Remember and Follow Through

Thank you very much, Mr. Elsiniori. Beautiful music to worship and praise God by. I was just thinking, I was sitting there driving here, Sue and I were listening to a CD of George Winston, who is a well-known pianist. I'd say that was just as expressive and beautiful as what I was listening to. So I hope you take that as a compliment, because it was meant to be.

Brethren, have you ever had a recurring dream or a nightmare? I've heard that question come up, and I used to say, oh, I've never had that. Until I realized, actually, I sort of have. It's just that I didn't think that I had because the circumstances, the specifics of this dream would change from time to time.

But the main point of the dream is always the same. And I'm saying dream because it's not a nightmare. It's never been scary, just really frustrating. And I wonder if you've gone through this before. Let me describe it as best I can. It's occurred in a variety of settings, but it almost always involves me taking classes at a college or university. Sometimes a college that I've never actually attended.

And actually, I think at least once or twice I've had the dream set in my old high school up in Columbus. And in the dream, it's time for either a midterm or a final exam. And suddenly I know it's scheduled, and I come to this realization that for weeks now, I've been forgetting to go to class.

And it's not that I didn't intend to go. I registered for the class, but I realize in this dream that almost every time I've just been distracted or whatever, I've gone and done something else completely oblivious, and I'm just mortified. I've been forgetting to go to class.

Now, I've had some versions of the dream where I think, well, I can take this exam. I can study and cram. And whenever that happens, I'm trying to find my way to the classroom, and I just can't find it. I'm racing back and forth across campus. I'm seeing some looks. Some of you might have had a similar experience. Well, it's really frustrating. I remember at least once having the dream where I was trying to find the right room in my high school. And that's what makes me laugh, because I attended that same school from 7th grade until I graduated high school. So you'd think I'd know where every room in the building was. Well, once I realized that I was having this recurring dream, as I said, even though the details varied, that situation would be the same, I was able to figure it out and realize that I almost always would have this at a time when I've been really busy, and have a lot of things going on at once, different things. And I think it's my brain's way of telling me that it's worried I'm going to forget something important, and let it slip. Which is kind of laughable, because I'm thinking most of you know me well enough by now that think I shouldn't be worried. I usually am forgetting something and letting it slip. I thought that it's occurred to me that's something I need to work on in my character, not just the memory part, but the getting so frustrated when I have that many things. Now I've realized that's pretty much part of my job now, that there are a lot of things going on. And of course I've learned that I need to just trust that other people will help, because other people do.

But what about you? I can't be the only person that forgets things, or who gets worried and frustrated when he forgets things. Some of us naturally have better memories than others. For the rest, there are memory techniques. I'm curious now, I'm guessing it will be among the younger members of the congregation who have heard of the acronym PUPTATL. Anyone? Okay. Not as many as I thought. I'd never heard of it until summer camp one year, and as part of one of the challenges on the Amazing Race was to list the Holy Days in order. And one of those people said, oh, PUPTATL! And I said, Pentecost, Unleavened Bread? No, Passover, Unleavened Bread, Pentecost, Trumpets, Atonement, Tabernacles, Last Great Day. Of course, then I had to explain to them that, well, Passover isn't technically a Holy Day, and it's a great teaching opportunity.

I'll bet more of you have heard the phrase, was, every good boy deserves fudge. Is that it? Now, that has something to do with music, but never having studied music, I don't know what it means, but I know it helps you remember E-G-B-D-F, is that right? Is there a B chord? Okay. I told you. Okay. Mrs. McKinney says it does.

Of course, we all know remembering something is often only part of what's needed. After that is the follow-through. Acting on what we remembered, especially if it's on something we committed to. You make a commitment, and you need to not only remember it, but to follow through. Is this particularly important for Christians? Does it matter to living the way God instructs us and preparing to serve in His kingdom? Well, I believe it is important. There are a number of times when God tells us, remember. I'll visit some of those later, but we also should keep in mind we have a perfect example. God, our Creator, has a great memory. Of course, He has a great memory. But it's also important to note that He follows through every time. And we know God wants us to become as He is. We want to become like Him, so that must include that we need to learn to remember and to follow through. So this might be a simple point, perhaps an obvious one. But I guess maybe because it's close to my heart being a forgetful person, I thought it'd be worth exploring today.

In some ways, we could consider every time God makes a prophecy to be somewhat of a promise that He will follow through. Some of them have already been fulfilled, but we can take it as a given that the others will be. But I want to consider some examples that we might think more cases of God telling a specific person or group of people that He'll do something. He's going to follow through on a commitment that He makes.

Now, the first one is obvious. I thought I'd start easy. We'll find it early in the Bible, actually, in the book of Genesis. We're going to consider the example of basically the Flood. We know that after what might have been as many as a couple thousand years of God getting fed up with man's depravity, corruption, and sin, He decided, I'm going to clean this place up. I'm going to get rid of all of them and start over. I'm going to destroy all people except, as Genesis 6.8 tells us, Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. Interesting. It doesn't say he deserved salvation. It says he found grace. God decided to have grace or mercy on him. I won't read the story. Most of us have heard it many times that God instructed Noah to build this ark. Of course, I can't help but think of the Bill Cosby routine. I don't know how many of you have heard of some of the older people. I want you to build an ark. Right. What's an ark? Get some wood and build it 300 cubits by 80 cubits by 40 cubits. Okay, right. What's a cubit? Well, never mind that. After that, I want you to get all the animals and bring them in two by two. Okay, how come you want me to do all these weird things? I'm going to destroy the world. Right. I didn't have that in my notes. I wasn't planning on going into it. But we know that story and we know God did flood out the earth. But then I want to pick it up afterwards. After the whole world being covered for a number of days over a year, finally the water begins to recede and eventually God will have Noah and all the animals and his family leave the ark. And in chapter 9 of Genesis, verse 11, Genesis 9, verse 11, God tells him this, 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. Thus I establish my covenant with you. Never again shall all... Did I just read that? Yeah. And God said, this is the sign of the covenant that I'll make between me and you and every living creature that is with you for a perpetual generations. God makes this promise. He says you'll never again use a flood to destroy the surface of the earth. Now, he doesn't say he won't use some other means. And that's important to remember. There are prophecies that indicate that he will use fire in the future. But he gives a memory device, we could say. Not an acronym, but something different. In verse 13, he says, I set my rainbow in the cloud, and it will be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth.

It will be when I bring the 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, every living creature of all flesh. The water shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. The rainbow will be in the cloud, and I will look at it to remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh.

For some reason, that reminded me of tying a string on your finger. That's something you don't hear much about. I remember as a kid, and I've done that. Tie a string on your finger to remind you of something. Anybody done that? Does it work? It's always worked for me. And I do things like, well, I'm getting sidetracked. Now, I wonder, I have trouble thinking that God needs a string around his finger. He does say he'll look at the rainbow and remember, but I suspect he was setting an example for us because he also expects us to see the rainbow and for us to remember that God made a promise, and he will follow through.

It also makes a wonderful teaching opportunity. I'll bet there isn't a parent here who hasn't at one time pointed out the rainbow to his child and told them what that means. And, of course, it's there for generation to generation. It's a great memory device. Well, I said that was an obvious one, an easy one. Not only do we understand that particular lesson, anybody that calls themselves a Christian and reads the Bible understands it.

That's one of the neat things, I think, as we discuss youthful instruction and lessons. If there's one area where you can be pretty safe and know you can get materials from outside the church, it's Noah and the flood. You can find materials about that. Let's move on, consider a couple of slightly less known, perhaps less understood commitments that God has made and fulfilled. One, I think, is fairly well known to us. We do revisit it fairly often. If you'll turn to 2 Samuel 7, this is a personal promise that God made to King David. But it's important that we remember it because it not only was a fulfillment to King David, but it's affected many people down through the ages.

So we'll review the story in 2 Samuel 7, beginning in verse 1. Now, this, of course, is after a very eventful earlier part of his life and becoming established on the throne and in Jerusalem. Now things have settled down, and we'll begin in verse 1. It says, It came to pass when the king was dwelling in his house, and the eternal had given him rest from all his enemies all around. That the king said to Nathan the prophet, Well, see now, I live in a house of cedar, but the ark of God dwells inside tent curtains.

Reminds me of that sermon a couple weeks ago. See, tents were considered permanent dwellings in many cases. And Nathan the prophet said, Well, go do all that's in your heart, for the eternal is with you. Nathan said that off the top of his head because he thought, well, God is with David.

He's been blessing him. And David was implying, without saying here, that maybe I can build something a little nicer to house the ark of the covenant than a tent. But God had different feelings. In verse 4, it happened that night that the word of the eternal came to Nathan saying, Go tell my servant David, thus says the eternal, Would you build a house for me to dwell in?

For 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, Saying, Why haven't you built me a house of cedar? God wasn't concerned about that. Now, I'm going to skip ahead because he does say, Well, look, David, your hands have been bloodied with too much warfare. I will allow a temple to be built, but it's going to be on your son to do.

I'll allow your son, when he comes to the throne, to build me a house, a temple. But if we drop down to verse 16, we'll see that God addresses something else. And your house and your kingdom shall be established forever before you. Your throne shall be established forever. David heard this. It says that he was astonished. Not so much that he didn't think to go before the ark and say, Well, thank you, God!

Go ahead and do this. He didn't say, No, no, don't establish my throne forever. And it would only take a couple of generations, though, for God to have to take specific action To follow through on this promise. Because David's son Solomon, although he was a great king and did many good things, We know he had that problem. He married many wives. And it says, when he was old, his wives turned his heart away from worshipping God.

He started worshipping idols. And that would lead him to losing most of the kingdom. Let's go to 1 Kings 11. 1 Kings 11. We'll begin reading in verse 11. So God addresses Solomon directly on this matter. Therefore, the eternal said to Solomon, Because you have done this and have not kept my covenant and statutes which I commanded you, I will surely tear the kingdom away from you and give it to your servant. Now, the servant of a great king was usually a pretty capable person.

So it didn't mean some uneducated hobo coming off the street. Jeroboam was, you know, worthwhile of being a king, so to speak. But he said, I'm going to take it and give it to your servant. Nevertheless, I will not do it in your days for the sake of your father David. I will tear it out of the hand of your son. However, I will not tear away the whole kingdom.

I will give one tribe to your son for the sake of my servant David, and for the sake of Jerusalem, which I have chosen. So God made that promise to David. You know, I'm going to continue your line and your throne. And when God is ready to take the kingdom away from his descendants, he said, well, not all of them. I'm going to honor that commitment to King David.

And if we'll drop down, we'll see God still planned to keep this long-term commitment. If we go to 2 Kings 11. 2 Kings 11. Now, I'm wondering if I have a typo if I didn't mean to stay in 1 Kings. Let me take a look here. Yeah, I apologize. Go back to 1 Kings 11.

On my notes, it says 2 Kings 11, verse 34. And 2 Kings 11 doesn't have that many verses. But 1 Kings 11 does. 1 Kings 11, verse 34. God is expounding this. He says, However, I will not take away the whole kingdom out of his hand, because I have made him ruler all the days of his life, for the sake of my servant David, whom I chose, because he kept my commandments and my statutes.

But I will take the kingdom out of his son's hand, and give to you ten tribes. And to his son I will give one tribe, that my servant David may always have a lamp before me in Jerusalem, the city which I have chosen for myself, to put my name there. Now, I'm not going to read all the verses that would show this being fulfilled, but if we read all of the rest of 1 and 2 Kings, and we read the books of Chronicles, we would see that God fulfilled this.

The northern kingdom, which became known as Israel, it had a number of dynasties. A king would rule, and in one case God promised, your descendants will stay on the throne to the fourth generation. But as soon as they got to that fourth generation, boom, they were out, because many of them were wicked. So they would have different ruling families over the years. But the southern kingdom, which became known as Judah, was always ruled by a descendant of King David. Now, the territory, it's interesting, here we read one tribe. We think of the tribe of Judah.

It is worth noting, of course, that the way that the land was allotted to the various tribes, the land that fell to the tribe of Benjamin actually was within the tribe of Judah. And so, when Judah stayed, the Benjamites were just there, and they became part of the kingdom of Judah. So God promised one tribe, actually there ended up being two. And as I said, many who were Benjamites became known as Jews, because they were part of the kingdom of Judah. If you want a reference of that, of course, in Philippians chapter 3, the Apostle Paul, who was, said, I'm a Jew of the Jews, a Pharisee of the Pharisees, but he mentions that he was from the tribe of Benjamin.

I'm not going to turn there. It's also worth noting that, to maintain the temple in Jerusalem, the Levites continued their service. So most of the Levites stayed as part of the kingdom of Judah. And for that matter, some Levites are probably a large number who lived in the northern kingdom. When Jeroboam decided to build golden calves, and said, oh, it's too far to go to Jerusalem to worship, many of the Levites moved down to the kingdom of Judah. So a number of people, even today, who consider themselves to be Jews, some of them are from the tribe of Levi. I'll revisit that momentarily, but one example of that is, among Jews, Cohen is a fairly common Jewish name.

Cohen. But in Hebrew, the word Cohen means priest. And thus, it's a good bet many of those people who are named Cohen, who are Jewish, are probably actually Levites, descended from the Levitical family of Aaron.

Now we know that God's promise to David will be fulfilled for eternity, because he had a descendant who will inherit the throne forever. That's Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ will sit on that throne into eternity. But some people wonder, did God let that commitment lapse for a time when Jerusalem fell around 587 to 585 BC? Did he just say, well, I'll keep my commitment eventually, but for a few hundred years, maybe not? Well, we don't think that's true. I'm pretty certain that he did follow through his commitment, partly because, well, what sort of God would he be if he just didn't honor his commitments all the time? But also, we see a hint in the book of Jeremiah indicating some of how we think he might have done it.

In Jeremiah 43, there is an indication of something that's not elaborated, but it's enough to tantalize us. Jeremiah 43 and verse 5, that of course, set in Judah after the Babylonian army came and wrecked the city, it took most of the people captive, and there were only a few refugees left. Jeremiah was among them. And in Jeremiah 43 and verse 5, it says, ...Johannan, the son of Korea, and all the captains of the forces, took all the remnant of Judah, who had returned to dwell in the land of Judah from the nations where they had been driven.

So some people had fled from the Babylonian army and came back. Men, women, children, the king's daughters, and every person who nebuzared in the captain of the guard, had left with Gedaliah the son of Haikom, son of Shiphon, and Jeremiah the prophet, and Baruch the son of Noriah. A lot of people with names ending in A. It is worth noting, I didn't read the scripture that says, Zedekiah, who was the last descendant of David sitting on that throne, when the city fell and he failed to escape, the Babylonians brought him, and they brought all of his sons before him, and killed them.

And then they put out his eyes, which is a terrible thing. The last thing he could ever remember seeing was his sons all being killed. But we just read here that his daughters were not killed. And legend perhaps picks up and fills in some area where scripture does not.

And I want to stress that it is legend. We don't have hard historical data or the scripture to say it, but legend tells us that Jeremiah took at least one of those daughters of the king and moved them first to Spain and then up to Ireland, where they married into a royal family that was also descended from Israel. And the legends say that some of them left very early, while most of the ten tribes were up in what is now perhaps the Balkan area and north of the Caspian Sea and moving towards northwestern Europe.

The legends say that some of them were already established in Ireland and that one of these daughters of the king married into that family, and thus God made sure that that line continued. And there we do have historical records to show that the royal house of Ireland later moved to Scotland and continued ruling. And then later we have very clear records of how, actually this seems very appropriate considering the vote a couple days ago for Scotland to remain in the UK, when King James VI of Scotland became King James I of England, he's the same King James for whom this translation of the Bible is named, that line moved to England. And thus, if all of this is true, Queen Elizabeth represents the only continuously ruling family on the planet.

And for that matter, World War I and II wiped out, knocked a lot of ruling families off their thrones, not in Britain. And we believe that she's a descendant of King David, or at least I should say I believe that. God followed through on a commitment that he made thousands of years ago. God remembers. God follows through. I thought, when you see on news reports those pictures or video of one-year-old Prince George on TV, think about that commitment to King David, because he's in line to that throne.

Now, you might say, come on, Frank, aren't you stretching things a little bit? Well, I could say maybe so, but while we're in the book of Jeremiah, if you'll turn back to chapter 33, let's see again how strongly God says he's committed to this commitment. Maybe I should say, committed to this promise. Jeremiah 33 and verse 17.

Because God did not only reiterate the promise here, but give us another memory device.

For thus says the eternal, The word of the eternal came to Jeremiah, saying, So that he will not have a son to reign on his throne, To me, that's pretty powerful. And as I said, think of the memory device here. If the rainbow after a storm reminds us that God promised he's not going to flood out the earth and destroy all life, think of the fact that the sun rises every day and the sun sets every day as a memory device that God said, a descendant of David will rule over the children of Israel. To me, that goes a long way to supplementing what Scripture and legend have said, because the sun does come up every day, and it sets every day.

That means if our God is a God of power and might, a God who has a good memory and who follows through on his commitments, a descendant of David is on that throne.

Now, did you notice that apparently God is also following through on a lesser-known promise to the descendants of Levi?

Now, I'm not going to take the time to go back into the Pentateuch and show the places where God separated the tribe of Levi. One of the twelve tribes forced service in the tabernacle around the altar, and later, of course, the temple. One family out of Levi, that descended from Aaron, were designated as the priests. So, of course, all priests would be Levites. Not all Levites would be priests. But all Levites had the opportunity to serve in that capacity a special service of worshiping God. They would help with the sacrifices. They would help with... Well, in the days when the children were wandering, they'd take the tabernacle down, pack it up, carry it around, set it back up. You know, it wasn't necessarily a glamorous job, it was a job of labor. In Numbers 25, God promised that the descendants of Phineas, who was Aaron's grandson, would remain in the office of the priesthood in perpetuity.

Now, I thought this promise could cause some consternation, perhaps even some doubt, about whether or not God really does honor and remember such commitments every time. After all, there aren't any priests offering incense and burnt offerings today, to my knowledge. That stopped when the temple was destroyed, at least the last one, by the Romans, around 70 AD.

As a matter of fact, the book of Hebrews was largely written to prepare Christians to have an understanding that when the sacrifices ended, that would be okay. They would not be necessary, because they were replaced by the only sacrifice that really could take away sin, that of Jesus Christ. Let's turn to Hebrews, Hebrews 7. It's important that we understand this. Hebrews 7, and of course, I'm not going to go through all of the book, but we'll hit a few key verses. Hebrews 7 and verse 26. For such a high priest was fitting for us, this is referring to Jesus Christ, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and has become higher than the heavens. So, it's interesting, as I said, we'll see the connection. But Jesus Christ is not only King, a descendant from David, and he'll sit on the throne of David when he returns, but he is also High Priest.

But not a descendant of Levi. He couldn't be a Levite and a Jew at the same time. Let's look earlier in this chapter in verse 12. We'll see an explanation.

I didn't turn to read the verse, but he cites the passage in the Psalms that says, I'll make you a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. Jesus Christ is now High Priest as a member of the order of Melchizedek. And if we would explore all of this, we could show that Jesus Christ, we believe, actually was Melchizedek, the one who met Abraham after he went and rescued Lot, and the others who were captive in the war between Sodom and their Confederate cities and the others.

So if Jesus was Melchizedek in his pre-incarnate form, then he would predate the Levites. He is the legitimate High Priest. But what about that promise we read in Jeremiah? God's promise that the Levites would continue and that they would have someone to minister and to offer sacrifice. Did God fail to fulfill his commitment? Did he forget? Well, we just read in verse 12 here that the changing of the priesthood necessitated a change in the law. We refer to this chapter fairly often, and actually to this particular verse, to explain some important things, like that we no longer offer animal sacrifice. It would be a very different type of service if we did that when you showed up on the Sabbath. But as I said, we understand those were symbols of Jesus Christ's perfect sacrifice. We also use it to explain that while the principle of tithing is eternal, we don't have to pay tithes to a physical family, the Levites, to maintain a physical temple. But rather, the tithes, the change of the law says we can give our tithes to the church to support the work that God is doing today, that work of preaching the gospel.

Well, if we still tithe today, but do it slightly differently, can we find scriptures to show that we sacrifice in a different way? I was looking for nods, because I'm pretty sure many of you are familiar with this. While we're in Hebrews, if you'll turn to chapter 13 and verse 15, we'll see that the answer to this question is yes. We do offer sacrifice in a different way.

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're going to come back to the New Testament, so you might want to stick a finger here, but I'm going to go back to Psalm 51, verse 17, to remind us that it's not only a New Testament idea to have spiritual sacrifice. Psalm 51 and verse 17, King David wrote this as part of his very sincere repentance after grave sin. And he says this, and David had God's Spirit guiding him, and he says, The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart. These, O God, you will not despise. That's the sacrifice that God wants, a humble spirit, as Isaiah says later, someone who trembles at his word. Now, if you want to go back to the New Testament, we can back this up in 1 Peter, 1 Peter chapter 2.

1 Peter 2, he's addressing the church. And I wasn't even exploring this, but he says, You also as living stones are being built up a spiritual house. So we don't have a physical temple, but we have a spiritual temple that consists of all of us who have the Holy Spirit residing in us. The glory of God will dwell in us as it did in that physical building. But it also says, not only are we a spiritual house, but a holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. Now, we don't leave out the one who is the High Priest, Jesus Christ. We offer those spiritual sacrifices through him. And we do this because, as it says in verse 9, You are 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 to his marvelous light. Let me add one more thing. We're near Revelation. If we go over to Revelation chapter 8 and verse 4.

Revelation 8 and verse 4, another reference I wanted to make.

It's speaking in symbolism here, but I think very important. It says, The smoke of the incense with the prayers of the saints ascended before God from the angel's hand. I believe that incense was instituted as part of that physical worship long ago as a symbol of the prayer that we're able to offer now. And we're able to offer it directly to God the Father because the way is open now. When Christ was crucified, that veil that separated the Holy of Holies from the rest of the temple was ripped open from top to bottom. And thus now, well, let me back up. Whereas before, only the high priest could go to the Holy of Holies one time a year and not without blood, now any of us can go to the throne of God any time. We go boldly by the blood of Jesus Christ.

And as we do so in prayer, now we don't literally shoot up to the third heaven because we're still physical, but through God's Spirit in us, we can pray to Him. And that prayer is like incense. It's a spiritual sacrifice. We don't burn the fat of animals. We don't have to burn physical incense. But our prayers, our praise, our songs to God, our spiritual sacrifice.

And I'm glad Mr. Shoemaker's here. I know he's spoken often on the fact that our singing as worship to God is a very powerful and important part of our worship. And we could consider it, as I said, a spiritual sacrifice.

God called us to be chosen, to be called and chose us to be in His church, to be part of a royal priesthood. We could say, after the order of Melchizedek, with Jesus Christ as the high priest.

But still, you might be wondering, well, Frank, you're doing what a politician does. You go off and address something that's not quite the question we had. Still, what about the Levites? In Jeremiah 33, God promised that the Levites would never lack a man to serve Him and to offer sacrifice.

Hmm. Well, one thing I would say, it doesn't say there in Jeremiah 33 that no one else would ever be able to offer sacrifice. It says just that the Levites would continue to do so. Because if no one else who is not a Levite could ever be in the priesthood or offer sacrifice, then you couldn't have a priesthood after the order of Melchizedek, which is what Jesus Christ is.

So here's where I want to speculate on something that I can't prove with documentation, but I think is so. I'm confident that at least one person in God's church today is the descendant of Levi. If that were true, that would fulfill the promise. It says, Levi would never lack a man to stand before me and to offer sacrifice. Well, if all of us offer spiritual sacrifice, if at least one of us is a Levite, that's fulfilling the promise. I'll remind you of Jacob's prophecy. Before Jacob, whose name was changed to Israel, died in Egypt, he gathered in his sons and he told them what would befall them in the last days. I'm not going to turn there. That's in Genesis 49. And he said of both Simeon and Levi that they would be scattered in Israel. They wouldn't be grouped together as a separate nation. They'd be throughout Israel. That means wherever there are Israelites, there are Levites without necessarily knowing who they are. As I said, if a good many people who think they are Jews actually are Benjamites or Levites, well, a good many who would be Israelites are probably Levites. Whether they're Americans, British, Scottish, Norwegians, northern areas of France, all these areas where we think the Levites have settled and don't know... Levites, I meant to say Israelites, and don't know that they're Levites. I'm getting that backward. Levite is a lot easier to say than Israelite. And I can attest, it's much easier to type. I'm glad for spell check.

But just think, if Cohen is Hebrew for priest, that leads us to suspect that many Jews named Cohen probably are Levites. It occurred to me, and this is just an aside, but I remember when I went to camp in Scotland working with a British family. And I keep in mind, when we went to... we had the camp in Scotland, but most of the staff there were from England.

But there was a family there, the dad and the mom and several of their kids, whose last name was Templeman. And that always made me wonder, hmm, Templeman. Now, I don't know the linguistics. I don't know if that would translate into Hebrew, but if it did at all, I thought, wouldn't it be interesting if that just stuck?

A man of the temple would be what you'd call a Levite. Maybe some of those people would be Levites. I don't know. In any event, it doesn't matter that we know who is or who isn't descended from Levi. The point is, we can take it for granted, we can take it as a rock-solid commitment that some of them do continue. And I think some of them are in the Church, probably some of us here. And we don't need to know who is and who isn't.

But God is keeping that promise He made in Jeremiah 33. I don't think that's reaching too far. God doesn't take His promises lightly. He follows through. And I'll have to admit, I had most of this prepared, and then as I was looking at it, it struck me. It's like, I'm taking for granted even one of the other promises that He made in Matthew 16, verse 18, as where Jesus said, I will build my Church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.

So for any Levites to be part of the Church, the Church would have to continue. And Jesus said it will never die. It would never go into the grave. And we're a part of it now. We believe it's never gone out of existence, and it never will. That's an important thing to keep in mind when challenges, when trials, when splits and divisions come up.

I'm reminded, and I don't have many times I've talked to people about the example that Mr. Lucer said. When we were having troubles a few years ago, and he went before us all and said, this will work out. I don't know how, but it will work out. I think it's partly because he said he knew in his mind God honors His commitments. If he said the Church will never be destroyed, it will never be destroyed. Now before we leave this, I'd like to consider one other similar example, and it's much less well known, but it's always intrigued me.

We'll see that God promised to preserve the descendants of another man forever, and this one's back also in Jeremiah. I want to explore this partly just because I think it's interesting, and it might show us that, as I said, sometimes without seeing the other end, we can know that it's there. Jeremiah 35. As I said, God never fails to honor His commitments.

Jeremiah 35 will begin in verse 2. This is set during the siege of Jerusalem when the Babylonian army was coming to destroy it. And so a lot of people who lived in the outlying areas came into Jerusalem to shelter within its walls. And God told Jeremiah, go to the house of the Riccobites and speak to them.

Bring them into the house of the Eternal, into one of the chambers. Of course, they couldn't come into the Holy of Holies, but bring them into one of the chambers and give them some wine to drink. Now, Jeremiah's probably thinking, well, that's a pretty odd command, but God tells us to do some weird things sometimes.

Now, and we're not certain... I'll give you the background. We think that Riccob was one of the Kenites, and that's the name that the family of Moses' father-in-law went by. If you remember, of course, when Moses went out in the land of Midi and became a shepherd for 40 years, he met this woman and married her. And later, his father-in-law came to visit the children of Israel when they were wandering. And he's the one that gave him advice, hey, you're going to wear out.

You try to judge these people yourself. A point-capped. Captains of 10, captains of 100, and so on. And Moses implored him to stay with them. You can be our eyes in the desert. And so Moses' father-in-law and his family did. They stayed, and they weren't descended from Israel, but I don't know if they were related. But they settled with the children of Israel, and we're pretty sure the Riccobites were among them.

So they were in the land for all those generations. And we'll see in verse 5, Jeremiah follows through on God's instructions. Then I set before the sons of the house of the Riccobites bowls full of wine. I'm thinking of punch bowls with little cups. And I said to them, drink wine.

And here it got a surprise. And they said, we will drink no wine. For John the son of Riccob, our father, commanded us, saying, You shall drink no wine, you nor your sons forever. You shall not build a house, nor sow seed, or plant a vineyard, or have any of these things, but all your days you'll dwell in tents. He was telling them, you need to be nomads, or what we might call bedouins.

That you may live many days in the land where you sojourn. And thus we've obeyed the voice of John the son of Riccob, our father, and all that he charged us to drink no wine all our days. We, our wives, our sons, or our daughters. Now we can only guess and speculate as to why this happened.

My thought would be that John the dad might have noticed a family tendency towards alcoholism. There are families that have that genetic trait where it's hard for them to have it in moderation. They just fall into that. And people might criticize me for that, except we've seen the American Indian tribes are well known among historians that they just have a genetic tendency towards that.

Apparently John the dad saw that in his family and said, I want to spare my descendants from this terrible thing, so I'm going to teach them, don't drink any at all. You know, you be UBT totalers and things will work out okay for you. Whether or not that was his reason, he gave that order to his descendants, and they were considerably better at obeying him than the Israelites ever were at obeying God. And that's the point that God wanted to make. In verse 16, chapter 35 and verse 16, God says, Surely the sons of John the dad, the son of recap, have performed the commandment of their father, which he commanded them, but this people, meaning Israel, has not obeyed me.

Now, before their outstanding example, God made a promise to the Rekabites. In verse 18, Jeremiah said to the house of the Rekabites, Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, because you have obeyed the commandment of John the dad, your father, kept all of his precepts and done according to all that he commanded you.

Therefore, thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, John the dad, the son of recap, shall not lack a man to stand before me forever.

This means that somewhere on this planet, there is at least one descendant of John the dad. Now, God didn't promise anything more, but if I were to venture a wager, I'd suspect that there's a lot more than just one. And I just sort of have this feeling, I'll bet many of those descendants are doing pretty well for themselves.

God does bless and honor people who show, well, as the sermonette said, respect to their elders and their parents. This family is a shining example. They honored the instruction of their parents and their parents before them. And God said, I'm going to give you a reward for that. I'm going to promise that some of your descendants will always be. And I'm just adding my guess that he probably has made sure that they at least had opportunity to prosper.

And it wouldn't be a surprise at all to me to learn that some of those Rekabites are members of God's church today as well. I interpreted God's promise that the Levites would have a man to stand before me to show that whoever the Levites standing before God are offering spiritual sacrifice. Well, here he says that, you know, John the dad will never lack a man to stand before me. Now, that doesn't necessarily mean offering sacrifice, but doesn't it just seem like it would fit if God made sure some of them would be in the church today? I think that would be, well, pardon me, just it'd be kind of neat. I'm looking forward to getting a chance to ask. In the millennium when Christ comes, I'm going to go to some of these and say, now, how did you work that out? Where are they?

Now, we're going to get ready to change gears, so to speak, because we've been seeing that God on occasion makes long-term promises. He makes commitments. And we have evidence that God follows through. How about us? How do we remember? And how do we follow through?

Well, before I discuss any memory devices available, it's worth asking the question, what does God want us to remember? What does God want us to remember and follow through on? And I'm guessing you could easily come up with answers. Not to put too fine a point on it, the first thing He wants us to remember is Him.

In camp, I'm trying to think of it as the last summer or the summer before, and we memorized Ecclesiastes 12, verse 1, where it says, Remember now your Creator in the days of your youth. Remember your Creator. Remember that there is a Creator, that He is the One who made you, who is responsible. I didn't turn there, but if you'll turn to Psalm 77, let's also consider it. Psalm 77 and verse 11.

We don't have to wonder what God wants us to remember. He'll tell us quite clearly.

Psalm 77, verse 11 and 12.

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.

Beyond just remembering that God exists, it's good to remember the things that He's done and to talk about them.

I think that's one of the things when parents talk to their children is important. I actually consider it a part of my job. I'm to stand up here and sometimes remind you of the wonderful works of the Great God and what He's done. But let's go further. So far it could appear as a pretty good idea, but Deuteronomy 8 will tell us a little more. Deuteronomy 8, verse 11.

There we go. Deuteronomy 8, 11.

Oh, that's 9, verse 11. There we go. Beware that you do not forget the Eternal your God. And He gives an illustration. How is it that you can show that you forgot? 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, as I said, it goes beyond being just a good idea. We see this as something we're told to do. We remember God by keeping His commandments.

To remember God, we worship God. We obey God. We remember Him by doing these things.

And so far, that doesn't seem like such a tall order. Remember God by obeying His commandments. But I can say, what if we forget the commandments? Well, it seems inherent, then, that we need to make sure we remember God's law. King David thought this was pretty important. I want to look at some verses in Psalm 119. Psalm 119, I'm going to begin in verse 83.

Now, I'm not going to read in depth most of these verses. I just want to catch the last part. And, of course, I do realize part of the reason this is here is because David was writing a great acrostic poem. And so, he repeated a number of phrases several times. But still, it hammers home a point by repetition. Psalm 119, in verse 83, the last phrase is, Yet I do not forget your statutes. I do not forget your statutes. Move ahead to verse 109, if you will. Psalm 119, verse 109, says, Yet I do not forget your law. Do not forget your law.

Verse 141, verse 141, Yet I do not forget your precepts. And across the page, for me, the very last verse of this chapter, I guess I could have read the entire verses. They're not that long. I've gone astray like a lost sheep. Seek your servant, for I do not forget your commandments. So, yes, we'd better remember God's laws. We'd better remember His judgments, His precepts, His statutes, His commandments. Now, does that mean get out the first five books of the law and start to memorization? Is your memory that good? Now, we all know mine isn't. God knows our memories are limited. So, of course, He wrote things down. And I find that very valuable. I'm not going to turn to Exodus 31. Actually, if you'll turn to Deuteronomy 31, I'll just mention in Exodus, after God spoke the Ten Commandments, of course, then He had Moses come up and He handed him a written version, which is good. It's sort of... I've done this recently. I'll talk to someone on the phone and say, could you also send me an email? Then I can have something that I can print out and have it in writing. So, He gave him the Ten Commandments written with the finger of God. And God thought it was so important to have those that when Moses got really angry at seeing that golden calf and he threw them down and broke them, God said, go make some new ones. It's funny, it reminds me that sometimes I'll talk to Conor that way. He'll do something. I'll say, go get it.

He said, go carve out some new tablets, bring them up here and I'll write on them again. But there's more than just the Ten Commandments. And that's why I wanted to turn to Deuteronomy 39. If we start reading in verse 9... Did I say Deuteronomy 31 verse 9? Sorry. Deuteronomy 31 verse 9, it says, now this is not speaking of the Ten Commandments, it's speaking of all the statutes and judgments.

It says, 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 Eternal your God and the place which he chooses, you shall read this law before all Israel in their hearing.

Gather the people together, men, women, and little ones, the stranger that's in your gate, 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 get them together and read it to them, and it's going to be written down. And of course, this was a command for a time when very few people could afford to have a written copy of the book themselves. There were no printing presses, so there's no first edition, second edition, and thousands and thousands or millions printed.

So the law was written in one place at the temple, and they had it read out loud on a very regular basis. And while you're there, though, if you'll go a few pages forward in Deuteronomy 27, or is that backwards? It's towards the front of the book. We'll see that the written version of the law was also available in a very public way all the time. Deuteronomy 27 and verse 5.

This is a little thing in the Old Testament that's always intrigued me, because, well, it's making sure it's out there. It reminds me of going to the mall in Washington, D.C. and all these monuments. This is sort of like that. Deuteronomy 27 and verse 5. You'll offer peace offerings and eat there and rejoice before the Lord your God, and you shall write very plainly on the stones... I meant to start with verse... Yeah, I started...

verse 5, sorry. 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, and peace offerings, and eat there. And you shall write very plainly, or it could say very legibly, on the stones all the words of the law. And without turning there, Joshua 8. It's Joshua 8 and verse 30. Shows that Joshua carried this out. It describes how he built that altar of whole stones and whitewashed it, so that he could write.

And I'm wondering how big it was, or how small was the writing. I like... well, I don't write as small as I used to, because I can't read small writing anymore, but... They wrote all that law out there, and it was out there in a public place. If people wondered, what does the law say? They didn't have to have a scroll. They could go to the tabernacle, and there it was, written down.

The written law is a powerful reminder. And if we add to that, hearing it read out loud regularly, that's even more powerful. Now, we don't gather at the feast, and once every seven years, read through all of the Pentateuch. We believe that was part of the civil law. But we have something that they didn't have at that time. We can read it every day. We can read the whole Bible. It's something we should be doing on a regular basis. Not, you know, hit or miss here and there, but every day we should be reading so that we remember. Remember God's statutes, His precepts, His judgments, His commands.

And get to know all about God. And of course, then on the Sabbath services, we come, and somebody like me gets up and reads a considerable part of it out loud. While we're here in Deuteronomy, let's also look at some special instruction and the way the written law was to help someone's memory. Over in chapter 17, Deuteronomy 17 and verse 15, this is something that would affect those descendants of King David that God promised He'd keep on the throne. Of course, this is before there ever was a King David. And before there was ever a king, but God sort of knew.

Eventually, they're going to ask to have a king set over them. And when they do, I'm going to give them instructions for what this king has to do. Deuteronomy 17 and verse 15, You shall surely set a king over you, whom the Lord your God chooses. You don't get to choose. He didn't advocate voting for the king. One from among your brethren, you shall set his king over you. You may not set a foreigner who's not your brother. And he shall not multiply horses for himself or cause people to return to Egypt, etc.

I want to drop down to verse 18. Also, it shall be, when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, that he shall write for himself a copy of this law in a book from the one that's before the priests and the Levites.

We read the scripture earlier where Moses had to write it down and the priests and the Levites had to keep it. Well, whoever the king was was allowed to check it out, like out of a library, and he had to write his own personal copy. And that alone would serve as quite a memory device. But it says, then he can give back the priests, give back their copy, but he'll keep his.

It shall be with him. He shall read it all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the Lord his God and to be careful to observe all the words of this law and these statutes.

What a powerful tool! Now, we don't have to write our own copy. I've sometimes wondered how much better I might know God's word if I did. Well, most of you have seen my handwriting at one time or another. Maybe I wouldn't. It wouldn't help me. I'd have trouble reading it. But we all can have our own copy of the Bible. And we can read it all the days of our lives as the king was commanded to do, so that we will know God's laws and get to know him and fear him.

And there's where I say we should read the copy that we have. And I believe on a daily basis. It's very important to us. Now, why do we encourage daily Bible study? You know, I've got a lot of books at home that many of them I've read once, and I put them on the shelf. And I might pull them down for a reference. That's with my history books. With novels, it's very rare that you read one of them more than once.

You might get one out of the library, or a lot of, well, I know people that get paperbacks, and they'll read them and then go to a used bookstore and trade them in and get a discount towards buying others. Bible is not like that, is it? Well, partly because it's a memory device. We need to remember what God's law teaches us. We read God's law, and we remember God's law, and we do it to remember God's law.

Now, there's one problem, though. The ancient Israelites did have God's written law. They had it read to them, they had it written on that altar, they were led by a king who supposedly wrote out his own copy, and they still forgot. They still disobeyed their covenant with God. So, as important as having that law and having it written and reading it is, we need more.

We still need a better memory device. Now, I thought about, could I tie a string on my finger? No? Well, let's just say we need a better memory device, but I'll say we have it. Let's go to Hebrews 8. Hebrews 8. God's not going to leave things like this to chance. He knew that people like me would come along who can't seem to remember things. Hebrews 8 and verse 10 is important, and I like the way this verse will start off talking about a covenant. Remember, God, when he spoke to Noah, said, I'm going to make a covenant, and here's the token of the covenant.

I'm going to put the rainbow there so you can look at it and remember that I made this covenant. It says, For this is the covenant that I'll make with the house of Israel after these days, says the eternal. I'll put my laws in their mind and write them on their hearts, and I'll be their God, and they shall be my people. God's going to put them in their minds and their hearts. And I'm not going to turn there, but later on in chapter 10 and verse 16, he repeats that.

But I've made sort of a joke before. God's not going to pry open our skulls or our rib cage and with a pen start writing His law on our brain or on our hearts. This is a metaphor, a metaphor for the way that God does put His law on our hearts. And that we can see plainly explained in John chapter 14. Even though I read this fairly often, let's turn there. John 14 and verse 26.

Jesus Christ is speaking to the apostle, the disciples, and explaining something that hasn't happened to them yet, but will. He's speaking of the Helper. He says, The Helper, 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 to you.

The Holy Spirit is going to bring to remembrance the Word of God. And to that I say, hallelujah! As a forgetful person, boy do I rejoice that God promises a powerful tool, His very essence, to bring back the memory. As I said, I've forgotten a lot of things. I've been so forgetful or worried about forgetting that I started having recurring dreams.

But here is a promise, a memory device that cannot fail. The Holy Spirit. Now, I suppose it could help me to remember all kinds of things. God didn't promise that. He didn't promise it helped me to remember where I put my keys or a book that I misplaced. One thing, and actually I do ask God for this sometimes, to help me to remember names, especially when I've been at camp and I know I need to learn the names of several people very quickly. And He'll answer that. Before I go to the Feast of Tabernacles, I think, I'm going to bump into someone that I met several years ago and I'm not going to remember their name unless God helps me.

Jesus Christ did promise specifically, though, that it will help us to remember His words. And that's a great memory device. We have the power and the presence of God to work in our minds to help us remember. And then one of the fabulous things is that same device, that same power, will help us to follow through. Because, as I said, remembering is only the first part. We have to remember, and then as God follows through on His promises.

And that's why I wanted to look at the example of David and the Levites and show that we've got some evidence that God follows through. God wants us to do more than remember. He wants us to follow through and live by that law. And we can do it. By the power of God dwelling in us, we can do it. And I would say without that power, we can't do it. Not very well. Some people can force themselves to do things quite a bit, but you can't really live by the spirit of the law without the Spirit.

I'm just going to quote Philippians 4, verse 13, where Paul said, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. I can do all things. I can remember and follow through by Christ who strengthens me. Now, we could talk at length about how the Holy Spirit works in us, and I've done that on a number of occasions. For now, I want to speak just briefly of one more memory device that God has given us.

Because education scholars have done studies, and I guess psychologists, and one of the things they discovered about human beings is we remember some of what we hear. We remember more of what we see, and we remember much more of what we do. If we see, hear, and do, that gets in our memory much better, to a much better degree.

And God commanded us to remember the Sabbath, but not only remember it, but keep it holy. It comes around every week. God commands us to conduct ourselves differently on certain days. The Sabbath is one that comes on a weekly basis, and in Leviticus 23, we can see a list of seven annual Holy Days. God has a festival system, and in studying God's Word, we see that these days explain and symbolize God's great plan for why He made us in the first place.

Why are we on this planet? What's going to happen? How are we going to be saved from ourselves, from death? The Holy Days, starting, you know, well, and I can say the festivals. I'm going to say if we go through pup tattle, starting with Passover, and the days of Unleavened Bread and Pentecost, trumpets, which will be in a few days, atonement, tabernacles, and the last great day, I don't know if we start calling it officially the eighth day.

Do we call it to change it to pup-tat-8? Hmm, I don't know. God could have just told us what these mean and left it at that. He could have commanded us to keep the Holy Days once in a generation.

It's interesting, in the civil calendar, every 50 years there's a Jubilee. He could have said, every 50 years, I want you to keep this set of festivals. But no, it's not once in a generation, it's once a year, so that we have to do it. And we remember, we keep these special days over and over again. And in the process, we remember what they're about.

We remember the lessons they're teaching us. I like to think of it as sort of a self-perpetuating cycle. As we remember, we follow through in obeying. And as we follow through in obeying, that helps us to remember. So remembering tells us to obey, and obedience helps us to remember. And red ink here, that gives me a good excuse to not make this a much longer sermon by going through and explaining what each of the Holy Days mean.

We've done that for the Spring Holy Days, and we're going to come back here in a few days, and we're going to hear something about God's plan, about what the Feast of Trumpets represents. So I'll leave that for that time. But I want to think of that as we go through not only trumpets, but then atonement, as we travel out to distant sites to keep the Feast of Tabernacles, and that eighth day, we're using a very powerful memory device to remember who our God is, what He has in store for us.

I'm glad to say that I've never had a recurring dream about forgetting to keep the Sabbath, or forgetting a Holy Day. Now, that would be worse, I think, in the long run than forgetting an exam, although forgetting an exam can be pretty bad. It should be hard to forget God's commands. Now, He sets an example for us of always remembering and always following through. We worship a God who has a good memory and who honors all of His commitments. So as we grow up to be 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 an annual set of special days in which to worship Him and to learn.

So, let's remember and let's follow through.