I'm thankful Calvary covers it all just again.
So appreciate the music this morning and again, part of preparing
our hearts for the word of God.
So if you would in your Bibles this morning, turn to Hebrews 13,
not in Joshua this morning.
But this will be connected, if you would, to the story that we're
covering in the book of Joshua.
As you think about God leading the children of Israel out of Egypt,
bringing them to the Jordan river, and then because of their
lack of faith, trust in him, they did not cross over the first
time and they wandered in the wilderness for 40 years.
The second time they come to the River Jordan, God does some great
miracles for them.
As the entrance generation, the former generation had died off
and the new generation had risen.
And God parted the waters of the Jordan river so they could walk
across on dry ground.
When they got to the other side, they encamped for a few days
and as we have covered, did several things to prepare for the
battle that was before them.
And it was going to be, it's going to be a long 15 to 20 years
of army and fighting that would take place.
But one of the things I want to cover a little more than we have
is the promise that God made to the children of Israel.
That promise is found in Deuteronomy chapter 31.
But let's look at it from Hebrews 13, because here Paul, who
I believe wrote Hebrews, quotes Deuteronomy 31.
So look with me, Hebrews 13, verse 5.
Let your conversation be without covetousness.
Now the word conversation there means your lifestyle, your
life, be without covetousness and be content with such things as
you have.
Here it is.
For he hath said so.
Here it is, they're quoting Deuteronomy 31:6.
For he hath said, I will never leave thee nor forsake thee, so that
we may boldly say, the Lord is my helper and I will not fear what
man shall do unto me.
Let's pray.
Heavenly Father, again we come to you, come to the throne, Lord,
asking this morning for your strength and guidance and wisdom
as we preach your word, Lord, may you again receive the glory and
honor from it.
And Lord, may we again see you as the God of the universe, the God
of all creation, the all powerful God whose promise to never
leave us nor forsake us.
We thank you for that wonderful truth with that wonderful
promise in Jesus name, Amen.
God promised to Israel that going forward, that he would be with
them.
And we know from Exodus where Moses said, hey, God, if you're not
going to be with us.
We don't want to go.
And God finally said, hey, I will be with you.
After they had murmured and complained so much that God had said,
I am not going with you.
I'm done.
And God said, I'll be with you.
In Deuteronomy, Moses again is preaching to the entrance generation.
Remember now, Moses, who led them for 40 years, is now not going
to be allowed to go into the promised land because of his disobedience
and some other things.
But in light of that, he preaches to them.
So the whole book of Deuteronomy is a sermon by Moses
to the generation that's going to cross over into Canaan land, into
the promised land.
And he's reminding them of where God had brought them.
He's reminding them of the God of creation.
He's having again them to focus on God who had done all these
great things for them.
And then he preaches to them to encourage them.
He preaches to them to get onto them as well.
But here he's reminding them, he said in Deuteronomy 31:6, Be strong
and of good courage.
Fear not, nor be afraid of them.
Talking about those that are in the land of Canaan.
For the Lord thy God, he it is that doth go with thee.
He will not fail thee, nor forsake thee.
And then in verse 8 of that same chapter, Moses repeats the same
promise from God that he would be with them, that he would not fail
them, nor would he forsake them.
So as Israel crossed over Jordan, as we studied just a week
ago, and they crossed over Jordan again, they encamped for a
few days.
We have the 12 stones that they erected.
We have them cutting away the flesh and putting sin aside and dealing
with their own sinful condition.
And then they come to Jericho.
An amazing, amazing miracle takes place.
They march around it once a day.
Then they march around it, you know, seven times on the last day.
They march around it 13 times as they march around it.
As I said to you or alluded to last week, can you just imagine the
taunting they were receiving from those on the wall?
Those.
What are you guys doing walking around the wall?
Where's your ladder at?
Where's your catapults at?
Where is the ram that's gonna ram and knock the doors open and
the gates open?
No, they didn't have any of those things.
They didn't have any of the normal military things.
They would need to get over the walls, through the walls, whatever
it would take.
They were just Walking around the wall, not saying a word, all
you would hear is trumpets.
It's it.
And as they walked the walls, I believe that God did that for a
reason.
To show them again that there was no way humanly possible that
they could defeat Jericho, that it wasn't Israel that was going
to do the great miracle that's going to take place, but God was
going to do a great miracle for them.
God was going to prove his presence once again.
He'd already proved it by parting the waters of the Jordan
river.
And now he's going to prove it once again by knocking the walls
down flat.
Amazing thing, isn't it?
God promised them his presence.
And God made that presence evident by an impossible feat of
the walls coming down.
And that he proved to them that God indeed was going to fight
for them.
He told the children of Israel, I will give you the land.
He didn't say they'd have to earn it.
No, no.
He said I would give it to you.
I will fight the enemy for you.
I will fight.
I will be before you.
He even used the illustration that I'll be like the bees in front
of you, like bees in front of you, and I'll take care of your enemies.
And he did.
And he proved that.
He proved his presence by the miracle he performed.
And God has promised the same to us.
He's promised his presence with us.
If you're here this morning and you're a child of God and you're
saved.
You know.
You know that.
You know that if you were to die today, that heaven would be your
home.
You've put your faith and trust in Jesus Christ, his life,
death and resurrection as your only means of salvation.
I'm so thankful.
Jesus Christ came to this world.
He came to this earth to rescue us from our sinful condition,
to rescue us from.
From the death of sin.
He died on the cross and paid the price for our sins.
He paid our sin debt on the cross.
He shed his blood.
The blood of Jesus speaks for me.
For without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sin.
Jesus shed his blood on Calvary for the remission of sin.
He died.
He was buried in three days.
He rose from the dead, having paid for our sins in full.
And if you're here this morning and you're saved, you've
put your faith and trust in Him.
He's promised his presence with you.
He's promised to not fail you.
He's promised to never forsake you.
We see this here in Hebrews 13 a repeat of the promise given to
Israel.
It's repeated to us.
For us, we think of Israel as they go into the promised land.
As the waters of the Jordan parted, the walls of Jericho came
down.
God was with them.
God is everywhere, by the way.
God is everywhere with his whole being at all times.
First Kings 8:27 says, Behold the heaven, and the heaven of heavens
cannot contain thee.
I think about Solomon as he is praying there in 1 Kings chapter
8.
They had just built the temple in Jerusalem.
When they completed the temple, there was a big dedication
of that temple.
And at that temple dedication, Solomon prays.
And this is his prayer.
Part of his prayer was that the heaven of heavens, of heavens
cannot contain God.
He was saying, lord, a temple cannot hold you.
We've built this beautiful temple.
We built this beautiful temple for you.
But we understand and know that the heavens of heavens can't
hold you.
In other words, a building cannot contain the Lord.
God does not dwell in temples.
We think about the Greek gods, the Roman gods, and they built these
temples for them, and they were dwelling in those temples.
No, God doesn't dwell in temples.
We know this from the book of Acts, in which Paul says, there he
came to Athens.
And as he came into Athens, he saw all of these little gods along
the streets.
So along the streets, the historians tell us there were thousands
of gods lining the streets.
And you know, here's the statue to Zeus, and here's the statue
to whomever but one of the statues read to the unknown God.
Want to leave anybody out?
They were scared.
And Paul gets up and he preaches.
And he says to them, on Mars hill, men of Athens, I perceive that
in all things you're too superstitious.
He said, for as I passed by and beheld your devotion, he beheld
all the devotion to all these gods.
He said, I found an altar with this inscription to the unknown God.
He says to him, I give you.
He says, I'm going to tell you who he is, God that made the world
and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth.
Notice what he says dwelleth not in temples made with hands.
He said, all those philosophers in Athens, all those
wise men in Athens, all those who came to seek understanding and
to trade wisdom.
And he says to all of them, God does not dwell in temples as
though he needed anything.
God doesn't need anything from us.
God is independent.
He is Jehovah.
He is wholly other.
God is transcendent and again, not limited to spatial limitations.
He cannot be contained or localized.
Why?
Because God is Infinite.
There's no limit in his being, therefore he is present everywhere.
Not talking about pantheism.
So Hinduism says that God's in everything.
We're not saying God is in everything.
A tree cannot contain God, by the way.
There's no God in a tree.
It's a tree.
One of the most beautiful things I ever purchased in the last
couple of years is an electric chainsaw.
I don't know how many times I've gone out to get my gas powered
chainsaw and it would not start.
Those tiny bitty carburetors and the government's ethanol catastrophe.
Some of y' all know what I'm talking about.
The men are going, yeah, ladies, some of you are going, but
that battery powered chainsaw starts every time.
And I can cut 16 inch DeWalt.
They make them bigger than that.
Now if I was doing it for a living, if I was, you know, cutting
wood for a living, I would buy a gas powered one probably.
But man, you can cut through a tree.
Tree come tumbling down.
Ah, you're cutting me, don't cut me.
No, there's nothing in that tree.
That tree is dead.
No being in that tree.
That tree was made for me.
It was made to heat my house.
It's made to build my house.
You can replant trees.
You can treat trees like a garden.
Now it takes a few more years than it does to wind up with a harvest,
but it may take 20 or 30 years to have a new harvest, but they are
able to replenish trees.
Can I get a witness?
I just kind of wanted to stomp all over the environmental people.
There are no God in a tree.
The tree God cannot be contained by a tree.
God has no spatial, spatial limitations.
Can't contain him.
That's what Solomon was saying, dedicated the temple.
He said, God, we understand and know that this temple cannot
contain you.
And I love it.
He says, the heaven.
And then he says, the heaven of heavens can't contain you.
In other words, he's saying the universe can't contain you.
God is infinite.
God is everywhere.
It's really hard for our finite minds to comprehend.
And I've heard it illustrated many different ways.
But one of the best ones is found by AW Tozer in the Knowledge
of the Holy.
And I'd encourage you if you've never read the Knowledge of
The Holy by A.W.
tozer.
What a great book on the attributes of God.
His illustration was that God is everywhere as the ocean is to
the fish, as the sea is to the fish.
The water surrounds every fish.
He Said God is like the air is to a bird.
The air is everywhere.
And again, it's so hard for for our finite minds to understand
an infinite God.
God is present everywhere.
Then secondly, his presence is made evident.
We see when the children of Israel came to the Jericho and they
marched around it once, marched around it twice, and I again
could see the ridicule and the taunts coming from the crowd on top
of the wall.
And why are you guys walking around this wall?
Where is your military equipment?
But God did a great miracle for the children of Israel.
The walls came down.
His presence was made evident.
Now I'm thankful that God has said, for a church or for God's people
where two or more gather together, there am I in the midst
of Thee.
God has promised his presence not only individually, but he's also
promised it to his churches when we gather together to pray.
So thankful for that.
But just simply because God's presence is there does not mean that
God necessarily makes Himself evident.
In other words, that God doesn't necessarily manifest himself.
I also want to remind you that God manifesting himself in one location
versus another location does not imply that he is more there than
he is anywhere.
He's everywhere.
He is simply manifesting himself or making Himself evident
more in one place than another.
God can do anything.
One of the greatest verses in the Bible is found three verses before
John 3:16, John 3:13, in which Jesus said, and no man hath ascended
up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven talking about himself,
even the Son of Man, which is in heaven.
You may want to write that down.
Go look it up yourself, read it about 25 times.
Make sure you understand and get what Jesus is saying.
These are Jesus words.
And he says that I came down from heaven, but I am still in heaven.
When God was manifest in the flesh, the Bible says, and we beheld
his glory, the glory of the only begotten, the Father, full of
grace and truth.
Great is the mystery of godliness.
God was manifest in the flesh.
Jesus Christ was God in the flesh.
When the disciples and the apostles bumped into him, they bumped
into God.
Jesus said, when you've seen me, you've seen the Father.
He said, I and my Father are one.
He was God in the flesh.
And yet he said, while I am here in the flesh, I am still in
heaven.
When Jesus came to this earth, he did not lay aside his deity.
Some people preach that and teach that it's not found in the
Scriptures anywhere.
He laid aside his glory and every once in a while that peeked
out peek.
The apostles saw it on the mount, you know of.
Yeah, the Mount of Glory.
They saw it.
They saw a little bit of his glory.
But he didn't lay aside his deity.
Jesus Christ was just as much God as though he'd never been man.
Just as much man as though he'd never been God.
He was the God, man.
Can I tell you this morning that God died on the cross?
The Creator of the universe died for his creation.
What love.
What matchless grace.
What love.
He took my place.
It was for me that he died on Calvary.
God in the flesh.
Just because he was here on earth in a body does not make him
any more or less there than he is anywhere else.
He's everywhere at once, man.
It's hard to understand, isn't it?
But he is.
If he's everywhere at once, then how do we experience his presence?
Well, we see this in the children of Israel.
And I don't want to go a step forward without really understanding
that the children of Israel were disobedient.
When that first generation came to the Jordan river, they, because
of their lack of faith, did not cross over.
But when the second generation came to the River Jordan, they did
cross over.
They did obey.
They did trust the promise of God that He would be with them, that
he would fight their battles, unlike the previous generation.
Can I tell you one of the ways in which we can experience the manifestation
that we can experience the glory of God is through obedience.
Through obedience, Israel was obedient.
May we yield to God.
May we yield to his word.
May we understand and know that the word of God is a lamp unto
our feet and a light unto our path.
And may we follow the direction that God gives us.
Lean not unto your own understanding in all thy ways.
Acknowledge him and he'll direct thy paths.
In other words, we are to experience the manifestation of the
presence of God, we need to be obedient.
He wants to reveal Himself to us by the way.
He does so through creation.
He does so through the Bible.
He does so through His Son, Jesus Christ.
He does so through providence.
I'm thankful I can look back and see the providence of God in
my own life.
But I can also look back through history and see the providence
of God.
In the history of the United States of America.
There's so many things you can read and know that only by way of
God's intervention could that have happened.
And so many times we have seen the providence of God and reminding
us that God is there, that he manifests Himself to us.
He desires for us to know him, if we will seek to know Him.
And that's really it.
You understand that God can be studied.
I've said this before.
I like Abraham Lincoln.
I just think he's interesting to read about him.
A lot of things you learn about him.
One of the things I learned about him when he was very young,
by the way, he was tall and he was taller than most people.
He was like 6, 4, and he was bigger than most people.
And he was the wrestling champ of his county.
And not only the wrestling champ of his county, but of like
two or three counties around him.
It's an amazing, amazing thing.
Just interests me, somebody, a president who.
Anyway, you can learn about Abraham Lincoln.
You can learn about his character.
You can study him.
You can read books about him.
But can I tell you?
You can learn things about God.
You've got the Word in front of you.
And God's desire for us is to know Him.
He seeks for us to know Him.
He wants us to draw near to him.
And if you want to see and experience the evidence of God in
your life, then draw near to him spiritually.
Draw near to him.
Because he hasn't moved.
And he doesn't move because he's promised to never leave us nor
forsake us.
He's always there.
Draw near to him.
Walk with him.
Yield to him.
Respond to that knocking of the Holy Spirit at your door.
When you feel that conviction in your life, when you're reading
your Bible or when you hear preaching or even a song and you
feel that Holy Spirit speaking to you in that still small voice,
yield to it.
Yield to the voice.
Acknowledge the voice and yield to it.
Respond to it.
We can know God increasingly.
In other words, by degrees, through faith and love and patience,
we can understand and know God more.
What was the difference between us and D.L.
moody, one of the great evangelists of the late 1800s?
What is the difference between us and Billy Sunday, one of the great
evangelists of the early 1900s?
What is the difference between us and Charles Haddon, Spurgeon and
I could go on and on, Lee Roberson and even some of our generation.
What is the difference?
Why is God manifesting in their life and making themselves
evident in their life, but maybe not as much in our life?
And it's because they have drawn near to God.
They've come in obedience and faith and trusting in Him.
They've grown in their knowledge of Him.
Paul said, grow in grace and what?
And the knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
You want to experience God's Presence.
You want to experience the manifestation of God in your life
as Israel experienced that manifestation, then draw near to
God.
Seek him.
Well, I heard you can't seek him.
God seeks you.
No, no, no, no.
The Bible says, though he be not far from us, so seek him.
Acts chapter 17.
Israel's faith and trust brought about the manifestation of
his presence.
And then in verse 6, it says that he's our helper.
In other words, you don't have to fear because God is our helper.
I don't know about you, but I've been the.
Yeah, the gopher for many a boss.
The helper.
Everybody, you know, kind of get that stage in life when you're
a teenager and your job is to go for it.
You know, go for it.
Glorified gopher.
You're just the helper.
You're helping your boss.
I worked in the cabinet shop for many years, and again, it took
me a long time before I could do things on my own.
And when I did things on my own, I messed up a lot.
But I was just to do this and do that and do that.
I was a helper, and a limited one at that.
But can you imagine God, Christian child of God.
God is your helper.
Could you have any better helper?
That's what it says.
Is that not what it said?
Do we need to go back and read it?
Look at that.
Hebrews 13.
Let your conversation be without covetousness and be content
with such things as you have.
For he hath said, God hath said, I will never leave thee nor
forsake thee, so that we may boldly say.
In other words, God has promised to never leave us nor forsake
us.
So now we can boldly say, we can say without any, any, any, any
pause, any lack of faith that the Lord is my helper and I will
not fear what man shall do unto me.
I don't have to fear because God is my helper.
Amazing truth, isn't it?
Hebrews 4:16 says that we can pray that God would give us grace
to help in our time of need.
God gives us grace when we need it.
He is our helper.
He is with us.
We could boldly say, God is my helper.
No need to fear.
By the way, he didn't give you the spirit of fear, but of love and
the joy and a sound mind.
If you have fear today, it's not coming from God.
It's coming from the devil.
Satan hates you.
He wants to discourage you.
He wants.
He wants to knock you down and Keep you down.
Maybe you're afraid this morning.
Maybe there's something that's coming into your life and you're
afraid.
Oh, don't be afraid.
He is near, by the way.
He is near, and he's as real as I am standing up here.
I don't think sometimes we just don't make that connection.
He is near.
No one can escape his presence.
I haven't talked about the negative side of it.
No one can escape his presence.
Psalm 139 says, you can go in the dark or in the light.
You can go the depths of hell.
You can go anywhere you want, but God is there.
Will remind you that God can see in the dark, that God sees every
thing, every movement that you've ever made.
Maybe you're here this morning.
You've never accepted him as Savior.
There is no escape of his presence.
We need him today.
You need the Lord.
Behold, today is the day of salvation.
No man knows what tomorrow may bring forth.
I don't know what I would do in life without Jesus.
Certainly I would be afraid.
But I'm thankful that is God is my helper.
I don't have to be afraid that he saw me and yet he loves me.
He saw every deed.
He's seen every deed that I've ever done, and yet he loves me and
gave his life for me.
He is near.
What great comfort we can take in knowing that he is near.
What peace we can take and understand and know knowing that
he is near, that he is our helper.
There's comfort today in knowing that he's promised to never
fail us nor forsake us.
Comfort in sorrow.
And we did.
Brother, Ms. Clem's funeral on Friday, On Thursday.
Just praying and seeing the comfort and the peace in that family's
life.
What an amazing thing it is to witness the grace of God on a family's
life.
Oh, listen, there'll be detours.
You ever been on a detour that was a little sketchy?
I have one time.
It's even recently we got turned around.
Was going the opposite way, on a detour, going the wrong way.
I said, well, they should have made the signs better.
But TxDOT, you know, not a lot of smart people in that organization.
I'm sorry.
That was online, isn't it?
Probably some TxDOT people here this morning.
Like to talk to you.
It's kind of like the RIS now, hasn't it?
You know how we feel about the RIS.
Kind of feel about TxDOT too.
Love you if you work for them, but no no, you can get on a detour
and sometimes, well, you can certainly get turned around if you're
not careful.
But I'm so thankful that in every detour of my life, God's presence
is there.
God is my helper and God is there.
He'll never forsake me nor fail me.
He's always near.
Well, that brings assurance in life's trials.
That brings assurance in the tests that we experience in life.
By the way, God brings things into our lives sometimes just to
test us so that we grow in our faith.
He's always with us.
He's always there.
Acts 17.
That same sermon that Paul preached on Mars Hill in Athens,
he said to that crowd, he said, for in him that is in God,
we live and move and have our being.
He's in control.
He holds our very breath in his hands.
Romans.
I read this at the funeral on Thursday.
Romans, chapter 8.
Understand that we are more than conquerors through him that
loved us.
And that nothing can separate us from the love of God.
Not angels, no principalities, nor powers, nor anything, not even
death can separate us from God.
And from the love of God, understand this morning, if you're
saved and you're born again, you're a child of God.
You're never alone.
One of the biggest emotions that someone who loses a loved one
experiences, especially in their older years, if they be a widower
or a widow, is loneliness.
I can't imagine Brother Clem this morning.
They were married for 73 years.
73 years with your wife and then you lose them.
The loneliness that takes place in the life of those who experience
such a loss.
But what great assurance there is in knowing that we are never alone.
We are never alone.
We claim the promise of God this morning that he will never leave
us nor forsake us.
I don't know what you may be going through, maybe a detour that's
got you turned completely around.
But God is there.
You say, well, I don't feel Him.
Well, draw near to him, and the Bible says he'll draw near to
you.
Seek him and he'll draw near to you.
You want the manifestation of God in your life, the evidence of
God in your life.
Obey.
Pray boldly for grace to help in your time of need.
And he will give you grace because he said he'll never leave
us nor forsake us.
We are never alone.
No, never alone.
I would sing the hymn, but we'll let's all stand.