Book of Deuteronomy, fifth book of the law, Deuteronomy chapter 33. Deuteronomy chapter 33. We're gonna take a little short verse and spend quite a bit of time expository preaching on that particular verse. In fact, even just more of the last half of the verse. Deuteronomy chapter 33, this is of course the end, or almost the end, there's only one more chapter of the book of Deuteronomy. But it's the end of the wilderness wanderings. The children of Israel are about to go in the promised land. 40 years they've spent out in the wilderness. It's the end of Moses' ministry and life. And these are the last words. The last words of people is always interesting. Maybe you've read different things that people have said, dying words or some of the last words that they've had to say. It's always interesting when people say certain things. You know, there's a tombstone near Princeton, in town Princeton, New Jersey, and you read all these different tombstones, very interesting epitaphs on them. And one of them says, I told you I was sick. That was what it said. And that's a true story. I saw it. It's there. There was a man not feeling well. So his wife said, we're going to the doctor. He went to the doctor. And the doctor examined the man. And he asked if he would leave. And he talked privately to his wife and said to his wife, now look, your husband's very sick. And if he's going to live, you're going to have to really take care of him. You're going to have to fix every meal timely. He's got to be very nutritious. You're going to have to help him relax and massage his feet, massage his back. And if you don't do that, he's going to die. And so after the conversation, she went out into the waiting area and met her husband. And her husband said, well, what did the doctor say? She said, you're going to die. So what happens at the end of life can be funny, I guess, I don't know, it shouldn't be. But this is the end of Moses' life, the end of his ministry. It's interesting what he would say to the children of Israel. Okay, verse 25, Deuteronomy 33. Thy shoes shall be iron and brass, and as thy days, so shall thy strength be. And we're gonna take just the last half of that verse. As thy days, so shall thy strength be. This is a fairly well-known passage of scripture for someone who's been a student of the Bible. It's repeated often and people have preached on it at various different times. As thy days, so shall thy strength be. Back in chapter 33, verse one, Moses It says, and this is the blessing wherewith Moses, the man of God, blessed the children of Israel before his death. This is specifically given to Asher, but it really applies to all the tribes. And it really applies to us today as an example for us. If we understand the verse correctly and properly, he's saying that whatever you're gonna face in life, then I'm gonna give you the strength to go through it. There'll be strength every day for whatever trials you face, whatever victories, and it is a daily thing. That's something that we all have to deal with. Every day's different. We don't know what we'll face tomorrow. One visit to a doctor and we meet an oncologist, they say you have cancer, it's terminal. That changes everything. We've been in a car accident, changes everything. You have children, that changes a lot when you have children. Life's not the same again. There are a lot of things that happen in life that things change. And we have to learn to adjust to those very different things. So here is the end of Moses' life. And he's about to go up to Mount Nebo. And God says to him, I want you to go up to Mount Nebo and die. Moses was healthy. It goes on to say that his eyesight was perfect, evidently 20-20 vision. His strength was still there, though he was 120 years old. At that time in history, people did live longer, and after 120 years, he was still very healthy. There were others that traveled along. Now, Joshua was a little bit younger, but we see others that were older and had great strength and had not lost any of their physical ability. But God said, now's the time. Now, I want you to go up to Mount Nebo. And of course, because he disobeyed the Lord in one instance, God said, you're not gonna go in the promised land. You're gonna lead the children of Israel to it, but you'll not go in. Moses then is giving his last words before he goes up to Mount Nebo. He can see the land of Canaan, but he's not gonna go in, and there he's gonna die. He knew this was gonna happen. These are now his blessings that he gives in chapter 33. The blessing that was given to Asher is one that I think applies to us as well. As thy days, so shall thy strength be. It is important to listen to holy men of God. There are men who have been given wisdom from God. Think about for a second, Moses was a great man, a great leader. I believe of all the people in the Old Testament, he is the most prominent of every person we read about in the Old Testament. And yet, he was not perfect. Yet he committed a sin of murder against an Egyptian and went into the wilderness for 40 years. We know that he violated what God commanded him to do when he smote the rock twice and he failed to obey the Lord completely. But still we see God use this fallen man. None of us are perfect and none of us are without sin. One preacher was asked, at what point in your life can you trust yourself that you're not gonna sin anymore? He said, I would wait at least three days after you're dead. Then you might be safe. No one is fully capable of being perfect and doing right all the time. And yet he uses fallen men. We know Saul, Paul, Saul of Tarsus persecuted the church of God. After that, we don't read anything negative about him. Of Joseph, we don't read anything negative about him. But most of the people in the Bible had some blights. They had some problems. Even great men of faith had some problems. What I'm saying is people who are committed to the Lord should be listened to. People who've had experience, people who have been faithful, we should listen to what they have to say. It's sometimes discouraging when someone is having problems, say a marriage problem, and they go to someone who also has marriage problems for counsel. Go to someone who has a good marriage. Go to someone who has wisdom. Go to someone, a man or a woman of God, and seek counsel. They may not tell you what you want to hear, but they will tell you what you need to hear. Seeking counsel from godly people is the right thing to do. Sometimes people say, do you know of a Christian counselor? This happens rather frequently. And I think there are times when someone may need ongoing counseling. But most of the time, people need to hear, they need to hear the word of God. And they need godly counsel. They just need someone to tell them this is what's right and do what's right. And if people would just be faithful to God, faithful in church, faithful to read their Bible, faithful to pray, the vast majority of people's problems would evaporate. The vast majority. It is important to listen to the man of God. So the man of God is speaking, and he's giving his blessing to the children of Israel. Here is a holy man of God. The children are tossed to and fro, carried about every wind of doctrine. Those are not the people to listen to. Those are the people to avoid. We then see that he goes up to Mount Nebo, and that's the end of his life. But life goes on for everyone else. All the tribes of Israel, now a whole new generation has come to power, and they're the ones that have survived the wilderness. They have to make some decisions. What lies ahead? is the land of milk and honey. What lies ahead is a land that's called the promised land. It was a covenant land that God made with his people. But you and I know, because we've read, they're gonna face some battles. They didn't just go in the land and say, hey, it's all ours, it's free, and everything's all set up. It isn't that the way the Christian life is. There's some battles. There's some scars. There's some struggles, and there's some defeats along the way. The Christian life has its ups and downs, but there is a promise that's given to the children of Israel that applies to all of us today. As thy days, so shall thy strength be. As you go through your journey in life, as you walk the Christian walk, all the battles you fight and the struggles that you face, There is a promise that he will be with us. He will give us strength for those times of difficulty. As thy strength as thy days, so shall thy strength be. Second Corinthians says all the blessings and promises of God are amen. They are in Christ. He provides for all those needs for us. As we see then, there are promised words that are given. This is his covenant with Asher, but in particular, but specifically for every person. As thy days, so shall thy strength be. We ought not to fret, we ought not to fear. Whatever challenges we have, just trust the Lord. He'll give us strength for whatever we're dealing with. We need to see then how we can be sure that those promises will be fulfilled. You might think, well sure, those are words, that's what it says on a page, but you don't know what I'm going through. You don't know what I'm dealing with. But he does know. And we have to remember who it is that's going to fulfill it. And then we have to ask ourself, what difference is it gonna make in my life? And we're gonna talk about that. It'll make all the difference in the world if we learn to trust in him. What is that promise? His promise is He'll supply the needed strength for every day of our life, for every challenge of life. In Matthew chapter six, it basically says we're to take one day at a time. We know in the Lord's Prayer, the model prayer, give us this day, our daily bread. We know that the manna fell daily. There's only enough for one day. The promises of today don't help us tomorrow, but there'll be new promises tomorrow. You have to live one day at a time. Sufficient the day is the evil thereof. He says, I'll be with you, but you have to live one day at a time. And if we think that we've got it all figured out, we've achieved some height spiritually, the next day we could be in trouble. We have to realize every day is a new day. We wake up, praise God, I'm still alive. God has a plan and a purpose, but I need his strength. We start every day new and fresh. They left the land of Egypt, it was a place of bondage. Now they've gone through the Red Sea and the wilderness, heading to that promised land, but they're gonna have to fight some battles to possess that land. The promised land is not really a picture of heaven, it's more a picture of the victorious Christian life. Talking about how we fight battles, one after another, and possess all that God has for us. Sufficient in the days, the evil thereof. Day by day, the man who fell, oh, to learn this lesson well. Day by day, the promise reads, daily strength for daily needs. Daily, we get in the word of God. Daily, we pray. Daily, we seek the Lord's help. We see strength for today that'll not do for tomorrow. It'll not do for next week. It'll not do for next year. It's for today. Every day, we seek his strength. God has promised us strength as our days are. Says days, not weeks, not years, but days. As our days, one day at a time. For days of work, days of rest, peace, times of war, pain, sickness, days of health, days of temptation, days of victory, days of bereavement, even to the point of the last day of our life, there is a day that he'll be with us. Give us strength to live and strength to die. God will give us the strength, as different as our days are. The Bible says every day he gives grace. Every day he gives us strength. And even though we may unconsciously receive something we've never asked for, God will provide what we need at that time. And I don't know what tomorrow holds. Boy, I'll tell you, if you look back at your life and you see some of the things you had to deal with and face, if you knew everything was gonna happen, boy, that would have been difficult. You're looking ahead and you think, we're hoping tomorrow's great. We're hoping the future is bright. But if we knew every trial and struggle, we'd be fearful. He gives us what we can handle one day. If we handle today, then tomorrow's another day. And we trust the Lord. We may need mental strength. It may be emotional. Could be physical strength. Whatever it may be. That strength He will provide. Whatever we're lacking, He can meet that need. Then the strength is as long as our days shall last. Though it's daily, it's every day we need His help, every day we need the manna from heaven, every day we need His strength, but He'll do that every day, one after another after another. If we trust Him today and trust Him tomorrow, then he'll be with us for the length of days. If we learn how to live one day at a time, then we'll have a lifetime of learning to trust the Lord. Turn with me to 2 Corinthians 4, 2 Corinthians chapter 4. I make a practice of underlining things in my Bible, and this is one of those verses that if you underline your Bible, I would encourage you to do it. 2 Corinthians 4, 16. And it says, for which cause we faint not, but though the outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day. The outward man may perish in old age, but the inward man will be strengthened, he'll be renewed. Strength as long as your days shall last, strength as different as your days shall be. And I believe that's the promise that he gives us. Whatever we face, it may be unknown to us, but he'll give us strength to deal with it, strength to handle. Then how can we be sure that God will do that? Those are just words. I mean, they are words in the Bible, but they're words. How do we know? How can we be sure that that promise will be fulfilled? The promise is nothing unless it will be honored. Sometimes people make promises and they don't keep them. Well, they're empty promises. Sometimes the dad will say, oh, son, I'll take you fishing, but he never takes him fishing. That's an empty promise. We have to ask ourself, will God fulfill his promise? He made the promise. He'll be with us all the days. That'll give us strength every day. Well, will he honor that? It's an interesting discussion or discussion something in the text of Uncle Tom's Cabin that it's a woman meets a slave and it says, come into me all you that labor. You're heavy laden, I'll give you rest. And this slave said, them's good words. And in reply he said, but who says them? Well, the one that said them. It's gonna be fulfilled. He's gonna do what he said. And if somebody didn't know who it was, they might think, well, I don't know if I can trust him or not. But when you know the Lord, and you know the word of God, you know you can trust him because of who it is. He made this promise. He is the God of the universe, the creator, the one that created you and created me. And as our day, so our strength will be. He will fulfill those promises. You cannot do it through some positive thinking class by just the power of positive thinking. Well, I believe it's gonna happen. If I believe it's gonna happen, it will happen. Or you can do anything. If you just think of it, you can do it. You can do anything you want. The power of positive thinking doesn't fulfill a promise. It is God Almighty that fulfills the promise if we learn to trust Him. It is important then that these words are spoken by God himself. These are the words of God through Moses to Asher. Someone said you cannot drain the ocean of God's omnipotence. Whatever your days are, God has promised. And the promises of God are sure. He knows what our days will be. He knows our uprising and our down sitting. He knows our path and our journey. He knows everything about us. He has a plan for our lives. And there are steps that have been ordained that we walk in them. First Corinthians 10, 13 is a well-known verse and it says, there is no temptation taken you, but such as is common to man. But God is faithful. We have a faithful God who will not suffer you to be tempted above that you're able, but will with the temptation also make a way of escape that you may be able to bear it. Remember, daily we trust in him and he'll meet that need. We have to learn to yield ourselves to his will. Charles Spurgeon said, if our troubles should become high as mountains, God's grace would become like Noah's flood. It would go 20 cubits higher till the mountains were covered. His grace is sufficient. All that we need is found in Him. I think as a young person, it's hard to get that concept. It's hard to realize that we're not perfect. It's hard to realize that we can be vulnerable, that we are not self-made. As you live longer, you begin to realize more and more how weak we are, how much we need Him, how much we need His strength. As a Christian, I believe the longer you're saved, the more you realize, I need God's help. I can't live the Christian life without his power. And God has promised to help us and to meet those needs. He's the one that said, as thy strength, so as thy days, so shall thy strength be. Then what difference should that promise make in our lives? How will it affect us? What does it mean? Think about the example of the Apostle Paul. Well, the Apostle Paul faced shipwreck, and we go down all the list, 40 nights in the deep, and I mean, beaten to the point almost of death, in prison, by thieves and robbers, all these things that he faced, and yet, he realized God was with him. And he could sing praises in prison. And yet, as he grew in his walk with the Lord, he said this, I'm the least of the apostles, that I'm not meet or fitting to be called an apostle. He saw himself as smaller. Ephesians 3.8, he said, who I'm less than least of all the saints, is this grace given. He kept seeing himself for what he was, needing God's help, needing God's grace. In 1 Timothy 1.15, he says, Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief. That's how the apostle Paul grew in his Christian walk and faith, to realize he was little in God as much. Philippians 4.19, he says, my God shall supply all your need. As I day, so shall thy strength be. He'll give us what we need when we face it. Second Corinthians chapter 12, he said, my grace is sufficient for thee, for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Therefore, most gladly, Paul said, I would rather glory in my infirmities that the power of Christ may rest upon me. So he learned certain things in his Christian walk, and as he grew in his faith and became stronger as a believer, he realized more and more his own weakness. But God was able to give him grace for whatever he might face. Can God do that for you? Well, absolutely he can. As the children of Israel are facing really a tremendous challenge to go in the promised land, fight these battles, God said, I'm gonna be with you. All the days of your life, every day, one day after another, I'm gonna be with you. Just trust me every day. We need to know that we have the same promise. As different as our days might be, as long as your days might be, as varied as your needs might be, God's strength shall be sufficient. How evident is that daily meeting of the needs in the life of Job? When you read about Job, boy, it's pretty drastic how all this happened. It seemed like all of a sudden. Here he faces all these tragedies of bereavement and horror and tragedy. The oxen were plowing and asses feeding beside them. The Sabians fell on him. They took all of his animals away. And he says, the fire of God hath fallen on the sheep, and they're gone, and the Chaldeans have fallen on the camels, they've taken them away, and I'm only left to tell you, and then he goes on, a great wind came in the wilderness, smote the house where his children were feasting, and they're all dead. Well, how do you deal with something like that? Was I day, so shall thy strength be. There was something that he learned or something he had. He said, the Lord gave, the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. I want to tell you, God gave him strength for that most difficult hour. He was able to trust God in the midst of what very few people have experienced. As your day, as my day, whatever happens, we know God can give us the strength to face and deal with it, whatever may come. Every day's not dark and dire. Every day's not bad. There are great days. There are good days. But it seems like the bad days stand out. I know in basketball, the things that I remember were the mistakes and the losses. Those are the things I remember the most. I remember we had one game that we had the game won. All we had to do, if they came down, scored two points, we still won. All we had to do is not foul when somebody shot. And one dumb guy on the team fouls someone, hits the shot, tied the game, and then we lost in overtime. I still remember that. I hold it against them, too. I just, I can't seem to get the bitterness out of my heart. There's something about it that how could you do that? Just put your hands in your pockets. I mean, just do nothing. Let them score. There are things that we all have to face. There are challenges. We don't know what tomorrow holds, but we know who holds tomorrow. And we can trust him. And as you go through life learning to trust him, you'll see again and again that he'll meet that need. He'll give you grace. It's not easy. There are some struggles. There are some difficult times. But as are days, so shall our strength be. One day at a time, we trust in him. Happy the man that finds the grace, the blessing that God has chosen grace, the wisdom coming from above, the faith that sweetly works by love. We should be happy to be saved and a Christian today. We know that we have this promise. As different as our days will be, as long as our days may be, as challenging and varied as our needs might be, God's strength is sufficient. And as he gave the children of Israel manna daily, he'll give us the strength we need daily. And as we fight the battles going, trying to have victory in the Christian life, there may be some defeats, there may be some challenges along the way. He'll give us grace. That was the promise that this man of God gave to all the children of Israel. These are the last words that he could speak. If there was anything that they needed to hear, it was that. As thy days, so shall thy strength be. Whatever you're gonna face, just remember, He'll give you strength for that day, one day at a time. Let's bow for prayer.