Should This Matter?

If I discovered a sin of yours and revealed it to be that you are guilty of ‘forgetting God’, you may sigh a sigh of relief of some sorts. I mean, you could have been accused of murder, anger, lust, greed, etc. But ‘forgetting God’ doesn’t seem so bad, right? It doesn’t sound as bad as those other sins anyhow.

The Bible is clear that while ‘forgetting God’ may seem to us a simple sin, it is a big deal to God! In fact, just simply ‘forgetting God’ is the basis of our complete destruction.

Think about it. You get home and realize you left your phone at the coffee shop you were just at. Yes forgetting your phone is a simple mistake but the ramifications are great. You have to drive back to the shop hoping that the phone is there. You may arrive only to find out that the phone has been stolen. Your phone contains plenty of personal information about yourself. You then have to quickly go through the process to retrieve or turn off your phone. Whew! What a lot of hassle. That is why most of us protect and carry our phones carefully. We take steps to ensure we do not forget our phone.

Why do we not do the same when it comes to God?

Ezekiel 23 outlines some of the many sins of Judah which result in her destruction. In fact, the list is pretty bad (chapter 22 outlines them): murder, undermining parental authority, oppression of the orphan and widow and stranger, profaning the Sabbath, lying, bribes/extortion, sexual immorality and idolatry.

However, verse 35 makes it clear that the ultimate basis for the wrath to come upon Judah was as simple as forgetting God.

Ezekiel 23:35

Therefore thus saith the Lord God; because thou has forgotten me, and cast me behind thy back, therefore bear thou also thy lewdness and they whoredoms.

All of the other sins spawned from simply forgetting God. It all started there.

God had warned Israel multiple times NOT to forget him. He tells them to remember Him and to tell next generation about Him so they will not forget.

Deuteronomy 4:9: “Only take heed to thyself, and keep thy soul diligently lest thou forget the things which thine eyes have seen, and lest they depart from thy heart all the days of thy life: but teach them thy sons, and thy sons’ sons;”

Deuteronomy 6:6-7: “And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: and thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.” (See also Deuteronomy 11:19)

Deuteronomy 6:12: “Then beware lest thou forget the Lord, which brought thee forth out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage.”

Deuteronomy 6:20-23: “And when thy son asketh thee in time to come, saying, what mean the testimonies and the statutes, and the judgements, which the Lord our God hath commanded you? Then thou shalt say unto thy son, We were Pharaoh’s bondsmen in Egypt, and the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand:”

Deuteronomy 8:2: “And thou shalt remember all the way which the Lord thy God led thee these 40 years in the wilderness…”

Deuteronomy 32:7: “Remember the days of old, consider the years of many generations: ask they father, and he will shew thee; thy elders, and they will tell thee.”

Why does God tell Israel to remember Him so many times? Why do we need to diligently teach our children about God?

Take a look at the beginning of Judges. This takes place just after Joshua’s death and Israel’s entrance into the promised land after 40 long years wandering in the wilderness.

Judges 2:7-13: “And the people served the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders that outlived Joshua, who had seen all the great works of the Lord, that he did for Israel…and also all that generation were gather unto their fathers, and there arose another generation after them, which knew not the Lord, nor yet the works which He had done for Israel…and they forsook the Lord God of their fathers, which brought them out of the land of Egypt, and followed other gods, of the gods of the people that were round about them, and bowed themselves unto them, and provided the Lord to anger.”

It took only one generation to pass away before the people turned away from God. The next generation had it harder in a sense, because they did not experience what their fathers had experienced. They did not see the miracles and battles. That is why the older generation must be that much more diligent in teaching the younger generation!

We treat history this way. We try hard to teach history not for mindless facts, but so that the next generation will understand how we came to this point and so that they do not repeat the mistakes of the past. Sadly, as we see children who are now young adults without solid historical knowledge and further from experience of historical atrocities, we can see them begin to repeat the mistakes of the past. The same hate and the same ideas that were so devastating just 50-70 years ago are surfacing now. How can this be? They have forgotten the past!

1 Chronicles 16:12, 15: “Remember His marvelous works that He hath done, His wonders, and the judgements of his mouth…Be ye mindful always of His covenant; the word which He commanded to a 1,000 generations.”

Psalm 77:11: “I will remember the works of the Lord: surely I will remember thy wonders of old.”

Isaiah 46:9: “Remember the former things of old: for I am God, and there is none else; I am God, and there is none like me.”

I have a lot of friends who grew up Christian who either do not consider themselves Christian or know very little about God. Their parents were Christians who attended church and from all appearances to me loved God very much. While their relationship with God may have been good, they did not pass down their knowledge to their children.

I have tried to make a commitment to sit down each day before we begin school (homeschool) and to read and teach the Bible to my kids. I pray that they remember it! I cannot control what they choose to do with the knowledge I pass on, but I am doing my part to pass on the knowledge of God.

Christians can be lazy. It is easy to get comfortable because we know God and feel secure in that. However, we leave our children to the wolves. We hope that they pick up some good information in Sunday school and start to read the Bible on their own one day. And then, we act shocked when our children stray from God!

The time to be active in our children’s spiritual upbringing is NOW! Their worldview is being formed right NOW! We must diligently teach them NOW so that they do not forget God!

Israel forgot God. Despite everything God did for Israel, she quickly descended into sin. She ended up committing murder, lust, greed, and even sacrificing her children to other gods! What a horrible place to be in!

Let’s be ACTIVE in teaching our children. The world will NOT teach them to love God. The world will teach them the opposite. It is up to us to teach our children the truth.