Deuteronomy 8 - Not by Bread Alone - Fasting and Scripture

I want to tell you about a conversation that I had with David on Wednesday. Here's the context to it. On Wednesday, we were talking about the men's workday that was supposed to be yesterday. By the way, we have a great track record of scheduling those, because we've scheduled two this year. One of them got canceled for tornadoes, the other one for a lightning storm. That we should just not work on it? We need rain. We have a great track record with it though. But nonetheless, so we're on Wednesday after the services, we're talking about the scheduling of that, and Benny jumps his hand up and says, but are the men still going to have a Bible study that morning? Because some of the men as part of our reading groups meet in person here at the church building at 10 o'clock on Saturdays. David's response was, after we're done, maybe this even counts. Anyway, he walked up to me afterwards and he said, you know what? You are never going to get Benny. Like he is going to be focused on that Bible study. Benny wants to have it. Then he said two words that I thought were very appropriate for this morning. He feasts. Now, I'm really grateful actually that Benny is not here. I'm sad that Benny is not here. He called me, I called David too as I was on my way here, and he just said, you know that bug hit my house too. We're not feeling well, and so Benny and Sherry aren't here. But the fact that he's not here means that I can embarrass him a little bit because I do think that Benny is a great example of one who feasts, who loves his word, and you can tell that simply by speaking to him. But here's what I want to encourage you today. Here's my challenge before the end of the day. Feed your spirit in the same way you feed your body. That's what today is going to be about. It is based in Deuteronomy Chapter 8, verse 3, in Matthew 4, verse 4, in which Jesus quotes it, which says, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. Feed your spirit in the same way you feed your body. I'm going to give you two ways, two challenges of how to do that by the end of this service. How we're going to do so is we're going to open our Bibles to Deuteronomy Chapter 8, which is going to be on page 87 if you're following along, page 87 in this blue Bible if you're following along, Deuteronomy Chapter 8. What we're going to see is the Israelites' experience in the wilderness, Jesus' experience in the desert, how those two combine and how we can learn to feed our spirits in the same way that we feed our bodies. So really what you can think about this is this is the conversation about fasting in Scripture, as this has been a part of a longer conversation about fasting. But I want to ask you before you dive deep your noses into that page, I want to give you two pictures of places. I want to ask you, where would you rather live? Okay, I'm going to give you two images, option A and option B. Option A is nothing but rocky desert. And option B is rolling green pastures. How many of you would rather live in option A? Huh, I'm not seeing any hands. Let me test this. How many of you would rather live in option B? Oh, there are your hands, you are awake. No, it seems pretty obvious. For one, if I asked this question living in Arizona, people might express their opinions differently. Some people go to those dry, arid places, particularly in their older years because it's better for your health, if you will. But we live in Alabama. We live in the place where we like green rolling hills. We like all of our trees. We like all of the green, it's very nice. But I want you to think about this, not just a sense of where to live, but if you had to live off of the land, where would you want to live? That becomes really obvious. You would not want to live in option A if you were required to live off of the land. If you had to grow your own crops, if you had to raise animals, if you had to live off the land, no one wants to live in option A. Everyone wants to live in option B. Well, that's how we should approach the conversations that are had in Deuteronomy chapter eight because it's gonna compare two things, the wilderness and the promised land. But God didn't treat this as an either or. What I want you to notice is that he treated this like a process. And here's what I want you to notice from Deuteronomy chapter eight. God used scarcity to prepare Israel for surplus. He took them through the wilderness, the place of scarcity, to prepare them for the place of surplus in the promised land. So God used scarcity to prepare Israel for surplus. I just want you to notice that in Deuteronomy chapter eight because we're gonna compare first the lessons from scarcity to the temptation of surplus. So the first thing I want you to notice is the lessons from scarcity. I want you to read with me Deuteronomy chapter eight, verses one through six. Deuteronomy chapter eight, verses one through six. Here's what it says. The whole commandment that I command you today, you shall be careful to do, that you may live and multiply and go in and possess the land that the Lord swore to give to your fathers. And you shall remember the whole way that the Lord your God has led you these 40 years in the wilderness, 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 hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. Your clothing did not wear out on you and your foot did not swell these 40 years. Know then in your heart that as a man disciplines his son, the Lord your God disciplines you. So you shall keep the commandments of the Lord your God by walking in his ways and by fearing him. All right, so that's Deuteronomy chapter eight verses one through six. And what you should notice is that this is chronicling their time in the wilderness, their 40 years of wandering in land that looked a whole lot like the image on the screen. Dust and rocks. And I want you to remember how many people are traveling in Israel at this time. When Moses numbered the people, by the way, he didn't number all of the people, he simply numbered the men, which excludes women. And he only numbered the men who are of the age that could go to war, 20 years and up. And still, even at that fraction of the population, it was 603,450. Add to that all of the women, add to that every non-military aged man. There's millions of people here in this wilderness walking around in a place that will scarcely provide for them. This is what God said he did to test them. But it's because he wanted to teach them a couple lessons, and the first that I want you to notice is that he wanted to teach them dependence. Go with me to verse three. Deuteronomy chapter eight, verse three says, and he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with man in which you did not know, nor did your fathers know that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but that man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. He wanted to teach them dependence. He said, I led you through a land that was going to make you hungry, and, by the way, I fed you with man that you did not know, nor did your fathers know. And in case you wonder why that weird repetition of words is there, do you know what manna means in Hebrew? What is it? That's what manna means, what is it? It is the original mystery meat. But here he says, I kept you in a place of scarcity so that you knew that you were relying on me. And I didn't want you to know that you were just relying on me physically. He said, I even did this so that I could teach you that man doesn't live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. You are dependent, Israel, on God, not only to supply your physical needs, but your spiritual needs also. He wanted them to learn that they were relying dependent upon him. And having taught them dependence, there was a second important lesson. I'm gonna take this from verse five. He wanted to teach them obedience. Read verse five again with me. This was the focal point of our Lord's Supper talk this morning, but here's what it says. Know then in your heart that as a man disciplines his son the Lord your God disciplines you. So you shall keep the commandments of the Lord your God by walking in his ways and by fearing him. He wanted them to learn that they're dependent upon him so they can learn to be obedient to him. And the two are connected. He said, I'm treating you, I'm disciplining you like a son because he wants that son to obey. I'm giving you the commandments because I want you to follow them. And in all of this, I'm testing you to see what's in your heart. He taught them dependence so that he could teach them obedience. These were the lessons they were supposed to learn from the desert because he was going to lead them from the place of scarcity to a place of surplus. But those places of surplus were going to come with temptations. And I want you to see how connected those are to the lessons they were supposed to learn already. I want you to read with me Deuteronomy chapter eight, beginning in verse seven. Beginning of verse seven, I want you to just see how much surplus is included in the place that they're going, all right? So Deuteronomy chapter eight, verse seven. 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 figs and pomegranates, a land of olives and 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 that he has given you. Look at all of the abundance in the land to which they go. Look at all of the surplus. But here's where the temptations come. Notice this verse 11. 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, that 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, and when there was no water and brought you water out of the flinty rock, who led you in the wilderness with manna that your fathers did not know that he humbled you and, or that he might humble you and test you to do good in the end. Beware, lest you say in your heart, my power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth. What is the first temptation of surplus? It's independence. It's to say, I don't need God because I'm taken care of. I don't need for him to supply for me, I've supplied for myself. Beware, lest you say in your heart, my power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth. The danger of living in surplus is that you feel independent. You feel that you're entirely capable of taking care of yourself and you can forget God in the process. And what happens if you feel independent and that you feel that you can just take care of yourself and that you are no longer dependent and reliant upon him? Well, that's where the second temptation comes in and that's to disobedience. So here's what it says in verse 19. It says, 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 perish. You shall surely perish. Don't let me skip that part. Like the nations that the Lord makes perish before you, you shall perish because you would not obey the voice of the Lord your God. So when they got too big for their britches, their britches started walking away from God. They got independent and therefore they were led into disobedience too. So here's what we should see. God used the time of scarcity to prepare Israel for surplus. He wanted to teach them that they're dependent upon him and that they should be obedient to him so that in the times where their needs were readily met, they would still be dependent and obedient, but instead there's a temptation to surplus. Now, let me ask you something. Which better describes your life? Do you live in scarcity or surplus? Take inventory for a minute. Now this answer is not gonna be the same for every person in the room because there are varying levels of scarcity and surplus in this room. But I feel pretty confident in saying that we live in pretty well surplus. I want you to look at this description again. Look at this description in verse 12. Let's when you have eaten and are full and have built good houses and live in them, when your herds and flocks multiply and your silver and gold is multiplied and all that you have is multiplied. How well does that describe your life? Do you live in a good house? Are you full? Do things multiply for you? We live in surplus. And it is one of the greatest things about living in this country. But there's a danger that comes with that. There's a danger of always being in surplus because when you are always in surplus, we can have a sense of independence leading us away from obedience. Let me just ask you this. Jesus instructed the people to pray. Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Does anyone know the next line? Give us this day our daily bread. When you pray that, do you have any sense of anticipation that he might not? Why? Can you look in your pantry and realize that there's surplus to be had? Okay, that's just it. We are constantly facing surplus. So I want you to notice one more time before we move on, Deuteronomy chapter eight, verse three. Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. So as he says, I'm gonna take you in a place where you're gonna have as much bread as you need, you're gonna eat and be full. You can eat as much bread as you want and still be empty. You can eat as much food as you want and you're still starving because you need more than that to truly live. Man doesn't live by bread alone. So I'm going to encourage you by the end of this, feed your spirit like you feed your body. That's where we're still heading. But that being the quote, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. Now I'm going to turn to Matthew chapter four, verse four. It's gonna be really easy, watch this. Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. It is the same verse that Jesus quotes when he is in the wilderness. So here's what I want to do now. Now I want to look to Matthew chapter four and Jesus' experience in the wilderness. I want you to notice some parallels between what we just read in Deuteronomy and what Jesus experiences in Matthew chapter four. If you're following along in Matthew chapter four, this is gonna be on page 472, 472. So I'm gonna show you a chart that has Jesus fasts and Israel wanders, and that there's gonna be, for today, five parallels in between. Look for those while we read Matthew chapter four on page 472, Matthew chapter four, beginning in verse one. Then Jesus was led up by the spirit in the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And after fasting 40 days and 40 nights, he was hungry. And the tempter came and said to him, if you are the son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread. But he answered, it is written, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. Then the devil took him to the holy city and set him on a pinnacle of the temple, and said to him, if you are the son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written he will command his angels concerning you, and on their hands they will bear you up lest you strike your foot against a stone. Jesus said to him, again it is written, you shall not put the Lord your God to the test. And again the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to him, all these I will give you if you fall down and worship me. Then Jesus said to him, begone Satan for it is written, you shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve. And the devil left him and behold, angels came and were ministering to him. Okay. So there are five verbal parallels between what just happened in Matthew chapter four and Israel wandering in Deuteronomy chapter eight. Can you guess what some of those are? Here's the first one. The wilderness. Where does this take place? In Deuteronomy chapter eight verse two, God says he took them into the wilderness. And where is Jesus taken by the spirit? In Matthew chapter four verse one, it's into the wilderness. It's into that place of scarcity. That place of dust and rocks, the place that will not naturally provide for his physical needs. That's where these stories take place. But here's one that really hit me. It wasn't just into the wilderness. It was for the purpose of testing. Read Matthew chapter four verse one. Matthew chapter four verse one. Then Jesus was led up by the spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. Okay. I am no Hebrew scholar. So if I'm going to look this up, I'm going to look it up by looking at Greek in the New Testament and then going back to the Septuagint in the Old Testament. That's my nerdiness and there's a hole in that and I understand that, but nonetheless. I went back to Deuteronomy chapter eight verse two and the word for testing is found in Deuteronomy chapter eight verse two where he says, I brought you in the wilderness to test you, to humble you, to see what was in your heart. The purpose for both of them going into the wilderness was for the purpose of testing. All right. Then there's the really obvious one. They were hungry. So in Deuteronomy chapter eight verse three, he says, I led you through the wilderness and I let you hunger and I fed you with man that you did not know and that your fathers did not know that so that you may know that man does not live by bread alone, but everywhere that proceeds out of the mouth of God. That's what he says in Deuteronomy chapter eight verse three. He says, I let you be hungry. All right. Jesus says that he fasted. By the way, how long were the Israelites in the wilderness? But for 40 years. All right. How long was Jesus in the desert? For 40 days. All right, you see a parallel there for a reason? And at the end of that, it says that he was hungry. I don't doubt it. But that became the point of testing. It's because he was hungry. And that's when Satan comes to him with temptations. And I want you to notice, by the way, the last temptation. The last temptation, he says, hear from this mountaintop, see all the kingdoms of the world. And if you fall down and worship me, I will give them all to you. The temptation for Israel at the end of Deuteronomy chapter eight, in verse 19, and their moment of disobedience was that they would worship the gods of the lands and thereby disobey God. But there's one more. And this was the content of our Lord's Supper talk today. I was happy to elaborate on that in the middle of the message here, but I decided to go ahead and do it because John wasn't going to be here. And that is that this is the son's treatment. Deuteronomy chapter eight, verse five says, I disciplined you as a father disciplines his son. And twice, twice for the first two temptations, Satan comes to Jesus and says, if you are the son of God, if you are the son of God, Jesus is being treated as a son in the wilderness, being tested to be hungry. So he will discern whether he will worship God or not. So here's why I have elaborated on these five points of comparison between Jesus fast and the wilderness experience of Israel. It's because Jesus experienced in a fast, what Israel experienced in the wilderness. He took on in a personal way, the trials of the wilderness through his fast and he succeeded in it. But remember that there were lessons to be learned in the wilderness. What were the lessons they were supposed to learn? They were supposed to learn dependence on God and obedience. Jesus therefore is the one who says, man shall not live by bread alone. You can't make me turn stones into bread though I have the power to do so because I know that I can't be truly sustained if I'm not being obedient to the father. And I'm not going to worship you Satan because you shall worship the Lord your God and serve him only. But here's what fasting therefore becomes. Fasting is temporary scarcity to fortify against the temptations of surplus. It's temporarily experiencing the wilderness to fortify against the times that you live in the promised land and the spiritual dangers of it. Fasting is a temporary scarcity. For that purpose. So that we can learn the lessons of the wilderness. So that we can learn dependence and obedience. Let me get back to the challenge then. My challenge was at the beginning of this, feed your spirit in the same way that you feed your body. I'm going to give you two ways to do this. One if you're fasting and one if you never do. If you're fasting, remember man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. The first part of this challenge is read your Bible when you're fasting. If you choose to undertake a fast, if you choose to undertake a vow, make it be a time of scripture. Now I told you that I was going to embarrass Benny twice today. And I'm really glad that he's not here so that I can do so. So Benny is one who feasts. He loves his scripture. And the first time that I ever noticed this, we had gone to miss Janice's sister's funeral together. We drove out there together. And as we were there and afterwards, we're kind of mingling talking with the family. There was a moment in which the family was very occupied and we're just kind of sitting back waiting, being polite. And in that moment of quiet, what do you think Benny did? He reached into his pocket and he pulled out a little Bible and you should see how weathered that thing is. That is a plate that has been well used. It was the first time I'd ever noticed it. And that hit me. This is a man who loves his Bible. And so I told you that I've been kind of experimenting with fasting over the course of this year. And it was at the beginning of it that I realized two things. One, I want to be like Benny when I grow up. And if I want to be like Benny when I grow up, I kind of have to do some Benny things. So I bought myself a Bible. But the second is that I knew that to make sure that I was feeding my body or feeding my spirit in the same way that I was feeding my body, I needed to be close to my word. I needed to be close to my Bible. And how many of you, if you reached into your pocket right now, how many of you have a Bible app on your phone? Almost everyone who has a smartphone has a Bible app on your phone. Congratulations, great job. Perfect. Here's why I chose if during a time of special fasting, that I was going to focus on my Bible, that I wasn't going to do it on my phone. How many of you if you open your phone and have 10 other things that you would absolutely do on your phone? Yup. My fingers go by habit to some other things. So I chose no, get away from my phone, buy a physical copy, get a little Bible and stick it in your pocket. Learn from Benny, man who feasts, who's truly feasting. Feed your spirit like you feed your body. If, and this is level one of my encouragement today, my challenge, read your Bible while you're fasting, if you choose to do so at any given time. But now I want you to change gears with me. What have you eaten for breakfast this morning? How many of you are really love breakfast? Yeah, I'm really excited by the way about our upcoming guest who's coming to dinner, breakfast for dinner. I can eat breakfast foods at any time of day. Absolutely, I love me some breakfast. But I want you to think about breakfast for just a second and the word breakfast. What does breakfast mean? To break fast. I'm gonna say this slightly facetiously. You fast every day. There's a time of eating and then there's a time of sleeping, resting, et cetera. You fast every day. But at the end of that, in the morning, whenever it may be, whenever you break your fast, you're gonna feed your body. And I simply want you to ask, have you fed your spirit? This is any day of the week. And so my second challenge is, no matter what, whether you never fast or not, well, intentionally, spiritually, Bible before breakfast, feed your spirit in the same way that you feed your body. Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. Now you can do that in a few ways. We have five days a week, a reading plan that you can follow along with, and you can, I tried to keep that reading plan manageable enough that it's pretty short to read. And you can wake up and feed your spirit before you feed your body every day, just by reading that daily reading before you have your breakfast. You can feed your spirit in the same way you feed your body, but you don't have to. You do not have to follow along with our daily readings. You don't have to follow along with our reflections. In fact, right now, we're only reading through the New Testament. There's so much mist at that point. There's so many beautiful things that you could be, pun intended, chewing on. But just make sure that you are feeding your spirit in the same way that you feed your body. But now I want to get to that last image, that last image of Jesus on the cross. He trusts in God. Let God delivered him now if he desires him for he has said, I am the son of God. I told you earlier that he is the obedient son. He is the son who taught dependence upon God and upon his word. And he died for the rebellious child. But I want to notice one other thing in Matthew chapter 27. Matthew chapter 27. Before Jesus is officially condemned to crucifixion, there's a moment in which Israel can choose to save him, to spare him from the cross. It's in chapter 27 verse 15. Now at the feast, the governor was accustomed to release for the crowd any one prisoner whom they wanted. And they had a notorious prisoner called Barabbas. So when they gathered, Pilate said to them, whom do you want me to release for you? Barabbas or Jesus who was called Christ. For he knew it was out of envy that they had delivered him up. Besides, while he was sitting on the judgment seat, his wife sent word to him, have nothing to do with that righteous man for I've suffered much because of him today in a dream. Now the chief priests and the elders persuaded the crowd to ask for Barabbas and destroy Jesus. The governor said to them, which of the two do you want me to release for you? And they said, Barabbas. And Pilate said to them, then what shall I do with Jesus who is called Christ? Then they all said, let him be crucified. And he said, why, what evil has he done? But they shouted all the more, let him be crucified. Now this is the moment where I would truly say that Jesus takes Barabbas place. There's already three crosses on that hill. There's already three sets of nails, three men will die. And Barabbas, taken from other accounts, has participated in the insurrection. He probably even led the insurrection. Killing Romans to try to fight for Israel. And he's going to die a criminal's death. Jesus dies, king of the Jews, a title of insurrection. I think he truly takes Barabbas place. But let me just tell you one more thing. And this I find beautiful. Do you know what Barabbas means? In Aramaic, Bar Abbas means son of the father. If you looked at these two standing before Pilate, who is the son of the father? Yes, Barabbas and the son of God. I tell you this because when they cry out from the cross, he trusts in God, let God deliver him now if he desires him, for he has said, I am the son of God. He is the son of the father and he is dying for us. He is taking Barabbas place. I am Barabbas, and so are you.