Part 14 (2/2)

Amen.

SERMON XVIII. THE DEATH OF MOSES

(First Sunday after Trinity.)

DEUT. x.x.xiv. 5, 6. So Moses the servant of the Lord died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the Lord. And he buried him in a valley in the land of Moab, over against Beth-peor; but no man knoweth of his sepulchre unto this day.

Some might regret that the last three chapters of Deuteronomy are not read among our Sunday lessons. There was not, however, room for them; and I do not doubt that those who chose our lessons knew better than I what chapters they ought to choose. We may, however, read them for ourselves, not only in the daily lessons, but as often as we choose. And well worth reading they are.

For I know of no stronger proof of the truth of the book of Deuteronomy, and of the whole Pentateuch, than its ending so differently from what we should have expected, or indeed wished. If things went in this world, as they do in novels and fables, according to man's notion of what is right and good, then Moses and his history would have had a very different ending.

And if the story of Moses had been of man's invention, we should have heard--I think, from what we know of the fables, 'myths' as they call them now, which nations have invented about themselves, and their own early history, we may guess fairly what we should have heard--how Moses brought the Jews into the land of Canaan, and established his laws, and reigned over them, and died in honour and great glory--if he died at all, and was not taken up into the skies, and changed into a star, or into a G.o.d; and how he was buried with great pomp; and how his sepulchre did remain among the Jews until that day; and probably how men wors.h.i.+pped at it, and miracles were worked at it, and so forth.

Also, we should have heard how, as soon as the Israelites came into the land of Canaan, they began forthwith to serve the Lord with all their heart and soul, as they never did afterwards, and to keep Moses' law, while it was yet fresh in their minds, more exactly than ever they did afterwards; and in short, we should have had one of those stories of a 'golden age,' a 'good old time,' a pattern-time of early purity and devotion, of which nations and Churches, of all tongues and all creeds, have been so ready to dream in their own case; and which they have used, not altogether ill, to rebuke vice in their own day, by saying, 'Look how perfect your forefathers were. Look how you, their unworthy children, have fallen from their faith and their virtue.'

This, I think, is what we should have been told if the Pentateuch had been the invention of man. This is exactly what we are NOT told; but, on the contrary, the very opposite.

What we are told is disappointing, sad, gloomy, full of dark fears and warnings about what the Jews will be and what they will have to endure. But it is far more true to human nature, and to the facts which we see in the world about us, than any story of a good old time would have been.

They are still wandering in the land of Moab, when the time draws near when Moses must die. He is a hundred and twenty years old, but hale and vigorous still. His eye is not dim, nor his natural force abated. But the Lord has told him that his death is near. He gives the command of the army of Israel to Joshua the son of Nun, and then he speaks his last words.

Songs they are, dark and rugged, like all the higher Hebrew poetry; but, like it, full of the very Spirit of G.o.d--the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of faith and of the fear of the Lord.

There are three of these songs which seem to belong to those last days of his.

The Prayer of Moses the man of G.o.d--which is our 90th Psalm, our burial Psalm. We all know the sadness of that Psalm; its weariness, as of one who had laboured long, and would fain be at rest; its confession of man's frailty--fading away suddenly like the gra.s.s; its confession of G.o.d's strength, G.o.d from everlasting, before the mountains were brought forth; its eternal gospel of hope and comfort, that the strength of G.o.d takes pity on the weakness of man, 'Lord, thou hast been our refuge, from one generation to another.'

Then comes the Song of the Rock--the song of which (it seems) the Lord said to him, 'Write this song, and teach it the children of Israel, that it may be a witness for me against them.'

And so Moses writes; and seemingly before all the congregation of Israel, according to the custom of those times, he chants his death- song, the Song of the Rock. It is such a song as we should expect from him. G.o.d is the Rock. He was thinking, it may be, of the everlasting rocks of Sinai, where G.o.d had appeared to him of old.

But G.o.d is the true, everlasting Rock, on which all things rest; the Eternal, the Self-existent, the I Am, whom he was sent to preach to men. But he is a good and righteous G.o.d likewise. His work is perfect. 'A G.o.d of truth, and without iniquity, just and right is he.'

In him Moses can trust, but not in the children of Israel; they are a perverse and crooked generation, who have waxen fat and kicked.

G.o.d has done all for them, but they will not obey him. Even in the wilderness they have wors.h.i.+pped strange G.o.ds, and sacrificed to devils, not to G.o.d; and so they will do after Moses is gone; and then on them will come all the curses of which he has so often warned them. 'The sword without, and terror within, shall destroy both the young man and the virgin, the suckling also with the man of gray hairs. O that they were wise, that they understood this, that they would consider their latter end! How should one chase a thousand; and two put ten thousand to flight?' What a people they might be, and what a future there is before them, if they would but be true to G.o.d! But they will not. And so Moses' death-song, like his life's wish, ends in disappointment and sadness, and dread of the evils which are coming upon his beloved countrymen.

Lastly, he blesses them, tribe by tribe, in strange and grand words, such as dying men utter, who, looking earnestly across the dark river of death, see further than they ever saw amid the cares and temptations of life. And he blesses them. He will say nothing of them but good. He will speak not of what they will be, but of what they ought to be and can be. But not in their own strength--only in the strength of G.o.d. Man is to be nothing to the last; and G.o.d is all in all.

'There is none like unto the G.o.d of Jeshurun, who rideth upon the heaven in thy help, and in his excellency on the sky. The eternal G.o.d is thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms.

'Happy art thou, O Israel: who is like unto thee, O people saved by the Lord, the s.h.i.+eld of thy help and who is the sword of thy excellency! and thine enemies shall be found liars unto thee; and thou shalt tread upon their high places.'

Those are the last words of Moses. Then he goes up into the mountain top, never to return; and the children of Israel are left alone with G.o.d and their own souls, to obey and prosper, or disobey and die.

The time of their schooling is past, and their schoolmaster is gone for ever. They are no more to be under a human tutor. They are come to man's estate and man's responsibility, and they are to work out their own fortunes by their own deeds, like every other soul of man.

For Moses himself must not enter into the promised land. In spite of all his faith, his courage, his endurance, his patriotism, he has sinned against G.o.d, and he must be punished; and punished, too, in kind--in the very thing which he will feel most deeply, in being shut out from the very happiness on which he has set his heart all along.

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