being armed and carrying bows turned back in the day of battle. They did not keep the covenant of God. They refused to walk in His law and forgot His works and His wonders, which He had shown them. Fresh out of the introduction, 1 through 8, Asaph immediately launches into the example of the tribe of Ephraim, who although they were well-equipped, skilled warriors, they fled in the day of battle. They turned back.

They didn't keep covenant and they refused to walk in His law. And why? Verse 11 says they forgot His works and His wonders that He had showed them. We get the actual account of this in 1 Samuel 4, verse 10. The Philistines attack Shiloh, which is a city in Ephraim.

And it says, every man fled to his tent. The Philistines attack. And instead of standing and fighting with the Lord on their side, every man fled to his tent and there was a great slaughter and the ark of the Lord, the symbol of the presence of God, is taken from Israel." Same theme, forgetting, verse 40 through 42, Asaph returns to this theme. How often they provoked him in the wilderness and grieved him in the desert. Yes, again and again they tempted God and limited the Holy One of Israel.

They did not remember His power the day when He redeemed them from the enemy." The people of Israel rebelled against God again and again in the wilderness. Why did they rebel? They rebelled because they forgot. And this is a warning to us about how easy it is for us to forget. This isn't just an obscure story about those rascals, the Israelites.

The point of the story is that we're rascals, just like the Israelites. That the same seeds that caused them to forget the great bounty of God and His protection for His people, and the wonderful works that He would do to redeem them, to rescue them from slavery, would be forgotten in a moment. Our children must know how easy it is for us to forget our God, what He's done. Our great deliverance one day is forgotten the next. Psalm 78 is echoing Deuteronomy 6.

We hear it in Psalm 78 and it's just echoing the great passage, the great Shema that most Israelites would be reciting twice a day. And Moses and Asaph sound the voice of God to give us the antidote for this great plague called forgetfulness. And these words, which I command you today, shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes.

You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates." Matthew Henry says this, there are some days made remarkable by signal deliverances which ought never to be forgotten, for the remembrance of them would encourage us in our greatest straits. We teach our children to remember so that in their greatest straits they would remember and instead of fleeing to their tents They would trust in God and have faith in his ability to deliver. Number two, God has been faithful to his people. Verses 12 through 16 talks of the escape from Egypt, the great deliverance of God, delivering his people out of slavery. And it talks about water in the desert from a rock.

Verses 23 through 25 talk about manna from heaven. A million people maybe out in the desert with no supply lines and they're given manna from heaven. God has been faithful to His people. Verses 44 through 55, the plagues of Egypt, the details of their great deliverance from slavery, and the conquest of Canaan. Verses 68 through 72, Judah, chosen as his dwelling, and David, given as a faithful king who would protect and shepherd his people.

God has been faithful to his people at every turn, and the Old Testament history bears it out and builds confidence in God. Number three, learn from the sins of our fathers. Asaph pleads that we would listen and not become like our fathers. And so we'd have to ask, in what way should we not become like our fathers? I've plucked out 11.

I'm going to go faster than you can write. So just enjoy the 11. You can come back to them just by looking at Psalm 78 later, if you'd like. Number one, they were stubborn and they were rebellious. You see the same thing over and over and over again in Psalm 78.

And that's certainly true of the Old Testament history, isn't it? You just see the same thing cycling. Number two, they did not set their heart aright and whose spirit was not faithful to God. This was an unfaithful people. And they had heart problems.

They should have been turning their hearts towards God, and they did not. They did not set their hearts aright. Number three, they forgot God's history of faithfulness towards them. We've already talked about that. Number four, they ignored God's goodness.

God was showering on them blessing after blessing, and immediately they would be unfaithful. Number five, they put God to the test in their hearts by asking for things according to their own desire. Verse 18 talks about their request for food for their fancy. Not provision, not meeting of necessities, but they wanted dainties. They grumbled against God.

We'll talk more about this in a minute. Number six, they spoke against God in unbelief. Number seven, they ignored God's discipline. He disciplined them and they gave him lip service but they never really turned in their hearts. Number eight, they lied to God giving him lip service.

Number nine, they grieved God with the persistence of their rebellion. Verses 40 and 41, how often they provoked him. Verse 41, again and again they tempted him. Number 10, they tested and provoked the Most High God. Isn't this striking language?

It's like Asaph is just screaming to us, what is the insanity of this? That we would test and grieve the Most High God. What person in their right mind would set themselves up against the most high God, the maker of heaven and earth? And we need to impart this to our children so that they would see the madness of rebellion against God, of not submitting to his kind intentions toward us. And finally, number 11, they provoked God by giving away his glory to idols.

He had been their great deliverer, and they give away his glory to something that's not a god at all. And please notice this, that it goes in cycles, and you could probably look back on your own personal history and affirm that, that you have seen these cycles in your life, And the cycle goes something like this. God does something spectacular out of his love and kindness. And things are just wonderful for a while. We're on the peak of the mountain, and we're faithful because we just saw it.

And we're serving the Lord. And then the people forget. And they get drowsy, and they give their attention to other things, because it's just not fresh anymore. And they provoke the Lord a little at first, just a little, but then they don't see a response and so they provoke Him more and more and it becomes a habit. And finally, God must discipline them and He does.

And many times it's catastrophic. And then he has mercy on them, and he restores them to his favor. And many times, many times in Psalm 78, we see that it just starts the cycle all over again. Well, why would I talk about the cycle? Because we need to give our children the lenses to see these cycles with so they can see where they are so they have a way to troubleshoot their own heart when they see complacency beginning to creep into their hearts.

They have joy in the Lord, they're serving the Lord wholeheartedly, and then they begin to see some complacency creep in. And if they know the cycles from the Old Testament histories, they'll be able to recognize it and troubleshoot it and repent and turn before they must be disciplined. Psalm 32 says this, it's beautiful. I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go. I will guide you with my eye.

Do not be like the horse or like the mule, which have no understanding, which must be harnessed with bit and bridle, else they will not come near you. What God desires is a people that He can shepherd with the glance of His eye. Have you ever seen a really well-functioning household work this way, where the instructions are being given with glances? And you just marvel because mom or dad, they are giving instructions without words. And the children just understand.

And they go, and they know. And they are attentive to their parents. They're desiring to be obedient to their parents. And words don't have to be spoken. This is what the Lord desires from us, not that He would have to come and put a bit in our mouths and a ring in our nose and lead us around by them.

And so This is what we must impart to our children, is that God doesn't want to have to put a bit in our mouth to get his people to be obedient. He wants to be able to guide them with the glance of his eye. So we have a list. There's 11 things. How are we ever going to remember the list?

We need an acronym. I guess it's T-G-B-R-C-R. There's not an acronym. How will we remember the list? Forget the list.

Don't buy a book. Don't make up an acronym. Teach the Bible. It's all there. It's in Psalm 78, but it's all throughout the Bible.

These are the themes of the Bible. And if we'll just begin giving a daily deposit in our homes, not a big complex deposit, it can be big, it can be complex, I'm not discouraging that, but I also know what a small consistent faithful deposit, even the most meager pitiful efforts have been met with the most wonderful fruits in my home, if I would just be faithful to do it, deposit at a time, day at a time. Because what you find is that it's cumulative. It builds. And so even a little meager deposit builds into fruit over time.

Because you're not starting from ground zero again. There's yesterday's deposit and the day before's deposit, the day before that's deposit. And soon, they're beginning to understand the Lord and His ways. They are beginning to put their confidence in Him and have faith in Him. They are beginning to see the cycles of unfaithfulness that start to develop so that they can head it off in their own hearts before the Lord has to discipline you.

So forget the acronym. Teach the Bible. It's sufficient. A daily deposit is what's called for here. Number four, God judges his enemies and disciplines those he loves.

And by the way, sometimes it's difficult to tell which is which. But in either event, God brings discipline to those that he loves and to those who are his enemies. In verse 17 through 20, the Israelites had been given manna to eat miraculously, and they despise it, and they ask for something better. May we have something better, please? Verse 21 and 22 says this.

Therefore, the Lord heard this and was furious. So a fire was kindled against Jacob, and anger also came up against Israel, because they did not believe in God and did not trust in his salvation. The people had grumbled against God, and God hears that. And it caused him to be furious. He always hears.

And the grumbling against him always causes him to become furious. And he gave them what they're grumbling for. He did give them the meat in such overwhelming abundance that a plague came as part of it. And he used that very thing as the instrument of his judgment on them. Calvin says this.

Not that it was unlawful for them simply to ask food when constrained to do so by the cravings of hunger. Who can impute blame to persons when being hungry they implore God to supply their necessities? The sin with which the Israelites were chargeable consisted in this, that not content with the food which he had appointed them, they gave loose reins to their lusts. He at that time had begun to feed them with manna, as we shall see again by and by. It was their loathing of that sustenance which impelled them eagerly to desire new food, as if they disdain the allowance assigned them by their Heavenly Father.

It was a great sin against a generous father and God judged them for it. Verse 32 and 33, in spite of this they still sinned and did not believe in God and his wondrous works. Therefore their days He consumed in futility and there years in fear. God disciplines His enemies and He disciplines those He loves. And here we talk about the futility that He imposed on the people of God and talk about futility.

Has there ever been a futility like this from the creation of the world until now? I can't think of anything that even rivals this. A whole generation could not enter the Promised Land because of their unbelief, all except for Joshua and Caleb. And so they idle in the wilderness for 40 years. And what are they waiting for in the wilderness for 40 years?

To die. Because none can enter, so we idle in the wilderness waiting to die. This is the futility that God imposed upon them because they rejected his kindness and they grumbled against him. This should make us sober when we think we're getting away with our sin. In verses 59 through 64, we see God removing his presence from his people with the symbol of his presence being the Ark of the Lord and the Ark being taken from Shiloh by the Philistines.

And it says this sequence of things in 59 through 64, it says that God, quote, gave his people over to the sword. There was a slaughter. His providential protection is removed, and there's a slaughter of 39, 000 people. It says that weddings and the rejoicings that come with weddings ceased and became a thing of the past in verse 63. In verse 64, it says that the priests are killed, and there's so much travail that their widows don't even have time to mourn.

And it says that the ark of the Lord would never return to Ephraim, and it did not. Lastly, God is full of mercy. God is full of mercy in spite of it all, in spite of the Israelites provoking him over and over and over and over and over again, and grumbling and complaining and rejecting. He's full of mercy. Verse 38 and 39.

But he, being full of compassion, forgave their iniquity and did not destroy them. Yes, many a time he turned away his anger 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. Our children need to understand that though man is unfaithful as they will be at times, as we have been at times, that God is full of mercy. That yes, He does discipline us for our own good. But it's to restore His people to Himself.

He's full of mercy and compassion. Even His discipline is mercy and compassion. Finally, in verses 68 through 72, But he chose the tribe of Judah, Mount Zion, which he loved, and he built his sanctuary like the heights, like the earth, which he has established forever. He also chose David his servant, and took him from the sheepfolds, from following the ewes that had young he brought to him, to shepherd Jacob his people and Israel his inheritance. So he shepherded them according to the integrity of his heart and guided them by the skillfulness of his hands." So we see this verse starting with a word of contrast.

But it's just coming off of a litany of the unfaithfulnesses of his people. And then the mood changes and he says, but. But God would give his people a shepherd who would shepherd them according to the integrity of his heart. And maybe Asaph never knew it, but I can see it, that David is a type of Christ, and he's pointing forward to the Good Shepherd. So we'll close with two applications.

That means they're hard, by the way. When there's only two, they're hard. They're simple, but they're not easy. Number one, Teach the Bible to your children every day, every day. Very simple.

But simple is not always easy. And no matter the cost, do this. If you have a job that prevents you from doing this, quit your job. Find another job. If you're in any organization that has you out of the home so much that you can't do this, quit the organization.

If that organization happens to be your local church, that needs to be measured. The message isn't run out of your local church screaming on Sunday. There should be a patient conversation with your pastor, but nothing should prevent us from executing the duties that the Bible so clearly gives to us. They may not be outsourced. They may not be.

God does not get... Now does that mean we never engage anyone else? That's not what I said. But the bulk of the discipleship falls on the shoulders of the father in a household. As his wife comes alongside him and helps him in this mission, absolutely.

But we must be teaching the Bible in our homes every day, no matter the cost. There is a warning to this, And the warning is that we would see this as the silver bullet. Finally, I know the formula. I got what I came here for. This was worth the price of admission.

Now I know how to fix all the problems in the world, at least in my home. Just teach the Bible in my home every day. Things would be beautiful. My children will be instantly obedient. They'll be mature disciples surely by next week.

The great Missionary to the Cannibals, John G. Peyton, gives us a warning. And he's talking in this quote about his father's pattern of catechizing all the children in the family, of carefully teaching them the doctrines of scripture through questions and answers. And he says this, and this is the warning to us. It has been an amazing thing to me, occasionally to meet with men who blamed this catechizing for giving them a distaste to religion.

Everyone in all our circle thinks and feels exactly the opposite. It laid the solid rock foundations of our religious life. After years have given to these questions and their answers a deeper or a modified meaning. But none of us have ever once even dreamed of wishing that we had been otherwise trained. Of course, if the parents are not devout, sincere, and affectionate, If the whole affair on both sides is task work or worse, hypocritical and false, results must be very different indeed.

Haven't we seen both these things? Haven't we seen the same practice in one home produce beautiful fruit and in another home produce seemingly nothing. And this is the difference. In some homes, family worship is task work at best and hypocritical at worst. And it produces a distaste for religion.

Heaven forbid that we should be insincere in our application of this, and that it should be something that's on the checklist of our households and that we're faithful with on the surface. But our hearts are far from God. It will produce a very different result indeed. And we'll find ourselves actively training hypocrites in our own home. Heaven forbid that that would be us.

Secondly, Train your children to teach the Bible to their children every day. Your sons and your daughters must know that this is their mission for parenthood. That the gospel isn't just for them. That the gospel is for their neighbors and for their co-workers. And especially for those that God would give them years and years in the future that God would give them a stewardship for.

And so now we'll close in prayer and I'm going to close praying that it would be for us, fathers, as it was for Jeremiah. Jeremiah is this, But if I say, I will not remember Him or speak any more in His name, then in my heart it becomes like a burning fire. Shut up in my bones. And I am weary of holding it in, and I cannot endure it. Let's pray.

Heavenly Father, thank you for this precious psalm you've given to your people, for building up your body. Help us to be faithful with it. God, I pray it would be for us like it was for Jeremiah, that your words would be a fire that shut up within our bones, that demands to come out, that we would not be men who are repositories of treasure, but that we're dispensers of it, that we're aggressively blessing our families every day in our homes with the precious words of scriptures so that you would be capturing the hearts of our children, that they would put their faith in you, that they would have confidence in you in the worst storms of life, that they would find their feet planted on bedrock, and that you would use these precious words of scripture to make them mature, to make them useful in the spreading of your glorious kingdom that the earth would be filled with the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to make you stand in the presence of His glory blameless with great joy.

To the only God our Savior through Jesus Christ our Lord be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority before all time and now and forevermore. Amen.