Deuteronomy 8:1-5 Bible Study | Episode 873

 February 12, 2025

Hope Alive: Applying God’s Word to Your Daily Life

Deuteronomy 8:1-5   Bible Study | Episode #873

I am Chad Harrison, and I am the teaching pastor of Lake Community Church and had been serving as a pastor for 25 years. I'm also a practicing attorney. This podcast is designed to help you study God's word and find God's will for your life. The purpose of studying scripture is that you might know the character of Jesus Christ, and that you might see the world from the Father's perspective. That you gain wisdom that changes your life. I pray in the name of Jesus right now that God would open His word to you and allow you to see Him and to know Him. To know His will, that you might glorify Him and that you might walk in faith and power each day, especially today. In Jesus name.

If you would like to revisit today’s Bible study, please visit our website at https://hopealive.buzzsprout.com/ to download the transcript. 

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Transcript

This is Chad Harrison and you're listening to Hope Applying God's word to your daily life.

Hi, this is Chad Harrison and I am the teaching pastor of Lake Community Church and have been serving as a pastor for 25 years. I'm also a practicing attorney. This podcast is designed to help you study God's word and find God's will for your life.

I pray in the name of Jesus right now that God would open up.

His word to you and allow you.

To see him and to know him and to know his will, that you might glorify him and that you might walk in faith and power each and every day, especially today in Jesus name.

Well, good morning. Welcome to Lake Community Church's morning Bible study. We are in Deuteronomy, chapter 8. And the first part really, this is really kind of two chapters. If you, if you really, if you really kind of dig down deep into it.

It is, it is chapter, it's chapter eight which God's telling them to remember God and then chapter nine goes into how their forefathers rebelled against God. And so this is, this is, this is kind of that, that, that passage that, that deals with, well, it deals with God saying, look, you need to remember what I've done for you and remember, remember what has happened in the wilderness so that you won't go down.

It's basically to remember and, and thinking about remembering and, and considering that in the mornings when I was young, really, really young, there were, there were. I. I used to get up real early in the morning.

Interestingly, as I've gotten older, although I do get up early in the morning, it's not because I want to, it's because I have to. But when I was a child, I regularly got up at 5, maybe even 4:30, and from 5 to 6 there were 2.

And back then there were only. I know this is amazing, but there were only like four or five channels, maybe six. I can't I, you know, count them up. There were the three networks.

There was WGN, there was WTBs.

And CNN had just so I think with PBS, he had seven channels.

And that was, that was it. That was all there was.

And it seems so strange to even say that out loud right now, but I would listen to, to two people.

Interestingly, I don't know. I don't know that I've ever known the name of the pastor who, who, who did a Bible study. First. He was, he was a little dry, but he was really sound and really biblical.

He was a Presbyterian pastor and his byline at the end was man shall not live by bread alone, but by every, every word that proceeded out of the mouth of God.

He's a great Bible teacher. And then, then Jimmy Swaggert. And So I had 30 minutes of, of Presbyterian Bible teacher. And then I had 30 minutes of Jimmy Swigert. And Jimmy Swaggart was a great musician and a really fabulous preacher at that time.

Great, great message, Holy Spirit field. And so I had those two things. And then after that, CNN came on and, and I watched the news until about seven, when I got ready for school or, you know, a little bit before seven, because I was one of the traffic guard kids.

And so that's what I did. And, and I just. When I get to this passage, I find it interesting that its context is where it's at. Every time I come to it, its context is where God's telling them to remember him.

And that makes sense. It makes a lot of sense because I remember back those mornings where that pastor would end his Bible study with man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeded out of the mouth of God.

And verse 8, verse 1 of chapter 8 says this. Every commandment which I commanded you today, you must be careful to observe that you may live and multiply and go in and possess the land which the Lord swore to your fathers.

So what he's saying is, if you don't live by my will in my way, you're going to miss out on my best.

And really, that's, that's true. I mean, that's, that's something we're seeing over and over. If you don't live by my will and my way, and God reveals his will and his way to us, then you're not going to walk in my best.

That seems obvious, right? And it is obvious. He says, and you shall remember that the Lord your God led you all the way these 40 years in the wilderness. Which guy, he's saying, listen, you need to remember that I, I led you in the wilderness for 40 days.

I led you in the will. I mean, for 40 years I've taken care of you, to humble you and to test you. And what, what he's saying is when we, when, when I led you through this wilderness experience, I was, I was humbling you so that you would be able to know and to learn.

And I was testing you, making you stronger. Test does not mean fail or pass. It means to, to produce strength by, by putting people through struggles. That's why we do test in school, is so that you'll learn that's why we do test in athletics, so that you will strive to be better.

He says, I put you through test. I tested you here. And so he says to humble you and to test you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not.

God says God. Moses says God did this to us so that he would know whether or not you would actually be able to. To take on his best. So he humbled you and allowed you to hunger and.

And fed you with mana, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know. What he's saying is, is I took care of you in the midst of you having nothing, and I taught you how to listen to me.

And so if you're going through those. Those situations, those. Those dry times, those. Those lean times in your life, don't see them as punishment from God. Oftentimes they're not. Most of the time, they're preparation from God.

Remember, God doesn't punish you for your sins. Now, okay, get that. God disciplines you for your sins, but he does not punish you. And there's two. Those are two different things.

Okay, Pastor, why doesn't he punish me for my sins? Well, because all my sins been pun. There's been a punishment meted out for my sins, and that punishment's on Christ.

Okay? So the punishment for my sin, the wages of my sin, have been paid by Christ on the cross. Now, there's a difference between punishment and discipline. Discipline is.

Is a. Is. Is some function by which I am taught not to do that which is hurtful to me, okay? It. Discipline is what makes me better and stronger and more.

And so God's discipline is not for punishment. God's discipline is for preparation for. For God's best. Okay? And so when. When God disciplines us, he disciplines us in preparation for his best.

So he humbled you, verse three, and allowed you to hunger and fed you with mana. Notice he didn't. He didn't punish them with no mana, with nothing to eat, but he caused them to hunger, and then he taught them to look to him for bread.

Makes sense, right? Don't look for yourself. Don't look for the world. Don't look to Egypt. Look to me, okay? And then he says that he might make you know that man shall not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord or the mouth of God.

That's a neat context, isn't it? You know when you're a little child and you hear him say it over and over and over again, you, you memorize it? I had it memorized when I was, you know, 8, 9 years old.

But the context is as God's saying, I have.

The, the, the way I discipline you is I make you hungry.

I teach you to look for me for that bread, for that life. You come to me and you're not going to live by bread alone, but you're going to live by everything I say to you.

Everything that. So sure. Are you going to get to eat? Yes, you're going to get to eat. But you learn that life is born not of the food, not of the physical, but life is born of the, of the spiritual, the spiritual nourishment that I give you.

What I life is born from my will being revealed to you, My word being taught to you. And so, wow, what a great passage. And then he says, here, this, this other thing that happens in the wilderness, which is miraculous and strange and wonderful.

He says, your garments did not wear out on you, nor did your foot swell these 40 years. Meaning your, your, your garments and your shoes weren't, weren't messed up. You didn't, you didn't lose your garments or your shoes.

Now you know, why is that important? Well, remember, garments are the covering of sin. And so he says, your, your covering of sin doesn't wear out when you are hearing my word and walking in my will and my way.

Your garments do wear out when you're doing it yourself, when you're trying to cover your sin yourself. Your garments wear out really, really fast. But your garments don't wear out.

They don't get messed up when, when you're walking in my will and my way and when you're taking, taking on my food and my, my insights.

That's a, that, that, that's. So we move from. We don't live by bread alone, but every word that proceeded out of the mouth of God. And when that happens, God's covering of my sin is permanent and continual.

Permanent and continual.

Wow.

It. As you think about it, as I, as I feed off the word of God and then he nourishes me with what I need, the manna from heaven.

I, My, my, my covering, the covering of my shame and my sin is completed.

You should know in your heart that as a man chastens his son, so the Lord your God chastens you.

God disciplines you. You should know that.

You should realize that in every situation I'm being disciplined, I'm being taught, I'm being grown, I'm being made.

Prepared for what? What is God preparing them for? Here, his best. He's preparing them here for his best. And so it's not a preparation for nothing. It's not a preparation for.

It's not preparation for preparation sake.

It is preparation for you experiencing his kingdom best, you experiencing his promises for you.

And is it preparation for him to give you them? No, they've already been provided. God's already, from millennia past has already decided to give you those gifts. It's preparing you to be able to hold them, to.

To be able to master them, to. To take what God has given you and use it for your best, to use it for. For. For glorification of God and for.

For the best life that God has for you. And so I've got to be able to hold his promises. And if I'm not disciplined, if I'm not taught, if I'm.

If I'm not, if I'm not prepared, well, you know, he can give you his promises all you want and you can't hold on to them. You can't, you can't keep them.

You've got to be ready to, to use them, put. To employ them in your life. And if you're not ready for that, then, you know, even if he gives you the promises, even when he gifts you, you're not using it.

How many gifts, I mean, how many spiritual gifts do you have that you're not using right now? Well, you have them, but they're not being used. So what. What value are they to you or the kingdom?

They're not, because you're not using them.

Well, the same is true of his promises and his gifts and his preparation and his plans for you. All those things.

You've got to be put in a position so that you can actually use them.

That's what it's all about.

That's why we do today. That's why we call today today. This is the day that the Lord has made. I will rejoice and be glad in it.

As you go today. I pray that the Lord will bless you and keep you, that he'll make his face to shine upon you, and that he will give you hope and peace today in Jesus name.