The God who keeps his Promises

Order of Service

Welcome

Prayer

Hymn - WHO IS ON THE LORD'S SIDE? (854)

Notices

Prayer Meeting - 7:30pm

Friday 7pm - Online

Sunday Morning 11am & 6pm

Tithes & Offerings - £

Main Prayer

Hymn - BREATHE ON ME, BREATH OF GOD (517)

Reading

Deuteronomy 1:9–46 ESV

“At that time I said to you, ‘I am not able to bear you by myself. The Lord your God has multiplied you, and behold, you are today as numerous as the stars of heaven. May the Lord, the God of your fathers, make you a thousand times as many as you are and bless you, as he has promised you! How can I bear by myself the weight and burden of you and your strife? Choose for your tribes wise, understanding, and experienced men, and I will appoint them as your heads.’ And you answered me, ‘The thing that you have spoken is good for us to do.’ So I took the heads of your tribes, wise and experienced men, and set them as heads over you, commanders of thousands, commanders of hundreds, commanders of fifties, commanders of tens, and officers, throughout your tribes. And I charged your judges at that time, ‘Hear the cases between your brothers, and judge righteously between a man and his brother or the alien who is with him. You shall not be partial in judgment. You shall hear the small and the great alike. You shall not be intimidated by anyone, for the judgment is God’s. And the case that is too hard for you, you shall bring to me, and I will hear it.’ And I commanded you at that time all the things that you should do. “Then we set out from Horeb and went through all that great and terrifying wilderness that you saw, on the way to the hill country of the Amorites, as the Lord our God commanded us. And we came to Kadesh-barnea. And I said to you, ‘You have come to the hill country of the Amorites, which the Lord our God is giving us. See, the Lord your God has set the land before you. Go up, take possession, as the Lord, the God of your fathers, has told you. Do not fear or be dismayed.’ Then all of you came near me and said, ‘Let us send men before us, that they may explore the land for us and bring us word again of the way by which we must go up and the cities into which we shall come.’ The thing seemed good to me, and I took twelve men from you, one man from each tribe. And they turned and went up into the hill country, and came to the Valley of Eshcol and spied it out. And they took in their hands some of the fruit of the land and brought it down to us, and brought us word again and said, ‘It is a good land that the Lord our God is giving us.’ “Yet you would not go up, but rebelled against the command of the Lord your God. And you murmured in your tents and said, ‘Because the Lord hated us he has brought us out of the land of Egypt, to give us into the hand of the Amorites, to destroy us. Where are we going up? Our brothers have made our hearts melt, saying, “The people are greater and taller than we. The cities are great and fortified up to heaven. And besides, we have seen the sons of the Anakim there.” ’ Then I said to you, ‘Do not be in dread or afraid of them. The Lord your God who goes before you will himself fight for you, just as he did for you in Egypt before your eyes, and in the wilderness, where you have seen how the Lord your God carried you, as a man carries his son, all the way that you went until you came to this place.’ Yet in spite of this word you did not believe the Lord your God, who went before you in the way to seek you out a place to pitch your tents, in fire by night and in the cloud by day, to show you by what way you should go. “And the Lord heard your words and was angered, and he swore, ‘Not one of these men of this evil generation shall see the good land that I swore to give to your fathers, except Caleb the son of Jephunneh. He shall see it, and to him and to his children I will give the land on which he has trodden, because he has wholly followed the Lord!’ Even with me the Lord was angry on your account and said, ‘You also shall not go in there. Joshua the son of Nun, who stands before you, he shall enter. Encourage him, for he shall cause Israel to inherit it. And as for your little ones, who you said would become a prey, and your children, who today have no knowledge of good or evil, they shall go in there. And to them I will give it, and they shall possess it. But as for you, turn, and journey into the wilderness in the direction of the Red Sea.’ “Then you answered me, ‘We have sinned against the Lord. We ourselves will go up and fight, just as the Lord our God commanded us.’ And every one of you fastened on his weapons of war and thought it easy to go up into the hill country. And the Lord said to me, ‘Say to them, Do not go up or fight, for I am not in your midst, lest you be defeated before your enemies.’ So I spoke to you, and you would not listen; but you rebelled against the command of the Lord and presumptuously went up into the hill country. Then the Amorites who lived in that hill country came out against you and chased you as bees do and beat you down in Seir as far as Hormah. And you returned and wept before the Lord, but the Lord did not listen to your voice or give ear to you. So you remained at Kadesh many days, the days that you remained there.

Sermon

The God who keeps his Promises (v9-18)

Moses reminds the people of God’s promise to Abraham

Genesis 15:5 ESV

And he brought him outside and said, “Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.”

God has made them as numerous as the the stars

The numbers had become a challenge when dealing with their problems

Moses provides a method for managing the needs of the congregation.

leader / commander - guides or inspires others

often Pastor’s take on too much and need to deligate

leaders for 10’s

leaders for 50’s

leaders of 100’s

leaders of 1000’s

This delegation was to be a principal of delegation of authority in Israel

In Acts 6, we see the early church also hit issues and Deacons were appointed to take care of the concerns of widows, orphans and others.

Elders were appointed for spiritual leadership and able to devote themselves to prayer and the ministry of the Word

Faith or Sight? (v19-25)

When the israelites reached Kadesh-Barnea, Moses had given the people a very clear instruction

Deuteronomy 1:20–21 ESV

And I said to you, ‘You have come to the hill country of the Amorites, which the Lord our God is giving us. See, the Lord your God has set the land before you. Go up, take possession, as the Lord, the God of your fathers, has told you. Do not fear or be dismayed.’

Moses confirms the people’s suggestion ...

Deuteronomy 1:22–23 ESV

Then all of you came near me and said, ‘Let us send men before us, that they may explore the land for us and bring us word again of the way by which we must go up and the cities into which we shall come.’ The thing seemed good to me, and I took twelve men from you, one man from each tribe.

But does this conflict with ...

Numbers 13:1–2 ESV

The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “Send men to spy out the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the people of Israel. From each tribe of their fathers you shall send a man, every one a chief among them.”

Not at all

God affirmed to Moses to permit the people to go ahead with their ideas

Was this not an issue of unbelief?

The instruction had been clear “Go up and take posession … do not fear or be dismayed”

The people though did not want to commit themselves until they had seen what they were in for.

Was fear behind their desire for the land and its cities to be explored first?

They said “let us send men before us” yet throghout their journey God had gone before them

Moses highlights the reality that he provide method for people to air their concerns and grievences

now they relied their desire for spies to go into Canaan first

While it is right to receive advice and to listen to what people say, this must never be put before a clear command from God

Why did God confirm what the people and Moses thought was good?

This is not the only place where God confirmed what the people wanted to do

Example of Balaam

Numbers 22:12 ESV

God said to Balaam, “You shall not go with them. You shall not curse the people, for they are blessed.”

Numbers 22:18–21 ESV

But Balaam answered and said to the servants of Balak, “Though Balak were to give me his house full of silver and gold, I could not go beyond the command of the Lord my God to do less or more. So you, too, please stay here tonight, that I may know what more the Lord will say to me.” And God came to Balaam at night and said to him, “If the men have come to call you, rise, go with them; but only do what I tell you.” So Balaam rose in the morning and saddled his donkey and went with the princes of Moab.

Example of wilderness generation

Psalm 106:15 ESV

he gave them what they asked, but sent a wasting disease among them.

If your mind is made up, God will sometimes allow you to go ahead

but as with Israel you will have to bear the consequences

we must remember that we are talking about clear commands of God

These are found in scripture

In other circumstances it is right to consider all the possibilities and options

Unbelief Wins (v26-33)

Inspite of the land was obviously a good land, the people ‘rebelled against the command of the Lord your God’

Moses spells out how serious the past failure had been.

It was rebellion against their God

Moreover, they grumbled against God, not merely doubting His Love but actualy saying that he hated them (v27)

When the future seems dark, and there are difficulties and struggles ahead which seem likely to overwhelm us, we too can doubt God’s love and are tempted to blame him for our circumstances

Our hearts are inclined to melt (v28) when the odds seem stacked against us

Unbelief is wholly unjustified

The people had ample of evidence of God’s Grace towards them

Delivered them from Egypt, with great displays of his power (Plagues)

Red Sea Crossing

Guided by fire and cloud

bread each day and quail

water gushed from a rock to address their thirst

God gave them victory over the Amalekites

Yet even with Moses reminding them, unbelief won the day

Never underestimate the power and possibility of unbelief

Back to the Future (v34-40)

Moses reminds them of the last time their rebelled

God said that only Caleb and Joshua and the children would enter the promised land

Two spies having stood against the other ten

God sent them back to the wilderness

Moses makes it clear that if they disobey God again he will not allow the into the land either

God’s promise will be fulfilled, eventually, but only by those who obey him

They visualised their children becoming “victims” if they went into the land, yet their children had become the victims of their parents’ folly

Direct disobedience to God’s commands usually hurts more than simply the person who is at fault

The consequences of disobedience are often share by others, especially by those in the family

Up to the top of the hill, and down again (v41-46)

When the people heard that they were to wander the wilderness until everyone over twenty had died, they changed their mind and determined that the would go into the land after all

But it was too late

God wants those who obey him to do so gladly and freely, who act in faith because they know his command is right and good and who trust him for his help

The israelites had decided to go up because of the verdict God had passed on them

This was not repentance, it was recklessness.

The Israelites compounded their sin had they presumptuously gone into the land after God’s verdict

After the failure, they returned and ept before the Lord, but he did not listen to them

Tears without repentance flow from the eyes and not from the heart

Moses has set the scene for the whole book ...

Moses appeals to this new generation not to repeat the sins of the past

But to grasp the moment

Go forward in faith in their faithful God

God Blesses Obedience

Example of issues we face today when we seek to avoid perceived hardship through obeying God

God promises to bless your obedience

Proverbs 16:20 ESV

Whoever gives thought to the word will discover good, and blessed is he who trusts in the Lord.

Psalm 7:10 ESV

My shield is with God, who saves the upright in heart.

Psalm 33:18 ESV

Behold, the eye of the Lord is on those who fear him, on those who hope in his steadfast love,

Deuteronomy 5:33 ESV

You shall walk in all the way that the Lord your God has commanded you, that you may live, and that it may go well with you, and that you may live long in the land that you shall possess.

1 John 3:22 ESV

and whatever we ask we receive from him, because we keep his commandments and do what pleases him.

Hymn - GUIDE ME, O MY GREAT REDEEMER (868)

Q&A

Hymn - WITH A PRAYER YOU FED THE HUNGRY (1255)

Closing Prayer

Doxology