Church of God, New World Ministries

Remembering And Forgetting

We human beings, made in the image of Almighty God, seem to be unique in that we are able to store and recall things in our minds whenever the need arises. History is nothing more than a record of past events that we can utilize in assisting those minds beyond their limited capacity. We are also capable of projecting our thoughts forward in order to plan or prepare for a future event. I’ve heard that psychologists believe that, under certain duress, the mind will just “shut down”; they may develop amnesia, and can’t remember, even who they are!

Also, to help us remember certain important events, we may use slogans such as: “Remember the Alamo”, “Remember Pearl Harbor” “Remember 9/11”, etc.

It seems that human beings sometime have difficulties in discerning the difference in the two words, REMEMBERING and FORGETTING. Have you ever thought about it before? These two words in our English language have opposite meanings. Yet, we seem to get the two confused; or maybe we intentionally turn them around! (Matthew 13:15).

The Bible, God’s Word to mankind, has many instances where He has to continually remind us of these differences. It is important that we know these differences! I’m going to show and demonstrate what I’m talking about. Some are of the UTMOST importance! We’ll begin with what God wants us to REMEMBER. Notice Exodus 20:8 “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it Holy. 9. Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work: 10. But the seventh day is the Sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: 11. For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.”

Did you notice the great detail God used in this fourth Commandment concerning the SABBATH DAY?! He was emphasizing the way to keep it and THE FACT that it WAS THE SEVENTH DAY of the week. God wanted them to REMEMBER this Commandment!! Did you know the Sabbath(s) are the only identifying sign between God’s True Believers and Himself?

Your Eternal Life Depends on Remembering This!

In Exodus 31:13 we read, “Speak also unto the children of Israel, saying, verily my Sabbaths ye shall keep: for it is a sign between me and you throughout your generations; that ye may know that I am the LORD that doth sanctify you. 14. Ye shall keep the Sabbath therefore; for it is Holy unto you: Everyone that defileth it shall surely be put o death: for whosoever doeth any work therein, that soul shall be cut of from among his people. 15. Six days may work be done; but in the seventh is the Sabbath of rest, holy to the LORD: whosoever doeth any work in the Sabbath day, he shall surely be put to death. 16. Wherefore the children of Israel shall keep the Sabbath throughout their generations, for a perpetual covenant. 17. It is a sign between me and the children of Israel for ever: for in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day He rested, and was refreshed.”

Now, don’t try to use some clever Satanic argument that this was intended for the Israelites only! In the New Testament, it plainly tells us in Galatians 3:29 “If ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed and heirs according to the promise.”

True Christians become Spiritual Israelites! I John 2:4 tells us, “He that saith, I Know Him, and keepeth not His Commandments, is liar, and the Truth is not in him” James 2:10 reminds us: “For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point (including the fourth one, to “remember the Sabbath day.”) he is guilty of all.”

God knows we are forgetful creatures, that’s why He has to reiterate His Commandments to us, every week, on His Holy Seventh Day Sabbath. We must not take this lightly! If you are not now, remembering to observe the seventh Day Sabbath and having had that sin removed by the shed Blood of Jesus Christ, you are still under the death penalty (Rom. 6:23)! And, you will not receive Salvation, by God’s grace! REMEMBER this!

I know I’ve spent a lot of time covering the remembrance of God’s Holy Sabbath Day, but I want to give you an example of the penalty of even breaking that particular Law, in the letter. Numbers 15:32 “And while the children of Israel were in the wilderness, they found a man that gathered sticks on the Sabbath day. 33. And they that found him gathering sticks brought him unto Moses and Aaron, and unto all the congregation. 34. And they put him in ward, because it was not declared what should be done to him. 35. And the LORD said unto Moses, The man shall be surely put to death: all the congregation shall stone him with stones without the camp.”

There is something you must understand about this death sentence! WHO gave the order to execute this Sabbath breaker? If you haven’t been taught this vital Truth about the Divine Person who guided Old Testament. Israel through their journey in the wilderness you cannot fully understand the Bible!! It’s simple, if you believe the Word of God!! I Corinthians 10:4 “And did all drink the same spiritual drink: for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was Christ.”

Also read John, chapter 1, verses 1 through 14. The “Word was God” and the “Word was made flesh”, by a Divine Miracle. Why haven’t you heard these Truths before? It was the same Being that would later come to this earth, Who emptied Himself, was conceived as a human being and born of a human, virgin mother, to become our Savior! Yes! Jesus Christ believes in the death penalty! He is said to be “the same yesterday, today, and forever” in Heb. 13:8. REMEMBER THIS!

What about those who break the Sabbath, in the New Testament? Hebrews 10:25 “Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much more, as ye see the day approaching. 26. For if we sin willfully after that we’ve received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, 27. But a certain fearful looking of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries. 28. He that despised Moses’ law died without mercy under two or three witnesses: 29. ’Of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace. 30. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the Living God.”

If you remember, the plural word, “Sabbaths” was used in Exodus 31:13; this would include God’s seven annual Sabbaths that He commands us to observe throughout the year during three seasons. We must not neglect to keep these days as well, but the majority of this world has forgotten them! But, they will be taught and forced to obey them, according to Zechariah 14:16 “And it shall come to pass, that every one that is left of all the nations which came against Jerusalem shall even go up from year to year to worship the King, the LORD of hosts, and to keep the feast of tabernacles.”

Now, back to Numbers 15, He expanded the importance of REMEMBERING in Numbers 15:39, “And it shall be unto you for a fringe, that ye may look upon it, and REMEMBER ALL THE COMMANDMENTS of the LORD, and do them; and that ye seek not after your own heart and your own eyes, after which ye use to go a whoring: 40. That ye may REMEMBER and DO ALL MY COMMANDMENTS, and be holy unto your God.” Oh yes! Then, they WILL REMEMBER to keep all the Commandments of God!

OTHER REMINDERS TO REMEMBER

In Joshua 1:13 we read, “Remember the word which Moses the servant of the LORD commanded you, saying, The LORD your God hath given you rest, and hath given you this land.” Israel has always had the proclivity to forget God, We are the same way!

God gives us admonitions and warnings in these very words of Moses, Deuteronomy 6:6 “And these words which I command you this day shall be in your heart. 7. And ye shall teach them diligently unto thy children, and shall talk of them when thou sittest in thy house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. 9. And you shall write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates. 10. And it shall be when the LORD thy God shall have brought thee into the land which He sware unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give thee great and goodly cities, which thou buildest not, 11. And houses full of all good things, which thou fillest not, and wells digged, which thou diggest not, vineyards and olive trees, which thou plantest not; when thou shalt have eaten and be full 12.Then BEWARE LEST YOU FORGET THE LORD, which brought thee forth out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage.” (A type of bringing us out of this sinful world.) Read the rest of this important chapter to see the things we have FAILED TO REMEMBER! Have we “diligently taught our children,” God’s words? I think Not!

But, as usual, Israel soon forgets. In Judges 8:33 we read, “And it came to pass, as soon as Gideon was dead, that the children of Israel turned again and went a whoring after Baal-im, and made Baal-be’rith their god. 34. And the children of Israel remembered not the LORD their God who had delivered them out of the hands of all their enemies on every side:”

Other things to remember are “the former days of old”. God anciently created all things. Isaiah 46:8 “Remember this, and shew yourselves men: bring it again to mind, O ye transgressors. 9. Remember the former things of old: for I am God, and there is none else; I am God, and there is none like me.” The Bible is replete with God’s admonitions to REMEMBER.

ON THE OTHER HAND, WE DESIRE SOME THINGS TO BE FORGOTTEN!

Turn to Psalms 25:7. It says, “Remember not the sins of my youth, nor my transgressions: according to thy mercy remember thou me for thy goodness sake.” In Psalms 79:8, David was inspired towrite, “O remember not against us former iniquities: let thy tender mercies speedily prevent us: for we are brought very low.”

None of us want to have our filthy sins brought up again; and they won’t be, if they are covered by the shed blood of Christ. We’re under the New Covenant application, as will be the case when Christ returns to set up His Kingdom. Jeremiah wrote in Jeremiah 31:31, “Behold the days come, saith the LORD, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah. 33. But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the LORD, I will put my laws in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people. 34…for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the LORD: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will REMEMBER THEIR SIN NO MORE.” Thank God for that promise, that our sins will be forgiven and FORGOTTEN!

As human beings, we are sometimes prone to continue to bring up our past sins and dwell on them too much, rather than forgetting them. Paul condemns this in his writings. Notice Ephesians 5:2, “And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling savour. 3. But fornication, and all uncleanness, or covetousness, let it not once be named among you, as becometh saints. 8. For ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord: walk as children of light. 12. For it is a shame even to speak of those things which are done of them in secret”

Now read Philippians 3:13. It says, “Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended, but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before.” You cannot undo the past! ONLY GOD CAN FORGIVE and FORGET!

James 1:25 “But whoso looks into the perfect law of liberty, and continues therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed.” II Peter 1:9 “But he that lacketh these things is blind, and cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten that he was purged from his sins.” We do not want to forget this!

REMEMBER SOME THINGS and FORGET OTHER THINGS!

 
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