Know Your History

Psalm 78:1-29

There is an old saying that goes “Those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it.”   If we don’t learn from past mistakes, whether our own, our parents, or our country, we are likely to keep repeating them over and over again.  That is why it is important to study history.  Both the prophets of the Old Testament, and frequently the psalmists would exhort the people of Israel to look to their past, and the mistakes and sins they had committed, and to learn from these failings so they would not repeat them.  Today’s psalm is one example of a review of the people’s past.  This is a very long psalm, so we will only look at the first several verses.

Our psalm traces the history of the nation of Israel from when they were slaves in Egypt and their exodus with Moses, crossing the Red Sea, and their wandering through the wilderness, and coming into the Promised Land.  All throughout this time God performed many miracles, rescues, and deliverances for the people, showing them His power, majesty, and His love.  In Egypt, the Lord performed miracles to show His power with the Ten Plagues.  At the Red Sea, He performed another awesome miracle when He parted the waters and allowed the people to cross on dry ground, and then closed the waters so Pharaoh’s army could not reach them.  All during their travels through the wilderness, the Lord guided them with the pillar of cloud by day and pillar of fire by night, and also provided them with food and water each day.

When they finally arrived at the Promised Land, the Lord continued to provide for the people of Israel,  He drove out all of the Canaanites and other pagan people, giving them the land that He had promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  The Lord continually rescued them from their enemies, and provided for them.  With so much love and care shown to them, one would think they would remember, and have faith and trust in the Lord God.  However, the people continually forgot His provisions, strayed from His laws, and were continually lured away to the pagan gods.  For this reason the prophets and psalmists would repeatedly try to remind the people of all that the Lord had done for them.

When we forget what God has done for us in the past, then we are likely to lose our faith and trust in Him to provide for us in the present.  In these times we are likely to turn to other people and things, and trust them rather than God, to provide for us.  We get into a panic and anxiety, and turn away from Him, rather than towards Him.  It is when we are in this state, that we are likely to fall into sin and the traps of Satan.

The key verse of this Scripture passage is in verse 7, which reminds us to put our hope in God, and not forget His works.  We, like the people of Israel, need to learn from our past.  It is important to instruct our children in God’s Word and the past (vs. 5-6), to keep them from repeating the same mistakes as their ancestors have done.

God’s people had forgotten all that He had done for them, and His mighty works.  They lived for themselves, and did not prepare their hearts to be faithful to the Lord.  In the New Testament, the Apostle Paul also reminds us not to fall into this mistake.  He informs us in I Corinthians 10:5-12 that the people’s past, that of the nation of Israel, was recorded in God’s Word so that we can avoid the same errors and mistakes that they made.  If we learn from the past, we won’t be like our ancestors and the Israelites, making the same mistakes.

Being thoughtful of all the many times the Lord has provided for our needs, and having a grateful heart for His love and care will lift our eyes off of the things we lack, so we might see the blessings we possess.  God will bless a grateful and trusting believer.  In order to be one we need to remember the past and all that He has done for us, lest we be ungrateful, selfish, and fall into sin.