Deuteronomy 8:2-3
04.13.14
Have you ever gone through an experience and looked back thinking, “What was that all about?” Anybody here ever been thrown a curve by the way events occurred in your life? You expected one thing and that was not the way it happened at all.
I want to begin this morning in Deut. 8. In Deut. Moses is at the end of his life and he is reviewing with God’s people their journey with God. I don’t think it happened the way they expected it to happen. I think some explanation was in order. And Moses gives it to them by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.
It was a glorious day when God parted the Red Sea and led His people out of Egyptian bondage. Exodus 15 records the Pentecostal praise service that followed. Miriam grabbed her tambourine and they praised God like never before. They danced all over the place. “I will sing unto the Lord, For He has triumphed gloriously! The Horse and it rider He has thrown into the sea!” In that one event they had gone from pending disaster to glorious victory. Trapped between the Red Sea and Pharaoh’s army, it looked like there was no hope. Then God intervened, parted the Red Sea and destroyed the enemy.
Have you ever had an experience that left you thinking, “Happy times are here to stay; we’ve got this thing licked now; it’s gonna be smooth sailing from here on out.”? Have you ever had a Red Sea experience? a point in your personal history when breakthrough happened –and it happened at such a level that it felt like all your troubles were behind you. I need you to get a sense of the emotional state of Israel at the Red Sea so you can fully appreciate the text I’m about to read. Are you there?
Now jump forward with me 40 years to Deut. 8. Moses says, “Let’s look back over our lives and try to understand what God was doing during our journey.” I might take the liberty at this point to add—“because it didn’t happen exactly the way we thought it would; in fact, it was very different than what we thought as we stood on the shores of the Red Sea and watched the bodies of Pharaoh’s army wash up out of the sea.
Deut. 8:2 “And you shall remember that the Lord your God led you all the way these forty years in the wilderness….” Let’s stop right there for a moment. The Lord led them where? I thought we were going into a paradise? Later, in verse 15 that wilderness is described as a “…terrible wilderness in which were fiery serpents and scorpions and thirsty land where there was no water….” To be honest with you, that sounds more like a place the devil would lead us into than a place the Lord would lead us to. Since God is God and could do anything, could He not lead them on an easier journey? If He could create the Heavens and the Earth with His word, couldn’t He have transformed that wilderness into a paradise right before they got there? Why would a loving God deliver His people from Egypt, only to lead them into a terrible wilderness with fiery serpents, scorpions, and no water?
Let’s talk about your journey and my journey. We have people in this room who have had to overcome Leukemia, cancer, bankruptcy, divorce, just to name a few. They’ve been through hail and high water. I personally have walked through some wilderness ground and contended with some fiery serpents—and so have you. Why is David’s journey from the sheepfold to the throne filled with adversity? Why couldn’t God have just given him a favor with King Saul that ushered him to the throne nice and easy? Instead David had to dodge spears, run from Saul as a fugitive of justice, and contend with the Philistines while he was doing it. What’s going on here? Why does the Apostle Paul have to endure shipwreck, stoning, and imprisonment on his journey? He’s serving God with everything in him. If God is all-powerful, then these things don’t have to be. Maybe it’s not polite to ask these kind of questions in church, but you get in a wilderness full of trouble and unexplained difficulties--and these questions come to mind.
Someone might say, “Yes, but they didn’t have to spend 40 years in that wilderness. In eleven days they could have entered the Promise Land.” Yes, to do what? To fight with giants. When the second generation does enter the Promise Land, it’s a battle There’s Jericho, then the defeat at Ai, then more battles. That is what the first generation should have been doing. But it doesn’t change the fundamental question. “God, why don’t you make this journey easier?” Why not kill all the giants in the land with a plague, so that I don’t have to fight them? Why has God allowed adversity in your life? Why hasn’t God stepped in a made it easy for us? Why do I have to contend with the devil at all? Why didn’t He make it easy for Joseph and David and Paul? What in world is God doing in my life?
In Deut. 8 Moses is at the end of his life; he is reviewing the last 40 years with God’s people—and profoundly he answers those questions. Deut. 8:2 “And you shall remember that the Lord your God led you all the way these forty years in the wilderness”—now here is the answer: “to humble you and test you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not. VERSE 3 “So He humbled you, allowed you to hunger, and fed you with manna which you did not know nor did your fathers know, that He might make you know that man shall not live by bread alone; but man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord.”
I want to focus on the objective of God for your life as it is stated in verse 3.
(1) “So He humbled you.…” The human experience for the Christian is designed to work humility into our basic character. Why is that so important? First it’s a fundamental characteristic of God. Three persons can’t live in perfect unity for an eternity without humility. Pride breaks unity. God’s plan for us is that we live with Him forever in perfect unity. For that to happen, some humility has to be worked in our hearts. Go back with me for a moment in the eons past. There in heaven is a beautiful angel named Lucifer. He was perfect in every regard—except one flaw was found in his heart. Out of pride he led a rebellion against Almighty God. It’s hard to imagine a created being (living in the perfect environment of heaven) rebelling against a loving God. But that is how sinister pride is. Out of the sin of pride issued rebellion and all other sin. There is nothing more destructive than pride. It can have no place in the kingdom of God. So Moses tells these people, God led you through some hard experiences because the quality of humility needed to be worked into your character.
(2) Then we read in verse 3 that God “allowed you to hunger.” Does that fit with your concept of God? God led these people into a wilderness where there was nothing to eat or drink. He allowed them to hunger. Why? So that He could teach them something that they will need to know for all eternity. That man does not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” He led them to a place where they could feel the need for God’s help and in that place He helped them. He fed them manna every day. They had to feel that dependence every day. Each day there was the perceived danger that it might not be there the next morning—But God showed Himself faithful to them and provided for their daily needs for the whole 40 years. It wasn’t that God wouldn’t meet their need. He worked a miracle for them with the manna. But He worked in a way that taught them dependence on Him.
As an eternal creature, in a glorified body, you will be no less dependent on God than you are right now! Dependency on God is the reality of being the creature rather than the creator. The important thing is that we understand and live in that dependence forever. This is why prayer is so crucial; it is living in dependence. Years ago I had a completely backwards understanding of what spiritual maturity meant. I thought the more spiritually mature I became the more independently strong I would be. No, it’s the opposite of that. The more spiritually mature I am, the more I have learned dependence on God.
In Luke 4, when Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil, he quoted this OT passage. The first temptation Satan threw at him was the temptation to take matters into his own hands, abandon dependence, and turn the stone into bread. Jesus answer to that temptation was “No, I will live in dependence upon the Father. I will not take matters into my own hands. I will not turn this stone into bread. I will not make my own desires the priority.” “Man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” Life is not about me getting my needs met; life is about the will of the Father being done. My sustenance comes by drawing on the life of the Father, not by striving to take care of myself.
The focus of Deuteronomy 8 is the preparation of a nation to enter into the promises of God. They needed to know that the challenging circumstances of their lives were not because God didn’t care; it was not because God wasn’t big enough to make it easier. It was because God was preparing them for their future. As a father disciplines his son to prepare him for adulthood, God disciplines you and me to train us for our future. Of course a very brief part of that future is experienced in the remaining days of this life. That’s pretty easy for us to grasp. But Christians don’t seem to realize the continuity of who you are now and who you will be after the resurrection. You’re not going to be a different person. Your personality will carry over into the life to come. You will have a glorified body, and that solves a lot of problems. The propensity toward sin will be gone. The environment will be holy. But you will be you.
So how does that relate to the trials and hardships in your personal journey? In 2Cor. 4 Paul tells us. Verse 17 “For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.” The weight of glory you carry in eternity depends on your cooperation with His work in your life now. If you’re born again, you’re going to heaven based on the covenant sacrifice of Christ at the cross. That’s a free gift of eternal life received by faith. But your capacity for glory in the ages to come is being determined now as you walk this out in your journey with Christ. How thoroughly do you know that “Man does not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” That word is forever true. It’s not just true in this life. Dependence upon God is true for the angels and it’s true for redeemed mankind—for God is the source of all, the beginning of all, and the end of all. Shortly after Paul talks about our affliction working for us glory, he then talks about the Judgment Seat of Christ. 2Cor. 5:10 “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each on may receive the things done in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad.” That’s talking to Christians and Christians alone. It’s not talking about your salvation; it’s talking about the authority God can trust you with in the eternal kingdom. It’s talking about the relative weight of glory that He can manifest through you in the eternal kingdom. The quality of glory is the same for every Christian. The life of God has a quality of righteousness and love and power that is inherent in who God is. But the degree of glory that you will carry varies from one Christian to another. In 1 Cor. 15 Paul explains the resurrection and he makes this statement about the resurrected bodies Christians will receive. Verse 41 “…as one star differs from another star in glory. So also is the resurrection of the dead.””
There is a lot at stake! James says this life is like a vapor. Compared to eternity it is but a “moment.” God doesn’t want us baffled by life’s experience. He want us to understand that He is working all things together for our good—with this purpose and objective—Romans 8:29 to conform us to the image of His Son. I want to press toward the prize of the high calling in Christ Jesus. I want to finish my course with joy. I want to not draw back in any way, but to enter in fully to God’s plan for my eternity.
So the question is this: are we committed to the process? Israel murmured and complained in the wilderness and did not enter into all that God had for them. The writer of Hebrews says to you and me—Let’s don’t follow that example. Let’s don’t neglect this great salvation. Let’s don’t drift. Hebrews 4:16 “Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” Do you need any help today? God’s grace is sufficient and He wants us to acknowledge our dependence upon Him by asking for His help!
