Thru the Bible - #159-Deuteronomy 8- God's Gracious Dealings

Transcript

Welcome And Settle In

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to Bereen's Corner, the podcast where we go through books of the Bible chapter by chapter and verse by verse. Wherever you are in the world, thank you for joining. Grab a glass of water, a cup of coffee, a tea, and let's get into today's lesson. Alright, thank you all for joining me and welcome back. May the Lord add his blessing to the reading of his word. Open your Bible to Deuteronomy chapter 8. The title of today's lesson is God's Gracious Dealings. Deuteronomy chapter 8, and let's read.

SPEAKER_00 0:49

Deuteronomy 8. Be careful to follow every command I give you today, so that you may live and increase and may enter and possess the land that the Lord promised on earth to your forefathers. Remember how the Lord your God led you all the way in the desert these forty years? To humble you and to test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands. He humbled you, causing you to hunger, and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your fathers had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. Your clothes did not wear out, and your feet did not swell during these forty years. Know then in your heart that as a man disciplines his son, so the Lord your God disciplines you. Observe the commands of the Lord your God, walking in his ways and revering him. For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land with streams and pools of water, with springs flowing in the valleys and hills, a land with wheat and barley, vines and fig trees, pomegranates, olive oil and honey, a land where bread will not be scarce, and you will lack nothing, a land where the rocks are iron, and you can dig copper out of the hills. When you have eaten and are satisfied, praise the Lord your God with the good land he has given you. Be careful that you do not forget the Lord your God, failing to observe his commands, his laws, and his decrees that I am giving you this day. Otherwise, when you eat and are satisfied, when you build fine houses and settle down, and when your herds and flocks grow large, and your silver and gold increase, and all you have is multiplied, then your heart will become proud, and you will forget the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. He led you through the vast and dreadful desert, that thirsty and waterless land, with its venomous snakes and scorpions. He brought you water out of hard rock. He gave you manna to eat in the desert, something your fathers had never known, to humble and to test you so that in the end it might go well with you. You may say to yourself, My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me. But remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth, and so confirms his covenant, which he swore to your forefathers as it is today. If you ever forget the Lord your God, and follow other gods, and worship and bow down to them, I testify against you today that you will surely be destroyed. Like the nations the Lord destroyed before you, so you will be destroyed for not obeying the Lord your God.

A Simple Formula For Blessing

Obedience Tied To Prosperity

What The Wilderness Was For

Praise God In The Good Land

Building A Healthy Fear Of God

Warnings About Pride And Forgetting

Personal Application And Closing Prayer

SPEAKER_01 3:48

Now, one of the greatest dangers believers face is not always hardship, sometimes it's success. When life gets comfortable, when the bills are paid, when you know doors start opening, when things begin going well, that's often when people slowly stop depending on God. Now, that is the heart of Deuteronomy chapter 8 that we are looking at today. Israel was getting ready to step into the promised land. They were about to experience blessings and prosperity they had never seen before. Moses knew he would not be going with them. So before he died, he wanted to leave them with something they could hold on to for the rest of their lives. And his message was simple: never forget that it was God who blessed you. Uh, I know I've used this analogy before, but I will bring it up again. I always uh I mean I have used the example before of a boxer that when he was on the come up, he would always say, you know, thank you to Jesus, my Lord and Savior, be after every match that he won. But once he started making a lot of money, he seemed to forget God. And I noticed in his interviews, he stopped saying, I thank Jesus, my Lord and Savior, or I thank God. And he just got uh straight to talking, and that's uh, you know, talking in his interview, and that's what happens a lot of times with people. What happens is that people forget that it's God who blessed them. And the thing is, you never want to stop fearing, you never want to stop trusting, and you never want to stop obeying his word. Now, there are uh a couple of main principles I want to bring out in a basic formula for uh experiencing the blessings of God, and they're pretty simple. The first one is fear God. Remember, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. Number two is listen to the word of God. What you're doing right now, what you do when you go to church with your pastor, when you're in your car listening to other sermons, you're listening to the word of God. Next is you want to personally obey the word of God. And this is where a lot of us, I know I have fallen short, this is where we lose course. We don't personally obey the word of God. Sometimes we hear it and we say we fear the Lord, but we don't obey it. The next thing you want to do is continually remember God and His Word throughout your life. Every area of your life throughout your life, you want to remember that word of God and never forget what God has done for you. That's something to remember. Remember the things that the Lord has brought you out of. Remember the things that He's done for you. Remember when you were in trouble and how He rescued you. Remember those things. Remember when you cried out to Him in your prayers or in your daily life, Lord, deliver me from this, and He did so. And no matter what the generation, these truths still apply. They apply today, just like they did back here in Deuteronomy. And this is something for the Israelites and for us to remember and to keep close to heart. Now, there were there are a few prerequisites that I want to bring out in this chapter. The first is very carefully focused on understanding and obeying all the word of God. Notice verse one all the commandments that I am commanding you today, you shall be careful to do that you may live and multiply and go in and possess the land which the Lord swore to give to your forefathers. God tells his people that if they will carefully obey his word, they will live and prosper in the land he has given them. Now, the Christian life is not just about hearing scripture occasionally, it's about learning it, understanding it, and applying it to your life daily. A lot of people want the blessings of God without the obedience that goes with it. That is something important. You have to have obedience. A lot of us we want to be blessed, but we don't want to do what the Lord tells us to do. Lord, I want you to bless me. I want you to uh bless my health, bless my finances, bless my future, but you don't want to give the Lord obedience. But blessing and obedience have always been connected. As believers, we have to understand life without God at the center slowly destroys a person. And we have seen that some of us in our own lives, and we have seen it in other people's lives. That's why we must stay focused on all the word of God, not just the parts we like or the parts that are convenient, but we want to focus on all of the word of God. Now, the second prereq we want to look at is always remember how God humbled and tested you to show you he was the one providing for you. And we see this in verses two through five. And you shall remember all the way which the Lord your God has led you in the wilderness these forty years, that he might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not. And he humbled you and let you be hungry, and fed you with manner which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you understand that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord. Your clothing did not wear out on you, nor did your feet swell these forty years. Thus you are to know in your heart that the Lord your God was disciplining you just as a man disciplines his son. Moses reminds Israel about the wilderness. For forty you know, remember, for forty years God did what? He humbled them, he tested them, he provided for them, and he taught them dependence. The wilderness was not wasted time. God had a purpose in it. And there was a couple of reasons for these purposes. Reason one was to humble his people. We saw that in verse number two. Oh, sorry, let me go back. And you remember, excuse me, and you shall remember the way which the Lord your God has led you in the wilderness these 40 years that he might humble you. It's amazing that people who had once been slaves still struggled with pride. But pride is a human problem and it always has been, and God will never bless pride. You have to get rid of that pride. Sometimes God allows difficult seasons because he is teaching us to depend on him instead of ourselves. Before God pours blessings into our lives, he often works uh uh humility into our hearts, and some of us have been through that. Uh he God is getting ready to bless you, but first he has to bring you down and humble you. The second reason is to test his people. We also notice in verse 2 that it says, testing you. God allowed Israel to hunger and then provided manna from heaven. You remember that? He he it was God who allowed them to be hungry and then he blessed them with the manna. Why? So they would learn. Their survival was not ultimately tied to bread, but to God himself. That was the lesson. That's why he let them get hungry and then he rained down the bread. This is the same passage Jesus quoted when Satan tempted him in the wilderness. Jesus showed us that real life is found in testing and obeying the word of God. When God's people focus on him and his word, God takes care of them. Now, that does not mean life becomes easy. It means God proves himself faithful. And that's something we have to remember. The Lord never said that it was that it was going to be easy. He said that he would be there with us and he would prove himself faithful. And there's a few more lessons from the wilderness that God still works this way today. He may not send manna from heaven, but he gives us opportunities, he provides jobs, he opens doors, he sends people to help us, and he supplies what we need at the right time. God searches hearts. See, you can't see inside of my heart, and I can't see inside of your heart, but God searches hearts and he knows hearts. He tests his people to see whether they truly trust him and take his word seriously. And when his people stay faithful, they experience his provisions in ways that they never could have imagined. Now, there is also a danger to success. Now, Moses warns Israel about this. Prosperity can make people forget God. I mentioned that earlier. When people start succeeding, it becomes easy to think, I did this, I built this. You know, this came from my strength. You know, I built this up. But Moses says, never forget it is God who gave you the ability to prosper. Everything we have ultimately comes from him. And that is a lesson that we want to hold on to and never forget, which brings us to the next prerequisite. Always remember to praise God and to worship God when God leads you to great blessings. We see this in verses 6 through 10. Excuse me, lost my spot. Therefore, you shall keep the commandments of the Lord your God to walk in his ways and to fear him. For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and springs flowing forth in valleys and hills, a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive oil and honey, a land where you shall eat food without scarcity, in which you shall not lack anything, a land whose stones are iron, and excuse me, and out of those hills you can dig copper. When you have eaten and are satisfied, you shall bless the Lord your God for the good land which He has given you. Now that is something very important to remember. And there are some lifestyle patterns to remember in there. In verse 6, it tells us that God's people are to carefully guard and can and excuse me, guard the commands of God. Also in verse 6, the Lord says that God's people are to walk in the ways of the Lord. He also says in verse 6 that people are to live in a fear of God. Remember, the fear of the Lord is a healthy thing. And there are other scriptures that you know pertain to the fear of God. You know, we see that in Luke chapter 12, verses 5 and 6. Jesus said to fear God and to put and to cast uh and and excuse me, to fear God who can cast one into hell. He also tells us in Acts chapter 9, verse uh 3, uh, where Luke says that uh excuse me, I'm sorry, 31. Luke says that the early church developed a fear of the Lord. He mentions that in 2 Corinthians 5 and 11, Paul said, knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade men. He also said in 2 Corinthians 7 and uh chapter 7 and verse 1, that we are to develop a holiness in the fear of God. In Ephesians chapter 5, verse 21, Paul said that we are to be subject to each other in the fear of the Lord. In Philippians chapter 2, verse 12, Paul says to work out our salvation with fear and trembling. In 1 Peter chapter 1 and verse 17, Peter says, Conduct yourselves in fear during your stay on earth. Peter also says in uh 1 Peter chapter 2, verse 17, to fear God. We also see in Revelation chapter 14, verse 7, an angel announces to the world in the tribulation to fear the Lord. It is brought out to us a lot of times to fear the Lord. You are to have that fear of the Lord, that it is a healthy thing, and it reminds us of who delivered us, but who also is our judge. Which brings us to the fifth, excuse me, the fourth prerect. Never forget God or his word when he is blessing you. We see this in verses 11 through 20. Sorry, I was doing a lot of talking and a lot of reading, and uh my mouth got a little dry. Verse 11 Beware lest you forget the Lord your God by not keeping his commandments and his ordinances and his statutes, which I am commanding you today. Lest, when you have eaten and are satisfied and have built good houses and lived in them, and when your herds and your flocks multiply, and your silver and gold multiply, and all that you have multiplies, then your heart becomes proud, and you forget the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. He led you through the great and terrible wilderness, with his fiery serpents and scorpions and thirsty ground, where there was no water, he brought water for you out of the rock of flint. In the wilderness, he fed you manna which your fathers did not know, that he might humble you, and that you that he might test you to do good for you in the end. Otherwise, you may say in your heart, My power and my strength of hand made this wealth. But you shall remember the Lord your God, for it is he who is giving you power to make wealth, that he may confirm your covenant, which he swore to your fathers, as it is this day. And it shall come about, if you ever forget the Lord your God and go after other gods and serve them and worship them, I testify against you today that you shall surely perish. Like the nations that the Lord makes to perish before you, so you shall perish because you would not listen to the voice of the Lord your God. Now the Lord gave a few warnings in these verses we just read. In verses 11 to 14, he said, Your heart will become proud, and you will forget God. That is something very important that they should have known, and you and I should remember. When people get proud in their heart, they forget the Lord. The second warning was, you forgot about your former slavery. He talked about that in verse 14. That did you remember that you were slaves? Actually, your nation were slaves for 400 years, but it was I who brought you out of it. But now, these 40 years that you've been out, you forgot all about it. The next warning is you will forget God's former protection. Remember how the Lord protected you. Remember how the Lord brought you through the wilderness, remember how he protects you from the plagues that he delivered in Egypt. Sometimes we do the same thing. We forget God's protection he put on us in the past. The fourth warning is you will forget God's wonderful provisions. You he's telling them in verses 15 through 16, it was God that provided water for you and manna, he provided that food for you, and you have forgotten those things. The fifth warning is you will forget that it was God who gave you your wealth. Uh, the thing is, is that do you remember when the Lord gave them wealth when he had them go to their neighbors and it said that their neighbors would bless them and give them things they did not work for? It was God who gave you your wealth, and that is a lesson for you and I. When you get up and go to work in the morning, in the afternoon, or in the evening, you know, for those of you who worked overnight, chef, always thank the Lord for that day. I make it a habit of doing that every day that the Lord allows me to go to work, every time the Lord allows me to get overtime. Lord, thank you for my employment. Thank you for the opportunity to provide for myself and my family. Father, it is you who gave us this wealth, Father, and we thank you for it, oh Lord. Now, there is a final application that I would like to bring out. Sometimes we only see God intensely during hardship. Uh, I have been guilty of that. Now, I am a praying man, I pray all the time. I teach my family to pray and to reach out to the Lord, but sometimes when things get hard, that's when we really dig in and we really intensely go after God. But the real test is will we still seek him when life is going well? When the Lord brings you out of these things, will you still seek him with that same desire? Will we still pray? Will we still obey? Will we still trust and stay humble? And when success comes, will we do those things? Because the blessing is never supposed to replace uh dependence on the Lord. Now, my final thoughts are this is that God blesses his people, yes, he does, but he expects them to fear him, obey him, remember him. He remembers them, he he expects them to remain humble before him. The moment we forget God is the source of our strength and provision, we begin drifting away spiritually, and that is a dangerous thing. All right, that brings us to the end of Deuteronomy chapter 8. Listen, I don't know about you, but when I was studying this chapter and getting my notes together to teach this, it spoke to me. I'm going through a season right now in my life with some loved ones, uh, and this hit me. You know, uh a lot of us are in intense prayer, we're in intense hardships, and we're seeking out to the Lord. But the point of it is, is that what I learned in this chapter, in this lesson, is that when this is all over with, and the Lord is gonna get us through it, that you still want to be reaching out to the Lord. You still want to be hard after God, on your knees, crying out to him to keep those successes going, that you will continue to fear him, that you will stay away from sins that have plagued down your life, and that you will actually see that the Lord is the one who provides a great life, and the Lord will provide a great life. All right. I hope, as always, that you got something out of this lesson as well. As I always ask for your brother over here at Barin's Corner, continue to pray for me, continue to pray that I stay healthy, that I stay steadfast in these scriptures, and that I continue to keep my spirit on the straight, narrow path and bring this word of God to you and me. Because as I mentioned, I also learn as I go along. And I am praying for you. Wherever you are in the world, I appreciate you more than you know. I thank you for taking time out of your morning, your afternoon, your evening to listen to me go through the word of God as we learn together. That brings us to the end of Deuteronomy chapter 8. That is all for now. God bless. Thank you for listening to Bereen's Corner. We appreciate you joining us as we dive into God's word and seek biblical truth together. If this episode encouraged or challenged you, be sure to subscribe, share, and leave a review on your favorite podcast platform. You can find Bereen's Corner on Buzzsprout, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart, Amazon Music, and more. Let's stay connected. If you have questions, comments, or prayer requests, Or reach out to us at Bereans Corner.buzzbraw.com or you can follow along with show transcripts and leave a message in a fan mail slot. Also follow us on YouTube at Berean's Corner. And don't forget to subscribe. We'll love to hear from you. Until next time, keep searching the scriptures like a Berean. Stay discerning, stay faithful, and God bless.