I please God to bless our souls
tonight as we consider his word. Let us turn to the book of Deuteronomy,
chapter 31, and we'll read verse six. The book of Deuteronomy,
chapter 31, and reading verse six. 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. These were very positive words
that the Lord directed Moses to speak to the children of Israel
and to record them for the favor and blessing of the Church of
God. And it was, of course, so needful
for the people of Israel to hear such words as this, because before
them was a great obstacle. Well, they had to cross the river,
the River Jordan, and then they had to fight all those lands
and all those cities. and naturally they may have been
fearful. Perhaps in some measure in our
lives we find there are situations before us which may appear to
be fearful to us and frightening to us and therefore as Moses
was able to speak these words to Israel to encourage them.
So today perhaps such a word as this may be spoken by God
to our hearts, which may be an encouragement and a strength
to us. Let us not forget the Lord God
omnipotent reigns. The Lord God is the same today
as he was in the day of Moses. The Lord tells us, I am the Lord,
I change not. Therefore you sons of Jacob are
not consumed We don't worship a God who will change his mind. We don't worship a God who will
leave us and forsake us. We worship a God who is honorable
to the words that he's spoken. And here these words are recorded
for your and my encouragement tonight. And so we'll read them
again. 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. Now this was a general statement
to Israel as they gathered together. And he had reminded them that
he had helped them before because Moses said, and the Lord should
do unto them as he did to Zion and to all kings of the Amorites.
and unto the land of them whom he destroyed." They had had deliverances
when they had listened to the word of God. There had of course
been that tragic occasion early on in their journeys when they
had come to Kadesh Barnea and then God had told them to go
up and possess the land, having heard the spies sent up, but
they disobeyed. They listened to the evil report
of the ten spies, and they disobeyed God. And because of that, the
Lord ordained that they should tramp along in this wilderness,
for every day those spies were in the land of Canaan, that's
40 days, 40 years. And so it came to pass. And we
should be very aware in our lives that we dare not, we cannot trifle
with God. And so really Moses here is encouraging
them not to go backwards, but to go forward in the strength
of God. And they'd realized and been
helped by God for those 40 years. And they didn't deserve it, did
they? How many times they rebelled? How many times God had mercy
upon them? How many times God judged them? And yet you see,
they still turn back. Well, we have these statements,
these situations, which developed in the lives of Israel of old
to remind us, in the day and age in which we live, we cannot
treat God as one of ourselves. We must do his bidding. We must
do his will. And sometimes there may be mountains
before us. Here, Israel had to go and possess
the land of Canaan, you know, and all those other nations,
and I'm sure there were great mountains before them. But how
did they proceed? They went in the strength of
the Lord God. My friends, that's the only way
to go forward, in the strength of the Lord God. and therefore
we have a statement like this, be strong and of a good courage. Not our own courage but the courage
that God gives us, that courage that we receive from Almighty
God to perhaps do things and say things which we didn't think
we would ever be able to. Here we have an encouraging word
then, be strong. Listen not to the devil. The
devil will tell us you're weak, you're foolish, you're sinful.
Of course we are. But let us remember the words
of the Apostle Paul when he said, I can do all things through Christ
that strengthens me. My friends, there is our refuge
and there's our strength. And the blessing is, if we walk
in that way, in God's strength, we do not claim it ourselves.
We do not say, well, of course, I'm a strong character and I
was able to do that. No, you and I will prove in spiritual
things that the Word of God is true when it tells us He weakens
our strength in the way. He reduces what we think was
our own ability, our own cleverness. To do this and do that. And what
happens is God comes and he weakens our strength. And what is that? He makes us more dependent upon
him. So here we have these words then,
be strong and of a good courage. Courage we often need, don't
we? Especially when the way seems
very dark and difficult. to trust the Lord. Trust in me
at all times. Yes, not when things are difficult,
but at all times. When they appear to be relatively
easy, we're still to trust in the Lord. We're not to go on
our own strength. We are to be strong in the Lord. And so here we have this statement
that Moses brings before Israel. And it was needful. and how encouraging
it was. And as we know, of course, we
know the result. We know that God was with them.
God did give them strength. Amazingly, those high and difficult
walls surrounding Jericho were, they fell down, they fell down,
fell down flat. And Israel were able to go right
across them and take the land. Take the city, how amazing it
was. See, God can do those things
which perhaps we wouldn't think of. Know that Israel didn't think
the walls would fall down flat. God appeared. And so it is today,
sometimes God appears like that. Yes, the obstacles are taken
out of the way. They're removed. God removes them. God removes
them. And you see, when God does it,
it's done. It's done. I very seldom, as you know, refer
to my own life, but when I was A teenager, I had a very good
friend in London, and we'd been together for many years, and
he was a nice chap, a straightforward chap, but it wasn't a very spiritual
favour for us at all. We occupied our Saturday evenings
together playing cards and watching television, so it wasn't a very
good way, was it? And when the Lord then began to work in my
heart, I just didn't know what to do. I didn't really want to
continue being involved in these things and yet I didn't know
how to remove myself from them. But the Lord amazingly moved
this young chap away in Providence. He applied for a job, he was
a very clever lad, got a job at an atomic power station and
moved away almost overnight, never saw him again. We see how the Lord does things
for us that we may think are impossible. And so here we have
this statement, be strong and of a good courage. That means
to commit our way to the Lord, to trust in his strength, not
to be strong in our own strength, but to be strong and of a good
courage in the Lord. Now before we just continue with
the rest of this verse, just remember then, he'd spoken here
to Israel and then he spoke directly to Joshua. Joshua, as we know,
was the person who was to take on the leadership of Israel and
that was no small thing, was it? It was a great duty that
God had placed upon Joshua and therefore Moses was able to speak
directly to Joshua. My friends, God does speak Directly
to his people today And he spoke like this again, so similar words
be strong But Moses called Joshua and said on him in the sight
of all Israel. So there wasn't any Misapprehension
Israel heard the words as well. They knew what had been spoken
be strong and of a good courage For thou must go with his people
unto the land which the Lord has sworn unto their fathers
to give them a and thou shalt cause them to inherit it. He wasn't going to be able to
escape, find some escape route. No, God told him very clearly
to be strong and of good courage for thou must go with this people.
It's a blessing, isn't it, when God directs us in a specific
way. It wasn't going to be an easy
way. It never is an easy way. But
God was with Joshua and as we know, God did help him and God
did bless him and he was maintained and Israel did go in and possess
the land. So we should be thankful that
we have words like this which speak to us, well, be strong
and of a good courage. And that then is expanded when
he says, fear not. Because we can listen to a word
like that We can listen to a word, be strong and have a good courage,
and we can still be very fearful, very fearful, but God here spoke
to Israel, and he may speak to us, to distill, to take away
our fear, our fear. Sometimes we fear where no fear
is. We needn't really fear, but we
do fear. And yet, there are many, many
verses in the Word of God to encourage us not to fear. Remember, Isaiah speaks a number
of times about fear not. And in the 43rd chapter, he tells
us, but now thus saith the Lord that created the old Jacob and
he that formed the old Israel. He clearly speaks to them so
that there are not any misapprehension as to who is being addressed. Fear not, fear not, for I have
redeemed thee. I have called thee by thy name,
thou art mine. What a word that is, isn't it?
Moses said, fear not. God said, fear not. Isaiah said,
fear not. God said, fear not. And here
it is, wonderfully linked together. with the blessed work of the
Saviour's redemption. Surely, you see, we have nothing
to fear if we have the evidence that God has redeemed our soul. What an amazing truth that is,
isn't it? Fear not, I have redeemed thee. Well, do you have a humble hope
that God has redeemed you? My friends, we are not to deny
God's work. The devil will often come and
say, oh well, that's not worth anything. That's nothing at all. You can't rely on that. Well,
just remember, a little that a righteous man hath is better
than the treasures of many wicked. It's not the quantity, it's the
quality. And it's just a little. Don't
cast away your hope. Lay it up as treasure in heaven. Thank God for it. And as you
have the evidence, don't deny it. The evidence, therefore,
that God has redeemed you. And if that is so, and you can't
lay claim to that, my friends, bless God if we can. Let us not
deny God's blessings. Let us not deny his favours.
Then what is the word? Fear not. You see, we have nothing
to fear if we are those who are redeemed of the Lord. Fear not,
I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name, thou
art mine. And similar words really in the
41st of Isaiah, where again the prophet says, the 10th verse,
fear not, fear thou not. Fear thou not, for I am with
thee. Be not dismayed, for I am thy
God. I will strengthen thee, yea,
I will help thee. Yea, I will uphold thee with
the right hand of my righteousness. That's a very precious promise,
isn't it? From our faithful God. My friends, we can rely on the
promises of God. You can't rely on the promises
of men. They can be fickle. They can disappear. They can
change their mind. But here we have a God who speaks
in such terms, fear thou not. And he gives us a reason why
we should not fear. It's not left in abeyance. Fear
thou not in the reason, for I am with thee. And God is with all
his people. Come back, you see, to the 43rd. Those are blessed, you see, with
that evidence that they've been redeemed. The truth is therefore,
if we are amongst those, we can believe that Lord is with us. And therefore we need not to
be dismayed. Not to be dismayed because of
the opposition. The devil will always try and
produce opposition. Let us not listen to the devil.
The devil hasn't written the Bible. God's written the Bible. Let us not rely and listen to
the devil's words. Let's listen to the words of
God. Recall in the word of God. Let's rely upon that and be encouraged
by it. Be not dismayed for I am thy
God. That God who's redeemed us, be
not dismayed, He's with us today. He'll be with us tomorrow. He'll be with us throughout our
life. And He tells us then, I will
strengthen you. You may feel weak. That's not
a bad thing. It's a good thing to feel weak
in yourself. If you're feeling weak in yourself, you'll have
to look out of yourself. You'll have to lose all your
own abilities. Come back to that word, he weakens our strength
in a way and makes us dependent upon him. So then we can come
and say, yes, God helped me. God strengthened me. God gave
me the help I needed. I will help thee. Yea, I will
uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness. How gracious,
how kind is God, isn't he? So he looks upon us then, you
see, he remembers our frame, he knows our frame. He remembers
that we are but dust. And that's encouraging, isn't
it? Yes, the Lord looks us, he sees us through and through.
He sees all our poverty. He sees all our ignorance. He
sees all our foolishness. And yet you see, he still comes
and says, yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love. And
therefore with loving kindness have I drawn thee." It's the
loving kindness of God that draws us to such words as this, to
encourage us in them, so that by his grace we're able to lay
hold of them. Be strong and of a good courage. Fear not. Fear not, well, if
there are those things which are making you fearful. Remember the words of the Lord. And go in his strength. I will go in the strength of
the Lord God. I will make mention of thy righteousness,
even of thine only. So that's not then going in your
strength, because you're referring everything to your God. My friends,
God is faithful. Have we not proved, some of us
have proved, again and again, the truth of these words. And
we're thankful for them. And we can therefore encourage
you tonight to rely on them. And to fear not, and he goes
on, nor be afraid of them. Enemies. Enemies in the way. Men. Poor, feeble man. If God before us, who can be
against us? Our enemies are the enemies of
God. They won't be able to stand.
They won't be able to stop you. They won't be allowed to hinder
you. Because God will remove them. You know, there's a number of
occasions, aren't there, in the Word of God, when Israel faced
the enemy and God destroyed them without Israel having to fight. God destroyed them in a most
amazing way, in different ways. And yet, you see, they vanished.
Sometimes they were slain. Sometimes they fled away. But
you see, God came and God delivered them. And let us not forget God
still reigns today. And God still today does come
and deliver us from our enemies. Those scenes, those situations
occur which we could never have envisaged. But God appears. Sometimes in amazing ways to
prove to us very clearly it is the work of God. And I suppose
we can determine it in this way. When God does that for us, which
we could not do for ourselves. It's a wonderful blessing to
observe the Lord's work in our souls and in our natural life
and to be encouraged by it and nor be afraid of them. Fear not, neither be afraid of
them. Because all those who might oppose
are in God's hand. You know, God shuts the mouth
of enemies so they're not able to speak. Yes, what a God we
have. Let us not limit our God. He
does great things. He still does great things like
that today. And it's a wonderful thing to
then be able to Look back and say, yes, oh, how kind, how gracious
God was, far better to me than all my fears. He'd gone before. I had to walk the way. I had
to prove God's faithfulness. I had to prove his deliverances. I had to prove his goodness and
mercy. But you see, as God does that
for us, what does it produce? It strengthens us, doesn't it?
Strengthens our faith. Because we come and realise,
and we can say, He who has helped me hitherto. And then with that
faith to say, He will help me all my journey through. Yes. Confidence in God. Moses had
confidence in his God. Moses approved the faithfulness
of God for those 120 years from when he was a little baby in
the bulrushes, in that cradle in the bulrushes and Pharaoh's
daughter came along and found him. God had preserved him all
those years. What a blessing it is to know
today we have the same God. same God that preserves us. And so he says, for be not afraid
of them, for the Lord thy God, here it is, let us go with thee. Moses was directing Israel not
to rely on their strength, not to rely on their ableness as
soldiers and warriors, but he speaks to them in this way, for
the Lord thy God, he it is that does go with thee. Now you think
of that. Israel going into battle, God
with them, beside them, destroying the enemy. The same today, as
you and I may have enemies, that you and I have to fight to realize
that God is with us. God's by our side. God's giving
us strength and by that it may not be physical strength. He
may help us. He may give us right words to
speak. So that we finally prove He is
our helper. Become weak and needy and as
we've been able to commit our way unto the Lord and pray for
His help and His strength and His wisdom You know, James tells
us, doesn't he, if any of you lack wisdom, what are you to
do? Let him ask of God, who giveth
to all men liberally. The Lord supplies our wisdom. Sometimes we've proved it. Perhaps
you children have proved it in examination questions, perhaps
in problems at school. The Lord gives understanding. The Lord gives wisdom. It was wonderful then to be able
to acknowledge that it was the Lord that helped me, the Lord
was with me. For the Lord thy God, here it
is, let us go with thee. The Lord's in every place. He's
in the exam room, He's in the classroom, He's in the lecture
theatre, He's in the workplace, He's in the home place, Wherever
we are, my friends, to think that God is with us. For the
Lord thy God, he it is, let us go with thee. Every moment of
our time, where this great and blessed God, this God who so
graciously condescends to take us in hand. You know, what is
the purpose of all this? The purpose of all this is to
direct us to the Saviour, to direct us to His great and glorious
work, and to realise that the Lord Jesus, in love to our soul,
helping us now, day by day, because He's redeemed us, because we're
one of His children, because He's loved us, because He's going
before us, and he's leading us, he's taken us by hand, he's leading
us safely through this world and he will bring us at last
home to glory. Oh, do we not have to rejoice
in such a saviour? And to think that this blessed
saviour loved us so much, he's guiding us through life now but
above these things he laid down his life to redeem our souls. We're not redeemed with corruptible
things of silver and gold from our vain conversation received
by our fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ. Oh,
my friends, ponder that. You see, if Christ has died for
us, if Christ has redeemed us with his precious blood, he's
not going to leave us, is he? He's not going to say, well,
you can get on with this by yourself. No, he's with us all through
our journey. because he's going to preserve
us and bring us safe home to glory. And therefore, in our
journey, he will help us. He will help us day by day. We
may not always be blessed, perhaps, with the natural success that
we may have craved after, but God gives us that success which
is good for us. He gives us that success which
will be for his honour and glory. He gives us that success so we
won't be able to claim our own greatness. We'll have to give
God the thanks for the help we have received. And to think then
that the Lord has done so much for us in guiding and directing
us. He it is that doth go with thee. And as God of course goes with
us, we can be sure then of the promise Which follows, he will
not leave thee, nor forsake thee. He will not leave thee, nor forsake
thee. Well, when the Apostle Paul wrote
to the Hebrews, he wrote some very similar words, didn't he? Great words of encouragement.
In the last chapter to the Hebrews, the Apostle writes these words
when he speaks, and he tells us in the fifth verse, Let your
conversation be without covetousness. And that's a good word, you know,
just to remember that we are not to covet. No, we are to be
content with such things as you have for he has said, I will
never leave thee nor forsake thee. That's a wonderful promise,
isn't it? Just the same here as Moses spoke
all those years before that, when he came and said, he will
not fail thee nor forsake thee. And the Apostle Paul had proved
it in his life, hadn't he? He'd come through many difficulties.
He'd come through shipwrecks. Yes, he'd come through opposition
and against the enemy, imprisonments, he'd been delivered. And the
Lord had not forsaken him. And you see, as the Lord is gracious
to us, we can confirm, can we not? To his honour and glory,
no. I can thank God that he has not
forsaken me. We may have feared sometimes
the Lord will forsake us, especially as we realise our sinful condition
and how we deserve to be forsaken. The Lord doesn't deal with us
as our sins deserve. What a mercy, isn't it? The love
of Christ is rich and free. And so here we have these words,
he said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee. So that we
may boldly say, they're good words, aren't they? Boldly say. We don't have to, as it were,
whisper them behind our hands. But we can boldly say, the Lord
is my helper. And I will not fear what man
shall do unto me. Not fear what man shall do unto
me. No, you see, men can only go
so far. Men are controlled by God. Everything that man says is controlled
by God. What a blessing to realise the
truth of those words. And as you see they're controlled
by God, we can rely on God for our strength. Again, as the Apostle
says, when he wrote to the Ephesians, he came down towards the end
of that letter and he says, finally, my brethren, be strong in the
Lord and in the power of his might. And of course, those words
are just before we are encouraged to put on the whole armour of
God, which which we are of course considering in our Bible studies,
and how wonderful it is to realise that God has given this armour
to put on. Finally, my brethren, be strong
in the Lord and in the power of His might, not our might,
His might, to go in His strength. He will not fail thee, nor forsake
thee. Well, we have great and glorious
truth, don't we, in this verse, and how Israel proved it. He proved it for a good number
of years as God was very gracious and very faithful to them. He
did make some mistakes and they suffered for it, but nonetheless
God was with them and God brought everything to pass. It's lovely
to read in many occasions in the Word of God where God gives
promises and later on we read, and it came to pass. And so it
is, bless God, in your life and my life. Those promises that
God may have spoken, be sure of this, it will come to pass. And you and I will be able to
say, to the glory of God, and it came to pass. Israel were
able to declare it, and the Church of God are able to declare it
today. They have been able to dance for the ages, and so tonight,
may we bless God for the Word of God, for the truth of God,
and thank Him who gives us faith, that God-given faith to believe
His Word, and to remember to gain his strength, not yours.
Be strong and of a good courage. Fear not, nor be afraid of them. For Lord thy God, he it is that
doth go with thee. He will not fail thee, nor forsake
thee. Amen.