Allen, Dean: The Journey Through The Wilderness ~ Deuteronomy

That was a blessing. You know, these hymns are so beautiful, whether they're done instrumentally or whether we sing them, and when you get to know the words and you really concentrate on the words, it's such a blessing. It blesses our hearts. The hymn book is really a worship book. We can use these hymns in our worship daily devotions with the Lord. It's a blessing. Well, it's good to, to be here this morning. We're going to begin with a word of prayer. Father, we're just so thankful for Gloria that you raised up to play the piano for us, and we thank you for Randy also, and for all the musical gifts and talents we have in this church. We thank you for Sylvia directing the choir and for the worship team, Gospel Touch, choir, youth choir, children's choir, every music ministry, Lord. It is a way to glorify your name, and we just pray that you will touch our hearts this morning through it and prepare us, Lord, for your word. We pray that you will speak to our hearts through the word, through the Holy Spirit. Lord, please hide me behind the cross, and may the words spoken today be your words, and may they be needed in our lives, and may they touch us and, and help us in our Christian walk, Lord, through this world. And we just want to thank you, and we want to commit this time to you and pray that you will be glorified, Lord Jesus. We pray in your precious name, amen. You know, when you think about this world and some of the experiences we go through, can't we say that this world is a wilderness? You know, the Israelites spent forty years journeying, wandering, going through the wilderness, and the Lord took them through it. We as Christians, from the moment we get saved, we're redeemed by the blood of Christ, we accept him into our hearts, we're on a journey too. And just as they were on a journey to the promised land of Canaan, and they would go and take possession of their land that God had given them, we are going somewhere far better than Canaan, far better than an earthly paradise, far better than a land flowing with milk and honey and all the blessings of Canaan. They were great, but there's something out there far greater than that, and that's heaven, and that's where we're going to. And the Lord says, I'm going to take care of you, I'm going to bless you, I'm going to take you through from the moment you get saved all the way through. I know what you're going through, I know all the experiences that are going to happen to you, and they're going to be for your good, they're going to be for your growth, they're going to strengthen you until you reach that heavenly shore. That's God's promise, and we can thank him for that. I was picking up some medication the other day at CVS in Danville, and this lady was waiting on me, the pharmacy tech, and I had to get Sudafed. And nowadays you have to, you have to sign, you have to show your driver's license, you have to go through a lot of red tape and regulations, Cameron will know this from his days at CVS, to get Sudafed. And I was telling her about that, she says, you know, I'm weary of all this too. I can't wait to go home, and I'm not talking about my house. She was talking about heaven, and right there, this is great. She's a Christian, I'm a Christian, I'm saying, thank God we're not home yet. We're not home yet. That's why this world doesn't feel right. We feel out of place. We feel like a fish out of water sometimes because we're in the wilderness. We're journeying. The Lord is with us. We rejoice in all he's given us, but it doesn't, we're not home yet. And praise be to God, like we sang this morning, wait till it, till we get there. What a day, what a day that will be when we go to be with the Lord and are there in his presence forever and ever. Are you ready to go home? Are you ready to see the Lord? Are you ready? Well, the Israelites could have gone from Egypt right into the Promised Land. We know it very well. How many days, our Bible scholars out there, how many days could it have taken them? Sylvia knows. Let's see if anybody else of her students, let's say, knows how many. Eleven. Eleven days. And then how long did it take for them to get to the Promised Land? Forty years, Forty years. Big difference between eleven days and forty years. And so many times when God teaches us a lesson and we go through it, we don't learn it the very first time, do we? So he has to have us go through it again and learn it again and relearn it. We're not perfect. We're God's people. We're learning and growing, and we have many of the same growing pains, many of the same experiences that the Israelites had when they were going through their experiences in the wilderness. The title of our message today is The Journey Through the Wilderness. You know, God doesn't just take us into the wilderness and leave us there. He didn't leave Israel in the wilderness. He took them through the wilderness and got them to Canaan. And that's the same thing as when we get saved. He's going to take us safely through to heaven and bring us into the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ. Our text this morning is Deuteronomy chapter two and verse seven, and Ed will put this verse on, on the board up here on the screens. It's a beautiful verse. In the middle of Moses telling the young Israelites, I like to call them the new generation, like you have Star Trek, and you have Star Trek, the new generation. Well, these Israelites in the book of Deuteronomy were the new generation. They were the ones that were going to go into the land of Canaan, not their fathers, the ones who were rebellious and disobedient and didn't trust God and believe God. Every one of those died, except for Caleb and Joshua, who brought back the good report when they spied out the land. They went in, but all the others died, but these young people, their children, the ones who grew up, and he's retelling the law to them, retelling the commandments and all the wonderful things that God had done, and this is what we have in the book of Deuteronomy. And here in chapter two and verse seven, it says, for the Lord your God has blessed you in all the work of your hand. He knows you're trudging through this great wilderness. These forty years the Lord has been with you, you have lacked nothing. And I was reading that verse, and it just stopped me right in my tracks. I said, Lord, look how you've taken care of me in my life. From the moment I got saved and all through my life, you've taken care of me through every day or all the way. God will take care of you. He take care of us, and he promises that I will take care of you through all our starts and all our stops, and every step in between, he takes care of us. And I'd like to think that that's what he did with the Israelites, and that's what he's, he does for us. He has a plan for our lives. He has a good plan. It's a right plan for our life. And if we accept God's plan and submit to it, we're going to be happy, we're going to be joyful, and it's going to go good. But if we go against God's plan, it's like going against the grain. It's like rubbing your fingernails against the chalkboard. It's gonna be awkward. It's gonna be wrong because we need to fall in place with God's leading and his will in our lives. Not fight against it, but accept it and know that God has a blessing for us every day in our lives. I read an amazing story of a man named Solomon Ginsburg. He was a Polish Jew who got saved and became a great evangelist and traveled all over Europe and South America preaching the gospel. And one day he decided he needed some rest, and the Lord was leading him to go back to the United States on furlough. A lot of times you hear missionaries, they go and they come back. It's a word for vacation, but it's more than that. They're, they're going back to be a blessing to the saints back home, to report back what they've done, and to get some needed spiritual charging for their batteries, and then they go back to the mission field. Well, that's what he was going to do. So he decided he was going to do that, and he was going to go to Lisbon, Portugal, for Lorraine and and Mike Susan, going to Lisbon, Portugal, and then to the United States. Well, arriving in Lisbon, Solomon Ginsberg saw all over the town, bulletin boards everywhere, severe weather on the Bay of Biscay. Don't go now, don't travel now, it's terrible weather, it's dangerous, you could die out there on that Bay of Biscay. Well, he started to pray about it, and he realized he had a little bit of time, so he could, with his way his ticket was written, do that, but he prayed about it, and the Lord burdened his heart, and he went to his prayer calendar. A lot of you use prayer calendars. I know Ken Knott has one, and this is the World Missions prayer calendar. And so he looked at it, and guess what verse was on for that day? Deuteronomy chapter two and verse seven: For the Lord your God has blessed you in all the work of your hand. Didn't it fit his life? For he knows you're trudging through this great wilderness. These forty years the Lord your God has been with you, you have lacked nothing. He says, I got my answer. I'm going now. You're going now? What do you mean? His friends or different people were saying, you're crazy, you're going now. He says, I have the peace that God's going to take care of me. So he gets on the ship without incident and takes that ship from London, called the Majestic, and he then goes through the Bay of Biscay to London and then takes the transatlantic voyage to the United States, and it was smooth, and it was restful, and it was peaceful, and he had a great trip. Only after he arrived in the United States did Solomon learn that had he not delayed his trip to Lisbon, he would have arrived in London just in time, just in time to board the Titanic. I said, Lord, does God ever make a mistake? Doesn't he know the end from the beginning in our lives? Doesn't he care for us? He may not allow you to get on a certain freeway. He may not allow you to go to work that day. He may keep you from going on that vacation that you had planned. God cares for us. He knows what's best. He knows when it's best, and we can trust him for that. And I was thinking, how beautiful, how blessed is that? The Israelites found God faithful for forty years. He took care of them forty years. He may, you may be here today, you may have been saved for forty years. He's taken care of you. Maybe you've been saved for only four years. He's taken care of you. Maybe you just got saved recently. He's taken care of you, and he promises he will take care of you all the way, and I'm very thankful for that. There's three beautiful truths in this verse I'd like to look at this morning with us, and the first one is the blessing of the Lord, and we all need that. Secondly, the understanding or the care of the Lord in our lives, and the third one is the presence and the provision of the Lord. You know, Moses was the leader of the people of Israel, and he is speaking to the people here, as I mentioned, and he says, for the Lord your God has blessed you in all the works of your hand. You know, if you use your sanctified imagination, what do you think the Israelites did for those forty years? What do you think they did? Well, we know they had the tabernacle. We know they celebrated the Passover. We know that they would probably remember what they went through in Egypt and how God delivered them because they sang those songs of Moses there and the songs of redemption in the book of Exodus. We know all of those things, but on a daily basis, the fellowship they had around the Lord, to know that they were God's people, his special treasure. They were important to the Lord, and that really made all the difference to them. The Lord had blessed them. He had blessed everything that they did. They came out of Egypt, they had plundered the Egypt. All the Egyptians had given them gold and silver and all these beautiful things, and you say, wow, they came out of Egypt with so much. All those things they brought out were later used to, to build the tabernacle, to use in the worship of the Lord. It just goes to show everything that God gives us is for a purpose to be used for the Lord. They would have this beautiful gold, and they say, I want to give that so it can be made to- into the mercy seat. I want to take this silver, and I want to use it for the vessels of the, of, of God, and so forth. And so everything they had, they used it for him. In Deuteronomy chapter one and verses ten and eleven, Moses reminded them about how God had richly blessed them, and he says these words to them. The Lord your God has multiplied you, and here you are today as the stars of heaven in multitude. May the Lord make you a thousand times more numerous than you are, and bless you as he has promised you. When God makes a promise, he keeps it. When he promises to bless our lives, he does it. He's faithful. He was faithful in the past, he's faithful now in the present, and he'll be faithful in the future. That's why we need to remember our past blessings so that they'll encourage us as we go through the present trials and the future trials that are ahead of us. There's nothing better, there's nothing sweeter, there's nothing richer than being blessed by God. I would rather be blessed by God than have all the riches and all the possessions and all the power of this world put together, because when God blesses your life, he blesses you spiritually, as well as physically and mentally and emotionally and socially, and he blesses you financially and materially. He blesses you. The world can't do that. The world cannot do that. No human being can do that. God's blessing is so much better than anything this world has to offer, and yet the devil just puts that out in front of our eyes all the time, these things. Oh, you need this, you need that. No, the devil wants to get us off track, off center, detoured in our Christian life, instead of focusing on the Lord and what he has blessed us with and given to us. The Bible says this in Proverbs ten twenty two: the blessing of the Lord makes one rich and adds no sorrow with it. Only the Lord can make us truly rich and content in him. You know, there's a lot of wealthy people in the world today, a lot of wealthy people, but with their wealth, they have sorrows, they have anxiety, they have stress, they have worry, they have guilt and remorse and all these things. They have the riches, but they can't enjoy the riches. Everything that God gives the child of God who's walking with him is a blessing, and we get enriched by it, we get encouraged by it. And the thing of it is, when whatever he gives us, you're content because you know it comes from the Lord. And somebody can ask you, Dean, what do you need? And I say, I don't need anything. The Lord has has given me everything I need. Can't we say that? We really can. We shouldn't be those kind of people in life who say, I want this, I want that. As Christians, we should be content to say I'm a man of few wants or a woman of few wants, because God meets the need. He really does. He meets the need, and it's a great blessing to have that. He gives us gifts, he gives us talents, he gives us abilities, all designed to be used for him, not to hoard them, but to use them. And he's given us two hands to serve him, and I like that. In Ecclesiastes nine ten, the writer Solomon says this, he says, whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might, for there is no work or device or knowledge or wisdom in the grave where you're going. There's a time now to serve the Lord. He's given us the hands to do it, the strength, the ability to do it, and it's great when you're young and you can serve the Lord. Wesley, for example. Young man, Alexander, for example. Sophia, Olivia, they're young, they're growing, and I think it's so fantastic that you're saved when you're young and you have your lives ahead of you to serve the Lord. Some of us come on board later. We get on the ship, but we get on board later on the ship. And it doesn't matter when you get on the ship to heaven, as long as you get on. You can get on on your deathbed, but don't wait that long because you never know. You may not have the mind to understand at that point and accept Christ. We need to get saved today. We need to get on that ship to heaven today, on that journey to heaven needs to start today. If you haven't started it, don't wait till it's too late. Be saved today. Secondly, not only does he give us blessings, not only does he bless us so richly, over and above we could ask or think, but the Lord is so kind and so understanding and so patient with us. You know, Moses tells the people, he says, he knows you're trudging through this wilderness. God is a loving God. He's a merciful God. He's an understanding God. He doesn't just sit up in heaven and look down on us and judge us and say, come on, get it together, Dean. Come on, Ken, get your act together. Get up and do it. No, he's patient with us, gives us a second chance, gives us a third chance, does this for us. He understands what we're going through. You say, how does the Lord understand? Because he came down in the person of Jesus Christ, God come down in the flesh to live among us for thirty three years, to feel with us, to feel our pain, to feel our hurts, to feel our worries and our sorrows, and to experience everything we go through. Why was it when Lazarus had died and he looked there at Lazarus and he looked at the tomb and he said, and it says, Jesus wept. He weeps with us, and he rejoices with us. He cares for us, and he knows what we're going through because he went through it himself. In Hebrews four fifteen, it says this very same truth. It says, for we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. That's encouraging to me to know I have a savior who knows all about me, all about my situations, all about my problems, and he cares about them. He doesn't say, come on, this is so little, this is so minor. He doesn't do that. Nothing is too little for him. When we go through something, he goes through it with us. Think about that. The Israelites, Moses led them, but the Lord's presence was with them. He was with them. Imagine having the Lord with you on the journey. Well, that's true what we have as Christians today. The Lord is with us on the journey. We're going through the journey through this wilderness. He's with us. He was with them, and he is with us, and we can be encouraged by that, no matter what experiences, no matter how hard they are, the Lord's there with us. He cares for us every step of the way. Yes, and I like this word, and the New King James is the only version that uses this word, and I thought, and it's the only time in the scripture it's ever used, and it's translated trudging. I know you're trudging through the wilderness. I said, now that trudging is not one you use in polite or a common conversation today, do you? I'm gonna trudge off to work. It's an old time word. We don't use it too often, do we? Sometimes I think we should, though. That word, listen, when you know the definition of it, sometimes on Monday morning you may think you're going to trudge off to work or to school. The word trudge in the Webster's Dictionary is defined as to walk especially wearily or laboriously. And I thought, wow, that was the journey they were on. It was a weary journey. It was a laborious journey. It was a long walk. Think how many miles they walked during those forty years. It was a long ways to go. But all through the journey, the Lord knew when to tell them to stop and rest, and when to go. And when there was, there was a pillar of fire by night, and there was a pillar of cloud by day, and when that moved, they moved. And when that stopped, they stopped. And sometimes the, the children probably got a little impatient. We've been here, daddy, so long. We've been sitting in this same spot for so long. Why can't we move? Why can't we go on to the next place? And the father would tell his son, you know, son, you have a good an- you have a good question. That's a very good question. I'm going to tell you why. Because God's leading us, and there's a cloud out there, and see it over there? Or at night, there's a fire over there. Okay, I see it. We can't move until that fire moves. We can't move until that cloud moves, and then we'll move. So many times in our lives, we get impatient. We want God to work faster than he wants to work. We want it now. We want to move now. We want to make this decision now. We want to take this job now. We want to take this position now. And God says, wait, wait. I have something better. I have something special for you. Just wait. And so they had to wait at each place. And if you read through the scriptures in the book of Deuteronomy, and and you see it also in book of Numbers mentioned, all the places they were during that time, lots of places. And I was thinking now, wait a minute, that means every time that pillar of cloud moved or that pillar of fire moved, they had to move, right? Think how many moves they had to make. We have a lot of moves in the church sometimes. Jim probably think, Jim Hyde leads the moving crew. Think how many moves they had to make, and it says they went from this spot, they stayed there. Then they went to this spot, this spot, for forty years, move after move after move, had to pack things up. And when the tabernacle was moving, they had to pack that up. They had to put it all together, pack it up, and then they marched in orderly fashion out from the camp. Three million people in the wilderness. God taking care of them, God leading them, God directing them. That's exciting to me. And he does the same thing with us. He directs us, he leads us. He uses the circumstances of life, he uses godly counsel, he uses his word, he uses prayer to direct us. We don't have a cloud to watch, we don't have a fire to watch, but he gives us clear and unmistakable guidance. Bill McDonald used to say is, don't make a decision, don't move, don't go until God makes it so clear that you, if you were to not do it, it would be disobedient. And that's true. He'll make it so clear what job to take, so clear what college to go to, so clear what house to take. He makes it clear, and when we do God's will, we have the peace, just like they had in the wilderness. Eleven-day journey turned into forty years because of their rebellion and because of their disobedience. Their spiritual progress was impeded by the flesh, and that's the very thing that impedes our spiritual progress today too, just like in the Israelites. It's the flesh, the flesh. Oh, we want to go back to Egypt. We don't like it out here in the wilderness. You brought us out here to kill us. You brought us out here to starve us to death. You brought us out here so we're going to die of thirst. One after the other, after the other. A whining session. That's what it was. They kept whining and complaining. There was a song that used to be sung by one of the Christian singers, uh, Dan Witteberg, and he used to sing, and it says, go on and take another lap around Mount Sinai till you learn your lesson, till you stop your whining and quit your rebelling. And that's exactly what they had to do. They had to stop right there, and they had to learn the lesson, and they, before they could go on. They had their share of problems, they had their share of trials and difficulties and sorrows, but the Lord was with them. First Peter five seven tells us as Christians what we can do. Casting all your care upon him, for he cares for you. He cares for you, he cares for you, he cares for all of us. And if we just recognize that, how happy we will be. The Lord Jesus told us that the Christian life was not going to be an easy life, just like their life was out there in the wilderness wasn't easy. Our life is not easy either. Jesus said in John sixteen thirty three, these things I have spoken to you that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation, but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world. When you have Jesus leading your life, no matter what experience you go through, no matter what hardship, difficulty, problem, victory, success, triumph, whatever it is, it's always the best because it's the best for your life and for my life. He knows what's best and what to do in our life. Third and finally, not only do we have the blessing of the Lord on the journey, not only do we have the understanding, the care, the sympathy of the Lord on the journey, but we have the presence and provision of the Lord on the journey. And I thought this was really great. Forty years of walking through that wilderness, God with them every step of the way. God's faithfulness. Turn over to, uh, Deuteronomy chapter eight and verses two to four, and we're going to see a glimpse of what they, what they went through there in that wilderness and how God richly blessed them and took care of them. Deuteronomy chapter eight, verses two to four. m Here Moses says to the people, and you shall remember that the Lord your God led you all the way these forty years in the wilderness. Notice what he, why he did it? To humble you and test you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not. So he humbled you, allowed you to hunger, and fed you with manna, which you did not know nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. Your garments did not wear out, nor did your foot swell these forty years. Now, if God didn't take care of them, I don't know how. I mean, how did he do it? So many times we hear the expression, the church in the wilderness, the church in the wilderness, because Israel was like a church. God had called them out of Egypt. They were a called out company, ecclesia. They were a church. They were a body, Three million people, men, women, boys, and girls out there in the great desert all these forty years, and the Lord took care of them. He promised to do it, and he did it. But notice all that God did for them. He led them, he guided them, he strengthened them. And notice it says he humbled them and tested them. You know, God can test us more in prosperity than he can even in adversity. Because in adversity, you, you depend on the Lord, you get closer to the Lord, you realize you need him so much, and so you draw near. In prosperity, you start feeling good about yourself. I got that promotion. I did really well. I got that A on that test. I aced it, Alexander. I aced that test. Or I did so well, and I, and I got all this bonus, and I got a promotion, all these things. We start feeling good about ourselves. Prosperity tests us and humbles us because we have to remember we couldn't do it without the Lord. That everything, every success, every joy, every victory we have is from him, and that's what they had to learn, and God was going to test them by it, and he did test them. So he allowed them to get hungry because he knew he was going to provide them with manna. He allowed them to get hungry. Why does he allow us to get sick? Why does he allow us to go through need? Why does he allow us to go through hard times? So he can show us how good he is, how loving he is, how strong he is to overcome it in our lives, to provide for us. That's what he does, and that's why he tested them for forty years to see if they would obey him or not. You know, it's one thing to obey God when everything is going well, that everything is successful in your family, in your job, in your church, everything. But when things are tough and life is difficult and the problems are mounting along with the bills and all of these things are happening with our health, read the prayer list if you want to see, are we a needy people or what? And God is there for us every day, and he provides for us every day, and I'm really thankful for that. So he allowed them to get hungry so that he would feed them from with manna. And then he allowed them to get thirsty. Okay, Lord, this is a tough one. You sent manna from heaven so they could eat it, but what are we going to do for, for something to drink here? There's no water. It's a great wilderness. It's hot during the day and real cold at night. And what are we going to do? And so the Lord told Moses, speak to the rock. Another occasion, he told him to strike the rock. Difference there, because when God told him to strike the rock and the water came out, that was good. But later on, he told him to speak to the rock, and he struck it in anger, and because of that, Moses couldn't go into the Promised Land. God is to be hallowed. He's to be made holy. When God says to speak to it, speak to it. When God says strike it, strike it. The differences in scripture are there, and so that's what he wants us to do. He wants us to be an obedient people. So he gave them that, and he gave them shoes that didn't wear out, and these were better than air Jordans. These sandals that they had didn't wear out for forty years. I don't know how many people would have a pair of Air Jordans that are going to last you forty years. Not going to happen. It's amazing. I saw in the news the other day, they were lined up at the mall at some ungodly hour of six in the morning or whatever, even earlier, lined up to get the first pairs of the new Air Jordans that come out, and they were excited about it, and some of them were going to buy it and sell it on eBay and make a profit, and they were going to do all kinds of things. And I was just thinking, no, I'd rather sleep and and spend time with the Lord and just go about my normal life. I don't need to wait in line for a pair of shoes. God made their shoes last forty years. He made their clothes so they wouldn't wear out. Wouldn't you like to have a suit, gentlemen, or women, a nice dress that didn't wear? The moths get to it. They wear out, the clothes wears out, and you have to go, right, Eddie, and get a new one, right? They didn't have to do that. God took care of them. God will take care of you. They didn't have a problem with that. Now, it might be a problem for some of the ladies on that because the fashions changed, but no, forty years they say they had the same ones and they were fine with it. Maybe, gentlemen, that's a good thing, maybe we should implement. No, it's okay. It's okay, we need to buy the latest fashions. It is good. It's a good thing we have. But they had clothes and shoes that didn't wear out. God is good. And you know what? They had all kinds of weather in the desert too. It would rain sometimes, it may be some snow sometime, hot weather, cold weather, all kinds of weather they would go through for forty years. You know what? God's not a fair weather God. He's with you in the sunny weather, in the hot weather. He's with you in the cold, rainy weather, in the stormy weather. He's with you in every kind of weather, every kind of circumstance. The Lord didn't leave them when the going got tough. He was there for them. And when the Amalekites attacked them, Joshua led the people of Israel, Moses and her, and they all were there praying, and and God gave them the victory over the Amalekites. And then they fought Og, king of Bashan, and they fought Sihon, king of the Amorites, and they defeated them. They didn't go out and pick the fight with them. All they wanted to do is travel through the land, and they said no, and they came out and attacked them. You can't make peace with the flesh. You can't make peace with Amalek, which is a picture of the flesh. You can't make peace with the world. You can't make peace with the devil. There's going to be some conflict, and the Lord's going to give you victory. The Lord's going to give me victory through our journey through this wilderness, through the attacks of the evil one, and we are being attacked, and thank God we're going to get to our destination, and he is going to bless us. Using our sanctified imagination, think of all the babies that were born in those forty years in the wilderness. Babies born in the wilderness. They didn't have hospitals, they they didn't have this kind of thing, they did just fine. The babies were born, they grew up, they were healthy. They had babies born. They had weddings. I can imagine all the weddings they had in the wilderness. Think of celebrating that and joy- joyfully rejoicing. They didn't have a place to go for the reception, or they didn't have a special hall or special things like that. They couldn't go on a honeymoon and say, we're going to take off and go on a honeymoon somewhere else. Everything was under God's care and protection. Guess what? They had the best weddings and the best receptions, and they rejoiced. I love the Israelite people, don't you? The Jewish people, they're festive. They sing and they dance and they praise God. And I believe that that's what they were doing for those forty years. They were rejoicing and singing praise to the Lord, and we should be doing that as well. And think how many funerals they attended during those forty years. More funerals than weddings? Yes, because it says that every one of those men of that age that came out of Egypt, all the rebellious, disobedient ones, they all died. Funeral. We're going to a funeral today. Another one, another one, another one. In life, we can't avoid these things. We go through pain and surgeries and, and all kinds of illnesses and different circ- circumstances, and we even go through death. But guess what? We're going to be with the Lord, and that is the joy of it. They experienced everything, all in the wilderness, and they found out this: God never failed them. He never forsook them. He was with them all the way through it all, and through all the experiences of life that we go through. I love what Hudson, J. Hudson Taylor said. He was a great missionary to China, and he said this: Our Heavenly Father is a very experienced one. He knows very well that his children wake up with a good appetite every morning. How did you know that was me? Okay. I wake up with a good appetite every morning. That is true. He sustained three million Israelites in the wilderness for forty years. We do not expect he will send three million missionaries to China, but if he did, he would have ample means to sustain them all. And then he says these famous words, Hudson Taylor, depend on it. God's work done in God's way will never lack God's supply. I said, thank you, Lord. And he, it's so encouraging because at the end of this verse, he says it very clearly here, you have lacked nothing. You have lacked nothing. If God hasn't given it to me, I don't need it. If God has given it to me, he meets the need. He meets every need that we have. He gives us what we need. It's so encouraging. That's why in David's day, in Psalm twenty three one, David could write these words. There he is out in the middle of the wilderness also. He was out on this, under the stars, caring for the sheep and taking care of them, and he could look up and he could say, say these words. The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. David knew that God was his all in all, his sufficiency. He didn't need anything else. He was all by himself with those sheep. How do you think he did it? Because he spent time with the Lord. He wrote so many beautiful songs while out there, all by himself, taking care of his father's sheep. Do you have needs? Do I have needs? Yes, we do, but God fills those needs. Does he promise to give me riches and luxuries and all these things? No, he does not, but he does promise to meet our needs. A while back, we studied in Matthew chapter six, verses thirty one to thirty three. We had this in one of our messages one of the brothers gave, but in Matthew six one to thirty three, the Lord Jesus seems to be speaking about this very same thing when he says, therefore do not worry, saying, what shall we eat? Or what shall we drink? Or what shall we wear? Do you think the Israelites did that? Yeah, I think they were. They were saying that. Where are we going to get food? Where are we going to get water? Where are we going to get clothes? And yet God took care of them. He takes care of us as well. And here the Lord Jesus goes on to say, for all these things the Gentiles seek, for your heavenly Father knows you need all these things, but seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. If you honor God and serve God and live for him completely, he'll take care of all your needs, all your situations, and you could be able to say with David, the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. The Lord is good, he takes care of us, and he does it all the way, all the way through the journey. The Israelites lacked nothing. We lack nothing. He's given us all we need. All things that pertain to life and godliness are ours in the Lord Jesus Christ. When the Apostle Paul thought about his friends in Philippi, the beloved brothers and sisters there, they gave generously to the Lord's work. They gave generously to Paul. They had given him a gift, they sent the gift to Paul. And Paul wrote back this wonderful letter of- to the Philippians and we're so blessed by it. At the end of that letter, in Philippians four nineteen, he tells them, and my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory. That is so beautiful. And my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory. And it's like the distinction there, he doesn't say out of his riches in glory, he says according to his riches in glory. Because when the Lord gives us, after he's given us, he still has just as much left, and he has all the riches, and he pours them out upon us. He lavishes them upon us, like Jim was sharing at the breaking of bread. I love that. And I just want to conclude with one of the things that J. Vernon McGee had to say about this, this verse, and I have several commentaries at home, and I have different ones, and I was reading all the ones looking for this verse. Not one commentator could I find of the ones that I have. I mean, I don't have that many, but I have quite a few. Not one specifically commented on this verse. I said, Lord, it can't be. How could it be? This verse is rich. It's so, it blessed me so much. How could you have a commentary and not speak about this verse? But they did, until I came to J. Vernon McGee. And I know Lorraine likes him and many people, and he has that southern kind of folksy way about him, but I don't know if you know about it, but he was a Bible scholar. He had that down home kind of Texas twang that sounded kind of country and everything, but he knew his Bible. He knew the doctrine. He knew the teaching. He knew the Bible so well, he wrote on the entire Bible. And so when he came to this chapter, guess what? He wrote on the verse. I said, wow, Lord, I like him. Jay Vernon McGee. Well, he summarized it by saying, here is the overall view of their forty years. God knew all their trials and troubles because he had walked with them all those years. Moses could honestly say, thou hast lacked nothing. How wonderful. It is the same when David looked back, and then he quoted the same verse that I, that I came across. He looked back in his life and said, the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. How could he say that? Because he never wanted. God does not give us the promise of the luxuries of life, but God provides the necessities of life. He will do that for you and me also. He hit it right on. Didn't he summarize that whole passage just beautifully? He really did. And thank God this morning we can look back on this passage and we can say, thank you, Lord, for your blessings in my life. Every blessing. We oftentimes used to sing on Wednesday night, and we should sing it again. Count your blessings, name them one by one. Count your many blessings, see what God has done. Because as you soon as you start counting those blessings, you're going to need to, to get a piece of paper out, and then you're going to start to count, because you can't just count them in your head. You got to write them down. And then as you start writing them down, you're going to need a calculator because you're going to need to multiply them and multiply, add them and multiply them and see what God has done. And when you do that, you'll realize it's all from him, all his blessings, tremendous blessings. And then we understand also that the Lord is a patient, understanding, and kind God. He feels with you, Rick, when you go through things. He feels with you, Sophia. He feels with you, Wayne. He feels with all of us what we go through. He doesn't minimize it. He says, I'm going to walk through it with you. You're going to go through the fire, I'm going to go through the fire with you. You're going to go through the flood, I'm going to go through the flood also. When Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were in that fiery furnace, there was a fourth person there, the Lord Jesus Christ. He was with them there, and he's with us in our experiences today. And then we have to remember that on the journey through the wilderness, the Lord has promised to be with us and to provide for us all that we need, and we can trust him for that. What a joy, what a blessing. Isn't this verse just incredible? I mean, you could spend days, weeks, months just meditating it and juicing it and just wonderfully enjoying it, but it is such a rich blessing. And I'm just gonna close by it before we pray with that song we g- we sang earlier, and I want to read the words because sometimes when we sing the hymns, we don't really catch all the, the words that are so beautiful. But after the message today and what the Israelites went through, and after all these things, if you want to, uh, to look at it, and Ed maybe can get that up on the, on the screen, but I just want to read these words in context of what we've studied today. Be not dismayed, what e'er be tide, God will take care of you. Beneath his wings of love abide, God will take care of you. Through days of toil, when your heart doth fail, God will take care of you. When dangers fierce your path assail, God will take care of you. All you may need, he will provide. God will take care of you. Nothing you ask will be denied. God will take care of you. No matter what may be the test, God will take care of you. Lean, weary one, upon his breast. God will take care of you. And the chorus says, God will take care of you through every day or all the way. He will take care of you. God will take care of you. Shall we close in prayer? Father, we thank you for the journey through the wilderness. It's not always easy, it's difficult. We face trials and difficulties and problems. We face all these things, Lord, but we thank you for those times in our lives where you give us rest and peace, and even in the midst of the most difficult circumstances, Lord, you're with us and you carry us through. And we just pray, Lord, today that you'll encourage each one of the saints, each one of us, Lord, to rely on you every day, to trust you, to thank you for what you've done in the past, and trust you what you're going to do in the future. And we thank you for the journey through the wilderness, Lord, our trudging through it. We thank you for your love, your care, your provision, and all that you've done for us. We ask your blessing now in your precious name, Lord Jesus. Amen.