The Death of Moses

Intro

We have been in this series looking at Moses now all summer

We have seen where Moses is a faithful servant of God.

At the beginning of his ministry Moses is standing before God at the burning bush, objecting that God would use him...

he gave excuses that he couldn't speak well

He said just send someone else..

But by the end of the story, Moses is giving long speeches and leading in difficult circumstances

Now that we are at the end of Moses’s life we can look at his whole narrative arc...

How from the beginning, even though he had murdered an Egyptian..

Even though he couldn't speak well

Even though he protested God’s plans for him 5 times and said…send someone else...

God still used him…He could see Moses’ potential for leadership

He knew Moses’ temperament & his preference for obedience

He knew what Moses could be…not what he was

And now by the end of the story:

Its almost natural now for Moses to go to God and to trust him through the difficult circumstances and that got me thinking

This is the same in trusting Jesus

It’s easy to trust Jesus at first but when you are young in your faith it is easy to get discouraged and its easy to have your faith shaken...

But the longer you go faithfully following Jesus the easier it is to trust him with difficult circumstances...

Its almost as if you have trained yourself for faithfulness through difficulty

And you and I both know that difficulty will come

If your here and your newer to following Jesus, going through trials can be tough

But this is Moses’ whole life...

Last week we talked about rebellion that happened in the camp…And you have to know that there are various rebellions over 40 years....

But today before we look at moses’ death…Why was he in the dessert for 40 years?

Because with the amount of people he had …The trip wouldn’t have even taken a year …Maybe 9-10 months tops.

Anyone can look on a map and see that it shouldn't take 40 years to walk to Jericho from Egypt.

So here is what happens

After traveling a number of months Moses sends in 12 spies into Canaan

Lets look at the report of the spies

Numbers 13:26–33 NIV

They came back to Moses and Aaron and the whole Israelite community at Kadesh in the Desert of Paran. There they reported to them and to the whole assembly and showed them the fruit of the land. They gave Moses this account: “We went into the land to which you sent us, and it does flow with milk and honey! Here is its fruit. But the people who live there are powerful, and the cities are fortified and very large. We even saw descendants of Anak there. The Amalekites live in the Negev; the Hittites, Jebusites and Amorites live in the hill country; and the Canaanites live near the sea and along the Jordan.” Then Caleb silenced the people before Moses and said, “We should go up and take possession of the land, for we can certainly do it.” But the men who had gone up with him said, “We can’t attack those people; they are stronger than we are.” And they spread among the Israelites a bad report about the land they had explored. They said, “The land we explored devours those living in it. All the people we saw there are of great size. We saw the Nephilim there (the descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim). We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them.”

When I was younger I used to remember it saying that there were giants in the land.

A more updated version of the bible calls them what they are Nephilim which from Genesis 6 are children of rebellious spiritual beings

So what they are seeing are these apparent descendents of evil…They are bigger and stronger than us...

This by the way is why God wants all of Canaan cleared out and everyone killed before Israel moves in…Because of the Nephilim

So because of 10 of the 12 tribal leaders did not want to enter the land…They didn't go

The decision they made was fear based and not faith based

The first fill in today is really a question that I believe that moses grappled with early on ‘

Do I make decisions based on fear or faith?

I think that probably everyone here is dealing with some sort of decision that you have to make and the question is do you make the out of fear…or faith that God is on the throne, that God is leading you…that God does want an active part in your life…or do we let fear rule us?

If God has placed something big in front of you and there is not some fear of the unknown then there is no faith required...

Whenever big changes or challenges happen in your life faith is required...

So after Caleb and Joshua try to convince everyone not to rebel and to go with God into the promise land they still rebel...

They still choose the hard way

Numbers 14:20–25 NIV

The Lord replied, “I have forgiven them, as you asked. Nevertheless, as surely as I live and as surely as the glory of the Lord fills the whole earth, not one of those who saw my glory and the signs I performed in Egypt and in the wilderness but who disobeyed me and tested me ten times—not one of them will ever see the land I promised on oath to their ancestors. No one who has treated me with contempt will ever see it. But because my servant Caleb has a different spirit and follows me wholeheartedly, I will bring him into the land he went to, and his descendants will inherit it. Since the Amalekites and the Canaanites are living in the valleys, turn back tomorrow and set out toward the desert along the route to the Red Sea.”

So this is an impotrant point...

The first thing God says is that I have forgiven them…But there is going to have to be consequences for the faithless...

This by the way is an impotrant part of parenting…Forgiving your kids when they mess up is super impotrant, but it doesn’t mean that they shouldn't have any consequences....

They still need to learn from their mistakes and this is what consequences do.

So God both forgives and gives consequences…Because he is Good.

And while God has forgiven his people the consequences are stiff…Those who rejected the promise land wont be able to go in

God wanted the rebellion to stay in the dessert with them...

The promise land was now for their kids....

The parents would have to teach their kids that because we rebelled…The promise land is now for you…it isn't for us any more...

While the Israelites were in slavery in Egypt…The desert would become another place that they are trapped…the dessert would be a 40 year old reminder of their rebellion...

They would have to teach their kids that they rebelled against God but that he is giving you a new land…lean into his promises…don’t make the mistakes that we made....

But not only would a whole generation have to die off...

Moses couldn't go into the promise land either.

But why was Moses excluded from going into the promise land?

Numbers 20:6–12 NIV

Moses and Aaron went from the assembly to the entrance to the tent of meeting and fell facedown, and the glory of the Lord appeared to them. The Lord said to Moses, “Take the staff, and you and your brother Aaron gather the assembly together. Speak to that rock before their eyes and it will pour out its water. You will bring water out of the rock for the community so they and their livestock can drink.” So Moses took the staff from the Lord’s presence, just as he commanded him. He and Aaron gathered the assembly together in front of the rock and Moses said to them, “Listen, you rebels, must we bring you water out of this rock?” Then Moses raised his arm and struck the rock twice with his staff. Water gushed out, and the community and their livestock drank. But the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, “Because you did not trust in me enough to honor me as holy in the sight of the Israelites, you will not bring this community into the land I give them.”

Something like 20 years earlier Moses struck the rock, just as god had instructed…But this time God instructs something different...

God tells him to speak to the rock…God want his people to see that all nature obeys his words…Even the rocks...

So Moses instead of doing what God told him to do

Walks up to his people and he kind of gets arrogant for a second...

Look at the words he says

“Must we bring water from this rock?”…I mean the idea of water from a rock is already kind of an oxymoron…It is a God shaped miracle...

It would almost be like if the people who filled the water jars at the wedding in Cana said…look we turned this water into wine...

He hit it…not just once but twice...

Moses this man who does incredible things and is a faithful servant has what amounts to being one of his biggest failures in the dessert

God wanted Israel to know that even inanimate rocks obey the word of God

But now it looks like the rock is simply obeying moses

Moses made it about the sign not the sign giver

But Moses willfully and in his anger disobeyed the lord…It showed that just as much as he was leading a group of rebels…He was right there with him....Ultimately Moses called them a bunch of rebels but that is what he was doing...

Instead of listening to God he was taking matters into his own hands

Moses’ actions were tantamount to an Egyptian magician

And because of the way he acted, he couldn't lead his people into the promised land

So I want to show you something that I think matters in our walk with God…and its a fill-in

What happens in the middle matters

For moses even though he started doubtful…he started strong

And he kept going strong for a few years but somewhere along the line in the middle of his ministry

He willfully disobeyed God

Some of the words he uses when he struck the rock were, “Must We bring water from the rock?”

No God... Moses!

So for Moses he took a small rebellious detour in the middle of his walk with God that actually affects the long term

Its not just Moses in the Bible...

Saul starts good…then looses faith and gets jealous of david and looses it all

David starts great and then has his colossal failure with Bathsheba.

Solomon, the wisest man who ever lived, built the temple of God and then at the peak of his game gave in to his many wives and worshiping foreign Gods

What happens in the middle matters...

Some of you know this.

You started to follow Jesus and you were passionate!

You were telling all of your friends

You were telling your neighbors

you were praying passionately

You were worshiping passionately you were just on fire

and somewhere along the line you found this middle category of following Jesus

Where its more about you than it is Jesus

This I believe with all my heart, I follow Jesus…I believe the Bible is the word of God…But without even noticing life just kind of becomes about you

And the fire doesn't necessary go out but you think your doing for god but you are really doing for you

Its a subtle shift but if your not careful its easy to fall into

See in the middle

You’ve stoped dreaming

You’ve allowed criticism and comparison between people or churches to sneak into your heart and you have found a lull in the middle.

So a generation has to die in the wilderness because they rejected God’s gift because it looked difficult

The main temptation in the middle is arrogance

Somewhere along the line you go from “he did it” to I “did it”

I have to confess I have a certain distaste for when people call a church by the pastor’s name...

That’s dave’s church…that’s mike’s church…that’s so and so’s church…I get it because you want to identify the church and I catch myself saying this all the time

But its always Jesus’ church...

So the consequences of Moses’ small rebellion in the middle actually come at the end of his life...

Remember God tells him in Numbers 20:12

Numbers 20:12 NIV

But the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, “Because you did not trust in me enough to honor me as holy in the sight of the Israelites, you will not bring this community into the land I give them.”

Turn with me to Deut 34...

Deuteronomy 34:1–4 NIV

Then Moses climbed Mount Nebo from the plains of Moab to the top of Pisgah, across from Jericho. There the Lord showed him the whole land—from Gilead to Dan, all of Naphtali, the territory of Ephraim and Manasseh, all the land of Judah as far as the Mediterranean Sea, the Negev and the whole region from the Valley of Jericho, the City of Palms, as far as Zoar. Then the Lord said to him, “This is the land I promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob when I said, ‘I will give it to your descendants.’ I have let you see it with your eyes, but you will not cross over into it.”

When you are in the middle of your walk with God you are rarely thinking about how it all ends.

For Moses he got to climb to the top of Mt. Nebo and look it all over and god said…

You can see it but you can’t enter it

You literally have to put this 40 year passion to get to this land to death right here right now

Jesus would tell his followers the same thing:

Luke 9:23 NIV

Then he said to them all: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.

Following Jesus is not about your dreams and your passions

Its not about what you desire the most even...

It is about putting all of those things to death....

Its about getting to a place in your life where your most honest prayer that you have ever prayed is

“Lord not my will but your will”

We have to have a death of our desires if we are ever going to jump into God’s will for our lives

Most of us are somewhere in the middle right now of our lives…And I want you to finish well

I don’t want you looking out on the promise land but not entering in...

But think about it…This is a common story in the Bible

Moses would have to die to going to the promise land

David would have to die to the face that he didn’t have the kind of family he wanted…He would have to watch his kingdom get stripped away from him by his son Absolom and then watch as Absolom died…

Ezekiel would have to die to having his dream job…He wanted to be a priest in the temple but instead he is carted off into exile

Jeremiah would have to die to being popular…He famously struggled with not being liked

John the Baptist would have to die to his desire to get out of Jail...

And Jesus would go to the garden of Gethsemane and have to die to his desire to live...

My point is just like moses is standing out looking over all of the promise land…on a 40 year mission

Maybe you have things in your life that you need to die to right now...

Things in your life that you need to surrender

It could even be good things…great things but you need to offer them to the lord because you can even get hung up on good things

If your in the middle right now dealing with the temptation of arrogance or of apathy

then what you really need to win in the middle is to die to your desires and ask God to replace him with his desires

You need to give your heart over to Jesus and ask him to do a new thing, to fill you with his desires...

I know this one thing

Following Jesus till the end takes a death to our own passions and desires

Galatians 5:24 NIV

Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

Deuteronomy 34:5–8 NIV

And Moses the servant of the Lord died there in Moab, as the Lord had said. He buried him in Moab, in the valley opposite Beth Peor, but to this day no one knows where his grave is. Moses was a hundred and twenty years old when he died, yet his eyes were not weak nor his strength gone. The Israelites grieved for Moses in the plains of Moab thirty days, until the time of weeping and mourning was over.

Response:

As we wrap up this series on Moses…Where are you in your walk with Jesus?

Are you in the beginning? Then maybe your prayer is Lord help me to make my life totally about you..>Strip away the desire to make it about me…to meet my needs

Are you in the middle? Then maybe your prayer is Lord I need you to strip away my arrogance…I need you to renew my relationship with you so I can finis strong

Are you at the end? Are you standing on mt Nebo looking at the promise land? Maybe your prayer is Lord, I want to lay down my dreams, I want to lay down my desires my hopes and fully trust in you...

Where are you at today…I want to encourage you to respond as the lord leads you

Let’s pray