Psalm 78

A couple of weeks ago in lifegroup we looked at Psalm 78, the last in our series on the Psalms. We learnt how important it is to remember the faithfulness of God to previous generations and remember that he is exactly the same now as he was then. We looked at the Psalmist's model of disbodience (often) followed by discipline and then deliverance and we then took this model to come up with our own examples of what we would "tell the coming generation" about our amazing, forgiving God.

Here are some examples: Adam and Eve disobeyed God by eating the forbidden fruit; God banished them from the Garden (discipline), but he also made garments for them (Gen 3:21) and did not leave them on their own (deliverance). Jonah disobeyed God's call to go to Ninevah and, as a result, ended up having a three day trip to the stomach of a large fish. On 'escaping' the fish, he went to Ninevah and as a result of his message 120,000 people turned to God. Amazing.

We also looked at some post-bible examples: John Newton, the reformed slave trader and author of Amazing Grace. Having traded slaves for a number of years, he was convicted that he was doing wrong and joined William Wilberforce in campaigning for the abolition of the slave trade. Through that campaigning the slave trade came to an end, bringing deliverance to Newton and thousands of slaves. And Hilter - controversial? - he committed many atrocities but he lost power, the war and his life. Delivery? As a result of his actions against minority groups, legislation for human rights has been established; the world was so disturbed by what had been able to happen in Germany, that they wanted to make sure it never happened again.

Remember this summary: Romans 3:23-25. This is the big picture of how this works. We've all sinned (3:23), but God enables forgiveness (verse 24), through Jesus taking the punishment that was rightly ours (verse 25). Praise God that if we are in Jesus we will not have to face the punishment for all the wrong we have ever done because he took it, and not just ours, he took Adam and Eve's disobedience, he took Jonah's disobedience, he took the punishment for John Newton's transportation of thousands of slaves, and he took the punishment for the murder of every single person who went the gas chambers of the Nazi concentration camps. That is grace, simply the best example of what it means to be delivered from disobedience. Have you experienced it?