Revering the Word
Deuteronomy 31 Being faithful to the end.
Good morning everyone. This morning we are in Deuteronomy chapter 31. We are getting very near to Israel entering the Promised Land and we're getting to some of the last words of Moses here in chapter 31. So Moses went and spoke these words to all Israel and he said to them, "I am 120 years old today. I am no longer able to come and go and the Lord has said to me, 'You shall not cross this Jordan. It is the Lord your God who across ahead of you. He will destroy these nations before you and you shall dispossess them. Joshua is the one who across ahead of you just as the Lord has spoken." Just some things that I take note of here. When Moses writes this, he says, "I'm 120 years old and I am no longer able to come and go and he is not going to be enter the Promised Land." And I think what Moses is referring to here is not just not entering the Promised Land but also because of his age of 120 years. He's no longer able to come and go. He can't move. He can't like he used to. He's nearing the end and he's no longer able to do what he used to be able to do. One of the things that I'm grateful for is that early in my journey of faith, I read Psalm 90 and it said, "Teach us to number our days or write that we may gain a heart of wisdom." And I've thought about that many days, most days, since the time I've become a believer that I'm not going to live forever, some day I'm going to be older than I am now and I'm not going to be able to come and go the way that I can now. And as a result of realizing that, "You know what? I'm only going to live here for a little while. I don't know how long. I want to make sure that the life that I live, I'm living for the Lord." And as a result, that's motivated my life and I do believe it's given my life direction and greater wisdom. I think instead of running from death, which I did in my early years of life, I didn't really want to think about dying, now I've embraced the fact that I'm only here a little while one day I'm going to go home to be with the Lord. But as a result of realizing that we're only here for a little while, I want my life to count, I want to live to please the Lord. And he gives us direction and wisdom. We're all going to come to a place where we're no longer able to come and go the way that we can maybe now or maybe you're nearing that time now. Take whatever you've got, whatever God's given you, whatever days you have left and just know the Lord. Live for Him. Point your family to Him. Serve your church. Pray for those who are in your life. Do something fruitful or productive for God's Kingdom. That's a life worth living hallelujah. And Moses was a good example of that and you know what even though he's not going to get to enter the Promised Land and even though he's about to die, he's serving his God faithfully all the way to the end hallelujah. Alright, so Joshua is now going to lead them and verse 4, "The Lord will do to them just as he did to saihan and ag the kings of the Amorites and to their land when he destroyed them. The Lord will deliver them up before you and you shall do to them according to all the commandments which I have commanded you. Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or tremble at them. For the Lord your God is the one who goes with you. He will not feel you or forsake you. In God's blessing and provision is going to be on Israel and taking over this Promised Land. At this point in their history, God is for them. God is going to bless them. God is going to help them defeat their enemies but that's not going to always be the case. When they become unfaithful, they're going to pay the penalty for that unfaithfulness. There's going to be consequences for their unfaithfulness but in this season of history, God is saying, "Go forth, take this Promised Land and I'm going to be with you." Verse 7, "Then Moses called to Joshua and said to him in the sight of all of Israel," and this is a good leadership baton here. He's doing this in the sight of Israel so that people can see that they are now to follow Joshua as they followed Moses. And Moses says to him, "Be strong and courageous. For you shall go with this people into the land which the Lord has sworn to their fathers to give them and you shall give it to them as an inheritance. Be strong and courageous. It's being spoken again." And you know that's something that you need to look for in a leader. You need to look for leaders who are going to be strong and courageous. That's an important quality of a leader. There's things you know leaders are going to be attacked, leaders are going to face trials and difficulties and challenges, and how are they going to respond when they do face trials, difficulties, and challenges. You need a leader. You want a leader that's going to be strong and courageous. The Lord is the one who goes ahead of you. He will be with you. He will not fail you or forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed. And you know what? They needed strength and courage because what they were being asked to do and taking this promised land was going to be challenging and they needed not fear be dismayed because the Lord their God was going to be with them. So Moses wrote this law and gave it to the priests, the sons of Levi who carried the ark of the covenant of the Lord and to all the elders of Israel. Then Moses commanded them saying at the end of every seven years, at that time of the year, of remission of debts, remember they were not supposed to have debts that lasted more than seven years, at the feast of booths when all Israel comes to appear before the Lord your God at the place which he will choose, you shall read this law in front of all Israel and they're hearing. So everyone's supposed to come near and someone's going to read the law of the Lord so that they don't forget him. Assemble the people, the men, the women and children and the alien who is in your town so that they may hear and learn and fear the Lord your God. There's something healthy to not only hearing, not only learning about God but to fearing God. Having a healthy reverence for God, a fear of him to want to obey him and be careful to observe all the words of this law. Their children who have not known will hear and learn to fear the Lord your God as long as you live on the land which you are about to cross the Jordan to possess and that's something that we're supposed to do is continue to teach the word of this law and now the word of God so that our generation and future generations will learn and grow up knowing the Lord and knowing his word. It's incredibly important. I want to talk to you about this for a moment. Think of how interesting this is. So Moses is writing this law. It's going to be stored you know at the tabernacle and they're going to bring it out to be read on specific occasions and I think of what a challenging thing in comparison to what we have today. Now listen they were able to see God's provision. They were able to see God's miracles but one thing they didn't have is the common man didn't have access to the law. They did not have it on their computer. They did not have it on their phone. They did not have a Bible. At this point there's one and you know think of all the people and that's why they had to read it in the hearing of the people because they couldn't read it themselves. In fact many people probably couldn't even read if they had a copy and oh man what a challenge that would be to have a throng of people follow after God and follow his word when they didn't have a copy and that's why the leadership needed to make sure they read it so that people could hear it. But I just think what a blessing and privilege we have today. Here you are listening to the Word of God on your phone on a podcast. You probably have multiple Bibles in your home. If not you can access one with commentaries, written commentaries, with teaching, with study Bibles. We have an incredible advantage today in learning about God and we should be using those things for the glory of God and to grow in our faith and I want to encourage you and applaud you for doing so. Praise God that you're taking your time to learn about the Word of God and to grow closer to Him that is good and right. But sometimes I guess with compassion we can look back on this people and imagine trying to you know teach you know a generation of people to follow God when they couldn't turn to the Word on a daily basis like we do now you know it would have been challenging for sure. But more so I think what we should learn from that is is man the blessing and privilege we have. May we take advantage of it. May we take what we've been given and use the Word of God and all these tools to come to know Him better. Alright verse 14, "Then the Lord said to Moses, 'Behold the time for you to die is near.' Hey it's gonna happen. The time of our death is going to come and we don't know how many days we have left. Call Joshua and present yourselves at the tent of meeting so that I may commission Him." So Moses and Joshua went and presented themselves at the tent of meeting. Now here's what they did have. Listen to this, "The Lord appeared in the tent in a pillar of cloud and the pillar of cloud stood at the doorway of the tent. So they got to see you know these manifestations of God's power through what would happen at the tabernacle here. And this should have helped them to remember the Lord and to honor Him because they saw these miracles. The Lord said to Moses, 'Behold you are about to lie down with your fathers and this people will rise and play the harlot with the strange gods of the land into the midst of which they are going and will forsake me and break my covenant which I have made with them. Man God already knows that in the future they are going to play the harlot. They're going to go after false gods and they're going to break this covenant. God already knows and how sad it is that people will so easily fall away from God and make up gods in their own image. And today we have atheism on the rise. We have pagan just people worshiping basically any false thing. They basically worship themselves. Honestly that's what's happening is people make a God up in their own image whose pro-gender confusion who is pro killing babies in the wombs and people just make up a God that they want to worship because they worship themselves instead of the one true God and it's very sad and just as these people played the harlot much of our world is playing the harlot and making up a God in their own image instead of following the one true God that has now been revealed through Jesus Christ Hallelujah. Then my anger will be kindled and God's anger is kindled now against those who are not worshiping Him against them in that day and I will forsake them and hide my face from them and they will be consumed and that's what's going to happen. I tell you what judgment is coming upon this world make sure you trust in Jesus and many evils and troubles will come upon them so that they will say in that day is it not because of our is it not because our God is not among us that these evils have come upon us and it's true when the tribulation comes upon this world it's going to be because people forsook Jesus Christ but I will surely hide my face in that day because of all the evil which they will do for they will turn to other gods and by the way that's not a capital G that's a small G false gods. Now therefore write this song for yourselves and teach it to the sons of Israel and put it on their lips so that this song may be a witness for me against the sons of Israel and Moses is about to write a song and share it with the people and that will be in the next chapter and it's it's meant to help them remember you know how God's forecasting that they are going to turn away and Lord willing that then that will be motivated and learn the law of the Lord and not turn away but God already knows the waywardness of his people and that they will they will do pretty good under the leadership of Joshua but when Joshua passes on and they're in the promised land and they have some prosperity it's not going to go well. For when I bring them into the land flowing with milk and honey which I swore to their fathers and they have eaten and are satisfied and become prosperous then they will turn to other gods and serve them and spurn me and break my covenant and you know Jeremiah spoke there's one day going to be a new covenant because the people are going to break this covenant and the new covenant now has come through Jesus Christ Hallelujah and that's the covenant that we need to adhere to today that Jesus Christ has come as the Messiah the promised one the lamb of God it takes away the sins of the world he's given us grace and he's taken our curse upon that cross because of our violation of the first covenant and now through faith in him we can enter a new covenant where he remembers our iniquity no more and provides us with forgiveness for our violation of the first covenant Hallelujah and you can make Jesus your Lord and Savior fall under his grace and now follow him as Lord Hallelujah that's the new covenant it's good news we can be forgiven of the fact that we broke this first one and that God now through Jesus has made a new one verse 21 then it shall come about when many evils and troubles have come upon them that this song the one Moses is gonna share with us in the next chapter will testify before them as a witness for it shall not be forgotten from the lips of their descendants for I know their intent which they are developing today before I have brought them into the land which I saw so Moses wrote this song the same day and taught it to the sons of Israel then he commissioned Joshua the son of none and said be strong and courageous for you shall bring the sons of Israel into the land which I swore to them and I will be with you it's interesting that God in his faithfulness because he promised this land to Abraham and to Israel he's gonna follow through and he's gonna give them victory even knowing that one day they're gonna forsake him God's gonna be faithful to what he promised despite the people it came about when Moses finished writing the words of the this law in a book until they were complete that Moses commanded the Levites who carried the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord saying take this book of the law and place it beside the Ark of the Covenant the Lord your God that it may remain there as a witness against you so this is all going to go in in the Ark of the Covenant and it shows it doesn't it you know they don't all have a copy this one's going to be stored there for protection and you know praise God we have access to it now listen verse 27 for I know your rebellion and your stubbornness behold while I'm still alive with you today you have been rebellious against the Lord how much more than after my death and Moses knows it's going to get worse assemble to me all the elders of your tribes and your officers that I may speak these words in their hearing and call the heavens and earth to witness against them for I know that after my death you will act corruptly and turn away from the way which I have commanded you and evil will befall you in the latter days for you will do that which is evil on the side of the Lord provoking him to anger with the works of your hands then Moses spoke in the hearing of all the assembly of Israel the words of the song until they were complete and we will see that song next but I think what God is revealing is you know what people when when we fall into sin and when we face the consequences of our sin God is revealing to us that you know what you're receiving the due punishment for what you have done because God has given to us what we need to follow him we now have the new covenant word we have the Holy Spirit living in us and God is saying I've given you the ability to to follow me and I've given you even grace when you fail you can turn to me for forgiveness but there's no excuse this comes back to Romans 1 right there there's no excuse because goddess has revealed himself we have every opportunity to come to know the Lord and what he desires and God is desiring that we would take what we've been given and use it to honor him and there is consequence both then and now when we forsake the Lord and go our own way I can tell you you know what I've been following the Lord since 1996 so for 28 years and I can assure you that there is blessing in following God it doesn't mean that life's gonna go perfect but most of the problems that have occurred in my life are from my mistakes and from my sin and the things that have gone well in my life comes from obedience to him try it out commit to following the Lord commit to his ways and I believe you'll see that his ways work and they'll not only work in this life but they're going to work in the life to come hallelujah it's a blessing to have Jesus as our Lord and Savior and it's a blessing to have his guidance to live this life and I intend and I pray you do it with me I intend to follow him all the days of my life and I look forward to the heavenly places and ages to come that he's promised to those who love him hallelujah thank you Jesus may we all be motivated all the way to our dying day Follow him. God bless you all. [BLANK_AUDIO]