Deuteronomy 8–10

All right. I think he's giving me the thumbs up back there. So, uh, good evening. Good to see everybody. You guys want to go ahead and stand with me. We'll pray and we'll get started. Father, thank you for the day. God, I just thank you for this time that we can come together and worship you and spend some time in your word, Lord. And God, I just pray that we would set everything

aside, all the distractions of life, Lord, and everything that's going on in the world, Lord, just to come here and focus and focus on you, uh, and just rest in you, Lord. God, I pray you bless this time. Bless your word as it goes out in Jesus name. Amen.

You guys can go and have a seat if you'd like. I forgot to tell you that earlier. So my apologies.

Mercy fills the streets to look upon and to say walk with him for all eternity. Face to face who died every prayer, desperation, the songs of faith. We sang through doubt and fear. We'll see the earth at A.R.T. Face to face. We'll join the resurrection. Beside the heroes of life. A thousand generations is a lamb who was slain on that day. We join the resurrection. Beside heroes

of the faith. A thousand generations. We shout the hymn and the saints. Oh God, who gave us life beyond. We shout the hymn and the saints. Who gave us life beyond. Oh Lord God, we long for that day. We're ready to go. We're ready to go. We're ready to go. We're ready to go. We're ready to go. We're ready to go. We're ready to go. We're ready to go. God маленьibility, we pepper

notept ties. Let your love share this glory. Are you coming on the world, God? Are you coming to this mountain to stand in our presence, Lord? Are you coming to this mountain to be seen? Are you coming here to the Lord? Are you coming to this mountain to be seen before our morning sun? Are you coming here to this mountain toashed with the 2500 years of sin and evil?

Are you willing, are you willing to step into thisАνre man the holy name? Are you willing, are you willing to confess the world about your adoptions and your 內 28th birthday? Are you willing, are you willing to come to this church today with your- are you willing to stupid God to say this That it is flashing here because this time here is time. and God I just ask that you bless the word as it goes out Lord as Pastor Ryan comes this evening Lord just overflow him with your gift of teaching Lord God and just move in a mighty way this place in this place Lord we love you Father God we thank you and we praise you in your precious and holy name all God's people said amen good evening we are in the book of Deuteronomy Deuteronomy

chapter 8 so if you would turn there please we're continuing on as Moses has been telling us what God expects of the nation of Israel as they prepare to move into the promised land we've seen him rehearse the law we've seen him talk about the importance of that great commandment which is to love the Lord your God with all your heart soul mind and strength and then we saw some warnings that were given warnings to not forget the Lord to keep yourself close to the Lord and those kinds of things and now as we move into chapter 8 he's going to begin to rehearse some of the ways that God has taken care of the nation of Israel in the past matter of fact I titled chapter 8 God's past faithfulness and so we start off in verse 1 of chapter 8 and it says this

all the commandments that I am commanding you today you shall be careful to do that you may live and multiply and go in and possess the land which the Lord swore to give to your forefathers interestingly enough Moses starts off chapter 8 the way he seems to start off every new little section that he talks about and he starts off by saying be careful to obey as I've mentioned before this is definitely the sermon of someone who has walked with God for a very long time and as he has walked with God for a very long time he's learned one really important lesson and that's that if you want your life to be fulfilled if you want your life to be full of life to be full of victory to be full of joy then the greatest thing that we can become as

followers of God is obedient and again it doesn't sound like the way that you achieve a life full of fulfillment right what the world is constantly telling us if you want to be fulfilled then do what makes you happy I noticed I was on the Facebook machine earlier today and I saw that Ark City High School had all their kids go out and put positive messages on the sidewalk now I have no issue with positive messages but one of the positive messages I noticed one of the young people put on there that they were sure to take a picture of was do what makes you happy and I thought you know that is what you expect for a young person to say I'm not surprised to hear a teenager say that because in their minds that's ultimately where joy

is going to come from in their life if I'll just do what makes me happy then my life will be completely fulfilled I expect that of somebody under the age of 25 right the problem is we have a lot of people in our culture that are well over the age of 25 that are still saying do what makes you happy and there's many people who claim the name of Jesus Christ who say do what makes you happy and Moses doesn't say hey children of Israel as you prepare to move into the promised land do what makes you happy no he says do what makes you holy because that's where real life comes from because here is Moses staring dead in the face the idea that he does not get to enter the promised land why because he was not careful to obey the Lord and the older that I get

and the more that I fail in my life the more I realize that the best thing that I can do is obey God in every way possible big ways small ways massive things in my life small little steps in my life if I will simply take the step of obedience in every single one of them my life is full of so much joy but when I don't take those steps of obedience my life is full of so much anxiety my life is full of so much guilt my life is full of so much worry simply by not taking those steps and so Moses as this 120 year old man who's now walked with God for about 80 years of his life looks at the children of Israel and says be careful to obey obey all the things that I'm telling you today all the commandments that I'm commanding you today you shall

be careful to do why so that you may live and multiply in the land that God is giving you and then he calls on them to remember God's past faithfulness notice what it says in verse 2 he says you shall remember all the way which the Lord your God has led you in the wilderness these 40 years that he might humble you testing you to know what was in your heart whether you would keep his commandments or not he humbled you and let you be hungry and he fed you with manna which you did not know nor did your fathers know that he might make you understand that man does not live by bread alone but man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord your clothing did not wear out on you nor did your foot swell these 40 years thus

you are to know in your heart that the Lord your God was disciplining you just as a man disciplines his son therefore you shall keep the commandments of the Lord your God to walk in his ways and to fear him he says remember the things that God has done for you in the past and I took note of five things that God had done for them first thing he says is he led you through the wilderness why because this next part is really important he led you through the wilderness that he could humble you you ever thought about the fact that God allowed them to go through that wilderness experience not only because there was judgment on a certain sect of the people but he allowed the rest of the people to go through it and may I even go so far as to say he caused

the rest of the people to go through it for the purpose of humbling them I remember proposing this question to a group of kids one time and they of course gave me the Sunday school answer I said does God cause bad things to happen in our lives or does God allow bad things to happen in our lives and they said oh well God allows bad things to happen because God doesn't cause bad things to happen in our lives and I said you think so and we had a really good discussion about that but I want you to think about this the children of Israel got led through the wilderness for 40 years who caused them to do that God did so maybe maybe sometimes God causes bad things to happen in our lives now for those of us that don't like to really talk

about the sovereignty of God we have a hard time with that but it is kind of interesting that this is where God led them to why? so that he could humble them because there is nothing that causes you to take your eyes off of yourself and to put them on to the Lord quite like being led through the most difficult circumstances in your life as a matter of fact this is a very New Testament concept as well I want you to go over to the book of 2nd Corinthians look at 2nd Corinthians chapter 1 I find myself reading a good portion of 2nd Corinthians quite a bit especially in that very first chapter when it talks about comfort but I want to read just a little bit farther down from that for you 2nd Corinthians chapter 1 I want you to look at verses

8 through 10 he says for we do not want you to be unaware brethren of our affliction which came to us in Asia Asia that we were burdened excessively beyond our strength so that we despaired even of life indeed we had the sentence of death in ourselves so that we would not trust in ourselves but in God who raises the dead who delivered us from so great a peril of death and will deliver us he on whom we've set our hope and he will yet deliver us it's almost like Paul said the exact same thing we had the sentence of death in ourselves so that we would be humbled because what does being humbling humbled cause us to do not to trust in ourselves but to trust in God who raises the dead to trust in God who provides bread with the morning

dew to trust in God who causes water to come out of rocks to trust in God who takes care of all of the things that you and I can't figure out how he can take care of because he's God and I'm not you see sometimes God allows us those really hard things or or sometimes God causes some of those really bad things to happen in our lives so that we will find ourselves at the foot of the cross so that we will find ourselves saying Lord you are God and I am not and I'm simply going to believe in a really big God last night we read a devotion and we've been going through the our daily bread devotions with our daughters and it was the one on Jonah and of course my youngest daughter who just keeps us all pretty well on our toes said

I don't know dad that's a hard story you really think there's a fish that could swallow a guy I don't know that's a tough one and I appreciate that honesty from my daughter and I don't squelch that I think it's important when people ask questions like that that we don't just say well you can't question God's word you can't question what God has to say I used to respond that way at one point in time when people would do that and it was because of my own insecurity about who God is and then I realized God's not insecure God's not like gosh I hope they're still going to believe in me after this that's a really hard story to believe like God's not insecure about that and so I said well Nora you got to understand something if you can believe

the very first verse in the Bible then you shouldn't have a problem with any other story in the Bible do you know what the very first verse is and she said what I said in the beginning God and she said created the heavens and the earth I said that's right if God can speak them into existence then is anything too hard for God couldn't he create a fish that's big enough to swallow Jonah and then spit him back out well I guess so still hard to believe it's true you see God takes us through times like that wilderness times so that we'll be humbled so that we'll look at God and say if you're big enough to create the heavens and the earth then you're big enough to handle what concerns me today because he led them through the wilderness why so that he might

humble you and then the second thing it says that he did is he says not only did he humble you but also that he might test you to know what was in your heart whether you would keep his commandments or not now when we think about God testing us we often think that God's trying to figure out things about us but again if he's the God who created the heavens and the earth and he's the all knowing God which is what we learn from Genesis chapter 1 verse 1 then does God have anything to learn about us no so why did he test them so that they would see what was on the inside of them you see the tests that God allows us to go through are not so that God can figure out what our character is like it's so that he can reveal to us what our character is like

you say but Ryan that's so mean why does he do that why does he constantly want to reflect those things to me listen so that I will be constantly broken before the Lord and constantly in search of his strength in my life because that's where he wants me always because I am absolutely strong when I am totally weak I am absolutely powerful when I am well aware of my desperate need for him he led them through the wilderness testing them to know whether or not they would keep his commandments and how do you think the children of Israel have done up to this point in time not real great right they've had their highs they've had their lows but overall I'd give them a D minus just like I'd give myself he said he tested you while you were in the wilderness

and then he humbled you and I love this next part especially knowing what's happening in our world right now he humbled you and he let you be hungry and then he fed you with manna that you did not know nor did your fathers know that he might make you understand that man does not live by bread alone but by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of God what's the third thing that he did he let you be hungry Ryan God supplies all of my needs that's right doesn't mean you're not gonna be hungry on the in between time doesn't mean he's not gonna bring you to a point where you're like Lord you got to provide some bread and then he'll miraculously make the bread appear I don't know how he'll do it but that's what he does but why did he allow them to be

hungry because they needed to learn a really important lesson and the really important lesson that they needed to learn is that man does not live by bread alone sounds familiar we've heard this before right we heard this in the temptation of Jesus when Satan looked at Jesus and he said hey I realize that you're hungry now meaning that you're right on the brink of starvation after you've just fasted for 40 days and 40 nights and all around you are these little rocks that look just like little loaves of bread tell you what why don't you go ahead and turn all of those stones into bread and you'll have everything that you need and what did Jesus look at him and say it is written man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that

proceeds out of the mouth of God why why did God let them be hungry why did he let Jesus be hungry and why do we need to respond that way because in our world in the fleshly world that you and I live in we are told that the most important thing in our life is our bodily desires whatever your body needs that's what you need to provide but in the upside down world of following Jesus in the upside down world of the kingdom of God you know what the most important need in our life is the most important need in our life is the spiritual need and you and I when we became believers in Jesus Christ started on a path and that path was to teach us that we should not fulfill our bodily desires instead the spirit should be dominant in our lives

you see too many of us have lived our lives for way too long saying the most important thing to me is what my body wants is what my physical appetite says that I need and listen there's nothing wrong with filling certain physical appetites if you do it in a biblical sort of way but the greatest need that we have in our lives is a spiritual need which is why he says he brought you through this to teach you something that man doesn't live by bread alone man is not dominated by his physical he should be dominated by his spiritual because what instead should he live by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God remember when Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem and he stopped in Samaria he said I need to go through Samaria and they stopped around

lunchtime and the disciples went in to town to get bread because they were all hungry and around that time is when the woman at the well showed up and Jesus ministered to the woman at the well in fantastic ways and that's not the point of what we're going to talk about tonight but he met a spiritual need and when the disciples came back with bread he said I'm not really that hungry anymore and they're like hey who brought him bread and he's like no I ate food you guys don't understand yet because the food I need is to do the will of my father that's exactly what he was saying right there is that the spiritual was far superior to the physical and I wonder I just wonder when was the last time I said I can go today without

eating listen it's not very often for me okay okay but the last time you thought to yourself I can go today without the word of God now listen I know the right answer to this and the right answer is like I never feel that way in my life but I don't want the right answer I want the real answer when's the last time you were like I can go without the word of God today maybe tomorrow and maybe another day forgetting that man lives by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God which is what we have written in this book right here only do you know that there's something even a little bit more deeply spiritual about it than that we're told in the book of Romans that faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God now typically

we interpret that as faith comes as I simply hear what God's word has to say and while that's true there's actually something deeper spiritually there that Paul intended in that book of Romans because what he really intended was faith comes by hearing and hearing by the words of God in other words that which comes forth from God's mouth in other words it's not just me reading it's me actually hearing from God that involves communion that involves fellowship that involves me setting aside all of the things of the day so that I can actually take in what God's word has to say to me because that's what builds my faith that's what builds my life that's what makes me the man that he's called for me to be is by actually hearing not only what the word

says but hearing directly from the word he says man shall not live by bread alone by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God well he goes on from there to mention another thing he says did you take note of the fact that your clothing never wore out nor did your foot swell these 40 years their clothing never wore out now listen we don't live in a culture where for the most part we wear a lot of clothes out anymore because clothes are pretty well abundant to us in most situations but I do remember being a kid and when I was a kid I wore clothes out right like little boys can just destroy a pair of pants in no time flat those of you with boys you're shaking your heads because you understand and they wear those things out same way with

tennis shoes I remember when I was a kid when my toes started poking through it was time for new shoes right up until that point in time I don't want to get rid of it there is one shirt that I wore out my wife threw it away on me and gosh darn if I don't miss that shirt it was a band shirt from my favorite band ever that she hates bands named stavesaker and she absolutely hates that band it had holes here it had holes here I had worn that shirt out and one day I said hey where's my stavesaker shirt and she goes I threw it away I'm like why would you have done that that's my favorite t-shirt she's like Ryan I'm like oh anyway he said but did you notice that over 40 years you never wore your clothes out now some of these people grew right

because these were young men when they started some of them are 20 years old I can't wear what I wore when I was 20 I promise it doesn't fit anymore right like were they just expandable clothes I had to get a new suit here a few years ago because the one that I had originally got for the first wedding that I ever did I think I was 26 years old well by the time I was 36 years old I was like that suit doesn't fit anymore I need a rubber band or expandable pants he said 40 years your clothes never wore out your foot never swelled in other words your shoes totally took care of your feet that entire time that's a miracle by the Lord but you know what they didn't notice it they didn't pay attention to it they were just living day by day

he said don't you remember God took care of all of your needs and then of course the last thing that he tells them is verse 5 thus you are to know in your heart that the Lord your God was disciplining you just as a man disciplines his son what he means by that is God was showing you his love constantly by continuing to train you in the things of God you know what the root word of the word discipline is disciple a learner he said he was disciplining you he was training you in the same way that a man trains his son now sometimes that means you need to be scolded sometimes it means you need to be guided but through it all God was disciplining them and pointing them in the right direction just like a man does his son he says that's how

God took care of you in the wilderness therefore verse 6 you shall keep the commandments of the Lord your God to walk in his ways and to fear him for the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land a land of brooks of water of fountains and springs flowing forth and valleys and hills a land of wheat and barley of vines and fig trees and pomegranates a land of olive oil and honey a land where you will eat food without scarcity in which you will not lack anything a land whose stones are iron and out of whose hills you can dig copper when you have eaten and are satisfied you shall bless the Lord your God for the good land which he has given you he says obey the Lord because he's taking you into a great land

that's going to have everything that you need but when he brings you into this land that has everything you need you need to be aware of something verse 11 beware that you don't forget the Lord your God by not keeping his commandments and ordinances and his statutes which I am commanding you today otherwise when you have eaten and are satisfied and have built good houses and lived in them and when your herds and your flocks multiply and your silver and your gold multiply and all that you have multiplies then your heart will become proud and you will forget the Lord your God for the good land the Lord your God who brought you out from the land of Egypt out from the house of slavery he led you through the great and terrible

wilderness with its fiery serpents and scorpions thirsty ground where there was no water he brought water for you out of the rock of Flint and in the wilderness he fed you manna which your fathers did not know that he might humble you that he might test you to do good for you in the end here's the same warning that he's given a bunch of other times he says listen there's going to come a time where there's great prosperity because of the land that God's bringing you into you'll have everything that you need because of the land that God's bringing you into but when God brings you into that land you need to be aware of something you need to be aware that you do not forget the Lord your God the number of times that he said this

would indicate something to me it would indicate to me that we as human beings have a tendency that when times are good we tend to forget the Lord our God because when everything's going wrong I'm all over the place I'm all over the place I'm on my knees before the Lord when everything's not going right in my life I am humble before God Lord I need you for my everything right now supply everything and you know what we tend to do thanks Lord I'll catch you on the flip side I'll catch you later because I think I've got it from here I think I can handle it now he says beware that you don't forget the Lord and I want you to notice how he says you'll know when you forget the Lord do not forget the Lord your God by not keeping

his commandments and his ordinances and his statutes which I am commanding you today you see forgetting the Lord your God begins with apathy it begins with not constantly being broken and on your knees before the Lord but what begins in apathy continues in disobedience continues in rebellion where it starts but where it ends is really far from the Lord I listened to a great message this morning by Charles Stanley I had to drive up to Andover to a meeting and I put it on bot radio and it happened to be Charles Stanley and first of all he has that sweet Atlanta accent that I could listen to him read the dictionary right so that part was great so I'm like oh let's listen to some Charles Stanley but his message was on drifting

it's out of the book of Hebrews where he says beware that you not drift away from the things of the Lord he talked about the things that can cause us to drift and in the beginning it was ignoring but by the end it was rebellion he says it often times starts by not attending service like you should not being in the word like you should not being in prayer like you should but once you drift in those ways you begin to drift in other ways and pretty soon you're so far off course that you don't even remember how to get back on he said beware of that drifting and that's exactly what Moses is warning the people about right now beware that you don't forget the Lord your God by failing to keep his commandments

because remember it was him that brought you out of Egypt it was him that sustained you in the wilderness and it's him that's bringing you into this land because if we forget the Lord there's consequences notice what it says in verse 17 otherwise you may say in your heart my power and the strength of my hand made me this wealth but you shall remember that the Lord your God for it is he who is giving you power to make wealth that he may confirm his power to make wealth his covenant which he swore to your fathers as it is this day it shall come about if you ever forget the Lord your God and go after other gods and serve them and worship them I testify against you that you will surely perish like the nations that the Lord makes to perish before you

so you shall perish because you would not listen to the voice of the Lord your God and it's no different in our lives brothers and sisters when we drift away from the truth of who God is when we drift away from the truth of who God is away from that passionate close walk with the Lord we may not physically die but spiritually speaking we may as well be because we live in a place of death because the wages of sin is death but I want to give you the same hope that Charles Stanley gave us this morning the first thing you have to do is realize you're off course and when you realize you're off course you need to admit that you're off course and you need to admit that you're off course and then you need to ask God to bring you back on course

because that's exactly what you're going to see the nation of Israel do over and over again they'll drift away from the Lord they'll get off course they'll admit that they're off course and then he'll bring them back because we know the truth of scripture that if you confess your sins he's faithful and just to forgive your sins and in a very Old Testament language we say it like this that if my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and turn from sin turn from their sin and seek me I will turn from heaven and I will heal their land right so when we realize that starts happening to us we have to come back on course well as we move into chapter 9 we see that he's going to remind them of where they came from notice what it says

chapter 9 verse 1 hear O Israel you are crossing over the Jordan today to go in to dispossess nations greater and greater and mightier than you great cities fortified to heaven a people great and tall the sons of Anakim who you know and of whom you have heard it said who can stand before the sons of Anak now I love what Moses does here the very first two verses he talks to them about facing their enemy and he tells them you can't win do you remember what happened the first time they got ready to go into the land do you remember they got ready to go into the land they said listen it's a beautiful land but there's really tall people there they have really big cities they're really great warriors we can't beat them that's all that there is to it

and Moses is like God's going to go before you you should believe of course they wouldn't 40 years in the wilderness later here we are and now it's Moses going you're crossing over the Jordan today to go in and possess a land of nations that are greater and mightier than you great cities fortified to heaven a people great and tall the sons of Anakim and of course you know what they say about the sons of Anakim who can stand before the sons of Anak I like this because Moses isn't painting the positive rosy picture for them he's not like hey listen this is going to be a cakewalk you don't worry you just go in and claim that thing by faith and everything's going to be great no problems no he makes them deal with reality

I appreciate that about Moses here and I appreciate that about Moses here and I appreciate that about the Lord in our lives you see often times we want to paint a rosy picture about things right oh it's not really going to be that hard God's got this no it's going to be that hard and I think it's okay for us to admit that as believers in Jesus Christ what I'm going to face is going to be hard right I actually read a book one time in my early 20's it was called do hard things because all of the stuff that we face in life pretty hard overcoming the temptations that we have to face in life pretty hard facing the enemy that we have to face in life pretty hard and we need to understand what we're getting into as a matter of fact

remember what Jesus told his followers he said you'd better count the cost because if you're going to follow me it's going to cost you everything so you'd better count the cost first and then once you've counted the cost and made your decision let's do this thing but he makes them deal with the reality of it and I'm afraid that sometimes in the church today we paint this rosy picture that hey once you start walking with Jesus your life is going to be perfect everything's going to be great it's the Barbie Jesus right world peace in my own apartment and a convertible right as long as you start walking with Jesus and I'm here to tell you right now you start walking with Jesus it is not sunshine and roses it's the most fulfilling life you'll ever live

it's the life of obedience but it's not the easy life it's the life of obedience if you want the easy life watch Disney no if you want the unholy life watch Disney if you want the easy life it doesn't exist he says this is what you're facing people that are greater and stronger than you but you know it also reminds me of what Paul said in me that is in my flesh dwells no good thing but it also reminds me of something that Jesus said in the gospel of Jesus in John he said apart from me you can do nothing you see he makes us face that reality doesn't he but with the reality of what we face comes the reality of who we face it with because notice what he says know therefore today that it is the Lord your God who is crossing over before you

as a consuming fire he will destroy them and he will subdue them before you so that you may drive them out and destroy them quickly just as the Lord your God has spoken with the reality of the difficulty that we face is the reality of the God that we face it with because the God that we face it with there's nothing too hard for him he says but understand that the one who goes before you is God and he'll go before you like a consuming fire and he'll drive out the people before you but did you notice the next thing he said he'll drive out the people before you so that you may go in and drive out the people now wait a second is God going to drive the inhabitants of the land out or am I going to drive the inhabitants of the land out

and you know what the answer is yes because while God is the one that does the work he expects you to put in the sweat he still expects obedience from us they still had to go in and take the land they still had to go in in the same way we're told that there are good works that are prepared for us but what do we have to do we have to walk in them we have to take obedient steps of faith and as we take obedient steps of faith God honors that by giving us victory over the difficult inhabitants of the land he says that's what's going to happen you're going to face a great enemy but you're facing it with a great God the Lord will give you victory but notice what he says in verse 4 but do not say in your heart when the Lord your God has driven them out

from before you because of my righteousness the Lord has brought me in to possess the land but it is because of the wickedness of these nations that the Lord is dispossessing them before you it's not for your righteousness or for the uprightness of your heart that you're going to possess their land it's because of the wickedness of the nations that the Lord your God is driving them out from before you in order to confirm the oath which the Lord swore to your fathers to Abraham to Isaac and to Jacob no then it is not because of your righteousness that the Lord your God is giving you this land to possess for you are a stubborn people he knew their tendency and he knew what they would do and what they would do is when they started driving out

the people of the land they would start to do one of these things look at us it's because of how big we are it's because of how strong we are it's because of how righteous we are it's because of how righteous we are you see we as human beings have this tendency and the tendency that we have is to start to give ourselves credit for everything that God has done we do that as we walk with Jesus am I right like this is the struggle that we face as believers in Jesus Christ I mean when you first come to Jesus you're so humbled because you're so broken before the Lord because that's the only way that you could ever come to him but you got yourself a few years into it you've memorized yourself a few scriptures quite frankly you your church attendance

has been well spectacular to say the least pretty soon you start going I think I've got this thing figured out and I think it's because of just how good I am and you know what that causes all of us to do to the people that are around us why can't they be as good as I am we start looking down on all of the other people around us and when we see those really ugly sinners of the world we really look down on them because my gosh how can they even compare themselves to me after all look at what I've done now listen those exact thoughts have maybe never gone through your mind but maybe they have in other words they're a little more palatable to you but we can have a tendency to start claiming some credit for everything that God has done in our lives

and every time we start to claim credit for what God has done in our lives it causes spiritual pride to well up we'll call it self-righteousness it causes that to well up in our lives self-righteousness in the life of a believer pride in the life of a believer is what will all of us have always caused them to look down on everybody else around them that's what causes hypocrisy within churches that's what causes other people to say I don't want to be around those Christians because they're nothing but a bunch of judgemental hypocrites how do we keep from being those people because listen brothers and sisters we can all be those people how do we keep from being those people with the words of Moses right here remember where you came from when you start

all of a sudden having victory in your walk with Jesus Christ remember where you came from remember that at one point in time you were so broken before the Lord that you thought there's no way there's no way I'm fit to clean a toilet in a church let alone be in any position of leadership let alone be in any position of authority we must always maintain that understanding of where we came from because if I will always remember where I came from I can never look down on somebody else because they came from the same place because I go it's by God's grace that I am who I am listen I've been there I struggle with this still pride is still a struggle I have in my life and it probably will be until the day I die because that's humanity

but God's really good at being like hey Ryan remember how stubborn and rebellious you are and I'm like shh don't die that's exactly what Moses continues to do with the people here he goes because you at the end of verse 6 are a stubborn people remember do not forget verse 7 how you provoked the Lord your God to wrath in the wilderness from the day that you left the land of Egypt until you arrived at this place you have been rebellious against the Lord even at Horeb you provoked the Lord to wrath and the Lord was so angry with you that he would have destroyed you when I went up to the mountain to receive the tablets of stone the tablets of the covenant which the Lord had made with you then I remained on the mountain for 40 days and 40 nights

and ate neither bread nor drank water the Lord gave me two tablets of stone written by the finger of God and on them were all the words which the Lord had spoken with you at the mountain from the midst of the fire on the day of the assembly came about at the end of 40 days and nights that the Lord gave me the two tablets of stone the tablets of the covenant and then the Lord said to me arise go down from here quickly for your people whom you brought out of Egypt have acted corruptly they have quickly turned aside from the way which I commanded them they have made a molten image for themselves and the Lord spoke further to me saying I have seen this people and indeed it is a stubborn people let me alone that I may destroy them

and block them from the way I commanded them I have brought out their name from under heaven and I will make you a nation greater and mightier than they so I turned came down from the mountain while the mountain was burning with fire the two tablets of the covenant were in my two hands and I saw that you had indeed sinned against the Lord your God you had made for yourselves a molten calf you had turned aside quickly from the way which the Lord had commanded you and I took hold of the two tablets and threw them from my hands and smashed them before your eyes and I said to you I fell down before the Lord as at the first forty days and forty nights neither ate bread nor drank water because of all of your sin which you had committed

in doing what was evil in the sight of the Lord to provoke him to anger for I was afraid of the anger and the hot displeasure with which the Lord was wrathful against you in order to destroy you but the Lord listened to me at that time also because remember that time remember that time God was like hey these are the commandments you guys were like okay let's do the commandments and then I was up there up on the mountain doing my thing up there for forty days not eating bread or drinking water getting the ten commandments doing my Moses thing Charlton Heston's gonna play me later remember that time and then what did you guys do you went and built yourself a calf and God was like hey deal with your people they're not my people they're your people

nope not my people they're your people either way I'm gonna destroy them and I was like no he says do you remember that time you've been rebellious ever since you came out of Egypt and you're gonna be rebellious today remember where you came from remember who you are apart from the grace of God well he goes on from there to say verse 20 the Lord was angry enough with Aaron to destroy him so I also prayed for Aaron at the same time and I took your sinful thing the calf which you had made and burned it with fire and crushed it grinding it very small until it was as fine as dust and I threw its dust in the brook that came down from the mountain again at Tibera and Massa and Kibrath Atava you provoked the Lord to wrath

when the Lord sent you from Kadesh Barnea saying go up and possess the land which I have given you then you rebelled against the command of the Lord your God you neither believed him nor listened to his voice he says it again in verse 24 you have been rebellious against the Lord from the day that I knew you so I fell down before the Lord 40 days nights which I did because the Lord had said he would destroy me and I fell down before the Lord 40 days and I prayed to the Lord and said oh Lord God do not destroy your people your inheritance whom you have redeemed through your greatness whom you brought out of Egypt with a mighty hand remember your servants Abraham, Isaac and Jacob do not look at the stubbornness of this people

or their wickedness or their sin otherwise the land from which you brought us may say because the Lord was not able to bring them into the land which he had promised them and because he hated them he has brought them out to slay them in the wilderness yet they are your people even your inheritance whom you have brought out by your great power in your outstretched arm so he continues just to tell the same story about exactly what took place to remind them where they came from so that when they come into this land they won't forget their rebellion and they won't think it's because of my righteousness because there was no righteousness in them well he continues on in chapter 10 he says at that time the Lord said to me cut for yourselves two tablets

of stone like the former ones and come up to me on the mountain and make an ark of wood for yourself I will write on the tablets the words that were on the former tablets which you shattered and you shall put them in the ark so I made an ark of acacia wood cut out two tablets of stones like the former ones and went up on the mountain with the two tablets in my hand he wrote on the tablets like the former writing the ten commandments which the Lord had spoken to you on the mountain from the midst of the fire on the day of the assembly and the Lord gave them to you gave them to me then I turned and came down from the mountain put the tablets in the ark which I had made and there they are as the Lord commanded me

and the sons of Israel set out from Barath that place to Masorah then Aaron died and there he was buried with Eliezer his son ministered as priest in his place from there they set out to that place which I can't pronounce to that place which I also can't pronounce a land of brooks of water at that time the Lord set apart the tribe of Levi to carry the ark of wood the ark of the covenant of the Lord to stand before the Lord to serve him and to bless his name until this day therefore Levi doesn't have an inheritance with his brothers I moreover stayed on the mountain forty days and forty nights like the first time and the Lord listened to me that time also the Lord was not willing to destroy you the Lord said to me arise proceed on your journey

ahead of the people that they may go in and possess the land which I swore to their fathers to give them now after rehearsing all of that history to remind them where they came from I want you to notice what Moses says now Israel what does the Lord your God require from you fear the Lord your God walk in his ways love him and serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul to keep the Lord's commandments and his statutes which I am commanding you today for your own good in light of who you are in light of the rebellion that you struggle with this is what you must continue to do don't forget the Lord don't forget all those things instead what should you do fear the Lord your God fear the Lord your God what is the fear of the Lord

that he's talking about here well I think that there's two ways that you look at the fear of the Lord there's the immature way to look at the fear of the Lord which I think we always have to start off with and that's the understanding that he brought me into this world and he can take me out of this world that's a legitimate understanding of the fear of the Lord and it's the place that we all start as believers in Jesus Christ because that fear of God's judgment is what causes us to fall upon his mercy but you see the longer that you walk with the Lord you begin to understand what I would call the mature fear of the Lord and this is the mature fear of the Lord I don't want to hurt the heart of the God who has done so much for me

I don't want to damage the relationship that I have with the Lord with my creator I'm sure I've shared this story with you before because I have a tendency to repeat myself but I remember the last day I ever went and did a whole bunch of things I wasn't supposed to in high school and I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that what I had to do was come home and confess everything that I'd been doing to my mom and dad and I knew that the only way I could go home that night in the middle of the night because my dad's an obsessive door locker was to ring the doorbell to get in and it meant I had to tell him everything that was going on so I went home that night and I rang the doorbell and I went in and I told him everything that had been happening

in my life over that last year and a half and I remember the thing that broke my heart more than anything in the world my dad did not once yell at me and yet my heart was absolutely destroyed and the reason why my heart was destroyed was he said this you know there was one time I thought something was going on that shouldn't have been going on and I thought something was going on I could smell alcohol on your breath he said but I kind of kind of just pushed it away because I thought nah I trust him I remember nothing he could have done to me would have hurt me more than that statement because I knew that I had destroyed the trust that my dad had in me that's the mature fear of the Lord and he's knowing that when you go to God with your failures

he won't jump up and down and yell but there's a damage to the relationship that's going to take some time to heal he says now oh Israel what does the Lord your God require of you that you would fear the Lord your God and what's the second thing that you would walk in all of his ways in other words that you would order your life according to the ways of the Lord and then he goes on to say and that you would love him and that you would serve him with all your heart and with all your soul he says this is what God desires of you that you would fear him that you would walk with him and that you would love and serve him with what with all of your heart and with all of your soul you see this is another one of those things

that I think that most people don't know about that Jesus has learned because have you noticed how many times he references this in the book of Deuteronomy how many times he talks about the importance of following and loving God with all of your heart you see I think after he walked with God these 80 years now he found himself saying God just wants 100% of my being he just wants 100% of who I am and quite frankly the day that you started walking with Jesus the day that I started walking with Jesus I began to give portions of myself to him I I began to give a little bit more of my heart over to him I began to love him with a little bit more of who I am to serve him with a little bit more of who I am and slowly but surely I keep giving God more of me

there's still parts of me I hold back I say that to my shame I know that there's a portion of my heart that can sometimes still be divided between God and the things of the world between God and the idols that the world has but slowly but surely I'm doing my best to start giving God more and more of myself and I come to him every time and I say Lord I want you to have it all and then I'll go but wait give me this part back and then the next time I'll give him a little bit more Lord I want you to have it all but give me that part back and you know what God's patient that entire time for me just to keep giving him a little bit more of who I am and I suppose the day that I finally completely and totally surrender myself to the Lord he'll say

time to come home time to come home because now I have all of you he says what does the Lord require of you oh Israel fear him walk with him love him and serve him with everything of who you are we'll wrap up there for tonight next week we'll get into the second half of chapter 10 and start talking about what it looks like to obey God in some of those ways Father we come to you and we thank you Lord for who you are and Father I can't say I speak for everyone here but I know I speak for me when I say Lord I want you to have all of me and I know there's still going to be my tendency to hold portions back I know that I will still want to live by the bread of this world not by every word that proceeds from your mouth I know that I will fight against

the humbling process of the wildernesses that you want to lead me through to teach me to be fully dependent upon you I know that I will fight against the discipline that you bring to me because I am a man of God I am your son but Lord please continue to do it anyway do it in my life do it in the lives of each and every one of these believers do it in the lives of those that are watching online those that may be listening online later today Father continue to do what you need to do in our hearts to bring us closer to you Lord my greatest desire for myself and everybody in this church is that we would truly be disciples of you Lord that you would conform us to your image Lord help us to remember who we are and help us to remember the God that we serve

Father we thank you and we praise you in Jesus name Amen Be blessed