THROUGH THE BIBLE - Deuteron..

Welcome to Cornerstone Reformed Baptist Church. Thank you for using and sharing our resources. What you're about to hear is God's Word from one of our teaching elders. We trust that God's Word will inspire, instruct, and bless you. For further teachings or information on our ministry, please visit us on our website at cornerstonerbc.

com. That's cornerstonerbc.com. Deuteronomy chapter 8. This is the word of the Lord.

The whole commandment that I commend you today, you shall be careful to do that you may live and multiply and go in and possess the land that the Lord swore to give to your fathers. And you shall remember the whole way that the Lord your God has led you these 40 years in the wilderness, that he may humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not. And He humbled you, and lent you hunger, and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that He might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. Your clothing did not wear out on you, and your food did not swell these 40 years. Know then in your heart that as man disciplines his son, the Lord your God disciplines you.

So you shall keep the commandments of the Lord your God by walking in his ways, by fearing him. For the Lord your God is bringing you into a land, a land of brooks, of water, of fountains and springs flowing out in the valleys and hills. a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey, a land in which you will eat bread without scarcity, in which you will lack nothing, a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills you can dig copper. And you shall eat and be full, and you shall bless the Lord your God for the good land he has given you." Then verse 11, Take care, lest you forget the Lord your God by not keeping His commandments and His rules and His statutes in which I commend you today, lest when you have eaten and are full and have built good houses and live in them, and when your herds and flocks multiply and your silver and gold is multiplied and all that you have is multiplied, 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, 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, who fed you in the wilderness with manna that your fathers did not know, that he may humble you and test you to do you good in the end.

Be aware lest you say in your heart, my power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth. 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. 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 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. Brothers and sisters, please join me here in a very quick prayer before the Lord so that he will bless as we speak and as you hear and as we communicate this message.

Lord Jesus, we come before you and we give you thanks once again for the opportunity that you have given to the saints, even through this means that we can come together, that we can read the Word, that we can meditate upon the Word, that we can preach the Word, that we can listen to the Word, that we can sing praises to you. Lord Jesus, you know how feeble and weak we are and how limited we are in our hearts, in our souls, in our minds. Lord Jesus, please be with us. Be with us with your Holy Spirit. Help us and empower us in what we ought to do.

Help us to speak and help us, Lord, to receive the word. Help us to sing. Help us to pray. Help us to do everything that we have to do for the glory of your name. Speak to us, Lord, through this short passage.

Speak to us through the preaching of the word and empower us as saints before your presence to receive your words and to be transformed in the light, in the likeness of Jesus Christ. In your name only we pray as your saints. Amen. Very good, brothers and sisters. This is Deuteronomy chapter 8.

You would have seen here in this chapter the many times that Moses, the author of the book, calls the people of Israel, the recipients, the initial audience of this book, to remember and not to forget. Even that may be the title of the chapter that you may have in your Bibles, that is to remember the Lord your God. Moses has this very strong intention to remind the people of Israel not to forget or better, to obey the commandments of the Lord by remembering what the Lord has done for them in bringing them out of the land of Egypt, the slavery that they had. There is a very important passage, a very parallel exhortation in the New Testament that is given by the Apostle Paul to the Galatians in Chapter 3. The apostle is going to call the Galatians, the New Testament church, to a very similar thing, the very same principle for which or through which the Galatians were going through is what we have here in chapter 8 of Deuteronomy.

There, the apostle Paul, in the letter to the Galatians, is going to call the church there not to forget that the work that is in them was started by the Lord, and that they are not to bring to completion or to perfection the work that the Lord has started in them spiritually by the works of the flesh." You may remember the passage there in Galatians chapter 3, When the apostle says, oh, you foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you that you should not obey the truth? Was not Jesus Christ clearly portrayed among you as crucified? Did you receive the spirit by the works of the law, by hearing, by faith? Having begun, he says in the first verses, having begun by the spirit, are you now going to be made perfect by the flesh?

The Galatians, whose salvation by grace through faith, genuine salvation, had been started by the Lord. They had now forgotten that it was the Lord the one that started that process of salvation and that glorious gift of salvation. And now they believe that in and of themselves, they were able to bring to completion the work of the Lord by the works of the flesh. They had forgotten that they were dead in their trespasses, that apart from the light of the gospel they were in their sins, they were in bondage to their nature, and that it was the work of the Lord the only that was able to liberate them. And now, as regenerated saints who by grace through faith had been genuinely saved, walking in their salvation now, they come and they think that they are able in and of themselves to bring to perfection this work that the Lord had started.

by obeying the law or by self-righteousness in the flesh. These Galatians, brothers and sisters, had forgotten the work of the Spirit in their life. They had turned the Spirit of God into fleshly religion. They were not satisfied anymore in the accomplishments of the Spirit of God, but rather they were satisfied in their own accomplishments, the accomplishments of the flesh. Their hearts had been taken captive by spiritual pride.

That is the core of what was happening to the Galatians and what was happening, or better, the exhortation that Moses was given to the people of Israel to prevent him from spiritual pride. These are genuine believers in the New Testament, saved by grace through faith, yet, They were taken by the passions of the flesh, to the point that the Spirit of God was not enough for them, for their life. Satisfaction was to be obtained through the works of the flesh. They said, Oh, look at us, how good we are. We can bring to perfection in us holiness and righteousness by the works of the law.

That which was initiated by the Spirit of God in us, that glorious salvation, now can be made perfect by obedience to the law, by obedience to to the regulations of God in our flesh, in our strength, in our power. Brothers and sisters, a genuine believer, taken by their passions, taken by spiritual pride, having begun the work by the Spirit, now they are tried to be made perfect by the flesh, in the core of themselves, in their own efforts. They were blind now to the glorious and majestic works of God in them, and they saw unto themselves, and they considered them worthy to bring these things to completion, taking credit for the work that the Lord was the one that had initiated, and now thinking that through the law and through obedience to the righteousness that is in the written law, they could bring that to perfection. spiritual pride. That is self-righteousness, brothers and sisters.

This is just the core of the heart of the Galatians there in Galatians chapter 3. And this is the exhortation that Moses is bringing to the people of Israel before they cross and enter into the Jordan. That when you enter into the land, And when you see the fulfillment of the promise of God, when He fulfills everything that He has said to you, take care. Many times He says, take care, lest you forget that it was the Lord, the one that has brought you into this land. Take care that your heart will not be lifted up and that you will forget the Lord.

Take care that you will not see unto yourself and think that you have accomplished the entrance into the promised land because of your own power. Remember that it is the power of the Lord, the one that has bring you wealth. When you see that you are in this land that is glorious and that has been promised to you by the Lord, and you see that everything is multiplying and everything that is fruitful, and then you see that everything is peaceful. And as you decide, take care. that you may not attribute unto yourself a work that was initiated by the Lord.

Take care that your heart may not be filled with pride and self-righteousness, and that you may see yourself as sufficient enough so that you will take credit for that which has only been done by the faithfulness and by the grace of the Lord. Take care, people of Israel, that when you see the fulfillment of the promise, you will not be taken by a spiritual pride, just as the Galatians, who were by grace through save saved by the Spirit of God in the person of Jesus Christ. And then because they gave themselves into walking in the flesh, they thought that they were able to bring to completion the work by obeying the law and by having the righteousness that is in their own flesh. Brothers and sisters, what a terrifying exhortation and what a terrifying reality. That a saint, a genuine believer who by grace through faith has been inserted into the person of Jesus Christ, who has known God, who has seen the mighty works of God.

who have seen not only the mighty works of God in a general sense, but applied to him or to her, can easily forget from where they were taken and the darkness to which they belonged, that at a point when they see the work of God being fulfilled and bring it to completion in them, that they might forget the Lord and give themselves unto self pride or self-exaltation, spiritual pride. that they will forget the Lord, turn to the flesh, and derive satisfaction from self. That is the great exhortation that Moses is given to these people here in Deuteronomy chapter 8. An exhortation that according to the same apostle in 1 Corinthians chapter 10, all of these things took place for our instruction, for our example. And the Lord is telling these people of Israel, take care.

And the root, brothers and sisters, of this spiritual pride, of this spirit of self-sufficiency, of this spirit of seeing to self and believing that we have obtained things in our own, according to our own strength, is the result of what the chapter 8 many times says. Remember, remember, remember the Lord. When you do not remember what the Lord has done, then you forget the Lord. And more than that, you forget your need for the Lord. And when we forget our need for the Lord, then the other option is to turn to self and to our flesh.

and to find in ourselves the source of satisfaction and the source of peace and believe in and of ourselves that we are able to bring holiness to perfection, not anymore in the fear of the Lord and knowing what He has accomplished and what He has done, but rather looking to self. That was the exhortation that Moses was trying to give to these people, that they will not find in themselves the source of satisfaction and the source of peace, but rather that they will remember the Lord, that He was the one who had saved them, taken them out of Egypt and the one who had given them the promise and who was going to give them the promise. And beloved of Jesus Christ, our salvation is by faith. We were initially united to Jesus Christ in his spirit by faith. And the life that we are supposed to live, we are supposed to live it by faith.

And we are to look to the past and to have certainty and faith. And we are supposed to see to the future and have faith in the promises of God and the things that he has said that he will do. But always, brothers and sisters, the object of that faith has to be God himself in the person of Jesus Christ. Because when the object of our faith is not anymore the Lord himself as a person, as a living God, but rather we transform it and change it for religion or for just simply traditions of ourself, we can call our faith as Christian faith, but it's not genuine faith anymore. And now it's turning from God to self.

And as the apostle will say, even with a very, even a stronger exhortation to the Galatians in chapter five, you have fallen from grace. Not that a person can lose his or her salvation, but rather you have fallen from the experience of grace. you being inserted in the grace of God, that His divine power is that which provides to you everything that pertains to life and godliness, being in the glorious manifestation of the grace of God. Now, because of your self-pride, because of your self-exultation, because of your love to self, now you have moved to a position in which you are not recipient of grace anymore, but you have the burden of accomplishing things in your own flesh, and you're even deriving satisfaction from it. Be careful, Moses says to the people of Israel, and be careful, Paul says to the Galatians, that you will not take the work that the Lord started, that you will not take the work and the mighty things that the Lord has done for you.

And once you see the accomplishments of that grace, that you may take credit unto yourself and that you will forget the Lord. and that you will turn to the flesh and that you will derive satisfaction from self-performance. Because this is the greatest enemy of the gospel. This is the greatest enemy of grace, self-righteousness. For that reason, the author of chapter 8, Moses there, is going to call the audience to remember He says, remember your trials.

Remember all the difficulties that you went through. Remember that the purpose of those trials was that you will be humbled, that you will be tested in your heart so that you will see how meek, how little you are, how feeble you are, how many times you failed and how many times the Lord was faithful to you. Remember your trials. Remember the difficulties of the wilderness, because those difficulties of the wilderness And these many difficulties of your life and the way that the Lord responded in faithfulness to those is a testimony that it is not about you, but it's about the Lord, the one that is bringing you through the wilderness and fulfilling His promise. Not only that, but also remember the discipline of the Lord.

Remember how you fail many times and how you sin against the Lord many times. And just as a man disciplines his son, So does the Lord discipline His people, what He says in there in verse 5. Then in Hebrews chapter 12, we're told that the discipline of the Lord is a manifestation of His love towards His saints. Remember, He says, your trials. Remember the discipline of the Lord.

This should show you that is the work of the Lord, that is Him, the one that brings to completion what He has promised, that you are not to be moved and to be distracted into the things of the world into self. and to take that which belongs to the Lord and to make it yours, that you are not to exalt yourself in your own heart, forgetting the Lord and forgetting the hand of the Lord upon you, and that you will be exalted in pride and thinking what you are not. Remember how small you are. What a safe place, brothers and sisters, it is to have not only a great perspective of the majesty and the holiness of God, to have a great perspective of who He is, what He has done, and the promises that He has given us, to have a perspective of the sovereignty and the majestic power of God, that there is no other God like Him, that He is God, that He is King, that He is Lord, that He is exalted above everyone, and that He is the ruler of the world, creator of heaven and earth and everything in them. How good and glorious it is to have a perspective of the infinity and majesty and glory of God.

But at the same time, beloved, that majesty, that sovereignty, that power of God that is illuminated into our hearts should always come with the realization of how feeble and how small we are and how needy we are. so that we will be able to humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God, so that at the proper time it will be God the one that exalts us, that we will be able to cast out all our cares and anxieties to Him, and to know that He is the one that cares for us, and that in the caring of God we find peace, not in the self-strength, not in the power, not in the reputation of my heart, not in the reputation of the things that I accomplish, knowing how holy I am, or how sanctified I am, or how Christ-like I am even of myself, but that we will be reminded all the time that it's Him, the one who has started the work, And that if he is not the one who brings that word to completion, then we will for sure failed through the wilderness, that we will fall in our sins, that we will fall in an unrighteousness. That is the final exhortation that Moses gives to the people of Israel there in verse 18 of the same chapter. 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. If that was the promise for a covenant that was going to pass, if that was the promise for a covenant that was obsolete, the promise was that we were to or that they were to remember the Lord and that he was the one that was going to empower them to confirm the covenant, a covenant that was going to pass.

how much more we will say of the Christian church, of the genuine believer under the new covenant, that we are to remember the Lord our God, that He is the one who has begun the work in us, and that He is the one that will bring it to completion. that at any point we are to take credit unto ourselves and that we are to make and strive to make every effort and to strive to have the Lord enthroned into our hearts, to remember the Lord, to renew our mind continually. Because there is a grand danger in being distracted with our hearts and in our minds. Because when we are distracted from the ultimate objective that is Jesus Christ, then we easily turn to self and see ourselves as the source of holiness. as the source of righteousness, as the source of maturity.

And then we start to fill our hearts with pride and pride and pride. We may not call it pride. We may not define it as such. We may even pretend to be humble before others, and we may even pretend to be very little and humble in the eyes of others. But deep into our heart, we take credit for our godliness, for how much we read the scriptures, for how much we give ourselves unto prayer, for how mature we are in the things that the Lord has done in us.

And even though we may put labels of the Lord working in our lives, we deep into our hearts, we derive satisfaction from self. The Christian, you brother, sister, is to remember continually the work of the Lord. That it was not only Him who saved you, but that the price of your salvation was the life of the Son, Jesus Christ, dying upon that cross. The object of the love of the Father came into this world to die upon the cross for your soul. Individually, yes, in a covenantal sense, in a collective way for the church, but that He died upon the cross for your sins.

That is the price of your unrighteousness. That's how good you are in and of yourself. It took the Son of God to redeem your soul, dying upon the cross. What you have done is that. You have deserved hell.

You deserved all the punishment and the wrath of God coming upon you. That is what you can accomplish in and of yourself. And that has been proven and that has been manifested. He's the grace of God, the one that changes the outcome of what you deserve. that we may never be taken by this spirit of pride, that we may never be taken by this spirit of forgetting the Lord and the works of the Lord and taking unto ourselves the credit that only belongs to the Savior, but rather that he may work in us the same spirit of humility that was in the Lord Jesus Christ, that being God himself made himself of no reputation, that he did not consider the fact that he was God something to be grasped, but rather he humbled himself.

It is very easy to say with words, brothers and sisters, but it is different to have the reality in our hearts, that we may see others as better as we are, that we may look unto the interest and the benefit of our brothers and sisters beyond our own benefit, and that we will desire, like Jesus Christ, to sacrifice ourselves for the benefit of the church, and that as we do so, that we will not take credit even for the fact that we're dying to sell for the benefit of the church, that we will not have self-pity, and that we will not see ourselves as the victims of the whole process, and in a sense, being rooted in pride, but rather that we may do it only for the pleasing of the one who sees in secret, only the one that sees in the heart, the one that sees in the soul, the one who is doing the work. Because when we only depend on this fact, then the soul of the believer is rooted in peace, in satisfaction, a peace that surpasses all understanding, a peace that is not burdensome, a peace that does not cause difficulties in the heart, a peace that is contrary to self-righteousness, that becomes a burden. that becomes something very heavy to carry in which our life now depends on our own performance. And we appease our conscience by how good Christians we are. And when we are good Christians, then we take satisfaction from it.

And we take credit for getting that it is the Lord, the one that initiated the work. And if there is anything of a manifestation of grace in our life is because he was the one that liberated us from the bondage that we had in Egypt. the heart of the Christian, your heart, brother, your heart, sister, is to be so aware continually and ongoingly of how feeble and wicked and needy you are, so that the holiness and the majesty of Jesus Christ might be seen with your eyes more clearly through the Holy Spirit. And that is the safest place for your soul. That is the most secure place in which the heart of the believer can be.

That is called dependence, in which we depend on the Lord because we are not forgetting the Lord, but rather we are constantly renewing our mind to remember what He has done, to be conscious of what He is doing, and to have certainty of the things that He will bring to completion because He has promised us eternal life in the person of Jesus Christ. Amen.