The Young Man Buried in the Wrong Place — Major Ian Thomas

Moses Buried Outside the Promised Land

Focus my remarks this morning about the story of a man who died too young and who was buried in the wrong place. A man who died too young and who was buried in the wrong place. In the first verse, the 34th chapter of the book of Deuteronomy, Moses went up from the plains of Moab, unto the mount of Bebo, to the top of Pisgah that is over against Jericho.

And the Lord showed him all the land of Gilead, unto Dan, and all of Naphtali, the land of Ephraim, and Manasseh, and all the land of Judah, unto the utmost sea. And south from the plains of the valley of Jericho, the city of Palm trees, unto Zola.

And the Lord said unto him, This is the land which I swear unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, saying, I will give it unto thy seed. I have caused thee to see it with thine eyes, but thou shalt not go over thither.

So Moses the servant of the Lord died there, in the land of Moab, according to the word of the Lord. And he buried him in a valley in the land of Moab, over against Ben-Phil. But no man knoweth of his settlement unto this day.

And Moses was a hundred and twenty years old when he died. His eye was not dimmed, nor his natural force abated. There were no physical grounds for his death. There were no reasons then why he should have passed away.

He died too young, and he was buried in an unknown tomb in the wrong place. Now I want to make it quite clear from the start that I bear Moses no ill will. He's a very good friend of mine. And I honor him, and I know that, humanly speaking, placed side by side, I wouldn't stand up to his bootstraps.

And I'm thankful to God that he's chosen just such a man as this to illustrate so vividly vital spiritual principles. As though God looked around for the best that human virtue can produce, in order that he might underline what he wanted to teach us.

For Moses was a giant. In scholasticity, in terms of human personality, in sheer integrity, in genuine humility. All the attributes of a perfect gentleman, a great leader, a great statesman, a great lawgiver.

Infinitely patient. And yet it was just such a man as this who died too young, and who was buried in the wrong place. Who died a disappointed man. It has been my privilege in numerous places and on numerous occasions to minister to those who minister.

Pastors and evangelists, Christian workers, those who train for their ministry. There's one thing that saddens my heart more than another. It is the all too prevalent sense of futility that exists within the hearts of earnest, brave, honest, hard-working Christian men.

If I were simply to occupy the next hour or two as, alas, well I might. To tell you what I have been told by men and women engaged in Christian work on the mission field, in the pastoral, in youth organisations.

Of that inward sense of balance, dryness, sense of futility and impotence that plagued them. Unsung, unspoken, undeclared, unsuspected very often by those to whom they ministered. And yet, burdening their souls.

It would be a very depressing thing that we would enjoy together. And yet, alas, it's all too true. One can't help but admire such men and women who out of a doggy sense of duty, out of a sheer sense of dedication, of responsibility, bravely persist in the task to which they believe that God has called them.

And yet without ever genuinely discovering the true source of their resources. After the death of Moses, we read in the first verse of the book of Joshua. The servant of the Lord. It came to pass that the Lord spake unto Joshua, the son of Nun, Moses' minister, saying, Moses, my servant, is dead.

Now, therefore, arise, go over this Jordan, thou and all this people, unto the land which I do give to them, even to the children of Israel. I wonder if it's ever structured to speak of the verse. Moses, my servant, is dead.

That was a categorical statement of fact. Moses, my servant, is dead. These are the facts being marshaled. Moses, my servant, is dead. Now, therefore, based on the facts thus marshaled, in view of the circumstances of which we are now acutely aware, Moses, my servant, is dead.

Now, therefore, for this good reason, he's dead. Therefore, go over this Jordan, unto the land which I do give to them, even to the children of Israel. We use the word therefore as the logical conclusion of an argument.

I arrived at the station ten minutes after the train was due to go. Therefore. That was the logical conclusion of the argument. I looked through the window and I saw the hat that I thought would just suit me.

Thirteen pounds and ten shillings. Therefore I went to Woolworths instead. Far more reasonable. The logical conclusion of the argument. God says to Josh, well, Moses, my servant, is dead. Therefore. Go into the land and possess it.

The logical conclusion of the argument. Well, that's at once startling. Almost shocking. Immediately there arises within our hearts, do you mean to say that God's people couldn't get into Canaan until Moses was dead?

That Moses himself was the last final obstacle that had to be overcome before God could bring his redeemed people out of Egypt into the land for which they had been redeemed out of Egypt? Was he really genuinely the last obstacle that had to be overcome?

That appears to be the sense of the record. Moses, my servant, is dead. Now there's nothing to stand between my people and their onward march in to enjoy that for which I've brought them out. I believe this is the lesson that God is trying to teach many of us these days.

Christian Activity Without Spiritual Reality

I have found in many areas a change of air, a change of wind, a change of tide. Within the hearts of many who are earnestly engaged in Christian work, there's a feeling that somehow we've missed the point.

That there's been a tremendous emphasis upon promotion, activity, multiplicity of machinery. That we've organized ourselves to the tenth degree until we've almost organized God out of the picture. We've sent him on vacation.

We've mobilized our resources, we've mobilized our money, we've mobilized our personnel, we've mobilized our scholarship, we've mobilized our personalities. We've mobilized all the reputations of all the people we could find that we could vest in the ultimate purposes of God.

And yet, deep down in our hearts, there's a pathetic sense of vacuum. There had been a pathetic sense of vacuum for forty years in the wilderness. Nature forced vacuum. He brought them out, but he didn't bring them in.

He got stuck halfway. For you see, Moses was a man, wonderful as he was, with only half a message. He succeeded in accomplishing only half a job. Men with half a message, however noble, however earnest, however genuine, however sincere.

Men with only half a message. I shall be recalling very familiar words in the next few moments. In the fourth chapter of the book of Exodus, God's commission to his servant Moses. Verse seven of chapter three.

Exodus chapter three, verse seven. The Lord said, I have surely seen the affliction of my people, which are in Egypt, and have heard their cry by reason of their task must. 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, a large, unto a land flowing with milk and honey unto the place of the king.

That's my purpose. I'm going to bring them out that I may bring them in. Now this is familiar language to us. And I know that all of us are sufficiently instructed to know that Canaan in God's economy never represents heaven.

We have to turn to our hymns books but not to our Bibles to get that kind of theology. Canaan is Christ. In the third chapter of the epistle to the Hebrews, the writer warns those whom he describes in the first verse of that chapter as holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling.

He warns them, lest there be in them also as holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, as in his own heart, an evil heart of unbelief. For he said, we are to be made partakers of Christ, partakers of Christ.

Now, as they should have been partakers of Canaan, then they missed it. He says, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, don't you miss it? You have been redeemed through the death of Christ that you may partake of the life of Christ.

That to lead men, women, boys and girls to a dead Christ as the one who died historically, that they might be redeemed from the curse and consequence, the punitive consequence of sin. Without leading them to the risen Christ, that by his indwelling as a person, power and fullness of the Holy Ghost, they might enter into the true spiritual content of their faith.

Is to introduce them only to a life of frustration, even though one day they may get to heaven. Nothing but a wilderness to look in between. And Moses missed it. God said, verse 14 of Exodus 3, I am that I am.

He said, thou shalt say unto the children of Israel, I am, and sent me unto the eternal God, that knows the ends and the beginnings. Go gather, verse 16, the elders of Israel together and say unto them, the Lord God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, of Isaac and of Jacob, appear unto me, saying, I have surely visited you.

And seeing that which is done to you in Egypt, I have said, I will bring you up out of the affliction of Egypt, into the land of the cave. That's my express purpose, a land flowing with milk and honey.

I'll bring them up, he'll bring them in. Now we know that it was beneath the shadow and the shed blood of the spotless lamb, that they came out of Egypt, the Passover lamb. And thus they escaped the wrath of God as it was inflicted upon the Egyptians.

When the angels of the Lord saw the blood of Passover, they came out. They could hardly be described as a particularly willing people. For we're told in the 10th verse of the 10th of the 14th chapter of Exodus, when Pharaoh Drunai, the children of Israel, lifted up their eyes and behold the Egyptians marched out.

They were sore afraid and the children of Israel cried out unto the Lord. And they said to 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?

Is not this the word that we did tell thee in Egypt, saying let us alone that we may serve the Egyptians? For it had been better for us to serve the Egyptians than that we should die in the wilderness.

They could hardly be described as a people bursting with enthusiasm to be redeemed. Bursting with enthusiasm to be brought out of Egypt. We may say well Moses never got them in because they weren't willing to go in.

But he got them out and they weren't willing to get out. He taught them at this stage in his ministry the appropriation of faith. And I believe that this is precisely the point at which we have fallen down in our ministry these days.

Faith That Appropriates Redemption

The ministry of appropriation. A kind of faith that takes and says thank you and enjoys what grace provides. What no man deserves when every man has the right to have. Because God said it. Moses said to the people.

Fear ye not. Stand still. See the salvation of the Lord which he will show you today. For the Egyptians whom you have seen today ye shall see them no more forever. The Lord shall heighten you and ye shall hold your peace.

Ah that was good sound doctrine. The faith that appropriates. He says stand still. See the salvation of your God. He's going to deliver you. He's going to lead you in. The Lord will. That was a good evangelistic address.

The adequacy of the Christ who died for us. Shed his blood. Redeems us. And we say to the guilty convicted sinner. Still fearful. Still trembling. Still uncertain. Still indecisive. We say stand still and see the salvation of your God.

Commit yourselves. And let God intervene on your behalf. Demonstrate his deity. By faith release the redemptive action of a God who is adequate. It's a good evangelistic sermon. And Moses was good at that.

He got them out. The message was compelling. He taught them how to take what God gives. And they were redeemed. Verse 30 of that 14th chapter of Exodus. Thus the Lord saved Israel that day under the hand of the Egyptians.

And Israel saw the Egyptians dead upon the seashore. And Israel saw that great work which the Lord did upon the Egyptians. And the people feared the Lord and believed the Lord and his servant Moses. They believed the Lord.

They believed his servant Moses. They came out believing people. To live for 40 years as unbelieving believers. And our churches are packed today with unbelieving believers. Who have enough belief to get them out.

But don't have enough belief to get them in. Who have appropriated by faith the atoning adequacy of his death. But have never once began to walk in the adequacy. The all sufficiency. The all overwhelming plenitude of his resurrection life.

And do you know why? They've never been taught. In good, sound, conservative evangelical churches. Don't be angry with them. They've never been taught. It's interesting that Moses didn't believe in Cain.

He did. He preached about Cain for 40 years until they were sick and tired of the sound of it. The only thing he didn't do was take him. The only thing he didn't do was teach them how to get him. And we can preach in our ministry for year after year.

Year in, year out. About consecration, dedication, holy lives. Fullness of the spirit. And do everything except tell people how. Until they're sick and tired of the words of consecration. It sickens them.

By and large, the average Christian is afraid of holiness. The language doesn't mean anything. He's heard it so often preached. But he's never been told how. And those who have taught him all about it.

He's seen so little of it. That after the seal of God's presence which he gave them in the daily manner. I'm sure most of you will recognize. It doesn't represent our daily Bible reading. It makes a good illustration.

But it isn't a very accurate exegesis. For one thing, when they got to the land of Cain. They didn't have manna anymore. So when you really get into victory. You don't need to read your Bible anymore.

Amen. In the wilderness was the demonstration that God gave in his divine presence. Even in the midst of the rebellious people whom he had redeemed. The witness of the Holy Ghost. To your spirit and mine.

Even in the hour of disobedience that he's there. That rebuke. The Holy Ghost within the heart. That is the very hallmark of our sonship. Without which we are baptized. And not children at all. For if you will remember.

The 11th chapter of Numbers tells us. That the taste of manna. Was the taste of coriander seed. Sweet oil. Oil in the Bible always speaks of the Holy Spirit. And the taste of manna. Man rule. What is it?

Something I've never tasted before. This is a unique experience. Of course it's a unique experience for a redeemed sinner to be regenerate. To receive the Holy Ghost. By whom Jesus Christ takes up residence.

Within the redeemed humanity of a forgiven sinner. Of course it's a unique experience. It is I've never tasted this before. It's the witness of God's spirit for the first time to the human spirit. You're redeemed.

You're a child of God. God is in the midst of you. And they had it for 40 years. The witness that God never forsook them. Never left. Haggai reminds them of the fact that God's spirit never left. Even in the day when half-drunk and half-naked.

Worshipping a golden calf. And Moses came down and smashed the tables of stone. That had been written by the finger of God. That very morning. They looked out. Testifying to the fact that God was still in the midst.

What a source of comfort to men like Caleb and Joshua. I feel certainly in their hearts they must have cried. God you must have forsaken us. You'll never look at us again. You'll cut us off forever. And they looked out in the soreness of God's spirit.

What a source of aggravation to those who would gladly somehow have been severed from their responsibilities to God. Who were so double-dyed in their disobedience even as a redeemed people. So egocentric.

So self-willed. That somehow they would look out and say I wish God would leave us alone. And there was the man. And God said I won't. For you are mine. And the water from the smitten rock. Behold I will stand before thee there upon the rock in Boreth.

And thou shalt smite the rock and there shall come water out of it. This was as the children of Israel journeyed from the wilderness of sin. S-I-N. And Moses went up on the very threshold of their new found life.

And he smote the rock. And from the smitten rock there flowed the water which to them in the desert spelled life. Which rock Paul tells us in the tenth of 1 Corinthians was Christ smitten rock. The Lord Jesus whom he crucified.

That's where the journey begins. It doesn't begin anywhere else. Christian life only begins beneath the shadow of that cross. Redeemed in the blood of Christ. Reconciled to God by his death. But is that all?

Is there a full stop right there and then when we've finished? Is that the gospel? Thank God it isn't. Unfortunately it is all too often the gospel that's preached. Christ died for your sins. Trust him and you'll be redeemed.

And one day you'll get to heaven and you'll never go to hell. God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. That whosoever believeth in him should not perish full starving. Oh I forgot to tell you, you'll have everlasting life.

One day when you get there. Is that the gospel? No, no. God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. That whosoever believeth in him should not perish common. Reconciled to God by the death of his son.

Not one day when you get there. Right now here on earth. But that you might have everlasting life. My life. For that's what everlasting life is. This is the record that God has given to his eternal life.

And this life is in his son. He could have the son when? One day? No, now. Life. Everlasting life. He that is not the son of God has not life. He's still spiritually destitute. Empty of God. Empty of his divine content.

Uninhabited by the God who made him. But the whole purpose of God so loving the world. Sending his only begotten son that men might believe on him. Was not just that they should not perish. But they might have experientially.

Every day in the present tense. In the today of their experience. Everlasting life. Which is none other than Jesus Christ himself. Presenting himself in the power and victory and fullness of his resurrection.

The one in whom all the fullness of the Godhead voluntarily dwells. In whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Who of God is made unworthy. Righteousness, wisdom, sanctification and redemption.

That we might experientially walk in the good of it. On earth. On our way to heaven. That's the gospel. The blood of Christ was shed not to get us to heaven. Or save us from hell. The blood of Christ was shed.

That it might be possible for a holy God. Without doing violence to his own righteousness. To restore to us that which sin in Adam's fall forfeited for us. The divine consciousness. The presence of the living God.

In the midst. Christ in me now. And with some melancholy. In his last will and testament that is recorded for us in the book of Deuteronomy. The last will and testament of a man about to die too young.

About to be buried in the wrong place. He reminds us. Chapter 1 of Deuteronomy. These be the words which Moses spake unto all Israel. On this side Jordan. Where? On this side Jordan. Which side? The wrong side.

In the wilderness. Forty years. After. By teaching them the appropriation of faith. He brought an unwilling people out of Egypt. Forty years later. On this side Jordan. In the wilderness. In the plain over against the Red Sea where they began.

Verse 2. There are eleven days journey from Horeb. Where the rock was smitten. Jesus Christ and him crucified. By the way of Mount Seir and Kadesh Barnea. The land to be possessed. Kadesh Barnea was the frontier of Cain.

It was from Kadesh Barnea that the twelve spies went on and in. Eleven days. How long did it take? Forty years. If I was still in England I'd say that's almost as bad as British Railways. Forty years into an eleven days journey.

God's will. What it is worth. It's described in the 14th of Numbers as being God's breach of promise. God's breach of promise. Sounds a strange expression. Verse 34 of Numbers 14 says. After the number of the days in which you search the land.

Even forty days. Each day for a year. Should you bear your iniquities. That's why you'll be in the wilderness. Even forty years and you shall know my breach of promise. Perhaps it's an unfortunate translation in the margin.

If you happen to have a marginal translation. You'll see the altering of my purpose. The altering of my purpose. Forty years in the wilderness was the altering of God's purpose. Never his purpose but his people should be forty years in the wilderness.

Were they bored? I'd say they were bored. Wouldn't you be? After forty years of eating manna for breakfast, lunch, tea and supper. Can't imagine anything more boring than that. Unchanging diet. Whose fault?

Was it God's fault? Well it was God's purpose. They should live for forty years in the wilderness. It was certainly God's fault. But it wasn't. Because the manna was never designed to satisfy. It was designed only to sustain them.

Until they got into the place where God would satisfy them. You see God never satisfies you in the wilderness when he's laid the table and came. That's why you read this apparent paradox in the eighth chapter of the book of Deuteronomy.

Verse three. He humbled thee and he suffered thee to hunger and fed thee with manna. Now God doesn't usually let folk hunger when he feeds them. He says he will fill the hungry souls with manna. And yet we're told that God fed them and let them hunger.

Why? Because God refused to satisfy them in the wilderness. He says I never brought you out of Egypt to be satisfied in the wilderness. I brought you out of Egypt to be satisfied in Cain. I'll keep you alive, but I won't satisfy you.

And the average Christian is just about kept alive, that's all. I don't say this unkindly. This is a problem, men and women, that we face today. That there are countless Christians who use all the bubbly language in their testimonies, but deep down in their hearts they are not satisfied.

Re-indoctrination and the Full Gospel

That's the problem. We've taught them to use superlatives. As Captain Reginald Wallace used to say, taught cream and lids to cats that skim milk. And we've got accustomed. We've taught folk that way. We've given them entertainment instead of teaching.

We've taught them the language, the dogmas, the clichés. Without indoctrination. One thing that the Church of Jesus Christ needs more than another today is re-indoctrination. The Communists aren't anything like so stupid as we are.

They don't teach them language, they don't know the meaning. From their earliest days they indoctrinate until every Communist knows what he believes and believes what he knows and can give an intelligent reason for what he professes.

There's one thing that the Church of Jesus Christ needs more than another today, it's re-indoctrination. The Communists aren't anything like so stupid as we are. They don't teach them language, they don't know the meaning.

From their earliest days they indoctrinate until every Communist knows what he believes and believes what he knows and can give an intelligent reason for what he professes. We don't bother with our young Christians as long as they can sing I'm H-A-P-P-Y, that's all that matters.

We need to re-indoctrinate. The challenge, the charge that was laid against John and Peter and the other apostles when they were imprisoned in the 5th of Acts was this. You have filled the city with your doctrine.

Can we honestly say that under the average evangelistic ministry we fill a city with doctrine? In Deuteronomy 1, verse 6, The Lord our God spake unto us in Horeb, God had something to say to us in the day when we went up into the mountain and smote it and the water flowed from the smitten rock.

God had something to say to us. What do you think he said? Spend the rest of your days here on the mountain where the rock was smitten, build a tent for yourselves, build a cabinet, and worship the smitten rock.

Is that what God said? The Lord our God spake unto us in Horeb, saying, You have dwelt. How long? You have dwelt. And go! Verse 8, Behold, I have set the land before you. Go in and possess the land which the Lord sware unto your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, to give unto them and to their seed after them.

Moses says, 40 years ago when we came to the rock and the rock was smitten and the water flowed, God said, Fine, you come to the place where the rock being smitten gives water to those who are in danger of death.

But now you have stayed here long enough. Go on and go in. Don't misunderstand me. I know that without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness. The Christian life can't begin anywhere else than at Calvary where Jesus Christ has made sin for you and for me.

But do you know, in our reaction against the liberal theologians of past decades who repudiated the atoning death of Jesus Christ, we have preached the blood of Christ and the death of Christ until we have almost forgotten that He rose again from the dead.

In repudiation of the liberal theologians who told us that Jesus Christ simply came to be a beautiful and a wonderful man who lived a life on earth which was to be the object of our emulation, we preached against good works until people almost have a guilty conscience for doing anything kind or nice in case they should be thought of trying to earn their way to heaven by being good.

And that's why I laugh so often in the evangelical church as a tragic latter. Sheer courtesy. The normal is that anybody should suspect that we were trying to earn our way to heaven. God said, you've got to go to the mount where the rock is smitten.

But that isn't the place where you went camp. From there you go up and from there you go in. Numbers chapter 20. Numbers 20. From the day when Moses went up into the mountains and smote the rock, came the children of Israel, even the whole congregation of the desert of Zin.

That isn't a myth. In the first age since Horeb, it was the desert of Sin, S-I-N. In this instance it was the desert of Zin, Z-I-N. Two different geographical locations in the same desert. In 38 years that's all that Moses accomplished.

He moved them from one geographical location of the same desert into another geographical location of the same desert. After 38 years ministry, he turned an S into a Z. And both of them are made from a crooked I.

I don't think that was inspired. But it's interesting. Because all that you and I will ever do is we leave folk only to a dead Christ and never lead them to the place where they see that when the Lord Jesus died there was added to his sinlessness our sinfulness.

That what we are was taken to the place of death and buried to be left there. He gives himself to Christ. It is not to give themselves their talents, their gifts, their personality, what they are, their scholarship.

It isn't to give themselves to Jesus Christ, to dedicate what they are to God. As though God ought to be profoundly thankful that he's got such new talent on his side. That when a boy or a girl or a man or a woman is led to give themselves to Jesus Christ they should be led clearly to understand that they give themselves to him that he may take them to the only place for which they are fit.

The place of execution. In God's eternal economy to be identified with God's dear son. Their sinfulness, their inbred wickedness, their perverted flesh, that all sin nature that was born of Adam might be nailed to his cross, placed in the hole that was dug for it 1900 years ago and buried.

But having given ourselves to Jesus Christ to be buried he the one who came up out of the place of death might give himself to us in the part of his resurrection. That we might exceeding great and precious promises might become partakers of the divine nature.

So that I may say and know that it is true not just as a sentimental idea that I hang over the bed to me to live is Christ of the gospel. To me to live is Christ. This is what God underlines to Moses.

He says I'm not the God of the past tense, I'm not the God of the future tense, I am I have sent you, the God of the present tense, the eternal present. Not just Ebenezer, hitherto half the Lord helped us, not even just Maranatha, one day the Lord is coming.

But El Shaddai, El Shaddai I am now enough to him that I may take and identify with him into the place of death that he may give himself to me in all the fullness and power and victory and adequacy of his resurrection.

For I don't need a boar or a girl to see that the Lord Jesus is the one who not only died for what he did but rose again to live in him to take the place of what he is. I only lead him to a life of frustration.

Before he's redeemed he doesn't have any motivation. All he has is the carnal nature, the flesh. He's redeemed. If he has no more added to him than the knowledge and that his sins are forgiven, he has now received the motivation, the sense of gratitude, the sense of duty, the sense of obligation, the sense of vocation.

He has the motivation but if I don't give him to see that God has given to him what he didn't have before, with the new motivation all he can do is mobilize what he had before he was redeemed, the flesh, and try to re-educate it in God's service, dedicate what he is in all his bankruptcy to the service of God.

There are countless men and women on the mission field today who in ignorance of the true issues who've never been faced with the divine principle are in default of any better understanding dedicated to the service of God, what they are trying to salvage out of a fallen nature because nobody's ever told them.

Clearly, in a way that they can understand that what they are by nature was sentenced by God to death and executed in the person of another 1 ,900 years ago. And that there is only one person who under God has the legitimate right to live his life in the redeemed humanity of a forgiven sinner and that's Jesus Christ.

And he is the only one in whom and from whom God the Father has any expectation of blessing whatever and that every step I take other than in an attitude of total dependence upon what he is in me is sin for whatsoever is not of faith.

Moses Strikes the Rock Instead of Trusting the Risen Christ

The radical location of the desert to another redeemed people. And the people, verse 3 of Numbers 20, chose with Moses and spake, saying, Would God with, die when our brethren died before the Lord. This is a little address of appreciation being given by this congregation after 40 years.

He's just about to die. After all, they ought to express how grateful they have been. Why have you brought up the congregation of the Lord into this wilderness that we and our cattle should die there?

Wherefore have you made us to come up out of Egypt to bring us into this evil place? It's no place of seed or of figs or of vines or of pomegranates. Neither is there any water to drink. We're sick and tired of your sermons about figs and pomegranates and oil and honey and swaying golden corn in Canaan.

We've heard that sermon for 40 years and the only thing you didn't do was get us there. You've brought us to this evil place. That's all you've done in your 40 years of ministry. They sound happy, don't they?

I think they must have given him an illuminated address in the grandfather park. Or maybe they were just about as thankful when he died as they are now. Take the rod and gather thou the assembly together thou and Aaron thy brother and do up the rock before their eyes and it shall give forth his water the risen living rock the one who rose again from the dead ascended to be with the father to share with him the glory that he had with the father before ever the world was the lamb upon the throne from which we're told in the last chapter of the book of the revelation that flows the river of life the river of life that is to flow out of your innermost being and mine with healing to the nations for the Lord Jesus declared before he died and before he was risen in John 7, 38 and 39 he that believeth on me out of his innermost being shall flow rivers of living water.

This faith even the Holy Spirit whom they that believe on him should receive for the Holy Ghost was not yet given because Jesus was not yet not yet given because he was not yet glorified. It is the glorified risen in the throne Lord who gives the water of life.