I’ve been reading through Deuteronomy the last few weeks during my morning devotional time. This amazing book records Moses’ final spoken words to Israel before his death. It is rich with content and contains a powerful message for us today, multiple messages really. But one that has stayed with me for many days is Moses’ plea to God that he be allowed to enter the Promised Land. In Deuteronomy 3:23-28 we read that Moses “begged the Lord … please let me cross over and see the beautiful land on the other side of the Jordan…. But the Lord was angry with me … and would not listen to me. The Lord said to me, ‘That’s enough! Do not speak to me again about this matter’ … But commission Joshua and encourage and strengthen him, for he will cross over ahead of the people and enable them to inherit this land.”
There is great emotion and sadness in this story. For 40 years Moses had led God’s people. With humility and faithfulness he led them and prayed for them and protected them. But in the end, only two men above the age of 20 when they left Egypt were allowed to enter the Promised Land – Joshua and Caleb. All the others died. The wilderness was littered with their corpses for 40 years. Then, when all above age 60 were dead, save Joshua and Caleb, Joshua led Israel into the Promised Land.
A question that came to me is this: What did God do in Israel during those 40 years in the Wilderness? One thing He did was enable those who died to prepare the generation that would conquer and claim the land. Moses and the others fathered children, multiplied their numbers, then raised them, taught them, trained them, made disciples of them. They taught the younger generation to trust God and follow God. Moses taught Joshua leadership skills and built strength into him for the task that was to come. Then, after 40 years of funerals, when the elders were dead, the people were ready to claim God’s promise.
Imagine living your whole life knowing that you will never achieve your dreams. You will never have what God had wanted to give you, if only you had remained faithful to Him. That was the situation that Moses and the elders faced. Their sinfulness and rebellion caused them to miss a tremendous blessing. And when it did, their purpose became that of preparing their children to claim the blessing.
No one knows what tomorrow holds for any of us. But I do know this, if Jesus’ return is delayed for another decade, or century, or millennium, nothing we do is more important than making disciples of the next generation of God’s people. When I think of the lostness of the Northwest, I think of the little ones who don’t have moms and dads teaching them to love Jesus. I think of college students, 625,000 of them in the Northwest, most of whom are giving no thought as to what God wants for their life.
Whatever we are doing, we had best do all we can to teach our children and grandchildren how to walk with God, and we’d best teach the neighbor kids how to walk with God as well. Our schools and universities are mission fields. We may not live to see the next Great Awakening , the Day of the Lord, or the Glorious Day, in which case our greatest work may be the investment we make in those whom God will use on that Day.
As I see it, that was the task of those whom Moses led out of Egypt. That’s what God did through them. They lived and died so that others could conquer.
Last week I read an excellent biography of Thomas Jefferson titled American Sphinx by Joseph Ellis. One thing that Ellis noted was that the remarkable leadership of the Founding Fathers was due in part to “the self-conscious sense that the future was watching,” thus it “elevated the standards and expectations of all concerned. At least in a small way, we are complicitous in their achievement because we were the ultimate audience for their performances” (p. 300f). As parents, pastors, leaders, it will serve us well to remember that the future, and God, are watching what we do. It is also comforting, in a way, to know that we have a part to play in the great drama of building God’s Kingdom, even if our part is preparing those who themselves will claim the promise.