Handling Prosperity

Deuteronomy Chapter 8: The Command to Remember the Lord

Deuteronomy 8:1-20 – Highlights of The Passage and Some Thoughts

In verse 2 we have an insight into how God often works with people that we often miss. Moses was reminding the people of Israel how God humbled them, “testing you, to know your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not.” Have you ever been humbled by God? I have. It’s not fun but it works. And as a result, by His grace, I’m still in a relationship with Him.

In verse 3, Moses says, “He humbled you and let you be hungry, and fed you with manna which you did not know.” What a statement. Sometimes life gets very hard – you go hungry; you go without a job; you get sick; you lose someone; you are greatly disappointed, and the list goes on. Stop and consider – is God testing me? If so, realize He is doing so because He loves you and cares about your heart and soul. And then notice the phrase, He “fed you with manna”.  God won’t let you die on earth if He wants you around to accomplish more for Him. And from this verse, we can assume that sometimes, how He saves us in a circumstance may be totally strange or unknown to us. That’s our God.

David Guzik reminds us that God’s education begins with us being humbled by Him. And then it moves to us being totally dependent on Him.

This verse also contains the famous “man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord” quote that Jesus Himself cited to Satan when the latter begged Him to “Command the stone to be made bread.”

In the meantime, between your pain or hunger and His provision for it, we are reminded (verse 4) that we will always have what we need. Moses tells the Israelites, “Your clothing did not wear out on you, nor did your foot swell these forty years.”  Wow, imagine that. When God is taking care of you, He’ll see to it that you’ll make it through.

Verse 5 is a reminder to all of us how God created us with a conscious. As a result of your need, Moses says, you will “know in your heart that the Lord your God was disciplining you just as a man disciplines his son.” I don’t know about you, but I sure know when God is disciplining me. It’s not physical. It’s something that happens in my heart and in my mind.

In verses 6-9, Moses recounts the rewards of having been so dealt with by God. And in verse 10, he tells them (and us) that when we have availed ourselves of that blessing, we shall “bless the Lord (our) God” for what He has given us. Are you there yet? I am.

Verses 11-20 are cautions against forgetting God under different circumstances – including when one is well-fed, successful, etc. And this all happens when “your heart becomes proud” and “you may say in your heart, ‘My power and the strength of my hand made me this wealth.” I have often said that perhaps God did not allow me to become rich and powerful because He was not ready to trust me with that kind of wealth and power. One could say, “that is so sad” and it is. On the other hand, I would say, “God loves me so much, and knows me so well, that I am so glad He did not make me rich or powerful. For if I were it might not need or want Him.”

Guzik reminds us that God is not against material things – except when they come between us and Him. He says, “God wanted to materially bless a spiritually obedient Israel.” However, let me be clear – this is not the prosperity gospel teaching. The fact that you or I are not materially blessed to our satisfaction or desire does not mean that we are not being obedient to God.

In the last two verses (19-20), Moses reminds the children of Israel that if they move towards worshipping other gods, they will surely perish as the nations that God made to perish before them. So, just listen to and obey the voice of the Lord your God.

Wrap-up

The main gist of this passage for me is that rather than pursue prosperity (wealth and power) with all our efforts, time, resources, and heart, we need to guard ourselves against it. God will apportion it to us as He sees and knows best. Our job is to find real joy and satisfaction with His choice for us in this regard. Otherwise, we will live and die, ever disappointed, ever sorry.

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God's Special Formula for Blessing Works

The Richness of God’s Promises

Exodus 23:25-26: “But you shall serve the Lord your God, and He shall bless your bread and your water; and I will remove sickness from your midst. There shall be no one miscarrying or barren in your land; I will fulfill the number of your days.”

God basically told the Israelites that He would protect them from their enemies and they would be part of the battle by their “utterly overthrowing” them and breaking their “sacred pillars”. And in the process or rather while doing so, they were also to serve the Lord.

What was God saying to them? What is He saying to us, in essence, in these verses? It appears like a complex formula for success – but it can really be boiled down to three simple things: dependence on God; doing our part; and serving Him. If we’re struggling in life, it’s not always because we have sinned or made bad decisions. It’s not always about Him teaching us more things and making us stronger, although that happens in the process almost always.  It just may be that we really, I mean really, have not come face-to-face with what it means to fully depend on Him, fully obey Him through our actions, and fully serve Him.

Full dependence on Him sometimes requires more patience than we have; sometimes more faith and trust; and sometimes it means giving up what we are pursuing because He does not considerate it to be good for us, at least at this time. Are we ready to do that?

Fully obeying by doing our part may sometimes mean taking actions that cost something – our job, our friends, our assets, our comfort, our reputation, you name it.  I am in the process of reading that classic book by A. B. Bruce, written in 1877, entitled The Training of the Twelve.  In it, he writes, “They (the disciples) were animated by a devotion to Jesus and to the divine kingdom which made them capable of any sacrifice.” (brackets and emphasis mine)  I often wonder how many of us living in the western world possess that drive today.

And fully serving Him would require a conscious effort to begin each day having dedicated each moment, each conversation, each action, to Him, ensuring that it is pleasing to Him and a help to those He has brought into our lives – our spouse, parents, children, friends, associates, and even strangers.

I don’t know about you, but I have a long way to go to be able to fully ‘expect’ the kind of blessings God promised the Israelites in this passage. For in it, He talks about things that really would make any life much more desired.

God says He will bless our bread. He will see to it that we do not die of starvation. And we will have enough water and not die from thirst or poisoned water.  Matthew Henry points out that God did not promise a “feast of fat things and wines on the lees”.  But our simple bread and water will be “more refreshing and nourishing” with His blessing than such a fatty feast without. The availability of food was important to the Israelites for their survival and this has not changed for us.

While we need food to stay alive and healthy, we also need health to be able to eat and to enjoy our food.  God promised the Israelites would have that as well. In fact, He would “remove sickness” from them.  Imagine no sickness to continue and no new sickness to come. No diseases in the land that would kill off many or desolate the land. It is interesting that this same promise is made to us in the book of Revelation where the Apostle John is describing heaven where there will be no sickness or death. That which God promised His children in the wilderness, we ourselves, may not see until we get to heaven.

But wait, it does not end there. God promises the Israelites that He will increase their wealth, assumedly through the multiplication of their cattle (Henry says the animals would not “cast their young”.) And the number of Israelites shall also grow as “no one will have a miscarriage or be barren” in the land. People shall live to their full life expectancy. We know, by that phrase, that this is not just about “heaven” as people do not die in heaven – it was for the Israelites, for them, right there and then, if they claimed it and obeyed God. The question we would ask is whether or not any of it applies to us today, and if so, how?

Simple observation of our own lives, those of our relatives and friends, and the world around us, would tell us that this part of the promise was strictly for the Israelites at that time and only a symbolic glimpse, of what is in store for us in eternity.  Clearly man’s sin and his own greed for authority and control of his life, have made such a promise of God’s to be difficult to fulfill as we often do not keep our side of the bargain – we do not fully depend on Him, we do not obey Him totally, and we do not serve Him thoroughly.

But it need not be like that. (I do not mean to imply by my next statement that I am anywhere near where I should be in any of these regards [I stated that above], but simply to share that I am inching my way closer.) What I have discovered is that as I draw closer to God, as I rely more on Him, as I obey Him more, and as I serve Him more willingly, my life is indeed better. No, neither I nor my family members and friends stop having challenges in life, our material wealth is not multiplied, and I know there is no guarantee any of us will live to our full life expectancy; some have not. But yet life is less stressful and more enjoyable, and I am more content than before.

So can this precise promise that applied to the Israelites apply to us? Certainly, its key principle and lesson can, and I believe you will find that it does.

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God: "Take This and See Me in the Morning" -- Exodus 16:9-12

--> Then Moses said to Aaron, “Say to all the congregation of the sons of Israel, ‘Come near before the Lord, for He has heard your grumblings.’”  And it came about as Aaron spoke to the whole congregation of the sons of Israel, that they looked toward the wilderness, and behold, the glory of the Lord appeared in the cloud.  And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “I have heard the grumblings of the sons of Israel; speak to them, saying, ‘At twilight you shall eat meat, and in the morning you shall be filled with bread; and you shall know that I am the Lord your God.’”
 

What great advice Moses wanted Aaron to share with the people – “Come near before the Lord, for He has heard your grumblings.”  Think about that.  When my grandchildren are complaining or moaning, as children they inadvertently want to be around their mother or father.  I guess misery likes to be heard.  As parents, or grandparents for that matter, we often say to them, “If you want to tell me something, go away, stop that grumbling and moaning, and then come back and talk to me properly.”  And I guess that is the difference between God and us when it comes to parenthood.  Moses is in essence saying, “God has heard your grumbling and He wants to address it, so go listen to Him.”  That’s our God.  Even when we grumble, He wants us to draw near to Him.  (This is yet another reason why I may well be changing my mind on how I feel about a person getting angry with God.  See my comments under Exodus 16:4-8.)

And sure enough in the morning, as Aaron was telling the children of Israel to draw near to God, they looked up and there “the glory of the Lord appeared in the cloud.”  He was there, He heard the grumblings, and He was involved.  The text says He spoke to Moses.  Did the others hear Him?  We do not know.  My guess is they did not or else why would He tell Moses to speak to them about what He said.  While God was working for the Israelites, He was still working with and through Moses.  God tells him He has heard the grumblings of the people and He wants Moses to tell them so.  He also wants Moses to tell them what He has done in response to their grumbling, and why.  He would provide them with meat every evening and in the morning He would give them their fill of bread.  As a result the people will know that He the Lord is their God.

Ever wonder how Moses knew God had heard their grumbling (in verse 9), even before God told him so (in verse 12)?  Well, the answer lies in verse 3 when the people grumbled about not having bread and then in verse 4 God simply says He will rain down bread.  Moses did not have to tell God; neither did the people have to.  He heard them.  God is aware of our every thought and uttering, whether it is directed to Him or not.

In verse 3 of this chapter, the people had complained about having no meat, and not being filled with bread.  So God provides just that.  In the evening He gives them meat and in the morning He fills them with bread.  Why did He not fill them with meat, and just provide bread?  I do not know for sure, but may I suggest that oftentimes God gives us exactly what we ask for.  If we ask for something good and get it from God, then we can praise Him as He totally satisfies us.  If we ask for something that will not be good for us, God sometimes gives it to us so that later we become more reliant on Him.

But here is what I can tell you for sure.  Whatever God does, His intent for us is that “we know He is the Lord our God.”   That is the key reason for His doing what He does for us or with us.  If we miss that; if we think it is all about us; if we grumble because we are not getting our desires, then we have missed the purpose of our relationship with Him.  On the other hand, if we do not like those terms of His, well we miss out on such a relationship.  We do life and eternity without Him.  The Israelites had a choice, and so do you and I.  Our heart’s desire should be to take the ‘meat’ He offers us at night and see His glory in the morning.

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God Provides Even Before He Tests Us -- Exodus 16:4-8

Then the Lord said to Moses, “Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you; and the people shall go out and gather a day’s portion every day, that I may test them, whether or not they will walk in My instruction.  And it will come about on the sixth day, when they prepare what they bring in, it will be twice as much as they gather daily.”  So Moses and Aaron said to all the sons of Israel, “At evening you will know that the Lord has brought you out of the land of Egypt; and in the morning you will see the glory of the Lord, for He hears your grumblings against the Lord; and what are we, that you grumble against us?”  And Moses said, “This will happen when the Lord gives you meat to eat in the evening, and bread to the full in the morning; for the Lord hears your grumblings which you grumble against Him.  And what are we? Your grumblings are not against us but against the Lord.”
 

I find the beginning of this passage most interesting.  God tells Moses that He will provide bread for the ‘grumbling’ children of Israel even before they are tested – before they “walk in God’s instruction”.  So much for God being mean and austere.

God Himself will do this.  He will ‘rain’ bread from heaven for them.  But lest we think His help means we are to do absolutely nothing, the fact remains that the people had to get out there and collect the provisions themselves within a specific time.

Over the centuries of Christianity we find that there are people who sit and wait for God to take care of everything, not knowing when it is time for them to get out there and collect His provision.  I get particularly frustrated by those who want a job but just sit at home watching television because they believe if God wants them to work, someone will come asking for them and to boot, they’ll be offered a dream job with a dream compensation and benefits package.  Or there’s the person who really desires a godly partner as their mate for life, but they never go out to be with people.  They stay at home too, reading romance novels and waiting for Mr. Christian Dreamboat to ring the doorbell.  The only thing I can say to them and others in similar situations is “dream on”.  Life does not work like that and God does not work like that for the most part.  If you want to a complete a 26.2-mile marathon (42 kilometers), you need to first start working on running a single mile.

Notice God was very specific as to the requirement for people to gather only one day’s portion at a time – enough for them and their family.  That’s all that will be available each day.  Except on the sixth day, when God will see to it that He will “rain” a double-portion of the provision so that the children of Israel will not have to gather anything to eat on the Sabbath – they’ll have it in ‘good edible condition’ (i.e. no mold would form) from the day before.  This very instruction was part of God’s testing the people.

And then Moses and Aaron told the children of Israel “This very evening, you will know that the Lord has brought you out of the land of Egypt.”  Enough already – you would think the people knew that.  But they kept forgetting.  Let us not be too hard on them.  We know what God and His Son have done for us and we keep forgetting.  Still, it was one thing for Pharaoh and the Egyptians back in Egypt or even at the Red Sea crossing to learn that, but it’s another to still have to prove it to the children of Israel at this point in time.  Yet our patient Heavenly Father does just that – for the Israelites and for us.

Moses and Aaron say, “Tomorrow morning you will see God’s glory.” It is not clear what exactly they meant by this.  The expositor John Gill suggests the glory of God was being displayed either in His wonderful provision (raining bread for them each morning) or as it (the glory) appeared in the cloud which accompanied them.  Gill himself prefers the latter, believing this glory of the Lord, was the glorious Shekinah of Jehovah, the Angel that went before them in the cloud, the eternal Word and Son of God.  No matter that you are grumbling against the Almighty God, He will still show His compassion towards you – His glory will shine through in the morning.

I think it is important to stop and think about this grumbling that was going on.  First, I should admit that many will not agree with what I am about to write here and that’s okay.  I understand that I may be wrong.  I can only share my thinking and feelings about this.  When I accept the fact (and I have no reason not to believe Moses here) that God actually hears my grumblings against Him, I am staggered at the thought that I would do so given what God has done for me and Who He is.  I find it difficult to accept.  Yet I know that many say, “God can take it.  If you are angry at Him, let Him know.”  I know He can take it, but that does not mean He needs to or should, or worse still, that I should be angry with God.  And I guess that is my point – being angry with God is something I personally find hard to do.  But as I read more, as I deal with others who have “hit a wall” or two in their lives, I understand that some people are angry with God.  And I realize that expressing that anger to Him can be used by God to bring that child of His ever closer to Him.  I am so thankful our God is willing to do that.

As wise leaders, Moses and Aaron also tell the people that their behavior, although verbally directed at them, is really grumbling against God.  So, they won’t accept it; the people have to face up to what they are doing and to Whom they are really addressing their grumblings.  We are like that sometime.  We take our anger out on our children, our spouses, our co-workers, our superiors, and our pastors.  But the problem is we are unwilling to accept what God has allowed in our lives and we will not deal with Him directly about it.  Perhaps, because we know that He knows the truth about our own personal contribution to the situation.  

Back in Exodus 16:3 the people grumbled about not having food and in so doing made reference to their time back in Egypt “when we ate bread to the full”.  Now here in verse 8, Moses uses that very same phrase when he says the Lord will give you “bread to the full in the morning.”  It is amazing how God provides what we need when we need it, and more.  The Israelites did not need “bread to the full”; they just needed bread so they would not die from starvation.  But God provided “bread to the full”.

This is the God that is right there with us in our own desert today.  Instead of grumbling towards Him, we would do well to remember Who He is and what He has done for us and for the world.  Then, knowing He knows our needs, looking for His glory as He meets them.

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[Are you looking for a speaker at your church, your club, school, or organization? Ken is available to preach, teach, challenge, and/or motivate. Please contact us.]

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In Between Elim and Sinai is Sin -- Exodus 16:1-3

Then they set out from Elim, and all the congregation of the sons of Israel came to the wilderness of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month after their departure from the land of Egypt.  And the whole congregation of the sons of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness.  And the sons of Israel said to them, “Would that we had died by the Lord’s hand in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the pots of meat, when we ate bread to the full; for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.”
 

After resting by the waters of Elim, the entire group of Israelites moved on and came to the wilderness of Sin.  In studying Strong’s Lexicon of the Bible one notes that ‘Sin’ is quite different from ‘sin’.  The latter in Hebrew is the word chatta'ath while the former and the one in our verse here is the word Ciyn.  This Ciyn literally means ‘thorn’ or ‘clay’ and it was the name of both a town in eastern Egypt as well as a tract of wilderness between Elim and Sinai.   It is at this wilderness that the children of Israel have now arrived at this point in our text.  And remember they were on route to Sinai where they would meet with God and receive His Law through Moses. 

The date given in the text is significant to the extent that it marks one month after leaving Egypt, since they left on the fifteenth of the previous month (Exodus 12:18).  And as you can imagine by now any provisions they had brought along were altogether or almost depleted.  Furthermore, the chance of getting any food easily in the desert was miniscule.  The scene was ripe for “mutiny in the desert”.

And as if on cue, all the people of Israel grumbled against both Moses and his brother Aaron.  We all know what happens when someone gets really hungry.  While there is some justification in their behavior – after all, the human body has to eat, for the Israelites it was as if they had never lived under bondage and slavery back in Egypt.  All that mattered right now was that they were about to starve to death in the desert.  In fact, their hunger caused them to forget the ordeals they underwent back in Egypt.  They could only remember the high times when they were feasting.  People are like that.  When people look back on broken relationships, they remember the good times, and seem to forget the abuse they experienced in that relationship.  And so now without food, the Israelites were wishing they had been left to die with their stomachs full in Egypt rather than die of hunger in the desert.

When we focus on our material, even physical, needs, we miss the big picture that God sees.  So we grumble.  Then we blame others for things, that if we stopped to think about just a little, we know are not true.  And so it was with the Israelites who blamed both Moses and Aaron for bringing them to the wilderness to “kill them”.  How wrong can we be some times?

If you are still grumbling today, yes by all means get something to eat.  Then start trying to see the big picture.  Distinguish fairly between who or what the problem you face really is.  Ask God to help you see the big picture of your life and then work with Him to overcome whatever it is that is holding you back in the place of ‘Sin’ and preventing you from moving on towards your Sinai.

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[Are you looking for a speaker at your church, your club, school, or organization? Ken is available to preach, teach, challenge, and/or motivate. Please contact us.]

Thanks for dropping by. Sign up to receive free updates. We bring you relevant information from all sorts of sources. Subscribe for free to this blog or follow us by clicking on the appropriate link in the right side bar. And please share this blog with your friends. Ken Godevenos, Church and Management Consultant, Accord Consulting.  And while you’re here, why not check out some more of our recent blogs shown in the right hand column.  Ken.

________________________________________________________________________

 

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