Welcome everyone to steadfast Baptist Church. Thank you for coming this evening to our Wednesday evening service
It's good to see you. Let's take our seats and open our hymns up to page 379
379 bringing in the sheaves page 379
Page 379 bringing in the sheaves
We joyfully bring in the cheese.
bringing in the sheaves, bringing in the sheaves.
We shall come rejoicing, bringing in the sheaves.
Going forth in the evening, going forth a master,
the velocity's making our spirit of decrease.
When our engine's over, it will build us well.
We shall come rejoicing, bringing in the sheaves.
Let's open up with a word of prayer.
Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for steadfast Baptist Church and all the people here gathered
We pray, Lord, that you would open our eyes to the scriptures tonight, open our hearts
and minds to your word, and that you would help Pastor Shelley be filled with the Holy Spirit
and to preach unto us your word. Help us to apply the message to our lives and that we would become
better Christians. In Jesus' name I pray, amen. Our second song this evening, page 182,
Wonderful story of love, page 182.
We have Jude 1 verse 22.
We're almost done with that.
On the inside, we have our service in soul winning times.
Stats.
On the right is our expecting ladies.
There's a sign-up sheet.
Sorry, I'm catching my breath.
The sign-up sheet is out there in the foyer.
So if you want to go with us to Tyler, Texas,
please sign up.
Also, there's the upcoming events down below that
Um, if you'd like to be more efficient with your soul winning presentation
Brother Marcel can uh
Help you on october 4th with that
Please be in prayer for october 6th 11th. Bahamas mission strip
Passengers me is coming out october 19th
Texas chili cookoff
On when we don't celebrate the dead, right? We celebrate the living
Give me a second we'll go through this pair list
I was talking to a guy stop me while I was out there. I wanted to ask about the church so
Continue to pray for the Carlson's parents health and then also Mrs. Miller's friend's mom
Also the Scots, if you'd pray for their parents, and Miss Olivia.
Brother Tony, we're continuing to pray for. Also the Foley's dad.
The Urbanix's grandmother, which, update, she's not in the ICU anymore, but just continue to pray for her.
Also Brother Urbanix's friend.
Brother Gabe asked for prayer for his mother, and then Miss Ginger, we're praying for her cousin.
Who was diagnosed with cancer and then also praying for miss majoring just a daughter and friend
Continue to pray for brother Paul. He's doing really good so far. So continue to pray for him and
Then also pray for brother Ily for his work
Brother Goodwin. We were praying for his sister-in-law and
Then continue to pray for miss Lola. They had a memorial service
This Tuesday you can actually listen to it if you like
also at faithful word
They're having the missions conference and I want to remind myself of the dates. I think it's November 5th
Through the 8th. Let me make sure
Yeah, 5th of the 9th. I'm sorry. November 5th is that Wednesday through the 9th the 8th. They're having
another memorial service for Brother Kevin Rowe at that particular conference.
I'll be preaching that Thursday, November 6th. So if you'd like to go out there,
they're actually going to be moving into a new building on this upcoming Sunday,
and that'll be really exciting for them. So that's really all I have as far as the
prayer requests. We'll just say a quick word of prayer as a church, right?
Thank you and the fathers so much for all expecting ladies. Please be with them during their
Pregnancies, please help their children's delivery. I pray that you'd also bless those that have recently given birth
Please just help their children to continue growing and to be healthy. Thank you for our church members
That are sick, but I pray they would please give them health get them back into church
Please help those that we've been having on our prayer list for a long time all these chronic issues. I pray that you just please give them favor
Please give them healing if possible
Please give them peace during their tribulation.
I pray that you'd also be with those that need a blessing for their work or for their job.
Please help those that have a loved one that needs to get saved or a friend
that we could come alongside them and give them the gospel.
I pray that you'd be with our evangelist in the Philippines.
Please continue to bless his work and their church.
They're starting out there.
I pray that you'd also bless our upcoming conferences and events,
and that you would allow us to keep serving you with our whole hearts.
In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
That's pretty much all we have for announcements.
We'll go ahead and sing our Psalm of the Week Psalm 149, Psalm 149.
All right, Psalm 149, Psalm 149.
Joyful in glory, let them sing the loud upon there is.
Let the high praises of God be in their mouth,
and unto engines soared in their hand,
to execute vengeance upon.
singing this evening. At this time, the offering plates will be passed around and you can
turn your bibles to Deuteronomy chapter one. That's Deuteronomy chapter one.
Deuteronomy chapter number one the Bible reads these be the words which Moses spake into all Israel and this side Jordan the wilderness in the
Plain over against the Red Sea between Peyron and
Tophel and Laban and Hasroth and Dizahab
There are 11 days journey from Horeb by the way of Mount Seer under Kedish Barnea
And it came to pass in the 40th year in the 11th month on the first day of the month that Moses spake into the children of
Israel according to all that the Lord
had given him in commandment unto them.
After he had slain Sihon, the king of the Amorites,
which dwelt in Heshbon and Og, the king of Beishan,
which dwelt in Asroth in Edriai.
On this side, Jordan and the land of Moab began Moses to declare this law, saying,
The Lord our God spake unto us in Horeb, saying, Ye have dwelt long enough in this mount.
Turn ye and take your journey, and go to the mounts of the Amorites, and unto all the places nigh thereunto,
in the plain in the hills and in the veil, and in the south and by the seaside, to the land of the Canaanites,
and unto Lebanon, unto the great river the river Euphrates.
Behold, I have set the land before you. Go in and possess the land.
which the Lord swear unto your fathers, Abram, Isaac, and Jacob, to give unto them and to their seed after them.
And I spake unto you at that time, saying, I am not able to bear you myself alone.
The Lord your God hath multiplied you, and behold ye are this day as the stars of heaven for multitude.
The Lord God of your fathers, make you a thousand times so many more as ye are, and bless you, as he hath promised you.
How can I, myself, alone bear your cumbrance and your burden and your strife, take you
wise men and understanding, and known, and among your tribes, and I will make them rulers
over you?"
And he answered me and said, The thing which thou hast spoken is good for us to do.
So I took the chief of your tribes, wise men, and known, and made them heads over you, captains
over thousands, and captains over hundreds, and captains over fifties, and captains over
tens, and officers among your tribes.
a brethren and judge righteously between every man and his brother and the stranger that
is with him.
He shall not respect persons in judgment, but ye shall hear the small as well as the
great.
He shall not be afraid of the face of man, for the judgment is God's and the cause that
is too hard for you bring it unto me and I will hear you."
And I commanded you at that time, all the things which ye should do.
And when we departed from Horeb and went through all that great and terrible wilderness,
which ye saw by the way of the mountain of the Amorites, as the Lord our God commanded us, and we came.
To Kadesh, Bernia, and I said unto you ye are come unto the mountain of the Amorites
Which the Lord our God hath given to us behold the Lord thy God hath set the land before thee go up and possess it as the Lord
God of thy fathers had said unto thee fear not neither be discouraged and ye came near unto me every one of you and said
We will send men before us and they shall search us out the land and bring us word again
By what way we must go up and into the what cities we shall come and the saying please me well
And I took twelve men of you one of a tribe and they turned and went up into the mountain and came into the valley of
Eschel and
Searched it out and they took of the fruit of the land in their hands and brought it down into us and brought us
Word again and said it is a good land which the Lord our God doth give us not withstanding
You would not go up but rebelled against the commandment of the Lord your God and he murmured in the tents
And said, Because the Lord hated us, He hath brought us forth out of the land of Egypt to deliver into the hand of the Amorites to destroy us.
With or shall we go up? Our brethren have discouraged our hearts, saying the people is greater and taller than we.
The cities are great and walled up to heaven, and moreover we have seen the sons of the Anacoms there.
Then I said unto you, Dread not, neither be afraid of them. The Lord your God, which goeth before you, he shall fight for you, according to all that he did for you in Egypt before your eyes.
Where thou hast seen how that the Lord thy God bear thee as a man doth bear his son in all the way
That he went until he came into this place yet in this thing
He did not believe the Lord your God who went in the way before you to search you out a place to pitch your tents in
in fire by night to show you by what way you should go and in a cloud by day and the Lord heard
the voice of your words and was wroth and swear and saying surely there shall not one of these
men of this evil generation see that good land which I swear to give unto your father save Caleb
the son of Japhunim he shall see it and to him will I give the land that he hath trodden upon
Also, the Lord was angry with me for your sake, saying, Thou shalt not go in thither.
But Joshua, the son of none, which standeth before thee, he shall go in thither.
Encourage him, for he shall cause Israel to inherit it.
Moreover, your little ones, which he said should be a prey in your children, which in
that day had no knowledge between good and evil, they shall go in thither, and unto them
will I give it, and they shall possess it."
But as for you, turn you, and take your journey into the wilderness by the way of the Red Sea.
Then ye answered and said unto me, We have sinned against the Lord.
We will go up and fight according to all that the Lord our God commanded us.
And when ye had girded on every man his weapons of war,
ye were ready to go up into the hill.
And the Lord said unto me, Say unto them, Go not up, neither fight,
for I am not among you, lest ye be smitten before your enemies.
So I spake unto you, and you would not hear, but rebelled against the commandment of the Lord,
Sumptuously up into the hill and the amrites which dwelts in the mountain came out against you and chased you as bees do and destroyed
You and seer even unto Hormon
And you returned and wept before the Lord, but the Lord would not harken to your voice nor give ear unto you.
So ye abode in K-dash many days according unto the days that ye abode there. Let us pray.
Heavenly Father, thank you for this chapter of the Bible, Lord. Thank you for this church.
I just pray that you'd fill Pastor Shelley with your Holy Spirit. Help him to preach your word unto us.
Help us to receive it and make applicable changes into our lives to become better Christians.
Pray us in Jesus' name. Amen.
Amen.
I forgot one of the inserts we had for one of our announcements, but I wanted to mention
again the congratulations to Devin and Diana Dehas on the birth of their son, James Donald.
He was born on the 12th, nine pounds and 21 inches long, congratulations to them.
I wanted to start this evening a new Bible study in the book of Deuteronomy and Deuteronomy
is taking place when the children of Israel are getting close to entering the promised
land and Moses is giving them instructions, Moses is not going to go with them into the
what has taken place.
And really, if you think about Deuteronomy chapter one,
a lot of it's just kind of a recap.
It's kind of a summary of what has happened
over the last 40 years.
And we start here in verse number one.
It says, these be the words which Moses spake
unto all Israel on this side, Jordan, in the wilderness.
So what does it mean by this side?
It's saying, not in the promised land,
but on the other side in the wilderness side,
of the Jordan specifically.
It says in the plane over against the Red Sea between
Peron and Toful and Laban and Hazaroth and Dizab.
There are 11 days journey from Horab by the way of Mount seer unto Gadesh, Barnea
So it kind of just gives you this idea of where they're at where they're kind of situated at and where he's giving this
Speech this this proclamation
He's kind of talking to the children of Israel and it gives us this little indication that there was 11 days
journey from Horab
and then up to where they are currently.
Okay, now I want you to keep your finger here
because coming back, obviously go to Numbers chapter 32
just quickly and I wanna show you
this place that was mentioned again.
It says in verse number seven,
and wherefore discourage ye the heart of the children of Israel
from going over into the land, which the Lord hath given them.
Thus did your fathers, when I sent them from Kadesh,
Barnea to see the land."
So they were up in this spot, Kadesh, Barnea,
when Moses sent the spies into the land
and when they kind of rebelled.
Well, that's where they've kind of returned to.
for this particular event.
And so he's just kind of like reminding them.
They're back in the same geography.
They're back on the cusp of going to the Promised Land.
And he's saying, hey, I want to remind you of this.
To give you some kind of an idea,
I want to draw it on the board,
but look at Numbers 34 as well and verse four.
It says, in your border shall turn you from the south
to the ascent of Akreben and pass on to Zinn.
And the going forth thereof shall be from the south
to Kadesh, Barnea, and shall go on to Hazar Adar and pass on to Asman.
So when he's given kind of like a big picture of the border of the children of Israel,
it's saying one of their southern borders, the tip where that ends is Kadesh, Barnea again.
So that's also helping us place, it's kind of like where these things are,
When it comes to Mount Sinai, I'm just kind of basing this off of what?
A lot of maps will say online or what a lot of people would see online, but if it's kind of look at the Middle East section
You know, they're coming out from Egypt
Somewhere over here. They travel they cross the Red Sea at some point and the Bible says they go to Mount Sinai
And most maps will have them kind of traveling down here on the Sinai Peninsula to Mount Sinai
Or as we read in Deuteronomy chapter 1 Mount Horab. So Horab is Sinai
They're used interchangeably.
The Bible is saying that from Horeb
unto Kadesh,
Barnea is an 11-day journey.
So he's basically saying like, to go from this location all the way up to Gadesh Barnea
is an 11-day journey.
That's what the Bible is alluding to.
That's what it's bringing up.
So if you think about the children of Israel, they go through the Red Sea, they come on
to Mount Sinai, and then how long would it have taken them to go from here to there,
about 11 days?
You know, when Moses is getting the Ten Commandments, they're spending 40 days, you know, and plus some or whatever.
But it really wasn't necessarily a super long journey as far as just being able to physically travel from one destination to another.
So that's just something to keep in mind as we're reading.
Deuteronomy chapter number one is that particular timeline now it says in verse three and it came to pass in the 40th year and
The 11th month on the first day of the month that Moses spake under the children of Israel according
Unto all that the Lord had given him and the commandment under them
I think this is kind of funny because in verse two it says it's an 11-day journey and
Then it's like oh by the way, this is the 40th year
From when they were here? So it's like it should have taken 11 days and it's taking 40 years
To get to this particular spot again
So it's it to me
It's kind of like God like rubbing their nose in again a little bit like hey
This should have taken 11 days
From me giving you the commandments and y'all moving on from Mount Sinai to come up here and then enter the Promised Land
But it's actually taking you 40 years
It's been a 40 year long journey that they've been on this and you know that's just to go to show that when you're not in the will of God
Things take a lot longer
You know you do it God's way 11 days you do it your way 40 years, and you still haven't gotten there yet
And, and oftentimes we think that God's way is going to take longer or be more difficult,
but their way is way more difficult, way more taxing, way more loss, way more problems.
And really if we were to summarize Deuteronomy 1, and I'm going to hint at this at the end,
but what is the point of Deuteronomy chapter 1?
It's that you got to do it God's way.
When you don't do it God's way, it's just problem after problem after problem. When you do it God's way
It's gonna work out. Okay, and that's really just the emphasis of Deuteronomy chapter number one now if we keep going he says
After he had slain scion the king of the Amorites which dwelt in Heshbon and aug the king of Baishan
Which dwelt at asteroth and red eye on this site Jordan in the land of Moab began Moses to declare this law saying
So we have to get the picture verses one and two is saying where did he say this on this side Jordan in the Kodesh Barnea area and
It's 40 years later from when they had already been wandering around the wilderness
And it was just after they had killed these other two kings
So just kind of giving us a timeline of what he is particular saying it says in verse 6
The Lord our God spake unto us in Horab saying you have dwelt long enough in this mount now again
It's really easy to miss what just happened
But he's saying, in verse number five on this side, Jordan the land of Moab began Moses to declare this law saying,
you know, what I want you to understand is that when he's giving this recap, he's not talking about...
he's not talking about...
Them specifically right now. He's going back to the moment of after getting the commandments of God
After being at Mount Horeb after receiving the law, then he told them this what did he tell them?
The Lord our God spake unto us in Horeb saying you have dwelt long enough in this mouth. Where are they?
They're right here. He's saying when God spake unto us at what?
at Horeb. So he's not referencing them saying you've dwelt here too long.
He's saying I'm going back and I want to start a recap story. Let's go back 40
years ago.
At Mount Horeb, this is what God said.
You've dwelt long enough here.
You had the 40 days, Moses went down,
then he went up, then he came down,
then he went back up, then he came down.
It's like, all right, we've dwelt here long enough,
now let's go, all right?
That's basically where we're getting this context.
It's really easy to miss because it's just like,
the only word that helps you understand
what I just said is the word Horeb
and kind of understanding the geography.
But he's saying, hey, when I said this at Horeb,
because otherwise you're gonna start getting confused about these instructions. He says...
You have dwelt long enough in this mount, turned you and take your journey, and go to the mount of the Amorites,
and unto all the places nigh there unto, in the plain, in the hills, and in the vale, and in the south,
and by the seaside, to the land of the Canaanites, and unto Lebanon, unto the great river the river Euphrates.
The old I have set the land before you, go in and possess the land, which the Lord swear on your fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,
to give unto them, and to their seed after them.
So, he gives us some instructions, you dwelt long enough for them out, got the law, go
and air it the promised land.
That's the instructions that he gave them at Mount Horam.
Verse 9, And I spake unto you at that time, saying, I am not able to bear you myself alone.
The Lord your God has multiplied you, and behold, ye are this day as the stars of heaven
for multitude.
So now he's also referencing something, keep your finger, go to Exodus chapter 18, go to
When they were out in Mount Horab at that particular spot,
Jethro, Moses' father-in-law, had said that Moses was doing something bad.
What was the bad thing he was doing?
He was trying to judge all the children of Israel by himself.
Now, just to give you a sample, we're going to look at some numbers.
I'm going to draw them on the board as well.
But the Bible says of the children of Israel that left Egypt,
it was 603,000 men.
able-bodied war type men, 600 something thousand,
meaning that the children of Israel that left,
probably like 1.5 to maybe upwards of 3 million people.
We don't know the exact number,
but we're talking about well over a million people
that left the children, that left Egypt.
How does one man judge that many people?
Let alone just the 600,000 he can't and he's saying like
Jethro's watching just people just the line for days, you know
just to just to go talk to Moses and Moses just doesn't doesn't have time to do anything
Right and when you know that kind of scale
You can't just have one leader and so he's like what you're doing is not good
You need to have some people to bear this burden with you, right?
And it's said in verse 24,
so Moses hearkened to the voice of his father-in-law
and did all that he had said,
and Moses chose able men out of all Israel
and made them heads over the people,
rulers of thousands, rulers of hundreds,
rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens,
and they judged the people at all seasons,
the hard cases they brought into Moses,
but every small matter they judged themselves,
and Moses let his father-in-law depart
and he went his way in his own land.
So here's the other thing that's being referenced.
We'll go back, read it in Deuteronomy now.
He said in verse 11,
the Lord God of your fathers make you a thousand times
so many more as he are and bless you as he hath promised you.
How can I myself alone bear your cumbrance
and your burden and your strife,
take you wise men in understanding
and known among your tribes,
and I'll make them rulers over you.
And he answered me and said,
the thing which thou has spoken is good for us to do.
So I took the chief of your tribes, wise men and known.
made them heads over you, captains of over thousands,
and captains over hundreds, and captains over fifties,
and captains over tens, and officers among your tribes.
And I charge your judges at that time,
saying, hear the cause between your brethren,
and judge righteously between every man and his brother,
and the stranger that is with him.
You shall not respect persons in judgment,
but you shall hear the small as well as the great.
You shall not be afraid of the face of man,
for the judgment is God's,
and the cause that is too hard for you,
bring it unto me, and I will hear it.
And I commanded you at that time all the things
which ye should do."
Now verse 18 is just a really quick reference to
All the rest of the chapters of Exodus where it's the Ten Commandments and plus there was there was other commandments beyond the Ten Commandments
So he's saying I we're in Horeb. God wants to go to the promised land. I appointed judges
I gave you the law and they gave you the commandments and then we're gonna fast forward in the story
Let's slow down on a few of these points real quick. We noticed that
Why did he do this? Why did he appoint leaders?
Verse 12, I cannot myself alone bear your cumberance
and your burden and your strife.
Now, I just looked up these words in the dictionary,
so I'm going to read to you what these words mean, all right?
Cumberance refers to something that impedes motion or action,
causes trouble, bothers, or is difficult.
So, this is what Moses said,
You guys impede motion, cause trouble,
bother me, and are difficult.
That's what Moses said.
He also said they were a burden.
What's a burden?
A heavy load, responsibility,
a source of worry, difficulty,
oppression, physical and emotional.
So, Moses said they were a heavy load,
they were a source of worry,
difficult, oppression, physically and emotionally.
Then he also said strife. What is strife? Anger and bitter disagreement over fundamental issues conflict
So he's saying just being over you guys. What am I constantly dealing with? I'm constantly dealing with trouble
You're constantly bothering me. You're constantly worrying me. You're constantly difficult. You're constantly oppressing me
I have all kinds of pains physically pains
Emotionally there's all these disagreements and there's all this conflict that I have to constantly deal with and you know what that is
What people are like
Whether you like it or not, people are just full of trouble and division and conflict and worry and pain and are a burden.
And look, if you want to be in ministry, you know what you're going to have to deal with? People's burdens.
You know, dealing with people is not, it has its joy and it has its rewards, but it's not fun, it's work.
It's real work, dealing with people, managing people, anybody that's in any position of
management, leadership, being a husband, boy, it's a lot of work.
Being a mother, it's a lot of work.
Boy, this could just summarize being a stay-at-home mom.
You know, there's a lot of cumbrance, a lot of burden, and a lot of strife.
If you have lots of kids, it is a lot of strife.
And you have to realize that dealing with people, it's a lot of work, it's a lot of difficulty,
and as it scales, the problems scale with it.
And so Moses can't handle all of it by himself
because it's just gonna cause,
there's just lots of stuff you have to deal with
and you have to constantly address.
And look, these are God's people.
These aren't just heathen.
These aren't just like terrible people.
Look, just people in general cause problems,
get mad, are carnal, issues arise.
That is just life.
And if you're looking to be where there's no peace,
or I'm sorry, where there's no trouble,
there's no problems, no strife,
then there's no people.
You know or you know if where there's no oxen the crib is clean
But let me tell you something, you know in a church you're gonna have problems. You're gonna have drama
Okay, people are like, oh man your church has a lot of drama. It sounds like there's a lot of people
You know, it's like oh our church doesn't have any drama. Oh you and the three people that go there. Wow, that's impressive
You know, obviously if you have a really tiny church with no one in it and you never preach
anything hot, you could think that you don't really have any drama or burden.
But let me tell you, you have a lot of people, boy, it's just guaranteed, locked in, doesn't
matter how safe they are, you're going to have problems, you're going to have difficulty,
you're going to have burden.
So he has to appoint other people, he has to put people in positions of authority and
delegate responsibility to these people to be successful.
operates based on these principles.
I mean, if you look at America as an example,
you're gonna see this everywhere.
Whether you go into the corporate workforce,
you're gonna have a CEO, but you know what?
The CEO is not the direct manager
of all the employees, typically.
Almost always he's gonna have lower level managers,
lower level people put in positions of authority
and responsibility to manage teams
and to manage other people.
You're gonna have middle management
where they don't even have a team.
They just manage managers.
And you're going to have this kind of a hierarchical structure because that is what works.
That is the best method of success is to have a hierarchy.
And you know what? Our church runs like a hierarchy.
And of course, if we go all the way to the top,
we understand that God is at the top of that hierarchy.
Of course, we understand that.
And of course, we have the Trinity,
we have the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.
Of course, Jesus, the Word of God.
This is our chief shepherd.
He's the bishop of the church.
We understand that.
And of course, our final authority
is the written Word of God.
And you know, America is kind of supposed
to be set up like that.
We're of a constitution, and that's supposed to be the supreme law of the land, right?
Just like the Bible is the supreme law of the church, in a sense the Constitution is supposed to be, in theory,
the supreme law of the land. Just like in theory, the Bible is the supreme law of churches, okay?
There's a lot of churches that don't operate that way either, right?
Then there's a human leader underneath the Bible. That is the pastor.
We believe in the pastor of the church, and you know, because our church is a little bit
you know, moderate in size, we don't have really a need for or have the capability of having multiple pastors on staff.
But even if we did, I would believe that there would be a chief pastor or a senior pastor
and there could be assistant pastors underneath him.
But there would be a guy, there would be the guy, there would be the man,
there would be the guy that's representing like a Moses in this situation,
the bishop, the angel of the church, someone that's leading.
You know, I believe that's the correct structure.
Now underneath that, you can have different layers.
And of course, he has some different layers laid out here.
Rulers of thousands, rulers of hundreds, rulers of 50s,
rulers of tens.
Now, I don't know exactly how that works.
But I kind of just like made.
guess of like what that could possibly look at and what that would kind of look
like as far as a structure and I just kind of wanted to like maybe draw a
little bit of this on the board just so you could have some kind of an idea but
I think for sake of argument I'm going to draw this backwards because otherwise it's
going to just take too long and be confusing.
But we have Moses at the top.
Underneath him you have twelve tribe captains.
the captains in another chapter of the Bible.
But each tribe has a captain, okay?
For the sake of like mathematical calculations and stuff like that,
I was kind of just isolating it to Judah for a moment,
just because Judah was the largest tribe in the census.
So there's 603,000 men.
Of those in the tribe of Judah, it's 74,000, I think 500.
I'd have to double check my notes, but it's like something like that,
700, 74,600 in the tribe of Judah.
But how could that actually work mathematically?
Well, if you had 12 tribe captains, that would mean you only have one for Judah specifically.
But underneath this, if you broke it out and you said you had 14, and I'm going to just
put the number, because it's kind of hard to identify these guys, captains of thousands.
These guys would be ruling over about 5,000 people in total,
but really, they would only be ruling over 10 hundreds of captains.
So you'd have hundreds of captains,
then you would have 10 50s of captains,
I'm sorry, I'm writing this number wrong.
I actually only did five of these, just for an example.
And then you'd have 10 men underneath this.
Want to make sure I got this right.
Hmm, I have it wrong, sorry.
10 fifties, yeah, five tens.
then you'd have 10 men.
So the way this could work is you'd have Moses, who would
have 12 captains that report to him.
are the tribe captains. Each tribe captain like Judah would have 14 captains that are
represented by in this text a captain of thousands. Now what this would actually look like as
far as numbers though, again it's not necessarily just 1000 exactly, but based on my calculation
He has underneath him in total, not necessarily directly.
Directly, he only has 10.
Directly only has 10, directly only has 5,
and directly under him, he only has 10.
Now, I only put the 5 here just because if you go with 10,
it's going to be already in the 100th category for the 50s.
But you could theoretically, with just this exact structure,
encapsulate the 74,600 of the people
that were in the tribe of Judah.
So you have 74,600.
people in Judah with this kind of structure and what's you what's kind of special about this is like each person is only really
responsible for about ten guys
Now, you know again, this isn't representative of all the people because we don't know how big their families are
It's basically talking about the men of each family.
So one guy has like 10 guys that are the leaders
of their family underneath them.
Now at our church, we kind of do a structure like this.
We just don't have as many middle layers
because our church isn't big enough yet.
We're not running 74,000 yet, okay?
Contrary to popular belief, we're not there yet.
But we have tribe captains.
And then if you think about it, our tribe captains,
you know, they probably have anywhere from about
10 to 15 families that are typically in their particular tribe.
So they're only managing in a theory about 10 to 15 different people.
If it started getting a lot more,
then you might have to either add more tribes,
or you'd have to add another layer of authority or structure in there
to kind of keep up with that particular burden.
But what I thought was kind of interesting is this would,
be able to encompass this entire army and you know if you go into the military
They have way more
Like positions in here like they have all kinds of different privates and different ranks that you kind of go up
And you have this different hierarchy structure
This is really only six, you know specialties in a sense
You kind of have one degree two degree three degree four degree five degree six degree sure some but he's gonna make something weird
about that but and in a sense you kind of just have six layers here of
Authority and if you think about this this would be on this would be 12 guys
This would be 168 captains of thousands.
This would be 1,680 captains of hundreds.
This would be 16,800 captains of fifties,
and then you'd have 84,000 captains of tens
that would exist amongst the 603,000,
one hundred and two thousand six hundred and sixty captains in the entire army.
So you have six hundred and three thousand, five hundred and fifty men,
you have one hundred and two thousand something captains
which would be approximately seventeen percent
of the army. So again, I'm just
I'm just giving you a solution to what that could possibly mean.
Is this, these numbers are just my
understanding. This number is just a given number from the Bible.
This number is given from the Bible, this number is given from the Bible, right?
And then it's saying it has these particular structures. I'm just trying to
give us some idea of what that could look like.
It's probably something in my mind similar to something like this as far as
how it could lay out.
What I thought was interesting about just kind of doing these numbers is,
you know, 17% of the men
And think about 100,000 men could potentially be in a position of leadership or elevation.
Meaning that this is, you know, serving God is not about one man or one position.
We're talking about 100,000 people in a position of authority.
Not just serving God, but in a position of authority, and that matters.
And look, the service of God is not a one-man job.
We need lots of men to step up and be willing to be put in positions of authority and leadership and
Help get the work done because the work is too big for one person
And so that's what I thought was interesting. It's like, you know, you kind of read that
I'm just thinking like there's a couple hundred captains
But when you think about it, it's got to be thousands and probably close to what I have here could even be potentially a hundred thousand
captains in this particular
military. In the military itself once you get through basic training and all that kind of stuff
you usually start elevating in rank too. So even in our military systems you have
you know these kind of ranking systems and this kind of hierarchy structure because that is what
actually works is having hierarchy, having authority. Why then is authority important?
Because without respecting authority nothing can be accomplished.
And look, everything in life, there is someone over you,
there's someone above you, there's someone in charge of you,
there's someone you're supposed to respect, there's someone you're supposed to obey,
and you know what, society falls apart when you don't obey orders.
And you know what, the military falls apart when you don't obey orders,
and church falls apart when you don't obey orders,
and family falls apart when you don't obey orders.
That's why it's so important for people to have respect for authority.
And without respect of authority, when people can't keep rank, as the Bible says literally,
well, then things go to chaos.
The reason why militaries are successful is because people can keep rank, meaning that they obey their superiors.
They don't have to have a direct instruction from Moses himself.
They can listen to their captain of 50, their captain of 10, their captain of 100 or whoever,
and they're going to do exactly what they said, because they've been empowered by Moses
to do whatever is necessary.
And then if you think about it,
it becomes manageable for somebody
to only oversee 10 people at a time.
Or maximum here, 12 or 14 people,
that's something that's reasonable,
that's something that someone can handle.
Managing 100,000 people, 600,000 people,
3 million people is impossible for any one person to do.
Mathematically, it's virtually impossible.
You know, when it comes to the soul winning in this church,
I believe the soul winning is important,
and it's important that we do a good job.
It's important that things are overseen well.
That's why I appointed captains in our church
to make sure that our soul winning does well.
And you know what?
You should respect the soul winning captain
just as much as the pastor.
You know, we need to be able to keep rank when we have different people in positions
of authority in our church, whether it be the song leading leaders, whether it be, you
know, staff at the church or whoever is in charge of something, you know, we need to
do our best to stay in line with those authorities and respect those authorities and follow instructions
as being told, that is what's going to give us the best success.
Does that mean that someone can't give you an order that's out of line?
Yes, but then we're supposed to obey the higher power, aren't we?
So obviously, as the rank goes up, we follow those instructions.
Just like we do in every single situation, in our lives, we always obey the higher power,
but at the end of the day, as long as there's not a contradiction, we obey the immediate
power above us, too.
And that's a really important principle for us to learn.
Another thing I thought was interesting when kind of thinking about these numbers, though,
was what it said in verse number 11,
the Lord God of your fathers make you a thousand times
so many more as he are and bless you as he hath promised you.
That's interesting that he says I want to make you
a thousand times more, because if we think about it,
they're...
Possibly, and I don't know, two, three million people.
I don't know what the exact number is, because if we take 600,000 able-bodied warlike men,
we're not including children and stuff, that's not even half of the population.
So we could think of that as potentially being, you know,
40% or something like that 35% and then if you reverse that math you're gonna come out to some big number
Possibly even up to 2 million maybe even much more than that. Well, let's just for easy numbers
Let's just say it was like 2 million people. Well, what's a thousand times 2 million?
It's 2 billion that's a big number, you know what it's not necessarily an exaggerated number because if we think about it
It's interesting because the children of Israel are supposed to represent God's people
and it's like Moses is making this interesting proclamation that,
hey, I wish that God's people would be 2 billion people.
Now, currently today we have about 8 billion people on the earth as it is.
I do not believe that 25% of our world is saved right now.
So there's not 2 billion people alive right now.
Now, if the Lord tarries and we continue, it's possible that you could get to such a population
that literally two billion people would be alive and be saved.
But here's another thing I thought of.
What about how many people have ever lived and just the total number of saved people?
And I'm not going to give you all the math because it would take too long and it's boring.
But I looked it up.
I put it on Facebook if you really, really want to see it.
Sixty-six billion people have ever lived based on the calculations that I came up with.
Now I was using, there's a department of the United States called the Population Reference
Bureau Organization, something like that.
I forget the exact acronym, but it's something like the Population Reference or something.
I use their numbers for everything post their stupid evolutionary theory, okay?
So like I'm not just making up stuff
I'm using what they had used and I'm basically just adjusting their
evolutionary numbers because they say mankind has been living here for like since
200,000 BC or something like that and they attribute just billions of people for some of those eras so I use
4,285 BC
my starting point with two people and having a catastrophic flood, you know,
at 1,656 years. That's when the flood came. So based on that, I got about
66 billion people that have ever been born. So the people that have been born,
it's approximate that. It's based on birth rates and what we know about human
populations throughout. Well, if you think about that, 5% of that would be
Again, what if the children of Israel came out and there are about three million?
It's interesting that Moses is giving this proclamation that I hope God makes you a thousand
times more and then wouldn't it be interesting if in heaven we have a bet?
1,000 more, we have about 3 billion people that are going to be saved
and go to heaven. It's just interesting they made that number because
he could have made any number up and think about this number would have seemed
insane at that time in human history
because at that time in human history they probably don't even have
100 million people.
There's not even a hundred million people and he's saying like I wish that God would make you two billion or three billion
You know that would just seem insane
But because it's the word of God God knew that human population would actually get to these kind of numbers and get to a point
Where that was even possible. He's not just making up numbers
It's a real number that could really happen and I thought that was really interesting
Another thing that's interesting based on that is if I'm accurate, and I think it's
probably pretty close, if there's been about 66 billion people that have ever been born,
that means that 12% of people that have ever been born are alive right now, which seems
kind of interesting.
But we're a huge percentage of the number of people that are alive.
Also, foreshadowing what? The Bible talks about the end times being a harvest, right?
Where you're getting this huge crop, big numbers, and think about it.
You know, we could see one of the biggest crops or harvest of saved people ever in this generation, in this timeline,
or whenever the end times is, because of these astronomical numbers that we have.
So just some interesting things. It's not really necessarily that important to Deuteronomy chapter 1.
I just thought it was kind of cool to talk about, so.
I don't really need the board anymore. I'm just going to put it up, but we'll just go back to Deuteronomy chapter 1 and we'll keep reading.
One other thing that is important in this passage is he says in verse number 17 that you should not be afraid of the face of man.
Whenever you judge between people, someone gets pissed off.
In fact, most of the time it's both.
Because it's like, you almost never make a decision
or do something that even one person's excited about.
Usually, you make a decision and you try to make
a compromise, you try to go down the middle,
and you just make both sides upset.
And the reality is, when you're in a position of authority,
what you should worry about is just doing what's right.
not about how people are affected, not how people like it or don't like it,
or what their feelings or emotions are, just what is right.
That's what preachers should be like, because they should just preach the Bible no matter what man thinks about or how they feel,
or how comfortable they are. You know, that's the Bible, that's the Word of God.
We shouldn't fear man's face, we should fear God's face,
and we should fear how God feels about things. And, you know, if you come to me,
or if there's a controversy or there's strife, just be prepared that you're just not going to like how it goes down.
Because it probably won't go down the way you like.
But here's the thing, at the end of the day, if you really love the Bible and you really
like good judgment, then you might like it.
But it's just in general, people just get disappointed or things don't go out the exact
way they see it, and it's just kind of the way it is.
And so, you know, just be prepared that, you know, if you go to your boss, you go to anyone,
if you go to this world for judgment, you will be disappointed.
It's not even maybe, you just will be disappointed.
Judgment in this world doesn't even exist.
But, you know, lots of times when someone has to divide or decide,
I mean think about it, as a parent you go through this, the kids are always asking stuff,
you know, it's like, can I have it? Can I have it? And I'm like, neither of you can have it, and I take it away.
And I'm like, quit fighting. It's like, neither of them liked that decision,
but it was just what happened, right? And so just in life,
lots of times when you go for judgment, it's never going to really be the way you want it.
That's why it's best to try and resolve things yourself.
to just go ahead and just be willing to be defrauded yourself,
be willing to essentially just take the loss,
suffer yourselves to be defrauded, just whatever it is,
because usually when you go for a judgment,
it just isn't the way that you hoped it for.
And of course, you think that you're right,
but it's just not how it works.
Let's keep reading in this passage.
It says in verse number 19,
and when we departed from Horrib.
So this is now they're leaving Mount Sinai.
We went through all that great and terrible wilderness.
What does it mean by great and terrible?
Great meaning the size of it.
Terrible, meaning the experience was awful and that it was scary and fearful and there
was lots of danger.
It was terrifying.
It was terrible in that sense, which he saw by the way of the mountain of the Amorites
as the Lord our God commanded us, and we came to Kadesh, Barnea.
So they left Mount Aura.
What is it?
It's a 11-day journey.
They went up to the Promised Land.
They're right there on the cusp.
They're right on the edge.
They're right on the border.
And I said to you, you're coming to the Mount of the Amorites
with the Lord our God, doth give unto us.
Behold, the Lord thy God hath set the land before thee,
go up and possess it, as the Lord the God of thy fathers
hath set unto thee, fear not, neither be discouraged."
So he's telling them, hey, we're here, let's go in.
Verse 22.
And he came near unto me, every one of you,
and said, we will send men before us,
and they shall search us out the land
and bring us word again by what way we must go up
and into what cities we shall come.
And the saying, please me well,
and I took 12 men of you, one of a tribe,
and they turned and went up into the mountain
and came under the valley of Eschel
and searched it out.
And they took the fruit of the land in their hands
and brought it down unto us
and brought us word again and said,
it is a good land which the Lord our God doth give us.
So they decided, we don't want to just walk in.
We want to spy out the land want to know what we're doing. We want to have a plan
This is a war effort. So we're gonna send some spies. They sent 12 spies in the land
They come back and they say yep, everything God said was true. It's a good land. They got the fruit
I mean they've been bringing back samples of the fruit and it's amazing. It's awesome. It's great
But then it says verse 26 notwithstanding you would not go up
But rebelled against the commandment of the Lord your God and he murmured in your tents and said because the Lord hated us
He has brought us forth out of the land of Egypt to deliver us into the hand of the Amorites to destroy us
Now this is just crazy, but we're reminded of the story. It's like they walk through the Red Sea
God destroyed all the Egyptians before their eyes. They watched the Red Sea close in on the Egyptians and killed all of them
this great army. Not only that, he's been feeding them manna from heaven.
You saw the terrible God come upon the Mount Sinai which was so dreadful and so scary
that they would quake and they were shivering and they were so afraid of God.
Moses came down and they couldn't even look at his face. It was shining so bright.
Not only that, I mean, the people that are rebelling against God, he's killing them.
You have just all kinds of miracles being performed throughout this experience.
Then they come up and they're like, oh, God's trying to kill us.
It's like, bro, he's had a lot of chances.
I mean, he just got you out of slavery.
You walked through the Red Sea.
You were on the mount and you didn't die, even though you got to see God dwell and talk
You saw lots of rebels die that had worshipped the golden calf and you have all these interesting
miracles and things that had happened.
Like if God wanted to kill you, he would have killed you long ago.
And if he wants to kill you, it's not like by not going in, you're good.
Like think about the logic, right?
If God really wants to kill you, does he have to take you in the promised land to kill you?
Like you would think it might be easier from just kill you in the wilderness than going in the promised land
But it just goes to show that when you don't have faith in God you look like an idiot
You look like a fool you look like a hypocrite and your logic makes no sense
because God's Word is always right.
Sometimes you have to take that step of faith, but he's not even asking you to do something that doesn't sound good.
He's asking them to do something great.
And here at the Promised Land, have this land flowing with milk and honey.
But then people just get so scared of that and don't want it and think God hates them for it.
You know what would be what would be something like this what how about this is this is my
Parable under you of what this could be like is like a single guy
Looking over into the the marriage land and thinking like God hates me and doesn't want me to get married
And it's like you look you're like peeking over and it's like marriage looks like a land flowing with milk and honey
It's awesome, but then they're like, oh, I don't know, you know
God just probably doesn't want me to have this because they're looking at the world today that thinks marriage is bad
And it's awful and you're gonna be destroyed and men are gonna have the worst lives ever if they get married or something
Like that and it's like dude. You're in the wilderness
It's like look marriage is like this promised land over here, you know the Bible is telling you to rejoice with the wife of that youth
You know, you should just go ahead and by faith, step into the Promised Land.
He's not asking you to do something bad, he's asking you to do something good.
And let me tell you something, marriage is good. Being married is awesome, it's wonderful.
Now look, does it have some giants in there that you might have to kill?
Yeah, it's got some giants in there, alright? Are you gonna have to fight some battles?
Oh yeah, you've got some real big battles, okay?
Post birth is a real big battle giant. Okay, you got to get in there, you know postpartum is a giant
But you know what I want that mountain. I want that mountain
Right, I mean let me tell you something marriage is worth fighting for
And when you put in the effort and you put in the energy and you trust God, you know what?
I think you're going to have a really great marriage.
And look, does that mean everybody's going to have one?
Look, there's always some exceptions, but I'm just saying, by and large, marriage is
a good thing.
And you know what?
I would encourage people to get married, okay?
But look, this is just our whole life.
God is always having things for you.
You know, like maybe from afar, there's some guy out there
that hasn't been in church and he got saved
and he's kind of, he's kind of, he's peeking into the new IFB.
He's like, oh, I wonder what it's like in one of those churches.
You know, I wonder what's going on in there or whatever.
And it's like, it kind of looks good in there.
It kind of looks cool.
But it's like, no, I just want to stay in no church.
Look, the wilderness of no church,
or it's some non-the-non-church or the Orthodox,
it's a wilderness!
And it's like, you get into the new IP.
Yeah, there's gonna be some battles again.
Yep, there's gonna be those giants.
Yeah, there's gonna be that occasional protester
that you have to smash.
But let me tell you something.
I want that mountain.
I'm telling you, the promised land is good.
It's a land flowing with milk and honey.
You know, some people are peering in,
like not using birth control and having tons of kids.
And they're just like, oh, I don't know.
And I don't know what that looks like.
Look, I'm just telling you,
the things that God has set out for you are good.
Happy is the man that had this quiver full of them.
You know, the Bible talks about,
I'm not sure the Bible, like the constitution,
the framers of our government,
we're talking about the pursuit of happiness.
You know what, one of those pursuits is having lots of kids.
And you know what, praise God, we live in a country where we can have lots of kids.
It might be a little harder.
There might be some giants out there again that you have to squash.
You have to use that rod of correction to drive those giants out of the land.
But I want that mountain, I want that mountain, right?
And I'm just telling you, the things that God is offering to us are a land flowing with
And you know, staying in the wilderness, staying single with no kids and not going to church
is never going to make you happy.
The people in this world that are just staying single and not going to church and not having
kids are just miserable and angry and sad and depressed and they're looking for something
to do.
You know, God promises God's life that He has for us is always the best journey.
And you know, you don't want to be that woman who waits 40 years because when you turn 40,
sometimes that clock strikes and now it's over.
You can't undo it anymore.
It was an 11-day journey.
But you know what they just shut it down and now they're gonna be miserable and look there's gonna be
I'm sorry. There's gonna be a weird situation in America
We are gonna have a lot a lot of single ladies that no one wants to marry in America
Because they just hoard themselves out. They didn't have kids. They didn't get married and no one will ever marry them
And it's gonna be weird. It's gonna be uncomfortable for them
It's gonna be bad for them and no I'm not trying to like
I'm not trying to just pile on, but I'm just trying to say it's like it's a real problem that we're gonna have
Because of what our country and our nation is doing and they have pruned themselves off of the genetics tree all these feminists all these liberals
You know you think that feminism and liberalism is gonna work out it prunes itself
With its own ideology and all the people that believe in conservative values are the ones that gonna populate the earth and have the next generation
And we're gonna see these grouchy, feminist Karens,
how angry and depressed and sad and weird they are,
and everybody's gonna be like,
don't ever go down that road.
You don't wanna be like Aunt Karen, she's rough.
You know, she's got a lot of cats, okay?
And it's just, you know, it's just weird.
Now look, you can be single and still be happy.
but you'd better at least be in church and serving God.
And you know what, you can still have a lot of kids,
spiritually speaking, by preaching the gospel.
So there's nothing wrong with being single.
But at the end of the day, you know,
if you desire to be married,
I believe you should pursue that
and not be afraid of the promised land
of going into the promised land.
And you know, at the end of the day,
we're all going to be in heaven.
No one's going to be married.
But you know what, I'm saying,
these things are good things.
You know, the Bible warns that there's coming a time
preaching false doctrine, doctrines of devils,
and one of them is forbidding to marry.
That's the Catholics.
The Catholics are really pushing this kind of stuff,
this nonsense.
There's a lot of push in this country
to not get married and I'm against it.
I believe that single and young people should pursue marriage
and not be afraid of entering into the Promised Land,
because it's a great and glorious thing.
I don't know what I would do without my wife,
my life would be miserable.
Because she's amazing and she does so much for me and my family that I just, I've just
told her like, if you die, I'm just going to die of heartbreak.
So like, you know, you better stay alive.
She's like, what about the kids?
And I'm like, I don't know.
I'm just going to die of heartbreak, you know, so it's rough for them.
But you know, that's just, so I'm just trying to tell her like, you need to stay alive.
All right.
And you know, that's important.
But let's keep reading in this story.
It says in verse number 26 that they rebelled.
Verse 27, you murmured in your tents.
Verse 28, with or shall we go up?
Our brethren have discouraged our hearts,
saying the people is greater and taller than we.
The cities are great and walled up to heaven.
And moreover, we have seen the sons of the Anachems there.
Then I said, and you dread not,
and either be afraid of them.
The Lord your God, which goeth before you.
He shall fight for you, according to all that he did for you in Egypt before your eyes.
And in the wilderness, we're thou seen, how the Lord thy God bear thee as a man
doth bear his son in all the way that ye went until ye came into this place.
Moses is saying, look, you've done literally nothing to get here.
You didn't fight. You didn't battle. You didn't cook. You didn't make any of the food
I'm just spoon feeding you food and
Miracles and water and I'm just carrying you like a little baby child that you are. I
Mean you've done nothing to get here. Why don't you just continue to trust the one that carried you here?
And it's just crazy, like I can't even imagine how Moses feels when he's just like,
he's literally carried you here and then you're just like, now I don't want to fight.
But it happens.
You know, it's funny, it's like people that come to our church for six, seven, eight, nine years
have gone through like some of the craziest battles, sodomites and moving and all over.
And then they just leave over something little and you're just thinking like, where have you been, man?
What are you thinking like what are you doing? And I'm not saying like they just go to another good church
I'm saying they just pretty much give up on Christianity. They stop going soul-winning
They stop really serving God with their life, and you're just kind of thinking like bro
What's wrong man? Like didn't you see what God did didn't you see how God delivered you and carried you and it's like
You don't never give up on God. You don't have to come to this church to serve God, but you know what you better be in church
And you better keep trusting the Lord
and allowing him to guide you,
no matter where you are and what's going on.
I mean, it's just crazy, these people are like this.
Verse 33, I'm sorry, verse 32.
Yet in this thing, you did not believe the Lord your God,
who went in the way before you to search you out of place
to pitch your tents in, in fire by night to show you
by what way you should go and in a cloud by day.
Now, this is what's interesting.
You know in my human nature
It's like if I had been God and I had drugged these these whining complainers
All the way through the wilderness and got them right up to the promised land and they're like we don't want to go up
I wouldn't even try to convince them. I'd have been like alright. I'm done with you
But like if you think about it, he even gave them a second chance. I
Mean Moses is like no, let's do it. No, come on. I know you're complaining. I know you're mermin. I know you're fearful
But let's go
And that's interesting, God is the God of second chances, and He's constantly giving them these opportunities.
But after another chance, they dig in and they're like, no, and they just wouldn't do it, they wouldn't believe.
They didn't have faith. Even though they had walked through the Red Sea, they lost their faith.
They didn't have the same faith. They weren't going to do it.
It's kind of sad. It's kind of sad to see people lose faith in God. But it happens.
And he says this in verse number 34,
and the Lord heard the voice of your words
and was wroth and sware, saying,
surely there shall not one of these men
of this evil generation see that good land,
which I swear to give unto your fathers.
Save Caleb the son of Jefouni, he shall see it,
and to him will I give the land that he hath trodden upon,
and to his children, because he hath wholly followed the Lord.
So God is a God of second chances.
Sometimes he's the God of third chances or fourth chances, but you know sometimes he's also done with you
You know you can push God to a point where he's just like I've given you a lot of chances
Now it's over. Now you're done. Now you don't get another opportunity.
You should have taken it when we had the chance and you know now is the accepted time.
Now's the day of salvation. Think about it.
Many people are given the opportunity to get saved and they get chance after chance after chance,
but eventually that chance runs out and they die and they go to hell and there's no more chances.
Not only that, but even for saved people, you can wear God then to where he will no longer give you another chance to make the right decision
or to follow his word or to do the plan that he has for your life.
Now Caleb gets to because he wholly followed the Lord.
You know this also tells me is that many times and many generations there will be very few, maybe even just one person that's actually willing to follow God.
I mean, that should be a sobering thought.
I mean, this is 600,000 men of Israel that have walked through the Red Sea.
And I know it's two because we also have Joshua here.
But I'm just saying, in this context, he's bringing up just Caleb here for a moment.
It's two.
Think about it, two out of 600,000?
You know, and sometimes people would think like, oh yeah, you think the new IFB is like
the only one doing something for God.
Well, number one, I don't think that, but let me tell you something.
Many times it's a minority that's actually serving God for real, or that's willing to
go the actual distance, or to actually fight the real battles, or to actually have the
real faith to do the right thing.
You know, the Bible typically does not have tons of people, it's like whittling down from
It's whittling down to the 1, it's whittling down to the 12, it's whittling down to the 3,
it's whittling down to none sometimes.
You have to realize that in many cases it's very few
and the question you have to ask yourself is would you be the Caleb of the 600,000?
Would you be the person that would wholly follow the Lord in every area even when everybody else won't do it?
And we're not talking about bad people. We're talking about good people that won't follow good people that won't do
What's right? Hey, you know no matter what everybody else does you should follow God's word period
Hey, if your siblings won't follow God you follow God
If your spouse won't follow God you follow God
If your flesh doesn't want to follow God you follow God
Okay, you have to crucify the flesh
You know
For some of us, that's our worst enemy. It's just ourselves.
But obviously Caleb gets to have the blessings of God because he wholly followed the Lord.
It says, also the Lord is angry with me for your sake saying that also should not go into there.
Moses didn't go in.
Moses didn't make it.
Dude, if Moses didn't make it, we're talking about elite of the elite here.
Just Caleb, just Joshua.
And you know it's interesting because Joshua kind of pictures Jesus, Moses kind of pictures
the law, and it's like what the law could not do.
Jesus can do, right?
And the Moses can't bring you into the Promised Land.
The law can't bring you into the Promised Land.
But Joshua or Jesus can bring you into the Promised Land.
And then with Caleb, Caleb's the son of Jefouni,
this guy's not even the children of Israel.
This guy's like a Gentile,
showing the replacement theology
and that a new man's going to go in
and the old people are out.
Because the children of Israel and this are a picture of,
you know, the unbelievers in a big picture.
Obviously to save people in this group, I get it, but just as a kind of a spiritual picture,
they picture just unsaved, Christ rejecting Jews, and Caleb pictures replacement theology,
how there's neither Jew nor Gentile, they're all one in Christ Jesus, and how he's the
replacement, and he's the true Jew, he becomes the true Israel, he becomes their replacement
entering into the promised land.
And that's what we are.
The people in the Middle East right now in a nation called Israel are not the children of God.
I am the child of God. You are the child of God. We are the sons of Abraham.
Abraham had many sons and they're in this room and they're not in the Middle East.
Boy, like that just simple theology. So many Christians are screwed up on today.
So many boomers are screwed up on today and they're this generation that's not...
really pleasing God right now.
Maybe their children could get on the right page.
Just like in this, that generation was really
woefully inadequate, didn't have the faith of God.
Maybe the next generation can rise up and replace them
and actually reject the synagogue of Satan
that we constantly are praising in our country.
That's causing us a lot of problems.
But a lot of great points we could make in this.
I'm not gonna belabor it, but look at verse 37.
Verse 38,
You know, even when you can't do something,
don't just always be concerned with yourself.
Think about other people.
You know, I like about Moses' attitude,
even though he doesn't get to go in.
He's like, you know what, Joshua's gonna get to,
and he's not like,
and Joshua's not as awesome as I am.
Oh man, you know, Joshua gets to go,
pfft, Joshua.
He's like, no, no, no, encourage him.
He gets behind Joshua. He encourages Joshua. He's excited about Joshua, and you know what?
Even if you can't do something that someone else gets to do, don't be bitter about it.
Just support the guy.
It's like, hey, I want to go to the Philippines.
Well, Duncan's going to the Philippines.
Just get behind Duncan and be excited for Duncan going to the Philippines, right?
I mean, or whatever it is, someone gets to read the Bible,
someone gets to be the tribe captain,
someone gets to go on a mission trip,
someone gets to become pastor,
someone does, I mean, whatever it is,
just get excited about the guy that gets to serve God
and don't get bitter about it and just say,
hey, let's encourage him.
Let's encourage Joshua.
Let's get behind Joshua.
It's not Joshua's fault that Moses
isn't going into the promosley.
It's Moses' fault.
And in the day, often we want to blame other people for our failings.
If someone gets promoted at work, don't blame them, blame yourself if you didn't get the promotion,
or if you didn't get whatever it is.
You know, everybody wants to get mad at everybody else.
Why don't you blame yourself here and encourage those that are succeeding?
Moreover, your little ones, which he had said should be a prey,
and your children, which in that day had no knowledge between good and evil,
they shall go and thither, and unto them will I give it, and they shall possess it.
Think about just big picture for a second.
Children of Israel, not good.
Don't have faith.
Didn't trust God.
Not ending the Promised Land.
This next generation has faith and enters the Promised Land.
How in the world does a crappy generation
raise a much better generation than themselves?
Were they just really crappy people with just awesome parents?
No, let me tell you something. It's a little word called free will
You know that children can choose to be better than their parents and
Did you know that sometimes children can choose to be worse than their parents?
You say what is that based on what they decide to do?
You're not limited by your parent's potential,
but you're also not granted their potential either.
You could have great parents and decide to not be a good person
and your parent is way better than you,
or you could decide to work harder and serve God more faithfully
and you could be better than your parents
because it's up to you what you do,
and you know what, no matter what your upbringing is,
even if you didn't have the best parents,
you could have crappy parents,
you could have parents that died in the wilderness,
Died being an unbeliever died being a loser and you go into the promised land and you serve God with your life
And you know what that should be encouraging to everybody that wants to work hard
That should be encouraging to everybody that wants to actually serve God because it doesn't matter what your parents do
You serve God with your life and God can be pleased with you
Because you know what you're his child now and he's adopted you and you have unlimited potential to serve God in your life
If you decide to serve God
These little children raised by boomer parents. They can still be awesome. I
Use boomer as a colloquialism of your boomer. I'm not mad at you. I just don't like you that much
I'm just kidding. It's a joke
Says here in verse number 40, but as for you turn you and take your journey of the wilderness by the way of the Red Sea
Then he answered and said unto me,
we have sinned against the Lord.
We will go up and fight according to all
that the Lord our God commanded us.
And when ye had girded on every man his weapons of war,
ye were ready to go up into the hill.
And the Lord said unto me, say unto them, go not up.
neither fight, for I am not among you, lest you be smitten before your enemies, so I spake unto you, and you would not hear,
but it rebelled against the commandment of the Lord, and what presumptuously
up into the hill, and the amorites which dwelt in that mountain came out against you, and chased you as bees do, and destroyed you in sear,
even in the Horma, and your turned wet before the Lord, but the Lord would not harken to your voice nor give ear unto you.
So you bode and kadesh many days according under the work, under the days that you abode there." So we finish this chapter's long chapter, but
It's interesting that he says go and they're like no go. No, and then he's like stay now. We're gonna go
Talk about it's like how your kids are right?
It's like hey, do you want this toy? No, no, and then you offer to the sibling
It's like now they all all of a sudden they want it right and
Sometimes just some people just so stubborn by nature
That it's just like they just want to do the opposite of whatever they're told no matter what
And it's just weird how these children of Israel, they're just so rebellious at heart and they constantly want to go against God.
And notice, it's not really the choices you make or the path that you're taking that's the most important thing.
It's if God wants you to take that path or not.
Because God wanted them to take the path and when he wanted them to, they would have been successful.
But then when he tells them no, even though they're taking the path God had wanted for them,
they're going to fail because God has told them not to anymore.
And what we should understand is that sometimes God has a path for us that he wants us to go down.
But if we choose not to go down it and to rebel,
it could get to a point where God says,
okay, no, that path is no longer available to you anymore.
You need to go down another path now.
And what we have to do is we just have to always constantly ask ourselves this question like,
what path is God wanting you to walk down now?
Not in the past, right now.
And right now, this is the path he wants me to walk down,
so that's the path I'm gonna walk down.
You know, it's important to do things God's way,
and God is the God of second chances,
but sometimes you have to do it the right way.
Now, what's some examples of this?
Well, I thought about this.
You know, what if you had a path,
God was gonna possibly make you a pastor one day,
but then you end up making a really bad decision
and totally disqualify yourself?
Well, you know what? Now it's not that path anymore.
What if you were a pastor and you're like Greg Locke and you run off with the secretary?
Okay, well the path is now closed, buddy.
You should no longer pursue being a pastor now that that door is closed.
It's not that God didn't want you to go down that path.
It's that you rebelled and you went against His word and now that door has been closed
and so you shouldn't walk down that path.
But you know what? There's so many people that, hey, God closed the door on being a pastor
and they just want to be a pastor anyways.
You know they just rebel and just do it anyways and you know what God's not gonna bless them God's not gonna bless that ministry
And you know what? We shouldn't encourage people to continue being a pastor when they've clearly
Gone across that line or they're not biblically qualified. You know, they've been divorced and remarried. They commit adultery
They do they kill their own father. I
Mean you would think that would be obvious like hey, have you done anything weird? It's like what killed my father
It's like, yeah, you shouldn't be a pastor.
And that's real, by the way.
There was a real guy that did that
and just kept trying to be a pastor or whatever.
It's bizarre.
You know, obviously there's some things that are gray
and I get that, you know?
But at the end of the day, like,
there's some real clear boundaries
and you wanna make sure once you cross that clear boundary,
you just say, all right.
But you know what?
You could just get bitter and be mad at pastors
because you can't be a pastor.
Instead of saying you know what let's encourage Joshua anyways, let's get behind Joshua and whatever path God has for me now
I'm just gonna get on that path, and I'm gonna follow that path instead of being bitter about this one this door being closed
You know, maybe you make a mistake in your past that caused you to lose your job
Or make some some decision that causes a problem. Well
You know, don't continue to dwell on that.
If you don't have that job anymore,
you have to change careers.
Something's altered in your life.
Walk down the new path that God has for you.
If you get divorced and remarried,
the Bible says you're no longer allowed
to go back to that other wife.
That door has been shut.
That door has been sealed.
You can't go back to that one.
You know, what if someone goes out and they live with someone for years?
Are they shack up? Are they commit fornication or whatever?
Well, biblically speaking, the Bible does give an allowance that
if someone committed fornication that they would pay the dowry to the dad
and they would marry them with the permission and blessing of the father.
That was kind of the right thing to do.
If you get caught committing fornication, you get married, right?
What if you just didn't get married and you didn't get married?
and then you end up marrying someone else.
Well, let me tell you something.
The door's been closed, you can't go back to that person now
because you shut that door,
and you know what?
You're gonna ruin your life if you go back
and chase other people when the door's been closed.
Once you get married, the Noah's Ark's door's been shut.
You don't jump back into the sea.
You get divorced and remarried? Don't jump back into the sea.
You know, tons of people that keep making mistakes do dumb things
and it's like they want to go back down this road when God already said no.
Don't go down that road. Don't make this mistake.
Hey, you get married, you stay married. And you just make it work.
Oh, but you know what? I don't like being in the wilderness anymore. I'm gonna go up and I'm gonna fight.
And then you're gonna die.
God's gonna curse you you're gonna have worse things happen to you. No, just stay in the wilderness now
Just raise the next generation do the best that you can yeah as the wilderness gonna be as awesome as the promised land
No, but it's better than dying. It's better than just ruining your life forever
You know and sometimes we have to just accept
The things that we can't change
You know, what if someone dies?
You can't change that
You know and look we could all sit here and just pick our lives apart and be playing this like
hypothetical what if
What if I had gone to college and got a different degree what if I didn't go to college what if I you know
Maybe if I'd practiced a little bit more in the backyard. I could have been in the major leagues, you know
No
Maybe if I was a little bit taller, you know, but you're not taller her so it doesn't matter
Maybe if I just practiced, you know my instrument more maybe if I you know started playing guitar
I could have been the next you know Johnny Cash
Maybe what if if if what if I had married this other person?
What if I had not been with this other person? What if I had not hired that contractor boy? I played that game
You know, how about what if I had not said this particular phrase in my sermon?
You know, I played that game.
What if I hadn't printed this one particular building?
You know, what if I had decided to just not call Pastor Andrews
and ask him what's going on with the Steadfast Baptist Church, you know?
What if I just never even heard it?
I mean, we could all just sit here and play this game all day long, our whole lives, and
you know, we could just live our whole lives in the past.
But you know what?
When you live your life in the past, you'll accomplish nothing in the future.
The Bible says in Philippians, forgetting those things which are behind, we should be
We should only be focused on our future.
And you know, I don't like my future.
Okay, tough luck, buddy.
Don't go up and try to fight a battle that God said is over.
Just stick with whatever you got now and fight that battle
and just be faithful in the wilderness and encourage Joshua
and just help others and just keep going.
And you know, sometimes that's a tough thing to tell people.
It's tough to tell people, hey, man,
you can't go into the promised land.
You can't do that.
It's over.
You're not gonna be, you know,
I have to tell myself,
I'm not gonna be a professional golfer.
It's just not gonna happen, okay?
I'm just not gonna,
I'm not gonna accomplish certain things
that I wanted to in my life.
There's certain doors that have been closed,
things turn out too late.
Maybe that loved one that's gone,
you can't spend any more time with them anymore.
You can't hang out with them anymore.
That job opportunity is gone.
That educational opportunity, that whatever, you know, sometimes doors close.
And we just have to say, you know what, God closed it.
I'm here.
I have a path forward.
I'm just going to focus on this path now.
You know, you could play what is and plague yourself all day long, but it'll accomplish
nothing.
We must, we must just say, you know what, all right, back to the wilderness.
If that's what God asked for me, if that's what God wants for me, then okay, I'm going
to go down this path.
And it sucks that sometimes doors close.
It sucks that sometimes we miss out on opportunities.
It sucks sometimes when we shoot ourselves in the foot.
It sucks sometimes when we want to go into the promised land and we're too cowardly to
go in.
It's not fun to ruin our future chances or cause ourselves problems or make mistakes or
lose hundreds of thousands of dollars.
You know what you can't fix that you can't fix the past you can only focus on the future and
It's a hard hard lesson. I think ever look. I know you guys and I know myself
Everyone's resonating with this because we all have missed opportunities. We all have what ifs we all have things
I mean me and my wife kick ourselves for not having had more kids
You know some people are freaked out about how many kids we have
We're thinking like I wish we had started sooner
Because we could have had more kids.
We could have had kids driving already, you know?
We could have done things differently, you know?
But am I gonna sit here and just get mad and sad
about all the misopportunities?
Or am I gonna say, you know, I have a lot of great kids
and I'm just gonna love on them
and I'm gonna focus on what I have.
I'm gonna focus on the job I have.
I'm gonna focus on the churches I have.
I'm gonna focus on whatever money
and resources I have right now.
And I'm gonna let all those wounds of my past
help me to realize never hire a contractor, okay?
They're all bad.
I'm just kidding.
It's like the 99.9% of them, all right?
There's some unicorn out there.
But I'm just saying in general,
you know, learn from our mistakes
and sometimes you are gonna be the person
that other people can learn from.
Let your children learn from you. Say don't be like me
You have faith and when God says walk in the Promised Land get married young
Get into church have lots of kids follow his commandments trust in the Lord
He will deliver you don't backslide don't give up don't lose faith
Just trust in the Lord and you know what if you're that Moses just say good luck Joshua
God bless you and just allow Joshua to go in and conquer the Promised Land
We'd all like to be Joshua, but sometimes we have to just encourage Joshua.
Let's close in prayer. Thank you Heavenly Father so much for giving us the story in this example.
I pray that we could learn from other people's bad examples, so we wouldn't have to make their mistakes.
But if we do make mistakes, I pray that we'd also learn from the example of not continuing in that bad mistake,
but accepting our reality, accepting our fate, accepting our current circumstance, and being willing.
to walk through the wilderness or walk through the path or go to plan B or go to plan C.
I pray that you would help us just accept our lives, that we wouldn't dwell on the past,
that we wouldn't dwell on past hurts, bad decisions, that we wouldn't think about things
that we've missed out on, but rather we focus on the things that we do have, we count the
blessings that we do have, we'd be excited about the future that we do have, and be willing
to encourage the Joshua's in our life and help them to not make our mistakes.
In Jesus' name we pray.
Amen. Our last song this evening is 364, standing on the promises. Page 364, standing on the promises.
Page 364.
Let's sing it out loud on the first.