DEUTERONOMY 32.10-18
A few years ago I read a story in a National Geographic magazine. The story was set in a National Park in the USA. A fire had destroyed many acres of trees and when the rangers went to investigate they found a surprising survivor. They came across a little bird at the base of one of the charred trees. The little bird was dead but when the ranger poked it with a stick and it fell over out from underneath its wings fled three little chicks. In the midst of the raging fire all around that mother bird had gathered her chicks and spread her wings covering them, shielding them from the flames. She gave her life that they might survive. That story came to my mind when I read these verses from Deuteronomy 32. Let me set the context for these words.
They are spoken by Moses, who is near the end of his life. The people of Israel have been wandering for 40 years in the desert wilderness, as a result of their disobedience. A simple lesson there – disobedience leads to wilderness wandering. They now stand on the brink of entry into the Promised Land and Moses addresses them for the last time. Moses will die before they cross the Jordan. God forbade him entry into the Promised Land because of his disobedience at Meribah when he struck the rock for water, against the instructions of God. So in this his final address Moses retells the story of the Exodus, of all God’s provision and prophecies that the people of Israel will wander away again from God, but we will come to that in a moment. I want to concentrate this morning on verses 10-12 – because I think they have a lot to say to each of us here today.
Read with me verses 10-12.
Verse 10 Moses simply states where God found them. The land of Egypt to many, even the Israelites, seemed the perfect place to live. Rich, plenty, cultured and sophisticated. Yet look how Moses describes it – a barren land, a desert wasteland with howling winds. Not a pretty picture. Moses says to them – you can look back with fondness if you wish but the reality was that it was a dead place, a place of waste and desert. A place where the sand was blown into your eyes and face by the wind. A scorched land, parched, dry and one with no hope and no future. Friends can I suggest to you this morning – the same description is true of the world in which you live. Oh, you can look around you and say – it is no desert wasteland, it rains too much to be a desert. But let us look at what is going to last into eternity in your world. Your car, your house, your job, your pension, what? The world around us is a desert, a wasteland, a place of death. A place promising life brought leading only to death. A place promising all sorts of pleasure and no pain but the very opposite is true. But did you note how Moses started verse 10?
He says God found them. Listen to me – God found them – they did not find God, nor did they search for God. At one stage in the desert wanderings the people of Israel grumbled that life was better in the land of Egypt. You know to human eyes they were right. Egypt was a better place to live than the desert, but Egypt had no future. Egypt was, like all the kingdoms of this world, doomed to die, doomed to become an archaeological sight. Listen to me – this world may appear a better place to live. This world may appear more attractive than the kingdom of God but it has no future. It is doomed to destruction. ‘God found them’. If you turn back to the beginning of Exodus and the point at which God calls Moses you read that God heard the cries and the groans of his people. Listen to me, they groaned and cried and he heard. They were oppressed and depressed by the Egyptians, there seemed to be no hope of release from this slavery, from this pain of toil of making bricks. But God heard their cries and he answered. He found them. He searched them out and he brought them to the Promised Land. This morning can I say to you – God has heard your cry, he has found you, he has searched you out and he is here this morning to take you to the Promised Land. The world you now inhabit has no future, it has no hope but praise God he has found you in your desert and has come to bring you to a land of plenty.
Look at Moses now says of God in the second part of verse 10 and verse 11. What a wonderful picture of God’s protection.
When we were in Kenya a few years back we saw numerous birds of pray. They were amazing. They soared high in the sky. I don’t know much about birds but I do know that the eagle is one of the most particular of parent birds. The eagle builds a nest of briars, thorns, sharp sticks and then lines that with animal skins and feathers. When the chicks have grown they awaken one morning to their mother throwing out the nice feathers and the nice fur. She allows only the briars and thorns to remain. Why? Cant you imagine the little eaglets asking ‘Why have you done this? This is so uncomfortable.’ Friends the reason the mother eagle does it is quite simple. They were not born to remain in the nest. Eagles are not known for sitting in nests but for soaring high into the sky, for riding the thermals and for their majesty in the air. Then one day the mother eagle starts dismantling the nest, stick by stick she throws everything away. She destroys the nest so that the eaglets will learn to fly. She removes all their safety and security but she herself remains with them. Gently she nudges them to fly. She does not do it that they might fall and die but that they might fly and live. She knows that the nest is not their destiny. She knows that if they remain on that crag and in that nest they will never be eagles, never soar as an eagle should, never hunt like an eagle – in fact if they remain in the nest they will die. Friends so it is with God and us.
Moses describes God’s protection and provision of his people as like that of the eagle – verse 11. God stirs up the nest, he catches us when we fall and carries us to safety. But all along the purpose is that we might soar and not remain in the nest. God stirs up, breaks up the nest so that we might fulfil our potential in Christ Jesus. Remember who Moses is addressing here – the people of God. People who have wandered for 40years in the wilderness. People whom God found in a barren land and whom God has taken on a journey to the brink of the Promised Land. You see God knows exactly what he is doing when he stirs up and breaks up our nests. When he uprooted the people of Israel from Egypt, what seemed like a comfortable nest, he did it because he knew the Promised Land was their true home and not Egypt. Can I suggest to some of you this morning that you need to open your eyes, your spiritual eyes, and realise that Egypt is not your home, comfortable and all as it is for you.
Sometimes God comes in and wrecks our nest bit by bit. He makes it uncomfortable to remain where we are. He makes it uncomfortable for us to remain in our sins, in our Egypt, whatever and wherever that may be. He does it because he loves us and he wants us to soar like eagles.
The second thing I learn about God in verse 11 is that he protects me when he stirs up and breaks up my nest. Look at what Moses says here. The eagle hovers over her young, she catches them on her wings and carries them in her pinions. What a wonderful image of God’s protection. The people of Israel have only just left Egypt and Pharaoh and his army are close on their heels. The people led by Moses reach the Red Sea. To their left is marshland, to their right mountains and in front the Red Sea. Behind Pharaoh, who is not exactly coming with their farewell cards and p45’s. The people grumble and yet God miraculously rescues them. God never left them destitute, nor hungry. In fact Moses tells us that their clothes did not wear out, their shoes did not wear out and they were never hungry. God was like a mother eagle hovering over her young. When the eaglets begin to learn to fly the mother lets them fall before she swoops down and catches them and carries them to safety. But eventually they learn to fly. Now we can only push this analogy so far. But listen to me, in the middle of crisis, when it seems like your world has been torn apart and all the things of comfort have been thrown out – God has not abandoned you – he is there hovering over you, guarding and protecting you. He is there to protect you from danger. He is there to assure you of His love, his presence and his strength when your world is falling apart. Let me read two verses from the Psalms that assure us of this: Ps. 91.4 and 125.2.
When an eaglet is learning to fly the mother eagle lifts them on her wings and carries them many hundreds of feet into the sky. The young eaglet begins to see the world from a different perspective, a perspective they never knew existed, and one they never had from the nest. One which they would never have had had they remained in the nest. But just as the young eagles are enjoying the new sights their mother turns and dumps them off her wings and now they are freefalling. They are now faced with a new problem, and their instincts take over. They, too, begin to spread their wings, just as they had seen their mother do, and they begin to glide and use the strength they never knew about before! They are soaring, just like their mother. But because their wings are not developed and do not have great strength they soon grow tired and when that happens their mother swoops down and rescues them. She is their support when their little wings grow tired. She is their courage when their hope is gone. She is their example of how to fly. She supports them when there is nothing else left.
When god stirs up our world, he remains beneath us to be our courage, our strength and our example. Moses put it like this in Deuteronomy 33.27. So when God comes, as he will, and stirs up your nest, your world he will not abandon you. He will lift you up on his wings and let you see the world from a different perspective. He will allow you to soar and when you grow tired and weary he will be there to support you, to encourage you and to carry you to safety. But as your example he expects you to follow him, to spread your wings and soar – not to sit on your nests and grow fat and obese – as Moses says in verse 15. Again in Isaiah 41.10 God assures us that we need not fear because he is with us. God is there like a mother eagle who cares for her young.
Then in verse 12 Moses states that God guides his people. Just as the mother eagle guides her young in order that they might fly so God guided his people so that they might soar. Where did God guide his people? He guided them from place to place for 40 years so that they might now be on the brink of stepping over the Jordan and into the Promised Land. Friends I want to suggest to you this morning that God has been guiding you all of your life to this point – to this very moment when you have been given an opportunity to step over into the Promised Land. His unseen hand has guided every step of your life, every circumstance, every situation, every relationship – all the good and all the bad – his unseen hand has been at work to bring you to this point, this moment and this place of decision for you. The people of Israel wandered for 40 years but in those 40 years a pillar of cloud and a pillar of fire guided them. They never moved from a campsite until the cloud of God’s presence lifted from the Tabernacle and when they rested the Tabernacle was the first place reconstructed so that the presence of god might be manifested in their midst. Friends we need to learn from that. You and I need to know in our hearts, in our souls, in our spirits and in our fellowship that we dare not move unless God leads us – why? Because if God does not lead we can be sure we are not going to the Promised Land but for a wander in the desert. Here the people of Israel are, 40 years later, at the exact same spot that their forefathers had stood and they are faced with the same choice. Shall we obey God and cross the Jordan into the land he promised us? Or shall we listen to the voice of fear and doubt? Their forefathers listened to 10 spies who were fearful and full of doubt. 10 men who lacked faith in God and by listening to them they were condemned to die in the wilderness and never to enter the Promised Land. Listen to me this morning, if you listen to the voice of doubt, if you listen to the voice of fear, if you refuse to obey God’s voice, God’s call and God’s leading – then wilderness wandering and death is your destiny. I mean that humbly, but I mean it with all my heart. God lays before you a choice this morning. He says to each and everyone of us – ‘I have brought you to this point in your life. I have searched you out and found you. I have heard the groans and the cries of your soul. I know your spirit this morning and I know all about the wreckage of your life. I know every sin, every thought, every word – I know you better than you know yourself. I have set before you the Promised Land – by faith step into the river Jordan and cross over.’ Friends they had to step into the flowing river – they had to take a step of faith in order to cross from the wilderness to the Promised Land. The wilderness was all that they had known. For 40 years they had wandered. For 40 years God had provided all their food but now was the moment of decision for them. Now they had to leave the familiar, the safe, and to step out in faith into the fast flowing river in order to cross over to the land flowing with all God’s riches. When they took that step of faith – God parted the waters of Jordan and they crossed over safely.
2000 years ago God provided the means for you and I to enter the Promised Land – a land flowing with all the riches of heaven. He sent his Son Christ Jesus to die on the cross that your sin and my sin might be cleansed. Why would God do such a thing? Well if you look at verse 10 you get an insight. Moses says there that God views his people as ‘the apple of his eye.’ The Hebrew says ‘the little man of the eye’ – the pupil. When God looks at his creation and he looks at mankind – he sees man as the apple of his eye, as the pinnacle of his creation. He sees man not as he is but as he was meant to be – in communion and fellowship with him. God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son – that is how Jesus stated it in John 3.16. God loves you this morning, you are the apple of his eye and his desire for you this morning is that you would cease your wilderness warning and by faith in Christ enter into the Promised Land.
Let me finish with one more story. This story is for those of you who are Christians this morning but somewhere along life you have settled for less than God wants to give you or intends for you to be.
There was once a little mouse who was very fearful. In fact he was so fearful he spent most of his days hidden away. One day he met a magician and he asked the magician to turn him into a cat, which the magician promptly did. But the first thing the mouse (who was now a cat) saw was a dog and he became fearful again. So he asked to be turned into a dog, which happened but again he was fearful and hid away. When he next met the magician he asked to be turned into a lion. The magician said no and turned him back into a mouse. The mouse asked why? The magician said the problem is no matter what I turn you into you will always have a mouse’s heart. Friends there are some of you here this morning and God would say to you – you have a mouse’s heart when you really ought to be soaring with the eagles. But as long as you have a mouse’s heart you will never be who I want you to be. You will never get the eagles’ perspective of soaring in the heavens. God has found you out this morning. He says to you – I have eagles wings, I am going to mess up, strip away piece by piece the comfortable nest you are in because the nest is not where you are supposed to be. I am going to carry you high into the sky and you will see all I have planned for you and then I am going to drop you off my back and let you soar. Do not fear when you fall because I will catch you, I will be there to support, to encourage – just follow my example and you will soar.
Now let me ask you all these questions this morning:: Do you want what God has for you? Do you want to wander in the wilderness or do you want to cross the river and enter the Promised Land flowing with all the riches of God? Are you tired of the desert? Are you tired of the dry, arid, sandstorms of life? Are you fed up with being parched and thirsty? Do you desire the living water of Christ and real nourishment for your soul? The only one who can satisfy those deepest needs, those deepest desires is Jesus. You can search this whole world over and you can be comfortable here – but the eternal destiny of this world is hell and damnation. Friends this morning you have the opportunity to come to Christ and to enter Promised Land. So will you come? AMEN.
