I was challenged with this doctrine at the Reformation Conference that I attended this July. I found the concept to be both encouraging and challenging. I found it encouraging because it allows for the fact that no one man or woman will ever get it all right. We are all learning and God is gracious in taking us step by step. Always Reforming...it is not a single act performed in a single day, but the work of a lifetime.
At the conference, the doctrine of Semper Reformanda was presented in light of the Reformation where our forefathers learned some very important truths which we have either ignored or forgotten when we could have picked up from where they left off and gone even further. Somewhere between the Reformation and our generation the baton was dropped or not completely passed on. There have been times when it has been picked up (the Great Awakening, Spurgeon's revival in London), but it has been only at certain times or isolated instances. (That does not mean that there have not been small and obscure examples of faithfulness throughout history. The Lord always preserves to Himself a remnant, but I am speaking of large scale reformation in society and the world at large.) We have lost the concept of faithfulness in generation after generation.
The LORD told Israel in Deuteronomy 11, "And ye shall teach them (His words) to your children, speaking of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. "
He warned them in Deuteronomy 4, "Only take heed to thyself, and keep thy soul diligently, lest thou forget the things which thine eyes have seen, and lest they depart from thy heart all the days of thy life: but teach them to thy sons, and thy sons' sons."
God has blessed us with great abundance here in America, a blessedness that was bought by the blood of thousands of brave men and women throughout the centuries of our history. Yet...we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the source of all of our good. We (as a nation) have neglected to impress our children with an appreciation for God's hand in America's past.
The warning that I have always found to be a most sobering reminder to me is in Deuteronomy 6 where God says. "And it shall be, when the LORD thy God shall have brought thee into the land which he sware unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give thee great and goodly cities, which thou buildedst not, and houses full of all good things, which thou filledst not, and wells digged, which thou diggedst not, vineyards and olive trees, which thou plantedst not; when thou shalt have eaten and be full; then beware lest thou forget the LORD, which brought thee forth out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage".
Isn't that what has happened in America today? We are enjoying the privileges of a blood bought freedom, yet we do not fully appreciate the worth of it because we have not had to work to gain it. God is the author and sustainer of all the freedom that we enjoy, yet we shrug our shoulders and turn our backs on the very author of our being without realizing that He who gave us all that we now enjoy can just as easily take it all away again.
I desire, by God's grace, to make sure that I pass on a legacy of faithfulness to God and to His statutes to my siblings and someday my own children. I want faith in and love for God to strengthen with each passing generation, not weaken and eventually die out.
