Imagine for a moment that you have lost the power of memory. You awaken in the morning and go into the kitchen where you find other people gathering for breakfast. You think, "Who are all these people? I don't know them."

You walk into your den. Photographs and portraits are all around. You stare in bewilderment at pictures of people whose names you do not know and whose faces you cannot recognize.

In a special room in your house are memorabilia from trips and awards and plaques from business and social clubs; yet you have no idea what they all mean. You have lost your memory.

Our lives are, in many ways, defined by our memories and our hopes. Add to those two realities our convictions and beliefs and you have the essence of the human experience.

Tyrants know that people have short memories. They understand that history can be rewritten. They thrive on the reticence of people to diligently preserve their institutions and inculcate their values by memorializing the important moments of their past. They appeal to the human willingness to trade their freedoms for the promises of provisions, security, and even happiness.

On this Memorial Day 2010, we need to dust off our memories and recollect why the voluntary sacrifice of so many through the years of our history is appropriately honored and remembered.

If there are no lasting values and no absolute truths, then those who died for this nation were fools. If there are no morally superior forms of government and no morally superior cultures--if, in fact, communism or socialism or fascism or Islamic sharia law are the moral equals of constitutional republicanism--then, to misquote Lincoln, "these dead shall have died in vain."

But they didn't die in vain. They died for the belief that God is the Author of our liberties; that the Constitution both empowers and limits our government; and that freedom, although a gift from God, is never free. They died because they believed that, while all men are created equal, all governments are not equal. They believed that there are evil empires, immoral governments, and degenerate regimes.

While we remember our honored dead this week, we must remind ourselves why they died. We must refresh our collective and corporate memories and educate our children.

Finally, we must resolve that we, too, will be willing to pay the ultimate price so that freedom can be perpetuated in our land and extended throughout the world. We must pray for our leaders, hold them accountable, vote for those who understand and honor our Constitution, and remove from office every person whose vision of America is not consistent with the truths enshrined in our founding documents.

We are always only one generation away from the extinction of our freedoms. We cannot afford to forget either what our heroes believed they had to die for or what we have to live for.

Remember!

Alan Day, Senior Pastor