Sunday, July 20, 2025
Scripture Readings
- Primary Reading: Deuteronomy 8-9
Key Verse
Deuteronomy 9:5 — “Not for thy righteousness, or for the uprightness of thine heart, dost thou go to possess their land: but for the wickedness of these nations the LORD thy God doth drive them out from before thee, and that he may perform the word which the LORD sware unto thy fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.”
Devotional Thought
Moses stands on the plains of Moab, with the Jordan River glinting in the distance and a land of brooks and fountains and olive groves just beyond it. The people before him are not the ones who left Egypt; that generation fell in the wilderness. These are their children, and Moses preaches to them as a dying father to his heirs. He commands them to remember. Remember the manna that appeared each morning, the sandals that never wore out, the feet that never swelled through forty years of walking. Remember the water that gushed from flint. Remember also the golden calf at Horeb, the rebellion at Kadeshbarnea, the constant murmuring that marked them as a stiffnecked people. Moses will not let them enter the good land with a short memory.
His warning is startling in its specificity. The danger is not the wilderness but the harvest. It is not hunger but fullness. When you have eaten and are full, he says, when your herds and flocks multiply, when your silver and gold increase, then beware lest your heart be lifted up and you forget the LORD. Prosperity is a subtler enemy than famine. The hungry man prays; the full man credits himself. “My power and the might of mine hand hath gotten me this wealth,” the heart whispers, and it is a short step from that whisper to serving other gods.
Notice too how Moses dismantles their pride before they even cross the river. Do not say in your heart, For my righteousness the LORD hath brought me in. It was for the wickedness of the nations, and because of the oath sworn to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Israel brought nothing to the transaction but a stiff neck and a history of provoking God to wrath. And yet, remarkably, when Moses interceded—forty days and forty nights, flat on his face, pleading for a people who had danced around a calf—the LORD hearkened. Grace, not merit, carried them across.
We read this on a July Sunday, in the middle of a season of abundance. Gardens are heavy, vacations are underway, and the year’s labor is beginning to pay. This is precisely the hour Deuteronomy warns about. The test of the wilderness is whether we will trust God when we have nothing. The test of the good land is whether we will thank God when we have everything. Both are tests of the heart, and the second is the harder one.
Reflection
- Where in your life has God’s provision quietly become something you credit to your own hand—your work, your planning, your cleverness—rather than to the Giver?
- Moses interceded for a rebellious people and God listened. For whom are you willing to fall down before the LORD forty days and forty nights?
Prayer
O Lord God, who led Thy people through the great and terrible wilderness, who fed them with manna and brought water out of the rock of flint, we confess that we are a stiffnecked people. We forget Thee when we are full far more readily than when we are hungry. Forgive us for saying in our hearts, My power and the might of mine hand hath gotten me this wealth. Teach us to remember all the way Thou hast led us, to bless Thee when we have eaten and are full, and to keep Thy commandments in plenty as in want. It is Thou who givest us power to get wealth; establish Thy covenant with us, and let us never forget Thee. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.