"The memory of the righteous is blessed, but the name of the wicked will rot" (Proverbs 10:7).
People who do not keep records of their journey with Christ do so at their own peril. Jehovah never expects us to forget His past leading in our lives. Moreover, He expects us to keep remembering His covenant, His Statutes and His Laws (1 Chronicles 16:15). The Lord does not want us to forget these important things.

God himself has always set the example when it comes to remembering. For instance, the Bible recounts the history of creation, the entrance of sin, God's covenant with Abraham, the Exodus, Israel's captivity and restoration, the incarnation of Jesus Christ, His sinless life and death on the cross, the resurrection, and the Second Advent. Thus, the Bible is a Book of Remembrance of God's miraculous leading of His people. No wonder we witness the stones of remembrance in Joshua 4:20-22. These twelve stones pointed to something special God did not want Israel to forget.

My beloved friends, when churches lose the significance of those remembrances they are in jeopardy. Adrift from their mooring, they have lost their way. In the Judeo-Christian realm losing the way begins with forgetting the past, more specifically, forgetting God's leading in the past. When that happens Christians loose their sense of identity. And with a lack of identity comes a vanishing mission and purpose. After all if you don't know who you are in relation to God's plan, what do you have to tell the world? This generation is littered with religious bodies who have forgotten where they have come from, and as a result, they have no direction for the future.

When it comes to the issue of forfeiting the past, Adventists are not exempt. It is not surprising that the prolific writer Ellen White postulates that "we have nothing to fear for the future, except as we shall forget the way the Lord has led us, and His teaching in our past history" (Life sketches 196). The children of God will always be blessed if they remember God's biddings and His leading in their lives. We neglect them at our peril.