May 26, 2024 Sunday Worship Service

Prelude
Call to Worship James 2:5
Hymn JBC # 27 Praise Him! Praise Him! Jesus, our blessed Redeemer!
The Lord’s Prayer
The Lord’s Supper
Hymn JBC # 105 There is sunshine in my soul today
Offering
Scripture Deuteronomy 34:1~8
Prayer
Sermon “With the Promised Land Ahead”
Prayer
Hymn JBC # 19 Love divine, all loves excelling
Doxology JBC # 672
Benediction
Postlude


Today we will share the final scenes in the life of one of God’s believers, as we go through today’s passage.
This is a passage that shows us the final days of the life of Moses, who led the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt and continued journeying with them through the desert.
Moses was born a Hebrew (an Israelite), but in a strange twist of fate, became the adopted child of an Egyptian princess and was raised in the Egyptian palace.
However, when Moses was 40 years old, in trying to protect a fellow Hebrew, he struck down and killed the Egyptian man who was beating him.
Because of this, he was forced to flee Egypt. Moses escaped to the land of Midian, where he met and married a woman, had children, and lived as a shepherd until he was 80 years old.

At 80 years old, Moses was commanded by the Lord God to lead the Israelites who were suffering as slaves in Egypt, taking on the responsibility of leading them in their exodus from Egypt.
Today’s passage, the final passage in Deuteronomy, is the story of Moses’ death.
Moses and the Israelites were finally getting close to the land God promised them, the land of Canaan, a land they could finally now see before their eyes.
In today’s passage Moses climbed to the peak of Mount Nebo (also known as Pisgah), From there he could look out over the land promised by the Lord.

In verse 4, the Lord says this to Moses:

“This is the land I promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob when I said, ‘I will give it to your descendants.’ I have let you see it with your eyes, but you will not cross over into it.”
The Lord says to Moses “The land you see before you is the land I (God) promised to your ancestors Abraham, Isaac and Jacob”.
God’s promise mentioned here is the promise made to Abraham, also called “the Father of the faith for the Israelites”, in Genesis chapter 13.

The Lord said to Abraham:
(Genesis 13:14~17)
“Look around from where you are, to the north and south, to the east and west. 15 All the land that you see I will give to you and your offspring[a] forever. 16 I will make your offspring like the dust of the earth, so that if anyone could count the dust, then your offspring could be counted. 17 Go, walk through the length and breadth of the land, for I am giving it to you.”

From Moses’ perspective, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were ancestors from hundreds of years before his time. By His grace, God was now guiding Moses and the people to this land that He had promised to Abraham, his son Isaac and his grandson Jacob all those years ago.
God most certainly kept His promise even after hundreds of years. This gives us hope, that when we believe in God, we live on God’s time.
To our eyes, we might think that things aren’t going to plan. Far from going well, we might think that society and the world around us is just getting worse, not better.
However, through faith, we can hold strongly to our conviction that God’s gracious promises never change. When God makes a promise, he makes sure to fulfill that promise.

While the Israelites were in Egypt, they must have passed down the story of the promised land from generation to generation. I imagine that each generation of Israelites continued to tell the story among themselves.
Seeing that promised land now before his very eyes must have been a moving experience for Moses.
Especially because after leaving Egypt, Moses and the Israelites had travelled through the desert for 40 years before arriving at this point.
The truth is that the distance from Egypt to Canaan was about 300 or 400 kilometers, a distance that under normal circumstances could be walked in about 2 weeks at the most.
And yet, they somehow took 40 years to make this journey. Why did they take such a long way around, and why did they move at such a slow pace?
Firstly, one reason could be that in the beginning, they were vast in number. At the time of leaving Egypt, just their young men numbered approximately 600,000 (Numbers 1:46). Adding in the women and children makes that number even greater.

　It is hard for us to imagine just how difficult it would have been for such a great number of people to move all at once.
Maintaining order among such a large group while moving must also have been quite challenging.
In the Bible, we see that the people complained over and over to Moses and Aaron (Moses’ brother, sent by God as an aide to help Moses who was not gifted at speaking).
They constantly complained to Moses, saying “we have no water”, “we have no food”, “we’re sick of eating the same thing”.
Moses was just one person listening to all these complaints and discontents, there’s no way he could have dealt with them all himself. At a time like this, Moses assigned duties to others, and learned to rely on other people for support.
The journey through the desert was a very slow (to the point of being too slow) and very roundabout route. It is also written that the entire first generation that left Egypt died during the journey through the desert. (Numbers 32:13).

　But even so, the next generation after that continued the journey to the promised land and at last arrived at their destination.

The journey from Egypt reminds us, once again, that we, as believers, are a community of faith who share the journey of faith.
Even though we hold the same faith, we learn that there are many challenges along the journey.
Even among us there are differences of opinions, and complaints arise due to all manner of reasons. When we look at the people of Israel after leaving Egypt, we can’t help but see ourselves among them.
However, no matter how slowly we move, no matter how long it takes, even though we sometimes (or often) complain about God or each other, we are a body of believers moving along the path of faith towards the same goal.
As we offer our gifts, let us support each other and walk the path of faith (which is sometimes long and hard) together as we raise our eyes to Jesus.
Even if we take a roundabout path, even if it takes 40 years to complete a journey that could be done in 2 weeks, aren’t we supporting each other and being led together by Jesus as we walk together along this path of faith towards the same destination?

Let’s look again at today’s passage where the Lord spoke to Moses (verse 4).

“This is the land I promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob when I said, ‘I will give it to your descendants.’ I have let you see it with your eyes, but you will not cross over into it.”

After 40 years of struggling, guiding the grumbling people of Israel with perseverance, God says to Moses even as he shows him the land “This is the promised land. But, you will not cross over into it”.
That (the fact that Moses would not enter into the land) had already been told to Moses by the Lord before today’s passage.
Even though Moses already knew this, I wonder what Moses thought when he saw the promised land with his own eyes, and as God reminded him “you will not cross over into it”.
Perhaps Moses was angry? Wasn’t he angry at God, thinking “I’m the one who came this far suffering and leading the Israelites. And yet, I’m the one who can’t go into the promised land? It’s too much.”
This passage does not show us what Moses thought or what Moses said. Because of this, all we can do is imagine what Moses might have thought.

Also, today’s passage does not record any final words from Moses himself as he draws near the end of his life, which I believe indicates something very important.
Rather than recording what Moses said at the end of his life, the Bible instead records what God said to Moses. That is to say, the Bible is placing the focus not on what Moses did, but on what God did for Moses.
God chose Moses, was always with him on his faith journey, and strengthened him when his faith wavered. This is what the Bible focuses on.

This shows that even until his final moments, Moses listened to the words of the Lord God, and his life ended as he listened to the word of God. We could say that the life of Moses, who kept the word of God with him until the end and continued to listen to those words, was the happy life of a believer.
For us as believers, rather than thinking about what we have done and what we have said, let us rather keep our thoughts focused on what God has done for us and what God has told us.
And even when other people think of us, rather than thinking of what we have done, if they were to think of what God has done for us and remember us in that way, I believe that would be something for us to be happy about as believers.

Moses lived to 120 years old. Even so, it is written that his eyes did not dim and he did not lose his vitality.
However, no matter how full of life he still was, the Lord determined that this was as far as his life would go, and there was nothing Moses could do to change this.
Even for Moses, who was God’s servant, his life came to an end at God’s command.
Our lives on earth will, at the time appointed by God, certainly come to an end. However, we know that we live on through the eternal life of Jesus Christ.
Let us believe in the Lord that guides our lives and reveals His glory and His works through us.
And as long as we live on this earth, let us continue testifying to all the wonderful things God has done for us.
Let us pray that the Lord shows his wonder through us, and that until the end of our lives on earth, we would continue walking together with the Lord and with each other as a family of believers.