Remember What God Has Done

Psalm 78:40-55

40Oh, how often they rebelled against him in the desert

and grieved his heart in the wilderness.

41Again and again they tested God’s patience

and frustrated the Holy One of Israel.

42They forgot about his power

and how he rescued them from their enemies.

43They forgot his miraculous signs in Egypt,

his wonders on the plain of Zoan.

44For he turned their rivers into blood,

so no one could drink from the streams.

45He sent vast swarms of flies to consume them

and hordes of frogs to ruin them.

46He gave their crops to caterpillars;

their harvest was consumed by locusts.

47He destroyed their grapevines with hail

and shattered their sycamores with sleet.

48He abandoned their cattle to the hail,

their livestock to bolts of lightning.

49He loosed on them his fierce anger—

all his fury, rage, and hostility.

He dispatched against them

a band of destroying angels.

50He turned his anger against them;

he did not spare the Egyptians’ lives

but handed them over to the plague.

51He killed the oldest son in each Egyptian family,

the flower of youth throughout the land of Egypt.

52But he led his own people like a flock of sheep,

guiding them safely through the wilderness.

53He kept them safe so they were not afraid;

but the sea closed in upon their enemies.

54He brought them to the border of his holy land,

to this land of hills he had won for them.

55He drove out the nations before them;

he gave them their inheritance by lot.

He settled the tribes of Israel into their homes.

Alma had worked for her company for forty years, watching and helping it grow. She had started as secretary to a department manager, who, largely through her brilliant ideas and work, rose quickly in the company.

Years later the company was sold. The new owners brought in their own management team. Alma’s boss was granted a generous early retirement package, but Alma was bumped down to a secretarial pool.

Soon the company was in serious trouble. Alma grieved that the business she had helped to build was sliding so badly, but what could she do? Whenever she made suggestions, she was ignored. The new owners were frantic to find someone who could fix the company, but like the Israelites in Psalm 78, they had forgotten who had helped them in the past.

This sad trend also takes place in many people’s relationship with God. God had worked in amazing ways to rescue the Israelites from Egypt, and he has worked mightily in our life as well. But over time the Israelites forgot about God, and we often do, too. We look for a thousand solutions to our problems, all the while ignoring the God who has helped us so much in the past.

Never, never, never forget what God has done.

When all thy mercies, O my God,

My rising soul surveys,

Transported with the view, I’m lost

In wonder, love, and praise.

JOSEPH ADDISON

Bible Networking

This psalm gives a sampling of the plagues described in Exodus 7–12.

Notable Quotable

“It must have been difficult to forget [God’s power]. Such displays of divine power as those which smote Egypt with astonishment must have needed some more than usual effort to blot from the tablets of memory.”

CHARLES HADDON SPURGEON