“Memorials Of God”
Exodus 3:1-15; Joshua 4:1-7
INTRO. There are many things God would have us to remember. But the most
important is His Word. Many believers today remain spiritually weak because
they fail to store the Word of God in their hearts and minds. Psalms 119:11
says, “Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sins against thee.”
The Word of God can be a source of comfort, warmth, and direction in times
of stress, sorrow, or temptation. That is why it is so important that we study
it, memorize it and hid its truth in our hearts. Psalm 119:129-130 tells us,
“Thy testimonies are wonderful: therefore doth my soul keep them. The en-
trance of thy words giveth light; it giveth understanding unto the simple.”
The followers of many pagan religions are required to saturate their minds
with what they believe are sacred writings. No one can teach in a Moham-
medan mosque until he has first memorized the entire Koran! One missionary
tells that for 21 hours she heard a group of Buddhist priests quoting their de-
votional literature from memory, seldom, if ever, making a mistake.
If the average Christian was in a plane crash and was the only survivor on a
deserted island about the only thing he could recite, and live on spiritually,
from God’s Word would be John 3:16. Some may say, “Preacher I have a
hard time memorizing . I forget so easy.” But the truth of it is the more we
study and saturate ourselves with the Word of God, the more of it we retain!
We ought to do all we can to memorize God’s Word. It is only when we hide
God’s Word in our hearts that God can bring to our memory the precious
truths from God’s Word. There are Two things God’s Word teaches that we
had better not forget.
First, we had better not forget that God has established a…..
(1) MEMORIAL OF HIS NAME
Exodus 3:13-15
*Look at verse 15. “…this is my name for ever, AND THIS IS MY MEMORIAL
UNTO ALL GENERATIONS.” Look at the word “memorial.” We often hear about
memorials in our churches.
- Some people will place a beautiful bouquet of flowers in the church as a memorial of someone they love who has gone to be with the LORD.
- Some churches install metal tags on the ends of pews, inscribed with the name of a loved one who has gone to be with the LORD..we call this a memorial.
- Some churches have a complete room furnished by a family as a memorial to someone they love.
- Some people actually finance who buildings as memorials of someone they love.
*We should never forget those who have played a major role in our lives. God is
pleased when we memorialize a family member or loved one by do something for
the house of God.
*But in our text the Bible tells us there is something about God we must not forget.
Let’s look at the context of this memorial of God’s name. This was said after God
had led Moses to the backside of a desert for forty years. Why had God led Moses
there? God wanted to teach Moses WHO HE WAS!
ILLUS. Remember Moses thought by his own hands he could deliver
Israel. He went out and with his own hands killed an Egyptian
soldier. Then he tried to bury him in the sand. But, he must
not have done a very good job of covering him up. Maybe he
left one of his toes sticking out of the ground. We do not know,
but we do know this: others knew about it.
*They asked Moses, Exodus 2:14, “who made thee prince and a judge over us?
intendest thou to kill me, as thou killest the Egyptian?” Moses fled and after forty
years, when God got through with him, God sent him back. Now God could use
him! The Moses who had taken matters into his own hands when he killed that
Egyptian soldier was a different Moses forty years later.
*Sometimes we become discouraged with ourselves. it seems like years go by and
we still find ourselves trying to do things our own way. Then, we read that it took
God forty years to get Moses to the place God could use him, and we cannot help
but think, there may be hope for us yet!
*Look at how God used Moses! Forty years earlier Moses had tried to deliver Egypt
by his own hand and failed, but at the end of forty years, God used Moses in a
mighty way to lead his people out of bondage.
*What made the difference? The difference was that forty years earlier Moses did
what he did by his own strength. At the end of that forty years it was not what
Moses did, IT WAS WHAT GOD DID THROUGH MOSES!
*God said, “Moses, when you go back to Egypt and they ask who sent you, tell
them, ‘I AM’ sent you!”
- “Moses, you have never been sufficient.”
- “Moses, you are not sufficient!”
- “Moses, you never will be sufficient!”
Moses, all you have ever done is make a mess of things. Moses I AM NOT LIKE
YOU! This is my memorial unto ALL GENERATIONS.” The God of the Bible is
NOT dead. His people may seems as if they are dead, but He is the great “I AM.”
ILLUS. Elisha followed Elijah from place to place. Finally Elijah turned to
Elisha and said, “Elisha, what do you want? Do you want what I
have?” Elisha answered, “No, I do not want what you have. I
want a double portion of what you have.” Elijah said, “All right,
if you see me when God takes me, you request shall be
granted.” Elisha did exactly that and when God came down and
caught Elijah up in a whirlwind Elijah dropped his mantle. Elisha
walked over and picked it up, and said, “Where is the LORD God
of Elijah?” He did not ask where Elijah was. He asked, “WHERE
IS HIS GOD!”
*Probably the greatest need in our churches today is for Christians to get to know
THE LORD GOD OF ELIJAH. The god that many serve today is a god who:
- Does not seem to care.
- Does not have the power to help.
- Has grown old and feeble.
But Malachi 3:6 says, “For I am the LORD, I change not..” God said, “Moses,
when they ask you who sent you, you tell that ‘I AM’ sent you.” God’s name, “I
AM” is God’s memorial unto all generations. We are not to forget that He is a God
who can deliver His people in any age.
*God has left behind a memorial of His name. He is the “I AM” God. This is not
just for Moses, not just for the children of Israel, but He said it is a “…MEMORIAL
UNTO ALL GENERATIONS.”
*God has placed His name, “I AM,” as a MEMORIAL unto all generations. God has
established His name as the “I AM” God as a memorial to all generations.
*There is another MEMORIAL that God has placed in the scripture. It is the—
(2)MEMORIAL OF HIS WORKS
Joshua 4:1-7
*This passing from Jordan represents a passing from DEATH unto LIFE. When the
children of Israel passed over the Jordan river God told them there would come a
time when their children would want to know what He had done for them and He
was going to give them an opportunity to tell them.
*In Joshua 4:3 God told Joshua what He wanted him to do. God was saying that
He wanted them to pick up twelve stones and take them over to the other side of
the Jordan and build a moment to God where they were to “lodge” that night.
*God told them that in the years to come their children would see the monument
that He asked them to build as a MEMORIAL to Him and they would ask, “…What
mean ye by these stone?” Then they would tell them….
- How God had brought them FROM a life of BONDAGE INTO a land of FREEDOM!
- How they had been an oppressed people.
- How they had been hopeless and could not save themselves.
- How when all hope of saving themselves was gone, He had supernaturally intervened and saved them.
God told them to tell the children WHAT A GREAT GOD THEY SERVED! When we
consider God, there are so many things to talk about.
ILLUS. Did you know we have just as much water on the earth today as
we had thousands of years ago? All the water on earth keeps
finding its way back into the ocean and then God marvelously
causes the water to evaporate, rise, and form clouds and He
the same clouds to distribute that water all over the world.
What a great God we serve!
Did you know God situated the earth just the right distance from
the sun? If it was any farther away we would freeze to death
and if it was any closer we would all be burned alive. What a
great God we serve!
Did you know the earth revolves completely at the right speed
every twenty-four hours, allowing each part of it to be touched
enough by the sun to keep us from freezing to death. What a
great God we serve!
God has wonderfully and marvelously created everything and you would think
mankind would spend all of his waking hours talking about the great Creator. In-
stead most people spend all of their waking hours talking about utter nonsense.
*God must be very displeased that people can talk about so many things, but
never about God and His greatness. What a great spiritual tragedy it is that
people talk about…
- Actors and actresses who are merely people who pretend to be something they are not.
- A man who can hit a baseball, or shoot a basketball.
- Race-car drivers, etc.
Yet they never talk about God who made the heavens and earth and gave His
Son to die for our sins!
*God told the people of Israel to take those stones and build a memorial unto
Him and when their children see it and ask why it was built, they were to TELL
THEM!
*Notice two things in this passage:
- The curiosity of a child (Joshua 4:6). God didn’t say that they
MIGHT ASK. He said, “…WHEN THEY ASK…” Children ask some
amusing questions.
ILLUS. A little girl was taken to church for the first time. When
everyone knelt to pray, she asked, “What are they going to
do?” The mother answered, “Ssssh, they are going to pray.”
The amazed little girl looked at them and asked, “what..with
all their clothes on?”
Another little boy was in school and said to the teacher, “I
aint got no pencil.” The teacher corrected him at once, say-
ing,
- “It’s I don’t have a pencil.”
- “We don’t have any pencils.”
- “They don’t have any pencils.”
The little boy then asked, “What happened to all d’em pencils?”
Something children will do is ask questions. Listen, God made Children
that way. That is how they learn. They ask questions.
Sometimes we as adults get upset when children ask so many questions
but we must remember that this is how God made them.
God told the Israelites to pile those stones up as a MEMORIAL and when
the children saw them, they would ask WHY THOSE STONES WERE
PILED UP, and God wanted them to tell them…
- How they had been slaves to an evil taskmaster named Pharoah.
- How hopeless they felt. They wanted to be free but could not be. They prayed to God and He heard their cry and delivered them.
- How God had led them across the dry bed of the Red Sea, and then drowned Pharoah and all his soldiers when they attempted to cross.
- How God had led them through the wilderness for forty years and fed them with manna from above.
- How God gave them water out of a rock.
- How God brought them to Jordan and commanded them to pile those stones up for a memorial so when they got curious and asked what they meant, they should tell the children of God’s greatness.
The stones were to be a memorial of what God had done for them.
*When God does something for us, IT IS WORTH REMEMBERING and
TALKING ABOUT! If it isn’t worth remembering, then God didn’t do
that much. Listen, it is worth remembering when God saved you by
His marvelous grace and brought you from DEATH unto LIFE!
*Some men love to hunt and fish. They spend all their life talking about
doing nothing except that, but then they should not be shocked when
their sons are completely possessed with a desire to fish and nothing
else. Some of you ladies are completely overwhelmed by a desire to
shop. You talk all the time about what you want to buy next. You
should not be when your daughters grow up and have an unsatiable
desire to shop.
*God told His people that when their children ask, “WHAT MEAN YE BY
THESE STONES,” they should tell them that God had brought them
OUT OF SLAVERY UNTO LIFE!
Tell the children how sin almost wrecked your life. Tell them how
miserable sin made you.
This passage shows us THE CUROSITY OF A CHILD. But it also shows
us…
- The caring of a child. We have a generation of parents who are
concerned about leaving the wrong things to their children. Some
parents in their concern of wanting to provide for their children, have
literally destroyed their children.
- They want their children to be accepted by those of high social standing so they think they have to buy them all name-brand clothing.
- They are concerned about having a nice car so they can ride with theirfriends.
- They are concerned about leaving them a large bank account when they die.
- They are concerned about their education. They want them to be accepted. It matters very little that the college or university they send their child to is atheistic and filled with sin.
All these parents care about is that their children will be accepted and
that their children have what they never had.
*We have raised a generation of young people WHO DO NOT KNOW
WHAT IS RIGHT FROM WHAT IS WRONG! We have given them
everything the world has to offer and produced a generation of
people who are ungrateful and lack Christian character. We have
provided the material things, but have forgotten to provide those
that produce strong character in their lives.
*What we have left out are the MEMORIALS that they can see and say,
“Daddy, tell me how God had helped you so that I can know how He
will help me.” In Deuteronomy 6:6-7, God told Israel, “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 risest up.”
*God said teach them! It did not matter if it was….
- During leisure time, (when you sit in your houses).
- When you are going somewhere, (when you walk by the way).
- When you are getting ready for bed, (when you lay down).
God commanded that His people PROVIDE SPIRITUAL INSTRUCTION
FOR THEIR CHILDREN. God told Israel to tell their children, over and
over again, HOW GOOD HE HAD BEEN TO THEM!
*If we do not tell our children then we are not building memorials that
will exalt the LORD Jesus Christ. God wants to build some
MEMORIALS. But, if the people of God do not get “on fire” for God,
our children will only remember God as a fairy tale.
*We need MEMORIALS they can see. Then when they see they will
ask, “What does this mean?” If the church does not soon see the
hand of God move, WE are not going to have anything to tell our
children!
CLOSING: God told Joshua and the children of Israel they were to build a memorial
for HIM. Did they do it? Look at Joshua 4:8-9. They obeyed the LORD.
Now God is asking the same of us today. Parents, did you know that
what you make to be great is what you children will make great? The
thing we make to be god is the same thing that our children will make a
god. God wants parents and grandparents to be consumed with HIM,
and when we are we will build MEMORIALS that our children will see and
ask us about.
H