Remember Me by H. F. Ketring

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D.C. · Jul 28, 1904

“Remember Me”

By H. F. Ketring

H. F. KETRING

“But think on me when it shall be well with thee, and show kindness, I pray thee, unto me, and make mention of me unto Pharaoh, and bring me out of this house.” Gen. 40:14.

This was Joseph’s request to the chief butler, after he had interpreted his dream in the prison, and told him, “Within three days shall Pharaoh lift up thine head, and restore thee unto thy place.” “Yet did not the chief butler remember Joseph, but forgot him.” Verse 23.

Joseph and the chief butler had been companions in the prison. They had partaken of the same scanty fare allotted

to the prisoners. They had occupied adjoining cells, and their “feet were hurt with fetters,” and they were “laid in irons.”

Now has come deliverance to the chief butler, and he is to go free and be restored in favor with the king, while Joseph is to remain. As he foretells the happy lot of the chief butler, and remembers the injustice that he himself is suffering, he begs to be remembered before the king, that he, too, may go free. He says, “For indeed I was stolen away out of the land of the Hebrews: and here also have I done nothing that they should put me into the dungeon.”

Any one would suppose that the first thought the chief butler would have had as he again stood before the king, would have been of his friend and companion still in the dungeon. But not so. The joy of the king’s palace had made him unmindful of the one who had foretold his deliverance.

And yet how many of us who have sat “in darkness and in the shadow of death, being bound in affliction and iron,” when the loving hand of our Saviour opened our prison-house and restored us unto our place before the King, have forgotten those who were bound there with us.

We all have been bound in the prison-house of Satan. We have sat in darkness and in the valley of the shadow of death, and we saw no light. Many were our companions in the same miserable condition, until the bright beams of the Sun of Righteousness shone into our dark cell, and we heard the blessed words, “Let the oppressed go free.”

He brought us forth from the mire of sin and wretchedness, and washed us in his own precious blood, and “raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.” Now since he has brought us in before the King, have we forgotten those wretched ones we left in the dungeon? Or do we “remember them that are in bonds, as bound with them; and them which suffer adversity, as being [ourselves] yourselves also in the body?”

Brother, Christ was once in the flesh, and suffered all that we have ever suffered, and more, too; and when he was passing through the climax of his sufferings, a poor condemned thief who was his companion on the cross entreated, “Lord, remember me when thou comest in thy kingdom.” When Jesus comes “in his kingdom, and all his holy angels with him;” when he sits “upon the throne of his glory,” crowned “King of kings, and Lord of lords,” do you think that he will forget that poor thief who hung with him on the cross?

Then since he has restored you to your sonship, and you have access to the throne of grace, be mindful of your wretched companions who are still languishing in Satan’s dungeon; and when you come before the King, don’t forget to “make mention” of them; and if he should send you to open “the prison to them that are bound,” be glad for such a privilege. Say: “I am debtor both to the Greeks, and to the barbarians; both to the wise, and to the unwise. So, as much as in me is, I am ready to preach the gospel to you that are in Rome [or Chile] also.”

Brethren, here on the west coast of South America are more than ten million poor wretched souls whom Satan has bound, lo, these many years in his intensely dark prison-house, until they have nearly lost the power of seeing. So long have they breathed the foul atmosphere of his filthy dungeon, that they are not at once attracted by the sweet fragrance of “the Rose of Sharon and the Lily of the Valley.” The cup of Babylon, “filled with abominations and the filthiness of her fornication,” they have drained to the dregs, and it has so destroyed their relish for the pure and holy, that it is with difficulty they can be induced to “taste and see that the Lord is good.” The wine of Babylon has so blunted their sensibilities that they can hardly “feel after” the Lord, “though he be not far from every one” of them.

Their cell is even deeper and darker than yours was, and their misery and wretchedness many times greater. Have you forgotten to “make mention” of them before the King? If so, hasten to do so, that he may send some one to help us bring them “out of this house.” If you can not come yourself, then help to send some one else, that these poor wretched souls may be set free before it is too late. Do now as you will wish you had done when you see the “King in his beauty,” and then remember that some of those lost ones who are calling in vain to the mountains and rocks to fall on them to hide them “from the face of him that sitteth on the throne” might have been saved had you done your duty.

Valparaiso, Chile.