29. Deliverance and Redemption

A pastoral message written on Tuesday, May 30, 2000, as the bishopric message for the June 2000 issue of the Bountiful Twentieth Ward Newsette. The same thought was also printed as “A Final Word” in the June 2000 issue of the Cleverly Newsletter. It was also posted on June 4, 2008, on the blogsite The Dawning of a Brighter Day.

When the Lord God brought our fathers, the children of Israel, out of Egypt into the promised land, He reminded them that He was giving them cities which they had not built, houses full of good things they had not filled, wells they had not dug, and vineyards they had not planted (see Deuteronomy 6:10–11). Sort of like us today at the dawn of the 21st century.

“Beware,” He cautions them, “lest thou forget the Lord, which brought thee forth out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage” (Deuteronomy 6:12).

“And thou shalt remember,” He says unto them later, “that thou wast a bondsman in the land of Egypt, and the Lord thy God redeemed thee” (Deuteronomy 15:15).

This pattern of remembrance runs throughout the scriptures: We are in bondage and the Lord delivers and redeems us. And we are to remember that deliverance and redemption.

Indeed, an important purpose of the scriptures is that “they have enlarged the memory of this people . . . and brought them to the knowledge of their God” (Alma 37:8).

We are enjoined in many places throughout the scriptures to remember the Lord our Redeemer and what He has done both for our fathers and for us. The word “remember,” in some form or another, appears 454 times in the scriptures.

The summer that spreads before us is strewn with opportunities to remember our past, to recall what the Lord has done for our fathers, to recount what blessings we enjoy at His hand.

This past Monday was Memorial Day, a day set aside to remember specifically those who sacrificed their lives in the defense of freedom and more generally all loved ones who have passed on to the other side.

In another ten days is Flag Day, a chance to remember the symbol of our God-given freedoms, a chance to reflect on the opportunities and responsibilities of living in this “sweet land of liberty” (Hymns, 339), “the land of the free and the home of the brave” (Hymns, 340). The Lord Himself referred to it as “a land which is choice above all the lands of the earth” (Ether 1:42).

Three weeks later, on the Fourth of July, we celebrate the birthday of our country and remember again that the Lord has particular designs for the destiny of this nation. He declared, “And for this purpose have I established the Constitution of this land, by the hands of wise men whom I have raised up unto this very purpose, and redeemed the land by the shedding of blood” (D&C 101:80).

And finally, we celebrate Pioneer Day, a wonderful commemoration of the great migration of our forebears to these western valleys. We remember their sacrifices, their devotion, their faith as they fulfilled the ancient prophecy that “the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose” (Isaiah 35:1) as the Lord “set his hand again the second time to recover the remnant of his people” (Isaiah 11:11; 2 Nephi 21:11).

Deliverance and redemption. May each of us remember. And may each of us declare, as did the Psalmist anciently, “I will remember the works of the Lord: surely I will remember thy wonders of old” (Psalms 77:11).