Let us read from the Word of
God. It's on the second page of your
sheet and it's from Deuteronomy. Deuteronomy chapter 8 and we'll
just read the first 16 verses. All the commandments which I
command thee this day shall ye observe to do that ye may live
and multiply and go in and possess the land which the Lord sware
unto your fathers. Thou shalt remember all the way
which the Lord thy God led thee these forty 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. Thy raiment wax not old upon
thee, neither did thy foot swell these forty years, Thou shalt
also consider in thine heart that as a man chasteneth his
son, so the Lord thy God chasteneth thee. Therefore thou shalt keep
the commandments of the Lord thy God, to walk in his ways
and to fear him. For the Lord thy God bringeth
thee into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains
and depths that spring out of valleys and hills, a land of
wheat and barley and vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a
land of oil, olive and honey, a land wherein thou shalt eat
bread without scarceness, thou shalt not lack anything in it,
a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills Thou mayest
dig brass. When Thou hast eaten and art
full, then Thou shalt bless the Lord Thy God for the good land
which He giveth Thee. Beware that Thou forget not the
Lord Thy God in not keeping His commandments and His judgments
and His statutes which I command Thee this day. Lest when thou
hast eaten, and art full, and hast built goodly houses, and
dwelt therein, and when thy herds and thy flocks multiply, and
thy silver and thy gold is multiplied, and all that thou hast is multiplied,
then thine heart be lifted up, and thou forget the Lord thy
God, which brought thee forth out of the land of Egypt, from
the house of bondage, who led thee through that great and terrible
wilderness wherein were fiery serpents and scorpions, and drought,
and where there was no water, who brought thee forth water
out of the rock of flint, who fed thee in the wilderness with
manna which thy fathers knew not, that he might humble thee,
and that he might prove thee to do thee good at thy latter
end. Thus far the reading of God's
Holy Word. I want to speak to you primarily
from verse 2 with the thought on the front of your sheet there,
Thou shalt remember all the way which the Lord thy God led thee. And just to remark on the very
last part that we read, to do thee good at thy latter end. Now, most of you are in the eventide
of your lives, your latter end, and may this word be a help to
you looking back as to the way that the Lord has brought you
with this thought that what you have been through already is
to do you good now, at your latter end, and not only now but when
we pass through Jordan, when we are brought beyond death and
through death, the things that the Lord does. We think of Boston
Paul, that we know that all things work together for good to them
that love God, to them that are called according to his purpose.
But I want to just note several points just to bring out of this
text. Firstly, there's the 40 years.
Thou shalt remember all the way which the Lord thy God led thee
these 40 years in the wilderness." The significance of 40 in the
Word of God is a very important number. You read about the 40
days, 40 nights that rain was on the earth in the days of Noah.
Then we have with Goliath, he challenged Israel for 40 days. It was a testing time. It was
always a testing time. Was there a king? Was Saul able
to help? Was any other warrior? It was
a preparation for bringing David as the only way of hope. And
of course, David, he came in the name of the Lord. Then we
think of Nineveh. They were given 40 days and the
city being destroyed. The only good part of that message
was that they were given 40 days. They were given time. and they
repented in that time and the Lord turned away his wrath. And of course with our first
parents, the sentence, thou shalt surely die, wasn't carried out
immediately, otherwise no person would be living today. So the
Lord is giving time, wherever there is time, there is hope. Then we think of the Lord's temptations,
40 days, 40 nights, in the wilderness tempted of the devil. Moses was
40 days in Mount Sinai. The Lord, when he rose from the
dead, appeared to his disciples 40 days. It is a test, a proving,
and so we have with the children of Israel here. They left Egypt,
they had 40 years in the wilderness, and the Lord used it. It was
a testing, a proving time. And often it is spoken of as
the time when a person is converted, when they're born again to the
Spirit, and then they go right through this world, and they
come to Jordan, the river of death, and pass over it. Now,
many of you here, I've no doubt, have had longer than 40 years
in the wilderness. I'm sure of it, because there's
some of you here that are 30 years older than me, And I have
had 45 years since I was converted, so I'm sure that some of you
have been converted young and have spent many more than 40
years walking through this world as a Christian, as a believer,
looking unto the Lord. So, we have really with the Word
that is here, both a promise and a command. You can look at
it, if you look at it as the way of a command, it is, Thou
shalt remember. You must remember. It's a command
to not forget, but to remember. If we look at it as a promise,
it's the Lord saying to us, Thou shalt remember. I will give you
the Holy Spirit. I will give you the remembrance
to bring to your remembrance all things that I've spoken unto
you. And may this be a help, especially
when we find our minds, they're not very good on memory. Sometimes
even at my age, if someone asks me, well, when were you called?
How were you called? What are the blessings? What
are the verses that have been helped to you? Sometimes my mind
goes blank, and I can't recall them. But then there are other
times that they're brought back to my mind. Something will trigger
it, something will bring that memory back, and it'll be really
sweet. But sometimes on demand, I can't
recall it, and you might find the same. But to have the promise
of the spirit, the remembrance of, and then to look upon this
word, thou shalt remember, because of the spirit, because God will
bring it to your remembrance. So to think of this word then,
is on both sides of that. Thinking of remembrance, often
the Lord gives things to help us in our remembrance, doesn't
he? With the house of God, we've got the Lord's Supper, this do
ye in remembrance of him, so the church does not forget. The
children of Israel had the Passover, they had the stones that they
raised up after Jordan, so that when their children asked them
what mean ye by these stones, or what mean ye by this service
at the Passover, then they could tell them. It was a prompt to
remember. Some of us have things like we
might have a scar. I've got a scar on my knee, I've
got a scar on my forehead, the knee, I remember when I had an
accident as a child, eight or so years of age, a stick went
into my knee, And for two years that remained and caused such
pain until it was operated on. The scar on my head, that's how
I finished my primary school. I came off my bike, I ended up
in hospital unconscious, and they thought I'd had a road accident.
Well, it was, but it was on my pushbike. And every time I look
in the mirror and I see that scar, that brings back to remembrance
the preserving care and keeping of the Lord. And we can have
things like that, I mean photographs, they're a good means of bringing
back to remembrance, family, children, grandchildren, and
we look upon these things, God has used them to bring back to
remembrance. And even a service like this,
as we meet together, we might have forgotten some of the blessings
the Lord has given us, but then the chapter is given out where
that blessing is, and as we read over that verse, Immediately
we think of where that's been blessed to us, what it means
to us, the significance, and the very word itself is bringing
back to our remembrance what the Lord has said to us. So do
notice that, what the Lord gives you, so that you don't forget
what has gone on in your lives, what has passed in your lives. So what is to be remembered in
our verse, it says that We have to remember all the way which
the Lord thy God led thee. So it's not part of the way,
it's all the way. And sometimes in the way, especially
the children of Israel, they murmured, they complained, they
had the chasing of the Lord upon them. We have to remember that
as well. You know, Peter, he had to remember
when he denied his Lord and Master, Paul had to remember before he
was called, how he persecuted the church of God and it is all
the way that the Lord has led us and some of us we can look
at, especially moving times moving house, perhaps coming into this
home things that were done in a very clear way and really showed
the way I often thought that the children of Israel in the
wilderness, the only time they saw the Ark very, very clearly,
and the Ark was a time for Christ, was when they were moving. When
they were stationary, the Ark was behind the veil, let it go
two veils before they come to the Ark, they couldn't see the
Ark, they couldn't see its shape or anything, they had to believe
that it was there. When they moved, the tabernacle
was taken down and the veil was draped over the ark. If in front
of my lectern here, we had just a straight sheet, you would look
at that, you wouldn't see the shape of the lectern or anything. You would have to just believe
that it was there. But if I draped the sheet over the lectern, you
wouldn't see it, but you'd see the shape of it, so you'd know
it was there. So when the children of Israel
moved, they could see the ark on the shoulders of the Levites,
the shape of it, the shape of the cherubims, the shape of the
ark itself underneath the veil. And so I've noticed this as well
when I've had to change jobs in my life, when I've had to
change countries, when I've had to change churches, when I've
had to change where I live, is that those times I've seen more
clearly the Lord go before, that He has taught me through His
Word what His will is, what I should do, I've seen His hand in providence,
shut doors, open doors, things that have been done that has
brought me to be where I am. And I'm sure that you have got
those same things that you can look upon And if you say like
Bethuel and Laban, the thing proceedeth from the Lord. This
is the Lord's doing that is marvelous in our eyes. And they can clearly
see. And remember the children of
Israel, it was only when the Lord moved that they moved, they
followed. And the Lord says as a shepherd,
he putteth forth his sheep, he goeth before them. And the manner
of times I've seen that, in my life, the Lord going before,
the one remarkable one was one job that I had working in engineering,
and I was unhappy at that job. I'd been there four years, and
the chap I worked with, he knew, and I came in one day, well,
we got near to lunchtime, and he said, oh, Roland, he said,
I've arranged for a job interview across the road. You could have
gone 10 minutes in your lunch hour, So I went away, I had the
job interview, and they said, I've been told all about you,
that you're a Christian, you don't drink, you don't have television,
you don't go to the cinema, you read your Bible, you believe
in God. And I thought, I haven't said
any of this. This is what my work colleagues have told already
about me to this other firm. And then a few weeks later, the
same thing happened. And I went over and I was offered
the job. And that job I had for 12 years,
it was that job that brought me over to England, that gave
me a contract for three years over here, that started my ministry
over here in 1996. And so it was a very, very important
move, a job move. I was Chief Mechanical Design
Engineer when I was in that job. But I never answered a job interview
advert, I never even saw one. I never had a CV, I never applied
for the job, I never made any arrangements at all. Everything
was done for me. And yet that was so remarkable
provision. And that's just one instance.
I've seen many, many instances, and many times in that job, the
Lord blessed me at my office desk and favoured me in that
way. And it's good to remember those
things. where the Lord has provided,
and especially spiritual blessings as well. So it's all the way,
but it's specifically remembering where the Lord has gone before.
When he putteth forth his sheep, he goeth before them. And Moses
said, if thy presence go not with me, carry us not up hence.
But then I want to think of what the Lord did in the way. those
things that were done. It's told here it's to humble
us, to humble thee, to prove thee, to know what was in thine
heart, whether thou wouldst keep his commandments or no. When
we think of the parable of the sower, there were those there
that received the word readily first, but then when persecution
and trouble came, they went back, they didn't continue walking
in the way. And so it's for this reason that the Lord gives these
trials, trials of faith, trials of grace. The Lord knows what's
in our heart, but he has to prove to us that he is our God, he
is sustaining us, he is keeping us, not we ourselves. It is the Lord doing it, and
there is this purpose that is all the way through the journey. There's one lesson at the end
of verse three that We need to really, and I hope we've all
learned this very well, 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. When our Lord
was tempted by Satan, Satan says, command that these stoves be
made bread. And the Lord quoted this word.
Man shall not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth
out of the mouth of God. When the Lord had fed them with
the loaves and the fishes, they went across the sea. He said,
labour not for the bread that perisheth, but for that which
endureth to eternal life. And so, when we gather like this,
we're not eating the food like in our mealtimes, But we have
the bread of life, we have the Lord Jesus Christ, the words
that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life. Jeremiah
said, Thy words were found and I did eat them, and they were
to the joy and rejoicing of my soul. And so may this word be
a help that you do remember what you perhaps thought you'd forgotten,
Remember all the way, may the Holy Spirit take of those things
and make them sweet again in remembrance of what the Lord
has done for you. Amen.