Sermon No. 2435: The Everlasting Arms
Exposition: DEUTERONOMY 8.
Verse 1. All the commandments which I command you this day shall you observe to do, that you may live, and multiply, and go in and possess the land which the LORD swore unto your fathers. Every word, here, seems emphatic. Like the children of Israel, we are to observe all the commandments of the Lord our God—not merely some of them, picking and choosing as we please. It is a very ill conscience which regards some of God's statutes and pays no attention to others! In fact, the very act of making a selection as to what commands we will observe is gross disobedience. "All the commandments which I command you this day shall you observe to do."
Notice that we are not only to do as we are bidden, but to do it with carefulness—"you shall observe to do." God would not have a thoughtless, careless, blind service! We must bow our mind and heart as well as our will to His service. Remember, also, that it is not sufficient to "observe" the commandments so as to note what they are, but we are to "observe to do" them. That observation which does not end in right practice is like a promising blossom upon a tree which never knits and which, therefore, produces no fruit. Further notice that to walk in the ways of God is for our own benefit as well as for His Glory—"That you may live, and multiply, and go in and possess the land which the Lord swore unto your fathers."
There are, doubtless, many good things which we miss because we are not careful in our walking. I am sure that the happiest life will be found to be that which is most carefully conducted upon the principles of holy obedience to God's commands. There are certain blessings which God will not give to us while we are disobedient to Him. Many a father feels that he cannot indulge his child as he would wish to indulge him when he finds the child negligent as to his father's will. So, if we please God, God will please us, but, if we walk contrary to Him, He will walk contrary to us. Let me read this most instructive verse again, that it may be further impressed upon your memories and your hearts—"All the commandments which I command you this day shall you observe to do, that you may live, and multiply, and go in and possess the land which the Lord swore unto your fathers." To help you in obeying these commands, it is added—
2. And you shall remember all the way which the LORD your God led you these forty years in the wilderness, to humble you, and to prove you, to know what was in your hearts whether you would keep His commandments, or no. Look back and derive from your past experience a motive for more careful obedience in the future. He does not read his own life aright who does not see in it abundant causes for gratitude—and how can gratitude express itself better than by a cheerful, hearty obedience in the present and the future?
3. And He humbled you, and suffered you to hunger, and fed you with manna, These two sentences come very closely together—"Suffered you to hunger, and fed you with manna." I suppose we are not fit to eat heavenly bread till first of all we begin to hunger for it. God loves to give to men who will eat with an appetite—"He suffered you to hunger, and fed you with manna."
3. Which you knew not, neither did your fathers know. It was a new kind of food and even in the day when they ate it, they did not fully know what it was. They saw that it came by a miracle and it remained a mystery and, I think we can say that though we have fed upon the Bread of Heaven, some of us, for well-near 40 years, yet we hardly know, nor dare to think that we know, what it is made of, nor can we tell all the sweetness that is in it. We know the love of Christ, but it still passes our knowledge. It is true of us, as of Israel in the wilderness, "He humbled you, and suffered you to hunger, and fed you with manna, which you knew not, neither did your fathers know."
3. That He might make you know that man does not live by bread only, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of the LORD does man live. It is a grand thing to be delivered from materialism, to be freed from the notion that the outward means are absolutely essential for the accomplishment of the Divine Purpose. If God had so willed it, we could have lived on air—if the air had been sanctified by the Word of God and prayer for such a use! The Lord has, however, chosen to feed us upon bread—yet our highest life, our real life, does not live on bread, but it lives on the Word which proceeds out of the mouth of God! This is one of the passages with which our Lord fought Satan in the desert and overcame him. Happy is that servant of God who will arm himself with this same Truth and feel, "I am not to be provided for merely by money, or by anything else that is visible. God will somehow provide for me and I can leave all care about the means, if the means fail, and get away to the God of the means and lean, not on what I see, but on that arm which is invisible! That which you can see may fail you, for it is, like yourself, a shadow. But He whom you cannot see will never fail you. The strongest sinew in an arm of flesh will crack, but the eternal arm never fails and never is shortened! Lean on that arm and you shall never be ashamed, nor confounded, world without end! It takes 40 years to teach some people that lesson, but some, alas, have not learned it even at the end of 80 years!
4. Your raiment waxed not old upon you, neither did your feet swell these forty years. See how God not only cares for His people's food, but for their raiment, also. We may, therefore, well take heed to Paul's injunction—"Having food and raiment let us be therewith content." Whether it was by a miracle that the Israelites' raiment did not wear out, or whether it came to pass, in the order of Providence, that they were able to get fresh clothing when it did wear out, does not matter at all—it made no difference to them how it was arranged, for it was equal kindness on the part of God who provided for them. "Neither did your feet swell." We call the Arab, sometimes, "The pilgrim of the weary feet," but the Israelites' feet were not weary. They traversed a stony wilderness, yet God kept them in such health and strength that their feet swelled not even after 40 years of journeying! You and I often get worn out in 40 hours—forty days are as long as we can hope to go. But God enabled His ancient people to go on for 40 years and still their feet swelled not. Dr. Watts sweetly sang—
"Mere mortal power shall fade and die, And youthful vigor cease. But we that wait upon the Lord Shall feel our strength increase! The saints shall mount on eagles' wings, And taste the promised bliss, Till their unwearied feet arrive Where perfect pleasure is."
5. You shall also consider in your heart that, as a man chastens his son, so the LORD your God chastens you. We sometimes think that we could do without the Lord's chastening. If He will give us food and raiment and keep our feet from swelling, we will not crave the rod. No, but though we do not ask for it, the rod is one of the choicest blessings of the Covenant—and if we are the Lord's children, we shall not go without it! To come under Divine discipline is one of the greatest mercies we can ever have. Many of us, who are now men and women, thank God for earthly parents who have corrected us. We wonder what we would have been if there had been no discipline in our father's house. So, truly, is it with all of us who are God's children—in years to come we shall prize the chastisement which now makes us grieve. Even now it is well if, by faith, we can apply to our own heart this text—"as a man chastens his son, so the Lord your God chastens you."
6, 7. Therefore you shall keep the commandments of the LORD your God, to walk in His ways, and to fear Him. For the LORD your God brings you into a good land, a land of brooks of water, offountains and depths that spring out of valleys and hills. There are changes in our condition. Israel was not always in the wilderness—the chosen people were brought into a good land, into a place of rest from their weary wandering. So it may happen to you and to me that even in temporal circumstances, God may work a great change for us—and especially will He do this in spiritual matters. After a time of wilderness traveling, we who have believed enter into rest—we come to understand the Gospel—and he who understands the Gospel is not, any longer, in the wilderness! In a certain sense, he has come into the land of promise where he already enjoys Covenant mercies. It is true that the Canaanite is still in that land and we have to drive him out, but it is a good land to which God has brought us, "a land of brooks of water, of fountains and depths that spring out of valleys and hills." The Lord makes us drink of the river of His good pleasure. He satisfies us with the cooling streams of His Covenant love.
8. A land of wheat, and barley, and vines, and fig trees, and pomegranates; a land of olive oil, and honey. I will not go into a spiritualizing of all this, but I know that you who have come to believe in Christ and have entered, by faith, into His rest, know what sweet things God has provided for you—not merely bare necessities, but choice delights. He gives you to eat of the sweetnesses. He gives you the fatnesses—the wines on the lees, well-refined, and the fat things full of marrow. I trust that there are many here who know the blessed experience of joy and peace in believing. You have entered into a fair region. You have passed through the belt of storms. You have come where the trade winds blow heavenward, Your sails are filled, your vessel skips along before the breeze. You are making good progress towards the Fair Havens of eternal happiness!
9. A land wherein you shall eat bread without scarceness, you shall not lack anything in it; a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills you may dig brass. There are deep things hidden away in the Gospel treasuries. Silver and gold there may be none, but then, iron and copper are much more useful things—and the most useful things we shall ever need in this life lie hidden beneath the surface of the Gospel! If we know how to dig deep, we shall be abundantly rewarded by the treasures which we shall discover. Well now, if your experience has thus changed. If you have left the fiery serpents and the howling wilderness behind you and have come into a place of peace and enjoyment, what follows?
10. When you have eaten and are full, then you shall bless the LORD your God for the good land which He has given you. He permits you to eat—not to satiety, but you may eat and be full—only not so full but that you can always bless His name! Do not be afraid of holy joy! Eat and be full of it, only let it never take your heart away from Him who gives you the joy. On the contrary, bless your God for the good land which He has given you. It is said that in the olden times, pious Jews always blessed God before they ate, and always blessed God after they ate. They blessed God for the fragrance of the flower whenever they smelt it. Whenever they drank a cup of water, they blessed the Lord who gave them drink out of the rock in the desert. Oh, that we were always full of praises of God! Then it would not hurt us to be full of meat. But if we get full of meat and are empty of praises, this is mischievous, indeed!
11. Beware that you forget not the LORD your God, in not keeping His commandments, and His judgments, and His statutes, which I command you this day. That would be practical atheism—not keeping the commandments of God is one of the most vivid ways of forgetting Him!
12-14. Lest when you have eaten and are full, and have built goodly houses, and dwelt therein; and when your herds and your flocks multiply, and your silver and your gold is multiplied, and all that you have is multiplied; then your heart is lifted up and you forget the LORD your God, which brought you forth out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage. The other day a friend asked me this question, "From where does God get His princes?" And the answer I gave was, "He often picks them off dunghills." Oh, but they sometimes forget the dunghills where they grew and think themselves wonderfully important individuals! Then there is a time of pulling down for them. We cannot eat and be full without having the temptation of getting our heart lifted up! It is a great blessing to have the heart lifted up in one way, that is, in God's way—but to be lifted up by bread, to be lifted up by silver, to be lifted up by flocks and herds is such a bad way of being lifted up that evil and sorrow must come of it! See, the Lord does not forbid His people to build a house, or to eat and to enjoy what He gives them. But He does charge them not to forget the God who gave them these mercies, nor to forget where they used to be in slavery—"Beware that you forget not the Lord your God which brought you forth out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage."
16. Who led you through that great and terrible wilderness, wherein were fiery serpents, and scorpions, and drought, where there was no water; who brought you forth water out of the rock offlint. I cannot but pause as I remember my own passage through "that great and terrible wilderness, where there was no water." When a soul is under conviction of sin, "fiery serpents, and scorpions, and drought" are very feeble images of the pains and miseries that come of guilt unfor-given! "Where there was no water." Oh, what would we not have given, then, to have understood a little of that Gospel which, perhaps, we now despise? Oh, what would we not have given, then, just to have moistened our burning lips with the Living Water of the precious Word in which, possibly, now we see no refreshing? May God have mercy upon us for our forgetfulness of His great mercy! Let us, with deep gratitude, think of Him again—"Who led you through that great and terrible wilderness, wherein were fiery serpents, and scorpions, and drought, where there was no water; who brought you forth water out of the rock of flint." "More likely," says one, "to bring fire rather than water out of a rock of flint." And it did seem as if the Cross of the curse must have cursed us, yet it blessed us! The Lord brought forth Living Water out of that Rock which was smitten for guilty man!
16, 17. Who fed you in the wilderness with manna, which your fathers knew not, that He might humble you, and that He might prove you, to do you good at your latter end; and you said in your heart, My power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth. We must not say this about either temporal or spiritual wealth! If we have grown in Grace and have become useful, and are spiritually a blessing to others, we must not take any credit for it—or else down we shall go before long! God did not enrich you that you might set up for a god in opposition to Him. Christ did not love you that you might make yourself a rival to Him. Oh, that must not be! We must never say in our heart, "My power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth."
18,19. But you shall remember the LORD your God: for it is He that gives you power to get wealth, that He may establish His Covenant which He swore unto your fathers, as it is this day. And it shall be, if you do at all forget the LORD your God, and walk after other gods, and serve them, and worship them, I testify against you this day that you shall surely perish. If you live like sinners, you will die like sinners! "Where, then, is the perseverance of the saints?" asks one. Why, in this, that they shall not live like sinners! God's Grace will not let them go wandering after idols to worship and to serve them! He will keep us faithful to Himself, but if we will wander after idol gods, it proves that we are not the Lord's true Israel, and we must expect to be served as others have been who have turned aside to worship idols—
20. As the nations which the LORD destroys before your face, so shall you perish; because you would not be obedient unto the voice of the LORD your God.