Sermon Tone Analysis

Deuteronomy 11:1-9

We Must Remember

 

/Love the LORD your God and keep his requirements, his decrees, his laws and his commands always.

Remember today that your children were not the ones who saw and experienced the discipline of the LORD your God: his majesty, his mighty hand, his outstretched arm; the signs he performed and the things he did in the heart of Egypt, both to Pharaoh king of Egypt and to his whole country; what he did to the Egyptian army, to its horses and chariots, how he overwhelmed them with the waters of the Red Sea as they were pursuing you, and how the LORD brought lasting ruin on them.

It was not your children who saw what he did for you in the desert until you arrived at this place, and what he did to Dathan and Abiram, sons of Eliab the Reubenite, when the earth opened its mouth right in the middle of all Israel and swallowed them up with their households, their tents and every living thing that belonged to them.

But it was your own eyes that saw all these great things the LORD has done/.

/Observe therefore all the commands I am giving you today, so that you may have the strength to go in and take over the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess, and so that you may live long in the land that the LORD swore to your forefathers to give to them and their descendants, a land flowing with milk and honey/.

Among messages for new converts, none qualify as more seemingly paradoxical than that which states We must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God [*Acts 14:22*]  This message of encouragement was delivered by the church planters of the new churches in Lystra, Iconium and Antioch—cities situated in the provinces of Pamphylia Pisidia.

Strange encouragement, that!

Conflict and sorrow seem always to mark the route to the heavenly city, but for every trial we gain another mile toward the goal of being conformed to the image of Christ.

In many ways the progress of any congregation toward spiritual maturity and toward pleasing God is paralleled by the experience of Israel in the wilderness.

Delivered from Egyptian bondage, the people of Israel moved quickly toward the Promised Land, although by a somewhat circuitous route.

Poised at the edge of the promised territory the people rebelled and complained against God because of the hardship they imagined facing in the land promised them and their fathers since before bondage.

As result of their grousing and grumbling God deserted them to their foes to humble them and when they were thoroughly chastened He marched them through the wilderness for forty years until that entire generation had died [*Numbers 14:1-45*].

It is an axiom of the Faith that in some instances entire generations must die off in order that future generations might experience God’s blessing.

Stubbornness and self-interests when tolerated among the people of God invite His chastening hand.

Such discipline, however, is from the heart of a loving Father too good to ever needlessly hurt His beloved children and too wise to ever make a mistake.

In looking back we are enabled to see clearly the hand of the Lord in our every experience.

So Moses, forbidden from entering the land the people were about to inherit but yet very much the leader of the people of God, called them to remember the evidence of the hand of God throughout the long years of wilderness journeys.

Would you not suppose we should be enabled to discover admonitions of greatest value to us as Christians, and more particularly encouragement for us as members of the congregation known as *First Baptist Church*, through exploration of the words Moses spoke that day so long ago and which issued from the heart of God?  Open your Bible to the passage under consideration and join me in exploring the heart of God, praying for guidance from His blessed Spirit.

Remember His Power (*verses 1-4*) — /Love the LORD your God and keep his requirements, his decrees, his laws and his commands always.

Remember today that your children were not the ones who saw and experienced the discipline of the LORD your God: his majesty, his mighty hand, his outstretched arm; the signs he performed and the things he did in the heart of Egypt, both to Pharaoh king of Egypt and to his whole country; what he did to the Egyptian army, to its horses and chariots, how he overwhelmed them with the waters of the Red Sea as they were pursuing you, and how the LORD brought lasting ruin on them/.

It is the duty of one generation to tell the next of the might and power of God displayed in days past, and especially to tell how the Lord has delivered them from the enemy.

Woe to that congregation unable to speak truthfully of God’s power revealed in their behalf.

Woe to that individual Christian incapable of telling of the might of God.

The Psalmist commands:

 

            /Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good;/

/                        his love endures forever.

/

/            Let the redeemed of the LORD say this— /

/                        those he redeemed from the hand of the foe, /

/            those he gathered from the lands,/

/                        from east and west, from north and south.

/

/            Some wandered in desert wastelands,/

/                        finding no way to a city where they could settle.

/

/            They were hungry and thirsty,/

/                        and their lives ebbed away.

/

/            Then they cried out to the LORD in their trouble,/

/                        and he delivered them from their distress.

/

/            He led them by a straight way/

/                        to a city where they could settle.

/

/            Let them give thanks to the LORD for his unfailing love/

/                        and his wonderful deeds for men, /

/            for he satisfies the thirsty/

/                        and fills the hungry with good things./

[*Psalm 107:1-9*]

* *

Has He redeemed you from the hand of the foe?  Say so!  Has He delivered you from your distress?

Say so!  Has He led you?  Say so!  Has He satisfied your thirst and sated your hunger with good things?

Say so!  Give thanks to God.

Let another generation know how He intervened in your behalf to confound the enemy.

I have never been reticent in speaking of God’s gracious deliverance.

During the years of my pilgrimage I have faced a few enemies and I have known the terror which accompanies the fiery darts of the enemy of the soul.

During my early adult years alcohol had a tenacious grip on my life.

Though I avoid riding a hobbyhorse in the pulpit let no one mistake my infrequent speaking against drinking as approval of booze as beverage.

I have known the bleak bondage which accompanies alcohol and I know what it is to be held in thraldom—but God set me free.

Despite its many supporters booze has no support; drinking is a practise which curses many.

It destroys and damns those who tamper with it, but God delivered me.

God delivered me from a powerful enemy when he rescued me from rage and bitterness.

Malice and anger filled my heart, and with reason in the eyes of the unthinking—but God set me free.

Deserted by my mother, as a child I was exposed to cruel taunts and rejection by the good burghers of the little town where I grew to manhood.

*Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me* is a cute little ditty.

May I say, however, that the bravado of that old saw notwithstanding, words do hurt and words wound far more deeply then any physical assault.

In the depth of my hurt and in the longing for approval which was born of desperation I found acceptance among a group of virulent Marxists.

Moving steadily toward self-destruction, God intervened to permit me to forgive the very people who had hurt me so deeply.

I will not speak of the individuals who set themselves in opposition to me and from whom my God has delivered me during my pastoral service.

I will not speak of people in the churches who deliberately and with malice in their hearts sought to injure my family and me.

I will only say that God has delivered me from the enemy, and what I say as an individual every Christian can assert.

What every Christian can say, each church can claim.

No congregation has passed to maturity unopposed, but each can point to the repeated intervention of God to keep them and to deliver them from their foes.

As the Psalmist of old, the church of this day can—and must—say:

 

            In my anguish I cried to the LORD,

                        and he answered by setting me free.

The LORD is with me; I will not be afraid.

What can man do to me?

The LORD is with me; he is my helper.

I will look in triumph on my enemies.

[*Psalm 118:5-7*]

 

How often have I cried out to God in my distress and in my fear:

 

            /I trust in you, O LORD;/

/                        I say, “You are my God.” /

/            My times are in your hands;/

/                        deliver me from my enemies/

/                        and from those who pursue me.

/

[*Psalm 31:14-15*]

 

            /I will exalt you, O LORD,/

/                        for you lifted me out of the depths/

/                        and did not let my enemies gloat over me.

/

/            O LORD my God, I called to you for help/

/                        and you healed me.

/

/            O LORD, you brought me up from the grave;/

/                        you spared me from going down into the pit./

[*Psalm 30:1-3*]

 

/            The LORD is my light and my salvation— /

/                        whom shall I fear?/

/            The LORD is the stronghold of my life— /

/                        of whom shall I be afraid?

/

/            When evil men advance against me/

/                        to devour my flesh,/

/            when my enemies and my foes attack me,/

/                        they will stumble and fall.

/

/            Though an army besiege me,/