Learn to Remember

I remember, actually especially when I was attending in the Wake Oak, Texas congregation for many years, I think I've mentioned to people, I went for years and years never song leading, and then in the 90s when several of our members left, I became the only song leader. So I did have the experience of introducing myself for the sermonette a couple of times.

Well, I want to start off by asking if you've ever had what they call a recurring dream, or perhaps a recurring nightmare. Now that comes up, you know, people talk about that, you see it in movies or TV. I used to say, no, I've never had that. And then I stopped in real thought and said, yes, I have. It's just that the dream isn't always the exact same. The circumstances would change, and actually I had it again not that long ago. I don't remember the details because I don't remember my dreams very well, so when I do, it's something, you know, usually makes an impact. And I'm not calling it a nightmare. It's never scary, but it's one of those things that's very frustrating. So let me describe it as best I can. You know, it's occurred in a variety of settings, but usually has to do with me taking classes at a college. Now, I've actually experienced this going back to my old high school. When I went to school, it was a junior-senior high, so I was in the same building from seventh through twelfth grade. But in this scenario, it comes up, it's time for either a midterm or a final exam. And now, oh, it's time for the exam, and I realize I've been forgetting to go to one of my classes. And it's always one of those, I know I signed up for it, I planned to go, but it turns out, looking back on a daily basis, I've been distracted and just forgot. And now it's exam time! Now, in some versions, I say, well, I can take the exam. I'll cram. And in that version, I'm racing around trying to find the right room, and I just can't find it. I've even had times where I'm on a campus, and I go from one building to the other building, no, it's not there, oh, it's gonna be too late. And once I realized that this has been a recurring theme in my dreams, I examined and I thought, you know, this usually happens at a time when I'm really busy. You know, I've got several irons in the fire, a lot going on, and I think this dream is a way of my brain telling me that it's afraid I'm gonna forget something. You've got too much going on, you're gonna let something slip.

And I thought, you know, Frank, you shouldn't be frustrated or worried. You should just take it for granted. You're almost always forgetting something. That's me. It's funny, I look back, I remember years ago when I was a teenager, I was dating a girl, and she told me later that she and her mom were having a conversation, and she just said casually, well, you know about Frank, he's forgetful. And it was much later, she told me, well, I didn't know I was that forgetful. I guess I forgot.

That's something I find myself needing to work on, not just the forgetfulness, but the fact that I get too uptight about it. You know, the nature of my job is to have a lot of things going on at once.

So, I would say, how about you? You know, I can't be the only one who forgets things or gets worried and frustrated when he does. When it comes down to it, some of us have better memories than others. I've been surprised Connor has a pretty good memory. I'm impressed, I'm pleased, he must have got that from suicide of the family.

For the rest of us, we often use memory techniques, memory devices.

I was at summer camp actually as a staff when I heard some of the teenagers reciting what they said, pup tattle. Pup tattle? I've never heard of that, but it was during the amazing race, one of the challenges was to name all the holy days in order. And there's an acronym for God's Festivals, P-U-P-T-A-T-L, for Passover, Unleavened Bread, Pentecost, the two teas, Trumpets, Atonement, Tabernacles, and then Last Great Day. Nowadays, we've been calling it the eighth day, we might have to call it pup cat eight. It doesn't...

Or, many of you might have heard, every good boy deserves fudge.

And I've never learned to play a musical instrument, but I know that has something to do with chords or notes.

Well, once we remember something, then there's also the importance of follow-through, acting on what you've remembered, or perhaps what we've committed to.

Now, that seems to be a good life's function, but is it important for a Christian? Is that something we have to do to living the way God instructs us, to becoming like Him?

And I guess I could say, obviously, I'm speaking on it today because I believe that it is.

I think it's important. God wants us to learn to remember and follow through, and we have a perfect example. God has a good memory. Now, of course, He follows through every time, and since He wants us to become like us, I think it's something worth focusing on.

When I put this together, I thought it's a pretty simple, basic message, but I want to explore it. It's surprising when you get something simple how much you can dig in and expand on it.

So let's think about examples of God making promises and following through.

Now, in a sense, we could say that every prophecy is a promise. Promise is that either have been or will be fulfilled, but there are also some examples in scriptures of more personal promises that God's made. It might be a case of God saying, promising that He'll do something, or sometimes making a promise that He'll refrain from something.

The first example I want to look at is the most obvious one that came to my mind, and I think a lot of people know about it. It's early in the Bible, and basically it's a case of after God had created the world, put me in on it, and let them go. It didn't...well, I want to say it didn't take long. It doesn't take long in the Bible. We'd guess it probably took perhaps a couple thousand years in the passage of time for God to get fed up. You know, it says, the hearts of men was continually turned to evil, but one man found grace in God's sight. As it says in Genesis 6, verse 8, Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. I'm not going to read through the story about God contacting Noah, although it just came back to mind again. I've got an old vinyl record put out by Bill Cosby, and he had a routine about Noah and the Ark. I see some chuckle, so some of you have heard that one. I'll say I won't go through it now. I used to have it fairly well memorized. But of course we know Noah built the Ark, God brought the animals, God preserved them through the flood, remaking the surface of the planet. And in Genesis 9, we'll see that God revealed that he decided to never repeat that particular action. So I want to see read in Genesis 9 beginning verse 11. I'll get my glasses so I can read it.

This is God speaking. He says, Thus I establish my covenant with you. Never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of the flood. Never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth. And God said, This is the sign of the covenant which I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations. I set my rainbow in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. So God promises here, He makes a commitment that He's never again going to use a flood to destroy all, or at least not even almost all, life on earth. And Mr. Shoemaker's cows will be glad to hear that. They've probably been wondering. Now notice he doesn't say that he won't use some other method, but he won't use flood.

And then God provides a memory device, the rainbow. That makes me think, I wonder if that's the first time any humans had seen a rainbow. If so, you know how you feel when you see a rainbow in the sky. You always stop and go, wow, that's something. It's this beautiful sight. Now we could debate, did God create it to remind Him? Because I like to say God doesn't need the memory device, but I think He created it for us, but He wants to show us that He could use one. We see that continuing on in verse 14. Verse 14, it shall be when I bring a cloud over the earth that the rainbow shall be seen in the cloud, and I will remember my covenant, which is between me and you, and every little creature of all flesh. The water shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. The rainbow shall be in the cloud, and I will look on it to remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that's on earth. And God said to Noah, this is the sign of the covenant which I've established between me and all flesh that is on the earth. And as soon as I read that, I thought that reminds me of tying a string around your finger. Now, I know that's an old proverb. I don't know if any of you have ever actually done that, to remember something. I have. I've actually literally tied a string, and oh, good, I almost forgot. I come up with other things now. I've got a routine when I know I need to get gas later. I always keep a box of Altoid mints in my car. I'll stick it up there on the top of the dashboard, so that when I see it, as God says, He looked at the rainbow and remember, oh, better not flood them all out. I see the Altoids and remember, I've got to stop and fill the tank.

As I said, I don't think that God needs the memory device, but He's setting an example for us that you can use something like that. How many times have we looked at the rainbow in the sky and remembered this story? It brings it back to mind, and it also provides a great spark or spur to share the story, especially with little kids. Sue and I have done that with Connor, and I'm sure many of you when your children were small, you say, you see that? And now let me tell you the story.

Well, as I said, this is the obvious one. We understand this one very well, and for that matter, so does most of mankind, or at least those who call themselves Christian, even if God hasn't called them and revealed this and given them His Spirit, they at least can understand this story. So let's move on to a couple of slightly less known and less understood commitments that God has made. I want to go to 2 Samuel, see that God made a personal promise to King David.

2 Samuel will begin in chapter 7.

This is the one that I believe we are fairly familiar with, but it's not as well understood to all of mankind. Now, this comes about in the story, though, as David really wants to build a temple for God. He loves God, God has blessed Him greatly, and David has this desire to build an elaborate building to God's honor. And so we see, beginning in chapter 7, the men of Kirjath-Jirim came and took the Ark of the Lord and brought it to the house of Abinadab on the hill and consecrated Eliezer as son to keep the Ark. So it was that the Ark remained in Kirjath-Jirim a long time. It was there 20 years, and all the house of Israel lamented after the Lord. And Samuel's... Well, no wonder. I wanted to go to 2 Samuel. I say, and I'm not getting to the part I wanted. Pardon me on that. I should have put my glasses on before I looked. 2 Samuel, chapter 7. And it came to pass when the king was dwelling in his house, that's King David, and the eternal had given him rest from all his enemies all around. The king said to Nathan the prophet, See now, I dwell in a house of cedar, but the Ark of God dwells in tent curtains. And Nathan said to the king, Well, go do all that's in your heart, for the eternal is with you.

It shouldn't be any surprise that Nathan expected that God would support David's plan, because basically Nathan was telling David, God's been supporting you in everything you do, so I'm sure he'll be with you in this. But he was mistaken this time. In this case, God intended to do things differently. So continuing in the fourth verse, It happened that night that the word of the eternal came to Nathan, saying, Go tell my servant David, thus says the Lord, would you build a house for me to dwell in? I have not dwelled in a house since the time I brought the children of Israel up from Egypt, even to this day, but have moved about in a tent and in a tabernacle. Wherever I have moved about with all the children of Israel, have I ever spoken a word to anyone from the tribes of Israel whom I commanded to shepherd my people? Israel saying, Why haven't you built me a house of cedar? So God is saying, you know, that didn't matter as much to him. He had the tabernacle. He wanted people to understand what it represented. Now, I'm going to skip ahead because it's revealed here that God would allow David's son, which would be Solomon, to build a house, and it would be a magnificent building, not that God would dwell in, but to represent God's presence and where the ark would be. But then God turns to a different subject. If you look in verse 16, now he says, he's speaking of house as a symbol for the dynasty, the descendants of David. Because in verse 16, he says, And your house and your kingdom shall be established forever before you. Your throne shall be established forever. And David was astonished. Not so much that he didn't think to tell God, well, thank you very much, and please go ahead and do this. But God was promising that David's descendants would rule in Israel in perpetuity. You'll always have a son on the throne.

Now, it would only take a couple of generations for God to have to take specific action to follow through on that promise. That was when David's son Solomon, as it says later in his life, he married many women, and they turned his heart away. You know, when he started getting involved in idolatry. We're going to go to 1 Kings chapter 11. 1 Kings chapter 11. Now, I'll say my personal thought and sort of a hope. I don't have evidence in Scripture, but I'd like to think that the book of Ecclesiastes was written by Solomon after all this had happened, and perhaps that he had turned back to God at the end of his life and realized the foolishness he'd done. But that's, you know, my hope, and that outside of the scope of what we're discussing here, 1 Kings 11, starting in verse 11, the ships of Hyrum, which... That's chapter 10. I'm having trouble today. Therefore the Eternal said to Solomon, Because you've done this, have not kept my covenant and my statute, which I commanded you, I will surely tear the kingdom away from you and give it to your servant. That would be Jeroboam. Nevertheless, I will not do it in your days for the sake of your father, David, because of that promise that we just read. I'll tear it out of the hand of your son. However, I will not tear away the whole kingdom. I'll give one tribe to your son for the sake of my servant, David, and for the sake of Jerusalem, which I've chosen. And we'll see that God planned to keep this long term. I want to go to 2 Kings chapter 34. They said, This is a long-term commitment that God planned to always maintain. 2 Kings chapter 30. I'm sorry, I just, yeah, 2 Kings. I wanted to stay in chapter 11 and go down to verse 34. So I'm having a turn. And 2 Kings 11 doesn't have a verse 34. Okay, I'll bet I did, yeah.

Maybe this is what happens when your wife and child travel with you.

No, I can't put the blame on her. It's all on me. Yeah, in verse 34, 1 Kings 11, he says, However, I will not take the whole kingdom out of his hand, because I've made him rule all the days of his life for the sake of my servant David, whom I chose, because he, that is David, kept my commandments and my statutes. I'll take the kingdom out of his son's hand and give to you ten tribes. This is the promise to Jeroboam. And to his son, that is, to David's descendants, I'll give one tribe, that my servant David may always have a lamp before me in Jerusalem, the city which I've chosen for myself to put my name there.

And what I was going to say is, you can read through the remainder of the books of Kings and Chronicles and see this being fulfilled. And the northern tribes, which became known as the Kingdom of Israel with basically ten tribes, they went through a series of dynasties. A king would reign Jeroboam, and then his son and son, and then someone would come, and every now and then kill out the entire family, and a new person come in that wasn't descended from them.

And they went through a number of dynasties like that. But in the territory that became known as Judah, there was always the descendants of King David, as long as that kingdom lasted. It is worth mentioning because, you see, talk of one tribe, but then the other kingdom only had ten tribes. That's because the territory of Judah actually had within it the territory of Benjamin. On a map, it would look like a city within a city, almost. So they had the one tribe geographically of Judah, but Benjamin was already within that area. And so many Benjamites became known as Jews because they were of the kingdom of Judah.

One of the bits of evidence we have of that is the Apostle Paul later talked about how he was a Hebrew, a Hebrew of the Hebrews, and Philippians 3, verses 4 and 5, he says that he was of the tribe of Benjamin. So many Benjamites were of the kingdom of Judah and became known long term as Jews. And I'm saying this just to show that God's Word doesn't contradict itself.

It's also worth noting, of course, that the temple was in Jerusalem within Judah. So many of the Levites were already dwelling in Judah, and probably those who wanted to stay true to God's religion migrated into Judah. So thus a number of the people today who are called Jews may actually be descended from the tribe of Levi. I became aware of that partly Cohen, C-O-H-E-N, is a common Jewish name, but it actually is from the Hebrew that means priest. And it's speculation, but a lot of people guess that many Jewish people whose last name is Cohen are probably actually Levites and probably descended from Aaron, which is an interesting thing.

And we'll come back to that a little bit later. Now, of course, we see in the genealogy of Jesus Christ that he was descended from David. So God's promise to David that a member of his family would always rule on his throne forever would be fulfilled when Jesus Christ takes that throne.

Some people have wondered, though, is there a chance that God let that commitment lapse for a few hundred years after the time that Jerusalem fell? You know, the Babylonians came in under Nebuchadnezzar and destroyed Jerusalem, destroyed the temple, killed the king, and slew his sons in front of him. Did he let his promise lapse until Christ came along? Well, we believe that he did not. And I think this is a story most of us have known for many years.

And there's, it's not explicit, but there's indication of how he fulfilled his promise. If we look at Jeremiah chapter 34, we want to make the point that when God makes a promise, he remembers it, and he follows through every single time. Jeremiah, now did I say 34? Because I meant to say 43.

I'm on a roll today. I'm going to look at Jeremiah 43 beginning in verse 7. This is recorded after the Babylonians had conquered Judah and destroyed Jerusalem. And of course, as I said, the king who was King Zedekiah, they brought his sons and killed him while he had to watch, and then they put out his eyes. But we see here now in verse 5 of Jeremiah 43 says, Johannan, the son of Korea, and all the captains of the forces, took all the remnant of Judah who had returned to dwell on the land of Judah from all the nations where they'd been driven. Now, this is just a small remnant. Most of the Jews had been taken to Babylon, but a few refugees had gathered there. And these leaders took them, says men, women, children, the king's daughters, and every person who Nebuzzaradon the captain of the guard had left with Gedariah, the son of Ahikom, the son of Shaphan, and Jeremiah, the prophet, and Baruch, the son of Moriah. So they went to the land of Egypt. They didn't obey the voice of the Lord, and they went as far as Tapanese. I'm going to stop there. They didn't obey the voice of the Lord. God had actually sent a message to Jeremiah saying, tell these people, don't go to Egypt. I don't want you to go to Egypt. And then they said to Jeremiah, you're lying. We don't believe you. We're going to go to Egypt. But it's interesting. It mentions the leaders and just women, men, women, and children, and then specific mentions. Joseph, not Joseph, Jeremiah and his servant, the scribe Baruch, but also the king's daughters.

Now, what happened after they went to Egypt? The Bible doesn't tell us. But legend and bits of history give us an indication. Legends say that Jeremiah the prophet took one or more of these king's daughters and traveled on from Egypt through Spain and eventually to Ireland to a place where some descendants of Israel had traveled earlier and established a small kingdom. And the story goes that one of them, who we know in legend as Tia Tephi, married into the royal family. And thus, her children continued to fulfill God's promise to David that he would never lack for a man to sit on the throne over Israelites. And, of course, prophecy speaks of that throne being overturned, overturned, overturned. We believe that that throne moved from Ireland to Scotland. And then, in the unification when King James VI of Scotland became James I of England, that that royal family moved to England and is still on the throne today. If our understanding is true, Queen Elizabeth, which represents the only continuously reigning royal family now left in Europe, she's a descendant of King David. And I've read people have said that she's actually acknowledged and believes that that's true. I don't have that on a firsthand account. But that shows us, assuming that these things are true, God follows through on His commitments.

God remembers. He never fails. And I think of that when, you know, Prince William and Kate had their little baby boy, and he looked so cute in those pictures. I think if he's representing that promise, and for some reason that reminds me of looking up at the rainbow and remembering God's promise, looking at a picture of that little toddler reminds me of God's promise. And while we're in Jeremiah, if you will go back to Jeremiah chapter 33, we'll be reminded, because you could say, you're stretching it a little bit from that little thing that he said when David wanted to build the temple. But we see an even more explicit statement of that promise here in Jeremiah 33, starting in verse 17. It says, For thus says the Lord, David shall never lack a man to sit on the throne of the house of Israel, nor shall the priests, the Levites, lack a man to offer burnt offerings before me, to kindle grain offerings, and to sacrifice continually. And the word of the Eternal came to Jeremiah, saying, Thus says the Lord, if you can break my covenant with the day, and my covenant with the night, so that there will not be day and night in their season, then my covenant may also be broken with David my servant, so that he shall not have a son to reign on his throne, and with the Levites the priest my ministers, as the host of heaven cannot be numbered, nor the sand of the sea measured, so I will multiply the descendants of David my servant, and the Levites who ministered to me. That's pretty powerful, and it strikes me there is reference to another memory device here.

If the rainbow is a pretty clever thing to see, and remember God's promise about the flood, what about the sun coming up every day, and setting every day? He ties this here to his promise to David. As long as the sun rises and sets every day, there will be a descendant of David to rule on my throne. That goes a long way to supplement the scriptures, the legends, and things like that that submit in my mind. It's still largely an article of faith, but I believe God wouldn't say that if he didn't mean it and follow through. Now, we notice here also that God apparently is following through on a much lesser known promise to the descendants of Levi. I'm not going to go back through the first five books of the Bible to show, but we can see there that God chose that one tribe to be servants in the first the tabernacle and then later the temple. And one family of Levi, that of the descendants of Aaron, were to serve as priests. And of course, so the priests were Levites, but not every Levite was necessarily a priest. If you want to make a notation, it's in Numbers chapter 25 verses 11 to 13, that God promised Phineas, who was Aaron's grandson, that his descendants would remain in the priesthood into perpetuity. Now, this promise could cause some consternation, perhaps some doubt about whether, you know, does God really fulfill His promises every time? Because after all, if we look around, there aren't any priests offering incense and burnt offerings today. That stopped when the last temple was destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD.

So, how is it... how do we understand this? Well, partly by considering the book of Hebrews was written largely to prepare Christians who, you know, were largely Jews at that time, that to prepare them for realizing that the temple would be destroyed and that the physical sacrifices would not long would no longer be necessary. They were symbols of the coming sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Once His sacrifice was made, we would honor it and we would symbolize it by the Passover every year, but we would not sacrifice animals and burn incense. Let's turn to Hebrews chapter 7 and read just a little bit of that. So, we need not concern ourselves that we're not offering those sacrifices.

Hebrews 7 and verse 26 It says, For such a high priest was fitting for us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and has become higher than the heavens. This is speaking of Jesus Christ, and it reminds us He's not only a king who will sit on the throne of David, His ancestor forever, but at the same time, He's also a high priest, but of course not of the Levitical priesthood. As we see in this chapter, chapter 7 and verse 12, it says, The priesthood being changed of necessity, there's also a change of the law. For he of whom these things are spoken belongs to another tribe, from which no man has officiated at the altar, for it's evident that our Lord arose from Judah, of which tribe Moses spoke nothing concerning the priesthood. And it is yet far more evident if in the likeness of Melchizedek there arises another priest who has come not according to the law of fleshly commandment, but according to the power of an endless life. So this is telling us Jesus Christ is now the high priest, and He's not of the order of Aaron, but of the order of Melchizedek. And I'm not going to go into the detail, but we believe, especially here in Hebrews, it explains to us that Melchizedek actually was Jesus Christ Himself before He was born of the flesh, and He appeared to Aaron. But still, that leaves us wondering what about God's promise to the Levites, that they would continue, that they would have someone to minister and to offer sacrifice. Did God fail to honor His commitment? Did He forget? Well, we just read in Hebrews 7 and 12 that there was a changing of the priesthood, and that necessitated a change in the law. We note that the Greek for that can refer to, or could be interpreted, a transition or a transfer of the law. We turn to this verse in this chapter actually fairly often to remind us that we no longer need to sacrifice animals. And also, we look to it to explain that we don't have to give our tithes to Levites. We don't have Levites where we can hold up a tenth of our grain and of our animals. Instead, there's a transfer of the principle of that law that we tithe to God's church, which uses it to do the work of God. Well, so we could say we tithe now, but in a different way than ancient Israel did. Can we find scriptures to show that we sacrifice, but do it in a different way? And I'm asking, I'm not asking it as a completely rhetorical question. I want to give the answer, but I think we know the answer. If you'll turn a couple pages here in Hebrews 13, we're reminded that it's something that we do for one thing every time we gather as a congregation. Hebrews 13 and verse 15 says, therefore by him let us continually offer the sacrifice of praise to God. That is the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to his name. We do this in prayer, and certainly when we join together in singing songs of praise, this is saying it's a sacrifice.

I'll make a citation of Psalm 51 verse 17, that great psalm of repentance, where David says, the sacrifices of God are a broken and a contrite spirit, or a broken heart and a contrite spirit.

But I do want to turn to 1 Peter chapter 2. We're very near there. 1 Peter 2 and verse 5.

So God didn't give up sacrifice, but he transferred it to spiritual sacrifice.

1 Peter 2 and verse 5 says, you also as living stones are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. So Jesus Christ is the high priest, and we're called to become priests in God's kingdom, offering spiritual sacrifice. If we look down to verse 9, it tells us, you're a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, his own special people that you may proclaim the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Now we could add... Actually, I'm going to flip over to Revelation chapter 8 before I leave this thought. Revelation 8 and verse 4.

I like this imagery. It says, there the smoke of the incense with the prayers of the saints ascended before God from the angel's hand. So the prayers of saints, that is, Christians, are like incense. We don't have to physically burn actual incense anymore.

So this is showing us the need to burn the fat of animals or to burn incense on a physical altar has been replaced. Our prayers and our praise to God are spiritual sacrifices.

Those that God has called and chosen to be in his church, which we call the body of Christ, are now a royal priesthood after the order of Melchizedek.

But then that leaves where I've gone away from another question I was still asking, what about the Levites? And Jeremiah 33, God promised the Levites would never lack a man to serve him and to offer sacrifices. He said they would never be lacking.

But it occurs to me, he didn't say that no one else besides Levi could ever join in offering sacrifices. That must be obvious or else there wouldn't be a priesthood after the order of Melchizedek, which is Jesus Christ. Here's where I want to offer something that I can't prove, but I'm confident that at least one person in God's church today is a descendant of Levi.

I said I'm sure there must be at least one because God doesn't break his promises. But my guess is there are probably lots of them. We don't know how many.

Remember, I'm not going to turn there, but back in Genesis 49, Jacob called his 12 sons together and said, let me tell you what will befall your descendants in the last days.

What he said of the Levites, along with the Simeonites, is you'll be scattered in all of Israel. Meaning, eventually the Levites and Simeonites wouldn't be together as a group. They'd be scattered. Wherever there were Israelites then, there would be Levites.

So, if we think a good many people who consider themselves Jewish are actually descendants of Benjamin, it wouldn't be surprising if a good many people who consider themselves American, or British, or Scandinavian are descendants of Levi. As a matter of fact, I would say it's beyond doubt in my mind. And that reminds me, Cohen, as I said, is Hebrew for priest.

I'll add, I remember when I traveled to Britain for summer camp, I came across a family named Templeman. And Temple is not an uncommon name there, and it just made me wonder, could there have been some carryover? And I don't know, with the linguistics, I wouldn't hang my hat on that. It just made me wonder. But as I said, I don't wonder if there are Levites. You know, we don't need to know who is and who isn't a descendant of Levi. The point is that they are there. They survive. They must surely be among the members of God's church, because God is fulfilling that promise in Jeremiah 33 that there would always be descendants of Levi to offer sacrifice to him. Only now it's the sacrifice of praise. God is keeping his promises.

As I said, I don't think this is reaching. God remembers, and he follows through.

So let's get ready to change gears a little bit. As I said, we've got a perfect example. God makes long-term promises and commitments, and he remembers and follows through. But what about us? We want to follow that example. Can we remember and follow through?

Well, I think we can, and I want to discuss some memory devices that are available. But first, I should ask, what does God want us to remember?

Now, to start, not to put too fine a point on it, the first thing I would say is he wants us to remember him. One of the scriptures that we often have committed to memory is Ecclesiastes 12 and verse 1. It says, Remember now your Creator in the days of your youth. We use that as the theme for our Christian living classes at summer camp last year. Remember now your Creator.

So I'm not going to turn there, but I would like to turn to Psalm 77. Psalm 77, beginning in verse 11.

We want to remember. If we're to remember our Creator, we could also say, what do we do about it?

Psalm 77 in verse 11 says, I will remember the works of the Eternal. Surely I will remember your wonders of old. I will also meditate on all your work and talk of your deeds. So just beyond just remembering that God exists, it's good to remember the things that He's done and to talk about Him and talk about those deeds. And that's what makes up the substance of a lot of sermons and sermonettes we hear. I think that is part of my job and it's a happy part of the job.

But let's go further. If you flip over to Daniel... No, sorry, back to Deuteronomy. I'm going to have to leave these on all the time. Deuteronomy chapter 8. We'll see further instruction. Deuteronomy 8 verse 11.

Deuteronomy 8, 11 says, Beware that you do not forget the Eternal your God, by not keeping His commandments, His judgments, and His statutes, which I command you this day.

So this goes beyond just being a good idea, but we see it as something we're told to do.

Remember God, and the way we do it is by keeping His commandments.

So to remember God, in a sense, we worship Him and we obey Him. Of course, if we're worshiping and obeying Him and living by His law, we're not likely to forget who it is we're worshiping and obeying. And so far, that doesn't seem like such a tall order, you know? But we can say, what if we forget the commandments? I wanted to turn to Psalm 119, because we know Psalm 119 is the longest Psalm, the longest chapter in the Bible, and David makes numerous references to remembering God's law. Psalm 119, we'll start in verse 83, and I'll just skip down over several verses.

Psalm 119, and verse 83 says, yeah, well, actually, I want to read the last part of that. I'm not certain about becoming like a wineskin in smoke, but it says, yet I do not forget your statutes. Don't forget your statutes. Turn the page to 109. Verse 109, my life is continually in my hand, yet I do not forget your law. I don't forget your law. Verse 141, I'm small and despised, yet I do not forget your precepts. In the last verse of the whole chapter, 176, I've gone astray like a sheep, seek your servant, for I do not forget your commandments. So we'd better remember God's law. Remember his judgments, his precepts, his statutes, and his commandments. Remember what he tells us to do and not do. And after I typed that, I thought, hmm, is your memory that good? I think we all know my memory is not that good. God knows that our memories are limited, and so he did something that we often do. I was thinking about memory devices, and I realized I had one of these in my notebook. We write things down. God wrote things down. I'm not going to turn there, but in Exodus 31, we know it is where God called Moses up to the mountain. He was there 40 days and 40 nights, and after he gave him all this instruction, he handed him two tables of stone that he'd written on with his own finger. He wrote the law on them. And of course, besides the 10 commandments on stone, God had Moses write out all the statutes on the scroll. I do want to turn to Deuteronomy 31.

Of course, while you're turning, I'll mention also, God wanted that. He thought that written law was so important that when Moses got angry about the golden calf and broke the tablets, God told him, go carve two more, and I'll write on them. But you're not going to be without this written law. And in Deuteronomy 31, beginning in verse 9, it says, So Moses wrote this law, and delivered it to the priests, the sons of Levi, who bore the ark of the covenant of the eternal, and to all the elders of Israel. And Moses commanded them, saying, At the end of every seven years, at the appointed time in the year of release, at the feast of Tabernacles, when all Israel comes to appear before the Lord your God in the place which he chooses, you shall read this law before all Israel in their hearing. Gather the people together, men and women and little ones, and the stranger who is within your gates, that they may hear, and that they may learn to fear the Lord your God, and carefully observe all the words of this law.

So, just think, this was at a time when very few people could afford to have their own copy of the law. You know, these were on scrolls, not printed books, and they were all handwritten. We don't know for sure how many people knew how to read and write in the first place. So, one thing they did is every seventh year at the Feast of Tabernacles, they read the entire thing to make sure, you know, that they wouldn't forget it. But for those who could read, but maybe couldn't afford their own scroll, the law was available and written for them in another public way. If you'll turn back a couple pages to chapter 27 of Deuteronomy. Deuteronomy 27, beginning in verse 5, I've never seen an artist's rendering of this. I've always wondered what it might look like.

Deuteronomy 27, verse 5, he says, "...there you shall build an altar to the eternal your God, an altar of stones. You shall not use an iron tool on them. You'll build with whole stones the altar of the Lord your God, and offer burnt offerings." Yeah, and you shall offer peace offerings. In verse 8, it says, "...you shall write very plainly," or that could say, legibly, on the stones, all the words of this law. So, they had to write the words of the law on the altar, and it was there out where everybody could see. Actually, and I'm not going to turn there, but Joshua chapter 8, verse 30, shows that Joshua did have this fulfilled. So, it wasn't just on a scroll that was put away, where, you know, maybe you'd hear it every seven years, but it's written right there.

So, the written law is a powerful reminder, and we add to that hearing regularly. Now, I'll add, we don't follow this instruction of reading the entire law at the Feast of Tabernacles every seventh year, and the reason for that is we believe that was part of the civil law that God gave Israel, along with the year of release, and we don't have to worry about releasing slaves, because we don't have those. But, in a sense, we have something better. We can read it every day. We live in a time when we can afford our own copy of the Bible, and not only that, how many of us, is there anybody here that has less than two or three in their home? We've got multiple copies. And, actually, while we're here in Deuteronomy, if you turn back to chapter 17, there's a special instruction for one person that God wanted to be very well acquainted with the words of the law. Deuteronomy 17 in verse 15, this is looking ahead to something God didn't want them to do, but knew that they would eventually, said, You shall surely set a king over you, whom the Lord your God chooses, one from among your brethren, you shall set as king over you, not a foreigner. And if you drop down to verse 18, it shall be when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, he shall write for himself a copy of this law in a book, even from the one before the priest the Levites. And it shall be with him, and he shall read it all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the eternal his God, and be careful to observe all the words of this law in these statutes.

Now, we don't have to handwrite out our own copy of the Bible. We have one printed, and you've all seen my handwriting, I think. You know printed copies better in my case, but we should read the copy we have throughout our lives, and I would add, every single day, we encourage daily Bible study, and you might say, why? You know, I've got a lot of books on my shelf at home that I've read once. I'll borrow a book from the library, you get novels, and you read it, and go, oh, that was a good book, but you don't get it out and read it every day. Well, one of the reasons God wants us to read the Bible throughout our lives is it is a memory device. We read God's law, we read about His great works, we remember, and we do. We remember God. I thought, there's one problem here, though, because ancient Israel had the written Word, and they heard it read to them. They had the Word written on those whole stones of the altar where anybody could see it. The king, at least supposedly, had a handwritten copy that he wrote for himself. And still, with all that, they forgot.

They forgot, and they disobeyed God, and they broke their covenant.

That's telling us we need something more. We need a better memory device, and we have it.

If you'll turn to Hebrews chapter 8, let's see what that device is, because it's one that's not going to let us down. Fortunately, because we know that we need it. Hebrews 8 verse 10, and this actually is quoting from a proxy back in Jeremiah, Hebrews 8 and verse 10 says, This is the covenant that I'll make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord. I'll put my laws in their mind and write them on their hearts. I'll be their God, and they'll be my people.

Hebrews 10 verse 16 repeats the same exact thing. And we need to realize, and I think we do, this doesn't mean that God is going to open our skulls or probably open our ribcage and get a pen and start writing on our brains or on our hearts. But this is a metaphor for the way that God does touch our minds, which we see back in John chapter 14. John 14, which is, we read from this passage of Scripture on Passover, because these are the words that Christ told the disciples after they'd taken the bread and the wine, we believe, and He was giving them this final instruction, and it reveals the best memory device ever. John 14 and verse 26, When the help or the Holy Spirit, which the Father will send in my name, it will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all things that I've said. And in the context of this, I say, hallelujah! As a forgetful person, I rejoice at this promise. The Holy Spirit helps me to remember. It helps us all to remember. And I think the Holy Spirit can help me to remember all kinds of things, and every now and then I think to ask God for that. You know, where did I misplace that book I've been trying to find? Or when I bump into someone at the feast that I met 15 years ago and I can't remember the name, you know, I call on God through His Spirit to help me with that. Matter of fact, I remember my years at summer camp as a counselor. I'm one of those people I'm not good at remembering names and faces, so I would start praying, God, please help me to learn the names of all the boys in the dorm. Because I'd have 15 or 20 kids and within hours you've got to memorize their names. And somehow I always did. And I actually shouldn't say somehow. I think God answered my prayer. But Jesus Christ specifically promises that the Holy Spirit will help us to remember His words. That's the best memory device ever. The power and the essence of God working in our minds. And that Spirit also provides the follow-through. And this is a theme I guess I've been speaking on. I just spoke on it on the Holy Day about God's Spirit joining in and making us something that can do that. As we saw, you know, we can do what God did in His examples. Not just remember, but do. Follow through. I'm going to read Philippians 4 in verse 13, actually, to remind us that we can do this. We can remember God's law and we can obey it by the power of God dwelling in us. Philippians 4, 13, it's a very simple but powerful verse. It says, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. And as I said, we could talk at great length about how the Holy Spirit does work in us. I've done it before, I'm sure I will again.

But I want to consider before we end this one more powerful memory device that God's given us. And I don't know if we always think of it as a memory device. I think we do sometimes. But I know education scholars, they've studied how we learn, how we remember. One of the things they say is, we remember some of what we hear. We remember more of what we see, but we remember much more of something that we do.

So God commanded us things to do. Like He commands the fourth commandment, it says, remember the Sabbath day, keep it holy.

And so what He does is, there are certain days where He says, you act differently. You're acting this out. Every week we have this great boost to our memories of who and what God is and what we're called for. And then I'll add Leviticus chapter 23 gives a calendar of annual Holy Days. And we study God's Word. We learn that these Holy Days symbolize God's plan and purpose for mankind. As Mr. Armstrong used to say, they literally tell us why we were born. The Holy Days have it all there. Now God could have just told us and left it at that.

He could have commanded us to keep the Holy Days once in a generation. Now if you look in the old civil system, they had the year of release every seven years and then the Jubilee once every 50 years. Can you imagine if God had said, well keep these Holy Days once every 50 years.

I'll bet you the Israelites never would have kept them. I don't think there's record of them ever observing a Jubilee. So we keep the Holy Days every year. God knew our memories. Once a year, over and over again, and over and over again, of course, we hear sermons explaining why we're keeping them, what the days mean. And in the process, we remember. It makes a self-feeding cycle. As we remember, we follow through in obeying, and obeying helps us to remember.

And that's funny, I've got a note here. That's a good excuse for me not to go into explaining what all the Holy Days mean, because we just had two of them and we've got one coming up in...

what is it? Seven weeks from tomorrow? I'm trying to think of whether we started counting from last Saturday or this one. I think it was this one, but one thing I can say is I'm glad I've never had a recurring dream about forgetting to keep the Sabbath or a Holy Day. I've had that dream about missing an exam but never a Holy Day. And that's good. You know, that would be more important in the long run. It should be hard for us to forget to keep God's commands. He sets us on an example. He remembers, He follows through. We worship a God who has a good memory and who follows through.

We can grow into being like Him. We can use the memory devices that He's given us. He's given us His written Word, He's given us His Holy Spirit, and He's given us the Sabbath and Holy Days so that we can remember and we can follow through.