Verse: Deuteronomy 8:11-17 Take care lest you forget the Lord your God.... who led you through the
great and terrifying wilderness, with its fiery serpents and scorpions and thirsty ground....that he might
humble you and test you, to do you good in the end. ESV
In Deuteronomy 8 we can see much of the purpose of Shavuot. There is difficulty ahead, but rest
assured, YHWH is leading us to the fullness of our inheritance. The wave offering of the two loaves
shows us that we are forgiven of our sin and delivered from the power of Egypt, while yet retaining
mixture in our own thinking, memories, and practice.
YHWH’s promise is to bring us into a good and spacious land filled with His peace and abundance, but
we are far from attaining that promise when we first emerge from our years of deception and bondage.
Old wounds and memories hinder us from stepping into our inheritance, so YHWH in His grace provides
us the means to advance in maturity and attain the fullness of His salvation.
This process is outlined below in Deuteronomy 8:2-6:
And you shall remember the whole way that the Lord your God has led you these forty years
in the wilderness, that he might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart,
whether you would keep his commandments or not (v. 2).
Forty years is a long time, it’s a generation long. Our salvation is instantaneous, even though the
salvation from Egypt and through the Messiah was a once-for-all provision. The problem is not His lack
of provision but our lack of transformation. We come into the kingdom like wounded children bleeding
and abandoned in the wilderness (Ezekiel 16:5,6). The testing of our heart spoken above is not to
condemn us but to reveal to us the shortcomings that God already knows. When we see how far short
we fall compared to His commandments, we see how absolutely dependent upon Him we must become.
And he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know,
nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man does not live by bread
alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord (v. 3).
The word “manna” means “what is it?”, and Jesus identified himself as the true bread that “came down
from Heaven”. The motivation of God to cause hunger is to bring you to the place where He can fill you
and bring true satisfaction. Again as great as Passover is, it is only the beginning of a lifelong journey,
but it is always the foundation of every other gift given to bring us into the land of promise.
Your clothing did not wear out on you and your foot did not swell these forty years. Know
then in your heart that, as a man disciplines his son, the Lord your God disciplines you. So you
shall keep the commandments of the Lord your God by walking in his ways and by fearing him (v. 6).
The discipline of the Father is in direct opposition to “they sat down to eat and drink and they rose up to
play” (Exodus 32:6). The discipline of the Father is not punishment for errors or bad behavior; it is
personal training through an intimate relationship that produces people that are just like Christ in
character. In Matthew 28: 19, Jesus instructs His own disciples to “Go therefore and make disciples of all
nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit teaching them to
observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age."
The vehicle that produces these people is the Holy Spirit who writes His laws into our minds and writes
them on our hearts (Hebrews 8:10).
The process of our life is characterized as a “great and terrifying wilderness, with its fiery serpents and
scorpions and thirsty ground” but Jesus reassures us that:
“I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation.
But take heart; I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).
Deuteronomy 8:7-10:
For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains
and springs, flowing out in the valleys and hills, a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig
trees and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey, a land in which you will eat bread
without scarcity, in which you will lack nothing, a land whose stones are iron, and out of
whose hills you can dig copper. And you shall eat and be full, and you shall bless the Lord your
God for the good land he has given you. ESV
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