Ask Now of the Days That Are Past

Deuteronomy 4 contains a warning and a promise. The warning is simple: Time and distance tend to erode memory. The promise is equally clear: God does not forget His covenants.

In the first three chapters of Deuteronomy, Moses recounts the experiences of Israel as they wandered in the wilderness for forty years, emphasizing the miraculous blessings they received time and time again. “Your eyes have seen what the Lord did,” he reminds them. “Only take heed to thyself … lest thou forget the things which thine eyes have seen” (Deuteronomy 4:3, 9). To emphasize the magnitude of these miracles, he asked them to consider them in the context of the entire history of the world:

For ask now of the days that are past, which were before thee, since the day that God created man upon the earth, and ask from the one side of heaven unto the other, whether there hath been any such thing as this great thing is, or hath been heard like it?
Did ever people hear the voice of God speaking out of the midst of the fire, as thou hast heard, and live?
Or hath God assayed to go and take him a nation from the midst of another nation, by temptations, by signs, and by wonders, and by war, and by a mighty hand, and by a stretched out arm, and by great terrors, according to all that the Lord your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes?

Deuteronomy 4:32-34

Moses further warned them that terrible things would happen if they allowed themselves to forget. They would be driven out of their promised land, scattered among the nations, and forced to serve other people’s gods. But here is the beautiful promise: even after turning away from God and experiencing these consequences, they will still have access to God’s grace. He will not abandon them:

But if from thence thou shalt seek the Lord thy God, thou shalt find him, if thou seek him with all thy heart and with all thy soul.
When thou art in tribulation, and all these things are come upon thee, even in the latter days, if thou turn to the Lord thy God, and shalt be obedient unto his voice;
(For the Lord thy God is a merciful God;) he will not forsake thee, neither destroy thee, nor forget the covenant of thy fathers which he sware unto them.

Deuteronomy 4:29-31

Two of the three purposes of the Book of Mormon, as outlined on its Title Page, are in direct fulfillment of this promise:

1. “To show unto the remnant of the house of Israel what great things the Lord hath done for their fathers”
2. “That they may know the covenants of the Lord, that they are not cast off forever”

The remnant of the house of Israel is the people who forgot, just as Moses anticipated they would. The Book of Mormon exists to remind them—to help them see the hand of the Lord in the lives of their ancestors, and then to find hope in the covenants He made with them, covenants which remain intact even after generations of neglect, covenants which the Lord will never forget.

At the end of the book, Moroni urges a perspective-expanding exercise similar to the one Moses prescribed for his people:

I would exhort you that when ye shall read these things, if it be wisdom in God that ye should read them, that ye would remember how merciful the Lord hath been unto the children of men, from the creation of Adam even down until the time that ye shall receive these things, and ponder it in your hearts.

Moroni 10:3

Unlike Moses, Moroni isn’t asking his readers to prioritize their own spiritual experiences, seeing them as unique in the history of the world. But he is asking them to place themselves in a broad, intergenerational context, remembering how God has blessed people throughout history. Like Moses, he is inviting his readers to see themselves as part of an extraordinary sacred history, which manifests both the power and the love of God.

Today I will remember how God has blessed me and how He has blessed His children in all generations. I will find hope in the evidence that He always remembers His people and will honor His covenants with them.