Has God Forgotten?

In the 6th century B.C., in three different deportations, the Jewish people were taken captive and exiled in a foreign land. What about God's promise that a king from David's line would sit on the throne forever? To those people, it surely must have looked sometimes like God had gone back on His word. The dire predictions of the prophets who spoke for God during that time must have alarmed the faithful few among the many idol worshippers. "Where is God? Is His promise true or not? Has He forgotten us?"

What they could not see, nor could the prophets who spoke of redemption understand, was that the Messiah King would come, hundreds of years later. It was He Who would sit on the throne eternally. He would be the fulfillment of all the promises, He would speak to all the disappointment, He would prove that God had not forgotten.

"Has the Lord rejected me forever? Will he never again be kind to me? Is his unfailing love gone forever? Have his promises permanently failed? Has God forgotten to be gracious? Has he slammed the door on his compassion?" (Psalm 77:7-9) It is not unusual for even the most committed Christian to go through a dark time when, like the captive Israelites or the dispirited psalm-singer, he/she might wonder, "Has God forgotten?" The mind knows, of course, that He has not, but the heart is still anxious. Charles H. Spurgeon, the great preacher from more than a century ago, spoke at length on these questions, and I have extracted some of his statements. (The entire sermon can be found at http://www.spurgeongems.org/vols31-33/chs1843.pdf)

Has God forgotten to be gracious? Then He has forgotten an old, long, ancient,
yes—eternal habit of His heart! Have you not heard that His mercy endures forever? Since His creation has He not, in Providence, always been gracious? Is not His rule to open His hands and supply the need of every living thing? Did He not give His Son to redeem mankind? Has He not sent His Spirit to turn men from darkness to light? After having been gracious all these myriads of ages, after having manifested His love and His grace at such a costly rate, has He forgotten it?

Has God forgotten to be gracious? Why then, He must have forgotten His purpose! Have you not heard that before the earth was, He purposed to redeem unto Himself a people who should be His own chosen, His children, His peculiar treasure, a people near unto Him? Before He made the heavens and the earth, had He not planned in His own mind that He would manifest the fullness of His Grace toward His people in Christ Jesus? And do you think that He has turned from His eternal purpose, torn up His Divine decrees, burned the Book of Life and changed the whole course of His operations among the sons of men?

Has God forgotten to be gracious? Why then, He must have forgotten His own Covenant. Is it not called a Covenant of Grace? Is not grace the spirit and tenor of it? [The Lord declared, "If you can break my covenant with the day and the night so that one does not follow the other, only then will my covenant with my servant David be broken."] The Lord has not forgotten His Covenant with day and night; neither will He cast off His believing people!

More than that, when you say, "Has God forgotten to be gracious?" do you not forget that in such a case He must have forgotten His own Glory, for the main of His Glory lies in His grace. Does a man forget his honor? Does a man turn aside from his own name and fame? He may do so in a moment of madness, but the thrice holy God has not forgotten the Glory of His name, nor forgotten to be gracious!

If God has forgotten to be gracious, then He must have forgotten His own Son! He must have forgotten Calvary and the expiatory Sacrifice offered there! He must have forgotten Him that is always with Him at His right hand, making intercession for transgressors! Can you conceive of that? Yet it must be that He has forgotten His own Son if He has forgotten to be gracious!

Once more, if this were the case, the Lord must have forgotten His own Self, for Grace is of the essence of His Nature, since God is Love. We forget ourselves and disgrace ourselves, but God cannot do so. That the great Lord who has taken us to be His peculiar heritage and His jewels should cease to value us and forget to be gracious to us is impossibility!

I think I hear someone say, "I do not think that God has forgotten to be gracious except to me.” Does God make any exceptions? The Good Shepherd does not preserve some of His sheep, but all of them! And it is not concerning the strong ones of His flock that He says, "I give unto My sheep eternal life and they shall never perish"—He has said it of all the sheep, yes, and of the smallest lamb of all the flock, of the most scabbed and wounded, of all that He has purchased with His blood! The Lord has not forgotten Himself in any one instance—but He is faithful to all believers.

You may be alone or broke or broken-hearted. You may be stuck in a situation that seems hopeless or caught up in a problem that has, as far as you can tell, no solution . You may be weary or angry or afraid. You may be many things, but you are not forgotten. One day, just as He did with coming of Jesus to Israel, He will fulfill His promises, He will speak to your disappointment, He will prove that He has not forgotten.

Has God forgotten to be gracious? No.

Marjorie

Scripture quotation is taken from The Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. United States of America. All rights reserved.