The Importance of Remembering

We have a rather high opinion of ourselves in certain areas and one of those areas is our memories. We imagine that we will always remember God's great acts. We will never forget that God created the world, that he brought his people out of Egypt and into the Promised Land, that Christ died on the cross, that we have been converted.

Sadly, all the evidence is that we are quick to forget and forgetfulness is one of the greatest enemies of faith. This is something politicians rely on. If you are in power then you do the unpopular things early on and the popular things later, if you can. One writer says that it is like in marriage where often the biggest danger is not infidelity but forgetting why you married in the first place.

A sinking boat and salvation

Philippians 3:8 I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage.

This is one thing that is so difficult for some to understand. It is automatic for us to put our trust where we shouldn't – in our prayers, in our knowledge, in our good deeds. Such confidence will save no-one. Who cares if you were on the cradle roll or if you went to Sunday School or Christian school or camps or conferences if you you don't trust in Jesus Christ? What good is there in being a Baptist but not a Christian, Reformed but not converted, a person who does his quiet time every day but has not come to faith? Or for that matter, being the prime minister or a king or queen, winning a Nobel prize or captaining England?

They are absolutely worthless when it comes to saving anyone. It is not that we despise such things and nothing more but we despise them as far as their being a means of salvation is concerned. Think of a man in a sinking boat. Paul himself was in one on more than one occasion. In Acts 27 we read of how they jettisoned the cargo first and then even the ship's tackle (the mechanisms for raising and lowering the sails), as important as that would normally be, in an effort to lighten the ship. When you are in a sinking boat you are willing to sacrifice everything, as long as you can get safely to shore. Everything gets thrown overboard. That is how it is if we want to be saved.

Assurance

When I was a boy I remember sitting in the church where I grew up and hearing the minister giving a children's talk. There was a boy there a little bit younger than me called Michael, Michael Derosaire. The minister asked if the children expected to go to heaven. Michael was a good little boy and so he said that he hoped to go to heaven - which I thought was a pretty good answer. You don't want to sound too confident. But the minister wasn't happy with that. He wanted the children to know they were going to heaven.

I once heard Sinclair Ferguson talking about Cardinal Robert Bellarmine (1542–1621) Pope Clement VIII’s personal theologian and one of the most able figures in the Roman Catholic Counter-Reformation movement in the sixteenth-century. On one occasion, Bellarmine wrote:

“The greatest of all Protestant heresies is _______ .” As Ferguson puts it "Complete, explain, and discuss Bellarmine’s statement. How would you answer? What is the greatest of all Protestant heresies? Perhaps justification by faith? Perhaps Scripture alone, or one of the other Reformation watchwords? Those answers make logical sense. But none of them completes Bellarmine’s sentence. What he wrote was: “The greatest of all Protestant heresies is assurance.”

Bellarmine absolutely hated the fact Protestants wanted people to know they were going to heaven. I think the fear is that if people know they are going to heaven they will become complacent and self-satisfied. And yet God wants us to assured of salvation. He want us to know it will all turn out well in the end.

Losing the dressing room

It is important that people retain confidence in their leaders. There is an expression in football "to lose the dressing room". This is used when a manager of a football team loses the confidence of his players and they stop listening to him and so things go from bad to worse. There is no football at the moment (June 2020) but back in January the Independent was saying that Norwegian Ole Gunnar Solskjaer at Manchester United was

"losing the dressing room, with a number of squad members "irritated" by his drills and what is more, his wider tactical approach.

It's stated that while the players like him - and there's no denying Solskjaer is a very likeable character - they do not think he should have been appointed in the first place."

God was determined that Joshua would not "lose the dressing room" but would be exalted in Israel's eyes. Joshua, of course, points us to Jesus Christ our Leader and it is important that we see that in all that God the Father does he is determined to exalt Jesus Christ. We can expect to see that happening and should be on the look out for it.

Who is the leader?

Pop groups were very popular in the 1960s and there were lots of different ones - The Beatles, The Move, The Who, The Kinks. As child I always liked to know who was the most important person in the group. Sometimes it was difficult to know. In The Dave Clark Five, Dave Clark was the man on the drums not the singer. Or take Fleetwood Mac - that name is from the drummer Mick Fleetwood and the bass player John McVie not the singer or guitarist. In the group Manfred Mann, Manfred Mann was not the singer but the man on the keyboards. With the Spencer Davis Group, on the other hand, it was Steve Winwood who you needed to know about rather than Spencer Davis himself.

At this point in Israel's history (Joshua 3) it was important for them to know who was most important in this situation. God was the one they should be looking to not themselves or Joshua or even the priests. Thus the emphasis on looking to the ark and on consecrating themselves to God for Joshua tells them tomorrow the LORD will do amazing things among you.

This brings us to the matter of having the right attitude and preparing ourselves as we should. One reason why gatherings for worship or our own time with our Bibles is less than rewarding is because we have the wrong attitude and are not prepared. We need to come to worship focussed on God and prepared to meet with him. $ You know the expression priming the pump. Some water pumps will only work once you get the air out of them - usually done by putting water into them. Priming simply means preparing. Sometimes we need to prime the spiritual pump if we are to know blessing.

Two Roads

In the new Kenneth Branagh film Belfast there is a preacher. He is a bit of a caricature but he is based on ones that Branagh heard as a child. Perhaps they were rather austere those preachers then but what the preacher actually says in the film is essentially true.

And where will YOU go? When you shuffle off this pestilential mortal coil. WHERE? ... I will tell you where. Picture the scene. A fork in the road. In one direction, a straight and narrow highway. In the other, a long and winding road which stretches down and away, into an unknowable distance. One will take you to the bosom of the Lord’s grace for ever and a day and caress you with beatific love, and the other will spew you into an eternal pit of sulphurous, suffering, pustulating pain, from which you will never, ever, through the seven circles of hell, escape. And I ask you here and now, which road will you take?

There is a broad road that leads to destruction. Evil will slay the wicked; the foes of the righteous will be condemned.

On the other hand, there is a narrow road that leads to heaven. The LORD will rescue his servants and bring them safely there.

Take refuge in Christ, therefore, and escape condemnation.

Taste and See

In Psalm 34:8 David calls on us to Taste and see that the LORD is good; and he assures us blessed is the one who takes refuge in him. So here is the invitation. Taste and see that the LORD is good.

There's a lot of advertising at the moment for MacDonald's new vegan burger, McPlant. I am not a vegan (or a vegetarian) but I thought I'd like to try one and see if they taste as good as they claim. So yesterday I went along and bought one for my lunch. I can assure you, it's very tasty. I've tasted it and so I can say it is good.

Now David urges us here to give ourselves wholeheartedly to the Lord and then we will know by experience how very good he is. A person who takes refuge in the Lord will be blessed indeed. David can say that because he's experienced it and I can say it too to some extent for the same reason. You'll never regret turning to Christ for refuge.

There is a Scottish expression - Better felt than telt. It is not easy to describe how good God is, how wonderful all his ways, but when you experience it - then you'll know.