EPC Australia

This desire seemed improper. For God had expressly said unto Moses and Aaron, "Because ye believed me not, to sanctify me in the eyes of the children of Israel, therefore ye shall not bring this congregation into the land which I have given them." We are poor creatures, and often insensibly transfer to God the effects of our own feeling and conduct. Did Moses then, through infirmity, think that God was changeable? No; but he thought the threatening was not absolute; especially as it was not ratified by an oath, as the exclusion of the people was. For many of God's denunciations, as we see, for instance, in the sentence with regard to Nineveh, have a condition implied, though not expressed. They will be executed unless repentance intervenes. Upon this principle it was possible for Moses to hope for a retraction of the interdict.

But the desire was a very natural one. It was natural for him to desire to enter Canaan, even as an object of curiosity, of which he had heard so much; but still more as an object of hope, which had been so long promised, with every enhancement. This it was that had animated the people to leave Egypt. This had encouraged them in all their travels in the desert. This was the end, the recompence of all their toils and sufferings for forty years. And they had now nearly reached it. How painful to miss the prize when the hand was in the very act of seizing it, and to have the cup dashed even from the lip!

Yet the desire was refused. And the Lord said unto him, Let it suffice thee; speak no more to me of this matter. For he sometimes refuses the desires of his servants, and the most eminent and endeared of them too. And he does this in two ways. Sometimes he does it in love. He denies, because what is desired would prove dangerous and injurious. We should think badly of a father who, if a son asked bread, would give him a stone; or, if he asked a fish, would give a scorpion. But suppose, through ignorance, his son should ask for a scorpion instead of a fish; or suppose he should cry for a sharp instrument, or beg to climb up a steep ladder, would he love his child then, unless he rejected his wish? In how many cases must a wise and good parent distinguish between a child's wishes and his wants! He may wish for liberty, but he wants restraint; he may wish for holidays, but he wants schooling; he may wish for dainties, but he wants medicine. Here the love of the parent must appear acting, not according to the wish, but welfare of his child. How well would it have been for the Jews, had God more than once turned a deaf ear to their importunity. They would have a king, and he "gave them a king in his anger, and took him away in his wrath." They would have flesh, and he gave them their hearts' desire, but sent leanness into their souls. On the other hand, who does not see, in looking back upon life, how well for him it was that such a scheme failed, that such a hope was crushed? How much evil lurked under the specious appearance, or would have resulted from the indulgence. Who knows what is good for a man in this life? No one but God; the good God:

"Good when He gives, supremely good;
Nor less when he denies:
E'en crosses from his sov'reign hand
Are blessings in disguise."

He also sometimes refuses in anger. Wrath is incompatible with love, but anger is not; anger may even flow from it. Though Christians cannot be condemned, they may be chastened; and the law of the house is that if his children walk not in his commandments, he will visit their transgression with a rod, and their iniquities with stripes. Hence those who shall be saved eternally, may lie under the present rebukes of Providence; and be refused many things on which they have set their heart, as to station, business, connexions, and usefulness. They may think hard of this at first, but as they discover their unworthiness and desert, they will bow to the dispensation, and say, with David, "I know, O Lord, that thy judgments are right, and that thou in faithfulness hast afflicted me." By such conduct, too, Providence reads lessons to others. See, it says, the evil of sin. See how severely God deals with it, even in his own people. And "if these things are done in the green tree, what shall be done in the dry?" If judgment begins at the house of God, "what shall the end be of them that obey not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ? And if the righteous scarcely are saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?"

Yet his desire was partially indulged: "Thou shalt not go over this Jordan; but get thee up into the top of Pisgah, and lift up thine eyes westward, and northward, and southward, and eastward, and behold it with thine eyes." This was obviously intended, not to tantalize him, but to be a mitigation of the severe sentence. The preservation of his good sight to so great an age, fitted him for the gaze, and probably it was also strengthened and enlarged for this very purpose. The prospect showed him how worthy the country was of all that God had said concerning it, and would give him high and honourable views of the truth and goodness of God, in his Covenant with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob. Along with this, too, there was exerted the influence of divine grace, which soothed and satisfied him. For by this God can make us easy and contented under the refusal or loss of any comfort, however essential to our happiness it appeared before; so that we behave and quiet ourselves as a child that is weaned of his mother; our soul is even as a weaned child. While, also, his mind was raised to things above, and, in type and emblem, to a better country, into which he was immediately to enter. Then there would be no want of an earthly Canaan.

Thus, in the midst of judgment. He remembers mercy. Though he cause grief, yet will he have compassion. Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him; for he knoweth our frame, he remembereth that we are dust.

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