Deuteronomy 34:1-8 Bible Study | Episode 962

June 17, 2025

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

Deuteronomy 34:1-8  Bible Study | Episode #962

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.

If you would like to revisit today’s Bible study, please visit our website at https://hopealive.buzzsprout.com/ to download the transcript. 

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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 34,

verses 1 through 8.

This is the farewell to Moses. It is the passage that kind of deals with that.

I think there's some important understandings and principles that take place in this. And it is, it is a story that really tell you the truth, is a story that has as much,

it is as much about God's plan for his people as it is about Moses. And understanding that is a really important. Now, Moses was a really important figure. And of course, in scriptures we study through Scripture, they're great people throughout the word of God.

And we, you know, we,

we love them. We, we count them as in many ways heroes to us. And, and there's nothing wrong with that.

They, they are, they are intensely flawed and intensely faithful and end up doing big things,

big God things because of their faithfulness, because they trust,

trust in a God that there's nothing wrong with, absolutely nothing wrong with counting them as heroes. And in fact, you know, the Bible places some great verses about many of these people in scripture.

That, that, that is a, a encouraging and uplifting thought about these people, about how God saw them. And, and so you're going to see that with Moses. It's. And, but, but mo link in the chain of God's plan for his people.

He is not the chain.

He's not the preeminent one. He's not the one who is. Is going to be the redeemer of the world. He is. He is one of the many,

one of the most important many who point to the redeemer of the world. And so Moses is. Moses is a flawed individual and yet a very, very powerful individual. And you see that it says in verse 1 then Moses went up from the plains of Moab to Mount Nebo to the top of Pisgah,

which is across from Jericho.

And the Lord showed him all the land of Gilead as far as Dan,

all of Naphtali, the land of Ephraim, Manasseh, and the land of Judah as far as the western sea,

the south and the plain of the valley of Jericho,

the city of palm trees as far as Zor.

Then the Lord said to him, this is the land which I swore to give Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, saying,

I'll give it to your descendants. I have caused you to see it with your eyes, but you shall not cross over there.

Now Moses gets to see the promised land for us in our modern culture.

This passage was used in a sermon by Martin Luther King and was very prophetic for his life.

No one knew that at the time,

but it is a looking over and seeing the promised land and interestingly enough, bringing up Martin Luther King and then also dealing with Moses.

Interestingly enough,

it is not an unusual order of events that God would raise up someone really, really great and they would lead their people to do really, really great things,

but God would not allow them to complete the task or finish the work.

He would. He would appoint someone else to take over. And you know, the obvious one is, is David secures the land and makes sure that the people of Israel are very protected and taken care of.

He makes all the plans for building the temple. He makes all the provisions for building the temple,

which is what Moses was promises in the land that God's going to show you. He. He calls it that all the time. And the place where God shows you to build the temple, to build the place where God dwells.

Not a, not a tent, but, but, but an actual physical location that's mentioned several.

Well, we, we've studied through if that's mentioned several, several times in the,

in the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible.

But, but David didn't build it. Saul built it. Saul's the one who went in and finished that work. Saul was a great king.

He. He is a writer of books of the Old Testament,

just like David was. But he's not as great as David.

And that's pretty clear now. Joshua was one of my heroes in scripture as far as the Old Testament is concerned. My two favorite characters are Daniel and Joshua and always have been since I was a little boy.

I just, I've always loved Daniel and Joshua. I don't know why,

but I have. And quite clearly, I mean, there's just not. This is not even a questionable matter as far as the pantheon of biblical history.

Moses is a far greater figure than Joshua. Joshua's a great figure, great man, love him. I've already said he's one of my heroes, but he's not Moses.

But he's the one that leads the people into the promised land and he's the one that is their leader.

And we're gonna see that quite clearly. God doesn't think that he is as great as Moses.

We'll go through that passage tomorrow as we transition to Joshu at the end of this chapter.

But that being said,

it is quite clear that God oftentimes does not finish his work with one individual.

He carries it on through multiple individuals.

Many times two, but sometimes three, four, five.

You see the Book of Judges being an example of that, that it just a continual work. You see the prophets being an example of multiple people.

You see rebuilding of this temple that they're going to build.

And you see the leadership and the different things that take place as far as that's concerned. And as you're just studying through scripture,

you run into this.

This is a normal pattern. Notice Abraham's the greatest one of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. But Isaac and Jacob are always mentioned in that order.

The land I give Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

And so why am I telling you this? Well, because the thing that has to be remembered about this is that God's got a progressive plan that's going on. And you're a part of that plan, but you're not the totality of that plan.

And we get so self oriented because we're sinful human beings.

We're human beings that tend to look at ourselves and fail to look at the outside world.

In fact, that's the whole purpose of the law of the Spirit.

To begin, to begin to remove the emphasis from yourself and place the emphasis on those around you loving God, loving your neighbor, loving each other.

It's, it's, it's a, it's a re, reorientation of the way you live your life and the, in the mindsets that you have.

And so it's quite natural that God would have a progressive revelation through multiple people and he'd do work that would be multiple work and that he wouldn't, he wouldn't place all the emphasis on one until it's him because he is the author and maker of the great plan.

That would be through Jesus Christ.

So there is one preeminent one, and that's the only one. He's the only one that is preeminent above all and through all and by all have placed their faith in him.

Moses placed his faith in him. He, he is The Lord God who is in the burning bush.

He is. He is the Lord God who met with him on the mountain.

Jesus is the one Moses talked to.

And Jesus indicated that in the New Testament and made those statements clear. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. He indicated that before Abraham was I am.

And so understanding that God's progressive revelation involves you, but you were just a link in the chain. And why is that important? Because you make preparation for those that come after you.

You make sure that you're doing that. In fact, this Bible study in many ways is that we did it. We started it during COVID It's been going on for five years.

We've now completed six of the largest books in the Bible, the Pentateuch and the Book of Psalms,

which encompasses somewhere in the neighborhood of 25% of the Bible.

We have covered this.

And why did I keep going on after Psalms and after,

obviously after Covid, the, the COVID crisis had ended. Well,

the truth is, is I did it as. For posterity sake, as far as the church is concerned. But more importantly, you know, really for my family,

I wanted, you know, that my grandchildren, I hope, will know me for many years. But the truth is, is that when they get my age, that I won't be here.

And I would love for them to have something that they could go back and listen to and look at and,

and consider some of the things that I've learned that I've passed, that I'm passing on to their parents and to them.

And so there's there, there needs to be in your mindset an idea of,

of we, we are taking the, the blessings, the anointing, the power of God that has been given us, and we continue to pass it on, pass it on to those around us that God has given us, to feed into their lives, to disciple, to love on,

and then passing it on to our family.

And so that, that's why there's always a continual progression of faith. And a no one person is the preeminent, most important person. There's always a group.

You're always a part of a long line of faith.

And even if you're the first one in your family, you're a part of a long line of faith. Because wherever that fate, wherever that word was given to you, whoever, whoever's the first one that began to feed into you, you're part of their line.

And,

and you may be the new line for your family, and you may be that new,

that new vineyard, that new orchard that God is planning. And that's what that's Wonderful, powerful.

But you're also part of a long lineage of people hearing the word of God and walking by faith. So it says. So the Moses, the servant, the Lord died there in the land of Moab,

according to the word of the Lord, meaning he died because it was God's plan.

And God says, I've numbered your days past which you can't go. He says that to a guy who lived far before Moses.

And so, so when Job heard that, he understood that God has a plan. And, and Moses was, was a man that came on far after him. But, but God's word is still true that.

That he's numbered his. Our days past which we can't go. And he buried him in the land of Moab, opposite Beth Peor.

But no one knows his grave to this day. And we understand from the New Testament that Satan and Michael argued over that. And obviously Michael 1 Moses was 120 years old when he died.

His eyes were not dim nor his natural vigor diminished. Meaning that Moses didn't slowly fade away. He died according to God's plan.

It wasn't a disease that killed Moses. It was God's desire to move,

move into the promised land with Joshua. And Moses had served his purpose. And he went on.

And the children of Israel wept for Moses in the plains of Moab 30 days.

So the days of weeping and mourning for Moses ended.

And,

and, and, and life goes on and Scripture goes on. But what a great study we've had. What a great time we've had. We spent about a year,

a year and a half in the Psalms.

And then we spent about three and a half years studying each morning through the Pentateuch,

Genesis,

Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy.

What. What a great study. And these are the books of the.

The books of Moses. Really?

And they were written by Moses. All except this last few chapters were pretty clear. They were written by Moses. And they give us a clear vision of God's beginning plan and his revelation to us.

And so looking forward to tomorrow. And we are beginning to transition at the end of Deuteronomy to Joshua, son of Nun,

a great man of God,

a great leader of God's people.

Not as great as Moses,

but great because of his great faith.

And he had. He had been faithful to God and faithful to the. The one who is it was his leader, Moses. And God uses him mightily.

Speaker A: As you go today.

Speaker B: I pray that the Lord will bless you and keep you, that he'll make.

Speaker A: His face to shine upon you, and.

Speaker B: That he will give you hope.

Speaker A: And peace today in Jesus name.