Psalm 78 began by emphasizing the importance of passing the baton of faith from generation to generation. In verse 9, the Psalmist reviews all the great things God has done for His people from Egypt to the promised land. He wants to remind them of the wonderful heritage God had given them. He wants them to realize that God has been the source of all their blessings. Based on His faithfulness to them, they should entrust themselves completely to him now and for their future. He was faithful! He is Faithful! He will always be faithful! God has been their savior! God is their savior! God will always be their savior.

But they failed to pass on the baton to the succeeding generations. The children turned from God to rely on the pleasures of the peoples around them, rather than the God that made them. They have stopped believing in God and looking to Him for their salvation, and sought to find meaning and purpose in the creation instead of their faith relationship with the Creator. They lost that which mattered most in life, the Psalmist writes in Verse 22, “ because they did not believe God or rely on His salvation.”

Just like Israel, we also forget that God made us, God has sustained us, and God will save us! The New Testament makes it clear that it is by faith we are saved. It’s not faith in faith, nor faith in one’s self, nor faith in an economic system, nor faith in society, nor faith in anything other than the Savior. Jesus is the only Savior. “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). Jesus is the complete Savior. “Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever lives to make intercession for them” (Hebrews 7:25). Jesus must be a personal Savior. “That if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you shall be saved. For with the heart man believes unto righteousness: and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation” (Romans 10:9-10)

Chuck
“Both day and night belong to you; you made the starlight and the sun. You set the boundaries of the earth, and you made both summer and winter.” (Psalm 74:16-17)