Gooding, David: 1 - Moses' Final Message

To Sam for those kind words. And you, my brothers and sisters, will judge from them how Christian is the perseverance, endurance, and tolerance that the organizers of this conference have shown over the years. That they have not only received me and graciously supported me and comforted me and advised me and fed me and waited upon me. That they dare to invite me again. They shall most certainly be rewarded in the days to come. So let us begin our meditation this evening by reading the first verses of the book of Deuteronomy. Deuteronomy chapter one. These be the words which Moses spoke unto all Israel beyond Jordan in the wilderness, in the Araba, over against Suf, between Paran and Tothal, and Laban and Hazeroth, and De-Zahav. It is eleven days journey from Horeb by way of Mount Seir unto Kadesh Barnea. And it came to pass in the fortieth year, in the eleventh month, on the first day of the month, that Moses spoke unto the children of Israel according to all that the Lord had given him in commandment unto them. After he had smitten Sihon, the king of the Amorites, which dwelt in Hezbon, and Og, the king of Bashan, which dwelt in Ashtaroth at Edrei, beyond Jordan, in the land of Moab, began Moses to declare this law. So may God give us good understanding of his holy word. And now, my dear brethren and sisters, I would like you, if you will, this evening for a brief while, to accompany me in your imaginations, and come and stand with me among the thousands of Israel in the plains of Moab, and with imagination fired by God's inspired record of what took place there, to sense how dramatic the situation was when Moses at this time stood with his people and addressed them for the last time. You will sense, before we have gone very far, how dramatic the situation was, and you will realize how tense the atmosphere is with the gigantic decisions that now had to be taken. So you're standing there, are you? You can see it? Well, please face west for the moment. And there in the not too distant, uh, horizon flows the River Jordan, as it had flown for centuries, marking the border between Moab on the east side and the Promised Land on the west side. Behind you, you may turn around to look at it if you like, just for a moment. Behind you, caught up in the clouds, is Mount Nebo. Which mountain Moab m- Moses must presently ascend, and from there be taken home to glory. It's a very dramatic situation. And dramatic for this reason, that forty years earlier, the nation of Israel, the fathers and grandfathers and some great-grandfathers of the present generation, had stood in a similar situation at a place called Kadesh Barnea. They had journeyed thus far, first to Sinai to receive the law of God amidst the thunders and lightnings of his that theophany. From there, having built the tabernacle, guided by the pillar of fire, uh, and the cloud, with the presence of God deigning to dwell with them in their midst in the tabernacle, they had journeyed. On ordinary timescales, it was eleven days journey to get from Mount Sinai to Kadesh Barnea, and they arrived and sent spies into the promised land to survey it, who came back with the agreed majority report that it was a good land. The majority report indicated that there were to be found fenced cities reaching to high heaven, and the giants, the Anakim and the Rephaim and all that ugly brood. And on hearing it, the whole nation, bar two and one or two others, put their foot down and determinedly refused to go any further inch into the promised land. And rebelled against Moses. And talked of stoning him. And Caleb and Joshua into the bargain. Deliberated about choosing a captain. And returning to Egypt. Which stultified and made a nonsense of the whole story of redemption. And God, in response, said, if I may with reverence paraphrase him, gentlemen, you don't have to go in. I don't force anybody to go in. If you won't go in, don't go in. That was a solemn word from God. It's true still. God doesn't force anybody into his heaven if you don't want to go. Or you don't have to go. God will give you the choice. And if you persist in saying, I won't go, God, though it break his heart, will say, have it your way. And God sentenced the nation, therefore, that now for the next forty years they must travel through the wilderness until that evil generation died out. And their children and their grandchildren would be given the opportunity that they had refused. We're there still. Are you still there? Now that moment has come. Dramatic indeed. God is going to give this generation the chance to go in to their inheritance. Israel, of course, would one day go in hook or by crook they'd go in. Because God had covenanted it with Abraham that Israel should go in. Israel as a nation shall yet possess that inheritance because the title deeds are vested in Jesus Christ our Lord. He, according to Paul in Galatians chapter three, is the promised seed in terms of the covenant of Gen- Genesis fifteen. To Christ it was, Abraham's seed, that God covenanted to give the inheritance. And I'm not persuaded myself, brethren, that modern Israel can put its finger up its nose to God and tell God it has no intention of receiving Jesus as God's son and Messiah, and yet suppose they have the title deeds to the land. Not so, my brethren. The title deeds are vested in Abraham's seed, which is Christ. And believing Israel that accepts Christ has, with all other believers in Christ, right to that inheritance. That's by the by. Israel shall inherit as a nation. The question now facing them was, would this generation be the generation that would rise up and renounce the unbelief of its fathers and grandfathers? Would they be the generation that rose up with God and by God's help entered into the great inheritance? It was a dramatic moment. For Moses, exceedingly so. Ah, he had given, given his life to that nation. He might have slept, be cushioned on the feathered down pillars of Egypt, in the palaces, had chosen to suffer affliction with the people of God. And how many nights had he gone to bed in his tent, not to sleep, but to break his heart before God? Oh, for the wilfulness and sheer cussedness of the people to whom he had given his life. Bitter years they were. They were for Moses, for Caleb and Joshua, but bitterer still for Moses. Because there came a moment when Moses' patience got to its limit and ran out. And with an outburst of uncontrollable temper against these foolish people. He smoked the rock. God, in his mercy, gave the water. But Solomon, he told Moses that he would never enter the Promised Land because he had misre- misrepresented God's feeling towards the people. In spite of their waywardness and their moanings and their groanings, the God of compassion looked upon their tongues swollen with thirst and heard the cries of their babies and the lowing of the cattle as they roared their heads off because of lack of water. And God, who is merciful, determined to give them the water, and all Moses needed to have done before the people was just humbly ask God for some water, and God would have given it. But his patience failed. Here now, you rebels, he said, must I bring you water? Must I bring you water? And smote the rock and misrepresented God. You didn't sanctify me in the eyes of the people, said God. It's a sorry and sad thing when God's people are suffering and in pain, to beat them, to call them rebels, and misrepresent the heart of the Father towards them. For which mistake Moses was not to enter the Promised Land. You imagine what he felt like. Now at the end of that long, those long years, one hundred and twenty years old now, seeing the land and seeing it from Pisgah, what should have been the fruit of his labors to see the people in and to be with them in the day of their triumph as he had been with them in the day of their temptation. But denied it. What a thing life is, isn't it? Forgiveness there is with God, but sometimes the consequences of our mistakes live on. Now he must leave them. At this critical moment, would they, or would they not, decide to go in? What should he say to them? How should he stir their godly ambition? How should he nerve them for the fight that lay ahead? And he foresaw it well. Nobody had ever told them that entry into their inheritance would be a birthday party, full of balloons and hot air. There would be sorer temptations there than they had ever met before. There they must meet the giants, the Rephaim, the descendants of that ungodly mixture that began to happen in the days of Noah and thereafter, when evil forces tried to pervert the human race, they would have to fight. It was one thing fighting a few old Amorites in the desert, that was bad enough. To fight, to fight the enemy with their fortified cities and their technology, that will be a different story. There will be other temptations. And perhaps chief among them this, would they, as they went in, compromise with the idolatry of the Canaanites? For these were nations whose ancestors had long since abandoned, deliberately abandoned, or if not abandoned, suppressed, the knowledge of the one true God. But when people suppress the knowledge of the one true God, Lord God, creator of heaven and earth, they wake up to some inevitable facts. If there's no one true God creator, even the atheist had to face the fact that he didn't make himself. It's an inconvenient, uh, uh, contemplation every Monday morning. Didn't make himself. Since we are creatures of God, the first duty is surely to show gratitude and thanks to God for having made us. But if there be no God, then we didn't make ourselves, and how did we come to be? We came out of the primeval slime, did we? What a fortunate accident. It, however, is mightily difficult to find your any gratitude in your heart to the primeval slime and mud, is it not? I've never tried it. Very difficult to sing hymns to it to start with. Oh, thou primeval mud, from which I and my intelligence have come. Oh, sounds odd. And getting rid of the idea of God, and being aware they didn't invent or create themselves, they then turned to the great powers of the universe and deified them. The moon god and the sun god, and the power of fertility, great mystery to them, and the storm god. And the god of war. And they deify- deified their psychological urges. And love, if you please, became a goddess. And she being a goddess, it was absolutely wrong to resist anything, any emotion that she provoked in your mind. The modern press seems to agree with it. They worship more than one Diana. They're like the modern atheist, aren't they? Or shall I say the modern atheist is no better than the ancient pagan? If your modern atheist doesn't keep, uh, gods of gold and silver in his drawing room and offer them a grapefruit now and again as a present. But if you ask the modern atheist, what forces are they then that control us human beings, that brought us to our present state, and may one day destroy us? The modern atheist will answer the same as the ancient pagan. The forces of nature, that is what. The strong atomic power, the weak atomic power, electromagnetism, gravity, anti-gravity, if there be such a thing. These are the great powers that have caused us and made us under the direction of old beldame evolution, apparently. And one day, those same mindless forces will not only destroy us as individuals, but destroy our planet. And to crown the irony of it, when they've destroyed us and the planet, they won't even know they've done it. They will take your intelligence, my dear madam, and you, sir, and pull it to pieces with whatever bug or cancer they choose. And when they've destroyed your intelligence, they haven't any intelligence in their own heads because they don't have heads. They won't know what they've done. Marvelous fruit of the use of intelligence in science, isn't it, to have discovered that our intelligence is the fruit of mindless forces. Those mindless forces will one day destroy us and won't know they've destroyed us. So much for intelligence. And Israel were to go among a people not advanced in science, but who had already embraced the, uh, idolatrous interpretation of the universe. And therefore, there would not, there would be not only the temptation of running away from the battles, there would be the temptation of compromising with the idolatry. Of course, down in the south, in its hot temperatures around Moab and its enervating ease, and its permissive, sexually permissive religion. There would be a temptation for many a young Israelite to think that Moses was somewhat old fashioned, and that modern religion ought to be more accommodating and user friendly in other such things. And when they got north and met the Canaanites, a very different kettle of fish, the Canaanites, with their advanced technologies, they had, as the author of Judges observes at one stage, nine hundred chariots of iron, if you please. Magnificent technology in terms of the era. And their civil engineering and their water systems, such as you have still extant at Gibeon, were amazing even by our own modern standards. When the Israelites used to nothing other but meeting Bedouin in the desert, came across this kind of technology, the temptation for many a young student would be to say there must be something in it. Look at their advance in technology. And is not the thing we heard from Moses old fashioned tradition? It is a temptation that confronts many a young believer, still, isn't it? When he leaves the cozy domain of the Sunday services in the assembly and the Sunday school and goes out in a world of deliberate and systematic atheism. We'll betide them if they go unprepared. So that they come to think of Christian faith as a story such you'd tell to children to quieten them when they go to bed at night, and that's all it is, a version of Red Riding Hood. Whereas the real world is the world of atheistic methodology, technology, and progress. There is nothing anti-scientific in the Christian faith, is there? Surely. Christians ought to support true science with might and main, and we all benefit without any doubt from its technology. But it's a lie that the Christian faith is built on superstition, that belief in God is an exploded myth. But dear old Moses was worried, as you will presently see, that if the Israelites today should rise up and say, yes, by God's grace, we're going into our inheritance, then the battles would begin. Battles against the principalities and powers in the great fortified cities of Canaan. Battle against moral perversion among the Moabites. Battle in spiritual terms amidst the technologies of Canaan. There would be one further temptation, a mighty wave of temptation. The more subtle because it would come to them in very pleasant circumstances. As Moses will presently remind them, when they get in, God would give them houses that they never built themselves, and vineyards that they never planted, and farms, and milk and honey and cows, of course, and bees, and perhaps a donkey or two each. And there, the very kindness of God in giving them this wealth would for some of them become a temptation. In Egypt, they had known about the wealth of Egypt and were used to build the store cities for the pharaohs. But making store cities out of bricks without straw was nothing short of penal servitude. When they at last were free and in the desert, yes, it wasn't like the Sahara. There were here and there trade routes. They got the wool, and they got the skin, and they got the linen to build the tabernacle. They had craftsmen among them. They built a tabernacle all glorious for the presence of God. But life was simple, very simple. And they'd had it for forty years. Now, all of a sudden, they were going to be wealthy by their standards. We in the West know that temptation, don't we? I used to live at one stage in the northeast of England, lodged with a mining family, and they would tell me from time to time of what conditions were like in the Depression. I remember one dear good lady telling us in those days, you know, David, we women had to get down on our knees to ask God for the next meal to put before the family. We were spiritually minded then, said she. But now we're wealthy. And spirituality had slackened. Of course, if you don't have a car, and you don't have a radio, and you don't have a television, and you don't have a garden anyway, there's nothing else to do but go to go to the prayer meeting. Yeah. If you have a car, it's no good having a car if you don't use it, is it? And it's not that these lovely things are bad, but you can't put two pints of sand in a pint jar. And life is limited in its time. And the danger of wealth is it detracts from the energy and the time, and sometimes the cash, to go in for our spiritual inheritance with God. Sometimes talking to our fellow Christians in Eastern Europe, and seeing what the conditions were in the difficult days, the zeal for the Lord. And they would ask me, how many come to your prayer meeting in the church? I was ashamed to tell them. I fear personally that in these coming years, if their economies improve, they will suffer a test worse than the persecution was. For when you are persecuted and you have very little, all you have is the Lord and his people, and you come together as often as you can. When the persecution goes, and life is fair, and goods are plentiful, then comes the insidious temptation to give less time for the Lord, and less zeal, and less cash. What shall Moses say to them? As he sees what lies before them. So it comes about, that though Deuteronomy is a repetition of the law, that repetition fills chapters twelve to twenty six. But before he begins to repeat the law and expound its detailed significance, he spends what for us is eleven chapters preaching sermon after sermon after sermon. To motivate the people to rise up and grasp the opportunity, to be that generation that goes in for God, in for the inheritance, to prepare them for the fighting and the temptations that await them. What will he say? The first lesson he taught them was to take them back to what happened at Kadesh Barnea. Why there? Because it was there that the nation made their fatal decision not to enter the land. Their children and grandchildren had better reflect on it. No good being carried away with mere excitement and adventure and agree to enter the land without seriously considering why it was that their parents and grandparents refused to go in. So in chapter one, Moses takes them back historically to what happened at Kadesh Barnea. A sorry story indeed. They had come out of Egypt, groaning as they had been under the burden and taskmaster of Pharaoh's Egypt. Saved from the destroying angel and the wrath of God by the blood of the Passover lamb. Delivered by the miraculous intervention of God's power at the Red Sea. And as they stood on the further bank of the Red Sea, they sang until their little lungs were liable to burst from their enthusiasm. Moses sang, and the people sang, and Miriam sang, and all the ladies bashed the timbrels. They sang. They've been delivered, you'll see. Marvelous. They felt, you know, so marvelous, so near heaven. They felt as if they jumped an inch or two, their, their heads would, uh, poke through the floor of heaven. You'll see. So near it seemed. And I will bring us in, they said in their confidence. And so they journeyed, not without some difficulty, because the journey didn't turn out to be quite what they expected, and God, they found, was rather different from what they had hoped. He allowed the water supply to run off sometimes. But in the end, they got to Sinai and heard God himself speaking from heaven. They heard his voice, though they didn't see any form. Then they heard from Moses the invitation of Almighty God, that he would come, if they would build him a sanctuary, and dwell among them. Did ever nation hear any such thing? Or ever be confronted with such an astonishing miracle? How could the transcendent Lord, whom the heaven of heavens couldn't contain, come and presents himself inside his creation, in a tabernacle. That isn't a difficulty that the church has yet got over, though we believe it. Don't you believe it? That the one who created heaven and earth and the millions of its galaxies has not only died to redeem us, but by his spirit comes and makes a temple of the body of his believing people. Isn't it true? In form suitable to that early age, God proposed to come and dwell in a tabernacle among them. But while Moses went up the mountain to receive the details, the people got disorientated in the desert. They who travel things like the Sahara tell me that that's all too possible, you know, in a desert, when there are no landmarks here or there or somewhere else, it's very easy to get disorientated. And on this occasion, Israel got completely disorientated. It's not that they lost their way geographically so much. They knew if they kept their noses, uh, facing, uh, north-northeast, they would arrive at Canaan. It wasn't that. But somehow they lost the goal of life, what they were meant to be aiming at in the wilderness. And as they sat at the bottom of Mount Sinai while Moses would gone up for forty days and forty nights to receive directions for the tabernacle, and there they sat twiddling their thumbs. One said to another, have you realized what a funny position we're in? No, said his friend. Well, said he, you know, here we sit in the middle of a wilderness, just, uh, twistling our thumbs and getting nowhere very fast, do see. Uh, and as for this Moses, we don't know what's become of him. Ah, said his chum, but he's coming back again, said the first. That's what they told us last week. He hasn't come yet, has he? They got tired of sitting in the wilderness, aiming at nothing and going nowhere. You can't do that in life, can you? You can't just sit still and get nowhere, for if you do, you will get nowhere. We must have gods to go before us, they said. You've got to have something to aim at in life, that we can believe in and follow. So at Mos- at at at Aaron's advice, they broke off the earrings. Funny things to make gods out of, but they broke off their earrings, and they made the golden calf, and they said, these are thy gods that brought thee out of the land of Egypt. Follow them. That was to make a nonsense of their redemption from Egypt, wasn't it? And a personal insult to the God of heaven. Hadn't it been for Moses' intercession, the nation would have perished, all but Moses, and God would have started again with Moses because he was of the seed of Abraham. God would not have broken his promise if he had destroyed everybody else and started with Moses and made a nation from him. But Moses was faithful to his brethren, and in response to his intercessions, God forgave the people, wrote the law again, and they journeyed on to Kadesh Barnea. Just eleven days up the road, I don't know how many days they took with all those thousands, but that was the normal journey time. Arrived at the land. They sent in the spies, who came back with a report that the land were very good. It was indeed a land flowing with milk and honey. But they said the giants are there, and the Anakim are there, and the Rephaim are there, and cities fortified up to high heaven. And they rebelled against Moses and talked of stoning him and going back to Egypt. What went wrong? Why such a complete vault farce? In so short, in so short a time. How is it that some apparently running well can in a very short time turn right roundabout and go the other way. What is it that gets hold of people? How were the inner fortifications of their hearts and their motivations so soon overthrown? Moses is wise enough to bid their grandchildren now standing before him to examine the past history, lest mistaking zeal for true spiritual determination. They eventually suffer the same as their grandparents suffered at Kadesh Barnea. What was it? Well, according to Deuteronomy and its brief, uh, descriptions, Deuteronomy one verses twenty six and twenty seven, yet you would not go up, but rebelled against the commandment of the Lord your God, and you murmured in your tents and said, because the Lord hated us, he has brought us forth out of the land of Egypt to deliver us into the hand of the Amorites to destroy us. All sad, sad words. From the mouths of people that had sung to the glory of God, so they said, on the further banks of the Red Sea. God hated us. The wilderness had played some funny tricks with their understanding and belief in God, hadn't it? I can do that, all my brothers, my sisters. Life can play some very funny tricks with believers. They did so with Job, didn't they? Job, who, when afflictions first came upon him, rebuked his wife for her indiscreet advice, curse God and die, and said, foolish woman, we received all these things good from the hand of the Lord, shall we not also receive evil? The good things that he gave us of his grace, we didn't deserve. We knew they were but temporary. If God now asks them back, have we any ground of complaint? In all that, Job sinned not. Ah, but his brethren eventually made him sin. And eventually poor Job came to feel that God was unfair. That God wasn't playing the game with him. If only God would come here, said Job, and I could talk to him. That's what God is like. When you want to talk to him, he just disappears into the shadows and doesn't talk to you. Why doesn't he, why doesn't he come and argue his case? Poor old Job. And he a believer.