Welcome to study number 38 covering Deuteronomy chapter 34 verses 1 through 12 in our final study of the book of Deuteronomy. And we want to start with a hibbly holler going out to what we'll call the anonymouses. There have been literally thousands of people watching these studies who have never contacted us, so we don't know your name. We're not chewing you out. We just want to let you know. We know you're out there, but since we don't know your names, you haven't contacted us, here's a group, Hillbilly Holla, going out to all the anonymouses out there. There's your Hillbilly Holla. And this is after 297 different hillbilly hollers, sometimes going out to more than one person. So there's been more than 300 people that we've given hillbilly hollers to. We'll end our study of the Pentateuch and our study of Deuteronomy with that hillbilly holler out to all you anonymous listeners and viewers. Feel free to contact us though. We'd love to hear from you. And with that, we'll open with a word of prayer and then get into our final study of Deuteronomy. Father, we thank you for this time that we've been able to spend in your word going back to the beginning of our studies here in the office where the office was on the other side of town in our other house and in my other home office. And a lot of years, a lot of things happening during that time. But your word remains true. You remain faithful to us. We thank you for it. And we pray with this last study just as all the others. A prayer of thanks for your help and a prayer for help as we teach what we've learned. And for all those out there listening, that they'll receive your word. They'll be like the Bereans and search the scriptures to see if what they're being taught is so and when it is that they'll be submissive to your word and receive your word and be doers of the word and not hearers only. In Jesus name, amen. So we want to get into this study first by making a bit of a correction. I was referring to the mothers of the 12 sons of Jacob, the sons of Israel, and I was explaining that my wife and I have memorized the sons of Israel, the 12 tribes. And we did it by the mothers, the sons of Leah, the sons of Rachel, the sons of Bilhah, and the sons of Zipporah. That's what I said in the last study, and that's not right. My wife heard that and pointed it out to me. I was thinking Zilpah, and I said Zipporah. And it happens. You have to forgive us mortal men who are fallible and given to make mistakes. And through the years, I've heard all of my teachers do that. I remember hearing school teachers do it. And it's not a big deal if you hear some other preacher or teacher, if they say a word and I always say, go with the intent. If you know they intended to say something else, then you know what they meant. Then you might say something to them, so they'll be aware of it, but be nice about it. We're all human, and my wife was nice about it when she told me. But just recently, you know, Brother John teaches at the church and he was trying to say heritage and he was saying inheritance. And I asked because I thought, you know, sometimes they change these King James Bibles, they mess with them. I just want to make sure that there wasn't a problem there with the words being changed in the text of the Bible he had. He was just a misstatement. I can point back to in my 20s. I was preaching in Washington Courthouse at a Bible Baptist temple down there. I was preaching on the pre-trib rapture, but I said, we're going to go up in the tribulation before the rapture. Everybody had this confused look on their face. Well, afterwards, the preacher said, you got a little tongue tied there. You said we're going to go up in the tribulation before the rapture. You meant we're going to go up in the rapture before the tribulation. And so it happens. You get two or three things on your mind at once. And I just want to make sure everyone knows that the second concubine of Jacob was Zilpah, not Zipporah. It'll only get worse as I get older, by the way. But with that, we come to our final study here in Deuteronomy, and these studies, by the way, are meant to be an introduction with selected details. We only have so much time to cover things, and sometimes we've stretched chapters out, but we try to get through a good portion each week. And we want you to be familiar with God's Word so that then when you go back and read it and study it on your own, you have a good foundation to then further study and grow in the Word of God. Simply teaching the Bible simply. That's our purpose at Bible Believers Fellowship. And this final study simply recounts the Lord showing the promised land to Moses, and then the death, burial, and mourning, M-O-U-R-N-I-N-G, mourning of Moses, followed by the establishment of Joshua as Moses' replacement, and then a short three-verse eulogy for Moses. So let's get right in here. We begin with verses one through three. And Moses went up from the plains of Moab unto the mountain of Nebo, to the top of Pisgah, that is over against Jericho. And the Lord showed him all the land of Gilead unto Dan, verse 2, and all Naphtali, and the land of Ephraim, and Manasseh, and all the land of Judah unto the utmost sea, and the south, and the plain of the valley of Jericho, and the city of palm trees unto Zoar. Now, could Moses really have seen all of that from the top of Mount Nebo? Naturally speaking, no, but he certainly could if the Lord wanted him to see it, and obviously the Lord did want him to see it, so he did. It's amazing how silly people can be, you know, even the most intellectual. people read these passages like this, and they judge it on purely natural scientific merits, and they say, that's not possible. What a tiny, feeble little god these people have conjured up in their imaginations. It's like when a woman named Elizabeth is an old lady, well past the age of bearing children, and the angel announced to Mary that her older cousin would give birth to who we know as John the Baptist. And in Luke 137, that angel, knowing what men would think, said, for with God, nothing shall be impossible. Amen. And if that weren't true, he wouldn't be God. You see, this stuff isn't intellectual, it's spiritual. People who say such things about the virgin birth, that's impossible. Or the bodily resurrection of Jesus, and they mock it. Or the impossibility of God creating the world in six days, like that's something he couldn't do. You know what their problem is? It's simply unbelief. Their heart isn't right before God, so they limit God in ridiculous ways like that. But those of us who know God, believe God, we understand His omnipotence, He has no problem doing these things. And so we don't waste a lot of time on it. We read it, we see, make sure we understand it correctly, and we believe it. That's all there is to it. So verse four then says, and the Lord said unto him, this is the land which I swear unto Abraham, unto Isaac and unto Jacob, excuse me for my COPD congestion going on. saying, I will give unto, I'm sorry, I will give it, referring to the land, unto thy seed. I have caused thee to see it with thine eyes, but thou shalt not go over thither. Now he's speaking to Moses, but this is another example of the insanity of unbelievers. Do you know that many Jew haters and Israel haters are so spiritually blind, I'm talking about professing Christians, They're so spiritually blind that they'll look you in the eye and tell you that that land promise was just to Abraham. And you're like, what? Right here we see that it's to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and now it's to their seed. It's being given to the 12 tribes and all of the descendants of the 12 tribes, Israel. You can't fix stupid, and you can't force wicked men to believe what the Bible says. You can talk until your mouth locks up from wear and tear, and it won't make any difference. Jesus said in Luke 16, 31, if they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead. Think of the implications of that statement. I am not saying that you shouldn't discuss things or even debate. I'm not saying you shouldn't try to present the facts and convince people, but in reality, the main point is you're doing what God's told you to do and you do it in obedience to Him to please Him. If you get caught up in the response and the reaction and the reception of what you're doing, you'll get discouraged and quit. especially these days. People just don't want to hear any evidence. They don't care. You give them chick tracts. I mean, it's as easy as God can make it in a chick tract. It's even got pictures. The whole tract has pictures with the scriptures and explanations. You still can't get people to sit down for five minutes and read it. There's nothing you can do about it. But our verse ends with what appears to be the final words of the Lord to Moses before he dies. I have caused thee to see it with thine eyes, but thou shalt not go over thither. And then it says in verse five, so Moses, the servant of the Lord, died there in the land of Moab according to the word of the Lord. Verse 6, and he buried him in a valley in the land of Moab over against Beth Peor, but no man knoweth of his sepulcher unto this day. So Moses died knowing that that land was going to go to the children of Israel. But he also, Moses himself, had prophesied that if you commit apostasy, you turn away from the Lord, turn to idolatry, he'll take you out of the land. And we've seen that, but this land still belongs to Israel, even when Israel has been removed. They were removed by Assyria from the north, by Babylon in the southern kingdom of Judah. And that happened about 586 BC. And then they went back. And then when Jesus came, they were in the land, but they rejected him, crucified the Messiah after Jesus rose from the dead. It was about 70 years after the birth of Christ, around 70 AD, that then They were taken out of the land again when Rome came down with the General Titus, brought the armies of Rome down and destroyed everything and ran Israel out of the land again. And they were out of that land. with all but a sprinkling of Jews over the centuries until the late 1800s, 19th century. And then by 1948, they became a nation again. And that's where we are now in God's prophetic timetable. The stage is set for the rapture, great tribulation, and second coming of Jesus Christ. The land belongs to Israel. But because they persist in rejecting Christ, then after the rapture, three and a half years after the Antichrist confirms the covenant with Israel and the world, allowing Israel to rebuild their temple, that is in Deuteronomy 9, 24 to 27. Then three and a half years in, according to Revelation 12, they're run out of Israel again, and they'll go down into the wilderness and in the rock city of Petra. That'll last 1,260 days, which is 3 1⁄2 years. So first 3 1⁄2 years, they're in Israel. The last 3 1⁄2 years, they're in the wilderness. And after that seven-year period, then at the end of that, Jesus returns and puts them back in the land, and they'll never be removed again. That land belongs to Israel. And eventually, they're gonna be in that land for the thousand-year millennium, and they're never gonna be run out after that. So with that, then Moses has these things confirmed to him, and he dies. And he died there in the land of Moab, but you won't find his burial spot. No man knoweth of his sepulcher unto this day. But Jude gives us a bit of additional information about this that we should always keep in mind when reading about the death of Moses. We're told that the devil showed up. He wanted to get his hands on the body of Moses, evidently. Michael the Archangel, though, defeated him with four simple words we see in Jude 9 in the New Testament. Maybe if you've got your Bible out right next to Deuteronomy 9, 34, 6, write down Jude 9. Jude 9 says, yet Michael the archangel, when contending with the devil, he disputed about the body of Moses, durst not bring against him a railing accusation, but said, the Lord rebuke thee. Those four words, and that was the end of it, evidently. Now, we're not told anything else about this. If you read something else about it, it's made up. It's not from the Bible. But we do know that there was a dispute over the body of Moses. The devil did not win. And Michael's victory was his reliance on the Lord. And as we've discussed in other places, Moses is one of the anointed ones, spoken of in Zechariah 4, who stand by the Lord of the whole earth. And that's confirmed in Revelation 11, 4. Moses appears with Elijah. who is evidently the other anointed one referred to there in Zechariah 4. When Moses and Elijah are in the presence of Jesus at the Mount of Transfiguration, you can read about that in Matthew 17, Mark 9, and Luke 9. And Moses, though, then received his glorified body, I believe, and is part of the resurrection referred to of the Old Testament saints in Matthew 27, verses 52 and 53. And Moses will be in that body, along with Elijah in his glorified body, as one of the two witnesses in Revelation 11. And these are said to be the same two who are the olive trees and the anointed ones in Zechariah 4 So go make those comparisons of this text Zechariah 4 revelation 11 and so forth and you'll see all that So it's fitting that such a man as Moses would have such a memorial service as described here verse 7 says and Moses was 120 years old when he died and His eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated." So he didn't look his age. In my generation, Dick Clark was known as the guy who didn't age. Well, he did, and he eventually died. He passed away a few years ago, and sadly, I don't think Dick was saved. But there's always people, sometimes it's someone you went to school with and you see them 40th anniversary or whatever they call them, homecoming. And they say, man, they just haven't hardly aged at all. Well, that's how Moses was. He was still strong as an ox, sharp as a tack, and full of vigor. But he died. It is appointed unto men wants to die and after this the judgment as Hebrews 9 27 says and then verse 8 says in the children of Israel wept for Moses in the plains of Moab 30 days So the days of weeping and mourning for Moses were ended so I've never That I I'm sure I've never known of anyone who died and had a whole nation mourn for 30 days for them But that's Moses. And not much is really said about that 30 day mourning other than it was 30 days and I'm sure it was solemn and it was a lot of reflection and concern about the future. But that's why the next verse tells us who replaces Moses, verse nine. And Joshua the son of Nun was full of the spirit of wisdom, for Moses had laid his hands upon him, and the children of Israel hearkened unto him, and did as the Lord commanded Moses. You know, each one of us as believers in this dispensation, we have the Holy Spirit within us. And if we will read the Bible with a reverence and a love, believing that it is the word of God, and if we will read it and understand it in context, receiving it with a spirit of humility, we have the spirit of wisdom. But that seems so rare among Christians these days. And there might be some that look at me and say, Oh, well, I don't see it in you either. But, uh, you know, I'll let the Lord be the judge of that. But I certainly, that's my goal in life, is to learn the word and demonstrate the wisdom of God. Far be it from me to be compared to Moses at all. And yet, we know that with the spirit of God in us, and the more we receive the word of God and allow the word to transform us, the more like Moses, having the spirit of wisdom, we will be. So then, who replaced Moses? Joshua, verse nine. And Joshua, the son of Nun, was full of the spirit of wisdom, for Moses had laid hands on him. And we read this, but I just wanna read that again, because Moses laying his hands on, that's why I brought up the fact that now we have the Holy Spirit. But back then, the spirit of God didn't indwell all believers. And so having Moses put his hands on Joshua transferring basically his anointing onto Joshua. We see it again in places like when Elijah died and put his mantle on Elisha and that sort of thing. That doesn't happen today. It's not like that today. But we all have the Spirit of God and we all have the Word of God at our disposal, at our use. And so we'll pick up with the book of Joshua next in our study, so I'm not going to say anything else much about Joshua himself. But now we end the book of Deuteronomy with this eulogy of Moses. Verse 10 says and there arose not a prophet since in Israel like unto Moses Whom the Lord knew face to face? There been a bunch of people claim to do so only Jesus really was the one like unto Moses Buddha wasn't Muhammad certainly was not and Joseph Smith and all the others who have claimed to be a prophet like unto Moses. They were not. But this is a fulfillment in Jesus. Not until Jesus would there be a prophet in Israel like unto Moses. But we were promised, as we read in Deuteronomy 18.15, where Moses said, the Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a prophet, capital P, from the midst of thee. of thy brethren, like unto me, unto him ye shall hearken." So there it is, Moses himself prophesying that there would come one, and we know that's Jesus. John's gospel tells us that Jesus was the one like unto Moses. In John 1.17, for example, where he wrote, for the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. And then this Deuteronomy 18.15 that we just quoted was confirmed as applying to Jesus by Peter in Acts 3.22. And then Stephen, right, the day he died. Some of his last words were confirming this in Acts 7.37. But before Jesus, God's people, We're following the law of Moses who was described as being like no other verse 11 and 12 says in all the signs and the wonders which the Lord sent him to do in the land of Egypt to Pharaoh and to all his servants and to all his land, verse 12, and in all that mighty hand and in all the great terror which Moses showed in the sight of all Israel. We've gone over all the acts of Moses and everything, and a lot of it should have struck terror into anyone who was in rebellion against God. But sadly, they were stiff-necked and they were scorners. There were just a lot of guys whose consciences were sheared as with a hot iron. But Moses, he was one of the most amazing men to ever live. Now, he was not God manifest in the flesh like Jesus, 1 Timothy 3.16, which has been corrupted in the new versions. He was not a Savior, capital S, but he was faithful. And even in his failures, he was an example of what it means to live for the Lord. Because in his failures, he never turned away from God. He fell short. He missed the mark. He disobeyed on a couple of, and of course that's why he didn't go into the land of promise, because he struck the rock when he was told to speak to the rock, and that may not seem like a big deal to you, but it was a blatant disregard for God's commandment, and it was an act of anger on his part, sinful anger. Anger isn't always sinful, but it was in that case. But even in those failures, Moses never turned away from the Lord. He could say with the Apostle Paul, in 2 Timothy 4.7, I have fought a good fight. I have finished my course. I have kept the faith. And with that, we conclude our study of the book of Deuteronomy. And in so doing, we also conclude our study of the Pentateuch. You know, we started these studies and I hadn't really set out to, with any idea of how long we would go, how far I would go with this. I just wanted to do the book of Genesis. But then we finished Genesis and everybody's like, well, when are you going to start Exodus? So we did Exodus and so forth. But we actually started nine years ago. And it was interrupted by my health issues. It was interrupted when we moved. It was interrupted by COVID. It was interruptions that... Well, it kept me from doing recordings and doing these but we've we just stuck with it and here we are we're done with the Pentateuch and Now we'll pick up with the history books. We'll see how far We get into that before I'm taken out or we're all taken out in the rapture. We'll just keep on keeping on studying God's Word and so We invite you to join us with those and other studies we've made available free of charge on our website at bbfohio.com. Until then, see you here, there, in the air.