“He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your ancestors had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.” (Deuteronomy 8:3)
“So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; it shall not return to Me void, but it shall accomplish what I please, and it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.” (Isaiah 55:11)
“But he answered and said: “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.’” (Matthew 4:4)
These three passages are linked together by the common thought that human life is perfectly conditioned when it is governed by the words that proceed from the mouth of God.
Deuteronomy records the last messages of Moses to the Children of Israel. In this particular passage, Moses states the meaning of the varied circumstances through which God had permitted the Children of Israel to pass through the Wilderness.
Isaiah is the messenger of God to the Children of Israel, who, through disobedience, have passed into captivity. Isaiah 55 records one of the messages in which he contrasts their state of life in captivity with the blessedness and joy experienced when living in perpetual obedience to divine law. It is of this law he speaks when he says:
“So shall My word be that goes forth My mouth.”
In the Book of Matthew in the New Testament, we see Yeshua passing through the severest temptation. Replying to the first suggestion by the enemy, Yeshua reveals the realm in which he lives when he says:
“Man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.”
Within the divine intention, every human life moves through present probation to future purpose. We are born not merely for today, but for God’s tomorrow. If the ultimate end is to be in harmony with the will of the eternal love, we must obey the law proceeding from that love:
We must live by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. And this word encompasses the entirety of Scriptures.
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