A Life in Exile

We are now exactly three months into our focus on the word remember in Scripture, and with nine months remaining, we turn to mankind. Yes, there we have seen that God remembers as well. He remembers his word, his actions, and his people. He is faithful to remember.

We, on the other hand, are not.

Today, we will begin several weeks of just that—our tendency to forget. We forget God, we forget what he’s done for us, and we forget his Word. We are a forgetful people, thanks to our sinful nature. As we look this week and next at Israel’s forgetfulness, we have lessons to learn rather than fingers to point.

It’s easy to forget what we do not know.

Two passages in the book of Judges will help to set the stage of this portion in our Friday Focus. First, it’s helpful to understand what was happening in the time of the judges. The people were in the land and Joshua had died. Chapter two is a great summary of the entire book.

That whole generation was also gathered to their ancestors. After them another generation rose up who did not know the Lord or the works he had done for Israel. The Israelites did what was evil in the Lord’s sight. They worshiped the Baals and abandoned the Lord, the God of their ancestors, who had brought them out of Egypt. (Judges 2:10-12 CSB)

Why did they not know the Lord? How could they learn if their parents and elders did not pass down to them the teachings of the Lord and the Torah? Their forgetfulness would lead to sin, and their sin of idol worship would lead to the prophesied oppression by other peoples.

The Israelites did what was evil in the Lord’s sight; they forgot the Lord their God and worshiped the Baals and the Asherahs. The Lord’s anger burned against Israel, and he sold them to King Cushan-rishathaim of Aram-naharaim, and the Israelites served him eight years. (Judges 3:7-8, emphasis added)

Over and over again, the people would forget, suffer the consequences, cry out to the Lord, be saved by a righteous judge, and then forget again. After the death of one such judge, Gideon, we see their tendencies rise up.

When Gideon died, the Israelites turned and prostituted themselves by worshiping the Baals and made Baal-berith their god. The Israelites did not remember the Lord their God who had rescued them from the hand of the enemies around them. They did not show kindness to the house of Jerubbaal (that is, Gideon) for all the good he had done for Israel. (Judges 8:33-35, emphasis added)

Thus the book ends with this obvious statement:

In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did whatever seemed right to him. (Judges 21:25)

When we forget God, we do what we think best, which doesn’t usually turn out well.

Remember now before it’s too late.

The next collection of verses will all come from the Psalms. Forgetting the Lord in this life is disastrous, as there is no second chance.

Turn, Lord! Rescue me; save me because of your faithful love. For there is no remembrance of you in death; who can thank you in Sheol? (Psalm 6:4-5)

Asaph wrote a psalm of God’s judgment. He is righteous in all he does and has every right to serve a drastic sentence upon those who forget.

“Understand this, you who forget God, or I will tear you apart, and there will be no one to rescue you. Whoever offers a thanksgiving sacrifice honors me, and whoever orders his conduct, I will show him the salvation of God.” (Psalm 50:22-23, emphasis added)

Yes, he knows our weakness, our tendency to forget, but that does not make it right. How could Israel so easily forget all the Lord had done? How can we? Asaph again, shares it so powerfully:

Yet he was compassionate; he atoned for their iniquity and did not destroy them. He often turned his anger aside and did not unleash all his wrath. He remembered that they were only flesh, a wind that passes and does not return. How often they rebelled against him in the wilderness and grieved him in the desert. They constantly tested God and provoked the Holy One of Israel. They did not remember his power shown on the day he redeemed them from the foe, when he performed his miraculous signs in Egypt and his wonders in the territory of Zoan. (Psalm 78:38-43, emphasis added)

He could have easily destroyed Israel for their sin:

At Horeb they made a calf and worshiped the cast metal image. They exchanged their glory for the image of a grass-eating ox. They forgot God their Savior, who did great things in Egypt, wondrous works in the land of Ham, awe-inspiring acts at the Red Sea. So he said he would have destroyed them—if Moses his chosen one had not stood before him in the breach to turn his wrath away from destroying them. (Psalm 106:19-23, emphasis added)

What powerful things, what wonders has the Lord done in your life? How has he shown his protective hand on you? How has he led you through storms and wildernesses? Have you forgotten him like the Israelites did?

The price of forgetting.

The forgetfulness of God’s people led them into exile. If they wanted to follow the gods of the peoples living near them, now they would get the chance to know what that looked like on a grand scale, as they entered into the pagan land of Babylon. Psalm 137 is their song of lament. Too little—too late. Now they would claim they could never forget, not their God, but their special city—Jerusalem. It’s a short psalm, but I think it’s important to include all of it here.

By the rivers of Babylon—there we sat down and wept when we remembered Zion. There we hung up our lyres on the poplar trees, for our captors there asked us for songs, and our tormentors, for rejoicing: “Sing us one of the songs of Zion.”

How can we sing the Lord’s song on foreign soil? If I forget you, Jerusalem, may my right hand forget its skill. May my tongue stick to the roof of my mouth if I do not remember you, if I do not exalt Jerusalem as my greatest joy!

Remember, Lord, what the Edomites said that day at Jerusalem: “Destroy it! Destroy it down to its foundations!” Daughter Babylon, doomed to destruction, happy is the one who pays you back what you have done to us. Happy is he who takes your little ones and dashes them against the rocks. (Psalm 137)

In light of our topic, I find this psalm very sad. If only God’s people had realized that the reason they were in exile was because they had forgotten him. We’re going to see what the prophets had to say about this in our next post, but for today, think about what you’re mourning, what you swear to never forget. Is it a city? A person? A time when things were good?

Just as the Israelites missed the point, be careful not to miss mine here. It is God alone who should never be forgotten. Remember him, return to him, worship him alone, before it’s too late.

Grace and Peace

If you missed the last Friday Focus post, click HERE, or start from the Beginning.