A GOOD MEMORY – by the Rev. William Arnot (1808-1875), LAWS FROM HEAVEN FOR LIFE ON EARTH: Illustrations of the Book of Proverbs (1857)

 

"My son, forget not my law; but let thine heart keep my commandments," — Proverbs 2: 1.

Wisdom - the wisdom from above continues still to cry. How gentle and winsome is the voice of this monitor! "My son, forget not." Such pity as a father hath, like pity shows the Lord.  Throughout his dispensations, the Eternal wears the aspect of Father to his creature man. In the Bible, the parental regard is seen glancing through at every opening. When Jesus taught his disciples how to pray, Father was the foremost word of the inspired liturgy. With this tender name is the arrow pointed that is to penetrate the heavens. Those who have skill to read the hieroglyphs of nature, will find many a parallel text in earth and sea. The world is full of his goodness. The fatherliness of the Creator is graven on all his works.

The matter thus tenderly commended to the pupil's regard is nothing less than "my law." He who made us knows what is good for us. Submission to his will is the best condition for humanity. What shall be the

guide of our life  - our own depraved liking, or the holy will of God? Our own will lead to sin and misery. The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul, and making wise the simple. The two rival rules are set

before us. “Choose ye whom ye shall serve. His servants ye are whom ye obey, whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness.”

"Forget not my law;" another evidence that the Inspirer of the word knows what is in man. Silently to forget God's law is amongst us a much more common thing than blasphemously to reject it. To renounce God's

law because your reason condemns it, is the infidelity that slays its thousands: to forget God's law because your heart does not like it, is the ungodliness that slays its ten thousands. The deceitfulness of the heart is a form of sin's disease much more widely spread and much more fatal than the hostility of the understanding. In the Bible, God displays more of jealousy than of wrath. He cannot endure that any idol should possess the dwelling- place which He has made for Himself. The very keynote of the Scriptures is, "My son, give Me thine heart." "Let thine heart keep my commandments;" another step in the same direction, another stage in the process of dissecting the spirit, in order to reach the seat of sin.

What the heart cleaves to is not readily forgotten. As a general rule it may be safely laid down, that what you habitually forget you do not care for. So true is it, that love is the fulfilling of the law. If you do not love it, so far from obeying it, you will not even remember that there is such a thing. It is often given as an excuse for evil doing, that it was done without thought-that the evil of it was not present to the mind. If you had observed at the time the real character of your action, you would have done otherwise. What is this but to tell that your heart does not keep God's commandment? If that law had been at hand, in God's name forbidding the word or the deed, you would have refrained. No thanks to you. That is as much as to say you would not of set purpose oppose the Almighty to his face. But you did what He complains of; you forgot Him and his law.

You had extruded these from your heart as unwelcome visitors, and now you say, fi they had been within, the mischief would not have happened. But why were they not within? Why was the word not dwelling richly in you? Why was your heart not its hidden home? The house was full of the company that you liked. The law of the Lord, weary waiting on outside, had slipped away unnoticed. It was not there—it was not in sight, with its holy frown, when the temptation pressed suddenly, and prevailed. If it had been there, the enemy would not have gained an advantage over you; and this is an excuse or palliation! What you put forward as an excuse, God marks as the very essence of the sin. The heart keeps what it loves; what it dislikes it lets go. The very soul of sin is here; "an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God"

One ever-ready excuse of those who live without God in the world is "a bad memory." Where there is real imbecility in the nature, the excuse is good; but then it si never pleaded as an excuse. The skill which can plead a treacherous memory as an excuse for not knowing the truth, would have charged the memory with the truth if it had been so applied. Those who intend to plead a short memory at the judgment-seat of God, would need to see to it that other things should slip as quickly and as cleanly of from the mind as the word of Christ. When Saul averred to Samuel "I have performed the commandment of the Lord, I have destroyed all that belonged to Amalek," Samuel replied, "What meaneth, then, this bleating of the sheep in mine ears, and this lowing of the oxen which I hear?" The king was confounded when his pretense was laid bare. What confusion must cover those who pass through life with scarcely a conception of how a sinner may be saved, when they put in the plea, "We had a treacherous memory," and are met by the question, "What mean, then, all these rules, and numbers, and events concerning the world, that crowded your memory through life, and clung there undefaced in your old age?"

Let us not deceive ourselves. When there is a hungering for the truth, the mind takes ti in; when the heart loves divine truth, the memory retains it. Turn the excuse into an aggravation, while yet there is time. Plead no more a feeble memory; begin to grieve over an evil heart. 

NOTE: I have tried to proof the digital text that is the source of this devotion. If some remain, I apologize. (J. Ogles)