”A nation unfamiliar with its history is condemned to live it again.” This well known quotation of George Santayaha is certainly true and it points up the fact that we should study the past so that we can learn from the mistakes of those who have gone before.

Paul tells us that ”whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope.” History does repeat itself and the lesson we want to lea.”n from the past is to avoid the same pitfalls into which our forefathers fell: If we continue to make the same mistakes as those who have gone before then we are not very wise and we will have to suffer the same consequences. Some mistakes; are so costly that we cannot learn from our mistakes; for example, little children need to learn not to play in the street because getting run over is too high a price to pay for this mistake.

Our young people may question why they must study history because they think it is dry, boring and irrelevant in their lives. They couldn’t be more wrong. History is about real people who just happened to be born before we were. History is being written everyday and the things happening today will be found in tomorrow’s history books.

The greatest history book of all is the Bible, for it was written by God about His people and tells us of His promises to them and to us. Without this book we would know nothing of Adam and Eve. We would know that sin existed but would not know why. We would know nothing of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and therefore we would be ignorant of the promises. Paul tells us of those who are strangers from the covenants of promise, and they are, if they have not read God’s history book. Other history books may help us to understand things from God’s point of- view. Other history books tell us what has happened, but only the Bible tells us what has happened and what will happen. The Bible is the only book that wrote history in advance and it is the only book that offers hope to a perishing world. What a pity it isn’t read.

It may be interesting to know the history of the French Revolution or the pilgrims that settled New England but it is essential to know the history of Moses bringing God’s people out of Egypt and the promise to David of a son to sit on his throne. The one is nice to know, the other essential. It is like bodily exercise compared to spiritual things. The former profits little but the latter is ”profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come.”

If all the people who study ancient and not so ancient history would only spend the same amount of time studying God’s history it would revolutionize their lives. Not only that, but instead of dying at 70 to 90 they would have the promise of everlasting life in the history that is yet to come. If all the people who jog five miles a day or work out 2 or 3 hours at the gym would only spend the same amount of time in Bible study they would have a mind tuned to God which is more profitable than a well tuned body. Bodily exercise is not to be condemned unless it crowds godly exercise out of our life. Ancient history is not to be condemned unless it crowds Godly history out of our life. Many things of themselves are not evil but whatever takes us away from God and His word is wrong. Let us not be unfamiliar with God’s history, else we be condemned to the fate of those who lived before and died without hope.