44 Sermon Illustrations on Remember

The originator of sticky yellow Post-its didn't know what he had - at first. Researcher Spence Silver mixed an unusual amount of monomer into a polymer- based adhesive he was working on. The result was a "tacky" adhesive. The company had no use for it. Then 3M chemist Arthur Fry began having problems in the choir loft. The slips of paper he used to mark pages in his hymnal often fluttered to the floor. Then he remembered Silver's adhesive. Fry's better bookmark soon metamorphosed into the handy Post-its that have become a fixture in offices throughout the country.

[Also in Newsweek special issue on inventions of 20th century. 1/1/98]

#538

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Communion sermon on Psalm 139.

1. God knows us.

2. God is all-present.

3. God is all-creative.

a. Application to abortion.

4. God is all-holy.

*1207

In January 1989 Eileen Franklin-Lipsker looked into her 6 year old daughter’s blue eyes and suddenly remembered the murder of her best friend, 8 year old Susan Nason. Eileen’s own father had molested and killed Susan by bashing her head in with a rock, then warned her that he would do the same to her if she told anyone. He also molested Eileen and she learned to repress her memories to cope. A jury was convinced of her “repressed memory” and convicted George Franklin of murder and gave him a life sentence.

#1414

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Lawrence Wright's "Remembering Satan" is a chilling true-crime narrative

about false-memory syndrome gone haywire. A few years ago in Olympia,

Washington, two sisters, 18 and 20, began to talk, separately, about gross

sexual abuse each said she had experienced as a child and had only recently

begun to remember. Charges were filed against the girls' father, Paul Ingram,

who seemed dazed and confused, but who denied them.

Ingram was the chief civil deputy of the county sheriff's department and

chairman of the local Republican Party. He was also a religious

Fundamentalist. With great earnestness he told investigators - his fellow

officers - that although he knew his children did not lie, he couldn't

remember any episodes of abuse. The associate pastor of his small religious

sect urged him to let go, to remember what he was repressing. God wouldn't

let him remember falsely, the pastor said.

Eventually, Ingram developed a technique for recovering memories. He took

each fresh, unfamiliar accusation and prayed over it until he went into a

trancelike haze. Two or three days later he would offer his interrogators a

detailed script of the scene, complete with dialogue and a cast list.

Lists were needed because the sisters' denunciations came to include their

mother and two adult brothers; two of their father's male friends (against

whom charges were brought); a sister of one of these men; assorted other

children and adults; additional members of the sheriff's department, including

the most convinced of the investigators; and a couple of police dogs used by

the department. Quite late in the process the notion of satanic rituals was

introduced by an investigator and enthusiastically agreed to by the sisters,

who had recently seen a Geraldo Rivera TV show on the subject. One sister

said that over several years she had been forced to witness the ritual murders

of 25 people and that an aborted fetus from her own pregnancy had been

ritually dismembered.

No dead babies were ever found, nor any evidence of pregnancy or abortion.

Nor did the sisters turn out to have the scars they claimed to have received

from ritual burnings and knifings. There was no physical evidence of any

kind. Further, the stories told separately by the sisters did not agree. As

the membership of the supposed satanic cult began to take on the size of an

amateur theatrical troupe and as the other Ingram family members began to

sound doubtful about their confessions, charges against Ingram's two male

friends were dropped and the investigation collapsed. Its premise, Wright

reflects, "was that something must have happened. At no time did the

detectives ever consider the possibility that the source of the memories was

the investigation itself - there was no other reality."

Paul Ingram, however, had already confessed. Appeals have failed, and he is

serving a 20-year prison sentence. Wright quotes with approval a troubling

question asked a couple of years ago by psychologist Elizabeth Loftus: "Is it

fair to compare the current growth of cases of repressed memory of child abuse

to the witch crazes of several centuries ago?"

#2972

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Gladys Aylward, missionary to China more than fifty years ago, was forced to flee when the Japanese invaded Yangcheng. But she could not leave her work behind. With only one assistant, she led more than a hundred orphans over the mountains toward Free China.

In their book “The Hidden Price of Greatness,” Ray Besson and Ranelda Mack Hunsicker tell what happened:

“During Glady’s harrowing journey out of war-torn Yangcheng ... she grappled with despair as never before. After passing a sleepless night, she faced the morning with no hope of reaching safety. A 13-year-old girl in the group reminded her of their much-loved story of Moses and the Israelites crossing the Red Sea.

“But I am not Moses,” Gladys cried in desperation.

“Of course you aren’t,” the girl said, “but Jehovah is still God.”

When Gladys and the orphans made it through, they proved once again that no matter how inadequate we feel, God is still God, and we can trust in him.

An account of an improvised Passover seder among Jews in a Union Army camp in West Virginia. They arranged for matzos and foraged for cider, a lamb, chickens and eggs. They did not know what part of the lamb to use so they ate the whole thing. They also did not have horseradish so they used a bitter local herb. When this was eaten, pandemonium broke out and they drank both kegs of cider rather than four cups apiece. As a result, one thought he was Moses, another Aaron, and still another had the audacity to call himself Pharaoh. Despite the irregularities it was the most meaningful Passover of Joseph Joel's life.

[from Rabbi Joel Soffin for Passover 1997]

"Forgotten" is an intense and awful word. It surely expresses the final issue in human alienation from the Divine. Open and deliberate revolt against God shows, at any rate, some resect to His power. And even formal prayer, empty though it be, offers some recognition of God's existence. But to forget Him, to live and plan and work as though He were not, to dismiss Him as insignificant - this is surely the last expression of a separated life. People are never really dead so long as they are remembered. The real death

is to be forgotten. How, then, do we come to forget God? In what sort of conditions is this appalling forgetfulness brought about?

1. The fear of man.

2. The pride of strength.

3. The vagrant soul.

4. The opiate of abundance.

5. A promise of remembrance.

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J. H. Jowett was a British clergyman who served as pastor of the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church in New York City from 1911 to 1918.

Henri J. M. Nouwen writes in the March 1994 New Oxford Review: "A few years ago Bob, the husband of a friend of mine, died suddenly of a heart attack. My friend decided to keep her two young children away from the funeral. She thought it would be too hard for them to see their father put in the ground. For years after Bob's death the cemetery remained a fearful and a dangerous place for them.

"Then, one day, my friend asked me to visit the grave with her, and invited the children to come along. The elder one was too afraid to go, but the younger one decided to come with us. When we came to the place

where Bob was buried, the three of us sat down on the grass around the stone engraved with the words, 'A kind and gentle man.' As we sat, we reminisced about Bob.

"I said: 'Maybe one day we should have a picnic here. This is not only a place to think about death, but also a place to rejoice in our life. I think Bob will be most honored when we find new strength, here, to live.' At first it seemed a strange idea: having a meal on top of a tombstone. But isn't that similar to what Jesus told his disciples to do when he asked them to share bread and wine in his memory?

"A few days later my friend took her elder child to the grave, the younger one having convinced his sister that there was nothing to fear. Now they often go to the cemetery and tell each other stories about Bob."

For most of us, the act of remembering or revisiting a memory takes us back into the distant past. We remember people, events, cherished locales and details from days long gone. Of course, not all memories are pleasant, and traveling toward the distant past can also resemble something more like a nightmare than a nostalgic trip down memory lane. Nevertheless, all of us have cherished memories or times we periodically revisit in daydreams and remembrances.

Nostalgia is one such way of revisiting these times. It can be defined as that bittersweet yearning for things in the past. It creates a hunger in us to return to another time and place, and lures us away from living in the realities of the present. Nostalgia wears a shade of rose-colored glasses as it envisions days that were sweeter, richer, and better than the present day. In general, as Frederick Buechner has said, nostalgia takes us “on an excursion from the living present back into the dead past...” or else it summons “the dead past back into the living present.”(1) In either case, nostalgic remembering removes us from the present and ushers us into a distant, unlivable past. Indeed, nostalgia renders the past impermanent, like a vapor or a wisp of air. Without finding ways to remember forward -- to bring the past as the good, the bad, and the ugly into the present in such a way that informs who we are and how we live here and now -- all we are left with is nostalgia.

It is far from a sense of nostalgia that drives the writer of Psalm 78. Instead, the writer recalls the history of Israel as a means of remembering forward, bringing the full reality of the past into a place of honest remembrance not just for the present generation, but for the sake of generations to come. The psalmist exhorts the people of God to listen and incline their ears to the stories of the Exodus, the wilderness wanderings, and the entry into the Promised Land. “We will not conceal them from their children, but tell to the generation to come the praises of the Lord, and his strength and his wondrous works that he has done.... That the generation to come might know, even the children yet to be born, that they may arise and tell them to their children, that they should put their confidence in God, and not forget the works of God, but keep the commandments” (Psalm 78:4-7).

Nostalgia is far from the writer’s mind as even the sad, dark, and disobedient story of Israel is retold. Despite God’s great works among them, the people of Israel did not keep the covenant of God and refused to walk in God’s law. They forgot God’s deeds and miraculous signs. They put God to the test and did not trust in God’s salvation. They were rebellious and “grieved God in the desert” (vs. 40). There are no rose-colored remembrances here, no bittersweet yearnings to return to this time. Rather, the darker parts of the story are remembered alongside God’s long-suffering and loving-kindness -- urging the people to think about this God in the midst of their present circumstances. What had God done among them in the past? And how might they now live in light of that past?

In the same way, when Jesus instructs his followers during that last supper together saying “this is my body which is given for you; do this in remembrance of me” he is not calling them to bittersweet yearnings, or simply to remember events lived long ago (Luke 22:19). Rather, he is calling them to live into the way of the Cross and the way of resurrection, to remember Jesus in such a way that shapes all their living to come. That is, he is calling them -- and us -- to remember forward. Are we living in ways that both demonstrate a willingness to die to ourselves and reveal the new life we now have as a result of the resurrection? As we remember and re-tell the story, are we helping others to experience life in this way? Remembering the death and resurrection of Jesus, we give our lives contour and context not only for our generation, but for generations to come.

Indeed, how are we remembering the stories of faith? How do we tell that story with our lives? Do we remember forward, bringing the stories of our past and particularly the story salvation into the reality of our daily lives? And will it be said of us what the psalmist said of his flocks? Yes, we your people and the sheep of your pasture give thanks to you forever; to all generations we will tell of your praise!(2)

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1. BEYOND WORDS: DAILY READINGS ON THE ABC’S OF FAITH (Harper: San Francisco, 2004), 252.

2. Psalm 79:13

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Copyright © 2008 Ravi Zacharias International Ministries (RZIM). Reprinted with permission. "A Slice of Infinity" is a radio ministry of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries.

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[Original illustration at this number was a duplicate of HolwickID #6301]

A few years ago, a church member’s mother from North Carolina visited our church in Tennessee. When I introduced myself, she asked, “Pastor, do you remember a woman named Lois Pendley?” I replied, “Yes, I do. She was a member of my first pastorate.”

“Well,” the lady continued, “she is now in a nursing home severely challenged with dementia. However, she speaks often of her pastor, Richard Hipps. I thought you’d want to know that.”

Forty-four years ago, as a college student, I became this precious woman’s pastor. Lois Pendley and 200 other brave souls risked calling a ministerial student with no experience as their pastor. For five years, they helped shape my life and ministry.

Being humbled by the fact that Lois Pendley, in her challenged state, was remembering me as her pastor, I sat down, got comfortable and relived as many memories as possible. I took my time and not only remembered people and places but also asked the Holy Spirit to help me interpret what I was remembering. It was truly amazing, a deeply spiritual exercise.

One thought rose to the top of all these memories – God loves me and is always faithful.

I have no idea how God has used my life and ministry over the years, but hearing about Lois Pendley gave me a glimpse. I think one of the joys – and surprises – of heaven will be seeing how our small stories help enrich God’s Big Story. Perhaps it will be just a paragraph or a sentence, but just the same, God’s Big Story is incomplete without God’s working in our small stories.

Even though it is heartbreaking to watch age or dementia claim a loved one’s mind, it is a mistake to think that disease destroys a person’s desire or ability to worship. I have known many individuals who lose their ability to recall facts and events but remember such matters of faith as a pastor’s name, the Lord’s Prayer or a favorite hymn.

Although our loved ones and friends may forget many things, God has not forgotten them. I do not have dementia, but there are not many of us who do not struggle with memory problems. Most of us have selective memory, especially when it suits our needs. We also have memory problems constrained by time and interest. We are too busy to sift through our past and remember the prints left on our hearts by others and be grateful.

We are too often absorbed in other things to remember the people who gave us chances and were living models of God’s faithfulness to us. As I thought of all the people who allowed me to share in the sacred places of their lives, I recall the words of an old hymn, “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing” – especially this line: “Here I raise mine Ebenezer.” An Ebenezer is a memorial stone, like the one raised by God’s people in Joshua 4 to remember God’s presence and participation in their lives.

One of the greatest enemies of faith is forgetfulness. Holy Spirit-inspired remembrances of the past encourage attitudes and behavior in the present.

When we discipline ourselves to remember – deeply remember – it can remind us of our many blessings, spur us on and keep us focused. The remembering can form our hearts and help us live and tell the story of God’s love.

What would happen if we raise our own Ebenezer by recalling year by year as many memories as possible and the ways we witnessed God present and participating in and through our lives?

The look in the rearview mirror would probably encourage each of us to trust God more and declare God’s faithfulness daily.

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Richard Hipps is the retired pastor of Trinity Baptist Church in Cordova, Tennessee. This article appeared in the Baptist and Reflector.

"I Forgot"

Read: Psalm 20

We will remember the name of the Lord our God. --Psalm 20:7

I was relieved to find out that I'm not the only one who forgets things. Everyone does at one time or another, according to Karen Bolla, a Johns Hopkins researcher. These are the things people most often forget:

names 83%

where something is 60%

telephone numbers 57%

words 53%

what was said 49%

faces 42%

And if you can't remember whether you've just done something, you join 38 percent of the population.

Followers of Jesus Christ also have a problem with forgetfulness. In high-pressure situations, or when we're just going through a daily routine, we forget God. We seem to forget that we are His children. We fail to recall what He has promised to do for us. We don't remember His awesome power and His love. So we try to overcome temptation in our own strength, or to solve a difficult problem by using the wisdom of the world.

David said it this way: "Some trust in chariots, and some in horses," which is another way of saying that people rely on their own resources (Ps. 20:7). But then David added, "We will remember the name of the Lord our God."

How's your memory today? --DCE

Thinking It Over

Have you been taking the Lord's goodness for granted?

How many of His blessings can you list right now?

Why not thank God specifically for those blessings?

Daily blessings are daily reminders of God.

Two elderly couples were enjoying friendly conversation when one of the men asked the other, "Fred, how was the memory clinic you went to last month?"

"Outstanding, Otto" Fred replied. "They taught us all the latest psychological techniques - visualization, association - it has made a big difference for me."

"That's great! What was the name of that clinic?" Fred went blank. He thought and thought but couldn't remember.

Then a smile broke across his face and he asked, "Otto, what do you call that flower with the long stem and thorns?"

"You mean a rose?"

"Yes, that's it!" he said as he turned to his wife. "Rose, honey, what was the name of that clinic?"

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Source/Attribution: JokesEveryDay.com, 12/27/00; SIEW

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In his book THE SWANN'S WAY, the French novelist Marcel Proust wrote of returning home late one evening on a dull winter day when he faced the prospect of a depressing tomorrow. The maid greeted him and, seeing that he was tired, brought him a cup of hot tea and some cake. Being both tired and depressed he at first refused them. Only at her insistence did he finally begin to drink the tea and eat the cake. Proust wrote that an unexplainable delight suddenly came over him. His anxieties and troubles seemed to vanish. Suddenly, he wrote, I had “ceased to feel mediocre, accidental and mortal.”

What caused this wonderful sensation to come over him? He was at a loss to explain it. How could a taste of tea and cake produce this feeling of peace? He drank and ate more but he still could not decipher the secret. The truth, he guessed, must be in himself and not in what he was eating and drinking.

Proust began to search within himself. Suddenly he began to remember. His mind carried him back to Combray, France, where in childhood he visited his Aunt and she feed him cake and hot tea. Proust had been unmoved by the sight of the tea and cake but the taste had sent shockwaves through him and reminded him of scenes long forgotten. Suddenly he remembered the little town, the village church, the old house, the long forgotten relatives, and the flowers in the garden. The tea and cake had recovered for Proust the memory and mystery of an existence long past.

Is it, indeed, possible to hand a person a cup of tea and say to that person: Now drink this and remember who you are? It not only is possible but we believe that in a real sense that is what we do when we partake of the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper. By partaking of the bread and wine we are seeking to recover the experience of salvation. Like the novelist Proust, it causes us to think back on experiences that happened long ago and in remembering these experiences we begin to recover our own sense of identity. In a haunting and mystical way the sacrament calls us to remember -- remember who we are and whose we are.

It had to be the worst day of Candace Lightner's life. Her 13-year-old daughter Cari was killed at the hands of a drunk driver. To make it worse, just two days earlier the offender had been released on bail for a hit-and-run drunk driving crash. And he already had two drunk driving convictions with a third that was plea-bargained to “reckless accident.” Well, the grief in Cari's mom turned from grief into righteous anger. She and some friends got together at a steak house in Sacramento, California, and discussed with them her plan to do something about what had killed her daughter. They formed a group called M.A.D.D. - Mothers Against Drunk Drivers. And they have been a powerful force for helping to save lives since then.

Well, I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about “Never Forgetting What it Cost.”

Clearly, this mother has made a difference because she never forgot the death of the one she loved. I hate to say it, but too many of us tend to forget the death of the one who loved us the most, and that's why we aren't making much of a difference.

Mel Gibson's vivid portrayal of the death and suffering of Jesus in his movie, “The Passion of the Christ,” was one recent reminder of what we cannot afford to forget. Christianity Today magazine reported the telling comment of one woman after she saw the movie: “I'm sorry. I forgot.” Jesus never meant for us to, but He knew we would.

That's one of the main reasons He did what He did at the Last Supper. Our word for today from the Word of God, Luke 22:19-20 says: “He took bread and gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, 'This is My body given for you; do this in remembrance of Me.’ In the same way, after the supper, He took the cup, saying, 'This cup is the new covenant in My blood, which is poured out for you.'" And later, the Apostle Paul said of communion, this visual reminder of Jesus' sacrifice for us: “Whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until He comes” (1 Corinthians 11:26).

It's obvious Jesus did not want us to ever forget - the total humiliation, the ripping of His flesh, the crown of thorns jammed into his forehead, the mangling of the body of the Son of God, the abandonment. And above all, the agony of your eternal hell He went through on the cross - so you would never have to. We should not forget - but we tend to. The words “Jesus died for your sins” tend to become sterile and glib and safely “theological.” And that's when we start downhill.

When you forget the enormity of the price paid for you, you tend to become careless about your sin, forgetting how horrific that sin is, as displayed on the cross. And your love for Jesus starts to cool, and living His way deteriorates from being what you do because you love Him so much into just a spiritual performance. Forget the cross, and you start feeling like trash again; forgetting how much Jesus thinks you're worth. Forget the cross, and you'll start settling for junk instead of holding out for the best that He died to give you. And if you forget the cross, you'll probably be ashamed of Him, ashamed to let people know you belong to Him and how they can belong to Him. But when I envision the shame He went through for me ... when I remember that He was not ashamed of me, even when it meant hanging on that cross, then how can I be ashamed of Him?”

Each new day, make your way up that skull-shaped hill again and picture yourself at the foot of that old rugged cross. Let His blood cover the sin you brought with you. Let His love poured out there capture your heart again. And let His sacrifice there give you the courage to live for Him, whatever it takes, whatever it costs.

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Copyright © Ron Hutchcraft Ministries, Inc., PO Box 400, Harrison, AR 72602. Used by permission. Written by Ron Hutchcraft. "Practical Answers to Real Life Issues"

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[Original illustration at this number was a duplicate in KeruxID 25837-26027]

2 Peter 1:12–15 — Remember! — « Leader information shown in this fashion »

A. The Reminding 2 Peter 1:12

1. AV – Wherefore I will not be negligent to put you always in remembrance of these things, though ye know them, and be established in the present truth.

2. NAS – Therefore, I shall always be ready to remind you of these things, even though you already know them, and have been established in the truth which is present with you.

3. NIV – So I will always remind you of these things, even though you know them and are firmly established in the truth you now have.

4. J. B. Phillips – Therefore I shall not fail to remind you again and again of things like this although you know them and are already established in the truth which has come to you.

5. NLT – I plan to keep on reminding you of these things — even though you already know them and are standing firm in the truth.

6. “will not be negligent”

a. how do some of the translations express this in positively?

(A) « being always ready »

(B) « planning to keep on »

7. “to put … in remembrance” … which implies? « … that we need reminding of the truths of salvation because we have the natural tendency to forget them in practical terms; that is, to live and think with regard to them »

8. “these things” — what things are these?

a. « the “all things” of verse 3 that pertain to life and godliness »

b. « the eight marks of Christian growth in verses 5–7 »

9. “ye know” … we may often feel impelled to gain fresh spiritual knowledge; what do Peter’s words suggest is more important? « — that we remember and use the knowledge we now have »

10. “be established” – that is, “have been established”

a. this word includes the idea of a steadfastness of mind and is to be found in 1 Peter 5:10 and 2 Peter 3:17

b. see Luke 22:32; how is Peter carrying that out? « — the same verb (a different tense) is used there, “strengthen, stablish” »

11. “present truth” — the word present is sometimes translated as “appeared” … this truth already made known to them; which again suggests … « God soon gives sufficient truth to guide us; see Jude 1:3; How early was there a recognized body of doctrine for the church? See Acts 2:42 »

B. The Rousing 2 Peter 1:13

1. AV – Yea, I think it meet, as long as I am in this tabernacle, to stir you up by putting you in remembrance;

2. NAS – And I consider it right, as long as I am in this earthly dwelling, to stir you up by way of reminder,

3. NIV — I think it is right to refresh your memory as long as I live in the tent of this body,

4. J. B. Phillips – I consider it my duty, as long as I live in the temporary dwelling of this body, to stimulate you by these reminders.

5. NLT – Yes, I believe I should keep on reminding you of these things as long as I live.

6. “meet” — literally: just, righteous; here in human sense of fair or equitable, proper; another rendering is “I consider it a duty”

7. “tabernacle” – used literally of a tent; also of the abode of God (Acts 7:46); used figuratively of the body as the abode of the soul, emphasizing … « its transcience and frailty »

8. ‘to stir {you} up” – always (except John 6:18) this means “to rouse up or awaken from sleep” — what danger does this point out of which the Christian needs to be wary respecting knowledge and truth? « — we can grow comfortable (dozy) respecting spiritual matters; hence we may need to be awakened, stimulated, … »

9. “remembrance” – again, the reminders are of “these things” which are … « the “all things” verse 3; the 8 marks verses 5–7 »

C. The Reason 2 Peter 1:14

1. various translations of this verse …

a. AV – Knowing that shortly I must put off this my tabernacle, even as our Lord Jesus Christ hath shewed me.

b. NAS – knowing that the laying aside of my earthly dwelling is imminent, as also our Lord Jesus Christ has made clear to me.

c. NIV – because I know that I will soon put it aside, as our Lord Jesus Christ has made clear to me.

d. J. B. Phillips – I know that I shall have to leave this body at very short notice, as our Lord Jesus Christ made clear to me.

e. NLT – But the Lord Jesus Christ has shown me that my days here on earth are numbered and I am soon to die

2. “shortly” — imminent (only other NT in 2 Peter 2:1); as you look at the various translations, what is your impression of the time element here?

3. “put off” — this is the word used of taking off a garment; what portrait does this paint of a human being? « — The soul is the real, abiding part of us; this current body is to be put off (but will be resurrected into an eternal, incorruptible form) »

4. “tabernacle” — same word as in previous verse

5. “hath shewed” « – aorist; ie., single, punctiliary action »

a. John 21:18-19 what was the nature of what had been shown to Peter in this passage?

(A) « his death would be in his old age »

(B) « his death would be unnatural, violent (crucifixion) »

b. is there any indication of any more recent revelation? « — only in that first word, “shortly” »

D. The Resolution 2 Peter 1:15

1. AV – Moreover I will endeavour that ye may be able after my decease to have these things always in remembrance.

2. NAS – And I will also be diligent that at any time after my departure you may be able to call these things to mind.

3. NIV – And I will make every effort to see that after my departure you will always be able to remember these things.

4. J. B. Philips – Consequently I shall make the most of every opportunity, so that after I am gone you will remember these things.

5. NLT – So I will work hard to make these things clear to you. I want you to remember them long after I am gone.

6. “I will endeavour”

a. this word has the same root as that translated in

(A) verse 5, as “giving all diligence” which is to be carried out by the R__________

(B) verse 10, as “give diligence” which is to be carried out by the R__________

b. so now the W__________, Peter, pledges to do the same thing on his own part

7. “after my decease” — suggest the things Peter did to accomplish this

a. « writing these and the following words in this letter »

b. « some have suggested that after this he worked with Mark toward the publishing of the Gospel by that name (that gospel gives clear indicators of Peter’s influence) »

8. “remembrance” — mnema; this is the third time in these four verses that this or a related word has been used; hence, the title!

E. A comment about the connection of these verses with Luke 9:28ff

1. verse 31 (AV) “his disease” in Greek exodus, the same word as used here in the 15th verse of Peter’s approaching death

2. verse 32 (AV) “they were awake” is the same Greek word as is used here in the 13th verse of his “rousing” them to remembrance

3. verse 33 (AV) “tabernacles,” (singular skene) is a related (”cognate”) word to the skenoma meaning the same thing used by Peter in verses 13 and 14

4. Peter is going to bring in the transfiguration of Christ starting with verse 16 of this chapter. His innocent use here of these words echoing back to that event gives evidence of someone who was an eyewitness to it

In the days of Mordecai and Queen Esther the people of Israel set themselves to remember an eventful time in their history. Mordecai sent letters throughout the provinces calling for the memorializing of the month that was turned “from sorrow into gladness and from mourning into a holiday” (Esther 9:22). Near and far, the call was sent to annually remember the day the tables were turned and the Jews received relief from their enemies. And so it was determined: “These days of Purim should never cease to be celebrated by the Jews, nor should the memory of them die out among their descendants” (Esther 9:28). These days were weighted with enough hope to press upon them the need to remember forever. Moreover, they saw the certain possibility that they might forget.

There are moments in our lives when we realize that we are beholding the carving of a day into the great tree of history. On the night before my wedding I scribbled anxiously in my journal, “It will never be this day again, but the seventeenth of every August will never be the same either.” I knew from that day forward it would be difficult (and detrimental) to forget that day on the calendar -- it would carry the force of forgetting so much more.

Israel's history is wrought with commands to remember. God told the Israelites that they would remember the night of Passover before the night had even happened. “This day shall be for you a memorial day, and you shall keep it as a feast to the LORD; throughout your generations, as a statute forever” (Exodus 12:14). Moses and Aaron were told to instruct the whole community of Israel to choose a lamb without defect and slaughter it at twilight. They were then to take some of the blood and put it on the doorposts of their houses. “The blood will be a sign,” the LORD declared. “And when I see the blood, I will pass over you. No destructive plague will touch you when I strike the firstborns of Egypt” (Exodus 12:13).

From that day onward, celebrating the Passover was nonnegotiable, and with good reason. God had spared his people by the blood of a lamb. From that day onward, the command was passed down from generation to generation: “You shall remember this day as a statute forever” (Exodus 12:17). And so they remembered the Passover each year.

But just as we recall more than the wedding itself on an anniversary or the act of birth on a child's birthday, the Israelites were remembering more than the events of Israel's exodus from Egypt; they were remembering God Himself -- the faithful hand that moved and moves among them, the mighty acts that shout of God's timely remembering of his people. They were remembering God among them.

Centuries later, the disciples sat around the table celebrating their third Passover meal with Jesus, an observance they kept before they could walk. Everything perhaps looked ceremoniously familiar. The smell of lamb filled the upper room; the unleavened bread was prepared and waiting to be broken. Remembering again the acts of God in Egypt, the blood on the doorposts, the lives spared and brought out of slavery, they looked at their teacher as he lifted the bread from the table and gave thanks to God. Then Jesus broke the bread, and gave it to them, saying something entirely new: “This is my body given for you; do this in REMEMBRANCE OF ME” (Luke 22:19).

I have always wished that Luke would have described a little more of the scene that followed. Did a hush immediate fall over the room? Were the disciples once again confused at his words? Or did their years of envisioning the blood-marked doorposts cry out at the Lamb without defect before them?

They had spent their entire lives remembering the sovereignty of God in the events of the Passover, and on this day, Jesus tells them that there is yet more to see: IN THIS PASSOVER LAMB, IN THIS THE BROKEN BREAD IS THE REFLECTION OF ME. AS YOU REMEMBER GOD IN HISTORY, SO REMEMBER ME. FOR ON THIS DAY GOD IS ENGRAVING ACROSS ALL OF TIME THE PROMISE OF PASSOVER: I STILL REMEMBER YOU.

From this day onward, the disciples celebrated Passover with a new call to remember. Might we similarly be ready to remember, and wary to miss, all that weights that day with hope. For indeed, to forget what was witnessed in the upper room on that Passover in history carries the force of forgetting so much more.

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Copyright © 2006 Ravi Zacharias International Ministries (RZIM). Reprinted with permission. "A Slice of Infinity" is a radio ministry of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries.

Aldous Huxley likened a person’s memory to one’s own collection of private literature. Housed within the confines of memory are countless pages of our own stories, perspectives, and thoughts -- vast libraries uniquely existing within our own heads. It is this personal nature of memory that no doubt feeds our dismay when minds begin to slip. Forgetfulness is a fearful quality particularly because it is a quality that seems to erase part of the very person it describes.

The implications of memory are made known in the earliest pages of Scripture. But added to the cultural adage of Aldous Huxley is the idea that this literature can be edited. What we choose to remember affects who we are. And at that, our private literature is not entirely private. There is a community aspect to memory as well. Surely we see this played out within the grumblings of the rescued Israelites. From the wilderness, the writer of Numbers reports:

Now the rabble that was among them had a strong craving. And the

people of Israel also wept again and said, ‘Oh that we had meat

to eat! We remember the fish we ate in Egypt that cost nothing,

the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic.

But now our strength is dried up, and there is nothing at all but

this manna to look at’” (Numbers 11:4-6).

Recollection, like resentment, is often contagious. In this moment of hunger, Israel remembered Egypt as a place of produce instead of prison, and together they declared their longing to return to the place God had rescued them from. Together they wept; together they remembered; and together they remained lost in the wilderness. WHAT WE CHOOSE TO REMEMBER AFFECTS WHO WE ARE.

The great creeds of the Church aim themselves at a similar principle. We confess what we need to remember, what we long to remember. We confess the promises of God; we confess who we are. The word “creed” comes from the Latin CREDO, meaning “I believe.” Confessed in unison, we follow the command of the LORD: “These truths I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates” (Deuteronomy 6:4-9).

The earliest creeds were used with this power of memory in mind. Affirmations of belief in God the Father, Jesus the Son, and the Holy Spirit were bound to hearts and minds. For persons standing on the precipice of faith, the creed was the statement with which they prepared themselves to jump, and in so doing, found they had been given something on which to stand -- and to stand in good company.

What we remember in creed and confession is a vast library accounting for an exciting narrative. As novelist Dorothy Sayers wrote more than 50 years ago:

“The Christian faith is the most exciting drama that ever

staggered the imagination of man -- and the dogma is the

drama.... Now we may call that doctrine exhilarating or we may

call it devastating; we may call it revelation or we may call it

rubbish; but if we call it dull, then words have no meaning at

all. That God should play the tyrant over man is a dismal story

of unrelieved oppression; that man should play the tyrant over

man is the usual dreary record of human futility; but that man

should play the tyrant over God and find Him a better man than

himself is an astonishing drama indeed.”(1)

What we remember in doctrine and history, faith and belief, so holds our identity within this great drama. God has given us much worth remembering, and God has called us to remember it together. “We believe that Jesus died and rose again and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him” (1 Thessalonians 4:14). These things we choose to house within the confines of memory are like a great collection of stories -- stories that tell who WE ARE when we stand WITH HIM.

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1. Dorothy Sayers in CREED OR CHAOS (Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1949), 3-7, as quoted by Michael Horton in “Creeds and Deeds: How Doctrine Leads to Doxological Living” MODERN REFORMATION MAGAZINE, Vol. 15, Number 6.

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Copyright © 2006 Ravi Zacharias International Ministries (RZIM). Reprinted with permission. "A Slice of Infinity" is a radio ministry of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries.

Thomas Grueter has always had trouble putting names with faces. But unlike most of us who might have trouble recollecting the name, Grueter’s trouble lies in recognizing the face -- even if it is his own mother’s. His condition is called prosopagnosia or “face blindness,” and until recently the disorder was thought to be exceedingly rare. But new research led by a team that included Grueter himself shows the disorder is surprisingly common.

Those affected with prosopagnosia are not forgetful or inattentive, nor are they the social snobs they are often accused of being. When it comes to faces - - even their own - - they see very little that distinguishes one from another. The part of the brain that signals face recognition simply does not respond. As a result, they may greet acquaintances as strangers, struggle to keep up with plots in movies, or have difficulty finding their own children at school pick-up time. “I see faces that are human,” notes one woman of her condition, “but they all look more or less the same. It’s like looking at a bunch of golden retrievers: some may seem a little older or smaller or bigger, but essentially they all look alike.”(1)

The more I think about what it would mean to live unable to recognize faces, the more I am amazed at the ability to do so at all. Human faces are quite complex, differing in both great and minute details. Our faces change with expression or circumstance, angle or change of light; they are transformed by emotions and altered by different situations. Given the intricacy of the task, it is phenomenal that we should be able to recognize so many faces so effortlessly in the first place.

Yet the face is one of the first things we learn to respond to as infants. Developmental psychologists speak readily of the importance of the human face in the life of a newborn -- particularly the faces of mother and father, which the child soon comes to recognize. Professor James Loder speaks of the tendency of an infant to smile if one holds the configuration of a face on a stick beside the crib. Writes Loder, “[T]he face phenomenon is not strictly something that comes only from the environment; it is also a construct created by the child and developed out of the child’s inherent resources and deep-seated longing.”(2) For the child, the face plays a central role in their developing sense of the order of the universe. Thus, when the face of the loving nurturer goes away (which is inevitable), the child’s world is upset on some level. For what has gone away is not merely a static face but a much greater presence.

In this, children inherently illustrate a correlation drawn in biblical language. In both Greek and in Hebrew, the word for “face” is also the word for “presence.” Though we do not literally behold the face of God, it is his greater countenance we seek, his presence that comforts above all. The psalmist’s plea is that the confirming presence of God’s love would remain with him always: “Do not hide your face from me, do not turn your servant away in anger; you have been my helper. Do not reject me or forsake me, O God my Savior. Though my father and mother forsake me, the LORD will receive me” (Psalm 27:9-10). Scripture seems to pronounce what is echoed in the skills and longings of developing a child. The enduring pursuit of the faithful is a pursuit of the Face that won’t go away.

I cannot imagine the hardship of those for whom no face is familiar. But there are times when God’s face is obscure to me, and it is a painful discomfort. I know the signs of his assuring presence are around me, but I am at times hard-pressed to recognize Him. It is in such times when I am reminded by my own longing that He is near. Though recognition is a task that doesn’t always come effortlessly, the longing to know the face of God is a sign placed deeply within us -- an assuring mark of his very presence. Surely his face shines upon us! Wherever we are in our stages of recognition, the promise of God is extended: For now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face.

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1. Nicholas Bakalar, “Just Another Face in the Crowd Even if It’s Your Own,” THE NEW YORK TIMES, July 18, 2006.

2. James E. Loder, THE LOGIC OF THE SPIRIT (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1998), 91.

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Copyright © 2006 Ravi Zacharias International Ministries (RZIM). Reprinted with permission. "A Slice of Infinity" is a radio ministry of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries.

In Ayapan, Tabasco, a village in southern Mexico, a tragedy is on the horizon. As in any other city on any given day, two men have stopped talking to each other; they say they have drifted apart and no longer wish to speak. But unlike other cities and other feuding men, the elderly men of Ayapan are the last two remaining speakers of the local Zoque language. Without their attempts to keep the language alive, many fear the language will soon become extinct. While the hope is that others will learn Ayapan Zoque or that the men will choose to pass down the knowledge to their families, those who study indigenous languages are all too aware of the statistics. Across the world, the United Nations calculates, one language disappears every two weeks.

Language specialists remind us that the loss of any language, however few once spoke it, is no small loss. “Language death is symptomatic of cultural death: a way of life disappears with the death of a language,” note authors Daniel Nettle and Suzanne Romaine. “The fortunes of languages are bound up with those of its speakers.”(1) When the critical insight contained within a language is forgotten, an irreplaceable resource has vanished from the world and its future generations, leaving in its place a certain void. The cry to remember is often voiced by those who foresee the darkened glimpse of a world that has forgotten. Such a description is reminiscent of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle Earth at the onset on the story. “The world is changed,” says Galadriel. “I feel it in the water. I feel it in the earth. I smell it in the air. Much that once was is lost, for none now live who remember it.”

Since the biblical story is uttered simultaneously with a cry to remember, it is not surprising that we should find the same quality in the prayers of its characters. When Jehoshaphat stood up in the temple to pray in front of the entire assembly, he was speaking a language that sought desperately to remember the character of God. “O LORD, God of our fathers, are you not the God who is in heaven? You rule over all the kingdoms of the nations. Power and might are in your hand, and no one can withstand you. O our God, did you not drive out the inhabitants of this land before your people Israel and give it forever to the descendants of Abraham your friend?” His prayer was perhaps even a cry for God too to remember, to bear in mind the Lord they had come to know, the relationship God had sought with them, the history that existed between them. Speaking this common language and story, bringing the acts of God in history to the forefronts of their minds, Jehoshaphat then cried to God to act among them in the present. “O our God, will you not judge...the vast army that is attacking us? We do not know what to do, but our eyes are upon you” (2 Chronicles 20:6-12). Prayer is a language of remembrance. It is taught by those who have gone before us, those who have witnessed the power of God in history, those who were commanded to remember and now call us to do the same.

Speaking this language, teaching our children the fortunes bound within it, we remember the person of God, and we remember the people we are before the throne of heaven. Standing before a religious crowd, Jesus offered a parable about prayer. “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men -- robbers, evildoers, adulterers -- or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’ But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner’” (Luke 18:10-13). To the shock of the crowd, Jesus then revealed the one who spoke the language of heaven: “I tell you that this tax collector, rather than the other, went home justified before God” (14).

Prayer is a language whose fortunes keep before us the person and character of God, even as it keeps before us our own need for the kingdom and its mercies. So too, it is a language that helps us remember the whole story.

On the night before he was placed in the hands of those who would lead him to death, Jesus prayed that God would take away the task that stood before him. In prayer, Jesus pled with God to spare him; in prayer he sought the Father’s intervention; yet in prayer he remembered the entire story, such that even on the Cross he was able to pray for those who had no idea what they were doing. On his knees in Gethsemane, Jesus remembered our desperate need for his sacrifice. He concluded his prayer to the Father, “Yet not what I will, but what you will” (Mark 14:36). At these words, Christ forever bound within the biblical language a fortune we ought never to forget.

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1. Daniel Nettle and Suzanne Romaine, VANISHING VOICES (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 7.

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Copyright © 2008 Ravi Zacharias International Ministries (RZIM). Reprinted with permission. "A Slice of Infinity" is a radio ministry of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries.

Today in movie making, a flashback is often used to take the viewer back in the story to fill in details and supply the story’s backdrop. Cinematic flashbacks put past information into the present, keeping us on track. Cultural flashbacks do the same -- remind us of simple truths worth perpetuating in the present.

It is the same with our walk with God. It is a good thing to remember the past as we move forward in victory in the present.

Power of Remembering: New Testament

To keep us on track in the present, God gives us spiritual flashbacks of information from the past that He wants us to pull into the present.

Flashbacks were more common in the Old Testament than the New. In the New Testament, the one central remembrance is the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Paul exhorts us to remember what Jesus said on the night of His betrayal and arrest as He shared a final meal with His disciples.

“Take, eat; this is My body which is broken for you; do this in remembrance of Me,” Christ said. “This cup is the new covenant in My blood. This do, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me” (1 Corinthians 11:24-25).

For two thousand years, the Christian church has remembered the death of Jesus by celebrating the Lord’s Supper, Communion, on a regular basis.

We not only remember Jesus’ death, we remember His resurrection! Paul wrote to a young pastor named Timothy to remind Him not to forget the Resurrection. “Remember that Jesus Christ, of the seed of David, was raised from the dead according to my Gospel” (2 Timothy 2:8).

In the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, everything God had done in the Old Testament was fulfilled. Those three days in the history of the world -- and especially resurrection morning, the Lord’s Day -- are the most important memories the Christian can have.

Jesus Christ overcame the greatest enemy and obstacle in life -- death itself. That means there is no enemy or obstacle in our lives today that we are not capable of overcoming through Christ as we trust in Him.

Power of Remembering: Old Testament

Old Testament exhortations to “remember” and “don’t forget” keep us mindful of who God is and what He’s done. The exhortations keep us mindful to use the past as a beacon for the future.

Here are seven flashbacks about God that gave Israel a backdrop for the circumstances she faced day by day. They serve you and me as well.

• Remember God’s deliverance. “Remember this day... for by strength of hand the Lord brought you out of this place” (Exodus 13:3). Through Christ, God delivered us from sin’s enslavement (Romans 6).

• Remember God’s holiness. One of the Ten Commandments is to remember God’s holiness one day each week: “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy” (Exodus 20:8).

• Remember God’s commands. It is God’s will that we, “Do not forget the Lord your God by not keeping His commandments, His judgments, and His statutes” (Deuteronomy 8:11).

• Remember God’s judgments. “Remember ... what the Lord ... did to Pharaoh and to all Egypt” (Deuteronomy 7:18). God does not wink at sin (1 Corinthians 11:29-32).

• Remember God’s blessings. “Remember the Lord ... it is He who gives you power to get wealth” (Deuteronomy 8:18). Remember Him by your thankfulness and generosity in His name.

• Remember God’s covenant. “Remember His covenant” (1 Chronicles 16:15). God’s promises are our permanent possession (Jeremiah 31:33; Luke 22:20).

• Remember God’s works and wonders. “Remember His marvelous works” (Psalm 105:5). God created the world and everything in it, and nothing can separate you from Him (Romans 8:38-39).

Take time to remember what God has done. Flash back on that as you work and worship. Remembrances of Him help complete the storyline of your life.

Forgiveness is not a matter of "forgetting."

I. Forgiveness and vengeance.

A. Thoughts of enemies inhaling excrement. Isa 25:10-12

B. Does forgiving open us up to further abuse?

C. "Forgiveness is too often seen as merely an exercise in releasing

bad feelings and ignoring past harm, pretending all is well."

II. The myth of forgetting the harm.

A. Does God forget our sin?

1) Ps 25:7 and Jer 31:34 say he does.

2) Judgment Day assumes he does not. 2 Cor 5:10

3) Taken away and buried sin are metaphors. Ps 103:12; Mic 7:19

B. Emphasizing forgetting fuels a spirit of denial.

1) It warps the perspective.

III. The myth of releasing anger.

A. Forgiveness is usually not a sudden deliverance from anger.

1) It is an on-going work of God.

B. Anger or hurt is not necessarily contrary to forgiveness.

1) God feels anger and hurt at our sin.

2) An absence of strong feelings implies a lack of heart

involvement.

3) Anger can be a loving response.

IV. The myth of not desiring revenge.

A. Many see revenge as incompatible with forgiveness.

1) Revenge involves a desire for justice.

2) A true hunger for vengeance is our commitment to destroy sin.

B. Vengeance belongs to God.

1) We should not seek it on our own.

2) We anticipate the Day of the Lord.

V. The myth of peace at any price.

A. Offenders are not always won over by unconditional love.

1) Turning the other cheek is the not same as fear-based service

offered to avoid guilt or attack.

2) Overlooking harm in order to achieve a sentimental but not

substantive peace actually encourages sin.

3) Forgiveness is a weapon of wisdom that is designed to

disrupt and entice.

B. Shrewd sacrifice exposes the heart of the one doing harm.

1) This generosity has a redemptive bite.

VI. What does it mean to forgive?

A. A central image is the master who mercifully cancels an

incomprehensible debt. Matt 6:9-15; 18:21-35

B. The only debt that remains is to offer others a taste of

redemptive love.

C. Working definition of forgiveness:

"To forgive another means to cancel a debt in order to provide:

1) Opportunity for repentance, and

2) Restoration of the broken relationship."

While visiting Dundee, Scotland, an American who had heard much of Robert MacCheyne, one of the “saints of Scotland,” was anxious to find some one who could give him a few personal reminiscences of the great preacher. For that purpose he went to see an old man who had known MacCheyne and his preaching.

“Can you tell me some of the texts of MacCheyne's great sermons?” he asked.

“I don't remember them,” said the old man, shaking his head.

“Then can you tell me some of the striking sentences he uttered or some of his best sayings?”

“I've forgotten them entirely,” was the reply.

The visitor was greatly disappointed. “Well,” he said, almost in despair, “don't you remember anything about him at all?”

“Ah,” replied the old man, brightening, “that is a different question! One day when I was a laddie playing by the roadside, Robert MacCheyne came along and, laying his hand upon my head, said, 'Jamie, I've been to see your poor sick sister. I'm always glad to see her and help her as I can.’ Then he paused and after looking a bit into my eyes added: 'And, Jamie, I'm very much concerned about your own soul.’ I've forgotten his texts and grand sermons, sir, but I can still feel the tremble of his hand and see the tear in his eye.”

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Source: Ernest Lloyd. Signs of the Times, Copyright (c) November 8, 1932, Pacific Press, http://www.signstimes.com; submitted by Dale Galusha

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