“Don't Forget Where You Came From (Deuteronomy 8:11 - 9:29)", Will DuVal | 3/8/26
Deuteronomy 8:11 - 9:29 | 3/8/26 | Will DuVal
Years ago, there was a boy born into an impoverished family - dad was a cobbler; mom was a washerwoman - and they struggled to even afford food. So as he grew, this young man became passionate about the cause of helping out the working class. He joined - and in time, LED - reform groups calling for a change to the broken system that left millions in his country suffering in poverty, while the rich and powerful just kept getting MORE rich and powerful. Until REVOLUTION finally erupted, the existing government was toppled, and this (now) middle-aged man was appointed leader, promising a NEW era in which EVERYONE would finally have dignity and a voice.
That man was named Joseph Stalin, and he would spend the next 25 years consolidating power for himself, accumulating WEALTH for himself - historians consider him the SIXTH richest person to ever LIVE (Karson Chuang, “10 Richest People in History”,
https://www.therchktruth.org/general-news/2025/3/30/10-richest-people-in-history ) - and suppressing and OPPRESSING all who opposed him, MOST of whom, were poor commoners. It’s estimated that Stalin is responsible for the deaths of between 10 and TWENTY million people, ranking him #3 on history’s all-time mass murderer list (Kaleena Fraga, https://allthatsinteresting.com/who-killed-the-most-people-in-history ). (Illustration help from ChatGPT, 3/7/26, “Dangers of Forgetting Where You Came From” prompt)
What’s the moral of the story? “Don’t Forget Where you CAME From”. It’s an IMPORTANT lesson we need to be reminded of still today.
Perhaps you grew up poor, like Stalin, forced to rely on the generosity of others; don’t forget it when YOU finally have enough to share and bless others in need of a helping hand.
It’s an important lesson for those of us in power, in your workplace, for instance; don’t become the boss you always HATED working for, now that YOU have the choice to use your authority to exploit… or EMPOWER your employees. Or as a PARENT; don’t forget what it’s like to BE that teenager, craving autonomy - instead of STIFLING it, how can you shepherd your child to STEWARD it well.
It’s an important lesson in MARRIAGE, over time. As the tendency becomes to increasingly start to take one another for GRANTED, and forget how uniquely WONDERFUL your spouse is, and the LOVE you had for them at the beginning. Don’t forget that SPARK; keep fanning the flame of romance and gratitude.
But it is an ESPECIALLY important lesson, we’ll see this morning, in the life of FAITH. It’s the lesson that Moses is reminding the ISRAELITES of, in Deuteronomy chs8 & 9 (sorry, I had to CUT the first half of ch10, for time). But because WE - the Church - are God’s NEW Testament people, Moses’s timeless principles here are for US this morning as well. But he doesn’t just want to remind us of where we came from - who we WERE - he will ALSO remind us of who we now ARE - who God has MADE us to be - and as God’s people, following His lead, where we’re now HEADED as well.
So I invite you to STAND with me (as you’re able)... Deut 8:11-9:29; (longer passage…)- Hear the word of the Lord:
““Take care lest you forget the Lord your God by not keeping his commandments and his rules and his statutes, which I command you today, 12 lest, when you have eaten and are full and have built good houses and live in them, 13 and when your herds and flocks multiply and your silver and gold is multiplied and all that you have is multiplied, 14 then your heart be lifted up, and you forget the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, 15 who led you through the great and terrifying wilderness, with its fiery serpents and scorpions and thirsty ground where there was no water, who brought you water out of the flinty rock, 16 who fed you in the wilderness with manna that your fathers did not know, that he might humble you and test you, to do you good in the end. 17 Beware lest you say in your heart, ‘My power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth.’ 18 You shall remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth, that he may confirm his covenant that he swore to your fathers, as it is this day. 19 And if you forget the Lord your God and go after other gods and serve them and worship them, I solemnly warn you today that you shall surely perish. 20 Like the nations that the Lord makes to perish before you, so shall you perish, because you would not obey the voice of the Lord your God.
9:1 “Hear, O Israel: you are to cross over the Jordan today, to go in to dispossess nations greater and mightier than you, cities great and fortified up to heaven, 2 a people great and tall, the sons of the Anakim, whom you know, and of whom you have heard it said, ‘Who can stand before the sons of Anak?’ 3 Know therefore today that he who goes over before you as a consuming fire is the Lord your God. He will destroy them and subdue them before you. So you shall drive them out and make them perish quickly, as the Lord has promised you.
4 “Do not say in your heart, after the Lord your God has thrust them out before you, ‘It is because of my righteousness that the Lord has brought me in to possess this land,’ whereas it is because of the wickedness of these nations that the Lord is driving them out before you. 5 Not because of your righteousness or the uprightness of your heart are you going in to possess their land, but because of the wickedness of these nations the Lord your God is driving them out from before you, and that he may confirm the word that the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.
6 “Know, therefore, that the Lord your God is not giving you this good land to possess because of your righteousness, for you are a stubborn people. 7 Remember and do not forget how you provoked the Lord your God to wrath in the wilderness. From the day you came out of the land of Egypt until you came to this place, you have been rebellious against the Lord. 8 Even at Horeb you provoked the Lord to wrath, and the Lord was so angry with you that he was ready to destroy you. 9 When I went up the mountain to receive the tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant that the Lord made with you, I remained on the mountain forty days and forty nights. I neither ate bread nor drank water. 10 And the Lord gave me the two tablets of stone written with the finger of God, and on them were all the words that the Lord had spoken with you on the mountain out of the midst of the fire on the day of the assembly. 11 And at the end of forty days and forty nights the Lord gave me the two tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant. 12 Then the Lord said to me, ‘Arise, go down quickly from here, for your people whom you have brought from Egypt have acted corruptly. They have turned aside quickly out of the way that I commanded them; they have made themselves a metal image.’
13 “Furthermore, the Lord said to me, ‘I have seen this people, and behold, it is a stubborn people. 14 Let me alone, that I may destroy them and blot out their name from under heaven. And I will make of you [Moses] a nation mightier and greater than they.’ 15 So I turned and came down from the mountain, and the mountain was burning with fire. And the two tablets of the covenant were in my two hands. 16 And I looked, and behold, you had sinned against the Lord your God. You had made yourselves a golden calf. You had turned aside quickly from the way that the Lord had commanded you. 17 So I took hold of the two tablets and threw them out of my two hands and broke them before your eyes. 18 Then I lay prostrate before the Lord as before, forty days and forty nights. I neither ate bread nor drank water, because of all the sin that you had committed, in doing what was evil in the sight of the Lord to provoke him to anger. 19 For I was afraid of the anger and hot displeasure that the Lord bore against you, so that he was ready to destroy you. But the Lord listened to me that time also. 20 And the Lord was so angry with Aaron that he was ready to destroy him. And I prayed for Aaron also at the same time. 21 Then I took the sinful thing, the calf that 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 the dust of it into the brook that ran down from the mountain.
22 “At Taberah also, and at Massah and at Kibroth-hattaavah you provoked the Lord to wrath. 23 And when the Lord sent you from Kadesh-barnea, saying, ‘Go up and take possession of the land that I have given you,’ then you rebelled against the commandment of the Lord your God and did not believe him or obey his voice. 24 You have been rebellious against the Lord from the day that I knew you.
25 “So I lay prostrate before the Lord for these forty days and forty nights, because the Lord had said he would destroy you. 26 And I prayed to the Lord, ‘O Lord God, do not destroy your people and your heritage, whom you have redeemed through your greatness, whom you have brought out of Egypt with a mighty hand. 27 Remember your servants, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Do not regard the stubbornness of this people, or their wickedness or their sin, 28 lest the land from which you brought us say, “Because [YAHWEH] was not able to bring them into the land that he promised them, and because he hated them, he has brought them out to put them to death in the wilderness.” 29 For they are your people and your heritage, whom you brought out by your great power and by your outstretched arm.’” This is the word of God…
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THREE woeful conditions, that characterized our spiritual state, prior to the Lord’s intervention and redemption, that Moses wants to remind us of here: “Don’t forget where you came from; where the LORD has BROUGHT you from…”:
First, (#1) and most foundationally: don’t forget you were SLAVES, but now God has made you SONS, and DAUGHTERS, by RESCUING and REDEEMING you (8:11-14)
He opens in ch8, v11: ““Take care lest you forget” - when you’ve got a full belly and a comfy house and lots ‘o LIVEstock and company stock, wealth… “and all that you have is multiplied” - “TAKE CARE… lest your heart be lifted up”; what’s that? What is the ROOT THREAT that we need to be so WARY of, because it so often PLAGUES the hearts of those who experience SUCCESS?
It’s PRIDE. It’s when we begin to believe, v17, that “My power and the might of my hand”, or my brain, my talent, my charisma, my hard work… my-SELF! I have gotten me all this success…”
Instead of remembering that the ONLY reason we’re not still stuck in SLAVERY - v14 - is because GOD brought us out. Moses reminds them, “My fellow Israelites, we didn’t free OURSELVES from bondage in Egypt; we COULDN’T! We were completely and utterly POWERLESS, HELP-less to deliver ourselves… when the LORD stepped in to save us.
And Church: the SAME was true of US, spiritually, before CHRIST set US free from OUR enslavement to SIN; just listen to how the apostle Paul describes our spiritual condition before we found Christ - or rather, BETTER - before HE found US:
“you were [a “basically good person… who just needed a little HELP, a good moral TEACHER and example, from Jesus…” – is that what he says? No…
You were STRUGGLING; let’s be HONEST about it: you were in a pretty bad PLACE, spiritually, when Christ found you; He had to do a LOT of work to turn your life around…” – No, he says…]
“You were DEAD [spiritually DEAD] in the trespasses [or “OFFENSES”; the “violations” you’d committed, against God’s moral standard] and the sins 2 in which you once walked… [you] were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. [According to God’s word, we are NOT born spiritually NEUTRAL, blank slates; we are BORN “children of WRATH”, children of SIN, enslaved to our sin and gladly “WALKING” in it - sinners by nature and by CHOICE, who thus rightly DESERVED GOD’S wrath.
But what is the SOLUTION for our sin problem? V4…“But YOU, being rich in good deeds, because of the great love with which you loved God and others…” – Wait, I’m sorry; I misread that again…]
4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were [spiritually] dead [You ever been to a MORGUE or an open-casket FUNERAL? You know what I’ve noticed DEAD people are really GOOD at? STAYING DEAD. They got that NAILED… and that’s about IT. But God says, “Even WHEN you were DEAD - totally POWERLESS to do anything about your own sinful STATE - I stepped IN, and], made [you] alive together with Christ [this was not a “recovery” operation, not a “resuscitation”; we needed nothing short of RESURRECTION - DEATH to LIFE; and friends: only GOD has THAT kind power]…
“For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast. ” (Eph 2:1-9) –There’s an old Roman Catholic practice of encouraging folks on their DEATHbed to pray “LORD, join MY righteousness with Christ’s righteousness””. (David Guzik, Enduring Word, “Deuteronomy 8”) Friend: do you know how much RIGHTEOUSNESS you’ve got to “join” with, to contribute to your salvation? You DO make a contribution: you contribute 100% of the SIN. That is YOUR contribution. That’s like committing suicide, and waking up in the E.R. after someone FOUND you and brought you back to LIFE, and you telling the doctors, “Hey: you’re WELCOME. For my contribution, here.”
You were a SLAVE to sin. But God - in love - sent His own Son to die for you, that you might find LIFE in Him. Life, and BELONGING in God’s family. Moses says, “Don’t forget Yahweh YOUR God.” He’s not just “THE” God; He is OUR God, because He has MADE us “a people for His own possession”, His beloved CHILDREN. “See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called the children of God; and so we are.” (1 Jn 3:1) May we NEVER forget it.
#2 - Don’t forget: you were PITIABLE, but now God has made you PROSPEROUS. (8:11-20)
“Don’t FORGET”, here it is AGAIN, “when you are FULL and FRUITFUL and FLOURISHING” - that it is only AFTER the LORD not only liberated you from Egypt, but He then had to LEAD you through the “great and terrifying wilderness, with its fiery serpents and scorpions and thirsty ground where there was no water” - “Remind me again,” Moses says, “since y’all are so GREAT and self-sufficient and everything… how y’all planned to get WATER for 40 years in the middle of a giant DESERT? How DID you get it again? That’s right: it was ‘THE LORD who brought you water out of the flinty rock’; it was THE LORD ‘who fed you [for 40 years] with manna’, bread from HEAVEN. And it is THE LORD who WILL give you those nice houses and herds and 401Ks in the near FUTURE, when you come INTO the good land that HE is graciously giving you, by taking on nations bigger and stronger than you that HE will defeat and dispossess FOR you.”
“So just don’t FORGET it,” Moses warns, “when you’re ENJOYING all that newfound prosperity; don’t forget how PATHETIC and PITIABLE you were when God FOUND you, and decided to BLESS you.”
“What do you have that you did not receive? And If you received it, why do you boast as if you [somehow EARNED] it?” (1Cor4:7) – Friend: there is NOTHING in your life, in your possession, that I should have to ask you more than about THREE times, MAX, “How’d you GET it?”, before an HONEST answer would HAVE to point me back to THE LORD. Think about it:
“Check out my bank account”
“Yeah; where’d it COME from?”
“Well, my POWER, and the might of my HAND and MIND, my business acumen and shrewd investing…”
“Sure; and where’d THAT come from? Your brilliant MIND and your position - being born in the most affluent time and place in all of history; was that a choice YOU made? - the opportunity and ability - the “POWER to GET wealth”...” – it’s from GOD.
Or “Check out my WIFE…”
“She seems pretty great; how’d you swing HER?”
“Well, just LOOK at me: I’m attractive, I’m funny, I’m smart, I’m driven but caring, strong but kind…”
“Yeah, and you’re so HUMBLE too; but remind me: How’d you get to be so… wonderful. Who MADE you so handsome and hilarious, so gifted yet gracious?
Don’t you SEE, friends: “Every good gift… is from above” (Jas 1:17), from your heavenly Father, who delights to BLESS you. Even when He TESTS you; even God’s TESTINGS are BLESSINGS, for our good, v16: “he humble[d] you and test[ed] you, to do you good in the end.” “And we know that God works all things together for good, for those who love and are called by Him.” (Rom 8:28) That’s why we can “Count it pure joy, brothers and sisters, when [we] meet trials of various kinds, 3 for [we] know that the testing of our faith produces steadfastness… that [we] may be perfect[ed] and complete, lacking in nothing.” (Jas 1:2-4) Even suffering offers us the chance to grow closer to God, as we lean on Him for strength to get us through.
He blesses us in our poverty… AND in our PROSPERITY. The only QUESTION is: will we REMEMBER it? Remember HIM? The Bless-OR, behind all the bless-INGS? V18: “You shall remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you” all of it - the hardships and the handouts, the burdens AND the blessings - they’re ALL from God, and all intended for our good, to POINT us back to HIM.
But, v19, be WARNED, Moses says: “if you forget the Lord your God and go after other gods [instead] and serve them and worship them, I solemnly warn you today that you shall surely perish.” Our wicked hearts have a way of turning the blessings themselves into these pseudo-, cheap substitute gods that we worship instead.
Like MONEY. “Truly I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.” (Mt 19:24). The blessing begins to overshadow the bless-OR for the vast MAJORITY of wealthy people.
Or CREATION; have you ever noticed that the most BEAUTIFUL places on earth - not ALWAYS, but OFTEN - are the most GOD-less? California, the Pacific Northwest, Denver, Scandinavia, Canada, Switzerland, New Zealand – How’s it POSSIBLE? Being SURROUNDED by such breathtaking BEAUTY, God’s fingerprints as FAR as the eye can SEE, and yet so MANY of their inhabitants have become BLINDED even to God’s very EXISTENCE, much less His WORSHIP? How does that HAPPEN?!
Because despite “God SHOWING them”, making His existence and power and beauty and glory “PLAIN to them… in the things that He MADE… so that ALL are without excuse”, nevertheless, the Bible tells us, “they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped the [CREATED things] rather than the Creator”, “Mother Earth” is one of the chief goddesses of beautiful places worldwide (Rom 1:18-25).
Friends: BEWARE of the BLESSINGS! Lest they distract us and DE-tract our worship away from the Bless-OR, the Lord.
#3 - Don’t forget: you were FAITHLESS, but God has made you FORGIVEN. (9:1-29)
Now that’s the overarching theme of ch9 here, but now Moses is gonna ZOOM IN on Israel’s past failures, to highlight four different facets of faithlessness for us.
And the FIRST is FEAR; he says, “Remember: formerly, you were FEARFUL, but now God’s made you FAITHFUL. (9:1-3)
V1: “Get READY! You’re about to “go in and face nations greater and mightier than you, [with] cities great and fortified up to heaven, a people great and tall, the sons of the Anakim” - literal GIANTS!
A people, v2, “whom you know [how does Israel KNOW them?] and of whom you have heard it said, ‘Who can stand before the sons of Anak?’” – Who SAID that? Their FATHERS did! Back in Numbers 13 & 14! The FIRST time Israel came to the edge of the Promised Land, and God commanded them to go in and take it, and promised them, “Don’t worry; I know the people living there are BIG, but guess what: I’M BIGGER! And I will be WITH you, and fight FOR you; all you have to do is TRUST ME!”
But DID they, their fathers? NO. They chickened out. And suffered an extra 38 years in the wilderness as a result, as punishment, for their faithlessness.
“But NOT ANYMORE,” Moses says. The wait is over, the punishment is over, because the FEAR is over. V3: you better BELIEVE - you can “KNOW, today, that he who goes before you is a consuming fire - YAHWEH your God. He will destroy them and subdue them before you. So you shall drive them out and exterminate them quickly, as the Lord promised you.”
Maybe that’s YOU this morning. Perhaps God has been calling you for YEARS now to confront a particular SIN struggle of yours, that you have avoided, at least in PART, out of FEAR – fear that you might not be ABLE to actually overcome it, so putting off the FIGHT is your mind’s twisted way of holding out HOPE, rather than face your demons and risk LOSING, having to ADMIT defeat.
Or God’s been calling you to confront some TRAUMA from your past, but you’ve been too AFRAID - too TERRIFIED - to “GO there”, to OPEN Pandora’s box, for fear of what you may find inside; “Why dig up the past anyway? You can’t CHANGE it…”
Or God’s calling you to confront some-ONE, but you’ve been too AFRAID of how they might RESPOND.
But maybe this MORNING God is calling you OUT of fear and into FAITH: “Yes- that SIN, that ADDICTION, that TRAUMA, that person’s RESPONSE - I know it seems GIGANTIC; WAY bigger than YOU can handle, on your own. But you are NOT on your own,” God promises, “I go BEFORE you, and your problems are not too big for ME.” So the BETTER question isn’t “‘Who can stand before these GIANTS?’”, but “If GOD is for us, then who can stand against US?!” (Rom 8:31).
Brothers & sisters: God’s “perfect LOVE casts out our FEAR” (1 Jn 4:18); it is time to stand FIRM in unflappable FAITH (1 Cor 16:13).
A second quality of faithlessness is PRIDE. We were PRIDEFUL, but God purchased us and purified us that we might PRAISE HIM instead. (9:4-5)
Pride praises SELF - “‘It is because of my righteousness that the Lord has brought me in” (v4) to His family – [[BUZZER!!]]
We covered this back in ch8 and change #1, “Slaves to Sons”: if it was YOUR righteousness that earned your adoption, then YOU would deserve the praise. But you have been “saved by God’s GRACE (His free GIFT of salvation) through FAITH (by trusting in CHRIST’S righteousness); NOT as a result of your works, so that NO ONE may BOAST. There is NO place in the Church for “big heads”, for “lifting up your heart”; “I HATE the proud!” God declares (Pr 8:13). But “if you HUMBLE yourself before the Lord, then HE will lift you up,” the Bible promises (Jas 4:10), that HE might receive the praise that is due His GLORIOUS grace.
Pride says, “Look at ME! How great I must be, to get chosen for the Promised Land, for Heaven…”;
Praise says, “Look at GOD! How great HE is, to choose me IN SPITE OF me!” It acknowledges: “But for the GRACE of God, I’D be a Canaanite too! I’d be just as WICKED and EVICTABLE as them.” And sure enough, back in v20 of ch8, God WARNED Israel: “If you FORGET me and fall away into idolatry, I will drive YOU out of the land just like I did THEM.” Sadly, that warning would become REALITY for Israel centuries later, when they were taken back into captivity, by the Assyrians and then the Babylonians, for their faithless PRIDE. They got FAT and self-satisfied in all their prosperity, and they forgot about GOD.
May it NEVER be true of US, Church. May we NEVER forget: it wasn’t OUR righteousness and faithfulness toward GOD that delivered us, but CHRIST’s righteousness and faithfulness towards US - “that he might confirm the word He swore to us”; “before the foundation of the world, I chose YOU,” NOT the other way around; “I predestined you for adoption… to the praise of MY glorious grace” (Eph 1:4-5).
Third characteristic of faithlessness: We were STUBBORN, but God has made us SUBMISSIVE to His will. (9:6-21, 23-29)
Moses retells TWO stories now - the first is the “Golden Calf” story from Exodus 32 (vv6-21 here) and the second is the “Scared Spies” story from Numbers 14 again (vv23-29 here). We won’t rehash every detail, but what is the ONE commonality about BOTH those insurrections that Moses highlights for us?
It’s their STUBBORNESS. Look at the repetition of his language here; he’s reminding them, by the way, as PROOF that it wasn’t THEIR righteousness, but rather God’s faithfulness that saved them; he says it AGAIN in v6: “it was NOT because of your righteousness, for you are a stubborn people.”
V7: “From the day you came out of Egypt… you have been rebellious against the Lord.”
You “turned aside quickly”, v12, “out of the way that [God] commanded [us]”.
“Furthermore, the Lord said to me, v13, ‘I have seen this people, and behold, it is a stubborn people.”
He uses the same language in vv23-29, with their faithlessness at Kadesh-Barnea: God said, “Go up and take possession of the land that I have given you,’ but you rebelled against the commandment of the Lord… You have been rebellious against the Lord from the day that I knew you.”
So Moses PRAYED for them in v27: “‘O Lord God… Do not regard the stubbornness of this people”.
What is the defining characteristic of PRIDE? How do you KNOW whether or not - how do you diagnose a PRIDEFUL heart?
By looking for a STUBBORN mind. A rebellious spirit.
“We know you said, “No graven images,” God, “but we’re gonna make this CALF anyway…”
“We know you said, “Go TAKE the land,” God, but if that’s YOUR plan, then we’re not sure we want YOU in charge anymore ANYway”; remember - they tried to appoint new leaders, to REPLACE Moses, who’d lead them BACK to Egypt!
“I know you SAID, “Vengeance is MINE”, Lord, but it feels so GOOD, so GRATIFYING to the FLESH… Imma go ahead and get ‘em back ANYWAY…”
“I know you SAID, “Forgive 70 times 7 times”, God, and “if you do not forgive others… neither will I forgive YOU,” and I HEAR you… but I just don’t think you fully ACCOUNTED for an offense THIS egregious; THIS one is UN-forgivable! So I’m gonna hold on to a little bit of resentment anyway…”
“I know you SAID, “Do nothing from selfish ambition, but in humility count others more significant than yourself” (Phil 2:3), but FRANKLY, God, that’s just getting too HARD. I give, and I give, and I give – I count my KIDS more significant than myself, I count my HUSBAND more significant, I count my PARENTS more significant, my FRIENDS more significant - I feel like I am CONSTANTLY giving, humbling myself to put OTHERS’ wants and needs above my OWN; but when’s it MY turn, God? What about “Put on your OWN oxygen mask FIRST, THEN you can worry about others” - that’s gotta be BIBLICAL, right?
Actually, here’s “biblical”: “Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself… he humbled himself by becoming obedient [SUBMISSIVE, to His FATHER’s will] to the point of death, even death on a cross” (2:5-8). Friends: Jesus ripped HIS oxygen mask off and gave it to YOU, to ME. “Have this mind among yourselves”.
Pride stubbornly and STUPIDLY says, “God, I know better than YOU”; whether we realize it or not, that is EXACTLY what we’re saying EVERY time we SIN! It is nothing short of REBELLION against the Almighty King of the UNIVERSE! TO whom, we would be WISE to SUBMIT, in humble deference. – “Actually, God, I think maybe YOU DO know best, so I’m gonna give YOU a shot, at calling the shots in my life”.
“God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” Submit yourselves therefore to God. ” (Jas 4:6-7)
Fourth facet of faithlessness: we were GRUMBLY, but now God has made us GRATEFUL. (9:22)
What do all THREE of these places in v22 - “Taberah… Massah… and Kibroth-hattaavah”; that’s Num 11:1-3, Ex 17:1-7, and Num 11:4-6 that Moses reminds them of now - and what did all of them have in COMMON? They were memorials to Israel’s GRUMBLING:
At Taberah: “And the people complained in the hearing of the Lord about their misfortunes, and when the Lord heard it, his anger was kindled, and the fire of the Lord consumed some of the camp. 2 Then the people cried out to Moses, and Moses prayed to the Lord, and the fire died down. 3 So the name of that place was called Taberah,” or “BURNING”. (Num 11:1-3)
At Massah: “the people thirsted there for water, and the people grumbled against Moses and said, “Why did you bring us up out of Egypt, to kill us…” 4 So Moses cried to the Lord, “What shall I do with this people?” 5 …And the Lord said, “...you shall strike the rock, and water shall come out of it.” …So he called the place Massah [or “TESTING”] because they tested the Lord” with their GRUMBLING. (Ex 17:1-7)
And at “Kibroth-hattaavah”: “Now… the people of Israel wept again and said, “Oh that we had meat to eat! 5 We remember the fish we ate back in Egypt… But now… there is nothing at all but this manna to look at… [they were SICK of the BREAD from HEAVEN that God kept sending them; these delicious, nutritious Krispy Kreme DONUTS!] So the Lord… brought quail… But While the meat was yet between their teeth… the anger of the Lord was kindled AGAIN against the people, and He struck down the people with a very great plague. 34 Therefore that place was called Kibroth-hattaavah”, which means “Graves of CRAVING”! (Num 11:4-6, 31-35)
Is that US, Church?
Do we “complain about our misfortunes” (“Why ME, God?” - “Why NOT you, sinner? You think you DESERVE an easy life?)?
Do we “TEST” God (“Well, if He REALLY loved me, He’d…” – WHAT? Give you NOTHING but sunshine and rainbows? What if GOD knows you’ll FORGET Him when life gets easy, and He wants to SAVE you from APOSTASY?!)
Are we STILL living in “graves of CRAVING”, discontent with even the ENJOYABLE blessings - the “manna” - He sends us. Are we insatiable, always craving “more, more, more”?
Or have we learned CONTENTMENT. “I have learned in ANY situation… to be content… In every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through [CHRIST] who strengthens me.” (Phil 4:11-13) Christ is ENOUGH for me; I’m content.
And GRATEFUL. I can “Give thanks in all circumstances” (1 Ths 5:18). Trusting that “He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us, how will he not also WITH him graciously give us all things” (Rom 8:32), so long as they’re GOOD for us - both His testings and blessings: they’re ALL for our GOOD.
And how do we RECEIVE it? ANY of it?
SONSHIP, instead of the SLAVERY we deserve…
PROSPERITY, instead of the POVERTY we deserve…
FAITH instead of FEAR…
PRAISE instead of PRIDE…
SURRENDER in place of STUBBORNNESS…
GRATITUDE and GRACE instead of grumbling and GUILT?
Friends: it is ONLY because of the INTERCESSION of our MEDIATOR. Our BETTER Moses.
What did ISRAEL do, time and time again, after they had SINNED again, and the “FIRE of the Lord’s ANGER was kindled against them” again? They cried OUT again to MOSES! “PRAY for us! PLEAD our case with God!” And Moses would get on his FACE again, for ANOTHER 40 days and nights, “‘O Lord God, do not destroy your people… whom you have redeemed through your greatness” (9:26). “God, don’t let there be any DOUBT, for even a SECOND, that you are ABLE, and you are FAITHFUL, that you’re a perfectly LOVING FATHER, to your people, your adopted children. God, would you MAGNIFY your OWN grace and mercy, by FORGIVING even wretched, undeserving, “repeat offenders”, like Israel… like US.
It’s the intercession of the MEDIATOR that makes ALL the difference.
So I ask you this morning, in closing: Do you HAVE such a mediator? One who not only got on his FACE to PRAY for you, but got on a CROSS, to DIE for you?
Friends: Jesus Christ is the better Moses, who alone can forgive ALL of your faithlessness and rebellion.
Won’t you come to him this morning, and be SAVED?
Let’s pray.