Word. Our Father, open our hearts today. Let us be thankful if we could focus on one thing, that in our remembrance of Your goodness and Your all-prevailing grace, may we have thankful hearts, knowing that we serve a generous God who out of His own abundant goodness We know that because you have given us in his precious name we pray. All right, well, I invite you to open your Bibles up to the book of Deuteronomy, the second law, Deuteronomy chapter eight, verses one through 20. And I will read through the entirety of the passage. Deuteronomy 8, all the commandments that I am commanding you today, 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 forefathers. You shall remember all the way which the Lord your God has led you in the wilderness these 40 years, that he might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not. He humbled you and let you be hungry, and fed you with manna which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that He might make you understand that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord. Your clothing did not wear out on you, nor did your foot swell these forty years. Thus you are to know in your heart that the Lord your God was disciplining you just as a man disciplines his son. Therefore, you shall keep the commandments of the Lord your God, to walk in His ways and to fear Him. For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and springs flowing forth in valleys and hills, a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive oil and honey, a land where you will eat food without scarcity, in which you will not lack anything, a land whose stones are iron and out of whose hills you can dig copper. When you have eaten and are satisfied, you shall bless the Lord your God for the good land which He has given you. Beware that you do not forget the Lord your God by not keeping His commandments and His ordinances and His statutes which I am commanding you today. Otherwise, when you have eaten and are satisfied and have built good houses and lived in them, And when your herds and your flocks multiply, and your silver and gold multiply, and all that you have multiplies, then your heart will become proud, and you will forget the Lord your God who brought you out from the land of Egypt out of the house of slavery. He led you through the great and terrible wilderness with its fiery serpents and scorpions and thirsty ground where there was no water. He brought water for you out of the rock of Flint. In the wilderness, He fed you manna, which your fathers did not know, that He might humble you and that He might test you to do good for you in the end. Otherwise, you may say in your heart, my power and the strength of my hand made me this wealth. But you shall remember the Lord your God, for it is He who is giving you power to make wealth, that He may confirm His covenant which He swore to your fathers as it is this day. It shall come about if you ever forget the Lord your God and go after other gods and serve them and worship them. I testify against you today that you will surely perish. Like the nations that the Lord makes to perish before you, so shall you perish, because you would not listen to the voice of the Lord your God." May God be blessed by the reading of his word. This morning's sermon is this, feeding on mercy, forgetting in pride a warning for a full people. And I trust that most of us ended Thursday very full. I hope that you celebrated the Lord's goodness to you and ate lots of food, lots of turkey, lots of stuffing, lots of desserts. and that you enjoyed it with your family and hopefully some other believers in Jesus Christ and it became an event where you really could take time to focus on the Lord's goodness and provision. So in most cases, it's hard to say anything but in all cases, that our tables most likely on Thanksgiving Day were full. Our tables were full most likely Our homes were warm. Hopefully some of you had a fire raging. We felt it, right? We were able to recognize a certain degree of satisfaction that we were able to enjoy. And not just by ourselves, but with one another. That joy and satisfaction in a holiday like Thanksgiving tends to feed off of itself. We had a particular time in the evening where myself and my guests were able to give a very brief testimony of our thankfulness to God and reference the things that we are thankful for. And you understand that that thanksgiving, that moment of thankfulness, does not stay isolated. We didn't all say the same things. And so when someone gives testimony to what they're thankful for, any number of people hearing that testimony can think in their own hearts Yeah, I'm thankful for that, too. I better say something different because that's what I was going to say. But we think, yes, we are thankful for all those things. We're thankful for family. We're thankful for friends. We're thankful for our salvation. We're thankful for our church. We're thankful for the manifold graces that God gives us on a daily basis. In fact, even the psalmist references that they are too numerous to count. If we could sit and think of them, the reality of God's tender mercies given on the daily would be quite overwhelming. They would fill the mind and the heart, and we would barely be able to get out, even if we spent hours reflecting all of the ways that God has blessed us, all of the ways in which we can be thankful. So there is a response that is called for. There is a response that we should even demand of ourselves in light of reflecting upon God's goodness, and that is a thankful heart. A heart overflowing with thanksgiving as God has given us abundantly from his own grace and mercy and generosity. So we know that time, we know the busyness, we know the joy of all those things, and yet today the danger is not hunger, right? We don't think about that. Most of us are not in any danger of going hungry. We could even reflect on that in the spiritual sense. We understand that in Christ, God has given us all that he has to give, that those promises have been fulfilled. We really rest on the truth that he who has Christ has everything. We have everything that we need. And He gives us every good and necessary thing through Christ. So the danger is not hunger, whether the physical kind or the spiritual kind, really. The danger that the church faces today in the 21st century is forgetfulness. It's not spiritual hunger, it's spiritual amnesia. It's forgetting what God has done. It's forgetting then to even be thankful. It's not having empty cupboards or empty tables, it's empty memory. And so we turn to Deuteronomy chapter 8 as an exhortation, as an encouragement, but also as a pastoral warning. Think about what Moses is saying. He's delivering the law to them a second time. He's giving them warnings as they're about to enter the promised land. And in this context, Moses is giving a pastoral sermon to a people who are about to become dangerously comfortable. Sometimes we imagine that our greatest temptation comes in times of want, comes in times of scarcity. I would say it's actually the opposite. that the greatest temptations come in times of comfort, comes in times of satisfaction. Note this, that this warning... that this word that Moses gives to Israel is not addressed to a starving, enslaved Israel in Egypt, nor is it given to an Israel that is trembling before Mount Sinai. It is given to a satisfied Israel at the edge of prosperity. How do we know that they're at the edge of prosperity? We can just read the text. All that the promised land has to offer, all of its abundant resources, for a people to live in abundance, to live in prosperity, to really say, I have need of nothing. So the danger there is forgetting the Lord. I think it was Abraham Lincoln, our 16th president, who said, if you want to really test a man, you don't give him trials. You give him power. We would think that, yeah, if you want to test a man, you give him trials and tribulations. We all endure that. But if you really want to see a man's character, you give him power. You give him the throttles of control. And in a similar fashion, this is something that tests the Christian. Rather than scarcity, you give him everything he needs. You give him abundance. This is a great test for the church today because we can sit here and say, yes, we have abundance. God has given us according to his riches and glory in Christ Jesus. Most of us here are not in some sort of, we're not enslaved, we're not trembling, we're not on the precipice of poverty, and if we are, this is where the church comes together and we are able to give each other financial assistance if the occasion calls for it. The danger then, is forgetting God in the midst of plenty, when we're no longer wandering, when we're no longer frightened, when we're no longer starving. And in Israel, as they are about to inherit houses they did not build, fields they did not plant, wells they did not dig, and prosperity for which they did not work, they are given a very earnest warning. And so this chapter is God's warning to a people who are about to get everything they ever wanted. Many of us in here can say that very thing. If we really actually thought about it, we're the lucky ones, as it were. We are people to be envied, to be jealous of, because we have the Lord Jesus. Many of us, we have happy marriages. You men in there, you have your lovely wife, you have your beautiful children who you're raising in the fear and admonition of the Lord. You have modern plumbing. and landscaping, amen to all of that. Like life is, if you were really honest with yourself, life is good. Life is good to the point where you should be able to say, man, what did I do to deserve this? Answer, of course, nothing. It's all from a good God who loves you and cares for you. That is our disposition. We think, well, that's a no brainer. And it is, but sometimes God's sheep are stupid and we forget that everything is from him. we become so dangerously comfortable. And so, as it goes with Israel, the great danger is not that they will forget Egypt, the great danger is that they will forget God, and let not the body of Christ ever forget God. Though we live in a full nation, with a lot of prosperity, a lot of opportunity, an age of conveniences that even the nation of Israel could barely imagine. We have to understand that famine almost never destroys faith, and it often does. So let us hear the Word of the Lord this morning. And here's a question. What does God require of a people when they have everything? So when we are full, as I believe we are, our hearts will be tested, during that time, not a time of emptiness. So here's some overarching themes if you want to write these down. We're going to attack this passage in more thematic fashion because it does have 20 verses. This chapter does, and we're going to try to get through the whole thing. But I want to point out some of the things that stand out the most. But these are things to keep kind of in the back of your mind as we're moving through this chapter. So five overarching themes. So write them down. I'm going to go through them quickly. One is prosperity is a far greater test than poverty. Secondly, memory. This is very important because the theme of this chapter is remember. Memory is the battleground for worship. Your worship will reflect your memory, your remembrance of God. That is, if you forget God, you will fail to worship Him. Thirdly, pride is the gateway to apostasy. Pride is the gateway to apostasy. Fourthly, Fourthly, thankfulness is resistance warfare against forgetfulness. And we'll see why. Because thankfulness is tied to memory. Thankfulness is tied to remembrance. Fifthly, The heart drifts faster in comfort than in a crisis, so you kind of have that sandwich there. So keep all those things in mind. Application, I'll say this from the forefront in case we run out of time today, but the main thing I want you guys to think about, just three things. This is my heart for you this morning. One is that we would repent of functional self-reliance. That is, in this case, we want to be more than just all talk. We don't want to just say, oh, thank you, God, right? We talked about thankfulness not just being or glorifying God worship, not being limited to simply giving God credit, but to acknowledge that His presence and goodness has actually come to bear in our midst. We should repent of functional self-reliance. to not only be thankful to God, but to live in a thankful manner and to repent of pride. Secondly, we would recover a theology of dependence. If you're not self-reliant, then it follows that you should be dependent. There is no neutral ground here, my friends. We are either going to acknowledge our dependence upon the living God and live that out daily, or we will be self-reliant. Now, sometimes we tend to bounce back and forth between the two and we see that spiritual instability and waywardness made manifest, but I would hope that we can establish, as the Holy Spirit works in our midst, a clear dependence upon God. Thirdly, that we would return to the fear of the Lord as the guardian of all blessing. We are not to fear man. We are not to fear the nations. We are not to fear the heathen. We are to fear the Lord, to live before Him in holy fear, awe, and reverence. So now we shall get into the text. We've read it. We've established the truth here that is being enumerated to Israel. So the first overall thing is this. remembering that is the discipline of holy memory that's the first that is the first subject heading remembering the discipline of holy memory that covers verses one through five and he begins with this all the commandments that i am commanding you today 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 father." So here we see the Lord employing covenantal language here. He has given the law, He has given the commandments, and He is giving them instruction. Be careful to do them, right? Do not treat the law and commandments of God with nonchalance. Do not treat it passively. Do not treat it dismissively. But what He is commanding here is diligence. Pay careful attention to the commands that I have given you. And when we do, we bring to light and we bring to remembrance the inherent goodness of God's commands. His commands are for our good. His commands are so that we can live before Him as His holy people. And so the key word here, as we see in verse two, is you shall remember. And this is a comprehensive remembrance. You shall remember all the way which the Lord your God has led you in the wilderness these 40 years, that he might humble you, testing you to know what was in your hearts, whether you would keep his commandments or not. So that's the first key word this morning is remembrance. In Hebrew, zakar. Very important word, because this is not merely, oh yeah, I remember, oh yeah, that reminds me. This is a very deliberate and diligent effort to remember with purpose, attention, and action. This is what we could call a covenantal consciousness, where we go about our lives viewing that life through the lens of God's presence, through the lens of God's promises. through the lens of God's provision. So this is not mere recall. This is not something that's sitting in the vaults of your mind to be remembered when it's convenient. No, this remembrance is meant to be a guiding light to the entirety of the Christian life, and by extension, a way of life for God's covenant people. So when God commands Israel to remember things, He's saying, remember the wilderness. Just to kind of summarize here, remember the wilderness, remember your weakness, remember the hunger, remember the testing, remember the training, remember all of the things. Call them to mind deliberately, hold them up and examine them and see the providence and goodness of God in those things. We know through this that God does not waste the wilderness, the wildernesses of life, right? Sometimes we follow that temptation. When we go through difficult circumstances, especially repetitive, extended difficult circumstances, that's the first question we ask is, what is the point of all this? I fail to see the point in all of these trials. Well, we have to also remember then that God does not fail to see the point. This is the point, this is the purpose of remembering things. When we remember things, when we call them to mind, we are engaging in an earnest commitment to see things the way God himself sees them. Because we understand that our scope, our knowledge, our wisdom is terribly limited. So when we remember deliberately, we call attention to God's divine and good purposes. And in that sense, he is able to baptize his children in the dust of the desert. And we see the purpose here. And it's no different for us than it was Israel. He has specific purposes to humble us, to test us, to bring us to a point of dependence, really to humble us, to bring us low. to test our faith, to test our trust in Him, to know what was in your heart. And yes, we understand that God knows all things. He knows that they would fail. He knows when we will fail. But He desires us to know what is in our hearts as well, whether we would keep His commandments or not. So to know by experience, to know in real covenant time what Israel would do. And of course, the bad news is, is that they would fail and they would fail miserably and they would end up in full-blown idolatry and apostasy and accuse God of all kinds of monstrous misdeeds. But there is a purpose there. In verse 3, he humbled you, he did bring them low, and let you go hungry. Note here, he didn't let them starve, he let them be hungry. So when a person is hungry, what is the person who knows the Lord supposed to do? How do they respond? Oh Lord, we are hungry. We know that you are the true and living God. You're going to keep your promises. We know, oh Lord, that you didn't bring us all the way out into the wilderness to let us starve to death. because you'd be breaking your promise. That would be the proper response is to ask of the Lord. That's where the test resides. But instead, oh Lord, you have brought us out here to kill us. It would have been better if we were in bondage in Egypt. It was so great there. At least we had water. At least we had food. We were muddy all the time by stomping these bricks, but hey, we were fed. We got water. It's like they desire misery all over again. And that was their attitude. The Lord humbled them, but they did not ask in faith. Instead, they rebelled and they accused God of having abandoned them. But then he says that he might make you understand. So here's the other purpose, that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord. Now, what were they supposed to anchor their minds to, to latch onto when it comes to the word of the Lord? And I think very simply put, it's his promises. Did they believe in the final analysis that the promises that God made to their fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and that he would keep them? They would have to understand that when the Lord speaks, he keeps his promises. When the Lord commands and we disobey, there are particular penalties, covenant penalties. And it is important to him by bringing them low, and we understand that in our own walks in Christ, we have to understand, we have to be able to put two and two together, that we do not live by bread alone. And we don't wanna make that mistake this Thanksgiving season. We don't live by bread or turkey alone, but we live by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord. That is, if we are full, if our stomachs are full, And we still do not have the word of the Lord. We will starve. We are dead where we stand. All of life hinges on that which the Lord has spoken. And of course, the question is, do you believe that? Have you been brought through a severe time of testing to where you come up and you still believe that? You say with the psalmist in Psalm 77, I will remember the deeds of the Lord. Or are you a fulfillment of what happened In the wilderness, we're in Hosea 13, where the Lord says, I knew you in the wilderness when they were filled, but they forgot me. Are you a person who forgot God in the midst of trial? Or do you understand from Lamentations 3 that God does afflict in mercy, that he is not cruel, that everything he does for you is an act of love? Do we trust in that? He says further, Your clothing did not wear out on you, nor did your foot swell these 40 years. Thus you are to know in your heart that the Lord was disciplining you just as a man disciplines his son." So here we have overlap. We have the purpose of remembering, but then we have also learning, right? The learning from the understanding. This is where we develop our theology of dependence. And this primarily is verses three through six. But also, if you look down where these things are repeated, verses 15 through 16, this whole theme of God being with his people, leading them through the wilderness, bringing them to the promised land, that he might make you know It says in verse three, he fed you with manna, which you did not know. And there's a bit of play on words because the word manna means what is it? They were pretty puzzled, like what is this stuff that's falling from the sky? But it's feeding us, it's nourishing us. That they would know that everything, all of life is dependence upon God. And so God's aim here was not merely to feed Israel, but really to, again, in re-educating Israel in terms of all the commandments and the promises as given in the law, that they would learn to treasure His Word. Going back to this, man does not live by bread alone. Even the Lord says that to Satan. When Satan tries to use scripture against the living word, and Jesus responds appropriately, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. This means that every one of us in here is alive. We are alive not because we planted well, we are alive because God spoke to our good. He also shows this goodness in preserving their garments as well as their physical Constitution. There is no blister on their foot. There is no threadbare clothing. They're not limping and gimping around. We could see this as the invisible work of the Lord preserving visible man. God's provision here shows up as something as ordinary as fabric. Mentions also this in Deuteronomy 29.5. Even Nehemiah talks about this. In Nehemiah chapter nine, talks about the way that God brought them through the wilderness and preserved their lives and preserved their clothing to point to God's unfailing care. Even that's a huge theme of Nehemiah. Hey guys, remember all that the Lord has done for us? In forgetting, we were exiled. Now we are brought back from exile. Let's not mess this up again. Let's not be a forgetful generation like those who were before us and be puked out of the land. Let's endure in our faithfulness to remember God's unfailing love and mercy. Now, most of us understand that today, in spite of all of the technology that has gone into clothing. Most of it is imported. Most of it is not made in the good old USA. But we understand that in spite of technology, in spite of all these human advancements, things are produced with a sort of a planned obsolescence. Like you make something, you produce something, even your iPhones and your Android phones, when those are made in spite of all of the bells and whistles, I think there's four cameras in them now, it's something ridiculous like that. The people that are providing those for you, those businesses, are laughing all the way to the bank because they know that you're gonna be in the Verizon store, the T-Mobile store, in two years or less, begging for the latest upgrade. And you know what? They're gonna stick it to you and you're gonna pay full price. That $30 that you pay a month for your shiny new phone, Yeah, $30 a month. For 36 months, guys, that's over $1,000. And you're just handing over your money willfully. It just seems like it's smaller because you're paying monthly now. And that's how they get you. Planned obsolescence. Stuff wears out. It's the 21st century and it seems like stuff doesn't last any longer than it always has. But the Lord and His supernatural preservation, as the text would indicate, preserves even their clothing. He says, call to mind this, your clothing did not wear out on you, nor did your foot swell these 40 years. He preserved their clothing and he preserved their bodies. Imagine that wandering around for a full generation in desert heat. This signals clearly a supernatural intervention, not some clever tailoring in the heat of the desert. This is God preserving his people. And if God can preserve cloth, he certainly can preserve the people wearing it. Jesus echoes the same truth in Matthew 6, when he says, consider the lilies of the field. If God so clothes the grass of the field, he makes this way, will he not much more clothe you? Oh, you have little faith. So trust is the appropriate response. Now imagine also your feet, your poor feet. wandering through the desert, through the dry ground, and still being preserved. Healthy feet meant their ability to walk toward the promised land and inherit. Think about what Isaiah 43 says. Run and not grow weary, they will. But who's that guarantee made toward? Those who trust and will not wear out. And I think a good takeaway for the people of God here is that obedience often does require long obedience in the same direction with the knowledge that God equips both soul and body for that journey. During all these 40 years, he says, the 40 years that this whole generation wandered the wilderness, many of whom died out, right? They accused the Lord of wrongdoing. They apostatized from him. And so they were barred entrance, including Moses to the promised land. But this is a time of testing and training, and this is a time, I think most importantly, where God is able to reveal His faithfulness, His abiding faithfulness. It's the very first thing that we forget in times of trouble, whether brief or extended, is that God is faithful and He's not going to abandon us, that He is very truly with us. We are the ones who are liable to fail. We are the ones who are liable to forget. But the comfort that the Christian has is in spite of our simultaneous forgetting and remembering is the Lord never forgets his people. The one thing that the Lord, we would say, has caused to remember is the one thing he doesn't, and that is our sins. He remembers our sins no more, but he remembers his grace and his kindness to us. gives us that very thing and even when we when we read on he talks about this the abundance of this land which he is bringing his people and this will be the the time of testing as to whether or not they will truly count on him. It says, it mentions here, a land whose rocks are iron. You notice he goes through the good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and springs flowing forth in valleys and hills, a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive and honey, a land where you will eat food without scarcity, in which you will not lack anything, a land whose stones are iron and out of whose hills you can dig copper. Look at this. I mean, this is incredible. He's promising them abundance on all, on every layer of what we call life, not just food, but abundant food, not just wine, abundant wine, even things that are conducive to a thriving economy and defending that economy. Think about iron from stone. That is essential. Iron is essential to defense. Copper. I mean, you realize copper is still a hot commodity. Copper is still, if you're not careful, copper wiring is still regularly stolen out of houses that are being built in Colorado Springs. You realize that sometimes if a new traffic cam is built, we all love traffic cams that can tell us if we've run a red light or not, and then of course we get a ticket mailed to our house. And then an announcement goes out, depending on what social thread you're on, says, hey, by the way, these things have tons of copper wiring in them. Hint, hint. Lots of copper. Copper still is so valuable, especially in conducting electricity. Very important to maintaining an advanced infrastructure. Very key to maintaining so much of the modern amenities that we enjoy and barely even think about. So yes, copper, iron, wheat, barley, this lends itself to this third theme of receiving. And this is where we see the danger of forgetful success, the danger of forgetful abundance. In our abundance, we are called to remember God and to praise him for what he's given us, not to forget him, but here it's in the receiving that we sometimes forget. That covers verses seven through 14. He's bringing you, he says, the Lord, your God is bringing you into a good land. And then list all of these things that are in abundance supply. They'll never be hungry. They'll never be thirsty, right? Food without scarcity. which you will lack nothing. And then he warns in verse 10, when you have eaten and are satisfied, you shall bless the Lord. That, my friends, is key. That is our response. Not to say who is the Lord, but you shall bless the Lord your God for the good land which he has given you. With all the milk, with all the honey, the olive oil, the barley, the iron and the copper. This is just a confirmation that God is so good. But it's a warning against taking that goodness and then saying, I have these things, right? Taking the blessing and not acknowledging the one who blesses. Taking the gift instead of enjoying the giver. We are to bless the Lord. But then he says this, Beware, take heed that you do not forget. So right here is the counterpoint of remembering. And I would say this, forgetting can be just as deliberate as remembering. Remember when we remember, we deliberately call to mind the things of the Lord and see its purpose and God's abundant provision. I don't want us to think for a second that the majority of the time forgetting is on accident. I do think it is something we do on purpose. We do so often willingly. We forget the Lord because we have now idolized the things that He has given us. So He says, beware. He does not give this warning in vain. Beware that you not forget the Lord your God by not keeping His commandments and His ordinances and His statutes, which I am commanding you today. So that's a mark. That's a mark of forgetfulness. We throw away the commandments of God. We forget His commandments. We forget their goodness. Otherwise, when you have eaten and are satisfied and have built good houses and lived in them, And when your herds and flocks multiply, and your silver and gold multiply, and all that you have multiplies, then your heart will become proud, and you will forget the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. So here's another key word. that your heart becomes proud, or that is lifted up, that is to rise above, to exalt yourself, to elevate yourself inwardly. This is something that begins in the heart, mind you. And here's the great danger. Pride is not an afterthought. Note when this happens. This forgetting the Lord, this pride happens in the face, in the real-time experience of God's blessing. This isn't something where it says, God has not given to me what He said, therefore I guess I have to just rely upon myself. This really is a slap in the face of God, because we are lifting up our hearts, we are forgetting His commandments, and thereby forgetting Him in the midst of all this abundant provision. Because he says, when you have eaten and are satisfied, when you have built good houses, this is rebellion in real time. And we have to guard our hearts against this kind of ungodliness. It says, when all that you have multiplies, then your heart will become proud and you will forget the Lord. Notice the chain of events here. You don't forget the Lord and then become proud. You become proud and then forget the Lord. You become proud in the midst of all this blessing, all this goodness. And I certainly would hope and pray that this does not become us. That we become Laodicean. We have all these things, right? We have a great economy. We have great wealth. We have great healthcare. And then we forget God. Warns us against that. going back as we did before, Hosea 13, five through six, I cared for you in the wilderness in a land of drought. As they had their pasture, they became satisfied. And as they became satisfied, their heart became proud. You see this, my friends, I want you to understand the sadness here. This is a sad thing to report. because Deuteronomy warns against it and then Hosea 13 confirms that it actually happened. As they had their pasture, they became satisfied. All these things, they were satisfied in their abundance. But when this happened, their heart became proud, therefore they forgot me. So Moses warns Israel that their great danger will not be famine, war or wilderness, but fullness. Talk about a blind spot. This picture's a heart that is not full, but swollen, swollen with pride, puffed up, inflated. And when we get there, it perfectly explains, you'll notice when you're proud, you're always looking down on everyone else. You're always comparing yourself with others. And we know that because pride by its very nature is competitive. It is a competition for supremacy with other people. And it's a really sad state of affairs when the proclaimed people of God take on a heart of pride. It's like what C.S. Lewis said in Mere Christianity, as long as you are proud, you cannot know God. A proud man is always looking down on things and people. And of course, as long as you are looking down, you cannot see something that is above you, right? Your heart is lifted up. You're always looking down on other people. And if you're always looking down on other people, You're not looking at the one thing that's above you. The one thing that would say, oh, I remember there's God way, way, way above me. The one who's sending down and continues to send down all these wonderful blessings. You have forgotten him long ago. You forgot him when you became proud. You forgot him when you failed to bring to remembrance your dependence on his grace and mercy. And Deuteronomy echoes today just as powerfully. Don't do that. Don't forget God. See, prosperity does not merely fill barns that can quietly inflate the heart. Pride is not the loud rebellion it always seems to be. It is silent independence. That's the problem. When dependence turns into independence, and independence turns into autonomy, when we see ourselves as independent from God, suddenly, positively, we want to run our lives. We want to do things the way that we see fit. And if God's commands are somehow interfering or or we see them as oppressive, we're just going to walk away from them. We're going to see them as optional when they are key to the Christian. Pride forgets God. Narrowing it down, pride is of course fixated on the self. Pride, first of all, is self-reliant. Above all, we want to look at what pride does. Pride is self-reliance. It quietly shifts your trust from God's provision to your own ability, saying, I no longer need God, but rather, yeah, I've got this. And here's the result. Secondly, pride is self-congratulatory. A person who is proud is always talking about their accomplishments rather than what God has accomplished. It's a very, very simple crossover here. If you want to assess your pride, ask yourself, how often, how often am I congratulating myself? How often am I talking about my own merits, my own accomplishments? Then you'll know how proud you are. Or if you still don't, hopefully some faithful brother will tell you, hey man, you talk about yourself a lot. Maybe time for some heart examination. Yeah, that's what pride does not do. It does not self-examine. It selfs all over the place. It does not examine self. Thirdly, pride is self-protective. It resists correction, refuses repentance, and justifies weakness instead of mortifying the flesh. Where humility runs toward the light, willing to be exposed, desiring correction and exhortation, what pride does is it builds shade. Like Jonah, it sits under a gourd and tries to find protection from the exposing heat of God's word. Pride is self-promotional, just like self-congratulatory, it longs to be known, it longs to be seen, admired, and most of all, it longs to be affirmed. If you are proud, you will constantly be looking for the approval of men. Because that approval will justify your continuing in a prideful disposition. It wants to be admired and affirmed for all these things rather than for Christ's sake. Pride is not content with being faithful. It just wants to be noticed. It is always saying, look at me, whereas humility says, look at Christ, look what he has accomplished, look what he has done. Here's another thing that we often might not think of in terms of pride. Pride is self-interpretive. Mark this down. Pride is self-interpretive. What this means is that pride reads the blessings of God as endorsements of personal and privatized righteousness. It sees blessings and says, God surely approves of what I'm doing, right? When sometimes, it can be the opposite. When you see these blessings of God, it could mean that He has given you over to this thing. He has given you over to pride. And He's going to let you be broken on it. Pride mistakes mercy for merit and grace for validation. Now, of course, we want God's approval. But blessing does not always mean that God approves of what we do. You have to remember, God is gracious. Even when we are proud, God continues to be gracious. And He may continue to give us good, but we shouldn't take that to mean automatically that God approves of my attitude, that He approves of what I am doing. He may hate it when we have to come to grips with that. Pride ultimately is self-worship. It enthrones the self where God alone should reign. Be careful. You try to usurp God's throne, that may bring swift destruction, my friends. Swift discipline. This kind of self-worship replaces the glory of God with the glory of man. You know what we call that today? Confidence. Success. Those are just code words for self-worship. That's just code words in a culture that has lost its way, that has lost its desire to worship. Pride ultimately leads to forgetting. Once the heart is lifted up, the Lord is forgotten. So you see the important sequence of things. In the midst of God's blessing, if you become proud, you will forget God. This is so tragic, this is so sad, and this is a grave warning for the church. We don't want to forget. Rather, we remember. This is where repentance begins. This is where repentance from pride begins, is that we call to mind deliberately God's grace and goodness. so that we act in light of truth, we orient life in response to God, and we keep God central in obedience, and most importantly, our... This is the thing, forgetting God. When we forget God, it is not merely losing some key information about Him, like we've erased some data on the computer of our brain, right? It's more of... I guess the way of putting it is it's more of like losing submission. It's more of like losing affection, not just information. We've talked about that again and again. Here's the point. You can say a prayer. You can say the most wordy, lofty, well-meaning prayer during Thanksgiving and still forget God. You can be here and sing hymns and still forget God. You can come to the Lord's table and still forget God. We can enjoy this whole time together. We can feast on sandwiches after worship today, and you can still forget God. Because forgetting God is not merely a lapse in memory, it is a shift in trust. Forgetting God points so much more to what you trust in, more than it does simply, and that's why in this we are called to humble ourselves. and remember deliberately what God has done. A life that remembers never forgets, mark this, a life that remembers never forgets who brought you out of slavery, who saved you, and never forgets who fed you when you had nothing, and never forgets who sustained you when you could not meet your own needs. It remembers who blessed you when you did not deserve it. It is the attitude which continually asks, what do I have that I didn't receive? And of course, the answer is nothing. It's all from God who provides exceedingly abundantly above all. We keep in mind that God is generous, that God never gives me what I deserve and praise him for that. God gives most of us, God gives us what Christ deserves. That's the very reality of grace in which we live. And so the antidote to pride becomes remembrance. Remembers what Christ has done. And so this is the call to look to Christ. Think about what Christ did. Could we say that Christ remembered? Absolutely. Not only did he never forget, he remembered. He is the model of calling to mind God's grace and provision. See, this is the beauty of this. As the church of the living God, as the body of Christ, we don't have to look to Israel as an example. We look to Israel more of a warning than anything. But we look to Christ, the true Israel. Israel forgot the Lord, but Jesus never did. Where Israel trusted bread, Christ trusted the Word of His Father. Where Israel grumbled and complained, Christ entrusted Himself to the Father. Where Israel became proud, Christ humbled Himself to death, even the death of a cross, as Philippians 2 says. And because Christ remembered the Father perfectly, we who forget Him daily may be forgiven entirely. Once again, the beauty of the Gospel. the beauty of grace. And so that is what we call to mind today, that even if we are rich and live in abundance, we humble ourselves and recognize that this is all from God. That's why 1 Timothy 6, Paul instructs Timothy, charge the rich not to be proud. Charge them not to be conceited or self-reliant. Ecclesiastes 5 reminds us that wealth cannot ultimately satisfy. Revelation 3, the letter to Laodicea reminds us to not say that we have need of nothing. It warns us against forgetting God because we have so much. And then we go on to 15 and 16, we remember this again. He led you through a great and terrible wilderness. We referred that back to an earlier point. I think something that stands out with its fiery serpents, remember when the fiery serpents came, what was the result of? It was Israel murmuring. It was Israel complaining. It was Israel accusing God of wrongdoing. Casting aspersions on His holiness and grace. What do we see in this? Yes, we see judgment, but we also see forgiveness because in that the bronze serpent was put up and all who looked to it were healed. That even in their rebellion, the Lord forgave them and fed them manna and continued to preserve them so that they would live to see the promises of God. So the fourth lesson is recognizing. Recognizing the source of all power. Look at verse 17 and 18. Otherwise you may say in your heart, my power and the strength of my hand made this wealth. But you shall remember the Lord your God, for it is He who is giving you power to make wealth, that He may confirm His covenant which He swore to your fathers as it is this day. Now, none of us wants to say it is by my power and strength. We learn from King Nebuchadnezzar walking out in his sweet balcony in his palace in Babylon. This guy was just living the good life. He was king of the Gentiles. God had put him over this kingdom of Babylon. He made him a despot. He probably had more unilateral power than any of the kings that came after him. And what did he say? He questioned in his heart, here is a man who forgot God. And God was faithful to remind him of who's really running things. But he said, is this not Babylon which I have built? Oh, that's a bad sign. But Nebuchadnezzar kept talking and gave himself credit, congratulated himself, patted himself on the back for this Babylon that he had built. And then of course, immediately a voice from heaven came out and essentially condemned what he said and then consigned Nebuchadnezzar for a season to live like a wild beast. so that his heart would be humbled, right? So he would not lift up his heart any longer and know that it is the God of heaven. It is the Lord who gives kingdoms, who gives power and authority and can also take it away. And when Nebuchadnezzar realized that and he repented and then he was restored to his throne. This is the thing you may say in your heart, my friends, this is so important. This is what it comes down to. What is going on in your heart? What is your heart saying? And it's secret corners, right? You may talk a big game about humility and dependence upon God, but what is going on in your heart? And it's most private, deep recesses. Are you battling pride or are you secretly hoping that people would affirm and acknowledge just how great and hardworking and godly you are? Are you saying this is your power and strength? acknowledge that this all comes from God. My power and the strength of my hand made me this wealth. It is the Lord that makes wealthy. It is the Lord that can bring one down to poverty even. But he says this, but you shall remember, once again that key word, call to mind deliberately and examine and consider the Lord your God for it is he who is giving you power to make wealth. This is so important because sometimes we are so afraid of wealth, we are so afraid of abundance. We don't have to fear it if we acknowledge that it is the Lord who gives and sustains it and that we give Him the worship due His name for it. Some of you, yes, some of you do desire to be rich. You desire to have an abundance. And I can only advise you and exhort you and then pray for you that you pursue wealth so that you may advance the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ who owns that wealth in the first place. It is from His permission and providence that you are able to attain wealth. So if you do pursue wealth, don't wear yourself out doing it. Don't idolize wealth. Be content with how the Lord blesses you, but use it so that you may bless others. That is the true reflection of A heart that knows that everything, including wealth, comes from God. So being wealthy isn't sinful, in spite of living in a culture that routinely condemns the rich and envies the wealthy. But he says this, it is He who is giving you power to make wealth, so let's use that for His glory, that He may confirm His covenant which He swore to your fathers as it is this day. So we understand here that the Lord continued to uphold that covenant, to keep His promise, and one way of expressing that was giving them the power to make wealth. So that's the core sin that we want to be aware of. My power and the might of my hand. But God says, you worked, but I empowered. You worked, but I gave. You farmed, but I made the rain. Just like we say, God gives the increase. Some may sow, some may water, but ultimately it is God who brings the increase. So God does not deny or disparage our efforts. He calls us to labor, but what God denies is a proud autonomy. That's what we are on guard against, and that's what we repent from. It's not to the industrious hand, but to a generous God. Once again, what do you have that you did not receive? Don't be like the people in James. It says, tomorrow we will go and do this or that. Tomorrow we will go and we will make money. Your life is a vapor, understand that. Before the living God, your life is a vapor and you're completely dependent upon Him. So don't say these things in a proud way. I mentioned this quote last night to someone. You want to make God laugh? Tell Him your plans. Tell Him your plans rather than submitting your plans. It's easy to thank God for salvation and of His sovereignty and His providence. So, fifthly and finally, here's the warning that we can all leave with today. Verses 19 and 20, this is facing, that is facing the certainty of judgment for forgetfulness. It shall come about if you ever forget the Lord your God and go after other gods and serve them and worship them. So guys, keep in mind, this is a dedicated forgetfulness. He's not talking about a forgetfulness. That is, you know, temporary. We forget and then we remind ourselves again. We repent from that forgetfulness. This is a dedicated way of life kind of forgetfulness. How do we know? Because this kind of forgetfulness goes after other gods. This is deliberate. This is purposeful. A humble remembrance turns against and repents from forgetfulness because it recognizes the danger of going off into apostate idolatry. But he says, go after other gods and serve them and worship them. And this is what Israel did, even up to allowing their children to pass through the fire, offering their children as burnt offerings, completely thereby destroying their heritage. He says, I testify to you this day that you will surely perish. Again, make no doubt, the Lord is not going to forget this. You will surely perish like the nations that the Lord makes to perish. See, the nations are the ones that are supposed to perish and buckle before you because I go before you to conquer. So you shall perish. You're gonna become like the nations if you forget me, because you would not listen to the voice of the Lord, your God. See, God does not whisper here, he thunders. All can hear, all are without excuse, including us. The danger of forgetting God. The danger is not in losing possessions, it's losing remembrance. Guard, let us guard our hearts against that, against that kind of sin. Let us not sin against the Lord. And so we've come full circle, that Israel will not fall by accident, but by amnesia. They will forget. They will forget their Redeemer. They will forget their Rescuer. They will forget their Savior. They will forget their Provider. They will forget the Covenant. They will just forget God's promises. That is the not listening to the voice of the Lord. See, when memory dies, And this is a willful suppression. We think of Romans 121, although they knew God, right? They had a knowledge of God. The problem was that they didn't have any awareness of the true and living God of scripture. No, they knew God and they did not honor him as God or give thanks. But what did they do? They suppressed the truth and unrighteousness. They held the truth down deliberately. That is what the unbeliever does. And that is what Israel does. They had the oracles of God. They had the truth. They had it written down. There was no confusion. They couldn't accuse God of being vague or unclear. No, they took the truth of what they knew and they deliberately forgot it. It was a willful forgetfulness. They suppressed that truth in unrighteousness. And so we're warned from Hebrews, we must pay close attention to this or otherwise we may drift. And we go to Judges 2. What happened to this generation that is so tragic? They forgot the Lord. They forgot the Lord. And I understand we're not under the law, we're under grace. We're not under the old covenant, we are under the new. But the Lord is still faithful to discipline. We are still warned from the New Testament scriptures about apostasy from the gospel. About wandering from the truth that is once for all given to the saints. Let us not be the generation that forgets the Lord. If we forget the Lord, what will become of future generations? Let us be faithful, rather, to be thankful, to be visibly thankful, so that our children will also be thankful. If we complain, if we are a generation of complainers and murmurers, our children are just going to follow that example. They're also going to be thankless, and they will forget God, and they will not obey the Lord. Let us rather be a generation who remembers and trains our children to also remember all the good things that the Lord has given us and His great salvation in Christ. See, I don't think so much we're in danger of persecution, my friends. We're in danger of passive politeness toward God. That's the danger. A politeness that forgets. A politeness that will not praise and will not rejoice. And so today, The exhortation is simple. It is to remember. Remember your salvation. Remember your helplessness. Remember your Redeemer. Remember your provider. Remember your frailty. Remember your utter inability to stand before God apart from the righteousness of Christ. Think about this. Just as He did not allow the garments to wear out, so the garment of salvation, the garment of righteousness will never wear out. God will preserve us. like He did His people. We are not at risk of God failing us. So let us return to a prayer without pretense, a worship without formality, and obedience without delay. and faith without unbelief. I think it's so important to call that to mind. Let that be characteristic of us. Let that be our prayer. Who remembers. And knowing that when we remember, we will worship. And if we worship, we will also love. So I will close with this. The book of Jude. It's His benediction to them. reminder that we are kept in the power of God now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to make you stand in the presence of his glory blameless with great joy to the only God our Savior through Jesus Christ our Lord be glory majesty dominion and authority before all time and now and forever amen let us remember these precious words from Deuteronomy as we close in prayer. Bow your heads with me. Our Lord, we are grateful to come to you. We can reflect on this Thanksgiving season that points to the importance of having a full belly and not empty hearts, not empty heads who forget the wonders you have performed in our midst. The wonder, the greatest wonder of all, of Christ's death and resurrection. and You're calling us to be united with Him in faith, to experience all the graces, all of the blessings that are really innumerable. I pray, God, that that would be characteristic of us. We would be a thankful people, that we would be those who remember, who hold your salvation up, who hold Your Word up. Consider it carefully. Examine it. Who see their purpose in it. Lord, to heed these warnings against forgetting, to not forget all that You have done for us, that even what Israel went through was just a foretaste of the grandeur of salvation that You would give us. The great exodus from sin and death to be called into Your marvelous light. and to walk in Your grace by faith. Lord, help this attitude of thanksgiving continue. Help it to be characteristic, an attitude that we can model and teach and exemplify to our children and all who are entrusted to our spiritual care. We don't want to be those who grumble and complain and forget You on purpose. So help us, God. We recognize that even this, even remembering You is an act of Your grace. And so may Your grace be reflected again to us, shown to us again in abundant measure, that we would walk in the knowledge of Your provision. Help us not to forget, Lord, but help us to remember all these things. In Jesus' precious name, Amen.