Deuteronomy 8:1-2 All the commandments which I command you this day shall you observe to do, that you may live, and multiply… I. THE AGENCY OF MEMORY AND ITS ATTENDANT FACULTY RECOLLECTION IN THE WORK OF SPIRITUAL ADVANCEMENT. 1. Among the faculties with which God has beneficently endowed man, memory ranks with the most important. It is a gallery lined with the pictures of past events, and with scenes on which we have gazed — a gallery sometimes vocal with sounds that fill the heart with gladness, or pierce it with keenest pain. It is memory that makes the record to which conscience points when it speaks in tones of menace. It is in memory that there is stored up the treasures knowledge has patiently amassed, and it is with memory we take counsel when we would investigate, or must decide. (1) If the record is so perfect, how necessary to avoid sin! One of the greatest blessings a man can possess is an unspotted memory. How many of us are humbled at the record of our memory! (2) The indestructibility suggests one pain of perdition. He who passes into hell with a record of sin, and of opportunities wasted, will carry with him his own chamber of torture. There is an attendant faculty called recollection. The curator at a museum or library searches for the object you want. So recollection. 2. Illustrate the influence on spiritual work. These are not merely intellectual faculties. These have a moral work to do. It may be illustrated in the aid given to convince Joseph's brethren (Genesis 42:21). It ever presents to us the teachings of God's dealings with us. To lead to avoid past errors, and to show that the purpose was to do us good at our latter end. II. THE ISRAELITE WHO THUS REMEMBERED WOULD PERCEIVE THAT GOD'S PURPOSE HAD BEEN TO HUMBLE. III. TO PROVE THEE, TO KNOW WHAT WAS IN THINE HEART. Not to show God, but to show us our faults. The great gun is taken to a proof house, and tried with the great charge, and if some crack is revealed men say it was well it did not burst and spread dismay at some crisis of the fight. The anchor and chain is tested link by link, to see if any flaw should be revealed. If it had gone untested, how great the peril! (J. R. Hargreaves.) Parallel Verses KJV: All the commandments which I command thee this day shall ye observe to do, that ye may live, and multiply, and go in and possess the land which the LORD sware unto your fathers. |
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