God’s Eyes Are Upon His People

Introduction

We sort of have that holiday season look about us this morning. Our numbers just a little bit scattered looking. I suppose some of our folks are out of town today visiting with loved ones and friends in other places. We were away last week and are scheduled to be out of town this coming week. It’s necessary that we be away again this coming Lord’s day. We never look forward to being away from here when we’re supposed to be here. And had we not scheduled these appointments the way we did, why we would have been away two weeks in a row, which was the way we were requested by a couple of congregations to be with them. But at least we’ve kept it from being away two Sundays in a row, and I’m thankful for that.

Glad to be here today, was glad to be back Wednesday night and see those of you that we hadn’t seen for about a week’s time. Our study this morning from the Word of God will be taken from the Old Testament. If you have your Bible, I’d like to encourage you to open to the book of Deuteronomy, chapter 11 and verse 12. If you don’t have your own, why feel free to use one of the three pew Bibles there in the song book rack in front of you? Deuteronomy chapter 11 and verse 12. While we’re turning to that, I’ll give you the setting for this particular passage, which will be at least one of the bases of our study today from the Word of God. Moses is the speaker to God’s ancient people Israel.

1. The Eyes of the Lord Are Upon the Land

They’ve, of course, come out of Egyptian bondage. They’ve wandered in the wilderness. They’re about ready to go into Canaan. And God through Moses is preparing the people for that Canaan entrance. So in Deuteronomy 11 and in verse 7, Moses said, But your eyes have seen all the great acts of the Lord which he did. What more would they have to think about than the plagues that he rained down upon Egypt to soften old Pharaoh’s heart and all of Egypt’s heart to finally be willing to let God’s people go out of the land. But as if that had not been enough, God gave them the miraculous deliverance through the parted waters of the Red Sea. So what a world of truth there is there in Deuteronomy 11 7.

Your eyes have seen all the great acts of the Lord which he did. Therefore shall ye keep all the commandments which I command you this day that ye may be strong and go in and possess the land whither ye go to possess it, and that ye may prolong your days in the land which the Lord swear unto your fathers to give unto them and to their seed a land that floweth with milk and honey. For the land whither thou goest in to possess it is not as the land of Egypt. Notice the contrast now. The promised land of Canaan, where you’re going, Israel, it’s not like the land of Egypt from which God delivered you. The land whither thou goest in to possess it is not as the land of Egypt from which ye came out, where thou sowest thy seed and watered it with thy foot as a garden of herbs.

But for the Nile River, Egypt just wouldn’t have made it. They were on to irrigation long before the vast midwestern United States had its massive sprinkling and irrigating and canal systems. Before down in the Belle Glade region of Florida or the Everglades, they came in with their massive pumps and knew how to suck the water up out of the ground and even flood the crops, put putting them whatever number of inches underwater they wanted them to be, and then reverse those pumps and just pull the water down. Why, it’s amazing what we can do today with irrigation. We can bring the water to the very bottom of the roots, or we can cover the roots, we can bring it up to the surface, or we can flood the fields.

Recently during our citrus fear of freeze, that’s what they were doing in certain parts of the state. They were flooding their tender crops so that they would be less apt to freeze. But back in ancient Egypt, if you grew anything, you irrigated it. So you had to be near some trickling source of water. And it was a rather primitive means. You would plant your seed and then you’d dig a little spot here with your toe, make yourself a little river collecting basin, and then you would enable the water to trickle down into that. You had to water as you went. But God is saying, now you’re going to Canaan, and it’s a land that flows with milk and honey. And uh you you’re you had to water in Egypt with your foot as a garden of herbs.

Verse 11. But the land whither you go to possess is a land of hills and valleys, and drinketh water of the rain of heaven. Wouldn’t that be a beautiful contrast? Oh, it just will drink up water of the rain of heaven. A land which the Lord thy God careth for. God’s going to look after Canaan. This is going to be a God watched over, a God cared for country. The eyes of the Lord are thy God are always upon it. From the beginning of the year even unto the end of the year. You might have just heard a sermon text there in that last phrase. The eyes of the Lord thy God are upon this wonderful promised land of Canaan. From the beginning of the year to the end of the year.

We’re pretty much at that point in time ourselves, aren’t we? We’re coming to the end of a year, 1985. She’s almost in the history books. This is the last Lord’s day of it. Would we meet again Wednesday evening, God willing, for our singing service? It’ll be the beginning of the new year. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to anticipate a year in which God would be beholding? God would be watching. God would be with from the beginning of the year to the end of the year. Wouldn’t it have been wonderful to have lived in the days of the children of Israel? Well, that all depends. Depends on whether the enemy was sweeping down upon us or not, whether we were about to win or be defeated, and that would depend upon our faithfulness to God.

But we read a passage and a promise like this, and we think, wouldn’t that be wonderful? Here we are, God’s promised us Canaan. We’ve got the wilderness wandering behind us, and Canaan’s next. And oh boy, it’s not going to be like Egypt. Milk and honey. It’s watered with rain from heaven. The land will just drink up the water of heaven’s rain. But more than that, it’s a land which the Lord thy God careth for. The eyes of the Lord thy God are always upon it. From the beginning of the year even unto the end of the year. Go into Canaan. Go into God’s promised land. And his eye will be upon that land. From the first day of the first month of the year to the final day of the last month of the year.

2. His Eye Is Still Upon the Sparrow

If his eye is upon the land, what about the people upon that land? Certainly that’s really what it’s all about. It’s the people that made that land special in the long ago. His eye is still upon even the sparrow. From January 1 of whatever year through December 31 of that year. But when Jesus made reference to that in the New Testament in Matthew 10 and verse 28, he had something to say about something other than people. Let me turn to that and read it with you. Matthew 10, verse 28. If you’d like to keep your place back there in the Old Testament, that’ll be fine, because we’re still coming back to that. In Matthew 10, 28, Jesus said, Fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul, but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.

Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? And one of them shall not fall on the ground without your father. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear ye not, therefore. Ye are of more value than many sparrows. Were not the people of God named after Jacob, whose name was changed to Israel, were not the people of God who would inherit this fertile land, this well irrigated from heaven, were not they more important to God Almighty than the land itself? Would he keep an eye upon the land and care for the land, and not care for his own people, his peculiar treasure and all the earth who would be upon that land? That eye still watches the rainbow. I have set my bow in a cloud.

It shall come to pass that after a rain I will set my bow in the cloud, and mine eye shall behold it, and I will remember my covenant with the earth that I will never again destroy the earth with the waters of a flood. That’s three things that I know God’s eye gets on. In ancient times it looked upon Canaan land, from the beginning of the year to the end of the year, his eye is still upon the sparrow, and it’s on those who believe in him and his son Jesus Christ, and he who has power to destroy both soul and body in hell, and who says to us, Fear not what man shall do unto thee, because after they kill thee, there’s no more that they can do to you, but fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.

3. God’s Eyes Are Upon His People

Don’t you know that not even a sparrow falls to the ground without the Father, that is he notes its fall, and ye are of more value than many sparrows. So I’m going back now to our primary text of our study this morning, at the end of the year and with a beginning of a new year coming, and it’ll have an end too, if time continues until the end of nineteen eighty six, we could well say if nineteen eighty six comes in, and if it is allowed to continue its course, the eyes of the Lord will they be upon us I believe that they were not only upon ancient Canaan, but upon the people who dwelt in ancient Canaan. Let’s look at this text then for just a few moments this morning.

Are you comforted by the fact that God’s eyes are upon his people and that you are one of his people We sometimes sing the song all along on the road to the soul’s true abode there’s an eye watching you. Every step that you take this great eye is awake there’s an eye watching you. I believe that brethren and certainly we all should he was watching Canaan because he would be watching his people the children of Israel who would dwell upon the land of Canaan. We can be thankful if we’re in the family of God today. And in the New Testament, the church is referred to as the Israel of God. We can be thankful at year’s end, and knowing all through the year to come that God’s eye is upon his people.

4. God’s People’s Eyes Should Always Be Upon Him

But let’s, in addition to looking at that passage the way it is, how that the eyes of the Lord thy God are always upon it, from the beginning of the year to the end of the year. Let’s turn that around for just a moment. If that be true, if God’s eyes are upon his people past, Old Testament, and if they are upon his people present, New Testament times in the New Testament church. Does anything follow from that? What if this passage said God’s people’s eyes should always be upon him from the beginning of the year to the end of the year? I think we could, if you will, sort of turn the text around like that and not do any injustice to Scripture. Story is told a good many years ago of a father and son who were walking down a hot dusty road in August and watermelons were in harvest, and Father looked down the road and he turned around and he looked behind him and he looked to the left and he looked to the right and then he climbed the barbed wire fence and he plucked a watermelon.

And he was just about to split it open and share it with his son, and his boy said, Daddy, you forgot to look up. You forgot to look up. God’s eyes are always upon his people. And should not we his people have our eyes upon him from the beginning of the year to the end of the year. Unfortunately, sometimes we take our eyes off God. But fortunately, he never takes his eye off us. And that’s one reason that there is always a route or a route back to him. He was there when we bobbled. He will be there when we repent. He will be there to forgive us, to receive us, to reinstate us, and to use us in his work again if we will but have it so.

Suppose for a moment that that particular portion, that particular truth from the Word of God could be blotted out, and that God’s eyes are not always beholding us. Would you ever want it that way for a second? By the way, when you go home today, read your bulletin, the whole thing is by somebody else from start to finish. So I really commend it to you. And it’ll be a part of this lesson that I’ll not take the time in this service to read unto you. But it raises a question. Is there ever a time in life when a man really doesn’t need God? You say absurd question, Brother Hobby. Yes, it is. There isn’t a time when we don’t need God, and his eye and his care upon us.

Well, then shouldn’t it follow that there should never be a time but what we need God and our eye always upon him? And as long as our eye is upon him, and as long as, like the little boy said to his father, if we will remember, he’s always there. And we need to look up before we think our thoughts and do our deeds and whatever it is, thought, word, or deed, we need to strive to keep our eyes always upon God. But read today’s bulletin. There’s never a moment in our life when we wouldn’t want God beholding us. And conversely, there should never be a time in our lives where we would not want to be looking upon our God. In Hebrews, the 13th chapter, we just started this lesson in the Old Testament.

5. I Will Never Leave Thee, Nor Forsake Thee

We want to finish it in the New Testament. We noticed earlier what Jesus said. Now let’s notice what the inspired writer in the book of Hebrews had to say also about God always being with his people. This isn’t Old Testament. This isn’t Israel and Canaan. This is that new and better covenant. And in Hebrews 13 and verse 5, we read, let your conversation or manner of life be without covetousness, and be content with such things as ye have, for he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee, so that we may boldly say, The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me. Beloved, I believe these are about as good a thoughts as we could think. At the close of a year and at almost the beginning of another.

To just pause and grasp this simple little lesson from Deuteronomy 11 and verse 12 that the eyes of the Lord are always upon his people, from the beginning of the year to the end of the year. And by the same token that the grateful eyes of God’s people should always be upon him and his will and his purposes, his commandments, from the beginning of the year to the end of the year. And then just put it in its New Testament setting and take it from Jesus. God watches the sparrow. Aren’t we of much more value? We who are his children, we with even our imperfections, we who have a high priest, Jesus Christ, Hebrews 4, 16, who can be and who is touched with the feeling of our infirmities.

Therefore let us come boldly unto the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and grace to help in time of need. And as the Hebrew writer tells us, God is on record as promising.

Nor forsake thee. Happy is the man whose wife will make that promise unto him and keep it. Happy is the wife whose husband will do the same.

And yes, sin was involved. And while that adversity and even some of that sin was at its height, and all my sympathies rested with the woman, she said, I love him. I cannot live without him. And I received a letter this week saying things are better. We’re back in services. He’s leaving his problem off. We’re happy as we’ve never been before. Last week our daughter obeyed the gospel of Christ. But one thing that pulled them through was her saying, I love him. I cannot live without him. I believe that helped bring him back to his moorings and to his God and to himself. I could have told you in that same sermon that I didn’t, of another wife that I know who said unto her husband, I would fight to the death for you.

Conclusion

Beautiful sentiments. And I believe it’s good for us to know that God’s eye is always upon his people. And to challenge ourselves and say that from January 1 through December 31, God being our helper. The coming year and every year, but starting now this year. Oh, I know we committed to do it when we obeyed the gospel. But maybe we understood more about repenting of our past sins and making the good confession and being baptized into Christ for the remission of sins then we did about this particular lesson right now. Maybe we’re in a better position now to realize that if we didn’t make this commitment when we were baptized, we’re a little older now. We’re in a little better position to make just such a commitment.

One man, in thinking these thoughts, referred to them as good cheer for the new year. I kind of like to think of this lesson in that light. Just to realize how that God is with us, and we need to be with him. And he will never leave us or forsake us. And therefore we may boldly say, The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto you. I brought four verses of Scripture into the pulpit with me this morning. Felt like I couldn’t deal with all of them. Just dealt with one of them so far. The Lord willing, I’ll deal with some more of those others tonight. Because I think that all four of them are lessons well suited to the ending of one year and the beginning of another, and I won’t be here, the Lord willing, Sunday, to start the Lord’s Day of New Year’s with you.

So I think I’ll just go ahead and try to get my other three scriptures to you tonight. If you can be with us, I hope you will be. Because I believe there will be some encouragement and some help for us in the year to come. You know, to stand before a body of people such as I’m doing this morning, as one year ends and another one is about to start. Really, no one person, not the preacher, can get up and stand before a congregation and say, Now, this is what we need to do. Excuse me. At best, and at a minimum, he’ll need to confer with the leadership of the congregation and see what they have in mind to do. And it would be good even for that to be run by the congregation before it was put together in the form of a program.

So I haven’t attempted that role this morning. But I have, from the role of an individual, and I’m one of those, and you’re one of those, tried to give you some thoughts which hopefully will be a benefit to you as we end this year and as we start another. I’ve got just a minute or two. Let me read a passage or two, and then we’ll be standing to sing the song announced. In the Psalms, we read, Lord, thou, I think I’m going to get another battery for tonight. Lord, thou hast heard the desire of the humble. Thou wilt prepare their heart. Thou wilt cause thine ear to hear. In the New Testament, Peter said, But grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be glory, both now and forever.

Amen. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name. I believe those are good thoughts with which to close out this year, and to make a personal commitment thereunto. It may be that there’s one or more here in this assembly today who has never as yet obeyed the gospel of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Of that great high priest who came and died on the cross, that our sins could be blotted out, washed away, forgiven. And so that even as forgiven children of God and still less than sinlessly perfect, though we do become partakers of the divine nature as we feed upon the sincere milk of the word and grow thereby, that great high priest is still there, able and willing to help us over life’s rough spots, that if we confess our sins, he’s faithful and just to forgive us of our sins to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

So maybe there’s one here today who’s never yet obeyed the Lord and become his child, been alive in God in Christ, so that you can grow in the grace and the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. If that be your sad state of affairs, will you not come today and render that obedience from your heart? Will you not resolve? Well, I shall live for God. Strive strive to keep my eye upon him and his will, because he’s promised he’ll keep his eye upon me if I’m among his people, that he’ll never leave me or forsake me. And I’ll be able to boldly say, I shall not fear what man shall do to me. If you’re lacking in that, will you not meet that lack this morning, supply your greatest need, make this year, regardless of what it’s been up to now?

This can be the making of it. And if you, if you will turn yourself over to God, resolve to live for him from the beginning to the end of every year that comes, as long as you live.

While we stand and as we sing, we bid you to come.