Psalm 145. 7. They shall abundantly utter the memory of Thy great goodness and shall sing of Thy righteousness. A little more than a week ago on the front page of the News Chronicle[1] there appeared the photograph of the young woman of 25 years of age, and she asked a policeman Who am I? and the only other words she could say were “When I got into bed the baby was in the cot. The baby was traced to her father’s home, and was a little daughter of two years old. The mother had completely lost her memory. Speaking of this to a friend at the dinner table[2] I was struck with the use God makes of the memory in His dealings with man, and I said at the time “I will look into that subject and use it as a basis for a gospel message at some time. And 6 days afterwards another photo appeared. This time of young girl (sic) still in her teens, but wearing an engagement ring.. She was cycling to work and collided with a lorry, taken to Hospital in Southhampton, and she too had lost her memory, and could not recognize the young man who had given her the ring, and the second case impressed me that I was to do so this evening. In the book of Deuteronomy, God speaks to Israel and tells them to remember many things: mostly the evidence that He has given them of His love and grace, and, in some cases of their attendant responsibility[3]. And in the other early books of the Bible God is promising again and again that He will remember His covenant, made to Abraham Isaac and Jacob[4]. And I think I can say without fear of contradiction that this principle runs throughout the word of God. Man is exhorted to remember, and God is declaring that He will and does remember. And we have abundant proof of this fact that God is always doing His part while man is always failing to do his part, and, I think when I last occupied this platform to preach the gospel I gave you my testimony. How God brought me to realize my great danger as a boy.. As I listened to that old text of Psalm 9 The wicked shall be turned into hell and all nations that forget God[5]. On the one hand God promises that He will ever remember us but will not remember our sins, but we are very much inclined forget Him and also the way He has dealt with our sins. Laying them upon His beloved Son, who bears them away as far as the east is from the west[6].
Now in Luke’s gospel we find the reference to the memory occurs very frequently, and in chapter 1. 72 we find the aged Zacharias, after being dumb for 9 months regained the power of speech and began by praising God fulfilling the OT[7] prophecies, and remembering His covenant to Abraham and send our Lord Jesus Christ to become our Saviour. Let us not forget that 400 years had elapsed since the days of Malachi[8] and Israel were tempted to think God had forgotten them but no, God does not forget. He is ever mindful of us, and He knows that God has commenced His wondrous work, and sent John the Baptist[9] as the forerunner of our blessed Lord and God is praised for His wondrous memory.. And so He came and, our, glorious Lord came and during the time of His earthly pilgrimage we have clear evidence that man was continually fulfilling the OT Scriptures, and, even His disciples were forgetting the words He spoke to them, and when His word had been fulfilled and He had been crucified and buried they had no thought of His resurrection and seem to have completely forgotten that He had repeatedly told them that He would rise again on the third day, and it was not until they had a vision of Angels, that they remembered His words. The Angels told them to remember how He spake unto them while it He was yet in Galilee[10]. And yet what joy the remembrance brought them. What a important part of the memory plays in the life of every one of us. What a joyful message it is suggested by the words of the Psalmist. They shall abundantly utter the memory of Thy great goodness. And I think we should take heed to the[11] prayer of the dying thief. Lord remember me when thou comest into Thy Kingdom[12]. Have you ever thought of this aspect of our Lord’s answer. Today shalt thou be with me in paradise. You and I are so prone to put off things today that are of the utmost importance, and, they are never done they are forgotten.. There is no time like the present. In an Emmergency[13] Post I was reading a few days ago, I had an illustration of this: On a certain island[14] the inhabitants lived to a great extent on the eggs of seabirds which nested up on the cliffs and a man once discovered a nest with many eggs on a ledge about forty feet below the top of the cliff, but he decided to try to get them, and so he drove a large iron steak into the ground and farce and a long rope to it, and ascended to the ledge where the eggs were only to find his rope was several feet away from the ledge, and he could only reach it by swinging. This he did and each time he got nearer, untill, at last he sprang inwards and reach the ledge safely, but the rope slipped from his grasp.. and he knew his only hope was to catch the rope as it came swinging into him. It was now or never. He gave a jump.. and caught the rope, and climbed back to the top of the cliff. Had he missed it then He[15] would never have had another chance. The Lord remembered the dying thief & saved him there & then. Today He says.. Now God says to you Remember Lot’s wife[16]. She was saved from Sodom at least her body was, but she left something behind in Sodom her heart.. She looked back, and lost both body & soul Where your treasure is there will your heart be also. Better leave your treasure has commanded his eggs, and be saved than to lose all. Dives[17] was told to remember, when in hell, all the past pleasant things of life, but they are now denied HIM
[1] The News Chronicle was a British daily newspaper. It ceased publication
on 17 October 1960, being absorbed into the Daily Mail… The News Chronicle's
editorial position was considered at the time to be in broad support of the
British Liberal Party https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/News_Chronicle
. It was Lloyd's usual newspaper [RRA]
[2] ?
[3] The word remember is
used 14 times in Deuteronomy e.g. 8:2 & 18
[4] e.g. Leviticus 26:42
[5] See 1953 November 15,
Liphook. It seems likely that this address was reused at Witley but not
recorded in the book
[6] Psalm 103:12
[7] i.e. Old Testament
[8] Malachi is the last book of the Old Testament, modern scholarship is unsure about his exact date although he is certainly from the second Temple and one of the later prophets. Whether or not Lloyd used Matthew Henry's commentary I don't know but his comment on Malachi would seem to reflect his attitude "And now the prophecy was disease he speaks more clearly of the Messiah, as nigh at hand, and concludes with a direction to the people of God to keep in remembrance the law of Moses, while they were in expectation of the gospel of Christ"
[9] The son of Zacharias Luke 1:63
[10] Luke 24:6-8
[11] This word inserted
later
[12] Luke 23:42 & 43
[13] The first letter of
this word is unclear. It would seem to be referring to the evangelistic
booklets Emergency post: a Christian
witness for today. (Edited by B.H. Mudditt.) London, The Paternoster Press.
Paternoster Press was a publishing house set up in 1935 to cater to the needs
of the Open Brethren 'but that segment on the left which was to give birth in
the 1950s to the progressive group, mainly from southern England and
mainly with
business, professional and academic connections' BRETHREN HISTORICAL REVIEW 6:
122-125
Jeremy Mudditt 1938-2010
[14] This sounds very like
the island of St. Kilda in the outer Hebrides
[15] Whenever God or Jesus is referred to the pronoun is always capitalized, here that habit is misplaced onto the character of the egg collector!
[16] Genesis 19:26
[17] Luke 16:25