Seeking once again the Lord's
help to grant me the words to speak to you this evening, I'd
like you to turn with me to the chapter that we read together,
Deuteronomy chapter 8, and the text you'll find in verse 2.
And 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 they
would keep his commandments or no. The book of Deuteronomy and Moses
is going over the way in which the Lord had dealt with the children
of Israel. And we know as they were in Egypt,
God raised up Moses as a deliverer to bring them out and the plagues
which were upon the people of Egypt and the miraculous way
in which the Lord overthrew the people of Egypt and brought them
out and led them through the Red Sea and then through to the
Promised Land. And the scripture tells us that
the The people of Israel grumbled and complained against Moses
and against Aaron. They grumbled and complained
about the the hardness of the way, the provisions that the
Lord provided. They met him with unbelief as
he led them through to the River Jordan and encouraged them to
cross over the first time to defeat those in the promised
land and how they were filled with unbelief, how they grumbled
and complained against God and God turned on them and judged
them because of their sin. They were told to cross over
and to fight and that they would win and yet after all that the
Lord had done for them all that they had seen, those great deliverances,
yet they were still filled with fear and unbelief. In Deuteronomy
chapter 1 he recounts all that took place. in verse 41, and he answered
and said unto me, we have sinned against the Lord. We will go
up and fight according to the Lord our God commanded us. And
when you had girded on every man his weapon of war, you were
ready to go up the hill. This was after, sorry, after
they had, they originally said that they would not go up and
then they changed their minds and they said they would go up
and they were defeated against the enemies of the Lord. Moses
then reminds them of all that took place and how they wandered
then in the wilderness because of their unbelief and their hardness
of heart and how they were reminded constantly over those 40 years
of the way in which they lacked belief in God to trust him. And
as we come to the end of another year, we have another year by
which we can look back. The children of Israel were told
to look back over 40 years and to see all the way that the Lord
led them and the reasons why he led them in such a way. And
we know that he led them specifically in those 40 years so that all
of those who did not believe would die in the wilderness. And so they wandered until the
last one perished. And then when that time came,
they were enabled to cross over. And so Moses tells them as he
comes to that point, as they come to cross over again into
through the Red Sea and into the promised land, he tells them,
look back. and remember all the way that
the Lord has led you. And as we come to the end of
another year really it's just another day but the first will just be the same
as the day before. But for the children of Israel
it's going to be completely different. They were going to pass through
the River Jordan. They were going to live in a
land that was provided for, a land of plenty. They were not going
to have to eat the manna. They were not going to have to
wander in the wilderness. There was not going to be the
scorpions and the droughts and the plagues. They were going
to go into a land of plenty and things were going to change and
they were meant to look back before this great change at how
the Lord had led them and brought them to this specific point. And as we look back over this
year or as we look back over our life and we see how the Lord
has led us and brought us to this specific point at the end
of another year and we wonder what he is going to do in this
coming year, we can be encouraged as we look back and see well
he has led me thus far. Yes, the journey has been most
peculiar. Yes, it has been twistings and
turnings. Yes, there has been mountains.
Yes, there has been droughts. Yes, there has been difficulties
and hardships. Yes, there have been all manner
of confusing things that have taken place over my life. Yet
the Lord has led me up to this specific, specific point. And in a few days we cross over
into a new year. What will that new year bring?
Will it bring great transformation? Or will it bring a great hardship? Will it be the end of our road?
Or will we continue on to the end of another year? It's all
unknown to us as we walk one day, one moment at a time, yet
it is known to the Lord. But we can look back. and we
can look back at how the Lord has led us over the past year. and there are certain things
which he has done in our lives to show us ourselves. He has led us in specific ways
to bring us to recognise our own weakness and our own frailty
and our own inability and our own disobedience and our own
rebelliousness of heart just as he did with the children of
Israel. The way in which he led them
was a specific way in which to expose their pride and their
hardness of heart and their unbelief and to write down in their history
a testimony of the way in which he deals with his people. And so we come then to the last
service of another year. There were some people who passed
through Christmas and they never made it up to this point. And
so we cannot even guarantee that we are going to make it up to
the end of this year. And so we say God willing as
we approach the end of another year we can commit our way unto
the Lord. We can look back and we can remember
all the way which the Lord thy God has led us or can we? Can we? Can we say that the Lord
has led us? If the Lord is leading us that
means we are following him. We are walking behind him. We
have committed our way unto him and we are seeking him for direction
and guidance. As Jesus said, he said, follow
me. That means he's gone before.
As we saw this morning, he says, I am the way. He is the way. He is the entrance to the way
and he is the end of the way. And his people, they are following
him, walking in step with him, walking in step with his spirit. And he leads them and guides
them into the places that he will have them to go. as I spoke
to you this morning of the paths in Kenya and how they twist and
turn around thorn bushes and around pools of water and mud
and rocks. And so the Lord Jesus Christ
leads his people around those difficult situations and through
those difficult situations and the Lord's people are to follow
him. They follow him. And we see in the experiences
of the children of Israel as they were led by that cloud during
the day and during the night the cloud was a cloud of fire
and so they could see the way in which the Lord would have
them to go and they had to follow. They had to go where he went.
When he stopped, they stopped. They pitched their tents. They
had to wait for the moving of the cloud before they could move
on. And the Lord's people look at
providential situations for the moving of the cloud, for guidance
and for direction. We do not want to take a step
without the Lord saying so or we don't want to take a step
by going in front of the Good Shepherd. We want to follow Him.
We want to know His will, His guidance, His direction. Lord what will Thou have me to
do? And as we look back over the
past year I wonder if we can see in our lives that we have
followed the Good Shepherd. We have followed the cloudy pillar
and we are where He will have us to be. No doubt there are
times when we did take the wrong step We went left when we should
have gone right. We went backwards when we should
have gone forwards. When we took matters into our
own hand and we had to prove that we made a mistake. And we have to humbly tread backwards
and ask for forgiveness and seek guidance, seek greater light
upon the situation, seek greater patience to wait for the appearing
of the Lord. And we can look back over the
past year and we can see those things that have taken place.
We can mirror our experiences with the people of Israel. Yes,
they were filled with unbelief. They were told, go forward. filled
with fear. They said, no, we can't. We're not strong enough. We're
not powerful enough. And so they had to be chastened.
They had to be disciplined. And the Lord's people do exactly
the same. And he does exactly the same
with them. He says, go forward. And sometimes
we're filled with fear and anxiety. I can't. I don't have the ability. I don't have the strength. What
if I make a mess of everything? And so we refuse, we turn around,
we go the other way. But the Lord in his mercy deals
with us and encourages us to go on. And so the people of Israel
were led by the Lord. And today, the children of God,
they are led by the Lord. They are led by the Lord Jesus
Christ on that narrow way that leads to life. And although our
lives are distinctly different We're each walking our own individual
pathway yet our ultimate destination is the same. Christ leads his
people in unique experiences and unique pathways but to bring
about his own purposes in their lives to cause them to grow in
his likeness and to do what he will have them to do so that
they may be used as instruments in his hand for the good of his
church and for the advancement of his kingdom. As we have said
many times, we're granted those different gifts and abilities,
the Lord's people, so that they may fit into the body of Christ,
that they may be useful and beneficial to the people of God. The life of the people of Israel
as they came out of Egypt was not an easy pathway. It was a wilderness journey before
they got to the promised land. There were times when they were
hungry. There were times when they were
thirsty. Verse three it says, and he humbled
thee and allowed thee to hunger and fed thee with manna. There
are often times when the Lord's people, they are hungry. Not
necessarily physically hungry but spiritually hungry. They
are hungry for the Word of God. They want something for their
never-dying soul and they come searching the Scriptures. This
world has not satisfied them. They've been toiling through
the wilderness of this world for a week And they come to the
place of worship. They come hungry. They come seeking
some manna from heaven. It's a wilderness journey. It's
not an easy road to heaven. And so we come hungry and the
Lord feeds us. He says it is done so that you
may know. that man does not live by bread
only but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord
does man live. Maybe there are times when you
have been physically hungry and the Lord Jesus Christ he has
provided for you. You can look back over this past
year and things became very tight. The cupboards became very bare.
The bank account became very low. and you saw you had to commit
your way unto the Lord, you had to cast your daily providential
needs upon the Lord and you saw that it was met. You saw that
he answered your prayers and he provided that physical food
for you, that money that you needed, that food that you needed,
that way that you needed. But he did it for a reason. It
was not that he didn't know that you were going to run out. He
didn't know that you were going to be hungry. He knew that you
were going to be hungry because he brought you to that specific
place so that you may call upon him in your trouble, that he
may deliver you from your distresses, that you might know something
more about God, that you might know something more about yourself. You don't live on bread only
but you cry unto the Lord and the Lord provides you with that
manna from heaven. But not only was it hunger that
troubled them but they were thirsty. It was a great and a terrible
wilderness. I wonder if this world to you
is a great and a terrible wilderness. I wonder when you wake up on
a Monday morning and you have to go out into the world to do
your business, to do your work, to go to school, I wonder if
you feel like you're entering into a great and a terrible wilderness. Yes, there are things that you
have to do. Yes, there are things that must
be done. We must study, we must work,
we must prepare. But do you feel that This world
is not your home. Do you feel that it is a great
and a terrible wilderness? There's nothing that spiritually
satisfies you and you long for that time when you can come and
meet with the Lord's people or you long for that time when you
can come home and read the Word of God and fellowship or you
long for that time when you can get back into your car and drive
home and put some hymns on and sing your way home. You realise
that This is a wilderness journey and there are those moments where
the Lord satisfies you with manna. He satisfies you with that water,
that living water that comes from the rock, the Lord Jesus
Christ. He satisfies you with a taste
of his spirit. As he says in John, out of his
belly shall flow rivers of living water. the Holy Spirit indwelling
with his people. He feeds them. He satisfies them. He quenches that thirst from
the wilderness journey. Strangers and pilgrims like Abraham
and Isaac and those who have gone before. But not only is
it a wilderness without any spiritual bread, without any spiritual
water but it's full of serpents and scorpions. We know that those creatures got their sting and got their
bite when sin entered into the world. When Adam and Eve lived in the
Garden of Eden there was no death. There was no thorns and there
was no thistles. There was no stinging scorpions.
There was no poisonous snakes. There was no bumblebees that
sting us. Everything was working together
for good. But when sin came then came pain
and sorrow and sickness. And so in this wilderness journey
that we have to walk there is those scorpions that bite, that
sting. There is those snakes that bite
us. We know the scripture tells us
that Satan himself goes around like a roaring lion, seeking
whom he may devour. And the Christian is a person
who is in this wilderness journey, in enemy territory, wearing his
armour of God, seeking to protect himself from these attacks from
the kingdom of darkness. Satan, the serpent, the great
serpent, the great deceiver. And as we saw on the other day
of those, of Christ being the light, a light that came into
the darkness. And there are those lights that,
the lighthouses that reveal to people the rocks and the dangers.
But then there were those wreckers who set up false lighthouses.
They wanted to draw people onto the rocks to destroy them and
to shipwreck them. And so there are many false lights
that seek to draw people aside from the Lord Jesus Christ and
to bring them and to wreck them upon the shores of unbelief and
doubts and fears and sin and temptation. And so in this wilderness
journey for the people of Israel there were scorpions and snakes.
It was a difficult pathway, a painful pathway. But the Lord was using
all of those things to purge out the unbelief, to purge out
the unbelievers that were there in the camp. They must die off
in this wilderness journey before they can get to the promised
land. And in the life of the Lord's people the Lord is undergoing
a purging process in their life. Yes their soul has been cleansed
from all sin. Yes, their sin and their iniquity
will be remembered no more. They are undergoing a process
in this wilderness journey as they battle with a besetting
sin and unbelief and doubts and fears. And the Lord brings them
into trials and difficulties and deep pathways to purge out
their unbelief, to purge out their besetting sins, to purge
out their pride and their sinful characteristics. so that the
flesh may be crucified and that the Spirit of Christ may shine
forth. The evidence of the Holy Spirit,
the fruit of the Spirit may shine forth in the midst of our afflictions. And so the unbelievers were purged
out in this 40 years of journey. And so we led them in a hard
way. And sometimes when we look back
over our experiences as a Christian we can say that the Lord has
led us in a hard way. And he's done it for a reason. He led them for 40 years in the
wilderness in a hard pathway for a reason. A great and a terrible
wilderness to humble them, to bring down their pride. The word humble can mean to depress,
to crush. to cause them to look down. You remember it wasn't long after
they came out through the Red Sea that Moses went up onto the
mountain and they abandoned all hope and they began to make gods
for themselves and dance around it. They were filled with pride
and self-confidence and that must go. And so the purposes
of this wilderness journey was to humble them, to bring them
down, to show them that they are not as great as they thought
they were. They're not as strong as they thought they
were. They were not as able as they
thought they were. It was to break them. To break them. Sometimes when people break in
horses, they have to break that spirit of pride. That horse must be
brought under subjection. And the people of Israel were
like wild people. They needed to be brought under
subjection. They needed to be humbled before
a mighty God. If we're honest with ourselves
we are no different. It doesn't take long for pride
to dwell up in our hearts. It doesn't take long for idols
to knock off our God from our hearts. It doesn't take long
for us to become self-confident and take in our own way and thinking
that we know best. And so the trials of our life
are designed specifically by God to break us, to break our
stubborn will and to humble us and to test us and to sieve us. Remember Peter
Peter and the others, they confessed to Christ that they would never
abandon him. Thou wilt forsake thee, yet not
me. Self-confidence and pride. Sometimes in our minds we could
think, well, yes, I've conquered that sin. I've done quite well
here. I'm doing this and I'm doing
that. And we magnify our achievements. We may not broadcast it publicly,
but we magnify our own achievements in our minds. We think, yes,
I've done that. I'm doing pretty well here. I've
got rid of that sin. But as soon as you begin to think
like that, how great you are and how well you're doing, you
will find that the Lord will bring something into your life
to knock you down, to make you realise that you're not so great
after all. He does it to humble you. to
show you and me what manner of people we really are without
Him, that that sinful nature is still there indwelling in
us. We've got it all sorted and the
Lord will then bring something to throw it all into confusion. But you haven't got it sorted.
You're not as bright as you thought you were. just like Peter and
the others, although all will deny thee, yet not me. Jesus was so kind to Peter. In Luke 22 verse 31, And the Lord said unto Simon,
Simon, behold, Satan has desired to have you that he may sift
you as wheat. But I have prayed for thee that
thy faith fail not. And when thou art converted,
strengthen thy brethren. The Lord Jesus knew exactly what
was going to happen to Peter. He knew that his pride must be
dealt with and he tells him that Satan is going to sift you, he's
going to put you through a sieve and he's going to shake you and
shake you and shake you until you are almost fallen to bits,
divided. But Christ was going to pray
for him. that that last bit of hope would
not be lost, that his faith would not fail. Although everything
else would fail, Peter's pride would be dealt with. Peter must
be brought low. Peter must be crushed. Peter
must be shown himself to a sieve. And that sieve was going to be
held, as it were, by Satan. Satan wants to sieve you and
Satan wants to sieve each of the Lord's people. He wants to
find out where our weaknesses are. He wants to shake us to
see where the cracks are. And when he finds the crack there,
he will attack the armour of God. There are weaknesses that we
have. when Satan finds them he will continue aiming and aiming
and aiming at that point and if he can destroy our faith he's destroyed the believer.
Sometimes you may lie in bed you may be wondering that you
want to give it all up. How can I go on? I've got nothing. I've got even no faith. I don't
know if I believe anymore. You lay there and you think and
you wonder and it's like Satan is sifting you. He's destroyed
you. He's got you into your bed. You're
depressed. You're just laying there miserable.
But then the Lord Jesus speaks. But I've prayed for you. That
your faith fail not. Satan wants each one of us. he
will try to destroy us but Christ has prayed that our faith fails
not and when you are converted he says strengthen thy brethren
use what you have been through for the encouragement of the
brethren that Christ has not abandoned you that Christ has
brought you back again and restored you and we see that Peter then
is used by the Lord Jesus Christ in such a marvellous and almighty
way to about first first he must be crushed and have his weaknesses
exposed I've used the example before
of those people who do karate and if you watch them they're
able to chop bricks in half and slabs in half. If you and I did
it we would break our fingers. But they've built up over time. Small cracks in their bones grow
back stronger and stronger and stronger. And so it is with the
Lord's people. We are broken. We see our cracks. We run back to the Lord Jesus
Christ. We are strengthened to go on and to continue. We look
back over another year and we see all the way the Lord has
led us and how he has dealt with us and how he has brought us
down and how he has restored us back again to humble us. and to prove us. The testing was to find out what
was in their hearts, to humble and to prove thee, to know what
is in thine heart. Trials then expose
the weakness If you remember when Donald Trump was shot in
his ear and then not long after as the
security guards covered him he tried to get up and he put his
fist up into the air and shouted fight or something like that.
But people said that showed who he was in that moment of pressure
that we were able to see the true Donald Trump who he was.
He was not crushed under what he was going through but it exposed
who he truly was. When we're caught off our guard
people see who we are. Sometimes we can cover who we
are in a veneer. We come to chapel, we meet people
occasionally and they don't really know who we are, what our character
is, what our nature is. It's sad, doesn't it, that to
know someone really you have to live with them to find out
how they are, who they are. And so the trials that we go
through, they expose our true nature. they as it were caused
us to let our guard down. We act in a certain way when
we're under pressure and people are able to see who we really
are. Sometimes intense situations
people let their guard down and they say something or they act
or they explode in anger and we say, oh I haven't seen that
in them before but it's because of the pressure of the situation
by which they are passing through and trials have a tendency to
expose what is truly going on within our hearts. like squeezing a boil or squeezing
a fruit to test whether it is ripe or whether it is rotten
and you squeeze it and what comes out shows you whether it's good
or whether it's bad. The scripture tells us doesn't
it, by your fruits you will know them and sometimes in our trials
it's like our fruit is being squeezed and who we truly are
is exposed and the veneer that we've been able to hide behind
is broken and people are able to see us for who we are. And so our trials expose our
hearts. What is truly going on. were
those of the people of Israel under
that pressure of go forward. They denied the Lord and they
refused to go. Yet Caleb was a man of faith
and under that pressure he was able to have faith to continue
to go forward and he was allowed into the promised land. And so
under pressure Our faith is tested and any of us can put on a veneer
that God sees our hearts. Under trial other people may
see our hearts but God sees our hearts at all times. And it's
good when we pass through trials we're able to see our own heart.
Peter, his heart was exposed, his pride was exposed in a humiliating
way and written down for all history to read. But if we can learn from our
experiences in trial, if we can look back over the year and say
yes I acted in a wrong way there, I acted in a bad way there, I
exposed my heart there, to turn from it and to learn from it
and to keep our hearts in check and to make sure that we are
indeed one of the Lord's people, that we are walking worthy of
our calling, to see if we would keep his commandments or no. Anybody can follow Christ when
it is an easy pathway. When everything is going well. But when the pathway becomes
difficult or when Things become hard. There is
the test. Are you really following Christ
for the right reasons? Do you really love him with all
of your heart, soul and mind or is he just somebody who's
just an attachment to your life that you can call yourself a
Christian and say that you've been baptized and you're a follower
of Christ but he doesn't really have any influence or effect
upon your life. You're quite happy to follow
him when it suits you but when the going gets tough you're quite
willing to abandon him When the trials come you're quite
willing to walk your own way. Well then what does that show?
Does it not show that we're a fraud? That our Christianity is a veneer? We are drawing room soldiers. We are fair weather sailors. We like to have all the gear
but we have no idea. This is a prosperity gospel that
you want. The trials prove the reality
of our faith, whether it is a genuine trust in Christ that he is our
only hope, our object. Like Jacob, I will not let thee
go except thou bless me. Doesn't matter what is going
on round about. I just need Christ. We're willing
to follow him through the fire. We're willing to walk with him
through the wilderness. We're willing to walk with him
through the great and the terrible wilderness with the fiery serpents
and the scorpions and the drought and the famine. because we know that our destination
will be the promised land with him. What keeps us going is faith. Jesus says, I have prayed for
you that your faith fail not. The unbeliever will fall by the
wayside when the going gets tough. the true believer. I will not
let thee go except thou bless me. It keeps them going is faith
and love. Love because he has brought them
out of Egypt has brought them out of sin, he has brought them
and cleansed them from all of their sins and so love to him
causes them to walk the hard journey to heaven. I've used
the example before of our journeys, that we're willing to undertake
a long journey because of the destination where we are going.
If we have a loved one that lives in Australia, we're willing to
undertake that long, tiresome journey to go and see them. What
keeps us going is that love. We want to see them, we want
to be with them. And what keeps the Christian plodding on, on
the narrow way that leads to life, although it's a difficult
way, although there are strangers and pilgrims, although there
are trials to humble them and to test them, to expose their
hearts, what keeps them going is love to the Lord Jesus Christ.
Love to him because he first loved them. He has brought us
from Egypt. and he is leading us through
the wilderness. And while we are there, we are
being sifted. While we are there, we're being
purged. While we are there, we are being proved to expose the
genuineness of our faith. And so as we look back over this
year and as we look forward to another year, keep walking with
the Lord Jesus Christ. Look back as to what he has done
for you. Look forward knowing that he
can do the same and he will do the same and he will bring you
to your desired haven. He will bring you as a believer
to heaven at last. and he humbled thee, and he suffered
thee to hunger, and he fed thee with manna which thou knewest
not, neither did thy fathers know, that he might make thee
to know that man doth not live by bread only, but by every word
that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord doth man live. For may we feed then tonight
of the word of God. Amen. Well, let us sing in conclusion,
the conclusion of this service, the conclusion of this year,
our final hymn for 2024, from Gatsby 173 to the tune 405. Jesus,
before thy face I fall, my Lord, my life, my hope, my all. for I have nowhere else to flee,
no sanctuary, Lord, but Thee. 173. With Thee on every glory due,
Observe Thee still, In the deep woods you can be
found. ? And all her grief can hinder
me ? ? His lips are closed by fainting heart ? ? Let there
be sound to every heart ? Now in the heavens we'll see Dear Lord and Heavenly Father,
we thank Thee for Thy leadings, the leadings of Thy people. We
thank Thee for Thy purposes in our trials and we pray that Thou
help us to learn from the experiences that we have passed through and
that others also have walked through. And we ask that we may
grow in grace and in the knowledge of Thy Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. We pray Thou dismiss us with
thy blessing and to be with us as we come to the end of this
year. We ask, Lord, that thou go on
to watch over us through this coming year, that we may live
a life that is glorifying unto thyself. Do enable us to follow
thee. And now may the grace of the
Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God the Father, with the fellowship
and the communion of the Holy Spirit, to be with us each now
and forevermore. Amen.