Remember.
Utmost pains taken that the day should be honoured and remembered.
I. REASON OF OBSERVANCE. It commemorated:
1. A great judgment. Nine plagues had passed; the members of each successive trial following one another at shorter intervals and with increasing severity. [Illustration, siege of town. Besiegers draw parallels closer and closer, each time sounding summons to surrender. Every summons disregarded; at length word given for the assault.] God laying siege to Egypt, now preparing for the assault (cf. generally Amos 4:1-13.). "Therefore, prepare to meet thy God" (Exodus 11:4). "I will go out;" the representatives stand aside that the arm of Jehovah may be recognised. Fourteenth of month; midnight. God accompanied by the angel of vengeance. Picture result—palace, dungeon, stables, fields, temples, streets. The judgment was upon Egypt and her gods.
2. A great deliverance.
3. A great exhibition of Divine power. Not a mere judgment or a mere deliverance, but judgment by a personal judge, deliverance by a personal deliverer.
II. USE OF THE OBSERVANCE. By communicating the judgment and the deliverance, it was calculated to keep men mindful of the judge and the deliverer, and to prompt respect for his law (Exodus 13:9). Commemorations are an aid to memory, reminding of past events, and recalling associations connected with them. Mere observance as an end in itself, bondage (cf. Galatians 4:9, Galatians 4:10); as a means to an end, helpful and necessary. The Pharisee makes a virtue of observance; the right thing is to draw virtue from it. See what this observance taught:—
1. God is long-suffering, but the day of vengeance comes at length. The help to memory, as to what he had done, was a help to conviction as to what he might do.
2. God will not clear the guilty, yet his mercy doth endure for ever. Even with the help, how often were these truths forgotten; would any have remembered them without it?
Apply. Life, which forms the memory of the future, grows out of memory of the past. A good memory is a help to good living. What helps do you use to prompt memory? The marked bill, the birthday text-book, the diary—all these helpful; above all, the day, the anniversary, if we use it rightly. Commemorations are but sign-posts pointing to that which is commemorated; use them as such, follow out their indications. So, remembering past mercies, faith will be strengthened and hope sustained.—G.