I want to draw your attention this morning to a passage in Deuteronomy chapter 31. Deuteronomy chapter 31. And we're going to read from the first verse. Now what's going on here is, in many ways, this is the last address of Moses. Moses will shortly pass into eternity. before they're about to enter into the promised land. And he gives them this wonderful address that is God-centered, and there's so much we can learn from it. So Deuteronomy chapter 31, and reading from the first verse. And Moses went and spake these words unto all Israel. And he said unto them, I am 120 years old this day, I can no more go out and come in. Also the Lord hath said unto me, Thou shalt not go over this Jordan. The Lord thy God, he will go over before thee, and he will destroy these nations from before thee, and thou shalt possess them, and Joshua, he shall go over before thee, as the Lord hath said. And the Lord shall go unto them as he did unto Shilon and Og, kings of the Amorites, and unto the land of them whom he destroyed. And the Lord shall give them up before your face, that ye may do unto them according to all the commands which I have commanded you. Be strong, and of a good courage. Fear not, nor be afraid of them. For the Lord thy God, he it is that doth go with thee. He will not fail thee, nor forsake thee. And Moses called unto Joshua, and said unto him in the sight of all Israel, Be strong and of a good courage, for thou must go with this people unto the land which the Lord hath sworn unto their fathers to give them, and thou shalt cause them to inherit it. And the Lord, he it is that doth go before thee, he will be with thee, he will not fail thee, neither forsake thee, I may the Lord add his blessing to his holy word this morning. Let's pray once again. Lord, as we come to look at the word of God, we thank thee that we have a translation before us and we thank thee that you have revealed yourself to men and women through the inspired scriptures that in Hebrew and Greek we have preserved for us thy infallible word. Lord, we pray that as we read this passage, that Thou wouldst help us to glean that which is beneficial to our soul. We read in the Bible that all Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be truly furnished unto every good work. And so, dear Lord, we look into Thy Word this morning, seeking to know that doctrine of truth, seeking to know how we might live for thy honour and glory, and most of all, to behold Christ in our Saviour's precious Name. Amen. I want to call your attention then to Deuteronomy chapter 31, and the whole subject, and those of you who saw what I sent out to a few of you yesterday, of a provocatively called courageous faith. Courageous faith, and I see in this passage what Moses is exhorting both the children of Israel to, and Joshua as well, as he takes up Moses mantle, is courageous faith. Today, across our news outlets, we find tributes, don't we, to the Queen's late husband, Prince Philip. One of the traits that people used to say of him, His war exploits, they mentioned he was referred to in dispatches over some action that he took in World War II regarding some spotlights to expose some enemy boats. Now there's a sense in which we apply the word courageous to various acts, humanly speaking, to bring bravery in the face of difficulty. But today I want to take that and then look at the biblical instruction that we find here in Deuteronomy 31, verse six, to be strong and of a good courage, and have a think about what that really means for the Christian. What is it telling us? Is it just some high human trait that we ought to aspire to, or is there more to it than that? Let me, first of all, not. To be of good courage is not brushing every single difficulty you face under the carpet, every struggling emotion. Us Brits, we like to have a stiff upper lip and carry on as they say. But the courage he's spoken of is not just ignoring a problem or not really recognizing that we do go through times of sorrow. No, not at all. That's not what is teaching. We have for us also a courageous example. Whilst it's true to say we can attach the word courageous maybe to persecuting Christians in other parts of the world, some of you know Brethren in Myanmar or what used to be called Burma right now, who are having great difficulty. There's also a sense in which there's Christian courage to face the everyday the hard events of our life, and yet to keep on in the Christian walk, faithfully following the Lord, takes courage, God-inspired courage. And that's a very important thing. I've come across people who've been sold a view of Christianity, that as soon as they are converted, everything is going to be easy. Now, Providence was expected to work everything out so they never had any turmoil in their life. And when they do, it causes for them a crisis of faith. Well, the Lord Jesus Christ called his own disciples, didn't he? In this world, you shall have tribulation. And in that well-known statement about the rain and sun, et cetera, will be on the righteous and unrighteous. It's right to say, through the course of our lives, both Christians and non-Christians know different turmoils and different difficult circumstances. Being a Christian does not exempt you from knowing what it's like to know the death of a loved one, to know what it is to be sick and unwell, to know through various trials, not at all, but As we'll see, we are exhorted to be of good courage and there's something behind all of that. Later on it talks of a peace that passes all understanding in the New Testament. And I hope I can give a little as to what that means. Let me say at the very outset, you need to know Christ to know what it is to be of good courage as a Christian. To know what I'm going to talk about this morning. In Deuteronomy 31.6, Moses here is speaking to the chosen people of God at this time. These were people of God that he would, that God would guide and strengthen. Today, the church is described as the bride of Christ, whom he nourishes and cares for by the word of God, as we read in Ephesians. So to know this good courage you're going to look at, and to continue in that fashion, that you need to be part of Christ's church and to turn from that which separates you from God. You need to know Christ as your Savior and the only one who provided forgiveness of sins. As the hymn writer puts it, there was no other good enough to pay the price of sin. He only could unlock the gate of heaven and let us in. to be of good courage and to know the abiding presence of God to you for good. You need to know God's Savior, in the sense the Savior that God has provided. You need to know the Lord Jesus Christ. And saying that, let's then turn a little more to our passage. As I've already alluded to, to grasp the significance of Deuteronomy 31.6, we need to understand What's going on here? When did this happen? This call to courage from Moses and this encouragement not to fear was given at his last address to the children of Israel. You might say his last sermon if we were to use it in modern day. Moses here is 120 years old and it's time for him to resign from his work and take his rest. He that had arrived at so great an age then, when 70 or 80, was the ordinary stint as appears from the prayer of Moses in Psalm 90. He goes beyond that and he's now here at 120. He's under divine instruction. He is not one who is going to go over Jordan. There's a strong false thought there that he knows the Lord has told him. And so Moses here, he wants to encourage those of God's people who are there listening to him, and he knows Joshua is going to take up that mantle, and he wants to encourage him. Well, what do we see there? He says, be strong and of a good courage. Now when you first see that, Maybe you think, well, he's just saying to them, pull yourself up by your bootstraps, you know? You're about to do this, come on. And encouraging talk like that may have a certain use, but there's more to it than that. Why does he tell them to be strong and have a good courage? Why does he tell them to fear not or not to be afraid? Well, the latter part of verse six tells us why. For the Lord thy God failed thee, nor forsaken thee. You see, for the Christian, why we are to be of good courage, why we are to comfort ourselves and not fear and be afraid, because the Lord is with us. It was said of kings in medieval days and older battles that they would be on the battlefield with those who were fighting and their presence and them being seen visually would be a great encouragement to those who engaged in the battle. They knew that the king was there with them, he was still alive, and they would continue. And so that was a great comfort. And some of the hardest events and issues we face in life are ones, humanly speaking, we feel as if we face alone. But the great comfort that Moses is leaving here with the people, he reminds them and he reminds Joshua that the Lord is with them. Do you remember what Christ said when he was speaking to his disciples before his departure in John 14 to John 17? As he's shortly to go to the cross, and then after rising victorious over the grave and ascending to heaven, What is one of the standout things in that passage? Is it, it was that Christ is not leaving them comfortless. He's not leaving them like orphans, you might say. He is sending another comforter. He emphasizes that, doesn't he? That they will not be alone. Do you remember what the last verse in Matthew's Gospel, Matthew 28, 20 says? It says, teaching them to observe whatsoever things I have commanded you, and then what does Christ say? And lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. And here is the greatest encouragement for the Christian to be of good courage. Above all else, our comfort comes from knowing that God won't abandon us when life becomes challenging, uncertain, or painful. He will stay faithfully with us. His faithfulness doesn't mean that life will be easy or trials will come. His faithfulness means that He won't ever leave us, even when trials come. We can cling to this promise when we maybe feel misunderstood, betrayed, abandoned. The Lord will never abandon His children. Now, this self-same phrase that we find in Deuteronomy 31, 6, is also used by the writer to the Hebrews, in Hebrews 13, verse 5 and 6, where he says this, Let your conversation be without covetousness, and be content with such things as ye have. For he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee, so that we may boldly say, The Lord is my helper. I will not fear what men shall do unto me. And just a few verses later, the writer goes on to say, Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever. So that's my other encouragement to you. Be of good courage because the Lord is with you. He will never leave you, nor forsake you, dear believer. You may not see God. You may not feel close in every moment. But for the believer, he is there. Now it's right to say that the scriptures teach us that God is omnipresent. There is no place in the world where God is not present. That Acts 17, 28 talks about through God in him we live and breathe and have our being. And Jeremiah 23, 24 talks of can any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him save the Lord. Do not I fill heaven and earth, saith the Lord. So God is talking there. And the first and most basic sense is right to say that God is everywhere. He's omnipresent and including the lives of believers and unbelievers. But what we find here in Deuteronomy 41.6 is something more than that. It's something more than God just being present in that broad sense in his omnipresent character. The gracious presence of God is there for the believer as their strength and their stain. That was a quote, wasn't it, that I saw of the Queen with regard to Prince Philip through her walk, through her time as Queen. She said, he was my strength and stain. Well, even in a greater sense, we might say the Lord is the believer's strength and stain. That is so important and it's vital you see that. Now, when I say this, when I say we should be of good courage because God is with us and he'll never leave us nor forsake us, you may say, well, what about when we read in the scriptures, when God withdraws in some capacity, when the psalmist is writing and he is burdened, he's pleading with the Lord once again to return to him some aspect of peace. Well, when we think of it in those terms, the Puritans would talk about something called the manifest presence of God. And they were using that phrase, manifest, experienced, known, tasted, presence of God, to distinguish it from the omnipresence of God and the covenant-keeping or God-directed presence of God to believers. which may or may not be experienced in intensity from time to time. And I think that's a really helpful distinction. In other words, sometimes God is always with the believer. He will never leave us nor forsake us. But sometimes that experienced presence is not known by us. I do not mean when God's presence is not with us that we are forsaken by God. No, that would go contrary to this verse. He doesn't withdraw His gracious commitment to us or His sustaining grace. What He withdraws occasionally is the sweetness of His fellowship from time to time. Sometimes it can be because of our own sins, sometimes it can be to draw us back closer to Himself, sometimes it can be moulding us more for His glory. And that is so important. Sometimes it shows us how much we need the Lord when we have times where we don't feel as close to Him. Let me just give you a few quotes that I found most helpful in making this distinction. Some of you have heard of the writer John Owen. He distinguishes between faith and the spiritual sense of closeness to God. He says, faith alone justifies. but their closeness to God can come and go. And there's no denying his reality, he says this. Learn to distinguish between faith and spiritual sense. This rule the apostle gives us in 2 Corinthians, verse 7, where we walk by faith and not by sight. It is the sight of glory that is especially here intended. But faith and sense in any kind are clearly distinguished. that may be believed which is not felt. Yea, it is the will and command of God that faith should stand and do its work where sense fails. And if we believe no more of God, of his love, of his grace, or more acceptance with him than we have a spiritual affecting sense of, we shall be many times at a loss. So what he's saying there is, if we only believe these things when we feel especially close to the Lord, we will find ourselves occasionally at a loss. So God is with us. And I want you to see that this is foundational if we are to be of good courage in any sense. This is the courageous faith that I mentioned at the outset. Faith that is founded upon a God who is with us. This is the greatest encouragement for us to be of good courage. Like the soldier on the battlefield that sees the king is still there, we know that our savior is still there at the right hand of the father. Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones used an illustration that he says he got from Thomas Goodwin for the special, what he calls the special manifestations of God in the spirit. The idea is that there are times when God especially manifests his fatherly love by the workings of the spirit in the soul. Let me give you the quote. A man and his child are walking down the road, and they're walking hand in hand. And the child knows that he is the child of his father, and he knows that his father loves him, and he rejoices in that, and he is happy in it. There's no uncertainty about it at all. But suddenly the father, moved by some impulse, takes hold of the child and picks him up, and cuddles him in his arms, kisses him and embraces him, showers love upon him, and then he puts him down again, and they go on walking together. And end quote. And the sense here is, that's sometimes how the Lord deals with us. There are times when we're walking down the road of our life and we know God is our Father, we know Christ is our Saviour, the Lord is holding our hand through it all, but sometimes there are these special occasions where we feel the embrace of God through His Word, as this glorious truth dawns on our soul, as we have special times of prayer with the Lord, as we have those days, you know, when you feel that the Lord is especially close to you. And we speak here in an experience, I trust, that is of many different believers, according to the scripture, that we find these particular things. The sonship that we find spoken of here, this glorious divine manifestation to the soul, but shedding abroad the love of God in our hearts. That is something that we know and we know more acutely sometimes than at other times. Another writer called William Guthrie, he once wrote a topic called The Christian's Great Interest. Some of you may have read that particular book. He describes that shedding of God's love in our heart in these ways. He says it is a thing better felt than spoken of. It's no audible voice, but it is a ray of glory filling the soul with God as he is life, light, love and liberty. And I think that's a true sentence. He uses the example of Mary that we read last week near the tomb of Christ when he had risen. And Jesus said unto her, Mary. And she turns to herself and says, Rabboni, Master. He had spoken some words to her before, before he said, Mary. But she didn't recognize him. Yet when he said her name, there was a sense in which she saw who he was. It was a blessing and a comfort from the Lord. That manifestation brought faith to itself. And so we can see, in this sense, the Lord brings us certain seasons. Be strong and of a good courage. Fear not, nor be afraid, for the Lord thy God, he it is that doth go with thee. He will not fail thee, nor forsake thee. I guess really what I'm saying here is, the great secret in any sense to a courageous faith is to realize as a believer that the Lord is with us. And that as we face what we have in our lives, we of course continue faithfully before the Lord, but we have to recognize behind it all, the Lord is with us. Let me just give you a few thoughts of how they apply this. What happens next? Well, they happen. They go into the promised land. Of course, there are times where they stutter, times where they don't progress, but this great exhortation from Moses was heeded, and they went forward. Joshua led the people, and the people followed Joshua, knowing that the Lord was with them, and so they went forth being strong and of a good courage. And that's a great exhortation to us. I read to you earlier from Psalm 27, verse one to three. That's the psalm of David, written many years after this event. And in many ways, he uses these same terms, as if this wonderful, comforting phrase has been passed on and imbibed by the people of God because it was so precious to them. So that in that Psalm 27, he talks about the Lord never leaving us and nor forsaking us. He talks of the very last verse, one of my most favorite verses in the whole of Scripture. Wait on the Lord, verse 14 of Psalm 127. Wait on the Lord, be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thy heart. Wait, I say, on the Lord. There's a great reliance on the Lord that you see there. Be of good courage. Dear friend, when you're going through that immense trial, when your heart feels as if it is going under, I pray that you may know the Lord is with you. The Lord is through it all with you, dear friend. The Lord will never leave thee, nor forsake thee. And he will, be with you through all the turmoils of this life. So when you have to go out and face that particular problem, that particular issue, when you go out maybe to evangelize, to tell others the glorious gospel, when you seek to live for God's glory, when you seek to do your vocation, the profession the Lord's placed you in, for the glory of God, when you seek in your own home with those visitors you have, to be God-glorified as much as you can with the wisdom God's granted you. When you seek to face each day and you see it as a tremendous burden and struggle and don't know how you're going to do it, take heed to the words here. Be strong and offer good courage. And I know what you may be thinking. How can I? I'm struggling. The Lord is with you. The Lord is with you through that, dear friend. Be not discouraged. And that's what Moses wanted the people of God to know him, as they're about to go in the promised land that God was with them. And that, maybe we don't realize, but that is one of the most comforting things in the whole world. Many people today, I don't know if you've ever seen one of these sporting documentaries about some of the great teams from years ago. and they talk about other people that they were playing with and they say, when I saw this person on the picture of me and when I saw that person on the picture of me, even though we were one nil down, I knew we were going to come back because we had a strength amongst ourselves and we believed in each other. Well, dear friends, when it comes to your life, I'm not saying look to your own strength, look to God who is with you. and He will never leave you nor forsake you. That is what Moses wants to emphasize here. Or to put it in biblical terms, if God is for us, who can be against us? What a wonderful thing that is. So often, the devil tries to mask our view of God, of God's grace, and to obscure our view of Christ. through so many other things in the Christian life that we can forget these most wonderful blessings and the grace of God to us through the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, dear friends, I hope these brief thoughts might be a blessing to you as you seek to serve the Lord faithfully in this life. Let's pray together. Lord Almighty God, help us to be There are many things that we can fear, many things that are uncertain, many things that, yeah, we have such struggles emotionally and we work through that. And yet we thank Thee that as Moses exalted the children of Israel to be strong and of a good courage, it wasn't just out of their own moral fortitude. It wasn't out of their own strength, but they were to be strong in that fashion because the Lord was with me. We thank Thee, Lord, that Thou art with us. Who else could we ask beside Thee? Who would be better than Thee? Absolutely no one. And so we thank Thee for Thy gracious presence towards us, whether it is an occasion where we feel especially close to Thee, or things feel modest. Help us to be strong and alert and courageous. In Christ's precious name. Amen.