6. A List of God’s Gracious Gifts Psalm 78:23-35

Text: “Though He (the Lord God) 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.”

Psalm 78:23-24.

Good morning, Christian recipient of God’s grace!  You and I, if we are Spiritually regenerated, Bible-believing Christians today, are clear and obvious recipients of the free and Sovereign grace of a truly Almighty and compassionate Lord God of Heaven and earth. Fact.

It was only by God’s Sovereign grace that we were ever placed in a position to hear the Gospel message of Salvation through the full Atonement Sacrifice made at Calvary’s Cross by God the Son – Jesus Christ – for ‘His people’.

The Gospel: “Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the Gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand; by which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain.  For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures; and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures: and that He was seen of Cephas, then of the twelve: after that, He was seen of above five hundred brethren at once; of whom the greater part remain unto this present, but some are fallen asleep (have died).  After that, He was seen of James; then of all the apostles (eye-witnesses of the risen Lord Jesus).  And last of all He was seen of me (Paul) also, as of one born out of due time.  For I am the least of the apostles, that am not meet (fit) to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of Christ.”  (1 Corinthians 15:1-9)

Faith: It was only by God’s Sovereign grace that the hearing of this Gospel message imparted faith to our elect hearts, by which we might believe and receive Salvation in Christ the Lord.

“So then, faith cometh by hearing, and hearing (or reading) by the Word of God.”     (Romans 10:17)

Not all who hear the Gospel message of Eternal Salvation preached/taught receives God’s gift of faith to truly believe it with the heart – only those chosen (elected) by God the Father in Eternity, before the world was Created; receive His wondrous gift of faith to believe in Christ Jesus; and be saved.  The Gospel message is foolishness to the reprobate’s ears.

“For unto us (the chosen/elect) was the Gospel preached, as well as unto them (the reprobate, those not chosen by God): but the Word preached did not profit them (the reprobate), not being mixed with faith in them that heard it.”  (Hebrews 4:2)

Sovereign Grace: God, is a Sovereign Lord God, He does exactly as He alone pleases in His Created world, and to His creatures - Created in Adam/Eve, but born fallen from grace since Adam/Eve sinned in Eden’s Garden, and therefore merely natural in Adam’s fallen image. You and I are NOT Created in God’s Supernatural image, but born in Adam’s fallen image, prone to sin and cursed with disobedience in our Adamic nature. (Genesis 5:3)

God, because He is God Almighty, decided whom He would save, and whom He would pass over reference His gift of Salvation, way back before He Created this world. In His foreknowledge and Sovereign power, He gave those whom He had elected to save to His Son, Jesus Christ that, in time, Christ would go to the Cross as a Holy and acceptable Atonement Sacrifice for those souls God the Father had chosen, and given to Him to save.  Not one of those precious and chosen souls shall ever be cast away, but Eternally saved.

“For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast.  For we (the Father’s elect) are His workmanship, CREATED in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath BEFORE ORDAINED that we should walk in them.”  (Ephesians 2:8-10) (Psalm 115:3)

“All that the Father giveth Me (in Eternity) shall come to Me; and him/her that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out. For (a conclusion) I came down from Heaven not to do Mine own will, but the will of Him (God the Father) that sent Me.  And this is the Father’s will which hath sent Me, that of all which He hath given Me (in Eternity) I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day.”  (John 6:37-39)

Psalm 78: 23-35: We find here in these verses a list of God’s gracious gifts to Israel as they wandered in the desert wastes as a consequence of their unbelief and disobedience. It mirrors the depths of unbelief we encounter even today – as God’s gracious love and blessings are taken completely for granted, and the Gospel of Salvation in Christ increasingly spurned.

Verse 24. Manna from Heaven: “O Lord Jesus, Thou blessed manna of Heaven, how all this agrees with Thee!  We will even now feed on thee as our Spiritual meat and will pray Thee to chase away all wicked unbelief from us. Our fathers ate manna and doubted; we feed upon Thee and are filled with assurance.” (C.H. Spurgeon, Treasury of David, page 335)

Verse 27. “He rained flesh also upon them as dust.  First, He rained bread and then flesh, when He might have rained fire and brimstone. The words indicate speed and abundance of the descending quails.”

Verse 27.  “And feathered fowls like as the sand of the sea. There was no counting them. By a remarkable providence, if not by miracle, enormous numbers of migratory birds were caused to alight around the tents of the tribes.  It was, however, a doubtful blessing, as easily acquired and superabounding riches generally are. The Lord save us from meat which is seasoned with Divine wrath.”  (C.H. Spurgeon, Treasury of David, page 335)

Divine Wrath: Verse 32/34. “For all this they sinned still, and believed not…When He slew them, then they sought after Him; and they returned and enquired after God. Little has changed today.  Oh, that men/women would cry out in repentance and receive Christ!

Thought: God’s grace, and gracious gifts, are poured out to us daily – to obedient and to disobedient.  God’s Divine wrath is poured out also, to those that scorn His grace. 

5. The Persistence of the Ungodly Psalm 78:17-22

Text: “And they sinned yet more against Him by provoking the Most High in the wilderness…Because they believed not in God, and trusted not in His Salvation.”

Psalm 78:17;22.

Good morning, Alarmed Christian!  It seems like each day you and the author open our eyes after sleep, we become alarmed at the increase in sinfulness we encounter in the lives of those all around us; it is as though Satan has caused them to fall into a deep trance from which they shall never recover until they open the eyes of their sous in a Christ-rejecter’s Hell.  Oh, that the souls of our nations would awake from their sinful sleep!  Oh, that our nation’s rebellion against all things Christian, pure, and Godly would cease!  Have mercy, Holy Lord God, and quicken these souls that lie like Spiritually dead and dry bones in this ever-growing valley of vile sin

Read Ezekiel chapter 37, verses one to ten, and catch the vision of today’s sinful nations.  Only Spiritual Regeneration can deliver ungodly nations from certain doom.

Verse 17. “And they sinned yet more against Him. It was bad enough to mistrust their God for necessities, but to revolt against Him in a greedy rage for superfluities was far worse. Ever it is the nature of the disease of sin to proceed from bad to worse; men never weary of sinning but rather increase their speed in the race of iniquity.  (C.H. Spurgeon, Treasury of David, page 333)

Charles Haddon Spurgeon has such a wonderful way of setting forth clear truth and defining it as he goes.  This was another reason why I decided to try to reintroduce his wonderful and powerful Treasury of David to this 21^st Century church world-wide.

Note: Charles Haddon Spurgeon (19 June 1834 –31 January 1892) was an English Particular Baptist preacher. Spurgeon remains highly influential among Christians of various denominations, among whom he is known as the "Prince of Preachers". He was a strong figure in the Reformed Baptist tradition, defending the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith, and opposing the liberal and pragmatic theological tendencies in the Church of his day. (From Wikipedia, the free encyclopaedia.)

Sin: Mankind sins naturally, because we are all born natural sinners, in Adam’s fallen image. (Genesis 5:3) (Psalm 51:5) (Romans 3:22-23) However, Scriptures warns over and over again about mankind committing ‘wilful sin’, and this is the rebellious sin here mentioned in Psalm 78.  They sinned wilfully against God.  Their disobedience was a wilful rebellion.

“He does not say that they sinned only, but that they sinned against God. And they sinned yet more against Him, namely God. Against what God?  Against Him Who had delivered them by great and unheard-of wonders out of Egypt, Who had led them as free men across the Red Sea with a dry foot, Who had continued to lead and to protect them with pillars of cloud an fire by day and night and had given them to drink abundantly of water drawn from the arid rock.  Against this God, they had added sin to sin.  Simply to sin is human, and happens to the saints even after they have received grace: but to sin against God argues a singular degree of impiety.”  (Wolfgang Musculus, 1497-1563)

Think now, alarmed Christian!  Let your alarm sound against the personal sins you and I have committed AFTER we have been saved – it will be a good remedy against the blight of self-righteousness. We should all cry out with the apostle Paul, “O wretched man that I am!”.

“Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.”  (Philippians 4:8)

 Verse 18. “And they tempted God in their heart. Christ cannot die again, and yet many crucify him afresh, because such would be the legitimate result of their behaviour if its effects were not prevented by other forces.  The sinners in the wilderness would have had the Lord change His wise proceeding to humour their whims, hence they are said to tempt Him.” (C.H. Spurgeon, Treasury of David, page 334)

Sinful mankind is often defined as having eyes bigger than our bellies.  Greed is sin.

Verse 18. “…Asking meat for their lust. God had given them meat for their hunger in the manna, wholesome, pleasant food, and in abundance; He had given them meat for their faith…But all this would not serve, they must have meat ‘for their lust’; dainties and varieties to gratify a luxurious appetite.  Nothing is more provoking to God than our quarrelling with our allotment, and indulging the desires of the flesh.”  (Matthew Henry, 1662-1714)

These rebellious sinners were most persistent in their tempting of the Lord God – there would be little mercy shown them, once a God of righteous judgment chose to react. The arrogance of such vile, rebellious sinners only seems to increase, as God’s merciful hand is restrained from punishing their rebellious, and often gross, sin.  Nothing has changed today.  For example: legal rights to protect homosexuals, has only paved the way for arrogant and public parades of the gross sin of Sodomy; sin that the Living Lord God has proven He detests.  Fire and brimstone rained down upon the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah when God’s patience was pushed to its Holy limit.  Our Lord God is unchanging, immutable, watch out!

“Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination (vile sin).” (Leviticus 18:22)

“And likewise, also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet (a fit reward) (monkey-pox? Aids?)” (Romans 1:27)

Thought: Main reason for gross sin: “Because they believed not in God, and trusted not in His Salvation.” (Psalm 78:22) Gross sin is caused today, by persistent unbelief!

4. The Lord’s Proven Deliverance! Psalm 78:12-16

Text: “Marvellous things did He (the Lord God) in the sight of their fathers, in the land of Egypt, in the field of Zoan.”

Psalm 78:12.

Good morning, Spiritually aware Christian!  Each morning your eyes open after sleep, you think of, and fully acknowledge, how thoroughly blessed you and I are in Christ Jesus, and His wonderful Eternal Salvation.  Our hearts immediately go up to Him in thanksgiving, worship, and sincere praise. 

“Bless the Lord, O my soul: and all that is within me, bless His Holy Name.  Bless the Lord, O my soul, an forget not all His benefits.”  (Psalm 103:1-2)

Not only has God’s Word instructed us that Christ would save us when we called out to Him in God-given repentance and faith – He has proven His Word to be absolute truth in so very many ways.  We are compelled to confess with all forthrightness that our Father in Heaven is, indeed, ‘…the Father of lights…’ to us, personally.  Glory to His Holy and generous Name!  Let me hear it, dear Reader: HALLELUJAH! Thanks be to the Lord God!

“Every good gift and every perfect gift is from Above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with Whom is no variableness (unchanging), neither shadow of turning.  Of His own will begat He us with the Word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of His creatures.” (James 1:17-18)

Verse 12. “Marvellous things did He in the sight of their fathers, in the land of Egypt…”  Not only have you and I a full record of exactly what wonders the Lord God did, in the time of His servant Moses, but the wonders done were all done “…in the sight of their fathers, in the land of Egypt…”!  All saw with their human eyes what wonders the Lord God did! Faith played little part; the Hebrews actually SAW and EXPERIENCED the wonders God did when he set them free from Pharoah’s enslavement and made them a free nation! 

Wow! You and I were necessarily THERE when God saved our immortal souls!  Selah (Think about it!).  Give Him the glory, ‘aware Christian’ Reader!  There is none other Lord God but our great Jehovah Lord.

Verse 13. “He divided the sea, and caused them to pass through: and He made the waters to stand as an heap.  The Hebrew writers actually recorded what their own eyes had physically seen.  An entire nation of God-freed slaves passing through the middle of the Red Sea, with the waters on both sides of them “…standing as an heap…” to let them through!  ALL involved individually experienced this truly ‘marvellous thing’ that the Living Lord God did in order to set them free from Egypt’s enslaving power!  Wow!  Selah: now think on this!  Don’t just read it and move swiftly on!  Think about what the Lord God has done.

Verse 14. “In the daytime also, He led them with a cloud, and all the night with a light of fire. Never has any person, or Government, or organisation, or so-called charity EVER been able to provide such perfect care and protection for an entire nation of travelling people!  None but an all-providing Lord God Jehovah, could perform such a truly wondrous thing!

“And Abraham called the name of that place JEHOVAH-JIREH: (‘the Lord Who seeth afar off, and provideth’) …” (Genesis 22:8 &14) We serve a Provident Lord God of grace.

Verse 15. “He clave the rocks in the wilderness, and gave them drink as out of the great deeps.” Think, just for this moment, of the concept of great thirst!  Our human need of water is well documented; God’s provision, miraculously, of enough cool (“…out of the great depths…’) water to refresh and keep alive an entire nation travelling through a desert waste, is hardly noted today, but taken entirely for granted, or become the butt of gross unbelief and ridicule.  Oh, the depths of stubborn rebellion throughout this 21^st Century British nation!

Verse 16. “He brought streams also out of the rock, and caused waters to run down like rivers.” The supply of water was as plenteous in quantity as it was miraculous in origin.  Torrents, not driblets, came from the rocks.  Streams followed the camp; the supply was not for an hour or a day.  This was a marvel of goodness.  If we contemplate the aboundings of Divine grace, we shall be lost in admiration.  Mighty rivers of love have flowed for us in the wilderness.  Alas, great God!  Our return has not been commensurate therewith, but far otherwise.”  (C.H. Spurgeon, Treasury of David, page 333)

Spiritually aware Christians continually stay focused on God’s love for us, and His generous and continual giving to us of all that we need – Spiritual and physical.  Can we not, right now, offer the Lord God a word of sincere thanksgiving, worship, and praise?  I think we can. Thank you, dear Father in Heaven, for all your blessings given, in Christ Jesus.  Amen.

“Thank you, O my Father, for giving us Your Son; and leaving Your Spirit till the work on earth is done.”  (Keith Green – There is a Redeemer – The Ministry Years, Volume 1: 1977-1978) Glory to the Lord God of Heaven!  Thanks be to God for His great grace!

If ever God’s people needed a Divine deliverance from all things worldly and evil, it is right now in this year of 2026.  True Christianity today, in this increasingly apostate 21^st Century of history, is under a most severe Satanic attack.  Anti-Christianity is blooming within the big cities and towns of the State of Great Britain & Northern Ireland, the United Kingdom.  The BBC Broadcasting Company, to which Bible-believing Christians pay high licence fees, seems to be always at the forefront of ANY anti-Christian promotion.  It often seems to be that BBC Programme Presenters have to be homosexuals, and that every drama/film written and produced is obliged to blaspheme the Holy Name of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, by using His precious Name as a swear-word, or linking His Name with vile prefixes.  Check it out for yourself – Satan seems to run the main television channels throughout the nation.

Street preachers, Gospel-tract offering Christians, and those of us promoting Christ’s offer of Eternal Salvation in general – are all castigated, put out of the Malls, arrested by police for ‘disturbing the peace’!  Conviction of sin should be a disturber of the sinner’s peace!  The Lord God shall not be silenced.  There is a judgement day coming – sinners beware!

Thought: God’s deliverance from all evil/persecution is well noted here in Psalm 78.