God's refusal of man's wishes.
We have in this singularly pathetic passage of the private history of Moses—
I. AN AFFECTING ENTREATY. "I pray thee, let me go over, and see the good land," etc. (Deuteronomy 3:24, Deuteronomy 3:25). In this speaks
1. The man. How hard to flesh and blood to be cut off just then! To see the goodly land (Deuteronomy 3:27), but not to enter it. Yet not an uncommon experience. Few things are more painful than to be removed when just on the verge of some great success; when the hopes of a lifetime seem just about to be realized; when some great cause with which we are identified is on the eve of final victory.
2. The patriot. There never beat in human breast a more patriotic heart than that of Moses, and it was supremely hard to step aside and commit the leadership into other hands, when all his wishes for his nation were so nearly fulfilled. It was Israel's triumph, not his own, he wished to celebrate.
3. The saint. For Moses' deepest longing in the matter after all was to see God glorified—to witness his greatness and his mighty hand (Deuteronomy 3:24). No man had ever seen as much of God's greatness and glory as he had, but what he had seen only whetted his desire to see more. It is always thus with saintly natures. The thirst for the manifestation of God increases with the gratification of it (Psalms 63:1-6; cf. Exodus 33:18-20). "Father, glorify thy name" (John 12:28).
II. A DECISIVE REFUSAL.
1. The cause of it. "Wroth with me for your sakes" (Deuteronomy 3:26). How painful to feel that misconduct of ours has involved any
2. The severity of it. It seems a great punishment for a not very great offence. Yet how often do we find that one false step, "one pause in self-control," entails on the individual irretrievable loss! God could not allow the sin of one who stood in so close and personal relation to him to pass without putting on it the stamp of his severe displeasure.
3. The irreversibility of it. He who had succeeded so often in saving Israel by his powerful intercession, fails in his intercession for himself. "Let it suffice thee; speak no more unto me of this matter" (Deuteronomy 3:26). Moses, the mediator and representative of the Law, must, when he sins, undergo its severity. In a case so typical, a reversal of the sentence would have shaken faith in all God's threatenings. He interceded for others, but there was no second Moses to intercede for him. Those who live nearest to God, and are most honored by him, must expect to be treated with exceptional strictness for their faults; as a father is more particular about the morals of his own son than about those of servants and aligns.
III. A PARTIAL COMPENSATION. It was given him:
1. To see the goodly land (Deuteronomy 3:27). Even this he must have felt to be a great boon, and how his eyes, supernaturally strengthened, must have drunk in the precious vision! How many toilers have to leave the world in this frame of mind—getting glimpses of a future they do not live to inherit!
2. To know that his successor was ready (Deuteronomy 3:28). There are few sights more suggestive of magnanimity than Moses meekly surrendering his own dearest wishes, and helping to prepare Joshua for the work which he coveted so much to do himself. It may be felt by us that there was kindness as well as severity in the arrangement which gave Israel a new leader. "The conquest of Canaan—a most colossal work—demanded fresh, youthful powers" (Oosterzee). The work of Moses was indeed done on earth, and he had to pass away to make room for instruments better fitted to do the work of the new age.
CONCLUSION. In this refusal see
For in addition to the point just mentioned, we can see how, from his temporal loss, Moses reaped a great spiritual gain—the perfecting of his will in its choice of God as its exclusive portion, and in entire acquiescence in Divine arrangements. This great renunciation was the last sacrifice asked of him, and he rose to the heroic height of making it.—J.O.
HOMILIES BY R.M. EDGAR