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Jesus said, “I
say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them
that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute
you.”
It is interesting that Moses
practiced this in his dealings with the opposition of the Israelites. “And
all the congregation lifted up their voice, and cried; and the people wept
that night. And all the children of Israel murmured against Moses and
against Aaron: and the whole congregation said unto them, Would God that we
had died in the land of Egypt! Or would God we had died in this wilderness!
And wherefore hath the Lord brought us unto this land, to fall by the sword,
that our wives and our children should be a prey? Were it not better for us
to return into Egypt?” (Numbers 14:1-3)
This was perhaps the bitterest hour
in Moses’ life. They had proposed to elect a captain before, but it was
when he was away. This proposal was made before his face. The people whom
he had loved with passionate devotion, whose very existence was due to his
intercession on the Mount when they were on the point of being destroyed,
had forgotten all he had done. They actually proposed to supersede his
authority and if he would not go with them under their new-made captain,
they were going to leave him to his own devices there. He fell on his face
before all the assembly of the congregation. What unutterable agony stormed
in his heart! Not only that he should be thus set aside, but that the anger
of God should be thus provoked by the people he loved!
As he lay there, did he not feel a
great sorrow as the vision of going into the land and the great prospects of
his hopes started to crumble? What joyful anticipation he must have had of
going into the land to which God had promised and then suddenly the people
revolt and God says, “Tomorrow turn you, and get
you into the wilderness by the way of the Red sea.” (Numbers
14:25)
The dream of Moses for a speedy
entrance into the land might even yet have been realized another way. If
all the people were cut off and he spared to be a second Abraham, the
founder of the nation, it might be possible even yet for him to pass into
the good land and like Abraham settle there.
God, eager to reveal the hidden
nobleness and lovingness of His faithful servant, suggested a proposal that
He should smite the people with pestilence and disinherit them and make of
Moses a nation greater and mightier than they.
“Accept it,” said the spirit of
SELF-life, “you have had trouble enough with them; it will only hasten the
inevitable issue of their misconduct. Besides, think of the rest you will
enter into and the renown which will accrue to you for all time.”
“No,” said his nobler, truer self,
born of God. “It may not be; what would become of Jehovah’s fame? How can
I endure to see my people cut off?”
There are few grander passages in
the Bible than that in which Moses puts away the testing suggestion as
impossible. “Now if thou shalt kill all this
people as one man, then the nations which have heard the fame of thee will
speak, saying, ‘Because the Lord was not able to bring this people into the
land which he sware unto them, therefore he hath slain them in the
wilderness.’” (Numbers 14:15-16)
Moses pleaded with God that He would
pardon the people according to the greatness of His mercy as He had been
doing from the first of leaving Egypt until now. In other words, Moses
would not have the rest he longed for at the sacrifice of a ray of God’s
glory or of the people with whom his life was linked, though they had sadly
plagued and disowned him.
And so he turned away from the open
gate into this Paradise and again chose rather to suffer with the people in
their afflictions than enjoy the pleasures of Canaan alone. Let us ponder
the lesson and when a dear delight is within our reach and it will be more
for the glory of God and the good of others to turn from it, let us ask
grace to take the rugged path of the wilderness even though it may mean a
lonely life for forty years and a death on Pisgah.
Few men have had greater experience
of ingratitude of their fellows than Moses. It broke out again in a
formidable conspiracy led by Korah, with whom were associated two hundred
and fifty princes, men of renown.
Korah and his confederates suggested
that Moses and Aaron had taken on the offices that they held. “Why should
these offices be exclusively vested in the two brothers? Were there not
plenty of men as good as they? Was not all the congregation holy? And
might not the presence of Jehovah be had by others as well as by them?” It
was a conspiracy against the leadership.
Instantly Moses fell on his face
before God – his favorite attitude for meeting these outbreaks of hatred and
discontent. But he made no further attempt to justify his position or
Aaron’s. He might have alleged his past services, his claims on the
gratitude and loyalty of the people. He might have reminded them that their
national existence was due, under God, to his faith, his prayers and tears,
his intercessions and exertions on their behalf. But on all these points he
held his peace and took the whole matter into the Divine presence, throwing
the responsibility on his God.
Moses recognized that it was not
against him that these conspired, but against God. “For
which cause both thou and all thy company are gathered together against the
Lord: and what is Aaron, that ye murmur against him?” (Numbers
16:11) When attacked, we must remember that it is the Lord Who has placed
us where we are and the attack is against Him. (Acts 20:28; 1 Cor. 12:28;
Eph. 4:11) It is not to be supposed for a moment that He Who appointed the
place where each star should shine in the night, should leave the position
of the stars of His church to chance.
When we are opposed, let us act like
Moses did and refer it all to the decision of our Master and Lord; and in
the mean time be at peace. It is such a profound mistake to carry the
burdens of the Lord’s work. When difficulties come, as they will, they are
His quite as much as they are ours. He asks us to do His work; to obey His
commands; to fulfill His commissions; and to transfer all the weary pressure
and burden to Himself. If the people do not like us, it is for Him to
determine whether He will continue us in our position; and if He chose to do
so, He must keep us there and give us favor with them. So it was with
Moses.
See what loving humility Moses
exhibits. He fell on his face and pleaded with God not to punish all of
them for the sin of one man. “And they fell upon
their faces, and said, O God, the God of the spirits of all flesh, shall one
man sin, and wilt thou be wroth with all the congregation?”
(Numbers 16:22) He made no attempt to answer them, except in
self-vindication before the Lord. When bidden by them, he made no
hesitation to rise up and go to them, with no trace of vindictiveness in his
address.
On the following day, when the
people, unawed by the terrible judgments that had fallen, murmured against
Aaron and himself and accused them of having killed the people of the Lord,
he again averted from them the judgment that was threatened – first by his
prayers and then by having Aaron stand, censer in hand, between the
plague-stricken and those as yet unreached by the sickle of death.
How quick Moses was to know when
wrath had gone out from the Lord! How eager he was to stop it. How
generous to make such efforts on the behalf of those who had but an hour
before launched their bitter reproaches at him!
This is the true pastor’s heart. He
partakes of the spirit of the Good Shepherd Who loved those who taunted Him
and pleaded for the forgiveness of His murderers. There is no more
resentment in His heart towards those who oppose Him than in a mother’s
heart towards the babe who, in its agitated temper, smites her breast with
its tiny hands.
Oh,
for that grand devotion to Christ, that loving humility, that we may only
suffer in fellowship with His sufferings, die only in conformity to His
death, identified with Him in all! It is, perhaps, the loftiest summit of
devotion when we crave love only to pass it on in humility to Him and that
we dread hatred only because it hurts the hearts that cherish it and
inflicts a wrong on our dear and glorious Lord.
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