About this sermon
At his baptism the Father declared Jesus his beloved Son, echoing Psalm 2 and Isaiah 42, and then the Spirit led him into the wilderness. Tempted to turn stones into bread, Jesus answered from Deuteronomy 8:3: man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. Where Israel grumbled over manna, Jesus stayed faithful as the obedient Son, on a path that led through Gethsemane to the cross. Apart from him we can do nothing; in him believers live by God’s word.
Sermon transcript
It is, of course, impossible for us as New Testament believers to read chapter eight of Deuteronomy without thinking of Jesus and his use of Deuteronomy chapter eight, verse three, when he was tempted by Satan in the wilderness. In fact, it is worth reading the whole chapter as we have done here this morning, especially the first half of the chapter through the eyes and the mind of Jesus. The Synoptic Gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, all portray the temptations of Jesus as following directly from his baptism. At his baptism, Jesus received affirmation of his identity and his mission as the Son of God.
In words that are quoted there, Quoting two Old Testament scriptures, God speaks. You might think of Psalm 2 verse 7 and Isaiah 42 verse 1. Those two verses come to bear upon the word that is spoken in the Gospels. Psalm 2, verse 7, for example, says, I will surely tell of the decree of the Lord.
He said to me, thou art my beloved son. Today I have begotten thee. And I’m asking you to think of the word that is spoken from heaven at the baptism of Jesus, where God declares, this is my beloved son. And think of that as a fulfillment of Psalm 2, verse 7. Today I have begotten thee.
And combine that concept of Psalm two with Isaiah 42 verse one which says, behold my servant whom I uphold, my chosen one in whom my soul delights. I have put my spirit upon him. And think of the outpouring of the spirit that comes upon Jesus at his baptism.
He will bring forth justice to the nations. The burden of messianic sonship and the mission of obedient, suffering servanthood that flowed from those combined texts fulfilled in Jesus led Jesus here into a period of intense wrestling with the future that lay before him. It is hardly surprising that he turned to the opening chapters of Deuteronomy to answer the devil in the wilderness, for the resources that would undergird the orientation of his life toward doing the will of his father God. Surely that is the whole thrust of these chapters in Deuteronomy, the opening chapters of Deuteronomy, where Israel’s God Yahweh declares himself to be the one true God and that they were to love him with heart, mind, soul, and strength. Well, surely that is what comes to expression in the word Jesus Christ.
And we clearly see in him one who kept those commands and kept God ever before him. Jesus Christ, unlike Israel, he was obedient. He was faithful. He was true to the Lord’s commandments in everything, in every circumstance. Always do we see Jesus doing the will of the Father, even when it is most painful, most difficult to do so. Not my will, but thy will be done, he would pray. especially emphatically do we see him so here as he faces the temptation in the wilderness. And when he faces the cross, he is determined to do the father’s will and to keep the commandment, even in the face of the great temptation that the wilderness and the cross gave him. Unlike unfaithful Israel, Jesus is devoted to the will of the father, even in drinking to the dregs, the cup of suffering that is set before him. Our passage in Deuteronomy was familiar to all devout Jews of Jesus’ day, and the Lord Jesus must have known these words by heart.
His earthly life, as you know, was marked by humiliation and trial, from his lowly birth to his horrendous death. Though we might be tempted to think otherwise, his life was not easy. It was most difficult, most painful. Truly, he was God’s beloved son. And truly, he was the suffering servant of prophetic scripture come to fulfillment.
Immediately after his signal experience of the Holy Spirit at his baptism that is poured out and comes down upon him like a dove, and prior to the beginning of his public ministry, Jesus was led by the Spirit, we’re told, into the wilderness. And there, in the wilderness, he was severely tested. After 40 days utterly without food, he was desperately hungry. There is no doubt that the gospel writers intend us to notice the significance of Jesus, the Son of God, spending 40 days in the wilderness, facing similar privation as Israel did in the Exodus and their 40-year wandering in the wilderness.
Thus does the devil invite Jesus to work a miracle No doubt, Satan’s repeated insinuation, if you are the son of God, if you are the son of God, he repeats, was intended to induce in Jesus the same spirit of testing God that had characterized Israel time and again.
Why not turn those light brown stones of the Judean desert into fresh warm loaves of bread so that he might immediately satisfy his natural hunger? If he did so, it would prove that he was the son of God, as the voice from heaven had so clearly declared at his baptism. Jesus was not simply invited to transform stones into bread. It went much deeper than that.
The devil confronted him with the temptation to doubt God’s word. If you are the son of God, he says. Satan’s temptation to Jesus recalled the first temptation in the Garden of Eden to Adam. Did God really say? Jesus knew that the voice from heaven at his baptism was absolutely true and completely dependable He had known from his youth of his unique relationship with the father and the voice from heaven Spoken at his baptism confirmed it. He was God’s son and if he was Then he could certainly trust his father with what’s With that seemingly innocent suggestion that Jesus turned stones to bread, the devil was actually inviting Jesus to doubt both God’s word and God’s nature. Jesus refused to doubt God’s word.
God had said clearly and unmistakably, you are my son whom I love. Jesus knew that to be so. And he refused to do anything which might suggest that the saying needed some further support or visible evidence. There was no need whatsoever to prove it. If God had said it, then that was enough. Moreover, Jesus refused to doubt God’s nature.
If God had referred to Jesus as his beloved son, then God must certainly have been his caring father. with a destiny before him of ministry and sacrifice, which the father had prepared for his son, God would hardly let him die in the desert. When he was hungry, Jesus trusted his father to supply the food. But if he would not supply it, even then he would not adopt the devil’s suggestions.
Had God really meant what God had said even in the scriptures? It was that same trick that Satan had played on Adam and Eve with such tragic success. If God could feed the Israelites, why would he, when they were hungry, why would he not care for his son now with a miracle to solve the problem?
But Jesus sees through Satan’s temptations to the reality of God’s testing in its Deuteronomy 8, verse 2 sense. What was in Jesus heart? He lived by the word and the will of God to be covenantally faithful and obedient, faithful and obedient, where Israel had so desperately failed. The ancient word of Deuteronomy pierced the fog of Satan’s confusing question and confirmed Jesus on the pathway of son-like obedience, which led ultimately through the wilderness, through Gethsemane to the cross. Yes, God cared for his son, just as he had fed and clothed his people Israel in the wilderness centuries earlier. He sometimes led them through adverse circumstances, however, you know, so that they might realize just how much they did need him. When Jesus was hungry in the Judean desert, he quoted those familiar words from Deuteronomy. He answered the devil’s doubt of God’s word by quoting the very word the enemy rejected. Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of our God. And so Jesus was content. to wait upon his God and his Father.
Time and again, this was Israel’s test and Israel’s failure. They did not trust God’s word alone. They did not trust what God had told them. Instead, they looked at their circumstances and they looked at the world around them and grumbled that they should go back to Egypt, where there were cucumbers and onions and all the other things that they liked so much. But time and again, God had spoken to them a word which said that he had a promised land for them and that he would not fail in keeping that word to them. For them, the word of God was not enough, however. They wanted more. They wanted proof.
Listen carefully to Moses’ words in Deuteronomy chapter 8. Again, after 40 years of Israel’s rebellious failures, we view the scene of Deuteronomy 8. Think of the setting of Deuteronomy chapter 8. They’re right where we left them in October of 2010. They’re still right at the verge of the Jordan River. They’re still looking across the river at the promised land. They’re still there as God speaks to them through Moses here in Deuteronomy 8. We view that scene. Moses and Israel now stand at the verge of the Jordan. looking upon the promised land ahead of them.
And once again, does Moses speak to them there in Deuteronomy 8, exhorting Israel to keep the commandments that it will go well with them in the land that God had promised on oath to their forefathers. We see that in verse one of chapter eight. All the commandments that I am commanding you today, you shall be careful to do, he says, that you may live and multiply and go in and possess the land which the Lord swore to give to your forefathers. again then in chapter 8 verses 6 and 7. Therefore you shall keep the commandments of the Lord your God to walk in his ways and to fear him for the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land. There’s the word of God.
Conversely, in verse 11, Moses says, beware lest you forget the Lord your God by not keeping his commandments and his ordinances and his statutes which I’m commanding you today. And again in verse 18 and following, but you shall remember the Lord your God for it is he who has given you power to make wealth that he may confirm his covenant which he swore to your fathers as it is this day. And it shall come about that if you ever forget the Lord your God and go after other gods and serve them, Moses says, and worship them, I testify against you today that you shall surely perish. Lest they be like the nations which perish, verse 20, Israel is warned to listen to the voice of the Lord your God.
This emphatic recurring exhortation to remember the Lord and to do and to keep his commandments is reinforced by a reminder of the 40-year stay in the wilderness, of the way in which the Lord had led them. These 40 years were important for pedagogic reasons to humble Israel, to test them, to discipline them, to teach them, to show them that they do not live by bread alone.
But man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord. In contrast to the promised land, the wilderness was the place where the Lord had tested Israel to know what was in their heart. Verse two of chapter eight, whether you would keep his commandments or not. Of course, this is a human way of speaking for God knows the heart and his testing is not designed to find out something that he does not know, but rather it is to bring out into the open that which is hidden. for his own glory and for his people’s good.
Of those trials, those hardships that the people were made to endure in the wilderness, verse 3 especially mentions, specifically mentions the lack of bread, their common staple, so that they were hungry. The Lord gave them manna instead, manna from heaven, something that was unknown to them. Compare verse 3 with verse 16, where Moses says twice, a bread that they did not know. The emphasis that the manna was something that the Israelites and their fathers did not know characterizes the manna as unfamiliar and therefore somewhat less desirable food, humanly speaking anyway. We want the good old things that we’ve always had, they were saying. Nevertheless, the feeding, again look at verses 3 and 16, also expresses their experience of God’s care. He had given them the manna. Why? Because he cared for them, he loved them.
And through these trials of hunger and of fiery serpents and scorpions and their time on thirsty ground where there was no water, And through his care in the midst of those troublesome days, God wanted to teach them the meaning of the statement that man does not live on bread alone, but on everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord.
The intent is apparently that in this instance, it was the manna that came from the mouth of the Lord. He spoke and it came to be. The manna came into being through the word of his power. as God created and sustained his people, for it is his power that creates and sustains his people. The general import of these things is that the Lord wanted to teach Israel to trust not in anything created, but to trust only in their creator. During those 40 years, their clothes did not wear out, their feet did not swell, God brought water for them out of the rock of Flint, he spoke, and it was so. This undoubtedly is also to be understood as a miracle of God’s power and care, and hence it is mentioned with the manna, the bread from heaven and the water out of the rock. Thus does verse 5 of Deuteronomy 8 draw the conclusion. As a man disciplines his son, so the Lord has disciplined Israel in the wilderness. teaching Israel to trust in the Lord alone.
Israel must know this in their heart, and therefore they must keep the commandments of this God. This was the purpose of the discipline and the instruction that Israel would know, would remember, and would obey the Lord that they had come to know, and remember him for his kindnesses toward them. He was the God who cared for them in the wilderness. Though he tested them, it was for their good that he would know of their love and their obedience to him.
But time and again Israel had failed to test. Herein lay an inherent danger for Israel now as they are about to go into the promised land. As they would possess the promised land, what would they do? The temptation would be to forget what they had learned, forget the discipline of what God had taught them.
In contrast to the wilderness, the promised land is a good land. It is a land of brooks of waters, a land of fountains and springs flowing forth in fruitful valleys and beautiful hills. a land bringing forth wheat and barley and vines and fig trees and pomegranates and olive oil and honey. And there are areas there rich with iron and copper. So it would be that when the people had eaten and were satisfied and moved into houses that they had not built, and they were living in good houses, and their herds and their flocks would multiply. Precious metals were theirs in abundance. The danger was that the people would become self-congratulatory and complacent, trusting their own power and accomplishment.
We did it ourselves, forgetting what God had done for them. But no, Israel was to remember the Lord their God. who enabled them. They must not forget, lest they turn aside from the true and the living God who had spoken. The true God who had led them out of Egypt, who had led them in the wilderness and protected them there and cared for them, tested them and disciplined them, yes, for sure. But apart from him, they would have surely perished.
So it comes all back to the covenant, the promise of God to his people, the covenant that comes to its consummate expression in the word that became flesh. God keeps his word, and indeed the word became flesh in the person and work of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ, the son of God who became man for our redemption. Be reminded of the Father’s love that He gave His only begotten Son to undergo the superlative trial and discipline, to submit Himself to the most abject humiliation. And yet that Son remained determined in everything to keep the commands of God and to do the Father’s will, even unto death, the death and curse of the cross. that as many as would trust in Him would not perish, but have everlasting life. And we offer this exhortation today, lest you forget that apart from Him, that is, apart from Jesus, apart from the Word who became flesh, you can do nothing. Apart from Him, you most assuredly will perish.
But hear the gracious word of the apostle spoken to believing Christians of the first century. Beloved, you have learned Christ. You have been taught in him. In him and in the preaching of his word, you have learned in whatever circumstances you find yourselves or we find ourselves together, whether we’ve been deprived of husbands, whether we’ve been deprived of physical necessities, or whether we’ve been deprived of the use of our left hand or foot.
We know in every circumstance, whether we are in humble means or whether we are in prosperity, whether we are in times of being filled or whether we are going hungry, whether we’re having abundance or whether we’re suffering need, we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us. It is our God who most surely shall supply us all our needs. are met in Him according to His riches in glory, in His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. And to Him be the glory forever and ever. Amen.
Beloved then, in the words of Hebrews chapter 12, do not forget the exhortation which is addressed to you as sons. My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor faint when you are reproved by Him. For those whom the Lord loves, He disciplines and he scourges every son whom he receives.
And I would ask you to remember, too, that the Spirit himself, the Spirit of Christ, testifies with our spirit that we are children of God. And if we are children, then heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed, Romans chapter eight, if indeed we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him. Remember, then, we do not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds out of the mouth of our God.
And God has spoken. He has spoken in His Son, Jesus Christ. Praise the Lord. Praise Him with me today, will you? Amen. So let’s turn in our hymnal, shall we, to hymn number 239, and let us praise the Lord there, 239. Let’s stand together, shall we? The mighty God the Lord has spoken unto all.
From rising to the setting sun, he unto earth doth call. From Zion, his own hill, where perfect beauty dwells, Jehovah hath his glory shown in righteousness itself. Our God shall surely come, and silence shall not hear. Before Him I shall wage that storm, and pastures round Him sweep. Into the heavens above shall then send for His call, and my voice to the earth, that he may judge his people all. Together let me sing unto thee, Then shall the heav’ns be glad, His righteousness abroad, Because the Lord himself is God, Together, let us look up and let us hear the benediction, the good word from our God, shall we?
The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious unto you. The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace, both now and forevermore. For man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. Amen and amen.
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