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After repeating the Ten Commandments and reminding Israel of how the Lord had led them out of slavery in Egypt and through the barren wilderness for forty years, Moses gives God’s people a very serious warning not to forget the Lord their God and to be very careful in keeping His commands. Because they would be tempted toward pride and forgetfulness in the Promised Land, Moses shares with them God’s purpose in all the trials in the wilderness saying that God ordered them all in order to humble them that they might see the sin that is bound up in their hearts and that they might look to the Lord’s leading, the Lord’s protection and the Lord’s provision in all things. Moses says that God purposely allowed Israel to hunger to show them that man should not live by bread alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. If only we lived in such a way where we hungered for God’s Word as the baby cries for its milk the deer pants for some water.
Moses says that God purposely tests us not only to show us our sin but to train us to hunger in this way and to do us good in the end. In verse five Moses refers to this as the discipline of the Lord. We often associate discipline with punishment but the word literally refers to an act of learning and is associated with the word disciple. As God’s disciples we are continually being taught who God is, something of his ways and his works in our life through His Word and through the trials that he orders specifically for us. If we understand His good purpose in those trials we would not despise them as easily as we do. For although they are painful at the time, they do cause us to grow in faith and in faithfulness to God as we learn to trust Him more and look to Him more and more.
One other warning that Moses gives to Israel in this passage that is closely related to the first warning is that of turning to other gods and serving them once they enter into the Promised Land. When God brings us through difficult times we more readily cry out to God for help seeking His presence and His comfort. But when our stomachs are full, our burdens are light and our wealth increases, proudly we think that we don’t need to seek the Lord and His Word; we forget to thank the Lord for His provision and to ask Him for our daily bread. Although we don’t recognize this as pride at first, that is exactly what it is. And since God has created us to be dependent upon Him as our Creator and Sustainer, our natural default is to seek out some other god to rely upon if we stop looking to the Lord our maker. Again, we don’t recognize our idolatry at first, especially since we are not bowing down to literal idol statues, but already our hearts are full of fear in serving a false god since our hearts are already deceived by the lie that we somehow can sustain ourselves. These two things always go hand in hand. So this morning as you read God’s Word, be careful to receive it with faith, love, reverence and zeal, for if you don’t, pride and idolatry will quickly overtake your heart. So ask the Lord to help you to take care with the holy things of God. |
