Back Where We Started Deuteronomy 31:

Back Where We Started Deuteronomy 31:1-8

10-17-2021

T.S. Elliot wrote, “We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.”

as we come to the end of this series on the Exodus, I want to end with the same topic where we first started back in January, the presence of God.

It’s something that the people of Israel spent 40 years learning and a constant theme running throughout the entire Exodus story.

When they were slaves in Egypt, feeling forgotten and abandoned by God, they were reminded of his presence when he said he had seen their misery.

When Pharaoh gave the order to kill all the baby boys, God was there protecting the life of Moses who would be their deliverer.

When Moses confronted Pharaoh to let his people go and in response Pharoah made their lives even harder, God heard their cries because he was there with them.

When their backs were against the Sea and Pharaohs armies was bearing down on them, God was there in the pillar of cloud and the fire and the sea parted.

When they grew hungry and didn’t know where to turn God reached out and rained down manna from heaven.

When they were in the desert and without water, God opened his hands and water gushed from the rock.

When they stood at the foot of the mountain, the thunder of God’ s glory shook the mountain and covered it with lightening.

When they were at the edge of the promised land and the spies brought back the bad report, and the people forgot all these things and instead in their fear they questioned his ability to deliver on his promises, it says God grew angry with them and instead of the promised land spent their years of wandering.

Every time the people started to forget and began to grumble and complain and become fearful, they were reminded God was there with them.

With them each step of the way during their 40 years of wandering.

And the only time the Lord said he would not go with them would be when they were going in disobedience

Moses even pleaded with the Lord in Exodus 33:15, if your presence does not go with us then do not send us up from here.

It was the assurance of his presence that was to provide them with the strength to keep going and know that because it, no matter what may come, what threat or trial they may face, because God was with them, there was no reason to fear.

AND it is this same fact, that God has been and will continue to be with us regardless of what we may be facing, we must learn to rest in as well.

For no matter where we may find ourselves, what trials we may face or trouble we may be in, once you have

decided to follow Jesus, He said I will never leave you nor forsake you so hang in there.

The passage I want to end this series with is found in Deuteronomy 31:1-8

The words were spoken as Israel camped out on the border of the Promised Land, they had arrived back where their wilderness wanderings had started so many years earlier and now had a chance to start over

as Moses gives his final address and hands over leadership to Joshua, beginning in verse 1 of Deuteronomy 31, it says,

“Then Moses went out and spoke these words to all Israel: “I am now a hundred and twenty years old and I am no longer able to lead you. The L

has said to me, ‘You shall not cross the Jordan.’ The L

your God himself will cross over ahead of you. He will destroy these nations before you, and you will take possession of their land. Joshua also will cross over ahead of you, as the L

said. And the L

will do to them what he did to Sihon and Og, the kings of the Amorites, whom he destroyed along with their land. The L

will deliver them to you, and you must do to them all that I have commanded you. Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the L

your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.” Then Moses summoned Joshua and said to him in the presence of all Israel, “Be strong and courageous, for you must go with this people into the land that the L

swore to their ancestors to give them, and you must divide it among them as their inheritance. The L

himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged.”” (Deuteronomy 31:1–8, NIV)

• There are times, especially when we feel like life is pressing in on us, that we all need that reminder and assurance no less than the people of Israel did.

• regardless of how we may be feeling or what we may be facing God has said I am with you so what is there to fear

• When life is closing in on us and we feel overwhelmed, we may not see him but he has promised to go before us so do not be terrified

• When the future looks bleak and uncertain, despite appearances, God has said he will never leave you so do not be discouraged

• When we face sorrow and loss, he has promised he has not forsaken you so be strong and courageous

• When we face hardship and setbacks, he is still right there with us so be strong and courageous

• When we face trial and temptation and want to just give up and give in, he says I never leave you nor forsake you, so be strong and courageous.

Isn’t that what Jesus himself promised – that is this world we will have trouble but take heart for he has overcome the world and will be with you always, to the very end of the age.

If death couldn’t prevent him from keeping his promise, nothing can!

So if God is with us who or what can ever be against us?

When Moses spoke these words in Deuteronomy, Israel was facing an uncertain future

Sure they were standing at the border of the Promised Land, but were not really sure of what was ahead

Nothing had really changed from the last time they were there.

It was still the place of their biggest failure 38 years earlier.

The place where they refused follow God and trust him for their safety to provide for their future.

The same people they had been afraid of were still living there.

The ones they called giants were still in the land.

What guarantee was there that it would be different this time?

On top of that, now they were facing a potential crisis of leadership.

For 40 years they had relied on Moses’ leadership to guide them and tell them what God expected but now he tells them he wouldn’t be there any longer.

And while Joshua had been his aid, he had always been in Moses’ shadow.

He remained largely untested and inexperienced, would he be up to the task and able Moses’ very big shoes.

In light of all this, God’s word for them and for Joshua is, “Be strong and courageous, the Lord himself will go before you and will be with you, he will never leave you nor forsake you. So do not be afraid, do not be discouraged.”

The key to their strength lay not with themselves but with God and His presence with them. With that they could face anything.

Several years ago there was a popular movie titled Sommersby. There is a scene near the end of the film where Sommersby was in prison, waiting to be hung for a murder he didn’t commit. as he’s waiting the woman he loves, Laura, played by Jodie Foster comes to visit and he asks her to please come and be there when he is executed. He said, as long as I know you are with me, I can face it.

It is this assurance and awareness that we are not alone, that God is with us always that we find strength and courage to face the future.

Without it, this world can be a very scary place and all we have to rely on is ourselves

Yet the Psalmist said, “No king is saved by the size of his army; no warrior escapes by his great strength. A horse is a vain hope for deliverance; despite all its great strength it cannot save. But the eyes of the L

are on those who fear him, on those whose hope is in his unfailing love, to deliver them from death and keep them alive in famine. We wait in hope for the L

; he is our help and our shield. In him our hearts rejoice, for we trust in his holy name. May your unfailing love be with us, L

, even as we put our hope in you.” (Psalm 33:16–22, NIV)

There might be challenges ahead and still be those giants in the land, but as Israel prepared to move on in and do what they had failed to do so many years before, 6 times in the last few chapters of Deuteronomy and beginning of the book of Joshua, they were told to be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid. Do not be discouraged because the Lord is with you, will go before you, and will never leave nor forsake you.

How important these words are, not just for Joshua and Israel, but for us as well, for they are all we may have to hold unto when the times of testing and trial come.

The strength and courage to face the future come from God not us, from the assurances he provides to be with us.

To use the words of the NASV in verse 6, God will never fail us therefore do not be afraid.

In a sense, the story of the Exodus is a story all about God keeping his promise for God always keeps his word!

As the Lord told Isaiah, “What I have said, that I will bring about; what I have planned, that I will

do.” (Isaiah 46:11, NIV)

Way back at the beginning of Exodus, God had reminded Moses and Israel that he was the God of their fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

This was a reminder of the promise he had made back when they began.

a promise he was about to fulfill and continues to fulfill

if you ever find yourself doubting God and whether he will do just what he says just consider,

Around 4000 years ago when he had no home or even children to call his own, God made a promise to Abraham that he would not just give him children, but also provide them a home in the land of Palestine.

the next 200 or so years he and his descendants spent as nomads, wandering around Canaan.

They then spent 400 years in Egypt, much of it as slaves.

Another 40 wandering through a desert wilderness.

Then several hundred years of strife and warfare to take possession and hold on to the land God had promised.

They went through a civil war which divided the nation between north and south.

They were then decimated by Assyria, destroyed and exiled by Babylon.

Yet still, because God promised to be with them even through the bad times, they continued on and eventually returned and began to rebuild their homes and country.

Later they were conquered by the Greeks, at which time Antiochus Epiphanes desecrated their temple, corrupted their sacrifices, and slaughtered their priests.

Under Roman rule they saw tens of thousands of their people publicly crucified.

Under Herod, scores of their babies were slaughtered out of jealousy.

In 70AD the Roman general Titus Vispasian carried out Caesars orders and utterly destroyed Jerusalem, not leaving one stone on another.

According to Jewish historian Josephus, over 1 million Jews were butchered, and over 100,000 were sold as slaves or sent to die for entertainment in the gladiator games.

During that same period Gentiles in Caesarea killed another 20,000 and sold many more into slavery.

While the inhabitants of Damascus cut the throats of 10,000 in a single day.

In AD 115 Emperor Hadrian destroyed 985 towns in Palestine and killed at least 600,000 Jewish men.

Thousands more perished of starvation and disease. So many were sold into slavery that they sold for the same price as a horse.

In 380 AD Emperor Theodosius I formulated a legal code which became so firmly ingrained in the minds of the people of Europe for over 1000 years and still exists in some even today, the belief that Jews are an inferior race.

For over 200 years they were oppressed in the Byzantine empire.

Emperor Heraclitus banished them from Jerusalem in 628 and later tried to commit genocide.

In the 8

century the Byzantine emperor Leo gave them a choice between converting to Christianity or being banished from his kingdom.

When the first crusades were launched in 1096 to recapture the holy land from the Ottoman Turks, the crusaders slaughtered countless thousands of Jews on their way to Palestine.

In 1254 King Louis IX banished them from France. In 1306 king Philip expelled another 100,000.

In 1492 their were expelled from Spain and four years later from Portugal.

Thousands were massacred in Russia in 1818.

and of course Hitler killed over 6 million.

No people has ever suffered as they have yet remained as a separate people. Yet here we are today, 4000 years later and the people of Israel continue to survive and live in the land God promised to one man 4000 years ago, evidence that even through persecution and suffering, God always keeps his word.

We have a God who keeps his promises and foremost among these to us, his church, is that he will be with us always, so be strong and courageous, do not fear or be discouraged.

He alone is to be our source of strength and hope to face the future.

The same one who rose from the dead assures us that “nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:38–39, NLT)

Sometimes we just need reminding of this because while we may know it in our head, in the midst of the troubles and strain of life we can lose sight of it

We can get so caught up in what is happening around us, that we forget God is still right here with us

The story began in Exodus 1 with the assurance that they may not have seen or felt him, yet despite their suffering, God was still there

It ends with the assurance that he not only had been there he would still be there in the future

It’s a wonderful promise and word of encouragement for us as well.

Our lives are bounded by the presence of God, both before and behind and all around us. There is nowhere we can go where he cannot be found

If by chance you do not yet have that assurance, it is freely available through opening your heart and life to Jesus, to pray and ask him to come and be your sailor and live in your heart.

And so we end where we began, with the assurance of God’s presence, that He is with and goes before us.

Therefore, be strong and courageous. Do not fear. Do not be discouraged.

May each of us walk in that assurance this week.