Second Sunday of Lent

Text: Deuteronomy 8: 1-6

Title: 40 years, the way in the wilderness

Introduction: Personal experience in Korean Army

During a special training course, I was left in the remote mountain with some of my fellow officers to learn how to survive. We, finally, made it. However, I had a good opportunity to understand some feelings of Israelites in the wilderness: Frustration, fear, anxiety, and huger.

Transitional sentence

On the second Sunday of Lent, it is meaningful to scrutinize the life of the Israelites in commemoration of the life of Jesus in the wilderness.

Text

The divine purpose for the forty-year sojourn in the wilderness is found.

Verse 3:"And you shall remember all the way which the Lord your God has led you in the wilderness these forty years, that He might humble you testing you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not.

First, humbling.

God trained His people in the wilderness in order to humble them, by teaching them how to trust God in the great and terrible wilderness.

Second, testing.

God provided water and food (manna) for His people and tested what was in their mind, whether they would keep His commandments or not.

Application and conclusion

Stephen called the people of God in the wilderness the church in the wilderness (Acts 7: 53). The church that waits for the final consummation is in the wilderness. In other words, we, Christians, are living in the wilderness while waiting for the final entrance into the heaven.

There is the divine purpose for the Christian church on the earth.

First, God wants to humble us. That is why even we, Christians, sometimes, fail.

That is why we have to live on this world, which is full of dangers, for some time before we go to the heaven.

Second, God wants to see whether we live like Christians or not.

Jesus left the new commandment to the Christian church: "You love one another, just as I have loved you." God wants to know whether the church members practice this kind of love or not. He likes to know about patience, forgiveness, humility, and holiness of Christian church and an individual Christian.

Those churches and individuals will be given true blessing from God.