19.b. “Because you have forgotten me, and cast me behind your back”

Isaiah 17:10  For you have forgotten the God of your salvation and have not remembered the Rock of your refuge.

Jeremiah 3:21  A voice on the bare heights is heard, the weeping and pleading of Israel’s sons because they have perverted their way; they have forgotten the LORD their God.

Deuteronomy 32:8  Of the Rock who became your father, you are unmindful, and have forgotten God who gave you birth.

Ezekiel 23:35  Therefore thus says the Lord the LORD: Because you have forgotten me, and cast me behind your back, therefore you also bear your lewdness and your prostitution.

Hosea 4:6  My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge, I will also reject you, that you may be no priest to me. Because you have forgotten your God’s law, I will also forget your children.

Hosea 13:6  According to their pasture, so were they filled; they were filled, and their heart was exalted. Therefore they have forgotten me.

Isaiah 51:13  and have forgotten the LORD your Maker, who stretched forth the heavens, and laid the foundations of the earth

Jeremiah 13:25  This is your lot, the portion measured to you from me, says the LORD; because you have forgotten me, and trusted in falsehood.

The following was taken, in part, from an article written by Steve Huston under the title, “We have forgotten God”

Truthfully, we must bow to the fact that regardless of who will occupy the Oval Office, America is in desperate trouble because of the many decades of spiritual decay we have allowed.

A Trump administration may be better for our pocketbook than a Biden administration, and religious liberty may have had a better chance of flourishing in the past four years than is likely in the next four years; but, what did we do with our religious liberty?

What difference did we make in presenting the gospel to those around us and bringing our denominations and their respective institutions of higher learning back to the unadulterated truth of the Bible?

America remains full of moral decay; spiritual degeneracy – not teaching or learning the difference between the holy and the profane; leaders in our midst “are like wolves ravening the prey, to shed blood, and to destroy souls, to get dishonest gain;”

We have experienced and continue to experience a loss of social standards and a loss of biblical standards in so-called churches as the Word of God is mixed with the false science of the world. Ezekiel 22:28-29 KJV calls it “untempered morter, seeing vanity, and divining lies,” He goes on to say, “The people of the land have used oppression, and exercised robbery, and have vexed the poor and needy…”  Patrick Henry warned us about the path that leads to where we now sit: “Bad men cannot make good citizens. It is when a people forget God that tyrants forge their chains.” And Lincoln stated in his Proclamation Appointing a National Fast Day: “We have been preserved, these many years, in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth and power, as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own.”  When it all boils down, it’s not about political parties, communism, capitalism, or any other -ism; it’s not about economic strength or collapse; it’s not even about fair elections or religious freedom. AMERICA HAS FORGOTTEN GOD! America has forgotten what it is to go against biblical principles and fail; we’ve forgotten times of national repentance, fasting, and calling upon God and Him, in turn, hearing our prayer, forgiving our sin, and healing our land

“How did we get here?  It was through neglect, not rejecting at first but neglecting to protect what we had been given. The best way I can explain and illustrate this is by pointing to the Scripture. “Therefore we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard, lest at any time we should let them slip…How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation…” (Hebrews 2:1 KJV, Hebrews 2:3 KJV,)

Frankly, America got to where we are because we neglected to protect our Christian heritage, the freedoms guaranteed by our Constitution; we neglected the great gifts of virtue and self-governance, allowing lawlessness to creep in little by little. We must become broken and repentant of whatever spiritual apathy we may have and ask God to set us aflame anew. It is our duty to live holy, share the gospel truth, know and share our true history, and to think Biblically. How else can we remind America about the God which she has forgotten?

“…it is the duty of nations as well as of men, to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God, to confess their sins and transgressions, in humble sorrow, yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon; and to recognize the sublime truth, announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history, that those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord.” ~ Abraham Lincoln

Hear and Learn

Deuteronomy 31:12  Assemble the people, men, women, and little ones, and the sojourner within your towns, that they may hear and learn to fear the LORD your God, and be careful to do all the words of this law, and that their children, who have not known it, may hear and learn to fear the LORD your God, as long as you live in the land that you are going over the Jordan to possess.”

Psalms 78:4-8     We will not hide them from their children, but tell to the coming generation the glorious deeds of the LORD, and his might, and the wonders that he has done.  He established a testimony in Jacob and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers to teach to their children,  that the next generation might know them, the children yet unborn, and arise and tell them to their children,  so that they should set their hope in God and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments;  and that they should not be like their fathers, a stubborn and rebellious generation, a generation whose heart was not steadfast, whose spirit was not faithful to God.

Proverbs 22:6     Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.

Ephesians 6:4   Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.

Deuteronomy 11:2     And consider today (since I am not speaking to your children who have not known or seen it), consider the discipline of the LORD your God, his greatness, his mighty hand and his outstretched arm,

We have an awesome responsibility and privilege to speak of God and live for Him so that others might hear and see the hope we have in the power, might, strength, grace, love, and mercy of God.

We should not take this lightly for each day gives us opportunity to bring glory, honor and praise to Him.  God’s word spoken will not return void, our prayers will not be unheard, and a softening of their heart can take place.  Yet at the end of the day it each persons choice to believe in God and through faith come to salvation through Christ.

When we believe, and are saved, redeemed, forgiven and have heart, mind, and soul deep knowledge and understanding of God and the everlasting light He has opened up to us, it is hard to make sense of how we lived and believed before.  We are born again, a new creation, where all things are new and morning by morning new mercies we see.

God’s word in our lives each day will have purpose for growing our love for Him and faith in Him.  Many will try to make sense of the world through wisdom of man, denying God.  Be mindful we too were once lost and without hope.  Live to bring light of God to those still living in darkness.  You never know who those  who choose to live in darkness will have their heart softened by God through you.  Tell of all of his glorious works, wonders, might, and ever lasting love for those who call upon Him.

Yet I wait

Psalms 100:5  For the LORD is good; his steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness to all generations.

Psalms 119:68    You are good and do good; teach me your statutes.

Psalms 119:90-91     Your faithfulness endures to all generations; you have established the earth, and it stands fast.  By your appointment they stand this day, for all things are your servants.

Exodus 34:6-7    The LORD passed before him and proclaimed, “The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness,  keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.”

Deuteronomy 7:9     Know therefore that the LORD your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations,

Romans 15:8-9    For I tell you that Christ became a servant to the circumcised to show God’s truthfulness, in order to confirm the promises given to the patriarchs,  and in order that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy. As it is written, “Therefore I will praise you among the Gentiles, and sing to your name.”

Tit 1:1-3  their knowledge of the truth, which accords with godliness, in hope of eternal life, which God, who never lies, promised before the ages began and at the proper time manifested in his word

When I read these verses of God’s steadfast love and faithfulness to all generations I wonder what should be manifested in a life that believes this with all their heart, mind, and soul.  What thoughts come to mind when trials, troubles, and issues run full force into our lives?  Do I wait for the one who is my refuge, hope, rock, strength or do I fret, worry, and have thoughts of defeat and giving up?  See the depth of faith in time of great fear;  Habakkuk 3:16-18     I hear, and my body trembles; my lips quiver at the sound; rottenness enters into my bones; my legs tremble beneath me. Yet I will quietly wait for the day of trouble to come upon people who invade us.  Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls,  yet I will rejoice in the LORD; I will take joy in the God of my salvation.