Deuteronomy 34.
HOW touchingly gracious of God to show Moses that land of desire, which he was not to enter! The people had provoked this man of God, meek above all the men upon the face of the earth (Numbers 12:33(Now the man Moses was very meek, above all the men which were upon the face of the earth.) (Numbers 12:3)) by their rebellion, so that instead of upholding God before them, he asserts himself (Numbers 20:10-1210And Moses and Aaron gathered the congregation together before the rock, and he said unto them, Hear now, ye rebels; must we fetch you water out of this rock? 11And Moses lifted up his hand, and with his rod he smote the rock twice: and the water came out abundantly, and the congregation drank, and their beasts also. 12And the Lord spake unto Moses and Aaron, Because ye believed me not, to sanctify me in the eyes of the children of Israel, therefore ye shall not bring this congregation into the land which I have given them. (Numbers 20:10‑12)). Accordingly, God had said to Moses,
“Because ye believed Me not, to sanctify Me in the eyes of the children of Israel, therefore ye shall not bring this congregation into the land which I have given them.”
There was a spiritual reason too, for Moses to be removed at this time he had been the administrator of law, and the people were to enter the land on the ground of grace.
And what grief Moses was spared, in not entering the land, to have seen the unfaithfulness of those he had led, never truly conquering the enemy, and presently turning to idolatry there!
This notable servant of God dies, is buried in secret. Forty years at the court of Pharaoh in Egypt; forty years in the desert alone, and forty years as the leader of the redeemed people to the banks of the Jordan, are closed, with undimmed eye and natural force unabated.
An inspired writer adds (verse 10) that there had been no prophet afterward in Israel like Moses, but a greater came in the person of Christ, in Whom all the prophetic scriptures are fulfilled.
We have finished our brief examination of the five books of Moses. If we have gone over them in faith, in dependence on God, we have profited in our souls. Great principles have been before us, —those according to which God acts in His dealings with man. In Exodus we saw a people delivered by the power of God; in Leviticus and Numbers we saw them, given a marvelous code of rules, perfect as the Giver, and we saw those rules powerless to change human hearts: they, to whom they were given, were first sinners and then transgressors. Lastly, we have seen the grace of God in blessing, and announcing abiding blessing upon this people promising in veiled language to justify them in the power of a new covenant written in their hearts. Such is God, “merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty.” Exodus 34:6, 76And the Lord passed by before him, and proclaimed, The Lord, The Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, 7Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children's children, unto the third and to the fourth generation. (Exodus 34:6‑7).
Reader, is He, through the blood of Jesus Christ, your resource?
ML 05/03/1925