When You Have Eaten and Are Full

When You Have Eaten and Are Full

“When You Have Eaten And Are Full”
(Deuteronomy 8:10-20)
Thanksgiving Message

Rev. Todd A. Linn, PhD

Henderson’s First Baptist Church, Henderson

Please take your Bibles and join me in Deuteronomy chapter 8.

With Thanksgiving this week we are looking at a passage of Scripture that directs our hearts and minds upward to the one who gives every good and perfect gift.

The background of chapter 8 is the gathering together of God’s people at the Jordan River, preparing to cross over and enter into the land God has promised them. The people have wandered 40 years in the desert; their punishment for disobeying God and not trusting Him, and now they are ready to enter and take possession of the Promised Land, the fruitful land of Canaan.

Before they cross over, their leader Moses, preaches a sermon to them, and the sermon is largely a repetition of the Law as given in Exodus and Leviticus. The word Deuteronomy means second law, not second as an additional, but second in the sense of repetition or repeating, going over the law a second time.

Like a father talking to his children before they go off to school: “Now remember, do this, don’t do this.”

Please stand in honor of the reading of God’s Word

10 When you have eaten and are full, then you shall bless the Lord your God for the good land which He has given you.
11 “Beware that you do not forget the Lord your God by not keeping His commandments, His judgments, and His statutes which I command you today,
12 lest—when you have eaten and are full, and have built beautiful houses and dwell in them;
13 and when your herds and your flocks multiply, and your silver and your gold are multiplied, and all that you have is multiplied;
14 when your heart is lifted up, and you forget the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage;
15 who led you through that great and terrible wilderness, in which were fiery serpents and scorpions and thirsty land where there was no water; who brought water for you out of the flinty rock;
16 who fed you in the wilderness with manna, which your fathers did not know, that He might humble you and that He might test you, to do you good in the end—
17 then you say in your heart, ‘My power and the might of my hand have gained me this wealth.’
18 “And you shall remember the Lord your God, for it is He who gives you power to get wealth, that He may establish His covenant which He swore to your fathers, as it is this day.
19 Then it shall be, if you by any means forget the Lord your God, and follow other gods, and serve them and worship them, I testify against you this day that you shall surely perish.
20 As the nations which the Lord destroys before you, so you shall perish, because you would not be obedient to the voice of the Lord your God.

•Pray.

Our message this morning comes from the first words of our passage there in verse 10: “When You have eaten and are full.”

Many of us are blessed to be with family this week and we’ll enjoy a Thanksgiving meal and gather around the table with family and friends and we will feast! There will be all kinds of food in homes across our country—turkey, ham, potatoes, gravy, stuffing, corn, cranberry something or other, and all kinds of cakes, pies, and other treats. And we will eat and will be full.

God tells His people back at the Jordan River: “Hey, you’re getting ready to enter into an abundant land of blessing. And you will eat all kinds of wonderful foods. And when you have eaten and are full, I want to caution you to never forget who gave you everything you have.”

When you have eaten and are full. It’s interesting, you know: It is never when we don’t have things that we are most likely to forget the Lord, it is when we do have things, when we do have an abundance, when we have eaten and are full. This is when we are most likely to forget the one who gave us everything and made everything possible. When we have eaten and are full.

So this passage is all about remembering the One who has provided all we enjoy. The reminders God gives the Israelites as they prepare to enjoy God’s blessings are helpful to us as we prepare to enjoy His blessings this week. Three reminders:

I. Remember His Provision (10-14, 15b-16)

10 When you have eaten and are full, then you shall bless (or praise) the Lord your God for the good land which He has given you.

Provision means what God has provided, supplied, given. “Bless the Lord your God for the good land which He has given you.” God gives all we have. Again James 1:17, “Every good and perfect gift comes from above.”

So the Bible says, “Remember this. Don’t forget.” There’s a caution here, a warning, verse 11:

11 “Beware that you do not forget the Lord your God by not keeping His commandments, His judgments, and His statutes which I command you today,
Beware that you do not forget God. Beware that you do not forget to keep His commandments, His judgments, His statutes.

God entered into a covenant of grace with His people at Mount Sinai. Through Moses God said, “You’re going to be my special, chosen people. And not because you are better than anyone else or deserving of it, but just because I love you.” In fact you can look over into chapter 9 and God tells His people straight out, “Don’t say to yourself that God is giving us this land because of our righteousness and uprightness of our heart!” Verse 6:

6 Therefore understand that the Lord your God is not giving you this good land to possess because of your righteousness, for you are a stiff-necked people.

This was a covenant of grace, not law. God had already set His affection upon His people, not because they were good people or deserved it, but because He loved them. All they had to do was keep the commandments, judgments, and statutes while they were in the land. They kept the commands not to earn favor and blessing, but to enjoy favor and blessing. Such love of God! Did you know the God of the Old Testament is a God of love?!

This covenant of grace is the same for the New Covenant people, Christians. God sets His affection upon those whom He saves by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. It’s not that those whom He saves are good people or deserving of His blessing, but just because God loves them. And we as followers of Christ keep His commands not to earn favor and blessing, but to enjoy favor and blessing.

So God warns through Moses that the people must beware lest they forget what God has done for them. And we are most likely to forget when “we have eaten and are full.” Verse 12:

12 lest—when you have eaten and are full, and have built beautiful houses and dwell in them;
13 and when your herds and your flocks multiply, and your silver and your gold are multiplied, and all that you have is multiplied;

See where God is going here? Look at what all He has provided: food to eat, beautiful houses in which to dwell, herds and flocks, silver and gold, and “all you have” verse 13. All you have. Verse 14:

14 when your heart is lifted up (as in pride), and you forget the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage;

400 years of bondage, no less! Before God’s people were brought out of the land of Egypt, they were in “the house of bondage,” as slaves in Egypt. For 400 years they lived as slaves in Egyptian bondage. You can read all about it in the opening chapters of the Book of Exodus, how God sends the 10 plagues of Egypt and delivers His people. And one of the great ironies is that with all that wonder-working miraculous power of God, His people nevertheless rebelled against Him, falling into unbelief and rebellion and so God leads His people through the wilderness to humble them, to turn their hearts back to Him. And He graciously and lovingly provided for them as they wandered. Verse 16:

16 who fed you in the wilderness with manna, which your fathers did not know, that He might humble you and that He might test you, to do you good in the end—

Have you ever really thought about what it would be like to live in the desert for 40 years? Think of it: No grocery stores, no hardware stores, no clothing stores, no shopping malls, no TV, no computer, no wifi, no internet, no Netflix, no iPhones, no parks, no ball games, no restaurants—just desert.

God’s people wandered for 40 years in the desert wilderness because they disobeyed God. They failed to believe that He would give them victory when they entered into Canaan to take possession of the land He had promised them. So the previous generation, with exception to Joshua and Caleb, died out in the wilderness as the newer generation grew up in the wilderness in preparation to enter the land.

So Moses is warning the people: “Don’t forget the Lord! Don’t forget like the previous generation forgot! Remember Him when you have eaten and are full. Remember He is the one who provided all that turkey, stuffing, ham, potatoes, and so on. Remember He is the one who provided that beautiful home in which you live. He is the one who provided your silver and gold and all that you have that is multiplied.

Remember His provision. It’s so easy to forget. So easy to take for granted the blessings all around us. So easy to fail to see the beauty of God’s hand in His daily provision.

Ralph Waldo Emerson said that if the stars appeared only once every thousand years, people would do all they could to gather together that one evening and look up and behold the splendor of that event—yet, he said, every night “these envoys of beauty” appear in the sky “and light the universe with their admonishing smile.”

God provides those stars. He provides all things, even the air we breathe.

Did you know that you take in about 23,000 breaths each day? 23,000 times you breathe in oxygen, exhale carbon dioxide. 23,000 breaths a day. Ever thank God for just one of them? The Bible says in Job 12:10 that God holds in His hand, “the breath of all mankind.”

Someone said, “We tend to thank God for the things that take our breath away. And that’s fine. But maybe we should thank Him for every other breath too.”—Pastor Mark Batterson, All In (Zondervan, 2013), p. 119.

Remember His provision. Secondly:

II. Remember His Protection (15a)

15 who led you through that great and terrible wilderness, in which were fiery serpents and scorpions and thirsty land where there was no water; who brought water for you out of the flinty rock;

You see God’s protection in that? Moses describes the wilderness as, “great and terrible,” but God in His loving care led His people through the wilderness. The wilderness also contains “fiery serpents and scorpions.”

It’s as though Moses is saying, “You could have been bitten and died, but God didn’t let that happen, did He?!” Moses adds that this wilderness is a “thirsty land where there is no water,” as though he were saying, “You could have died of thirst, but God didn’t let that happen, either.” Rather, God brought water for you out of the flinty rock. In His love, God protected them and provided for them. He provided water from the rock. He also provided food from the sky.

Back up to verse 3. In verse 3 Mose says that God, “fed you with manna which you did not know nor did your fathers know.” They had never seen this food before. God specially created this food for His children, Pop-Tarts from heaven! And now, they were getting ready to enter a land in which, verse 9, “a land in which you will eat bread without scarcity.” There’ll be a Panera Bread every quarter mile! His loving care to protect and provide!

Verse 4, “Your garments did not wear out on you, nor did your foot swell these forty years.” They didn’t need clothing stores! They didn’t need to go to the doctor for swollen feet! They didn’t need “Dr. Shoals” or whatever people put into their shoes.

In His love, God cared for them, protecting and providing for them every step of the journey.

Video Clip [2:26]: “Show me what I have to be thankful for.”

When upon life’s billows you are tempest-tossed,
When you are discouraged, thinking all is lost,
Count your many blessings, name them one by one,
And it may just surprise you what the Lord has done.

Remember His Provision, Remember His Protection, thirdly:

III. Remember His Power (17-20)

And by power I mean the power to obtain, to work, to produce, God’s power to do that in and through us in contrast to our power. I am using the word power here the same way Moses uses the word in verses 17 and 18. It’s the tipping point of the warning to remember God. Moses says when you have eaten and are full, bless God, praise Him, thank Him, otherwise, you’ll pat your belly and look around at your house, your herds, your flocks, your silver, your gold—now verse 17:

17 then you say in your heart, ‘My power and the might of my hand have gained me this wealth.’
18 “And you shall remember the Lord your God, for it is He who gives you power to get wealth, that He may establish His covenant which He swore to your fathers, as it is this day.

It is He who gives you the power to get wealth. It is His power that empowers you to work, to provide for your family. There is no such thing as “a self-made man.” God empowers us to work, to get wealth, to produce, to provide. His power to supply empowers us to provide.

That’s why tithing is never an issue for the child of God. We recognize that we have what we have because He has given us the ability to have it. So we gladly give back at least 10% as the “first fruits” of what He has given us. His power to supply empowers us to provide.

How easy it is to forget! We go to Sureway and fill up our shopping carts with so many items, not always remembering it is God who gave us the power to get this. When we’re shopping, there’s a sense in which we ought to thank God every time we drop something into the cart. Thank you God for this. Thank you God for that.

You order something online. Amazon! One click shopping! When you click, say, “Thank You, God for giving me the power to get that.”

This encouragement to remember God as the one who provides, protects, and empowers culminates in a warning. Last two verses of chapter 8, verses 19 and 20:

19 Then it shall be, if you by any means forget the Lord your God, and follow other gods, and serve them and worship them, I testify against you this day that you shall surely perish.
20 As the nations which the Lord destroys before you, so you shall perish, because you would not be obedient to the voice of the Lord your God.

God’s people must remember Him. If we forget, and we begin to act like unbelievers, people who don’t pray to God, trust in God, live for God—then we have no reason to believe He even is our God. And we will perish just like the unbelievers perish, with no hope of life in Him.

See the greatest provision God has made for us is eternal life through His Son Jesus Christ. If you are saved, that’s your greatest blessing! Jesus Christ!
It’s pretty cool in 1 Corinthians 10 the Apostle Paul reminds Christians that Jesus was actually right there with God’s people when they were wandering in the desert for those 40 years. You can read it later this afternoon in 1 Corinthians 10 but Paul writes about how the Israelites drank not just physical water from the rock, but spiritual water from the Rock (Capital “R”); Paul says, “And that Rock was Christ.”

Christ Himself, Messiah, was spiritually present with God’s people, providing their needs. Christ provides all our needs—and our greatest need is to be saved from the penalty of sin. Jesus saves.

So if you’re a Christian and your family gathers together around the table, and maybe you have this tradition where each person is asked, “What do you have to be thankful for?” The number one answer for the Christian is salvation! When was the last time you sang that chorus:

Thank You, Lord, for saving my soul
Thank You, Lord, for making me whole
Thank You, Lord, for giving to me
Thy great salvation so rich and free

Let’s go to Him in prayer: “We do thank you Jesus for providing us our greatest need, salvation in your name. Continue this great work this morning, right now, in this place. You said that no one comes to you unless the Father draws him or her. So God, draw souls to yourself right now by way of your holy spirit, amen.”

We’re going to respond now to the truth of God’s Word. If you need to be saved from your sin and you sense the Father is drawing you to Jesus, while we sing I invite you to surrender, surrender your all to Him.

God is calling others of you to repent, to be baptized, to recommit your life to Christ. Surrender.

We’re going to sing our hymn of response and as we do, I’ll be up front here if you want to come forward for prayer or if you have spiritual questions or want to join the church, come. But as we sing, let’s respond, surrendering to our Lord. Let’s sing.

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