“In their own way, amidst the bedlam and the anguish of that awful day, the men of Pearl Harbor served that noble cause, honored it. They knew the things worth living for but also worth dying for: Principle, decency, fidelity, honor.
And so, look behind you at battleship row -- behind me, the gun turret still visible, and the flag flying proudly from a truly blessed shrine.
Look into your hearts and minds: You will see boys who this day became men and men who became heroes.
Look at the water here, clear and quiet, bidding us to sum up and remember. One day, in what now seems another lifetime, it wrapped its arms around the finest sons any nation could ever have, and it carried them to a better world.”1
These words were spoken by President George H. W. Bush at the 50th anniversary of the bombing of Pearl Harbor by Japanese forces on “December 7, 1941 - a date that will live in infamy.” In Pearl Harbor, there is a memorial to those who lost their lives in service to our country. It was a privilege for me to visit this solemn place in January of 1983 and to reflect on the sacrifice that was made there in defense of our country.
In our great country, there are numerous monuments that have been erected that cause us to reflect on the great achievements and tremendous sacrifices that have been made so that we might be a free people. The Liberty Bell, the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, D.C., the Statue of Liberty, the battlefield of Gettysburg, and the 9/11 Memorial all remind the American people of our great history and the responsibility that is ours to ensure, protect, and defend our freedom.
In his famous Gettysburg Address, Abraham Lincoln memorialized the sacrifice of young and brave men who shed their blood on that ominous battlefield so that we could be a united nation and that liberty would be realized by people of all segments of society.
His words to the crowd that day echo through the ages, as they are preserved for all generations to read in our school history books.
“We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate—we cannot consecrate—we cannot hallow—this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract.”
In Joshua chapter 3, the nation of Israel, God’s chosen people, after wandering in the wilderness for 40 years, finally crossed the Jordan and entered the promised land. It was time for a celebration, but it was also time to look back and remember where they had been and how God had brought them out of Egypt, sustained them through the wilderness, and delivered them to the land of His choosing. In Chapter 4, God commands Joshua to have twelve men take twelve stones from the middle of the Jordan, and from these twelve stones they would build a memorial.
At the conclusion of the chapter, Joshua gives this explanation to the Israelites: “When your children ask their fathers in time to come, saying, ‘What are these stones?’ then you shall let your children know, saying, ‘Israel crossed over this Jordan on dry land’; for the Lord your God dried up the waters of the Jordan before you until you had crossed over, as the Lord your God did to the Red Sea, which He dried up before us until we had crossed over, that all the peoples of the earth may know the hand of the Lord, that it is mighty, that you may fear the Lord your God forever.” (Joshua 4:21-24)
God wants His people to remember their history so they can see that it is only through relying upon God’s mighty hand that they can be blessed with God’s power and provision to meet life’s demands so that they can say with the Psalmist, “Whom have I in heaven but You? And there is none upon earth that I desire besides You. My flesh and my heart fail; But God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.” (Psalm 73:25-26)
The entire book of Deuteronomy is a book of remembrance and is often called the second law. It is a reminder of God’s law and of His dealings with Israel throughout their wilderness wanderings.
In Deuteronomy 6, families were encouraged to make physical reminders of God’s law in their homes: “And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.” (Deut. 6:6-9)
There were two mountains where the Israelites were to proclaim the blessings and cursings of the law. From Mount Ebal, they were to shout out the cursings, and from Mount Gerizim, the blessings, and the people would answer with “amen.”
In the seventh chapter of I Samuel, Samuel sets up a stone of remembrance, which he called Ebenezer. This name shows up in the second verse of the hymn, “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing,” where the lyrics state, “Here I raise mine Ebenezer- Hither by Thy help I’m come.” The name Ebenezer may seem like an obscure Old Testament reference to some, prompting the humorous inquiry, “What is an Ebenezer, and how do I raise it?” Ebenezer simply means “stone of help,” and this stone, set up by Samuel, was a memorial to when God helped the Israelites defeat the Philistines.
In Psalm 121, the hills are like a memorial to us of God’s help.
I lift up my eyes to the hills.
From where does my help come?
My help comes from the Lord,
who made heaven and earth.
He will not let your foot be moved;
he who keeps you will not slumber.
Behold, he who keeps Israel
will neither slumber nor sleep.
The Lord is your keeper;
the Lord is your shade on your right hand.
The sun shall not strike you by day,
nor the moon by night.
The Lord will keep you from all evil;
he will keep your life.
The Lord will keep
your going out and your coming in
from this time forth and forevermore.
The history of the Israelites is recounted numerous times through the book of Psalms. One prime example of this is Psalm 136. The theme of this Psalm is the mercy of God. God’s merciful intervention in the lives of the children of Israel is recounted from the creation of the world to the deliverance from Egypt to the victory over the various kings in the land that God gave to them. To each remembrance, there is the phrase, “for His mercy endures forever.”
Psalm 145 reinforces the importance of rehearsing the blessings of God to generations that follow us when it states,
“One generation shall praise Your works to another and shall declare Your mighty acts. I will meditate on the glorious splendor of Your majesty, and on Your wondrous works. Men shall speak of the might of Your awesome acts, and I will declare Your greatness. They shall utter the memory of Your great goodness and shall sing of Your righteousness.”
There is an interesting story during the earthly ministry of Jesus when he took Peter, James, and John up to a mountain and was transfigured before them. His face was beaming like the sun, and His clothing was as white as snow. Moses and Elijah also appeared there with our Lord. Peter, being stunned at this dazzling display, suggested that there should be three memorials established in honor of the three prominent figures. A voice then sounded from the heavens, “This is my Beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Listen to Him.” (Matt. 17:5)
The Lord established a memorial of Himself when He instituted the Lord’s Supper or what we commonly call Communion. As He distributed the bread and the cup, He said, “Do this in remembrance of me.” When writing about this sacred ordinance to the Corinthians, Paul said, “For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death till He comes.” (1 Cor. 11:26)
This memorial meal that Jesus founded for His church constantly reminds us of His humility, love, grace, mercy, and the great sacrifice that He made when He became obedient unto death and died for our sins and in our place.
When we think back on our lives, we should always remember that it is our Lord who has saved us from our sins and has kept us by His grace. Like the Psalmist, we should recount that it is the Lord who has “brought me up out of the miry clay and has set our feet upon the rock and established our ways.” (Ps. 40).
In I Samuel 15, we read that Saul had built a monument to himself. If you look back a couple of chapters, you will discover that Saul had already become disobedient to God and had turned to his own ways of thinking and his own interests. And Samuel said to
Saul, “You have done foolishly. You have not kept the commandment of the Lord your God, which He commanded you. For now the Lord would have established your kingdom over Israel forever. But now your kingdom shall not continue. The Lord has sought for Himself a man after His own heart, and the Lord has commanded him to be commander over His people, because you have not kept what the Lord commanded you.” (I Samuel 13:13-14)
As believers, when we reflect on our past and as we plan for our future, we should always remember to rely on the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. We know it was His amazing grace that saved us and that there is no room for boasting about any good things that we contributed. And as we live the Christian life, we can only say, as the apostle Paul said, “By the grace of God, I am what I am.”
John Newton’s words from his hymn, “Amazing Grace,” can be the memorial stones that we set up for our family and for the generations of Christians that succeed us, “Through many dangers, toils, and snares, I have already come. ‘Tis grace has brought me safe thus far, and grace will lead me home.”
1 https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/georgehwbushussarizonamemorial.htm
And so, look behind you at battleship row -- behind me, the gun turret still visible, and the flag flying proudly from a truly blessed shrine.
Look into your hearts and minds: You will see boys who this day became men and men who became heroes.
Look at the water here, clear and quiet, bidding us to sum up and remember. One day, in what now seems another lifetime, it wrapped its arms around the finest sons any nation could ever have, and it carried them to a better world.”1
These words were spoken by President George H. W. Bush at the 50th anniversary of the bombing of Pearl Harbor by Japanese forces on “December 7, 1941 - a date that will live in infamy.” In Pearl Harbor, there is a memorial to those who lost their lives in service to our country. It was a privilege for me to visit this solemn place in January of 1983 and to reflect on the sacrifice that was made there in defense of our country.
In our great country, there are numerous monuments that have been erected that cause us to reflect on the great achievements and tremendous sacrifices that have been made so that we might be a free people. The Liberty Bell, the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, D.C., the Statue of Liberty, the battlefield of Gettysburg, and the 9/11 Memorial all remind the American people of our great history and the responsibility that is ours to ensure, protect, and defend our freedom.
In his famous Gettysburg Address, Abraham Lincoln memorialized the sacrifice of young and brave men who shed their blood on that ominous battlefield so that we could be a united nation and that liberty would be realized by people of all segments of society.
His words to the crowd that day echo through the ages, as they are preserved for all generations to read in our school history books.
“We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate—we cannot consecrate—we cannot hallow—this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract.”
In Joshua chapter 3, the nation of Israel, God’s chosen people, after wandering in the wilderness for 40 years, finally crossed the Jordan and entered the promised land. It was time for a celebration, but it was also time to look back and remember where they had been and how God had brought them out of Egypt, sustained them through the wilderness, and delivered them to the land of His choosing. In Chapter 4, God commands Joshua to have twelve men take twelve stones from the middle of the Jordan, and from these twelve stones they would build a memorial.
At the conclusion of the chapter, Joshua gives this explanation to the Israelites: “When your children ask their fathers in time to come, saying, ‘What are these stones?’ then you shall let your children know, saying, ‘Israel crossed over this Jordan on dry land’; for the Lord your God dried up the waters of the Jordan before you until you had crossed over, as the Lord your God did to the Red Sea, which He dried up before us until we had crossed over, that all the peoples of the earth may know the hand of the Lord, that it is mighty, that you may fear the Lord your God forever.” (Joshua 4:21-24)
God wants His people to remember their history so they can see that it is only through relying upon God’s mighty hand that they can be blessed with God’s power and provision to meet life’s demands so that they can say with the Psalmist, “Whom have I in heaven but You? And there is none upon earth that I desire besides You. My flesh and my heart fail; But God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.” (Psalm 73:25-26)
The entire book of Deuteronomy is a book of remembrance and is often called the second law. It is a reminder of God’s law and of His dealings with Israel throughout their wilderness wanderings.
In Deuteronomy 6, families were encouraged to make physical reminders of God’s law in their homes: “And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.” (Deut. 6:6-9)
There were two mountains where the Israelites were to proclaim the blessings and cursings of the law. From Mount Ebal, they were to shout out the cursings, and from Mount Gerizim, the blessings, and the people would answer with “amen.”
In the seventh chapter of I Samuel, Samuel sets up a stone of remembrance, which he called Ebenezer. This name shows up in the second verse of the hymn, “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing,” where the lyrics state, “Here I raise mine Ebenezer- Hither by Thy help I’m come.” The name Ebenezer may seem like an obscure Old Testament reference to some, prompting the humorous inquiry, “What is an Ebenezer, and how do I raise it?” Ebenezer simply means “stone of help,” and this stone, set up by Samuel, was a memorial to when God helped the Israelites defeat the Philistines.
In Psalm 121, the hills are like a memorial to us of God’s help.
I lift up my eyes to the hills.
From where does my help come?
My help comes from the Lord,
who made heaven and earth.
He will not let your foot be moved;
he who keeps you will not slumber.
Behold, he who keeps Israel
will neither slumber nor sleep.
The Lord is your keeper;
the Lord is your shade on your right hand.
The sun shall not strike you by day,
nor the moon by night.
The Lord will keep you from all evil;
he will keep your life.
The Lord will keep
your going out and your coming in
from this time forth and forevermore.
The history of the Israelites is recounted numerous times through the book of Psalms. One prime example of this is Psalm 136. The theme of this Psalm is the mercy of God. God’s merciful intervention in the lives of the children of Israel is recounted from the creation of the world to the deliverance from Egypt to the victory over the various kings in the land that God gave to them. To each remembrance, there is the phrase, “for His mercy endures forever.”
Psalm 145 reinforces the importance of rehearsing the blessings of God to generations that follow us when it states,
“One generation shall praise Your works to another and shall declare Your mighty acts. I will meditate on the glorious splendor of Your majesty, and on Your wondrous works. Men shall speak of the might of Your awesome acts, and I will declare Your greatness. They shall utter the memory of Your great goodness and shall sing of Your righteousness.”
There is an interesting story during the earthly ministry of Jesus when he took Peter, James, and John up to a mountain and was transfigured before them. His face was beaming like the sun, and His clothing was as white as snow. Moses and Elijah also appeared there with our Lord. Peter, being stunned at this dazzling display, suggested that there should be three memorials established in honor of the three prominent figures. A voice then sounded from the heavens, “This is my Beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Listen to Him.” (Matt. 17:5)
The Lord established a memorial of Himself when He instituted the Lord’s Supper or what we commonly call Communion. As He distributed the bread and the cup, He said, “Do this in remembrance of me.” When writing about this sacred ordinance to the Corinthians, Paul said, “For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death till He comes.” (1 Cor. 11:26)
This memorial meal that Jesus founded for His church constantly reminds us of His humility, love, grace, mercy, and the great sacrifice that He made when He became obedient unto death and died for our sins and in our place.
When we think back on our lives, we should always remember that it is our Lord who has saved us from our sins and has kept us by His grace. Like the Psalmist, we should recount that it is the Lord who has “brought me up out of the miry clay and has set our feet upon the rock and established our ways.” (Ps. 40).
In I Samuel 15, we read that Saul had built a monument to himself. If you look back a couple of chapters, you will discover that Saul had already become disobedient to God and had turned to his own ways of thinking and his own interests. And Samuel said to
Saul, “You have done foolishly. You have not kept the commandment of the Lord your God, which He commanded you. For now the Lord would have established your kingdom over Israel forever. But now your kingdom shall not continue. The Lord has sought for Himself a man after His own heart, and the Lord has commanded him to be commander over His people, because you have not kept what the Lord commanded you.” (I Samuel 13:13-14)
As believers, when we reflect on our past and as we plan for our future, we should always remember to rely on the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. We know it was His amazing grace that saved us and that there is no room for boasting about any good things that we contributed. And as we live the Christian life, we can only say, as the apostle Paul said, “By the grace of God, I am what I am.”
John Newton’s words from his hymn, “Amazing Grace,” can be the memorial stones that we set up for our family and for the generations of Christians that succeed us, “Through many dangers, toils, and snares, I have already come. ‘Tis grace has brought me safe thus far, and grace will lead me home.”
1 https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/georgehwbushussarizonamemorial.htm
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