Manna Memories and Credit Checks

Good morning. My name is Geoff Bradford. If we haven't met, I'm one of the pastors here. I want to welcome you again to Christ the King. So glad to see so many of you here this morning.

We're in the book of Deuteronomy. We're studying through this fall—everybody's favorite book, or so I've heard. We're going to be in chapter eight, and it's our custom as a church to read God's word out loud together. So if you would join your voices with mine, the words are in your bulletin as well as on the screen behind me. We're going to read chapter eight verses one through five and then 11 through 19.

You ready?

All the commandments which I command you this day, you shall be careful to do that you may live and multiply and go in and possess the land which the Lord swore to give to your fathers. And you shall remember all the way which the Lord your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness that he might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart whether you would keep his commandments or not. And he humbled you and let 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 that man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord. Your clothing did not wear out upon you and your foot did not swell these forty years. Know then in your heart that as a man disciplines his son, the Lord your God disciplines you. Take heed lest you forget the Lord your God by not keeping his commandments and ordinances and his statutes which I command you this day. Lest when you have eaten and are full and have built goodly houses and live in them, and when your herds and flocks multiply and your silver and your 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 bondage, who led you through the great and terrible 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 which your fathers did not know, that he might humble you and test you to do good in the end. Beware 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 which he swore to your fathers as at this day.

— Deuteronomy 8:1-5, 11-19

This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

Good job. You all are on cue. Just testing you.

What is a Test?

What's funny about testing—that's the theme of our sermon today. The word test is not a word that most of us relish. In fact, I would venture to guess that there are some of you who still have nightmares about tests that you've taken in the past. You know the kind—you're showing up to a room and you're like, "I don't know if this is the right room." Or you sit down to a test in your dream and it's not what you studied for. We all have these kinds of dreams.

Tests have this way of making us feel the cold sweats. And this is because many of the tests that we take in life are tests to weed out—to separate the weak, the ones who don't know, from the ones who do. The ones who aren't prepared from the ones who are prepared. So lots of vocations have these. If you want to go to law school, you have to take the LSAT, and it's to separate who can get in from who shouldn't be there. The MCAT weeds out those who should be in med school from those who shouldn't be. Ordination exams in our denomination—there are seven of these, written, and then they do the oral ones just in case we miss something. And it's again, a weed out. Lots of our jobs have these. If you study for nursing, you have the essential academic skills test. If you're in engineering, you have the fundamentals of engineering exam. Lots of these.

But that's not the only kind of test. There's another kind of test with a very different purpose—not to weed out, but actually to perfect or improve. Have you ever heard of America's Test Kitchen? America's Test Kitchen takes recipes and they do them over and over, varying the amounts and the cooking times to get the recipe just right for people who are cooking and for restaurants. America's Test Kitchen is about improving as they test.

Same with parents. I find that parents, when we test our kids, it is not to weed them out of the family. It is for their maturing.

And you give them age appropriate, developmentally appropriate challenges. You allow them to struggle because you know that in the end, this is good. And this isn't pass/fail in a family. Nobody is saying the kids are out if they don't pass the test. You're there for their maturing.

So with God. When we think about how God tests, and this word test is mentioned multiple times in this passage, how does God test his people? It is always not to weed out, but to help us grow up, help us mature. And today we're going to look at two such tests that are mentioned in this passage: the test of adversity and the test of prosperity. The test of hard times, the test of good times.

And here's what we're going to see—there are my two points for today. In your bulletin it says this: the goodness of hard times, the hardness of good times. Let's look at both of these.

The Goodness of Hard Times

This is verses one through five. Moses is standing with the people of Israel on the very edge of the promised land. Forty years after coming out of Egypt, forty years after God giving them the law, thirty-eight years after giving the law, they're on the precipice of the land. And he's looking back and recounting for them what they've been through over these forty years. He describes it as a time of testing—the testing of hardship, the testing of hard times. It's a test that can only take place in the wilderness, and it's a test of trust.

There are things we see in this passage about what it means to be in the wilderness. One is that nobody can survive in the wilderness. But the other is that we can't thrive as people without wilderness. So wilderness, specific to what he's talking about here, is not Appalachian wilderness. This is the wilderness of the Southern Negev, the southern part of the Sinai Peninsula. And it is a place marked by incredible extremes. Nobody can survive there. During the daytime, excruciating heat and dryness. At night, incredible coldness and no shelter either time. And nobody thrives in this condition. There's no water there. It's marked by two things, really just two things: thorns and thirst. Not a whole lot else.

They have these little creeks in the wilderness of the Southern Negev. I'm going to put a picture of these. These are called wadis, w-a-d-i. And they're like little canyons with places where the water has eroded over time, these kind of slot canyons. So this area is marked by lots of these, and people had to go over and around and through them. You have to navigate this. The people of Israel did this over and over.

One of the things that's remarkable about these is that, first, there's no water in them except for when there is. When rain comes, let me put up the next picture. The flood stage of these is ridiculous. It's extremely dangerous. Every year there are tourists who die because they don't read the weather report and don't realize that when rain comes to this area, it causes a flash flood and you have less than a minute to get out. The canyons fill up immediately, and then the water disappears almost as immediately. So when there is water, that's what it means. Wells don't work in this area. Creek beds don't work. The things that grow there are thorns. Not much lives there.

It's funny because the New Testament book of Hebrews says something that you may already know. The book of Hebrews compares the life that you're living in this world, in this life, as wilderness. Anybody feel that? Anybody been through some wilderness?

Today if you hear his voice, don't harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion during the time of testing in the wilderness. — Hebrews

He's writing to people way removed time-wise and geographically. But he says your life also is like wilderness. Anybody feel this? Thorns and thirst. Things are not working. I can't survive here. Anybody feel like you're not really surviving? We know what this feels like.

Why would God put his people through adversity? God tests his people so we would learn something about ourselves. We read that in this passage. Let's put this verse up from verse two:

You shall remember all the way which the Lord your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, that he might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart. — Deuteronomy 8:2

That's interesting because if you're a grammar nerd like me, you look at this passage closely and realize that the subject—who's the person who needs to figure out or learn something from this—isn't God. God is not testing to get information for himself. Scripture, of course, tells us that God knows the hairs on our heads or not. He knows when we rise and when we sleep. He discerns our thoughts from afar. He knows our frame, how we're made.

He knows us better than we know ourselves. God doesn't test to learn information. He tests to give information. He's telling us something about ourselves. Testing is always to help you see you—to see you more clearly, to understand who you are and what's motivating you. And as such, God's wilderness tests are never a cutting off of relationship, but actually a confirmation of relationship. I'm your father. I send this for your good.

Listen to this verse five:

Know then in your heart that as a man disciplines his son, the Lord your God disciplines you. — Deuteronomy 8:5

We would never, after taking the SAT, do this. It would be insane. If somebody takes the SAT and runs up and hugs the proctor who's timing you for the SAT—nobody does that. After your engineering exam, nobody goes up and high fives the person who's giving you the exam. We have no sense of warmth or connection to those people. But the Lord tests because he loves. It's a confirmation that he is a father with us, to us. That he knows us. He's sending us in our lives for our good, for our understanding of who he is and reliance upon him, and trust in him.

The word invites us always in the desert, always in the wilderness, to a test of daily trust. Now this passage kind of hyperlinks in your Bible to a passage in the New Testament. Because Jesus quotes this passage:

Man shall not live by bread alone. — Matthew 4:4

When he was in a time of testing in the wilderness, he goes, like the children of Israel—this is really important. This is the way that this is set up. Forty years, forty days. Forty years for the people of Israel. Forty days for Jesus. And we're supposed to look at that. We're supposed to make that connection because those are intimately connected on purpose.

This is really important for you today. Because what it can show us is this: I don't know what God's up to in my wilderness today, but I know what he's not up to. If God the Father sends his son, his perfect sinless son into the desert, the one thing we can say for sure is it wasn't for punishment. God wasn't punishing him. And so the one thing we can say for ourselves in the moments when things are brutal, when it's thorns and thirst—God is not punishing me either. God is up to good for his children, always in the wilderness.

That's hard to hear. And I don't want to make light or downplay the hardness of anybody's situation. But God is up to good. We can trust he's up to good.

Hardship Produces Character

As much as we can't survive in the wilderness, the opposite's also true. We can't thrive in our lives without wilderness. It's no secret that hardship actually produces character. Someone in our congregation shared with me an ESPN E60 highlight from this past summer called "South Paul" about Jim Abbott, the one-handed pitcher. Jim Abbott was famously born without a right hand. His right arm ends at his wrist. He developed over time this ability to shift his glove back and forth so he could catch and pitch, shifting back and forth with this. He's so adept at this, he had a ten-year major league baseball career. He also famously threw a no-hitter for the Yankees in 1993. I mean, incredible story. I promise you, if you watch this you will cry. It's that good. It's worth watching.

He's become a model for kids with limb differences all over the country. But here's the thing: I know the parents in this room might cry watching this, but you would never wish for this for your kid. I know a friend of mine who says that Raleigh's favorite pastime is micromanaging the heck out of our kids. Have you ever heard of snowplow parenting? Snowplow parenting is when you go ahead of your kids and you just clear out any obstacles. Or helicopter parenting is where you kind of drop in and take them out of anything that's hard for them. This is our favorite pastime in the city of Raleigh—micromanaging the heck out of our kids' lives. And yet we know. We know hardship actually produces character.

Listen to Jim Abbott. He says this: "I have to tell you, I do like my little hand." That's what he calls it—his little hand. "I haven't always liked it. Times I hated it. But it, that's who I am, and it's taking me to places that I would never have gone without it." And all of a sudden, yeah, we know that's true, but I don't want that for my kid. Right? Without hardship, without challenge, we don't grow.

If you've ever had to do physical therapy, I think PT should actually be named physical torture. Because what are you paying a physical therapist to do? To hurt you over and over. It's horrible. I'm sorry, physical therapists, but you have a terrible job. You hurt people for a living. But you recover from an injury, from a surgery, and you need it. Because part of the work of physical therapy helps you recover.

Recover movement. Recover strength. The Israelites were shaped and formed by the desert. What is the test of the desert? It's everyday trust. And we see this in the example given of the manna. Manna is this miracle food that came down every morning like dew on the grass and they had to go collect it and it tasted like honey and they could make bread out of this. And yet it was an everyday activity to go out except for on the day before the Sabbath you need to go out and gather twice as much because on the Sabbath day, on Saturday, there was none. So this called for everyday trust from the Israelite people. They couldn't—if you gathered too much, you tried to store it up, it rotted. If you didn't believe God and you went out on the Sabbath day, nothing for you to eat. It called for everyday trust.

Now who likes everyday trust? We like trust in the past. Like I remember that time I had to trust God back then. Everybody loves to tell those stories. Or a one-time trust, maybe a week of trust. Do you like day by day by day by day by day for forty years of trust? And yet this is where we are. Some of you are here right this morning. You are in the wilderness and you know it and you could name it and you could describe it in all its thirst and thorns. And I want to remind you that you can survive in the desert. And actually God is working to help you thrive in the desert.

And you know what the answer key is in church. You know what I'm going to say. What's the key to thriving in the desert? Everyday trust in Jesus. Everyday trust in Jesus.

And again, let me just remind you what you probably already know. I stand behind this symbol every week. The cross is central to our faith. And on the cross Jesus endures what is the ultimate wilderness for us. What do we hear and see on the cross? What did they take, class, and make into a crown and press down on his head? Thorns. And when he cried out, he cried out from the cross, "I thirst." Jesus is walking through his wilderness on the cross.

And yet with one difference from the Israelites and one difference from you ever. Because Jesus on the cross also cries out something else. He says, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" This is the one thing—this is such an important little detail that is handed to us in our Bibles because it tells us Jesus was abandoned. The real hardship of his suffering was not the thorns and it was not the thirst. It was the abandonment. Forsaken by his Father. The Trinity ruptured.

And what it tells us again is I can't give you reasons for your wilderness. Everybody always asks the pastor, why is this happening? And I'm always like, I don't know. I don't know. I could say, yeah, sure, could be a wake up call. Yeah, sure, God could be trying to get your attention. Sure. But the one thing I know it's not is that you're abandoned and forsaken. You are never abandoned or forsaken.

We look to the cross over and over again in our wildernesses. This is what helps us not just to survive, but to thrive. He is with me. He is with me. He is with me. That is the most important thing I want you to hear.

The Test of Prosperity

The second test, much more briefly. So we've had the goodness of hard times. It actually is good. But the hardness of good times. This is verses 10 through 19. The second test is the one they're just about to step into. So they've been on the border of the promised land. They're looking back at the last forty years, but they're looking ahead and God has said, this is—you're going to the good place.

A good land, a land of brooks and water, not thorns and thirst, of fountains and springs flowing forth in valleys and hills, a land of wheat and barley, vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey, a land which you will eat bread without scarcity, in which you will lack nothing, a land whose stones are iron and all the hills you dig copper, and you'll eat and be full.

And they're like, oh yeah. I want the test of prosperity. Right? All of us want this. Right? This is moving on up. Come on. Nobody watched the Jeffersons growing up? Like five of you. Okay. Or what about Fat Albert? You remember what Fat Albert said? He said, you're like school in the summer, no class. And they're going from no class to royalty overnight. They're going to opulence and prosperity and something they never imagined.

And here's what I want you to understand. Isn't it hard to believe that these people are in danger walking into prosperity and forgetting God? Forty years. This whole generation has never lived in a house. I mean, some of you like camping, but you don't want to camp for forty years. Right. These people are going to step into vineyards they didn't plant, houses they didn't build, and they're in danger of forgetting God?

Now here's the warning shot to me and to you who live in Raleigh, North Carolina.

If they're in danger, how much more us? There's a danger to prosperity. We're all like, sign me up. I'll try that one. Tired of hardship. But do we know what we really are talking about?

Christians love it when we hear a celebrity, somebody who's really made it famous or wealthy, say it's not all it's cracked up to be. Success is not what you think it is, folks. Power, money. One of you sent me this this summer. Let me put up this picture. This is Scottie Scheffler. Some of you know Scottie Scheffler very well. You are big golf fans because he's currently ranked number one in the official world golf ranking. He's had that same title for I think three years now. He's won four major championships and in July, right before he's about to go to the Open Championship, he gives this remarkable interview. And this is what he says:

This is not a fulfilling life. It's fulfilling from the sense of accomplishment but it's not fulfilling from the sense of the deepest places of your heart. There's something that I wrestle with on a daily basis. It's like showing up at the Masters every year. It's like why do I want to win this golf tournament so badly? Why do I want to win the Open Championship so badly? I don't know because if I win it's gonna be awesome for two minutes. If you win it, you celebrate, you get to hug your family. My sister's there. It's such an amazing moment. Then it's like, okay. What are we gonna eat for dinner? Life goes on. It feels like you work your whole life to celebrate winning a tournament for like a few minutes. It only lasts a few minutes.

And now all Christians are like, amen, Scottie. Man, listen to that guy. But here's the funny thing about each and every one of us. We're like, okay, that's great, but I know I could handle it. I'm the exception. Like other people, that's a struggle for them. Getting what you wanted is a struggle for them. But come on, I know I could handle this. So Moses is like, no, you can't.

Four Dangers to the Test of Abundance

Moses has got four dangers to the test of abundance.

Pride. Taking credit for what you have. This is verse 17:

Beware lest you say in your heart, my power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth.

Pride comes and it comes out in this form of entitlement. And nobody would ever say that out loud. We whisper them to ourselves.

Second, forgetting the word, your source. Verse 12:

Take heed lest you forget the Lord your God. When you have eaten and are full and have built goodly houses and live in them, and when your herds and flocks multiply, your silver and gold is multiplied, all you have is multiplied, then your heart will be lifted up and you forget the Lord your God.

Now forgetting God is not like forgetting where you left your keys. But forgetting the Lord is not misplacing something. It's forgetting to worship him. It's forgetting to glorify him. It's forgetting that he is the source of all that you have.

Third, and related, forgetting the Lord to go after other things. Idolatry. When you stop worshiping the Lord, you don't stop worshiping. You worship something else or in addition. Look at verse 19:

If you forget the Lord your God and go after other gods and serve them and worship them.

This is what we do. We don't just forget. We go after other things. Closely tied to forgetting the word is taking your joy and placing it somewhere else. Placing it in another source that honestly cannot fulfill that. Our security, what we have.

Finally, isolation from others. Look at verse 17 again:

Beware lest you say in your heart, my power, the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth.

Notice the pronouns. The whole book of Deuteronomy is plural pronouns. Y'all, y'all, y'all. Us, us, us. We, we, we. This is the first place in Deuteronomy where it's like, my, me, my, me. I did this. See, hard times unite people. In hard times, in times of adversity, we're like, I need you. I am not making it this week. I need to borrow from your trust of the Lord because I'm not gonna make it. But in times of prosperity, when you're like, I got what I like to eat right here, and I got what I like to drink right here, and my favorite show is on, and I'm like, community group tonight really? I don't need to go because I don't need.

Gospel Classrooms

Here's my conclusion. Both prosperity and adversity are gospel classrooms. It's not like one's better than the other. Both are hard in their different ways. And both are opportunities for us to turn toward God.

In hard times we remember, Jesus is the true bread. I don't live by bread alone. I live by everything that comes out of God's mouth, and I gotta trust him.

In good times, we remember, Jesus is my true wealth. That's what really matters. He is my treasure. He's what I put my hope in.

See, the gospel helps our hearts turn out of self, out of looking at me, back toward the Lord. Let me tell you a story.

In Greek mythology, there's a story about mythical creatures called the sirens and they're dangerous. They're described as having a body of a bird and the head of a woman. And they sing these songs. They're on this island where they coax sailors who hear the song. They'll fall in love with the sound of the siren and turn the ship straight for the island. Around the island are all these sharp rocks. And all the ships crash up against the rocks.

There are two stories in Greek mythology about how you deal with the sirens. One is Odysseus and the other is Jason.

Odysseus—in the Odyssey—famously tells his soldiers, those on his boat, "Tie me up to the mast and then stuff your ears with beeswax so you can't hear them. I want to hear their songs, but I know that if I hear them and I'm unrestrained, I will jump over the side of the boat. I don't want you to hear anything I say. I don't want to give you any commands that you can hear. Just keep going the same way, no matter what I tell you." And that's how Odysseus gets past the sirens. He loses it hearing them. And it's a helpful image for us of what willpower and accountability can do. You can have people in your life who say, "Stop it. Don't do that." And that can be helpful.

But I prefer Jason and the Argonauts. Jason is going past the Island of the Sirens and chooses a different way of dealing with this. On his boat, the Argos, is a man named Orpheus, who is the most talented musician living at the time. He has Orpheus begin playing music—the most beautiful, incredible music. As they go past the island, the reason Jason and all the sailors on his boat are able to go past without wrecking their ship is because of the beauty of the music that overpowers the song of the sirens.

The Gospel as Antivenom

Brothers and sisters, this is the song of the gospel that we sing every Sunday. And it's the antivenom to all the songs of the things of this life and this world—our prosperity, even our adversity—that would drive us insane. What we need is not better accountability structures. What we need every week is what we're doing here. This is why we come here: to worship. To take the eyes of our hearts off of self and look up at God and say, "Jesus Christ, he is what I want. That's the best song. He's what I want above everything else."

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Would you pray with me?

Father, this world is a dangerous place for us and it's filled with the temptations of adversity and prosperity. We go back and forth, and we either don't trust you or we forget you. Thank you for the gift of worship. Thank you that you invite us today to come and take our eyes off of self and turn back and look at you and find in you, in the gospel song, the antivenom to our own hearts. Lord, free us to always love this song. We pray in Christ's name. Amen.

Would you stand and sing with me?