https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/I-Will-Not-Forsake-You.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n\tby Jeffrey W. Hamilton<\/p>\n\t
Text: Deuteronomy 31:1-6<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I. Moses was approaching the end of his life. The time of his departure was at hand.<\/p>\n A. Understandably, the children of Israel would be nervous. He has been their leader\nfor 40 years. Moses faced down Pharaoh and led them out of slavery. He is the\none who talked with God and brought Israel its laws.\n
B. What do you do when such a leader is gone?<\/p>\n
C. Moses reminded Israel that he worked for God.<\/p>\n
1. God is not a frail human. <\/p>\n 2. He would go before them, and Joshua would follow after leading the\nIsraelites – Deuteronomy 31:3\n 3. God had helped them before, so Israel knew God was capable –\nDeuteronomy 31:4\n
D. But it requires that those following God must do as God said – Deuteronomy 31:5<\/p>\n
E. There is no need to fear when God is helping – Deuteronomy 31:6-8<\/p>\n
II. God repeatedly reminded Israel of His presence<\/p>\n
A. He told the new leader, Joshua, not to fear – Joshua 1:5<\/p>\n 1. Life would become hard for Joshua. Warfare is not easy. People lose their\nlives.\n
2. But God is there to help.<\/p>\n B. Korah noted that in times of great difficulty, there is no need to fear because God\nis there and is able to change things – Psalms 46:1-11\n
C. David said that he has never seen the righteous forsaken – Psalms 37:23-28<\/p>\n
D. God has chosen us, so He will not reject us – Isaiah 41:8-13<\/p>\n 1. Notice that this includes those called from the ends of the earth (the\nGentiles) as well as the Jews.\n E. God redeems Israel but also gathers people from the remote parts of the earth –\nIsaiah 43:1-7\n
F. And when His people are too weak, God carries them – Isaiah 63:7-9<\/p>\n
III. God came among mankind<\/p>\n
A. Immanuel – God with us – Matthew 1:23<\/p>\n
B. And Jesus told his people that he would be with them – Matthew 18:20<\/p>\n
C. And when Jesus left the earth, he did not leave us without help – Matthew 28:20<\/p>\n
IV. Life isn’t always easy<\/p>\n A. The writer of Hebrews mentions the difficulties Christians were facing – Hebrews\n10:32-34\n 1. But those difficulties were wearing on Christians and some of the Jewish\nbrethren were tempted to go back to being Jews – Hebrews 10:35-39\n 2. Thus, much of Hebrews is written to encourage Christians to endure –\nHebrews 3:12-14\n B. After pointing out the faith of those who had not received the promises, he points\nout that we have something better – Hebrews 11:39-40\n
C. And one of the great promises we have – Hebrews 13:5-6<\/p>\n
1. This, after proving that God always keeps His word – Hebrews 6:17-19<\/p>\n
2. What God promise, we must believe He is able to perform – Romans 4:19-24<\/p>\n
D. Thus, God is there when we are tempted – I Corinthians 10:13<\/p>\n
E. God is there when life sours – I Peter 4:19<\/p>\n
V. But notice in I Peter 4:19 that the implication is that we are striving to do what is right<\/p>\n
A. God is not going to uphold and protect what is against His nature<\/p>\n
B. As Asa was warned – II Chronicles 15:1-2<\/p>\n
C. We also are warned – Hebrews 10:38-39<\/p>\n D. God doesn’t do all the work and we just drift into heaven. God is faithful to those\nwho are faithful to Him.\n
1. So where are your loyalties?<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
by Jeffrey W. Hamilton Text: Deuteronomy 31:1-6 I. Moses was approaching the end of his life. The time of his departure was at hand. A. Understandably, the children of Israel would be nervous. He has been their leader for 40 years. Moses faced down Pharaoh and led them out of slavery. He is the one who…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[119,32],"tags":[256,90],"class_list":["post-61146","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-audio","category-sermon","tag-faithful","tag-god"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":61158,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/why-was-god-about-to-kill-moses\/","url_meta":{"origin":61146,"position":0},"title":"Why Was God About To Kill Moses?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"June 5, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"by Terry W. Benton The text of Exodus 4:24-26 seems oddly placed, but it is a separate paragraph from the rest of the text. Moses has been commissioned to go back to Egypt where the Israelites are and tell Pharaoh to free them. Moses thought of excuse after excuse, which\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":57598,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/joshuas-encouragement\/","url_meta":{"origin":61146,"position":1},"title":"Joshua\u2019s Encouragement","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"January 3, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"by Doy Moyer As the children of Israel were preparing to go into the Promised Land, Moses delivered a series of speeches to help them understand how important their love and obedience to God would be (see Deuteronomy 6:1-9). Moses would not enter the Land himself, but Joshua had been\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":24107,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/who-did-aaron-lead-to-the-promised-land\/","url_meta":{"origin":61146,"position":2},"title":"Who did Aaron lead to the promised land?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"July 20, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Who did Aaron lead to the promised land? Answer: Aaron was a leader in Israel, one of many actually. \"These are the ones who were numbered, whom Moses and Aaron numbered, with the leaders of Israel, twelve men, each one representing his father's house\" (Numbers 1:44). However, he wasn't\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":63172,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/moses-gods-leader-on-gods-terms\/","url_meta":{"origin":61146,"position":3},"title":"Moses – God’s Leader on God’s Terms","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"November 9, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Eric M. Hamilton Ordinary Is God's Extraordinary","rel":"","context":"In "Audio"","block_context":{"text":"Audio","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/audio\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":66974,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/hosea-a-leader-who-made-an-astounding-sacrifice\/","url_meta":{"origin":61146,"position":4},"title":"Hosea: A Leader Who Made an Astounding Sacrifice!","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"March 11, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"by Max Dawson One of the things I have learned about leadership is that sometimes, the best leaders are those who were reluctant to be leaders. Witness the case of Moses (Exodus 3:7-4:17). I have known men who were reluctant to serve as an overseer of the church, as a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":43779,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/gods-proof-of-his-existence\/","url_meta":{"origin":61146,"position":5},"title":"God’s Proof of His Existence","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"June 1, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"by Jeffrey W. Hamilton Download Audio Text: Exodus 3:1-6 \u00a0 I.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Perhaps you have heard statements to the effect that the Bible doesn\u2019t try to prove that God exists. It simply assumes the existence of God. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0A.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0At the beginning of the Bible we read \u201cIn the beginning God created the heavens\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Audio"","block_context":{"text":"Audio","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/audio\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61146","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61146"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61146\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61146"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61146"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61146"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}