THE GOSPEL OF GOD



DANGER IN PARADISE

(Deuteronomy 6:10-25)

SUBJECT:

F.C.F:

PROPOSITION:

INTRODUCTION:

A. You all know the name of John Newton, and if you don’t you know his most famous hymn, “Amazing Grace.” You’ve sung that hymn many times, and probably love it with all your heart. You may also know that he grew up with a Christian mother who taught him the faith at a young age. But she died when he was about seven, and so he bounced around between boarding school and the high seas. He eventually became captain of a slave trader and a vile, wicked man.

On the night of March 9, 1748, he was suddenly awakened at sea by a terrific storm that threatened to sink the ship. He cried out to the Lord in the darkness, and counts that event as his conversion to the Christ he had long abandoned. Eventually he became a puritan pastor and wrote hundreds of hymns. His most famous one, though, was originally titled, “Faith’s Review and Expectation.” Somehow it became known by its less cumbersome first two words, “Amazing Grace.” Newton wrote several verses. One that is almost unknown is this:

The earth will soon dissolve like snow,

The sun forbear to shine;

But God, Who called me here below,

Shall be forever mine.

Perhaps the third verse is at the same time most comforting and most challenging.

Through many dangers, toils, and snares,

I have already come,

‘Tis grace that brought me safe thus far,

And grace will lead me home.

B. This verse is comforting in retrospect because it reminds us of the ways God’s grace has led us through trouble. But it can also be painful because it presents us with the prospect of the continual need for grace, since there are many dangers, toils, and snares apparently ahead of us.

I’ve titled this message “Danger in Paradise.” It is striking to me that Moses is addressing the people of God on the very threshold of the Promised Land, the land flowing with milk and honey, the land that is for us the picture and promise of heaven. And yet he immediately speaks of the dangers that are before them: danger in paradise. It reminds us that our first parents were likewise placed in paradise, a Garden of unbroken goodness, and it was there, in the midst of complete joy and satisfaction, that they were tempted, and they collapsed, and brought every evil and illness crashing down on our heads. And now the people of God are going back to paradise, and Moses warns them that danger yet remains.

C. All of this serves as a picture of our faith in Christ. Jesus calls us to put our faith in him, to enter into the glories and joys of the age to come. But there are for us also many “dangers, toils, and snares”: danger in paradise. And we must take heed, for they sometimes come in our most unguarded and unexpected moments.

I. DANGER IN AFFLUENCE.

A. One such danger comes from a surprising corner. It is the danger of affluence. It is the danger that arrives when your ship comes in, when all is going well and you have no needs. Listen to Moses’ warning: “10 “And when the LORD your God brings you into the land that he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give you—with great and good cities that you did not build, 11 and houses full of all good things that you did not fill, and cisterns that you did not dig, and vineyards and olive trees that you did not plant—and when you eat and are full, 12 then take care lest you forget the LORD, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. 13 It is the LORD your God you shall fear. Him you shall serve and by his name you shall swear. 14 You shall not go after other gods, the gods of the peoples who are around you, 15 for the LORD your God in your midst is a jealous God, lest the anger of the LORD your God be kindled against you, and he destroy you from off the face of the earth.”

B. Affluence brings its own kind of danger, and I’m not talking about the physical ailments that come from soft living. God’s people were about to go from a situation of 40 years of absolute dependence to the appearance of independence. For 40 years, they merely stepped out of their tents and picked up their breakfast, lunch, and supper off the ground, the fresh delivery of bread, manna which the Lord God had provided by overnight express. What this meant was that the Lord always provided for them, but they never had a stockpile. They were always one day away from starvation. They practiced a daily dependence on the Lord, for out in the wilderness there was nothing else for them to eat. And now they were entering into paradise, a good land, flowing with milk and honey, complete with furnished houses, cisterns for water, vineyards and olive groves and fertile fields. They were going from a situation of absolute dependence to the appearance of independence. And there lay the trouble.

Jesus taught us to pray, “give us this day our daily bread.” That was, of course, an allusion to the wilderness experience. We are to remember that even though in our affluence it may appear that we are independent, we are just as depended on God as ever. The danger that Moses describes is that when they are weaned away from this literal, daily dependence on God, they may forget him and go after the gods around them. And God will not permit that to go on, not among his beloved people.

C. In my morning devotions I am reading through the psalms. And I find a recurring theme: King David got into a lot of trouble. Most of the first 40 or so psalms are of David, in trouble again, crying out to the Lord. I wonder if David faced many different situations of adversity, or whether he just kept coming back to God with these new psalms over the same problems.

But Psalm 42 really caught my eye. Deep longing for God comes from deep anguish and trouble in this world. David prays, “my tears have been my food.” We try to shield ourselves from every manner of hardship, we seek security and insurance to cushion ourselves from the blows of life.

The beautiful song we sang earlier, “As the Deer,” is based in part on this psalm. We sang the line, “You alone are my heart’s desire and I long to worship you.” But part of the way we get to that place where the Lord alone is our desire is through the frustrating disappointment of all others desires of the heart. The danger of affluence is that we don’t reach that place of disappointment quickly enough. We always have a new toy to play with, we can often buy our way out of trouble, and we can keep the wolf from the door.

D. No wonder Jesus said that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich person to enter the kingdom, and that no man can serve two masters—you cannot serve both God and money. James said that God has chosen the poor of the world to be rich in faith; and Paul wrote that the love of money is the root of all kinds of evils. So the first danger comes from affluence.

A second is

II. DANGER IN ADVERSITY.

A. At the opposite end of the scale, there is a dangerous temptation in times of trouble or adversity. Moses writes: “16 “You shall not put the LORD your God to the test, as you tested him at Massah. 17 You shall diligently keep the commandments of the LORD your God, and his testimonies and his statutes, which he has commanded you. 18 And you shall do what is right and good in the sight of the LORD, that it may go well with you, and that you may go in and take possession of the good land that the LORD swore to give to your fathers 19 by thrusting out all your enemies from before you, as the LORD has promised.”

That incident at Massah is worth reviewing so we can let this warning fall with its full weight. It is recorded in Exodus 17, and let me review the events that led up to it. In Exodus 14, the people cross the Red Sea and are delivered from the Egyptian death squad which is drowned in the sea. In Exodus 15, Miriam leads the women’s concert choir in a spontaneous anthem of praise. Oh, and later in this chapter, the people complain because the water tastes bad, so God fixes it. In chapter 16, the Lord introduces them to their daily bread, the manna falls in the wilderness. And in chapter 17, the people once again complain about the lack of water. But it goes beyond complaining.

“1 All the congregation of the people of Israel moved on from the wilderness of Sin by stages, according to the commandment of the LORD, and camped at Rephidim, but there was no water for the people to drink. 2 Therefore the people quarreled with Moses and said, “Give us water to drink.” They are not asking, they are demanding, even accusing. “And Moses said to them, “Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the LORD?” 3 But the people thirsted there for water, and the people grumbled against Moses and said, (something really silly) “Why did you bring us up out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst?”

B. You can often tell when someone has moved from asking, to demanding, to accusing, and that is when they become absurd. The Lord has already delivered them with a mighty hand, miraculously, beyond all hope. He has also miraculously provided water at Elim, turning bitter water sweet. Each day they wake up to their daily bread, fresh evidence each morning of his love and care. Every bit of evidence they have witnessed testifies to the Lord’s power and love. There is not a shred of evidence whatsoever to the contrary. And yet they ignore all of the facts and accuse the Lord of wicked treachery the first time things get a little tough.

And the Lord God has delivered his dear Son into the hands of cruel men to be tortured to death, to pay the penalty and serve the sentence we deserve for our wicked rebellion. He has implanted his Holy Spirit within us and has caused us already to taste of the joys of the age to come. He has pledge that if he did not spare his own Son, he will certainly not withhold anything good and necessary for our salvation.

C. And how do you respond in adversity, when things get tough? Someone has likened it to a tea bag. You only know what it’s really like when it’s plunged into hot water. And by the way, that brown discoloration comes from the bag, not the water. The hot water only brings out what’s already there. So, even though you know where I’m going, let me ask it anyhow: How do you respond when you are in hot water? There is danger in adversity—the danger of testing the Lord by questioning his wisdom, power, or goodness and saying, “Is the LORD among us or not?” You shall not put the LORD your God to the test.

So there is danger in affluence, danger in adversity, and

III. DANGER IN ALL THINGS.

A. The supreme danger above all things, however, is self-reliance. My kids may fun of me when I rail against this self-esteem madness that is altogether assumed everywhere today. I choke and gag whenever I hear the atheistic mantra, “Believe in yourself.” Paul writes in Philippians 3:3: “3 For we are the real circumcision, who worship by the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh….” (read, “believe in yourself.”) Here is Moses’ third warning: “20 “When your son asks you in time to come, ‘What is the meaning of the testimonies and the statutes and the rules that the LORD our God has commanded you?’ 21 then you shall say to your son, ‘We were Pharaoh’s slaves in Egypt. And the LORD brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand. 22 And the LORD showed signs and wonders, great and grievous, against Egypt and against Pharaoh and all his household, before our eyes. 23 And he brought us out from there, that he might bring us in and give us the land that he swore to give to our fathers. 24 And the LORD commanded us to do all these statutes, to fear the LORD our God, for our good always, that he might preserve us alive, as we are this day. 25 And it will be righteousness for us, if we are careful to do all this commandment before the LORD our God, as he has commanded us.’”

B. Rather than “believe in yourself,” here is a better phrase that should always be ready on our lips and in our hearts: “We were Pharaoh’s slaves in Egypt,” or, to update it for our age, “We were slaves to sin and lost.” Here is the perfect sum of the Christian faith if you add the next line, “And the Lord brought us out with a mighty hand.” I urge you to begin each day and close each day: “We were slaves to sin and lost, and the Lord brought us out with a mighty hand.” Here is justification: “the Lord brought us out.” Here is sanctification: “we were slaves.” Here is humility: “We were slaves.” And here is hope: “with a mighty hand.”

The deadliest danger of all is pride, self-help, self-reliance, self-religion. And here is the unfailing cure: “We were slaves of sin and lost, and the Lord brought us out with a mighty hand.”

CONCLUSION

Danger in paradise. There are dangers of forgetting God in affluence. There are dangers of accusing God in adversity. And there are dangers of making self into God in all things.

Perhaps the most misquoted verse in the Bible is Philippians 4:13: “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” Athletes love to misquote it, imagining that Christ will strengthen them to win the race or contest. Prosperity teachers also love to quote it, imagining that Christ will make them prosperous and successful, delighting in the very riches which Paul commands us NOT to seek.

But the context tells us precisely what Paul is saying. The believers at Philippi have sent a love gift to Paul for his missionary expenses and work. So he thanks them: “10 I rejoiced in the Lord greatly that now at length you have revived your concern for me. You were indeed concerned for me, but you had no opportunity. 11 Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. 12 I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. 13 I can do all things through him who strengthens me.”

What precisely does the Lord Jesus Christ strengthen him to do? Win the foot race of ball game? Succeed in business and get rich? No.

Paul says that the Lord Jesus strengthens him so that he can face the danger of adversity and not grumble, complain, accuse God, or question his motives. The Lord Jesus can even make him so strong that he can withstand affluence and times of prosperity, and not trust in riches, and keep on glorying in Christ Jesus. He can face the dangers hunger and plenty, need and abundance, because God has taught him the secret, to find in Christ his all in all.

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