Sinclair Ferguson

Here's another key, and for some reason the Bible puts it negatively, maybe to emphasize it to people who tend to assume that it's something we'd never forget.

Something God emphasizes now, never forget this.

It's the words of Deuteronomy 6 verse 12, take care lest you forget the Lord.

The same words appear again only a couple of chapters later on in Deuteronomy 8 verse 11.

Take care lest you forget the Lord.

Why should God have issued such a wake-up call to his people and threw them to us?

I think perhaps because it's so easy for us to think, you know, the one thing I'll never forget is the Lord.

Perhaps He's intervened in your life in some way, and you've said, from now on, it is impossible for me ever to forget the Lord.

And yet, before too long, you've begun to forget Him again.

I don't mean that we become atheists.

We don't forget God in that sense.

What I mean is we forget what He's like.

And that sometimes means we end up thinking He has forgotten us.

It's one of the great paradoxes of spiritual life.

We have forgotten him, but we misinterpret reality and we think he has forgotten us.

There's a very moving illustration of this, I think, in Psalm 102.

It's not only a great psalm, but it's a great example of how to remember what you have forgotten and the difference remembering the Lord makes.

The first 11 verses are perhaps the most melancholic poetry you could imagine reading.

I think Job could have written them.

The psalmist is distressed, and he's depressed.