Testing-Dt 7:1-26; 8:1-20

Deuteronomy, Old Testament, Sermons

Deuteronomy 7:1-8:20; Key Verse: Dt 8:2-3

“Remember how the Lord your God led you all the way in the wilderness these forty years, to humble and test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands. He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna…to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.”

Theme: God tests his people in various ways so that they may truly know what is in their heart and whether or not they love him (Dt 6:4-5). Spiritual commitment of those saved by grace must be expressed in actions that accord with the will of God.

For reflection:

  1. How has God tested you in the past? At present? What is your attitude when God tests you?
  2. When tested, are you faithful to God? The Shema (Dt 6:4-5)? The Supreme Command (Dt 5:7-10)?
  3. When tested, how do you express your faithfulness to God?
  4. When tested, do you remember the awesome privileges you have as a child of God?

Testing humbles you with helplessness. When tested we should be humbled to realize that we are completely helpless unless we are supernaturally delivered. In my youth, I could never speak with any attractive woman because of my nerdy shyness and awkwardness that caused me to be tongue tied. As a result, I could never ask any pretty girl out for a date. So I knew that I could never get married. But by the sovereign hand of God, God led me to UBF where they introduce their members to marry other Christians. I know without a doubt that if not for UBF I would not be married. God tested me with extreme shyness so that I would know that if I ever married, it would entirely be God’s doing which had nothing to do with me.

Testing reveal your true colors. Life is a test. Times of testing invariably reveal who you truly are. After a life of testing, what will your final grade be? We are tested as a child, as an adult, throughout our lives, and into our twilight years. We are tested whether we are single or married, poor or wealthy, insecure or secure, a nobody or a somebody. God tests us for the singular reason that we might truly know ourselves and know what is in our own hearts, which often is well hidden until the time of testing.

 What is in your heart? Chap. 7-8 shows real life ways that God’s people will be tested in order to help them search their own hearts and express their fidelity to God (Fidelity means faithfulness, loyalty, allegiance, constancy, obedience, fealty.):

  1. Power (Dt 7:1-2, 16, 25-26).
  2. Pleasure (Dt 7:3-5, 11).
  3. Poverty (Dt 8:1-5).
  4. Prosperity (Dt 8:6-20).

Why should God’s people love God by keeping his word? What are their awesome privileges? How will God bless them (Dt 7:6-10, 12-16, 17-24; 8:7-9)?

  1. They are “a people holy to the Lord” (Dt 7:6a).
  2. They are “his treasured possession” (Dt 7:6b).
  3. They are beneficiaries of God’s grace (Dt 7:7-8):
  4. God’s affectionate grace (Dt 7:7a).
  5. God’s electing grace (Dt 7:7a).
  6. God’s saving grace (Dt 7:8a).
  7. God’s redemptive grace (Dt 7:8b).
  8. God promises profound blessings to those who respond to grace with obedience (Dt 7:12a) by blessing them more than any other people (Dt 7:14). God will:
  9. Love them (Dt 7:12b).
  10. Bless them (Dt 7:13a).
  11. Multiply them (Dt 7:13b).
  12. God gives his people indispensable keys to a victorious life as a child of God (Dt 7:17-24):
  13. Recognize God’s past grace in salvation (Dt 7:18-19).
  14. Recognize God’s power in the present (Dt 7:20-24).
  15. Recognize our own responsibility to keep ourselves unspotted from the world (Dt 7:25-26).
  1. Power(Dt 7:1-2, 16, 25-26)

“Destroy them totally … and show them no mercy” (Dt 7:2) sounds highly disturbing and troubling. Thus, Deuteronomy 7 presents one of the most problematic, if not offensive, texts in all of Scripture. No image in the OT is as troublesome and offensive to modern readers as that of the God of Israel prescribing/commanding the destruction of all people in the land (Dt 2:34; 3:6; 7:2, 16; 13:15; 20:17; Jos 2:10; 6:21; 8:26; etc). How can this be reconciled with the NT portrayal of God as a God of love in the person of Christ? Or with the God of grace and mercy, as expressed in Ex 34:6-7? How can such genocide be justified morally? (These very important questions will not be addressed in this sermon. Here is a short response to the question, Why does the Bible condone genocide?)

A test of loving God. What may be said is that the primary concern is not ethnic elimination, but ethical scrupulosity: Would Israel be faithful to the Supreme Command (Dt 5:7-10) and to the Shema to love God with all of their being (Dt 6:4-5)? The emphasis is not mercilessness and heartlessness to the outsiders and the vanquished, but the need to eliminate all rivals to God. The Hebrew word (herem) combine both military (Dt 3:6) and sacred nuances (Dt 3:15-17), which also means “to consecrate” for divine service. To show no mercy toward the Canaanites (Dt 7:2) means that sentimentality must not interfere with the pursuit of the divine agenda. Similarly was Abraham tested (Gen 22:1).

God (not man) tests us. God tests us, not to mess us up or to cause us to stumble, but so that we might come to truly know ourselves and the God who loves us. Ultimately, God tests us for our good–so that we may live and that it may go well with us (Dt 8:1, 16). A cautionary note is that such tests are from God. Thus, no man should presume to be like God, or to be in the place of God, to test another fellow human being, and claiming or implying that such a test is from God, when it is clearly from a man, whoever that man may be.

  1. Pleasure(Dt 7:3-5, 11)

The degenerating effect of intermarriage with pagans is a common theme in the OT. Under no circumstances were the Israelites to intermarry with the Canaanites (Dt 7:3). The concern here is not to safeguard Israel’s ethnic purity, but the danger intermarriage poses for fidelity to God. Foreign spouses will turn the people’s hearts away from God to serve other gods, thereby violating the Supreme Command (Dt 5:7-10) and annulling the Shema (Dt 6:4-5). This is serious, for to adopt (or be influenced by) the lifestyle of a Canaanite (an unbeliever) is to be a Canaanite and thus provoke the ire, wrath and jealousy of God (Dt 6:13-15; Jud 3:5-8). Sadly, beginning with Judges, the history of Israel is a story of compromise with pagan idologies, and in the end the nation was destroyed because of the seductive power of idolatry.

For all his wisdom, Solomon turns out to be the ultimate fool because of women. He loved many foreign women who turned his heart away from God to go after the gods of his women and did evil in the sight of God (1 Ki 11:1-8). Just as Moses had predicted, loving foreign women led to loving foreign gods. Such persistent spiritual rebellion led eventually to the downfall of the northern kingdom first (2 Ki 17:1-18) and then the southern kingdom of Judah (2 Kings 24-25). They were both declared abominable in the sight of God and sufferred the fate of the Canaanites, as God had warned (Dt 7:25-26).

Dating patterns. Even if 97% of young people say that the religious preferences of the other person plays no role in whom they date, for Christians this is intolerable. Christians need to recover a sense of the incredible privilege of being a holy people belonging to God, the objects of his gractious election, his treasured people, and targets of his affection. Until and unless they recover the missional significance of this calling, the Western church will remain pathetic and powerless in the face of the challenges of our age.

III. Poverty (Dt 8:1-5)

The divine motivation of God’s actions and tests was “in order to know what was in your heart” and to observe “whether or not you would keep his commands” (Dt 8:2-3; Exo 16:4). Just as refining precious metals involves extraction of impurities from ore through intense heat, so metaphorical refinement involves a demanding and painful process. God’s four actions in the testing process are as follows:

  1. He led Israel for 40 years in the desert.
  2. He humbled them.
  3. He caused them to hunger.
  4. He fed them manna.

The prior generation failed the test. Everyone in Moses’ audience knows that their parents were the ones tested and that they had failed the test. It was not the journey that killed them, for their “feet did not swell during these forty years” (Dt 8:4). They all died in the desert because of their sin of rebellion and unbelief (Dt 1:26-28, 32-35; 2:14-15).

Physical sustenance alone is not enough. Dt 8:3 says, “He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your ancestors had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.” This should be obvious to Moses’ audience. The stark reality was that even though the people had their daily supply of food, none of that generation survived. They had plenty to eat and their stomachs were full, but they died.

Every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord is best understood as God’s revealed will, represented by the Supreme Command (Dt 5:7-10). God’s intent and desire is “so that you may live” (Dt 8:1). To live one must ingest and take to heart (Dt 6:6) the life-giving commands that come from the mouth of God (Dt 8:3), which then empowers and energizes them to do his will (Dt 17:19-20; 31:11-13).

God’s purpose of deprivation in the desert was to refine his people through “discipline” (Dt 8:5). Whether punitive or educational, God’s fatherly disciplinary action is always administered in love for the good of his people (Prov 3:11-12; Heb 12:5-6).

  1. Prosperity(Dt 8:6-20)

When all our needs are met God is testing us. Whereas in the past God had tested and refined his people with deprivation and manna, in the future he will do so with prosperity. How will the Israelites respond to prosperity and excess (Dt 8:7-9)? Dt 8:10 says, “When you have eaten and are satisfied, praise the Lord your God for the good land he has given you.” This is the opposite (antithesis) of forgetting God (Dt 8:11; 6:12). The previous generation had to lean on God in the desert when they had to depend on God for food. But for this and future generations the test will be the opposite. In response to prosperity, the people should praise and thank God (Dt 8:10), which is easier said than done when we feel content and satisfied and with all our felt needs met.

If in prosperity and success one forgets God they become their own worst enemy by saying “I did it!” In the time of success, abundance and blessing (Dt 8:12-13), the temptation for the heart to rise with pride is palpable and irristible. Dt 8:14 says, “…then your heart will become proud (“rise” with pride) and you will forget the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.” Dt 8:17 explains that “a lifted heart” causes people to take credit for all their successes and to think that their wealth and success is the result of their own efforts. Dt 8:17 says, “You may say to yourself, ‘My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me.’”

How to respond to prosperity. There are three elements of correctly responding to God’s blessing of abundance, success and prosperity (Dt 8:18):

  1. “Remember the Lord.” The verb means more than simply acknowledging his existence. It means to take seriously God’s presence and actions.
  2. God gives the ability to produce wealth. The Israelites must recognize that even though it was through their hard work, yet the skill and energy needed to do that work is a gift from God (1 Pet 4:11).
  3. God was fulfilling his will (confirming his convenant with their ancestors). God was not just giving them strength primarily for their prosperity and success.

A final frightful warning. Moses declares the dire consequences of failing the test/refinement presented by prosperity in the promised land. Dt 8:19a expresses that which is absolutely unacceptable to God: (1) forgetting God (Dt 8:2, 11, 14, 18). (2) following/going after other gods (Dt 5:7; 6:14; 7:4). (3) worshipping/serving them (Dt 4:19, 28; 5:9; 6:13; 7:4, 16). (4) bowing down to them (Dt 4:19; 5:9). This represents betrayal of allegiance to God and a violation of the Supreme Command (Dt 5:7-10; 6:4-5). Dt 8:19b-20 states what would happen to them: “I testify against you today that you will surely be destroyed. Like the nations the Lord destroyed before you, so you will be destroyed for not obeying the Lord your God.” God’s aim in testing and refining his people is to produce a nation that brings praise and glory to him in the sight of the nations (Dt 26:19). But if they fail the test and refuse to be refined, he will discard them like dross and consign them to the dung heap (Ezek 22:17-22).

  1. Application
  1. Obedience: Love God. Like Israel, Christians do not live by bread alone but by obedience to the revealed will of God through the word of God to love God (Dt 8:3; 6:4-5; Mt 4:4; Lk 4:4) and fight against idolatry (Dt 5:7-10).
  2. Testing: God is like a loving father who tests and disciplines us for our good (Dt 8:5; Prov 3:11-12; Heb 12:5-6).
  3. Idolatry: Ingratitude is the first stage on the road to idolatry. Praising God is the only appropriate response to eating and enjoying the bounty God provides (Dt 8:10). If not, a downward spiral happens: Forgetting God (Dt 8:2,33), leads to ingratitude (Dt 8:12-16), which leads to self-sufficiency (Dt 8:17), which leads to idolatry (Dt 8:19). Paul plots a similar course in Rom 1:21-23.
  4. Success may be more tragic than failure, especially if we forget God, which invariably leads to pride, smugness and self-sufficiency. Our faith and faithfulness are not tested only when God drives us to the end of ourselves; they are also tested when everything is going our way. Indeed, the more successful we may be, the stiffer the test and the greater the reason to praise God, and at the same time, the greater the danger of self-sufficiency.
  5. Warning. If we are seduced by the idolatry of success, we will incur the wrath of God that all idolators experience (Dt 8:19-20). Success may not be proof of either personal well-being or divine favor. Failure to acknowledge God in success proves that we are at root Canaanites, and that our faith is just a modern version of ancient fertility religion.

Chap. 7 urges Israel to activity and courage to love God by obeying his commands. Chap. 8 warns them to understand their dependence on the grace of God both in times of poverty as well as prosperity. The two-fold message is:

  1. Remember God in the hard times of the past.
  2. Do not forget God in the good times of the future.

Both chapters 7 and 8 end on the note of personal destruction as the penalty for idol worship (Dt 7:26; 8:19-20).

The Son was tested too. Finally, one could say that in a sense God the Father “tested” his one and only Son whom he loves from eternity to eternity. The Son agonized about the cup of God’s wrath with sweat like drops of blood in the Garden of Gethsemane and asked, “Is there no other way?” The Father remained silent. When the Son shouted his cry of derilection on the cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me,” the Father remained silent, as though turning his face away. What an unbearable unspeakable test the Son faced! Yet through the mystery of this test, sinners come to comprehend the height and breadth and width and depth of the love of God through Jesus Christ.

May God bless you to view times of testing as his love for you.

References:

  1. Block, Daniel I. Deuteronomy: The NIV Application Commentary. Grand Rapids: Zondervan. 2012.
  2. Fernando, Ajith. Deuteronomy: Loving Obedience to a Loving God. Wheaton: Crossway. 2012.
  3. Woods, Edward J. Deuteronomy: An Introduction and Commentary (Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries). Downers Grove: Intervarsity Press. 2011.
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