In the sermon 'Seven Ways God Leads His People' by Scott Brown, the book of Deuteronomy is used as a framework to understand the journey of the Israelites as a reflection of our own spiritual journeys. Brown emphasizes that everyone is on a journey filled with fears, trials, and tribulations, much like the children of Israel. He recounts how God tested and blessed His people despite their failings and how this narrative serves as an example for us. The sermon outlines seven ways God leads His people: calling them out of fear into obedience and victory, granting gifts beyond expectations, leading them into battles, fighting for them, allowing consequences of sin, lifting their eyes to future promises, and providing meaningful work. Brown underscores the importance of recognizing 'practice giants'—trials that prepare us for greater challenges—and encourages believers to see themselves in the scriptural narrative. The sermon also highlights the importance of historical reflection, understanding the past, and seeing Christ in Old Testament stories as a means to strengthen faith and obedience.

I trust that it is a great pleasure for all of us to open the book of Deuteronomy and enter into the counsels of the Lord regarding the journey of the children of Israel. But it's there really for only one reason, and that is to help us understand our own journey. Everyone here is on a journey, everyone here is in transition, everyone here has fears and trials and tribulations and sins and baggage, and we're just like the children of Israel. And so this testimony before us, I hope you can taste the sweetness of it. I hope that we'll all together learn the lessons that God has for us as we look at the children of Israel.

Their lives are there for us. And so here in Deuteronomy chapter 3, Moses is recounting God's testing his people, the blessings, the sins, the instructions of his people that he loves on their heavenly journey. And in spite of the smoke and the fire and the falling down, God is faithful. He upholds His people. That's for you.

That's for me. We need to understand that with all of our hearts. This here is a 40-year journey being recounted as they're on their way to possess the land. We too are on a similar journey to possess the land. There's not one single moment of this life where the will of God in Christ Jesus is not working with you and for you.

Right now as you contemplate what's here in this text of scripture and then compare it to your own life and think it through in terms of your own experience, You need to understand this one thing that right now, right now, this moment is the center of God's will. He's with you every step of the way, every nanosecond of the time of the way. He knows your thoughts before you have them and your steps before you take them. He is with His people on their heavenly journey. That's one thing we learned about this heavenly journey.

And that heavenly journey is given to us so that we would understand our own better than we could on our own. Being at the center of God's will doesn't mean that you've finally got it. Being at the center of God's will doesn't mean that you've finally shed all of your sins that have been plaguing you all your life and now you finally made that final decision and now you are in the center of God's will. No, that's not how it works at all. The center of God's will is where you are at this moment in time, wherever that might be, as it was with the children of Israel.

In the midst of being in the center of God's will, there are all the things that we find here in Deuteronomy chapter 3 and Deuteronomy 2 and Deuteronomy 1. And trials and the temptations are the places of the center of the will of God. I was struck this week as one of the members of my family was severely tested, and this member of my family passed the test. It reminded me though of the difficulty of tests, the passings of them and the failings of them, because we have both. This poem that has been a help and a comfort to me all my life.

I think it does picture much of what we see here in this testimony of the children of Israel moving toward the promised land, author unknown. When God wants to drill a man and thrill a man and skill a man, when God wants to mold a man to play the noblest part, when he yearns with all his heart to create so great and bold a man that all the world shall be amazed. Watch his methods, watch his ways, how he ruthlessly perfects whom he royally elects. How he hammers him and hurts him, and with mighty blows converts him into trial shapes of clay, which only God understands. While his tortured heart is crying and he lifts beseeching hands, how he bends but never breaks when his good he undertakes, How he uses whom he chooses, and with every purpose fuses him, by every act induces him to try his splendor out.

God knows what he's about. Well, in these first four chapters of Deuteronomy, this is what we see. We see the trials and the tribulations and the tests and the lessons learned from wilderness wanderings and the failures and the sins and the victories. We are in a moment in this narrative of victory where God's people have obeyed at one juncture after another. It's one of the most encouraging two chapters of scripture, I think, where you find two entire chapters of scripture where God's people are faithful.

It's absolutely remarkable. And what's so important for us when we read Deuteronomy or any other of the Old Testament books is that all these things here are for our example. All of the Old Testament is an example for us. These are not just dead historical narratives. These are for us.

And so every time we read them we should look for two things, ourselves and the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what we look for. Because they are examples for us, and they also are pictures of the goodness and the faithfulness of Jesus Christ. All throughout Deuteronomy, we'll constantly be going back to these two things. Where am I here in this story?

And then, what does it say about Christ in this story? Those are always the two things that we'll need to do as we interpret this story here. In Romans 15, verse 4, it says that these things were written that we might have hope. In 1 Corinthians 10, it says that these things were written so that we would not lust after evil things and become idolaters like they were in the wilderness. In 2nd Peter chapter 2 verse 6, it says that these are an example for those who would live ungodly to be a warning to them, to show them the dangers and the travails that await those who would step out of the pathway of the king's highway.

In Jude chapter 1 verse 7 it says that these things were written as an example of suffering and the vengeance of eternal fire. So these stories not only tell us the story of our lives, they warn us where not to go. And so this is the theme here. The theme always comes to us personally and to us as a vision of Jesus Christ, and in the midst of that to help us to understand our own heavenly journey. So that's the theme.

If you have an outline in front of you, you'll see this is the first item that I wanted to speak about before we dive into the text. And then secondly, as we consider chapter three here, we need to understand how it fits in the grand scheme of this speech. We've just read one small portion of this speech that spans four chapters. And what we find here in the first four chapters in this first speech, the first speech of three speeches in Deuteronomy, is that God is bringing his people back to understand their history, to help them understand who they are and where they've been and what is on the table in terms of the lives that they're living. The children of Israel needed to understand history, and so do we.

God's people are people who must look back and learn from the past and go forward. We're not like postmoderns who say the past means nothing. The only thing that matters is today and tomorrow. No, that's not what a Christian does. He looks back and finds wisdom and strength from the past.

Moses is reminding them of 38 years that began with their deliverance from Egypt, from bondage, from Pharaoh, from sin, from death, from certain destruction. And he takes them and delivers them and puts them on a journey to the promised land. And they come right up to the promised land at Kadesh Barnea, send in 12 spies. And their hearts are filled with fear, and they disobey. And Deuteronomy 1 through 4 recounts this journey.

And it's given in the last month of Moses' life, when Moses is 120 years old. And so Deuteronomy is composed of these three speeches that were given on the east side of the Jordan River. These features are given right after the defeat of Og of Bation, which we just read about here in chapter 3. And the people in the congregation started with Moses when they were 19 years old, when Joshua and Caleb went into the promised land. Now they are 57 years old.

38 years plus 19. These people are 57 years old. And there they are at the front end of the promised land. So what I'd like to do is go back to chapter one and work our way through again, just so we can see the overall message. It's important that we understand the context.

It is important to understand the verse and the chapter, but it helps us to see the whole speech as one. And we'll continue to remind of this speech and what's there. First of all, in chapter 1, verses 1 through 18, is an explanation of the faithfulness of God. God in His fatherly kindness toward His people pours out blessings. This is the first element of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

There is a God in heaven who loves and cares for his people. He cares for them marvelously. He calls his people to sit under the shadow of his wings and to be blessed there. In these first 18 verses, we see that God has given His people a sufficient testimony. He's given them something to live by, a word of God.

And then He gives them a genuine relationship. It's a heart relationship that is pictured all over the Old Testament. But God desires his people to have a personal and intimate love connection with him from the heart. And then he gives them a providential history. He gives them a history that he's in control of.

In other words, your history is not careening out of control. God is in control of your history, and therefore we should not fear. He gives us a promised land, and He gives us a multiplied generation. And then He gives us a good government. Those are the blessings of God that we read about in the first 18 verses of chapter 1.

It's the first element of the Gospel, the love and the goodness of God, His faithful fatherly care toward His people. That's the first element of this speech. Then we move into the next element of this speech beginning in verse 19 in which we see the depravity of man. And we see first of all this depravity expressed in a reasoned rebellion. Rebellion always has its reasons.

When the children of Israel were at the opening of the promised land after sending in the twelve spies, they had several reasons why they couldn't go in. We always do that. We always have reasons why we disobey. They're rational, they're socially acceptable, and we like them, and we follow them instead of the will of the Lord. When we find ourselves fearing obedience, we have this as an example of people who had a reasoned rebellion.

And then there's a demonstration of heartfelt unbelief. Then there is a revealing of the punishments of God for sin. And then there is an instance of false repentance. People cry, they weep, but they haven't really repented in their hearts. And it exposes this false repentance that we find in ourselves and in others, where we might be sorry for our sins, but we've not hated our sins.

We still want to go our own way. And then the resulting tears of regret that follow those who would rebel. So the first 19 verses, the love and the mercy of God. Second, the sinfulness of sin and the rebellion of man and the devastating consequences and the duplicity and the hypocrisy that there is in rebellion and how it's always so well reasoned out. And then we come to chapter 2 and we find the instructions of God concerning the Moabites and the Ammonites and the Edomites.

There are four encounters here, encounters with four people in chapter 2. And here we come to, in many ways, sort of a break in the tone. There's an explanation for two long chapters about how God's people were faithful, how they listened to him. They did what he asked them to do. They faced hostile people who hated them, the Edomites and the Moabites and the Ammonites and then Sihon.

And then what we find here is that there are a number of lessons in these encounters with these foreign peoples. Lessons concerning the Edomites, do not meddle, the Lord is your keeper. Don't meddle with these people, be a blessing to them. Instructions concerning the Moabites and the Ammonites, the descendants of Lot, it helps us to understand what we should do when we want what does not belong to us. God has given a land to these people.

We want it that God says no you cannot touch what is not yours. And then instruction concerning Sihon, King of Heshbon, where we learn that God will raise up battle whenever and with whomever He desires. And here we find that God is faithful to His people, and His people are faithful to their God. And so we find these encounters with these nations. And now in chapter 3, we find a continuation of these encounters that God has bring to his people.

God has brought many encounters to us to sharpen us and to help us to know his will and to find ourselves faithful to him. And so here in chapter 3, we come to some really sharp contrasts. I don't know if you noticed this when we were reading it, but Deuteronomy 3, it begins in the valley of dust and blood and a vicious attack from a pagan nation. And it ends with Moses standing on the top of the hill seeing the promises of God. I think that's a beautiful picture of what it is like for us very often.

We find ourselves in the middle of the smoke and the blood and the battle, but we always have to remember the mountain. That vision that God has cast is a true vision. He will take us. He will take us there in the midst of whatever calamities that might befall us. And so here we have a story of obedience and victory, A message in the valley, do not fear man, but fear God alone, for he has secured your victory.

So here we find God is leading his people, but how does it work? What does it look like when God is leading you? And Here we find God demonstrating His intentions, His ways. Watch His methods. Watch His ways, how He ruthlessly perfects whom He royally elects.

That's what we see here in this passage. So let's look at it. Let's take these seven sections that I've identified in this, seven ways that God leads his people and seven ways that God leads you and me. Remember, you have to see yourself here or it has no value for us today. So seven ways.

First of all, in this story of the defeat of Og, king of Vashon, he calls us out of fear into obedience and on to victory. This is what God does. And Og is one of the great giants in the Bible. I like Ogdenvation. He has a gigantic bed.

He has a great name. And God is the King that he didn't think he had. And he was a practice giant. They were practicing. OK, God sends this practice giant so that they would know how to deal with the giants in the land.

How many practice giants are being sent to you right now? You have a practice giant in your life right now. There's a challenge, there's a trial, there's a sin. There's something here to test you. There's a calamity.

It's a practice giant. God does this. He's preparing you for great things. Don't despise the practice giants that show up. They have many faces.

They have many, many faces. Sometimes they come in the face of a friend or a foe. Sometimes they come in the face of a government or some other situation. But you have many practice giants in your life. Here what we find, this practice giant attacks the people of God.

In verse 1 we see that, We turned and went up the road to Bation. We're just going down the road. And what happens? They're attacked while they're going down the road. That happens, doesn't it?

You're just going on your merry little way in life, and all of a sudden, wham, a practice giant pops up right in front of you. And what will you do with that practice giant? Well, here's what the people of Israel did. They said, Lord, what would you have us do? And the Lord said, attack him and kill him and utterly destroy them.

Then that's exactly what they did. Here we find sort of an example of what many call the theory of just war. What is a theory of just war? The first element of a theory of just war is that war is just when you are attacked and you defend yourself. Those kinds of wars are just.

Theologians have picked up this theme throughout the Bible and developed it, that there are reasons to go to war. Just war theory implies that there are certain moral and legal principles that operate in time of war. You know, the New Testament and the Old Testament records wars, some of which God commanded or assisted in. And Deuteronomy 1 through 4 has a mixed testimony about war. There's a forbidding of going to war in Deuteronomy 1 through 4.

And there's also a command to go to war under certain circumstances. God even allows his people to become prisoners of war. Ecclesiastes says that there is a time for war and a time for peace. Of course, God's ultimate goal that he will accomplish in his own time is world peace. I don't think it will be accomplished by man's means.

God will have to do this by his own power. But is there a just cause for a war? And then what are the rules? Well, there's more about that later on in the book of Deuteronomy, but just mark this play as one data point in the theory of just war. When attacked by a practice giant, remember the promises of God.

I will never leave you or forsake you. He will give you no more than you are able to handle. We could list many of the promises of God now, but when attacked by a practice giant, you always have to remind yourself of the promises of God. When attacked, remember the power of God. The Lord delivers.

The command is not to fear, in verse 2. Do you see it? And the Lord said to me, do not fear him, for I have delivered him in all his people and his land into your hand. This command in verse 2 should always be seen in the light of verse 11, okay? Do you see that?

The command do not fear, But what are we not fearing? The attack of the giant of a man. But God knows something that the children of Israel don't know. He's just a practice giant. He will fall, his big old long frame is on the way down.

You don't know that, but God knows that. Do not fear is the overarching command for when the practice giants show up in your life. This command is seen all over scripture. The fear of man is a snare, but the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Proverbs chapter 3, we are urged, do not be afraid of sudden disaster, nor of the ruin that overtakes the wicked, for the Lord will be your confidence, and he will see that your foot will not slip.

There's this presentation of fear, the issue of fear. Do not fear Him, yet place your confidence in God. That's the principle that we see here. It begs the question, what has come out against you that would cause you to fear? What is it?

Name it. Name it in your own soul. Name your fears. Name them one by one. Name your fears and see what God will do.

That's really what we should be doing. It's appropriate to name your fears. I think it's often very helpful. Here's what I'm afraid of. And then set those fears in light of all the promises of God and then we can see them in their proper light.

There's never been a man or a woman who did not fear. We will continue to fear. We believe in the sovereignty of God, don't we? Don't we all believe in the sovereignty of God? Yes, We certainly do.

If we were writing a paper on it or giving a speech on it, we would speak so glowingly. But yet, the real battleground for the sovereignty of God happens every day in life, when I'm afraid for the job that I have, or the money that I don't have, or the physical problem that I have or that I fear. This is where the doctrine of the sovereignty of God is tested in everyday life. We can speak about it so glowingly, but we all need to be honest. We face this giant every day.

Every day. I do. I face this giant every single day to apply the doctrine of the sovereignty of God in the midst of all the things that are going on. Now, there's a command to completely destroy these people. Look at the word utterly destroy in verse 6.

Let's make this very clear. These weren't like your neighbors next to you, okay? These were despicable people. They were not innocent. Their wickedness was beyond imagination.

They were taking their babies and burning them on the fires, okay? They were destroying relationships. They were destroying life. And it was a terrible situation. God in His wisdom desired to wipe them off the face of the earth.

God does do this. This may not be the happy God that you would like for there to be. This is the God who destroys evil and he even at one point destroyed everyone that ate people on the face of the earth with a flood. He destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. The Bible says that the earth was crying out, it was languishing over the sin that was afflicting it.

And that was the same thing that was happening here. These were wicked and very despicable people. And God stopped the sin. He completely wiped it out in the same way that He did with Sihon. Every once in a while, God does this, and he did it here.

But the promise for this deliverance is this. The Lord our God has delivered us. Now, there's no comprehensive, specific command for God's people to destroy all the nations or destroy the ungodly neighbors that they have. That's not the point of this passage. That's the wrong interpretation.

This was a judicial act against a people devoid of the knowledge of God and the love of God. And God in his wisdom wiped this people off the face of the earth through this engagement. Og of Bation. It was an act of obedience and it was God who secured their victory. Verse 3, so the Lord our God also delivered into our hands, Og, king of Bation, with all his people.

So it was the Lord's work, it was the Lord's success. This is the point of the matter. It was a trial case where they would do to Og the same thing they did to Sihon. God brought them Sihon, they came to Sihon with peace, and Sihon attacked them, and God told them to destroy them, and they did. And then now they are attacked blindly, and God tells them what to do.

He's calling them out of fear and into obedience in this defeat of augubation. And then we come to the second way that God leads his people that's revealed here. First of all, he calls them out of fear and obedience and leads them on to victory. It's his victory. And then secondly, he gives gifts beyond our expectations.

This is demonstrated in the distribution of the land between the two and one half tribes in verses 12 through 20. So here we find this divvying up of this portion of the land that was previously not promised. This is an added blessing. This is more than God had promised. It was a gift from the Lord beyond what he had already determined.

It reminds me of Paul's prayer in Ephesians, now to him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly beyond all we ask or think. Here we see this principle that God outperforms on his promises. This is what God does. He gives us more, as he did with these people. Notice the goodness of the land?

Goodness in two ways. It was inherently good. It was fertile land. These who would occupy this land were herders and they needed good land that produced lots of good grass. But it was a beautiful fertile land on the one hand.

And it was also good in the sense that they wanted it. They desired it and God gave it to them. So there's this idea of its inherent desirability, but also its desirability in the hearts of the people. Is it appropriate to pray for desirable land? Yes, it is.

And God gives this land to them. In this section there are eight verses here, nine times, nine times you run into the words gave, give, or given, and God is the one doing it. God is giving, it's a gift. Think of all the gifts that God has given you that are beyond what you ever thought. My supposition is that you're surrounded by blessings you never expected that God has laid upon you, even blessings you never asked for.

Or how about blessings that you did ask for? You saw that good soil, You prayed, you cried out to God, and He gave. He gave to you. In some ways, it's like that. But here we find God continuing in His fatherly kindness.

You know, the themes of the Pentateuch constantly are brought up, as they are right here. God is making himself a people. He's giving his people a land. He's making a covenant with them for their salvation. He gives them worship, a way to cry out to God.

He gives them atonement he provides for them. This scene here is spoken of in the Psalms, by the way. In Psalm 135, we read, Praise the Lord, praise the name of the Lord, praise him, O you servants of the Lord, who stand in the house of the Lord, in the courts of the house of your God, Praise the Lord, for the Lord is good. Sing praises to his name. It is pleasant, for the Lord has chosen Jacob for himself, Israel for a special treasure." And then he says this.

The psalmist goes back to this moment. He goes back 400 years and refers to this moment, this very situation. Verse 10 in Psalm 135, and he defeated many nations and slew mighty kings. Sihon the king of the Amorites, Og the king of Bation, and all the kingdoms of Canaan, and gave their land as a heritage, a heritage to Israel his people. Your name, O Lord, endures forever.

Your name, O Lord, throughout all generations. For the Lord will judge his people, and he will have compassion on his servants. The point of this Psalm is to praise God for the heritage that he gives his people. And he's harkening back to the heritage of the land. God gives his people a land.

Here, the promised land, It is a real land with real boundaries, but it's more than that for us. It's a picture of the real land that God has given us in heaven. It's a heritage. This is our heritage. The Lord is your inheritance.

Heaven is your final dwelling place. It's prepared in heaven for you. The Lord Jesus said, Behold, I go and prepare a place for you. That is our inheritance. There is a land and a home for us in heaven.

And this land is just a symbol, a picture of it, for his people. In Psalm 136, The same kind of logic is found. It's the mercy of God who gives Og, king of Bation, to his people and the land that he possesses there. So God is blessing his people by giving gifts beyond their expectations. I mean, think of that.

What are the gifts beyond your expectations? Here's a suggestion. When you go home today, sit down as a family and answer this question. What are the blessings from heaven that are far beyond anything that we've ever asked. And what are the blessings that we desire?

That God has given us. This is the principle that's here in your heavenly journey. In your heavenly journey there will be these things that you never asked for and there will be these things that you did. He will give you some of them. And then thirdly, we find the next way that God leads his people.

He leads us into battle. He leads us into the battle. And we find this in his command, a crossover and fight. God leads his people into battle. That's the point.

Don't think for a minute that the Christian life was ever designed to be a battle-free life. Christians today want a battle-free life. They want Prozac. They want something to take away all of their internal conflicts and external conflicts. But God deals with his people more kindly than that.

He gives them battles and pressures that would sanctify them, that would bless them, that would help them, that would take them out of their old way of life. And he speaks here of this battle, but in the same breath, He speaks of the rest, that there will be battle, but then there will be rest. You see that in this verse here. He is speaking of the command to go and then possess, and then that there will be a battle, and then there will be rest. And The rest theme is clearly picked up in the New Testament.

But Deuteronomy speaks of the rest here. We also see it in Deuteronomy chapter 12, where there's the rest after the battle and the offerings and the rejoicings of the families gathering together to worship God. And a picture of worship is painted in Deuteronomy chapter 12. The phrase is used a number of times in Deuteronomy and in Joshua. But the writer of Hebrews picks up the same theme and he talks about rest.

He says that there's a promise that remains for entering his rest, that we who have believed enter into that rest. And it's his rest, it's a beautiful rest, it's not your own rest, it's not like taking a nap, it's way better than that. It's his rest. And he says in verse 8 of Hebrews chapter 4, for if Joshua had given them rest, then he would not afterward have spoken of another day. There remains therefore a rest for the people of God.

For he who has entered into his rest has himself also seek from his works as God did from his. Therefore, let us be diligent to enter that rest, lest anyone fall according to the same example of disobedience." So this rest that's spoken of right here in Deuteronomy chapter 3 is a foretelling of the rest of Christ, of the rest of the blessings, of the fullness of the Holy Spirit and the atonement and the blood of Jesus Christ. There is rest in entering in to covenant with God through a covenant of his blood that he would come and cleanse his people of all of their sins and he would bring them into fellowship with them. This is the rest that he's speaking of here that's foretold in these verses here in Deuteronomy chapter 3. Notice also it was men of valor.

I just want to make note of this before we move on to the next point. Verse 18, all you men of valor, all you men of valor shall cross over armed before your brethren, the children of Israel. We have two kinds of men here in this room. We have young men and we have older men, right? But men of valor are an important category.

What kind of men are we? What kind of men are there at Hope Baptist? What kind of six-year-old young men are there? Eight, ten, you who are nine years old. I mean, are you a man of valor?

If you're nine today, You need to have this as a category in your mind, that God would make you a man of valor, a man well armed. There's not a boy in the world who doesn't love a sword or a knife or a fire. Why is that in the heart of young men? I think It's because they are wired to be men of valor. But everything in the culture tries to make them pansies.

But here we find men of valor. You know, what a blessing it is to have a category place before you like this and say, that's what I want. I want to be that kind of man. I want to be a man of valor in my heart, and I'm well armed, and I'm ready, go do the will of the Lord. That's the kind of man that's pictured here.

I pray that God would just give us a bumper crop of seven, eight, nine-year-olds, 15, 20, 35, 56-year-olds who are men of valor, that we would go into the land and take it. So God leads his people, just to review, he leads his people by calling them out of fear and out of obedience and into his own victory. And then he gives gifts beyond their expectations. And he engages them in battle. And then next, he fights for us.

He fights for us. That's the fourth way that God leads His people. He fights for us, verses 21 to 22. The key phrase is in verse 22. You must not fear them, for the Lord your God Himself fights for you.

He fights for us and He demonstrates His glory. You may not think it true, but right now, God Almighty is fighting for you. The Lord fights for his people, and he's doing business with the attackers that are there. So remember that the Lord is fighting with you. This term, this phrase, the Lord fights for you, is a precious, precious phrase.

And it's used all over the Pentateuch. In Exodus 14, the Egyptian army is rumbling down the road to come and destroy the children of Israel. They're backed up against the Red Sea. They have nowhere to go. There's no humanly possible way to get out of this jam, which is a beautiful parable for us.

And God speaks through Moses, and he stands there at the edge of the Red Sea, and he says, Children of Israel, the Lord will fight for you. And he says, do not be afraid, stand still, see the salvation of the Lord which he will accomplish for you today. For the Egyptians whom you see today, you shall see again no more forever. The Lord will fight for you and you shall hold your peace." I just pray that we'll take that and internalize it for those armies pounding down against us as well. We see the phrase, Kadesh Barnea, when they sinned against the Lord.

We see it in chapter 31 at the end of Moses' last speech. He says it again. He says, the Lord will fight for you. Does your father ever repeat himself, children? Well, this father in heaven is repeating himself.

And he's saying, the Lord will fight for you. The Lord will fight for you. I think that fathers should repeat that over and over again to their children. They should be just like their Heavenly Father. I hope your Father repeats himself many, many times.

Instead of saying, oh, Dad, you've said that over and over again, relish it. Take it in, just like you would with your Heavenly Father, who says, the Lord will fight for you, the Lord will fight for you, the Lord will fight for you. And he says it over and over again, and he won't quit saying it all the days of your life. Why? Because you need to hear that.

That's why. But here we find the Lord is fighting for his people. He says this, Your eyes have seen all that the Lord has done to these two kings. Your eyes have seen. Past experiences are a lesson for us.

So here's the question, what have you seen? What have you seen God do? And what does it mean for you today? Your eyes have seen enough, I hope, to know that God is kind and good. And then we come to the next way that God leads his people.

Not only does he fight for us, but he allows some of the consequences of sin to come upon us. Now, this is a very sobering part of this story. He allows some of the consequences of sin to come upon us. Moses makes a request and it's denied. He is pleading with the Lord.

Verse 23, do you see this? I pleaded with the Lord at that time. Oh Lord! And he begins to praise God. His heart is right.

And he says, Oh Lord, you begin to show your servant your greatness in your mighty hand, for when God is there in heaven or on earth, and who can do anything like your works and your mighty deeds, I pray let me cross over and see the good land beyond the Jordan, those pleasant mountains and Lebanon. But the Lord was angry with me on your account and would not listen to me. So the Lord said to me, enough of that. Speak no more to me of this matter." And so, Moses is calling back 40 years before, when in the wilderness wanderings, at least sometime during that 40 years, the people had run out of water, And God told Moses to go speak to the Rock. And he was angry because of the rebellion of the people, which happens to us.

The behavior of the people around us causes us to sin. But it's no excuse. Just because the people around you sin, Just because your dad doesn't discipline you right doesn't mean that you have a right to sin. Just because your wife or your husband is treating you poorly doesn't mean that you have the right now to sin. But Moses was in that situation.

The people were terrorizing him. They were rebellious. They were stiff neck people. And then they were driving him bananas. And he was angry at them, and instead of speaking to the rock, he struck the rock.

So Moses is recalling this moment. There's a price of disobedience that's being acknowledged here, which should strike fear in our hearts. What blessings possibly have been denied us because we went our own way, because we struck back, Because when sinned against, we struck the rock instead of spoke to it. How many stolen blessings are there? I'm confident there are many.

There are consequences to sin. And it was a grief to the soul of Moses. But this just should be a warning to us. That though we might be challenged, God is calling us to something greater, for blessing. But we see also here that it's God that chooses who will play the roles he desires, and he's choosing whether he will use Moses or Joshua.

And God has chosen to use Joshua. And in one way, God is appealing to Moses to say, you must decrease, but he must increase. There are tremendous temptations before us when someone is increasing and we seem to be decreasing. And here in this situation, we find that God does not always give us what we ask for. Moses is pleading with God, and he doesn't get his prayers answered.

This is an example of unanswered prayer. This is an example of a prayer not given in Jesus' name. We know that from the Lord Jesus that if you ask anything in His name, it will be granted. But there are many things that are not representative of His name. And Moses was asking something that was not representative of the name of Jesus.

He was asking something that God did not want to do. And so his request was denied. There are times when our prayers are not answered because they're not consistent with the will of God. That's not the only reason our prayers are unanswered, but that's one reason. Maybe an answer to a prayer is just being delayed, and we think it's going unanswered.

Maybe God is gonna answer that prayer in a different way than you project, because his ways are not our ways. His wisdom is greater than ours. But God does not always give us what we ask for. God would withhold things from us and only God knows what is best for a man or a woman And only God can determine what glorifies Him. But remember that God is driving for His own glory.

He says, the victory is mine here. So then we come to the sixth way that God leads His people. He lifts up our eyes to see the future he has for us. God instructs Moses to go up on the mountain. God commands Moses to lift up his eyes and see the hope, to see the land, to see that the promises will be fulfilled.

God is assuring Moses, it's a kindly act. He asked Moses to do what he asked Abraham to do, to lift up his eyes. He said to Abraham, lift up your eyes, see the stars, see it's there. You don't have a son, but look up there. I will give you descendants.

And he's doing the same thing with Moses. Though his sin is held back, God is still faithful to fulfill all his promises. All is not lost from your sin. All is not dashed on the rocks, because there is the mountain. Get up on the mountain.

You may have spent your morning right here down in the smoke and the fire of the battle and of regret for your sins, but get on that mountain. Look, look to the land. There's a land there. Don't be overly discouraged in your sins. See the faithfulness of God.

See the mercy. See the blood of Jesus Christ that cleanses you from all unrighteousness. He takes your sins and He puts them as far as the east is from the west. See the land. Get up on that mountain.

Yeah, you did strike the rock. Yes, you did respond wrongly. But that's not the end of the day. There's another day that God has for his people. And so, he lifts up our eyes to see that wonderful plan, the reality of the hope.

Lift up your eyes toward the west, the north, and the south, and to the east. Behold it with your eyes. Isn't that wonderful? Look all around, all around you. All around you is hope.

Be filled with hope. That's where God is leading this discussion here as he's recounting these ways that he leads his people. And then finally, he leads his people by giving them meaningful work to do, as he did Moses. Moses is an example for us in this sense. There's a command to go and encourage and strengthen a brother.

Now, you may not have all your prayers answered the way you want, but you've got a brother sitting next to you you can encourage. You may not be going where you want to go. Somebody else may be taking your place, but know this, you have a responsibility to encourage your brother. You have something to do. You have a ministry.

Every person in the church has a ministry and happens to be the next person they meet. And so Moses is instructed to go and strengthen Joshua and encourage him. In verse 28, We have duties in this world. And so here is a command for two things, selflessness and usefulness. Many of you are useless from time to time because you're selfish.

And you don't care about your brother next to you, you only care about your own problem. And you're not serving your brother, you're not encouraging your brother, you're not encouraging your wife, you're not encouraging your husband because you only care about yourself. But you have an appointment before God, first of all to get up on that mountain and see the promises of God in the four corners of the earth and secondly to do your duty and be a blessing to your brothers and your sisters. You have work to do and don't let your own self-obsession get in the way of it. Do you think Moses was tempted to be self-obsessed?

To be, oh so sorry for all these things that he didn't get to do. I'm confident he did. His prayer reveals that he had a tremendous passion for something that God was withholding from him. Instead of poisoning his spirit, it didn't. He went up on that mountain.

And he did encourage Joshua. He did what God asked him to do. This is a beautiful text of scripture, because it gives us a picture of God's people walking in obedience. When faced with augmentation, they do what God has told them to do. When Moses finds himself in the slew of despond, He gets up on that mountain and he encourages his brother.

And so here we are in this getting toward the end of the first speech of Moses, farewell of the rapture, the three speeches. And he has just given us a history of the children of Israel and the ups and the downs. And then next week we'll move into chapter four, where Moses will explain the responsibility that we have to keep the law of God, not to add to it or to subtract from it at all. So you see how this speech is going? First there's a picture of the fatherly kindness of God, the call of the gospel to believe in the gospel, to believe that God is good, and then it reveals the temptations that we all have and how we reason our way into disobedience, how we fear obedience.

And then it takes us into different challenges of how we would treat the nations and the people around us, how we would deal with the threats against our lives. We put blinders on in a way, We obey God and we do what He's told us to do, regardless of the threat, regardless of the perceived consequences. And then now we go into chapter 4, which will see the importance of the law of God to govern His people. Do you see this? This is the gospel of Jesus Christ.

The kindness of God, the sinfulness of man, the good leadership of God of His people, and the way He sanctifies them, how He gives them augubation. He gives them a big giant, practice giant, to come against them, to help them grow, to take them to a new level. He wants to take you where you've not been, and He'll give you a giant to get you there. Don't despise the giant, just kill him as you've been commanded. And then He comes and He gives a picture of the law of God and how we must govern ourselves in this heavenly journey.

This is the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ that's been delivered to us today. And the Lord Jesus said, I am the way, the truth and the life. No man comes to the Father but by me. He says the gate is narrow and is small that leads to life and only a few find it. And he calls us to come and grow in the grace and the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ to whom belongs glory forever and ever.

I pray that God would give us a sense of this, how He bends but never breaks. When His good He undertakes, how He uses whom He chooses. And with every purpose fuses Him. By every act induces Him to try His splendor out. God knows what He's about.

And therefore, do not fear God has given you this land. Let's pray. Father, thank you for giving us Deuteronomy chapter 3. It's very precious, it's very helpful, Lord. I pray that you would come and by your Spirit, work it into our hearts.

In Jesus' name, Amen.