Deuteronomy 8: Truly Living by Keeping the Word of God

Introduction

"Man shall not live by bread alone." Many people memorized this verse in Sunday school. Pastor Ruth of Fukuoka Agape Church in Japan made it the theme of this message on Deuteronomy 8: we truly live by keeping God's commandments.

The setting is the end of the journey. Moses is about to hand the leadership over to Joshua. In Deuteronomy, he sums up forty years in the wilderness: what Yahweh did, what he said, the ten commandments, his laws. He reminds the people of them so that they will keep them and put them into practice.

The preacher asks us to hear this story as a word for today: "This is not an old story, and it is not only the story of the Jewish people." Your Christian life, she says, is this wilderness. The question is how long you are going to keep going around in circles in it.

Message Outline

1. Eleven Days of Walking, Forty Years in the Wilderness

• Twelve spies explore Canaan for forty days. Ten come back saying: the land is good, but there are giants and fortified cities, so it is impossible. Only Joshua and Caleb declare: "If God is with us, let's go up."
• The people listen to the ten, weep, grumble against God, against Moses and Aaron, and want to go back to Egypt. God then counts each day of exploring as one year.
• A journey of eleven days becomes forty years of wandering. Of the 600,000 men who left Egypt, only Joshua and Caleb enter the land, along with those under twenty and those born in the wilderness.
• Israel was a stiff-necked people. God did not choose them because they were remarkable, but to keep his promise to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. It is the same for us.

2. What "Truly Living" Means

• The Japanese translation the church reads renders Deuteronomy 8:3 as "truly live by keeping God's commandments." Jesus quotes this verse when Satan asks him to turn stones into bread after forty days of fasting: "It is written, 'Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.'" (Matthew 4:4).
• As a child, the pastor recited it without understanding it. Later she understood it this way: the body grows with food, but you also have to learn; in the same way, a Christian must study the Bible and remember it when making choices.
• She then discovered a deeper meaning: truly living means living by the Spirit. Not by the flesh, by your own ideas or your emotions, but by hearing the voice of God, the voice that then directs your thoughts, your feelings, your decisions and your body.

3. The Wilderness of a Broken Pastor

• During her studies, and then in her working life, servants of God prayed for her and told her she would become a servant of God. One day she heard: "Your work in the world is finished. Come with me." She left her job, lived on odd jobs and entered Bible school.
• She thought she would be ready in three years. God did something else: like a finished vase that is broken with a hammer, then ground into powder to be reshaped.
• This time lasted six to seven years, actually seven or eight, she says. Humiliations, sorrows, a series of trials, then more than a year and a half of medical care because of stress.
• The hardest part was thinking that God was angry with her. She understood later that God did not hate her: he hated the sin hidden in her, and wanted her to recognize it, repent of it and be transformed.
• She believed she was obeying 100%. Looking back, she estimates she was obeying 70%. Grace arrived "drop by drop." Since then, she feels God's guidance and protection every day. She is in her third year since her pastoral consecration, ten years after her calling.

4. The Wilderness Makes Us Humble

• According to Deuteronomy 8:2, Yahweh led Israel for forty years to humble them, to test them and to see whether they would keep his commandments. The wilderness transforms.
• The Word is a mirror: it shows what in you opposes God. Seeing it is already a grace. Then you must repent of it with all your heart and, with the help of the Holy Spirit, give up that sin step by step. This is the path of sanctification.
• Behind unbelief and disobedience lies pride: placing your own judgment, ideas and emotions above the Word of God. "Obeying God is pointless, my way is better."
• Not everyone needs forty years. The secret to entering sooner: trust God completely and put his Word into practice, down to the details. "I more or less keep it" is not enough (Deuteronomy 5:32-33).
• God has no favorites. The stronger the self, the more one suffers, and some keep going back to difficult paths without realizing it. The pastor hopes you will learn the lesson in one or two tries.

5. God Corrects and Protects at the Same Time

• "Your clothing didn't grow old on you, neither did your foot swell, these forty years." (Deuteronomy 8:4). It seems modest. It is an immense grace.
• In the wilderness, manna fell every day, water gushed from the rock, the pillar of fire warmed the night and the cloud shielded from the sun by day.
• "As a man chastens his son, so Yahweh your God chastens you." (Deuteronomy 8:5). God also suffers when he corrects, but he does it out of love, to make you a pure vessel.
• This world is a training ground. Christians have problems too. God allows them to make you more humble, to strengthen your faith and to give you the strength to obey.

6. Obeying Out of Love, Not Like the Pharisees

• The promises of Deuteronomy are conditional: "then," "this is how." God always keeps his word, but you must choose his Word with your will.
• The Pharisees kept the law with all their strength, but their hearts judged, hated and coveted. Jesus called them a "brood of vipers."
• The difference in the new covenant: the Holy Spirit is given to us. Jesus accomplished his work by the power of the Spirit and promised him to his disciples. You take a step, even if you do not manage it, and the Spirit helps you, step by step.
• The pastor tells how someone once said to her: "You are a Pharisee." She obeyed out of fear of being punished, by her own efforts, mixed with God's help. Obeying in order to be blessed or to go to heaven is still the faith of the Pharisees.
• Deuteronomy 11:1 puts love first: "You shall love Yahweh your God, and keep his instructions, his statutes, his ordinances, and his commandments, always." We obey to please the one we love. And living by the Word in everyday life is, she says, a living act of worship.

7. Do Not Forget in Abundance, Choose the Blessing

• When everything is going well, with a house, flocks and possessions, that is when the danger comes (Deuteronomy 8:11-14). David, at the height of his reign, stayed home resting while his men were at war, and he fell with Bathsheba.
• When someone thanks you for what God did through you, do not answer "it was nothing": give the glory to God. Count his blessings one by one. Without that, all that is left is complaining.
• "It is he who gives you power to get wealth" (Deuteronomy 8:18): God blesses in order to keep his promise to the fathers, not because we are righteous or good.
• Deuteronomy 11 promises rain in its season and God fighting against peoples stronger than you, even giants. For the pastor, God goes ahead of you in the face of illness and problems.
• "Behold, I set before you today a blessing and a curse" (Deuteronomy 11:26). Idols are not only other gods: they are everything you place above the Word, whether your emotions, your ideas, the media, scientists or the government.
• The preacher links this choice to the rapture of the Church. In her view, only those who walk with God and hear his voice will hear the trumpet, and they will be few. She invites each person to ask: "Lord, at the end of time, I want to have a part in the rapture." And if life ends before then, the goal remains to hear before the Lord: "Well done, good and faithful servant."

Key Takeaways

• Truly living means living by the Spirit of God, letting his Word direct your thoughts, your emotions and your choices.
• The wilderness is not a pointless punishment: God uses it to make you humble and to transform you.
• Pride is putting your judgment above the Word. It prolongs the wilderness.
• God corrects like a father and protects at the same time: your clothes do not wear out along the way.
• We obey out of love for God, with the help of the Holy Spirit, and not out of fear or self-interest.

Personal Application

1. In what area of your life do you feel you have been going around in circles for a long time?
2. Which passage of the Bible do you keep "more or less," telling yourself that God will understand?
3. Which voices do you place, in practice, above the Word: your emotions, your ideas, the media?
4. Why do you obey God today: out of fear, out of duty, or because you love him?
5. Take a moment this week to count God's blessings in your life and give him glory.

Verses Cited

• Deuteronomy 8
• Numbers 14:34
• Matthew 4:1-4
• Deuteronomy 5:32-33
• Deuteronomy 10:12-13
• Deuteronomy 11
• 2 Samuel 11
• Matthew 25:21

Frequently Asked Questions

What does "man shall not live by bread alone" mean in Deuteronomy 8?

For Pastor Ruth, it is not only about feeding your mind in addition to your body. Living by the Word means letting yourself be led by the Spirit of God: hearing his voice and letting that voice direct your thoughts, your emotions, your decisions and your body. Truly living means living by the Spirit.

Why did God make Israel walk forty years in the wilderness?

The journey only required eleven days. Because of their unbelief, God counted each day of exploring as one year. Deuteronomy 8 explains the purpose of those forty years: to make the people humble, to test them and to teach them to obey with all their heart. For the preacher, our wildernesses have the same purpose.

What is the difference between the Pharisees' obedience and the obedience God expects?

The Pharisees kept the law in their own strength, but their hearts did not follow their actions. Pastor Ruth calls us to obey because we love God, not out of fear of being punished or in order to be blessed, relying every day on the help of the Holy Spirit.