We read God's Word in Psalm 78, reading this morning the first 39 verses. 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, showing to the generation to come the praises of the Lord and his strength and his wonderful works that he hath 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, even the children which should be born, who should arise and declare them to their children, 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, a generation that set not their heart aright, and whose spirit was not steadfast with God. The children of Ephraim, being armed and carrying bows, turned back in the day of battle. They kept not the covenant of God and refused to walk in his law and forget his works and his wonders that he had showed them. Marvelous things did he in the sight of their fathers in the land of Egypt in the field of Zoan. He divided the sea and caused them to pass through, and he made the waters to stand as an heap. In the daytime also He led them with a cloud, and all the night with a light of fire. He claimed the rocks in the wilderness and gave them drink as out of the great depths. He brought streams also out of the rock and caused waters to run down like rivers. And they sinned yet more against Him by provoking the Most High in the wilderness. And they tempted God in their heart by asking meat for their lust. Yea, they spake against God. They said, Can God furnish a table in the wilderness? Behold, he smote the rock that the waters gushed out, and the streams overflowed. Can he give bread also? Can he provide flesh for his people? Therefore the Lord heard this and was wroth. So a fire was kindled against Jacob, and anger also came up against Israel, because they believed not in God and trusted not in his salvation. Though he had commanded the clouds from above, and opened the doors of heaven, and had rained down manna upon them to eat, and had given them of the corn of heaven. Man did eat angels' food. He sent them meat to the full. He caused an east wind to blow in the heaven, and by his power he brought in the south wind. He rained flesh also upon them as dust, and feathered fowls like as the sand of the sea. And he let it fall in the midst of their camp round about their habitations. So they did eat, and were well filled, for He gave them their own desire. They were not estranged from their lust. But while their meat was yet in their mouths, the wrath of God came upon them, and slew the fattest of them, and smote down the chosen men of Israel. For all this they sinned still, and believed not for His wondrous works. Therefore, their days did He consume in vanity, and their years in trouble. When He slew them, then they sought Him, and they returned and inquired early after God. And they remembered that God was their Rock, and the High God their Redeemer. Nevertheless, they did flatter Him with their mouth, and they lied unto Him with their tongues. For their heart was not right with Him, neither were they steadfast in His covenant. But he, being full of compassion, forgave their iniquity and destroyed them not. Yea, many a time turned he his anger away and did not stir up all his wrath, for he remembered that they were but flesh, a wind that passeth away and cometh not again. We read God's word this far. I call your attention to verse four of the psalm, We will not hide them from their children, showing to the generation to come the praises of the Lord and His strength and His wonderful works that He hath done." Beloved saints in Jesus Christ, repeatedly in the Scriptures and especially now in the Old Testament, God admonishes the Israelites to teach their children His law, and in teaching the law, to teach Him. Deuteronomy 4, verse 9, Teach them thy sons, and thy sons' sons. Deuteronomy 6, verse 7, Thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. Deuteronomy 11, verse 19, "'And ye shall teach them your children, speaking of them, when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.'" Moses, in the wilderness, warning Israel that they not forget to teach their children about Jehovah and the wonderful things he did for Israel. Not only in the Old Testament, but also in the New Testament, such admonitions we find. Provoke not your children to wrath, but nurture them in the fear and admonition of the Lord. The reason for the command is not that parents would not teach their children apart from one. For every parent inevitably teaches his or her child. But the reason for the command is twofold. On the one hand, the child's sinful nature, which is prone to sin and wickedness, therefore the command is not just teach, teach your children anything, but teach your children about Jehovah, so that they might learn Him and fear Him and turn from sin unto Him. In the second place, the reason for the command is the sinful nature of the parents. I said just a moment ago that inevitably parents teach their children, but what do we teach our children by nature? We teach them how to sin yet more and more. We teach them more deceitful ways to carry out the sinfulness of their nature. And so the commands to scripture to parents to teach emphasize what we must teach, the praises and the works of Jehovah God and why we must teach so that our children know these praises and they also fear Him. When therefore in our Psalm and in our text, as well as in Psalm 34, verse 11, We hear the resolve of godly parents to teach these things. This is the fruit of the grace of God and the lives of believing parents. We read in Psalm 34, verse 11, Come ye children, hearken unto me, I will teach you the fear of the Lord. A God-fearing believer saying, my parents taught me and I learned and I appreciate this knowledge and instruction and I'm going to impart it to my children. That is part of the inheritance. I will leave them. And again, in our text, a promise. a vow, we will not hide them from their children, showing to the generation to come the praises of the Lord and his strength and his wonderful works, which he hath done." The psalm itself is a means to teach. The psalm recounts the history of Israel in the wilderness from the time she left Egypt up until the time she entered the promised land of Canaan. And especially two themes are brought out in the psalm from that history. One is the repeated turning of our forefathers in Israel to sin. away from God's law, away from the praises of Jehovah to do what was in their own heart and what they desired. The sinfulness of our spiritual forefathers as a warning and a reminder that such sinfulness characterizes us. And in the second place, the astounding faithfulness of Jehovah God to such a people." The psalm teaches in its content then, in what it sets forth, but it teaches also in its manner. For the psalm, like all psalms, is a song. Put the song in your hearts, parents. We will teach them to our children. And when you sing that song from your heart, that shows that this conviction has taken over our hearts, that we are resolved to teach our children the fear of Jehovah God. I call your attention to our text under the theme, Teaching the Generation to Come. Notice first the God-centered instruction, second, the God-given duty, and third, our God-glorifying vow. Our text uses three words to refer to the content of the instruction we are to give. the praises of Jehovah and his strength and his wonderful works that he has done. As we examine those three phrases, we see that they teach and remind us to teach both who Jehovah is and what Jehovah has done. All of our instruction focusing on Jehovah points to who he is, and what he's done for us. Let's begin with the latter point, his wonderful works that he hath done. Here is reference to all of the works of God in Providence as he directs the course of history. Here is also reference to all the works he's done in history in saving his church, but particularly Both the word used in the text and in light of the entire psalm, the emphasis is on the miracles that Jehovah performed by which he demonstrated time and time again that he loved Israel as his covenant people and he would show his power in amazing ways with a view to their salvation. Miracles in the history of Israel of dividing the waters of the Red Sea, so that Israel could be brought through the sea on dry ground, and then causing those waters to come again upon the Pharaoh and his hosts, so that they drowned. The miracle of raining bread from heaven, and then providing meat for the people when they asked for meat, and water out of the rock. Other miracles the psalm refers to, and though it limits itself to the wilderness wanderings of Israel in the time of the judges, there are more miracles in the history of Israel and more miracles that have happened since then that you and I will point our children to. Our God created this world out of nothing. Our God sent Jesus Christ, His only begotten Son, into our flesh by the virgin birth. Our God caused Christ to rise again from the dead, and in rising from the dead gave Him new life and a glorified body, and our God will do that to us also. Our God takes a dead heart, a depraved and corrupt heart, and turns it into a soft, pliable heart that is a living heart in which Jesus Christ Himself lives. How many miracles! can we not point our children to, saying, look at the wonderful works which he hath done? As we teach our children about these wonderful works, then we are going to lead our children to study history. It is no coincidence that those who deny Jehovah and would take our eyes off his works, have an entirely different approach to history and an entirely different explanation of these historical events, the fundamental ones, such as the creation of the world and the birth of Jesus Christ and the resurrection of Christ, a fundamentally different explanation than we have, for they cannot say from their heart, look at the wonderful works Jehovah did. And because they can't say those were works which Jehovah did, being unbelieving, they must give them a different explanation. We will study history, and in doing so, say to our children, all of this, from start to finish, is the work of Jehovah. Is he not a marvelous God? not only what he has done, but also who he is. And the text gets at that in speaking of his strength, which is a reference to one particular attribute of Jehovah, his omnipotence, but also when it refers to his praises, really referring to everything about Jehovah that would draw forth praises from our hearts and lips. Therefore, to all his attributes and to the glory of his being, For Jehovah is not an impersonal force. He's not just some vague explanation for everything that happens in time in history. He is the eternal living God. He is the one who has purposed from all eternity what He would do, and the one who in time carries out His counsel according to His will and good pleasure. He is therefore one who manifests His power. Every work that He does manifests that power, from the conception of a child in the womb of a mother, to the regenerating of the heart of us and our children, to the return of Jesus Christ on the clouds of heaven to defeat Antichrist, who will appear to be, up to that point, the greatest of all humans. Jehovah's works manifest His power. Again, it's especially Jehovah's power as he puts it into the service of saving his church that we point our children to in order to draw forth praises from their lips. How many times in Israel's history was she not, as it were, a nation doomed to die? I mean, the other nations around her were stronger than she and surely would have their way with her. And Jehovah, in a marvelous show of His power, defended His own and destroyed the enemy. 185,000 of the enemy's army killed in one night by the angel of the Lord. The Lord saying in another instance to one king who had his eyes set on Jerusalem and on God's covenant people, no, you have to go somewhere else in your kingdom to fight against a different king. Hurry with your army away from my people. This is the power of Jehovah defending his people and his elect in Jesus Christ. We point our children to this power. And in pointing our children to the power of Jehovah, show them that only God has this power and only God is worthy of our praise. But there's one more essential component of the instruction of our children that parents must give, and that is the covenant faithfulness of God. As has already been pointed out in the introduction, the psalm has this as its theme. Asaph draws attention to times again and again when Israel forgot Jehovah. Ephraim forgot him, verse 11, and his works and the wonders that he had showed them. And they led many of the Israelites to rebel against him. In the wilderness, the Israelites provoked Him in verse 17, we read of it, when they said, even though God had given them manna to eat every day, and even though God had sent water out of the rock, do we really expect Jehovah will give us meat now? Are we to pray to Him with the confidence that He would hear us and answer us? Does our God really have this power? The time of the judges. We didn't read this part. It's later on in the psalm, verses 56 and following. And later, the sins of Saul. The psalmist refers to in order to show the sinfulness of Israel and remind the Church of Christ in the New Testament that it is our nature time and time again to turn aside from God's law to that which he has forbidden. To turn aside from Jehovah to serve and worship idols, if not gods of wood and stone, then ourselves or figments of our own imagination. But Jehovah is faithful. He led Israel through the wilderness and brought her at last into the promised land. That, first of all, was Jehovah's faithfulness. And when in the promised land Israel sinned yet again during the time of the judges, he showed himself faithful, the psalm ends on this note, by giving them David to be their king. I know the psalm ends there. You and I call to mind many other instances of the faithfulness of Jehovah, chief of which is. Not only that when Israel sinned and went to the captivity, he brought them back from captivity again, but that when yet again they sinned, he raised up that one of which David was a picture. Jesus Christ, the Lord, our righteousness. Our children are not prone, no human is, to think of the past. Especially Western society in which we live is a society that thinks of the present and the present only. History doesn't matter. It's for that reason that we can see, even in our own society, mistakes, bad trends that have been found throughout history repeating themselves. And we are as prone as society around to forget history. As we raise our children in evil times such as this, which will culminate, the evil of these times, will culminate in the anti-Christian kingdom, we must remind our children of the faithfulness of Jehovah and insist that they not take their mind off His faithfulness, remembering the sins of Israel past and the faithfulness of Jehovah throughout all time. That is the hope. We instill in the hearts of our children that they will persevere in their faith by God's grace. And when Jesus Christ comes again, he will find a marvelous demonstration of his mercy, grace, and faithfulness. He will find our descendants watching, waiting, and faithful if they have not first given themselves to death for their faith. your children this." The text sets forth the calling to teach is a God-given duty. It doesn't explicitly, because explicitly the text is a vow, we will not. But what explains the vow is the parents' understanding that God has commanded this. The parent is not on his own saying, I have come to realize that my child should learn this, and that's the hope my child has of being godly in an evil age. No, it's the command Jehovah has given. Though the text doesn't explicitly refer to the command, it does speak of the carrying out of the command as a covenantal activity. If the content of our instruction focused on Jehovah as a covenant God, then the activity of teaching, according to the text, is a covenantal activity as regards who teaches, as regards who is taught, and as regards how this teaching is carried out. Who teaches? We. We will not hide them. from their children. We'll explain this we in two senses. First of all, evidently it is a parent speaking on behalf of parents. Instruction of children must be parental, and no parent in the covenant of God must suppose that he or she, you or I, can ignore the carrying out of that calling, and expect the blessing of Jehovah to show itself in the lives of our children. We send our children to godly Christian schools to help carry out our calling. But in sending our children to those schools, we have not said, I'm finished with my calling. I've done all I need to. It's now up to the teacher. When the child comes home at night again, the parent says, I must teach my child this. That means that fathers in the congregation must understand it to be our calling. Not first of all, when we have time with our children to teach them how to fish and how to hunt, how to fix things around the house and to do other chores. These are good things to teach. I said not first of all, though, because first of all, the father must teach his child about Jehovah. The fear of Jehovah, the service of Jehovah, what it is to live one's life devoted to Jehovah. But also the mother plays a role in this. That's clear from 2 Timothy 1 verse 5. where Paul refers to the unfated faith in Timothy, but a faith that was first in his grandmother, Lois, and in his mother, Eunice. It's clear from Proverbs 31, verse 28, in which the children rise up and call their mother blessed, because their mother also taught them both in words and by example, the praises and the fear of Jehovah God. Covenant mothers, especially mothers of newborns, are busy. Busy sometimes just getting through the day from one day to the next. Changing the diapers, doing the laundry, getting a meal on the table, cleaning up the spit that the baby left behind. But the fundamental duty of a godly mother is to say, You have a heavenly Father. He is a Father who loves you with an unending love. A Father who is worthy of your undying, of your praises from your mouth to your dying day. Serve Him and I will teach you how. It is the duty of parents. We will not hide them. But also the we in the text refers to the church of Jesus Christ in Israel in the Old Testament and the church today in the New. When Jesus said to Peter, feed my lambs, he was underscoring also that the church of Jesus Christ has a calling toward the children that covenant parents bring forth. And that duty is to teach. To teach then the church as an institute. The church teaches the children in catechism. But also the church as an organism. For those Christian day schools to which we send our children require the support of more than just the parents. The prayers and the financial support of the congregation as a whole. The instruction of our children, first and foremost the calling of the individual parents, is something that the entire body of Christ supports and helps bring forward. Covenantal, this instruction is, in who teaches? Covenant parents and the body of covenant believers. But then, who is taught? The text at this point does something striking. It does not say, we will not hide them from our children, but says we will not hide them from their children. All of the emphasis is on the fact that the generation present, those children whom we bring forth, are part of the descendants of the generation past. From our fathers who have taught us, my children are their children also. And therefore in teaching my children, understanding that my children are their children, I have clearly before me the covenantal principle that the Lord saves believers in the line of generations. And it doesn't stop just with this generation that is being brought forth now. We will show to the generation to come. We will keep up teaching. And our children, we will prepare to teach their children. For the same reason, the Lord saves His people in the line of generations. Four generations then. See, the text speaks of, in its context, our fathers, then we, and the children and the children yet to come. What a beautiful truth and an encouraging one when it comes to teaching that Jehovah has promised to save elect children in the line of generations. Had he not given us that promise, no covenant parent would find, let me put it this way, every covenant parent would have to work harder to find motivation carry out the calling. If the Lord saved his church by a member here and a member there and a member there, but not in families and in the line of generations, I might work hard to teach my children, but I couldn't do it with the confidence that the Lord will bless my labors. But when the Lord teaches that He saves His children in the line of generations, He gives to every believing parent a confidence, a motivation, and an encouragement, go forward and teach, be assured that the blessing of Jehovah will rest on your work. Thirdly, how we carry out this duty underscores that it's a covenantal duty. The text says, we will not hide them from their children. So, that is our nature then. We like to say there's a difference between just not speaking of something, just not pointing them, oh yes, I didn't teach them about Jehovah. We'd like to say there's a difference between that and hiding. But the psalmist expresses it this way, not to teach our children is to hide. It is as it were to take what we've been taught about Jehovah and our understanding of His glory and covenant faithfulness and to put it somewhere where it cannot be found. It is as if we're saying we are ashamed of it. It doesn't matter to us. We will not hide them, says the covenant-believing parent. We will not be quiet about the work of Jehovah in our life, about the faith he implanted into us. Rather, we will show. The word literally is, we will count. We will relate. That word itself says three things. First of all, it says that the way to teach is the way of taking the child on one's lap or to one's side and speaking to the child. Do not say, children, you must know about Jehovah, but I don't have time to teach you, so here's a book. You go read that book. No, we speak. Secondly, the word, Recount or count has the idea of enumerating first this, second this, third this, so that we are pointing to specific instances of the faithfulness of Jehovah and his love and mercy in history and in our own lives. We're not teaching just a general truth, I hope you get the big picture, child, but we're saying, look at this concrete instance, look at that specific illustration to drive the point home. And in third place, that word underscores that we will do so repeatedly. Repetition is the key to learning. And what a child was taught last week is not necessarily something he or she remembers yet today. So again and again. This is a covenantal approach to education. That is, the very manner taking the child to oneself and speaking to the child itself is covenant fellowship by which the child understands what his heavenly father does in taking us into his arms and bringing us to himself. But it is a duty, not that the text says it, but other scripture passages do, to which I've already referred. And here we come to another striking truth. The truth is that salvation and the implanting of faith in the heart of a child is not something a parent can do. It is the work of the sovereign Jehovah God. And yet, this sovereign Jehovah God uses me. We all understand that the work a parent does in teaching his child will not have and bear positive fruit in the life of the child apart from the work of the Spirit. We all understand that it's only those whom God from eternity has ordained to eternal life even of our children only the elect who will receive this instruction. We all understand that only those for whom Christ died of our children will know that their sins have been washed in His blood. And we all understand that only when the Spirit works faith in the heart of our children will our children truly have faith. But God does not say to parents, it's pointless for you to teach. The Holy Spirit's going to save your child. Rather, God says to parents who understand these Reformed truths very thoroughly, teach. This is the means by which. On the one hand, the truth I'm emphasizing is humbling, and it will even explain why at times the parent weeps. Just as a sower bearing precious seed weeps as he goes about his toil, so father and mother, as we raise our children, are brought at times to tears. We've said it again and again and again, and our child seems not to get it. Or our child has become a teenager and gone off to college and is now hearing quite a different message than that which we taught our child at college. And the child seems to be thinking that maybe the unbelieving professor's unbelieving approach is after all correct. The child, though having been taught the law of God, And the necessity of keeping that law out of a heart of gratitude seems for a time in his or her life not to have such gratitude and seems to scoff at the law of God. All of this, as we teach our children, brings tears to the parents' eyes. Nevertheless, the parent goes forward, believing that through the means of instruction, the God-ordained means, God will carry out His will of saving His own. After all, if God did not intend to use this means of parental instruction with a view to teaching our children about Him, with a view to our children praising Him, He would not have told us To do so, he would not have laid the calling and the duty before us, but he did. He will bless, that means, as we prayerfully teach. We do so in the conviction that if not each one of our children finally is saved, yet God will save his own from our generations. Be encouraged. The text expresses a vow. We will not, a negative vow, and then positively implied, we will show to the generation to come. A vow is a promise made to Jehovah God. It's different from an oath. In which I make a promise to a fellow man, but call on God as witness of the sincerity of my promise. A vow is a promise made to God. Or when it's made to others, as it seems to be here in Psalm 78, a promise made in the hearing of other believing members of the covenant, and one like we heard this morning, a vow made, which we all heard in the presence of the congregation. When made in the presence of others, it is still made in the presence of God. He hears the vow and he understands the promise is being made to him. Why such a vow? First of all, in obedience to the command of God. But having underscored already that that is our duty, I won't bear out on this point further. We obey Jehovah in fear and in reverence of Him. But secondly, and that which motivates our obedience, the gratitude for the salvation Jehovah has given me. That parent who hides From his children, the praises of Jehovah is apparent, who's manifesting that he's not often on his own knees in prayer. And he does not go through life amazed at what Jehovah has done. Jehovah's covenant faithfulness, His mercies which are new every morning to me, a sinner, is not something that moves the parent. That kind of parent hides it from his child. But the parent who understands the grace of God toward me, a sinner, and is grateful for that, speaks. The psalmist said it in Psalm 116. The Apostle repeated it in 2 Corinthians 4, especially with application to the apostolic office, but it's true for every child of God. I believed, therefore have I spoken in gratitude for what Jehovah has done. I need only to remind myself as a parent of where I would be without his grace. not here in this pew, of where I would be without His mercy, continuing in sin. I need only to remind myself as a parent that when He brought me, when He brought you to the knowledge, the saving knowledge of Him in Christ, and when through prayerful meditation on Him we experience His presence, He gave us a reason to live. Live for Him. And so, I teach. And then in desiring the salvation of my child, understanding the sinfulness of his or her nature, and understanding how the tenancy of the Church of Jesus Christ, the evil days in which we live, is to repeat the sins of the Father's past. It is my desire as I make a vow as a godly parent that my children learn to hope in God, verse 7, not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments and not be as their fathers, a stubborn and rebellious generation that set not their heart aright and whose spirit was not steadfast with God. In evil times in which we live, in which we know there will be apostasy and the children who grew up in reformed churches will, many of them, turn from their faith. It becomes a matter of earnest and sincere prayer that my child and this church's children and children of believing saints everywhere be faithful to Jehovah God. One who makes the vow Praise. Praise that the instruction I give my children will bear fruit in their lives, but we pray for ourselves too. Not in our own strength will we carry out this calling. The power to do it we won't find in ourselves. but looking to the risen Lord Jesus Christ, seated now at the right hand of God. He who reigns over all of history, but through all of history has one goal in mind, the salvation of His church and of all for whom He died, to that one triune covenant faithful God, in the name of that one risen Lord Jesus Christ, we pray for strength. and finding our strength in him, trust that in our fulfilling of our vow and in the salvation of generations yet to come, his name will be praised, for it is worthy of glory now and forever. Amen. Our Father which art in heaven, magnify thy grace and show thy covenant faithfulness to us in saving us and our children. We pray for salvation not because we haven't yet tasted of it at all, but we pray for salvation because we need to grow in faith, to grow in grace and in godliness, to grow in our hope and confidence that our Lord will come, and we need grace to live as those who live for Thee and who in evil times will not take our eyes off Thee. Hear our prayer for Jesus' sake. Amen. We sing 309. For small and great who fear his name, the Lord has good in store. Ye and your children, blessed of God, shall prosper more and more.