July 7, 2026 - Deuteronomy 8 & Psalm 129

We read Deuteronomy 8 and Psalm 129, then slow down to face a hard truth: God’s love often includes discipline that humbles us and exposes what is really in our hearts. We also talk about how to respond to affliction without spiraling into fear, remembering that the Lord is righteous.

For more information about Compass Bible Church South Valley, visit compassbiblesv.org. Keep reading. Keep growing. God’s Word is a lamp to your feet, and a light to your path. 

Transcript

Welcome And Today’s Date

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Welcome to the Lamp and Light Bible Plan, where we are seeking to love the Lord our God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength, with God's word letting the way. I'm Josiah Smith, lead pastor of Compass South Valley. Today is Tuesday, July 7th, 2026.

Scripture Reading In Deuteronomy 8

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Listen intently to God's written word. Deuteronomy 8. The whole commandment that I command you today you shall be careful to do, that you may live and multiply, and go in and possess the land that the Lord swore to give to your fathers. And you shall remember the whole way that the Lord your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, that he might humble you, testing you to know what is in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not. And he humbled you, and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. Your clothing did not wear out on you, and your foot did not swell these forty years. Know then in your heart that as a man disciplines his son, the Lord your God disciplines you. So you shall keep the commandments of the Lord your God by walking in his ways and by fearing him. For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and springs, flowing out in the valleys and hills, a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey, a land in which you will eat bread without scarcity, and which you will lack nothing, a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills you can dig copper, and you shall eat and be full, and you shall bless the Lord your God for the good land he has given you. Take care lest you forget the Lord your God by not keeping his commandments and his rules and his statutes, which I command you today, lest when you have eaten and are full and have built good houses and live in them, and when your herds and flocks multiply, and your silver and gold is multiplied, and all that you have is multiplied, then your heart be lifted up, and you forget the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, who led you through the great and terrifying wilderness, with its fiery serpents and scorpions and thirsty ground where there was no water, who brought you water out of the flinty rock, who fed you in the wilderness with manna that your fathers did not know, that he might humble you and test you, to do you good in the end. Beware lest you say in your heart, My power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth. You shall remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth, that he may confirm his covenant that he swore to your fathers, as it is this day. And if you forget the Lord your God and go after other gods and serve them and worship them, I solemnly warn you today that you shall surely perish, like the nations that the Lord makes to perish before you, so shall you perish, because you would not obey the voice of the Lord your God.

Scripture Reading In Psalm 129

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Psalm 129. Greatly have they afflicted me from my youth. Let Israel now say, Greatly have they afflicted me from my youth, yet they have not prevailed against me. The plowers ploughed upon my back, they made long their furrows. The Lord is righteous, he has cut the cords of the wicked. May all who hate Zion be put to shame and turn backward. Let them be like the grass on the housetops, which withers before it grows up, with which the reaper does not fill his hand, nor the binder of sheaves his arms, nor do those who pass by say, The blessing of the Lord be upon you. We bless you in the name of the Lord.

Why God Disciplines With Love

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Now Deuteronomy eight focuses a lot on the discipline of the Lord, that God has disciplined the nation of Israel, specifically through the wilderness wandering, those forty years that they were wandering in the wilderness. And he did that so that their heart could be exposed. This is even in verse 3, and he humbled you, he humbled the Israelites and let them hunger, and yet he fed them with manna, which you did not know, did it, nor did their fathers know for what purpose? That he might make them know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. So Deuteronomy 8 focuses a lot on the discipline, the instruction, the correction of the Lord. Now, this is something that can be really difficult for us to think through and to navigate, because oftentimes we we like to think of God most prominently through the lens of God is loving. Now, of course, that's true. That's exactly what the Apostle John says in 1 John that God is love. But typically, the way that we even as Christians, maybe even as conservative Christians, can sort of view God through the lens of love is we want to bend that definition towards permissiveness of any sort of variety, maybe not in egregious ways, like the culture would do, but nevertheless, in our heart, we don't like to think of God, our Father, as someone who disciplines us. But even here in Deuteronomy 8, and even in Hebrews, it talks about God disciplines those whom he loves. So even though that might be an uncomfortable truth for you to swallow today, that's exactly what God's word teaches, that God does, in fact, he disciplines his children. And he does it in part to humble us. Hope you see that, that refrain that we are reading about here in Deuteronomy 8, the word humble, that you might be humble, that you might understand that man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord. So if you read Deuteronomy 8, uh, and you don't walk away with this sense of, man, the Lord is going to discipline me at some point, particularly if we are in patterns of sin, living lifestyles that are not in obedience, much like we see here in Israel, they're being warned against that. Uh, if we don't expect some level of discipline or correction, we we are not having a proper view of who God is. And even I would say our relationship with Him. Now, does our relationship with the Lord, is it marked with discipline? Is that the overarching sort of theme in our relationship? Well, no, uh, certainly not. There's comfort that can be found in the Lord, there's strength, there's transformation, there's uh this sense of peace. I mean, there's all kinds of things that marks our relationship, service to the Lord, worship of the Lord. Uh, but nevertheless, even though discipline is not necessarily the overarching theme that comes to mind in our relationship, it nevertheless is part of our relationship. Now, the difficulty of discipline, specifically from the Lord, is we don't get a lot of detail in the scripture as to exactly what that is. And so sometimes we can make the mistake of thinking every negative thing in our life or every situation that doesn't go how we would expect, or everything painful that we experience, we automatically might assign and assume that God is disciplining us. And of course, if we read the book of Job, as we'll get to later on in the Lamp and Light Bible reading plan, we're going to recognize that no, it's not always the case that the difficult things in our life are direct discipline from the Lord. So that leaves us with some level of ambiguity as to what exactly that's going to look like, what shape that will take. And so I as I look across the scriptures and I think about discipline, both in the New Testament and the Old Testament, it's both affirmed throughout the entire Bible that that is something that God does with those whom he loves. He does it to humble us, he does it to teach us, he does it to test us, even that's a word that we're often not comfortable with. Even though it says that so clearly, it doesn't exactly say uh what all that's going to look like. It doesn't give us criteria for this is what discipline is versus this is just the suffering that comes from living in a sinful world. And there's a sense in which we can, by God's grace, with discernment and wisdom, separate and kind of make a distinction between those two things. And so I think that the question that we are asking, or that we can often ask about the specifics and the sort of the nitty-gritty of how God might discipline us is really the wrong question. I think we generally speaking, we should, the Bible is encouraging us to understand and affirm that God does discipline those whom he loves, expect that, uh, prayerfully receive that, and have a response of humility in the process, whatever that might look like. And I can't, I can't tell you this is exactly what it's going to look like, this is exactly when it's gonna come, this is how long it's gonna last. I mean, I don't know any of those things. We don't see the specifics of that laid out in the scriptures. But nevertheless, I think our posture towards discipline that we may receive from the Lord should be one of humility, recognizing that God is testing us, God is growing us, he's doing it ultimately for our good, and he's doing it uh to expose, even as it says in Deuteronomy 8, the reality of what's in our heart. And so I think the posture that we are to maintain is this sense, again, this acknowledgement and this realization that discipline is a part of the Christian life, um, whatever shape that may take, and that our response should be a deeper trust in the Lord, a deeper appreciation for the Lord. Even the book of Hebrews talks about uh that children respect their fathers because of the discipline that the fathers enact. And so there's this sense in which we are to grow in respect, reverence, and ultimately the fear of the Lord as a result of being disciplined by him. So no, that's it. We're not given all those things, unfortunately, in scripture, but we are told to know in certain terms that discipline is a part of our Christian life. So, at the very least, uh, when we experience it, we shouldn't be disoriented, we shouldn't be dis discouraged, we we shouldn't be surprised. This is something that we see uh even here in Deuteronomy 8, and we see how that looks specifically in the life of Israel, and we see other examples throughout scripture as well. But just look at Deuteronomy 8, remind yourself that God does discipline his children, remind some sort of yourself of the aims of what God is trying to accomplish in that discipline, humility, uh just exposing the heart, testing your faith, all of those things. And just don't be surprised when you experience that in your Christian

Affliction, Endurance, And God’s Righteousness

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life. Now, in Psalm 129, that we see this psalmist sort of reflecting on behalf of the nation of Israel as a whole. So he's sort of acting as a representative of Israel, and he's reflecting on the reality of the affliction that Israel has faced. Now, again, I don't know all the details of what is in the background of this or what specific affliction is being mentioned here. Uh, but nevertheless, it says in verse one, greatly have they afflicted me from my my youth, let Israel now say. Greatly have they afflicted me from my youth, yet they have not prevailed against me. So there's this sense of a consistent affliction that's described uh pretty vividly in verse three. The plowers plowed upon my back. So think of these deep sort of furrows. Those are trenches that are uh it's an analogy being used by the the psalmist, a very vivid analogy of this affliction was was like a plower plowing deep furrows into Israel's back. And there's that sense of it's difficult, it's painful, it's been long, it's been arduous. But verse four is kind of the turning point. The Lord, through all of that, is righteous. The Lord is the one who's gonna cut the cords of the wicked. And he goes on and says, May all who hate Zion be put to shame and turn backward. And so there's this hope and this prayer that in the midst of affliction and the in the midst of being persecuted and great suffering, there's this cry from the psalmist to the Lord. The Lord is righteous, and he has cut the cords of the wicked. And so in the midst of our suffering, and the in the midst of even uh afflictions of various kinds, I think of even the the word that James uses, let count it all joy when you uh experience trials of various kinds, diverse temptations, as it's talked about. Um, we are to count it all joy, that that so that the tested genuineness of our faith uh we we might grow and grow specifically in that context in James uh in the patience. But in the midst of that affliction, in the midst of the trials, the tribulations that we're giving thanks for, uh we we can recognize that we can turn to the Lord because he is righteous. When he's righteous in his dealings with everyone, every nation, uh every individual, and he's righteous certainly in his discipline of those whom he loves.

Closing And How To Learn More

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Well, thank you so much for joining us today on the Lamp and Light Bible Reading Podcast. For more information about Compass Bible Church South Valley, visit compass Bible SV.org. Keep reading, keep growing. God's word is a lamp to your feet and a light to your path.