Imagine going forty days and forty
nights without food. This was the plight
of Jesus when He had been led by the Spirit into the wilderness where He was to
be tempted by the devil. As Jesus was physically
starving, the tempter came to Him and said, "If You are the Son of God, command
that these stones become bread" (Matt. 4:3).
This was a powerful temptation, for Jesus is indeed the Son of God, He
had the power to change the stones to bread, and He was desperately
hungry. However, Jesus utterly rejected
Satan's suggestion and resisted the temptation.
His answer for the devil was, "It is written, 'Man shall not live on
bread alone, but on every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God'" (Matt.
4:4).
The passage Jesus quoted to Satan is
Deuteronomy 8:3. In that context, Moses
spoke to the whole nation of Israel and called upon them to remember their
wanderings in the wilderness. During
those forty years, God had tested Israel to see what was in their hearts and
whether they would keep His commandments.
The lesson of those trials was stated by Moses, who said, "He humbled
you and let you be hungry, and fed you with manna which you did not know, nor
did your fathers know, that He might make you understand that man does not live
by bread alone, but man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of
the LORD."
The lesson that Jesus proved in the
wilderness and that Israel learned in the wilderness is one that our nation
needs today. Just as Israel came into a
land that flowed with milk and honey (Deut. 6:3), so also we have inherited a
land that is abundant with prosperity.
The United States is the richest and freest nation in the world, and we
have "bread" in abundance. Even so,
there is something deadly wrong with our nation, which can be corrected only by
learning this lesson.
Indeed, America has lately been
attempting to live by bread alone and not by every word that proceeds from the
mouth of God. The name of God has been
steadily removed from the public discourse, and His word has been disregarded
as a source of guidance and information for our public policies. The narrative in America is now primarily
about one thing -- the economy, money, or, in another word, "bread." Our nation is now primarily concerned with
assuring that everyone has enough "bread," but concern for the things of God
has been minimized.
The results are predictable. The unrestrained focus on temporal "bread" produces
a spiritual vacuum in the hearts of men in which liberty and prosperity become
a breeding ground for corruption and violence.
Chasing after "bread alone" leads to nothing but the deeds of the flesh,
"which are: immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmities,
strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, envying,
drunkenness, carousing, and things like these" (Gal. 5:19-21). Naturally, "those who practice such things
will not inherit the kingdom of God."
What
a sad turn for a nation which was once thoroughly religious in its fear of
God. In 1835, the Frenchman Alexis de
Tocqueville wrote Democracy in America,
Volume I and said of those early generations, "The Americans combine the
notions of Christianity and of liberty so intimately in their minds, that it is
impossible to make them conceive the one without the other..." He also made a statement that is a dire
prediction for an increasingly godless America.
He said:
Despotism may govern
without faith, but liberty cannot. How
is it possible that society should escape destruction if the moral tie is not
strengthened in proportion as the political tie is relaxed? And what can be done with a people who are
their own masters if they are not submissive to the Deity?
As we see the "moral tie" of our nation
severely weakened, it can only lead to the proportional strengthening of the
"political tie." In other words, if
individuals will not govern and restrain themselves, then civil government
will. This is the reason Libertarian
politics do not work in our modern culture.
Our nation has simply become too immoral and rebellious to the rule of
God. If our nation does not repent soon,
then our liberty and prosperity will likely be lost.
The only way to reverse this trend is by
a return to the word of God so that we may truly live again. Perhaps God will again humble our nation by
letting us be hungry that He might make us understand that "man does not live
by bread alone, but man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of
the Lord." Whether or not our nation
collectively turns again to Him, every soul thankfully has the opportunity to
turn to Him through Christ, who is "the bread of life" (John 6:35), so that "they
may have life, and have it abundantly" (John 10:10).
