Songs of the Great Ascent - Promises, Promises

Psalm 132

“Men have forgotten God” is the central thesis of the acceptance address by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn for the Templeton Prize, delivered in London on May 10, 1983. Solzhenitsyn argued that the catastrophic Russian Revolution, which cost roughly 60 million lives, happened fundamentally because people abandoned God.

He summarized his writing and thinking about what he had experienced and witnessed about communism:

“Over a half century ago, while I was still a child, I recall hearing a number of old people offer the following explanation for the great disasters that had befallen Russia: “Men have forgotten God; that’s why all this has happened.” Since then I have spent well-nigh 50 years working on the history of our revolution; in the process I have read hundreds of books, collected hundreds of personal testimonies, and have already contributed eight volumes of my own toward the effort of clearing away the rubble left by that upheaval. But if I were asked today to formulate as concisely as possible the main cause of the ruinous revolution that swallowed up some 60 million of our people, I could not put it more accurately than to repeat: “Men have forgotten God; that’s why all this has happened.” (Edward E. Ericson, Jr. “Solzhenitsyn—Voice from the Gulag.”)

Building on his earlier 1978 Harvard Address, “A World Split Apart,” he warned that Western societies were also sliding into moral decay and secularism because they, too, were forgetting their spiritual roots. He had urged the graduates to pursue truth and moral integrity, emphasizing that truth is often bitter but essential. He called for a focus on human obligations and ethical responsibility rather than mere political or material success.

From the depths of his own Christian faith, Solzhenitsyn rightly diagnoses the problem: “it’s not some external force that makes evil occur; rather, it comes from within.” He continued, “All attempts to find a way out of the plight of today’s world are fruitless unless we redirect our consciousness, in repentance, to the Creator of all: without this, no exit will be illumined, and we shall seek it in vain….”

Enter Psalm 132, in which David vows to return the ark of the covenant, for it seems that Israel had forgotten her God. Could we be in danger today of forgetting our God?

Join us this Lord’s Day as we hear the Word of the Lord show us the way to spiritual revival and moral reform from Psalm 132.

By His Mercies,

Pastor Wayne