Sunday News 27 April 2025

When all is lost, all is won.

‘And the LORD spake 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.’ (Numbers 20:12)

When I consider the tragedy of this most heartbreaking sentence pronounced on Moses and Aaron by God, I have some doubt I can fully convey how hard it was for them. Doubtless I do not fully know that myself. All I can do is briefly review Moses’ journey up until that point, and trust that the Holy Spirit may reveal these things to the reader (and myself) so that we may better comprehend.

From his beginnings in the reed basket left in the Nile by his mother to save him from the Egyptian genocide, to his flight from Egypt as a firebrand exile, Moses lived in Pharoah’s court. That is where Moses’ childhood, his coming of age, his awakening to his identity, and the birth of his passion for Israel his people, took place.

These first chapters of Moses life are not to be brushed over; great things were imagined for him. Though what he came to imagine – the emancipation of Israel – and what was imagined for him by his foster family, the house of Pharoah, were no doubt very different. But as the adopted grandson of Pharoah, no ordinary life could be in store for Moses, whatever path it took.

This time of Moses’ life took him from infancy to adulthood, and to a royal inheritance laid down in his flight from Egypt as an enemy of Pharoah. This is where the roots of Moses’ later calling to deliver and to lead Israel are found. It is the depth of these roots that gives some insight into the pain he must have felt when they were wrenched from the soil of his existence and laid out to die in the sentence of Numbers 20:12.

In Midian, the land of his exile, Moses found a new family – a father who welcomed him, a wife, the daughter of that man, and children whom he had with that woman. Moses started his own family. This was Moses ‘second life’.

Much is made of the forty years’ journey of Israel through the wilderness with Moses as their leader. But without lessening the significance of that time, which made up the last forty years of Moses’ life, it seems he lived before that in the land of Midian at least forty years also.

‘Moses was fourscore years old, and Aaron fourscore and three years old, when they spake unto Pharoah.’ (Exodus 7:7)

So if Moses led Israel in the exodus from Egypt when he was 80 – and if he fled Egypt the first time as a young man, no more than 40 years old one would imagine, probably younger, as the people of Israel had been persecuted even to death since the time of Moses’ birth, and it would not have taken him so long to realise it, and as a young hothead, to set about doing something about it – then his time in Midian must have been 40 years at least.

‘Now Moses kept the flock of Jethro his father in law, the priest of Midian: and he led the flock to the backside of the desert, and came to the mountain of God, even to Horeb.’ (Exodus 3:2).

Forty years, perhaps more. The sand of the desert his pillow and the icy, black firmament, pierced with stars, his ceiling at night. Days of dust and heat, the merciless sun. Perils of bandits, nomads jealous of their ranges, wolves or lions or bears – whatever roamed the wild lands in those days. The never-ending quest for water, forage for the stock. And yet after all that great odyssey – a lifetime in itself – a wife he not so often saw, two children, yet the sheep he kept were still his father in law’s.

The fire of Moses’ passion to deliver Israel, his people, must have burned bright in him that it took so long for God to grind out of his heart the last trace of his self will, his self belief that he would be Israel’s deliverer. But after forty years or more, it was done. He was ready.

And when Moses looked, and behold, a ‘bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed’ – he was ready.

‘And Moses said, I will now turn aside, and see this great sight, why the bush is not burnt.’ (Exodus 3:3)

‘I will now turn aside’? When the burdens and demands of his daily struggle, even his life and that of his flock depended on his wise use of every moment, his constant attention to life itself and vigilance against danger – yet Moses’ passion for life itself had not died. His dreams had died. His belief in himself, that his life would ever be anything more than trudging the desert – that had died. He had nothing but his duty, his needs, the clothes on his back and the sandals on his feet, and expected never to have more so long as he lived. But he had life.

Moses’ passion for life itself – for breath, for light, for the wind and the dew and the precious rain, for a newborn lamb, for every wonder of creation in us and all around us – still blazed with the passion that had filled him as a young man. Only now, he himself, his own desires and dreams and determination, cast no shadow over it. They were gone. And Moses was ready.

Moses ‘second life’ was done – his third was about to begin.

‘I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land unto a good land and a large, unto a land flowing with milk and honey’. (Exodus 3:8)

There it was – at the very first meeting of Moses with God, ‘a land flowing with milk and honey’. From the beginning of Moses’ journey with God revealed, God was to Moses inseparable from the ‘promised land’.

The life and times of Moses up until his calling had already been a great odyssey. And yet, no man ever could have seen days such as were about to come for him. And in this great, final epic of Moses’ life, an unbroken cord runs back to his passion as a young man for the deliverance of Israel, back to his very birth and adoption amidst the persecution in Egypt, the only land the people of Israel then living had seen, but a land not their own. Everything past, present, and future came together, and pointed to one place – the land promised to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.

Moses could not have known what great trials awaited him on his journey, but it is fair to say he had some inkling of the attitudes any intended deliverer might find in Israel. It was, after all, their refusal to side with him and help him that led to his earlier flight from Egypt as a younger man.

‘And Moses answered and said, But, behold, they will not believe me, nor hearken unto my voice: for they will say, The LORD hath not appeared unto thee.’ (Exodus 4:1)

Moses cannot have known how right he was – especially when God placed at his disposal miraculous signs enough to convince, one might think, anyone who saw them. And Israel did believe, briefly. But no sooner did the wind of persecution strengthen against them (and to be fair, I have known no such persecution as they did, and hope never to) than they cast their new found faith aside.

‘And they said unto them [Moses and Aaron], The LORD look upon you, and judge; because ye have made our savour to be abhorred in the eyes of Pharoah, and in the eyes of his servants, to put a sword in their hand to slay us.’ (Exodus 5:21)

And so it began – the river was turned to blood, the plagues of frogs, of lice, of flies, then the sickness and death of the Egyptian’s livestock, then terrible boils on the Egyptians themselves, the deadly destruction of the great hailstorm, the plague of locusts, and the suffocating darkness. From these great plagues God delivered Israel in the land of their slavery – amidst the destruction of the Egyptians, they were not harmed.

Finally came the Passover – the deliverance of Israel, and the death of all the firstborn in the land of Egypt. These stories are epics in their own right, and should not be belittled because they serve only as backdrop in this article.

‘And Moses took the bones of Joseph with him: for he had straitly sworn the children of Israel, saying, God will surely visit you; and ye shall carry up my bones away hence with you.’ (Exodus 13:19)

The land of Egypt was all Israel had known for centuries, yet another land, promised to their forefathers, was known to them by faith, from the words of Joseph. Through all, the promised land.

And so Israel left Egypt and came to the Red Sea, where they were trapped against the sea, with Pharoah’s army now pursuing.

‘And they said unto Moses, Because there were no graves in Egypt, hast thou taken us away to die in the wilderness? wherefore hast thou dealt thus with us, to carry us forth out of Egypt? (Exodus 14:11)

And the sea was parted, Israel crossed it on dry ground, but the Egyptian host was swallowed up and drowned. Yet at every turn in the story from that time until Israel stood at the very entrance to the promised land – the second time, after they refused to enter at the first – every threat appeared to Israel as their doom, from which they did not imagine they could be delivered.

‘Because there were no graves in Egypt, hast thou taken us away to die in the wilderness? (Exodus 14:11)

‘Wherefore is this that thou has brought us up out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and our cattle with thirst?’ (Exodus 17:3)

Words such as these punctuate the story of Israel’s pilgrimage with regularity throughout.

And so followed strife, rebellion, and war. Yet always the deliverance and provision of God, though many were struck down in their disobedience, ultimately the whole generation that had left Egypt save Moses, Joshua and Caleb. Why? Because they would not enter the promised land. Always, the promised land, the emblem of their faith and of their unbelief.

But Moses would have entered, also Joshua and Caleb who saw the land as spies. Yet the people were afraid, and so they were turned again to the wilderness.

And when the fire and thick darkness descended on the mountain, and the people trembled in fear of the LORD (yet straightaway turned from God to idols in spite of – or perhaps because of – their fear) when Moses was forty days and forty nights in the mountain with God, or when Moses entered the tabernacle and the people saw the cloud of the presence of God stand at the door – in these places God spoke to Moses of ‘the land which I sware unto Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, saying, Unto thy seed will I give it’. (Exodus 33:1)

And Moses went from the man who ‘hid his face; for he was afraid to look upon God’ to the one who said, ‘I beseech thee, shew me thy glory’ – and God would not give him so much as he asked at that time, ‘for there shall no man see me, and live’. (Exodus 3:6, 33:18 &20). And in all of this, the promised land was to Moses the living purpose of his life with the God he had come to know, as when he said, ‘if they presence go not with me, carry us not up hence’. (Exodus 33:15)

So what was it that led to such an unthinkable outcome, that Moses himself, the one who remained faithful to God through all, and suffered the opposition of Israel to God and to himself almost singlehandedly, should be disqualified from the fulfilment of his whole life’s calling – to lead Israel into the promised land? And not least, to inherit it himself among them.

What happened was that Moses struck the rock from which came water for the thirsty and unbelieving tribes, the people of God no less, rather than ‘speak to the rock’ as God had commanded him. Yet, once before, God had indeed commanded Moses to strike the rock to bring forth water:

‘And the LORD said unto Moses, Go on before the people, and take with thee of the elders of Israel; and thy rod, wherewith thou smotest the river, take in thy hand, and go. Behold, I will stand before thee there upon the rock in Horeb; and thou shalt smite the rock, and there shall come water out of it, that the people may drink. And Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel.’ (Exodus 17:5-6)

But the second time, at the water of Meribah, God said, speak to the rock. (Numbers 20:8)

Yet by the time this bitterly regrettable event took place, Moses, Aaron, and the congregation had already stood at the entrance to the promised land, and heard the report of the spies, of whom Caleb and Joshua exhorted the people to go up and take the land. But the other spies and the congregation would not believe, and ‘all the congregation bade stone them with stones’. And it was only the appearance of the glory of the Lord in the tabernacle that held them back.

‘And the Lord said unto Moses, How long will this people provoke me? and how long will it be ere they believe me, for all the signs which I have shewed among them? I will smite them with the pestilence, and disinherit them, and will make of thee a greater nation and mightier than they.’ (Numbers 14:11-12)

But Moses pleaded with the Lord that he would not abandon his purpose – not for Moses’ own sake, nor for the sake of the people, but for the sake of the Lord himself, who had set himself this task – to bring the people into the promised land. So it was only Moses’ selflessness in putting the Lord and his purpose, to bring Israel into the promised land, before his own life that had kept Moses from entering the land already. And which led, ultimately to his mistake to strike the rock at the water of Meribah.

So in the heat of the moment, having ‘smitten the rock’ at the command of God once before, Moses lashed out – and his punishment was final. Nonetheless, it seems many years and certainly many battles and even wars passed before Moses’ sentence was carried out. Yet in the end it came.

And Moses pleaded with God, ‘O Lord GOD, thou hast begun to shew they servant they greatness, and they mighty hand: for what God is there in heaven or in earth, that can do according to thy works, and according to thy might? I pray thee, let me go over, and see the good land that is beyond Jordan, that goodly mountain, and Lebanon.’ But the Lord refused: ‘Let is suffice thee; speak no more unto me of this matter. Get the up into the top of Pisgah, and lift up thine eyes westward, and northward, and southward, and eastward, and behold it with thine eyes: for thou shalt not go over this Jordan.’ (Deuteronomy 3:24-27)

How can we understand or assent to the judgement of God in this?

Moses who was the dear and obedient friend of God, who faithfully suffered the callous and godless opposition of Israel for forty years – no, his whole life, because it was they who refused to believe him and caused him to flee as a younger man – Moses who refused to be granted entry to the promised land without Israel, not because they deserved to enter, but for the sake only of his God – how could God refuse this man his only desire, the desire God himself had planted in him?

But in truth, Moses’ desire was to be fulfilled, and more than he could ever have imagined.

Because, as the Lord said, ‘I will raise them up a Prophet from among their own brethren, like unto thee, and will put my words in his mouth; and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him.’

And who was that Prophet ‘like unto Moses’?

None other than the Lord Jesus himself.

And how was he ‘like unto Moses’?

Because Moses gave up his right to enter the promised land, not because of his own sin in striking the rock, but as an offering to God he took the punishment of Israel on their behalf. As our Lord Jesus took our punishment, and forsook every blessing which was due him in this life – and this life itself – so that we might enter into the promised land of eternity.

For if taking from Moses his right to enter the land was just – and we cannot doubt that it was – then to prevent anyone else of Israel, or indeed the whole nation from entering in, was a thousand times just. For it was they who had murmured against God, and who refused themselves to enter (though it was the children of those who refused who now stood to enter, their parents having passed away from their error, nonetheless the behaviour of the children many times was as their parents had been).

And – ‘the man Moses was very meek, above all the men which were upon the face of the earth’. (Numbers 12:3) So we can say, if it was a fault of Moses that he lost his temper when he struck the rock (and it was), any other man alive would have lost his temper long before Moses did, so meek was he. So to say of those other men who would have fallen long before Moses, and with greater and more ungodly rage than his, they can enter in, but Moses cannot, was not the judgement of God. Indeed, had Moses not laid down his own right to enter (though it was by grace and cannot be earned) then not one other of Israel would have entered.

Moses did lead Israel into the promised land, and he did so in the only way it could be done, and only he could do it. He laid down his life, and his own right to enter so that they could enter in.

What’s more, had Moses entered in, the truth is he would have been disappointed. If not by the land itself – then certainly by the attitudes and wickedness of Israel in that land who by seasons were no better, and no different than he had suffered from them through their journey in the wilderness. Moses’ ability to take that had been exhausted. It was exhausted at the rock, though for many years after that he suffered them still.

But the vision of Moses for the promised land – Moses who stood in the presence of God, Moses whose face shone from the glory of the Lord so much that a vail had to be placed over his face so he would not terrify the Israelites – that Moses longed no more for an earthly inheritance, though he may not have known it fully himself. The land that had taken root in Moses’ heart was not an earthly land, but a heavenly one.

Speaking of the Old Testament heroes of the faith, ‘strangers and pilgrims on the earth’, among whom Moses has notable mention, the New Testament writer says:

‘But now they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God: for he hath prepared for them a city.’ (Hebrews 11:16)

And who of the Old Testament can be called a stranger and a pilgrim above Moses? Who even called his first son ‘Gershom’ because, ‘he said, I have been a stranger in a strange land’. And even the land he came from – Egypt – was not his homeland in truth. He was a stranger twice over. And a pilgrim? I have said enough on that, and it is only a small fraction even of what is written in the Bible, let alone the pilgrimage Moses actually lived.

So, as Moses looked finally upon the promised land from Mount Pisgah, and prepared to lay down his claim on it forever – he was but seconds from entering the promised land he truly dreamed of – the heavenly land of his Lord.

So it was that the greatest mistake of Moses’ life was made his greatest triumph, his failure to fulfil the great calling of his life became its fulfilment, and his dream of entering the promised land, the dream which was once was lost was found, and more so than even he could have dreamed. When all was lost, in that very act of loss, all was won, more than anything Moses could ask or think.

And I hardly need say, everything that Moses did and experienced was done so infinitely more by Jesus himself, who was (and is) the Heir of heaven, yet his mission seemingly ended in the most tragic and horrific failure with his death on the cross. ‘He saved others, let him save himself’ mocked the scribes and pharisees who watched him die. Yet even as he died (or laid down his life, to be more precise) he did save, and more so than even we now know though we believe it and study it and proclaim it – it is more than we can know.

And so, when all is lost, if the greatest truths we can ever know, which we know from the Bible, can teach us anything it is this: all is not lost. All, in fact, is won.

We are not lost. Jesus has won.

Amen.