Deuteronomy 8:2-3: “And thou shalt remember all the way which the LORD thy God
led thee these forty years in the wilderness, to humble thee, and to prove thee,
to know what was in thine heart, whether thou wouldest keep his commandments, or
no. And he humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna,
which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know; that he might make thee
know that man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out
of the mouth of the LORD doth man live.”
Notice verse one of this chapter: “All the commandments which I command thee
this day shall ye observe to do, that ye may live, and multiply, and go in and
possess the land which the LORD sware unto your fathers.”
We also read in verses 10 and 11: “When thou hast eaten and art full, then thou
shalt bless the LORD thy God for the good land which he hath given thee. Beware
that thou forget not the LORD thy God, in not keeping his commandments, and his
judgments, and his statutes, which I command thee this day.”
When the Lord has brought upon us His rich blessings, we must beware not to
forget Him. The most important thing for you and me to understand is that the
Lord wants us to understand what He has done for us. The Lord wants us to
remember the way in which He has led us. He wants us not to forget this when He
has given us blessings, and not to set our hearts on the things of this life. We
are not to live by the things of this life, but by every word that proceeds from
the Lord’s mouth.
Notice how our Saviour quoted these significant words of our text after He was
tempted 40 days in the wilderness. He had been tempted to violate this very
principle. Notice this in Matthew 4:3-4: “And when the tempter came to him, he
said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread. But he
answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by
every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.”
The Lord is leading us through many trials, through many afflictions and through
many circumstances to teach us that we must live by every word that proceeds
from His mouth.
Notice the devil’s next subtle temptation by his crafty interpretation and
perversion of the Word of God in Matthew 4:5-6: “Then the devil taketh him up
into the holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple, And saith unto
him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, He shall
give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee
up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone.”
One of the devil’s most crafty devices is interpreting the Word of God. He took
the Word of God to tempt Christ to disobey that very Word. He is trying to
interpret God’s Word to mean that we should be fatalistic.
There is much difference between interpreting the Word of God and unfolding the
Word of God. No human being on the face of the earth has ever been commissioned
to interpret the Word of God. The pastor’s job is to unfold it and search it out
and to show you “Thus saith the Lord.” That is the end of it. We have absolutely
no commission to interpret the Word of God. Our only commission is to unfold the
Word of God and to help you understand what it says.
The Apostle Paul explains so beautifully how we are not to live by the
interpretations of some authority but by every word of God. We see this in 1
Corinthians 2:4-5: “And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words
of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power: That your
faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.”
The Apostle Paul is showing us the basis of his ministry. It is not what some
theologian interprets God’s Word to mean. This is not the foundation upon which
we stand. Our foundation must be every word that proceeds out of the mouth of
God.
God’s dear family, whom He led through the wilderness, cannot feed on the husks.
They cannot feed on some interpretation of man’s wisdom. They cannot feed on
that which the swine have left. They can only feed on the bread of life, which
is every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.
I see such a blessed harmony in these words from our text and those found in
Proverbs 30:5-6: “Every word of God is pure: he is a shield unto them that put
their trust in him. Add thou not unto his words, lest he reprove thee, and thou
be found a liar.” We do not eliminate a word, neither do we transpose a word.
By nature of the fall, we find the truth of what God has recorded in His Word in
Romans 10:21: “But to Israel he saith, All day long I have stretched forth my
hands unto a disobedient and gainsaying people.”
Gainsaying comes from the Greek word antilego, and it means to dispute, to
refuse, to answer again, to contradict, to deny, to gainsay, to argue with, to
oppose by reasoning, or to agitate contrary opinions or principles, to question
the justice of a principle.
Now by nature, God’s people are a gainsaying people. This means we want to take
the Word of God, and we want to agitate opinions contrary to it. By nature we
will argue against it or oppose it with human reasoning. We want to start
interpreting. We want to alter what God has really said to us because we do not
like it the way it is.
How often do people gainsay the Word of God because they do not believe they
should abide by it the way it is written? They will oppose it and question its
justice, not only the world, but God’s people are a gainsaying people by nature.
I want you to see Malachi 3:13-15, where it speaks of a gainsaying people: “Your
words have been stout against me, saith the LORD. Yet ye say, What have we
spoken so much against thee? Ye have said, It is vain to serve God: and what
profit is it that we have kept his ordinance, and that we have walked mournfully
before the LORD of hosts? And now we call the proud happy; yea, they that work
wickedness are set up; yea, they that tempt God are even delivered.”
What we have done is to question the authority of His Word. See how these
gainsayers question God's judgment!
This is something I have said before, and I would like to say it again. Why are
there thousands of different churches and denominations in the world? Ask one
why they cannot fellowship with another, and they may respond, Well, we
interpret the Bible differently than they do. No human being, though, has ever
been authorized to interpret the Bible, so they are both wrong. Why do we not
just get into the Bible, unfold it and see what it says, and there would only
have to be one church.
As a result of this rebellion, which was instilled in the heart of man through
the fall, our text tells us how God leads His dear children to break that
rebellion and to rebuild their reverence for the Word. That is what happened in
Paradise. They lost their respect and reverence for God’s Word. We are not to
build our foundation upon the wisdom of men or upon what some theologian or
authority says, but on what the Word of God says.
That proud rebellion that is in our hearts by nature must be broken, so the Lord
leads us through circumstances to humble us.
The first point, which the Lord impresses upon the conscience, is to remember.
We forget so easily, and that is what the Lord was cautioning His people
against. If we get into a state of prosperity and into a comfortable set of
circumstances, we are likely to forget and neglect the authority of His Word.
One of the greatest weaknesses we have inherited because of the fall is that we
want to live by bread only, the temporal things of this world, and forget what
God has said. As soon as we become comfortable in the things of this world, and
we start setting our pleasures and hopes on the things of this life, the Lord
sees that we have forgotten to live by His Word.
We read in John 14:26: “But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the
Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things
to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.”
The Lord will lead us through circumstances, and He will bring us through trials
that will bring us to remembrance as to what the Lord has told us, and what the
Word of God says.
This Divine Teacher shines on all the ways in which He has led us. When we
become older and look back, then we remember things the Lord did to us when we
were little children. Many things in my life as a child often come to my
remembrance when the Lord has led me through some way that has brought me back
to remembering His Word. Now, many times the Lord reminds me of things He taught
me as a child.
One of the most blessed means this Divine Teacher uses to bring God’s ways to
our remembrance is recorded in Malachi 3:16: “Then they that feared the LORD
spake often one to another: and the LORD hearkened, and heard it, and a book of
remembrance was written before him for them that feared the LORD, and that
thought upon his name.”
The Lord often brings things back to my memory things when we have fellowship,
and we gather together to tell what the Lord has done in our lives. When someone
else tells what the Lord has done in his life, it brings to my mind what the
Lord has done in my life, how He has spared me, and how He has brought me to
this place, how He has led me these years in this life’s wilderness.
This time of refreshing follows true repentance. We read in Acts 3:19: “Repent
ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the
times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord.”
I was visiting with a pastor one time who was dying of cancer, and I asked him
how he was doing. He replied: “I have been preaching all these years, and now I
have to be saved myself. It seems as if the Lord has withdrawn Himself.”
I reminded him how he had been in our congregation, and how the Lord had so
richly blessed his preaching. I reminded him of another church, where he told of
how a woman had been so delivered from the power of Satan under his preaching.
Then I reminded him of another time he had told about in a congregation back
east that the Lord had so richly blessed. I told him: Now, when Satan comes and
tells you, Oh, you have deceived yourself. The Lord never called you into the
ministry in the first place, tell him to go back where he belongs.
After we had visited for a couple of hours, that man was as lifted up and
rejoicing in the Lord as he was cast down when we started talking. It was by
bringing to remembrance those things that the Lord had done in the past that his
soul was refreshed. The Lord in His providence brought about that very visit.
This is the refreshing that came in the presence of the Lord.
Oh beloved, what a blessed time of refreshing it is when one of God’s dear
children may exclaim with David as we see in Psalm 66:16: “Come and hear, all ye
that fear God, and I will declare what he hath done for my soul.” This refreshes
the souls of those who have become dry. Before you leave a situation like this,
you will find that they too are remembering and are speaking of the times when
the Lord has worked good in their souls.
That is what the Lord is saying in our text—that you may remember. I will lead
you through these humiliating times, and through these humiliating
circumstances, so that when I come and send deliverances in such times, then you
will be able to tell of the times I have blessed you.
Now I want you to see the harmony between the words of our text and what David
said of those who feared the Lord. Look at Psalm 66:10-12: “For thou, O God,
hast proved us: thou hast tried us, as silver is tried. Thou broughtest us into
the net; thou laidst affliction upon our loins. Thou hast caused men to ride
over our heads; we went through fire and through water: but thou broughtest us
out into a wealthy place.”
This is what David was going to tell the people who came to gather around him in
verse 16. He was going to tell how the Lord had tried him, and how the Lord had
proved him, and now how the Lord had blessed him. I have been through this
struggle. I have been through this trial, but the Lord did not drop me in the
middle of the fire. He did not leave me to be drowned in the water, but He
brought me out to a wealthy place.
This calling of God’s assembly was to remember all the ways into which the Lord
had led him. It was to call to remembrance. He was going to tell them how he had
been proved and how he had been tried, but how the Lord delivered him.
I want you to see Psalm 66:17-18: “I cried unto him with my mouth, and he was
extolled with my tongue. If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not
hear me.” Regard in the original means “cherish.” If I cherish iniquity in my
heart. If I have some iniquity in my heart that I love.
Continuing in verses 19 and 20 we read: “But verily God hath heard me; he hath
attended to the voice of my prayer. Blessed be God, which hath not turned away
my prayer, nor his mercy from me.”
This is the great news he was going to share with others. I was in trouble. He
proved me. He brought me out into a wealthy place. He heard my prayer, and He
delivered me. These are the things that come into remembrance when we come
together to tell what the Lord has done for our souls.
We often recall the darker shades of our paths as well as the brighter ones. We
have to also remember the black spots in our lives, as well as the times when
the Lord has delivered us, because it was these black spots that He delivers us
from.
It was the same with David when he said in Psalm 25:5-7: “Lead me in thy truth,
and teach me: for thou art the God of my salvation; on thee do I wait all the
day. Remember, O LORD, thy tender mercies and thy lovingkindnesses; for they
have been ever of old. Remember not the sins of my youth, nor my transgressions:
according to thy mercy remember thou me for thy goodness’ sake, O LORD.”
It is important to understand that David, the man after God’s own heart, the
sweet psalmist of Israel, when he got older, he said, “Lord, remember not the
sins of my youth.” When we are children, when we are young, we do so many things
that we do not realize are sinful. We have bitter thoughts. We can be rebellious
against our parents. We do not realize how grievous that is until we get older.
David asked the Lord to remember him according to His mercy.
Many times, children, now that I am old, I think back on when I was rebellious,
and that makes my heart cry. So many things we do when we are children, such as
being angry, bitter and rebellious, then when we get older we see how grievously
that offends the Lord. Then we say, Lord, please do not remember my sins of
youth. They grieve us. They haunt us, so in our youth we should learn to
remember what it is to love the Lord, and if we are submissive to our parents,
we are being submissive to the Lord. The Lord tells us to honor our father and
our mother. We must respect them.
We are to remember all the ways in which the Lord has led us. The Lord has led
us through so many trials. He has led us through so many circumstances, and we
are to remember all of them because He had one purpose in leading us through
these trying circumstances, and that is to teach us to remember that we live by
every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. It is to teach us to love the
Word and the will of God.
Now when we remember the dark shades of our lives, there are so many things
connected with our nature’s depravity. When you and I think back like David did
upon his sins of youth, we see so many things connected with the depravity of
our lives. We can think of so many times where we were bitter at this person, or
we were hateful toward that person, or we were rebellious against this or that.
We see such depravity, but we also see grace super abounding. Sometimes when we
think back on all the ways the Lord has led us, then we can think back how we
were so rebellious here, and then how the Lord used such circumstances to teach
us to understand that that was rebellion against God.
As we remember God’s mercy, and we remember His delivering hand, it sometimes
seems like all nature was against us, but what was the Lord teaching us? He was
teaching us to recognize that the result was bitterness in our hearts. He was
teaching us to know what was in our hearts, and we overlooked it until the Lord
led us to a given point and then we were able to see it.
Now then we see that dark shade in our hearts, and we remember how the Lord
taught us to see it, and how He delivered us from it. That is what we remember
when we look back.
The second point the Lord impresses upon the conscience in our text is why it
was that He led them 40 years in the wilderness. First He says remember, and now
He is going to tell us why. His grand purpose was to humble us.
Let’s see what the Lord is teaching us here. If the Lord would reveal who was
the proudest man in town, it would not be the one who spends his day counting in
his counting house or doing the things that please the flesh.
It would be one of those gainsayers of whom we read in 2 Corinthians 11:13-15:
“For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into
the apostles of Christ. And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an
angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be
transformed as the ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to
their works.”
This is where we would find the proud one. They can stand up to the Word of God
and interpret it and twist it to say exactly the opposite of what it says. How
much of that do we find in our hearts, that we do not want to take the Word of
God literally, just the way it is written, but we want to alter it a little, or
apply it in some way to fit us better? How much of this is in our hearts that
the Lord has to humble?
These ministers preach the righteousness of Christ, but I will show you where
the missing link is. They preach salvation without repentance. You can be saved
like Balaam wanted to be saved. He wanted to have all these wonderful
experiences. He wanted to die the death of the righteous, but he loved the wages
of unrighteousness. That is what happens under this kind of ministry. These
ministers have never cleaned up their acts. They have never repented of their
doings. They will be dealt with according to their works, not according to their
profession.
The Lord uses the Spirit’s teaching in the heart to produce the heavenly grace
of humility, which we do not have by nature. You and I have fallen in Adam by
nature, and pride was the first sin. Rebellion was the result of pride.
Two things produce humility by way of the Spirit’s teaching. One is His shining
into the heart with a deep discovery of who we are. The Holy Spirit will shine
in our hearts and give us to see the abominations that are there. He will give
us to see the blessed sacrifice of Christ, and the wrath of God upon sin, and
how it grieves God when we sin. He gives us to see our corruption, our weakness,
our pride and our wickedness. This though is not enough. It will not bring our
hearts to be sufficiently humble before the Lord.
How did the Lord bring to light the evil in the hearts of the Israelites? You
and I may be humble. I never had trouble in my life with pride—until the Lord
humbled me. When I start to see what it was for the Lord to humble me, then I
understand how much Pharisee was in my own heart. When I started to see what was
in my heart, I lost that whole pile of stones I had to throw at other people.
The proudest man in town was humble by comparison to me, when the Lord taught me
what pride I had in my heart.
The Israelites were standing on the shore of the Red Sea, and they had just been
singing the songs of redemption of how God had delivered them from the hands of
the Egyptians. That typified deliverance from the power of sin. Three days later
they murmured against the Lord. They murmured against that very God, and Moses
who led them.
The purpose of the Lord in bringing them into these circumstances was to reveal
what was in their hearts. That rebellion, bitterness and hatred was already
there. It did not come from this trial, but the trial revealed it. The Lord led
them 40 years in the wilderness to humble them. It was to teach them by these
circumstances what was in their hearts. During these three days in the
wilderness, their rebellion, which was already in their hearts, was revealed. It
was by this that He proved what was really in their hearts, whether they would
keep His commandments or not.
In the way the Lord leads His people today, He brings about circumstances in our
lives. Sometimes these seem like such riddles and bring us to our wits end. Some
circumstances seem to be beyond all reasoning. We wonder why the Lord would have
ever brought us into such a trap, but it is to reveal our hearts. In these
circumstances do we see bitterness, do we see rebellion, do we see murmuring? Do
we see pride being trampled upon? Do we see these things in our own nature
becoming revealed? He leads us into these circumstances to humble us.
This is what the Lord is saying. We see bitterness, and we see hatred, and we
see jealousy and we see covetousness. If we come into circumstances where it
seems that the Lord is going to set our brother above us, does it make us
jealous? Is that jealousy in us and suddenly it surfaces, that hatred, that
rebellion, that covetousness, that lust? Those sins are revealed by the
circumstances the Lord leads us through that we might know what is in our
hearts. The Lord knows what is in our hearts, but He wants us to know.
This is what Jesus taught in Matthew 10:34: “Think not that I am come to send
peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.”
If we are truly walking in the ways that the Lord is leading, and that He is our
Leader, we will walk in ways that are against the flesh. This will crucify every
grain of flesh that is in us. It will bring us to a place that we know we would
have never considered being.
Continuing in verses 35 and 36 we read: “For I am come to set a man at variance
against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law
against her mother in law. And a man’s foes shall be they of his own household.”
Does this mean literally that it has to be your own father or your own son? No,
what the Lord is saying is those who are the closest to you. Your closest
friends, those you love the most, and the Lord sets us at variance with them
because we love them more than we love Him. He separates us from them because we
made an idol of that friendship.
The Lord’s purpose in this is to humble us and to teach us what is in our hearts
so we will take up our cross.
Notice the following verses. We read in verse 37: “He that loveth father or
mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more
than me is not worthy of me.” This is what He is proving. Do we love that person
more than we love Him? Can we give up that friendship or that position in life
in sacrifice because we love Him more? The Lord will lead us in this way to
prove us. He will reveal what is in our hearts by cutting this off, by bringing
us to a crossroads. You choose. Are you going to follow me or are you going to
follow him?
Like I have explained before: two boys walking together with one dog following.
Whose dog is it? Wait until they get to a crossroad and they each go their own
way. Which one does the dog follow?
This is the way the Lord is. We can walk together side by side with someone in
the world until we come to a place where two ways meet. Now one is going to go
to the right and the other is going to go to the left. Who are we going to
follow? Are we going to follow the Lord, or are we going to follow our friend?
The Lord brings us into these trials to see what is in our hearts.
As with the Israelites in the wilderness, it was through circumstances taking
place one after another that the Lord reveals the corruption that is in our own
hearts. The Lord reveals to us by bringing us into these circumstances: which do
we love more? That is what He wants to know.
We read in verse 38: “And he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me,
is not worthy of me.” When we come to these crossroads, if we are unable to
sacrifice everything of the flesh and follow Him, we are not worthy of Him. So,
He will lead us in these paths and in these circumstances for the sole purpose
of proving our hearts.
As a general rule, it is not by having some minister tell us what wicked
creatures we are. It is not by merely looking into our own hearts and seeing the
evil therein, but it is by trials and by circumstances that the Lord teaches us
the corruption of our own heart.
I can have a preacher tell me all day what a corrupt person I am, but if it does
not apply to me, it is like water off a duck’s back. However, when the Lord has
led me into a set of circumstances and has allowed bitterness to settle in my
heart, and has allowed me to become corrupt in my thinking, then when the Lord
shows me what is in my heart, it is through these circumstances that I have
learned to see.
This is what the Lord is saying here in Deuteronomy 8:2: “The LORD thy
God led thee these forty years in the wilderness, to humble thee.” It is for
this that the Lord leads us into these circumstances.
Time after time when the Lord humbles us, we come to the realization of how vile
we are. Then we come to the realization that we have been a gainsaying people,
and the Lord now brings us to where we start living by every word that proceeds
out of the mouth of God.
Our text says that we were humbled and that He proved us, to know what was in
our heart, whether we would keep His commandments, or no.
Another way in which humility is taught us is found in Romans 2:4: “Or despisest
thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and longsuffering; not knowing
that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance?”
The Lord opens our hearts and eyes to understand how we deserve so much less,
and that He has granted so much more than what we deserve. He opens our eyes to
see that God so loved us that He gave His own Son, and how that the love of the
Son hung Him on the cross to take away the penalty of our sins.
Mount Sinai drove the people away. Nothing about the law and hell and damnation
draws people to God. However, His goodness, His love, leads us to repentance, to
a change of attitude.
Is this notwhat we see in the life of Moses, the meekest of all men? We read in
Exodus 33:17-19: “And the LORD said unto Moses, I will do this thing also that
thou hast spoken: for thou hast found grace in my sight, and I know thee by
name. And he said, I beseech thee, shew me thy glory. And he said, I will make
all my goodness pass before thee, and I will proclaim the name of the LORD
before thee; and will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will shew
mercy on whom I will shew mercy.”
Israel had just sinned. Israel had just been reproved for worshiping the golden
calf. God had just told Moses that He would destroy all Israel and make a great
nation of Moses alone. Moses intervened and pleaded for Israel, and the Lord
forgave them.
When the Lord causes all His goodness to pass before us, He is bringing to our
remembrance all these ways in which He has led us, and all the times we have
grievously sinned against Him, and how He graciously forgave us. He is showing
His tender love, and that is so humiliating.
Folks, I want to tell you from experience, when we have seen into our own hearts
and seen the corruption that is there, and then we see the tender love of God to
such a worthless, wretched sinner, that is the most humbling experience there
is. The Lord uses this to humble us as well as the circumstances through which
He brings us.
So what was the climax of God’s goodness that He caused to pass before Moses in
the wilderness? We read in Exodus 33:21: “And the LORD said, Behold, there is a
place by me, and thou shalt stand upon a rock.”
Behold, take notice, I want you to see this. I want to bring it to your
attention.
Verse 22 says: “And it shall come to pass, while my glory passeth by, that I
will put thee in a clift of the rock, and will cover thee with my hand while I
pass by.”
The Lord is showing him the place He has provided for His church, and that is in
the cleft of the rock. That is so humbling for those who have learned to see the
sins of their own hearts. While I pass by, while I pass over your sins, I will
have you in the cleft of the rock, that is, in that blessed sacrifice of the
Lord Jesus Christ.
In verse 23 we read: “And I will take away mine hand, and thou shalt see my back
parts: but my face shall not be seen.” He will take away His hand, and we will
see the finished work of Christ. If you were to see God outside of Christ, you
would be consumed. You will not see what God is on sin outside of Christ, but
you will be able to look on that satisfied, finished work of Christ.
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