And you shall remember that you were a slave in Egypt

.... and you shall be careful to observe these statutes (Deuteronomy 16:12). There is a second command, or rather the first in order of appearance, to remember in verse 11. It is “that you may remember the day in which you came out of the land of Egypt all the days of your life.” This is accompanied by the command to eat “no bread with leaven in it” (verse 3). Israel was to remember the Passover, the Exodus, the time God deliver Israel out of physical silvery in Egypt. And again, the physical in the Old has spiritual application in the New Testament. Jesus tells us that “He who sins is the slave of sin” (John 8:34). The Passover celebrated the angel of death passing over those who had applied the blood of the passover lamb to the lintels of their houses. Communion, or the Lord's supper, is a sacrament of remembrance that celebrates the spiritual deliverance of God's people from the bondage of sin, through the blood of Jesus the sacrificial Lamb of God (John 1:29).

In the title verse, we are admonished to remember and be careful to observe His statutes. Statutes are ritual observance that are to be observed with the purpose of bringing something to remembrance. The New Testament analogy is encapsulated in Jesus' command on the night that He was betrayed, to “Do this in remembrance of me” (Luke 22:19). Paul comments saying this proclaims the Lord’s death till He comes (1 Corinthians 11:24). In the New Testament analogy the leaven of “bread without leaven,” is sin. Paul tells us “Let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth” (1 Corinthians 5:8). And we are to examine ourselves and only then eat (11:28). The point is that we are want to forget. And forgetting and acting accordingly, is in fact is the history of God's people down through the ages. So we need to do this regularly in remembrance of Him.

In some Churches the Lord's supper is called the Eucharist. It comes from the Greek word meaning giving of thanks. Paul (again) tells us “although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened” (Romans 1:21). He goes on to describe the onward and downward spiral to reprobation (backsliding). In other words not giving thanks and not glorifying God are the first steps of the slippery slope to destruction. And so it is easy to see where the godlessness of our culture started. But the recurring theme that comes out of the Prophetic at this time, is that God is shaking everything that can be shaken. In particular the emptiness and the lies of humanism are being shaken. I just heard of atheistic doctors in Italy who have turned to the Lord in this shaking. But it is not just unbelievers who need to turn to Him. It is believers, and we need to turn to Him with all of our hearts.

Father, it is interesting to me that the caronavirus is a respiratory disease, for it reminds me this morning that we are so, so dependent on You even for the breath that we breath. Help us to remember all that You have done for us, all the days of ours lives, in Jesus Name Amen