Remembering What Not to Forget
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Father, Thank you for your unwavering faithfulness to us. It is this remembrance that gives us hope. The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases his mercies never come to an end. They are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness.
We thank you for the gift of another day and for the privilege of walking today in the Assurance of our Salvation through the finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross. We ask that you would manifest yourself to us in a life-changing way as you Holy Spirit makes plain for us the wisdom of your word.
Father help us to lay aside all filthiness and rampant wickedness so that we may receive with gentleness the implanted word that is able to save our soul. Help us to be doers of the word and not hearers only in Jesus name and For Your Glory we pray. Amen.
We began a 12-week study of Deuteronomy on Monday. I would like for us to examine chapter 8 together this morning. Let’s begin our study this morning by examining
Deuteronomy chapter 8 is a continuation of the second of three final addresses Moses gives to the children of Israel before he dies. This address begins in chapter 5 where Moses restates God’s Covenant with Israel and its terms; specifically the Ten Commandments.
In chapter 6 Moses widdles down The Ten Commandments down to one commandment. The commandment that Jesus calls the first and greatest of all of The Commandments.
“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.
You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.
In chapter 7 Moses challenges the people of God be prepared to do warfare against a major threat to their love for God. This threat will come from the godless values held by those who lived in The Promise Land.
He warns them not to adopt the value system of the god hating people who lived in the land of Canaan. Chapter 7 teachers that you cannot love God and love the world at the same time.
Deuteronomy 8 presents another threat the people will face in Canaan. Chapter 7 teaches that love for God will be threatened from the world around them and in chapter 8 it will come from the world within them.
Deuteronomy 8 confronts us with a most humbling truth; we are our biggest enemy.
Like a good pastor Moses exposes both battle fronts and then instructs those under his care how to engage the enemy.
Moses shows them how to overcome there enemy by simply remembering the Lord your God. Devotion to the lord requires that you remember what not to forget.
In Deuteronomy 8 Moses presents the primary truth you must remember in order to live in spiritual devotion; don’t forget the Lord your God. Remember how good the Lord has been to you.
There are 20 verses in this chapter and they neatly divided into two major sections. There is exhortation verses 1 through 10 and there is warning in verses 11 through 20.
In verses 1 through 10 Moses instructs Israel to remember the Lord's goodness in the bad times. Verse 1 is a call to obedience.
“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.
This verses get to the heart of Deuteronomy. It is a renewal of Israel’s covenant with God before they enter into the promise land. The terms are simple; obey God and God will bless you.
Do do the whole commandment of God the whole commandment. I believe that refers again back to
You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.
You can't you can't compartmentalize love for God. You must love God completely. If you love God completely God will bless you.If you obey the commands of God God will bless your obedience.
The question is; when you enter in to the promised land of Canaan, how will you maintain faithfulness to God? Moses gives interesting strategy for spiritual devotion; and you shall remember.
You want to be devoted to the Lord? Remember. You want to live in obedience? Remember. You want to do it pleases the Lord? Remember. This is his instructions how to live an obedient life. Remember the Lord your God.
Temptation to sin is strengthened to the degree that you forget the Lord. However, the power of temptation is short-circuited when you remember the Lord.
Joseph is living in Potiphar's house when Mrs. Potter tries to seduce Joseph. Joseph responds to her advances by remembering
But he refused and said to his master’s wife, “Behold, because of me my master has no concern about anything in the house, and he has put everything that he has in my charge.
He is not greater in this house than I am, nor has he kept back anything from me except you, because you are his wife. How then can I do this great wickedness and sin against God?”
In the midst of temptation he remember that even as a slave in a foreign land God has been good to him.
The obedient life is the result of one who is deliberately remembering the Lord. What do you need to remember? He says in verses 1 through 10. You need to learn how to remember the Lord's faithfulness when things are not going good.
Look back in your life and remember that time when things were not going well yet the Lord was faithful. Remember, he said specifically it was the Lord that brought you through and it was the Lord that brought you in.
He shows us in verse 2; it was the Lord that brought you through.
And you shall remember the whole way that the Lord your God has led you these forty 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.
He is saying to them; don’t forget that the God of rescuing grace is also the God of sustaining grace. The grace that rescued you from Egypt is the same grace that has sustained you in the wilderness.
When Moses recalls the wilderness he is reminding Israel of their unfaithfulness to God. However, in this verse he recalls the wilderness to remind them of God’s faithfulness when they were not.
Look back in the wilderness? Time brings perspective. You got to live life forward, but you can only understand life backwards. You've got to trust God through it and then look back and see what the hand of God has produced from what you couldn't understand.
He goes on to tell them how God was working in the wilderness. Look at verse 2; first of all that he might humble you.
God uses the wilderness experiences of life to humble us. How did God humble them? Through their appetite. He let them get hungry.
In Egypt you had a job, a paycheck, a house, a filed, and three square meals. God took you through the wilderness so that you would get hungry in order to feed you. Furthermore, to accomplish their humility he fed them food that did not come from natural resources.
Mana, in Hebrew it means “what is it”. Israel would wake up in the morning in the wilderness and they would find on the ground Mana. They didn't know what it was.
It was not anything Earth could produce.
and he rained down on them manna to eat and gave them the grain of heaven.
Everyday, they woke up with bread from Heaven’s table. However, the bread came with a same day expiration date. If they tried to save some for the next day worms would devour it.
He made them get Mana every day so that they would have a daily reminder of where their help came from. Do you get it?
He was trying to teach you that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of God
In Matthew 4 Jesus is tempted in the wilderness by the devil. He stands firm against the temptations of the Devil by quoting Deuteronomy chapter 8:3.
When the devil tempts him the turn stones into bread so that he may eat he declares; man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. Jesus is affirming; the provisions we need for life don’t come from below but from above.
In verse 4 we learn that God humble them through there apparel.
Your clothing did not wear out on you and your foot did not swell these forty years.
There wilderness experienced was not only aimed at humbling them according to verse 2 it was designed to test them.
They needed a testing so that they would know what was in their heart. God already knew. They needed to be exposed.
It is good for me that I was afflicted, that I might learn your statutes.
Affliction may not be good to me but it is good for me.
Andrae Crouch said I thank God for my mountains. I thank God for my valise and I thank God for the storms that he brought me through because if I never had a problem, I wouldn't know that God could solve them and I wouldn't know what faith in God can do.
God uses the Wilderness to build your faith, but he also uses the Wilderness to reveal your faith.
You don't know how deep your roots are until the wind starts blowing
You don't know how strong and secure your anchor is until the storm starts raging. You don't know how faithful your God is until you get in the wilderness and got to trust him to get you through something that you can't get through on your own.
God designed their wilderness experience to humble, test, and to discipline.
Know then in your heart that, as a man disciplines his son, the Lord your God disciplines you.
This is educational discipline. God use these bad times to get them ready. He says; God brought you through but he also brought you out.
Verse 6 is another call to obedience.
So you shall keep the commandments of the Lord your God by walking in his ways and by fearing him.
We keep his commands externally by walking in his ways and internally by fearing him.
You should keep his Commandments walk in his ways and fear the Lord because
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,
The Lord that lead them in to the wilderness, according to verse 2, is the same Lord that is leading them out.
He's bringing you into a good land. How good is this land?
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.
Don't get fixated with the land and all of the benefits. The lesson is not in the land but in the Lord.
Moses is reminding the people that the Lord of the wilderness and the Lord of the Promise Land are the same Lord.
Moses is teaching them that faithfulness will be found in remembering what not to forget. We must remember what not to forget so that
And you shall eat and be full, and you shall bless the Lord your God for the good land he has given you.
Warren Wiersbe comments here that his uncle had a tradition. He would give thanks at the beginning of the meal and then give thanks again at the end of the meal. He did this so that after the meal was over and they were full they did not forget it was the Lord who provided.
In verses 1 through 10 Moses says remember the Lord's goodness in the bad times and then it verses 11 through 22. Moses says do not forget the Lord's goodness in the good times.
Moses is exhorting the people to obedience in verses 1 through 6. In verse 11 he issues a warning.
“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,
In verses 1 through 10 he says remember how the Lord took care of you when things were not going good and now he turns the corner and says make sure you don't forget the Lord when things get better.
Don't forget he says in verse 11. Don't forget verse 14. Don't forget verse 19th. This call to not forget the Lord is not intellectual it's spiritual.
We forget we forget a lot of stuff. In spite of our technologies and resources that help us to remember we still forget.
Much of what we forget maybe harmless and without any consequences. Yet Moses reminds us that we better remember what not to forget, especially when life gets good, don’t forget the Lord your God.
Let me give some warning signs of forgetfulness. The first warning sign is a proud heart
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,
A lifted up heart is a Hebrew idiom for pride. Humility is lowliness. Humility means that you don't think more highly of yourself than you ought, but he says if you're not careful life can get good and your heart instead of being lowly, gets lifted up.
Let give us a prayer to help us navigate the water of humility. Lord, if I get too high bring me down and if I get too low lift me up. Humility is not thinking less about yourself it thinking of yourself less.
Be careful prosperity has a way defining who you are. Prosperity can make you believe that you are somebody.
Prosperity makes us forget the truth that God brought us out
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,
and that God is bringing us through
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,
You got to trust that even in the bad times. You got to trust God's plan. Look at
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.
You must trust God’s tactics “to do you good” and his timing “in the end”.
The second warning sign is misplaced credit.
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.
If you are not careful, if you forget the Lord your God, you will start taking credit for things that only the Lord can do. Moses says in verse 17 beware lest you say in your heart my power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth.
When you start the defining yourself by what you have and you forget the Lord you'll start misplacing credits and you'll look at at life and you will say, I did that.
I'm a self-made man. Nobody gave me nothing. I had to work for what everything.
Moses says, oh, yeah. Let me tell you something? You better remember that is the Lord that gives you power to get the wealth.
Scripture does not deny your contribution. It simply wants you to acknowledge and remember the source of your accomplishment.
Who gave you the power to do that? How would you have done all that? If the Lord didn't wake you up in the morning. He not only woke you up he also enabled you able to get up.
When life gets good DON’T FORGET GOD. There are people more trained, educated, and experienced. There are people who are better on accident than you are on purpose and yet they don’t have enjoy some of the blessings that you do. When life is good DON’T FORGET WHO DID IT!
Your life and my life needs to be filled with credit checks. In the morning when you wake up do a credit check. Say thank you Lord for giving me another day!
When you put your feet on the floor and you able to stand up and stretch you ought to do a credit check and say; thank you Lord. If you're in your right mind; if you got a roof over your head; if you got food to eat - THE LORD DID THAT!
Beware that you don't take credit for what the Lord has done. The sign that you forgotten God is, a proud heart, misplace credit, and spiritual rebellion. Forgetting God is a progression.
So you start to defining life by what you have which leads you to sing How Great I am instead of How Great Thou Art. And you take credit for What the Lord Has Done?
If you forget the Lord your God you won't just failed to give him credit for daily blessings you'll start chasing after other gods. You will not only chase them but you will serve and worship them. Moses in a solemn tone warns them that the end result is death.
In the previous chapters Moses declared that the Lord will drive away the nation’s of the land land that the people go into possess. However, in verse
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.
They forgot and eventually this punishment that Moses warns them of will come to pass. Don’t miss the warning; DON’T FORGET THE LORD!
The warning of the text is clear God knows how to put you in your place. He has a way of showing you that you aren’t all that you think you are.
This warning should wake us up this morning. We are no better than these of whom we are studying this day. We carry within us the same potential. If we possess the same potential then what shall we do to prevent us from walking down the same path from falling into the same pit?
Do for yourself what the Lord did for Israel. The Lord set up a calendar of Feast to celebrate what the Lord had done for them. The Lord deliberately constructed this calendar because he knows how dumb we can act.
It was during one of these feast, the Feast of Passover, that Jesus introudced another loaf of bread.
He said this is my body which is for you and he took a cup of wine and poured it and passed it to his disciple and said this is the New Covenant in my blood.
Did you feel that? Not a covenant based on your behavior but my blood! As often as you drink this cup do it in remembrance of me.
Life will never be in its right perspective until you see life at the foot of the cross. How can you be proud? Standing next to the cross.
The police found a little girl wandering the streets of London. The police questioned her for information that would help them help her. However, she could not remember any of this essential information. In desperation that asked if there was any information she could provide to help them help her. After a few minutes she remember what her mother had always told her; find the Charing Cross and you will find your way home.