EPC Australia

There was a remarkable resemblance between Moses and the Messiah, which it would be easy to trace. But the likeness here spoken of regards his office. Moses was a prophet, a peculiar prophet, a pre-eminent prophet. He introduced and established the whole of the Jewish dispensation with miracles, wonders, and signs. He was the mediator between God and the people. Other prophets received divine communications through various mediums, but he received every thing from God immediately. "If there be a prophet among you, I the Lord will make myself known unto him in a vision, and will speak unto him in a dream. My servant Moses is not so, who is faithful in all mine house. With him will I speak mouth to mouth, even apparently, and not in dark speeches; and the similitude of the Lord shall he behold." But if "the Law was given by Moses, grace and truth came by Jesus Christ." "No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him." Yea, in all things he has the pre-eminence. Moses was faithful as a servant, but Christ as a Son over his own house. The commission of Moses was confined to one nation; Christ is not only the glory of his people Israel, but a light to lighten the Gentiles — the light of the world.

Every office the Saviour sustains requires a corresponding disposition in those to whom he is sent. As he is a prophet, we are commanded to "hear him." It cannot mean a mere hearing. Then many would be safe who are condemned already. But it includes our believing his instructions with a faith unfeigned, and our cordial submission to them; or, as the Apostle expresses it, our obeying from the heart the form of doctrine delivered us. Blessed are they that hear the word of God and "keep it." If he commands us to lay up treasure in heaven, and we mind earthly things; if he tells us to deny ourselves, and take up our cross, and follow him, and we live to the lusts of men; if he says, Look unto me, and be ye saved, and we go about to establish our own righteousness, we do not hear him, but despise and reject him. He that hath his commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth him, and he it is that heareth him.

We are not only to hear him, but to hear him "in all things whatsoever he shall say unto us." Some dislike the mysterious parts of Christianity; some, the humiliating; some, the practical. But the only inquiry of a true disciple is, "Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?" He will not dictate; he will not object; he will not prefer one thing to another, but say, "I esteem all thy commandments concerning all things to be right, and I hate every false way." The test of real obedience is, to "do all things without murmurings and disputings."

Notwithstanding our duty and our responsibility, it is here supposed that some "will not hear this Prophet." This is a sad intimation, and we might wonder at the fact. But the depravity of human nature will account for it, and all history confirms it. Some ridicule and oppose. Many never attend the means of grace. Numbers have only "a form of godliness," while they deny the power thereof.

And to what are they exposed? "It shall come to pass, that every soul that will not hear that Prophet, shall be destroyed from among the people." Mark the impartiality of the sentence, "every soul." The refusers may be many, and they may differ from each other, but, though each may turn to his own way, all are going astray. There is only one path of life, but there are many avenues to death. And it matters not what our particular character is, whether profligate or formalist, Pharisee or hypocrite, he that believeth not shall be damned; and without holiness no man shall see the Lord. See the nature of the doom, "shall be cut off." This is not correction, but excision; not, however, annihilation — this would be a privilege. They shall seek death, but they shall not find it. In vain will they ask the rocks to fall on them, and the mountains to cover them. The penalty is not the loss of their being, but of their happiness and of their hope, the destruction of body and soul in hell for ever. Observe the dreadfulness of the aggravation, "from among the people." They are intermixed now, and some of them very peculiarly. They attend in the same sanctuary; they live under the same roof; they are united by the ties of friendship and of blood. But their privileged situation and condition only evinced and increased their depravity. "Let favour be showed to the wicked, yet will he not learn righteousness: in the land of uprightness will he deal unjustly; and will not behold the majesty of the Lord." Their present advantages, therefore, will afford them no security, neither will they be able to retain them. The wicked shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous. But, severed from the just, they will be led forth with the workers of iniquity, and carry away with them into the place of torment only the remembrance and the guilt of all they neglected and abused here.

"See, then, that ye refuse not him that speaketh. For if they escaped not who refused him that spake on earth, how much more shall not we escape, if we TURN AWAY FROM HIM THAT SPEAKETH FROM HEAVEN!"

Morning Exercises For Everyday In The Year
By Rev. William Jay