Remember

Many of these recent street interview video clips on social media are embarrassing, particularly those targeting the younger generation. The interviews are meant to be embarrassing. We are expected to sigh, roll our eyes and then watch the next one. So, embarrassing, yes but, in some cases, downright dangerous.

• Remember the Alamo. Do you remember the Alamo?
• Umm, [snickers and looks away] don’t they rent cars? [open laughter with friends]

• Remember Pearl Harbor. What happened at Pearl Harbor?
• Oh! That was … like, wasn’t that when Germans attacked San Francisco or something like that?

• Remember 9/11. What’s 9/11?
• That was, like, someone blew up New York or something, right?

Remembering

It is nothing that even approaches being a godly film, but in 1981, pre-Christian days for me, I saw the movie Excalibur, and as a Christ-follower, no, I don’t recommend it. The film is terribly dark, though it has many engaging characters and memorable moments. One in particular stands out to me.

There is a scene in which King Arthur’s magician and advisor, Merlin, was orating before the knights as they gathered at the round table. Merlin was charging them to hold the moment, saying, “Look upon this moment. Savor it! Rejoice with great gladness … great gladness! Remember it always, for you are joined by it.” After continuing with a few more glittering lines, Merlin turned to leave the room uttering what was almost a growling whisper, “For it is the doom of men that they forget.”

Spanish-American philosopher, essayist, poet, and novelist, George Santayana, effectively argues that progress is rooted not in endless change, but in a solid knowledge of history and successive life events.

Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. In the first stage of life the mind is frivolous and easily distracted; it misses progress by failing in consecutiveness and persistence. This is the condition of children and barbarians, in whom instinct has learned nothing from experience.
– George Santayana¹

Remembering in Biblical History

When Joshua brought the people into the promised land, the first order of business from God was to prepare them to remember. Remember what happened here! The entire fourth chapter of Joshua is dedicated to relating the events that followed crossing through the Jorden River on dry ground, just as they had done with the Red Sea.

Then Joshua called the twelve men from the people of Israel, whom he had appointed, a man from each tribe. And Joshua said to them, “Pass on before the ark of the Lord your God into the midst of the Jordan, and take up each of you a stone upon his shoulder, according to the number of the tribes of the people of Israel, that this may be a sign among you. When your children ask in time to come, ‘What do those stones mean to you?’ then you shall tell them that the waters of the Jordan were cut off before the ark of the covenant of the Lord. When it passed over the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off. So these stones shall be to the people of Israel a memorial forever.”
– Joshua 4:4-7, ESV

And what is the endgame? What is the purpose for remembering? “…so that all the peoples of the earth may know that the hand of the LORD is mighty, that you may fear the LORD your God forever.²

From Genesis forward, we find memorials accompanied by charges to remember. Stones, pillars, rituals, the rainbow, Tefillin, phylacteries, Christian communion, all of them are established to cause humanity to remember.

Remember also your Creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days come and the years draw near of which you will say, “I have no pleasure in them”;
– Ecclesiastes 12:1, ESV

Western Society Today

Far from remembering its Creator, western society has actively driven the Creator out, removing his memorials, legislating against his morality and his people, oppressing his message while elevating and celebrating godlessness. For those who bathe in scripture regularly, this comes as no surprise. A disappointment and frustration, perhaps, but not a surprise. The apostle Paul wrote millennia ago that this very thing was happening and would continue to happen.

For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.
– 2 Timothy 4:3-4, ESV

And we also know the outcome of the ear-soothing messages.

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.
– Romans 1:18-20, ESV

This is not a passive matter. People actively suppressed the truth in Paul’s day and people actively suppress it today! And to actively suppress truth, I have to know what it is, to target it, to plan my attack against it, to determine how it can be suppressed. Thus, they know the truth exists.

They exchange truth for lies. And when the last moment of time ticks to an end, and we all stand before the judgment seat of Christ, there will be no rebuttal, “Well, gee. If only we had known.” They know!! It is plain to them. God has shown it to them. They are without excuse.

For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.
– Romans 1:21-22, ESV

And what will be the outcome of rejecting God, of suppressing truth, leaving oneself free to embrace error and debauchery?

Years ago, I preached an eyebrow-arching sermon titled, God Will Give You Exactly What You Want. It was based on the section of scripture we have just been examining. See if you can spot the truth of that sermon title in this chunk of scripture. As you read this, look for the recurring phrase…

Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.

Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.

Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.
– Romans 1:24-32, NIV-1978

God gave them over . . . God gave them over . . . he gave them over.

God will give you exactly what you want. He will give you over to the desires of your heart. When this happens, when those outside of Christ have exactly what they want, a world without God, they will rapidly discover that they don’t want what they have.

The rejection of God will continue to sink society into unimaginable depths of debauchery. That is why we remember. That is why we create memorials of remembrance. That is why we teach our children and our children’s children.

He established a testimony in Jacob
    and appointed a law in Israel,
which he commanded our fathers
    to teach to their children,
that the next generation might know them,
    the children yet unborn,
and arise and tell them to their children,
    so that they should set their hope in God
and not forget the works of God,
    but keep his commandments;
and that they should not be like their fathers,
    a stubborn and rebellious generation,
a generation whose heart was not steadfast,
    whose spirit was not faithful to God.
– Psalm 78:5-8, ESV

I will remember the deeds of the Lord;
    yes, I will remember your wonders of old.
– Psalm 77:11, ESV

Blessings upon you, my friends.

Victoriously in Christ!

– damon

DamonJGray.org
X – @DamonJGray
CrossMap Blogs
Medium.com
LinkedIn.com
Facebook Author Page
YouTube Channel

1. Santayana, G. (1905). The Live of Reason: Volume 1 (p. 284). New York, NY: Scribner
2. Joshua 4:24