The book of Deuteronomy, chapter 32. Deuteronomy chapter 32, verses 9 and 10. For the Lord's portion is his
people. Jacob is the lot of his inheritance. He found him in a desert land,
in a waste howling wilderness. He led him about, he instructed
him, he kept him as the apple of his eye. I want to take the
title of this message today, The Lord's Portion, from verse
nine, The Lord's Portion. I want to say something about
the passage of scripture that our text is found in. These verses
make up a hymn, a song. It is a song that God gave to
Moses to teach to the children of Israel, the nation of Israel. If you notice the last verse
of the previous chapter, chapter 31, verse 30, We read, and Moses spake in the
ears of all the congregation of Israel the words of this song,
this song. The song begins in verse one
and ends in verse 43. And this took place when God
gave this song to Moses to teach to the children of Israel. It
was at the end of his life, that is the end of Moses' life, 120
years old. In fact, if you look in chapter
32 down to verse 48, we see this. God told Moses, get thee up into
this mountain, Abiram, unto Mount Nebo, which is in the land of
Moab, that is over against Jericho. And behold the land of Canaan,
which I give unto the children of Israel for a possession, and
die. God told Moses, you go up on
the mountain and you look at the land of Canaan and die in
the mount, whither thou goest up, and be gathered unto thy
people. As Aaron thy brother died in
Mount Or, and was gathered unto his people. So this song was
given to Moses to teach to the nation of Israel at the end of
his life, after leading the children of Israel for 40 years in the
wilderness. Moses lived to be 120, and at
the end of that time, just before they were to cross over Jordan,
Joshua would be the man that God chose to take Moses' place,
to lead them into the land of Canaan, Just before they go over
the river Jordan, God gave Moses this song and told him to teach
this song to the nation of Israel. And this song was to serve as
a witness against them. Again, if you look in chapter
31, in verse 19, God told Moses, now therefore
write ye this song for you and teach it to the children of Israel.
Put it in their mouths that this song may be a witness for me
against the children of Israel. For when I shall have brought
them into the land which I swear unto their fathers, that floweth
with milk and honey, and they shall have eaten and filled themselves
in wax and fat, then will they turn unto other gods and serve
them, and provoke me and break my covenant. When you look at
this song, we're not going to look at it today, we're just
going to take these two verses as a text, but when you look
at this song, it is truly amazing. Some of you were here last Sunday
morning, most of you in fact, and we looked at the scripture
which says the words of the Lord are pure. That is, His word is
without error. And when you look at this song
that God gave to Moses, you see that it is history and it is
prophecy. The first few verses is history. That is, the history of the nation
of Israel to this point in time when God gave this hymn to Moses. And then it stretches on to the
coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, and yes, even to the calling
of the Gentiles. If you notice in verse 15, it
tells, it prophesies, I should say, of the fact that Israel
would reject the Lord Jesus Christ when he came into the world.
But Jeshurun waxed fat, that's Israel, and kicked Thou had waxen
fat, thou had grown thick, thou had covered with fatness. Then
he forsook God, which made him, now notice this, and lightly
esteemed the rock of his salvation. We know the rock is the Lord
Jesus Christ. The rock of salvation is Christ. And when he came into this world,
the nation of Israel, they lightly esteemed him. They wanted nothing
to do with him. Thumbs down on him by all the
religious leaders, the princes of this world, as Paul calls
them in 1 Corinthians. And then, as I said, it extends
on if you look in verse 43 at the last verse of the hymn. It extends on to the calling
of the Gentiles. The Apostle Paul quotes part
of this verse in Romans 15 and verse 10, rejoice you Gentiles
with his people. So it is truly amazing. But you
know, all of God's word is amazing. All of God's word, how anyone
could read the word of God. And I know men do, and I know
men can. apart from the Spirit of God,
the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God."
You know, in the last number of years, men have brought out
all these various translations, and their thought is, we've got
to make the Scriptures so simple that everyone can understand
them. No one can understand the Word
of God apart from the Spirit of God. The natural man receiveth
not the things of God, their foolishness unto him. Many of
the so-called translations are not translations at all. And
I was reading the other day, and you know I've used the King
James and plan to continue to use it the rest of my life, the
rest of the time the Lord gives me to preach. But this pastor
I was reading pointed this out about the King James translation. He said, I looked at it and I
found that most of the words are one and two syllable words. And I thought about that and
I looked at it and apart from the names, many of the names
are very long, very difficult to pronounce, that's true. But to understand the word of
God. I mean, most of the King James
translation uses one and two syllable words. It's not the
fact that the scripture is difficult to understand. It's impossible
for the natural man to understand. That's the problem. Well, looking at our text today. The Lord's portion is his people. Jacob is the lot of his inheritance. When we read here that God has
a portion, All people are His. All people He has created. But yet out of all people He
has a portion. A portion. And His portion are
His people. And He refers to them in this
text under this one name that is the name Jacob. Jacob. Now, he's not talking about that
individual named Jacob here necessarily. He's included, but he's talking
about all the people of God. His portion, Jacob. There are
three things to always remember when you read where God calls
the people Jacob, or he refers to himself as the God of Jacob. Always remember these three things. Number one, God loved Jacob. Yea, I have loved thee with an
everlasting love. God has a love for his people,
a special, peculiar, particular love for his portion, for his
people. And God chose Jacob. The scripture
says that the purpose of God, according to election, might
stand. The elder shall serve the younger. When we think about Jacob, we're
thinking about those who are the portion of God, those whom
God loves with a special love, an eternal love, those whom He
has chosen. And think about this, Jacob had
his name changed, didn't he? His name was changed to Israel. And no one knows for sure exactly
what that means, but most people will tell you it means A prince
or someone with power, a prince with God. And I think about that
scripture in Revelation 1, verse 5 and 6, speaking of our Lord
that tells us that who loved us and washed us from our sins
in his own blood and hath made us kings, princes, and priests
unto God. So all of God's people may be
referred to as Jacob, a collective name. Now the three truths, this
verse divides itself so easily into three parts. First, the
Lord finds his portion in a desert land, a waste-howing wilderness. You notice the scripture says,
he found him. God found him. Now this is something
that is taught all the way through the Bible, all the way through
the Word of God. People sometimes say, well, I
found the Lord. You know, I know we wouldn't
fall out with people maybe on making a statement like that,
but it's a bad statement in the sense that God never was lost.
He wasn't lost. God finds His people. Now I know
after He finds us, then we find Him. That's true. But first of
all, and this is taught all the way through the Word of God,
from the very first sinner who was found, who was that? Adam. And was Adam seeking after
God? Was Adam looking for God? Was
Adam searching for God? You know not. You know he wasn't. It was God who came in the cool
of the day and cried out to Adam, Adam, where art thou? And you
find that all the way through the word of God and all the way
until today. God finds his people, his portion. He finds us. Think about Abraham. Look with me in Joshua just a
moment. Joshua chapter 24. Was Abraham
seeking God? Well, you know he wasn't. Was
Noah? Noah found grace in the eyes
of the Lord. He wasn't seeking the Lord. The
Lord sought him. The Lord found him. And in Joshua
chapter 24, this is very close to the end of Joshua's
life, and he's speaking to the nation. And if you will, in verse
2 and 3, it says, And Joshua said unto all the people, Thus
saith the Lord God of Israel, Your fathers dwelt on the other
side of the flood in old time. In other words, on the other
side of Jordan. That's where your fathers dwelt.
Even Terah, the father of Abraham, and the father of Nachor. And
they, notice, and they served other gods. Abraham was an idolater,
just like his father. They served other gods. And I, this is God, I took your
father Abraham from the other side of the flood. appeared unto
Abram, and said, Get thee out from thy kinsmen. God found Abram. You know, when we think about
the fact that Abram and his parents, they served other gods, did you
know there never has been a nation, a people found on the face of
God's earth that did not believe in a God. Never has been. All men know that there is a
God. And even the fact they served
other gods, from what I've read, most heathen nations that had
a multiplicity of gods, they had one God that was above them
all, and that God was good. Whatever was they considered
good for them. If they lived in a place like
in Yucatan where they depended upon the rain, then the rain
god, that was a good god. If they lived in another place
where they depended on something else out of God's creation, then
they would name that god and it would be good. Why? Because
all men instinctively know there is a God and that God Almighty
is good. He's good. He could have left
all of mankind in a wasteland wilderness. But no, he found
him, the scripture says. He found him. And that's true
of all men that are saved. They're all found by Him. When we read that the Lord found
Him, it tells us that He was lost. He was lost. The Lord finds His people, that
is, He finds His sheep. They're lost, but they are already
His sheep. He doesn't find goats and then
turn them into sheep. No, he finds sheep who may be
and probably are living like goats and he calls them, he finds
them. But when we say that when a person
is found, that means that he was lost, what does it mean to
be lost? What does it mean to be lost?
Well, let me mention these three things that surely would be included
in being lost. Separation, number one. If you
lose something, it's separated from you. Man is lost. And what is it that has separated
him from his God? Well, the scripture tells us,
doesn't it? In Isaiah 59, in verse two, the scripture says,
but your iniquities, your iniquities have separated between you and
your God. For the Lord to find His people,
He must first of all deal with their iniquities, their iniquities,
their sins. He has to answer for their iniquities. Before He finds one, there has
to be a propitiation, there has to be an atonement made for the
sins of his people. And that's the reason the scripture
says he is as a lamb slain from before the foundation of the
world. Before God ever found Adam in
the purpose of God, in the mind of God, the Lord Jesus Christ
was already ordained to come and give his life as a ransom
for many. To be lost is to be separated. And it is our sins that have
separated us from God. And to find His people, to find
you, to find me, He had to deal, first of all, with our sins. And I'm so thankful, aren't you,
that He has dealt with my sins. And if you're here today and
you've been found, you know, praise God, He dealt with your
sins. And where did He deal with them?
At Calvary. At Calvary. I was thinking today,
I'm thankful that there's a law against double jeopardy. Aren't you? Double jeopardy. Think about it. If you could
be accused of a crime, let's say you're innocent and the government,
the government's got a lot of money. They've got a lot of lawyers
and you're accused of a crime and you're taken to trial and
you're proven innocent. Well, you cannot, according to
law, ever be charged again. Right? But what if there wasn't
a law against double jeopardy? What if you were found innocent
and the government said, no, I believe he's guilty. Let's
try him again. Let's try him again. Let's try
him again. Until eventually you would have
no resources to answer. Well, they still have plenty
of money. They just print some more. I'm thankful there's a
law against double jeopardy in this country. And I'm thankful
that when Christ was made to be sin for us, when He took the
sins of His people, bore them in His own body on the tree,
and was judged, condemned, punished, We can never be accused or tried
for those sins again. He's answered for them. Well, that's the first thing
it means to be lost, to be found. If something's lost, well, what
was it? Separation. And then second,
irresponsive. To be lost is to be irresponsive. You know, until a person is found,
he doesn't even know he's lost. Do you realize that? Until a
person is found, he doesn't even know he's lost. Why? Because he's dead in trespasses
and sins, spiritually dead. He doesn't understand that he's
lost, that he's estranged from God. He can't hear unless God
gives him hearing. He cannot see unless God gives
him sight. He cannot breathe, he cannot
cry out to God, God have mercy upon me. He's irresponsive. That's what
it is to be lost. It's to be dead and not even
know that you're dead. When that prodigal son took the
money his father gave him and left home, he was already dead. Now he didn't know it. He didn't know it. But when he
got down there and all of his money was gone, he was in the
hog pen, in the waste howling wilderness, God found him. And to be lost is not only to
be separated and to be irresponsive, but it means to be in danger. A person's lost is in danger. To those who were found in the
church at Ephesus, the apostle Paul wrote, who were by nature
the children of wrath, even as others. Now, what does that mean? All of us before all of his sheep,
we were by nature, we had a sinful nature. Children of wrath, we
deserve the wrath of God. We merited the wrath of God,
even as others, those who are lost. But God, who is rich in
mercy. Let me ask you this question
this morning. Where did he find you? Has he
found you? Where did he find you? I'll tell
you where he finds his people, just like this scripture says.
He found him in a waste, in a desert land, in the waste howling wilderness. A person may be living on Easy
Street. He may have everything this world
can offer as far as the good things of life and of this world. But I tell you what, God has
a way of turning that into a desert land, into a waste-howling wilderness. That's what we call conviction
of sin, isn't it? When He has come, He shall convict
the world of sin. And I tell you, you can be outwardly,
other people look at you and they think, boy, that man, he's
got everything, everything's going his way, or she, and inside,
you're in a desert. You're in a waste-howing wilderness. God has convicted you of your
sin, of your need, of the fact that eternity is before you,
that you're going to face God. I tell you what, a lot of people
are in churches professing to be saved who were never lost. They were never lost. Have you ever been lost? He finds
his Jacobs in a desert land. Now the desert, the wilderness
that the children of Israel were passing through or had passed
through, Remember, there was no water in that wilderness. Water, the water of life. There was
no bread, the bread of life. He finds his people in a desert
land, in a waste-housing wilderness. Now notice the second thing it
says here. The Lord leads him about. He instructed him. The Lord leads
his portion about. The word about is a preposition,
isn't it? It's a preposition. And every
preposition, I think I'm right about this, needs an object.
There's no object here. There's no object in this verse,
is there? He leads him about. And that brings me to say of the about, the about where
the Lord leads his people. Now only the Lord knows the specifics, what is included. in this about. But I know three
things in this about which are uniform to all his people. First, included in this about
will be confessing him in baptism. He leads him about. He leads
him to obey the command of the Lord Jesus Christ to confess
him in the ordinance of baptism. This is a public confession of
our faith. We would not have anyone to be
baptized who has not experienced inwardly what baptism pictures
outwardly. But if you've been given a new
life, and you're walking in obedience unto the Lord Jesus Christ, then
yes, he leads him about. He leads that person to confess
the Lord in baptism. And a second thing I would say
about this, the about would include leading him into the green pastures. There's just something that takes
place when God finds one of His lost sheep. He leads him about. He leads him to green pastures,
that is, into the Word of God. I wouldn't put much confidence
in anyone who says, I've been saved, God saved me, who doesn't
have a love for the Word of God. who doesn't want to get into
the Word of God, read the Word of God, hear the Word of God
proclaimed. And do you know why the psalmist
said, the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not walk, he maketh me
to lie down in green pastures. Do you know what makes this Word
of God green pastures? The sun, the sun. You can have grass and it not
be green. I was pulling some weeds out
of my garden area just this past week, and I had a piece of metal
in that area, about two by three foot piece of metal, and it was
laying flat. And when I came to that part,
I pulled it up, and you know there was weeds under there too?
But they were white. All the weeds around I've been
pulling up were green. What makes the Word of God green
pastures to the sheep of God is the Son, not the S-U-N, the
S-O-N, the Son of God. When we come to the Word of God,
we look for Him and He speaks to us from His Word. And not
only does He lead us about in professing Him in baptism and
lead us about into the green pastures, He leads us about,
this would include the still waters. And something about sheep
in the green pastures. You know, sheep have more than
one stomach. And from what I've read, they
will eat in the morning, and that grass goes into one stomach,
and then in the afternoon, usually in the shade, They will be laying
down and chewing their good. That is, bringing that food up
out of that one stomach and chewing that, and it goes into the other
stomach. And that reminds us, of course,
not only of feeding on the Word of God, but meditating on the
Word of God, thinking on the Word of God. I think meditation
is something, we live in such a fast-paced life, all of us
do, and that's not good. It'd be good for us if we could
slow down and chew the could. I mean, bring that word up that
we've heard and think on it, meditate on it. Some say the
grass they eat is not that good. It's kind of sour, kind of, kind
of sour. But when they bring it back up,
then it's sweet. It's sweet to their taste. But
the still waters, he leads us about to the still water sheep.
They will not or they do not like to drink from a bubbling stream that's making noise. They like a stream that is quiet. It leads me beside the still
waters. And they like to be able to see
the reflection in that water too. And they don't like to drink
from water that is real deep. They like to be able to see the
bottom. But having said that about the
about, those three things, but there's, as I said, the specifics
of where God leads his people about, it's different. Some of his people, the about
would include sickness. Sickness. Some of God's children
have been sick and known sickness all of their lives. That's part
of that about. Some have suffered great loss.
Some have lost children, spouses. God leads them about. Some have
those they care for that are special needs. He leads them
about. And you know some, he leads them
about where they have great success. And let me say this, according
to the word of God, the most dangerous about is not where
there's sickness and suffering and sorrow. The most dangerous
about is where there's prosperity and much. And you see that in
this song. Look with me in verses 12 through
15. You see this in the song here. So the Lord did lead him,
and there was no strange God with him. He made him ride on
the high places of the earth, that he might eat the increase
of the fields. And he made him to suck honey
out of the rock, and oil out of the flinty rock, butter of
kind, and milk of sheep, and fat of lambs, and rams of the
breed of Bashan, and goats with the fat of kidneys of wheat.
And thou didst drink the pure blood of the grape. You see, in the midst of all
that plenty, Jeshurun, Israel, waxed fat and kicked. One of the most dangerous places
for any child of God is the place of what the world calls success
and prosperity. And I tell you, America has suffered
greatly from this because most people don't have time for God.
They don't have time for God. It's difficult to have three
services a week anymore. People don't have time for people's
jobs, people's situation. Everything's demanding. People have two houses, a house
in the city and a house in the country, a house at the lake.
I mean, it's just so many things. I know our congregation here,
for the most part, everyone in this auditorium this morning
You could be somewhere else. I mean, you have the means of
withal to be somewhere else, to be enjoying yourself, to be
entertaining the flesh, having a good time, and so many people
do, and neglect God. Forget God. God leads His people about. We sing that hymn sometime. God
leads his dear children along, some through the water, some
through the flood, some through the fire, but all through the
blood. Some through great sorrow, but
God gives a song in the night season and all the day long. And look at this third, I'll
have to close. The Lord keeps his portion as
the apple of his eye. You know, you don't see yourself
like this, but this is the way God sees you as the apple of
his eye, if you're one of his children. The psalmist, and he
said, I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Speaking of this body.
And every member of the body, the more we learn about it, the
more we study, we realize how intricate and how precise and
the wisdom of God in creating the human body. But the eye,
God has especially put the eye in a place of protection and
that wall around it to protect it. And the eyelid over it, the
eyebrows, everything that God has created, and in God's in
the spiritual body, the body of Christ, we might say it too
is fearfully and wonderfully made. And every member of the
spiritual body of Christ he keeps as the apple of his eye. He said, I give unto them, that
is his sheep, eternal life, and they shall never perish. Neither
shall any pluck them out of my hand. One writer said the apple
of the eye of the Lord is his glory. His glory secured in the
person of his son. The security of every believer
kept by the power of God in the hand of God according to the
purpose of God. I pray that the Lord would bless
his word to those of us here today. Can you remember, I hesitate,
I try not to encourage any of us to look back. I really do. I want us to be looking to Christ
today. Today. But I must admit, My own
experience, and I know this is true, can you look back and remember
there was a time when you were in a desert land. You didn't
know God. You had no peace, no joy, no
assurance of salvation. There's nothing but death and
fear out in front of you. And then the Lord found you and
drew you to himself. And what joy and what peace.
Have you experienced that sin? We're going to sing this hymn.
God leads us along. Number 298.