Dear congregations, today is a day to look back. On the one hand, to be thankful for the many blessings that the Lord has showered upon us. And secondly, it is a day to look back and to be humbled for our many failings, our sins, and our deficiencies in the year that is now almost past. But it is also a time to think and reflect and remember, on the basis of God's word, that the purposes of God, they stand forever. And the purposes that he has designed for, also in the year that is now almost past, they were there. If only we have eyes to see it, we'll be the better for it. And it's especially to this matter of God's purposes in Providence that the passage that we read together directs us. And it's important to hear what God himself says about his purposes and his dealings with the children of men. And to seek based on his word to understand what those purposes are also for ourselves. and also why difficult things, trying things, take place in our life, of which many of us had quite a share in the year that is now almost done. Indeed, this was a year of undeserved mercy, but also of many trials, and let us hear from God's Word what He would have us to know as we reflect by the light of His Word on this. Now please turn with me to our text which you can find in Deuteronomy 8 and verse 2 through 3 especially. Deuteronomy 8 verse 2 and 3. And thou shalt remember all the way which the Lord thy God led thee these 40 years in the wilderness to humble thee and to prove thee to know what was in thine heart, whether thou wouldest keep his commandments or no. And he humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna, which thou knewest not. Neither did thy fathers know that he might make thee know that man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord doth man live." Thus far the words of our text. The theme looking to the Lord is remember all the way the Lord led. We'll see first of all God's hand, secondly God's purpose, and thirdly God's provision. God's hand. The book of Deuteronomy records Moses' last sermon to the children of Israel. They are on the border of the promised land, the plains of Moab. And Moses, the servant of the Lord, would not be going with them. But God's word would be going with them. And as he stands on this border and he speaks to these people, he speaks about what awaits them on the other side, that the Lord is bringing them into an inheritance that they have not deserved, that they have not purchased, but that the Lord is freely and graciously giving unto them. But he also looks back and he tells the people to look back and to remember and not forget the Lord. and not forget his covenant. They're liable to do so, given who they are, and the same applies to us. The human heart is so liable to forget. the deeds of the Lord, and especially when things go well, to take credit to ourselves for that, when it has been solely the Lord who has given us prosperity, if that is our case. And so in the words of our text, the Lord says, remember, and that is a divine calling. That is a command, remember. Do not forget, put yourself and your mind to recall what God has done. It's not optional. So congregation, tonight, should we not harness our thoughts, should we not focus our minds as the Lord commands us to do so and to look at all that has happened, at least to a certain extent. And what Moses is speaking about here in terms of remembering, he's speaking about providence. God's providence is that whereby he upholds everything, small things, big things, so that nothing happens by chance. God is directing every event in this vast universe of ours but also personally in our lives in such a way that he is ordering everything to his glory and to his honor and his hand is in everything. It's there in prosperity when he gives crops and blessings and houses as he talks about here and other evidences of his mercy. It's the Lord's hand. It's of his mercies that we are not consumed. And even in the wilderness, wanderings of the people of Israel, they had many mercies. And the chapter speaks, especially in verses seven through 13, about water from the rock and manna that they ate. And it even says that the people's clothing did not wear out and their feet did not swell. The Lord took care of his people. In such a detailed way. The hair on their head was numbered. And the Lord took care of them in a wonderful way. But Moses' special focus in these verses is the difficulties that Israel had to meet with in the wilderness. And isn't that what wilderness speaks of? Desert life. A wilderness is inhospitable, desolate, uncomfortable, with threats, with difficulties. Especially when you consider the people of Israel, millions of people, how do you feed them in a wilderness? How do you give them to drink in a wilderness? How do you protect them from heat by day and from cold by night? Wilderness. 40 years. in a desolate place. God's people also meet with wildernesses in their experience and in their lives, difficulties, dry places, hard struggles and trials. All of life, this side of eternity, On this side of that inheritance, incorruptible and undefiled, is in a certain sense a wilderness in comparison to that eternal Canaan, which will be yours, people of God, one day. But until then, there's much in the way of wilderness. And the remarkable thing is, is that Moses says, remember the way that the Lord led you in the wilderness. And that is striking because the wilderness may have many things, but it doesn't have a way. There's no roads through Sinai, at least not at this time, that people could go. The wilderness, in fact, for the people of Israel was pretty much going in circles. It was one long series of detours where they made no headway. They felt stuck, desolate, aimless, without a way out. Do some of us feel like this past year has been like that? No clear path, a trackless waste. Whatever ways you try to carve for yourself, they prove to be dead ends. And it feels at the end of this year like you're not much further than you were at the beginning of the year. You see, congregation, God's providence is a mysterious thing. On the surface, it makes no human sense, God's providence. But underneath there is a way. God leads his people, even in the wilderness, by a way. He has a road that he leads them on. Even if from our perspective it seems like a detour, even if from our perspective it seems like a circle, there is a way. Remember all the way the Lord led you. Shall we not do that this evening congregation? And may we do so then by faith, because faith trusts the Lord at his word. So that even if we don't see a way, and we don't feel like there's a way, if God says there is a way, and that he's leading by a way that we don't know, then faith rests. He leadeth me. O blessed thought, O words with heavenly comfort fraught, whate'er I do, where'er I be, still, tis still God's hand that leadeth me. Remember all the way the Lord God led you. Shall we now pray this evening? Teach me thy way. Help me not to go my own way, but lead me on thy way, which alone is good. Well, this is then, first of all, God's hand that leads his people in providence, but we come now, secondly, to God's purpose in it all. Because Moses says here, and thou shalt remember all the way which the Lord thy God led thee these 40 years in the wilderness, and then he says three things, and hold on to these three things, to humble thee, and to prove thee, and to know what was in thine heart, whether thou wouldest keep his commandments or no. You know, when we look at providence and think about providence and even pray for providence, we look for good things, for the Lord's provision. And indeed, we'll come to speak about that. But when God looks at providence, one of his concerns, and here in our text, the major concern is, how can I humble these people? You see, by nature, congregation, we're proud. We seek our own honor and glory. Even after received grace, it's bound up in our hearts to seek our own praise and glory. But God wills it differently. God makes a humble people. And God desires to have his people humble. Why? because he dwells with those that are of a humble heart, a contrite heart, and who tremble at his word. That's where God has the preeminence. That's where God comes, and he is everything. And as we said earlier, man is nothing, but God is everything, and that's the best. That's how it ought to be. Because congregation, there's no one like God. Man in no way, sinful man, can ever be enough, can ever be sufficient. We need God, and God is good, and God is beautiful, and God is wise, and God is merciful, and God is all his attributes. And should we not then be in the dust before God, and God supreme over all? Humble yourselves. under the mighty hand of God, James says. That's the blessed life, that's the good life. There where I am small, I am at his feet and he is on the throne and he rules and he reigns and he controls everything. And it's not me controlling God or controlling my circumstances and controlling people, but I will hear what God the Lord will speak. Speak, Lord, thy servant heareth. Reign supreme. Be king in the midst of thy people. And for that congregation, we need to be humble. And the Lord humbles us. The Lord takes care of that in Providence. And also this past year, when you think of all the different ways that God led you, don't you see his humbling hand? If all of us could see by divine light God's hand in our life, even just in this past year, the many times He humbled us with cares and concerns, with trials, with difficulties, with confusion, with limitations, not knowing what to do, where to go, stopping us all of a sudden, With a doctor's verdict. With a test that we had to go through. Seemingly routine, but with unexpected numbers. Things happening in our family circle. Loved ones taken away. Some even plucked out of life in the very morning of their years. There one day, gone the next. Humble yourself under the mighty hand of God. Should we not do that tonight? Take that low place. Say, God, I've sinned against thee, not worthy of the least of thy mercies. Lord, help me to know who I am. Teach me who I am, how short my life is, how the nations are but dust in the balances, and what then am I? A speck of dust. To really truly know that place is good when God does this in our lives by His grace. And He makes us to stand in awe of Him. And in your heart of hearts you realize God is God and there is none else. And he is good and he is gracious. And so long I've lived as if I were God or somehow shared the throne with God. But this is the blessed place. This is the one thing needful that Mary understood when she sat at the feet of Jesus and he spoke into her. and she hung on his lips, and he was everything, and she was nothing. Remember all the way that the Lord has led you, to humble you. And then it says here secondly, to prove you. Providence congregation is for testing. That's where we get our word trials from. When you undergo trials, well, the Lord is trying you. Children and young people, when you're in school, you can't avoid tests. There's no school that I know of that doesn't have some way of testing students. There may be a diversity in how they do it, but the great question in tests is, what have you learned? What have you absorbed? What have you internalized? What are you able to do, having been taught all these things? And the young people here know that tests are stressful. They make you anxious, don't they? You wish you could avoid them. But tests are important because they tell your teachers and they tell you yourself, especially as you go on in life, what you don't know and where you are lacking and how you need to grow and where your deficiencies are. And so, too, providence is constantly testing us. God is irradiating our hearts and testing us and proving us, especially in difficulties. Thou hast tried us and proved us, the psalmist says, as silver is tried. In verse six, Moses talks about how, whom the Lord loves, he chastens. That's another way to look at it too. That providence, trying providences are God's discipline in our life. And again, when you think of discipline, you think of school. You need discipline. And if you won't discipline yourself, then your teachers will discipline you, or your parents will discipline you. We need discipline. And the Lord disciplines out of love, and he proves us. Because, congregation, there is a lot of dross in our lives. A lot that has to come to the surface and that the Lord has to take away. Don't you find that? Also, as you get older, it doesn't really become better, does it? There's still a lot of that dross that comes bubbling up, especially in trials and afflictions. When everything is going smoothly, you hardly realize how much unbelief is in your heart, how much bitterness, hardness of heart, hard thoughts of God. But like someone has said, you have some You have a jar with water in it, and you have some sediment at the bottom. And if it's just sitting there on the shelf, all the sediment is at the bottom, and it looks pretty good. But once you start to shake it, the whole thing turns cloudy and dark. And that's our heart. And the Lord is proving us in order to purge us. He's chastening us. in order that there would be the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who are exercised thereby. What did this past year show in terms of God's proving work in our lives? What did it yield? I hear some of you saying, and I join you in it, that really it didn't yield much good. It yielded scary views of self. What did you do with that? Did you say, search me, O God, and know my heart? Try me and know my thoughts and all those wicked ways that are there in my heart. Lord, remove them. Lead me in the way everlasting. That's how we need to live under God's providence. Well, that God would enable us to see his humbling hand, his proving hand. And then thirdly here, he says, to know what was in thine heart, whether thou wouldest keep his commandments or no. Well, doesn't the Lord know what's in my heart? Yes, he does. But he wants to bring it to the surface so that you might know. That you'd know your heart for what it is. To have some self-knowledge, to have some heart knowledge. My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. It also includes self-knowledge. In light of who God is. What doesn't feel good, we don't like it, but we need it. Why do we need it? In order to drive us out of ourselves. To drive us with our sinful hearts. to the one who has the purest heart that ever lived on our world. That's what the Lord is after. And that's where our text leads us and ends. That we would know what is in thine heart, whether thou wouldest keep his commandments or no. And then it goes on to say, and that he might make thee know. The man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of thy mouth, out of the mouth of the Lord doth a man live. I wonder, congregation, if in this past year you were made to know something of that. that God in his providence and by his word had dealings with your soul so as to make you know that you cannot live from your own heart, that you need a better heart, that you need God's heart, that you need Christ's heart. Remember, Rachel, when it comes down to it, what we need most of all is one view of our own evil heart, and to run with that to the Christ of God, whose heart is so gloriously pure, holy, harmless, undefiled. And oh, how was that heart not tested? How was it not proved? How was the Lord not humbled? Even in the wilderness, those 40 days in which all the trials imaginable were put upon Christ in his human nature, and Satan was let loose, and the beasts upon him there in the wilderness, and what was Satan's temptation? To not live by the word of God alone. He said to the Lord Jesus, Here's some stones, turn them into bread." And what did the Lord Jesus say? He said, Satan, it is written, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God shall a man live. and their congregation is my Savior. And there is the one that I need, because when Satan comes my way, I can't turn stones into bread, but I act as if I can, because I take lifeless things, and I eat them, and I live from them, as if they could give me happiness, as if they are my life, money, pleasure, silver, gold, whatever it is. But here's one, and he comes in the gospel, and there I see him, and he says, I will live from my Father's word alone. That's my delight. That's what feeds my soul. That's my life. And I say, I need that. I need that. And congregation, this is God's provision. As we see in our third and last and final point, and that briefly, God's provision. And he humbled thee and suffered thee to hunger and fed thee with manna which thou knewest not. Neither did thy fathers know that he might make thee know that man doth not live by bread only. But by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord doth man live." Why does God put people in the wilderness? Why did God put you in the wilderness? Why did he humble you this year? Why did he prove you this year? Why did he make you take a look inside your heart and make you see all those evil things? It's because in the gospel, he has his arms stretched out, and he says, I have bread that you may eat of, that once you eat of it, you will never die. You will live forever. In congregation, his hands and his heart are full of life, and he gives it freely to sinners. He showed it even in the manna. That angel's food which the Lord dropped or rained from heaven, here were these murmuring people. And God said, you wait. Tomorrow morning, look outside your tents. And the people did. The Lord had mercifully spread the whole wilderness with manna. You couldn't go out of your tent without stepping on the manna. And God was, as it were, saying, I have bread for you, which if you eat, you will live forever. That's what manna symbolized. And these people were excited, and they ate, but they ended in the manna. And then they became sick and tired of the manna, and they grumbled, and they murmured again. And God had to send plagues and quails, and he would make them know their hearts. Kibberoth hatahava, which means graves of greediness. Those people so ate these quails that they sickened themselves and they died. And God was showing them their heart, but all the while his arms were outstretched still and he said, open wide thy mouth and I will fill it. I would fill thee with the finest of wheat, with honey from the rock. I am your life. I am the bread of life. Have you tasted and seen that the Lord is good? I mean that seriously. Answer that before the Lord tonight. The word has been preached. In a certain sense, you could say that the word was dropped like the manna outside the tents of the Israel, and you had to step on it wherever you went. But did you eat it? Did you eat the bread that is Christ? Did you live out of his word? Did you take his word and eat it? How do I do that, you ask? You do that by faith, trusting what God says about himself and about his word as a sinner and nothing more. You don't bring anything to it in the sense of your own law-keeping, your own credentials. No. With all the need of your soul, with all the hunger of your heart as a sinner, as a wretched sinner and nothing more, you devour the word of God which he gives so freely. Congregation, that's been God's aim in this year that's almost passed. Have you eaten? Have you eaten of Christ? As we close this evening congregation, I have a few questions. As you and I remember the way that the Lord has led us, has this life been a wilderness for you this year? If so, what has it done for you? Has it made you cry for God? Has it made you need God? Has it made you look to God? Has it made you open your mouth wide and eat what God gives in his word from Christ? Have you failed the tests in the wilderness this past year? My friend, if that's you and that's me certainly, don't try to make it right on your own. Don't go into the new year and say, you know, I really failed at 2021, but 2022 I'm gonna do better. Every test God sends my way, I'm gonna pass. I'm gonna do the best I can. My friend, you'll fail the first test God brings your way. Live out of Christ. Live from the obedience of Christ and the righteousness of Christ. From every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God should a man eat. Don't try to come up with bread yourself. Lean on Christ, look to Christ, he's everything. And he's right there for the eating and for the asking. Are you confused about God's way in your life? Has it been circular in your life, just meandering, just not making any progress? My friend, Christ is everything. Nigh thee is the word, even in thy mouth and in thine heart, the word of faith, which we proclaim. Whatever you've done or not done this year, end it with Christ. My friend, and is your own heart evil? Do you say, you know, this text talks about that God would make us to know my own evil heart. Well, I know my heart, and it is evil. Well, my friend, don't stay where you are. Don't just enter this new year just there with your evil heart, but go to God with your evil heart and say, God, be merciful to me, a sinner. Look upon me in and through the Lord Jesus Christ. View me through him. My unconverted friend, many people perished in the wilderness. They went around and around and around and God was humbling them, God was proving them, God was making them to know what was in their heart and what did they do with it? Simply ended in themselves. They perished, why? They perished because of unbelief. They would not trust the living God. They would not trust the Christ of God. Congregation, as we close the services in God's house this year, the Lord tells us, remember all the way that I led you. The good things, the blessings, the beauty that there was this year. Oh, to be thankful for that. It's of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed. Remember all the way the Lord has led, but also remember the difficulties, and remember that those difficulties are there in order to drive you out of yourself to Christ. Oh, that God's humbling mercies would not be lost on us. Dear friends, eternity is real, and it's close. We've seen it recently. People who were here are now gone into eternity. The thin curtain that separates us from eternity, you can simply be whisked away. It doesn't take much, a second, one misstep, one accident, and you're there. And where the tree falls, there will lie. And there will be no more turning and no more eating Christ if you haven't tasted him now. Young people, children, it's for you too. Christ is a savior to the uttermost. Don't go on with your own evil hearts. Don't go on for the things that seem to be so real and the things that look like they're gonna satisfy you. But today, while you hear His voice, harden not your heart, but take whatever trial God has seen fit to send your way, no matter how small. No matter what view you have of your own heart, even the smallest view of your own sin, run with it to Christ and find everything in Him. This year, don't delay till next year. but feed on Christ, and you will be truly, truly happy. Amen.