Deuteronomy 31:24-30 Bible Study | Episode 955

June 6, 2025

Hope Alive: Applying God’s Word to Your Daily Life

Deuteronomy 31:24-30 Bible Study | Episode #955

I am Chad Harrison, and I am the teaching pastor of Lake Community Church and had been serving as a pastor for 25 years. I'm also a practicing attorney. This podcast is designed to help you study God's word and find God's will for your life. The purpose of studying scripture is that you might know the character of Jesus Christ, and that you might see the world from the Father's perspective. That you gain wisdom that changes your life. I pray in the name of Jesus right now that God would open His word to you and allow you to see Him and to know Him. To know His will, that you might glorify Him and that you might walk in faith and power each day, especially today. In Jesus name.

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Transcript

This is Chad Harrison, and you're listening to Hope Applying God's word to your daily life.

Hi, this is Chad Harrison and I am the teaching pastor of Lake Community Church and have been serving as a pastor for 25 years.

I'm also a practicing attorney. This podcast is designed to help you study God's word and find God's will for your life.

I pray in the name of Jesus right now that God would open up.

His word to you and allow you.

To see him and to know him and to know his will, that you might glorify him and that you might walk in faith and power each and every day, especially today in Jesus name.

Well, good morning. Welcome to Lake Community Church's morning Bible study. We are In Deuteronomy, chapter 31,

verses 24 through 29.

We are at the end of chapter 31. We're going to have Moses's song for the rest of the week,

and then we're going to move to Joshua and.

And obviously the transition, which is the last chapter of this book. And so we've got Moses. And I'm. I'm going to tell you, Moses is.

Moses is ending his life.

And, and I hate to say this,

a slight bit bitter.

And, and that is. That is true of.

Of leadership and pastoring.

I was speaking to a pastor even yesterday, and he was saying that, you know, he had heard of pastors having dark days,

meaning bouts of depression,

and.

Excuse me,

and those bouts of depression were deep and dark. And, you know, to tell you the truth, I. I guess probably I've had those days.

I'm not sure,

you know, they might have been so dark that they kept my eyes closed to them.

I know that definitely as a pastor, I've had struggles. And those struggles are with who I'm supposed to be, where I'm supposed to be at and leading people. Those things are true.

And so I understand that. And I definitely understand pastors having dark days. I identify with that.

Not as much saying I identify that personally, because I do,

but I identify with that because I've just seen it. I've seen men who really have a genuine desire to do God's will really struggle with the pastorate.

And that's not uncommon. It is a difficult task to be a shepherd, especially an under shepherd who is woefully equipped to do the job. It is really, really difficult to do that.

And we are all woefully equipped for kingdom work. But kingdom work is what God's called us to do to God himself. So we're in it and it's not easy to get out, it's not easy to get done what needs to get done in these bodies of death and the sinfulness that we're plagued by.

And that is just the case.

That is the case. And so many of them oftentimes try to put up a fac or make you feel like they're, they got it all going on. And the truth is, is that they, that most of them, including myself, don't.

We don't have it all going on. We're struggling, we're struggling all the time.

And you know, over, over decades you get used to the struggle and you, you become,

you identify with it. Now many, many pastors get the opportunity to pastor people who want to chase after God. When I say many,

probably not. I'm probably being optim.

But the truth is that some pastors get the chance to pastor a group of people who genuinely want to do what God's will is and want to work that out.

And that group of pastors are blessed and I count myself as one of those.

And so it is fun to pastor those people. But you can see the bitterness because Moses went from being driven out of Egypt as a prince of Egypt to a shepherd out in the back country country of Midian to call by God to go and deliver his people out of Egypt.

He gave his whole life,

he overcame fear and all kinds of issues in order to make that happen. He led them out in the wilderness and they were stiff necked and unwilling to follow.

And ultimately the ultimate goal to get them into the promised land to fulfill the promises of God for them to take possession of the, their Abraham, Isaac and Jacob's promises.

The promise of God to them was right on the precipice. And he doesn't get to go in because of the,

well, because of the bitterness of the struggle and his not doing what God told him to do.

And you can see that he is bitter toward them.

And I'm saying all this because it's a good insight sometimes it's a good insight to recognize that for the layperson to recognize that your pastor struggle is difficult and, and remember it's not a difficulty because of the people or the situation of the problem.

The, the difficult part of being a pastor in the struggle, different part of being a God, God's leader in, in, in this life is myself. I have to deal with myself first.

And that's not easy. And a lot of guys can't even get past themselves to actually lead and it's just really, really hard. Then the difficult part is God's word and to relate it in a way that people can hear it and understand it, and that's not easy to gain in that ability.

That's a hard, hard task to have.

And then just the overall idea of leading and being a leader is something that's a gift. And some pastors struggle with that. And so as you begin to mount up the different levels of difficulty at it takes to actually be a pastor,

you can. You can begin to have a little grace for guys who struggle in that job.

You can really, really have a lot of grace for them because,

you know,

you never can tell when they turn the corner. And they really, really begin to do well at being a pastor after a long, long time of struggling with themselves, struggling with the position, and then struggling with the people.

I mean, once you've made it through and kind of learned how to work through those things,

sometimes you're just old and you're tired.

And so,

you know,

as I think about it and I think about guys and I just think about my own life,

I think about how. How difficult it is for. For you to ultimately even get to a place where you're. You feel like you're even effective. And praise God, when we do get to the place where we feel like we're effective,

we're having some effect,

some effect. Just. Just a little effect. You.

And really, really pastors feel that way. And then they look around and then they see guys maybe doing it a different way and a way that maybe they don't believe is the right way and maybe even being successful.

But, you know, success is, Is. Is. Is only found in the eyes of God when we stand before him. And so what? And he says, well done, my good and faithful servant.

So I would say that you guys who are out there who may be listening to this every once in a while,

the struggle is real. And it's not. It's not. It's not unusual. And if you are going through it,

well, praise God, you are, because you are. You are well on your way to earning the crown that God has for pastors. And there is a special crown for that.

And so I'm. I'm. I'm excited that you are taking on that task, and I would encourage you to keep on going.

And when you feel bitter like Moses here,

just remember we're all this way, and it's okay. So I say all that before I get in the passage, because it is kind of bitter.

So it was verse 24, when Moses had completed writing the words of the law in the book when they were finished, that Moses commanded the Levites who bore the ark of the covenant of the Lord, saying,

take the book of the law and put it beside the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God, that it may be there as a witness against you.

He completed writing these five books of the Bible. Very important work he did.

If that was all the work that Moses had ever done was to write the five books of the Old Testament, that would have been a monumental task,

which he would have been lauded for throughout history. But he was way more than that.

He was not only the one who wrote the first five books of the Old Testament,

he is the one who carries out the deliverance of God's people from the promised land, which makes him high on the list of greatest men of all time.

And so when you have that list,

on that list,

it's kind of sad to see the bitterness at the end. It says, take the book of the law and put it beside the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God that it may be there as a witness against you.

For I know your rebellion and your stiff neck.

And he's speaking from experience. He does know.

He does know that they are rebellious and they've been rebellious with him for. For a good long while.

And he's bitter about it, and you can see it. And the Bible tells us, don't let a root of bitterness grow up in you,

which is not easy to do in any regard,

especially when you're leading people. It's not easy to do. If today, while I'm yet alive with you, you have been rebellious against the Lord.

He says you've been rebellious while I was here as your leader,

you've been completely rebellious against the Lord. Then how much more after my death?

And he's looking ahead and he's going, I don't know how you're going to make it.

And he's going to prophesy against them,

and it's going to be true.

He says, gather to me all the elders of the tribes of your officers that I may speak these words in their hearing and call heaven and earth to witness against them.

What he's saying is, I'm going to call all of God's work as witnesses against them if they do not do what God has told them to,

he has told them to do. He has got a lot of skin in this game. And so he,

he, he is, he is really being strong about this.

For I know that after my death, you will become utterly corrupt and turn aside from the way which I've commanded you.

And evil will befall you in the latter days because you will do evil in the sight of the Lord to provoke him to anger through the works of your hands.

Now, these are all things that are going to happen. And Moses is not wrong. And when he prophesies here, he is right.

All these things are true.

When I'm studying this,

in many ways, this is just a Bible study between us. It's not like we're trying to solve all the theological issues of Scripture. We're just going through scripture ourselves and thinking about it and considering.

And I hope that's what you do. I hope when you're listening me and we talk about these things in the morning, I hope that you just spend time really thinking about it and considering it and letting it resonate in your heart.

And that's what God's words made for. It's made to change us and to grow us. And so, you know, we need to allow it to resonate as you're resonating with this.

He's right.

But. But it's really sad that he feels this way at the very, very end of his life.

My heart pours out to him. He's an older man, he's an old man,

and he is bitter about the people that he's led.

But they will turn from God and they will fulfill these prophecies.

And so that happens. And it does happen in the latter days. It doesn't happen immediately.

They do a lot of things. And there are a lot of scripture to be written and a lot of God's people being raised up to do big things. But the truth is that most of the people turn away.

And we need to remember that.

And I try to always,

even in my rough times,

I try to always be hopeful about the future and expectant about the future. Because God's given us great expectations and he's given us great opportunity.

And although we may not fulfill all that I foresee,

maybe not the vision or the insights that God has given me are going to all come true.

But I'm going to work toward those ends.

And then when I reach the end of my life, I pray that those ends will be continued on so that God might be glorified. And that's really all we can do.

When we're talking about ourselves,

our families,

our friends around us, our jobs,

our businesses, our.

And our church. That's all we can do.

And so I expect that we will. And I'll continue leading in that direction.

And I'll pray that the works of our hands have great effect in the kingdom of God and expect that they will because we do it out of faith and we're obedient.

As you go today, I pray that the Lord will bless you and keep.

You you that he'll make his face.

To shine upon you and that he will give you hope and peace today in Jesus name.