Lest You Forget

Deuteronomy 4:9-10

In 2000, I had to have shoulder surgery. I legitimately could not do most of my school work, which was kind of nice. I enjoyed my literature class a lot more when I wasn't doing worksheets and essays. However, as things rolled on well, I forgot all about the assignments I did not do. Then, at the end of the 9 weeks, my teacher told me I was failing the class because of all the work I had missed. There were only two days to make it up, and I had to rush to get it all done in time. When I thought things were going well, I forgot what I was supposed to be doing. I got lazy and careless, and there was a price to pay.

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"Only take heed to yourself, and diligently keep yourself, lest you forget the things your eyes have seen, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life. And teach them to your children and your grandchildren, especially concerning the day you stood before the LORD your God in Horeb, when the LORD said to me, ‘Gather the people to Me, and I will let them hear My words, that they may learn to fear Me all the days they live on the earth, and that they may teach their children."

Deuteronomy 4:9-10

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Moses speaks a word of warning here. He tells the people to be cautious and to guard themselves from this danger. It is a danger of forgetting their history and heritage. Moses was telling them that if they forgot their history, what God had done for them, and their heritage, their identity in God, then they would fall. Those that want to destroy a nation know that they have to destroy the people's national identity. One method of doing this is to revise history and to condemn culture. If you make the national heroes into villains, then the people will lose their desire to resist.

This was the threat for Israel, and unfortunately we are seeing that very thing take place in our own nation today. There is a denial of America's Godly heritage. People who have always been viewed as Christians are suddenly labeled "Deists". That which was once taught as history is now called myth. Every fault that can be dug up is hurled like mud in the faces of the founders. They are judged by 21st century standards, rather than 18th and 19th century standards. No one will ever live up to a standard that is established 200 years after they have died.

Moses told the people that the way to combat this was to teach their children and grandchildren about God. They needed to teach what God had done for them. How He had been a very real presence in their deliverance and in establishing them as a nation. Things were about to change, and the people did not need to forget about God. Moses told them to teach!

Notice that he did not tell them to establish schools and let teachers do it. He did not tell them to start a Sunday School program. The command was for each family to teach the next generation. This meant that all people needed to know their history and what God had done for them. They were the primary source of education for their progeny. If a family forgot, it was the prior generation’s fault, not a school’s or the churches. Accountability begins in the home.

Father, Help us to fight the danger of forgetting history and heritage. If we forget what we were built upon, then we have no foundation. A house without a foundation will fall. You had Moses warn us, and now we ask You to strengthen us to stand. Let our stand begin in our homes!