The Power of Remembrance Pt.2
JUDGES 2:8-13
8 And Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of the LORD, died, being an hundred and ten years old.
9 And they buried him in the border of his inheritance in Timnathheres, in the mount of Ephraim, on the north side of the hill Gaash.
10 And also all that generation were gathered unto their fathers (Generations come and generations go – that is why we want to do our best for the Lord while is it our time and opportunity): and there arose another generation after them, which knew not the LORD, nor yet the works which he had done for Israel. (Somehow this new generation had forgotten the Lord)
11 And the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the LORD, and served Baalim:
12 And they forsook the LORD God of their fathers, which brought them out of the land of Egypt, and followed other gods, of the gods of the people that were round about them, and bowed themselves unto them, and provoked the LORD to anger. (Look at the effect of the cultural influence of being around the heathen in conjunction with forsaking the God of their fathers – they began to follow other gods. A human being is design to follow some form of god – he can’t help it – you are designed by God to follow and to worship)
13 And they forsook the LORD, and served Baal and Ashtaroth.
This is to become the well-worn pathway of a pattern that continues right throughout the book of Judges – a cycle of captivity and deliverance that is based on either “knowing the Lord” or “forgetting the Lord”.
*When they remembered the Lord and kept Him in their remembrance, then they were delivered, but when they forgot the Lord, they went into captivity.
JUDGES 3:7
7 And the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the LORD, and forgat the LORD their God, and served Baalim and the groves. (groves = goddess – Astarte – a Canaanite goddess of fortune and happiness and also of sensual pleasure. This is what we see so much of in the world today with all the woman worship)
JUDGES 3:9
9 And when the children of Israel cried unto the LORD, the LORD raised up a deliverer to the children of Israel, who delivered them, even Othniel the son of Kenaz, Caleb's younger brother.
JUDGES 3:11-12
11 And the land had rest forty years. And Othniel the son of Kenaz died.
12 ¶ And the children of Israel did evil again in the sight of the LORD:
This is the pattern that repeats itself over and over in the book of Judges – and this is why it is so important for us to be continually reminded of the Lord “lest we forget”, because humans are prone to so easily forget. And we need to be faithful to teach our children, because their prosperity or captivity is dependent on this also.
PSALM 77:11-12
11 ¶ I will remember the works of the LORD: surely I will remember thy wonders of old.
12 I will meditate also of all thy work, and talk of thy doings.
The Power of Remembrance Pt.2
*We began this subject last week by speaking about how much we actually rely on our ability to remember things.
So much of what we do in our ordinary everyday lives depends on being able to remember and to recall things from our memory – we maybe don’t realize the power that we have access to by the way of our remembrance.
*The only reason you are able to drive your car successfully, is because of the fact that you can remember how to do it. Just about everything we do is generated from our being able to remember things – to bring things to our remembrance.
**So there is a great power in being able to remember the things of what we have learnt from our past – and if we were to somehow forget, then we would lose the benefit of that remembrance. When you haven’t done something for so long, then you can “get rusty” – because with time, you have the ability to forget how to do things.
*The reason we go to school when we are young, is so that we can put knowledge into our minds with the hope of using that knowledge by the way of remembrance as we go along with our lives – we realize the power of this, and so we invest a lot into being able to remember.
I TIMOTHY 4:6
6 ¶ If thou put the brethren in remembrance of these things, thou shalt be a good minister of Jesus Christ, nourished up in the words of faith and of good doctrine, whereunto thou hast attained.
**Ministers are instructed to keep reminding the brethren of the things of God - this is why we must all be diligent in reading our bibles and feeding on the message of the hour and attending service, because there is a power that comes out of that – we must do it for the purpose of keeping ourselves in remembrance.
**God has designed us with a desire to understand things. We want to know how things work and where we came from and where we are going (all the big questions), and He made us that way for the purpose of having fellowship with Him who is the fountain and sum of all knowledge and wisdom – He is the one who is the source for us to be able to satisfy that desire and thirst.
*But we are living at a time when man has mostly forgotten the Lord, he has replaced God as the fountain of all knowledge and wisdom and turned his thoughts to science and technology to try to have his questions answered - from the tree of life to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
*What man was meant to achieve by revelation (spiritual science), he now tries to achieve it by worldly education.
COUNTDOWN_ JEFF.IN V-11 N-3 SUNDAY_ 62-0909M
72 Why? They were spiritual scientists. Amen. They seen the thing; they believed it. Man did it by education, the natural scientist. The spiritual scientist done it by revelation: one by education, the other by revelation.
*Last week we spent a bit of time speaking about how that Adam and Eve were created by God to receive revelation directly from the source of the tree of life which was Christ.
God is the only fountain of all knowledge and truth – but Eve forgot that, and she chose another tree of a source of knowledge that was a mixed tree – a tree of the knowledge of good as well as the knowledge of evil, in other words, truth mixed with lies.
This tree of the knowledge of good and evil was actually a person (Lucifer), just as the tree of life was a person (Christ), and the evil portion of this tree of the knowledge of good and evil was the lies that Eve would come to accept as truth.
*And so the original mistake that Eve made in Eden, of which is the same mistake that people have kept making over and over again since that time - a mistake that was responsible for bringing death not only to Eve and her husband, but also to the entire human race, and that since that time that same mistake has been constantly repeated over and over again in the personal lives of literally billions of people, it is the mistake of forgetting the truth of the original word of God and following after that which is fake.
PSALM 77:11-12 A Psalm of Asaph
11 ¶ I will remember the works of the LORD: surely I will remember thy wonders of old.
12 I will meditate also of all thy work, and talk of thy doings.
Why is the psalmist here determined to meditate on the words and works of the Lord – lest he would forget them.
** This theme of Remembrance runs throughout the entire Bible.
*God sent a rainbow for Noah after the flood so that he would remember His covenant – every time we see a rainbow, it causes us to remember.
*The Sabbath was a weekly reminder of how God rested on the seventh day.
*The Passover was a yearly event to remember how God delivered the Israelites from Egypt.
*In Joshua 4, they stacked 12 stones in remembrance of how God miraculously parted the Jordan river so that they could cross over on dry land.
*Throughout the Psalms, David and the other writers wrote their psalms and meditated on the works and wonders of God in order to keep them in their remembrance.
*At the last supper, Jesus instructed His followers to take the bread and the cup in remembrance of Him.
REMEMBERING.THE.LORD_ PHOENIX.AZ TUESDAY_ 63-0122
26 And now for a text, I'd like to take from there: Remembering The Lord.
27 Now, of course, any, we all know, in--in our church, we read this at the communion service each night. And it is a--a--a great text to read, or a great Scripture at that time, and it applies there. But I just wanted those words, "In remembrance of me."
*Remembering the Lord brings a power into our lives, a keeping power, and a supernatural power of deliverance and blessing.
So then we realize that there is a great danger that awaits the individual, or family, or nation that allows themselves to forget the Lord – this is the condition of the world and generation that we are living amongst now.
They have taken the bible stories and teachings out of the schools – this is a most dreadful mistake – how will they remember if they are never taught it in the first place. Now we have these “drag queens” teaching some of our kids.
PSALM 78:40-42
40 ¶ How oft did they provoke him in the wilderness, and grieve him in the desert!
41 Yea, they turned back and tempted God, and limited the Holy One of Israel. (How did they limit God from achieving great things in their lives? By their forgetfulness of what He had done for them under the ministry of an Exodus prophet)
42 They remembered not his hand, nor the day when he delivered them from the enemy.
JUDE 1:4-5 (This is the scripture that we have been quoting a lot over the past few months)
4 For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ.
5 I will therefore put you in remembrance, though ye once knew this, how that the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed them that believed not.
*When people forget the Lord by not being kept in remembrance, then trouble is certain to follow.
*Jude is trying to put them in remembrance in order to increase and renew their faith – to restore their faith by the hearing of the word afresh.
**There is a good reason why Satan puts his evil lyrics to catchy pop music? – he wants to imbed his words into the minds of his subjects and then keep them constantly in remembrance of them by playing them over and over again on the radio as well as all the other devices of technology.
PSALM 16:8
8 ¶ I have set the LORD always before me: because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved.
Brother Branham comments on this scripture…
IN.HIS.PRESENCE_ JEFF.IN V-11 N-4 SUNDAY_ 62-0909E
72 Psalms 16:8, David said, "I have set the Lord before me." That's a good thing to do. Psalms 16:8, "I've set the Lord before me." So he could not be confused about it. He wanted to be conscious of His Presence, so David said, "I have set the Lord always before my face. Now I, David, have set the Lord before my face, always to be conscious--conscious of God's Presence." Wouldn't that be a good lesson for all of us tonight? Set the Lord before our face so we'll be conscious of His Presence. Put Him first. Why? Put Him first, before you. Why? Then you won't sin when you are realizing that constantly you're in the Presence of God. When you realize God's around, you watch what you say.
73 A man, when he thinks God's gone, he'll cuss, he'll lust after women, he'll do... He'll steal, cheat, lie. He'll do anything when he thinks that God don't see him. But bring him into the Presence of God, he'll stop it right now. See? And David said, "I have put the Lord always before me." That's a good thing. No wonder God said he was a man after His Own heart. Man will do everything when he thinks that God isn't near. But when he realizes that God's near, did you ever notice a sinner? Let a godly person walk up, he'll quit his cussing, if he's got any respects at all. See? He won't tell the dirty jokes that he would've told. See? See, he'll leave off that, because he knows that he's in the Presence of God, 'cause God dwells in the tabernacle of His people. See?
*** God in His grace places experiences in your life so that you can then remember the things of what He did for you.
*The fact that God has allowed us to receive the message that He has sent in this day – this is such a great and glorious thing that He has bestowed upon us, and we must never let ourselves forget it.
REMEMBERING.THE.LORD_ PHOENIX.AZ TUESDAY_ 63-0122
46 Now let's just talk a few moments on something that somebody would have to remember. I'd imagine, way over in Glory tonight, there's a man by the name of Noah, and he certainly has a lot to remember the Lord for. For in the time that when God was going to destroy all the wickedness off of the face the earth, God remembered Noah. And Noah remembers how he escaped the wrath of God, by God's mercy. How that the--the great waters started flowing down the streets, and the winds howled, and the rocks moved from the mountains! And what a terrible storm! Houses blew away, and the fountains broke up, and God had Noah inside the ark. Now, if that ain't a wonderful place to remember Him by, yeah, yes, to be inside the ark, safely secured in the Presence of God, to live with Him!
***We must always keep in the forefront of our remembrance the grace of God to us of the things that God has done in our generation, of what He has called us to be witnesses of.
*The fulfilment of His great promised word and of His faithfulness in sending the ministry of Malachi 4 in our day. We know that we are actually a part of this great fulfilment of the word becoming flesh in this hour by being a part of the group of those who would receive this end time message – it doesn’t get any better for us than that.”
PSALM 78:1-11
1 ¶ Maschil of Asaph. Give ear, O my people, to my law: incline your ears to the words of my mouth.
2 I will open my mouth in a parable: I will utter dark sayings of old (“dark” = difficult questions, perplexing questions – the word of God answers the most difficult questions of man):
3 Which we have heard and known, and our fathers have told us.
4 We will not hide them from their children, shewing to the generation to come the praises of the LORD, and his strength, and his wonderful works that he hath done.
5 For he established a testimony in Jacob, and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers, that they should make them known to their children:
6 That the generation to come might know them, even the children which should be born; who should arise and declare them to their children:
7 That they might set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments:
8 And might not be as their fathers, a stubborn and rebellious generation; a generation that set not their heart aright, and whose spirit was not stedfast with God.
9 ¶ The children of Ephraim, being armed, and carrying bows, turned back in the day of battle.
10 They kept not the covenant of God, and refused to walk in his law;
11 And forgat his works, and his wonders that he had shewed them.
ISAIAH 48:3
3 I have declared the former things from the beginning; and they went forth out of my mouth, and I shewed them; I did them suddenly, and they came to pass.
DEUTERONOMY 6:6-12
6 And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart:
7 And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.
8 And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes.
9 And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates.
10 And it shall be, when the LORD thy God shall have brought thee into the land which he sware unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give thee great and goodly cities, which thou buildedst not,
11 And houses full of all good things, which thou filledst not, and wells digged, which thou diggedst not, vineyards and olive trees, which thou plantedst not; when thou shalt have eaten and be full;
12 Then beware lest thou forget the LORD, which brought thee forth out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage.
DEUTERONOMY 8:10-20
10 ¶ When thou hast eaten and art full, then thou shalt bless the LORD thy God for the good land which he hath given thee.
11 Beware that thou forget not the LORD thy God, in not keeping his commandments, and his judgments, and his statutes, which I command thee this day:
12 Lest when thou hast eaten and art full, and hast built goodly houses, and dwelt therein;
13 And when thy herds and thy flocks multiply, and thy silver and thy gold is multiplied, and all that thou hast is multiplied;
14 Then thine heart be lifted up, and thou forget the LORD thy God, which brought thee forth out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage;
15 Who led thee through that great and terrible wilderness, wherein were fiery serpents, and scorpions, and drought, where there was no water; who brought thee forth water out of the rock of flint;
16 Who fed thee in the wilderness with manna, which thy fathers knew not, that he might humble thee, and that he might prove thee, to do thee good at thy latter end;
17 And thou say in thine heart, My power and the might of mine hand hath gotten me this wealth.
18 But thou shalt remember the LORD thy God: for it is he that giveth thee power to get wealth, that he may establish his covenant which he sware unto thy fathers, as it is this day.
19 And it shall be, if thou do at all forget the LORD thy God, and walk after other gods, and serve them, and worship them, I testify against you this day that ye shall surely perish.
20 As the nations which the LORD destroyeth before your face, so shall ye perish; because ye would not be obedient unto the voice of the LORD your God.
EXODUS 1:6-8
6 And Joseph died, and all his brethren, and all that generation.
7 And the children of Israel were fruitful, and increased abundantly, and multiplied, and waxed exceeding mighty; and the land was filled with them.
8 ¶ Now there arose up a new king over Egypt, which knew not Joseph.
*Notice – a golden age of prosperity and growth until someone forgot the story of how God delivered his people by the life of Joseph (a type of Christ).
**Then the whole nation of Israel suffered, and the entire nation of Egypt was destroyed all because one man forgot.
JUDE 1:5
5 I will therefore put you in remembrance, though ye once knew this, how that the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed them that believed not.
Joseph - Judges – Jude – all these three speak of the importance of remembrance - as well as many other places in the bible.
***People fail because they believed not, and they believed not because they have forgotten, and they have forgotten because they were failed to be reminded.
*Faith comes by being reminded, by hearing of the word repeatedly. It’s the word that continually washes your thinking and keeps you in the faith.
C. S. Lewis - in his book “Mere Christianity” wrote…
That is why daily praying and religious reading and churchgoing are necessary parts of the Christian life. We have to be continually reminded of what we believe. Neither this belief nor any other will automatically remain alive in the mind. It must be fed.
The Power of Remembrance…