
Only take care, and keep your soul diligently, lest you forget the things that your eyes have seen, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life. Make them known to your children and your children’s children.
Deuteronomy 4:9
In Charles Dicken’s Little Dorrit, a father on his deathbed presses into his son’s hand a pocket watch engraved with the letters DNF, urging his son with his dying breath to take it to his mother. The letters are a message: “Do not forget.” A son, tasked to deliver a message to ensure something is not forgotten, while an embittered, self-righteous mother is determined it must be forgotten.
Forgetting cannot change or erase the past. But forgetting (or remembering) can make all the difference in how we respond to the future.
Deuteronomy contains Moses’ final address to God’s people before he dies and they enter the Promised Land. He speaks to “all Israel” (Deuteronomy 1:1), the people from the youngest to the oldest, recounting the history of God’s providential care for them since their redemption from Egypt and later, laying out the Law yet again. I wonder if any of the children clamored to fill in the details of this familiar story (like you might hear from our covenant children of Tenth when they hear a story they know in Sunday school!). Moses repeats a familiar story and familiar words and repeatedly he warns them: do not forget!
The people of Israel experienced God’s miraculous and dramatic deliverance from Egypt, and shortly after began to doubt that God could manage a small thing like provision of food and water. They experienced God’s miraculous defeat of the Egyptians and Amalekites, but had no recollection of this when it came to the thought of facing the enemies in the land God had promised to give them. Israel has made it clear there is constant danger of forgetting.
Moses wants the people gathered before him to remember, but he also tells them to tell their story to their children and their children’s children. Moses’ warning “to not forget” echoes through the generations and to God’s people today. Their story is our story. The experiences and decisions of those who came before us, their victories and their failures, all weave into the grander narrative of redemptive history and ultimately, the unfailing purposes of God. As we recount the history of God’s people, our history, to our children and our children’s children, we remember the steadfast faithfulness of our God.
Recently, I found several Tenth Bible School brochures dated 1931-1932. The brochures are nearly 100 years old! Though crafts and illustrations change with time, the Word of our God does not change. The story of redemption does not change. Children today need to learn the same truth taught to children a century ago—as do adults! No matter how much we learn, we can never exhaust the riches of Scripture. And we are never beyond the danger of forgetting. At Tenth, we seek to diligently pass on the glorious truth of the gospel to the next generation in a variety of ways. Certainly, most importantly, we gather every Sunday corporately to hear the Word of God preached, and to join with generations who have gone before us in singing hymns and reciting the creeds and confessions of our faith. Throughout the week, families gather for family worship, small groups come together to study and apply the Word, not to mention the spiritual mothers and fathers meeting with daughters and sons in the faith for prayer and discipleship. We also have a wonderfully rich history of Christian Education for all ages through Sunday classes.
Our spring quarter begins on March 9. Would you consider making this one more way you seek diligently to remember in 2025? Learn more about current adult classes and sign up for one here.