Moses is told to go up on the mountain and look out at the
Land because he is going to die soon and the Lord wanted him to see the Land
even though he wouldn't be leading the people into it to possess it. His final desire is that the Lord appoint
someone to lead in his stead. Joshua
will be that man but here we see that Moses was distinct from Joshua in several
ways. Whereas Moses anointed Aaron and
his sons, and was therefore God's leader over them, the priest Eleazar will now
anoint Joshua as leader. Moses went to
the tent of meeting to speak directly with God as with a man, face to
face. Joshua will go to Eleazar who will
consult the Urim in the breastplate of his vestments and give the word to
Joshua who will then give it to the people.
There will not be a leader like Moses again for a very long time in the
nation. As Christians we know he is not
irreplaceable. We have one who leads as
a shepherd who never failed to honor God as holy and who is without sin. We have a leader who goes before us in
resurrection and to the throne.
What is to be the reaction to the kingdom of God coming
near? Repentance and belief are what
Jesus called for in Galilee. We see the
picture of what that looks like in the next verses, with the call of the
fishermen. Repentance means to turn away
from the direction you were going and go in a different direction. These men had life mapped out for themselves. They would work with their fathers until the
fathers couldn't work any longer and they would then take over the fishing
business and pass it on to their own sons later. Jesus changed their lives forever. They knew that the kingdom was something that
you forsake everything else to have. The
kingdom of God is not added to your existing life, it is your life or you
misunderstood the call. Does it mean you
have no other job? No, but everything
else is secondary to the kingdom. The
luster of all else is now no more than fool's gold.
The power of God is seen in Ephesus when the Jewish
exorcists, the sons of Sceva, get schooled by a demon. They see the power of God in the invocation
of the name of Jesus by Paul. They have
seen that even handkerchiefs and aprons he touched were given to the sick and
they were healed. They believe that this
is the magical incantation to end all others and try using it to heal a
demon-possessed man and end up fleeing bleeding and naked. They weren't standing in the power of Jesus
because they weren't in Him. The people
see that the power of God isn't in the word, Jesus, it is in the spirit
possessed by those who know Jesus. The
books they bring out are worth a year's wages for 139 men, can you imagine
that? That is repentance and belief.
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