Remember the days of old;
consider the years of many generations;
ask your father, and he will show you,
your elders, and they will tell you.
– Deuteronomy 32:7
“These words are the commissioning of Joshua who was to succeed Moses as the leader of the Israelite people. Moses was about to die, and now Joshua would be the man God would depend on to lead the people into the Promised Land.
Joshua had been with Moses from the beginning. He witnessed the Ten Plagues, the crossing of the Red Sea, the miracles in the desert, and the spying out of the Promised Land. At his commissioning, God called Joshua to remember all those things.
He was to remember, also, the generations. The generations that were enslaved in Egypt, the generations of the Patriarchs, who step by step carried out God’s plan to bring a Savior into the world.
Joshua was commanded to “ask your father.” The elderly among us are the eyewitnesses of the great things God has done for our nation. “Ask our elders, and they will tell you.”
It is Memorial Day, our day to remember. Remember the days of old, when courageous men fought to defend our freedom, especially our freedom to worship without interference from the government.
Consider the years of many generations. We stand on the shoulders of great heroes of the past, who fought for us and gave their lives that we might live in freedom.
Ask your father and your elders. They will show you their wounds and their medals of valor. They will tell you the stories of the great battles against enormous forces of evil- the foes of freedom.
Above all, remember the God behind our heroes. By his power and by his presence, they found courage and ferocious strength against every enemy. Thank God for his gift to us in our heroic veterans. Thank God for our freedom, at the center of which is our freedom to serve him and to worship him.
-Pastor Anderson