Day 540: Your will be done - Deuteronomy 31 vs 1 - 8

1 So Moses continued to speak these words to all Israel.  And he said to them, “I am 120 years old today. I am no longer able to go out and come in. The Lord has said to me, ‘You shall not go over this Jordan.’ 3 The Lord your God himself will go over before you. He will destroy these nations before you, so that you shall dispossess them, and Joshua will go over at your head, as the Lord has spoken. 4-5 And the Lord will do to them as he did to Sihon and Og, the kings of the Amorites, and to their land, when he destroyed them.  And the Lord will give them over to you, and you shall do to them according to the whole commandment that I have commanded you. 6 Be strong and courageous. Do not fear or be in dread of them, for it is the Lord your God who goes with you. He will not leave you or forsake you.”

7-8 Then Moses summoned Joshua and said to him in the sight of all Israel, “Be strong and courageous, for you shall go with this people into the land that the Lord has sworn to their fathers to give them, and you shall put them in possession of it.  It is the Lord who goes before you. He will be with you; he will not leave you or forsake you.  Do not fear or be dismayed.” Deuteronomy 31:1-8 (English Standard Version)

We've reached the stage where Moses, already 120 years old, encourages the people, and especially a man named Joshua, to not hesitate in crossing over the Jordan River and to begin to take possession of the land God was giving to them. What was the reason they were not to be afraid of the strong people and high walled cities that would need to be conquered? (vs 6)

God assures them that He would be with them each step of the way. He would give them the same sort of victories that He had already given them over two other strong Kings. As Christians, we also ought to draw courage from God's promises, and from the many testimonies of the help God gave to people like the apostles and early Christians, and to Christians throughout the world over the past 2000 years.

But there's also a sadness here in vs 1-2. What would that be?

It wasn't Moses' age that prevented him from leading the people into the land, but an incident in his life when he had let the Lord down. There was a time during their journey through the desert when the Israelites ran out of water and were angry with Moses and his brother Aaron. God told Moses to 'speak' to a rock, and He would cause water to gush forth. But we read: “Moses and Aaron gathered the assembly together in front of the rock and Moses said to them, 'Listen, you rebels, must we bring you water out of this rock?' Then Moses raised his arm and struck the rock twice with his staff. Water gushed out, and the community and their livestock drank, but the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, 'Because you did not trust in me enough to honour me as holy in the sight of the Israelites, you will not bring this community into the land I give them.'” (Numbers 20:10-12)

It seems that Moses lost his temper and forgot whose servant he was. He didn’t set God's glory and holiness before the people. And what God said to Moses hurt him. At the start of Deuteronomy, as the people were on the threshold of entering the promised land, Moses says to them: “At that time I pleaded  with the Lord: 'Sovereign Lord . . . let me go over and see the good land  beyond the Jordan - that fine hill country and Lebanon.' But, because of you, the Lord was angry with me, and would not listen to me. 'That's enough,' the Lord said. 'Don't speak to me anymore about this matter. Go up to the top of Pisgah and look west and north and south and east. Look at the land with your own eyes, since you are not going to cross  this Jordan, but commission Joshua, and encourage and strengthen him, for he will lead this people across and will cause them to inherit the land that you will see.'” (Deuteronomy 3:23-28)

A lesson for us here is to see how Moses accepted God's will in the matter. He made requests, even with pleading, but when God said 'no', Moses let the matter rest. A millennium later we read of the Lord Jesus Christ in the garden of Gethsemane that “He fell with His face to the ground and prayed, 'My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as You will.'” (Matthew 26:39) May that be our attitude, and our prayer always.