It was written by Fanny Crosby.
As you know, she was born blind. She never saw the things of this
world, which, when you really think about it, can be a blessing. She saw clearly. Christ is all. Deuteronomy 8. We have looked at this several
times before, as we should. The book of Deuteronomy is a
book of remembrance to remind us, remind God's people, of all
the way the Lord has led us and what all He's done for us. This
is after 40 years of wandering through the wilderness. This
is Moses, the Lord through Moses, reminding God's people, Israel,
of what all He's done for them, where He found them, what all
He's done for them. and what they did against Him,
and His great mercy and grace to them. A book of remembrance.
In fact, the whole Bible is a book of remembrance. Malachi 3.16,
they that thought of the Lord, they gathered together and think
on Him, a book of remembrance. Those that feared the Lord, a
book of remembrance was written to them. So this is a book to
remind us. We need reminding, don't we?
Where the Lord found us. Never forget. The gospel will
cease to be precious to you if you forget where you came from,
the pit from which you were digging. Oh, the mercy. If you forget
Psalm 106, they kept forgetting God's mercy, and they got in
a mess. Psalm 107. So this is to remind us and to
remember and never forget all the mercy and grace of our Lord.
Verse 1, 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.
Now, not necessarily tell us to keep the law, you know, by
the law no man is justified. We know that. But the commandments
of our Lord, Christ's commandment, He said, who believeth Me and
keepeth My commandments. His commandments are not grievous. He tells us to believe Him. That's a commandment. It's not
advice. The Lord never said anything that wasn't a command, right?
He said, follow Me. Don't follow me. Follow Me. It
would be good for you if you do. He said, serve Me. He said,
you see what I've done, washing your brethren's feet? You do
the same. And so on and so forth. In verse
2, Thou shalt remember. It's a commandment. Remember.
Don't forget. All the way which the Lord thy
God led thee. That's a good song we're just
singing. All the way my Savior leads me. All the way. He chose you if
you're a child of God. And most everyone in here professes
to be so. If so, God chose you. You didn't
choose Him. Okay? God bought you with His
own blood. God drew you with the cords of
love, the cords of a man, which is the gospel, whom He did predestinate. He called by the gospel. And He justified you by the blood
of Christ and saved you and gathered you. Remember that? Save us,
O Lord our God. Gather us from among the heathen,
that we may give thanks unto Thy holy name and triumph in
Thy praise. Remember that? You remember that?
Don't forget that. He gathered us. Gathered us.
Brought us. Led us. Fed us. Protected us.
He's protected us all our lives, hasn't He? Can you look back
on your life and see God's hand protecting you, saving you from
destruction. That's Psalm 103. Who saveth
thy life from destruction. From destroying yourself. He
preserved you. Preserved you. Gathered you.
Brought you. Led you. Fed you. Protected you.
Provided you. Verse 2, in the wilderness. Forty
years, you know, is about the life of most believers. You know
that? We live 70 years. The Lord saves
people in their 20s and 30s usually. He doesn't save too many old
people. Some. And I was in my 20s. Some of you in your 20s, 30s,
right? Some of you have been walking with the Lord for 40
some years, 50 years, haven't you? Forty years. Isn't that
something? Boy, that's grace, isn't it?
If you're kept one year from leaving, what mercy? Forty? In the wilderness. He said of Jacob, he said, I
found him in a waste-howling wilderness. And you read there
of the scorpions and the fiery serpents and all the dangers. You and I just don't know the
dangers around us. We don't see them. We read a
little bit. We see a little bit in the papers
and hear a little bit on the news of this and that and the
other. It's all around us. Some of you are afraid of snakes. You know, aren't you glad God
puts the fear of man in these animals? They're more afraid
of you than you are of them, you know that? But they're everywhere.
One time, I've got to tell this, Mindy. Mindy was down walking
in the woods, and she saw a copperhead, okay? And she was about two city
blocks from the house, and she came running back and said, go
get that snake. Where is it? It's in the woods.
Oh, there's a hundred of them out there. You just saw one. That's true. It's true. That young man, that servant
of Elijah, remember he went out and saw the hills surrounded
by the enemy and he went, oh, what are we going to do? What
are we going to do? He said, Lord, open his eyes. They that be for us are more
than they that be against us. One person is for us. If God be for us, who can be
against us? How many times does David say
that? Thou art with me. Whom shall I fear? Whom shall
I fear? In the wilderness. He's prepared
us a table in the wilderness. To humble us, verse 2. To humble
thee. Oh my, John kept saying this
Sunday. What do we have we haven't received? There's nothing we
have we haven't received. A man can receive nothing except
what? To be given him from... Every
good and perfect gift comes where? Down from heaven, from the Father
of life, with no variableness or shadow of turning. It just
keeps coming, just keeps coming. There's no room for pride. At
the end of this chapter, he warns them, don't you dare be lifted
up about anything. He humbled them. This whole journey
of mercy and grace by the Lord, it should humble us. We should
be the most humble people on earth. God's people are. They're
the only humble people on earth. There's some people who fake
humility. But they're proud of their dress. They're proud of
their humility. Aren't they? You know who I'm
talking about. Proud of keeping the law. Proud that they're not
sinners like Englishers. God hates it. This is the humbling. God's people
are meek and lowly. Verse 2, "...to prove thee to
know what was in thine heart." Out of the heart. are the issues
of life. The issues of life are not in
the head. It's not what you know. It's who you know. It's who knows
you. Know just doesn't mean know about
it. It means love. Heart is love. That's the seed of the affection.
Set your heart, your affection on things above. This proves
that. With the heart, men believe.
The true man is inside, the heart. It's the desires, the hunger.
And these things prove us. What you speak of, out of the
abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh. What or who you speak
of mostly proves what's in your heart. They are of the world,
therefore what? Speaketh. Our conversation is
where? In heaven. Who or what you speak of is what's
in your heart. Who or what you live for is what's
in your heart, proves your heart. Who you walk with proves what's
in your heart. Who you love, who you follow,
who you believe, who you listen to, who you fear, proves what's
in your heart. It proves what's in your heart.
The Lord knows. The Lord doesn't look on the
outward count or doesn't see as man see it. He looks on the
heart. He says, my son, give me thine
heart. Prove what's in thy heart, whether
you'd keep his commandments or no. Verse 3, He humbled thee,
and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee manna. Now, manna,
we've looked at many times. In fact, I think I'm going to
preach from John 6 on Sunday. The whole chapter is about Christ,
the bread of life. I've been thinking about it for
three weeks now. But manna, in Exodus 16, they
found it after the dew was on the ground. The Lord sent moisture
in a dry and a thirsty land. No matter how dry it is, people,
we have the dew from heaven, don't we? We do, don't we? Yes, we do. And when the dew
rose, they saw this small white thing like this hoary frost. And they said, manna, meaning
what is it? There was no name for it. They'd
never seen it. The Lord said there in verse
3, which you knew not, neither did your fathers knew. You've
never seen this. You've never tasted it. You didn't
know what it was. Your fathers didn't know what
it was. But now you do. Manna. What is it? And John,
and you spoke on this one time, 1 John 1. which we've seen and heard and
had. There was no name for that holy thing whom God sent from
heaven. Small, white, bread from heaven. Manna. What is it? I'll tell
you what it is. It's the Word of God. It's Christ
of God. It's the Gospel of God. There
was a time you didn't know what it was. You had no taste for
it. You'd never seen it, never tasted it. Probably your parents
didn't. Still don't, maybe. But God sent
it from Heaven one day for you. Man did eat angels' food. One
day, you were sitting right there somewhere, and God just opened
Heaven, and you said, Isn't this sweet? And they tasted
it, and it was like wafers dipped in honey. Anybody like honey? Sometimes men do make biscuits,
homemade biscuits. Or Mary B's biscuits, they're
nice and good. And man, I'll just cover it with
butter, butter and honey. Ever read that? Butter, and then
I'll get out some good old Franklin County homemade, I like dark
honey. And I'll just douse it. Honey. Isn't that an amazing
thing, honey? David said, thy word was to me sweeter than honey. Sweeter than a honeycomb. My
dad used to like honeycomb, John. I never liked it. I couldn't
get it out of my teeth. But he'd eat that honeycomb.
I guess you could chew on it a long time. Get all you could
out of that. All the sweetness out of that.
That's a good picture. Like chewing a cud. Thy Word
is sweeter than honey. Sweeter than a honeycomb. Manna. The Gospel of Christ. But now
turn to Numbers 21. Just a few pages back. Don't
you love it? Don't you love the Gospel? And
this manna proves us. You know what's going to prove
us? In verse 16 of our text, it says it's going to prove all
the way to the end. The manna's going to prove all
the way to the end. They ate manna the whole time. Forty years. And it proved the true people
of God. The truly hungry and thirsty. Because some people got tired
of it. Look at it. Numbers 21, verse
5. The people spake against God.
They couldn't reach God, so they spoke against Moses. They found
fault with Moses. And they said, you brought us
out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? There's no bread, neither is
there any water. Our soul loatheth this light bread. Retired in this manner. When
it first came down, they were all just cheering and rejoicing,
and they all thought, this is so sweet. This is the most wonderful
thing I've ever tasted in my life. Sovereign mercy. Sovereign grace. The gospel. Christ's blood and rites. Isn't
it wonderful? Forty years later, we're out
of here. The gospel hadn't changed. What
happened? He'll prove us in the end. Here's
what Colossians says, Paul said this, he said, if you hold, I
don't want to misquote it, he says, if you continue in the faith,
grounded and settled, be not moved away from the hope of the
gospel, which you've heard, which was preached to every creature
under heaven, whereof I, Paul, am a minister, and I am too.
And he said, if you hold fast the confidence, that's Christ,
and rejoice Him. If you ever lose your rejoicing
over the Gospel, if a man stands up, you know, in the beginning,
God chose a people, had mercy on them, forgave them to pardon
them of their sin, justified by Christ. Amen, brother. Forty years later. It ought to be louder than it
was in the beginning. The rejoicing ought to be greater
than it was in the beginning, because we've been sinners 40
years. Right? Don't lose the confidence and
rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end. It's going to prove
us. This gospel proves. People, we're sinners, we fall,
we do this, we do that, and what will prove us in the end is if
we still need Christ, if this gospel is still sweet. So, go back to the text now. It says in verse 3 that Deuteronomy
says, He humbled thee and suffered thee to hunger. Suffered thee
to hunger? It said that in Psalm 107, didn't
it, John? Hungry and thirsty, wandering
in the wilderness. And he satisfied the hungry soul
and filleth the longing soul. Have you ever longed for something? You know, lust is an insatiable
desire, and it's usually associated with flesh. Lust of the flesh,
lust of the eye. But this longing and desire.
One thing about desire, the Lord David said, that's what I'm going
after. This longing soul. He satisfied the hungry soul. He filled up the longing soul. Oh, I long. David one time was
thirsty, and he said, oh, I long for a drink of that well in Bethlehem. Would somebody please get me
a drink?" And three men risked their lives. Three men went to
Africa, risked their lives to bring a cup of cold water. Oh, how long, long, you feel
it, does your soul long? this desire, this water of life,
this bread of life? Oh, He says He suffered them
to hunger. That is, it really means He put
up with their murmuring and their complaining. They were murmuring
and complaining. You know, God feeds all mankind. He feeds every living soul. Everything
that has bread. That's Psalm 105. Everything
that has bread, He feeds it. Alright? Psalm 104. And man is the only creature
that complains. The birds wake up singing. Man,
what man wake up doing? Murmuring. Too hot, too cold,
like you said, too wet. Oh, gather us from among the
heathen to give thanks unto thy holy name. That's what Psalm
107 said. He gathered them from the east,
the west, the north, the south to do what? To give thanks. Make them thankful. Satisfied. Hunger and thirst
is a blessing. Oh, blessed are they that hunger
and thirst, they'll be filled. Hunger and thirst for righteousness.
What's that? Well, it sure ain't a doctrine. I've known some really mean people
who believe in imputed righteousness. I don't think you know the Lord.
Christ is our right. It's a person, it's not a doctrine.
Hunger and thirst for Christ. If there's no hunger, there's
no life. No thirst. Loss of appetite is
a bad sign. I said I was going to say something
about Africa. Africa is the most poverty-stricken
continent on the face of the earth. Mexico was next to it. Some of you in Mexico, you've
seen. There are many hungry, many hungry,
truly hungry there and die from hunger. The top 10 poorest, most
poverty stricken countries in all of the world are all in Africa.
The top 10. Number seven on the list is Malawi.
Malawi, Africa, a little small, one of the smallest countries
in Africa, that's fitting. The Lord gave a man named Willie a hunger and thirst for the gospel. He heard the gospel, he called
on the Lord, and the Lord sent him a preacher, an angel named
Gabriel, and two men, Eddie and Tony. Sent those preachers down
there with a message to preach the gospel to a hungry man. A
man living on $40 a month. And he was so hungry and so thirsty
for that gospel that he took that $40 a month and rented a
place and bought chairs. more than he needed, hoping the
Lord would fill him up. Carried those chairs on his little
bicycle. And set it all up under a tent
in the hot heat of Africa. I've been worrying about this
building being too hot. Not anymore. We've met in a hot place in New
Mexico, haven't we? Set that tent, rented, $40, mind
you. Rented that tent, bought those chairs, took them there
personally, set them up, hired women to make something that
looks like mush for everybody to eat. And people flocked in, 31 nights,
40, finally about 50 people, and heard the gospel. What did they need? Nothing. The Lord satisfied that hungry
soul, that man. He gave everything he had. And
he filled him up. As they were leaving, that preacher was leaving. The
gospel was leaving. And he said, we've got tears
in our hearts. What if the Lord was taking the
gospel from here? What if the Lord took your preacher
away? Would you have tears in your hearts? Here we sit in luxury. Full bellies. Our bellies have never been too
empty. Some won't come. Some sleep when they do. What
do you think about that? Blessed are the hungry. Blessed
are they that hunger and thirst. They will be filled. Blessed are they that hunger. Oh, brethren. The Lord's made
you hungry. Ask Him. Ask Him. Don't ever let you cease to be
hungry. In Revelation, He warned them. All the churches did. You've
left your first love. He said, I counsel you to buy
gold that's tried in the fire. He said, I'll give you the hidden
manna. If you overcome this world, I'll give you the hidden manna.
And in the last church he led to see, he said, you're rich
and increased with good. I haven't eaten nothing. But
you don't know. You've forgotten. But you're poor and wretched
and naked and miserable and blind. He said, I counsel. My eye's
sad. You need to have your eyes opened again. You haven't changed. And the gospel hadn't changed.
And you still need the gospel. In fact, you need it now more
than ever. Some people got all the way to the verge of Jordan
about to cross over and they missed it. Can you imagine being
right on the verge of Jordan and miss it? For what? There's only one reason. There's
only one thing. I talked about loss of appetite.
That's a serious thing. Loss of appetite for the gospel
is a serious sign of sickness. There's only one cause for that.
One cause. Always. Look at it. Look at verse 11 with me. And
I'm not mad at you. I'm scared for us, okay? I'm
scared for us. Look at verse 11. Beware that
you forget not the Lord thy God in keeping His commandments,
His judgments, His statutes, which I command thee this day,
lest when thou... Here it is. You're going to eat
and be full and build goodly houses and dwell therein. Your
herds and your flocks multiply. Your cars multiply. Your silver
and gold, your bank account, all that you have multiply. Your
heart be lifted up and fat. You forget the Lord. One thing
make you forget and lose your appetite for the gospel. Demas hath forsaken me. Why? He loved the president. Always a cop. Always a cop. And people blame it on Moses.
Always. To justify their loss of appetite. At most, I can't stand him anymore.
He's the same man. The gospel is the same. Oh, my. Brothers and sisters,
beware. Beware. Look at verse 4. This
is wonderful. Or verse 3. He said, He suffered
you to hunger. What a blessing to hunger, isn't
it? That you may know. You've found out what true bread
is. And you live by every word that proceeds out of the mouth
of the Lord. Every word. Do you remember when you first
heard the gospel? A man could stand up and just
say, Mercy! Amen! He'd go out and say the best
message I've ever heard in my life. What'd he say? Mercy! Elect! You remember that? He could say no wrong. Fumbling,
mumbling, stammering, tongue and, buddy, if he just said blood,
you'd just, hey, man, isn't this wonderful? Every word. Every word of God is precious.
None without significance. Oh, that manna was like one little
hoary thing, a little morsel of manna was one little white
thing. But there was so much of it,
he just covered the ground. But one little morsel. Isn't
that one? Look at that word right there.
Isn't that marvelous? But the whole thing. Every word. Isn't this marvelous? Isn't this
roll that the Lord has given us like Ezekiel to eat of, isn't
it just sweet in your belly? Sweet in your mouth. Sometimes
makes your belly bitter, doesn't it? Conviction of sin. Oh, my, look at verse 4. Oh,
this is wonderful. This is wonderful. Your raiment
wax not old upon you. I've got shirts, t-shirts, that
I'm loathed to part with, and it's ripped, it's got holes in
it, it's rotten, and she says, I can't get it to smell good.
Don't throw that away. Man loves his rags, doesn't he?
He loves his self-righteous rag. But this gospel, This covering,
Christ's righteousness, do you ever get tired of hearing that?
Oh, if you know the nakedness of your own sin, and you don't
want to be found naked in that day, do you? That's what Paul
said, I don't want to be found clothed in my own righteousness
naked. God sees right through that. It doesn't wax old, it
doesn't get old. Cover you, all your life, all
your sins, covered. Neither did your foot swell.
Forty years. Forty years. Like a good old
pair of shoes. Leather. Leather, mind you. I just bought
some cheap shoes and they weren't leather. They were vinyl. Man,
I'd send them back. It wouldn't have lasted a month.
Leather is an animal that sacrificed its life. You've been shod with
the Gospel of Christ who sacrificed His life. For you to walk by
faith in this world. To walk through this world. The
gospel keeps your head from swelling. You know that? The gospel gets
better as the years go by. It should. It does. If you've
been really shod with it. Been shod well. Our Lord is a
good farrier. And it will enable you to walk
through this world and you won't stumble. I started to preach
tonight from Psalm 116 on this. I preached on it before. Thou hast delivered my soul from
death, mine eyes from tears, and my feet from falling. He's delivered my soul from death,
mine eyes from tears, and my feet from falling. He's able
to keep us from falling. And He will. This gospel keeps
us. He says, your raiment waxed not
old, your feet didn't swell. Verse 5, consider in your heart,
consider this, remember this. Paul said, despise not the chastening
of the Lord. As a man chasteneth his son,
so the Lord thy God chasteneth thee. If ye be without chastisement,
you're bastards, you're not sons. Chastening. My father used to
spank me, whip me, yes, with a belt. And I'm glad he did. And he didn't
do it nearly enough. And you know what? He doesn't
even remember it. Then, I remember telling him, he doesn't even
remember it. Boy, do I remember it. But I
never hated him because of it. I never thought he's being, well
at the time I did. But later I thought, I didn't
get what I deserved. Right, John? And God has not
dealt with us according to our sins. Chasing of the Lord. You've been
chasing right now, tonight, some of these things. If it doesn't
convict you, if the Word of God doesn't bless you, it's not sweet
to you, and if it doesn't convict you, you're not a child of God.
If you're not convinced of your sin, convicted of your sin, it's
the goodness of God that leads you to repent. These children of Israel, they
need to repent. And they did. Some of them. And
we do too. When? All our lives. All our
lives. He chastens us. He chastens us. Look at verse 6. Therefore thou
shalt keep the commandments of the Lord. To walk in His ways.
Oh, the way of the transgressors. Nothing He said is hard. It's
all good. It's all good. Everything He
says is right. It's just. It's true. It's good.
He doesn't tell us to do anything. He didn't do. Look at this. The Lord God brings,
verse 7, into a good land. He's talking about the promised
land. You know where the children of Israel began, don't you? In
the land of Goshen. Then they had to go out and wander
through the wilderness, and he brought them out of that into
the land. Well, I've often likened the land of Goshen to the church,
you know, where we are, and the promised land. We're not there
yet, but the church is the closest thing to it, you know. He goes on to talk about a land
of wheat and barley. Oh, how many times have we looked
at those things? If we get back into Exodus, we will. Vines? Where do you hear the vine about?
Fig trees? Pomegranates? Where have you
heard about pomegranates? On the hymn of the high priest. Land of olive oil? Honey. Land where bread without scarceness. You can come in here. And you're going to get bread.
No matter who's standing up here, they're going to feed you with
this Bible. They won't be standing up here
if they're not feeding you with God's Word. I make sure of that.
I'm not going to have a man standing up here who's not going to feed
you well. Just come hungry. Open your mouth. Without scarceness, you won't
lack anything in it. The Lord is our Shepherd. We
shall not want. It leads you inside the still
waters and the green pastures. Read on, it says, the stones
are iron. Oh my, that's Christ. Christ
is all of this. All is on. Hills dig brass. We're going to read a lot about
brass in Exodus. Oh, but when you've eaten and
are full, thou shalt bless the Lord thy God. Bless Him. Bless
Him for the good land which He hath given thee. Do you bless
the Lord for bringing you here? I hope we never, ever take it
for granted. People all over the world are
in the hog pen. It's a dry and thirsty land,
no bread, drought. There's a famine of the word
in the name of not near. We're eating fat things and wine
on the leaves, well refined, bread from heaven every time
we meet. Every time we meet. God forgive us. Bless His Holy
Name. So He warns us. We've already
read all this. In verse 16, I close, He fed
you in the wilderness with manna. He reminds us this is what's
going to prove you. which thy fathers knew not, you
didn't know, they didn't know, to humble you." The Gospel humbles
us, doesn't it? Everything about it. God's sovereign
love, sovereign election, sovereign mercy, sovereign grace. A woman
today complained about the heat. She said, it's hot. I said, it
ain't as hot as we deserve. That it might prove you. Why? What's he going to do? What's
he going to do with it? Look at verse 16. David Edmondson,
are you listening? He's going to do thee good at
the latter end. When it's all over, you know
what you're going to find out? What he's been telling you all
along, that it's all worked together for good. To them that love God. Remember, verse 18 is the Lord. So, remember, beware. Don't forget, all the way, this
manna. Thank God for it. Ask Him to
continue to give you a hunger and a thirst for it. And you'll
know in the end, We're all going to see it's all good. The goodness
of God led us to repentance, led us to Christ, led us all
the way these 40 or 50 years, all the way through this wilderness,
kept us, delivered our soul from death, our eyes from tears, our
feet from falling, all the way to glory. You're going to lead
us all the way to glory. There's no good in this world.
And there's nothing better in this life than these words of
life. Christ there. Is that what you
believe? Okay, stand with me.