SONG
When we all see Jesus blessing and show him victory
Now we walk the field from a path we now still overspread the sky
But when traveling days are over, not a shadow, not a star
When we all get to heaven, why don't they all rejoice in God's belief
When we all see Jesus blessing and show him victory
Let our last journey, true and faithful, pass through serving every day And just one glimpse of Him in glory will don't struggle by prayer
When we all get to heaven, why don't they all rejoice in God's belief When we all see Jesus blessing and show him victory
We'll go to the price before us, soon His beauty will be grown, soon the curly gates will open We shall turn the strings of song
When we all get to heaven, why don't they all rejoice in God's belief When we all see Jesus blessing and show him victory
We'll be here for destination digs and we'll have a lot of fun with that.
We'll do it again, two more days, two more days left.
Starting next Tuesday, the adult Bible study that meets at the cafeteria, we'll start a book on the Baptist faith and messages.
We'll be studying the Baptist faith and message, which is kind of a core statement of what we believe doctrinally kind of reaches across the whole Bible.
We're going to be looking at that in the context of how it conflicts with other teachings that are out there.
We're kind of excited about that.
Any adults or teenagers that you talk to are welcome to join us for that Bible study.
Then June 28th is just around the corner, just over two weeks away.
That day we're having our human trafficking events that Tuesday night.
We'll have some special speakers in here, only youth and adults will be able to be in this room on that Tuesday night.
The children's material will go on until 8 o'clock that night.
And then we'll have refreshments at 8.15.
We'll have stuff in the hallway, the cafeteria, depending on how much space we need.
And basically this is just our taking a look at human trafficking in Toledo, what we as Christians can do about it, what the real problem is and so on like that.
And again, no kids in the room, just in case we have to talk about mature topics.
And then rapidly approaching, and we do have permission from Citizens Bank to be on their lot on Saturday evening the 2nd.
And we go down there with our duck crank and our food and we'll put it out widely across the network.
Last year we had several hundred people show up, a couple of 250 hundred people show up, and so we'll do that again.
So you need to be available that night, mark it on your calendar, you need to be prepared.
If you're somebody who's willing to sit in the dump tank, if you name your adults, you want to sit in the dump tank and be dumped, you throw softballs.
You need to let Alicia know that and you have to have permission from parents to do that.
It's going to be a lot of fun for some folks.
I'll do it, I have to do it, but I don't really want to do it because I don't really get a big fan of dropping off a little shelf into water.
But Ariana loves it, she had fun last year.
You've got to talk to Alicia about that, you have permission from your parents and you can talk to Alicia about that.
Alright, so that's all coming up.
We've got the rest of EBS, we do Bible study, we've got June 28th, the human trafficking event, and the 2nd of July,
there's an opposite of fireworks downtown, all right around the corner, boom, boom, boom.
And so it's fun to be active, it's fun to be doing things.
This is part of who we are as a church, to work together to reach the world, for the gospel of Jesus Christ,
to try to help grow things, grow the kingdom of God, give people an opportunity to know more about Jesus that they want to.
And we're going to pray together at this time, and then we'll go back and do a little bit of worship,
and we'll honor galvatizing offers coming up, and then we'll go to the Word and to our lesson time.
And we've got some folks who are still on their way, trying to make it here, and so we'll pray for them.
And so we have some folks that are sick and hurting, and we'll pray for them, and we'll pray for us that we do it well.
Alright, so let's pray.
Father in heaven, we praise you. You are an awesome God, a powerful God, an amazing,
great, the entire universe and all creation with a spoken word, God.
Yet you tarry with us. You're just, but also gracious toward us.
That you let those who believe and receive Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, you let them be free from sin, have abundant life.
And Lord, we know that even abundant life has its sorrow and sin.
We pray, Lord, that you will keep us on the straight and narrow, live in the best we can, and the best we can for you.
You'll work through us, work through the events, work through the things that we have to do.
And even the hardships, Lord, that you can turn those things out for our good.
We claim the promise in the Bible, it says, we love you and are called according to your purpose.
You will turn all things out for our good.
As we gather today, we pray for our sick and hurting, where some of them overcame difficulty to be here today,
and others are not here and we don't necessarily know how bad it is or what's going on.
And still others, Lord, are on their way as far as we know.
Thank you to those who join us online on Facebook and via podcasting.
We're so grateful to have an expanded audience to talk to about you, about the things of you, about what you want to do on this earth.
So we ask you, Lord, to bless us and strengthen us, help us have bold voices to sing out, maybe do motions or just,
Lord, really give you the glory of this place because we know how awesome you've been blessed.
Please, Lord, watch over this time, govern it, make it what you have it to be.
We pray all this in Jesus' name, Amen.
All right, we're going to stand up and sing the next couple songs.
Please sing louder and do more when you're standing.
Everybody stand up, please.
Put your hair away a little bit.
I will rise when he has given me strength.
I will let my heart beat with me to hear my heart.
I will let my heart be full of praise.
I will sing this day that belongs to me.
I will rise when he has given me courage.
Will he succeed me then?
I will take his side when he esnates me then.
I will succeed him then.
I will take his side when he esnates me then.
Sing a new song to him who sits on heaven's mercy seat
Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, holy only in peace
Sing a new song to him who sits on heaven's mercy seat
Holy, holy, holy is the Lamb God Almighty
Worthy is the Lamb with combination of sin
Praise to the King of Kings, you are everything and I will adore you
We all can drink of the living color, flesh and the light of the world
Let's sing in love, let's chant that glory is how we live, to you the only one here
Holy, holy, holy is the Lamb God Almighty
Worthy is the Lamb with combination of sin
Praise to the King of Kings, you are everything and I will adore you
Filled with wonder, awesome wonder at the mansion of glory
Jesus who made his power, brand the living water
Such a marvelous mystery
Holy, holy, holy is the Lamb God Almighty
Worthy is the Lamb
With combination of sin
Praise to the King of Kings, you are everything and I will adore you
Holy, holy, holy is the Lamb God Almighty
Worthy is the Lamb
With combination of sin
Praise to the King of Kings, you are everything and I will adore you
Peace
Alright, we come to that moment in time where we ask ourselves how's the Lord been inspiring us this week
Inspiration means like God breathed into you, God said something to you, God spoke to your heart
Maybe you saw something like the in front of you as you were passing by and the Lord said hey pay attention to that
And that's what we talk about during this time and our day has got to end up so we'll let you go, go
So on Thursday, it was Thursday, we did the lesson in the youth group from UPS
And there was a little activity with making mud and everything
Well I went completely opposite of what the book's description said to do for the activity
Because I felt the Lord say something different and it didn't really dawn on me what he was saying until I was actually saying it
And I'm like oh how, this is actually something really important
And so I gave them all a bag of cotton soil which was just dirt, it's loose, it's light
Then I had to put water in it and make mud
Well then I asked them, okay so what's easier to dig through, is it easier to dig through dirt or is it easier to dig through mud?
And someone said well it's easier to dig through dirt or it's easier to dig through mud because mud's wet, it's easier to pick up
And I was like well here's what you've got to think about though, mud's also heavier
I was like mud is heavier so therefore if you're trying to dig through a bunch of mud you're going to get tired out quick
And then I'm like but you can also say the same about dirt because dirt is hard so it takes more effort to break through it
I was like and then I told them what's easier to walk through, is it easier to walk on dirt or is it easier to walk on mud?
And obviously it's easier to walk on dirt because dirt's hard
And if you walk in the dirt you're going to get stuck in your shoe or you might fall down in the mud and you get dirty
So I told them, I was like this is like our walk with Christ, sometimes it's like we're walking on dirt
We're walking solid, we're walking firm, we know exactly where we're going, we're not worried about falling down
I was like at another time it's like walking through the mud where you get stuck, you might lose a shoe, you might lose a sock
You might fall down a couple times, you might get dirty, but no matter how many times you fall down
It's generally easy to get back up when you're stuck in the mud
I was like and even if it's really hard all you've got to do is reach out for a hand
I was like and then someone else can help you out, I was like and the hand is God
So even though sometimes like I said as a Christian, as followers, sometimes our walk is great
It's smooth sailing, we're on fire for God, doing what he says
And then there's those times where you're going to hit those muddy spots
Where you're going to get stuck, you're going to fall down
But all it takes is you to reach up your hand and go hey, help me out God, I need a little more help than usual
Yeah, VBS has been meaningful for me to share
I think they did a really good job with this material
Not only did they plan all the activities for kids and they kind of tie along the lesson
That's always the way VBS is, you know
But on top of that, in each lesson there's been various major points that you could hit home on
It's not just like they covered one thing
Like the Bible speaks to us and a lot of times speakers will say
Well this is just what it says, it's explained one thing of it, right
But the reality is different people are in different places
And so they're going to get different things out of it when they read that same text
That's why it's called the living word
The word is a lot inactive is because it affects different people in different ways
I think the VBS that we're doing this year did a good job of leaving that open
For us to get those things, multiple things
Not just one thing each night but multiple things
It's a good job, and it treats kids less like kids and more like learners I think
I think you really did a really good job with that
Alright, who else?
Jason
I know that sometimes we believe God isn't really there for us
Sometimes we feel like he's not there to help
But there might be times when he's not there to help
He's only there to help you
That was hard for me to believe when I was younger
Because when we're younger we don't really have that big of a living mindset
As we do when we are older
So when I was younger I used to come to church, I came here in my real life
And it used to be a hard struggle for me to stay learning and out and stay in the class
And stay up to date with the class, especially at my school
But now that I'm older I feel like it's better for me to learn about what God can do for me
What God has paid for me and what I can do to strengthen my bond with God
And to help me get up to heaven and be in eternal life with Him
That's a good word
And also a good snap-dot, you did a good job there
A snap-dot of how we are in Christ
The more we learn, the more we grow up in Christ, the more we value what we learn
And that really is a powerful testimony
Good job
Anyone else?
Caitlin?
I'm kind of resident of the works, so this is kind of what happened to him
He was telling me the story
And he was coming from California
He spent a part-time job in California
He doesn't have pretty much any family labs or anything
He's never been in it
He's super nice, he came in and he said, I'd really love to have you updated to the office in time
He had a meeting on the side of the road and his cabinet he scheduled
He never actually scheduled it, so he said, it's on the ride
So he sat on the side of the road and he had already been in the car already
And he was done praying, he said
And he said as soon as he was done praying, his old cab driver, Blacksiders in Ohio, pulled up on the side of the road and told him that off he could ride to the apartment
And so he ate the ride, he made it safe
And it was just amazing, so there was a story like that
Yeah, that is, and
Actually, the Greek count tales I've heard of a lot of folks, and that I myself have been through
Where simple prayers like that go, why is that guy there?
Why does he drive by at that time? Why does he see him?
Cab drivers have better things to do than just drive by and see if some guy who used to live here might be there and need a ride
Maybe that just makes sense
And he saw him and thought, he might need a ride, but so once he got there, the timing, once he got there
Then it's no big deal that he offered him a ride
But the fact that he was there at that moment in time, and he was just sitting there going, I don't know what to do, and cried out to God
That is powerful, and I think sometimes we forget to cry out to God because we think we can handle ourselves, we pull up and think we can do it
Sometimes we think, well, God's not listening anyway, obviously I'm just going to go through some hardship now
It's just going to be like I was going to say, stuck in the mud for a while, you know, whatever
But I would encourage you that any time you recognize you have a need and you do not immediately have an answer for that need
You'll reach out to God because he is amazing
He does show up with all kinds of little, sometimes they seem like, why would God bother?
Why does God take time in his day to deal with my issue?
But think about that, he trusted God, he believed in God, and if God hadn't given him a cab, he wasn't going to stop believing in God
And that's a big thing too that really strikes me, is it?
I think that's from Face of the Giant, right?
Where, we're loose, we'll praise God
And that's just, one of the things that hit me this week that I wanted to share was kind of heavy on my heart
When we got out there was, so from Wednesday's BBS lesson I got to thinking about how things can be right in front of your face and you miss them
And that happened with the coming of the Messiah, and in Jesus' day when he came, even though there was angels proclaiming his birth, and there was a star in the sky
Some people didn't miss it, but lots of people did, right?
And then when Jesus was crucified, some people didn't miss it, the Roman soldier was there and said, this man died as the son of God
He looked at Jesus and said, this is incredible, because of the way he died
And of course, you know, then the sky went dark, and the dead walked in the city, and so you know, kind of
But people still, a lot of people, even though all kinds of crazy things were happening, people still missed what was happening
And I thought about that today, in 2022, when people are all wrapped up in social media, and politics, and their jobs, and paying their bills
Managing their health, and getting by, and trying to get their significant other to do what they want them to do
And trying to get their kids to behave, and kids are trying to get something more over on their parents or whatever
Everybody's got so much going on, we don't want to miss what Jesus is doing
Now is not the time for that, and it has happened to every generation
Every time God is doing something amazing, there will always be those who miss it
And we definitely don't want that to be us, and that really touched my heart
I want to know what God wants me to do, and I want to be that
As Jason said, I want to learn, I want to grow, I want to reach new heights in Jesus
And I know that I have a soft spot in my heart for people who have said for a while they're following God
And then they kind of fall away for a while, and I know that when they kind of fall away for a while
During that whole time, they're kind of missing what God's doing
And I don't know if it's which comes first, the chicken or the egg
Did they first start missing what God's doing and then fall away?
Or did they fall away first and start missing what God's doing?
I don't know which one happens, but I definitely don't want to miss what God's doing
So I would encourage you today, let's look to the Lord, let's reach new heights in Jesus
He is the one, He has that path for you, He has that health for you
He will teach you, He will help us grow
It's not about me teaching, it's about God teaching
If I don't get it right today, you can send you
If you are given God's provision to completely ignore me
If it's not biblical, but you're also given God's mandate
To read your Bible and pray and study and grow
That's who we are, we reach new heights in Jesus
I ask Brother Ron Mapp, if you pray for us this time as we transition
We're going to have tithes and offerings and then go to the Lord
Lord, thank you for allowing us to be here today in your house
The house that you've provided for us, Lord, thank you so much
For this opportunity to worship with our friends and family
Brothers and sisters of Christ
Lord, I pray that you'll be with us through our daily walks
We heard these stories here today of the past week, what people have seen and heard
Lord, it's amazing that you take the time to speak to us
And nurture us and grow us
And Lord, to you, time is just a thing that you created
To us, it means so much because we're subject to it
But Father, one day we will be eternal with you in heaven
And pray now for the tithes and offerings that you bless the money and the time
And everything that was given to effort
And we may use it for your benefit, for your kingdom's glory
Father, I pray that you'll be with this body, help us grow in you every day
To have us see you in a new way every day
Thank you, Jesus, amen
Alright, so the children have been working on some songs shown on PBS
They're going to come up here and we are going to do one for you
The motions will also be shown on the screen
So if you're interested in learning more about the songs,
you can go to the website at www.mooji.org
And you can also go to the website at www.mooji.org
And we're going to do one for you
The motions will also be on the screen
We've only practiced it for three days
So it's not going to be perfect
But the people that taught us how to do it will be up there
And you want to watch them instead
So children that have done this or if you want to learn it right now, come to the front
Come on, let's go
Not everybody is going to sit there
Yes, you can look at the screen
Stand in the line, spread out across the front, and face the screen
Stand right there
Always ready
Everybody
Are you ready?
We're uncovering the treasures never less
We are finding God is near, oh can he stand?
You will see me and find me
When you search for me with all your heart
You will see me and find me
When you search for me with all your heart
Our destination is near
There's a place full of ancient mystery
Covered by the dirt and dust
Evidence of Jesus
That will lead our hearts to trust
We're uncovering the treasures never less
We are finding God is near, oh can he stand?
You will see me and find me
When you search for me with all your heart
You will see me and find me
When you search for me with all your heart
Our destination is near
We're uncovering the treasures never less
We are finding God is near, oh can he stand?
You will see me and find me
When you search for me with all your heart
You will see me and find me
When you search for me with all your heart
You will see me and find me
When you search for me with all your heart
You can see me, and find me When you search for the people of your heart
Destination is here Destination is here Destination is here
While we're moving on, can any of you children tell me what the memory verse is for VBS?
Hint, hint, Jason go ahead
You can see me, and find me When you search for the people of your heart
Awesome, do you know the reference?
Isaiah, Jeremiah, 29 13
Hint, hint, the words were in the song that you just saw
You mean we will find him when we seek him? With all our heart?
Well that's awesome!
That's what it says
There's a place where mercy reigns And never lets us die
There's a place where streams of grace flow in our hearts
And all the love we've ever found Is like a flood that's flowing down
At the cross and cross, I surrender my life I'll give it all to you, I'll give it all to you
Give you a present when my sin was white I owe it all to you, I owe it all to you Jesus
There's a place where sin and actually are one
And all my heart's in this place, there's God in your eyes
There's a place where you can find me When you search for the people of your heart
At the cross and cross, I surrender my life I'll give it all to you, I'll give it all to you
Give you a present when my sin was white I owe it all to you, I owe it all to you
I surrender my life I'll give it all to you, I'll give it all to you
Give you a present when my sin was white I owe it all to you, I owe it all to you
I surrender my life I'll give it all to you, I owe it all to you
I surrender my life I owe it all to you
I can only imagine what it's really like When I walk by your side
What my eyes will see When you face this before me I can only imagine
So now I'm by your glory Once without my heart felt
When I dance for you Jesus All in my view of myself
When I stand in your presence On to my knees when I fall
When I sing hallelujah When I be able to speak and hold
I can only imagine I can only imagine
When that day comes As I find myself standing in the sun
I can only imagine When all I've done is forever
Forever worship you I can only imagine
I can only imagine
So now I'm by your glory Once without my heart felt
When I dance for you Jesus All in my view of myself
When I stand in your presence On to my knees when I fall
When I sing hallelujah When I be able to speak and hold
I can only imagine I can only imagine
So now I'm by your glory Once without my heart felt
When I dance for you Jesus All in my view of myself
When I stand in your presence On to my knees when I fall
When I sing hallelujah When I be able to speak and hold
I can only imagine I can only imagine
I can only imagine When all I've done is forever
Forever worship you I can only imagine
Okay, today begins a big journey for us because beginning today
with the Lord's help, especially with the Lord's help, we are going to preach through the book of Deuteronomy.
Now that is quite an adventure, quite a big undertaking because the book of Deuteronomy is kind of long.
In fact, RJ and I sat down and tried to plot out the preaching and we took us through next Easter
with a break for Christmas for several weeks because you've got to do the Christmas story.
So it's going to be the entire book of Deuteronomy beginning today is the plan.
Now the book of Deuteronomy, the good thing about that is, that's kind of a good thing and a bad thing,
is that it will go in kind of big pieces. So today we're going to do chapter one.
It is a story and Moses is in the end of his life
explaining to the Israelites what they went through and how they got where they are.
That's basically what's going on. So Deuteronomy comes from the Latin, not from the Greek, from the Latin.
And it's called that because it is essentially the combination of two speeches that Moses gave at the end of his life
explaining everything that they had been through, what brought them to where they are now,
and what was going to be expected of them going forward because Moses was about to leave them.
And in the end of the book, to spoil the end of the book for you if you've never read it before, he does indeed leave them.
So that's what's coming. So we're building up to the death of Moses,
at which point in time the leadership of the Israelites will transfer over to Joshua.
We're going to see how that develops so I don't have to give you a lot of history.
If you hang in there with us over the upcoming weeks and months, you will get the background.
He is going to explain it for us. So for me to sit here and go, well it happened like this,
and that event took place, and that happened, would be extra because that's what we're going to do.
That's what he's going to do for us. So it will be in the text, it will be explained as we go.
Bear in mind, this is a retelling, encapsulating if you will, of what has already happened.
So there are, you might be considering important details that he leaves out.
Now did he leave them out on purpose? Did he leave them out because God,
the Holy Spirit specifically led him to leave them out or whatever?
We will not be going back in most cases and filling those details in.
So I would encourage you then, through the weeks, to not only read what you know might be coming up next.
So like next week is Deuteronomy chapter 2, 1, because we're going to stop at the end of 1 today.
So you might want to read Deuteronomy chapter 2 and then look at those events,
and you'll probably go footnotes in your Bible like that, and it'll say,
this event relates back to what happened in Exodus or what happened in Numbers, most of it's Numbers.
Okay? The book of Numbers.
And so you can read in between the actual accounts of what we're going to talk about,
and that's how you're going to fill in the gaps.
Because we're not going to do every little bit of that.
If we did, it wouldn't be a 40-week series. It would be like a four-year series.
Okay? Because we'd have to read the verse and go, okay, we'll go back to Numbers and read,
now we go back here and go back here and go back here.
And every week we'd only be able to do four or five verses at a time. Okay?
So in the interest of getting through the book and see, because whenever you do that,
whenever you do a whole book, you get the big sweeping teachings that you might miss
if you just open your Bible and read a couple of verses in a day. Okay?
So it's important and valuable for us to get the full teaching.
Now, they would memorize this. Shall we memorize it?
I don't think so, because that, again, would take years, right?
But they would memorize the entire book of Deuteronomy, verse for verse, word for word.
And so that's how they would get the whole thing.
Nicole, there's a page over there. Do you want to grab one?
And here we go. All right?
So the question of the day is, does God ever withdraw His blessing from His people and never return it?
Does He ever take it away once and for all? That's the question of the day. All right?
We know that we are in the end of a season of a great error in Moses' life.
We know this already. Moses is not being allowed to enter into the promised land
because of his behavior and how it relates to the Israelites that we're going to read about in this chapter.
Okay? And again, not all the details, so you'll have to read some more in the other book
if you want to get all the details, but we're going to get an overview of it in this chapter. All right?
He is at the end of that horrible period of error in his life.
The question that looms large for him and for all the Israelites is,
does God ever withdraw His blessing from His people for it to never return?
Okay? All right. So grab your Bibles if you would. Maybe you'll give me a who to holler and amen
as we go to the book of Deuteronomy, chapter one. Amen. Thank you, Jesus. That's right.
I get the opportunity to read the very first verse in the book of Deuteronomy
and it was probably likely to take us, it'll really be like 40 weeks, but we'll have a little break at Christmas time.
These are the words which Moses spoke to all Israel across the Jordan in the wilderness,
in the Arabah, opposite Suf. So Arabah is the desert, Suf is a water body, probably the Red Sea
or maybe the Gulf of Agrabah, between Peran and Tofel and Laban and Heserah and Dizahab.
So you'd think with all that details of names and stuff that we'd be able to nail this down to exactly where it's at
and historians debate significantly exactly where that place is. Okay?
In fact, even K'barnea, where the Israelites spent a lot of time at, twice before they went into the promised land,
the first time before they went in and failed, the second time when they went in, they were supposed to go in.
Historians and archaeologists are debating exactly where it's at on the map. Remember, this is thousands of years ago.
It is 11 days journey from Horeb, that's the mountain of God, that's where you'll recall Moses, maybe not, I don't know,
but Moses first encountered God, was told to take his shoes off because that was holy ground, there was a burning in the bush
and so on and then he got the commission to go into Israel and then he brings the Israelites back out to Mount Horeb.
Alright? So it's 11 days journey from Horeb by the way of Mount Seir to K'barnea and it came about in the 40th year on the first day of the 11th month.
So this is the 40th year from the beginning of their trek of everything and remember they were not allowed to go into the promised land,
first time we're going to hear about that in a second. It says, of the 11th month, that Moses spoke to the children of Israel
according to all that the Lord had commanded to give them. After he had defeated Sihon, the king of the Amorites,
or the Amorites, which is probably the local translation, who lived in Heshbon and Agh, the king of Bashan,
who lived in Osteroth and Edrei, and even though Agh tried his best to get a curse upon the Israelites and everything like that,
they still trounced him. Alright? God really protected them and they really wiped him out.
Across the Jordan to the land of Moab, Moses undertook to expound this law, so he's going to explain it,
when you see the word expound, he's going to explain it and break it down, it's going to make it clear what needs to be done,
saying, the Lord our God spoke to us at Horeb, saying, you have stayed long enough at this mountain.
Turn and set your journey and go to the hill country of the Amorites and to all their neighbors in the Ereba,
in the hill country and in the low land, and in the Negev, by the sea coast, the land of the Canaanites,
and Lebanon, as far as the great river, the river Euphrates. So again, those names just basically all kind of explain
the promised land where God was sending them to. Verse 8, see I have placed the land before you,
go in and possess the land which the Lord swore to give to your fathers. Remember, when God sends them in there,
he's keeping a promise that he made hundreds and in some cases thousands of years before.
He promised to give to their fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob, to them and their descendants after them.
Verse 9 says, and I spoke to you at that time saying, I am not able to bear the burden of you alone.
So Moses is talking about a particular time when God had called them out of Israel and things got out of control.
The Lord God has multiplied you and behold you are this day as the stars of heaven for multitude.
He says, it was too much for me to handle leading you. May the Lord, the God of your fathers,
increase you a thousand fold more than you are and bless you. So it's not bad that there were too many of you,
that's not a bad thing, I want God to continue to multiply you, but it was a problem.
It says, just as he has promised you, how can I alone bear the load of you and your strife?
Now before we go any further, we should realize that these are God's people called miraculously out of Egypt,
led by a pillar of cloud or a pillar of fire, depending on whether it was day or night,
protected from Pharaoh's army, led through the part of Red Sea, Pharaoh's army destroyed behind them,
all that they've been through and I want you to see that phrase where it says,
how can I alone bear the load of you and your strife? You know what strife is, right?
It means there was a problem between the people, but there wasn't just one problem, there was a lot of people.
So there was a lot of problems, right? People are messy. It doesn't matter if it's people that recognize
that they are blessed by God, called by God, whatever, people are messy. There's always going to be problems.
So you're waiting around for everything to be perfect, it ain't coming on earth, alright?
Even in the church, it's just not going to happen, because after we get done worshiping here and praising God,
someone will walk out the door and something will get them upset or something will bother them,
they'll have stress, anxiety, some trigger from something in their past, whatever, and they'll behave in a sloppy manner.
And then somebody will behave in a sloppy manner back. And then we know we're supposed to get to the point of forgiveness,
we know we're supposed to turn it over to God, but the fact is human beings are messy.
These are people who are walking under the law that God had given them, having coming out of Egypt,
and God leading them Himself, seeing Moses walk to the tent of meeting and talk with them,
seeing the storm settle on top of the mountain as Moses was getting the Ten Commandments, right?
Being basically taught to love your neighbor as yourself, and yet there was much strife amongst them,
so they needed leadership to sort out that strife, to put an end to it, over and over and over again.
Now should they have needed it? Probably not. But they're humans, and humans are messy, okay?
And so he's saying, there's so many of you, God has multiplied you so much, it becomes too much for me to handle your strife.
So he says, this is what I told you, choose wise and discerning and experienced men from your tribes,
and I will appoint them as your heads. And you answered me and said, the thing which you have said to do is good.
So I took the heads of your tribes, wise and experienced men, and appointed them heads over you,
leaders of thousands and of hundreds, of fifties and of tens, and officers for your tribes.
Then I charged your judges at that time saying, here are the cases between your fellow countrymen.
So there were people who had grievances one against the other, and somebody had to make a decision,
and these leaders were now going to do that. It says, and judge righteously between a man and his fellow countrymen,
or the alien who is with them. You shall not show partiality in judgment. You shall hear of the small and the great alike.
In other words, we don't just give the rulings to the rich, right?
We don't only hear the cases of the people who can afford a big lawyer. Everybody gets a fair hearing.
That's what he's saying. And then it says, you shall not fear man, for the judgment is God's.
So in other words, make the fair ruling, regardless if somebody is rich or has a bunch of men in armor
that follow them around, as a matter of fact, make the fair ruling, and then let God back it up, right?
The judgment belongs to the Lord. And then it says, and the case that is too hard for you, you shall bring to me,
and I will hear it. Now notice, who's going to make that decision?
Who makes the decision of when a court case or a case of strife, as in this case, a disagreement, is too difficult for the judge?
The judge makes the case, right? Not the complainants like in American court system, right?
But the judge says, look, this is above my pay grade. This is too difficult.
I am not in touch enough with God to make the decision here, so we're going to send it up the line to somebody closer.
Ultimately to Moses, who is close, who walks before God, whose face glows because he spent time with God, right?
So ultimately, I'm going to send it up the line because I have realized this case is beyond my capability.
The judge decides that. 18 says, and I commanded you at that time all the things that you should do.
Now 19, and we're almost half, we are over halfway actually.
Then we set out from Horeb and went through all that great and terrible wilderness which you saw,
on the way to the hill country of the Amorites, just as the Lord our God had commanded us.
And we came to Kadesh Barnea. Now this is the first time. They're there a second time,
but he's telling them the story of the first time they got to Kadesh Barnea.
And he says, and I said to you, you have come to the hill country of the Amorites, which the Lord our God is about to give us.
See, the Lord your God has placed the land before you.
Go up, take possession as the Lord the God of your fathers has spoken to you.
So in other words, God told us to do it, now let's go do it.
Do not fear or be dismayed. In other words, fear is when you're going, oh I don't know, I'm afraid of what's going to happen.
I don't know what's going to happen.
Dismayed is when you're confused, you're struggling with all the variables.
You think, oh my mind, it's hard for me to wrap my mind around how this can be, how it's going to all turn out.
Then all of you approached me and said, let us send men before us that they may search out the land for us
and bring back to us word of the way by which we should go up and the cities which we shall enter.
And the thing pleased me, so Moses is, that's not like a good idea to me.
And I took twelve of your men, one man from each tribe, and they turned and went up into the hill country
and came to the valley of Esh- Esh-ol and spied it out.
Then they took some of the fruit of the land in their hands and brought it down to us.
And they brought us back a report and said, it is a good land which the Lord our God is about to give us.
So they said, it's great up there. We want that. God's given us something awesome.
Alright, that was the report. Verse 26 says, yet you were not willing to go up,
but rebelled against the command of the Lord your God.
Now what we know from the other book, and I said I'm not going to do a lot of this, but I'll say it right now,
some of the spies were scared, right? There were two spies, Joshua and Caleb, who said it's great
and God's going to do it and we just need to go. There were ten spies who said, it is great, yes,
however, we don't think it's worth it and we don't think that it's going to be good.
We're going to lose a lot of people. There are big people there, right?
And that's what he's talking about. Verse 27 says, and you grumbled in your tents and said,
because the Lord hates us, he has brought us out of the land of Egypt
to deliver us into the hand of the Amorites to destroy us.
Notice that they face real opposition, maybe for the first time ever.
They're going into a defended land, a big and developed people, the land that God wants them to have.
They've beat up other peoples. They've seen God's victory, right?
But they've never quite done this. This is new. Invading the land that they're going to be in permanently,
facing people, as we'll see, who are quite large and quite powerful and well developed in their cities and so on.
That's new. Fighting armies in the open country, that's one thing.
Fighting armies, sieging cities, breaking down walls, that's another thing altogether, right?
So they've got to do something new for God and all of a sudden they start thinking, the Lord hates us.
He has brought us out of the land of Egypt to deliver us into the hand of the Amorites to destroy us.
We can't do this. God is going to throw us against this enemy. We're just going to be destroyed.
Now think about it for a minute. Red Sea, chariots of Pharaoh and his army destroyed, ten plagues.
They've all seen, they've seen all of this. Led by a column of fire and a column of cloud or smoke all day long, right?
They've seen it all. And now they're going, well, God's just going to send us up there and have us be destroyed.
Does that make any sense? It really doesn't. But this is the human condition.
This is what we do. The first time we face a new thing, a different thing, we come at it from a different angle.
It looks harder than what we expected. Our tendency is to go back to God and say, but God, you could just wipe it all away.
You could make it easy. You could make it so I have all the money I need, all the health I need, all the strength I need.
You could make them do what they're supposed to do. And I'm pushing through this and you're making me push through it.
Why did you bring me out of sin and slavery? Why did you save my soul in the case of Christians, right?
In order to face this terrible opposition and now I fall? Not again to rise? That's ridiculous.
And so we start to accuse God and think of God as this malicious master who, yes, he brought us out of slavery,
but he just brought us out to throw us willy nilly against an army that's way more powerful than we are.
As if Satan, in our case, Satan, the demons, the evil spirits are more powerful than us. And it's just not true.
God is more powerful. He's not sending you up there to squander your life. He has purpose in mind.
All right. And there would be Israelites that would die, but small in number by comparison.
And then the whole nation would take over the whole promised land. All the men, women, children would live in prosperity.
But they're questioning God. And that's what they did. It says in 28, where can we go up?
Our brethren have made our hearts melt, saying, that's talking about the ten spies that gave the report about the people of the land.
That was not really a good report. The people are bigger and taller than we. The cities are large and fortified to heaven.
And besides, we saw the sons of Anakim there. Anakim goes back to in the Old Testament, there was a group of people that they grew to be nine, ten feet tall.
Right. There was a king who was said to have a bed that was big enough for a nine foot, ten foot tall man.
It was 12 foot tall or whatever. It's huge. And so they're looking at really big people. Right.
Goliath is an example of this. And he may have been the last recorded death of one of these people.
He was nine feet tall and big and powerful. And so they saw those people there.
And one man could not face even with a sword and a shield. He couldn't face a man with a sword and shield who was three feet taller than him.
He'd be crushed. And so that's what they're thinking that we're really facing real opposition.
Then I said to you, do not be shocked nor fear them.
The Lord your God who goes before you will himself fight on your behalf, just as he did for you in Egypt before your eyes and in the wilderness where you saw how the Lord your God carried you, just as a man carries his son in all the way which you have walked until you came to this place.
And so Moses said, I was encouraging you to realize that God's going to take care of it.
And I'm here to say to you today, if your face is something that is major, God's going to take care of it.
If you're spending time accusing God saying he's throwing you willy nilly up against something you can't handle, God's going to take care of it.
That's the kind of God he is. It takes faith. We have to trust him. He's going to fight our battles for us and so on.
Thirty two. But for all this, you did not trust the Lord your God, even though Moses himself, who talked face to face with God and all that they saw that God had done, they didn't trust him.
The God who goes before you on your way to seek out a place for you to encamp in fire by night, cloud by day to show you the way in which you should go.
Then the Lord heard the sound of your words and he was angry and he took an oath saying, not one of these men, this evil generation shall see the good land which I swore to give to your father.
See there what they did. They didn't trust God. They challenged him as the kind of God that was going to destroy them, send them up against the enemy that they could not overcome.
And he calls them an evil generation and he says they will not see the promised land that was offered to them.
Then in thirty six, it says, except Caleb, son of Jephunneh, Caleb was the guy who gave the report that said they should go up.
He shall see it and to him and to his sons, I will give the land of which he has set foot because he has followed the Lord fully.
Caleb lives to be a ripe old man and he does indeed take over the lands eventually. But in this case, he's telling about how Caleb who gave a right report would go in.
Moses said, God said he will take over the land ultimately. The Lord was angry with me also on your account saying, not even you shall enter.
In other words, Moses is not allowed to go in. Now in that one verse, encapsulated everything that Moses did wrong that got him told he was not allowed to go into the promised land.
And he says that there was basically a fight. The Lord was angry with them with Moses and said you don't get to go in either.
All right. But then in thirty eight, it says, Joshua, son of Nun, who was that other spy who stands before you, he shall enter there.
Encourage him for he shall cause Israel to inherit it. In other words, he's going to be the leader.
Moreover, your little ones who you said should become a prey and your sons who this day have no knowledge of good or evil.
In other words, the young people that they were worried about the kids being killed off, the changes being killed off, whatever.
Shall enter there and I will give it to them and they shall possess it.
But as for you turn around and set out for the wilderness by the way to the Red Sea, then you answered.
So the Israelites are now talking back to God again. Then you answered and said to me, we have sinned against the Lord.
We will indeed go up and fight just as the Lord our God commanded us. And every man of you girded on his weapons of war and regarded it as easy to go up into the hill country.
See, they've changed their mind, hasn't they? Haven't they? They decided, no, it's too hard. God's going to send us up there. We're going to be destroyed.
And God says, you're not trusting me, you wicked generation. Now you will not go in. I will not give it to you, but I'll give it to your children.
And they said, no, no, no, actually, it's easy. You got their weapons on and stuff. Now they're going to go up because now it's going to be easy.
They changed their minds. When it looked hard, they said they didn't want to go. Now they said they do want to go because they regarded it as easy to go up into the hill country.
And the Lord said to me, say to them, do not go up nor fight for I'm not among you, lest you be defeated before your enemies.
So they said, we don't trust you. God said, OK, then I'm not with you.
And they said, well, OK, we're going to go up. It's going to be easy. So we trust that it's going to be easy.
And God said, don't go up because now I'm not with you. 43. So I spoke to you, but you would not listen.
Instead, you rebelled against the command of the Lord and acted presumptuously. That means they thought they knew better.
And they went up into the hill country and the Amorites who lived in that hill country came out against you and chased you as bees do, like a swarm.
And they were attacked from every side and they were running away. And it says, and crushed you from Seir to Hormah.
Then you returned and wept before the Lord. But the Lord did not listen to your voice nor give ear to you.
So you remained in Kadesh many days, the days that you spent there.
And then the next chapter, we won't get into you, will be at how they went into the wilderness and wandered.
And it brings them from where that story ends to where Moses is eventually telling the story, which is the book of Deuteronomy.
OK, so we've read the entire chapter, Deuteronomy chapter one.
Now there's three things in here and it probably could be 15. I think you get that already.
We could do five sermons from that chapter right there.
The three things in here that are sort of an overview that you need to realize that speak to the question of whether God ever withdraws his blessings and you never get them back.
OK, the first one is this. Everything that there that Moses is doing right here is just after Aaron's death.
Do you remember who Aaron was in the fifth month of the 40th year?
This is a little later. I think it said the came about in fourth year on the first day of the 11th month.
So we're reading what Moses is saying in the 11th month. But in the fifth month of that year, Aaron died.
Do you remember who that was? Yeah, he became the mouthpiece for God. Right.
Moses was all excuse me. I'm sorry. I can't be a public speaker and making begging off excuses.
And God said, it's all right. I sent Aaron already with you and the two of you go up.
So he was the one who went up with Moses. By the way, the rod that was lifted up the park, the Red Sea, you know whose rod that was.
Yeah, who lifted it though? Moses. Right.
So you see they were entwined. They were close. They were Aaron had lived to be old and had done much for the Lord in the temple and worship and sacrifice, serving the tabernacle.
Right. He became essentially almost like the chief high priest.
He really was a character leading the Israelites in the way of God's righteous.
Now, he also made a mistake. At one point, he confronted Moses over Moses's rulership and he had to be corrected.
At one point, he gave them over to false worship for a short time and he had to be corrected.
So he was a man who made mistakes, but he had served God and pointing them toward God.
And now he's gone to the Lord. And so Moses realizes and it may be that he was the last one.
But as he begins the book of Deuteronomy, Moses realizes that all the old people, they're all dying off.
It's just as God said, soon it'll be me too, because I'm not allowed to own the promised land either.
And so I've got to explain all of this to them because I'm going to be gone and they've got to do it without me.
All right. So this is all set just after Aaron's death.
Moses is essentially saying in this book, I can't go with you.
Now, that's a problem because as we'll read about later and as we know, half of the book of numbers or maybe you don't.
I'm about to tell you. Moses was the one really doing the face to face talking with God.
So somebody is going to have to take that over. And here you hear that it's going to be Joshua who's going to take it over.
But the bottom line is Moses on his way out. And as a leader, he has been held to a high standard.
He's not going to be allowed to go into the promised land.
He is going to die and not go where all of them were promised they would be allowed to go.
So in Moses's case, as a leader, as a teacher, as a person who has talked face to face with the Holy God of the universe,
God's blessing in the sense of him being allowed to go into the promised land has been removed from him and he will not get it back.
He does not go into the promised land in his normal life on earth.
Now, if you look into the New Testament, I understand he has seen at one point that Jesus's transfiguration, he is there and he's allowed on a mountain in the promised land.
But he already had died and then been brought back to life in heaven. He had already been resurrected by the Lord.
So in his lifetime, the blessings of the Lord were withdrawn from him.
He would not leave them in military victory. He would not go in the promised land.
He would not get that land that flows with milk and honey and has grapes so big two men got to carry it on a pole between them.
He would not get that thing that God promised him.
So the promises that were given to God's people after all that God did, right?
Even there was a moment in time where God was going to destroy the Israelites that we'll hear about short summer.
We'll hear about it. That even though Moses was able to intervene at that time and say, don't start over a new nation with just me, please, Lord, spare them.
Even though Moses was able to move God off of his wrath and anger when Moses eventually offended God,
he offended him in such a way that he would not get the promises of God.
The purpose behind this book is not only to say that you're going to go on without me,
but to remind all the younger Israelites who now have grown up and are getting ready to go into promised land again,
is that it might be necessary for the next generation to go on without us because we have not followed God.
We have not trusted God. We have not done what God would have us to do.
We have not spoken the words and the heart of God, but rather our own preferences, our own distrust.
We have lived in strife with men and strife with God.
In the garden of Eden, Adam and Eve were there and they sinned against God.
And from the moment they sinned against God, they had strife with creation, they had strife with each other, and they had strife with God.
Truth is, they had strife with themselves.
Adam had strife with Adam. Adam had strife with Eve. Adam had strife with the garden.
And Adam had strife with God from the moment he ate, which he did because he thought he knew better.
He was presumptuous. So this is what I'm here to tell you today.
No matter what you're reading God's word, no matter what somebody preaches to you,
don't ever become presumptuous about what you think God is going to do.
Believe that God is going to do what God says he is going to do.
And then don't make up anything additional.
Stop right there. Don't be presumptuous.
And when you are believing that God is going to do what God says he is going to do,
and then God sends you against something that kind of rocks you a little bit,
kind of makes you wonder, now how am I ever going to get to what it is that I thought God was going to do?
Rather than going back and becoming an accuser of God like Satan is and like they did,
rather than doing that, just say, God, I can't understand it, but I'm going to trust you.
And if my life and my blood are spent because I have to go up against opposition
that looks like it's too strong for me, then I'm okay with that because you're God and I'm not.
Remember that Moses who does not get the promise of God because he is offended, to them he was that guy.
He was the holy guy. He was the one who went up in the mountain.
He was the one who face to face with God with glowing on his face so it made it was painful for everybody else around him.
They thought, man, if anybody is going to get it, it's going to be Moses.
If anybody is going to get the blessings of God, it's going to be Moses.
And now comes the book of Deuteronomy right after the death of Aaron, at which Moses says, it ain't me.
I too, like the generation that I was leading out of Israel, I failed.
And I will not receive the promises of God.
Is it possible during your life to be so presumptuous or accusatory toward God
that God will essentially withdraw the blessings in your lifetime and you would eventually come to the point of your death?
Now, if you're saved, you'll still go to heaven. I am not talking about losing your salvation.
God will fulfill that promise because that was paid for not by you, but by Jesus.
But I'm talking about could you behave so presumptuously and accusative toward God
that you do not receive the blessings that God wants to give you?
And the answer is yes.
Unequivocally, absolutely, beyond a shadow of a doubt, you can do that.
If Moses can do it, you can do it.
Because he was close to God. He had reasons to trust God no matter what he faced.
And we don't necessarily have those. We don't have a pillar of cloud to lead us by day
and a pillar of fire to lead us by night.
We don't have a walking through the Red Sea experience.
We don't have a put your hand in the garment and it comes out leprosy experience
where somebody is challenging our leadership and we say, God rebuke you
and they bring their hand out leprous white as snow.
We don't have that experience. We don't have a throw your stick down
and become a giant serpent that eats pharaohs, sorcerers, too little serpents.
We don't have the call upon the Lord and the water.
All the water in the entire land turns to blood.
We don't have that experience. I get that.
But we have an experience of salvation where the Holy Spirit comes in
and we are just that the Spirit comes into you, cleanses you, renews you,
and seals you for the day so you will eventually be saved.
Then you ought to be looking to God with respect.
God says, go fight that army of 10,000 by yourself.
You should say, OK, I don't understand it, but OK.
I may not be able to see the army that surrounds the army that surrounds me.
This is just after Aaron's death.
And Aaron, who might have been the guy, now not the guy.
Moses, who everybody could think would be the guy, now not the guy.
But Joshua, who was young, a young man, now is risen and he'll be the guy.
Because it wasn't Joshua who said, we can't trust the Lord.
Because it wasn't Joshua who said, God's sending us against something we can't handle.
Because it wasn't Joshua who was presumptuous to say,
well, I can go forward and do what God wants me to do even though God doesn't want me to do it.
It was Moses. And Moses is a generation.
And he fails. He makes his mistake, but he disrespected God and was presumptuous.
And that's an actual event that you can read about.
And he, by the way, did not give us the details of how he did that in the story that we just read.
He glosses over the details by which he lost his right to lead them into the promised land.
If you're following along in your Bibles, you can go briefly to 1 Corinthians, Chapter 9.
1 Corinthians, Chapter 9.
One verse and then we'll move on from this point.
1 Corinthians, Chapter 9, Verse 27.
Paul is speaking here. You know who Paul was maybe a little bit.
Paul was an apostle. He was corrected by Jesus, formerly called Saul.
He was the young man who held the garments at Stephen's stoning.
And then later, God corrected him on the road, blinded him for the better part of three days,
and sent Ananias to heal his sight, which he did.
And then Paul began to preach the gospel everywhere he went, first to the Jews and then to everyone.
And then ultimately he was doing it to Gentiles more than to Jews.
And this is what Paul writes.
And it starts with a but in 27, so I'll go back to the beginning of the sentence just so you know I'm speaking fairly.
26 says, Therefore I run in such a way as not without aim.
In other words, I know where I'm going. I know what God is trying to do.
I run my life that way. That's my priority. That's what I'm about.
I start to focus things. I drop things that I don't need.
And I make my life about what God is trying to do.
He says, I box. That means I fight in such a way as not beating the air.
I'm not flailing around, not knowing what I'm supposed to be doing.
My strikes are intentional. My strikes are on purpose for what God is trying to accomplish.
And then in 27, he says, But I buffet my body.
As I beat my body, I control my flesh. And I make it my slave.
I get this body under control.
Lest possibly, after I have preached to others, I myself should be disqualified.
Paul, I do this. I get this me under control.
Who's the I? The soul, the mind, the part of the body that's not the flesh, right?
I get my fingers under control. I get my biceps under control.
I get my hunger under control. I get my entertainment preference under control.
I lust the eyes, lust the flesh, pride of life. I get that under control.
I do whatever it takes to get that under control.
Because I don't want to get to the end of the road and be like, insert Moses, who didn't get the promises.
Now, is he saying that he would arrive at the end of the road and not be saved?
No, he knows he saves. He knows that to live is Christ, to die is gain.
He knows where he's going.
He's saying, I don't want to stand before Jesus and have to say,
look, I missed out on all of this, this fanfare, this great reward,
this great awesomeness that I could have received as promised by God.
I missed out on it because I didn't control this.
God has given you essentially multiple spheres of influence.
And the number one, top of the heap, most important sphere of influence is your vehicle.
It is what you ride in. Get your body under control.
When it wants another snack cake and it doesn't need it,
tell it to shut up and walk away.
When it wants alcohol, when it wants drugs, when it wants sex,
when it wants to walk, you see things that should not or for taking activities, it's just not.
When you want to sleep in when you're supposed to be serving the Lord,
when you're running behind and your heart starts to race, say, shut up.
I'm doing what I got to do.
Get your body under control.
Then you have your immediate sphere of influence, your family, your friends,
the people that you are living with, your job, whatever.
That's your means. Get that under control.
Submit it to the gospel.
I box not like flailing at the air, but my strikes are controlled.
I deal with what's around me. When someone comes against me, I deal with it in a godly way.
I first forgive, then I correct with grace and with salt.
Deal with immediate surroundings.
Then you have the courts, your further reach and how your family can reach and so on.
You deal with that, again, in a way.
We run a race not to lose, but to come where God is trying to take us to.
To do otherwise is to risk losing the blessings of God.
That is exactly what people do.
Now, I'm not challenging anybody. I understand.
Everybody in the world is unique. You're facing your own problems.
I'm going to step on some toes and just be kind of plain and blunt for a minute.
I have a lot of pastor friends.
Friends on Facebook, a couple of Facebook groups I've got.
Friends all over the country. Friends who have come here are missionaries.
Friends who preach in other states.
Friends who were preaching and now they've been fired from their church.
Or they're in search of a new church or at a church, but they're looking to go somewhere else.
I have friends in every situation of ministry.
You want me to tell you what one of the primary things that unites them is that they love Jesus? That's cool.
They preach the word. That's cool.
They're evangelists as much as they know how.
Some of them are actual evangelists telling the good news.
Some of them are trying to be evangelists, trying to witness, share the gospel.
You know what?
80 to 90 percent of them are substantially overweight.
I spend 25 hours a week on my butt.
My step tracker by five o'clock most days has maybe 1,500 steps on it unless I work at the life station that day.
Right?
Arja gets 11,000, 12,000 steps at work. I get 1,500.
See the difference?
Pastors get fat.
You've got to beat your body.
Your flesh wants to eat too much. It wants to drink too much. It wants to indulge.
God gave us these things to enjoy.
That's just an example.
I have sat down and counseled with and talked with people who say I am addicted to drugs or addicted to alcohol or whatever.
I know that there are a couple of addictions that are cellular level addictions.
They are just basically not beaten in this life in a physical fashion.
If God doesn't do a miracle, and again I'm being very plain here, if God does not do a miracle, people do not escape addiction to heroin, alcohol, or nicotine.
If there's not a miracle, those three things are at cellular levels.
And God does do a miracle.
And people get out of them in some cases.
In some cases they begin to follow God because of that.
In some cases they don't understand what happened.
In some cases they do it after they're saved and it's such a miracle.
And they go, okay, God did that, part of the Red Sea for me.
Now I'm not going back.
I know people that have been dead on the operating table and got up and said, I'm living for the Lord for the rest of my life with the cares and the riches of this world.
And five, ten years later, they're not.
They were dead for two, three minutes and they get up and say, God save me.
And the doctors say, I can't believe you're alive.
And they begin to live for the Lord.
And then it's TV and entertainment and food and it's everything.
This world is full of stuff that will suck you in.
And it will fill you up, except it will never fill you up.
You start to feel empty.
You go after it so you feel full, but you're never going to be full.
Moses was saying, listen, for all the walking right there in the face with God that I did, though I was with him all the time, though I believed in him and I trusted him and I even told you don't go when you shouldn't go and go when you should go.
You know, I did all of that.
I missed that blessing on this earth, that moment in time at which to walk into the promised land would be a glorious thing.
I missed that because I didn't keep myself in check.
So keep yourself in check.
The second thing that we see in here is that the strongest and the bravest and all of his or her friends are not enough to do what God has ordained without the presence of the Lord to carry out his plan.
The Israelites looked at those big men and they said, man, big men.
The walls of Jericho.
By the way, nobody could ever conquer that land unless they could get past Jericho.
Jericho was essentially the gatekeeper for the promised land.
Huge city walls, walls that were built thick enough, thick enough, not tall enough.
I'm talking about their 43 tall walls, but they were thick enough that two wagons could pass each other on top of the wall.
Right.
They had been seen so many times and nobody could touch it.
You couldn't get close enough because you get close enough to try to burrow under the wall, which, by the way, even once you got to the wall and started burrowing, you would be doing that for days or weeks to try to get passage.
And that's how they would try to collapse the wall or try to get a tunnel up until men could get inside.
And they couldn't do it because the walls were so thick that wagons, six, eight foot wide wagons could pass each other on top of the walls.
They were running horses on the wall.
Nobody could take Jericho.
They looked up at that rightfully and they said, we can't do that.
We can't do that.
That's crazy, scary stuff.
Plus, they've got a huge standing army of 50,000 soldiers.
We would literally need millions of us and we've got hundreds of thousands, but we don't have millions.
And by the way, you could send me.
We just pile our bodies up at the base of the wall until people could climb.
But it's hard to climb bodies.
People could climb up to the wall and fight.
But by then we would have already lost hundreds of thousands of troops.
We're going to be decimated.
That's what they said.
And without God, they were right.
They would have been decimated because that's what had happened to everybody else who had tried before.
So they were not really unrealistic or unreasonable.
They were completely realistic and completely reasonable, except for one problem.
They forgot the plagues.
They forgot the Red Sea.
They forgot the pillar of fire and cloud.
They forgot the destruction of the chariots.
Those 600 chariots of Pharaoh that rushed into the Red Sea that were destroyed and Pharaoh himself.
That would probably been enough to take out tens of thousands of Israelites.
And at that time, they weren't equipped.
They didn't have weapons.
They didn't have training.
They weren't ready.
So men, women, they had goats.
The most devastating thing an Israeli came out of Egypt with was probably a goat.
Goat horns.
Weapons made out of goat horns.
And here comes the 600 chariots.
They would probably just run a swat and destroy the Israelites.
Instead, they walked through undried land and then the sea destroyed the Israelites.
The strongest and bravest of you and all of your friends are not enough to do what God has ordained
without the presence of the Lord to carry out His plan.
So then they decided they're not going to go because it's completely reasonable and realistic to not go up against Jericho.
Everybody's going to die, right?
And Jerusalem, which is a city they would eventually have to take, was built up on a mountain.
Very defensible, three sides valley.
You couldn't even get up to it.
You had to go over broken terrain, over four miles, up and downhill, over four miles to get up there.
Then they look at it.
After God says to them, you're not trusting me.
You're accusing me.
You're behaving in a presumptuous fashion.
So I'm not going to send you in there now.
I'll send your children in there when they've grown.
They said, oh, no, it's OK.
We got it.
They put their swords and armor on, all hundreds of thousands of their soldiers.
They all get ready to go up because now it's easy.
And this is what we have a tendency to do.
You accuse God of making it hard.
Then after you accuse God of making it hard, you try to do it yourself.
And then you try to do it yourself.
And it is hard.
And you go, see, I told you.
I couldn't do it.
I told you, God, I couldn't do it.
But now you're living on the other side of a line where you've dismissed the blessings of God
because you made it harder than it was, challenged God.
So he withdrew his blessing.
Then you go, I try to do it anyway because now you realize, hey, it's got to be done.
I should have just done it in the first place.
So it's got to be done.
So you try to do it and then God says, but now I'm not busting.
And you say, see, I told you I couldn't do it, God.
And so many people are living their lives in the place of, see, I told you I couldn't do it, God.
It's ridiculous.
We need to repent and turn to God and trust him and let God walk out in us what he wants to do and watch what happens.
Jesus said in John 15, 5, to the disciples who would be filled with God's Holy Spirit, he said, apart from me, you can do nothing.
But you look at yourself and say, what God has made me smart.
I look around this room, I see smart people.
God has made me strong.
I look around this room, I see strong people.
God has made me creative.
I look around this room, I see creative people.
What God has made you, given you skills.
I see mechanics.
I see workers.
I see lifters.
I see walkers.
I see talkers.
What God has made you, when God is in it, what man sees, people look at us and say, oh, you're special.
You're different.
And it flatter you.
All they're doing is saying they don't trust God.
When somebody thinks you're better than them, they're just saying they don't trust God.
Now, that applies to you, too.
When you say somebody else is better than you, they can do it, but I can't.
All you're doing is saying you don't trust God.
If God wants you to do it, you can do it.
That's it.
When I was growing up, my parents used to say to me, you can be anything you want.
I said, I think I want to be president.
My dad was like, you can be president.
He said, if you want to be president, that's what you do.
Go get a legal degree and become a lower level politician, work your way up, you can be president.
Go do this, go do that.
You can be president.
He said, you can be anything you want.
That's not really true.
You can be anything God wants.
And by the way, you don't have to get a law degree.
We've had multiple presidents who have not had law degrees.
We've had two presidents now who didn't have previous careers in politics.
What I'm saying is, if God wants to do it, he can do it.
All you really got to do is figure out what God wants you to do, and then you pit yourself to do what God wants you to do, and then don't stop.
But if you figure out what God wants you to do, and then don't, and say, oh, but God, too hard for me, I'm not going to do it,
then the result of that is going to be, God's not going to do it.
Because God was only doing it for the impact it would have in you, for the blessing it would give you, for the movement in you to move you closer to him, et cetera.
And if that's not going to happen, why should he throw his power in?
Why should he exercise his strength?
Be you. Be ready.
Be weak without him and understand you are weak without him.
But more, be strong and courageous with him.
See, Joshua would get this, wouldn't he?
Joshua 1, 9, be strong and courageous.
That's where he starts at.
He starts with this idea, we need to be strong and courageous in God and do what it is that God would have us to do and let God do through us what he wants to do.
And God will always do more through you than you ever thought you could do.
But if you're facing the challenges, looking at the giants and go, oh, I can't do it, can't do it, can't do it, nobody before me has ever been able to do it.
It's always been so hard for me.
Throwing your hands up, it's ridiculous.
You're presumptuous, like you know what God can do and what he can't.
But what if God sends me up against something and I actually can't do it and I die?
Then it's straight to heaven with God.
Martyrs do it.
Like, okay, I'm going to preach the gospel.
And then you want it burnt at the stake.
Right.
But you go straight to heaven with God.
Did you really lose out there?
I mean, it was a horrible three minute experience.
However long it takes for the fire to actually kill you could be 18 minutes.
Horrible 18 minute experience and then an eternity with God.
Just do what it is that God would have you to do.
The strongest and bravest of us with all of our friends helping all of our armor girded on all of our weapons of war at the ready.
We cannot do what God has ordained for us to do without God's presence.
So that tells me first and foremost, trust God, realize you are truly weakest without him.
And be strong and courageous within him.
And the third thing that's in the text as an overview.
It might be wise for us to realize it is what it is.
It's exactly what it is.
Sometimes there's just no walking it back.
Once you've screwed up, sometimes there's just nothing you can do to fix it.
No prayer, no works of repentance, no undoing the thing you did.
So clearly the teaching is, and it's what Moses is trying to say even already here, don't do it.
I sat with a woman who had betrayed our family.
She had lied.
She's stolen from us.
One of our greatest treasures, one of our children.
Her innocence.
And I said to her, I said, this is wrong.
This is ungodly.
What you have done here is wrong.
This is sin against God and you need to repent.
And she said back to me, well, I knew what I wanted.
I was lonely and I was going to do whatever I had to do to get it.
And besides, I talk to God every night.
And God is going to forgive me for what I've done.
I'm still going to go to heaven.
It's going to be good.
I'm going to be forgiven by God.
And I said, well, within a few months here, we're going to know which one's right and which one's wrong.
Because God is going to do something.
If He loves you, He'll chastise you.
You'll be punished.
You'll be disciplined.
He'll withdraw His blessings.
Something's going to happen.
Within three months, that person was diagnosed with cancer, needed trips to and from Cleveland Clinic for the better part of six months,
and had to be there as many as three or four days a week.
Had no one to get her there.
So guess who took her?
Sherry and I.
A month and a half into that experience, she looked at Sherry and she said, well, why on earth would you do this?
Why would you do this after the way I betrayed you and what I have done?
Why would you forgive me?
And Sherry said, well, God ultimately forgives you.
God forgives us all if we accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.
How could I not forgive you?
He's forgiven me more.
How could I not forgive you?
But the reality is, she said she was going to do what it is that she wanted to do, what she thought she needed to do,
and God was just going to forgive her.
Never, ever, ever let the fact that God will forgive you and take you to heaven when you die
authorize bad behavior here on the earth.
Because there is a reality, you could miss your blessings.
Will you die and not go to heaven?
I think it is a good possibility that if you would intentionally sin regularly against God on this earth
after having been saved, you're probably not saved.
You probably said words, went through the water, committed yourself in front of people,
and not living as a saved Christian if you would continue to not follow.
John said, those who love me will follow my commands.
Jesus said, those who love me will follow my commands.
And John wrote that those who love him or those who have him as Lord will do what he says.
So you're going to do what it is that God wants you to do.
And don't do that which you can't walk back.
And there are times, and I submit to you, you'll know that time when it's coming
because you'll be behaving presumptuously.
You'll be saying, well, God's going to do, and you'll just think it's no big deal.
Or you'll be behaving aggressively toward God and you'll be saying,
well, God brought me here, He made me this way, He's the one who did it, right?
And you'll be blaming Him.
Or you'll be saying, but God's sending me up against something that's absolutely ridiculously hard to defeat.
How can I possibly do this?
So I'm just not going to do it.
It'll be like that.
Sometimes it is what it is.
There's just no walking it back, no prayer, no works of repentance.
They begged God.
They even went up into the promised land and lost tens of thousands,
over 10,000 lives as soldiers because they were trying to do what it is
that God wanted them to do after God already told them don't do it,
after He already told them that He'd withdrawn His blessing.
Moses begged God for forgiveness.
He begged him, please.
And no, God didn't forgive him.
Your sweet offerings to the Lord, your love toward God will not be so sweet or so loving
after you look at God and say, I'm the boss.
Once you look at God and say, I'm the boss, if you would do that, maybe you're not saved.
And if you are saved and you would still do that, don't expect Him to let you walk that back.
Then you may have to be faithful to God for the rest of your life,
without Him blessing all the things that you would have otherwise blessed.
Don't do it.
That brings us to our conclusion.
Real quick, just let me hit it.
Number one, this is right after Aaron's death, and Moses was reminding them that
no matter who you think I am, face to face with God all the time or whatever,
but because of my disrespect to God, I don't get to go in.
Don't be like me.
Don't be like Aaron.
You be like you following God.
Secondly, the strongest and the bravest of us, with all of our friends,
will not be enough to do what God has ordained without His presence in us to do it.
We need God.
You need Him daily, so if He's telling you read your Bible, you read your Bible every day,
multiple times a day.
If you need His presence in such a way in understanding who He is,
read it before you eat, read it before you sleep, read it before you work,
read it before you wash up, read it before you put a band-aid on your cut.
Make God the most important thing in your life.
Beat your body and get it under control.
Stop eating too much, stop staying up too late, stop running behind,
stop making excuses, stop getting afraid, stop acting anxious,
stop the whole, my heart's beating, my palms are sweating, my mouth's full of cotton,
because you think you're being asked by God to do something that you cannot do
and just do what you're asked to do.
Because sometimes it is what it is, and there's no walking it back.
No prayer, no works of repentance, nothing.
So don't do it.
Don't refuse Christ.
Don't sin against the living God intentionally.
Don't disrespect God.
Don't call God a liar.
Don't act presumptuously.
By way of conclusion, we're going to look at 1 John,
we're going to look at chapter 5, beginning of verse 16,
1 John 5, 16.
Let's look forward to the back of the New Testament.
1 John 5, 16.
These are two of the most difficult, difficult verses in the world for some folks.
1 John 5, 16.
It says this,
If anyone sees his brother committing a sin not leading to death,
he shall ask, and God will for him give life to those who commit sin not leading to death.
We should pray forgiveness, we should pray intervening for those that we see who are in sin that does not lead to death.
There is a sin leading to death.
I do not say that he should make requests for this.
When you see somebody who's committing a sin that does lead to death,
we don't need to pray for them, because there's no walking that back.
There's no undoing it.
This is a real struggle for folks, because is it saying that Christians can sin to the point that they never go to heaven?
No, it's not saying that, is it?
That would be contrary to so much other scripture.
That's not the case.
Is it saying that there are those who commit sins that they, it kills them.
Like instantly God's going to go, man, that's it, I'm done with you, and they take them home.
Well, it happened to Ananias and Sapphira when they lied Peter in the New Testament, right?
So it could be saying that, but there's only one instance of that really.
There's not very many cases that we hear about that at all.
What it's saying is, you want to live for the Lord,
and there's a moment in time at which a brother could be getting into a sin
that is essentially going to stop them from living for the Lord for the rest of their life.
And if they choose to go that route, there's really about nothing you can do about it.
But if you see them getting into sin, and you realize, I mean, it could be leading there,
but it's not there yet, you better be lifting them up.
And that brother will be spared because other brothers were lifting them up.
That's what it's saying.
See, who was praying for Moses?
Who would stop Moses from committing the sin that made it so he couldn't go into the promised land?
Who was praying for the Israelites?
I mean, they had the tabernacle. They were making sacrifices.
They were asking God for forgiveness.
There may be forgiveness for your sins,
but there's also a trap that the enemy wants to take you into
where you will not be able to live for him anymore.
Don't go there.
You know some things you can do, and you know some things you can't.
Don't do the things you can't, and do the things you can.
And when God sends you up against something that looks too big for you,
you just say, Lord, I don't understand it.
But if you want to do this, then let's do it.
And God will help you to overcome your addictions,
and he'll help you overcome your laziness.
He'll help you overcome your distracted nature.
He'll help you overcome whatever it is that's pulling you down
so that you can win the race and have an abundant life now
and an eternal life with him then.
Jesus didn't just come so we can go to heaven.
That's a gospel that people preach, and it's just flat out wrong.
He did not just come so we can go to heaven.
He said, I came that you may have life and have it more abundant.
It's time we got up over our flesh.
It's time we got up over our bodies and our temptations,
and it's time we got up over our fear
and just started doing what it is that God would have us to do.
And you're able.
Don't be presumptuous.
Don't go, well, I guess God is going to make me president.
I had a young man who had just become a Christian two months in.
He said, God told me, beyond a shadow of a doubt,
I'm going to win American Idol and become a millionaire.
And I said, are you sure?
He said, it seems a little bit presumptuous.
I said, maybe he told you go and compete, and then you can pray.
And maybe it could be.
And I'm not saying he didn't.
I said, but I'd be awful sure, you know,
because otherwise you'd be a little bit presumptuous.
I'd be awful sure.
And he said, no, I know for a fact.
God told me.
And I said, all right, well, I'm going to join you in prayer.
Let's get this done.
Then if you're sure, if you're positive, let's get this done.
And he never even went and tried out.
Now, I don't know why he didn't go and try out for sure.
I can't speak to his mindset.
But he came to me and he said he knew God was going to do it.
So either God was going to do it, and he decided he just wasn't going to do it.
Or God was never going to do it.
But either way, he was wrong.
And it's easy to do.
Don't.
Listen to the Lord and do what it is that God would have you to do.
Let nothing turn you back, even if it kills you.
Beat your body.
Not literally beat yourself up, but submit your body to the plan of God.
Get the sleep you need.
Eat right.
Drink a lot of water.
Not so much that it makes you sick, but enough.
Work.
It's our plan to work every day.
But I get days off. I don't have to work on my days off.
You can have a Sabbath, a 24-hour period where you don't work.
And other than that, for six days you're supposed to work.
Every day. Even on your day off.
Waiting until you own a house. You understand what I'm saying?
God can do it, and we can't do it without him.
So let us trust him.
Not presumptuously, but let us trust him.
And he'll do it.
If you're here today and you've not accepted Jesus Christ as Lord,
that means he tells you what to do, and you do it,
then some of that doesn't really make sense to you.
But that's how you get saved.
You accept Jesus Christ as Lord, then he tells you what to do, and you do that.
And then he paid the price on the cross for your sins.
That's Savior. You accept him as Lord and Savior.
And admit that God raised you from the dead on the third day.
Cry out to him, and he'll save you right now.
And if he already has, then this is the way you're supposed to be living.
Don't live like Moses living.
Whoa! Watch out! That's heretical.
Because look at all that he did.
But then, God was not pleased with him.
Don't live like that.
Do a lot, but keep control in the Lord.
Keep it in the Lord, and don't be presumptuous and don't attack God,
but submit to God.
I'm going to say a very brief prayer at this time,
and then we're going to ask the praise team to come and lead us,
and we're going to impose out our service today.
The final song that we'll have would be,
it's a hymn of invitation, meaning it's your opportunity
to let us know if you've made a decision today.
It's your opportunity to say, okay, God, I hear you,
and I'm going to do what it is that you've called me to.
Or your opportunity to confess to the Lord.
You realize that you have sinned against him,
and you need his forgiveness.
Or whatever else it might be.
Father in heaven, as we sing this final song,
I ask your Spirit to move in this place.
I ask your forgiveness, Lord.
The truth is, we know we've sinned against you, even after being saved.
This is not about because we've sinned against you after being saved
that we could lose our salvation.
We know the Bible also says that we have an advocate in heaven,
who is Jesus Christ.
Hebrews says that our high priest stands at your right hand every day
making intercession for us, and it is that ongoing savior,
that Lord and savior, who's always there for us,
that keeps us from dying to our sin once and for all and going to hell.
And we are grateful for that.
Lord, please govern us.
Please teach us the way to go,
so we know not to do things that disrespect you,
that are presumptuous towards you,
that says we know better than you do,
or hateful towards you,
thinking you've brought us to a place where we can't do
what is it you said you want to do through us.
That's a lie.
And we don't ever want to believe it.
Lord, do mighty things through us.
Part Red Sea, send clouds of fire,
or pillars of fire and pillars of cloud.
Destroy armies of enemies, not physical human enemies,
because those aren't our enemies.
Rock the demons and the evil spirits.
Cast out Satan.
Truly set us free to be the people that we can be.
And I pray all this in Jesus' name. Amen.
Ask the praise team to come forward.
As we sing this song,
if the Lord has laid something on your heart today,
either you're accepting Jesus for the first time,
or maybe, depending on the sin,
or whatever else it might be,
if you've done that,
then you just let us know during the song.
You can speak from where you are,
or you can walk up here if you want,
if you want,
and I'll pray with you before you
and hope to answer that response of the Lord
and be as he sees fit, especially as we sing.
Could you stand with us and sing this song,
which has the great message,
I surrender all, turn it over to God today.
He can take you places that you want to be.
All to Jesus Christ, I surrender all, to Him I freely give.
His presence is everywhere, I surrender all,
to Jesus Christ, I surrender all, to Him I freely give.
All to Jesus, I surrender all, to Him I freely give.
Holy Spirit, true enough that thou art mine,
I surrender all, I surrender all,
all to me, my blessed Savior, I surrender all.
We'll sing one more verse,
make this your prayer to God today.
All to Jesus Christ, I surrender all,
I give myself to thee, fill me with thy love and power,
bless and blessing, follow me, I surrender all, I surrender all,
all to thee, my blessed Savior, I surrender all.
I'll sing it this time.