HIS WORD STANDS!

  I come to chapter 34 of Deuteronomy and Moses has climbed Mount Nebo.  The mount is about 2,680 to 3,300 feet high from the two records I observed.  Moses is only 120 years old (!!!), he has climbed a mountain knowing full well a.  He was going to die on the mountain and b. He would only be able to see the Promised Land from that vantage point.  c. He and Aaron had been disobedient as leaders and before the hoard of Israelites watching, so God refused Moses' entrance to the land.  Regardless of what you and I deem as just or unjust about the decision, God has maintained His word to Moses. I am reminded that there is a strict accountability from God for the one who chooses to be leader. It seems that the greater the audience of those being led; the greater the accountability of God on the leader.

I am amazed that Moses climbed the mountain to die...some of us would have died trying to climb the mountain, but perhaps the desire to SEE the Promised Land drove him to climb.  Scripture says "his eyes were not weak nor his strength gone".  We are not told how long Moses was on the mountain looking over the plains of Moab.  Don't you wonder what thoughts he would have had.  In the picture above, you may see some of the land that Moses may have seen.  It is just a casual sentence: "He buried him in Moab, in the valley opposite Beth Peor, but to this day no one knows where his grave is."  God, Himself, conducted the funeral of Moses and even buried him.  How personal is that? How tender the act and yet I wonder what God spoke over Moses as HE buried him?  I wonder how long they talked before Moses died?  Did Moses have all of his anger and disappointment about the decision to only "see" and not enter the Promised Land worked out. I wonder who else observed the funeral? 

Hear God's affirmation of Moses: "no prophet has risen in Israel like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face, who did all those miraculous sign and wonders the Lord sent him to do in Egypt....For no one has ever shown the mighty power or performed the awesome deeds that Moses did in the sight of all Israel."  Deut. 34:10-12.  That is SOME eulogy. The new commander in chief is Joshua, who will take the Israelites into the Promised Land. 

My take-a-way after reading the chapter:  God's yes is yes and His no is no.  Even as much as He applauded Moses, He maintained the boundary of His Word.  He has given us prescribed boundaries in His Word of what is acceptable to a Holy God and as Christ followers we are under the tutelage of the Holy Spirit to discern right and wrong. We also have the Word of God to read and the Holy Spirit to reveal Truth to us. I am grateful that God's Word does not change even with the battering rams of the cultures' opinions coming against it.  Isaiah said it so well, 40:8, "The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the Word of our God stands forever."  #IHAVETHREESONS