Moses is a bit piqued at the people as he warns them not to
be tempted to take credit for their own good fortune. He continues recounting the events of the
last forty years and his accusations against them. Moses certainly put up with a great deal in
those years and along the way he loved the people in spite of the difficulties
they caused for him, interceding on their behalf on numerous occasions when he
knew that ultimately they would never change.
I can’t imagine a pastor today retiring after a long season leading a
congregation giving such a speech, but it is for their own good here. Moses knows they are going to experience
prosperity and blessing such that they have never seen before and his knowledge
of human nature gained these last four decades teaches him that it won’t go
well. He is doing his best to remind
them why they have been here all this time so that they will see how much grace
they have already received.
Jesus could certainly have come to condemn the world. Would anyone argue that God had or has no
right to condemn the world? We have
taken the good creation and done our best to destroy it for our own benefit. We have defaced the image of God and we have
hated one another and Him. Instead,
Jesus came to reveal that in spite of all this the Father still loves us. We respond to that message by accusing Him of
not caring because there is suffering in the world and of all manner of evil
when the Bible tells us that we are the cause of all the problems in the world,
not Him. If I were He and heard such
things, I would end it all now as my name was besmirched by beings who are no
more than dust and the span of whose life is so limited, but He sent His only
Son to come and tell of God’s love and to die on a cross for sinners. It isn’t just the Jews of Moses’ day who were
stubborn and stiff-necked. The church
has been given a mission, are we living
in fear instead of faith?
Knowing the truth, passing a quiz on Bible knowledge, isn’t
enough. The writer here says that those
in the wilderness had a problem and that problem was that they didn’t unite
faith with knowledge and therefore failed to enter the rest the Lord promised. All disobedience is, at some level, a lack of
faith. At the mountain when they
demanded Aaron do something useful in making them gods, it was because they
lacked faith that Moses would return. The sin in the garden was a lack of
faith, God was keeping something good from them, therefore they lacked faith
that He was truly good. Faith demands
obedience, complete trust in the One who created all things, including us, to
know what is best for us. If we truly
believed, we would know the rest God promises.
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