Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / February 18, 2024 | Deuteronomy - Past, Present... Future?

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February 18, 2024 | Deuteronomy - Past, Present... Future? · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Good to be with you.
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: Started our series in Deuteronomy last week.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: We're still in Deuteronomy.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: You thought we were out of it after one week?
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: I say no.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: We're going to be in it for a while.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: So we're started the series in this wonderful book of the Old Testament last week.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, one of the reasons I shared for why we like going through books, not only books of the Bible, but for considerable lengths of time, is that it gives us the opportunity to study them in depth.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: And this morning is going to kind of be an interesting case in that, where we're going to look at a longer passage of Scripture, in fact, almost three chapters of Scripture, and we're going to read a significant part of it, because really, if you were to look at Deuteronomy, we're going to start in chapter 1, verse 7 through the end of chapter 3, which is basically one long sort of discourse from Moses as he's speaking to this wilderness generation, or rather their children.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: If we were to break it up into little parts, we wouldn't really get the meaning behind it, because a lot of these messages that Moses is bringing to this generation are sort of recounting things that have happened in the past.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: And so if we broke this out, it would sound a lot like the, you know, some of the lessons we did in the series in Numbers last spring.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: And you can go back on YouTube and find those.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: But instead, what we're going to look at this morning is why does Moses, as he is sort of summarizing 40 years wandering, why does he pick certain events out to tell this sort of current generation?
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: What is he trying to sort of impress upon them as he is he's not giving a history lesson to them.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: He's creating a narrative, right?
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: And so in this narrative that Moses is giving to the generation, what is he saying?
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: Well, what I'm going to do my best to show you is that he's telling the current generation and us too that God was with us in the past, God is with us in the present, and God will be with us in the future.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: And that becomes a really important message to deliver to this generation as they are looking at the challenges and obstacles and fears that come with carrying out God's will and being obedient to Him.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if any of you have ever, you know, tried to be obedient to God and realize that it wasn't as easy as you thought it was going to be.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: But this generation is facing a really big test.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: They're going to go into the promised land and they need to make war and they need to take possession of the land.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: And so Moses is going to sort of give these helpful reminders to them about the past, present, and then even looking to the future, about why they can be confident in God's presence with them.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: And ultimately that will be good for us too.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: So, uh, like I said this morning, if you got your reading glasses, whip them out because we're going to be in the text, and so I will kind of I'll show you the references on the screen, but most of it I'm just going to be reading, and then you'll kind of notice because I'll stop at certain points and kind of explain certain things that are going on.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: So this is more of a 30,000-foot view, and then at the end we'll kind of summarize some of the elements of what Moses is saying.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: So let's go ahead and begin Deuteronomy 1, verse 6.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I would also remind you again, if you have your Bibles, this is easy to see, just one verse earlier in verse 5.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: Last week we finished with that phrase, and Moses began to tell them the law, right?
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: And then there was sort of a colon, and we're like, that's for next week, right?
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: Well, so this is Moses.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: We're in the plains of Moab, we're just outside the promised land to the east, and he is speaking to the generation that needs to make this decision about whether or not they're going to be faithful to the Lord.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: And so this is how Moses begins.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: He says, The Lord our God spoke to us at Horeb, which remember is the region where Mount Sinai's at.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: You have stayed at this mountain long enough.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: Resume your journey and go to the hill country of the Amorites and their neighbors in the Arabah, the hill country, the Judean foothills, the Negev, and the sea coast, to the land of the Canaanites, and to Lebanon, as far as the great river, the Euphrates River.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: See, I have set the land before you.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: Taking possession, and who has possession of what land.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: And what we see here is it's it's almost like this map that God has, and he says, This is where you belong, and this is where you belong, and I have sort of apportioned this piece of land for you.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: And it's not just Israel, the other nations have land that is destined for them as well.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: And Israel is going to weave in and out of sort of this map of land that God has promised to people, and they are going to their own.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: They're also going to see how God has displayed his faithfulness throughout this journey, and why they can have confidence now that resuming this task, right?
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: Because what is looming large is going and take possession of the land, is something that has yet to happen.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: They failed.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: And so entering and taking possession of the land, it's possible for them today.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: So as we're going to skip ahead to verse 19, through verse 18, it is Moses explaining the division of leadership that he instructed around Mount Sinai with Jethro.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: And basically he said, This burden is too much for me to bear by myself.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: We're going to have judges.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: But now at verse 19, Moses says, We then set out from Horeb and went across all the great and terrible wilderness.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: You saw on the way to the hill country of the Amorites, just as the Lord our God had commanded us.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: When we reached Kadesh Barnea, I said to you, You have reached the hill country of the Amorites, which the Lord our God is giving us.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: See, the Lord your God has set the land before you.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: Go up and take possession of it, as the Lord, the God of your ancestors, has told you, do not be afraid or discouraged.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: So remember, this is a journey that took eleven days from Mount Sinai to Kadesh, which is just on the southwest portion of the promised land.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: They're supposed to go up into it, and this is where uh it would begin.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: And God had said, I've prepared this for you.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: And so as they're looking into the promised land, right, God is anticipating what they are going to see.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: They haven't sent the scouts yet, but he says, You're going into the promised land, and you've seen some amazing things already.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: The army of the greatest nation at that point in time in Egypt has been destroyed by my hand.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: But yet as you go up into the promised land, do not be afraid or discouraged, as we'll see, that's hard for them to do.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: Verse 22, then all of you approached me and said, Well, let's send men ahead of us, so that they may explore the land for us, and bring us back a report about the route we should take, should we should go up, and the cities we will come to.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: The plan seemed good to me.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: So I selected twelve men from among you, one man for meat for each tribe.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: They left and went up into the hill country and came to Eshkel Valley, scouting the land.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: They took some of the fruit of the land in their hands, carried it down to us, and brought us back a report.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: The land the Lord our God is giving us is good.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: This is not like the wilderness.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: This is a land bursting with milk and honey.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: Verse 26, but you were not willing to go up.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: You rebelled against the command of the Lord your God.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: Why?
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: You grumbled in your tents and said, The Lord brought us out of the land of Egypt to hand us over to the Amorites in order to destroy us, because he hates us.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: Where can we go?
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: Our brothers have made us lose heart, saying, The people are larger and taller than we are, the cities are large, fortified to the heavens.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: We also saw the descendants of the Anakim there.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so these the people, the spies, go up into the land and they see all of the things that the Lord knew could potentially make them scared, right?
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: The cities are not going to be these tiny little villages.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: They are fortified, they are mighty.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: There are a lot of people living the land, nations far larger than Israel.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: Not to mention these are hardened warriors.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: These are not people who are just pushovers.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: This isn't going to be something that they could just do, you know, of a Saturday afternoon or whatever, right?
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that'd be a Sabbath.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: A Friday afternoon.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: They couldn't do this sort of thing and just take it easy.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: And so then they have this decision, right?
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: When we face obstacles, when we face challenges that are brought about because God has called us to do something great.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: Things can often be scary, they can be intimidating, they can make us feel discouraged.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: And so the choice that was present here, which was kind of before even the rejection, was just as we go into, as we're obedient to the Lord, and as we go into the land or think about going into the land, are we going to trust that he is going to take care of these things for us?
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: Are we going to believe that what he says is true, that we can go up, we can conquer these people?
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's about a year previous that they saw the Egyptian army get swallowed up by the Red Sea.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: It was about a year previous that they saw the Ten Commandments, or sorry, the Ten, well, they did see the Ten Commandments, but the Ten Plagues sort of ravage Egypt.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: And so God's mighty hand and his outstretched arm has delivered them already through numerous things that they could not have done by themselves.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: And so this then becomes another thing in that path.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: But now really the difference is, okay, but kind of like pushing them out into, you know, sort of out of the nest.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: Like, but you need to go and do this.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: This is not the ten plagues anymore.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you are going to be the ones that go and take these things, and I will be with you.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: I will be at your right hand.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: You are not going to fail.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: You will be able to conquer these people, but they lost heart.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: God reminds them through Moses why they should have faith.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: Verse 29 So I said to you, Moses, don't be terrified or afraid of them.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: Reason one, the Lord your God who goes before you will fight for you, just as you saw him do for you in Egypt.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: Reason two, and you saw in the wilderness how the Lord your God carried you as a man carries his son all along the way you traveled until you reach this place.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: Picture that image, right, of a of a father sort of cradling his young child as they're fleeing from danger, right?
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: Protecting them, keeping them from harm.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: And this is the image that Moses gives to Israel of how God rescued them and has protected them from all of the pain and suffering, right?
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: Not only has he redeemed them from being slaves, but he has also shielded them.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: He has cared for them like a father.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: But in spite of this, you did not trust the Lord your God, who went before you on the journey to seek out a place for you to camp.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: He went in the fire by night, in the cloud by day to guide you on the road where to travel.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: So this pathway was perfectly clear for them, right?
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_00: There were hurdles, there were obstacles, yes, but God had shown them in the past, right, through the Egyptian army, and now in the present.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: Moses says, Look, turn around.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: Look at the pillar of cloud and pillar of fire that is resting over the tabernacle.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: It has guided you through the wilderness even before you crossed the Red Sea.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: It has shown you which way to go every single day.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: When it went up, you went up, and when it settled, you settled.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: And so Moses says, it's not just in the past, but also right now.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: You can see that the Lord is with you.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: You can visibly witness him.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: He is here in our presence.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: But then this is when the grave sin of the previous generation comes about.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_00: You did not trust the Lord your God.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: When the Lord heard your words, verse 34, he grew angry and swore an oath.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: None of these men in this evil generation will see the good land I swore to give your ancestors, except Caleb the son of Jephunnah, who is one of the scouts who is faithful.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: He will see it, and I will give him and his descendants the land on which he has set foot, because he remained loyal to the Lord.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: The Lord was angry with me also, Moses says, because of you, and said, You will not enter there either.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_00: Joshua, son of none, who attends you, will enter it.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: Encourage him, for he will enable Israel to inherit it.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: Your children, who I say who you said would be plunder, your sons who don't yet know good from evil, will enter there.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: I will give them the land, and they will take possession of it.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_00: But you are to turn back and head for the wilderness by way of the Red Sea.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: And so the brutal sort of thing is that their cry to God, that was this sort of unfaithful rebuke, they said, Lord, you brought us out of Egypt to kill our children.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: What a statement to make, right?
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, you brought us out of here to just ruin us.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_00: And God says, I have not done that.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: But those children that you said were going to be plunder, were going to be taken away from you, because those people who are bigger and mightier than you were going to steal them from you and kill them.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_00: He says, They will be the ones who actually get to see this land.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: And so you can imagine, now remember, our shoes, we are not the last generation.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_00: We are the children of these people who failed.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: And so as Moses is saying these things, he says, right, your sons and daughters who don't yet know good from evil, that's us.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_00: But now we've grown up.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: We are the sons and daughters who know good from evil.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: And what that means is that we are responsible for our decisions.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: We're not going to be sort of looked over because we were so young, but instead now the challenge before us to move forward into the promised land is one that rests on us.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_00: And so obviously, this is where we get last week's main point is are we going to be the faithful generation?
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_00: And so you can already see as we close chapter one here how Moses is drawing out these things.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_00: Like this isn't it's a summary of what happened, but it is not giving all the sort of crucial details.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: What he is drawing out for them is the fact not only that they failed, but that throughout that journey, that God was giving them evidence and laying at their feet all of these things that they should have been able to see and should have encouraged them as they moved forward.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_00: So the crowd listening to Moses right now are these sons and daughters, and they were exempt in part, right, from the punishment.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, they still had to wander.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_00: These children who are listening should have been those who were either entered into or were born in the promised land.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_00: They should have been the first generation that experienced that.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: And so there are still punishments that they had to deal with because of the sins of their parents.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: Some of us have experienced that too, right?
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: We don't always get to dodge those.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_00: However, the same hurdle that faced the previous generation, going up into the land and conquering, that is still the same challenge.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: The people have not gotten smaller, the land, the cities have not gotten less fortified in the forty intervening years.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: This is still the same challenge before them.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_00: Verse 41, Moses says, Your previous generation answered me, we have sinned against the Lord.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_00: We will go up and fight just as the Lord our God commanded us.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_00: Then each of you put on his weapons of war and thought it would be easy to go up into the hill country.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_00: But the Lord said to me, Tell them, Don't go up and fight, for I am not with you to keep you from being defeated by your enemies.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_00: So I spoke to you, but you didn't listen.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_00: You rebelled against the Lord's command and defiantly went up into the hill country.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_00: Then the Amorites who lived there came out against you and chased you like a swarm of bees.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_00: They routed you from Seir as far as Hormah.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: When you returned, you wept before the Lord, but he didn't listen to your requests or pay attention to you.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_00: For this reason, you stayed in Kadesh as long as you did.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_00: Two things as we close chapter one here.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_00: One, the wilderness generation has this kind of ironic attitude where they are they both have a lack of faith in God's provision and a lack of trust in his ability to carry out his will and an overconfidence in their own ability to do it.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: And so Kadesh, uh at Kadesh, the spies come back and they're like, Lord, why were you gonna kill us by sending us up there?
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_00: He goes, I certainly was not.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_00: He rebukes them, gives them this judgment.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_00: They are going to be cursed.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_00: 40 years, they're going to have to wander, and they go, okay, we were just kidding, right?
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_00: We'll we'll go up anyhow.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_00: They they hear the punishment and then they're like, okay, uh, right, give these backseas.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: We're we're going up into the land.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna take it this time.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_00: And God says, You can't do it now.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: Because you were never able to do it on your own.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_00: You were never able to conquer this obstacle by yourself, ever.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: They are bigger than you, they are stronger than you.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_00: Everything that you see about them is true.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_00: Their cities are gigantic.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_00: Don't go up there, you will be destroyed.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_00: You're only able to do it when I'm with you.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_00: And yet, in their sort of hubris, their pride, they go up anyway, and they face these consequences.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_00: And so then they come back and they weep.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_00: And this is, I would say, the saddest part of the story.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: Wandering for 40 years is brutal to say the least.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's a fair judgment, but nevertheless, that is hard.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_00: But uh to have the God that has been walking with you, right, with you this entire time, has been speaking, you've heard him, you've seen him, and then to go before him and have him not answer you.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: What a travesty, right?
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: And it's not that the Lord is not with them, as we'll see in just a moment, right?
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's not that God has left them.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_00: But there does come a point, and this is true for us too, there does come a point where their continued rebellion, their continued grumbling, their blaspheming language that they are bringing before God, they say, Lord, you hate us and you wanted to kill us, and you don't love us, and in fact, you did all of this because you are evil.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_00: God says, There's only so long that I will endure that language for a people who have experienced nothing but my love.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_00: As we go on into chapter two, now Moses is going to take on the rest of the journey, and this is really where we see kind of the one-two skip-a few sort of thing.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_00: He doesn't recount all 40 years.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_00: We spend a whole chapter on, you know, eleven days, and now we're going to spend two chapters on the next 40 years, and we'll go quite a bit faster through these.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_00: In Deuteronomy chapter 2, verses 1 through 7, Moses says, Then we turned back and headed for the wilderness by the way of the Red Sea, right?
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_00: Turned our back on the promised land.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_00: As the Lord had told me, and we traveled around the hill country of Sair for many days.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_00: The Lord then said to me, You've been traveling around this hill country long enough, turn north.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_00: Command the people, you are about to travel through the territory of your brothers, the descendants of Esau, who live in Sa'ir.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_00: They will be afraid of you, so be very careful.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_00: Don't provoke them, for I will not give you any of their land, not even a foot of it, because I have given Esau the hill country of Sair as his possession.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_00: There's that word, right?
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_00: You may purchase food from them, so you may eat and buy water from them to drink, for the Lord your God has blessed you and all the work of your hands.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_00: He has watched over your journey through this immense wilderness.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_00: The Lord your God has been with you these past forty years, and you have lacked nothing.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_00: Right, so the the time has come for them to turn north, right?
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_00: The the where they were wandering in the wilderness was sort of further southwest into the desert, right?
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_00: And sort of the bad lands.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_00: And now they're supposed to go back up.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_00: And this is what he says at the beginning of chapter one.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_00: He's recounting their journey, and he says, We went through the path of Sa'ir.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_00: But notice, though, as Israel is walking through these different lands, God is going, That's their possession, right?
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's going to happen again here in a section.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_00: We're going to skip over.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_00: He goes, That's their possession.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_00: One belonged to the descendants of Esau, one belonged to the descendants of Lot.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so Israel, the chosen people, are walking by all these other nations who have already inherited their land.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_00: Israel's the last one to walk into this thing, to walk into this space that God has prepared for them.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_00: But the narrative is also switched here, right?
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Because now we are looking at, I mean, these this is an event that everybody who is uh hearing the message of Deuteronomy would have remembered.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, this is m, you know, what, like a year, 18 months before they're where they're at right now.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_00: And so everybody who is listening to Moses and hearing these words, they remember the day.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it would have been a life-defining moment.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_00: They remember the day that God said, Okay, you've wandered enough.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_00: Go back up.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_00: And what was also what coincided with that event and why it was this sort of bitter, sweet moment, because obviously the joy is let's go to the promised land.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_00: This is what we've been waiting to do.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_00: This generation has known since they were children that they will be the ones to take it.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_00: And so they've prepared themselves to do this sort of thing.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_00: But all along the way, they understood and knew that the day that they were to go back up into the land, to go north, as God said, is the day the last of their parents died in the wilderness.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_00: And so the last one falls down into the desert.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_00: And then God says, okay, it's time.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_00: What a brutal reminder.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_00: And when I say that we're brutal, what I mean is just a stark and sort of fear.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_00: It would create fear.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_00: It would create, it would remind us of how we are supposed to go before the Lord with trembling.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_00: And that he is so mighty, he is so loving as he reveals to them, but he is also the God that controls every one of our steps.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_00: And so their parent falls and then they go forward.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_00: But God also has this phrase, right, or this statement that Moses gives them.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_00: He says, But you have not lacked anything in these 40 years.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_00: Where we just finished chapter one, it was God was silent.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_00: And so we might be tempted to think, well, God was gone.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_00: But that's not true at all.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_00: And if we read the book of Numbers, you know that's the case.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_00: But Deuteronomy will list, or Moses will list in Deuteronomy a number of ways that this wasn't true.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_00: Briefly, right?
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_00: Like in the 40 years that they were wandering through scrubland and wilderness, and occasionally they came upon beautiful areas and things like that, but their flocks, as they were all shepherds, exploded in size.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_00: By the time that they're entering into the promised land, their flocks are so numerous that two and a half of the tribes, Reuben, Gad, and half of Manasseh, say, We're actually going to settle on the east side of the Jordan River because our flocks are so huge.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_00: God had blessed them in the work of their hands.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, Moses even says later on, he goes, You know your clothes that never wore out while you were wandering for 40 years?
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_00: You know your feet that did not get swollen as you were walking so often?
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_00: He says, those were all divine things from the Lord, him protecting you.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_00: How about manna from heaven every single day, water from rocks, and places coming up out of the dry ground?
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_00: You had everything that you could need.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_00: But there's also this shift, right?
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_00: That now that the Lord has told them it's time to go up, it also means it's time for war.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_00: And as we move on into chapter, well, it's chapter two, but verse 24, we're going to see what the beginning of this war looks like.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_00: And God is going to give them an opportunity to witness the same thing that the previous generation witnessed, which is his mighty power conquering a huge foe that they have no reason to be able to conquer on their own.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_00: God is going to show that again.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_00: The previous generation saw Egypt, the current generation is going to see the Ammonites fall.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_00: People who are just outside of the promised land.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_00: And again, for those who are listening to Moses speak this these words, they're standing in the land of the Ammonites.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_00: And so this language, this story carries even more weight.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_00: Verse 24 begins: The Lord also said, Get up, move out, and cross the Arnon Valley.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_00: See, I have handed the Amorites King Sihon of Heshbon and his land over to you.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_00: Begin to take possession of it.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_00: Engage him in battle.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_00: Today I will begin to put the fear and dread of you on the peoples everywhere under heaven.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_00: They will hear the report about you, tremble, and be in anguish because of you.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_00: Notice how God is flipping that language, right?
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_00: He says, These people who are bigger and mightier than you, you could be afraid and discouraged, but instead I'm going to make them afraid and discouraged of you.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_00: Why are they afraid and discouraged?
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_00: We find out elsewhere, because there is this nation that can't be stopped when the Lord is with them, and no nation is power enough to powerful enough to conquer them.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_00: And so God says, instead of you being afraid, I'm going to take that obstacle, I'm going to take that hurdle, and it's going to be afraid of you.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_00: But this is also a reminder of an even promise way back in Genesis, chapter 15, verse 16.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_00: In the fourth generation, God says, they will return here.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_00: He's speaking to Abraham, who's standing in the promised land.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_00: For the iniquity of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_00: So all the way back in Genesis, we have God giving this sort of promise that eventually Abraham's ancestors will conquer the Amorites.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_00: Here we are conquering the Amorites.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_00: Deuteronomy, back to will be in verse 26.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_00: So I sent messengers with an offer of peace to King Sihon of Heshbon from the wilderness of Kedamath, saying, Let us travel through your land.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_00: We will keep strictly to the highway.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_00: We will not turn to the right or to the left.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_00: You can sell us food in exchange for silver, so we may eat, and give us water for silver, so we may drink, only let us travel through on foot, just as the descendants of Esau who lived in Sair did for us, and the Moabites who live in Ar, until we cross the Jordan into the land the Lord our God is giving us.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_00: But King Sihon of Heshbon would not let us travel through his land, for the Lord your God had made his spirit stubborn, and his heart obstinate in order to hand him over to you, as has now taken place, right?
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_00: How about that phrase, as has now taken place.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_00: Then the Lord said to me, See I have begun to give Sihon and his land to you, begin to take possession of it.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_00: So Sihon and his whole army came out against us for battle at Jahaz.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_00: The Lord our God handed him over to us, and we defeated him, his sons, and his whole army.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_00: At that time we captured all his cities and completely destroyed the people of every city, including the women and children.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_00: We left no survivors.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_00: We took only the livestock and the spoil from the cities we captured as plunder for ourselves.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_00: There was no city that was inaccessible to us, from Arwar on the rim of the Arnon Valley, along with the city in the valley, even as far as Gilead.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_00: The Lord our God gave everything to us, but you did not go near the Ammonite's land, all along the bank of the Jabbok River, the cities of the hill country, or any place that the Lord our God had forbidden.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_00: Right, the parts of the Bible that talk about war are pretty intense.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_00: I had a back in June, let's see, it was uh yeah, June 11th last year, in our series in Numbers, there's a sermon titled Holy War that you can look up and um talked a lot about why the conquest of Israel and going into the land and some of this extreme language about women and children and destroying cities, why it's different than the way that we view war today and how being God's chosen people uh does sort of change the dynamic of what it means to go against these pagan nations, right?
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm not trying to breeze past it, but I explained it a lot more last summer, and that would be more helpful, I think, than me going into it now.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_00: But the purpose of Moses recounting this story, right, which is why we're here, the purpose of him retelling this generation, it was because it was revealed again, right?
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um, that the God would bring success to Israel in combat, even against large armies.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_00: And number two, that they would give the nation, he would give the nation a trial run, basically, in conquering the land and possessing it.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_00: And so that when they go, because conquering the promised land is going to be a far larger military campaign.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_00: It's gonna take them years, okay?
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_00: Far larger military campaign than conquering the Ammonites, the two different kings that they take on.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_00: The one here, Sihan, and then Og that he recounts next.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_00: Because the same story happens with the same impact, is repeated with King Og of Bashan, who is another Ammonite king, or Amorite king, excuse me.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_00: And uh what we have to see here is that these weren't just little skirmishes.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, going into the promised land is a far larger task, but these had sixty fortified cities.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, this is a full-on military engagement.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_00: And so taking possession of this land, it should give them the hope, it should give them the confidence that what they are going forth to do is possible.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_00: So the current generation listening to Moses in the wilderness east of the Jordan, they had fought in these battles.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_00: They knew them, they were in their memory, and they had witnessed God destroy the giant Rephim in the land of the Amorites.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_00: So now they should have the confidence, and this is exactly what Moses reminds them.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_00: The last passage we're looking at this morning, uh chapter 3, verses 21 through 29.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_00: I commanded Joshua at that time, your own eyes have seen everything the Lord your God has done to these two kings.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_00: The Lord will do the same to all the kingdoms you are about to enter.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_00: Don't be afraid of them.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_00: There that charge is again.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_00: Don't be afraid, for the Lord your God fights for you.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_00: At that time I begged the Lord, Lord God, you have begun to show your greatness and your strong hand to your servant, for what God is there in heaven or on earth who can perform deeds and mighty acts like yours.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_00: Please let me cross over and see the beautiful land on the other side of the Jordan, that good hill country and Lebanon.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_00: But the Lord was angry with me because of you, and would not listen to me.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_00: The Lord said to me, That's enough.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_00: Do not speak to me again about this matter.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_00: Go to the top of Pisgah, and look to the west, north, south, and east, and see it with your own eyes, for you will not cross the Jordan.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_00: But commission Joshua and encourage him and strengthen him, for he will cross over ahead of the people, and enable them to inherit this land that you will see.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_00: So we stayed in the valley facing Beth Peor.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_00: And as that concludes chapter three, right, and the next week we'll go into chapter four.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_00: What we have here then is Moses finishes his sort of selective recounting of the last 40 years.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_00: And what he is drawing out to them is both failure, right?
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_00: Your parents, they failed to do the same task that is now ahead of you.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_00: It hasn't changed, and arguably the nations have even gotten slightly bigger, right?
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_00: The same task is before you, but also the same charge.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_00: Don't be afraid.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_00: Don't be discouraged.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_00: You have seen all of sort of the proofs that the previous generation was given, right?
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_00: You know that this is sort of a promise to your ancestors in the far distant past.
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_00: In the more recent past, you have seen how God has carried this generation, even though they were under judgment, how he had given them the hope that they needed to go in and conquer this.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_00: And then now, even in the present, in the conquering of the Amorites, right?
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_00: Of Bashan and Og and what you have done with them in these lands, he says, you have everything you need to be able to go up and make this and to be obedient to God's will.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_00: But, but, it still requires you to walk forward in faith.
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_00: If you walk forward without faith, if you go forward thinking that you can tackle this on your own, or that you can go about it your own way, or that you don't need to listen to God, might I remind you of what happened to your parents when they said, We've got this covered.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_00: God, go ahead and take his seat because we can conquer the land.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_00: And what was revealed and what these children saw at that time, even though they were so young, was many of their parents' fall.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_00: But God had walked and cared with those same people, their parents, and he gave them hope despite their sin.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_00: So uh we kind of drew out this point last week.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_00: If they had conquered the promised land back then, we wouldn't be having this conversation, right?
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_00: It is a conversation that is here because of their failure.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_00: And so everything that is being said is loaded with that premise.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_00: You are sort of, and where we are at, and in fact, for the whole book of Deuteronomy, it is going to kind of be this like pregnant pause.
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_00: And it's these couple weeks that Moses has before the military engagement of going into the promised land, which happens in the book of Joshua, like where that will take place and what is going on right near as Moses goes, Do you get it?
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_00: Do you understand?
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_00: You can't do this on your own.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_00: You need God to do it.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_00: But you can't be afraid or discouraged, or you shouldn't be afraid and discouraged.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_00: And in fact, if you're faithful to the Lord, he is afraid and discouraged of you.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_00: We end up finding out in the book of Joshua that because of their defeat of those enemies that we just read about, that the nations in the promised land are already terrified of them.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_00: God says, You've got them on the run, but you have to trust in me.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_00: And so, almost, you know, like the Olympic torch is being handed off from the previous generation.
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_00: They're falling, and it gets handed off to this new generation.
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like the same promise, the same command, the same God, different people.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_00: But these people have this opportunity now.
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_00: So as they face the task of conquering these nations, right?
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_00: A scary and intimidating task.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not trying to discount that.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_00: Entering and taking possession of the promised land.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_00: It is possible because God was with them in the past.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_00: God is with them in the present.
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_00: And because of these things, right?
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_00: There's kind of like two, if you will, like vignettes.
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_00: There's two ways to look at it.
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_00: There's the past, present, and future of the generation 40 years ago.
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_00: Meaning, in the past, the Egyptians were conquered.
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_00: In the present, they could see God in the pillar, in the manna, and all of those things at the tabernacle.
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_00: And then in their future, right?
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like I'm Doc and is DeLorean and back to the future.
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_00: In their future, right, they were able to see and experience, or rather, maybe another way to say it, is the current generation's past, was the previous generation's future.
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_00: And they witnessed God's faithfulness throughout those 40 years.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_00: And so they have this completed sort of uh view of how God was with them the entire time, even in the hard stuff.
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_00: And so now we have the past, present, and the undecided future of the current generation.
• 37:35
  SPEAKER_00: And what Moses is saying is you can have trust in the future.
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_00: You can know that God is going to be with you because He has never, ever failed you in the past, or your previous generation, or your ancestors further back.
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_00: You are fulfilling even in your lifetime promises that were given to Abraham.
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_00: And so you should have all the confidence that as you go forward, though you don't know what the future contains, God is still going to be with you.
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_00: As we pursue obedience to God by faith, we encounter scary challenges as well, right?
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_00: This is one of those things that if you are a disciple of Christ, like you are following after him, the idea of obedience in this world, uh you know that it is not easy to do.
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_00: And furthermore, you know that some of the things that God calls us to do in obedience are scary and intimidating and frighten us.
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_00: We don't think that we can do it.
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_00: And we see how big those hurdles are, right?
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_00: We see, I mean, I remember when I did track back in high school, I was a thrower.
• 38:49
  SPEAKER_00: There's no way I was doing anything with speed.
• 38:51
  SPEAKER_00: But when I did track back in high school, I would watch, you know, my classmates doing the hurdles, and I was just like, I don't even think I could clear one of those.
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_00: And so we see these things that lay before us and the path that God has for us, right?
• 39:07
  SPEAKER_00: And this, I mean, he said it to the previous generation.
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, the Lord went before you, he has the route marked out, like you can see the flags along the way.
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's kind of like looking down the mountain when you're ready to go ski.
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_00: It's like you see the path, but now you have to go.
• 39:21
  SPEAKER_00: And you have to trust that he is with you as you go.
• 39:25
  SPEAKER_00: And so it is scary.
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_00: But the Lord is with us in the midst of these challenges.
• 39:32
  SPEAKER_00: And so the point of the text, and why we're drawing these things out, is not that you can do anything that you want because God is behind you.
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_00: This is the falsehood of the prosperity gospel.
• 39:47
  SPEAKER_00: That by being obedient to God, you will be healthy, you will be wealthy, and you'll be successful.
• 39:53
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_00: The lie of many people today and false teaching is that by being obedient to God, that your life will ironically become a much easier.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_00: And what Jesus tells us when he has, you know, those phrases like, uh, pick up your cross daily and follow me, and we remember that picking up your cross was not a fun activity for him.
• 40:17
  SPEAKER_00: And we realize that the life that God has called us to in this world is often one that is fraught with difficulty, and that the easier way, the simpler way, the more comfortable way is the one that is often disobedient to the Lord, that fulfills every need that we have and every desire that we have separate from God.
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_00: And that walking the right way is often one that brings difficulty.
• 40:44
  SPEAKER_00: And then we come up against these difficulties and we go, God, why is this not easier?
• 40:49
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 40:50
  SPEAKER_00: Why is the promised land not just empty and barren?
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_00: Why do we have to go up into it?
• 40:56
  SPEAKER_00: Well, and eventually, that is one of the things that the Lord explains.
• 40:59
  SPEAKER_00: He goes, you know, it was populated with all of these people and all of these cities, so that when you inherited all of those things, you didn't have to build a city and you didn't have to plant a vineyard.
• 41:10
  SPEAKER_00: The land isn't just the wilderness that I instructed you to populate because the challenges of you going into the promised land put it made you put faith in me, but also you were able to experience the beauty of coming out on the other side of that, having trusted in me and seen the blessings of the land that I've given to you.
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_00: Nevertheless, it doesn't always make those hurdles seem any smaller.
• 41:34
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, during our podcast last week, Jason, our uh children's pastor, asked this great question, and he goes, What obstacle in your life or what challenge in your life should have taken you 11 days to conquer and instead has taken you 40 years?
• 41:52
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 41:52
  SPEAKER_00: I know, I was like, Jason, that'll preach, right?
• 41:56
  SPEAKER_00: I told him I was gonna steal it.
• 41:58
  SPEAKER_00: That's such a great illustration of this generation, kind of in a nutshell.
• 42:04
  SPEAKER_00: Like, what did they need to figure out that they could trust in God no matter the obstacle?
• 42:09
  SPEAKER_00: What did it take them 40 years to figure out?
• 42:13
  SPEAKER_00: That they can trust in God no matter the obstacle.
• 42:16
  SPEAKER_00: It was the same lesson.
• 42:17
  SPEAKER_00: It didn't change dramatically over time.
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, there were more aspects of God's grace and mercies that were able to be seen as they wandered, things that might not have been seen in that way if they had just entered after 11 days.
• 42:31
  SPEAKER_00: But actually through the valleys, they were able to witness God's provision.
• 42:36
  SPEAKER_00: What was God teaching you that should have taken eleven days and instead took you 40 to realize, right?
• 42:42
  SPEAKER_00: How has our stubbornness led to a longer journey?
• 42:45
  SPEAKER_00: How has our lack of faith in God's plans for our families, for ourselves, for our communities, for our church led us down a road of wandering that has been unnecessary?
• 42:55
  SPEAKER_00: What is the obstacle that lays before you, right?
• 42:59
  SPEAKER_00: That is sitting smack dab in the middle of the road through God's obedience.
• 43:07
  SPEAKER_00: And the thing is, is it I could give you, I mean, there is a whole host of lists of things, right, that this might be.
• 43:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's, but for you, whatever it is personally, it is that pushback that you receive when you are desiring to carry out God's will, right?
• 43:21
  SPEAKER_00: When you are going to be the salesperson who works with integrity, when you are going to be the person who is raising children, who trying to protect them and raise them up in the Lord when a culture says that they don't want that, you are going to put effort into your marriage that has been difficult for many years, that you are going to be somebody who, you know, gives their time and money in a way that might uh hold you back from realizing uh some of the financial goals that you might have previously held.
• 43:46
  SPEAKER_00: Like there are all of these different things that God calls us deeper into, and the point is not to list them out one by one, but rather to say that when you hit that point, that God is with you as you walk through it or go over it.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_00: It, however, you want to call that.
• 44:02
  SPEAKER_00: So, my question this morning, or rather statement to finish with, is that God was in the past, God is in the present, and God will be in the future.
• 44:13
  SPEAKER_00: All of us, we are like that generation in Deuteronomy.
• 44:18
  SPEAKER_00: We don't have our future yet.
• 44:20
  SPEAKER_00: But what we can be confident of, because of them, because of everything we've seen in the past, is that God will continue to be faithful to us.
• 44:30
  SPEAKER_00: God will continue to shepherd us.
• 44:32
  SPEAKER_00: Not if we go our own way, remember, then we get chased out like a swarm of bees.
• 44:36
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody wants bees, right?
• 44:38
  SPEAKER_00: If we go our own way, things won't go our way.
• 44:42
  SPEAKER_00: But if we go with the Lord and we go his way, then we will realize that we have everything we need.
• 44:49
  SPEAKER_00: And what also happens and what is beautiful and amazing is for, and I encourage you as you go on and take these challenges that you try and realize is you're going to see, if you walk forward in faith, how that huge obstacle, as you get closer and closer to it, realize that it's a lot smaller than you had thought it was before.
• 45:11
  SPEAKER_00: Because now you are comparing it, right, to the Lord your God who is working behind you and in fact is going before you.
• 45:19
  SPEAKER_00: And so these obstacles, these things that terrified us previously, now we can see that they are little stepping stones that we just go over.
• 45:27
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't make them easy, right?
• 45:29
  SPEAKER_00: Life isn't easy according to God's will, but we can conquer these sort of places in our life and take possession of them according to God's will, trusting that he is there with us.
• 45:43
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm going to pray for us, and my encouragement is simply that whatever it is that the Lord has laid before you, that you would continue to walk forward in faith, knowing that he is good to fulfill his promises.
• 45:57
  SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
• 46:01
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, we come before you today reading the text of Moses here, a man who was unable to enter the promised land because of his sin.
• 46:14
  SPEAKER_00: And yet, Lord, was so faithful to proclaim your goodness and your mercy to the next generation.
• 46:21
  SPEAKER_00: And Lord, that message was that you were with them in the past.
• 46:25
  SPEAKER_00: You are with them in the present.
• 46:27
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, you will be with them in the future.
• 46:28
  SPEAKER_00: And Lord, that is true for us today as well.
• 46:32
  SPEAKER_00: God, you have never failed to carry out your promises.
• 46:36
  SPEAKER_00: You have never failed to fulfill and to seek out your will, Lord.
• 46:41
  SPEAKER_00: The only problem is that we have often failed to seek your will in our lives.
• 46:46
  SPEAKER_00: And God, because of that, caused ourselves much wandering and undue pain.
• 46:51
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, I ask that you would help us, that your Spirit would reveal things in our lives right now that your obedience is going to take us to, that might be really intimidating or scary or discouraging for us.
• 47:08
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, the sin in our life, even that we have been reluctant to address because we have felt like it is too big of a hurdle to clear.
• 47:17
  SPEAKER_00: And God, that you would just show as you have so, so many times before, but Lord, to this generation, to us, that you would show your faithfulness and that you would help us to see that we can find courage and strength in knowing that you are walking with us.
• 47:36
  SPEAKER_00: God, please help us to do these things.
• 47:39
  SPEAKER_00: And please help us to encourage others on that same journey as well to be obedient to you as an outpouring of our faith.
• 47:49
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, we love you and we thank you.
• 47:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's in Jesus' name we pray.
• 47:53
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 47:54
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 47:55
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for being with us today.
• 47:57
  SPEAKER_00: Go in peace.