DO NOT FORGET HIS GOODNESS
Reading:- Deuteronomy 8:1-18 NLT
"Be careful to obey all the commands I am giving you today. Then you will live and multiply, and you will enter and occupy the land the LORD swore to give your ancestors. 2 Remember how the LORD your God led you through the wilderness for forty years, humbling you and testing you to prove your character, and to find out whether or not you would really obey his commands. 3 Yes, he humbled you by letting you go hungry and then feeding you with manna, a food previously unknown to you and your ancestors. He did it to teach you that people need more than bread for their life; real life comes by feeding on every word of the LORD. 4 For all these forty years your clothes didn’t wear out, and your feet didn’t blister or swell. 5 So you should realize that just as a parent disciplines a child, the LORD your God disciplines you to help you.
6 "So obey the commands of the LORD your God by walking in his ways and fearing him. 7 For the LORD your God is bringing you into a good land of flowing streams and pools of water, with springs that gush forth in the valleys and hills. 8 It is a land of wheat and barley, of grapevines, fig trees, pomegranates, olives, and honey. 9 It is a land where food is plentiful and nothing is lacking. It is a land where iron is as common as stone, and copper is abundant in the hills. 10 When you have eaten your fill, praise the LORD your God for the good land he has given you.
11 "But that is the time to be careful! Beware that in your plenty you do not forget the LORD your God and disobey his commands, regulations, and laws. 12 For when you have become full and prosperous and have built fine homes to live in, 13 and when your flocks and herds have become very large and your silver and gold have multiplied along with everything else, 14 that is the time to be careful. Do not become proud at that time and forget the LORD your God, who rescued you from slavery in the land of Egypt. 15 Do not forget that he led you through the great and terrifying wilderness with poisonous snakes and scorpions, where it was so hot and dry. He gave you water from the rock! 16 He fed you with manna in the wilderness, a food unknown to your ancestors. He did this to humble you and test you for your own good. 17 He did it so you would never think that it was your own strength and energy that made you wealthy. 18 Always remember that it is the LORD your God who gives you power to become rich, and he does it to fulfill the covenant he made with your ancestors.
Verse:- 10 ’When you have eaten and are satisfied, praise the Lord your God for the good land he has given you’.
Lets start with the theme of the land for a moment. It doesn’t take too much imagination to say that as a nation we have largely forgotten God. We only have to look at our own lives to see that ’We have never had it so good!’ When the then prime minister McMillan pronounced those words there was uproar. Some recent comparisons with powerful and yet ‘developing countries’, soon reveal how well we live. Even now, with all the openness of Russia the NORMAL people still have very little compared with U.K.
In U.K. with all the affluence, we have largely forgotten God. How sad!
To put our verse and theme in context, we have to go back to chapter 1 and verses 6-8, ‘The Lord our God said to us at Horeb, "You have stayed long enough at this mountain. Break camp and advance... See, I have given you this land. Go in and take possession of the land’
We can apply such thought either the fellowship as a whole or to our own personal lives, I would like to make it as personal as I can.
Israel had arrived at Horeb, some little while before and while the were camping with all the problems that brings, it was not a bad life at all. In effect, they had taken early retirement from the slavery of, Egypt and all their needs were being met by the Lord their God. He was their provider. Everyday the provisions came, their clothes never wore out neither did their shoes. Each day of their life they were experiencing miracles from God. God was good to them, the danger was that they would grow lazy in the provision of God.
Is that not a danger for us all to face up to? We become content to dwell in the same provision that we had known ever since we left ’Egypt’. We refuse to accept that there is something better for us if we are just prepared to move on - in faith yes. They didn’t know what lay ahead neither do we, we do have the same God involved in our lives plus the same promises and a whole lot more.
Note this, chapter 8:3 ’He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna..’ There is always a testing time before there Is triumph! This is the obvious understanding of this verse. Surely we see many other examples in Scripture apart from Israel, the great men of God were often truly tested before they moved into the great victories of their lives.
There is also another way to look at verse three. There has to be real hunger before there is provision and there also has to be hunger before we begin to look for something special from God. — You don’t need a loan from the bank to until you have nothing, in spiritual terms you will never see that you have a need which only God can meet, until you see the bankruptcy of your own spiritual life.
(Psalm 38:9) ‘All my longings lie open before you, O Lord; my sighing is not hidden from you.’
Jesus said, (Luke 6:21), ’Blessed are you who hunger now for you will be satisfied. Blessed are you who weep now for you will laugh’. (1 Peter 2:2) ’Like newborn babes, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation’. Is there a real hunger in your life for the better things God has in store for you or is there a willingness to simply accept what you are and what you have right now?
God’s desire is that we know His provision. (8:3) ‘....that he might make you understand that a man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord’.
What can we receive from the Lord? REAL SATISFACTION! (Psalm 63:3) ’My soul will be satisfied as with the richest of foods; with singing lips my mouth will praise you’. (Isaiah 58:11) ’The Lord will guide you always; he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame. You will be like a well watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fai1’.
Is there a real hunger and thirst in your life for the best God has to offer, or are you content to stay where you are?
The source. (John 7:37) ’....Jesus stood and said in a loud voice. If a man is thirsty, let him come to me and drink’.
The Praise.(Deuteronomy 8:10) ’When you have eaten and are satisfied, praise the Lord your God for the good land he has given you’. Develop your desire for the things of God and claim them, then give thanks for what he gives you.
8:11 commences ’Be careful....’
8:12 ’....when you eat and are satisfied, when you build fine houses and settle down 13-14 and when your herds and flocks grow large and your silver and gold increase and all you have is multiplied...(when God touches your life expect his blessings also). Now the warning then your heart will become proud and you will forget the Lord your God....’
Don’t become settled - self reliant - stayed. Constantly look to God for His goodness and be willing to move on in your spiritual experience under His direction.
