I would call your attention, my reader, to three solemn occasions on which this word is used in Scripture, and I pray God by His Spirit to bless the consideration of them to your soul, for the Lord Jesus Christ’s sake.
First, the word is used by the blessed Lord Himself in Luke 17:32; viz., “Remember Lot’s wife.” He had been speaking to the Pharisees about the kingdom of God, and warning them as to the days of the Son of man, telling them that the times of Noah and of Lot would be repeated in those days. In the course of His most solemn words the blessed Lord says, “Remember Lot’s wife.” Now let us enquire and see what there is about Lot’s wife on which memory is thus turned. First, as to Lot himself, he was a righteous man, but altogether in a false and wretched position. If this little book should come into the hands of a child of God, oh, be warned by the example of Lot as to the result of being mixed up with and having fellowship with the world! Alas! there are too many Lots in these days—converted men and women no doubt, but sadly immersed in the world and its ways, and even in some cases pleading a justification of it, being of the world on principle. Alas for such a total denial of the word and truth of God!
Now mark well the downward steps of this “righteous man,” Lot. He first made Sodom his choice (see Gen. 13:10, 11); he lifted up his eyes on it. To him it was like the land of Egypt; i.e., fair in appearance as the place of self-ease. Next he pitched his tent “toward Sodom,” dwelling in the cities of the plain; next we find him sitting in the gate of Sodom (see Gen. 19:1), which means that he held position there as one in authority. The end of the history as regards Lot himself is immensely solemn on his side of it, though most blessed in the manifestation it affords of sovereign grace, which rescued him out of this moral shipwreck—delivered just Lot vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked.”
The record of all this we have in Gen. 19:15-17, and then it is added, in v. 26, “And his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt.” Now what was involved in her looking back? Observe this it is which gives all its force to the words, “Remember Lot’s wife.” There were two things in it which, I believe, give emphasis to the example, and are intended to be retained in memory.
First she “looked back” to where her heart’s affections were left. The life she had was there. How solemn! I may now be addressing readers of another class—professors of religion, yet unsaved, whose hearts cling to the world of lust and pleasure and ease. To all such may these words come in power—“Remember Lot’s wife.”
Second, her looking back was a distinct denial of and refusal of the urgent demands of the sovereign grace which rescued her husband. To him the word was, “Look not behind thee.” It was, moreover, a turning of her face to Sodom, and a turning of her back on God. Unsaved reader of these words, this is your position at this moment. Your back is on God, your face to the world, which is fast ripening for judgment. How solemn! May God by His Spirit, and through His word, awaken your conscience ere it be too late! May your ears be opened to heed the words of the Lord Jesus—“Remember Lot’s wife.”
Let us turn now to another remember, which we find in Luke 23:42—“Lord, remember me.” These were the words of a poor thief to the Lord Jesus Christ when hanging on the cross; they are the language of faith and confidence in Christ as the alone Savior of sinners. This man was so bad that the world was getting rid of him, out of it; but as he was one of Christ’s sheep, He, the blessed One, was bearing the judgment due to his sins before God on the cross. Grace, yes, sovereign grace, worked in the mighty power of God the Holy Ghost in this poor thief’s conscience, convicted him of his being a guilty sinner, who deserved the punishment he was undergoing. Mark the proof of it in the way he addressed the other thief, his companion in sin and crime—
Dost not thou fear God, seeing we are in the same condemnation? And we indeed justly; for we receive the due reward of our deeds: but this Man hath done nothing amiss.
Reader, ponder these words. Here is true, genuine repentance, as in “Lord, remember me” is true, genuine faith. These are never separated in Scripture. Wherever there is true repentance there is true faith, and wherever there is true faith there is true repentance. Further, mark it well, and note what characterizes true repentance as here, even a full and divine judgment of the state the soul is in before God. No excuse, no extenuation, no attempt to lessen the enormity of the guilt, or to complain of the severity of the punishment; not a word. “We justly,” we deserve it all, it is our rightful due but of Jesus he says, “This Man hath done nothing amiss.” True thoughts about man and about Christ. How blessed!
Reader, have you had such real conviction? Has the divine arrow reached your conscience? Is the fear of God before your eyes? I entreat of you to stop, pause, consider. May this example arrest you by the Spirit’s power, so that in the same grace your faith in Christ, the spotless Man, as the alone Savior of the lost, may find its expression in the words of the poor thief—“Lord, remember me.”
We come now to consider the third instance of the use of the word “remember” (Luke 16:25).
“Son, remember.” They are the words of Abraham to a man in hell. How solemn! How awful! This man while on earth was “clothed in purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day.” But how changed now it all is when we catch a glimpse of him in another world, lifting up his voice in hell, and crying in torment! Hearken, I pray you, my reader, to what God says in His word as to this rich man—
And in hell {hades} he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom. And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame.
What memories that word “remember” must have stirred in his soul! How it must have brought the past before him in the light of what he was then enduring! Memories in hell. What a thought! Solemn, dreadful reality! But further observe what these are here connected with: “Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things.” As much as to say, “All that your heart went after you have received”—“thy good things.” How bitter these words must have sounded in his ears! It is all changed now. In this world man is fallen and wicked; his good things are the portion of sinful man. Again, think of what a solemn, even awful, revelation we have here in this lifting of the veil from the other world! What a flood of light is shed abroad here! Riches and wealth are called in Scripture “the unrighteous mammon.” Why? Because they are the portion of fallen man, and belong to him. They are not what the word of God speaks of as the “your own” of the heavenly man; and further, this unrighteous mammon had no place when Adam was innocent, and as yet unfallen. It is well to remember that there was a promise to the righteous of temporal blessing, under the earthly dispensation, which Judaism was; but all was in confusion and disorder. The Lord Jesus Christ, the Messiah and head of that system, had been rejected. Israel had utterly broken down; hence the possession of riches was no demonstration of God’s favor. And what is here set forth in this terrible story of Dives is the most heartless selfishness, and the most hard indifference to need and distress laid at his very door; but now all is changed—the poor unpitied object of misery is comforted and happy, and the man of wealth and ease and luxury is tormented.
Thank God, there is still in His grace the open door of mercy, wide open too, through faith in the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ, for sinners of every class and clime. Reader, if you have never yet cast yourself upon this grace, let me entreat of you to remember all that is here brought before you—remember Lot’s wife, and be warned; remember the rich man who passed from luxury to hell, and be warned; and remember the poor dying robber, who owned his guilt and ruin, who owned the holy, spotless Jesus on the cross, who trusted in Him, and in Him alone, and to whom the Lord Jesus Christ said, “Verily, I say unto thee, To-day shalt thou be with me in paradise.” May God by His Spirit bring all these “remembers” before the souls of all my readers, for His blessed Son’s sake.