Friday, October 2, 2015

Thou Shalt Remember



(#854, Imperial, 1960, 1968)
Read Deuteronomy 8:1-20.

Memorial day is a day of remembrance.  In our text there are things God instructs us not to forget.  The root of the world's distress today is that they have forgotten God.  Let us see which things we are "to mark".
ƒ      Remember the past in relation to God.  3 things to remember:
    1.  God's deliverance, v14.  Israel's history started when they were delivered from Egypt.  In our backward look we must see everything in relation to our deliverance when God freed us from the bondage of sin.
    2.  All the way which God led them, vs.2-15.  God led them through that great, terrible wilderness.  We are passing through a wilderness.  As we remember God's leading in the past we are encouraged to trust Him for the future.
    3.  God's provision in the wilderness, v16.  Israel had been supplied with the necessities: raiment (v4), water (v15), bread (v16).  We may look back and say the same.
ƒ      Remember the lessons taught.  The purpose is 3-fold...
    4.  "That He might humble thee" (vs.3-16).  Pride is the most ghastly of all human failures.  Pride foreshadows ruin.  All of God's methods are toward humbling that He might free us from all He hates, at the root of which is pride.
    5.  "To prove thee and to know what was in thine heart" (v2). God wants us to find out what we are in ourselves.  Evil, rebellion, blasphemy, cowardice, dishonesty, impurity, greed: all these may be hidden beneath the surface.  God will lead us into places where they will be revealed.
    6.  "That we might know that man doth not live by bread alone but by every word of God" (v3).  God wants to show us how completely we are shut up to Him.
ƒ      Remember that we might look forward (vs.7-9).  Remember God's promises for the future.  We remember that we might be aware of the perils of the future, such as...
    7.  The peril of self-satisfaction.
    8.  The peril of self-glorification.
    9.  The peril of self-righteousness.
Forgetting God is a serious matter (vs.19-20).
Mark all the way which the Lord thy God hath led thee.

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