Amen.
So we're still in this section of Deuteronomy where Moses is giving a little bit of a recap
of what has brought them up to this point.
He's telling a little bit of a story about some of the things that happened leading
up to entering the promised land.
Starting in chapter four, he's going to start getting into more commandments and
laws and really preaching to the people about why they need to worship the Lord alone
and not to get sucked in by all the false gods of all the people around them and so forth.
But here he's still kind of relaying the story a little bit and there's a little bit
of overlap with last week.
So I'm not going to spend a whole lot of time on this first section because the battle
that we talked about last week with Sihon, you know, now it's Og, king of Bashan, but
it's kind of the same deal.
It's these two kings of the Amorites that are on that east side of the river.
Because if you remember, the children of Israel are approaching the promised land from the
east.
They're going to cross the river Jordan into the promised land proper.
Now most of the territory on that east side is off limits to them because it belongs
to the Edomites and the Moabites and the Ammonites.
And God had told them that he does not want them to take any of that land.
God gave the Edomites and the Moabites and the Ammonites that land for possession.
Leave that alone.
But there were some Amorite cities.
These are the Canaanite pagans not related to Abraham or Lot or anything like that.
And the Amorite cities on the east side, they do end up engaging the Israelites in
battle and the Israelites defeat both Sihon and Og, these two great kings of the Amorites
on the east side of the river.
So we'll just briefly touch on that part at the beginning.
It says in verse one.
Then we turned and went up the way to Bashan and Og, the king of Bashan, came out against
us and all his people to battle at Edrei.
And the Lord said unto me, Fear him not, for I will deliver him and all his people
and his land into thy hand, and thou shalt do unto him as thou didst unto Sihon,
king of the Amorites, which dwelt at Heshbon.
So the Lord our God delivered into our hands, Og also, the king of Bashan and all his
people.
And we smote him until none was left to him remaining.
And the one thing I want to point out here is that God said to him, just as I delivered
you Sihon, I'm going to deliver you Og as well.
And one of the things that this applies to our Christian life is that when we go
through life and we go through various trials or tribulations or just difficult situations
in our life, you know, the Bible says how tribulation worketh patience and patience
worketh experience and experience hope and hope maketh not ashamed.
Why?
Because if we go through tribulation, we learn patience, right?
We learn to endure those things and grind out those difficult situations.
But then also patience gives us experience.
You know, the first time you go through something hard, that's when it's the hardest.
And each time you go through it thereafter, it gets a little bit easier, doesn't it?
You know, I remember some of the first persecutions that came against our church back
in 2008, 2009, around that time.
And you know, it was pretty hard.
After a while, though, it's just kind of another day at the office.
And sometimes I, you know, I don't even notice it.
And I'll be like, man, I've been persecuted in years.
And people are like, what about this?
Oh, yeah, well, there's that.
Yeah.
What about, you know, and I'm just like, yeah, nothing's even happened like for 10
years or something.
And they're like, yeah, but what about when, uh, that, you know, the, the, the police
came to your house with the guns drawn and I'm like, oh, that little, you know, that's
not, you know, because, but, but when those things happen to you for the first time,
it's more intense.
You know, even when the police came to our house, the first time was scarier than
the second time when we got swatted.
And the first time was a lot more intense.
The second time it's kind of like, oh, here we go again, right?
That's the way life is.
So you go through these different things and you have to believe that if God got me
through it last time, he's going to get me through it this time.
If God allowed me to defeat Sihon, God's going to allow me to defeat Ogg.
And so every time you go through something in the Christian life and you stay faithful
to God and you get through it and God sees you through, let that build some experience
for you to draw on, and you can remember that next time and say, look, God has always
provided in the past.
God has always taken care of me in the past, just as he was with me then.
He's going to be with me going forward.
And this is the mistake that David made when Saul is chasing after him.
God keeps delivering David out of Saul's hand.
But then one day David just gets frustrated and says, I shall one day now perish at the
hand of Saul.
I'm going to the Philistines.
Why did he give up?
If God always protected him in the past, why would he think he's someday going to
perish at the hand of Saul?
That doesn't even make sense.
So if God has taken care of you in the past, if he's fed you in the past, if you
were able to pay your bills in the past, if you always had what you needed when you were
serving God, then just believe that that's going to be the way it is going forward,
that it's going to be the same thing going forward as it has been in the past.
God has always been faithful and God's always going to be faithful.
It says in verse four, we took all his cities at that time.
There was not a city which we took not from them.
Three score cities, that's 60 cities.
All the region of Argob, the kingdom of Og and Bashan.
All these cities were fenced with high walls, gates and bars, beside unwalled towns
a great many.
So he's saying, look, I'm just counting the walled cities.
There were 70 of them, or sorry, excuse me, 60 of them that we defeated.
And we utterly destroyed them as we did under Sihon, king of Heshbon, utterly destroying
the men, women and children of every city.
We already talked about last week why that is.
But all the cattle and the spoil of the cities, we took for a prey to ourselves.
That means they took that as spoils of war.
We took at that time out of the hand of the two kings of the Amorites, the land that
was on this side, Jordan, from the river of Arnon unto Mount Hermon, which, and then it just
gives a geographical note about the mountain.
All the cities of the plain and all Gilead and all Bashan unto Salcha and Edrei, cities
of the kingdom of Og and Bashan.
Now here's an interesting verse.
Again, I'm not going to spend too much time on this because we talked about it last
week.
But it says, for only Og, king of Bashan, remained of the remnant of giants.
Behold, his bedstead was a bedstead of iron.
Is it not in Raboth of the children of Abin?
Nine cubits was the length thereof, and four cubits the breadth of it, after the cubit
of a man.
Now, let me just emphasize once again that when the Bible talks about giants, it is
not talking about Mickey and the Beanstalk, you know, huge, gigantic giants.
It's talking about more like just really tall dudes that even in our modern time,
we have things that are analogous to this.
Like in the Guinness Book of World Records, I think the tallest guy is like 10 feet tall
or something like that.
You have guys in the NBA, which here's the thing about being in the NBA.
Being tall is not enough.
These guys also have to be a really good athlete.
So they're basically these really tall heights.
Can someone name for me like the height of a really tall NBA player?
Does anybody know that statistic?
I've heard of one being 7'10", right?
Anything taller than that?
Seven seven is the tallest?
Who is that?
I'm Sudan.
All right.
I've never even heard of him.
Never heard of him.
How tall is Shaquille O'Neal?
Seven one.
That's a joke.
No, I'm just kidding.
All right.
So we got 7'1", 7'7".
So here's the thing.
If he's 7'7", and he's in the NBA, that means he's healthy, and he's a good athlete,
and he's 7'7", because the thing about that is that human beings aren't really designed
to be extremely tall.
As they get really tall, there are probably going to be some problems associated with
that advanced height.
But like I said, in the Guinness book, you go up to 9', 10' tall.
Now Goliath in the Bible is the only giant where the Bible actually gives us a measure
because this is not telling us how tall the giant is, this is just describing a bed.
Hey, we have this guy's bed on display in a museum, and here's how big the bed is.
That's all it's saying.
But Goliath himself was six cubits and a span.
Now a span is the distance from your pinky to your thumb, right?
So it's about this far.
So basically a cubit is the distance from the middle finger to the elbow.
So this is approximately 18 inches in a cubit or a foot and a half in a cubit.
And then the span right here, whatever that is, what, eight inches or something, six
inches, seven inches, nine inches, whatever.
The point is that if we take six cubits, we're talking about nine feet, and then
say nine and a half feet.
So Goliath is somewhere on the order of nine and a half feet tall.
Maybe a little more, maybe a little less, but that's a rough approximation of his height.
That's pretty consistent with this because this guy's bed, the Bible says, is nine
cubits.
So nine cubits would be 13 and a half feet.
But again, that doesn't mean he's 13 and a half feet tall because we're assuming
that he wants to be able to go like this in the middle of the night without hitting
the wall or something.
He wants to be able to stretch out, stretch his arms out.
So maybe 13 feet might even include some decorative whatever, who knows?
So we don't want to say he's 13 feet tall.
He could be 10 feet tall and have an extra three feet because if you're 10 feet tall,
your arms are really long too.
You know, because if I go like this, you know, my wingspan here is probably, I think
about five and a half feet or something like that, roughly.
So if you think about, so basically if a guy is about 5'10 and he's got about a 5'10
and you reach this way, then you could assume that if somebody's, you know, 10 feet tall,
that their arms, if they held them out like this could be, you know, nine feet or something,
right?
And if they go up like this, you know, he's going to need some room there if he
wants to stretch out.
He is the king after all, he needs a king size bed, not something that just barely fits
him, okay?
He needs a California king.
He needs a Canaan king, all right?
Or the Anakims and the Zamzamims and the Enims and all those people.
So it says that his bedstead is a bedstead of iron and it's nine cubits and then it's
four cubits in breadth, so that'd be six feet wide, which really isn't that broad.
I mean, he doesn't even have, I take that back, he doesn't have a king size.
He basically has a twin size for a giant, it's a giant twin.
It's a little bit of an oxymoron, but that's what it was.
So I, cause I mean, you know, your bed at home is probably more than four cubits
wide.
We're not, we're not impressed, Ogg.
And then let's keep going.
So get a bigger bed, buddy.
Verse 12, and this land, which was possessed at that time from Aroer, which is by the
river Arnon and half Mount Gilead and the cities thereof gave eye unto the Reubenites
and to the Gadites.
So he just kind of roughly, he just kind of touches on this a little bit in this passage,
but I'll explain to you the story back in Numbers chapter 32 is where we find the
story.
After Ogg and Sihon are defeated, well now the Israelites have taken over all these
cities, right?
Ogg's cities alone, 60 walled cities.
So some of the Israelites are looking at that and saying, you know, why do we even
need to go over the Jordan river into the promised land?
We just conquered a pretty cool area.
And this area looks like it's really good for cattle.
We have a lot of cattle.
What's the point in going and fighting another war, invading Canaan, trying to take over
more territory.
We got everything we need right here.
So you had Reuben and Gad and half the tribe of Manasseh come to Moses and say, look,
you know, why don't we just stay here?
Just, just, just, just us, not everybody, but just Reuben, Gad, half of Manasseh.
We want to stay here and just possess this land on this side, Jordan.
We believe that this is God's will.
God has given this land to us and you know, you guys go over into Canaan.
Well, Moses did not like this at all.
This made Moses very angry because Moses already 40 years ago was all excited about
going to the promised land.
And then those 10 bozo spies came back and ruined everything.
And then they all have to wander in the wilderness for 40 years.
So this is starting to be a little bit like deja vu for Moses.
People talking about not going into the promised land, not wanting to invade Canaan.
So he really blows up about this.
He gets upset and says, you know, what in the world?
Have you learned nothing?
Your fathers said this kind of stuff and we ended up wandering in the wilderness.
They're all dead.
Is that what you want to do too?
What are you doing?
So then they explain, no, no, no, no.
We'll go over and fight.
We'll invade Canaan with you and we will fight.
But it's just that when everything's all said and done, we want to inherit this land
when it's all over.
We're not going to abstain from the fight.
We're not going to fail to enter Canaan.
We just want to live here in the end.
So what we're going to do, we're going to kind of set up our families here and everything
and stake out our territory on this side.
Then we're going to get our weapons and armor and we're going to go into Canaan
and fight alongside the other 10 tribes and help them get their land.
And then once they've inherited their land, then we will come back over here.
And so Moses says, if you do that, then it's okay.
But you must make good on that.
And this is where, in fact, let's flip over there because we're going to find a very,
very famous verse that if you've been in church at all, go back to Numbers chapter
32.
You've probably heard this verse before because it's one of the most famous verses
in the Old Testament.
Go to Numbers chapter 32.
And the Bible says in Numbers 32 verse 20, and Moses said unto them, if you will do
this thing, if you will go armed before the Lord to war and will go all of you armed
over Jordan before the Lord until he had driven out his enemies from before him and
the land be subdued before the Lord, then afterward you shall return and be guiltless
before the Lord and before Israel and this land shall be your possession before
the Lord.
But if you will not do so, behold, you have sinned against the Lord.
And here's the most famous quote, right?
And be sure your sin will find you out.
Who's heard people just quote this, like just by itself, just be sure your sin will
find you out.
Right?
This is a very popular phrase to come out of the mouth of preachers.
Be sure your sin will find you out.
There are probably a million, literally 1 million sermons called be sure your sin will find
you out.
Okay.
And so a very popular phrase from the Bible.
And so that's the context that you don't usually think about the context of where
it's coming from though.
He's saying, you know, if you don't fight alongside your brethren, then be sure your
sin will find you out.
Now that has a little bit of application, doesn't it?
You know, we've got some preachers today and some churches today that are just a little
bit too comfortable.
They're at ease in Zion, just kind of sitting back and letting everybody else fight
against the enemies of the Lord and drive out the enemies of the Lord and fight the
Lord's battles and to execute his fierce wrath upon the Canaanites while they're just
kind of sitting back and hanging back.
And Moses is saying, look, if you hang back, if you abstain from the fight, if
you let your brethren go to war while ye sit here, you know, shall your brethren go
to war and you sit here?
He asked them.
Well, if you do, it's a sin and be sure your sin will find you out.
And so these guys that just are afraid to preach the Bible because they don't want to
make any waves and they don't want to get involved and they'd rather just stay out
of it and they don't want to preach on the Sodomites because they know that it's
going to make people upset or whatever.
Well, you know what?
Be sure your sin will find you out.
Because if these preachers fail to preach hard on sin and stand up for the truth
in 2023, you know who's going to get the punishment?
It's them.
You know, you know what?
Instead of being afraid to preach hard against sin and preach hard against the
wickedness of our culture and preach hard against the sodomites, you know, they ought
to be afraid not to, because it's a lot scarier not to, because what's scarier?
Some androgynous beast out in the parking lot or God in heaven who literally holds
our breath in his hand.
Be sure your sin will find you out.
Who are you more afraid of?
I mean, I would be much more fearful to fall into the hands of the living God than
some queer out in the parking lot that, you know, is threatening our church or better
yet some filthy sodomite online making threats about our church.
Who cares?
If God be for us, who can be against us?
No weapon that is formed against us shall prosper.
We can only destroy ourselves and by failing to fight, by abstaining from the battle, by
staying on the east side of Jordan, you know, that is the recipe for God's judgment.
And that's a lot worse than anything that the Canaanites can do to you if you cross
over that river and fight the battle that God wants you to fight.
And so the Reubenites and the Gadites and half the tribe of Manasseh, they make this
agreement with Moses.
Of course, as we read on and we get to the book of Joshua, we find out that they kept
their word, they did what they were supposed to do, and they legitimately inherited that
land on the east side of the Jordan River.
Unfortunately, that geographic barrier ends up causing them sometimes to drift away from
the Lord because they're a little bit further from the hub of God's people.
But in general, they did what they said they would do.
So with that in mind, let's jump back in here to Deuteronomy chapter three.
It says in verse number 18, and I commanded you at that time saying, the Lord your God
has given you this land to possess it.
You shall pass over before your brethren, the children of Israel, all that are meat
for the war, but your wives and your little ones, he's talking to Gad and Reuben and
the half tribe of Manasseh and your cattle, for I know that you have much cattle, shall
abide in your cities until I, or excuse me, which I've given you until the Lord have given
rest unto your brethren, we're in verse 20, as well as unto you until they also possess
the land which the Lord your God has given them beyond Jordan.
And then shall ye return every man into his possession, which I have given you.
Okay, so now let's get into the part that we want to talk a little more about today.
Verse 21 says, and I commanded Joshua at that time saying, thine eyes have seen all
that the Lord your God has done under these two kings.
So shall the Lord do unto all the kingdoms whither thou passest.
So again, we have that principle that if God took care of us in the past, he's going
to take care of us in the future.
If we won the fight in the past, we're going to win in the future.
If God is for us, who can be against us?
And then it says in verse 22, ye shall not fear them for the Lord your God, he shall
fight for you.
And I besought the Lord at that time saying, O Lord God, thou has begun to show thy servant
thy greatness and thy mighty hand for what God is there in heaven or in earth that can
do according to thy works and according to thy might.
I pray thee, let me go over.
Now God had already sworn in his wrath that all of the men from 20 years old and upward
who were there the first time 40 years ago are not entering the promised land.
The only ones who are entering of the men of war are just Caleb and Joshua.
Everybody else is out.
But then separately from that, the Lord became angry with Moses at one point because
Moses was supposed to speak to the rock.
And when he was supposed to speak to the rock, then water would come out.
Instead of speaking to the rock, Moses lost his temper and he took his rod and he smoked
the rock twice.
He hit the rock twice.
And when he hit the rock twice, God said, you're not going to the promised land.
Now this might seem a little bit harsh because Moses is such a faithful man of God.
He's a friend of God.
He's a servant of God, faithful in all his house.
Why would God ban him from the promised land for this one little mistake?
I mean, of course he's going to get angry.
The children of Israel are constantly provoking him and driving him nuts.
So what?
He got mad and started hitting stuff.
Give the guy a break, give him another chance.
And so he's like, God, what's going on?
Why can't I go to the promised land?
Please can you just change your mind and just let me go in the promised land?
And God tells him no.
And in fact, at the end of verse 26, he says, speak no more unto me of this matter.
He says, Moses, quit praying about this.
Quit bringing this up.
Quit talking about this.
You're not going into the promised land.
Now let me explain to you why it was so important that Moses not go into the promised
land.
Because what you have to understand is that Joshua represents Jesus and Moses of course
represents the law because the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came
by Jesus Christ.
Here's what's interesting, and this is really helpful.
If you have a King James Bible, you'll see this because two times in the New Testament,
the Bible actually calls Joshua, Jesus.
Okay.
Why?
Because they're the same name.
Jesus is the New Testament version of the Old Testament name, Joshua.
So it's sort of like when you're reading in the Old Testament, you see Noah, and
then the New Testament's Noe.
Or Elijah becomes Elias, Elisha becomes Elisias, right?
Hosea becomes Ozi.
And you have these names like Isaiah turns into Esaias.
So you have these differences.
Well Old Testament Joshua becomes New Testament Jesus.
So you can turn there if you want, but you don't have to.
But in Acts chapter 7 and in Hebrews chapter 4, it says Jesus, but it's talking about
Joshua actually.
So it says, for example, in Acts chapter 7 verse 45, if you want to turn there, it
says, which also our fathers that came after brought in with Jesus into the possession
of the Gentiles whom God drove out before the face of our fathers under the days of
David.
So when it says that they were brought in with Jesus, it's actually talking about
Joshua, just calling him Jesus because that's the New Testament version of his name.
So if you were to read a Greek translation of the Old Testament, ancient Greek translation,
it's going to say Jesus for Joshua because of the fact that that's the...
It's sort of like if I go to Mexico, my name goes from Steven to Esteban.
If I go to Germany, I become Stefan.
If I go to Hungary, I become Istvan.
And so my name changes a little bit from language to language.
It's the same way with these biblical names.
And so it's kind of cool to have the King James Bible keep that word Jesus because
they could have just translated it Joshua there.
Would it have been wrong to say Joshua?
No, because I mean, that's what it is.
Just like they changed Miriam to Mary because that way we can make sure that we understand
that we're talking about the mother of Jesus because in our English language, when we
talk about the mother of Jesus, we're talking about Mary.
We don't call her Miriam, even though in the original language, her name's Miriam.
In the Old Testament, we call Moses' sister Miriam, but we call the mother of Jesus Mary.
And we don't call Joshua Jesus.
We call him Joshua to help us distinguish him from Jesus Christ.
But it's interesting how the King James translators though leave Jesus here in these two places.
And that's kind of educational for us because then we can see like, oh, I see, just like
Elisha becomes Alyssius, Joshua becomes Jesus.
And then it kind of helps us put together a connection between these two people that
Joshua symbolizes Jesus because they even have the same name.
So think about this.
Jesus is the one who brings them into the promised land.
Moses can't.
Moses cannot be the one who leads them into the promised land because the symbolism here
is that the law of God can't bring you into the promised land.
Only Jesus can bring you into the promised land.
It has to be Jesus, not Moses.
It can't be the Old Testament.
It's got to be the New Testament.
It can't be works.
It can't be the keeping of the commandments of God.
It has to be by grace through faith in Jesus.
Now think about the specific reason.
Why couldn't Moses bring them into the promised land?
Why did it have to be Jesus?
Here's why.
Because of the fact that he smote the rock twice instead of speaking to it.
Now the rock, according to the New Testament, the rock that followed them, the Bible says
they drank water from the rock, water gushed forth from the rock, and that rock
followed them.
And it says the rock was Jesus.
First Corinthians chapter 10, right?
So the rock is Jesus.
Now the rock was smitten for our sins, right?
Jesus died for our sins.
It pleased the Lord to bruise him, right?
He was wounded for our transgressions.
He was smitten for us.
And so Jesus is smitten, but how many times has he smitten, once or twice?
Once.
Jesus Christ died for our sins once.
He was crucified once.
He only had to pay that penalty for our sin one time.
He doesn't have to be re-sacrificed every time there's a Catholic mass or something.
He's already been sacrificed once for all, one time.
And those who reject that gift of God's grace, in a sense, are smiting the Lord
again, crucifying him a second time, as it were, okay?
And the thing is that all Moses was supposed to do was just speak to the rock, because
the rock had already been smitten one time, and so all he had to do was just
speak to the rock, and then the water comes out.
This pictures the fact that all we have to do is call upon the name of the Lord,
and we receive that living water.
Jesus said, if thou knewest who it was that said unto thee, give me to drink, thou
wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water.
So we ask Christ, and he gives us the living water.
We speak to the rock.
We speak to Jesus Christ, and we get the living water.
That's salvation.
Smiting the rock twice is a rejection of the simple plan of salvation, which says
that it's just by calling upon the name of the Lord.
It's just by speaking, confessing with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and believing
in your heart that God has raised him from the dead.
That's the way to be saved.
Not the law of Moses.
Not keeping the commandments.
Not crucifying the Lord a second time.
Not smiting the rock twice, but speaking to the rock.
And so Moses could not bring the children of Israel in the promised land, because God
was trying to symbolize the fact that the law can't get you there.
And you're like, yeah, but Moses is such a great person.
Yeah, but you can be a great person.
You're still not going to the promised land except through Jesus.
And in order for Jesus to lead, Moses has to be taken out of the way, right?
Just like we have to be dead to the law so that we can be married to another Christ.
Otherwise we can't, if we're married to both Christ and the law, then we're like
a woman with two husbands, and that's called being an adulteress.
And the Bible says that if she marry another dude while her husband yet liveth, she shall
be called an adulteress.
It doesn't use the word dude in the King James, but he says, you know, if she marries
another guy, doesn't say guy either, then if she marries another dude, then she is
an adulteress.
It's a spiritual adultery when you're trying to get to heaven through Christ and the law.
Christ plus works, Jesus plus works, faith plus works, no, no, no.
It's all faith and it's not of works, unless any man should boast.
If it were of works, people would boast about it and people who think it's by works,
they do boast about it and they're going to boast themselves straight to hell because
salvation is only purchased by Christ.
That's it.
And so that's why this is so important that Moses can't enter the promised land
for doctrinal reasons.
And so he says, let me go over verse 25, I pray thee, Deuteronomy 3 25, I pray thee,
let me go over and see the good land that is beyond Jordan, that goodly mountain in
Lebanon.
But the Lord was wroth with me for your sake.
So I like how Moses is blaming them.
He was mad at me, but it was your fault.
It was wroth with me for your sakes and would not hear me.
And the Lord said unto me, let it suffice thee, speak no more unto me of this matter.
It's funny, the apostle Paul says something very similar to this.
Okay.
So keep your finger here and let's go to second Corinthians chapter 12.
So I want you to pay special attention to these words.
Let it suffice thee and speak no more unto me of this matter.
Look what the Bible says in second Corinthians chapter number 12.
This is the apostle Paul speaking verse seven, and lest I should be exalted above measure
through the abundance of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh,
the messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure for this
thing I besought the Lord thrice that it might depart from me.
And he said unto me, my grace is sufficient for thee.
So just as he told Moses, let it suffice thee, like, let it be enough for you.
He says, my grace is enough for you, right?
My grace is sufficient for thee, for my strength is made perfect and weakness most gladly
therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities that the power of Christ may rest upon me.
So the apostle Paul doesn't tell us exactly what this thorn in the flesh is, but he
has some serious problem in his life.
Probably something to do with his physical body because he's calling it the thorn in
the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me.
Is this some kind of a disease or an injury?
What is it?
It's some kind of a deformity or something that happened to him that caused him to be
in pain or we have no idea.
Some people have said it was his bad eyesight because he talks about how, oh, you would
have taken out your eyes and given them to me or something.
So that's just a theory that's out there.
Nobody really knows what this is.
Some people pointed this out as evidence that the apostle Paul was married, you know,
because he had the thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet him.
No, I'm just kidding.
But anyway, there are all kinds of, that's a joke.
That's not a real theory, but the actual theory is about his eyesight, but really
it could just be something that we know nothing about.
And I think that the Bible intentionally makes it vague because of the fact that he wants
us to be able to relate to it.
Because let's say it just mentioned, oh, you know, I have bad eyesight.
Then we'd just be like, well, I see fine.
I don't really know what that's even like now for somebody with a problem with their
eyesight, that would be very meaningful to them.
But here's the thing.
By just keeping it vague and just saying a thorn in the flesh, it could be anything.
You know, someone could apply it to their eyesight.
They could apply it to their hearing.
They could apply it to just pain in their body.
Any kind of deformities or ugliness or disease or whatever it is, whatever thorn in
the flesh, it could be literally anything.
And then we could go to this passage and relate to it no matter what our particular
thorn in the flesh is.
Sometimes it could even be something that's not physical.
Maybe it could even just be a thorn in the flesh proverbially speaking.
It could just be, you know, some kind of a bad relationship or a financial problem
or problems at work, problems at church, whatever.
It could be anything.
Now what do I want to get across about these two scenarios?
Moses not going into the promised land and the apostle Paul having this thorn in the
flesh.
And he asked the Lord about it three times and God basically just tells him, no, I'm
not going to do it.
Just like he told Moses, don't even talk to me about this again.
It's just not going to happen.
Here's the way life works.
Your life is never going to be perfect.
There's always going to be something.
And the reason for this is because God doesn't want you to be exalted above measure.
The apostle Paul is being used greatly by God and has all these revelations.
So God keeps him humble by sending him an infirmity, by sending him some kind of
a problem just to make sure that he doesn't get too puffed up.
You know, I think about all of the deficiencies that I have, all the problems that I've
had throughout my life physically and just otherwise.
I believe that all of those things exist for a reason and it had to be that way.
And I can just tell you right now, as the apostle Paul said, I know that in me that
is in my flesh dwell with no good thing.
We all have a rotten side to our nature, the unregenerate man, the flesh, the unregenerate
side because we've been saved spiritually.
We have the new man, the inward man, but we still have the old man.
That's why we have to crucify the flesh daily and take up the cross and follow Christ
daily because we still have that sinful flesh and the flesh lusted against the spirit
and the spirit against the flesh.
And I'll tell you this right now, if I would have grown up and if I would have
been good looking, smart, athletic, and popular, I'd probably be the biggest jerk
in the world.
I wouldn't be pastoring a church right now.
I'd just be out living for myself.
I would just be out gratifying myself and just, and I'd probably be someone that you
wouldn't want to spend any time with because I'd be just a pompous, arrogant, self-centered
jerk.
I'm talking about myself now.
I guarantee you, why?
Because it's the adversities that we go through in life that keep us humble, that
help us empathize with other people and realize that we need to be nice to people
and think about other people because we've been through something similar, okay?
You know, I think about some of the things when I was growing up, you know, for example,
when I was in elementary school, I was always the shortest kid in the class.
Okay, I was tied with a Filipino kid and he and I were the shortest kids in the class,
me and PJ, okay?
And we were the shortest kids.
Is it in the class photo right in the front?
It's me and Robbie and PJ, the three short kids, right?
And I'm telling you, when I was in elementary school, I was the shortest kid in the class.
And I got called shrimp and obviously picked on because that's what kids in school do.
Now, as soon as I hit puberty, I shot up to normal white dude height.
And now I'm literally, you know, I tried to tell my kids, I am average white dude
height.
And my daughters were like, no, I think you're just like, just a little bit below
average.
Like, like what?
And I'm just like, why would you say that though?
And then I had to get out Google and I showed them like, okay, look, I'm five
10 and a half.
And here Google says, five 10 is the average height of a white dude.
And they're like, yeah, but you know, it's funny how you put that half on there.
Like what are you trying to prove, dad?
And I'm like, okay, fine.
Forget the half.
I don't even need the half.
I'm still average white guy height.
But here's the thing.
When I was growing up though, even though I'm a normal height now, I know what it's
like to be short.
Believe me, I've been there.
I was there for a long time, okay?
And then, just when I got up to average white guy height and I'm like, okay, yeah, all right,
here we go.
Then I just got horrible acne.
And I mean, I had really bad acne.
And even, I remember my dad saying to me like, what is wrong with your face?
Why do you have all that acne?
And when I was a kid, nobody had acne like that.
What's, what is going on with this generation?
I'm like, I don't know, dad, like, he's like, what are you doing to your face?
I'm like, I don't know, dad.
It's not my fault, you know?
And then my dad's like, man, he's like, when I was in the military, you know, this is
like Vietnam era.
He's like, when I got drafted in the military, or he didn't get drafted, he enlisted.
But when I went in the military, there was this one guy out of the whole crew of
18 year old guys.
There was one guy who had acne.
And he's like, I remember the drill sergeant just gave him like some steel wool and told
him like, go in the bathroom and scrub that beep off your face.
And you know, so he's like, that's how it was looked at back then, you know, it was
like, it was unknown or something.
I don't know, but I had bad acne when I was a teenager.
And do you think I liked having bad acne when I was a teenager?
Because obviously I was self-conscious about that, it was embarrassing for me.
But you know, looking back, would I change my height in elementary school?
Would I change the fact that my face was covered in acne when I was a teenager?
Absolutely not.
Because looking back, I'm glad that I went through those things, even though they weren't
fun at the time.
Because guess what, that's what made me a person who thought about other people and
understood what it's like not to have everything together.
And it made me a person who didn't just live for self and just, oh, I'm so cool.
Look at me, tall, athletic, handsome, you know.
And by the way, I was not on the sports team either.
You know, I was never on the sports team.
Finally, when I was 12 years old, I got on a sports team and I was in the JV basketball
team in junior high, or it was, that's what it was called, but it was like a junior
high thing.
And I got into it, I went to all these practices, ran until I puked, everybody was puking.
I puked the first few practices, worked hard, practiced, we have our first game.
I got put in for like 20 seconds at the end of the game, just like, hey, we're losing
anyway, put this guy in for 20 seconds, just so we can say that we put you in, right?
Then my mom got a job and I couldn't be on the team anymore because, you know, so
I did all the painful practices, went to one game, got put in for like 20 seconds, and
then, oh, can't be on the team anymore.
I was never on a sports team again to this day, so I was never on a sports team.
Look, when I got married, I had no money, and I was like living paycheck to paycheck,
struggling financially, barely even able to just scrape by financially.
You know what?
All of these things happened in my life, and you know what?
You could get up and tell the same thing.
I'm sure you could get up and give me a list of what you went through and all the
problems that you had.
I'm just throwing stuff out there, but I guarantee you, you've all been through something
similar.
Something about your physical defect about your body, something about your finances,
something about your personality, something about your schoolwork or your job or whatever.
Look, we all have these things in our life that we don't like, right?
Things that bother us about our life, but these things are necessary.
Your life is never going to be perfect because God doesn't want you to get a big ego
because everything's going so perfect for you because if you go to the average person
who is good-looking, athletic, financially well-off, whatever, they're going to be
a prideful person, which is a major, major downfall for people.
It's like the sin that kind of is the root of a lot of other sins.
We got to be thankful for even the bad things in our life because they exist for a reason.
God knows.
Here's another thing my dad would always say.
He always said, you know, I've never gotten rich in life because God just doesn't want
me to be rich.
God knows that I just wouldn't be able to handle it or something because he talks
about how he bought this house and he sold it at the wrong time.
If I would have just stayed in that house or if I would have kept that classic car,
if I would have done this, I would have had millions of dollars, but it's like
God knew that I just wouldn't be able to handle it.
There was a time when I was on the verge of making huge amounts of money and then just
boom, it was taken away from me overnight because it's just God knows that that's not
the path that we need to be on as Christians.
He keeps us a little bit lean.
He keeps us humble.
He withholds something from and usually typically in your life, there's kind of the one thing
where there's like, man, if there's just one thing I could change, it would be
this.
You know, for, for me for a long time, it was my finger was messed up and it was
really painful and bothered me every day.
And I was just like, man, if there's one thing I could fix about my life, I would fix
my finger.
And I suffered from that for 10 years and now it's fixed.
But here's what I've learned is that when one problem goes away, another one comes.
So a lot of times I'm not really in a hurry to get rid of my problems anymore because
I'm kind of like, I don't know if I want what's behind door number three, because
at least I, the problem I've got, I'm dealing with it.
I know how to deal with it.
Here's the thing.
When you just think you've got your life so perfect and everything right, something's
going to go wrong.
It's always going to be something.
I'm not trying to depress you.
I'm just trying to help you come to grips with this, right?
Like maybe you're a single dude and your, your health is great.
Your finances are great.
Everything's great.
Your job's great.
But it's just, man, I just need to get married.
And if I just get married, everything's going to be perfect.
Just boom.
I guarantee you when you get married, you know, it's going to be something.
Hopefully it's not the marriage itself, you know, but, but you know, it's just like, man,
just the one thing in my life is that I'm alone.
Okay.
Well guess what?
Oh, you're not alone anymore.
Oh, now your finances are messed up or, oh, there goes your health.
You know, it's always going to be something.
So if you're waiting until everything's perfect to get serious about serving God, you're
never going to serve God, right?
You serve God while your health is messed up, while your finances are messed up, while
your relationship is messed up.
You serve God anyway, because that's life.
There's always going to be something.
And every once in a while, I feel like my life is going really well in all areas.
And I get nervous because I know it's coming.
But you know what?
It's funny because a lot of times, you know, I've been preaching this way for the
last 17 years.
This isn't some new concept that I'm preaching right now.
Right?
You know, I've been preaching stuff like this for the last 17 years because it's just
a biblical truth that you, that you see throughout scripture.
And it's funny because the last few years when I preach this, as I'm preaching it,
you know, what's in my mind right now is I'm just thinking to myself, like, I can't
really think of what my bad thing is right now.
And even right now, as I'm talking to you, I can't think of anything wrong with my life
at all right now.
But I think that part of that is just because I've just come to the point where I don't
sit around thinking about what my problem is, because I'm sure if I got home today and I'm not standing
up in front of everybody on the spot, I'll be like, oh yeah, well there's that.
But here's the thing, I'm not thinking about that because I don't really care because
I've come to the point where I've just realized life is never going to be perfect.
And don't go through life worrying about what you can't have and what's off limits
to you and what's not allowed and what's bad about your life.
Instead, you need to count your blessings and think about all the good things about
your life.
I guarantee you if that one thing about your life were fixed, right, something else will
be a problem.
Now ever since my finger's been fixed, I'm doing great.
But no, I'm kidding, because I'm sure there's something I'm just not thinking of.
And so the point is that it's always going to be something.
If it's not your finances, it's your health, it's relationships, it's something.
You name it, it's something physical, spiritual, whatever.
And you know what, usually the problems that we have, as the saying goes, if all our problems
were hung on a line, you'd take yours and I'd take mine.
You know, usually the problems that we have, we at least know how to deal with them.
And you know, there are certain things that are off limits to us as well, just like
the promised land was off limits to Moses.
You know, there's certain things that are off limits to us like Adam and Eve in the
Garden of Eden.
They can eat whatever tree they want, except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
And you know, God has given us all these things in our life that we're allowed to enjoy,
that we're allowed to do.
So don't just fixate on the things we're not, oh, yeah, we're not allowed to wear this.
Well, what about all the things that you are allowed to wear?
Oh, my pants don't let me wear whatever.
You know, oh, my parents don't let me wear pants or whatever.
It's like, well, why don't you just think about all the nice things you do get to wear?
Or why don't you just be thankful that you actually live in a home with Christian parents
that love you because, you know, oh, these rules are so strict.
Okay, well, you know what?
What if you were in a house without rules?
Well, you know what that also means that your parents aren't living by rules either.
You know what that probably means?
They're probably getting drunk, they could be sleeping around.
Who knows what they're doing?
Is that what you want?
You want to live with derelict parents?
You want to live with parents that are abusing drugs and alcohol?
You know, do you want to live with parents that are atheists that teach you that there's
no God so you can grow up and go to hell when you die?
You know, thank God you grew up in a Christian home, you were taught the gospel, you were
given salvation, you're living in America, you're living in Arizona, for crying out
loud, and how could you complain about anything?
Oh, but you don't understand, I'm lonely.
Join the club, right?
There are all kinds of people who are lonely.
Some people are lonely and don't have any food.
At least you're lonely with food, in air conditioning, with money, and you're healthy.
I mean, look, there's always somebody who has it worse than you.
Say, oh man, but my health is so bad.
Yeah, but you know what?
That's probably the worst one, you know, is health problems.
But hey, at least you're living in America and you're going to a clean hospital where
you're probably getting some of the best treatment in the world, okay, whereas you
could be in some messed up, dirty hospital somewhere in some other bleep hole country,
right?
You know, hey, just be thankful that you're sick in the U.S. of A., all right?
You say, oh man, my finances.
Yeah, but you're healthy.
I mean, I'd rather be healthy and have totally messed up finances than to have great
finances than be dealing with serious illness, right?
I mean, look, there's always going to be something about your life that isn't perfect,
and there are always going to be certain things that God withholds from you, okay?
But God's not going to withhold any good thing from those that love him.
But there are certain things that are off limits where God says, you know, this is sinful.
This is wrong.
Stay away from this.
Don't fixate on those things.
Just think about all the things that you are able to do, that God does allow you to
do, all the blessings that you've been given, and don't get hung up on the fact
that you can't go into the Promised Land.
Because here's the thing, when you look back on this, for Moses, it's like he's
been doing this for 40 years, and he's just right there, and he doesn't get to go
in the Promised Land.
It's like he ran a marathon, and he has to quit like, you know, a few hundred feet
from the finish.
He has to drop out.
This is frustrating for him.
But when Moses dies, where is he going?
So what's cooler, heaven or the Promised Land?
What's cool?
What's cooler, heaven or Canaan Land?
He's about to go to a, the moment he's like, oh man, I have to die, and he's going
to a better place anyway, and he's going to get to be there in the millennium.
It's all going to be great.
Looking back, it's like, well, who cares?
Oh wow, so he gets to walk into the Promised Land, so cool.
What does he get to see, some grass, mountains, a waterfall, a river?
Oh, whoa.
Get up on a mountain and look at it, Moses.
You want to see it so bad, here, go climb that tall mountain and look at all four directions.
There, you saw it, now die.
I mean, that's basically what God tells him, and he says, go encourage Joshua.
It says in verse 27, get thee up at the top of Pisgah and lift up thine eyes westward
and northward and southward and eastward and behold it with thine eyes, for thou shalt
not go over this Jordan.
Just look at it.
There, you saw it, you happy?
But charge Joshua and encourage him and strengthen him, we're in verse 28.
For he shall go over before this people and he shall cause them to inherit the land
which thou shalt see, so we abode in the valley over against Beth Peor.
And so, you know, Moses, I don't think he's up in heaven right now just like,
I didn't get to go in the Promised Land.
Now he sees it in perspective.
And the things that bothered me when I was a kid don't bother me anymore.
And someday the things that are bothering you right now, the most messed up thing about
your life, the thing that you hate about your life, the thing that makes your life
miserable at times, one day you're going to be looking back and saying, you know what,
I needed that in my life.
You know, especially for me as a preacher, it's easy for me to see, oh, the reason
I had those financial problems, the reason I had those physical problems, the reason
I had those relationship problems is because I need to be able to preach about that
stuff and I need to be able to talk about it from experience and I need to feel bad
for other people who are going through that instead of just thinking, oh, you have financial
problems?
You must just be lazy.
Are you lazy, stupid or both?
That's how some people feel.
I don't feel that way because I've been there.
You know, oh, what's the big deal?
What are you, what are you crying about?
You know, oh, you got acne here, go in the bathroom and use the steel wool and just
scrape it off.
What's the problem?
Right.
You know, that guy, yeah, he's a drill Sergeant, but I don't think he's pastoring
today.
You know, and if he is pastoring, I don't think his church is very big because you
know, uh, I never would have said that to somebody with acne because of the fact that
I've been there and I know that that's not how it works and it's not about washing
your face.
All right.
That's not going to fix it.
What?
I don't know.
I never heard that part of it.
He asked me if the guy actually did it with the steel wool.
I mean, I don't know what he did in that bathroom with the steel wool, but whatever
he did, I mean, it didn't work.
You know what though?
We don't want to be that guy going around, oh yeah, just, you know, oh, you don't
have any bread to eat?
Well, let them eat cake.
You know, that attitude is from people who've never gone through anything themselves.
We go through tribulations so that we can comfort others who are going through tribulations.
We go through a thorn in the flesh so that we don't get exalted above measure.
We don't enter the promised land because God has a bigger plan where he's trying to
teach people about the gospel and show them works don't save, the law doesn't save, commandments
can't save you, Jesus can save you.
And a preacher can get up and preach that and people can go to heaven because they're
saved through Christ.
It's a little more important than Moses nature walk in the promised land.
And so we need to understand that God doesn't give us everything we want.
If he gave us everything we wanted, we'd be a bunch of spoiled brats right now.
And so thank God he knows what's best for us.
He knows what we need to go through.
He puts us through pain and sorrow.
And look, you're not done going through pain in your life.
Say, well, now I'm living for God, I'm done with pain, right?
Oh no.
You're going to go through pain that you can't even imagine now.
Pain is coming in the future for you, my friend.
I can see the future for you as pain.
There's pain coming for you, my friend.
Wait, there's someone out there watching on the internet right now who's in pain.
If you donate $200 to our church and call the number, we'll pray for you.
Wait, someone's being healed right now.
But the point is, look, everybody's got pain in their future because life is filled
with pain.
And you know, I've gone through a lot of physical pain in my life, a lot.
And you know, I don't know if I went through extra pain because I'm a pastor or if everybody
goes through that much pain, I don't know how much pain you're going through, but I've
been through a lot of pain, my friend, and I plan on going through a lot more pain
in the future.
And so I think it's just part of life.
And I think that it's just part of being human.
And if we were to be that rare person who doesn't have any problems, well, that's the
worst outcome of all, because you're probably the biggest, most arrogant jerk under the
sun.
Let's bow our heads in a word of prayer.
Father, we thank you so much for not always allowing us into the promised land,
Lord, because you know that we're better off on this side of the Jordan, Lord.
I pray that you would just bless everyone who's here, help them to stay faithful
and rely upon you to see them through going forward, just as you have in the past, Lord.
And I pray that all of us would have the grace to deal with whatever thorns in our
flesh that you have appointed for us, and in Jesus' name we pray, amen.