Deuteronomy 31:1

The Bible says in Deuteronomy 31:1-3, “And Moses went and spake these words unto all Israel.[2] And he said unto them, I am an hundred and twenty 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.[3] 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.” Moses was coming to the end of his work and to the end of his life. It happens to all of us. I think that some of the timeline of the life of Moses can teach us some important principles about life. At the age of 40 God called Moses to serve Him. Before Moses was forty he was brought up in the house of Pharaoh, and had the best education that anyone could get in that day and time. Obviously, Moses learned to write very well, and God eventually used that skill to make Moses the author of the first five books of the Bible.

But when Moses was forty years old, and God called Moses to lead the children of Israel, Moses was not ready. Moses was too self-willed. Moses was too accustomed to relying upon the arm of the flesh instead of the Spirit. Moses needed to learn to walk with God. Moses needed to learn things that it normally takes years to learn: having faith in God, waiting upon God, learning that God will lead and guide in all things. And therefore God put Moses on the back side of the desert for forty years. Moses got married. That will teach you to trust in God. Moses became a shepherd. Moses lived and worked for forty years and then he became qualified to lead the children of Israel. Moses was eighty years old when he was finally ready. Here is the spiritual lesson to that: older men make the best spiritual leaders, and not usually younger men. There are, of course, exceptions to that, but in general older means wiser. If a man has come to know the Lord, and then learned to walk with the Lord by faith year after year after four decades, then he will be qualified. The New Testament calls pastors, “elders.” The word “elder” means literally “an older man.” The Apostle Paul warned Timothy about choosing a pastor who was too young and inexperienced in the faith. Paul wrote in First Timothy 3:6, “Not a novice, lest being lifted up with pride he fall into the condemnation of the devil.”

There is an important practical aspect to the fact that Moses lived and worked as a shepherd on the backside of the desert for forty years. How can you preach to people effectively with the right emphasis if you do not live the same type of life, facing the same issues that other people face? To be a preacher is a calling, not a career. It can lend itself to many abuses when the following pattern is followed: get out of high school and go to college. While in college decide to become a preacher and go to seminary. In seminary learn things from an intellectual standpoint, and then become a preacher, receiving your financial remuneration from your duties as a preacher. If that is the path that is taken, you might end up with someone who has not learned how to live life. You might end up with someone who has never lived like the average person lives, and therefore does not really know what the average person faces when they go to a secular job each day to be able to feed their family. Moses learned to lead people because he first learned to lead sheep. Jesus probably started doing carpenter work at age 12 or even younger than that. If He did, that means that Jesus worked as a carpenter for 18 years. Jesus was only a preacher for the last 3 years of His life. That is a good pattern to follow: spend most of your life living for God in a normal human life. And then at the last part of your life be a preacher. Study the Bible, live for many years by what you have learned, and then you are qualified to preach and to teach others.

Once you start preaching, how long do you preach? Jesus stopped when He died on the cross. The Apostle Paul stopped when he was beheaded. All the other apostles of Christ stopped when they were killed for the faith. Notice what Moses said in Deuteronomy 31:1, “I can no more go out and come in.” Moses finally got so old that he lost his mobility. Moses could no longer go out of his tent, or go back into it. That is when you retire: when you can no longer get out of bed. If you have lived a long life, and followed the Lord, and learned the Bible such that you are ready to teach others, then you stop preaching when you get to the point that Moses got to where you can no longer get out of bed: you can no longer go out and come in. When that day comes, it will be time to turn it over to someone else. The work of God is similar to a long-distance relay race. It is another way in which we are dependent upon teamwork.

If Moses was no longer going to be with them, how would they do it without Moses? How would they finish their journey, enter the land where the Lord wanted them to dwell, and defeat their enemies? The answer to that is given in Deuteronomy 31:3, “The LORD thy God, he will go over before thee.” If you know Jesus as Savior, He is your Lord, He is your guide, and He is your Master. The people that are around you come and go, but Jesus is always there with you, He is the same. He never changes. And of course, God uses human instruments. If He takes away one, then He will raise up another. And so the last part of verse 3 says, “and Joshua, he shall go over before thee, as the LORD hath said.”

The Bible says in Deuteronomy 31:4-6, “And the LORD shall do unto them as he did to Sihon and to Og, kings of the Amorites, and unto the land of them, whom he destroyed.[5] And the LORD shall give them up before your face, that ye may do unto them according unto all the commandments which I have commanded you.[6] 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.” How do we know what God is going to do in the future: just look at what He has done in the past. Jesus does not change. “Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and today, and forever.” Throughout the history of man God has destroyed nations because of their sinfulness and because they refused to turn to Him. Of course, we do not know when He is going to do that in regards to a given nation. Sometimes God waits hundreds of years before that kind of judgment is brought upon a nation. The day is coming when Jesus will destroy the armies of all nations. That day is called the Battle of Armageddon. All the nations of the world will be so wicked that God will take them all away.

Another thing that God has always done in the past is this: He has always taken care of His believers. That is why Moses said to the children of Israel in verse 6, “Be strong and of a good courage, fear not, nor be afraid of them.” The first commandment here is “Be strong.” What kind of strength is spoken of here? It is not physical strength. It is faith. There are not many things more important than faith. With faith you can remove mountains. In the great chapter on faith in the New Testament it says in Hebrews 11:32-38, “And what shall I more say? for the time would fail me to tell of Gedeon, and of Barak, and of Samson, and of Jephthae; of David also, and Samuel, and of the prophets:[33] Who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions,[34] Quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens.[35] Women received their dead raised to life again: and others were tortured, not accepting deliverance; that they might obtain a better resurrection:[36] And others had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover of bonds and imprisonment:[37] They were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword: they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins; being destitute, afflicted, tormented;[38] (Of whom the world was not worthy:) they wandered in deserts, and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth.”

The end of Deuteronomy 31:6 tells us why we can be of good courage and not fear. It says, “for the LORD thy God, he it is that doth go with thee; he will not fail thee, nor forsake thee.” If the Almighty God is with you, then you certainly have nothing to fear. He is with you and nothing will ever cause Him to forsake you. That is one of the benefits of belief in Christ: He gives eternal security. You will always be with God, and He will always be with you. This means that God will always take up your cause. He will fight for you. He will not fail you. It is so good to trust in the Lord. He can take any problem and fix it. He can take any one of your enemies and fight them and defeat them. That is why He says, “Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord, I will repay.” What is there to fear? Nothing. Enjoy the victory. Yes, there will be battles, but the victory is guaranteed through faith in Jesus Christ. Trust in Jesus to take care of it, and He will.

The Bible says in Deuteronomy 31:7-8, “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.[8] And the LORD, he it is that doth go before thee; he will be with thee, he will not fail thee, neither forsake thee: fear not, neither be dismayed.” Joshua will be the new leader for the children of Israel, and Moses gives Joshua instructions on how to face the responsibilities and the dangers ahead. Guess what, these are the exact same instructions that were given to all the children of Israel. A preacher is no different than any other Christian. A preacher has the same salvation through faith in Christ that every other believer has. A preacher has the same commandments of Christ to live by that every other Christian has. The only difference is the gift. Every Christian has one or more gifts. A preacher’s gift is to preach and teach the Word of God. But everyone in the congregation together are serving the Lord, with each believer developing and using their gift to advance the cause of Christ. Some denominations have made a great mistake by making it sound like the leaders are more important or more holy than anyone else. All true believers are brothers and sisters in Christ. One advantage to a preacher having a normal job like all the other members of the congregation is that such a situation helps remind everyone of the great truth of the equality of all Christians. Leaders of religious organizations are not better and they are not more holy and they are not more important than any other Christian. We are all members of the body of Christ. We are all part of the whole. We all face the same challenges and struggles every day to follow the Lord Jesus and to live by faith: to not lose courage but “Be strong and of a good courage.”

The Bible says in Deuteronomy 31:9, “And Moses wrote this law, and delivered it unto the priests the sons of Levi, which bare the ark of the covenant of the LORD, and unto all the elders of Israel.” Verse 9 says, “And Moses wrote this law.” That is such an important statement. Until Moses wrote the law, there was no Bible. Moses wrote the first five books of the Bible. What a wise God we have. God’s method to give the truth to the human race was to provide a written truth. God made sure that Moses was well educated in Pharaoh’s household so that Moses would have the human qualities to be able to write the words. God made sure that Moses had the spiritual qualities by giving Moses the call and then teaching Moses for forty years in the wilderness. God gave His written Word, and then God preserved His written Word, using scribes to copy the original manuscripts and then preserving each subsequent copy. It took the power of God to give the written Word, and then it took the power of God to preserve the written word so that nothing was lost and nothing was changed. It had to happen that way because otherwise, we would not have the written Word today that we could have confidence in. Jesus said in Matthew 24:35, “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.” The words that God gave are more concrete, more immovable than the very earth we live on. The fact that God gave the written words is stated very well in Second Timothy 3:16, “All scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable…” The process that God used to move the men who wrote His words is declared in Second Peter 1:21, “…holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.” One of the benefits of being a Christian is that the Bible will open up to you because you will have the Holy Spirit who will teach you what the Bible means.

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