Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / May 26, 2024 | Deuteronomy - The Death of Moses

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May 26, 2024 | Deuteronomy - The Death of Moses · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

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unknown: Good morning.
0:01
SPEAKER_00: Good to be with you.
0:02
SPEAKER_00: Hey buddy.
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SPEAKER_00: This morning's message is brought to you by Ricola.
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SPEAKER_00: Okay.
0:08
SPEAKER_00: So I've got my my tea here.
0:10
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna get through it.
0:11
SPEAKER_00: We're rolling.
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SPEAKER_00: Um This morning's message is kind of bittersweet uh for a couple reasons.
0:18
SPEAKER_00: One is we are really finishing a journey that began four years ago here at the church, where we started going through um with Exodus, going sequentially through these Old Testament books, and by finishing Deuteronomy today, which is what we're doing, um, we not only close sort of that chapter, but also close a chapter where Moses has been the leader of Israel in all of these books.
0:45
SPEAKER_00: And so uh this morning we're going to look at chapter 34 in Deuteronomy, which is the death of Moses.
0:51
SPEAKER_00: And with his death, a whole number of things happen, right?
0:54
SPEAKER_00: It is a transition in leadership, it's a transition in books and what is happening to the nation of Israel, because next spring they will go into the promised land with Joshua.
1:05
SPEAKER_00: Um, but also we're kind of saying goodbye to one that we have been admiring and trying to emulate in so many different ways.
1:14
SPEAKER_00: Because Moses, he's kind of on the Mount Rushmore of great Bible leaders.
1:19
SPEAKER_00: And in fact, it's not until, you know, you could say we get to King David later on in the nation of Israel's history that we get to another leader that sort of approaches his righteousness, his greatness, and all those things.
1:33
SPEAKER_00: And that'll become evident today.
1:35
SPEAKER_00: But the bittersweet part is that the death, or really it's almost the funeral of Moses, has some really hard elements in it.
1:43
SPEAKER_00: And we've been anticipating this as well the entire time that we've been going through Deuteronomy, because Deuteronomy is a book which, throughout its context, from the very beginning, is anticipating Moses' death.
1:56
SPEAKER_00: These are his last three sermons.
1:58
SPEAKER_00: These are sort of his final reminders, these are his great takeaway lessons because in Moses is represented something that is not just, you know, God's authority, God's power, but he has a connection to a generation that has been almost entirely lost.
2:14
SPEAKER_00: And so as he begins Deuteronomy, he says, I'm about to die.
2:18
SPEAKER_00: The Lord is going to take me, and as I'm doing that, I want to share with you all of the things that you need to know so that when you go into the land, you'll be ready and you can handle it.
2:28
SPEAKER_00: This is the hard part because Moses, as you might imagine, I don't know how you would feel if God told you that your death was coming, but it has given Israel the ability to prepare.
2:40
SPEAKER_00: And so finally in chapter 34, we see Moses ascend Mount Nebo, which was the mountain that God called him up to, to see the promised land, but to not be able to enter into it.
2:52
SPEAKER_00: And that's actually going to be the main focus this morning, because that moment between God and Moses, where he can see the promised land, he can see the fulfillment of the promises of God, but the curse of Moses' sin, specifically from the waters of Meribah, has followed him to this point, and he's unable to enter into the promised land.
3:13
SPEAKER_00: That bittersweet moment is going to reveal things about ourselves.
3:16
SPEAKER_00: It's going to ask kind of hard questions about the way that we view sin and ultimately the goodness of God.
3:23
SPEAKER_00: And so this question, really the reality of Moses' death, is going to pose a question to our lives, and I think tell us a lot about who we think Jesus is, who we think God is, and all those wonderful things.
3:34
SPEAKER_00: So let's go ahead and begin.
3:36
SPEAKER_00: We'll be in Deuteronomy 34.
3:38
SPEAKER_00: Uh it's not very long.
3:39
SPEAKER_00: We're going to read the whole chapter this morning.
3:42
SPEAKER_00: Then Moses went up from the plains of Moab to Mount Nebo, to the top of Piskah, which faces Jericho, and the Lord showed him all the land, Gilead as far as Dan, all of Naphtali, the land of Ephraim and Manasseh, all the land of Judah as far as the Mediterranean Sea, the Negev and the plain and the valley of Jericho, the city of Palms, as far as Zoar.
4:03
SPEAKER_00: The Lord then said to him, This is the land I promised Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
4:07
SPEAKER_00: I had said to them, I will give it to your descendants.
4:10
SPEAKER_00: I have let you see it, Moses, with your own eyes, but you will not cross into it.
4:15
SPEAKER_00: So take one step back before we get to the actual text.
4:18
SPEAKER_00: God has called Moses to the top of a mountain, specifically Mount Nebo.
4:22
SPEAKER_00: Moses has done this sort of thing a bunch of times.
4:27
SPEAKER_00: Moses plus mountains plus God is kind of an equation that has been, that has filled the books and significant moments in Israel's history from the beginning.
4:39
SPEAKER_00: Moses goes up to the top of Mount Sinai to receive the Ten Commandments.
4:44
SPEAKER_00: Moses goes up to the top of Mount Sinai to have a meal with God and the 70 elders of Israel.
4:51
SPEAKER_00: Moses goes up to the top of Mount Sinai with his brother Aaron, when it's Aaron's time to die, so that the mantle of priest can be passed from Aaron to his son Eliezer.
5:02
SPEAKER_00: I mean, Moses has gone up mountains a number of different times, more than that even, and communed with God, had this fellowship with God.
5:09
SPEAKER_00: And every time that that has happened, there have always been people coming with Moses.
5:15
SPEAKER_00: He has had priests, or most of the time, Joshua, he's had elders of Israel, he's had assistants.
5:20
SPEAKER_00: I mean, Moses is 120 years old.
5:22
SPEAKER_00: It's not easy for him to climb mountains.
5:25
SPEAKER_00: But at this final moment in his life, Moses is going up the mountain by himself.
5:31
SPEAKER_00: Nobody else is going up with him, no person at least.
5:35
SPEAKER_00: But when Moses gets to the top of the mountain, he is not alone.
5:39
SPEAKER_00: It is God there with him.
5:41
SPEAKER_00: And this is a moment they have anticipated for a while.
5:44
SPEAKER_00: God has told him and given him some expectation that this was going to happen.
5:48
SPEAKER_00: He's not coming back down the mountain.
5:51
SPEAKER_00: And so as Moses goes to be with him, though, we're reminded of the unique relationship that Moses had with God.
6:20
SPEAKER_00: And he would come out and his face would be glowing and he would deliver a word to Israel.
6:24
SPEAKER_00: But in Exodus 33, the Lord says about Moses that he speaks to him like one friend to another, that he speaks to him like nobody else on earth, face to face.
6:35
SPEAKER_00: Moses has a unique and truly special relationship with God.
6:39
SPEAKER_00: And so going up to the mountain to speak with the Lord, it's almost business as usual.
6:43
SPEAKER_00: That's who he would expect to find up there.
6:46
SPEAKER_00: And so God meets him up on top of Mount Nebo, and this is the view that they see.
6:52
SPEAKER_00: This is on top of Mount Nebo, just outside of Israel, and it's looking west.
6:58
SPEAKER_00: And the order of events or the order of locations that God presents to Moses there in chapter 34, it kind of rolls like counterclockwise from 12 o'clock all the way down to 6 o'clock.
7:11
SPEAKER_00: It starts out in the north here and then sort of rolls down.
7:15
SPEAKER_00: And what's going on is I think you can imagine the Lord sort of being there with Moses.
7:19
SPEAKER_00: We don't get their entire conversation, we get snippets of it.
7:23
SPEAKER_00: But it's, you know, two who have worked together so closely for the last 40 years.
7:30
SPEAKER_00: It's a fellowship, a friendship, even.
7:34
SPEAKER_00: And God is going, Moses, look, this is where the tribe of Dan is going to be.
7:40
SPEAKER_00: This is where Ephraim and Nash, that's where they're going to be.
7:43
SPEAKER_00: This is where Judah is going to be.
7:45
SPEAKER_00: And then he finishes, he goes, then this is this is the city of Jericho.
7:49
SPEAKER_00: And I can almost imagine, I think it's fair to assume, that God shares these things with Moses and then goes, you know, Moses, Jericho, the city of palms, it's it's look at it in its beauty and its splendor.
8:01
SPEAKER_00: That's gonna be the first city that Joshua takes with the nation of Israel.
8:05
SPEAKER_00: I have this kind of crazy plan.
8:07
SPEAKER_00: They're gonna think it's crazy, they're gonna need to walk around it seven times and seven days and all these different things.
8:12
SPEAKER_00: And then the walls are gonna fall down.
8:13
SPEAKER_00: Moses goes, Those walls?
8:15
SPEAKER_00: And God says, Yeah, those walls.
8:17
SPEAKER_00: God is sort of giving him a guided tour of the promised land.
8:21
SPEAKER_00: And how special that is for Moses, right?
8:25
SPEAKER_00: That he gets to see these things.
8:26
SPEAKER_00: The land that he's looking at, which has been known for centuries as the land of the Philistines and the Canaanites and the Amorites and all of these different peoples, now God is placing the names of tribes on these lands.
8:38
SPEAKER_00: And so it is a fulfillment of a promise that Moses has been waiting for.
8:43
SPEAKER_00: And in fact, it's been over 400 years that God's people have been waiting for this.
8:48
SPEAKER_00: 400 years that they were even just in Egypt, and much longer than that since God gave that promise to Abraham.
8:56
SPEAKER_00: So this is the view that Moses has from the top.
9:00
SPEAKER_00: But then God gives him sort of a hard message.
9:04
SPEAKER_00: He says, I have let you see it with your own eyes, but you will not cross into it.
9:08
SPEAKER_00: Right?
9:09
SPEAKER_00: And how you feel when you hear that is something I kind of want you to encapsulate.
9:14
SPEAKER_00: I want you to remember that because we're going to talk about that later.
9:17
SPEAKER_00: What is the feeling that you have when you hear that Moses cannot go into the land?
9:24
SPEAKER_00: Excuse me.
9:25
SPEAKER_00: Now, the reason behind that is one that God, I think, graciously does not delve into here.
9:30
SPEAKER_00: See, God and Moses, they hashed this out back in Deuteronomy 3.
9:34
SPEAKER_00: Uh God had told Moses he would be unable to go into the land, and that breaks Moses' heart.
9:40
SPEAKER_00: He has been anticipating that.
9:42
SPEAKER_00: I mean, um, he has not been in the promised land yet.
9:46
SPEAKER_00: He has not seen it.
9:46
SPEAKER_00: Joshua, Caleb, they were spies.
9:49
SPEAKER_00: They went into the land, they came back out, but Moses, the leader of Israel, he hasn't seen it yet.
9:53
SPEAKER_00: And so just as he's about to cross the finish line, God says, Hey, actually, you're gonna end your story right here.
10:01
SPEAKER_00: And that's hard for Moses to take, as you can imagine, right?
10:05
SPEAKER_00: It's this thing that he has been waiting for.
10:07
SPEAKER_00: And the sin that prevents him from doing it happened years and years and years previously at the waters of Meribah, where Israel was complaining that God was going to, you know, uh let them die of thirst.
10:19
SPEAKER_00: And they were screaming at Moses, screaming at God, and Moses goes to the Lord and he goes, Lord, like why do we not have water here?
10:26
SPEAKER_00: And God says, Okay, I want you to go and you to speak to this rock.
10:29
SPEAKER_00: And from this rock, it's gonna split, it's gonna open up, and streams of water are gonna come out.
10:34
SPEAKER_00: Enough for the entire nation, enough for all of their livestock.
10:37
SPEAKER_00: And Moses in something that, in his one of his few signs of weakness, and one of his flaws as a great leader, he was always a man that struggled with anger.
10:48
SPEAKER_00: And as he goes up into the rock and he sees this sort of you know thrashing crowd who are screaming at him, who are angry at him, yelling at him about when God is going to provide, he hits the rock twice with his staff instead of speaking to it.
11:01
SPEAKER_00: And though it explodes and opens up and water gushes forth, God says, I didn't, that's not what I asked you to do.
11:07
SPEAKER_00: I asked you to speak with my name and use that alone as the thing which opened up the rock, and instead you used your staff.
11:15
SPEAKER_00: And there's there's so many things that are wrapped up into that.
11:18
SPEAKER_00: It's because it's not actually Moses' history.
11:22
SPEAKER_00: I mean, Moses killed a man back in Egypt, but that's not the sin that prevents him from going into the promised land.
11:29
SPEAKER_00: It is this rebellion against God, even as slight as we might see it, where he, as the leader of Israel, showed that he did not trust in God to do what he said.
11:40
SPEAKER_00: And so, because of this, Moses is at the top of Mount Nebo here, and he gets this bittersweet moment.
11:46
SPEAKER_00: Moses, you get to see it.
11:48
SPEAKER_00: This is a fulfillment of my promise, but this is as far as you're gonna go.
11:52
SPEAKER_00: I would like to know, you know, if you could be a fly on a stone there about what the very, very end of Moses' life was like.
12:01
SPEAKER_00: Because this is not him going to Mount Nebo, it was not going to the principal's office, okay?
12:07
SPEAKER_00: This is one whom he has had a deep and abiding fellowship with through his entire life, the God who has strengthened him and empowered him and done all a number of things to carry him forward through every hard aspect of his life.
12:20
SPEAKER_00: This is the God who spoke to him through the burning bush, okay?
12:23
SPEAKER_00: This is the God who parted the Red Sea.
12:25
SPEAKER_00: This is the God who provided manna for 40 years.
12:28
SPEAKER_00: So going to be with God at the very end is really this gracious moment where Moses gets to transition from the physical world into the spiritual, and he's not missing a beat.
12:39
SPEAKER_00: God is there from the beginning, and God will continue to be with him at the end.
12:44
SPEAKER_00: But does Moses go, Okay, Lord, I'm ready now?
12:48
SPEAKER_00: Does God say, Are you sure?
12:52
SPEAKER_00: Do you want to look any longer?
12:54
SPEAKER_00: What is their moment, that sweet connection between the two of them?
12:57
SPEAKER_00: How do they put a sort of a cap on 120 years?
13:00
SPEAKER_00: They're going to spend eternity together.
13:03
SPEAKER_00: But this chapter is coming to a close.
13:06
SPEAKER_00: Whatever it is, uh, when Moses ultimately gives those words, or when God tells him it's time, Moses dies.
13:13
SPEAKER_00: And that's what we now pick up with as Deuteronomy continues.
13:17
SPEAKER_00: In verse 5, it says, So Moses, the servant of the Lord, died there in the land of Moab, according to the Lord's word.
13:24
SPEAKER_00: He buried him in the valley and the land of Moab facing Beth Peor, and no one to this day knows where his grave is.
13:30
SPEAKER_00: Moses was one hundred and twenty years old when he died.
13:33
SPEAKER_00: His eyes were not weak, and his vitality had not left him.
13:36
SPEAKER_00: The Israelites wept for Moses in the plains of Moab thirty days.
13:40
SPEAKER_00: Then the days of weeping and mourning for Moses came to an end.
13:43
SPEAKER_00: Joshua, son of Nun, was filled with the spirit of wisdom because Moses had laid his hands on him.
13:48
SPEAKER_00: So the Israelites obeyed him and did as the Lord had commanded Moses.
13:53
SPEAKER_00: So Moses is a hundred and twenty when it's his time to go.
13:57
SPEAKER_00: Forty years in Egypt, forty years as a shepherd in Midian, forty years leading the nation of Israel.
14:04
SPEAKER_00: And what we see there speaks about his vitality.
14:08
SPEAKER_00: There's a little bit of exaggeration here.
14:09
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it would be like if you're at a funeral and you're speaking, you know, like, you know, she made the best pies in the world.
14:15
SPEAKER_00: And you're like, did she?
14:16
SPEAKER_00: Like, the best pies in the world?
14:18
SPEAKER_00: And we're like, no, but this is the nice thing to say.
14:21
SPEAKER_00: So it's not that it's a lie, because Moses still was experiencing the weakness of age, the fall of humanity that makes our joints creak and our bones ache and all of those things, right?
14:32
SPEAKER_00: Um, Moses was experiencing that.
14:34
SPEAKER_00: 40 years in the desert does a lot to the skin, okay?
14:37
SPEAKER_00: But at the same time, uh, the prevailing point here is that generally speaking, Moses was carried by God physically in a unique and miraculous way that empowered him to carry out his mission and purpose such that nobody in Israel would look at Moses and say, physically, it's his time to go.
14:59
SPEAKER_00: Like, this is not Moses being put out to pasture, okay?
15:03
SPEAKER_00: He climbed a mountain right on his last day.
15:06
SPEAKER_00: Moses gets to the very top, he still has his vitality, he still has his vigor.
15:11
SPEAKER_00: And the point here is that God has sustained him until the very, very end.
15:16
SPEAKER_00: Back in Deuteronomy 31, Moses goes, I'm I'm 120.
15:20
SPEAKER_00: I can't go out or come in anymore.
15:21
SPEAKER_00: He goes, I'm old.
15:23
SPEAKER_00: But at the same time, he was carried by God so that he would be able to finish the mission and do it well until it was time that God said, Okay, it your season is ending here.
15:35
SPEAKER_00: And like any good leader, then what Moses did once he knew that that was coming is he laid hands on the person that he had been basically training to be his successor for decades.
15:45
SPEAKER_00: Joshua is with Moses way back at the beginning of Exodus.
15:48
SPEAKER_00: He's up, he's going up with God.
15:50
SPEAKER_00: We find him in like these little passages where it's like Moses went up on top of the mountain to get the Ten Commandments, and Joshua was there too.
15:57
SPEAKER_00: So Joshua has seen all of these things.
15:59
SPEAKER_00: When Moses would go into the tabernacle, it would say that Moses would leave, but Joshua would just stay there and hang out.
16:05
SPEAKER_00: And so God tells Moses to pass this spirit upon Joshua onto Joshua.
16:12
SPEAKER_00: And uh when it says that Moses laid hands on him, that's not just like, you know, sort of a knighting, okay?
16:17
SPEAKER_00: It's not that he is Sir Joshua now or something, but there is actually a real spiritual, tangible difference in Joshua's ability to lead, empowered by God, that was passed from Moses to him.
16:30
SPEAKER_00: There are things that Joshua is able to do now.
16:32
SPEAKER_00: We see this with other Old Testament leaders, that they sort of get this special gifting from God that is unique to them, that they are able to then lead and do this crazy thing like, you know, being the king of Israel or being the great prophet in Israel to do these things for Joshua to lead the nation of Israel in conquest.
16:50
SPEAKER_00: And so what it is is saying that the mantle of basically Israel's leader appointed by God has been passed to Joshua.
16:57
SPEAKER_00: And so, really, the question that we finish with here is what is that going to look like?
17:02
SPEAKER_00: And the little snippet that we give or get is kind of a tease in the sense that there's so few places in the Bible where God says, Israel did exactly what I asked them to do.
17:14
SPEAKER_00: Like Israel did what they were supposed to do this time.
17:17
SPEAKER_00: But apparently at the end of Joshua's, or at the end of Moses' life, transitioning into Joshua, that's exactly what they did.
17:25
SPEAKER_00: Moses finishes, and then you can look at the last sentence here.
17:29
SPEAKER_00: Joshua, son of Nun, was filled with the spirit of wisdom because Moses had laid his hands on him.
17:33
SPEAKER_00: So the Israelites obeyed him and did as the Lord commanded Moses.
17:37
SPEAKER_00: It is a good thing.
17:39
SPEAKER_00: Moses has finished well.
17:41
SPEAKER_00: He has set Israel up for success.
17:43
SPEAKER_00: He has given them Deuteronomy, he has given them the last lessons, right?
17:49
SPEAKER_00: Now, there is uh one other thing, though, that we should talk about in this passage.
17:53
SPEAKER_00: Um, at the near the beginning, you see the phrase, He buried him.
17:59
SPEAKER_00: And uh, what this tells us, because there are two people on top of the mountain, one of them is Moses, and Moses died.
18:07
SPEAKER_00: And so what that tells us is that God was the one who buried Moses.
18:11
SPEAKER_00: Liberal scholars will disagree with this.
18:13
SPEAKER_00: They'll say, well, no, Moses must have had assistance.
18:15
SPEAKER_00: He was old, he couldn't have gotten up to the mountain by himself.
18:18
SPEAKER_00: Like, who would have buried Moses?
18:19
SPEAKER_00: Yada yada.
18:20
SPEAKER_00: But the point is three things.
18:22
SPEAKER_00: One, um, very easy for the Holy Spirit of God to be able to tell the collector of Moses' writings or the one who sort of um edited Deuteronomy um what the events were that happened at top of Mount Nebo.
18:36
SPEAKER_00: Getting this information is not a problem because the Holy Spirit inspires the writers.
18:40
SPEAKER_00: Number two, the text tells us that God, in this way that, as far as I'm aware, is unlike anything else in the Bible.
18:48
SPEAKER_00: I mean, there are people whose life ends, like Elijah, for instance, by him just ascending to heaven.
18:53
SPEAKER_00: But the idea that Moses dies and God buries him is unique to Moses.
19:01
SPEAKER_00: The text tells us that that's what God did.
19:03
SPEAKER_00: But third, and this is just reasonable, is that if the grave and location of Moses was known, it would have immediately turned into a shrine and worship site for Israel.
19:14
SPEAKER_00: They they followed after, as they should have.
19:17
SPEAKER_00: They followed after every word of Moses, and to think that God buried him in a location and they could go and find it and they could return to it outside the promised land, it would have led them even quicker into apostasy than they already found themselves in, quicker into idolatry.
19:30
SPEAKER_00: They should not worship the grave of Moses.
19:33
SPEAKER_00: And so God buried Moses, and he uh it wasn't actually at the top of the mountain, but somewhere in the valley.
19:41
SPEAKER_00: A location that was unknown to humanity, but interestingly, we're gonna take a quick rabbit trail, was known in the spiritual world, and even Satan knew where Moses was buried.
19:54
SPEAKER_00: There's this little passage in the book of Jude.
19:56
SPEAKER_00: In fact, it's just one verse that talks about this.
19:59
SPEAKER_00: And it is one of those passages I'm gonna share with you, and it kind of brings more questions to mind than answers, but nevertheless, it's so interesting.
20:08
SPEAKER_00: Jude verse 9, yet when Michael the archangel was disputing with the devil in an argument about Moses' body, he did not dare utter a slanderous condemnation against him, but said, The Lord rebuke you.
20:21
SPEAKER_00: Okay, in context, Jude, brother of Jesus, way to go.
20:24
SPEAKER_00: Uh Jude, what he's saying is it's in this larger passage about what to do with false teachers and how to handle their sort of their lies and the fact that the word of God and the authority of God is the thing that is used to combat them.
20:38
SPEAKER_00: And that the kind of highest example that Jude wants to give is that even when fighting against Satan, Michael, who presumably that we would think has the ability to fight very well against Satan, being kind of the chief angel, as Satan once was, that Michael even relies upon the power of God to fight against this enemy.
20:58
SPEAKER_00: Now, why were they fighting over the body of Satan?
21:03
SPEAKER_00: Um, what were Satan's plans?
21:04
SPEAKER_00: What did the devil want to do with Moses' body?
21:08
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
21:09
SPEAKER_00: Uh it's not given to us the reason why.
21:12
SPEAKER_00: In fact, that Jude is not concerned with that.
21:14
SPEAKER_00: I'll definitely ask Jude when I get to heaven why he did not include one more sentence, because that would be, you know, that helped me out a little bit up here.
21:23
SPEAKER_00: But the point being is that Moses stands as this figure, right?
21:28
SPEAKER_00: This should just give a glimpse into how highly esteemed he is.
21:33
SPEAKER_00: That Moses is this figure where even after he dies and his spirit is with God, his physical body in the earth is something that Satan wants to do something about.
21:43
SPEAKER_00: And that God is protecting it, and he's taking care of Moses, and he is, in this sense, uh Michael is relying upon the power of God to rebuke him.
21:53
SPEAKER_00: Funny thing about the photo, or rather, the painting by Rennie, is that the face of Satan.
22:00
SPEAKER_00: Uh legend has it was uh the face of a cardinal in Rome that uh annoyed Rennie and had kind of disputed his character, and so he just memorialized him as Satan.
22:10
SPEAKER_00: So don't cross artists because they will paint you and you'll be known for hundreds of years as the guy with Michael's foot on his head.
22:22
SPEAKER_00: So um, anyhow, as we go back to Deuteronomy and the text here, writes, we are left, like I said, with this question of what happens next.
22:33
SPEAKER_00: And so now as we sort of take that and move it to the side, you have to ask yourself this question.
22:40
SPEAKER_00: I mean, this is true, this is good kind of dialogue to have anytime you're reading the Bible.
22:44
SPEAKER_00: Why is God saying the things that he's saying?
22:46
SPEAKER_00: Why is he presenting this information the way that it is, inspired by the Spirit?
22:50
SPEAKER_00: What am I supposed to get from it?
22:51
SPEAKER_00: And one thing you should be thinking about at the end of Deuteronomy, because Deuteronomy closes what's called the Pentateuch, okay?
22:57
SPEAKER_00: It's the first five books of the Bible, it's the Torah, the teachings of Moses, uh, because traditionally, and I would believe, uh, Moses wrote the first five books of the Bible.
23:07
SPEAKER_00: And so as that closes, and now Moses is gone, what happens at the very end of Deuteronomy is something that we should be paying attention to.
23:15
SPEAKER_00: Because, like I said at the beginning, like there are so many transitions that are happening here.
23:20
SPEAKER_00: It's not just Moses, but it's Israel.
23:23
SPEAKER_00: It's actually in the narrative of Scripture, things are changing.
23:27
SPEAKER_00: Like the foundation has been set, now we're moving forward, we have God's chosen people.
23:31
SPEAKER_00: Now Israel as a nation is more in focus than sort of the individuals.
23:35
SPEAKER_00: There are all these different things going on.
23:38
SPEAKER_00: How is God going to finish Deuteronomy?
23:41
SPEAKER_00: And what God chooses to do is provide this almost like loving epitaph or like obituary for Moses.
23:49
SPEAKER_00: This is what he says.
23:51
SPEAKER_00: No prophet has arisen again in Israel like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face.
23:58
SPEAKER_00: He was unparalleled for all the signs and wonders the Lord sent him to do against the land of Egypt, to Pharaoh, to all his officials, and to all his land, and for all the mighty acts of power and terrifying deeds that Moses performed in the sight of all Israel.
24:13
SPEAKER_00: Moses gets a couple of sort of accolades here.
24:17
SPEAKER_00: He is one who spoke with the authority of God.
24:19
SPEAKER_00: And a couple weeks ago you might remember Deuteronomy 18, there's this the prophecy about the prophet that Moses gives that will arise after him.
24:28
SPEAKER_00: And we we point that and say that it shows us about Jesus, tells us about Jesus.
24:34
SPEAKER_00: And that is connected here about no prophet has arisen again in Israel like Moses, and we kind of look ahead.
24:40
SPEAKER_00: But for this, for our moment this morning, it is simply just kind of a medal bestowed on Moses that like he was so great that until Jesus, nobody takes this title as great prophet in Israel.
24:54
SPEAKER_00: Right?
24:54
SPEAKER_00: He spoke with the authority of God.
24:56
SPEAKER_00: He had a personal relationship with God, unlike anybody else.
25:00
SPEAKER_00: Even when we go to Joshua, who we've already talked about and said that he was with Moses for all these moments, the nature of the Lord's relationship with Joshua is way different than it was with Moses.
25:12
SPEAKER_00: Joshua, though righteous and a good leader and led by the Lord and faithful, and all of those wonderful things, we begin to see a greater divergence between the leaders and the priests and who is communicating with God, where Moses was kind of joined together in those moments.
25:28
SPEAKER_00: He had a personal relationship that really is unparalleled.
25:32
SPEAKER_00: Number three, he was the hand of God in redeeming Israel from slavery.
25:36
SPEAKER_00: And so this great promise of God that he was going to, you know, set his people free.
25:42
SPEAKER_00: And in fact, it was the heart of Moses from when he was a young boy in Pharaoh's house.
25:47
SPEAKER_00: This is the reason he killed the man.
25:49
SPEAKER_00: He killed one of Pharaoh's servants because he was abusing a Hebrew slave.
25:54
SPEAKER_00: And so this desire for emancipation that Moses has had for, I mean, he's 120 for a long time, right?
26:02
SPEAKER_00: This is something that God allowed him to carry out.
26:05
SPEAKER_00: He was the chosen person to do that.
26:07
SPEAKER_00: And finally, that he was filled with the power of God to perform signs and wonders.
26:12
SPEAKER_00: Really interesting because later on in Scripture, Jesus is going to talk a lot about how signs and wonders are the sign, well, no pun intended, but are the reason why people should believe in what he's doing.
26:24
SPEAKER_00: He goes, believe in my words, but if you don't look at what I've done.
26:28
SPEAKER_00: And so Moses, in much the same way, had this power of God, and truly, though there are other prophets who did miracles and did amazing things and had some of their ministry sort of magnified by miraculous supernatural events.
26:43
SPEAKER_00: Nobody gets the blockbuster moments like Moses does.
26:47
SPEAKER_00: Nobody gets the ten plagues, nobody gets the parting of the Red Sea, the manna from heaven, the water from a rock, you know, even still, like all of these examples and many more, Moses is the guy who has really had the power of God, the word of God, all of this stuff.
27:02
SPEAKER_00: You get it.
27:03
SPEAKER_00: You get it.
27:04
SPEAKER_00: He was a big deal.
27:05
SPEAKER_00: And now he's gone.
27:08
SPEAKER_00: But we do need to talk about that bittersweet moment.
27:12
SPEAKER_00: Because if all of these things are true about Moses and he was so great, is great as a leader, one that we should follow after in many ways, why could he not enter the promised land?
27:24
SPEAKER_00: Why did God keep him out?
27:27
SPEAKER_00: How you view that moment, how you view God sort of letting Moses see, but then holding him back, is going to reveal a lot about your own relationship with God.
27:39
SPEAKER_00: Because there are basically two ways that you can see that.
27:42
SPEAKER_00: The first one is that God did not have to let Moses see the promised land, but yet he did, and so it was a gift.
27:50
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
27:51
SPEAKER_00: The other one is that you say, Well, God should have let righteous Moses into the promised land, and he didn't, and so it was at best a tease, and at worst it was some kind of curse.
28:03
SPEAKER_00: Moses, you can see this, but you can't go in.
28:05
SPEAKER_00: Like I'm I'm gonna show you what could be, but you can't have it.
28:09
SPEAKER_00: And most of us fall in one of those two camps.
28:13
SPEAKER_00: And the reason why I say that this is kind of one of those moments that hits you is because sometimes we're just reading a text and all of a sudden we're not ready for how we feel when we read it.
28:24
SPEAKER_00: Even if we might think something else, many of us go to this text and go, Well, God, why would you even do that?
28:30
SPEAKER_00: Could you not have just done all the rest and not let him see what he couldn't walk into?
28:39
SPEAKER_00: In the mix of all of these things, do you feel like God treats you well?
28:44
SPEAKER_00: Do you feel like your life is one that is one long tease or curse?
28:50
SPEAKER_00: God has not given you the desires of your heart.
28:53
SPEAKER_00: God has not treated you the way that you feel like you deserve.
28:57
SPEAKER_00: God has not given you the gifts that He's given to other people.
29:00
SPEAKER_00: And so there's there's an aspect of bitterness and envy, but also kind of connection that you have with Moses because you go, man, Moses, I can't imagine how you felt on top because that's how I feel all the time in my life.
29:16
SPEAKER_00: God, you should have let me do these things, see these things, feel these things, be recovered in this way, but yet you didn't.
29:23
SPEAKER_00: God, why would you tease me?
29:25
SPEAKER_00: Why would you see have me be sick and have somebody else get healed and not let me experience that?
29:30
SPEAKER_00: God, why would you see their marriage succeed in my fail?
29:33
SPEAKER_00: Like, why would these things happen?
29:37
SPEAKER_00: And so as we understand, hopefully, that this is a kind of a magnifying glass on our heart, now we can dive into it, right?
29:46
SPEAKER_00: We need to talk about this bittersweet moment because what it reveals, and I'm going to argue, that really God gave Moses a gift.
29:53
SPEAKER_00: And I want you to get to a point where you see that, but in order to do that, there's really two things we need to understand about it.
30:00
SPEAKER_00: One is that his vision of the promised land was a fulfillment of his entire life's journey that only meant this, it was only significant to Moses.
30:14
SPEAKER_00: And the second is that Moses anticipated and expected the grave and judgment because of his sin.
30:22
SPEAKER_00: And that with those two things, we can have a healthy understanding of how it is that God works with us in our life and especially move ourselves out of that heart of bitterness.
30:32
SPEAKER_00: So the first thing is that it was a fulfilled promise.
30:36
SPEAKER_00: When God says, This is the land I promised Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and said to them, I will give it to your descendants.
30:42
SPEAKER_00: What God is doing is wrapping up Moses and sort of bringing him in to this promise.
30:48
SPEAKER_00: He's already been in it, but he's sort of kind of concluding it.
30:51
SPEAKER_00: Like one of the great promises in Scripture is God's promise to Abraham that he would bring him back to the promised land, that he would give him a land where his descendants, one of his descendants, would bless the entire world.
31:07
SPEAKER_00: So Jesus is wrapped up in this, but also there is a physical promise of land.
31:11
SPEAKER_00: And what Moses gets to see from the top of Mount Nebo is that God was good to keep his promise.
31:17
SPEAKER_00: And what's also significant about this is that this is something, this vision that Moses had is really, it's not that it's insignificant to other people, but it's not like he's the one breaking the seal.
31:28
SPEAKER_00: Uh uh Joshua and Caleb, they have already been into the promised land.
31:33
SPEAKER_00: So it's not even that Moses gets to see it first.
31:36
SPEAKER_00: And so you have to understand that, like, what God is doing for Moses at the top of Mount Nebo, it's not so much like, hey, you're the first in line, everybody else is gonna see this after you, but it's like, Moses, this is for you.
31:53
SPEAKER_00: There are other people who have seen this, other people are going to see this.
31:56
SPEAKER_00: You're not going to be able to see this in the way that you wanted.
32:00
SPEAKER_00: And so this is as close as I can get you.
32:04
SPEAKER_00: Why that's the case, we'll get to in a moment.
32:07
SPEAKER_00: But you have to see that this is a unique and special tailored gift just for Moses.
32:15
SPEAKER_00: Moses, don't you see that all the faith that you have had in me, now it has been rewarded.
32:21
SPEAKER_00: The mission of your life to bring your people out of slavery and into the promised land, Moses, you were the guy who did it, and you did it.
32:32
SPEAKER_00: You have succeeded, Moses.
32:34
SPEAKER_00: You have come almost full circle here.
32:37
SPEAKER_00: Like you have heard about these promises and you have built your life upon them, and now they've come to fruition.
32:42
SPEAKER_00: It is no longer a promise, it's a reality, Moses.
32:45
SPEAKER_00: And Joshua's gonna lead them in.
32:48
SPEAKER_00: I want to show you.
32:49
SPEAKER_00: There's one passage in Hebrews 11 that talks about this, and I just want you to see Moses as a man of faith.
32:55
SPEAKER_00: He is a man who has looked forward and anticipated the promises of God for his entire life.
32:59
SPEAKER_00: It's what got him through all the low points.
33:02
SPEAKER_00: And as he is doing that, this final moment on Mount Nebo is the greatest gift that God could have given to him.
33:10
SPEAKER_00: By faith, Moses, after he was born, was hidden by his parents for three months because they saw that the child was beautiful and they didn't fear the King's Edict.
33:18
SPEAKER_00: King's Edict that all the children were to be killed, all the Hebrew children.
33:22
SPEAKER_00: By faith, Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter and chose to suffer with the people of God rather than to enjoy the fleeting pleasure of sin.
33:31
SPEAKER_00: For he considered reproach for the sake of Christ to be greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, since he was looking ahead to the reward.
33:38
SPEAKER_00: By faith he left Egypt behind.
33:40
SPEAKER_00: By faith he instituted the Passover and the sprinkling of the blood.
33:44
SPEAKER_00: By faith they crossed the Red Sea as though they were on dry land.
33:47
SPEAKER_00: And though the passage ends there, um, like you could continue to add by faith moments throughout Moses' life.
33:53
SPEAKER_00: This is what has defined him.
33:54
SPEAKER_00: He is a man of faith.
33:56
SPEAKER_00: Like every overthrow attempt, every war, every sandstorm, every terrible plague, everything that happened, the rejection of Israel, the waiting for a whole nother generation, right?
34:08
SPEAKER_00: All of those things that happened to Moses that he had to endure because he was leading a broken people, all of those things he continued on because he was awaiting the reward of his faith.
34:22
SPEAKER_00: And so what we see here is that getting to see the land was this private gift from God to his faithful servant.
34:31
SPEAKER_00: I want you to think of the phrase that God did not have to do this for him, but yet he did.
34:37
SPEAKER_00: And if you're able to sort of see that, like we're gonna get to the sin in just a moment, but setting aside the sin, setting aside the fact that God says you can't go into it, like it would be fair for God to just go, hey Moses, like this is the end of your chapter here.
34:51
SPEAKER_00: Like right here.
34:52
SPEAKER_00: You don't get to go in and see it.
34:54
SPEAKER_00: You just know that you have delivered them.
34:56
SPEAKER_00: You know that you have brought them in, and I'm gonna carry them forward.
35:00
SPEAKER_00: Like you've passed the torch, Moses.
35:04
SPEAKER_00: But instead, what God really gives him is, hey, Moses, you can carry the torch in and light the big one, right?
35:10
SPEAKER_00: Like the Olympics.
35:11
SPEAKER_00: Moses, you can run into the arena.
35:13
SPEAKER_00: They have made it.
35:15
SPEAKER_00: And this is for you, Moses.
35:16
SPEAKER_00: That's where Judah's gonna be.
35:18
SPEAKER_00: That's where Dan is gonna be, that's where Manasseh's going to be.
35:21
SPEAKER_00: Remember when they split up and did that thing where they only wanted to stay on the half?
35:24
SPEAKER_00: It's all right, that's where they're going to be.
35:26
SPEAKER_00: All of these interpersonal things that I don't even think we're aware of, these conversations between God and Moses were put to rest because the Lord said, Moses, you made it.
35:37
SPEAKER_00: Everything that you've been working for, it was worth it.
35:43
SPEAKER_00: But there's still the bitter part about this moment, which is he says, Moses, you can't go in.
35:50
SPEAKER_00: Moses, you will not cross into it.
35:53
SPEAKER_00: God in his grace does not recount all the moments or the reasons why.
35:57
SPEAKER_00: We've already done that.
35:58
SPEAKER_00: They've already hashed that out in Deuteronomy 3.
36:00
SPEAKER_00: The point is not to make Moses feel guilty.
36:03
SPEAKER_00: The point is not to make Moses feel shame, but rather it is this sort of firm but gracious barrier that God has provided.
36:12
SPEAKER_00: I want to talk with you just briefly about the expected grave.
36:16
SPEAKER_00: Because what Moses experienced physically is what all of us are going to experience spiritually.
36:25
SPEAKER_00: And what I mean is that Moses, if anybody, anybody was able to overcome the weight of their sin by their good works, Moses is the guy.
36:35
SPEAKER_00: If anybody could have like slipped God at 20 and been like, hey, just 10 minutes.
36:40
SPEAKER_00: That's all I'm asking for.
36:41
SPEAKER_00: Like, just 10 minutes in the land.
36:43
SPEAKER_00: I don't need to go far.
36:45
SPEAKER_00: Just let me step foot.
36:46
SPEAKER_00: If anybody had the ability to go, hey, God, you know, I mean, this is the guy that argued with God on Mount Sinai and said, God said, I'll restart the whole plan with you, Moses, from your seed.
36:59
SPEAKER_00: And Moses goes, please don't, Lord, keep them, have mercy on them.
37:03
SPEAKER_00: And God goes, Okay, okay, Moses, I will do as you are saying.
37:09
SPEAKER_00: You are the one that I'm going to respond to here.
37:12
SPEAKER_00: The power to do that.
37:14
SPEAKER_00: And then God says, Hey, you can't go in, Moses.
37:18
SPEAKER_00: It's a reminder to us of the weight of sin.
37:21
SPEAKER_00: It's a reminder to us that all sin is punished, even the what we might call minor.
37:28
SPEAKER_00: But the problem is that there is no sin that is minor in the kingdom of heaven.
37:33
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I remind you that it is not murder.
37:36
SPEAKER_00: Moses was a murderer.
37:38
SPEAKER_00: It is not murder back in Egypt that prevented him from entering the land.
37:42
SPEAKER_00: It was the sin at the waters of Meribah, one that many people that we can read from and we go, wow, God, like one of the lessons that we take away from this exp this situation is how seriously you take sin, because that doesn't seem like a huge deal to me.
37:58
SPEAKER_00: The fact that he struck the rock twice instead of speaking to it, God says, Moses, you did not have faith in me.
38:03
SPEAKER_00: And we go, but I mean, really?
38:05
SPEAKER_00: And yet what that reveals to us, what that should reveal to us, is the way that we have misunderstood the gravity of our sin, the depth of our rebellion, and what being traitors in God's kingdom looks like.
38:19
SPEAKER_00: Because what Moses had done has fallen short, he has fallen short of God's perfect design.
38:25
SPEAKER_00: And just as he has done it, so as everybody else.
38:28
SPEAKER_00: But if anybody should be able to overcome that by just being righteous and awesome, Moses is the guy.
38:34
SPEAKER_00: And yet he didn't.
38:36
SPEAKER_00: And so here's the part, here's the shift is that if God would have let Moses into the promised land, he would not have been a good God.
38:48
SPEAKER_00: Why?
38:49
SPEAKER_00: Because you might think, well, letting him into the promised land, just like letting that one slide, feels like that would be a pretty merciful thing to do.
38:58
SPEAKER_00: One of the core attributes of God, like his nature, who he is by definition, is that he is good, and in his goodness, he is impartial, and he is fair, and he is a righteous judge.
39:12
SPEAKER_00: Later on, you know, when we talk, go into the Psalms, which we'll be doing this summer, and we go into the Psalms and we're like, like, Lord, have vengeance against the wicked.
39:20
SPEAKER_00: The fact that we can go to God and expect that he will bring judgment upon the unrighteous is the same reason that we would expect him to not let any sin slide.
39:31
SPEAKER_00: Because he is good, because he is fair, because he doesn't take bribes, because he isn't moved by people who go, hey Lord, I've prayed to you every day this week.
39:39
SPEAKER_00: So can we let this one, because God is ultimately going to punish all sin, every single one, whether it was murder or the rock at Meribah, all of those things, if God were to let this slide, it betrays his identity and nature as a good, righteous, and fair judge.
40:00
SPEAKER_00: You want a God.
40:02
SPEAKER_00: You want to worship a God that keeps Moses out of the promised land, because it is the core identity of who God is, that he is ultimately a righteous judge.
40:12
SPEAKER_00: And to have him slide would mean that we cannot trust on him to be fair.
40:17
SPEAKER_00: We cannot trust or know when and where he is going to administer his judgment.
40:22
SPEAKER_00: And instead, we would just have guesses.
40:25
SPEAKER_00: But God says, I let no sin slide.
40:29
SPEAKER_00: And that is a harsh reminder.
40:31
SPEAKER_00: Because really, this question, this question about the bittersweet ending of Moses is not actually how do I feel about Moses, or even how do I feel about my relationship with God, but actually, how do I feel about sin?
40:47
SPEAKER_00: How do I feel about sin?
40:49
SPEAKER_00: Do I think that it was like a whoopsie that Moses did?
40:54
SPEAKER_00: Or do I understand and can I read from the text that God was giving him the best possible outcome and into his life without sacrificing his goodness and character?
41:06
SPEAKER_00: Right?
41:06
SPEAKER_00: He brings him up, he says, This is the land, Moses, this is the greatest thing I can give you because you have fallen short.
41:13
SPEAKER_00: And that in those two moments, in the fulfilled promise and in the expected grave, we see sort of the two poles of God's greatness and mercy, is that he goes, I'm faithful to deliver, and also I hold sin in judgment.
41:29
SPEAKER_00: And those are the things that comprise the gospel message for us.
41:34
SPEAKER_00: If you take Moses's physical situation, right?
41:37
SPEAKER_00: Him on being on the outside looking in, like, Lord, you've told me about these promises, you've shown me the goodness, like I see it, and yet I'm unable to enter because of my sin.
41:47
SPEAKER_00: That physical reality is a spiritual reality for every single person who does not trust in Christ.
41:54
SPEAKER_00: What is happening to Moses is an example of what happens to our souls when we attempt to overcome the weight of our sin by our good works or by some means other than the blood of Christ.
42:07
SPEAKER_00: The spiritual promised land, heaven, eternity, all of those things that we talk about, the hope for the future, where Moses was going spiritually, the hope for all of those things, in the spiritual promised land, it has an immigration policy, which is that you cannot get through the gates unless you are covered by the blood of Christ.
42:28
SPEAKER_00: And so, and all of these things we see in Moses really a question about ourselves.
42:32
SPEAKER_00: Like, do I understand the weight of my sin?
42:35
SPEAKER_00: Do I understand how big of a deal it is that I have rebelled against God?
42:39
SPEAKER_00: Or do I just sort of go, hey, you know, Lord, I'm human.
42:41
SPEAKER_00: You know, you get the gig.
42:43
SPEAKER_00: How do you think about that?
42:46
SPEAKER_00: Because if you, there's a very high likelihood that if you feel trivial about your sin, you thought that God was teasing Moses.
42:57
SPEAKER_00: Or to say that a different way, if you thought God was teasing Moses, you might need to realize that you think a little too trivially or carelessly about the sin in your life.
43:07
SPEAKER_00: But rather understanding that Moses got the best possible, and in fact, it was just covered with grace and mercy and love.
43:13
SPEAKER_00: And God says, Let's have this private moment.
43:15
SPEAKER_00: Like Moses, I'm gonna see you in just a second, right?
43:18
SPEAKER_00: Like you're gonna be in heaven.
43:20
SPEAKER_00: But I'm gonna, I'm gonna usher you through that doorway myself.
43:24
SPEAKER_00: Oh, what a gift that was! How sweet it was that he was able to see these things.
43:29
SPEAKER_00: And ultimately, you need to trust in Christ as your Savior, and then you will enter the spiritual promised land as well.
43:36
SPEAKER_00: If you reject Jesus as your Savior, if you say you can get there on your own, or you can get there by some other means, in eternity, it is going to look a lot like Moses' last moments for you.
43:50
SPEAKER_00: You are going to be on the outside looking in.
43:53
SPEAKER_00: You are going to be wishing that you could be in the promised land.
43:56
SPEAKER_00: But because you have rejected Christ.
44:00
SPEAKER_00: Because you have rejected Christ, you are not going to be able to get in.
44:04
SPEAKER_00: This is a decision you have to make.
44:06
SPEAKER_00: This is something you have to choose to do.
44:08
SPEAKER_00: That you would trust in Jesus as your Savior, that you would be covered by the blood of the Lamb, that you would believe that He died on the cross for your sins.
44:16
SPEAKER_00: And if you do that, you will be in the spiritual promised land.
44:21
SPEAKER_00: Final note the story of Moses does not end in Deuteronomy chapter 34.
44:30
SPEAKER_00: The story of Moses actually finishes in the New Testament.
44:34
SPEAKER_00: There's a moment where Jesus goes on top of a mountain, right?
44:39
SPEAKER_00: God, mountains, big time stuff.
44:42
SPEAKER_00: You'd think Colorado would be better off than us, but Jesus goes to the top of a mountain with his inner circle of the disciples.
44:52
SPEAKER_00: And he, in this thing that we call the transfiguration, reveals his full glory for just a moment because it's kind of veiled as he is on earth.
45:03
SPEAKER_00: He reveals his full glory and he brings in two-party guests.
45:07
SPEAKER_00: After six days, Jesus took Peter, James, and his brother John and led them up on a high mountain by themselves.
45:13
SPEAKER_00: He was transfigured in front of them, and his face shone like the sun.
45:17
SPEAKER_00: His clothes became as white as the light.
45:20
SPEAKER_00: Suddenly, Moses and Elijah appeared to them, talking with him, talking to Jesus.
45:25
SPEAKER_00: Then Peter said to Jesus, Lord, it's good for us to be here if you want.
45:30
SPEAKER_00: I will set up three shelters here: one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.
45:34
SPEAKER_00: Transfiguration is one of the most amazing Bible stories that exists.
45:38
SPEAKER_00: It's worthy of seven sermons on its own.
45:41
SPEAKER_00: But in this moment, we're here for Moses.
45:44
SPEAKER_00: And what I want you to see is that the end of Moses was not an unmarked grave, right?
45:48
SPEAKER_00: Even though God buried him, it was not an unmarked grave on the outskirts of the promised land.
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SPEAKER_00: The end of Moses is, at least in the Bible, and he is at now in heaven with the Lord, is not only was that personal relationship that oftentimes was broken by sin, certainly was at the top of Mount Nebo, that relationship was made full and complete, such that I love this detail, when Moses and Elijah appear, their mid-conversation with Jesus.
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SPEAKER_00: They're just like, yeah, anyhow, Israel's hot today.
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SPEAKER_00: And like they know him, they have a personal relationship with him.
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SPEAKER_00: That gives us great hope for what we are heading towards.
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SPEAKER_00: But beyond that, think about this.
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SPEAKER_00: 1400 years after Mount Nebo, Moses is in the promised land.
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SPEAKER_00: Jesus, the mountain that he's on right now, is in the promised land.
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SPEAKER_00: And so Moses ultimately was able to physically set his feet in the promised land on the top of a mountain.
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SPEAKER_00: He made it.
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SPEAKER_00: It's a beautiful sort of kind of bow that is given, that is sort of placed on the present of this great servant's life, whose life ended with as a gift from God, but still nevertheless as a reminder of our sin.
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SPEAKER_00: And yet here at the very end, we are reminded of what awaits us in our future.
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SPEAKER_00: For those who have trusted in Christ and believed in him, just like Moses, they will be in the spiritual promised land.
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SPEAKER_00: God is faithful to keep all of his promises, but we have to understand the weight of our sin and the inability of our own efforts to overcome it.
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SPEAKER_00: You need Christ.
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SPEAKER_00: And if you choose to reject him, you will be on the outside looking in.
47:28
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
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SPEAKER_00: Heavenly Father, we come before you today, thankful for the grace and mercy and the blood of Christ.
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SPEAKER_00: Lord, you have redeemed us.
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SPEAKER_00: God, you have given us far better than we deserve.
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SPEAKER_00: Your blessings fall daily.
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SPEAKER_00: Lord, there are far too many ways.
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SPEAKER_00: There are far too many ways for us to even count.
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SPEAKER_00: That you just rain down your goodness upon us.
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SPEAKER_00: Yet, Lord, often, and I find myself in this camp sometimes.
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SPEAKER_00: Lord, I don't always think of you as being good and gracious.
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SPEAKER_00: I look at the difficulties of my life, and sometimes, Lord, I think that you haven't given me what I deserve.
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SPEAKER_00: And yet, God, how wrong that is.
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SPEAKER_00: You have given me and so many others, Lord, all of us, far more than we deserve.
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SPEAKER_00: Because, God, you have provided a way for us to be in the promised land with you.
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SPEAKER_00: God, I thank you for the lesson of Moses as we close four years of his leadership here at this church and walking through these books, God, what a faithful servant you had.
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SPEAKER_00: Lord, you say that about him.
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SPEAKER_00: You spoke to him like a friend.
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SPEAKER_00: Lord, might we have a relationship with you like Moses?
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SPEAKER_00: That's something to strive for.
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SPEAKER_00: But God, ultimately and finally, I pray that we would understand the weight of our sin.
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SPEAKER_00: God, it is a burden that we cannot shake by ourselves.
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SPEAKER_00: Lord, it is only by the cross that that weight is lifted.
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SPEAKER_00: And God, we look to the cross today as the source of our hope and a reminder, Lord, that you keep your promises.
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SPEAKER_00: God, we have an expected grave before us.
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SPEAKER_00: But God, if we trust in you as our Savior, we will be with you in the promised land.
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SPEAKER_00: It's in Jesus' name we pray.
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SPEAKER_00: Amen.
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SPEAKER_00: Amen.
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SPEAKER_00: Love you.
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SPEAKER_00: See you next week.