FBC Daily Devotional – July 19, 2021

Faith Baptist Church

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

00:06

Well, good morning on this Monday morning. I hope you've had a good weekend, and were able to gather together with God's people yesterday, enjoy the services of the church, and hear from God's Word, be encouraged and challenged by it.

00:21

Speaking of God's Word, if you read the scripture reading portion for today, then the beginning of our reading was a really melancholy passage, wasn't it?

00:33

Deuteronomy chapter 34. Can you imagine what would have gone through Moses's mind in the opening half of that chapter?

00:48

He's been told, you know, you're going to die, so go up to the top of Mount Nebo, Mount Pisgah is the summit of that area, and I'll show you, the

01:01

Lord says, I'll show you the land, and he did. Went up to Pisgah, and it's opposite Jericho on the east side of the

01:09

Jordan River, and Moses is able to look out over the land, survey this land of promise that is being given to the people of Israel, and he can see vast swaths of the land, and yet he's not going to enter into that land.

01:31

The Lord allows him to see it, but he doesn't get to feel it. He can see it, but he can't taste it.

01:40

He can see it, but he can't go there. I suppose from Moses's standpoint, that was about as satisfying as he's going to get, because he knew that he wasn't going to enter into the land, but he at least got to see what the place was like, the destination of the people that he led through that wilderness for the past 40 years, and has now brought them to the brink of entering the land.

02:10

He at least gets to see what the land is like, even though he doesn't get to enter it into himself, so I think it was certainly a melancholy experience for Moses.

02:21

Satisfied on one hand that he got to at least see it, but so disappointed on the other that he wasn't going to enter into that land, and not disappointed in God, but disappointed in himself, because he knew that that this limitation was due to his own sin, his own disobedience, his own failure.

02:46

How many times we've been in that situation, where we were pretty sure, pretty confident, that this limitation that's placed upon me is because of my own sin.

03:01

It's the consequences of my own sin. Well, you could understand how

03:06

Moses would feel in that circumstance, and as the passage continues, the melancholy continues, because Moses dies, and we're told that after his death, that the people of Israel mourned for him for a month, a month after his death.

03:26

I want you to think about that and contrast that with our modern handling of death.

03:34

I don't think we handle it very well, and I'm not excluding myself from that indictment.

03:40

I really don't think we handle it very well. I mean, I think back to my own personal experience in the last few years with the burial of both my parents, and everything was over in a matter of a couple of days.

03:56

I mean, my mom was suffering, and she died of cancer, and we knew for a week that the end was coming, and we sat, held vigil.

04:10

But then, when she finally passed away, it was in the middle of the night, the funeral home came, carried her body away, and it was just a couple of days later, we had the funeral, and went to the graveyard, the cemetery, and then, you know, that was it.

04:32

And we all went home, we all dispersed, we all went home, and it all dealt with the aftermath in our own way.

04:39

A similar situation with my father. You know, he passed away, and a couple days later, we had a graveside service for him, and everybody dispersed and went home, and that was it, just a couple of days.

04:51

A couple of days' time, from the moment of death to the moment that everybody's life gets back to normal.

04:59

And I think we miss something in this lack of really, really mourning for a period of time.

05:12

I don't think we get enough mourning out, and that might bother us for some time to come.

05:19

But the other thing that strikes me about this is what's becoming a more commonplace practice, even among Christians, and that is this, we don't have funeral services, we don't mourn, we have celebrations of life, and, you know, people gather together, and it's almost more of a party, rather than,

05:43

I mean, there's no casket, there's no body, there's no reminder of the reality of death.

05:52

A lot of people, they just have a table set up with a picture of their loved one, and some memorabilia, some pictures, probably, some things that were special to them, and all the rest of that.

06:01

And that's all fine, that's all well and good. I don't have a problem with that, and don't we should have a problem with that,

06:08

I think that's all appropriate. But, but, the whole concept of death is really just kind of brushed aside and squelched, and instead we celebrate the life, we celebrate the life.

06:26

And there's no mourning, there's no mourning, very little, I mean, very little, it becomes more of a party.

06:36

Now, I think if we can have a reasonable celebration of life, if you will, that really focuses on mourning, and reasons to mourn.

06:48

Why should we mourn? This loved one has died, why should we mourn?

06:54

Well, because of the reality of death, because of the consequence of sin in the garden that has brought death upon all mankind.

07:04

We should mourn because we realize that is, that's our own destination, and it will come all too soon.

07:13

That life is so short, it is so brief, and death is so certain, and it is so settled, it is so final.

07:23

There's a lot of reasons to mourn. The loved one whom we committed to the grave will not see them again, not in this life, and yeah,

07:36

I mean, how long will that be before we're all reunited together again in heaven, provided that we're all

07:43

God's children, and by grace, by his grace. There's lots of reasons to mourn, and yet we pass it off so easily and so quickly, and I don't know that that's very healthy, and I see the pattern in scripture to be just the opposite, that there is plenty of opportunity, plenty of time to mourn over those who have passed away.

08:04

Well, sorry for the melancholy, on a Monday of all things, right? Well, I hope it isn't raining today.

08:10

I hope it doesn't rain today as well. Well, nonetheless, I hope this gives us some food for thought, and help us really think through, you know, how do we, how do we, how effectively really do we mourn our

08:24

Father and our God? Well, we can be grateful that to be absent from the body is to be present with the

08:31

Lord, and that's certainly something to rejoice and to be glad over. I pray, Father, that we would not in that joy lose sight of the reasons to mourn when a loved one is taken in death.

08:43

So, Father, help us to think these things through and to reflect well on the impact of sin and the death that it brings.

08:54

We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. All right, well, have a good rest of your