Deuteronomy 3

Victory by Faith | Sunday, May 24, 2020

May 23, 2020 · Pastor Miles DeBenedictis

In this teaching

Studying Deuteronomy 3 and Israel's defeat of Og king of Bashan, Pastor Miles addresses why God's judgment without mercy offends modern sensibilities, then redirects to the passage's greater point: God faithfully delivers victory to those who trust Him by faith. He opens by honoring the recently deceased Ravi Zacharias, John Wesley's Aldersgate experience, and calls listeners to trust Christ alone for salvation.

Ravi Zacharias, whose teaching deeply shaped Miles's approach to Scripture, died and is now in Christ's presence; every worldview must coherently answer identity, purpose, origin, destiny, and morality.
John Wesley's May 24, 1738 Aldersgate experience illustrates trusting in Christ alone for salvation, to which Miles invites listeners.
Passages like Deuteronomy 2-3 offend modern readers and are attacked by skeptics like Richard Dawkins, but they teach that God judges all who stand in enmity against Him.
God has judged the world repeatedly (the flood, Sodom, Egypt, the Amorites) and warned He would judge even rebellious Israel; no self-justification will save anyone on judgment day.
The larger and more important point is that God overcomes overwhelming enemies and faithfully delivers victory to those who trust Him by faith.
Untrained former slaves with no weapons destroyed giant King Og and his sixty fortified cities, proving God gives victory to those who believe.

Readable is a lightly edited reading copy; Verbatim stays close to the spoken words. The audio and video are the record of what was said.

Then we turned and went up the road to Bashan; and Og king of Bashan came out against us... And the Lord said to me, "Do not fear him, for I have delivered him and all his people and his land into your hand"... So the Lord our God also delivered into our hands Og king of Bashan, with all his people, and we attacked him until he had no survivors remaining... For only Og king of Bashan remained of the remnant of the giants. Indeed his bedstead was an iron bedstead... nine cubits is its length and four cubits its width.

When God's victory seems impossible, faith sees what offends our sensibilities give way to the faithfulness of God.

Remembering Ravi Zacharias

Before we begin our study in , I want to acknowledge a few things. This last Tuesday, evangelist and apologist Ravi Zacharias died of cancer at age 74. As Scripture reveals in , we do not sorrow as those who have no hope—but we do sorrow. I am grateful that Ravi is with Jesus. The Bible declares in that in His presence is fullness of joy, and at His right hand are pleasures forevermore.

The name Ravi Zacharias may not be familiar to you, but I began reading his books and listening to his lectures almost twenty years ago. Without exaggeration, my approach to the Scriptures and the way I preach them has been significantly affected by his writing and teaching. I began listening to his radio program Let My People Think in 2003 and have listened to probably hundreds of hours of his lectures. I would highly recommend searching for his podcast, and for a good summer read, consider his book Can Man Live Without God.

Ravi came to faith at age 17 after a suicide attempt. The words of Jesus in —"because I live you also will live"—changed Ravi's life. He found hope, peace, and meaning in Jesus Christ, and he spent the next 57 years imparting the same to others through the gospel.

If you've followed my teaching for any length of time, you'll notice the influence of Zacharias. I often say that any worldview, to be worthwhile, must have compelling and coherent answers to the basic philosophical questions of life: identity, purpose, origin, destiny, and morality. If your worldview does not answer the questions—Who am I? Why am I here? Where did I come from? Where do I go after this? What is right and wrong?—in a compelling and coherent manner, then your philosophy is lacking. I am wholly unashamed to say I learned the truth of these things from Ravi. As David said in , "A prince and a great man has fallen this day."

The Living Christ and John Wesley

Ravi is in the presence of Christ today because of the reality of those words of Jesus he loved so much: "because I live you also will live." Jesus is alive, and we celebrate His death, burial, resurrection, and ascension. This last Thursday, May 21st, was the celebration of the Ascension. In celebration of the continuing life of Christ, the church has partaken for the last 2,000 years of the supper the Lord instituted the night before His crucifixion. Next Sunday we will celebrate communion together, even at home, so today between 2:00 and 4:00 p.m. you can drive through the church parking lot and we will provide you with the bread and the cup.

Today, May 24th, is also an important day in church history. One of my favorite figures is John Wesley, founder of the Methodist Church—so much so that my youngest son's middle name is Wesley. Wesley lived in 18th-century England and is, in my opinion, one of the most important Christians of the last thousand years; his life and work have fundamentally altered the Western world for the last 250 years.

On May 24, 1738—282 years ago today—Wesley experienced a radical transformation by the power and grace of God. Though I believe he was a Christian prior to this, what happened that day was a sacred waypoint. The 35-year-old Wesley was about to give up on his ministry. He described it this way: "In the evening I went very unwillingly to a society in Aldersgate Street, where one was reading Luther's preface to the Epistle to the Romans. About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation; and an assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death."

A Call to Trust Christ Alone

Some of you watching this morning need to trust in Christ alone for salvation. Your heart has been cold and hard, and in some way you've been fighting the work God desires to do in your life. You cannot answer in any meaningful way the questions of identity, purpose, origin, destiny, or morality. You feel the weight of your sins, and you don't have the assurance and peace found in Christ. Today is the day to trust in Christ alone and ask Him to take away your sins.

Trusting in Christ is not complicated. First, you admit that you are a sinner. Second, you believe that Jesus died on the cross for your sins and paid the penalty. Third, you confess your sins to God through prayer and accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior. If that's you, bow with me and follow along:

"Dear Jesus, I pray that You would come into my life and forgive me of my sins. I recognize my need for You. I recognize that I've come short of Your perfect standard in Your law—I've broken Your law. But I pray, God, that You would forgive me on the basis of what Your Son Jesus did on the cross. Thank You that You have loved me and given Yourself for me. Come into my life and forgive me of my sin. In Jesus' name, amen."

If you did that today, send us a message at commit.lifeinconnection.com. We would love to be in contact with you, send you a Bible if you don't have one, and help you begin your walk with Jesus.

A Challenging Passage in Context

We are studying through Deuteronomy, the fifth book of the Bible, and last week we were in a very challenging passage dealing with the beginning of Israel's conquest of the Promised Land. Moses is reminding the children of Israel of their recent history, just before they cross the Jordan to take possession of the land promised some four hundred years before. Last week's passage dealt with the destruction of the Amorite people of Heshbon and their king Sihon.

This is a challenging passage because it offends the sensibilities of people in our time. In we read:

And the Lord our God delivered him over to us; so we defeated him, his sons, and all his people. We took all his cities at that time, and we utterly destroyed the men, women, and little ones of every city; we left none remaining. We took only the livestock as plunder for ourselves, with the spoil of the cities which we took.

Understandably, these words are a stumbling block. Skeptics ridicule passages like this as genocide texts, and Christians are made to feel ridiculous for following a so-called war-mongering God. In his book The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins calls the God of the Old Testament "the most unpleasant character in all of fiction"—a "petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a capriciously malevolent bully." As a result, many Christians have distanced themselves from the Old Testament. One Christian writer even refers to passages like these as "skeletons in God's closet."

God Will Judge All Who Stand Against Him

I grant at the outset that these passages are challenging. How do we reconcile what I just read with the commands just three chapters later in , 19—"You shall not murder" and "You shall not steal"? The problem is that objections to these passages often distract us from the point. Do we, by 21st-century standards, object to the way the Amorites were dealt with? Yes. And if the Amorites were peaceful innocents, then the way God and Israel dealt with them would seem wrong.

But in ridiculing these events we miss some important things. Most importantly, we miss that because of sin, God judged the whole world in –9; the instrument was a flood. He judged Sodom and Gomorrah in with fire from heaven. He judged Egypt with plagues. Here He judges the Amorites, and the instrument is the people of Israel. Then He will judge the Canaanites, again using Israel. We have a hard time with the instrument He chooses, but this is what the Bible describes.

Later God will judge Israel for their sin—using Assyria in Isaiah's time and Babylon in Jeremiah's time. In fact, at least four passages in Deuteronomy warn Israel of this. For example, :

Then it shall be, if you by any means forget the Lord your God, and follow other gods, and serve them and worship them, I testify against you this day that you shall surely perish. As the nations which the Lord destroys before you, so you shall perish, because you would not be obedient to the voice of the Lord your God.

The simple point is this: God will judge all who stand in enmity against Him. We may not like this point, but it is what the Bible teaches. We may not like how the Bible pictures God's judgment, or who it describes as worthy of judgment, but like it or not, that is what it teaches. says, "The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness." Your objections might make you feel vindicated for your moral position against God, but they won't vindicate you on the day of judgment, "for it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment."

The Old Testament presents the justice and judgment of God without mercy, and none of us like that image. All of us want and desire mercy. So when we are presented with the judgment of God without mercy, we are tempted to self-righteously indict Him as unjust while justifying ourselves as the righteous ones. It makes us feel better, but it distracts from the point: God will judge all. That means you. One day you will stand before God, and your self-justifications won't save you.

Victory by Faith

But this passage teaches us something far more important than a lesson about judgment. Fixating on God's judgment of the Amorites can keep us from seeing a much greater point. We begin reading in , where Israel attacks Og king of Bashan until he has no survivors remaining, taking sixty fortified cities with high walls, gates, and bars, besides a great many rural towns. Og was a giant—the remnant of the giants—whose iron bedstead was nine cubits long and four cubits wide.

The destruction of Og and all his people teaches that God will judge all who stand in enmity against Him. But Israel's victory over Og and all his cities teaches something of greater importance: God overcomes our overwhelming enemies by faith.

In the light of what offends our 21st-century sensitivities, we are blinded to some really crazy details. Don't miss what this text says. Israel—a bunch of former slaves, a group of shepherds who had been camping in the desert for forty years, with virtually no weapons and no military training or strategy we can detect—overcame and destroyed King Og, a giant, his sixty high-walled fortified cities, and many rural towns. How is that even possible?

Thirty-eight years prior to this victory, the people of Israel were fearful to go up into the Promised Land because it was filled with fortified cities and giants. They knew there was no way in their own strength to overcome such overwhelming enemies. The task was insurmountable. Humanly speaking, there was no possible way Israel could hope for victory. But then we come to :

Then we turned and went up the road to Bashan; and Og king of Bashan came out against us... And the Lord said to me, "Do not fear him, for I have delivered him and all his people and his land into your hand"... So the Lord our God also delivered into our hands Og king of Bashan, with all his people, and we attacked him until he had no survivors remaining.

God faithfully delivers victory to those who trust in Him. We can be so distracted by something in the Bible that bothers us that we miss the main point. God will judge all who stand in rebellion against Him—just as He judged the world with a flood, Sodom and Gomorrah with fire, King Sihon and Heshbon, King Og and Bashan, the Canaanites, and even His own people Israel when they rebelled. But God will also act and faithfully deliver victory to those who trust in Him by faith. He will give mercy and grace to those who put their trust in Him for salvation. Don't miss the bigger point of the Bible because you are so fixated on the points of the story that stumble you.

Closing Prayer

Father God, there are challenging passages in the Scriptures—things that, when we come to them like this passage in and the previous one in chapter 2, we have a hard time with, especially as we see them from our perspective in the year 2020. But I pray that You would open our ears, minds, and hearts, that we would not harden our hearts, and that we would hear what You by Your Spirit are trying to speak to us from the text.

Lord, there will be a day of judgment, as says—it is appointed for all men to die once, and then comes judgment. We will all stand before You one day. But Jesus, You went to the cross and died in our place, so that as we trust in Your finished work, You become our substitute, and we find mercy and grace in You. In the same way that messengers were sent with a word of peace to the people of Bashan and Heshbon, I pray that we would receive Your word of peace through the gospel, readily turn to You in faith, and experience Your saving grace. Do a work in our hearts, and help us not to be stumbled or distracted and kept from the truth of what Your Word teaches. Open our ears and our hearts to receive from You. We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.

Before we begin our study today in , I want to take a few minutes to acknowledge a few things first. This last Tuesday, evangelist and apologist Ravi Zacharias died of cancer at age 74. As the Scriptures reveal in First Thessalonians 4:13, we do not sorrow as those who have no hope, but we do sorrow. I am grateful that Ravi is with Jesus. The Bible declares in that in His presence is fullness of joy, and at His right hand are pleasures forevermore. Ravi is in the presence of our Lord and experiencing fullness of joy.

Be that as it may, we, myself included, are sorrowful. The name Ravi Zacharias may not be familiar to you, but I began reading Ravi's books and listening to his lectures almost twenty years ago. I can say without exaggeration that my approach to the Scriptures and the way that I preach them has been significantly affected by the writing and teaching of Ravi. I began downloading and listening to his message, "Let My People Think," or his radio program, "Let My People Think," in 2003, and I've listened to probably hundreds of hours of his lectures.

If you're not familiar with Ravi, I would highly recommend that you search for his podcast on your phone. If you're interested in a good summer read, you should very much consider his book, "Can Man Live Without God?" Ravi came to faith at age 17 after a suicide attempt. The words of Jesus in , "Because I live, you also will live," forever changed Ravi's life. He found hope, peace, and meaning in Jesus Christ, and he spent the next 57 years imparting the same to others through the gospel.

If you've followed my teaching for any length of time, you will notice the influence of Zacharias in my teaching. My theological and philosophical approach to the Scripture is, in many ways, attributed to Ravi. I often speak of the fact that any worldview, for it to be worthwhile, must have compelling and coherent answers to the basic philosophical questions of life, dealing with identity, purpose, origin, destiny, and morality. If your worldview does not...

Answer the questions: Who am I? Why am I here? Where did I come from? Where do I go after this? What is right and wrong? If you cannot answer these questions in a compelling and coherent manner, then your philosophy is lacking. I am wholly unashamed to say that I learned the truth of these things from Ravi. I think that Ravi's death is a great loss, though I am grateful that he is in heaven. As King David said in , "A prince and a great man has fallen this day."

The second thing I want to say today is that Ravi is in the presence of Christ because of the reality of those words of Jesus that Ravi loved so much, found in : "Because I live, you also will live." Jesus is alive, and we celebrate His death, burial, resurrection, and ascension. In fact, this last Thursday, May 21st, was the celebration of the Ascension of Jesus. In celebration of the continuing life of Christ, the Church has been partaking of the supper that the Lord instituted the night before His crucifixion for the last 2,000 years. We will continue to celebrate His death, burial, resurrection, until He comes again.

Next Sunday, we will be celebrating communion together, and we want to furnish you with the elements to do so. Next Sunday is an important day in the annual Church calendar; it is the day of Pentecost. We will be talking a little bit more about that next week, but I want you to be aware that we celebrate communion together, even though we will be at home.

So today, May 24th, between 2:00 and 4:00 p.m., if you would like to drive through the church parking lot, just like we did a couple of weeks ago on Mother's Day, we will be providing you with bread and the cup for communion for next week. I hope that you'll take advantage of this. Communion is very important to us as followers of Jesus. If you're available and you're looking for a reason to get out of the house for a drive this afternoon, drive through the church parking lot, and we will provide you with the elements for communion for next week.

Third, I know that there's a lot I'm hitting on before we actually get into the Scriptures today, but as you well know, today is May 24th, and I was reminded this last week as I was doing...

Some research for a paper that I was writing revealed that today is an important day in church history. One of my favorite figures in church history is the founder of the Methodist Church, John Wesley. In fact, I am such a fan of John Wesley that my youngest son's middle name is Wesley, after John Wesley.

John Wesley lived in the 18th century in England. He is, in my opinion, one of the most important Christians of the last thousand years. His life and work have fundamentally altered the Western world for the last 250 years. On May 24th, 1738, 282 years ago today, Wesley experienced a radical transformation in his life by the power and grace of God. Though I believe that he was a Christian prior to this experience, there is no doubt that what happened to him on that day was sacred. It was a sacred waypoint in his life.

In fact, prior to that day, the 35-year-old Wesley was about to give up on his work as a minister. He describes the event of that day in his journal in this way: "In the evening, I went very unwillingly to a society on Aldersgate Street, where one was reading from Luther's preface to the Epistle of Romans. About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation, and an assurance was given me that he had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death."

Some of you watching this morning need to trust in Christ alone for salvation. Your heart has been cold and hard, and in some way, you have been fighting the work that God has been desiring to do in your life. You cannot answer in any meaningful way the questions of identity, purpose, origin, destiny, or morality. You are feeling the weight of your sins, and you do not have the assurance and peace that are found in Christ. Today is the day to trust in Christ alone for salvation and to ask Him to come into your life and take away your sins. I realize that this may be out of the sequence that I normally...

Follow in my teaching. I haven't even opened to the text of Deuteronomy that we're going to be studying today, but I think that there may be some of you listening to this message right now who need to trust in Christ for salvation, either for the first time or as a reaffirmation of that trust. I want to lead you in a simple prayer to do that before we look at today.

Trusting in Christ alone for salvation is not complicated. First, you admit that you are a sinner. Second, you believe that Jesus died on the cross for your sins and paid the penalty for them. Third, you confess your sins to God through prayer and accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior. If you'd like to do that today, I want to lead you in a prayer right now to do just that. So, if that's you, would you just bow in prayer with me wherever you're at and follow along in this very simple prayer of confession and faith?

Dear Jesus, I pray that you would come into my life and forgive me of my sins. I recognize my need for you. I recognize that I've come short of your perfect standard in your law. I've broken your law, but I pray, God, that you would forgive me on the basis of what your Son, Jesus, did on the cross. I thank you so much that you have loved me and given yourself for me, and I pray that you would come into my life and forgive me of my sin. In Jesus' name, amen.

If you did that today, I want to invite you to send us a message at the website on the screen, commit.lifeinconnection.com. We would love to be in contact with you, to send you a Bible if you don't have one, and to help you begin your walk with Jesus as you start your new life with Him right now.

Now, if you watched our broadcast from last week, you know that we are studying through the book of Deuteronomy. This book, the fifth book of the Bible, contains a very challenging passage. Last week, we dealt with the beginning of Israel's conquest of the promised land. Moses, in this passage, is reminding the children of Israel of their recent history just before they were going to cross over the Jordan River to take possession of the land that had been promised to Israel some four hundred years before this. The challenging passage we looked at last week...

This week, we dealt with the destruction of the Amorite people of Heshbon and their king, Sion. This is a challenging passage of Scripture because it offends the sensibilities of people living in our time. As we read in the passage we saw last week, through 35, "And the Lord our God delivered him over to us, so we defeated him and his sons and all his people. We took all his cities at that time, and we utterly destroyed the men, women, and the little ones of every city; we left none remaining. We took only the livestock as plunder for ourselves, with the spoil of the cities which we took."

Understandably, these words are a stumbling block to many. Passages like this one are ridiculed by skeptics and antagonists against the Bible and Christianity. They are purported to be genocide passages, and Christians are made to feel ridiculous for following what is called a warmongering God, like Yahweh. In his book, The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins calls the God of the Old Testament the most unpleasant character in all of fiction. He accuses God of being a petty, unjust, unforgiving control freak, a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser who is a capriciously malevolent bully.

As a result of such words, a lot of Christians have distanced themselves from the Old Testament. Maybe you've done that. Texts like this one are hard, and Christians can find themselves unsure how to defend these things. One Christian writer refers to passages like these as skeletons in God's closet. I want to grant to you at the outset that passages like these are challenging.

How do we reconcile passages like the one I just read with the commands that are just three chapters later in and 19: "You shall not murder" and "You shall not steal"? I dealt with this a bit more in depth last week, and I'd encourage you to go and watch or listen to the teaching if you haven't already. The text that we have before us in chapter 3 is similar in nature to the one that we studied last week at the end of chapter 2. Here's the problem: a lot of times, the...

Objections to these passages are distractions from the point of application. Do we, in the 21st century, object to the way that the Amorites were dealt with according to 21st-century standards? Yes. If the Amorites were peaceful innocents, then the way that God and Israel dealt with them would seem to us to be wrong. However, in ridiculing the events described here, we miss some important things. Most importantly, we miss that because of sin, God judged the whole world in through 9. The instrument of His judgment was a flood.

Then God judged the people of Sodom and Gomorrah because of their sin in . The instrument of His judgment was fire from heaven. God also judged the people of Egypt because of their sin in the opening chapters of Exodus, where the instrument of His judgment was plagues. Here, He judges the Amorites, and the instrument of His judgment was the people of Israel. Later, He will judge the people of Canaan in Joshua, and again, Israel will be the instrument of judgment.

We have a hard time with the instrument He chooses to use, but this is what the Bible describes. Later, God will judge the people of Israel for their sin. He used the people of Assyria to judge them during the time of the prophet Isaiah, and He used the people of Babylon to judge them during the time of the prophet Jeremiah.

In fact, we will see going forward in at least four passages in Deuteronomy that God will warn Israel that He will judge them if they rebel against Him. For example, in and 20, it states, "Then it shall be, if you by any means forget the Lord your God and follow other gods and serve and worship them, I testify against you this day that you shall surely perish, as the nations which the Lord destroyed before you. So you shall perish because you would not be obedient to the voice of the Lord your God."

I bring all of this up to make a very simple point: God will judge all who stand in enmity against Him. We may not like this point, but it is what the Bible teaches. We may not like how the Bible pictures God's judgment, and we may not like who the Bible describes as being judged.

Judged or worthy of judgment, but like it or not, that is what the Bible teaches. In , , we read, "The wrath of God will be revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness." Your objections to God's judgment might make you feel vindicated for your moral position against Him, but they won't vindicate you on the day of judgment. As it is appointed for men to die once, and after this, the judgment.

The Old Testament presents the justice and judgment of God without mercy, and none of us like the image of God's justice and judgment without mercy. All of us want and desire mercy. So, all of that serves as a preface to the passage we are in today in . Yes, in , we are going to see the judgment of God without mercy upon another group of people.

When we are presented with the judgment of God without mercy, we are tempted to try to self-righteously indict Him as unjust, all the while justifying ourselves as the righteous ones. Somehow, this makes us feel better about ourselves, but it distracts from the point: God will judge. That means He will judge you too. One day, you will stand before God for judgment, and your self-justifications won't save you.

However, I want to suggest to you that this passage teaches us something far more important than a lesson about the judgment of God. God's judgment of the Amorite sin can keep us from seeing a much more important point.

So, we begin reading today in , beginning at . There we read, "Then we turned and went up the road to Bashan, and Og, king of Bashan, came out against us, he and all his people, to battle at Edrei. The Lord said to me, 'Do not fear him, for I have delivered him and all his people and his land into your hand. You shall do to him as you did to Sihon, king of the Amorites, who dwelt at Heshbon.' So the Lord our God also delivered into our hands Og, king of Bashan, with all his people, and we attacked him until he had no survivors remaining."

At that time, there was not a city that we did not take from them—sixty cities in all, in the region of our God, the kingdom of Og in Bashan. All these cities were fortified with high walls, gates, and bars, besides a great many rural towns. We utterly destroyed them, as we did Sihon, king of Heshbon, completely destroying the men, women, and children of every city. However, we took all the livestock and the spoil of the cities as booty for ourselves.

At that time, we took from the hand of the two kings of the Amorites who were on this side of the Jordan, from the River Arnon to Mount Hermon. The Sidonians call Hermon Sirion, and the Amorites call it Senir. We conquered all the cities of the plain, all of Gilead, and Bashan, as far as Salcah and Edrei, cities of the kingdom of Og in Bashan. For only Og, king of Bashan, remained of the remnant of the giants. Indeed, his bedstead was an iron bedstead. Is it not in Rabbah of the people of Ammon? Nine cubits is its length and four cubits its width, according to the standard cubit.

The destruction of Og and all his people teaches us that God will judge all who stand in enmity against Him. However, Israel's victory over Og, king of Bashan, and all the cities of his territory teaches us something of greater importance about our God. God overcomes our overwhelming enemies by faith.

In light of what offends our 21st-century cultural sensitivities, we are blinded to some really crazy details about this whole event. Don't miss what this text says: Israel, a group of former slaves and shepherds who had been camping in the desert for the last forty years, overcame and destroyed King Og, a giant, and his sixty high-walled fortified cities, along with a great many rural towns. How is that even possible?

Thirty-eight years prior to this victory, the people of Israel were fearful to go up into the Promised Land because the land was filled with fortified cities and giants. They knew that there was no way, in their own strength, that they could overcome such overwhelming enemies.

The task was insurmountable. Humanly speaking, there was no possible way that Israel could hope for victory. But then we come to through 3.

Then we turned and went up the road to Bashan. An awed King of Bashan came out against us, he and all his people, to battle at Edi. The Lord said to me, "Moses, do not fear him, for I have delivered him and all his people and all his land into your hand. You shall do to him as you did to Sihon, King of the Ammonites, who dwelt at Heshbon." So the Lord our God also delivered into our hands King Og of Bashan with all his people, and we attacked him until he had no survivors remaining.

God faithfully delivers victory to those who trust in Him. We can be so distracted by something in the Bible that bothers us that we miss the main point of the whole of the Bible: God will judge all who stand in rebellion against Him. Just like He judged the world with a flood in through 9, just like He judged the people in Sodom and Gomorrah in , just like He judged King Sihon and the people of Heshbon, just like He judged King Og and the people of Bashan, and just like He judged the Canaanites and His own people, Israel, when they rebelled against Him.

But God will act and faithfully deliver victory to those who trust in Him. In faith, God will give mercy and grace to those who put their trust in Him for salvation. Don't miss the bigger point of the Bible because you are so fixated on the points of the story that stumble you.

Will you pray with me? Father God, there are challenging passages in the Scriptures, challenging things that we have a hard time with, especially as we see them from our perspective sitting here in the year 2020. I pray, God, that you would open our ears, our minds, and our hearts, that we would not harden our hearts and that we would hear what it is that you, by your Spirit, are trying to speak to us from the text.

Lord, there will be a day of judgment, as says: it is appointed for all men to die once, and then comes judgment. We will all stand before you one day for judgment. But Jesus, you went to the cross and you...

Died in our place so that as we trust in Your finished work on the cross, You are our substitute. Lord, we can find mercy and grace in You. In the same way that messengers were sent with a word of peace to the people of Bashan and the people of Heshbon, I pray that we would receive Your word of peace through the Gospel. May we readily turn to You in faith and experience Your saving grace.

God, do a work in our hearts and help us not to be stumbled or distracted by some of these things that keep us from the truth of what Your Word teaches. Lord, open our ears and our hearts to receive from You, we pray. We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.

Walking around these walls, I thought by now they'd fall, but You have never failed me. Waiting for change to come, during the battles won, for You have never failed me. Your promise still stands; great is Your faithfulness. Faithfulness, I'm still in Your hands. This is my confidence; You never failed me. I know the night won't last; Your word...

Will come to pass. My heart will sing Your praise again. Jesus, You're still in love with me. I will sing Your praise again. Oh, hallelujah! Your promise still stands. Great is Your faithfulness. Oh yes, Your faithfulness!

This is my promise: You have never failed me. I've seen You move; You move the mountains. I believe I'll see You do it again. When there was no way, I'll see You doing it. I've seen You move the mountains, and I believe I'll see You do it again.

Where there was no way, I’ll see you do it again. Your promise still stands; great is your faithfulness. I’m stealing your hand. You never failed me, and I never will forget that you never failed me.

God, just as we just sang, you will never fail us. You have never failed us yet, and you never will. I pray that you would help us to put our trust in you.

Solidly in You, even during times like this that can challenge and shake our faith, I pray, God, that we would find ourselves being drawn closer to You in the midst of this. Lord, I pray especially for those right now who are going through a very difficult time. Maybe they've lost their income, lost a job, or their business is going under. They are going through very difficult things, or maybe just the stress of everything that's going on in the world is weighing on people. I know that there are a lot of people who are hurting right now, and we ask, God, that You would reveal to them Your strength, Your power, Your peace, and Your rest in the midst of this storm. God, do a work in us and help us to find in You peace and joy as we trust in You.

And now may the Lord bless and keep you. May He make His face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. May the Lord lift up His countenance upon you and give you His peace. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God the Father, and the fellowship of His Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.

Now, before we go today, I do want to remind you that today, between 2:00 p.m. and 4:00 p.m., if you drive through the church parking lot, we will be making available to you the elements for communion because next Sunday, on Pentecost, we will be celebrating together. So come on by between 2:00 and 4:00 p.m. We would love to see you and give you the elements for communion.

May you have a wonderful Memorial Day tomorrow, and remember in your prayers to pray for those in our nation who have been affected by the loss of a loved one who has made the ultimate sacrifice on our behalf. Thank you, and God bless.

A couple of things which I've completely forgotten: Kinara Mission. Here's a short video to show you a little bit more about what they do.

We love stuff. We love a lot of stuff. We like things; things are great, and people are cool. One of the easiest ways is to text your gift. That doesn't make any sense. We'd love to be a part of it. Let me try that over again. Alright, that was fantastic.