MELVIN M. NEWLAND, MINISTER
RIDGE CHAPEL, KANSAS, OK
(Revised: 2010)
A. Tomorrow is officially designated as a holiday marked in many communities by a variety of solemn observances. All across the United States people will gather in parks & cemeteries to commemorate what this day symbolizes.
Bands will play, speeches will be given, prayers will be offered up to God, “Taps” will be played, & guns fired as a salute to those whom our nation seeks to remember on this day.
From Valley Forge to Berlin, from San Juan Hill to Heartbreak Ridge, from Iwo Jima to Saigon & Desert Storm, the blood of American soldiers is permanently mingled with the soil of four continents & hundreds of islands.
And Memorial Day is our feeble attempt to remember & say “Thanks” to those who gave their best & all they had that we might continue to enjoy the liberties that are ours.
ILL. Our present commemoration of this Day came out of the Civil War. In 1865, shortly after the close of the war, some women in Vicksburg, Mississippi chose May 30th as a day to place flowers upon the graves of their war dead.
The practice of choosing a special day to decorate the graves of the war dead soon spread both North & South, & it came to be called “Decoration Day.”
In 1868, a group of women in Washington D.C. asked permission of the War Department to decorate the graves at Arlington National Cemetery & to be allowed to have a special memorial ceremony to mark that occasion.
After a lot of discussion, permission was granted. But the officials attached a harsh provision: No flowers were to be placed on the graves of the Confederate soldiers who were buried in a separate section of the cemetery. The ladies finally agreed, & planned their program.
General James Garfield, a devout Christian who later became President of the United States, delivered the memorial speech. And in accordance with their agreement, flowers were placed only upon the graves of the Union dead - & not upon the graves in the Confederate section.
But after the crowds were gone, a strong wind arose & blew almost all the flowers over onto the Confederate graves. When that became known, many people believed that it was a direct result of God’s intervention. After that, the order to ignore the Confederate graves was never repeated. (Source - Poet, Journalist James Ryder Randall - See Poem, "At Arlington")
Now it is called “Memorial Day” & it is observed as a day to honor the fallen of all our nation’s wars – a time when our country pauses to remember those who made the ultimate sacrifice for the freedoms that we enjoy. We owe them, & all those who served with them, far more than we will ever realize.
ILL. As many of you know, my parents, my brothers, & one of my sisters were prisoners in the Santo Tomas Internment Camp in the Philippines during WW 2.
As American forces landed on the island of Luzon, the Commandant of the Prison received orders to “…kill all the male internees if the Americans attack Manila, & to use the women & children as hostages to be held between the lines.”
I wish I had time to tell you the whole story. But simply put, under direct orders of Gen. Douglas MacArthur, 900 men of the First Cavalry Division made a 60-mile dash in the middle of the night through territory held by 50,000 enemy soldiers.
They took both the civilian & military prisons in Manila - & held them for 3 weeks against overwhelming odds - & at the cost of many of their own lives - until the rest of the army could arrive to liberate Manila. I, personally, feel a tremendous debt to those men!
B. The key to Memorial Day is remembering, & the author of the Book of Hebrews calls us in the 12th chapter to remember that we are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses. He writes:
“Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us” (Hebrews 12:1).
And by beginning that passage with the word, “Therefore,” he is intentionally calling our attention back to the heroes of the faith who are mentioned in the previous verses, the 11th chapter, the great “Faith Chapter” of the Bible.
Look back at the 11th chapter & notice some of the names that he is asking us to remember – Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Rahab. Then in vs’s 32-34 he adds:
“And what more shall I say? I do not have time to tell about Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jepthah, David, Samuel and the prophets, who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, and gained what was promised, who shut the mouths of lions, quenched the fury of the flames, and escaped the edge of the sword, whose weakness was turned to strength; and who became powerful in battle and routed foreign armies.” (Hebrews 11:32-34)
What a great variety of people, many of them just ordinary individuals of faith, but used by God in extraordinary ways to accomplish His will. You see, God makes a habit of doing the impossible through people who are not that much different from you & me.
The secret of living a life that makes a difference is realizing that it is not what you do for yourself, but rather it is what you allow God to do for others through you. This is how we make a difference in this world, & how we make a lasting impact.
Steve Green, a songwriter, puts it this way:
"Oh, may all who come behind us find us faithful,
May the fire of our devotion light their way.
May the footprints that we leave, lead them to believe,
And the lives we live inspire them to obey.
Oh, may all who come behind us find us faithful!"
I believe with all my heart that we are surrounded by a greater cloud of witnesses than we will ever know until we all stand together before the throne of our Lord & our God. We are the recipients of the faith, testimony & sacrifices made by unnumbered multitudes who have blazed the path before us.
Like the Psalmist of old, we cry out, “Since my youth, O God, you have taught me, and to this day I declare your marvelous deeds. Even when I am old and gray, do not forsake me, O God, till I declare your power to the next generation, your might to all who are to come” (Psalm 71:1-18).
"Oh, may all who come behind us find us faithful!”
C. Memory! What a wonderful gift it is! Without it we would stumble through a world of confusion, unable to profit from anything we had learned before. And locked away, deep down inside each of us there is a treasure house full of memories & pictures of the past that time alone can never erase.
Not all our memories are pleasant ones, of course. Some are very sad. But there are happy memories too - recollections we wouldn’t exchange for any sum of money in the world.
And yet we do forget! Even important things gradually fade away. That’s one reason why we have days set aside like Memorial Day. They’re memory aids. We need them so that we’ll not forget.
ILL. The story is told of a certain Persian king who arose from a poverty-stricken home to the glory of the royal throne. After he was crowned king he sent his servants to the old shack where he was reared, with orders to gather every relic of those days.
They found many broken toys, his patched shirt, a crude wooden bowl from which he ate, & many other worthless mementos of his childhood. All these he arranged in a special room of his palace, & each day he spent one whole hour sitting among the reminders of his humble origin.
And on the wall hung a prayer entitled: “Lest I Forget.”
We have memory aids all around us to commemorate certain people & events: Dams, bridges, buildings, museums, scrapbooks, diaries, videos, photo albums, tombstones, statues, & monuments. And sometimes even they are not enough.
ILL. Listen to this news item from Newsweek Magazine - January 22, 2001:
“Their hair is gray, their shoulders are slumped & they walk with the shuffle of the aged. Their ship, a rusty antique, wallowed through the Atlantic, battered by a winter storm. For the elderly crew of LST-325, a creaking World War II troop ship that had been taken out of service in 1946, it was the last chance to recapture their youth - & to preserve their exploits for future generations.
“Ironically, the U.S. Coast Guard deemed the voyage from Greece to Mobile, Alabama unsafe. But the same daring that led these men to ignore deadly enemy fire during the war, led them to ignore the Coast Guard warnings.
“The crew battled ancient equipment, 110 degree heat, cockroaches, governmental regulations, & the death of a crewmember to secure the old vessel & make it seaworthy. ‘They tried to stop us…, but we knew that we could do it,’ one of the crew members said.
“The ship, now safe at harbor in Alabama, will be the first memorial to the heroism of the amphibious landing craft crews. LST-325 will serve as a double-memorial to the men who served bravely under fire during the war, & then fought once again to reclaim her from the scrap heap.”
D. We are so prone to forget, & that’s why memorials are important & necessary. But do you know what is even more tragic than forgetting our heritage? It’s forgetting how much we owe to God! Each Sunday is really a kind of memorial day - a day to remind us of God’s love & kindness to us - & Christ’s sacrifice for us.
In Psalm 103, David urges us not to forget. He wrote: “Praise the Lord, O my soul; all my inmost being, praise His holy name. Praise the Lord, O my soul, & forget not all His benefits – who forgives all your sins & heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit & crowns you with love & compassion, who satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.
“The Lord works righteousness & justice for all the oppressed…. The Lord is compassionate & gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love.
“He will not always accuse, nor will He harbor His anger forever; He does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities.
“For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is His love for those who fear Him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us.
“As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear Him; for He knows how we’re formed, He remembers that we are dust.” (Psalm 103:1-14)
In those verses David mentions a number of wonderful blessings that come from God: the forgiveness of our sins, healing of our diseases, His redemption of our lives from the pit, the gifts of love, compassion, & inner satisfaction, righteousness, justice, the revealing of His will for our lives.
But then in vs’s 17 & 18 He tells us that these blessings are conditional upon our obedience to His commands. Listen to His words:
“But from everlasting to everlasting the Lord’s love is with those who fear Him, & His righteousness with their children’s children – with those who keep His covenant & remember to obey His precepts.”
You see, the blessings are not automatic! They come to us as we walk in His way. They’ll keep us steady in times of trial. And they’ll help heal our emotional scars & hurts.
But remembering God’s goodness & blessings is not enough! It must also result in some positive actions. Let me suggest 3 things we can do as we remember the blessings & mercies of God.
I. GIVE THANKS
First of all, “Give thanks!”
ILL. Dr. David Soper, in “God is Inescapable,” suggests that basically the difference between a prison & a monastery is only the difference between griping & gratitude. Prisoners spend every waking moment griping, whereas monks spend every waking moment giving thanks. They are both imprisoned, in a sense, but what a difference!
Dr. Soper goes on to say that when a prisoner becomes a saint, a prison becomes a monastery; when a saint gives up gratitude, a monastery may become a prison.
Remember, “The hardest arithmetic to master is that which helps us to count our blessings.”
II. RESOLVE TO WALK IN GOD’S WAYS
Secondly, “Resolve to walk in God’s ways,” no matter what! Next to the one who doesn’t pay his bills, I’m told that a doctor’s most annoying patient is the one who refuses to follow orders.
Recently it was estimated that between 60 - 90% of all patients cheat on their diets, continue to smoke, or never return for their scheduled checkups - despite careful prescriptions & detailed advice from their doctors.
In the same way, there are many today who are spiritually ill - weak & anemic. They lack the stamina & power to resist temptation because they fail to heed God’s Word & walk in disobedience.
The memory of God’s grace & love should spur each of us to a firm determination to do His will regardless of the cost.
III. TEACH OUR CHILDREN…
Finally, “Teach our children” & our grandchildren about the goodness of God.
How do we keep the memory of God alive in their hearts? May I suggest: Tell them of your personal relationship with God. Share with them the eternal truths concerning Him. Live before them in such a way that they will also hunger & thirst for God.
Memory is a great gift from God. Use it in the most positive way you can. And may the past mercies of God serve as a help for the present & a hope for the future.
ILL. It is said that Cyrus, the founder of the Persian Empire, once captured a prince & his family. When they came before him, Cyrus asked the prince, “What will you give me if I release you?” “The half of my wealth,” was his reply.
“And to release your children?” “Everything I possess.” “And to release your wife?” “Your Majesty, I will give myself.”
Cyrus was so moved by his devotion that he freed them all. As they returned home, the prince said to his wife, “Wasn’t Cyrus a handsome man!”
With a look of deep love for her husband, she said to him, “I didn’t notice. I could only keep my eyes on you - the one who was willing to give himself for me.”
INVITATION
