“9 Only be careful and watch yourselves closely so that you do not forget the things your eyes have seen or let them slip from your heart as long as you live. Teach them to your children and to their children after them.
10 Remember the day you stood before the Lord your God at Horeb, when He said to me, “Assemble the people before me to hear my words so that they may learn to revere me as long as they live in the land and may teach them to their children.” 11 You came near and stood at the foot of the mountain while it blazed with fire to the very heavens, with black clouds and deep darkness. 12 Then the Lord spoke to you out of the fire. You heard the sound of words but saw no form; there was only a voice. ”
“Most of what I really need to know about how to live and what to do and how to be I learned in kindergarten,” wrote Robert Fulghum. “Wisdom was not at the top of the graduate school mountain, but there in the sand pile at Sunday School. These are the things I learned: Share everything. Play fair. Don’t hit people. Put things back where you found them. Clean up your own mess. Don’t take things that aren’t yours. Say you’re sorry when you hurt somebody. Wash your hands before you eat. Flush. Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you. Live a balanced life - Learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some. Take a nap every afternoon. When you go out into the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands and stick together. Be aware of wonder.”
Now my guess is that whether you are very little or whether you are older, you just remembered something that you needed to remember. You remembered what you already knew.
Moses would agree that, “wisdom was not at the top of the graduate school mountain, but there in the sand pile at Sunday school.” He would tell you that most often you need to remember what you already know.
In many ways the life of faith is one big act of remembering. You live each day mindful of who God is, of what He has done and what He can do, of His call upon your life, and of His promises for the future.
You need to remember and remembering is difficult. It should be obvious that remembering is difficult because you remembered something precious that you had momentarily forgotten when that list of what I learned in kindergarten was read. You need to work to remember and to keep remembering because it is so easy to forget.
Remembering requires effort and the effort required is increasing because we live in a distracted society. The various entertainments and mass media we enjoy were simply unimaginable to previous ages as is the time which we give to them. We are very distracted and distracted people do not remember. We are too distracted to bring what is important to mind.
Neil Postman is right about our age, “When a population becomes distracted by trivia, when cultural life is redefined as a perpetual round of entertainments, when serious public conversation becomes a form of baby-talk, when, in short, a people become an audience, and their public business a vaudeville act, then a nation finds itself at risk; culture-death is a clear possibility.”
Moses would say that we are distracting ourselves to death. We are forgetting ourselves to death. We need to remember. The church is called to remember. If we don’t remember who God is, what He has done and can do, His call upon our lives, and His promises for the future, if we are not living mindful of this, then what Postman said is true about the culture is true about us as a church, “culture-death is a clear possibility.” We already know. We must remember. God’s people must remember and keep remembering. That is the claim of this sermon: God’s people must remember and keep remembering.
We will see this in two points. First: remember what you have seen. Second: remember what you did not see. In verse 9, Moses gives the call to remember what has been seen. In verses 10-12, Moses gives the call to remember what has not been seen.
First: remember what you have seen. God’s people were preparing to enter the Promised Land. The men and women who were listening to Moses were only children at the time of the Exodus. Moses told them to remember all they had seen. Moses warned them not to act like their parents. Verse 9, “Only be careful and watch yourselves closely so that you do not forget the things your eyes have seen or let them slip from your heart as long as you live.”
The parents of the men and women listening to Moses didn’t lose access to the memories of the plagues, of the parting of the Red Sea, of the fear and glory at Mount Sinai. They didn’t lose access to those memories, but they did forget. They forgot in the same way you can forget to implement what you learned in kindergarten.
That generation’s parents were not mindful of the fact that God rescued them from slavery to the Egyptians. In fact, they regularly grumbled about that fact. They weren’t mindful then of the fact that their God was a warrior who was, frankly, unstoppable; you see that in the fact that they refused God’s marching orders into the Promised Land. What Isaiah said to the generation of the exiles was true about the Exodus generation, “You have seen many things, but you pay no attention; your ears are open, but you do not listen.” They would not remember.
Moses told their children and the Spirit is telling you to act differently. “Only be careful and watch yourselves closely so that you do not forget the things your eyes have seen or let them slip from your heart as long as you live.”
The men and women listening to Moses had seen remarkable wonders and they needed to remember. Even the food they ate was a daily miracle. Let’s just take manna as an example so you can consider how you must remember. How could that generation remember manna in the wilderness? Moses told them; the Lord “humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that He might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.” Now you can remember manna even though you never ate it by living mindfully of the fact that as a child of God you don’t live by the sweat of your own brow; you live by every promise that comes from the mouth of God. You remember that when bills come. You remember that when checks come. That’s how you remember.
You must remember what God has done and what He does. God never invites you to ponder abstract notions about Himself. He tells you to remember what He has done in history. When Israel was afraid that the Lord couldn’t save them, He didn’t say, ‘well, I’m omnipotent; I’m all powerful.’ He told them to remember what He had done. He said, ‘Lift up your eyes on high and see [the stars]: who created these? He who brings out their host by number, calling them all by name; by the greatness of His might not one of this is missing. [So] why do you say, O Jacob, and complain, O Israel, “My way is hidden from the Lord, and my cause is disregarded by my God”? Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth.’ You could summarize all of that in one word: remember.
Remembering has very little to do with accessing mental files about the past; it has much more to do with living wisely in the present in light of the past.
Now you haven’t seen what that generation had seen. You might be thinking, ‘if I saw total darkness cover the sky for three days as in the Exodus, I would remember. I would live differently. If I walked between walls of water like they did at the Red Sea, of course I would remember and live a life that was mindful of God.’ Don’t be so sure. The Exodus generation saw but they didn’t live any differently. They saw many things but paid no attention.
You might want to see wonders and miracles, but what you need to do is listen. Listen to Jesus’ words to Thomas who demanded to touch his wounds before he would believe in the resurrection. He said, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”
You don’t need to see manna from heaven to believe that your daily bread comes from God. You don’t need to see the risen Christ to believe that he rose. You have the Scriptures. You have heard. The question is ‘are you remembering’?
Remembering involves teaching. “Teach them to your children and to their children after them,” as verse 9 puts it. We studied this matter at length last month, but it bears repeating. For children to remember, parents must teach them what is worth remembering. You train your children to remember by keeping them mindful of God and His ways. Read the Bible with your children at the end of meals. Read the Catechism with your children at the end of meals. If you don’t prioritize these matters, remembering will not become a priority for your children.
You need to keep the glory of God, His grace, and His ways in front of your children. They don’t have the stories down the way that you hope they do because none of us do. There is a big difference between knowing data about, say, Elijah and Elisha and remembering how to live in the midst of a culture that has lost its way as they did. You can know the stories and still not remember.
Jesus remembered. He knew the same Scripture as the Pharisees, but he remembered. He didn’t hate or revile his persecutors because he remembered, “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord. He treated people gently because he remembered, “A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out.” Both he and the Pharisees knew those Scriptures but only he remembered. Your remembrance of Scripture isn’t seen on a test; it is seen in your life.
Moses told that generation to remember the wonders they had seen. He also told them to remember what they had not seen. That is our second point: remember what you did not see.
Moses now turned his attention to Horeb, which is another name for Sinai. The Sinai experience is one of the mountaintops of the Bible, both literally and figuratively. You simply cannot understand the history of the United States without considering the Constitution. You simply cannot understand the history of God’s people without considering the Sinai.
Sinai was a place of reverence. You see that in these verses. Moses said the mountain blazed with fire to the very heavens. He said the sky at Sinai was full of black clouds and deep darkness. Everything those Israelites saw told them that this moment was not to be taken lightly.
That was part of the purpose. Verse 10, ‘Remember the day you stood before the Lord your God at Horeb, when He said to me, “Assemble the people before me to hear my words so that they may learn to revere me as long as they live in the land and may teach them to their children.”’
The people saw Sinai blazing with fire to the very heavens, in part, so they might learn to revere God. The people saw the meteorological terror of black clouds and deep darkness in daytime so that they might be sensible about what it means to hear from the Lord. The lesson is clear: don’t be flippant with God. If you have no reverence for God, the Bible says that you can define yourself as a fool; the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.
The Sinai experience wasn’t an end in itself. God wasn’t simply intimidating a nomadic people group. He brought them to Sinai to listen. Verse 12, “Then the Lord spoke to you out of the fire.”
The shock and awe of Sinai was for the purpose of words. The words come out of the fire. “Assemble the people before me to hear my words so that they may learn to revere me.”
You cannot hear God’s word rightly without revering the God who speaks. That was true at Sinai. That was true when you opened your Bibles a few minutes ago. If you read those words without reverence, you read them wrongly despite your grammatical comprehension.
You cannot hear God’s word rightly without revering the God who speaks, and—to flip it around—you hear God’s word in order to revere the God who speaks. “Assemble the people before me to hear my words so that they may learn to revere me.”
God spoke on Sinai to train Israel and us in reverence and He spoke at Sinai so that we might revere Him. God gave commandments so that we might learn to revere Him. Just as the fire and clouds at Sinai were not an end in themselves but rather a call for reverence, so the commandments of God are not an end in themselves but rather are a call for reverence. The commandments of God teach you to revere God.
God didn’t give us commands for the sake of keeping commands. He gave us commands so that we might revere Him, which is the only sensible way to deal with God if you’ve ever encountered God.
You don’t keep the commandments just to keep the commands. If you do, you will fall into legalism and you will think that you are keeping the commands when in reality you are failing to revere God which is the point of the commands. People who keep the commands just to keep the commandments are like a man who shifts his car into drive just to go forward rather than to go someplace. The commands take you some place. They take you reverence for God. They take you to love for your neighbor. Jesus didn’t keep the commands just to keep the commands. He kept them to go someplace.
Now all of this—the shock and awe visual of Sinai and the voice out of the fire at Sinai—underline what was not seen at Sinai. What did Israel not see at Sinai? Read verses 10 through 12 and put up your hand when you think you have the answer. What did Israel not see at Sinai?
They didn’t see God. “You heard the sound of words but saw no form; there was only a voice.” That sentence in the Hebrew is choppy to underline the peculiarity of that moment and that moment is ever with us. God cannot be seen. God must be heard.
Moses told this generation to remember that they did not see God at Sinai. They saw fire and they saw black clouds but those were only the edges of the glory that cannot and must not be seen. If the glory that could be seen at Sinai was fearsome, imagine the glory of the God who could not be seen and must not be seen.
Any attempt to visualize God is an act of domestication. People try to picture the God who cannot be seen as an attempt to tame the God who cannot be tamed. That is the lesson of Sinai: you can’t subdue God. God subdues you and that is for your good.
The worship we are giving right now drives all of this home. You cannot see God in this sanctuary and there are no images of God in this sanctuary. You cannot touch God in this sanctuary, but you do hear Him speak in His word. We meet God as He speaks.
Even the record of the incarnation drives this home. People ask all sorts of questions about the God-man, ‘what did he look like?’ ‘how tall was he?’ ‘what color were his eyes?’ and the gospel writers are silent. They were silent about it not because they forgot; Matthew knew what Jesus looked like; he was silent because he was wise. Questions about Jesus’ appearance are simply our attempts to categorize him but that is not why he came. He came to make the Father known. “No one has ever seen God, but the only-begotten Son, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.” You don’t need any visual descriptions for that.
It would do you no real good to be able to remember what Jesus looks like, but it does you great good to remember what Jesus has done. It does you great good to remember the cross. It does you great good to remember the resurrection. It does you great good to daily remember what he has done and what he will do. You remember that by putting it into action.
In kindergarten you learned that, “Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you.” You don’t remember that by recalling that truth. You remember that by eating warm cookies and drinking cold milk. You remember God not merely by remembering what His word contains but by reverting Him for what His word contains. That is the act of eating the milk and cookies.
You must remember to revere the Lord. You must remember the wonders and the words of the living God. You must remember that God is not distance. He comes delightfully and frightengly near. He did it at Sinai. He did it in the manger.
That is the elementary lesson that must not be forgotten – not some mroal platitudes that you can recall to be a good person, but the raw exposure of being subdued by God and loving it. Remember.
Don’t settle for recalling cute spiritual sayings. Remember the God who remembers you. He doesn’t just recall your existence. He lives mindfully of you and so you exist and so you are cleansed and so you are being changed. He remembers you. Remember Him who truly is unforgettable. Amen.