Remembering What You Must Never Forget

Good afternoon, everyone.

Four months ago, I got to actually talk about things like kindness and meekness. This, in a way, relates to prophecy. People don’t generally think of it this way, but every sermon does, because you’re readying for your future, and elements of things in the Bible, every subject in the Bible, has to do with timing in a certain regard. People appear to leave the Church for many reasons. But in the end, it’s always the same reason. And I doubt any of you have ever thought about or discovered what that reason is. I’ll bet there’s not one person here who could name the only reason people ever leave the Church. People will cite a doctrinal disagreement. They’ll cite people offended them. They’ll cite it’s too far away to get to services, too long a drive. They’ll cite personal problems. They’ll cite depression.

They’ll cite, “I’m just going to leave for a while and come back.” They’ll cite, “I don’t think I have to attend every week for whatever reason.” They’ll cite, “I got this job offer, and I simply have to take it, and it requires that I work on the Sabbath.” They’ll cite, “My conscience is guilty, I’m not tithing, and I can’t.” They’ll cite all kinds of things. I can’t get to the feast, and then eventually they quit. None of those things are why anybody ever quits, not one of them. My father used to tell me he was one of the greatest salesmen there ever was, and he said, “I learned, son, and I’ve been taught, but I’ve learned that people’s first objection is never the real objection.

If I want to be a successful salesman, I’ve got to understand why it is they won’t buy, in his case, at one point, paint.” You’ve got to get to the real objection. And if you’re a minister, and you understand the real objection, and you’ve learned it, and the scriptures are most plain about it, my responsibility would be to tell you what it is. It has everything to do with the meaning of the Feast of Trumpets. Now, we’re a long way from the Feast of Trumpets, but I say, how so? I mean, well, we’ll learn. People love nostalgia. They love thinking about old times, high school, old movies.

My wife and I have been waiting for a long time to watch an old John Wayne movie. We watched it last Sunday, called “The Cowboys.” Any of you ever seen The Cowboys? Oh, boy. She watched it as a child, and I don’t think I ever saw it. And I saw a lot of John Wayne movies. My dad’s nickname was “The Duke.” People thought he looked a little bit like John Wayne. And people like old bands. You go watch people listen to Barry Gibb. He’s the last of the Gibb brothers, the Bee Gees. The brothers Gibb, the Bee Gees, that’s where the Bee Gees came from. He’s the last one alive. All his younger brothers died.

He has an older sister alive, Lesley. But he goes and performs by himself, and ten, twenty, thirty, fifty thousand people will come listen to him, even without his brothers and that remarkable harmony, because of his falsetto, and it makes them remember the past. And people love to hear people from the past, musicians. They like old songs, of course. They like old times. They like to think about old friends, sometimes old girlfriends. But memory is a powerful tool given by God, but it’s selective. People typically will remember what they want to and forget what they want to, or at least try to.

Turn over to Leviticus twenty-three for a moment, and I don’t think I have ever heard a single sermon, ever, on the actual meaning of Trumpets. Here we are, February seventh, it has a lot to do with God withdrawing at the Feast of Trumpets. So there’s a little bit of prophecy right there. In Leviticus chapter twenty-three and verse twenty-three, “The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, speak to the children of Israel, saying, in the seventh month, in the first day of the month, you shall have as Sabbath a memorial of blowing of trumpets, a holy convocation. You shall do no servile work therein, but you’ll offer an offering made by fire unto the Lord.” That’s all it says.

Now, here is this great Holy Day that is often thought of as the day that civil kings are installed. Mr. Armstrong believed it was the day that the Millennium began. It is certainly the civil year. It’s the other great year, exactly six months away from Abib. But the only thing it says about it is it’s a memorial or a remembrance of blowing of trumpets. In some ways, it means primarily loud noise. It’s a day of remembrance. And actually, we’re going to learn both by us and of God. But of what? Now again, it’s not wrong to focus on the fact that civil kings are reckoned off of Trumpets, but we keep Sabbaths and holy days to help us remember God’s plan.

Now in life, some things you should forget, but others you should never forget. But is there something else that is incredible that God designated one of his seven holy days, the middle one, the fourth of the seven, to be a memorial of blowing trumpets? In other words, you’re supposed to picture something that you’re to remember. Memorial Day, you’re supposed to remember all the soldiers that died. Everybody knows that. It’s a day to remember all the people who fought for the country, gave their life so that others could enjoy freedom and democracy as men have devised it. But Trumpets is both a wonderful day and a terrible day. Think about it.

It’s the day God withdraws and Jerusalem is surrounded and forty-three months of world hell begin. That’s not very good. Yet depending upon what you’re remembering, which would be looking backwards, not forward, but depending upon what you’re looking backwards at, it can be wonderful. God doesn’t want us just to remember horrible things, but he wants us to remember something. And Trumpets is the day exactly halfway through a sacred year. It’s sort of like you get to the halfway point and God designated it. Didn’t do that with Abib. He designated it a holy day, a great day. Sometimes it’s a double Sabbath and He designated that it be kept.

In the middle of the year, for a while I thought it was the midst of years, but it’s its own year and it’s not the midst of years. And He wants us to pause and remember some things. It’s kind of amazing. Turn over to Psalm one hundred and three. Psalm one hundred and three. I don’t mind sitting down if I have a lot of documents, but I almost wanted to stand up for this sermon at the last minute and I thought it’s too late. I couldn’t switch it. I’d probably like to stand for this. It’s the one where I want to be animated because the subject is so powerful.

Psalm one hundred and three and verse one. “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me. Bless his holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget,” now that’s interesting. “...forget not all his benefits.” Don’t forget his benefits. Well, I’m pretty sure we would agree that God wouldn’t say that unless people could forget them. “Who forgives all your iniquities.” Well, there’s a benefit. “Who heals all your diseases.” There’s another benefit. “Who redeems your life from destruction.” Who delivers you.” I’ve experienced that numerous times, probably more than I know. You, too. Maybe you know some of the times. Maybe other times you don’t.

“Who crowns you with loving kindness and tender mercy.” Boy, those are benefits. “Who satisfies your mouth with good things.” Probably food. If you eat good food, that would give you a lot of strength. “The Lord executes righteousness and judgment for all that are oppressed.” Now, there’s a list of some of God’s benefits. And God says, don’t forget them. People forget. Why say all of that? Because people forget. So I might pause for a moment and just say, you know, periodically, you ought to pause and recount all those things.

It’s a marvelous exercise that will do you nothing but good. But if you don’t pause and ponder them, you could forget them. In fact, people do. Psalm one hundred and nineteen. And verse nine. “Wherewithal shall a young man…” Psalm one hundred and nineteen, nine. “...cleanse his way? By taking heed thereto according to your word,” the answer? “...with my whole heart have I sought you. O let me not wander from your commandments. Your word have I hid in my heart, that I might not sin against you. Blessed are you, O Lord, teach me your statutes.

With my lips have I declared all the judgments of your youth. I’ve rejoiced in the way of your testimonies, as much as in all riches. I will meditate in your precepts and have respect to your ways. I will delight myself in your statutes. I will not forget your word.” Okay, so now we’ve added something. We added all the benefits, healings and forgiveness and loving kindness and so forth. Now, all of a sudden, we added, I will not forget your word. Well, that’s kind of a big book. Verse fifty-nine, let’s just stay here. “I thought on my ways and turned my feet unto your testimonies. I made haste and delayed not to keep your commandments. The bands of the wicked have robbed me, but I have not forgotten your law.”

Terrible things happened, but I didn’t forget. I’ve known people who forget God’s law. No matter how difficult trials become, never forget God or his law. And the psalmist didn’t. Exodus twenty, let’s go to the Ten Commandments. God at Sinai. “God spoke all these words, saying, ‘I’m the Lord your God, which brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make to you any graven image or any likeness of anything that’s in heaven above or that’s in the earth beneath or that’s in the water under the earth.

“You shall not bow down yourself to them nor serve them, for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers and the children of the third and fourth generation and showing mercy to thousands of them that love me and keep my commandments. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that takes his name in vain.” Now, here’s a strange statement. “Remember the Sabbath day.” Now, what would be the opposite of that? “Remember the Sabbath day.” Would you say Israel today has remembered the Sabbath day? Or would you say seven hundred million people have forgotten the Sabbath day?

How could you do that? You keep it every seven days. How could you possibly forget the Sabbath day or need to be told to remember it? Well, almost everyone who ever knew the Sabbath stopped. I mean, I used to attend Church with a hundred and sixty thousand people. That was the pinnacle, just a little after Mr. Armstrong’s time, then it began to decline. And virtually all of them forgot to keep the Sabbath. They didn’t remember it was the fourth command. You say, what? What? How could you possibly forget that? Don’t forsake the assembling of yourselves together as the manner of some is. I’ve watched scores of thousands do just that. How could they do that?

They just didn’t remember how important it was. Maybe they’d stop thinking about all the benefits that God was giving them and pouring out on them and didn’t think they had to. But they stopped doing it. Why? They forgot it was a command. So curiously, you can look back now with full understanding why God said, remember to keep it. It was here from the garden. So how come the whole world isn’t keeping it? And instead, rather, almost no one is because the world has forgotten it. Exchange it for Sunday. I’ve seen so many forget everything. The Sabbath is just one thing. You know, the most powerful sermon.

Maybe this sermon, you’ll think, wow, this is amazing. But you know, there’s a real danger you could forget this sermon. I’m just warming up. It’s a sermon about not forgetting, and you could easily forget it. You won’t remember it. If time went on, I dare say half to three-quarters of you will forget I ever gave it. That’s just people. Serious people would continue. We’re short of time, so God knows that he has to cut time short, as he will, the Great Tribulation, or nobody would make it. Because if time kept going on, chances are many of us would either die or slip away. They wouldn’t remember.

The most powerful sermon, book or booklet, wow, that was amazing, will fade. And sometimes fast. The word forget means to mislay, to be oblivious. Turn to Proverbs. You can mislay knowledge. You ever mislaid your glasses? You ever mislaid your keys? Now, until you need them again, you might be oblivious to the fact that you mislaid them. But eventually you’ll need your glasses, and you’ll need your keys, and you can’t drive the car. But if you mislay the Sabbath in your thinking, and you become oblivious to it, it isn’t like keys or glasses or your wallet. You may never remember that you’ve got to go get it.

Even though it’s infinitely more important than your wallet, your glasses, and your keys combined. In Proverbs chapter four, it says this, Proverbs four. Now, God calls us, “We’re the weak, the foolish, the base, the things that are despised, the things that are not.” And we’re the ones that Paul was writing about, those who are going to go first and we’re going to confound the mighty. That’s not a millennial prophecy. That’s a first kingdom prophecy nobody ever thought. Just Paul thought the Corinthians were going to be part of that initial generation that goes first. They weren’t, two thousand years passed and you understand that.

But when God calls people who are foolish, here’s a verse that’s important. Chapter four. “Get wisdom, get understanding. Forget it not. Don’t forget it. Neither decline from the words of your mouth. Forsake her not, and she shall preserve you. Love her, and she’ll keep you.” Now, who would ever forsake something like that that will keep you alive sometimes, protect you? The answer is you can forget. Wisdom. With all you’re getting, get wisdom. God gives wisdom. People can forget to ask Him. Then wonder why they remain foolish or do foolish things. To forsake it means it was forgotten. Go to Hebrews ten.

I just referenced it a moment ago, but I want to go look at a couple other things there. Several things in Hebrews. So Hebrews chapter ten and verse twenty-five. Now here it says, “Don’t forsake the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is, but exhorting one another and so much the more as you see the day approaching.” Which is what we should be doing. And then it ties it to willful, the unpardonable sin. How could you forget something that if you do, you lose eternal life on that alone? No wonder God says remember that particular command. Others too. I’ll show you something even bigger that people forget in a minute. How could you do that?

“If we sin willfully after we’ve received the knowledge of the truth, there remains no more sacrifice for sins.” That verse is in the Bible in one place, and it follows verse twenty-five. That’s the place God put it. “But a certain fearful looking forward of judgment and fiery indignation, which will devour the adversaries. And then he that despised Moses’ law…” and so forth died under two witnesses. “How much sorer punishment, suppose you, shall he be thought worthy, who has trodden underfoot the Son of God and counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and done despite, under the Spirit of grace.”

You think he ever intended to do that? Would anybody ever intend to commit the unpardonable sin? Who would do that? Somebody might forget how important it was not to do it. As mentioned in chapter six, so this isn’t the first time. “For we know him that has said, vengeance belongs to me, I will recompense, says the Lord. And again, the Lord shall judge his people.” It’s a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” How do you avoid that? “Call to remembrance the former days.” And not just, you know, the Bee Gees on tour, or the last one alive, or The Cowboys, a movie, or old girlfriends, or friends, or good times.

Call to remembrance the former days in which, after you were illuminated, you endured a great fight of afflictions. Partly while you were made a gazing stock, both by reproaches and afflictions, and partly whilst you became companions of them that were so used.” You just got caught up in things where persecution came. Remember that. Otherwise, you could forsake the assembling of yourselves together because you didn’t remember the Sabbath was important. Now I’m trying to show you a connection, a theme all through the Bible. I couldn’t begin to cover this whole subject in one long sermon. But don’t forget God’s calling.

You come right on down, by the way, and in the context it describes this first coming after a tiny, tiny mikron. Chapter thirteen. Right, while we’re here, let’s go on over there. Chapter thirteen says, verse seventeen. Chapter thirteen, we’ll pick it up in verse seventeen. “Obey them that have the rule over you and submit yourselves as they watch for your soul,” verse twenty-four. “...salute all them that have the rule over you.” So obey and salute and obey the leaders. But that’s not really the way God started it. You know, all these people, these ministers who have done a lot for you, God says, I want you in verse seven. “Remember them which have the rule over you.”

Then it says in seventeen, “Obey them,” and in twenty-four, “salute them.” That doesn’t mean salute them. Yes, sir. It just means, hello, how are you? Walk up and salute ministers. People don’t very often come up and say hello to me. I use Mr. Pack, who should never say hello to me. Well, yeah, you should. I wish more would, actually. I try to do it because I know people don’t come up and salute me. And I don’t mean, you know, General Pack or something like that. But, I mean, I like that. And we’ve got a lot of ministers here. They all like it. Everybody likes it. Everybody likes to be spoken to by name and so forth. I’m no different. Not at all.

So, remember them. Now, here’s some other things. While we’re in this chapter, look at this. Look at verse three. “Let your conversation be without covetousness.” Oh, I’m sorry. “Remember them that are in bonds.” Oh, okay, not just the ministers. “Remember them that are in bonds.” There are people who are bound in the Roman Empire. And they were God’s servants. They were saints. As bound with them.

Now, have you remembered? Wait a minute. Remember them that are in bonds. Oh, I remember so-and-so, that’s right. He got picked up. Now, here’s what you’d have to do to remember them as though you were in bonds with them. You have to really focus on them. You have to do more than just remember their name or whip off a quick prayer about them. You have to remember them in such a way that you are right there with them in the cell or wearing the same ball and chain. Oh, now that’s serious remembering. “And them which suffer adversity as being yourselves also in the body.”

We all suffer adversity. Remember people who are suffering adversity. What’s the alternative? Forget about it, you know. I don’t mean to sound Italian, but they forget. You either remember them or you don’t. It’s something you’re supposed to do, but you know what? It gets mislaid. It becomes oblivious to you. They’re suffering and they’re in the same body as you. You’d want them to do it if you were there. So, if you want that done for you, you’d do it for them if it was happening to them. So I didn’t just remember ministers, remember people who were in jail?

Most of us today, if we heard a member got taken to jail, we’d figure what’d he do to deserve it? And often that could be the case. But in the Roman Empire, you could go to jail and people might shun him. He’s guilty of something. He might be guilty of being a servant of the Lord God. Would people leave Paul alone? Paul’s in jail. He’s got ball and chain. What he did is retribution from God. Verse sixteen, right in front of obey. “But to do good and to communicate, forget not.” We’re supposed to constantly tell people. Why do you think God says forget every time? Don’t forget to do it or remember. It’s the same.

Don’t forget or remember is the exact same thing. It’s because people typically forget. That’s why you come into the Church, you’re in your first love and on fire. And over time, people cool. Every single person alive today in the Laodicean era of the Church was once on fire. Learning things. Wow, Christmas trees are pagan. The Easter bunny is pagan. Sunday is the day of the sun. We’re supposed to keep the seventh day of the week and so on and so forth. And they learn things. They’re amazed. And wow, I’m not born again now. That’ll happen when I’m changed and become spirit and I’m like the wind. And they learn things and it’s exciting.

And they’re supposed to go to these wonderful holy days that are sprinkled through the year. “But to do good and to communicate, forget not. For with such sacrifices,” oh, “God is well pleased.” Do you ever think of yourself as doing good? It’s a sacrifice? Possibly. How many of you think just talking to other people? You’re walking by people. Maybe saluting them or talking, remembering them or telling them you’re praying about. God is well pleased with that and calls it a sacrifice. Well, I thought you had to kill an animal to have a sacrifice. Don’t you have to kill a bullock or a kid or not the two-legged kind? Four-legged kind.

There are people out there who want to kill the two-legged kind. They don’t and shouldn’t, some do. You know, about eight children are beaten to death every single day in the United States by a parent. Literally beats them to death. Eight a day. So, I mean, we know that God will kill kids. The kids of the flock. Bullocks, doves and so forth. People can forget all these things that we’re citing. And they’re told don’t do that. And again, I want to stress, you wouldn’t tell them don’t do it unless they can. And in fact, I’m a veteran of thousands upon tens of thousands who did.

And I’m not talking about stuff I read in the Church history book that I wrote because it happens in every age. Why would there be seven church eras? Why wouldn’t you have one church era that lasted two thousand years? One era, it started on fire at Pentecost. Everybody knows three thousand baptized, why would you have to have seven eras? It’s because people waned and started losing understanding and it died away. And they forgot what they said they’d never forget. They couldn’t imagine forgetting. But they can’t even remember that they couldn’t imagine ever forgetting and they forget everything. It’s an amazing thing about people.

Turn over to Deuteronomy chapter four. Deuteronomy four. I told you there’s... The worst thing you can ever forget, we haven’t even talked about. Four, four. Deuteronomy four. We’ll pick it up in verse six. Speaking of the commandments, Deuteronomy four, six. “Keep therefore and do them,” judgments and statutes. “...for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the nations, which you’ll hear all these statutes and say, “Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people. For what nation is there so great, who has God so high unto them, as the Lord our God is in all these things?

“And what nation is there so great, that has statutes and judgments so righteous, as all this day which I have set before you this day?” Now this is interesting. God is talking to all Israel. All Israel. And the book ends with the last days. So he’s talking to all Israel. This is interesting. “Only take heed to yourself, and keep your soul diligently, lest you forget the things which your eyes have seen, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life, but teach them unto your sons and your sons’ sons.” And then the people were all gathered together.

“And Horeb, gather me the people together, and I will make them hear my words, that they may learn to fear me all the days that they shall live upon the earth, and that they may teach their children.” Verse twenty-three. “Take heed unto yourselves, lest you forget the covenant of the Lord your God, which he made with you, and make you a graven image, or the likeness of anything which the Lord your God has forbidden you. For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, even a jealous God.” Chapter six and verse four. Now this gets more serious.

“Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord. Hear him only. That’s what it means. It’s not a statement about there’s one being in the Godhead, the way the Jews read it. “Hear him, and hear him alone, they heard. “...you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and might, and these words which I command you this day shall be in your heart, and you’ll teach diligently to your children, and talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise up, pretty much all day long, no matter where you are and what you’re doing.”

Now I know most parents didn’t do that in Worldwide Church of God, because all their kids quit at the first opportunity. Now that’s on the kids too, if they grew to be adults. But it’d be a much, much harder thing for young people to leave the Church if their parents were talking to them from sunup to sundown, and wherever they’re walking and sitting and having a meal about God’s Law. That sounds churchy or preachy. Do it. You know why you do it? God absolutely commands you to do it. And if you don’t, don’t be surprised when your kids quit.

“Bind them as a sign on your hand. They’ll be as frontlets between your eyes, and you write them upon the posts of your house and on your gates. And it shall be when the Lord your God has brought you into the land which he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give you great and goodly cities which you build not, and houses full of all good things which you filled not, and wells digged which you dig not, vineyards and olive trees, I’m just going to give you what the Gentiles have, and I’m going to run them off, which you didn’t plant, when you shall have eaten and be full.

“Then beware lest you,” what? “Forget the Lord.” Not just as Sabbath, or to not communicate, or to remember to salute the minister. “You forget God, which brought you forth out of the land of Egypt and the house of bondage.” What? Forget God. Chapter eight, verse eleven. “Beware that you forget not the Lord your God.” Now wait a minute. This is Moses on the same day. He’s now, he’s saying for the third or fourth time, he uses the word forget, and he’s twice said, “Don’t forget God.” Now that’s the first commandment. It’s hard to do that. It didn’t just remember the Sabbath, but remember God, don’t forget. How could you forget God?

I’ve told this story before, but I remember people in Worldwide, they threw out the true God, and almost everybody literally forgot God. And I would go around and say, this is the Worldwide Church of another God. I know I’m repeating this story. And they say, well, when they get rid of the Sabbath, then I’ll leave. I’d say, wait a minute, they threw out the God who gave the Sabbath. The Sabbath is far down the totem pole, if you will, to where God would be. If you remember God, you’ll never forget the Sabbath. You forget God, you’ll forget everything, His benefits, all the things he does.

And I was talking to people with their hands slammed tight over their ears. And I knew, I said, I don’t care where the Church takes them, once they threw God out, and I started telling ministers I thought it was going to happen in nineteen ninety-one, and two years later, eventually I had to leave, I couldn’t get anybody to care that they’d thrown God out, because what they did is they went with this hypostasis, this three-in-one kind of thing that sort of was palmed off as God. It was the Trinity. And I tried to tell people, in large groups everywhere I could, until I was fired.

If they had installed Buddha, or Allah, or Tao, Confucius, or any other God, all you’d hear is the sound of thundering feet as the whole Church would be vacating. But because they installed the Trinity, now if they’d done Shiva, Brahma, and Vishnu, the Hindu Trinity, people would have left. Horus, Isis, and Seb, the Egyptian Trinity, people would have left. But they went Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, this utter blasphemy that has Christ so confused, he didn’t know who His Father was, so he thought the Holy Spirit begot him when the Father begot him. And there was total confusion, nobody left.

And I said, you know, they can throw anything out. And they will throw everything out. I couldn’t even get the people in Global to believe me. I said, they’re going to throw everything out, like one family I heard about in Dayton. They saw what was happening. They were a very famous family. And somebody down in Dayton contacted me and said a couple just left, very well-known, long-standing family. And here’s what they said. They said, “We can see where you’re going, we’re just going to go on over there and wait for you.” And they went to the Methodist church.

And they figured out and I had figured out, that they were teaching Methodism united with some brethren, because that was where they were learning at Pacific College, I forget the name of it, where a lot of the leaders worldwide were now studying. So the devil’s ministers could fill them with the things they needed to say in order to murder the whole Church. And they pretty much did. Mr. Armstrong died, and he said, I know half will leave the Church. He couldn’t have imagined there’d be less than one percent who held on to everything. But, I mean, if you can forget God, you can forget your keys, wallet, or glasses, I’ll tell you.

And you can certainly forget the Sabbath. You can forget communicating. In fact, you’ll forget everything associated with Christianity, because eventually, you will not assemble together. You’ll be gone. Why would you stay in the Church of God if you have forgotten God? Now, you won’t find anybody who says, I’ve forgotten God. Well, was God just playing with us? He said, over and over. Oh, there are many other places. We’re not done yet. Don’t forget God. Don’t forget God. Jeremiah said, God said, “They have forgotten me days without number.” Jeremiah two thirty-two. But they’ll all tell you they haven’t. They still serve God in their heart.

The problem is they forgot all the things he says you have to do to be my servant. So now we were in verse eleven. “You that forget the Lord your God, and not keeping His commandments and His judgments, lest when you had eaten and are full, and have built goodly houses, and dwelt therein, when your herds.” Verse thirteen. “Your flocks multiply, and your silver, and your gold is multiplied,” you become kind of fat cats, and all that you have is multiplied, your heart be lifted up, and you forget God. There it is again. What? And I brought you out of Egypt. You’d still be making bricks without straw, under oppression and bondage.

People were so quick to forget God when Moses brought them out, they wanted to go back. I wouldn’t say that God was at the top of their menu, if they wanted to do that right away, they missed the garlic and the leeks and other things. “You forget who fed you in the wilderness,” sixteen. “...and you say, verse seventeen, “...your heart, my power, and the might of my hand has gotten me this wealth. That’s what people in America think. The Dow Jones Industrial Average went to a record high, over fifty thousand, yesterday. Twelve hundred and seven points, mind-boggling.

Trillions of dollars in one day, in six and a half hours of being open. And people think that they did this themselves, rather than a promise was made to Abraham, and the birthright would come to Joseph, and here we are, one of the two branches of Joseph with Ephraim. We’re Manasseh. “But you shall remember the Lord your God.” Now he doesn’t say, they forget me. He says, remember him. I wonder how many of us actually, consciously, sit down and say, remember. There’s a famous song, “Remember.” “Remember,” it’s a beautiful song. In the time in September, we would remember. It’s a beautiful word in many ways. A lot of things people want to remember. But people can selectively remember.

But just to “remember the Lord your God, for its He that gives you power to get wealth, that He may establish his covenant, which he swore unto your fathers, as it is this day.” If God introduces himself to you, it’s to show you you have to obey him. “And it shall be if you do at all,” at all, forget the Lord your God, and walk after other gods, and serve them, and worship them. I testify against you this day that you shall surely perish.” And of course, it ends with all Israel goes into captivity in the last days. Because all Israel is going to forget God.

I’m going to actually show you in a verse, in a minute, that even in the kingdom, before God withdraws, everybody forgets his law. I’m going to show you it says that. When they came out of the ground, billions of them, amazing, amazing. If I can just put it this way, they’re literally going to mislay God. Not their keys, wallet, or glasses, or purse, or whatever. They’re going to be oblivious to God. No. Well, no only if God lies, because I’m going to show you what He says. But it’s astonishing that he needed to say it. Psalm fifty. Psalm fifty.

I wonder if you can guess why Trumpets could you maybe begin in the back of your mind to guess why God withdraws on the Feast of Trumpets? And it’s a time to remember? I wonder if it has something to do with who remembered God, and God says, well, I’ll remember you. There’s a book of remembrance involved. Same word as blowing a memorial. I wonder if the Church ever understood, I know I never did, what the real purpose of the Feast of Trumpets was. Not just to learn when civil kings are installed, or their reigns are reckoned.

The greatest single act of remembrance that will ever occur, has or ever will occur on the Feast of Trumpets, will be when God remembers who served him to the end. Saints or Israel. The perfect time to enact a book of remembrance is one of the greatest proofs there’s no forty-five days, where God does that forty-five days before Trumpets in the middle of the fifth month, instead of the start of the seventh month. Blow the trumpet when God withdraws, that’s what it says, remember, and God obeys his own word. But Psalm fifty and verse sixteen. Psalm fifty and verse sixteen. We’ll pick it up and read on down.

“But under the wicked God says, what have you to do to declare my statute, so that you should take my covenant in your mouth? Seeing that you hate instruction, cast my words behind you.” This is God arriving, the start of the chapter, the Psalm, he’s arriving. “When you saw a thief, you consented with him, and have been partaker with adulterers.” Now I told you not to commit adultery. Why would people commit adultery if God commands them not to? They forgot it was the seventh command, and they’ll steal, forgetting that was the eighth command.

They won’t just forget the Sabbath, they’ll forget God, they’ll certainly forget all the things that He said. No wonder God says, Israel makes all these idols of silver and gold, they forget the tenth commandment before the day of the Lord. “You give your mouth to evil and your tongue frames deceit. You sit and speak against your brother and slander your own mother’s son.” Yet I can show you, at the start of the seven-year kingdom, God lays out, don’t do any of those things, but they do it. “These things have you done, and I kept silence. You thought that I was altogether such a one as yourself and I’ll reprove you and set them in order before your eyes. Now consider this, you that forget God.”

Israel has already forgotten God once. Oh, they could never do it again. Oh yes, they could. Here’s what God says, “I will tear you in pieces and there be none to deliver.” You know when he does that? On Trumpets. That’s what it says over in Hosea chapter six or five. God tears involves fire and wild animal attacks. On Trumpets, God starts immediately to punish Israel. Why did He do it? Because Israel forgot Him. Not forgot Him in captivity. I’m going to show you, they actually remember him in captivity. They forget him when he’s God.

They forget more than him. Whoso offers praise glorifies me, and to him that orders his conduct to right, will I show salvation. Forget me, and I’ll rip you to pieces, and you’ll just be slung into captivity. One day, bang on Trumpets. It’s like God says, I remember your sins and I remember those who endured to the end. Perfect for Trumpets. A memorial for God. Book of remembrance means a book of memorial. Exact same word. Forgetting God is a choice and the consequences are grave. Jeremiah two thirty-two. If you wanted to write that down, God said, “Israel has forgotten me days without number.”

Well, thousands of years is pretty much days without number. How many, two and a half thousand to two point six or seven thousand years, what would that be? It’d be somewhere close to one million days. And they forgot him many times. That’s why they went into captivity over and over. Then he raised up a judge. They’d forget him again. They’d go twenty years in captivity, come back out for twenty, or go in for forty, and come back for thirty, or go in for thirty and come back for eighty or something. Constant cycle. They just forget God. You know, I want to serve God the way the other nations do.

God says, don’t. Well, they forgot that he said don’t. Don’t intermarry with them, but they did, and so Ezra ten describes having to break up all those marriages. God said don’t ever intermarry with him, so Israel forgot and did it anyway. Don’t forget my Sabbath. Don’t forget my Feast of Tabernacles. Jeroboam told ten tribes to keep it in the eighth month. You know why they did? They forgot that it’s only in the seventh month that God hallowed and they forgot right now. Made what happened in the Worldwide Church of God nothing by comparison.

But you have to stop the clock in your life and think about these things or you’ll just forget them. We lost a few recently, very few in a handful. Mr. Armstrong taught who the true God was. It was a Father and a Son, and I watched scores of thousands forget. They couldn’t even remember the first commandment against this. Fifth commandment, honor your parents or you’ll die young. You’d think people wouldn’t forget that just selfishly. The things I’ve seen done, the dishonor shown to parents by children is an abomination, and many did die young.

I remember an eighteen-year-old just brat of a kid, son of a minister, came to Akron many years ago. He came to one of our dances and deliberately vandalized the house of the people he was staying with, soaked and ruined their ceiling by turning on the faucet. Eighteen years old. I called his father and his father wouldn’t listen to me. I said, your son committed an absolute abomination here and you won’t listen? And he blew me off like I was picking on his son. One week later, that boy fell asleep on the interstate, crossed the center line and at seventy miles an hour ran straight into an eighteen-wheeler.

There was nothing left of him. And his father was so horrified that he lost his son, he died himself. It’s not a good thing to forget God’s law or to blow off instruction. And a family of four was a family of three, then two. And it goes on and on with stories I’ve seen. Hosea chapter four. Hosea four. Chapter four. “Hear the word of the Lord, you children of Israel, for the Lord is a controversy with the inhabitants of the land because there is no truth, nor mercy, nor knowledge of God in the land.” Okay? So that’s the world that the kingdom comes to. “By swearing, and lying, and killing, and stealing, and committing adultery, they burst, and blood touches blood,” worse every day.

“Therefore shall the land mourn, and everyone that dwells therein shall languish,” and eventually it’s going to be the new heavens and new earth.” All the animals are even burned up. In verse four, here’s what it says. Talking about Israel. This is classic. Watch the talk shows and you’ll believe it. “Yet let no man strive, nor reprove another, for your people are as they that strive with the priest.” Everybody has an opinion. Everybody knows better. “Therefore shall you fall in the day, even in a day when the whole earth is filled with the knowledge of God and with the glory of the Lord. And the prophet will fall with you in the night, and I’ll destroy your mother.

“My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge because you’ve rejected knowledge.” Now this is interesting. You reject knowledge, “I will also reject you. That you shall be no priest to me,” ten percent will, seeing you have forgotten the law of your God.” Now wait a minute. They forget God’s law while it’s being spoken to them every day. “Let’s go hear the word of the Lord, but their heart goes after their covetousness. They’ve forgotten the law of my God. Here’s what God says. You forget my law, I’ll forget your children. And they’re going to be ripped to pieces with the sword in or out of the womb.” It’s not good to forget God. It’s better to remember him and remember his Sabbath.

And remember all the other things that he tells us to remember. Now, the things he wants to forget, and we’ll talk a little bit about those, but wow, God remembers the hairs of our head and He can name every star by name. God does not forget anything that he should and yet there are things he says he will forget. He can put away sins as far as the east is from the west, and they won’t even come into his mind. Now, how did that happen? He has the ability to forget what he wants to and remember things at a level so vast, so sweeping, probably knows the number of grains of sand on the shore of all the oceans of the world. Which is apparently less than the number of the stars.

So he doesn’t just know the number of the stars, he knows every one of their names. Oh, wow. So God has a memory. No Alzheimer’s with God. God has a memory for the ages, quite literally. He remembers all the things that Israel’s done, but he’s eager to forget their sins. Come on, let’s reason together. Let’s get rid of this. I don’t care if your sins are scarlet or bright red, like blood. They’ll be white as snow, like wool. But he could never forget you or your children. He could never do it. But people can forget him. And God says, that’s it, I’ll now forget your children.

No wonder the proverb in the first kingdom is the parents have eaten a sour grape, the fathers have eaten a sour grape, and the children’s teeth are set on edge because they know what’s coming to mom and dad’s coming to them. That’s why their teeth are ooh, I hope mom and dad do the right thing. Well, ninety percent of the moms and dads won’t. They’ll eventually be worked with in the Millennium. But you know those, as I explained, those who do not get salvation in Israel in the ten percent, they’re going to wait a hundred years. They’ll wish they hadn’t forgotten God’s law. And their children will really wish it too.

If God will go to the third or fourth generation, remember goodness or evil, you won’t have any trouble going to one generation. Yet God remembers every child who was ever conceived from creation. He loves children. Why else would he have so many of his own? Why would he want to expand his family and have an endless number of children? Well, because he hates children, of course. No, he’s teaching tremendous lessons. And once the Millennium comes, nobody’s going to forget anymore. Now, they could go a hundred years, I understand, and just not really serve God because they haven’t seen anything else. Well, all right, I guess some can.

Jude chapter five. Jude five verse five. Now verse four says, “Certain men have crept in unawares.” Jude four. “Who were before of old ordained to this condemnation,” we’ve had ministers creep into every era of the Church, crept into the Worldwide Church of God. They’ve crept into Global. They’ve crept into the Restored Church of God to test, ordained to this ungodliness. God wanted to test. He needed them. “...turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness and denying the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ. “I will therefore put you in remembrance.” Now, watch this.

“Though you once knew this.” Now, here is Jude telling people, you need to remember what you once knew. Now, if you once knew it and you’re making them remember, he’s telling them, You forgot there are false ministers who come into the Church. “How that the Lord also, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt afterward, destroyed them that believed not.” He goes on to talk about that. Wow. They saw the Red Sea part and in a few days, they said, we want to go back to Egypt. Excuse me. They saw all Pharaoh’s army wiped out. They had freedom. We want to go back, we missed the garlic and the leeks.

I mean, that is serious. Early onset Alzheimer’s, I’ll tell you but that’s the way they were. The saints had forgotten crucial knowledge. Second Peter, just back a page. Chapter three and verse eighteen. A couple pages. “But grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him be glory both now and forever.” Now, it’s good to grow in knowledge, but it’s not good if you forget it. That’s the problem. People want smooth things preached to them. I’m not very good at that. I want to be interesting. I hope riveting, captivating or whatever of it. I don’t want it to be because I’m smooth.

I like to be smooth in my grammar or my construction or the scriptures I take. Not herky-jerky and delivery, but I don’t want to preach smooth things. I have to preach the things that will bring you into remembrance. We’ve done a lot of learning, but it’s of no use if you don’t remember it. Ten plus years. Wow. Over eleven hundred hours. Almost a thousands sermons. Almost if they were standard length. Almost a thousand sermons in ten years. Normally, a minister might do that in twenty years and be younger. And yet there are people who leave, they can’t remember any of it.

It’s just what? What? Did I speak too softly? I repeated certain things. I think God, in his own genius, had us misunderstand timing until we got to the very end. We still have some exciting things to learn so that we can keep learning more and more about this great God and his other ways, his laws and things the Church never knew. I don’t just mean birthdays, or Common, or new moons, or something. But we’ve learned many, many things. We’re learning right now about the importance of remembering and not forgetting.

So do you remember all those things? If you pause and think about them, you would periodically. Look at John fourteen. Here’s something exciting to think about. This is exciting. This is really helpful. Watch this. Christ on the last night, he was crucified. Here’s what he said. John fourteen and verse sixteen. I’m sorry, verse twenty-six. Sixteen would be good to read too. But he spoke about the comforter. Verse twenty-five. “These things have I spoken to you, being yet present with you. But the comforter, which is the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, shall teach you all things and bring all things...” everything Christ ever taught, “...to your remembrance, whatsoever I’ve said to you.”

Do you realize you have a spirit in there that will help you do that? Meaning you, I, we have no excuse for forgetting because God’s spirit will help you do it. It will bring everything back. What do you mean everything? How much did Christ teach? “Everything that God told him to teach, I have taught you,” he said. That God told me, that my Father told me to teach. Brings all the things that you learn into remembrance. But not if you move too fast.

Second Timothy chapter one. Second Timothy chapter one. I hope everybody will go home and really contemplate and think about all that you’ve learned. My Lord delays, and they leave and start beating people. Second Peter [Timothy] one and verse thirteen. “Hold fast the form of sound words which you have heard of me in faith and love which is in Christ Jesus. That good thing which was committed unto you, keep by the Holy Spirit which dwells in us.” So if you don’t have enough of God’s spirit, you’ll tend to forget things. The more of God’s spirit you have, the more you’ll be able to keep the things in you, and then they’ll bring them to your remembrance. It’s win-win, or it’s lose-lose. Lower in God’s spirit, lower in memory. Higher in God’s spirit, higher in remembrance. That’s an easy one to remember.

So are you asking for God’s Spirit every day? Beseeching God for it? It’s more than just “Give me your spirit,” and, you know, “Help me have the fruits.” We will. Maybe I’ll have the gifts of wisdom, knowledge, and understanding. That could be, too, other gifts. But it will also help you remember everything about the things of God, all of it. Hold fast means to hold in possession, ability, contiguity, relation, and condition. Keep through the idea of isolating and watching it. That means you’re thinking about it. Hard to forget what you think about. And to be on guard by implication to preserve, obey, and avoid things you should. That’s what it means to hold fast.

Hold is echo. Everybody knows what an echo is. If you hold things, they should be echoing through your mind. E-C-H-O. The word echo is you call out, and in the mountains you can hear it coming back to you. So God said you should hear his law echoing in your head. That’s the word. It means the same thing today. Then keep is phulasso, and I defined that. Not forgetting is directly tied to how much of God’s spirit one has. When people forget and leave, it means the Holy Spirit slipped away from them, slipped out. And, of course, God can even take remembrance from people who turn against him and send strong delusion and just crush from their memory the ability to recall things they once perhaps would have said there’s no possible way they’d ever forget.

Hebrews two. Back to Hebrews. I just read this not long ago. “Therefore, we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard, lest at any time we should let them slip.” How would they slip? Well, they slip from one’s memory. Well, how would that happen? Not enough of God’s spirit. Why didn’t they ask for more of God’s spirit? Can you guess? They probably forgot to. Why did they forsake wisdom? They probably forgot its importance to them. And eventually, they can forget the Sabbath, but probably only after they first forgot God. I learned in the Worldwide Church of God that people would forget God before they’d forget the Sabbath. Astonishing.

Well, the Sabbath they were doing every seven days, but where’s God? I don’t see him. He’s a spirit being. You have to worship him in spirit and in truth. You don’t see him. So they forgot God. Their lives are so busy and full and going and doing, they forgot God before they forgot the Sabbath. I heard people say, when they throw out tithing or the holy days or unclean meats or the Sabbath, one person said the law, and I would say, yeah, but God gave the law. It didn’t make any difference. And all those people eventually went back to the world. At first opportunity, put up Christmas trees.

“Give the more earnest heed.” It means super abundant caution, earnest heed. If somebody’s too cautious, do you know a Christian cannot be too cautious? God actually says, “Be super abundantly cautious.” Give attention toward it and hold your mind on it or it’ll slip away like a fish off the hook or like the ice melting away, it’ll just be gone.

You look at the snow every winter, and I think, how does it ever melt this so much? We’ve got tons of it. All the way in the south in the ice, little heat, and it just melts away, and pretty soon it’s down the drain, and you’re back to leaves are popping out. And there it went every year. Slip means to flow by, just carelessly pass, and be missed.

Second Peter one. Second Peter chapter one. Verse four speaks of “God’s divine power that has been given unto us.” Verse four, “Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises…” at the start of second Peter one four, “…that by these you might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.” The divine nature, God’s spirit in us is everything. “And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, to knowledge temperance, to temperance patience, to patience godliness.” Each one of these requires a half an hour of reflection. “To godliness, brotherly kindness, to brotherly kindness, love. If these things be in you and abound, they make you that you shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But he that lacks these things is blind and cannot see far off and has forgotten...” Now this is what God says, “...has forgotten that he was purged from his old sins.”

Now they didn’t forget it while they were toweling off, coming out of the tank, or in the first six months or a year, but they forget what this great being, God’s Son, did, that they could be purged from their old sins. They just forget. “Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure. For if you do these things, you’ll never fall. For so an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Wherefore, and because of this, I will not be negligent,” Paul said, “to put you always in remembrance of these things. Though you know them and be established in the present truth.” Why would he bring them to the remembrance? Because people can forget. Just forget.

Forget to put gas in the car. People can forget all kinds of things. “Oh, I had an appointment.” “Oh wow, my wife, we’re going to go to dinner,” or whatever. You forget an anniversary. People forget all kinds of things. You just wouldn’t think they could forget what would allow them to live forever in the kingdom of God, enjoying what eye has not seen, or ear heard. But they can. And that’s an amazing thing.

So by now, have you figured out why people leave the Church? I don’t care what reason they gave. They forgot God. They didn’t remember what they should remember and forgot what they were told to remember. Whatever they cite as the reason they left is not the real reason. That’s a symptom. The cause is they forgot one or more or many things, and ultimately God, they were commanded not to. But they did. They did. This will be ultimately probably the most important sermon I ever gave.

If I gave it with a few days to go to the kingdom or gave it a few days into my ministry, I don’t think I could ever give a sermon that would be more important than this one. I miss these kinds of sermons because the series has required me to continue a charge that we’re almost done with. You’ll learn next week a date that can’t move, finally. “Yet I think it meet as long as I’m in this tabernacle...” Oh, I’m sorry, “remembrance to these things though you know them.” Verse thirteen, “I think it suitable meet as long as I’m in this tabernacle to stir you up by putting you,” there it is again, “in remembrance.”

Now everybody wants to hear new and exciting things. That’s what the Athenians wanted to hear. “I want to hear new things. I want to talk about new stuff. Oh, want to hear stuff I’ve heard before?” Mr. Armstrong would go back and repeat things. And I just literally watch field it. Look at the watch, here we go. It’s on that subject again, ho hum. And then they forgot everything he said, and he said things over and over and over and over and over. He went to the trunk of the tree as he would talk about. “Knowing this, that shortly I must put off my tabernacle,” his body, “even as our Lord Jesus Christ has showed me. Moreover, I will endeavor that you may be able after my deceased to have these things always in remembrance.” Third time, not just in remembrance, always. Can you always remember God’s way? Can you do it?

I’ve seen people sincerely, honestly, forget to tithe. Well, okay, you can do that. You can forget certain things. Wallet, purse, keys, glasses. You can forget where you put them. Be so preoccupied with something else, like I’ve done about twice in my life. I lost my glasses, and they were in my hand. Once they were on, and I was glad nobody saw it. But here I am foolish enough to tell you, and now I’m probably diminished in your eyes. Probably, maybe I should be.

Any of you ever lost them? I’m going to look down. I hope I see some hands. I’m going to look up and see how many people are honest enough to admit they lost their glasses and they were in their hands or their head, on their head. More foolish and weak than me, right? I know secretly we all think we are the... not many wise and mighty and noble, but we’re all the same. We’re all much the same.

So, stir up means to wake fully, to arouse. I want to stir up your remembrance, to wake fully and arouse you to think about it. You should never lose first love. It should actually grow. The more of God’s Spirit you have, your first love should be left behind because it grew, not because it diminished and melted away like the snow in a few weeks.

I’m trying to stir you right now. People forgot what they once believed, and this turned them into unbelievers. If you forgot what you believed, you become an unbeliever. It was not a natural choice to disbelieve. It was a natural action. They simply didn’t remember things they’d proven and were once on fire about and originally knew could not be wrong. And a lot of times, they will not decide they were wrong and go off into some other doctrine, which is usually like one thing they don’t like or something. They didn’t decide that.

They just forgot they were right. They didn’t decide that doctrines were wrong. They didn’t decide all of God’s ways, paths, and laws were wrong. They just forgot them, and they become unbelievers, not because they said, “I don’t believe any of this anymore.” They forgot it. The human mind is a sieve. You have to just keep pouring in more because it falls out the bottom. I remember hearing that as a student once, and I never forgot it. You have to pour in more than falls out the bottom, constantly reminding yourself. It’s one of the great trials of life.

No matter what issues people have in life, or offense, or discouragement, or death of a child, I’ve seen people leave. The problem is they forgot what they knew, and that’s why they leave the Church. I’ve never heard one person ever or even heard of one person ever who said, why are you leaving? “I don’t remember the Bible, and I forgot God.” They never say that. They never say that. They never say what was always the case. Think about that. You can’t argue with it. There’s so many more verses I could give you. There’s a few more to go.

Now here’s a kind of a mix of the biggest things to be forgotten and the biggest to be remembered. Here’s kind of a mix. Let’s go over to Isaiah forty-nine. Here’s something that God says about himself. This is interesting. What a statement about God. Now, would you go to the extreme on the subject I’m going to show you that God does to remember things the way God says he will remember this item? Isaiah forty-nine and verse thirteen. “Sing, O heavens, and be joyful, O earth...” Isaiah forty-nine, thirteen. “and break forth into singing, O mountains, for the Lord has comforted his people and will have mercy upon his afflicted. But Zion said,” Mount Zion, like it was a person, “The Lord has forsaken me and my Lord has forgotten me.” Now, a mountain can’t say that.

And here’s God’s answer. “Can a woman forget her sucking child that’s right here?” Impossible. “That she should not have compassion on the son of her womb?” Yes, they may forget. All Israel may forget, Zion. “Yet will I not forget you, God says.” He has a controversy with Zion because of the way things are done, and the beast is going to go in. That’d be a pretty big controversy. “Behold, I have graven you upon the palms of my hands,” says God. So if God looked on the palms of his hands, whether that’s a figure of speech or literally, I don’t know. But he says, “I have graven you in the palms of my hands.”

How many times do you look at the palms of your hands? God says, either by metaphorically or actually, he sees Zion, and he could never forget her. What would you engrave on the palm of your hands that you don’t want to forget? There’s no other church that has the truths that we have. Size doesn’t mean anything. People want to be in a bigger church. I said, go be a Catholic. Better yet, be a Muslim because they’re fifty percent bigger than the Catholics. And they claim that Allah is God, and they’re waiting for Elijah. They don’t eat pork, and they’ll stone homosexuals. They know a lot about certain truths.

Hebrews six and verse ten. Here’s a wonderful one. Hebrews six and verse ten. It’s wonderful that God remembers and will never forget Zion, and you’ll live there for all eternity. It’d be hard to forget. God wants to spend all eternity in Zion. Now, you want to spend all eternity with God. Why would you forget, in effect, the exact same thing God said he won’t forget because he wants to spend all eternity there, and you with him? Why would you forget it?

If you’re going to be like God and like Christ, you’d never forget those things. So, in Hebrews chapter six, we’ll pick up. This wonderful being says this. Verse ten. “For God,” Paul writes, “is not unrighteous to forget your work and labor of love, which you have showed toward his name, in that you have ministered to the saints and do minister, all you Hebrews.” He will never forget it. He’d be unrighteous to forget it. Now, nobody would want God to forget the wonderful works they’ve done. Why in the world would you forget God? Why would some people forget God?

“Don’t forget the things I’ve done, God, but I might forget you.” That would be an act of extreme unrighteousness, and God said if he did it, he would be unrighteous. In chapter ten, God speaks of Israel. Verses sixteen and seventeen, he says, “Their sins will I remember no more.” Psalm twenty-five, six, and seven. God says, “I’ll forget your sins. I will forget your sins.” Isaiah sixty-four, Isaiah sixty-four. Couple of verses at the end of Isaiah here. Sixty-four, four, sixty-four, four. “For since the beginning of the world, men have not heard nor perceived by the ear, neither has the eye, O God, beside you, what he has prepared for him that waits for him. You meet him that rejoicing and work righteousness. Those that remember you in your ways, behold, you are wroth for we have sinned and those is continuance and we shall be saved.” God gets angry. Every parent spanks their children. “We’re all as unclean thing and all our righteousness is filthy rags, and we all do fade as a leaf, and our iniquities like the wind have taken us away,” but of course, God will remove them.

Chapter sixty-five, sixteen. Now this is wonderful. God speaks of his chosen, his servants who are singing for joy of heart in fourteen and fifteen. “He who blesses himself in the earth shall bless himself in the truth of God.” You want to bless yourself? Then do it because you’re blessed in the truth of God. You’re blessing that truth. “He that swears in the earth shall swear by the God of truth.” Now God says don’t swear by anything because the former troubles, this is in the millennium, and God may allow that in the Millennium. He may allow swearing by God in a right way. That’s what it seems to say. You can’t do it now. Swear not at all now because the former troubles are forgotten. All former troubles are hidden.

You don’t have to live for all time with your sins and iniquities and goof-ups and foul-ups and failings and shortcomings and transgressions, you know, sins and so forth. You just don’t have to. “For behold, I create a new heavens and a new earth, and the former shall not be remembered nor come into mind.” There are things that should never be remembered. I’ve often wondered how much of God’s word will continue to record King David’s sins once you get into the Millennium. Have you ever thought about that? Or when Noah’s grandson sodomized him because he’d had too much wine or other sins.

I wonder, will those remain in the Bible, or will the Bible just teach a certain way of life because those things won’t be remembered to come into mind. Unless you were a giant in the faith, and every time people look at David they’ll remember he killed Uriah and adulterated with Bathsheba and lost a baby boy because of it. I don’t know. I wonder about that. Would the very worst things come to mind? It was wonderful to know those things now because if they made those mistakes, I can make it. Now there’s a reason. There’s a reason.

Israel’s recorded as a rebellious nation, God said, and it’s on the last day. Think of it as it’ll go from age to age. Well, a couple of ages go to the last day, the day of the Lord. One age has been twenty-seven hundred years, and then they’re rebellious and stiff-necked in this first kingdom, and it’s age and age. There’s your two ages.

And after that, you don’t remember that Israel was rebellious and stiff-hearted and stubborn, like Isaiah thirty and verse eight said. I explained that at the Feast of Tabernacles. That’s not saying that Israel’s worst sins will be remembered forever, but it’s okay because individual names will be left out. I finally figured out what God was saying. When Isaiah recorded that, here comes the twenty-six hundred years, twenty-seven hundred years more like with Isaiah, and then for seven more years, it’s remembered because God said to Ezekiel when it starts, type of Elijah, you’re going to deal with scorpions. They’re stiff-necked. They won’t listen to me. Their heads are hard as flint. They’re stubborn. They won’t do what I say. You’re going to forget him.

There’s two things will be wonderful to forget, people’s sins and all the old things that happened. Wow, won’t that be wonderful? Why should everybody who’s ever born be told about all these horrible things? Now, would they know in principle there was a great tribulation and learn lessons, but do they need to know individual sins? It’s just a question worth pondering. I doubt it. So a powerful point about remembrance returns us to perhaps the greatest purpose of Trumpets. Over in Malachi three, I referenced it. We’re just going to turn over there briefly. Malachi three.

Once the truth begins to be given. Malachi three, and it’s taught, the kingdom begins. Verse sixteen, God says, “Then they that feared the Lord, they feared God.” You have to choose to fear God. And then you have to remember that you made the choice.

Proverbs says you have to choose to fear God. And that’s the beginning of wisdom. But then you have to remember that you made the choice. “So here are people that feared the Lord, spoke often one to another, and the Lord listened and heard it in a book of remembrance.” Exact same word as blowing the memorial trumpet was written before him, “for them that feared the Lord and thought upon his name.” They thought upon it. You know what that does? That will keep you from forgetting God. And billions will do it. And they’ll go right on through, and God will work with them. They’ll trust God. They won’t forget Him.

“And this book of remembrance is written before him.” It’s alluded to in Daniel twelve, one. When was it carried out? When did God enact the remembrance as names went into the book? Thousands, then tens of thousands, then hundreds of thousands, and millions and hundreds of millions, eventually billions of names. A third of those in the categories we’ve explained. When’s it carried out? It’s carried out at Trumpets. Now it’s Israel and the saints. Israel and the saints, those who escape.

At Trumpets, God remembers because the context here is Israel. The whole house of Israel, verse ten. That’s the context. In the world, you don’t have to face tribulation. You just seek God, and you’ll be found. Zephaniah says, “The poor and needy of the world, the meek, who are afflicted, who trust in the Lord, and they’ll be right here until they enter into their houses and the day of the Lord begins, and then they come out when God’s wrath is over.” They’re going to have to go all the way through. But they’ll be protected.

So that book of remembrance, when God remembers who sought him in Israel and the saints, would be carried out on Trumpets. A thirteen thirty-five date, forty-five days in front of that, is impossible to believe, and you just have another reason for it. It’s not an accident God withdraws at Trumpets and blows a trumpet to remember all those who stayed faithful in a world where there was persecution and difficulty.

Oh, it wasn’t a great tribulation. Well, if you’re only one in ten Israelites is doing the right thing, you’re outnumbered nine to one. It was hard. And the saints, of course, going in, run out from one city to another, they persecute you. God allows that in the kingdom. Nobody can hurt or destroy, but you have to endure to the end. And if you reach the feast day, that is the memorial of blowing of trumpets, yes, I’m giving the sermon February seventh. Time went on, probably ought to give it again on Trumpets. But that’s when God remembers you. He doesn’t remember you forty-five days before that. Learning things that we never understood. We never understood.

Remembrance by definition looks back. It’s a holy day designed to tell you that God looks back, just like we should remember the things that God has done for us. God remembers the people who feared him, spoke often one with another, fellowshipped with the right people, talked about, and thought about his name. Elijah wears memorial crowns, exact same word, found in Zechariah six. He wears four memorial crowns for apparently four extraordinary people, symbolic, but you’ll see it there, the branch, Joshua, Elijah, wears these four memorial remembrance crowns because God wants the whole world, apparently, we can maybe turn over there, just back a couple of pages, in Zechariah six, the end of the chapter. These four gold and silver crowns were hammered out, and Zechariah took them and gave them to Joshua as a type.

Verse fourteen, these crowns that were made, and it says in the crown, “Shall be to Helam and Tobijah and to Judiah, to Hen the son of Zephaniah, for a memorial in the temple.” So I don’t know if Elijah actually wears them, but it was a type, certainly in Zerubbabel’s temple, those four great servants are named and remembered in a memorialized way. So there are even people, God says, they’re in the ground, and I won’t forget them. Those guys wouldn’t be here; they made it. They’re not walking around waiting for Trumpets. They cut the mustard in their lifetime. They remembered what they should in their lifetime and didn’t forget what they shouldn’t in their lifetime.

I can’t wait to meet them. They’re worthy of extraordinary honor, or Zerubbabel, God said, you’ll be a signet in that day. I can’t wait to meet these people. That’s another proof that the thirteen thirty-five is not in the kingdom. If it did, if it were, that somehow God made his decision forty-five days earlier, he would supplant a feast of Trumpets. So take time to remember all the things that you’ve learned over ten-plus years that no one else knows and that some completely forgot.

Now I want to read to you in a final verse about this subject before some closing comments. I want to read to you about the worst act of forgetting that has or ever will occur in a short period of time. Turn over to Matthew chapter twenty-four. This will be unparalleled in history, like the very great tribulation itself. Matthew twenty-four and verse twelve. During the tribulation, here’s what it says: many false prophets, all kinds of things happening. “And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold.” The context is not coming into Trumpets. It’s coming into Abib at the very end because it’s described in the context of people the last ten days actually.

“Iniquity abounds, and the love of many shall wax cold.” Now, how do you know that isn’t the saints? Well, first of all, the saints are small in number. A lot of them get away. So small becomes smaller. Take a few hairs and throw them into your skirt, and then some of those get thrown into the fire, and it can’t be talking about Israel either, because Israel’s either in captivity or in a place of safety. So it cannot be the saints, and it cannot even be Israel who do not qualify to be many.

Now, the love there is agape. You cannot have the love of God without the Holy Spirit. It’s the first fruit of the Holy Spirit. These are converted people, potentially billions and billions of them, who break in the Millennium. I’m sorry, before the Millennium. They break. “The love of many will wax cold.” Why? Because there’s iniquity everywhere. There’s lawlessness. That’s what iniquity is, lawlessness. And people think like a democracy. I guess it must be okay. God’s forsaken the earth. And they just forget God. That happens after the getaway. Cannot involve the saints. Maybe a few saints will fail in the ten days. Just a few in the ten days of trial, when they go to prison and are tortured and killed. Maybe a few. Can’t be any Israelites. “The love of many will wax cold.”

One more proof, by the way, that nobody was protected way out there in the world, of the billions in the world at thirteen thirty-five. Because they’re going to have to go all the way to the end, and many will fail. Others will trust God. Trumpets is the signal. Impossible to argue with it.

Now, a few final thoughts. Just a few verses. First Corinthians fifteen. “If we forget the gospel and salvation God promised to us, God says our belief was in vain.” It was for nothing. It was all for nothing. The flip side of God forgetting his sins is he actively remembers them and enacts punishment. Jeremiah fourteen. Could walk you through verse after verse. Psalm one o three, “Mercy flows from remembering God’s commandments.” You remember God’s commandments, you get mercy.

Proverbs three, one to two says remembering God leads to long life. Wow, just going quickly. In Ecclesiastes twelve, God speaks to young people, “Remember God in the days of your youth.” while the good times are rolling. You can go read about it. Ecclesiastes one and two. And you can avoid the evil days.

Isaiah thirty-eight, like Hezekiah, was given a death sentence. And then he asked God in prayer, “Please remember that I’ve served you with a perfect heart all my life. Please remember.” Ask God to do some remembering. You know what God said? “Go back in there, Isaiah, and tell him he’s got fifteen years to live because he prayed and asked God to remember his goodness. You’re getting a smattering of verses. Psalm sixty-three, verses five to seven, “Remember God in bed through the night. Remember God at all times,” is what it says.

I was reading an article this morning how AI and, you know, these smart phones and people’s hands are destroying people’s ability to think. It’s the ultimate tool of the devil. And a lot of us spend way too much time on them. And here’s what the result is. People are reading less, driving less, traveling less, dating less, and gathering less. Digital life is filling the gap. AI becomes the companions in streaming and social media. That’s what people want. The hobbies we’ve discarded are the ones that make us forget about ourselves. Now, that’s something to forget, this wonderful article. Forget yourself and remember God. But cell phones have people obsessed with themselves, and they forget about everything else never mind God, they never knew. They remember themselves and forget others. Fascinating article.

One worse thing than being annoying is being self-obsessed, and that’s what the world has become. Influencers, they want to shoot their mouths off and talk to people and show everybody all their tattoos and their messed-up hair and their piercings, and we’re supposed to listen to them. They’re self-obsessed, and they spew absolute inanity, just unbelievable nonsense.

The great inventor Nikola Tesla said in nineteen thirty-four, this is what he said, he said, “Be alone, that is the secret of invention. Be alone, that is when ideas are born. Originality thrives in seclusion,” he said, “free of outside influences beating upon us to cripple the creative mind. The best thing you can do is be on your own.”

That’s why if you meditate on your bed, Isaac meditated walking through the fields, be alone, and then one of the things you’ll meditate on is the need to serve other people and be with them. But if your head is so occupied with this piece of garbage that you paid hundreds of dollars for, five, eight hundred, whatever it would cost, I wouldn’t use one of those if I was paid that much to have it. It’s a destroyer. It’s the greatest creator of brain rot there is. And people can’t remember or think. They can’t think anymore, as I like to say.

We have young people today who can’t read, write, talk, think, spell, listen, learn, or remember. Other than that, they’re just fine. They can’t do it. They’re so full of jangle and doom scrolling and seeing what others are doing and how wonderful it is, and then they go out and kill themselves in ever greater numbers. The average person, young person, gets a smartphone at age eleven. What’s the parent thinking? Well, dumb thoughts, I’ll tell you that, giving them the smartphone.

The philosopher Blaise Pascal made a similar point to Tesla two hundred years earlier. “All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” Boy, was that inspiring to read. I read that this morning. I have to do it all the time. I have to constantly just sit and scroll through scriptures to try to figure out a very big book filled with tens of thousands of verses. I love doing it, but I can’t do it if I’m watching jangle all the time. I’m married to a very thoughtful woman, and I try to be around thoughtful people, which should be the people of God, and is.

You can pray anywhere. Jonah two, verses seven to ten. When Jonah was in the fish’s belly, you know what it says? “He remembered God.” Oh, that’s an interesting place. That’s worse than a foxhole. It smells like the devil’s halitosis inside most fish. So he asked God to remember him, and God delivered him because he heard a prayer. What an amazing... you ought to go read it. Jonah two, seven to ten.

When the kingdom comes, you know what Habakkuk asked? “God, in wrath, remember mercy.” God comes, and he’s angry with what he sees. He says, “Remember mercy.” A prophet actually says to God, and we read the verse over and over, but never think about the fact that Habakkuk’s saying, “God, revive your work in the midst of the years, and in the midst of the years, in wrath, remember mercy.” You know, “make known and remember mercy.” Amazing.

The Bible says, remember Lot’s wife. Why? Why would you remember her? Why would you remember her? She put her hands to the plow and looked back and was told not to. She forgot and lost her life, so remember her. Remember her. She’s running. Doesn’t say she stopped. Certainly doesn’t say she went back. She just looked over her shoulder and turned into a pillar of salt, so others could see it and remember what she forgot. Wow. Remember Lot’s wife. When’s the last time you thought about her? Most people think about other people’s wives a lot, but in the wrong way. You can’t have wrong thoughts about her, because she’s a pillar of salt.

Remember the poor. Why? Because other people don’t remember them, so remember the poor. Galatians two, ten, remember the poor in the Church. The point is, most forget them in the world, but basically all. That’s why God is so angry when he comes back. You’ve not relieved the oppressed and the widow and the orphan and the poor. We’re told, “Remember the poor,” and if you don’t think about it, you won’t. You’ll think about it in a sermon. In Revelation two, five, Christ comes back, and you know what he tells the Ephesian era? “Remember from whence you have fallen and repent.” So repentance is tied to remembrance and vice versa.