Moses
Hebrews 11:24-27, 13, 16
God has one great desire - to have what may be termed a "people of His best." Until He has such a people, He will never be wholly satisfied. There may be those who will accept His "second best" - for He surely often allows a second best - but only a people set on His very best will truly satisfy His own heart. But since the attainment unto His best is a matter fraught with conflict and cost and discipline, and much that is utterly contrary to the whole course of nature, it is not everybody - indeed, it is but a comparative few - who will go on with Him to His best. This is seen in all the Scriptures, and there are some outstanding illustrations of it. They are found in every dispensation.
For example, while we are not to say that the generation which perished in the wilderness, which had been brought out in virtue of precious blood and by initial faith - for "by faith they passed through the Red Sea" (Hebrews 11:29) - while we are not to say that that generation represents ultimate and final loss of salvation, it is nevertheless clear that they lost God's full thought for them, and it was a great and grievous loss, always held up in the Scriptures as an example of tragedy, failure and disappointment. We are not to say that the greatest number of those who went into exile in Babylon, in Chaldea, and never returned, were lost eternally to God's salvation. But we do know that the minority came back, and in coming back fulfilled the true intention of God, and are represented as those of whom particularly He is not ashamed. For the others, in the wilderness and in Babylon, there is a certain sense in which God is ashamed; for these, not so. And thus it is in every dispensation. The call continues, and it is being sounded here to the people of God to be satisfied with no second-best.
But, as we have said, this is not only a call to us to attain. This is a call to a people to pioneer this way for others - for so many of the Lord's people do not know the heavenly way. Strangely enough, though born from above, they do not know the heavenly way. We will not bring in all the proofs of this, but it is true, and perhaps many of us have been like that for a period of our Christian life. It was very largely an earthly thing. Our activities were very earthbound, in a Christian way. Then there came a time of crisis, when we entered into the meaning of an open heaven and were lifted on to an entirely new level of spiritual life and began to learn heavenly things in a new way. These are facts, and all those who are called of God into this heavenly way are not only moving in it with regard to their own spiritual measure, but are called to pioneer the way for those who do not know, even of the Lord's people. That does not mean to preach to them about a heavenly way, to have a special interpretation of Scripture, some doctrine or phraseology. It means that they are called to be in the good of it, to be there, and by what they themselves know and experience to be able to help others up from the lower levels of spiritual life.
So we are going to look again at this matter of pioneering the heavenly way, centering our thoughts upon another great pioneer - Moses. There are, of course, many other features of his life besides pioneering, but I think that this really goes to the very center of the significance of Moses - this fact that he was the pioneer of the heavenly way.
If we look at the life of Moses from an earthly standpoint, we see very much that speaks of disappointment and of failure and of tragedy: for, although, for eighty years - eighty long, trying, testing years of discipline and suffering - he walked the heavenly way or learned the heavenly way, neither he nor the people that he brought out of Egypt entered into the land. That sounds like disappointment, and indeed tragedy. I can never read that record of Moses pleading with God to let him go in, and God's full, final, conclusive refusal, without being deeply stirred. It is a touching thing.
You see, of these people who were constituted a nation by the hand of Moses who instrumentally owed their existence as a nation to him, not only did that first generation not go into the land and inherit, but their whole history ever since has been one of tragedy. There have been bright spots and periods in that history; there have been times of glory; but, taking their history as a whole up to this day, remembering how much they talk about Moses, what they attribute to Moses, how they are always appealing to Moses, it has been a most disappointing history. I repeat: from certain standpoints, the life of Moses bears much that speaks of failure and disappointment and tragedy. But the very fact of his own life and the nature of its termination, the very fact of the generation that perished in the wilderness, the very fact of the nation all through the ages failing and disappointing, is the one most powerful and conclusive argument for another aspect, namely, the Divine truth of the heavenly. They are asserting in a most emphatic way that, if this is all, down here, then it is a poor thing: that there must be some other way than this, there must be some other sequel to this, this is not all. No, there is another standpoint from which to view it - there is the heavenly standpoint, where heaven interprets and governs everything.
Well, let us look at Moses. Firstly, Moses himself and his training. Secondly, Israel under his leadership.
~T. Austin-Sparks~
(continued with # 13 - "Moses' Training")
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