Deuteronomy 8:1-5 Keep and live out the entire commandment that I’m commanding you today so that you’ll live and prosper and enter and own the land that God promised to your ancestors. Remember every road that God led you on for those forty years in the wilderness, pushing you to your limits, testing you so that he would know what you were made of, whether you would keep his commandments or not. He put you through hard times. He made you go hungry. Then he fed you with manna, something neither you nor your parents knew anything about, so you would learn that men and women don’t live by bread only; we live by every word that comes from God’s mouth. Your clothes didn’t wear out and your feet didn’t blister those forty years. You learned deep in your heart that God disciplines you in the same ways a father disciplines his child.
There are many times when we whine and complain about how hard we have it, how tough life is, and how we wish things were easier. We have no idea that God is using all these trials to test us, train us, and fit us for greater things. Look at what God has been doing for the Israelites: 2.4 million people moving through a wasteland, yet God is feeding them, providing clean drinking water, and even protecting them so that their clothes haven’t worn out and they haven’t even gotten a single blister while trudging over that rocky ground. Why has God done all this? God knows the Israelites are about to face seven superpowers and if these people aren’t tough enough, those superpowers will eat them for breakfast!
6-9 So it’s paramount that you keep the commandments of God, your God, walk down the roads he shows you and reverently respect him. God is about to bring you into a good land, a land with brooks and rivers, springs and lakes, streams out of the hills and through the valleys. It’s a land of wheat and barley, of vines and figs and pomegranates, of olives, oil, and honey. It’s land where you’ll never go hungry—always food on the table and a roof over your head. It’s a land where you’ll get iron out of rocks and mine copper from the hills. 10 After a meal, satisfied, bless God, your God, for the good land he has given you.
I absolutely love these verses! These verses are God’s love letter to the land of Israel-look at what God is giving His people: brooks and rivers, springs and lakes, streams out of the hills and through the valleys, a land of wheat and barley, of vines and figs and pomegranates, of olives, oil, and honey. This land will yield iron and copper. God is literally weeping with joy over everything He is about to give His people. At the end of this study, I have added a video of the theme song from the movie “Exodus,” for that song embodies these verses. Not only has God planned this land for His people, but He already knows which tribe will inherit which sections of this land and even which individuals will live to rejoice in their inheritance.
I am a farm kid from Illinois, and I can testify that the land knows those who love it and will care for it and cherish it. These are passions that those who live in towns have never experienced. Now the Israelites will have the opportunity to enjoy God’s gifts to them.
11-16 Make sure you don’t forget God, your God, by not keeping his commandments, his rules and regulations that I command you today. Make sure that when you eat and are satisfied, build pleasant houses and settle in, see your herds and flocks flourish and more and more money come in, watch your standard of living going up and up—make sure you don’t become so full of yourself and your things that you forget God, your God, the God who delivered you from Egyptian slavery; the God who led you through that huge and fearsome wilderness, those desolate, arid badlands crawling with fiery snakes and scorpions; the God who gave you water gushing from hard rock; the God who gave you manna to eat in the wilderness, something your ancestors had never heard of, in order to give you a taste of the hard life, to test you so that you would be prepared to live well in the days ahead of you.
In the American South, someone who has forgotten their humble origins is described as “having gotten above his raising.” There is no shame in coming from a simple background, and living with limited resources can teach you to make do, rather than to overspend.
God is trying to remind the Israelites exactly how far they have come and all the problems they have overcome with His help. But God also knows that people have short memories and are quite likely to enjoy a lavish lifestyle so much that they will “get above their raising.”
Does a hard start in life prepare you to handle wealth wisely? Sometimes. Warren Buffet, one of the richest men in the world, continues to live relatively simply and to give away as much of his wealth as possible. But there are others who have become so entranced with their wealth that they have lost sight of the God who has given them that wealth in the first place.
17-18 If you start thinking to yourselves, “I did all this. And all by myself. I’m rich. It’s all mine!”—well, think again. Remember that God, your God, gave you the strength to produce all this wealth so as to confirm the covenant that he promised to your ancestors—as it is today.
19-20 If you forget, forget God, your God, and start taking up with other gods, serving and worshiping them, I’m on record right now as giving you firm warning: that will be the end of you; I mean it—destruction. You’ll go to your doom—the same as the nations God is destroying before you; doom because you wouldn’t obey the Voice of God, your God.
Once more, God keeps reminding the Israelites “Don’t forget! Don’t forget! Don’t forget!” God truly wants a good future for the Israelites and has put everything in place for them to move into the Promised Land and enjoy its benefits. Sadly, the Israelites will not follow God’s advice but will go in the opposite direction.
Let’s step out of this scene for a minute. Throughout our lives, God has given us training opportunities and has been fitting us for the future He has for us. Our task is to obey God and to follow His commandments, not becoming distracted by problems or seduced by wealth. May God help us so that we will cause Him to rejoice!
PRAYER: Father God, thank You for loving us and caring for us. Lord, help us to follow You, no matter the circumstances. In the mighty and precious Name of King Jesus. Amen.
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