We'll start with a word of prayer, shall we? Father, we're thankful to be together and to just have a love for each other and a love for Your Word as well. I hope that we would just continue to look to it for the answers for our lives, Lord, that it would be the driving factor there that we would know that You know, there's a bazillion books out there that tell you how to live your life, but the Word of God has the true answers, because Your Word is truth. And we're grateful for that. Lord, just guide us as we begin this new study tonight, and we desire to know what You have for us out of Your Word. We pray this in Jesus' name, amen. Okay, so we're in the book of Deuteronomy. We're gonna kind of get back into my Old Testament survey. And so, you know, we're gonna skip a lot of verses. We're gonna hit, hopefully, the highlights and work our way through it. It's the fifth book, it's the final book of the law books, the Pentateuch, okay? First five books of the Bible, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. Moses traditionally has been recognized as the author, not much discrepancy there, no one's really arguing that. The word Deuteronomy means second law, and that was a mistake, okay? The English title, Deuteronomy, stems from the Septuagint's mistranslation. The Septuagint was the Greek translation of the Hebrew. It was done by the Jews before Jesus, and it was a Greek translation of the Old Testament. In Septuagint, there's like 70 guys who worked on it. They had mistranslated it, and they had taken a word out of Deuteronomy 17 and 18, and it should have said, this is the repetition of the law, not a second law. Okay, and so what we're gonna find tonight is this is a lot like Leviticus, but Leviticus was written to the priests, the priesthood, okay, Levites, and this is really written to us, to the people, okay? And so it's geared at us, and so it's a repetition of the law. You're gonna hear a lot of things that we've heard before out of Leviticus, but it's geared more towards the people, okay? So the Septuagint translated these words, and they got it wrong, and it should have been the second law, and then it wound up in the Vulgate, which was Jerome's fourth-century Latin translation of the Bible, and it just got picked up. The Hebrew title for the book... is these are the words, and that comes right out of the first verse in the Hebrew. Okay, you don't see it so well in the English, but that's very often how the Hebrews would title their books, was just they'd take the first words right out of the first verse and make a title out of it somehow, okay? The Hebrew title is a more apt description of the book, for it's not a second law, but it's the record of Moses' sermons on the law, okay? The theme, and I just picked this up from MacArthur, read a number of different themes by different people, and it was interesting how similar they were, but this is what MacArthur wrote, he says, like Leviticus, Deuteronomy contains much legal detail, but with an emphasis on the people rather than on the priests. As Moses called the second generation of Israel to trust the Lord and be obedient, and that's gonna be our theme, trust and obey, okay? to his covenant made at Horeb, or Mount Sinai. He illustrates his points with reference to Israel's past history, okay? And we're going to see, Moses is going to bring up a bunch of past history, okay? He reminded Israel of their rebelling to the Lord at Horeb, okay, with a golden calf, at Kadesh Barnea, where they refused to go into the land, okay? And which brought consequences. He also reminded of the Lord's faithfulness in giving victory over the enemies. And we'll see some of that. So trust and obey is the overall theme. Secondary theme, I guess, would be take possession of the land. Moses is going to remind him over and over and over again, take possession of the land. and that land had been promised by an oath to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, okay? So the book itself is broken up like this, where you have the first discourse, and there's gonna be three discourses by Moses, and then the final two chapters are his last days and his death, okay? So the first discourse is the first four chapters, and that's what we're gonna try and cover tonight. The second discourse is the purity in the land. Approaching the land, I'm sorry, was the first. Purity in the land was the second. And there we see like 23 chapters. And the third discourse is the covenant of the land, another two chapters. And then the final, death of Moses. So that's kind of how we're approaching it. And that's just the outline that has been used. Everyone's got a different outline, but that's pretty common, pretty similar. So the introduction and historical settings of Moses' speeches, Deuteronomy 1 through chapter four, okay. Chapter one, we're gonna get the command to leave Horeb or Sinai, okay. And we're gonna pick up our location, our timeline here in the first verses. So let's go to Deuteronomy 1, 1. And these are the words that Moses spoke to all Israel beyond the Jordan in the wilderness, In the Areba, opposite, and then we have these towns, we don't know where they are, Saf, between Paran and Tofal and Laban, I guess, and Hazrath, and Dizahab, whatever. And then it goes on, and where we really are, most all of this is gonna take place right in this area here. They're just here, they're there for about a month, and while this whole book takes place, okay? And the longer Moses speaks, the longer he stays alive, okay? So he's going to speak this whole book here and talk to the people. Not that that's his intent, but that's what's going on. So that's where they are. And he starts off in verse two, he says, it is 11 days journey from Horeb by way of Mount Seir to Kadesh. And so now what we're talking about here, Mount Sinai is either here or here, traditional sites here, but we've got a friend that we went to Israel with, she came over Friday night, she's going back to Israel, and she is going to Mount Sinai down here in Arabia, what they think is Mount Sinai, which we looked at pictures of that and stuff, and whether it is or not, I don't know. But her tour is actually taking her there on a bus, which I thought was kind of fascinating that there's people starting to recognize that there's a fair chance that the original Mount Sinai that everyone's held to all these years may not be the real Sinai. But anyway, here's Kadesh Barnea up here. So that's what's going on there. It's an 11-day journey from Horeb to Mount Sinai, past Mount Seir to Kadesh Barnea, verse three. And then in the 40th year, on the first day of the 11th month, Moses spoke to the people of Israel according to all that the Lord had given him in commandment to them. So the point here is that they could have started taking the land after an 11-day journey, okay? And he's just making the point. It's only 11 days to get to Horeb, but it's taken us 40 years. And the point being that they didn't go into the land. They were disobedient to the Lord when they got up there. And then they spent 40 years wandering. And I was thinking about that. Where have I been disobedient and how long have I wandered before I got on track? You know what I mean? It's like, and it's offense to God, you know, when he's telling you to do something and then you're just kind of wandering around in the desert not being obedient. Anyway, it's one of those things that's like, probably not a bad idea to say, I'm sorry, Lord, you know, I've wasted a lot of your time. Stephen said this in Acts 7 when he was talking to the Jews, he said, our fathers refused to obey him, but thrust him aside, and in their hearts they turned to Egypt. And later on, he says, and this is the real clencher, he says, you stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit. As your fathers did, so do you. And so we see, of course, turning to Egypt or looking towards Egypt, Egypt is always a picture, not always, but often a picture of sin. and they wanted to go back to their leeks and their garlics and all those kinds of things. They didn't want to be obedient to the Lord. Sometimes we do the same thing. It's something to think about and talk to the Lord about. Verse 3 continued, in the 40th year, on the first day of the 11th month, and people are placing this February of 1405 BC, okay? So 1400 years before Christ is where we are timeline-wise. Verse 4, after he had defeated Shinnon, the king of the Amorites, who lived in Heshbon. Let's see if I can find it myself. Heshbon is right in this area, okay? And that's where the Amorites were. And then Og, king of Bashan, who lived in Ashteroth and Edra. Etirai, whatever. And I think I nicked off Bashan, but this is the area of Bashan right up here to the east of the Sea of Galilee. So the Lord had helped them fight those guys and beat those. And we looked at this when we were back in the other earlier books, and we're just kind of rehashing it here. So essentially what had happened, they had taken all the land that the Lord would allow on the east side of the Jordan, okay? He did not allow them to take Edom or Moab. Remember, they marched around those guys on the desert side or to the east. Okay, then we begin now Moses' first discourse, and it goes from here, starting in verse six, through the end of chapter four. And Moses is gonna begin to review the past 40 years in the wilderness, okay? So verse six, the Lord God said to us in Horeb, which is Sinai, you have stayed long enough at this mountain, turn and take your journey and go to the hill country of the Amorites and to all their neighbors, to the Reba in the hill country and in the lowlands and in the Negev and by the seacoast and the land of the Canaanites and Lebanon, as far as the great river Euphrates, okay? And, It goes clear up to the Euphrates here, and clear down into this area. You can see it take the land of the Amorites. We see Amorites here, Amorites there, take the land of the Canaanites, and then going clear on up, as we showed in this other one, and Lebanon, which isn't listed here, but it'll be this area up in here. OK, as far as the Great River, the River Euphrates, verse eight. See, I've set the land before you go and take possession of the land. Here's one of those. Take possession of the land. It's going to get repeated a bunch through this book that the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac and Jacob, to give to them and to their offspring after them. OK, and just a quote from Genesis 15, 18. On that day, the Lord made a cover with Abram. before his name was changed, saying, to your offspring I give this land from the river Egypt to the great river Euphrates. Okay? So, obviously the great river Euphrates and the river Egypt. Well, everyone kind of considers this waddy here, that river. If that's what you think, you're in denial. That's what I say. Denial. It seems to me it ought to be the Nile. That's the river Egypt. But whatever. Enough. Verse 9, okay, at that time I said to you, I'm not able to bear you by myself. The Lord your God has multiplied you and behold, you are today as numerous as the stars of heaven. Verse 13, choose for your tribes wise, understanding, experienced men, and I will appoint them as your heads." And so he did that because he is originally trying to judge all the people himself and couldn't handle it. And Jethro helped him understand to do that. And wise and understanding, this is a little bit like looking for elders and deacons. I mean, they don't list it out that way, but there's a similarity there. And of course, they're drawing from thousands of people of each tribe, so you probably get some pretty good guys in there. Verse 19, Israel's refusal to enter the land. So he's going to go over that. Then we set out from Horeb and went through all that great and terrifying wilderness that you saw on the way to the hell country of the Amorites, as the Lord your God commanded us. And we came to Kadesh Barnea. Then all of you came near me and said, let us send men before us that they may explore the land for us, bringing us word. Again, on the way, by which we must go up, and the cities into which we shall come. And the things seemed good to me, and I took 12 men from you, one man from each tribe." And then, of course, we get the bad report down to verse 32. Yet in spite of this word, you did not believe the Lord your God, who went before you in the way to seek you out a place to pitch your tents, in fire by night and in a cloud by day to show you the way that you should go. And so he's just pointing out, you know, every day you have this fire and this cloud that leads you where to go. That's a pretty awesome thing. And when I tell you to go take this country, You don't believe me. You don't trust me." It's like, what other country has a fire leading them around in a pillar and took them through the Red Sea and did all the things to Pharaoh and on and on and on, and yet when it comes up to You know, okay, now go into the land, take the land, and now we're not up to it. We don't want to do that, okay? 600,000 men of fighting age, I think that's it. And then you've got to add your women and children so they could easily have been two plus million people, easily. I mean, look how big Jacob's family was, 12 kids, 12 sons, not daughters, 12 sons. He probably had some daughters in there, too. So, yeah, a lot of people. 600 fighting men, 600,000. Sometimes we miss everyday miracles, even just the breath we take. We see the miracles of creation around us. I mean, even in a fallen world, we still see a lot of beauty and things like that. And it's a good thing to think about thanking the Lord for everyday miracles. And these guys had it. I don't know that we'd have done any better if we were there. You know what I mean? I hope we would have, but probably not. I don't know. Two guys did good, okay? Matthew 10 says this, 10.32, so everyone who acknowledges me before men, I also will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven. But whoever denies me before men, I also will deny before my Father who is in heaven. In a sense, they did not acknowledge God before the whole world, as the whole world knew about the 10 plagues and the Red Sea, and then they just wandered in the desert for 40 years. Terrible example, really, when you think about what happened there. Rahab knew about it, Joshua 2.10, for we have heard how the Lord dried up the waters of the Red Sea before when you came out of Egypt. She knew about it, and that had been I don't know how old she was, but that was at least 40 years ago. And they still knew about it, talked about it. Then we get to the penalty for Israel's rebellion. He sent 12 up, 10 rebelled, and led the whole group in rebellion. Verse 34, and the Lord heard your words and was angered, and He swore, not one of these men of this evil generation shall see the good land that I swore to give to your fathers. Okay? Get to chapter two, verse one, then we turned and journeyed into the wilderness in the direction of the Red Sea, as the Lord told me, and for many days we traveled around Mount Seir. Then the Lord said to me, you have been traveling around this mountain country long enough, turn northward. Okay. And so they go around east of Edom and the land of Esau and head north down to verse 13. Now rise up and go over the book Zered. So we went over the book Zered. And the time for our leaving Kadesh Barnea until we crossed the book Zered was 38 years. Okay. So from Kadesh Barnea, they had gone south. So there's Kadesh is right down in here. This was beyond the border of Israel. They were supposed to go in and start taking the land, but they didn't. So then they came back down, wandered around Sinai down here for 38 years. And then they're going to spend two years coming up along the east side and conquering these Amorites in this area. Okay. They're going to get King Og up here and the Amorites down in that area. Okay. So they crossed the Brook Zerid. Brook Zerid is right down here. It comes into the Dead Sea right there, OK? And they're beautiful. Not a huge amount of water. I don't know how far up and down the stream this is, but people like to hike up it. From the look of it, very hot and dry country. So you get down in that canyon where the water is, I'm sure it's wonderful to wander up that river. right through the stream. But that's what Zerud looks like at the bottom of the Dead Sea. It says the entire generation It was 38 years until the entire generation died off, is what it was, okay? And it was that entire generation that Stephen talked about that they had turned their hearts towards Egypt, you know. And they were more interested in the leeks and the garlics and things like that than going in and taking the land as they had been instructed. Chapter two, verse 32. Then Shinnon came out against us, he and all his people, to battle at Jahaz. And the Lord our God gave him over to us, and we defeated him and his sons and all his people." Jahaz is right, it's not on the map, but it's right in this area right here, okay, is where they fought him. Chapter 3, the defeat of King of Og, 3-1, and we turn and went up by the way of Bashan, and Og, the king of Bashan, came out against us, he and all his people, to battle at Edrae, however you pronounce that, but I pointed it out earlier right there. Og is in this area of Bashan, okay, and now Og was one of the He had a bed that was 13 feet tall, 6 feet wide, I think it was, big guy. He would be one of the Nephilim type. Let's go to 312. When we took possession of this land up there in the north at that time, I gave to the Reubenites and the Gadites the territory beginning at Aor, which is on the edge of the valley of the Arnon. Now, the Ar is going to give them from the Arnon River right here. South of that is Moab land. Reuben gets this, Gad gets this, and then we say the half-tribe of Manasseh gets this here. The other half of Manasseh winds up over here. The Manasseh tribe is really big into livestock, cattle and sheep, that kind of thing. and they really liked this land up here, and they asked for that, and half of them stayed there. They made a deal that, okay, we're going to secure your flocks and your people, and then you're going to fight. When we get to Joshua, you'll see they lead the way across the river, Jordan. These two and a half tribes is what it is. Verse 13, the rest of Gilead and all Bashan, the kingdom of Og, and all its region of Aragab, which I'm not sure where that, just that area, but I don't see it on a map. I gave the half tribe of Manasseh. All that portion of Bashan is called the land of Rephim, okay? And that's a whole other deal about the Rephim. All right, 323, Moses is forbidden to enter the land, okay? I pleaded with the Lord at that time saying, oh Lord God, you have only begun to show your servant your greatness and your mighty hand. For what God is there in the heaven or on earth who can do such works and mighty acts as yours? Please let me go over and see the good land beyond the Jordan, the good hill country and Lebanon. Okay, this book is about trust and obey, and there are consequences for sins, okay? And Moses struck the rock when the Lord told him to talk to it, okay? This is, I can't remember where I got this, but it's right for teachers and leaders to be judged by a stricter standard, okay? Though it is unrighteous to hold teachers and leaders to a perfect standard, It is true that people's conduct was worse than Moses', but that's irrelevant. He was the leader, okay? James 3 says this, and this is a tough verse, not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with a greater strictness, okay, which always scares me when I read that verse, okay, but it's true, okay, and it's important that we hold to Scripture and not go beyond, okay. So Moses is writing this just before Joshua takes over, and Moses is gonna go up to Pisgah to die, all right? Remember this hymn? Sweet hour of prayer, sweet hour of prayer. May I the consolation share, till from Mount Pisgah's lofty height, okay? Pisgah and Nebo are the same. He's looking across when he goes up on that mountain. From Mount Pisgah's lofty height I view my home and take my flight. This robe of flesh I'll drop and rise to seize the everlasting prize. And shout while passing through the air, farewell, farewell, sweet hour of prayer. Anyway, that's what's in that song when you're singing about Mount Pisgah. Okay. That's where that comes from. Chapter four, Moses commands obedience. 401, and now, Israel, listen to the statutes and rules that I am teaching you, and do them, trust and obey again, that you may live and go in and take possession of the land, there we see that again, okay, that the Lord, the God of your fathers is giving you, and you shall not add to the word that I command, nor take from it. you may keep the commandment of the Lord your God that I command you." Let's turn over to the last book of your Bible, clear to the end, Revelation 22, where we're going to see this again about should not take or add to the Word of God. Revelation 22, 18, okay? It says, I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book, if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book, which that wouldn't be good. And if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book, okay? So, very important that we don't mess with the word of God. Next, fear of God. You won't see that, it's a title, but back in Deuteronomy 4.9, fear is found 26 times in Deuteronomy, and half the time it's about fearing God. So, Deuteronomy 4.9. Only take care and keep your soul diligently lest you forget the things that your eyes have seen unless they depart from your heart all the days of your life. Make them known to your children and your children's children. How on the day that you stood before the Lord, your God, at Horeb, the Lord said to me, gather the people to me that I may let them hear my words so that they may learn to fear me. all the days that they live on the earth, and that they may teach their children so." Okay. That was kind of interesting. We want to fear God and teach our children to fear God. God is to be feared. Okay. He's almighty, unlimited power. He spoke the universe into existence. You know, that's power that's unspeakable. Bible calls him the king of armies, a lot of other things. Without Christ, he is holy and unapproachable. And we're to teach our kids these things, okay? Let's turn over to Luke 12. I want to look at that for a minute and continue this thought about fearing the Lord. Luke 12, 4. This is Jesus speaking. He says, I tell you, my friends, do not fear those who kill the body, and after that have nothing more that they can do. But I will warn you whom to fear. Fear him who, after he is killed, has authority to cast into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him. Then he says this. Aren't five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten by God. Indeed, their very hairs on your head are all numbered. Don't be afraid. Don't be afraid. You're worth more than many sparrows. When we think about how he loves us, you know, think of John 3, 16, God sent his only son, you know, to pay the price for our sins, died for us, you know. We know he loves us. Last week we looked at, you know, as believers that we're children of God, we're heirs of him. co-heirs with Christ. 10b, back in Deuteronomy 4.10, the second half of the verse is, gather the people to me that I may let them hear my words, pay attention so that they may learn to fear me and teach their children. Just I did a little reading on this. The Gott questions had some really good on stuff, but he says, the biblical fear of God for the believer includes understanding how much God hates sin and fearing his judgment on sin, even in the life of a believer, okay? The idea that he really hates sin, okay? In the life of a believer, we call that discipline when he disciplines us, okay? Hebrews 12.10, speaking of fathers, for they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them, but He disciplines us for our good so that we may share in His holiness. Okay? He wants us to be holy. And so, you know, having a proper fear of Him causes us to be holy, should cause us to be holy. Okay. Here's the sentence I like the best, so it says, fearing God means having a reverence for him, and I wouldn't reject that, but I would struggle with that if I quit right there, okay? But it says, fearing God means having a reverence for him that greatly impacts the way we live. OK, knowing who he is, how holy is, how we cannot come before him, his power and his strength, his desire for us to be obedient and right and knowing. You know what he can do to us if we don't have a proper fear of him, you know, fear will cause us to obey him, knowing that he can get us if he wants to and and twist and say, no, get in line, son. OK. So fearing God means having a reverence for Him that greatly impacts the way we live. The fear of God is respecting Him, obeying Him, submitting to His disciples, and worshiping Him in awe. And that's another word, you know, that is kind of not used too much, but awe as in, you know, just total He's beyond us. And he has the power and authority that we should fear him. We should teach our kids to fear him. And yet, we know that he absolutely loves us. And he sent his son, who died for us. So there's a little bit of tension there. All right. Idolatry is forbidden, chapter four, verse 15 to 25. Therefore watch yourselves very carefully since you saw no form on the day that the Lord spoke to you at Horeb out of the midst of the fire. There's no form factor that's allowed, okay, is how I think of it. In Deuteronomy four, 415, this whole section goes through 25, but I'm just using the first verse, I think. since you saw no form on the day that the Lord spoke to you from Horeb out of the midst of the fire." And so he goes on, he says, don't make a calf, don't make a bird, don't make it out of wood, don't make it out of stone, don't worship the moon, the sun, the stars, anything. All right? Next we come to the prophecy of Moses. And this is pretty interesting. It ends up being a prophecy. The Lord gives him this, of course, through the Holy Spirit. Deuteronomy 4.26, I call heaven and earth to witness against you today. Now this is just Moses speaking to the people. that you will soon utterly perish from the land that you are going over the Jordan to possess." Wow, that's a bummer statement. What do you mean, Moses? You will not live long in it, but will be utterly destroyed, okay? Isaiah 46 says, I am God declaring the end from the beginning, okay? And here he's clearly laying out some stuff that's like, you know, you got to wonder how much they went, well, why are we even going over there if we're going to be taken right out of it, okay? 427 and the Lord will scatter you among the peoples and you'll be left few Number among the nations where the Lord will drive you and so here we see a picture of the scattered Jew okay, and 722 the Assyrians came down and took the ten northern tribes captive and Babylon came over in, well, it started in 605 to 586, that came three times. I think it was 605 and 596 and 586 BC and took them off to Babylon, scattered around. And then Romans in 70 AD scattered around the nations, not coming back until 1948. So, we see the scattered Jew. Verse 28, this continues this prophecy, "...and there you will serve," in the other nations, "...gods of wood and stone, and the work of human hands, that neither see, nor hear, nor eat, nor smell." What they were told not to do. Okay? And we see them driven from country to country. Okay? If you go through history and look at the Jews. Okay? And they were called the wandering Jew. Okay? Scattered Jew, the wandering Jew. Verse 29, but from there, you will seek the Lord your God and you will find him if you search after him with all your heart and with all your soul. And today we would call that a messianic Jew. You know, one who trusted Christ as Lord and Savior. And they're out there. By and large, most Jews are not saved. But there are messianic Jews. Amir Sefardi, great example of a messianic Jew, okay? The one who's trusted Christ is Lord and Savior. Verse 30, when you are in tribulation and all these things come upon you in the latter days, you will return to the Lord your God and obey His voice. And here we'd see the obedient Jew. And this is referring to Romans 11 at the end of the tribulation. And so all Israel will be saved, okay, at the second coming. We see that, okay. In verse 31, "'For the Lord your God is a merciful God. "'He will not leave you or destroy you "'or forget the covenant with your fathers "'that He swore to them.'" And some call this the millennial Jew, okay? Zechariah 8, 23 says, "'Thus says the Lord of hosts,' and this is speaking during the millennium, "'In those days, 10 men from the nations of every tongue "'shall take a hold of the robe of a Jew, saying, "'Let us go with you, "'for we have heard that God is with you.'" So that'd be a millennial Jew. So we see the scattered Jew, the wandering Jew, the messianic Jew, the obedient Jew, and the millennial Jew. And this is a great prophecy by Moses. Okay, pretty fascinating how much of that's come true. Okay, and the rest will. The Lord alone is God, Deuteronomy 4.33. remembering the burning bush and Mount Sinai, okay? 433, did any people ever hear the voice of a God speaking out of the midst of fire, as you have heard and still live? Or has any God ever attempted to go and take a nation for himself from the midst of another nation? Okay? By trials, by signs, by wonders, and by war, and by a mighty hand, and an outstretched arm, and by great deeds of terror, all of which the Lord your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes. To you it was shown that you might know that the Lord is God, and there is no other besides him. Okay? And continue on making the point that there is no other God," okay, verse 39, "'Know therefore today and lay it to your heart that the Lord is God in heaven above and on earth beneath, and there is no other. Therefore you shall keep His statutes and His commandments, which I command you today, that it may go well with you and with your children after you, that you may prolong your days in the land that the Lord your God has given you for all time. And it's coming back to trust and obey. Trust the Lord and obey, being obedient. He talks about cities of refuge. And Moses set apart three cities. I'm in 441, I'm sorry. Three cities on the east beyond the Jordan. And those cities are, there's Beser, right there, okay. And what was the next one? Ramoth, we got Ramoth, Gilead, up in here. And then the next one was Golan, yeah, in Bashan. which is right about in the middle there. There's Golan right up in there. Okay, so they're kind of spread out. Cities of Refuge, you know, if you committed manslaughter, you could run to those and be protected until the high priest who had changed out until there was a new high priest, which if they just got a new one, that could be a while. But that was the law. And then there was a city of refuge set up later when they conquered the rest of the land on the west side of the Jordan. This is the law that Moses set before the people of Israel. These are the testimonies, the statutes, and the rules which Moses spoke to the people of Israel when they came out of Egypt, beyond the Jordan, in the valley opposite Beth Peor, in the land of Shinnon the king of the Amorites, who lived in Heshbon, who Moses and the people of Israel defeated when they came out of Egypt. And so this ends Moses' first address. And so next time we get together, we will begin his second address, okay? It starts in chapter five. Some things to think about that we kind of looked at a little bit tonight. If only I'd been obedient, you know, maybe I wouldn't have had to wander around so long. And have I told the Lord I'm sorry? You know, have I confessed my sin in that regard? If that's something that strikes you, you ought to do. Do I miss God's everyday miracles? Okay. Am I thankful for them? Just the things he does for us. Do I tend to look towards Egypt? Okay. 2 Timothy 4.10, for Demas, in love with this present world, has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica. Okay. I don't know if a verse strikes you there. You know, he was looking towards Egypt. The things of the world were enticing to him. Okay. And then the other one, last one, do I fear God in a way that greatly impacts my life? You know. so that I understand who he is and what he really wants. Does that impact my life in any way? So there's some things to just think about. All right, let's close in prayer, shall we? Lord, again, we're grateful for your word and for the things you put in there. It's fascinating to see how you lay everything out and you don't hide, the sins of our forefathers, so to speak. And they're there as examples to us that we can learn from and recognize how much we probably are more like them than we know or would want to admit and that we need to learn from their mistakes so that we don't repeat them. I'm grateful for the prophecy of Moses. It just gives me assurance of your word as I look through those things and see that those very things happen to them. And there's more to come and we know your word is true. And it's just a blessing to know that we can trust your word. I just pray that you'd bless us this week and the things we do. And I pray this now in Jesus' name, amen.