It has often been said that those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it. This quote reminds us of a lesson we learned recently from the book of Proverbs—we can gain wisdom by learning from the experiences of life, both our own and those of others. Thus, it is important for us to take to heart the lessons that we can learn from history.
On Memorial Day, we are asked by our nation to remember the sacrifices made by the men and women who gave their lives in our country’s battles. It is only appropriate that we do this, because we can learn much from their courage and their selfless service of others.
As Christians, we are also asked over and over again in the Bible to remember God and the things that He has done. God obviously knew that we would be prone to have spiritual amnesia, so over and over again in the Bible He commands us to remember what He has done, to take care that we don’t forget, to bring to mind His deeds and tell our children about them. Just think, for example, of the Lord’s Supper. When Jesus instituted that observance, what did He say to His disciples? “Do this in remembrance of Me.” So that observance was given to us as a way to remember Christ’s death.
So why does God command us to remember Him and His deeds? What is this supposed to accomplish in our lives? Let’s take a look at four reasons to remember God and what He has done.
I. Remembering God and His deeds brings comfort and renewed hope—Ps. 63:1–8
One of the consequences of our spiritual amnesia—our tendency to forget God—is that we can easily become fearful, worried, and depressed. When we forget about God and His deeds, loneliness and hopelessness move into our souls and take up residence there, but remembering God will help us evict them.
Turn with me to Psalm 63. There are many psalms that we could look at that describe the renewal of hope that comes when we take our thoughts off of our problems and place then once again upon God. We’ll read the first eight verses of this psalm as a representative of this theme within the book as a whole [READ Ps. 63:1–8].
As I said, this psalm is just one of many that share a similar theme. In these psalms, the authors write about how their situations seem so hopeless, and God doesn’t seem to be there; He doesn’t seem to be helping them. But then in every case, the author remembers something about God that causes the dam of hopelessness to collapse, and rivers of comfort and hope flow into their souls once again. Perhaps the author remembers a time that God has delivered him in the past, or he remembers a promise that God has made, or something about God’s character, such as His justice or His mercy.
Remembering God and His deeds can bring about this change for us when we need comfort and a renewal of our hope. This truth was beautifully illustrated by John Bunyan in his book, “The Pilgrim’s Progress.” This book is an allegory that is meant to describe truths about life as a Christian, and so the story follows the travels of a man named Christian as he travels from the foot of Jesus’ cross to the gates of heaven. At one point in his journey, Christian is overpowered by a giant named Despair, who throws him into prison in a place called Doubting Castle. Try as he might, Christian is unable to escape this prison until one day he realizes that he has had the key to the door in his pocket the whole time! At that point he said to himself, “What a fool am I to lie here in a stinking dungeon, when I may as well walk free! I have a key in my pocket called Promise, that will open any lock in Doubting Castle.”
You can see what Bunyan was trying to tell us—God’s promises can free us from doubt and despair. We only need to remember these things in order to be set free. That is the same lesson that we find in the psalms. When we remember God and His deeds—all that He has said and done—we receive comfort and renewed hope.
II. Remembering God and His deeds guards against the attitude of self-sufficiency—Deut. 8:11–20
When Jesus said in John 15:5, “apart from me you can do nothing,” he really meant it. But its far too easy for us to slip into the same frame of mind as King Nebuchadnezzar in the book of Daniel, who looked around at his royal city and said, “Is this not Babylon, which I have built by my mighty power as a royal residence and for the glory of my majesty?” Well, the hammer may brag about everything that it has built, but the real credit belongs to the person who picked it up and used it!
We need to be on guard against the attitude of self-sufficiency. Let’s look at Deuteronomy 8:11–20. The whole book of Deuteronomy is like one big history lesson. The name “deuteronomy” actually means “second law,” and the book was given this name because in this book, Moses basically spells out the Law of God for the people all over again to encourage them to serve the Lord. The events in this book took place after the children of Israel had disobeyed God the first time they tried to enter the Promised Land, so now Moses says to them, “Let’s do it God’s way this time around.
Notice what he says in Deut. 8:11–20 [READ Deut. 8:11–20]. This is a very solemn warning against the attitude of self-sufficiency. And notice when Moses said this temptation would be most severe—when life was good! When they had homes and plenty of food and large herds and plenty of money—under those conditions, the temptation to feel self-sufficient would be very strong.
I think we have to admit, friends, that we have enjoyed the good life in our country for quite some time now. We might complain about the price of gas today, but for most us that simply means that we might stay a little closer to home on our vacations! By and large we have things pretty good, but that means that you and I wake up every day with the temptation to feel self-sufficient staring us in the face! As I get out of my queen-size bed in the morning and enjoy an abundant supply of hot water in the shower and prepare my breakfast out of a full pantry, I could feel very self-sufficient—and that’s just the first hour of the day! I suspect all of you could tell a similar tale.
We must escape this idea of self-sufficiency—this poisoning of our souls—and the antidote is to remember that all of our blessings have come from God. Everything we have is a gift from His hand. Even if we have exercised wisdom in life, we can ultimately take no credit for anything we have or anything that we have accomplished. Remembering God and His deeds will help us view everything with the proper humility and gratitude.
III. Remembering God and His deeds can keep us from sinning—1 Cor. 10:1–11
We can learn lessons from the past that will help us avoid sinning against God today. Turn with me to 1 Corinthians 10 [READ 1 Cor. 10:1–11]. As you can see, Paul mentions several events from the Old Testament, from the period in which the people of Israel were wandering in the wilderness. He specifically mentions the sins of the people, and he notes in v. 11 that they were written down for our instruction, so that we would not make the same mistakes and commit the same sins. We can learn from the choices that they made and the way that God responded to those choices.
That is why so much of the Bible is written like a history book. We have so many books that record how God has interacted with people in the past, and those books aren’t there just to teach us a history lesson. They were written, as Paul says, to instruct us, so that we can learn from the lives of others—to imitate their successes and avoid their mistakes.
Those of us who have older siblings under this idea very well. I really feel sorry for those of you who are the oldest siblings in your family. You were the trailblazers, weren’t you? You had to break the ice with mom and dad in everything. But us younger siblings—like myself—just got to sit back and watch, and if we were smart, we kind of took mental notes about what mom and dad allowed and what mom and dad didn’t allow. Then the growing up years were smooth sailing for us, because we benefitted from all the things that you had to learn the hard way!
That’s what Paul is encouraging us to do in these verses—to remember how God has responded to the sins of His people in the past so that we don’t make the same mistakes. That’s one of the tremendous benefits that we enjoy in our stage of history. We have all of this sacred history to learn from so that we don’t repeat the mistakes of the past.
IV. Remembering God and His deeds will teach our children to obey Him—Deut. 4:9, Josh. 4:1–7, Ps. 78:1–8
A powerful way to teach the generations of the future about God is to connect them with the past. Back in Deuteronomy, when Moses was encouraging the people of Israel to remember what they had seen and heard from God, he said, “Only take care, and keep your soul diligently, lest you forget the things that your eyes have seen, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life. Make them known to your children and your children’s children” (Deut. 4:9). So the people weren’t supposed to remember these things simply for their own benefit—they were to pass them on to their children as well.
The Jewish people had many things built into their culture that were meant to serve as reminders of things that God had done. In the Old Testament law, the people were commanded to wear tassels on the hem of the outer garment that they wore, which were to serve as reminders of God’s commandments (Num. 15:38–40). The Law also commanded them to observe several feasts throughout the year—holidays, basically, that commemorated miraculous things that God had done. From time to time, God also commanded the people to build monuments to commemorate special events, so that when their children asked about the monuments, they could explain what God had done.
All of this underscores the importance of teaching our children about the sacred history of God and His work in our world so that we can pass along the faith to them. Our children need to be connected to the generations that have come before them so that they can learn. We need to have strong bonds between children, parents, and grandparents so that we can pass along the values and the beliefs that we embrace as Christians.
Let me ask you a question, friends—when Satan engineered the cultural revolution that took place in our country back in the 1960’s and 70’s, do you think it was just a coincidence that the younger generation rebelled against older generations? Do you think it was just by chance that slogans came up like, “don’t trust anyone over 30?”
Or think about another issue—do you think its just by chance that Satan has used musical styles to cause fights in churches? Musical styles tend to be associated with certain generations, so a disagreement about musical styles can quickly became a clash between generations, and when older and younger generations are at odds with each other, the bonds that should exist between them are broken. When that happens, the wisdom of the past becomes lost to the younger generations, who are left with nothing but their own collective ignorance.
Friends, we must preserve and strengthen the bonds between our younger and our older generations. We must pass on to our children the lessons that we learn from sacred history. It would do us well to think about ways that we can connect our children to the past. You as a family may want to think about traditions that you can build into your lives or ways that you can connect your children with older people and teach them to respect them. And those of you in the older generations, I would urge you to look for opportunities to encourage younger people in their faith.
Memorial Day is a day that encourages us to remember and to learn from the past. We as Christians have all the more reason to remember the past because we know that God has been at work and we can learn from His deeds. We can march with confidence and faithfulness into the future when we remember God and His deeds.
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