Tested in the Land of "Milk and Honey"
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Our Scripture lesson this morning comes from Deuteronomy 8:7-20:
For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and springs, flowing out in the valleys and hills, a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey, a land in which you will eat bread without scarcity, in which you will lack nothing, a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills you can dig copper. And you shall eat and be full, and you shall bless the Lord your God for the good land he has given you.
“Take care lest you forget the Lord your God by not keeping his commandments and his rules and his statutes, which I command you today, lest, when you have eaten and are full and have built good houses and live in them, and when your herds and flocks multiply and your silver and gold is multiplied and all that you have is multiplied, then your heart be lifted up, and you forget the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, who led you through the great and terrifying wilderness, with its fiery serpents and scorpions and thirsty ground where there was no water, who brought you water out of the flinty rock, who fed you in the wilderness with manna that your fathers did not know, that he might humble you and test you, to do you good in the end. Beware lest you say in your heart, ‘My power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth.’ You shall remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth, that he may confirm his covenant that he swore to your fathers, as it is this day. And if you forget the Lord your God and go after other gods and serve them and worship them, I solemnly warn you today that you shall surely perish. Like the nations that the Lord makes to perish before you, so shall you perish, because you would not obey the voice of the Lord your God.
May God bless this the reading of His holy and infallible Word.
Last week we looked at how God tests our faith in “wilderness” situations. Today, we will examine how God tests us in prosperity. Prosperity is a good thing. As we will learn today God blesses His people with the gift of prosperity. However, prosperity is also a dangerous thing. In a very famous passage in the Gospel of Luke, Jesus warns us that, “it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” (Luke 18:25). In this passage, Moses speaks of this danger and how we can guard ourselves from it, but first, in order to understand this passage, we need to take a look at the “good land” which Israel was about to enter into, just as we looked at the “manna” last week.
The Land of "Milk and Honey”
The Land of "Milk and Honey”
In vss. 7-10, Moses describes the Promised Land in glowing terms, almost as if it were the Garden of Eden. If you have seen pictures of, or have been able to go to the Holy Land, most people would hardly describe this land as a Garden of Eden. This makes some question the inerrancy of the Bible. Perhaps Moses was mistaken, or perhaps he was exaggerating reality. He had never been in the Promised Land and it was only later that He would be able to view it from on top of a mountain.
I would be tempted to think that Moses was at the very least using literary hyperbole, if it were not for two events in my life.
The first was a Department of Agriculture bulletin given to me by my father when I was a teenager. My father knew I was interested in the Bible and he worked for the Soil Conservation Service. This little bulletin looks at the Holy Land through the eyes of a soil scientist, and what this soil scientist sees is a land that was once very fertile, but is now ruined by deforestation, over grazing and abusive farming methods. There is plenty of evidence that the land was a very good land 3500 years ago.
The second, was an Old Testament class I took in seminary. My professor, Berry Beitzel was a geography nerd. In fact, he has authored an atlas of the biblical world. He pointed out to us that the Holy Land was called the “land of milk and honey” to distinguish it from Egypt. Egypt’s land depended upon the Nile River for her fertility. The Promise Land depends upon rain and dew. Because the productivity of the Promise Land depends upon God providing rain and dew, it is uniquely suited to produce faith. This above all else is what makes this land a “good land”. The place where God places you, is designed by God to make spiritually rich.
This does not mean God is not interested in blessing your materially. However, He knows that sin and Satan will use prosperity against us. As with all good gifts, the Devil perverts them and makes them dangerous traps. It is the trap of prosperity that Moses wants us to be on guard against.
The Twin Traps of Prosperity
The Twin Traps of Prosperity
Moses warns us of the first trap in vs. 17:
Beware lest you say in your heart, ‘My power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth.’
Notice that Moses says, “lest you say in your heart”. Few would dare say publicly, “my power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth”. We learn early in life that publicly boasting does not go over well with other people. Therefore, we all tend to keep our pride to ourselves. The important point we all need to remember is that Moses is reminding us that God “hears” our silent boasting. He easily sees though our false humility.
The danger here is greater than the fact that God sees through our false humility. Forgetting God is the greatest danger. Last Sunday, we learned about the danger of “forgetting God” in the Wilderness. Today, we are learning about the danger of forgetting God in the Land of Plenty. The person who has “forgotten God” has not forgotten that God exists, rather he or she lives as if God does not matter. “My hands and my might have gotten me this wealth” he or she pridefully says to themselves; but what did we just learn about the “land of milk and honey”? Did we not learn that the productivity of this land is dependent upon the rains and dew that only God can bring?
So many in our society today speak with pride of being a “self-made man or woman”. No one is denying the hard work and ingenuity of these people, but we need to realize it is God who has given us the strength and ability to “make something of ourselves”. This week we celebrate Thanksgiving, there is not a person alive who does not have reason to thank God.
The second trap is found in vs. 19.
And if you forget the Lord your God and go after other gods and serve them and worship them, I solemnly warn you today that you shall surely perish.
This is the trap of turning to false “gods” in order to secure economic security. As we learned earlier, prosperity of the Promised Land is unlike that of Egypt. Each year the Nile rivers floods, fertilizing the Egyptian fields. In addition, the Egyptians could count on the waters of the Nile to irrigate those same fields. The Promised Land was different, it was totally dependent upon the rain and dew, and when the rains and dew failed, so did their crops and herds. As a consequence, the people of the land worshiped all types of “gods” who promised to economic security.
We have our false economic gods as well, increasing numbers of Americans are depending upon the government for economic security. Others depend upon their investments and savings. A common “god” Jesus warns us of is money:
“No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.
The problem with all these false economic gods is they do not last, “moths and rust will destroy, and thieves will break in and steal”! Many Americans are feeling insecure right now because all of our economic gods are failing us. This is why we must learn how to guard ourselves against these traps.
How to Guard Yourself Against These Traps
How to Guard Yourself Against These Traps
The first way we can guard ourselves is through thankful worship:
And you shall eat and be full, and you shall bless the Lord your God for the good land he has given you.
What Moses is describing here is the equivalent to celebrating Thanksgiving. Moses is telling us to feast upon all the good things God has provided us with thanksgiving in our hearts to God. Contrary to popular mythology, the Pilgrims did not invent Thanksgiving, nor was their Thanksgiving, the first Thanksgiving. The Pilgrims were simply obeying God’s commandment that we have before us!
Although in other portions of Scripture God commands us to prudently “store up like the ants”, this does not mean we should hoard our wealth. God gives us wealth in order that it may be enjoyed and shared with others. Enjoying the blessings God gives us with thanksgiving keeps us dependent upon God, rather than upon the wealth itself. Jesus warns us of depending upon our hoarded wealth in another parable:
And he told them a parable, saying, “The land of a rich man produced plentifully, and he thought to himself, ‘What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?’ And he said, ‘I will do this: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.” ’ But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.”
The second way we can guard ourselves is found in vs. 18:
You shall remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth, that he may confirm his covenant that he swore to your fathers, as it is this day.
In this verse, Moses exhorts us to focus on God’s covenantal faithfulness. We have already looked at the fact that it is God who gives us the power to get wealth, but notice why He does this—it is in order to “confirm his covenant”.
When it comes to economics, good intentions and hastily made promises are worthless. No one in their right mind would sell a home without a contract. A covenant is the biblical equivalently to our contracts, but only stronger. You see, in the biblical world, when someone broke their covenantal promises, they were put to death! Genesis 15 is a good example of this; there God makes a covenant with Abraham. God instructs Abraham to cut up animals in two halves. What He was doing is commanding Abraham to prepare a covenant ceremony. In the Ancient Near East, when two parties made a covenant with each other they would walk through the cut-up carcasses of animals to symbolically say, “If I do not keep my end of the covenant, may I be cut in two, just as these animals”! However, on that day, God places Abraham into a deep sleep and only He passes through the carcasses. God was telling, Abraham, “I am going to keep both ends of the covenant.”
This is why Jesus died on the Cross. Not because God did not keep His end of the covenant, but because we did not keep ours! This illustrates how serious God is to maintain the covenants He is party to. He not only keeps His end of the bargain, He keeps ours! No wonder why Moses says, keep your eye upon God “who give you power to get wealth, that he may confirm his covenant”!
Once again, Thanksgiving Day is a great time for you to begin implementing this. A favorite hymn of many is entitled, Great is Thy Faithfulness. Great indeed is God’s faithfulness. His mercies are new every morning! We have so much to be thankful for. After I pray, we are going to sing together that simple hymn God is So Good. Let us begin our Thanksgiving celebration now! Only by knowing with all of our hearts that God is good, can we avoid the pitfalls of living in the “Good Land”.