Man does not live on bread alone

(The importance of daily bread)

Deut 8:1-20

Key Verse 3

He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your fathers had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD.

Thank God for our spring conference through which we could enjoy meditating on the benefits of Jesus’ death and resurrection and receive newly of those benefits – how he loved us and has forgiven our sins and has given us power to live for him. We want to retain the spiritual progress we made through the conference and continue growing rather than slide back into our old ways. Today’s passage teaches us the secret to doing this. It exhorts us to live on God’s words – to make a deliberate, persistent effort to remain in a humble, submissive, loving dependence on our Lord by feeding daily on his life-giving word.

Part I: The purpose of God’s discipline (1-5)

The occasion on which Moses spoke the words in today’s passage was when the Israelites were about to enter Canaan. They were encamped on the eastern border of Canaan, poised to enter the land. It was the time for them to prepare for the dangers of what lay ahead and reflect upon the lessons they had learned from 40 years of God’s training in the desert. 

The land they were about to enter was so good. There was a danger they could lose their hearts to God’s blessing and then fail to keep their relationship with him, provoke his anger by their disobedience and lose everything. So, Moses warned them in verse 1 to be careful. He said, “Be careful to follow every command I am giving you today, so that you may live and increase and may enter and possess the land that the LORD promised on oath to your forefathers.” God loved them and earnestly wanted them to be happy – to take possession of his blessings in Canaan and retain possession of them forever. So, he told them to be careful to follow every command he was giving them. God’s commands are his prescription for our happiness. If we, for example, fail to follow what the doctor tells us to do, our sickness may get worse, not better. In the same way, we should be careful to follow every command Jesus has given us, for they are his prescription for us to be healthy and happy spiritually, to overcome sin sicknesses and take possession of what he promised. The promises given to Israel were only a shadow of those which we have in Christ. So, Canaan is only a shadow of the real stuff. What Jesus has promised us is not just the eternal Canaan in the age to come, the new heavens and the new earth (which is fabulous enough), but he has also promised us a spiritual Canaan in this life – one in which Jesus rules in us and our desires for this world cease and one in which the love of him and enjoyment of him fills us and we have peace and happiness and one in which we have his strength to love those around us sincerely and to draw them to know and enjoy Christ with us (Joh 14:15-17). This, what I just described to you, is the true Canaan – the true paradise that is worthy of giving up everything to possess. And Jesus really wants to sell us on this, that we may seek after it and settle for nothing less than it. But the problem is that taking hold of it by following every command he has given us is something we cannot do on our own. We need, therefore, to depend on Christ and what he has done for us.

It was for this purpose that God led Israel through the desert forty years. Verse 2 says, “Remember how the LORD your God led you all the way in the desert these forty years, to humble you and to test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands.” God humbled them; by leading them through distress and hardship, he emptied them of their sense of self-sufficiency and made them recognize their utter helplessness and need of him. This was so that they might rely on him and obey him. And the purpose of the trials was also to test them, to bring what was in their hearts into full view in their actions so that they might know how they were really doing so far, good or bad, in terms of learning to trust him and keep his commands. 

God wants for us to be humble and rely on him. This is the foundation of our spiritual life. The blessed are the poor in spirit (Mat 5:3) – those who have been emptied of their sense of self-sufficiency and who know their weakness. God has shown them what is in their hearts – they know they are sinners and they know the terrible power of their sinfulness and of its terrible consequences. And they, therefore, totally depend on Christ – they cling to him with fear and trembling, trusting him and not themselves. They depend on Jesus for their healing and happiness and submit themselves to following what he prescribes – what the doctor orders. Proud people, the rich in spirit, on the other hand, don’t obey, but hold on to their own idea and experience and hold their own ways and they suffer for it.

God taught the Israelites through their stomachs how to humbly depend on him and follow his word. Verse 3 reads, “He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your fathers had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD.” This refers to how God fed the Israelites in the desert. Out in the desert, there was no food, so God fed them by raining down bread from heaven called manna. It was a mysterious miracle. This manna would appear each morning as thin flakes like frost on the desert floor. God instructed the Israelites to go out each morning and gather enough for that day and to only gather that day’s portion and no more, because otherwise, if they kept part of it until the next day, it would be full of maggots and begin to smell. They also had to gather the manna they needed in the morning before the sun grew hot and it all melted away. Another point was there was no manna on Saturday, the Sabbath, so the Israelites had to gather two days worth of manna on Friday to last them through Saturday. And strangely, the manna they collected did not go bad the next day. This all shows that the manna was not a natural phenomena but something God was controlling, causing it behave precisely according to his word without exception. 

So in order to have food to eat, the Israelites had to follow God’s instructions exactly regarding the manna. Some learned the hard way that if they didn’t follow his word, they would go hungry. If they slept in late, for example, and went out to find manna, it was gone. Thus, they learned that their Heavenly Father’s word was trustworthy. They learned that they would always have food to eat if they followed his word rather than their own idea or convenience. According to his word, their Father in heaven would faithfully provide them with manna without failing. They, indeed, learned that, “man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD.” 

This principle applies to us as well. Our Father in heaven is in control of everything including our personal bread situation. So long as we trust him and practically obey his words, he will provide for us. The devil tempted Jesus in the desert, saying, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.” He wanted Jesus to distrust his Father and leave the path of obedience to provide bread for himself, so Jesus quoted from verse 3 saying, “man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Mat 4:4). In the same way, we can easily look at our visible bread situation, calculate how to survive, and get overcome by worry and then withdraw from living on God’s word and seeking first his kingdom and his righteousness. The worldwide economic crisis these days has been dubbed, the “Great Recession”. It has brought bankruptcies, layoffs, and scarcity of jobs, making people worried. But God doesn’t want us to ruled by fear and become slaves to bread but live according to his words, trusting him to provide (Mat 6:33). 

Verse 3 again says, “man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD.” This verse has a broader meaning which applies to our daily spiritual needs, not just our physical ones. We cannot “live” (in the full sense of being alive) on physical bread alone because we are not just physical beings but spiritual beings created by God in his image. We need spiritual bread daily. This is alluded to in the Lord’s prayer: “Give us today our daily bread.” And Christ says that he himself is the manna for our soul in Joh 6:49-51. He says, “Your forefathers ate the manna in the desert, yet they died. But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which a man may eat and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats [and we take this verb “eats” to mean not just one time by repeatedly] of this bread, he will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.” So, Jesus says here that we need to “eat” of him, meaning that we need to take and apply to ourselves and especially our sins the benefits of what he did on the cross – to believe and accept it. And it is through the words of God in the Bible that the Holy Spirit administers to us the life giving benefits of Christ’s sacrifice (Joh 6:63). Just as the Israelites were taught to live on his words with a sense of utter dependence on him to sustain their physical life, so we are taught by Christ, the Word who came down from heaven and became flesh for us, that he is the true manna for our soul on whom we are to depend and feed on daily that we may have his life in us. The Lord cries out to us in Scripture, “Give ear and come to me; hear me, that your soul may live.” (Isa 55:3). We need to come to the feet of our Lord Jesus each morning and listen and gather from his words in Scripture the heavenly manna we need to sustain us for the day, just as the Israelites went out each morning to gather the manna they needed for that day.

This heavenly manna which God by his Spirit supplies for our soul through his word is truly satisfying and of superior taste. The Scriptures abundantly testify to this. For example, Psa 119:103 says, “How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth!” and Isa 55:2 says, “Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare.” But, just as the manna which God provided the Israelites in the desert is said in verse 3 to be something which neither they nor their fathers had known, so this manna which God provides for our soul is supernatural, mysterious, and not of this world. The benefits it provides are spiritual. The taste of it is, therefore, not necessarily going to be enjoyable to us at first and the problem is not with the manna but with us in the respect that we might be still accustomed in our inner being to the satisfaction, comforts and delights of sin and of those offered in this world. So to acquire a taste for this food, we need to place ourselves in a “desert”, so to speak – we need to remove the worldly elements from our life – just as the Israelites were led out into the desert to be deprived of the foods of this world and those they had in Egypt in order to eat only the heavenly food and acquire a taste for it. And this is exactly what the word of God leads us to do when we eat of it. It is holy food which sanctifies us and our desires (Joh 17:17) and leads us to get rid of worldly things and overcome our appetite for them and seek after God and delight in him alone. To him who overcomes the sinful delights of this world, Christ promises in Rev 2:17 the “hidden manna”, which refers to a secret satisfaction and delight in him which surpasses that offered in this world and through which we can persevere in resisting this world’s temptations during our life’s journey through this world to the heavenly Canaan.

In today’s passage, we learn how God showed fatherly love to the Israelites in the desert for 40 years. He not only fed them with manna but he gave them water to drink out of hard rock (verse 15b). And their clothes did not wear out and their feet did not swell (verse 4) because of his care. In short, he watched over them, providing for all their needs, according to Deu 2:7, so that they lacked nothing. And he says in verse 5, “Know then in your heart that as a man disciplines his son, so the LORD your God disciplines you.” God wants us to understand how he is working in our life that our obedience to him might come forth from our understanding of his love. He is leading our life and caring for us and disciplining us because he is our Father and we are his precious children whom he cares for and wants to raise that we may grow in his likeness bearing his character being full of faith in him so that we may take hold of his blessings in this life and the one to come.

Part II: Remember him who blesses you (6-20)

Thus far, Moses was looking back and reminding the Israelites of the lessons they had learned over the past 40 years. But in this next part, he is looking forward to the life in Canaan and is preparing the Israelites for what lay ahead.

Moses tells them that there are two things they needed to do in view of how good the land was that God was about to give them. The first thing was to obey God. He says in verse 6-7, “Observe the commands of the LORD your God, walking in his ways and revering him. For the LORD your God is bringing you into a good land…” The word “for” at the start of verse 7 means “because”. Because God was giving them such a fabulous land, they should observe his commands. In other words, because there ought to be in their hearts a sense of gratitude and indebtedness to their God who was lavishing his love on them by giving them this land, they ought to observe his commands. This was necessary for them to retain the blessing he was about to give them.

The second thing they needed to do was to give thanks. Verse 10 says, “When you have eaten and are satisfied, praise the LORD your God for the good land he has given you.” This was necessary to keep their thanks to God alive in their hearts. The initial appreciation and gratitude they would feel to God for giving them the land was going to wear out real quick unless they worked on giving thanks. According to Ro 1:21, failing to positively and sincerely glorify and give thanks to God is what causes our heart to become “foolish” and “darkened” so that we no longer cherish him. We become like the prodigal son, our heart straying from our Father even while we are in his house, because we are no longer satisfied with him but see the value in worthless things outside the relationship with him. For this reason, we need to praise him for what he has given us in Christ and give thanks.

In the next verses, Moses gives the Israelites a series of warnings. They were surely going to become wealthy and prosperous in Canaan according to his promises and he now alerts them to the dangers that would accompany this wealth that they needed to be on guard against. He says in verses 11-14, “Be careful that you do not forget the LORD your God, failing to observe his commands, his laws and his decrees that I am giving you this day. Otherwise, when you eat and are satisfied, when you build fine houses and settle down, and when your herds and flocks grow large and your silver and gold increase and all you have is multiplied, then your heart will become proud and you will forget the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.” He says here that they needed to be on guard against becoming proud on account of their wealth. They could become proud in the sense of feeling self-sufficient that they don’t really need God much in their life – that he is merely an accessory to their life. In the land, all their physical needs would be met and, hence, there would be no outward, urgent cause for them to vigorously depend on God and cling to him. Surrounded by visible wealth, they could easily be lulled into complacency, feeling that they don’t need to struggle that much any more to depend on God, and making them spiritually relaxed and slack in carrying out their duty to love him wholeheartedly and remain in the relationship with him, obeying him and doing the things which please him.

Moses warned them that, once they became proud, they would “forget” the LORD. Having just finished 40 years of God’s training in the desert, it may have seemed ridiculous to them that they could ever forget the Lord. But the danger here was not of forgetting the facts about God and what he did for them. Rather, the danger was of forgetting the reality of God in their life. It is possible for us to forget the Lord Jesus who saved us sin – to forget him, not in the sense of failing to recall the facts of who he is and what he did for us, but forget him in the sense of his truths not having power in our lives – not being real to us any more – not having sway over our desires, decisions, actions and path of life because our heart is so calloused and distant from him. To prevent this, we need to depend on our Lord Jesus – to cling to him, feed daily on his teachings and hold to them.

There was another species of pride they needed to guard against. On account of their wealth, they could become puffed up with thoughts of themselves as being glorious and powerful. He says in verse 17, “You may say to yourself, "My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me."” So, they should not congratulate themselves as though by their own hard work and wisdom they had attained their wealth. To guard against this, verse 18 says, “But remember the LORD your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth, and so confirms his covenant, which he swore to your forefathers, as it is today.” Thus, they were to give all the glory to God not only for their wealth but for the ability God gave them to produce wealth. God confirmed his covenant of love with Israel in a visible way by giving them power to accumulate material wealth. As Christians, we are under a covenant different from the one made through Moses, a covenant in which we are the recipients through faith of the benefits of what Christ did. And God confirms his covenant with us by giving us real wealth – spiritual wealth: The power to love God and enjoy him and serve him, and to love one another and live a holy, obedient, self-controlled and happy life which pleases him. And the one to whom the credit belongs for our spiritual wealth is the Lord. From first to last, it is only by the grace of God working in us that we can attain it. To him alone belongs the glory and praise and honor.

Today’s passage concludes with a solemn warning: Destruction awaited the Israelites if they ever forgot the Lord and gave their heart away to other gods. Verses 19-20 read, “If you ever forget the LORD your God and follow other gods and worship and bow down to them, I testify against you today that you will surely be destroyed.  20  Like the nations the LORD destroyed before you, so you will be destroyed for not obeying the LORD your God.” The New Testament has so many warnings similar to this which apply to us: Gal 6:8, for example, reads, “The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction…” Rom 8:13 also says, “For if you live according to the sinful nature, you will die…” And Joh 15:6 reads, “If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned.” We must heed these warnings. May the Lord help us to humbly depend on him and live on his word daily and thereby remain faithful to our relationship with him and grow.

One Word: Man does not live on bread alone.