THROUGH THE BIBLE - Deuteron..

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com. That's cornerstonerbc.com. So, Deuteronomy chapter 3 from verse 1. Then we turned and went up the way to Bashan, and Og the king of Bashan came against us, he and all his people, to battle at Adrae.

But the Lord said to me, Do not fear him, for I have given him and all his people and his land into your hand, and you shall do to him as you did to Sihon the king of the Amorites who lived at Heshbon. So the Lord our God gave into our hand Og also, the king of Bashan, and all his people, and struck him down until he had no survivor left. And we took all his cities at that time. There was not a city that we did not take from them. Sixty cities, the whole region of Agob, the kingdom of Og in Bashan.

All these were cities fortified with high walls, gates, and bars, besides very many unwalled villages. And we devoted them to destruction as we did to Sihon, the king of Heshbon, devoting to destruction every city, men, women, and children, but all the livestock and the spoils of the cities we took as our plunder. So we took the land at the time out of the hand of those two or the two kings of the Amorites who were beyond the Jordan from the valley of the Arnon to Mount Hermon. The Sirionians call Hermon Sirion, while the Amorites call it Senir. All the cities of the Table Land, and all Gilead, and all Bashan, as far as Salech, or Salaka, and Adrai, cities of the kingdom of Og in Bashan.

For only Og, the king of Bashan, was left of the remnant of the Rephaim. Behold, his bed was a bed of iron. Is it not in Rabbah of the Ammonites? Nine cubits was its length, and four cubits its breadth, according to the common cubit. When we took possession of the land at that time, I gave to the Reubenites and the Gadites the territory, beginning at Urir, which is on the edge of the valley of Arnon and half the hill country of Gilead with its cities.

The rest of Gilead and all Bashan, the kingdom of Og, that is, all the region of Argob, gave to the half-tribe of Manasseh. All that portion of Bashan is called the land of Rephaim. Jair, the Manasite, took all the region of Ardab, that is, Bashan, as far as the border of the Jeshurites and the Maccathites, and called the villages after his own name, Havoth Jair, as it is to this day. To Mechir, I gave Gilead, and to the Reubenites and the Gadites, I gave this territory from Gilead as far as the valley of the Arnon, with the middle of the valley as a border, as far over as the river Jabot, the border of the Ammonites, the Arabah, also with the Jordan as the border, from Shinareth, as far as the sea of the Arabah, the salt sea, under the slopes of Pisgah on the east. And I commanded you at that time, saying, The Lord your God has given you the land to possess.

All your men of valor shall cross over armed before your brothers, the people of Israel, only your wives and your little ones and your livestock. I know that you have much livestock. shall remain in the cities that I have given you until the Lord gives rest to your brothers as to you, and they also occupy the land that the Lord your God gives them beyond the Jordan. Then each of you may return to his possession which I have given you. And I commanded Joshua at the time, your eyes have seen all that the Lord your God has done to these two kings.

So will the Lord do to all the kingdoms in which you are crossing. You shall not fear him, for it is the Lord your God who fights for you. And I pleaded with the Lord at that time, saying, O Lord God, you have only begun to show your servant your greatness and your mighty hand. For what God is there in heaven or on earth who can do such works and mighty acts as yours? Please let me go over and see the good land beyond the Jordan, the good hill country in Lebanon.

But the Lord was angry with me because of you and would not listen to me. And the Lord said to me, enough from you. Do not speak to me of this matter again. Go up to the top of Pisgah, and lift up your eyes westward, and northward, and southward, and eastward, and look at him with your eyes. For you shall not go over this Jordan, but charge Joshua, and encourage and strengthen him.

For he shall go over as the head of this people, and he shall put them in possession of the land that you shall see. So we remained in the valley opposite Beth Peor. Amen. This is the word of the Lord. The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of the Lord remains forever.

Let's come before our Lord in a word of prayer. Father, we come before you this evening and we ask your blessing upon our time together. Lord, we have your word open before us. We recognise its origin. Its origin is from the very heart of our great triune God.

We recognise its beauty and its treasure given to your people so that we can read it and meditate upon it, and that we can receive life through it, the very breath of God. Help us to approach this time with faith. May it not be a routine. May it not be that we come in an unworthy manner, but Lord, help us to see the weightiness of the moment. Help us, Lord, to trust, to trust that you are among us by your Holy Spirit.

and that you'll feed us this evening. Be with your servant, may I only speak that which is true and consistent and correspond with your truth. I ask these things in the name of Jesus. Amen. Amen.

So, brothers and sisters, we are working our way through the fifth book of the Bible, the fifth book of the books of Moses, the book of Deuteronomy. We're now in chapter three, so we're three weeks in, and I'm hoping by now, with this repetition, that the context at least will be nice and fresh in our minds still. So there's no need for me to spend too much time on the context because we know what's going on here. We know who the audience is, that Moses is speaking to a group of people and this group of people are not the first generation that came out of Israel. This is some 40 years later, 40 years in the wilderness, 40 years in the desert wasteland that can only really be described as wasted years.

This is the second generation because the first generation rebelled against God and fell in the sin of unbelief. Continually unbelieving, lacking trust in the Lord God who rescued them from the land of Egypt. And Moses has his people there and the plains of Moab on the very brink of crossing over the Jordan to engage in a conquest designed by God for his people so that they would receive an inheritance. an inheritance that he had promised their fathers. Moses is getting these people to look back.

We've worked our way through the first two chapters, and this is the third. And so what Moses is doing is he's saying, let's look back. Chapter one got this second generation looking at the first generation, the parents. And in essence, Moses is saying, don't be like them. Don't fall in the same sin as your parents.

Very much the warning we get in First Corinthians chapter 10, is it not? As we're looking back at these people who crossed the wilderness. Don't be like that. Don't fall in the same scene of unbelief. Don't be like your parents.

You're going to look back, you're going to see an example. Don't follow that example. Rather, I would say that if I was going to summarize the first three books of the book of Deuteronomy, because the fourth, there are exhortations to faithfulness, to believe, then I would say the first three books very much have in their heart or at their essence Moses on behalf of God speaking to a people and imploring them or beseeching them to have faith in God. Have faith in God. So Moses now with that in the back I believe of his mind really portrays to these people that if salvation is going to come our way, it's not going to come by our own efforts, by our own strength.

Salvation is of the Lord. Take your eyes off Him and you'll fall. Put your eyes upon Him and walk in obedience and trust Him. Trust whatever comes from the hand of the Lord. So He has them looking back.

And as they look back, He reminds them of two recent battles that they've engaged in. The first we considered last week, if you remember the battle that had the Israelites take possession of the land of the king of Sihon. Have a look at that last week. And what we have before us here is a battle that Moses reminds the people of Israel of, whereby the people of Israel have a victory over the king of Og, or king Og, I should say, of Bashan. That's what's before us.

this evening. Now, as they look back, it is very clear, very clear, that they have entered into, as a people for 40 years, many difficulties. many tribulations, many trials, and even seemingly impossible situations. But despite the rebellion of their parents, their unbelief, their lack of faith of the whole generation, including many of these, because if you look at how Moses is addressing them, he's implicating them into sin as well. Despite all that, here you are.

Here you are. You're on the plains of Moab. You can practically see the Promised Land. We're 40 years in and God has still preserved a remnant. And that land will be yours if you trust and obey.

So now, looking back, it's the battle against Og or the king of Bashan that is in view. And what are we told? What do we know about this king? We don't know a great deal, but we are given some bits and pieces, some detail that we can be mindful of. He was a great king.

He had some 60 cities. Now this speaks to who this king was. He was formidable. He was grand in stature. We're told he's of the remnant of the Rephaim.

This guy was a giant. How tall was he? I can't tell you, but I can tell you how big his bed was. His bed was nine cubits. A cubit is an ancient unit of measurement that goes from the tip of your elbow to the tip of your finger.

Let's call it around 45 centimeters or thereabouts. Those mathematicians among us, nine times 45, you quickly come to realize this was over four meters long. His bed. My bed's only a little over two. You can imagine this og, this king of Bashan, probably twice my height and probably three times my width.

Massive in stature. Don't tell me that's not an intimidating sight. It was. You see, when the spies, the original spies, went into the land of Canaan some 38 years ago at the behest of Moses, one spy from every tribe, they came back, 12 of them, after 40 days. Two, Caleb and Joshua, came back and said, look, we saw what we saw, but we can take them because God is on our side.

Let's hold to that promise. 10 came back, and they came back with a bad report. Now, you may remember, when we looked at this passage in Numbers chapter 13, I said back then, that bad report literally means a slanderous report, a defamatory report. In other words, there was falsehood in that report. Very likely some embellishments and some exaggerations.

Beloved, when they came back and they said we were like grasshoppers in front of these giants that are over there, that was very likely not an exaggeration because the king of the king of Bashan is witness that there were some pretty big intimidating people before them. However, the Lord said back then, and Moses is reminding the second generation right now in verse two, he said, however, this is what the Lord said. He said, do not fear him. Yes, he's a giant. Yes, he's big.

Yes, he's taken over 60 fortified cities. Think about his power, his army, his forces. But he says, don't be intimidated by him. Don't fear Him. I have given Him and all His people and all His land into your hand.

As strong and as mighty as He is, the God of Israel is more mighty and is more strong and has given them a promise. And they can hold to that promise. And beloved, I don't want us to think, as we think through this passage and we see these words, I don't want us to think that this, these battles, this engagement in the conquest was in any way a walk in the park, because it was not. It was fierce. It was bloody, it was brutal.

The battles that these Israelites have engaged in already and will continue to engage in as they enter or cross over the Jordan River, they're going to be not for the faint-hearted. In fact, Moses is preparing us and these people to understand this. They've already experienced those two big battles, they're more. But in verse 18, when Moses speaks about the tribe of Reuben and Gad and the half-tribe of Manasseh, do you remember? They had already occupied the eastern side of the Jordan River that Moses had agreed to give them because the Lord said, yes, give that to them, the land that Sihon and Ob used to occupy.

But he said on the request of God that they are to send some of them or their men over with their brothers in unity as the people of God so they can engage in the conquest together and bring the land that God had promised to the people of Israel. And once all their brothers have found rest, they're able to come back over the Jordan and have rest with their wives. But the word that Moses uses to describe these men who are going to go over is men of valor. Mighty men. Valiant men.

This is not a battle that's going to be, or a war, that's going to be for the faint-hearted. Now that word, valor, is used throughout the Bible in many ways, or in many instances, I should say. One of those, you might know, of the King Saul, who was captured by the Philistinites, or Philistines. He died. Three of his sons were killed by them.

The Philistines lopped his head, put it in the Temple of Dagon, and then they hung his body on a wall. And that's shame for everyone to look at, in a way to defile this king. How strong is this king of Israel? Here he is, what a shame. But the men of valor, we're told, are the ones who went over in the thick of the night to bring back God's anointed.

You don't defame, you don't defile those that God has anointed as king over his people, and they went risking their lives to do so. This word valor, amen, of courage. It requires courage to go into battle in the Lord's army. You've got to be brave. Why?

Not because they need to be strong in their own efforts. Because what they're going to be confronted with is people like Ogg. Big men. Giants. Battle-ready armies.

Forces that are formidable. Strong. If they aren't courageous, their knees will buckle and they'll fall to the ground. But the courage ought not to be in their own strength, in their own understanding, in their own minds. Their courage ought to be in God.

This is a mountain we're facing. Look around. We're not strong enough. We're not strong enough to beat these forces. But God is.

And our courage is in the Lord. Men of valor, valiant, mighty men are men who trust in the Lord. Verse 5 tells us cities of old were fortified. It tells us their walls were high, their gates, they had gates, they had bars. You read this description, you're thinking these are impregnable cities.

And even the first city they confronted with in Jericho was impregnable, was it not? How wide was the walls of Jericho? Yet God over and over again is saying, it's not by your strength or by your power, but it's by my spirit, says the Lord. I will bring the victory. You need to trust and you need to obey.

Trust in Yahweh. It's not going to be easy. It's going to be difficult. There'll be affliction, there'll be suffering, there'll be many tumultuous events that will take place. You're going to leave your wives, that's what we told you, you're going to leave your wives and your children and your cattle and you're going to cross the Jordan and then you're in the back of your mind, is my family okay?

Who's going to take care of them? You're not there. Trust in the Lord for all things. It reminds me of when Jesus said to the disciples in John chapter 16, when he says, in this world there will be what? Much tribulation, but take heart.

I have overcome the world. When we're faced with trials of many kinds, how is it that we can have hope? Not because we have the intellect or the smarts to get through those trials. but because there is one who's overcome. We hold to his promise, and that's what the people of Israel were to do, hold to the promise where he said, I have promised your father Abraham, I'll give him the land, and I'm now promising you, this second generation, that you will occupy that land.

Will you? Will you believe? I think verse 21 says it best. Your eyes have seen all that the Lord your God has done to these two kings. So will the Lord do to all the kingdoms into which you are crossing?

You shall not fear them, for it is the Lord your God who fights for you. What beautiful words. Beloved, I haven't got time this evening but I was going to. The word kingdom is only used seven times in the whole book of Deuteronomy. 34 chapters, used seven times, four times in this chapter.

You think that's important? I think so. These people of God are engaging against kingdoms. If every kingdom there is a king, who is the last king standing? Who is going to be the victim?

Yahweh. Trust in Him and He'll defeat all the kingdoms. He already said that. These kingdoms will not be the victors. Only God will and His people because He is behind them all.

Simply trust and obey. And then, from there, we have a little bit of a transition, it seems, into verse 23. Because in verse 23 onwards, we have Moses being the centre of attention, it seems. We have this beautiful prayer on behalf of Moses, where he's supplicating before God, but not what we're used to. We've seen him come as a mediator on behalf of the people on many occasions.

This time he comes to the Lord on his own behalf. Do you see that? O Lord, O Lord, Show me the land. I'm beyond showing you the land. Lord, grant us that.

Lord, let me step foot in that land. I think about this Moses, called by God reluctantly, but empowered by God nonetheless. For 40 years he's led his people faithfully through the wilderness. He's tolerated them. Their strife, their grumbling, their moaning.

We've journeyed with Moses, have we not? what he is. Now God says, you're not going to see that land. You're not going to step foot in that land. You'll see it.

I'm going to show it to you. And he shows it to him. But you're not going to step foot in that land. How heartbreaking, right? He's pleading with the Lord.

That's what we're told here. Moses pleads. That's how it begins. I pleaded with the Lord. Show me.

Let me step over into that land. And God says, enough. No. Why? Why has God commanded that he remains behind, and the people, the assembly of God, the people of Israel will be led into the land, but Moses won't be their leader?

Well, we know the story. We worked our way through. Numbers chapter 20 tells us why. Because in Numbers chapter 20, the people grumble and complain, Moses, we're thirsty. Moses, we're thirsty.

Moses, we're thirsty. How long do I bear these people? Moses comes before the Lord. The Lord gives instruction. Moses, speak to the rock.

speak to the rock and I will supernaturally make the waters of life, waters that will be life to their flesh, will be pouring out of that rock. Moses doesn't speak in his anger, he strikes the rock at once, twice, And then the Lord says to Moses, because you did not believe or uphold me as holy, you will not enter into that land. You will not lead the assembly into the land. Moses, for three chapters, is telling the people, trust and obey. Trust and obey.

Trust and obey. And here in his prayer, we see that he had an instance where he did not trust. You did not believe. Nor did you obey. Speak, but he struck.

I wonder if that's a coincidence that it's there before us. I don't think there are any coincidences in God's work. Because, beloved brothers and sisters, we know that the things of the Old Testament, we've said that on many occasions, are types of shadows of the substance and the reality of what is to come. So we know that this happened before. This water from the rock has taken place before, and it helps us understand why it is that God's judgment is so strong against Moses.

Back in Exodus chapter 17, I won't take it there, but you'll remember the context, I hope. Same thing, people grumbling, give us water, we're thirsty. But the Lord says to Moses, I'll give you water from a rock, but you're gonna strike the rock. You see the difference in that command? In Numbers chapter 20, speak.

In Exodus chapter 17, strike the rock. Beloved, we are told in 1 Corinthians chapter 10 that that rock was Christ. And when Moses obeyed God and struck the rock, Moses was portraying to that people, and even to us here today, we have the Word of God in front of us, that striking is a symbol of the wrath of God. The judgment of God is required for that water of life, that water which brings life to the people. Without the judgment of God, no life is possible.

And so Moses struck the rock because it was absolutely necessary that the wrath of God be poured down in order for that rock to open up and then flow with nourishing life to God's people, life to their bodies. Remember, everything in the Old is pointing to a reality, a spiritual reality. And then you. And so why is it that Numbers chapter 20, why is it that when Moses struck the rock this time, God was angry? Beloved, that rock was a type of Christ.

That rock was a type of the person and the work of Jesus Christ where all of the Old Testament, all of human history finds its climax, finds its absolute zenith in Jesus Christ. All creation finds its zenith, its purpose, its goal in the Lord Jesus Christ. And so by striking the rock twice, what is He doing? It's already been struck once. The rock has already been struck once.

The Messiah, the Son of God, has already been struck once. The Hebrews chapter 10 tells us that Christ is the once and for all sacrifice. Once and for all. You don't continue to sacrifice Christ over and over again. He doesn't get crucified over and over again.

God has brought His Son into this world to die upon that cross once and for all. for those who trust in Him that they will be redeemed of their sins once and for all. No other sacrifice necessary. No more judgment upon those who trust in Christ. You know why?

Because on that cross Jesus bore it all. The bitter cut of God's judgment was poured upon Christ once. Then Moses comes and defiles that picture by striking that rock. Again, beloved, Christ is that rock. Jesus is the substance and the source of life.

There is no one else. He bore the wrath of God so that he could stand before the people and cry out, if anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the scripture says, from his heart will flow rivers of living water. Let me end with this. I think there's something else that we can see here very briefly.

And very briefly, I believe that we need to know that Moses is the mediator of the old covenant. Mediator of the law. He's the one who issued the do's and don'ts on behalf of God to these people. We're told in Hebrews chapter 3 that he is faithful in God's house. We have to be careful because there was a moment of unfaithfulness, but for the most part, Moses was faithful in God's house.

But the people would not enter into the promised land. The people would not enter into the full and final salvation of God through Moses, through the mediator of the old covenant, through the one who stands for the law. He's not going to enter. You won't enter to the inheritance, the eternal inheritance, if you follow the law. You're not going to.

In the New Testament, when we hear of Moses and the prophets we speak, Moses is synonymous with the law, and the prophet, the law of God is good. But if you're looking to the law, to enter into the promised land, even the mediator of the law could not offer that type of obedience. But then we have something interesting, because Moses, God says, you're not going to lead the assembly, but someone else will. Who? This young man, whose name was Hoshea, changed to Joshua, Yeshua.

He's going to be the one who leads the people of Israel into the promised land. Joshua, or Yeshua, means God is salvation, or the God who saves. You want to enter into the promised land, you need to receive salvation from Yeshua, the true Yeshua. You want to enjoy heaven, the eternal inheritance for the people of God that comes only through the God who saves through Yeshua. And that is it.

He's the antitype. Who is the antitype of the Old Testament? Joshua, who leads God's people into the final consummation of rest out of Christ. Matthew 121, she will bear a son. Who's the she?

Mary. And you shall call his name Yeshua, Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins. Praise be to God. Joshua's name means God will save his people from their sins. Here we have in Matthew 121, Jesus will save his people from their sins.

What does that make Jesus? God. makes him the one who brings salvation to the people of God. Beloved, it is not by obedience to the law, but by grace, through faith, through the one who has obeyed the law on our behalf. For the law was given through Moses.

Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. Let's pray.