Seven Things to Remember as seen in Deuteronomy – Part 4

The fourth thing that Israel was called to remember in Deuteronomy is what happened at Mt. Sinai, also known as Horeb. It was on the mountain there where God reveled Himself to Israel through Moses and then gave the law to him which would establish and confirm the covenant between God and His people.

The story of the giving of the Ten Commandments is a fascinating one and is found in Exodus chapter 20. But maybe the most fascinating part of this story comes in Exodus 32. The people know Moses has gone up into the mountain to speak with God, yet read what happens when Israel forgets the faithfulness of God and gets impatient.

Exodus 32:1
When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered themselves together to Aaron and said to him, “Up, make us gods who shall go before us. As for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.”

Are you kidding me? Didn’t God just deliver these people from 400 years of slavery in Egypt and then bring them out by demonstrating His power over man through all those miracles which culminated in the destruction of the Pharaoh and his army by the parting and un-parting of the Red Sea? How do you forget that and make a fake idol to worship instead of God?

Crazy story, right? So understandably God wanted Israel to remember what occurred at Mt. Sinai. Here is the call to remember from Deuteronomy 4:9-13

“Only take care, and keep your soul diligently, lest you forget the things that your eyes have seen, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life. Make them known to your children and your children’s children— how on the day that you stood before the LORD your God at Horeb, the LORD said to me, ‘Gather the people to me, that I may let them hear my words, so that they may learn to fear me all the days that they live on the earth, and that they may teach their children so.’ And you came near and stood at the foot of the mountain, while the mountain burned with fire to the heart of heaven, wrapped in darkness, cloud, and gloom. Then the LORD spoke to you out of the midst of the fire. You heard the sound of words, but saw no form; there was only a voice. And he declared to you his covenant, which he commanded you to perform, that is, the Ten Commandments, and he wrote them on two tablets of stone.

Before we go nuts on Israel because they forgot we should look at ourselves.

Most of us do well when things are going our way but what happens when things go south? What happens when we pray and God doesn’t answer right away? We get impatient and we forget what God has already done for us in our lives. So we move ahead without God. We take matters into our hands. We begin to think we know what is best for us forgetting that God’s will is the best place to be. In essence, we become our own God and that, my friends, is no different than what Israel did. Idolatry comes in different forms.

The answer to this dilemma is simple; we must remember God’s faithfulness and we must remember what happens when we take matters into our own hands. We must remember what God’s Word says.

Deuteronomy 4:9
 “Only take care, and keep your soul diligently, lest you forget the things that your eyes have seen, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life. Make them known to your children and your children’s children.”

Remember and obey, those two words will go a long way in our Christian walk.