Never Forget

Does anybody know what this ship is? It's called the USS New York.

It's the fifth in a new class of warships designed for missions that include

special operations against terrorists.

It can carry a crew of 360 sailors and 700 combat-ready Marines to be delivered

ashore by helicopters and assault craft.

This warcraft, this warship, was constructed after the terrorist attacks on

September 11, 2011 in New York City and Washington, D.C.

This ship was built with 24 tons of scrap steel salvaged from the World Trade Center in New York.

The devastation of Hurricane Katrina, disrupted construction on the ship,

but a 640-foot, 84-foot vessel escaped serious damage and workers were back at work to finish it.

Steel from the World Trade Center was melted down in a foundry in Amit,

Louisiana to cast the ship's bow section, and then it was poured into molds on September 9, 2003.

Goes on to say who was the admiral of it and all of this kind of stuff,

but it was finally finished construction in 2009 and put into service.

It had a big meaning to it for all of those who said they knocked us down,

but they can't keep us down.

We're going to be back. This was

a memorial, in a sense, to those who were killed on September 11, 2001.

It was deployed to the Persian Gulf on June 10, 2012, for its first voyage into combat area.

What is the ship's motto? Do you know?

Never forget. That's what we're reminded about September 11, 2001. Never forget.

Some may take the motto, never forget, almost as if we're holding a grudge,

but I want to focus on the thought, if we forget what has happened in the past,

then it's very likely that we will repeat history.

If we don't learn from the past, as we go into the future, we will very likely repeat it.

I, for one, never want to forget the blood that has been shed so that I can

enjoy the freedom which we enjoy now.

I never want to forget those who have lost sons, daughters, husbands,

mothers, and fathers for the freedom in which we enjoy this morning.

Freedom not just of religion, but freedom to live, freedom to protest,

freedom to do all kinds of things that are being done in this day and age now,

and yet their freedom to do that has been purchased by the blood of our soldiers.

You may say, what freedom? Well, we have the freedom of religion,

freedom of worship how we want, freedom to worship God the way we feel we need to.

Our flag stands for the freedom that we enjoy each day.

Our flag stands for those who have given their lives to service so that some

people can have the right to stand when the flag is presented,

but then it also gives the right for some of those who want to,

to trample on that flag or burn that flag.

Sad, but that's a reality.

As Auburn education, Auburn.edu explains,

the Christian flag is the only flag, the only free flag that was developed other

than national flags, but it was the only one free flag in the world.

It is different from every other flag, religious or secular, ancient or modern.

It is uncontrolled, independent, and universal.

Unlike all national flags and all denominational flags of various churches,

the Christian flag has no earthly bonds or legions.

Its sole bond is to Christ, and Christ alone as its master.

Without limitations, it exists for all the world's people, regardless of race,

color, sex, national boundary, economic condition, affluence,

or poverty, politics, slavery, or freedom.

It cannot be restricted by any nation because it doesn't stand for a nation or a denomination.

It stands for the Christian church.

The Christian flag is one of the oldest unchanged flags in the world.

It was conceived at Brighton Chapel, Coney Island, New York,

on Sunday, September 26, 1897, was presented in its current form the following

Sunday by its originator.

The first pledge was written by a Methodist pastor, Lynn Harold,

and the flag had white on the flag that represents purity and peace.

The blue stands for faithfulness, truth, and sincerity.

Red, of course, stands for the color of sacrifice in the blood of Jesus Christ on Calvary.

The Pledge of Allegiance to the Christian's flag goes like this.

Some of you kids might be able to say this. I pledge allegiance to the Christian

flag and to the Savior for whose kingdom it stands, one Savior crucified.

Risen, and coming again with life and liberty for all who believe.

Our observance of Memorial Day started many years ago, and there are two versions of how it started.

In April of 1863, Columbus in Columbus, Mississippi, after decorating the graves

of her two sons who served during the Civil War as Confederate soldiers,

an elderly woman also decorated two mounds at the far corner of the cemetery.

An observer asked, what are you doing?

Those are the graves of two Union soldiers, and her reply was this,

I know, but I also know that somewhere in the North, a mother or a young wife

is grieving the loss of those two soldiers.

That set in motion what became known, eventually became known as Memorial Day.

This custom of placing flowers on the graves of the war began in May 5,

1866 in Waterloo, New York.

And Waterloo has been recognized by Congress as the official birthplace of Memorial Day.

I was reminded that one of the times when my friend from Iowa,

we were down in Iowa, and we went out to his farm to do some hunting one weekend,

and we passed this old church that was a log church on the side of a hill called

Mars Hill Church, and I'd never seen it.

So we stopped there to look at it, and there was a cemetery out behind the church,

like there is a lot of little old churches.

And in the front row of the cemetery were the headstones for military with the

crosses on them for the soldiers that had died that were buried there.

And my friend's son asked me, Pastor, what are those graves there for?

And I said, those are for the men who died in the service.

And he said, oh, did you preach here too? In the book of Exodus,

we are given another reminder of something that we must never forget.

And we're going to read from Exodus 12, verses 1 through 14.

Exodus 12:1–14

The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in Egypt, This month is to be for you,

the first month, the first month of your year.

Tell the whole community of Israel that on the tenth day of this month,

each man is to take a lamb for his family, one for each household.

If any household is too small for a whole lamb, they must share one with their

nearest neighbor, having taken into account the number of people there are.

You are to determine the amount of lamb needed in accordance with what each person will eat.

The animals you choose must be a year old males without defect,

and you may take them from the sheep or the goats.

Take care of them until the fourteenth day of the month, when all the members

of the community of Israel must slaughter them at twilight.

Then they are to take some of the blood and put it on the sides and the tops

of the door frames of the houses where they eat the lambs.

That same night they are to eat the meat roasted over the fire,

along with bitter herbs and bread made without yeast.

Do not eat the meat raw or boiled in water, but roasted over a fire,

with the head, legs, and internal organs.

Do not leave any of it till morning. If any is left till morning, you must burn it.

This is how you are to eat it, with your cloak tucked into your belt,

your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand.

Eat it in haste. It is the Lord's Passover.

On that same night I will pass through Egypt and strike down every firstborn

of both people and animals, and I will bring judgment on all the gods of Egypt.

I am the Lord. The blood will be a sign for you on the houses where you are,

and when I see the blood, I will pass over you.

No destructive plague will touch you when I strike Egypt.

This is a day you are to commemorate. For the generations to come,

you shall celebrate it as a festival to the Lord, a lasting ordinance.

God instructs the Jews to have a feast every year to remember or memorialize

the great works that he did in Egypt.

This is a story of God freeing Israel from slavery in Egypt.

The 10th plague is about to fall on the land. In that plague,

the firstborn of each household will die.

In fact, the firstborn among the livestock will die as well.

But God provides a way of protection for his people.

He tells them to sacrifice a lamb and put the blood of the lamb on the top and

the side posts of the door.

Then he promises in Exodus 12, verse 13, when I see the blood, I will pass over you.

Exodus 12:13

No destructive plague will touch you when I strike all of Egypt.

There was one essential distinction between the Israelites and the Egyptians on that fateful night.

The blood applied by faith in obedience to God's instruction made all the difference,

and God didn't say, I'll review your works and decide whether you're worthy

enough for protection or not.

If he had done that, all of Israel would have been in big trouble, and so would we.

This became an awesome demonstration of God's grace.

God himself provided that way of their salvation. It was a precursor for what we have now.

All they had to do was to trust God and take him at his word and do exactly what he told them to do.

The blood applied to the doorposts and the lintel was the essential difference.

Of course, we know that the blood of those lambs was only a foreshadowing of

the blood that would provide for the eternal protection we all need.

A lamb was sacrificed for each household of Israelites, and his blood applied

to the doorposts so the death angel would pass over their dwelling when the

firstborn of the Israelites died.

God instructed Moses to make the anniversary of the miracle,

a memorial day for them. He wanted them to remember these things.

An interesting thing, if you look at this, they would take a branch of hyssop,

dip it in the blood of the lamb, and put it on the lintel and the doorposts of their house.

So what does that look like?

Christ put his blood on the lintel and the doorpost of the cross so that we

would be forgiven and cleansed and purified.

I want us to look at some things here. First of all, God wanted them to remember

the provision of this sacrifice.

They were to provide the sacrifice of a lamb to remind them of their deliverance from slavery.

The lamb was supposed to be without blemish and within the first year of its birth.

This unblemished lamb was an early indication, an early recognition of the sacrifice

that Christ would make to deliver us from slavery.

Hebrews 9, verse 14 says, How much more then will the blood of Christ,

Hebrews 9:14

who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God,

cleanse our consciousness from acts that lead to death so that we may serve the living God?

1 Peter 1, verses 18 and 19 says,

1 Peter 1:18

For you know that it was not with perishable things, such as silver or gold,

that you were redeemed from the empty ways of life, handed down to you from

your precious ancestors.

But it was with the precious blood of Jesus Christ, a lamb without blemish,

or in fact, Jesus was called the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world.

That provision has been made for us. The blood of Christ was shed for us.

The sacrifice was without blemish.

Jesus was sinless, was perfect, and bore no sin in him.

He was without spot or blemish. And how much better it is than the Old Testament version.

The blood of Christ is one that is for all times.

It's a perfect sacrifice. The lamb was to be taken from the flock on the 10th

day and kept apart and fed by itself until the 14th day when it was taken outside

the city to be sacrificed.

The sacrifice has been provided for us so we can have spiritual freedom.

But there also have been thousands of men and women who have paid the ultimate

price so that we can have freedom as well.

In the sacrifice and in the administration of the blood of that sacrifice, there was a promise.

That promise was that wherever the angel of death saw the blood of the sacrifice,

he would pass over that household and spare them from the death that he was

administering that night.

The blood of the lamb was to be painted on the doorpost and the lintel of the

house. The doorposts were the vertical pieces, as I said, and the lintel was the horizontal piece.

The blood was a sign to the angel of death that those in that household were not to be destroyed.

Just like the blood on that doorpost caused the angel of death to pass over,

so much so, the blood of Christ that is poured out for us—.

Is a reminder to God that we are forgiven and he passes over us in the destruction of life for sin.

The sacrifice of Christ's blood has been provided, and we have the promise of

what the sacrifice did for us.

This is our Memorial Day. Every time we participate in the Lord's Supper,

as we do the first Sunday, mostly the first Sunday of every month,

We are reminded of the sacrifice that Christ has done for us,

that is, he's given to us.

And we are reminded that it was his body and blood that became the Lamb of God sacrificed for us.

A memorial is also a way to keep remembering the justice and mercy of God.

Exodus chapter 13, verse 3, it says, And Moses said unto the people,

Exodus 13:3

Remember this day in which you came out of Egypt, out of the house of bondage,

for by strength of hand the Lord brought you out from this place,

there shall be no leavened bread among you.

Just as he took them out of Egypt, out of the sin-plagued slavery,

he didn't want any impurity in their houses as they celebrated and observed this Passover day.

They were to do that every year when they did that festival,

that week-long festival of Passover.

As Moses told his people to recall the dates of bondage, we need to remember

those days of our lives where we have had spiritual freedom.

I don't know how many of you know and remember the day that you asked Christ

into your life, but it would be a good thing to read it.

In fact, I mentioned to somebody once, I said, you know, it'd be a really good

thing if we write down our testimony of what God has done for us.

Just remember those times and write them down so that we recall them and we

can share them with our kids as well.

That's a way that we can give our testimony to others.

Paul Harvey reported this one time. He said,

it was gratitude that prompted an old man to visit an old broken-down pier on

the eastern seacoast of Florida every Friday night until his death in 1973,

this man would return, walking slowly and slightly stooped with a large bucket of shrimp.

The seagulls would flock around this old man, and he would feed them by hand from his bucket.

Many years before, in October of 1942,

this old man, then a young man by the name of Captain Eddie Rickenbacker,

was on a mission in a B-17 bomber to deliver an important message to General

Douglas MacArthur in New Guinea.

Somewhere over the South Pacific, this flying fortress became lost beyond the reach of radio.

Fuel ran dangerously low, so the men ditched their plane in the ocean.

For nearly a month, Captain Eddie and his companions would fight the water,

weather, and the scorching sun.

They spent many sleepless nights recoiling as giant sharks rammed their rafts.

But of all their enemies at sea, one proved to be most formidable,

and that was starvation.

Eight days into their destitute out in the sea, their rations were long gone

or destroyed by the salt water.

It would take a miracle to sustain them. They were far out at sea, and a miracle occurred.

Something landed on my head, Eddie said. I knew that it was a seagull.

I don't know how I knew, I just knew. Everyone else knew too.

So no one said a word, but peering out from under my hat brim without moving

my hand, I could see the expression on their faces. They were staring at that seagull.

The seagull meant food if we could catch it.

And the rest, as they say is history.

Captain Eddie reached up, calmly grabbed the gull, and its flesh was eaten to

sustain them from starvation.

Not only was its flesh eaten, but its intestines were used for bait to catch fish.

Their survivors were sustained and their hopes renewed because of a lone seagull

who shouldn't even have been there hundreds of miles out to sea.

He said, we never forgot. And because every Friday evening he would go almost

at sunset or about sunset to a lonely stretch along the eastern seacoast,

you would see this little old man, this Eddie Rickenbacker, walking,

white-haired, bushy-eyed, browed,

slightly bent, and his bucket full of shrimp to feed the gulls.

He said, I will never forget what that one gull did to sacrifice its life for the rest of us.

And just as he never forgot that gull that gave its life so that he and his

companions could live, we never forget the soldiers of our country who gave

up their lives. he got a second chance at life.

And because many brave men and women have died in this country or in the armed

services, we can have life too.

But even more so than that, we should never forget the sacrifice that was paid for us.

In the story of the Passover, the blood of the lamb was marked on the doorposts

and the lintel, and this caused the destroyer to pass over the households.

Our soldiers died for our freedom.

Our freedom from oppression, freedom from slavery, freedom from foreign occupation.

But even more than that, Jesus paid our spiritual freedom and gave us a crown

in heaven that we can all subscribe to.

All we have to do is never forget what Christ has done.

Sign on to the plan, accepting Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior.

So this Memorial Day, let's remember the soldiers and military personnel who

have paid the ultimate price for us, but let's do more than that.

Let's sacrifice our lives in service for the one who sacrificed his life for us.

Would you bow with me in prayer? Heavenly Father, as we close the service on

this Sunday morning, we know that many,

many have gone before us and have died in battle to fight for our freedoms that

we oftentimes take so much for granted.

And yet, even in that, sometimes we take for granted the price that Jesus paid

so that we can have freedom. Father, help us never to forget what your Son did

for us. In Jesus' name, amen.