Remember Lest You Forget

“Only take care, and keep your soul diligently, lest you forget the things that your eyes have seen, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life. Make them known to your children and your children’s children— how on the day that you stood before the Lord your God at Horeb, the Lord said to me, ‘Gather the people to me, that I may let them hear my words, so that they may learn to fear me all the days that they live on the earth, and that they may teach their children so.’ And you came near and stood at the foot of the mountain, while the mountain burned with fire to the heart of heaven, wrapped in darkness, cloud, and gloom. Then the Lord spoke to you out of the midst of the fire. You heard the sound of words, but saw no form; there was only a voice. And he declared to you his covenant, which he commanded you to perform, that is, the Ten Commandments, and he wrote them on two tablets of stone. And the Lord commanded me at that time to teach you statutes and rules, that you might do them in the land that you are going over to possess.

May God bless this reading of His Holy and Infallible Word.

We see evidence of it twice a year on the Sunday following Christmas or Easter. On those days the church was full, but the Sunday after the attendance is noticeably smaller. We also see evidence of it in those who once professed faith in Christ, even former pastors, but who now deny the faith. Finally, we all to often see evidence in our own life. We worship of Sunday, but somewhere in the middle of the week we find ourselves so busy with life that we take not account of God.

It is this problem that Moses addresses in our text this morning. When he speaks about forgetting he is not talking about memory loss, he is talking about not taking to account the memory of those things. Forty years ago, the men and women standing before him were little children, but memory of what they witnessed at Mt. Sinai must have been permanently burned into their minds. How could they forget the fire, dark clouds, the thunderous voice that spoke to them from the fire? The ground they stood on shook as God spoke! No, that is not the type of “forgetting” Moses is speaking of. Moses is speaking of the type of forgetting that fails to take into account the events they witnessed.

The only cure for this type of “forgetting” is to diligently remember. Moses highlights three things Israel should be diligent to remember, these are three things Christ also says we should be diligent to remember under the New Covenant. The first of this is:

Remember, God Has Called You to Assemble

I am going to read verse ten again, but this time from the New American Standard Bible.

Deuteronomy 4:10 NASB95PARA

Remember the day you stood before the Lord your God at Horeb, when the Lord said to me, ‘Assemble the people to Me, that I may let them hear My words so they may learn to fear Me all the days they live on the earth, and that they may teach their children.’

Notice that NASB translation committee chose to translate the underlying Hebrew “assemble” rather than “gather”? This may not seem like a big deal, because “gather”, “meet” and “assemble” are synonyms of each other. However, “assemble” more accurately captures the true significance of what was happening at Mt. Horeb, for this was a Sacred Assembly. When the Jews translated this verse into Greek, the chose the verbal form of the Greek word ekklēsia. Perhaps you recognize this Greek word, it is the Greek for “church”.

Do you realize that when you say, “I am going to church”, you are not saying “I am going to the House of God” or any other building. You are saying you are going to the Sacred Assembly of God’s people. If you read Hebrews 10:24-25 from the NASB, this is clearly seen:

Hebrews 10:24–25 NASB95PARA

and let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds, not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another; and all the more as you see the day drawing near.

Do you understand the importance of what I have just said? Both under the Old Covenant and under the New Covenant, God calls His people to assemble together! When we get to the Fourth Commandment, we will learn that this is weekly call. On the Sabbath, we are called to gather together in sacred assembly. Why is this? The verse before us say to “stimulate one another to love and good deeds”, Deut 4:10 gives us more detail as to how we are to do this. Let us look at it again:

Deuteronomy 4:10 NASB95PARA

Notice that the first thing reason God gives as to why we must assemble together is to “hear God’s words”. We commonly associate worship in modern church with singing. Frequently churches will call the time of singing “worship” and then they will take on a sermon at the end. According to God, the reading and preaching of the Word of God is the “main event” of worship, and singing takes a secondary role. Moreover, singing is to be primarily have a didactic role, rather than an inspirational role.

Colossians 3:16 ESV

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.

When it comes to worship, the modern church has their priorities upside down! Now let us look back at Deuteronomy 4:10:

Deuteronomy 4:10 NASB95PARA

God gives two reasons we are to hear God’s Word: The first is in order that we might “learn to fear God” and the second is that we might be able to “teach our children”. The fear being spoken of here is not terror, but rather reverent faith, or as one commentator put it “trusting awe”. As we will see in the next point, God is an awesome God! However, when He comes down to meet with us, it is not to terrorize us, but rather to save us.

Do you fear God? Do you have a “trusting awe” in God? If not, you have a profound misunderstanding of who God is. You need to be diligent in assembling together with other Christians and diligently hear the Word of God.

What you learn must not be kept to yourself, it must be passed on to the next generation. This is the second reason God give for calling His people together in a Sacred Assembly. Parents, you need to teach your children at home, and you need to support the Church’s Christian educational system. There is nothing more important for your child to learn than the things of God. Academic learning is important, but it is not as important of spiritual learning. Our culture values athletic skills above all else but has not eternal value. Listen to what Paul, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit tells Timothy:

1 Timothy 4:8 ESV

for while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come.

This is not Paul’s opinion; this is God’s revelation! Do you believe this? If so then train your children. I want to take this opportunity to point you to the Sunday School class we are offering. This is primarily directed to parents, but grandparents and all those who teach others will learn principles they can use.

The second thing God calls us to is to...

Remember, God Has Come Near to You in His Glory

I am not going to spend as much time on this point. I will cover this in more detail when we look at the first four commandments of the Decalogue, but for now I want you to look at verse eleven.

Deuteronomy 4:11 ESV

And you came near and stood at the foot of the mountain, while the mountain burned with fire to the heart of heaven, wrapped in darkness, cloud, and gloom.

When God calls us to assemble, He is call us to meet with Him. As we will learn in the coming weeks, no one can directly see God, but even veiled in a dark cloud, the glory of God looked like a fire that reached into the sky as far as the eye could see!

When the second person of the Trinity came to this earth, He veiled Himself in human flesh. In the opening chapter of John’s gospel we read this:

John 1:14 ESV

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

God is still meeting with His people when they gather corporately in Sacred Assembly. Jesus said, “that where two or three assemble in my Name, I am there in their midst”. How is He manifesting His glory today in our midst? Through His Word as it is read and preached! Look at the verse before us. What is the name of Jesus in this verse? It is the Word! When God’s people assemble together, the Holy Spirit takes the word that is read and preached and manifests the glory of God!

God’s glory is here this morning if you would but open your ears!

Finally, we need to...

Remember, God Has Spoken to You

We find this in verses twelve and thirteen:

Deuteronomy 4:12–13 ESV

Then the Lord spoke to you out of the midst of the fire. You heard the sound of words, but saw no form; there was only a voice. And he declared to you his covenant, which he commanded you to perform, that is, the Ten Commandments, and he wrote them on two tablets of stone.

The Old Covenant saints were called to remember that God declared His covenant to them at Mt. Sinai. Likewise, we are called under the New Covenant to remember that God has declared His covenant to us through Jesus. The letter to the Hebrews begins this way:

Hebrews 1:1–2 ESV

Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world.

Jesus Christ has made a covenant with His people, and this covenant, along with the covenant made at Sinai are covenants of grace. Earlier God had made a Covenant of Works with Adam. If Adam would have obeyed God, he would has secured everlasting life for himself and all future generations. Adam failed that test and as a result we are all born captive to sin and death. Therefore, God made a second covenant with humanity, the Covenant of Grace. The commands we find in the New Testament and in the Old are not to be used to earn salvation, but rather to show our love and gratitude to God for His grace. Jesus said:

John 14:15 ESV

“If you love me, you will keep my commandments.

A covenant is a relationship, and both the Old and New Covenants were relationships of love and grace. If we forget this, we will by default fall back into the Covenant of Works. There are only two ways to relate to God. We are either relating to God on the bases of love and grace, or we are relating to Him on the bases of hate and works.

You heard me right. I said “hate”! If you reject the grace of God that is in Jesus Christ, you hate God! This is because the “god” you love is not the true God. The true God is revealed to us in the Gospel. To reject the Gospel is to reject God!

This brings us back to verse nine. There we are told that if we forget, the things of God will “depart from our hearts all the days of our lives”. The things revealed to us by God are not things to be treated lightly. If we do not remember them and take them to account, we are in danger of setting our hearts on a path of hatred towards God and the things of God. In time, if we do not “remember” this hatred will take over the course of our whole life! So hear the plea of Moses, “Remember, lest you forget!”

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