We are studying the Bible In Search of the Lord's Way to be saved-- and to live in the strait and narrow way that Jesus taught. We are convinced that that is the best way to live that has ever been introduced to mankind. Everyone needs to try that way. Say friend, we're glad you have joined us.
You have honored us by inviting us into your home for Bible study. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. It is our prayer that we will both be blessed. From the very first generation, mankind has had a choice between following the Lord's way of doing things or Satan's way. Old Satan convinced Eve that she and Adam could and would do better for themselves, to listen to him instead of to God. They were deceived-- I mean, like lots of us, they fell for it. And they were driven out from the presence of God.
And, "as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned." That is Romans 5 and 12 in the King James Version. But, the good news is that by the grace of God, through the death of His Son, you and I can be reconciled to God and to live and die at peace with Him. We can, and we can become and be Christians, and walk and talk with God again as Adam and Eve did in the beautiful garden before their disobedience. You are to be congratulated because you, too, are in search of the Lord's Way of salvation and the good life; or you probably wouldn't have even joined our study today.
We are being sponsored here by churches of Christ in the viewing area of this station. They are the reason you won't hear us begging you to send us money or to buy something from us. These people are your friends-- some of them may even live on your street. Say, why don't you get up Sunday and go to worship with them? That would do them so much good. And, it would do you good, too-- lots of good. Our message today is titled, "Don't Forget." Now if you think you might want to study it again or pass a copy of it on to a friend, you may have a copy absolutely free-- yes, I said it again-- it's free, simply by addressing your request to In Search of the Lord's Way, P.O. Box 371, Edmond, OK 73083. Our e-mail address is searchtv@searchtv.org. If you prefer to use the telephone, our toll-free number is 1-800-321-8633. We will welcome your call. We'll even pay for it at that number. And we won't add your name to a list to receive a follow-up bunch of letters soliciting you for gifts of money. We don't do that, friend. Ken Helterbrand is going to lead us now as we sing, and then I'll be back.
We are reading today from the apostle Peter’s second and last epistle, and he probably is writing in view of his approaching death and he says these things in verses 12, 13, and 14 of the very first chapter. “For this reason I will not be negligent to remind you always of these things, though you know them, and are established in the present truth. Yes, I think it is right, as long as I am in this tent, to stir you up by reminding you, knowing that shortly I must put off my tent, just as our Lord Jesus Christ showed me. Moreover I will be careful to ensure that you always have a reminder of these things after my decease.” Now let us go to God in prayer. God in heaven, we approach You as our Father, the Father of our spirits, our creator, and our maker, with a prayer of thanksgiving first of all for the way that You have created this body. We marvel at all of its intricate parts and all of its abilities and capabilities; and we pray Father that we may appreciate it even more and be reminded in this passage that we have just read, and from our further studies today that we can use it to Your glory and to Your honor. In Jesus’ name, Amen!
"Memory" may be defined as the faculty to revive and relive past experiences. God remembers. A way, way back in time to when God saw that evil abounded and was so sorry He had made man, He sent a universal flood to destroy him-- and begin all over. Noah was a man of faith. So God told Noah of His plans and asked for his involvement. He was to make an ark and take a pair of every living thing with him and his family into the ark. Well, Noah obeyed God. Then the rains came. "God remembered Noah, (the Bible says) and everything with him in the ark...and God made a wind to pass over the earth, and the (flood) waters asswaged." That is Genesis chapter 8, verse 1.
After a period of time, some cultures or cities became so evil that again God felt the need to destroy them. This time Abraham was the man of faith in whom God confided. You see, Abraham prayed that if as many as ten righteous souls could be found there, that God would spare those cities. And, you know what? Genesis 19:29 tells us that "When God destroyed the cities of the plain (meaning of course, Sodom and Gomorrah), that God remembered Abraham..." Well, there are many more instances we could cite from the Scriptures when God remembered. The Psalmist, who was probably David, prayed, "Remember me, O Lord, with the favor You have toward Your people" (Psalm 106, verse 4). And that is probably the most often repeated prayer God hears today, even now-- “Remember me, oh, Lord."
God! Well, God not only remembers, He also gave us that natural gift. (Perhaps there have been times that you have thought as some of the rest of us have-- you may have even said it, "When God was passing out remember-ers, or memories, He slighted me." It is true, I suppose, that some people remember more-- more easily-- and sometimes more accurately than other people. But it is normal to remember. And with effort the skill can be developed even more. We teach and train our children to remember certain things. Now, someone has defined "education" as "what is left after we've forgotten what we learned."
Recently I saw an interesting magazine article titled, "Remember A Half Century Ago." (Ha, I don't remember then what magazine or who the author was.) But he wrote at length about some things he remembered as well as some things he had not remembered. I guess one reason it was interesting to me, is that he described much of the period that I've lived, too. And he remembered much of what I remember. However, I remember many things about the same period, which he said he didn't remember.
What do you remember? Some of us are inclined to remember other people's faults and failures; aren't we? Well, King David was a man "after God's own heart. But at the mention of David, what comes first to your mind? His adulterous affair with Bathsheba? Well, many people think that. What do you remember about the apostle Peter? Is it that he denied the Lord? In His Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said we are looking at the "speck" in the other fellow's eye, but we are not considering the "plank" in our own eye. Now, that is the New King James Version of Matthew 7, verse 3. Sometimes we are bearing grudges, remembering all the evil things wicked people have done to us. And that doesn't help, either. Those evil people may not even be aware that we're remembering in such cases. Well, the Lord's way is better. His way is to forgive him and to forget it (Matthew chapter 6, verses 14-15). We have too much "baggage” of our own to be burdened with all the people are carrying around with them.
Or, it could be that we remember our own faults and failures. If they are faults in our character, of course, they can be and they should be corrected. Then too, some people will never succeed at anything because they remember all the times they tried to do something and failed. They remember all their failures. They are afraid to try again because they failed. Others are hindered by remembering their past achievements. The apostle Paul had a lot for which he had to give thanks. He was a violent persecutor of the Lord's church, a blasphemer, an insolent and arrogant person. He was an excellent example of what God wants us not to be. But, he saw the fallacy of all that and became a Christian. However, he had a lot going for him, too. He wrote about those things in the third chapter of Philippians, and there He said, "But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ...Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Jesus Christ also laid hold of me...I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching for those things that are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward calling of God in Christ Jesus." Well then, what should we remember?
Well, number one: the first thing that comes to my mind is found in Ecclesiastes chapter 12, verse one which says, "Remember now your Creator in the days of your youth, before the difficult days come, and the years draw near when you say, I have no pleasure in them." Remember whom? "Remember your Creator." Oh, then, young lady, young man, you were "created." Remember that! Don't forget that! You did not evolve from the lower species of animal life, no matter who tells you that. That is only a theory that has been proven erroneous many times over and again-- even by the scientific community. Your Creator made you in His own image (Genesis 1:26 and 27). Remember that always. The Bible says, "The wicked in his proud countenance does not seek God; God is in none of his thoughts," he said. That is Psalm 10, verse 4. Remember your Creator for Who He is! He is God-- not a god, but the "only living and true God" (1 Thessalonians chapter 1, verse 9). How are we to remember our Creator? When Moses had successfully brought Israel out of bondage in Egypt, and led them across the desert, and because of his transgression was unable to enter with them into the Promised Land, he bade them farewell in the book of Deuteronomy. There he said to them, "Beware that you do not forget the Lord your God by not keeping His commandments, His judgments, and His statutes..." (Deuteronomy 8:11). Well, the real essence of faith then is just such a remembrance of God-- by keeping His commandments and His teachings, friend.
Next we must remember the words of God. The apostle Paul was penman for more of the New Testament than any other person. Yet, it is in Luke's account of his visit with the elders of the church at Ephesus in Acts chapter 20, verses 17-38 that we get the last, the best sketch I should say of this man's character. Read the passage entirely when we have gone off the air. We are concerned right now with the final words in that long speech. "Remember the words of the Lord Jesus...," he said, and it is recorded in verse 35.
People, well, even nations and cities build memorials to the remembrance of important events and heroes and unusual tragedies. If you have been blessed to visit our nation's capitol city, you were probably impressed with the many reminders that are there. There has not been a day since it was built that the Oklahoma City Memorial has not had visitors, we are told. It was erected to the memory of those people who were killed in that awful bombing of the Federal Office Building on April 19, 1995. They came from all around the world, and they still come, because they still remember.
There is a modern proverb-- well, I don't know that it is a modern one-- it might be ancient, I don't know. Anyway, it goes something like: "He who does not remember the past, is condemned to repeat it." Well, I've read it in different wording on different books, but old or new it doesn’t matter, it is proven to be true. It is, indeed, sad that many of our youth are not being taught the great moments and men of America's glorious past.
God has erected memorials, too. He told Joshua to take twelve stones, one for each of the twelve tribes, and pile them up in a place that they would spend their first night in the Promised Land, so that when their children asked what that pile of stones meant, they could tell them it was there by the command of God to commemorate their miraculous crossing over into Canaan’s happy land. Read the whole story in Joshua, chapter four. Obviously Israel failed to teach their children about that. After all, it was just a pile of rocks, you know, so ordinary and so common. Because you see, after Joshua and all that generation had died, there arose another generation that "knew not the Lord." They forsook the Lord and worshiped the Baals and Ashtereth, and the gods of the people around them. Yep! That is what they did. They conformed to the culture and forgot about God.
Well, He also gave them the Sabbath Day as a memorial of their glorious deliverance out of 430 years of slavery in Egypt. "Moses called all Israel, and he said to them: Hear, O Israel, the statutes and judgments which I speak in your ears today, that you may learn them and be careful to observe them. The Lord our God made a covenant with us in Horeb. The Lord did not make this covenant with our fathers, but with us, those of us who are here today, all of us who are alive....And remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there by a mighty hand and by an outstretched arm; therefore, the Lord God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day." That is Deuteronomy chapter 5, verses 1 to 3, and verse 15. It was Israel's "July 4th"-- the day of their independence. But they forgot to keep the Sabbath as a memorial and they suffered for it in bondage again; this time to pagan Babylon. (Read the short books of Ezra and Nehemiah in your Old Testament.)
God erected different memorial for Christians. You see, many of us, being Christians were never, being a Gentile, never in bondage to Egypt. That isn't a part of our past. But, we were in bondage to sin (Galatians 5:1). And, just as Moses delivered Israel from slavery to Egypt, Jesus Christ delivered us from slavery to sin. And, Jesus established the Lord's Supper as a living memorial of Himself. He said, that, "...He took bread; and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, "Take, eat; this is My body which is broken for you; do this in remembrance of Me. In the same manner He also took the cup after supper, saying, This cup is the new covenant in My blood. This do, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me" (1 Corinthians 11:23-25). The Christians (the church) of the New Testament did so with regularity on the first day of every week. Christian friend, don't forget Him on the Lord’s Day. Let us pray. Holy Father, we are thankful that You have given us the capacity to remember some things that are precious and dear to us; and may we never forget You, or forget Your word, or forget Your Son, Jesus Christ. In His name, we ask you. Amen!
Before the prayer and the hymn, we were talking about why Christians assemble for worship on the first day of the week, instead of the Sabbath as the Jews did. Well, it is because the Sabbath was given only to Israel as a memorial of their deliverance out of Egypt; and it is because Christ is our deliverer from bondage to sin, and we are remembering Him and that deliverance. It is because He was raised from the dead on the first day of the week (Matthew 28, verses 1 to 12). It is because after His resurrection He assembled with His apostles on the First day of the week (John 20, verse 19). According to John 20:26, He did it again the next first day of the week. Pentecost was always on the first day of the week; therefore, the Holy Spirit came to begin His promised work, on the first day of the week. The Christian age began on the first day of the week, and the church Jesus promised to build in Matthew 16:18 was begun on the first day of the week. And in the Scripture it is called the "Lord's Day" (Revelation 1:10).
Isn't it amazing, too, that after almost two thousand years Christians still assemble on the first day of the week to remember Him? Oh me, it borders on a miracle, if indeed it isn't a miracle, that the humble Man of Galilee could establish a memorial to Himself of just a simple bit of bread and a swallow of the fruit of the vine-- and it's still respected and esteemed and loved and observed almost two thousand years later! Christian, don't forget the Lord on the Lord's Day.
If you think you would like a free CD or audio cassette tape or a printed copy of this message, you may have it simply for the asking. Send your request to In Search of the Lord's Way, P. O. Box 371, Edmond, OK 73083. Or, by e-mail it is searchtv@searchtv.org. If you prefer to call us on the telephone, use our toll-free telephone number and we will even pay for your call. That number is 1-800-321-8633. Oh yes, the program is audio and video streamed on our website, too, which you see on your TV screen now. Say, why not get ready and attend a nearby church of Christ today. Oh, I hope you will. And if you would like to enroll in our free, again I say free, Bible Correspondence Course, which is a systematic study of the Bible in eight easy lessons, just send your request to and the address I gave you. And we would love to have you enrolled. God bless you now. Hope you will be back next week. We love you.
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