2 Peter chapter 3, and we'll read
the whole chapter together. This second epistle, beloved,
I now write unto you, in both which I stir up your pure minds
by way of remembrance, that ye may be mindful of the words which
were spoken before by the holy prophets, and of the commandment
of us the apostles of the Lord and Saviour. Knowing this first,
that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after
their own lusts, and saying, Where is the promise of his coming? For since the fathers fell asleep,
all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.
For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the
heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water
and in the water, whereby the world that then was, being overflowed
with water, perished. But the heavens and the earth,
which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto
fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.
But beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day
is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as
one day. The Lord is not slack concerning
his promise, as some men count slackness, but is longsuffering
to usward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should
come to repentance. But the day of the Lord will
come as a thief in the night, in the which the heavens shall
pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with
fervent heat, the earth also, and the works that are therein
shall be burned up. Seeing then that all these things
shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in
all holy conversation and godliness? Looking for and hasting unto
the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens, being on
fire, shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with
fervent heat. Nevertheless, we, according to
his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth wherein dwelleth
righteousness. Wherefore, beloved, seeing that
ye look for such things, be diligent, that ye may be found of him in
peace without spot and blameless. And account that the longsuffering
of our Lord is salvation, even as our beloved brother Paul also,
according to the wisdom given unto him, hath written unto you.
as also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things,
in which are some things hard to be understood, which they
that are unlearned and unstable rest, as they do also the other
scriptures, unto their own destruction. Ye therefore, beloved, seeing
ye know these things before, beware lest ye also, being led
away with the error of the wicked, fall from your own steadfastness. but grow in grace and in the
knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To him be glory
both now and for ever. Amen. And amen. May God bless to us this reading
from his word today. The title of our sermon this
morning is Six Things to Remember. Six Things to Remember. And this service is being broadcast
on what is called in the United States Memorial Day Weekend. Memorial Day Weekend. It's an occasion and an opportunity
for us to remember the war dead, to visit cemeteries, but also
in a general way, to remember the lives of others, perhaps
friends and relatives that have passed away. It's a time in the
society here that is set aside to meet with family and to share
a time of reflection. Memories can be good and they
can be bad. Memories can be happy and they
can be sad. Some memories are very welcome
and some memories are unwelcome. Sometimes we want to remember
and we can't. And sometimes we try to forget
and we can't. And memories can be deceiving. Sometimes we think that we remember
details but we don't and sometimes our memories are quite false
and we're just sure that something has happened or something has
been said and we've made a mistake and that's not the way it was
at all. But the Bible is full of advice
with respect to remembering things. and indeed warnings against forgetting
things. There's a little verse in Deuteronomy
chapter four and verse 23, and it says, take heed, take heed,
be careful. Take heed unto yourselves, lest
ye forget the covenant of the Lord your God. Don't forget the
covenant. Don't forget the promises. Don't
forget this testament that God has given us, this testimony
that God has given to his people. This new testimony, this new
covenant of grace that comes to the Lord's people. Take heed
unto yourselves, lest ye forget the everlasting covenant of God's
goodness and grace and mercy and peace. Beware, lest thou
forget the Lord. And many, many times in the Scriptures,
we find in the Old Testament and the New, warnings and admonitions
against forgetting the Lord, and encouragements injunctions,
commands to remember the Lord, to do things that will put us
in remembrance. And as it were, that's what we're
doing when we come together to worship. We are, like the Apostle
Paul and Barnabas, rehearsing the things that the Lord has
done amongst us. We are setting up a memorial
so that we can tell our children and our children's children and
the generations following the things that the Lord has done.
And that's what we're doing here today. And it may be in the calendar
of this particular nation, the United States, this is Memorial
Day weekend. Looking forward to Monday, which
is Memorial Day in itself, but this is the whole weekend carries
that name. But every weekend when the Lord's
people gather, every Lord's Day when we come into his presence
to worship him, we are remembering the things of the Lord. and indeed
every day we are to remember what the Lord has done for us. There's an interesting little
passage. I won't take the time to read
it, but if you've got your notepad, you might want to just jot it
down. In 2 Samuel 8, verses 15 to 18. And it speaks there about
David and David's reign in Israel. And it speaks about his court
and some of the people that served him and supported him in roles
of leadership within his court. there in the nation and in the
land of Israel. One person that is spoken of
in that list of those who served David is a man called Jehoshaphat. Jehoshaphat has the title of
recorder. Jehoshaphat was the recorder
or the remembrancer in David's court. And I want you to note
that word. I nearly said I want you to remember
that word. But here's a new word for many
of us. A remembrancer. What on earth
does a remembrancer do? I think it's a lovely title.
And I think it's a very meaningful title as well. The remembrancer
or the recorder His role was to put the people in remembrance
of the things that had happened. It was his role to record the
events the actions, the statements, the history of David's court,
and to keep a record of what had happened, and to bring to
the remembrance of the king and the people as a memorial the
things that had happened. And I think that that little
passage in 2 Samuel is a picture of the role of the Holy Spirit. Because the Holy Spirit is God's
remembrancer. The Holy Spirit is the divine
remembrancer. And he is the remembrancer of
the Church of God. This is a key aspect of the office
and the work of God the Holy Spirit. And we sometimes think
of God the Holy Spirit as being the comforter of the church,
and that's right. And he is the one who opens the
heart in conversion of the people who hear the gospel. their hearts
being opened. He makes us willing in the day
of his power. And in a sense, that's the work
of the Holy Spirit, the divine power of God, going forth for
the salvation of the saints. But another role, another aspect
of the work of God, the Holy Ghost, is that he is the principal
remembrancer of the church. He has that task, the responsibility
of reminding the church about the Lord Jesus Christ. And the
Lord Jesus Christ testified this of him in John chapter 14, verse
26. He says, the Comforter, which
is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall
teach you all things and bring all things to your remembrance
whatsoever I have said unto you." Whatever the Lord had said unto
the apostles during those three years of his leadership, his
guidance, his direction as their teacher, those disciples, those
students of the Lord, had all those things that the Lord said
brought back to their remembrance by God the Holy Spirit, by the
divine remembrance. And indeed what we discover is
that the Holy Spirit reminded the apostles and then what we
are told by the apostles, here by Peter, he says that, he says in verse 2 of chapter 3 of 2
Peter, that he may be mindful of the words which were spoken
unto us by the holy prophets and of the commandment of us,
the apostles of the Lord and Saviour. So here the apostle
Peter recognises that this remembrancing work of the Holy Spirit as he
reminded the apostles of the words of Christ. The apostles
then took those words and they reminded those to whom they preached. They reminded those to whom they
wrote. They committed these words of
Christ into the hands of faithful men or as Paul says to the Colossians,
to the hearing and to the reading and to the hands of the saints
and brethren. And Jude, in his little letter
there at the end of the New Testament, he writes in verse 5, I will,
this is Jude writing, One of the apostles again, just like
Peter, he says, So here is this important role. Jude was an apostle but these
apostles took the remembrances of the Holy Spirit and they passed
them on to faithful men and that's the role of a minister. A minister
is he comes to preach a minister as he serves his congregation,
a minister as he serves his society, as he pastors the Lord's flock,
as he preaches the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, is a remembrancer. And that is the task that falls
to us, to preach the words of Christ, reminding men and women
of God's dealings with the church, of that covenant purpose. Warning
and teaching. Warning and teaching. These are
the two aspects of the minister's job. Warning and teaching. And that's not to underestimate
either the fact that there are other things that are to be recorded
and other things that are to be remembered in the church and
in the in the body of Christ. We recently had a church business
meeting just before this virus took hold and we weren't able
to meet together. That was timely. And our secretary and our minute
taker took and recorded the minutes so that we have a memory of the
events and the decisions that were taken. and in a much grander
sense that's what we're doing when we come to preach the gospel.
So thank you to the minute taker and thank you to the Holy Spirit
for being our remembrancer. So I'm going to take a few remembrances
that the Lord has expressly given us this morning and I want to
look at them with you. simply to draw your attention
to these expressions. Six Memorial Day Sunday remembrances
from God the Holy Spirit given to the church to be remembered
and never to be forgotten. Here's the first one that I have
for you this morning. Ecclesiastes chapter 12, verse
1. Remember now thy Creator in the
days of thy youth, while the evil days come not. Nor the years
draw nigh when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them. This is a tremendous remembrance
for our young or our younger listeners. The Holy Spirit is
telling us here to remember God our Creator and to remember him
in the days of our youth and surely we all ought to do so.
But there's an urgency here with respect to young people. There's
an urgency because, as it were, God the Holy Spirit is saying
there are evil days coming. You will not be young for very
long. And there is trouble comes with
age. There is trouble comes with maturity. Very often young people want
to be older. They look forward, they anticipate. It's almost as if they can't
wait to be older. But age brings troubles and trials. Indeed, age brings troubles and
trials so multiple as to often cause us to forget God. I want you to think maybe about
some of your I don't know, older brothers and sisters, friends
that you know, cousins, and maybe some of them have gone to church
in days gone by and they've listened to all the sermons that you've
listened to and they've learned the hymns that you've learned.
And what happens is they get to a certain age and they say,
I'm not interested in this anymore. And they forget the Lord. And
the Lord says to us, the Holy Spirit says, don't forget me. Remember your Creator now. Remember Him in the days of your
youth because evil days are coming. Days when we will forget the
Lord perhaps if He does not keep us and if we do not think about
remembering Him. God our Creator. God is our Creator
and we belong to Him. And we think that we can do what
we want with our own bodies. We think we can do what we want
with our own minds. We can learn what we want. We
can think about what we want. We can study what we want. We
can go our own way. We can do our own thing with
our minds, with our bodies. We think that we can go out and
we can enjoy life. But here's the thing that God
tells us. We will always be answerable and always accountable to God
because he is our creator. Remember him who made you. Remember him who made us all.
Remember him by whom all spiritual life and joy is to be found. If we would have joy in this
life, then we must come to him. The pleasures of sin, they will
last for a while, but they bring bitterness, and they bring sadness,
and they bring shame, and they bring hurt. True happiness, enduring
happiness, is to know Christ by whom all things are created. Here's a second thing. Here's
another thing to remember. Remember your Creator in your
youth, and remember the former things of old. Isaiah 46 verse
9 says, Remember the former things of old, for I am God, and there
is none else. I am God, and there is none like
me. What shall we remember? What do we remember? We mentioned
already that our thoughts and our memories can be deceiving.
What shall we remember? What shall we remember in those
days when our minds start to fail and our memories start to
grow dim? We are to remember the Lord. We are to remember the former
things of old. all the revelation that God gives
us, all the words of Christ, all the remembrances of God the
Holy Spirit and the apostles and the preachers of the gospel
of the Lord Jesus Christ. And there's no way we're going
to remember every sermon. But let us remember the Lord,
the former things, the first things, the early things, the
revelations of God and the revelations of his early purpose. Let us
remember his covenant. Let us take heed unto ourselves,
lest we forget the covenant of the Lord our God. Let us remember
the matters of His everlasting love. Let us remember the foundations
of His foreknowledge of His people and eternal purpose. Let us remember
His election, His choice of His people in this church and in
the body of Christ. And let us remember His predestinating
power. that he conforms us to the image
of Christ, that it is him who is at work in his life's people.
Let us remember the suretyship of the Lord Jesus Christ, who
stood for us in the eternal councils and represents us before a holy
God. Let us remember his sacrifice
as that lamb slain from the foundation of the world. Let us remember
the former things of old. the things that are enduring,
the things that are eternal, the things that are all glorious
in the nature and person of our God. Our God in his three persons
is unique. Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
He created the heavens and the earth. He created man. He sent
the flood. He delivered Noah. He called
Abraham. He promised a saviour in this
world. There is no God like our God. Let us not forget. Let us remember
this covenant God. Do you see what has been the
effect of forgetting God? Look around you in the world.
Look and see. Look and see what happens to
a people who forget their God. Sin rises up. and the consequence
of sin, which is death, takes its toll. And men become preoccupied
with their selves. Men become preoccupied with sense
and feelings and experiences and the things that they enjoy
of a sensual nature. And their wickedness leads them
deeper and deeper into a forgetfulness of God and his eternal purpose. There is a day of judgment coming.
There is a day of accountability. There is a day to be fled from. And we flee from the wrath to
come by remembering our God. Mankind is storing up judgment
and fiery wrath. That's what Peter tells us in
2 Peter 3. He is a witness to these things.
He is saying, remember Eden and the expulsion. Remember Babel
and its destruction. Remember the flood. and the way
in which the people were slain. Remember Sodom and Gomorrah.
And remember this, friends today, every warning not to forget,
every warning to remember is a warning of mercy. Because judgment could come in
the twinkling of an eye and there would be no more opportunity
to remember God. 2 Peter 3, verse 10 says, The day
of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in the which the
heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements
shall melt with fervent heat. The earth also, and the works
that are therein shall be burned up. Here's the third thing that
the Lord would have us remember. Remember his marvellous works
that he hath done, his wonders and the judgments of his mouth.
The prophet Micah asks, who is a God like unto thee? Who is
a God that created all things, that created man, that created
by his works and wonders, the wonders of his hands, a testimony
to his design, to his glory, to his majesty, to his purpose? And we look around this world
and we can see the evidence. There is a beauty. I noticed
somebody said as they were coming in, what a beautiful day it is.
And it is. There's a beauty in the new life of spring. We see the leaves popping in
the trees. We see the flowers coming into
their colorful beauty. We see the marvel of space and
the immensity of the glories of God demonstrated in so many
ways. But God has also spoken. He has
spoken a word. You know that there are organizations
in our world today, highly technical organizations with sophisticated
listening equipment, and they are scanning the heavens. They
are scanning the planets. They are scanning outer space,
and they are searching for evidence of extraterrestrial life. millions
of dollars spent on this equipment to look for life beyond earth. How perverse man is. God has not only shown his hand
in the creation of these things, but he has come into the world
and he has spoken to men. And he says, remember what I
have said. Remember the judgments of his
mouth. For he has declared his will,
and he has declared his warnings to men and women. Paul says to
the Ephesians, remember the words of the Lord Jesus Christ. And I say it to you this morning,
to repeat what Paul has set up as a memorial. Remember the words
of the Lord Jesus Christ. John 1 says, the Word was with
God and the Word was God. And this book that we studied
together is the written Word of God. And our Saviour is the
living Word of God. And God forbid that we should
ever forget the words of eternal life which the Lord Jesus Christ
spoke. This is what the Remembrancer,
God the Holy Spirit, told His people to remember. Here's another
thing that we've to remember. Remember the Sabbath day to keep
it holy. Well, that's maybe a surprise
for some of you. Remember, don't forget. Don't forget the seventh day
is to be kept holy. Don't forget that. That's important. And do you know that not a single
man or woman on the face of this earth has ever kept the Sabbath
day holy? Not one. Little group of Seventh-day Adventists
across the road here, and they're still trying to do it. There's
people, religious people all over the country at the moment
still trying to do it, trying to keep a legal Sabbath. And keeping or trying to keep
a legal Sabbath is a complete hypocrisy. They tell us that
this is God's command and we are to keep God's commandments. They tell us that this is the
believer's rule of life and we are to rule and regulate our
lives by these commandments. Remember the Sabbath day to keep
it holy, being one of the 10. Well, let me tell you four reasons
why you cannot keep the Sabbath day holy. The Sabbath keepers
must keep Saturday. Saturday is the Sabbath day.
And if you would be a Sabbath keeper, you must keep Saturday.
There is no mandate for change in the whole of Scripture to
alter the seventh day to the first day. There is one reference
to the Lord's Day in the book of Revelation, and it says nothing
there about that change of the seventh to the first, nor indeed
what we are to do on the first day, the Lord's Day. So if you
want to keep the Sabbath day holy, you must keep it on a Saturday. Furthermore, here's the second
reason why no one keeps the Sabbath day holy. because no work is
to be done on the Sabbath day, not for yourself, nor for anyone
else. Now there are works of mercy
and works of necessity, but that's all. Under the penalty of death,
if you light a fire for cooking on the Sabbath day, You will
pay the price. Exodus 35 verse 3. You're not
allowed to gather wood for burning on a Sabbath day. Numbers 15,
32 to 36. You're not allowed to carry any
burden on the Sabbath day. Jeremiah 17, 21 and 22. You're not allowed to travel
on the Sabbath day. Exodus 16, 29. You're not allowed
to do any business on the Sabbath day. Amos chapter 8 verse 5. And anything that might be construed
as a matter of personal profit or pleasure is expressly forbidden
on the Sabbath day. Here's another thing. You cannot
keep the Sabbath day without a full return to the ceremonial
law of the Old Testament. People tell us that we are to
do certain things on a Sunday and that's keeping the Sabbath
day holy. No, it's not. you have to have a complete return
to the ceremonial law. The Sabbath day cannot be observed
without the offering of a double sin offering, a double meal offering,
a double drink offering, and those offerings must be made
in the temple at Jerusalem. Numbers 28, 9, and 10. And here's a clincher. Sabbath
keeping requires the death by stoning of all Sabbath breakers. Exodus 31 verse 15. The same law that required observance
of the Sabbath also required the death of those who broke
the Sabbath. If you advocate a Sabbath day
keeping, you must advocate also the stoning to death of anyone
who breaks the Sabbath. If a man wants to keep the Sabbath,
he must also be willing to stone to death anyone who breaks the
Sabbath, even if that person is his own son or daughter. And here's my point. The Old
Testament Sabbath was typical of the Lord Jesus Christ. The
Lord Jesus Christ is our Sabbath. The Lord Jesus Christ is our
rest. He is our perfection. The Lord
Jesus Christ is our rest and we rest in him by faith. We don't
look to a Sabbath day or to any fleshy doings and not doings
on that day because we see that everything that has been needful,
everything that has been required, everything for the satisfaction
of the holiness of God's legal requirements of man has been
done by Christ. All the work is done, all that
remains is to enter into our rest and only God's grace avails
for men and women to find their rest, not in some Sabbath day
observance, but in the Lord Jesus Christ, our continuing Sabbath. Matthew 11, verse 28 says, Is
there anything else that we are to remember? The Apostle Paul says to Timothy
in 2 Timothy chapter 2 verse 8, Friends, the Lord Jesus Christ
is alive. And I want you to remember that.
I want you to remember that Jesus Christ of the seed of David was
raised from the dead. You see, this is no duty-heavy
religion that I'm preaching to you this morning. This is a personal
relationship with the living God by faith. It's not of our
works, it's not of our doings. Jesus Christ of the seed of David
is the covenant Christ, that covenant that we've not to forget.
Jesus Christ of the seed of David is the anointed Saviour, the
Messiah that has come. And it is what makes this message
gospel. It's what makes it good news.
It isn't gospel if it isn't free. It isn't gospel if it isn't done. It isn't gospel if it doesn't
save completely. And this gospel does. This is
the gospel of Christ. It's Paul's gospel. Remember
that Jesus Christ of the seed of David was raised from the
dead according to my gospel. The resurrection of the Lord
Jesus Christ is so important because it says job done, price
paid, satisfaction made. The Lord Jesus Christ said, it
is finished. And God the Father said, I agree. Resurrection. And all who understand
the significance of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ know
that there is no more that remains to be done, no more to be done
in this flesh for the satisfaction of the holiness of God and for
obedience to the law of God. And I say to you, remember that,
because that's the gospel. Remember that the Lord Jesus
Christ died and that he was raised again the third day according
to the scriptures. Remember that Jesus Christ of
the seed of David was raised again from the dead. And lastly,
the Lord Jesus Christ himself says to us, remember Lot's wife. Remember Lot's wife. Listen,
I've only garnered here a few of the things that we are told
to remember in the word of God. There are lots and lots of them.
But here is one that the Lord Jesus Christ personally spoke
to his disciples and to the people. Remember Lot's wife, he said.
What is that about? Well, you'll remember perhaps
that Lot's wife was changed into a pillar of salt because she
looked back as she was being led to safety. She looked back
at Sodom and Gomorrah as those cities of the plain were being
destroyed. She wasn't to look back. Remember
Lot's wife and don't look back. That's what it's about. When
the Lord says, remember Lot's wife, he is saying very simply,
really, this Christian way, this Christian walk, this remembering
the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, remembering the
covenant promises of God, remembering the former things of God, this
knowledge of the rest that we have in God. It's about not looking
back to the things that are behind. but it is to look forward to
what the Lord Jesus Christ has called us to and that salvation
and deliverance that is set up before us in Christ. Is our faith
weak? Look to Christ. Are we distressed? Look to Christ. Are we sad and
lonely? Look to Christ. Are we fallen
into sin and temptation? Friend, look to Christ. Do not turn your back on the
Lord Jesus Christ as Lot's wife turned her back on that way of
safety and salvation and looked back at what was left behind. Such as look back are not fit
for the kingdom of God. Such who long for the things
that have been left behind in Egypt, the onions and the cucumbers,
they're not fit for the promised land. And in such people, God has no
delight or pleasure. The cross before me, the world
behind me, no turning back, no turning back. These are things to remember.
These are things that the Lord's people remember. These are the
things that have been set up as a memorial for us. This is the remembrance of our
souls. We are not to forget. May the
Lord be pleased to bless these thoughts to our hearts today.
Amen.