[0:00] Turn to Deuteronomy chapter 33. We've got to move quickly. The crying youth pastor wasted all my time, and I've got to go quick to make up for it. Deuteronomy chapter 33, we'll be looking at tonight.
[0:10] We're getting towards the end of it, and I'm going to miss Deuteronomy. On chapter 34 on Sunday night, we will have a memorial to Moses. It will be his death, and that will be the end of that book.
[0:20] Pastor will come back, and we will pick up in Joshua. And we as a church are very eager to enter the Promised Land after being in Exodus and Deuteronomy. We're excited about it. But Brother Robert took you on Sunday night, and he took you through the chapter before, which is called the Song of Moses.
[0:34] I'm sure he taught you how to sing it, and we'll all do that tonight. If Chris then would get on the piano. It seemed like it would be a hard song to sing, doesn't it, that he wrote. But we learn in Revelations 15.3, you probably know this, is that it says that they sung the Song of Moses, the servant there, that that song that's written, we're going to hear it again when we are in heaven.
[0:53] It's a song of deliverance. And so it's so full of power. It's a very intense song there. I don't know what genre of music it would be, but it was definitely heavy, whatever it was. If you're familiar with the message by Jonathan Edwards, you probably didn't hear it the original time.
[1:08] But if you've read about it, in around 1730, he began preaching a message called, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God at the Beginning of a Great Awakening. How many of you know what I'm talking about? Would you raise your hand? Well, wonderful. He takes his passage, Deuteronomy 32.35, where it says, Vengeance is mine, and recompense their foot shall slip in due time, for the day of their calamity is at hand, and the things come hasten upon them.
[1:30] Their foot shall slip in due time. And in his message, he told ten different things. I'll give you a few of them. One of them he says, The reason that some of you have not already fallen and don't fall now is it's not God's appointed time for it yet to come.
[1:43] In his observation from the Word, there's nothing that keeps wicked men at any moment out of hell, but the mere pleasure of God. He told them there's no lack of power in God to throw wicked men into hell at any moment.
[1:55] He also said wicked men cannot even enter even a moment's security in the fact that death does not appear at hand. He also said God has put himself under no obligation and has made no promise to keep any unbelieving man out of hell for one second.
[2:09] He took that from Deuteronomy 32.35, Their foot is slip in due time. A heavy passage there, a heavy warning. We should not only preach hell to those that have not heard it, we should also remind one another when we get together that it's a real place and that there's a real judgment.
[2:24] So we get to the end of that psalm. Now we're going to look at that psalm there. In chapter number 33, we're going to get to here where Moses gives the blessing upon the 12 tribes that are there.
[2:36] And as we look at it, we're going to see that Moses died blessing the people, which really showed his meekness, for they had been a plague to him his whole life. It's inspired by God, but not only is it inspired by God, but God worked inside of Moses' life so that he gives blessing to those people that had made his life so difficult there.
[2:55] Spurgeon says, If you want to make your last words worth hearing, then you should let your whole life be worth seeing. So the last words of Moses were pretty powerful because his life had been powerful. He had been teaching them something.
[3:06] He had been leading them. He had written the Torah. He had written the first five books, but he never called it his Torah. He never said it was his books. He never said it was his truth. It always belonged to God. He was calling them to that, to the law and teaching them.
[3:17] And then we have in Joshua, we have our Savior, Jesus is coming, but he had brought them to that place. So we're going to read together, and I challenge you here to look for the missing brother here as we read.
[3:30] There's 12 of them, okay? And so we'll see if you can find out which one is missing. Also, quickly, we're going to compare the end of Genesis to the end of Deuteronomy here. It was on October 13th.
[3:40] I don't expect you to remember that, but it was December, October 13th. I preached the end of Genesis, and Jacob gives his blessing upon the 12 sons, and he tells who they are.
[3:50] He compares them, the different animals, and he gives man's opinion of them. He gives what their actions are, and he gives a prophecy of what's to come about them. But now we're going to see it from a different perspective in Moses.
[4:02] Verse 1, and this is the blessing. We're with Moses of God blessed the children of Israel before the death, and he said, The Lord came from Sinai and rose up from Syria unto them, and he shined forth from Mount Paran, and he came with 10,000 of the saints from his right hand and went a fiery law for them.
[4:15] Yea, he loved the people and all the saints from the hand, and they sat down at thy feet. Everyone shall receive of thy words. Moses commanded us the law, even in the herds of the congregation of Jacob, and he was a king in Jesuit, which you should know as Israel here, when the heads of the people and the tribes of Israel were gathered together.
[4:33] Let Reuben live, and let not his men be few. And this is the blessing of Judah, he said. Hear the Lord, the voice of Judah, and bring him unto his people, and let his hands be sufficient for him, and be thou help to him from his enemies.
[4:44] And of Levi, he said, Let Mathuman and Erum be with the Holy One, whom thou dost prove at Massa, and when thou dost strive at the waters of Meribah, who saith unto his fathers and to his mother, I have not seen him, neither did he acknowledge his brethren, nor his own children, for they observed thy word, kept thy covenant.
[5:02] They shall teach Jacob thy judgments, and Israel thy law. They shall put incense before thee, and a whole burnt sacrifice upon thine altar. Bless, Lord, his substance, and accept the work of the hands, smite through the loins of them, that rise against him, and them that hate them, they rise not again.
[5:16] We're going to look especially at Reuben and Levi. Verse 12, And he said unto Benjamin. Verse 13, Unto Joseph. Verse number 18, And Zebulun, he said. Verse 20, And of Gad, he said.
[5:27] And of Dan, he said. In verse 22, Nephthili, in verse 23, Nephthiliah 23, verse 24, and Asher, he said. So were you able to keep up with it? Who are we missing here, the twelve brothers?
[5:39] Brother Eric? Ephron? Ephron? No, but the two of Joseph were represented in Joseph there. Those two. They were missing one more that gets left out here.
[5:50] Who said Simeon? Who's going to raise their hand and pretend like you said Simeon? Okay, thank you. We're missing Simeon here. I can't tell you why. Brother Wilson will do a seminar once I'm done tonight, and he will explain to you why Simeon didn't make the cut this time.
[6:04] Some say maybe he was taken up into Judah. Brother Eric mentioned one of the two sons because we know Joseph got his divided up. You know, he gets two shares of it there.
[6:14] And so oftentimes the twelve is never the same twelve there. And here Simeon is missing. But maybe some said it. But we see a lot about Simeon later, and we're not exactly sure why.
[6:25] But I want you to see here, as we study the Bible, it isn't just enough to study and say this is what the Bible says, which is true, but it kind of lay upon our heart. What is it about this chapter that lays upon our heart and changes our life today?
[6:38] I am so grateful that God allowed me to know Genesis chapter number 39 when I got to this. Because when I did, as I read it, I realized the story is different. I realized that Reuben was a bad guy last time, and this time God doesn't say anything about it.
[6:50] I realized that Jacob said about Levi, I don't want you touching any of my stuff. I don't want my honor mingled with you. And then I realized that now God is saying, I'm going to let you have this in your hand to lead the tribe in worship and in teaching and to know God's will for the tribe.
[7:05] I see that grace has a different story, that grace tells a different story about these people. Moses is at Mount Nebo. He's getting the look out over the place. He doesn't get to go into it.
[7:15] We'll talk more about that on Sunday night. But as he looks out over Nebo, he has a higher perspective, but in this moment he has a much higher perspective. He has a perspective of God. He has a perspective of what God's grace can do for people here.
[7:29] Jacob gives a history of the actions, but Moses gives a contrary story. He tells the story of God's grace and their lives. I went to jail when I was a teenager, by choice, okay? But I went to jail when I was there with CTL Spear III.
[7:42] I thought he had just the coolest name ever. Actually, he was the second. His son was the third. But I went there with him, and he told these guys in the prison, he said, I am going to give you David's obituary. I'm going to tell you what God said about David in 1 Chronicles 29 and verse 26.
[7:57] I'm thinking, oh, this is going to be great. They're going to realize that David was a really bad guy, and so it's okay for them to be really bad guys. That's where I thought the direction was going. But when he read and he said, David, the son of Jesse, reigned over Israel, and the time that reigned over Israel was 40 years.
[8:11] Seven years reigned he in Hebron, and 33 years reigned he in Jerusalem, and he died in a good old age, full of days, riches, and honor, and Solomon, his son, reigned in his stead. I'm thinking, who's writing this stuff?
[8:24] That's not what David did. He did not die. He wasn't full of days of riches and honor. He had some very shameful days. He killed that guy. Don't you remember what he did? But that wasn't God's obituary of David.
[8:36] That was David after his own heart. Good old days. Because that's how God tells the story. God tells the story. That's the story he knows. The story you heard about John DeLuce, not many people were ever going to know that.
[8:47] Those on the mission field, those in whatever church he leads, they're never going to get to know that story. God chooses not to even remember that story about him. That's the old hymn, the one that was pre-crucified as he talked about.
[8:59] So Reuben's story, just real quickly, it says, Let Reuben live and not die, and let not his men be few. That's what Moses' blessing is upon him. That's his prophecy. But remember, Jacob says he's unstable as water. He's not going to excel.
[9:11] He went upon the father's bed. He defiled it. He went upon the couch. We know of the sin of Reuben. We know what he did in not honoring his daughter-in-law and providing there a husband for him and all the things that happened there.
[9:24] He was unstable. Aren't you grateful for the grace that tells a story about our past failures? Our mistakes and past do not define us. That is not the story that's being told.
[9:34] Levi, a whole verse is missing because it says that he was the instruments of cruelty and habitation, that he did it in the secret there. He was angry and he slew men.
[9:45] Him and Levi and Simeon, they went in and they killed a group of people for what they had done. And it said that they were habitations, they had been instruments of cruelty. God had taken these instruments of cruelty, which we heard about so well by John DeLuce, and now he has changed them.
[10:01] I don't know if you guys got that picture. And I know I'm not saying it right. The reason I know I'm not saying it right is I say it different every time that I say it, which means that at some point I'm saying it right, at some point I'm not. But it's the Thumen and the Urum.
[10:12] And you see pictures of it, and maybe you have some with you, brother. Do you take care of any with you, brother Wilson, there with you for big decision making? Remember, these are people that don't have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit inside of them.
[10:23] The Holy Spirit is seen in the Old Testament, but not as an indwelling. He comes upon, gives power, works in, but they're not having that comforter to make the decisions. So they had this device in which they would roll and they would make decisions.
[10:34] Two heads up, we do this. Two heads down, we do this. One's both ways, we don't know what to do. And so there's not a whole lot there. But the fact is, they're handed the Levi. And they say, for your family, you're going to hold these things.
[10:45] We're going to trust you to help decide God's will for your family. What has God done? And then He goes on to tell them, He says that you have, it says about them, it says, And thou shalt teach Jacob the judgments.
[10:59] It says, verse 9, Who said unto his father and his mother, I have not seen him, neither did he acknowledge his brother nor his own children, for they observed thy word and kept thy covenant. So now, when they were in embarrassment to the family, now it says that God's saying about them that you were bold, that you stood even against your family to do right.
[11:17] Exodus chapter 32, And the sons of Levi gathered themselves together unto him. After Moses came into the camp and said, Who is on the Lord's side? Moses goes up on the mountain, everybody comes to Aaron, they say, Moses has been gone for a long time, we didn't really like him anyway, we're behind you, let's worship a false god.
[11:35] Aaron says, Sounds good to me. And he does that. Moses comes down and says, Who's on the Lord's side? Levi, and the tribe of Levi comes and stands by Moses, and they say, We are on the Lord's side.
[11:46] And they take up their sword and they go out there. When a plague is going through the land because the men are getting with the Midianite women, those women they were told to stay away from, it was one of the Levites that came out and went into the tent and stopped it right there and killed them.
[12:03] They became bold, they became courageous, they became associated with giving their lives for the cause of doing what was right and being on the Lord's side. That's Numbers 25.
[12:13] He says, I'm going to give you a two-fold ministry. You're going to put incense before them and the whole burnt sacrifice upon the altar. You're going to lead worship. And then you're going to teach Jacob thy judgments in Israel, thy law.
[12:24] You're going to be the teachers of this. Because grace says, regardless of what you did in the past, I can change your family story. I can do something different with you.
[12:35] We had an awesome opportunity to hear from Kevin Hall the other night at Brother John's house on a Sunday night. And Kevin and Mark and their family made some hard decisions. But Kevin's very climatically made a big decision one night where he said, I know what God wants me to do and I'm going to do it.
[12:50] And you know that decision not only changed his life, but it changed his family's tree. I used to pray with Kevin in college for some boys named Chase and Tyler and for a brother named Jeremy. Chase, Tyler, and Jeremy are in South Africa preaching the gospel.
[13:05] Kevin was in Bible college praying for them. He changed his family tree. People were saying in South Africa that we didn't know the gospel until Pastor Hope came to us. Grace changes the story every time.
[13:17] You know, and sometimes people weren't comfortable with this. The older brother wasn't comfortable with this in the prodigal because he says, if we're going to have a party for you because grace has been extended, I deserve this. Because people don't like this idea of a cheap grace.
[13:29] In a book called What's So Amazing About Grace, Philip Yancey tells this story there and a man sits down with him at a meal and he says, I have three kids and I'm about to leave my wife.
[13:40] I've found somebody else and I want to know if there's enough grace in God for me to do what I'm doing. And every one of us on the inside, we cringe about that because it's that understanding of grace that all of us are kissed.
[13:54] That's the understanding of grace that people ridicule. That's the reason people are critical of the Christian understanding of grace. And we know what our response is from this. Romans chapter number six, verse number one.
[14:05] What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? God forbid. You do know it. Wonderful. All right. God forbid that we that were dead and sin live any longer therein.
[14:15] Know you not that so many of us were baptized into Jesus Christ, were baptized into death. Right here, John DeLuce said that. John, we can go back and we can find those friends for Forsyth and there's going to be grace for it.
[14:26] God's going to continue to love you. He can still do wonderful things with your life. You want to go back and visit that? And John DeLuce is going to say, God forbid. Because I don't ask that question.
[14:36] I don't say, my question is that the man doesn't say, what will it cost me? A man ought to say, what does my sin cost God? That's what people that understand grace say, is what will this sin cost God?
[14:49] And the answer would be, that would cost his death upon the cross. How severe is that sin? It required him leaving heaven and coming here and dying in the place. That is the price tag on your sin.
[14:59] So grace changes everything. And on Sunday night, we're going to look at the how and the why. He says, yea, he has loved the people. That is why they're being blessed.
[15:10] He decided to bestow his love upon them. But the how it's going to happen, he says, they have into their inheritance, they have the word. That God's blessings are given to us because he loved us, but we receive them through obedience to his word.
[15:24] He gives it to us. He gives before us blessings and he gives us cursings in front of us because he loves us. We have a great and a wonderful God. At the end of this chapter here, it says that, there is none like unto the God of Jesuit, Israel, who ride us upon the heaven in thy help and is an excellency on the sky.
[15:44] We have a heavenly father that watches over us and he's been watching over them since Genesis and he watched over all of the way to them and he took a Reuben and he took a Levi and over generations, he changed that story because grace changes things.
[15:59] He changed your story in here and you have a wonderful story as well. You needed grace in your life. You needed it and you want to share that with somebody this week. I want to pray for us, but before I do, I just give you a few moments there that reflect upon your seed and realize where you're at today, you're Levi, you're teaching, you're leading worship.
[16:17] That's not who you once were and it's not who you are because of your goodness and it's not because of who you are by your military might and it's not who you are because of your great strength or your family it's because the grace of God in your life changed your story.
[16:31] John preached the wonderful message tonight. God did that. Brother Ty didn't do that. The training center didn't do that. The church didn't do that. But the God of heaven did something in his life and he's done something in your life and he wants to do something in more people's lives and we get to be part of that.
[16:45] We'll get to see the Genesis story and we're going to get to see the Deuteronomy story of their lives and it's the most wonderful thing in the world when he allows us a front row seat and what he's doing.