Deuteronomy 34, Wait and See

Deuteronomy chapter 34 here the word of the Lord Then Moses went up from the plains of Moab to Mount Nebo to the top of Pisgah Which is opposite Jericho and the

Lord showed him all the land Gilead as far as Dan all Naphtali the land of Ephraim and Manasseh all the land of Judah as far as the

Western Sea the Negev and the Plain that is the valley of Jericho the city of palm trees as far as Zohar and the

Lord said to him This is the land of which I swore to Abraham to Isaac and to Jacob.

I will give it to your offspring I will let you see it with your eyes, but you shall not go over there 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 the valley of the land of Moab opposite Beth Peor But no one knows the place of his burial to this day

Moses was 120 years old when he died his eye was undimmed and his vigor unabated and the people of Israel wept for Moses in the plains of Moab 30 days then the days of weeping and mourning for Moses were ended and Joshua the son of Nun was full of the spirit of wisdom for Moses had laid his hands on him so the people of Israel obeyed him and did as the

Lord had commanded Moses and There has not arisen a prophet since in Israel like Moses whom the

Lord knew face -to -face None like him for all the signs and wonders that the

Lord sent him to do in the land of Egypt To Pharaoh and to all his servants and to all his land and for all the mighty power and all the great deeds of terror

Did Moses did in the sight of all Israel? May the Lord out his blessings for the reading of his holy word

Well, do you like to wait Probably not. I don't know anyone who likes to wait

The time seems to drag by and if you go to some appointment and you're waiting to be called up or whatever Just time is creeping by and so now we fill our time probably looking at our phone, you know texting or Facebook or doing some game or watch some video, but then we have to wait

For some of that we might have to wait for a video to load Studies show this people will start to get impatient after about two seconds of a video of loading after five seconds 25 percent of people will quit and just cancel it and do something else

If the time doubles to 10 seconds the number of cancellations double to 50 %

That may be because we've all had the experience of waiting on something like a video loading That never came it it said loading and loading for minutes and finally nothing

The website was down or the connection was lost or whatever. I've waited for an appointment and it never came

And I went to the waiting room and sat there. My name was never called I've waited for someone who never came

I've waited and waited worked For some achievement for some recognition that never happened.

I waited for someone to finally start being reasonable that never happened I've waited at that door right there on Sunday mornings for someone to come

Who never did? I've waited for a check in the mail That never appeared

We're told good things come to those who wait But then sometimes we waited and no thing came

The pain of waiting is the fear that we're waiting for nothing Do you hate?

to wait Maybe you're waiting for a wedding or a career to start a graduation

For the government to do something Mike and Nancy have been waiting for years to get their green card

They finally got it just this past week I guess the waiting is finally over you wait for the government to finally do what it's supposed to do

Maybe you wait for someone to come around you wait for some things that is more mundane like test results come back for a repairman to show up You know you call him.

He says gonna get right back to you, but you're waiting nothing seems to happen It's been two months since we twice called a lawnmower repairman that we needed his help

Gave him the details He said he was took it all down So he's gonna get back right back to us and he still hasn't called back

At some point you feel like you have to give up waiting and go on to the next guy once at a restaurant in Danville They they were taking so long to get my order to me pancakes

That I set a deadline if they don't have it ready within 30 minutes of when I ordered

Then I'm leaving and they didn't I gave up waiting When when do you give up waiting?

When do you go from that assurance, you know, just you wait and see it's gonna come When do you go from that to saying?

I'm done waiting Of course, it really depends on who you're waiting on If we're waiting on a lawnmower repair guy or a landscaper who forgot us or a receptionist

Who lost track of our appointment or you're waiting on someone who's just not reliable He said he's gonna do this or that is gonna install cable

TV or repair our car well Your your your patience and waiting is probably pretty short

Or maybe we're waiting someone we trust for the bride or the groom to show up at the wedding How relaxed we are while waiting

Depends mostly on how confident we are in the person. We're waiting on some repairman.

We hardly know You know, we might not be sure that they'll come through And so we might be angry if he or she made us wait the whole afternoon and didn't show up if we're confident in The person we're waiting on but someone says someone else says he or she isn't coming.

Just give up You're gonna be stood up. You're applied. No, I know just you wait and see he'll be here

Wait and see How long are you willing to wait? What if you have to wait for something?

your whole life Now sure you you see parts of it you get a taste of it here and there a vision of glory of joy of fulfillment of perfection a glimpse in The eyes of your heart maybe of God but only enough

To keep you waiting Now sure you get some things now you get a sense you get a confidence a stream of joy a slice of peace and encounter

Deep in your heart or something glorious of the presence of God, but you know It's just a tiny spoonful, you know, like one of those mini spoons.

They give you for a taste taste test at a grocery store It's like that just enough to make you want to go

Wow, I want more for us enough to enable us to wait now sure we get some things now we get promises

We get justifications be made right with God. We get the Holy Spirit The down payment we get enough

Enough confidence that we can say just you wait and see but still for much

We have to wait It's now something's now and Something's not yet.

And for now We have to believe Good things come to those who wait

Here we see waiting in the now For the not yet, we see that in four parts first the site

Second the servant third the succession and finally the summary

First Moses has already given us his last words. He's been told to die. He's been commanded to die at the end of chapter 32

He gives his last blessings in chapter 33. We looked at last week and now This is the end

This is it But it's an odd ending, isn't it particularly of the Pentateuch, isn't it all through the

Pentateuch from Genesis to here there's been this promise you're going to get this land and the offspring and blessing of the nations and They're right on the verge and then you you end here

It's what we've been told all through the book of Deuteronomy that it's coming seven times in this book Moses is told that he will see the land but won't be able to go into it

So it's not a surprise But we know we just know you read this chapter the way it's described the words the feeling

That this isn't really the end This is a this is a waiting room

Moses is dying, but wait and see See that we have some things now while waiting for the rest

Israel has some of the promised land, you know East of the Jordan now must to their surprise by the way

Moses can see the fulfillment of the promises the covenants to Abraham Isaac and Jacob He can see it right across the river.

There it is. And yet he doesn't quite get there and Even if we've never read the Bible before imagine you would have never read the

Bible for you knew nothing about its story you this Is the first time you come to the end Deuteronomy here you would know

You just know yet sure you understand you have to wait for a while Moses has to wait to get the promise to get what they've been waiting on But we'd know wouldn't you even just reading of us for the first time that?

Just you wait and see We might have to wait for now But the fulfillment is coming

We can be confident of that Moses is what he is in what is called in verse 1 the plains of Moab But his territory that they had just recently conquered from the

Moabites and was now theirs Here's a picture by the way this whole thing

So imagine this scene he's in really he's in Israelite territory They take it for the Moabites and this is a picture of the

Christian life We get promised glory But it's not yet.

It's just across the river You can see it, but you think well

You'll just have to wait and see and so you say because you're confident in the one who promises.

Yes Lord I'll wait. I can't wait, but I'll wait and then we find much to our amazement like here

Israel is already in the promised land Sort of they had come up to the

Jordan remember the story the history they come up to the Jordan They were attacked by the Moabites then later by Sihon and Og these kingdoms that were east of the

Jordan River Right, they were attacked by them. They defended themselves The Lord gave them victory over those those kingdoms and so they conquer this land

Then at first they were not planning on taking remember that they had no plans at all in taking this land

They thought they would just pass through and then they were going to cross the Jordan and then they were going to conquer that was their plan but they were attacked on the east side of the

Jordan before they crossed and So they defended themselves and they end up with this land and then they're told you know before this imagine they had thought all their inheritance was east of was west of the river and Then they won all this land east of the river and they're told

This Were you standing? This is already the promised lands part of it. You're already partly in it.

This is a picture of the Christian life Now sure most of us most of it most of the promises

Are not yet. You'll have to wait But then you find to your amazement to your surprise this some is

Already That you're already there. You're already in part in glory.

You're already in part in the future the glories of the future are already partly present

There's already a sense of heaven in your life a joy a love of fulfillment. You don't have to wait for at all

Moses is now in the promise land He's in the maybe call it the now promised land and he wants to see that not yet promised land.

So he climbs Mount Nebo And he's in pretty good shape for an old man, right to be able to climb a mountain 120 years old and he climbs a mountain and there in verse 1 the

Lord showed him Says he the Lord showed him all the land now the Lord has to show him

Notice the way that's put the Lord showed him The Lord has to do that because it's not just a natural view

It's not just a Vista that he could to see naturally with his eyes because he's seeing much further than you could see

Normally naturally, this is a supernaturally aided view like if you've been to some Vista These often sometimes these telescopes and see them in years

But maybe I assume they still have a these telescopes that if you put in a quarter you'll get your vision aided so you can see

Further well here the Lord Supernaturally aided his vision so that he could see the entire land starting due north where he is

What's called Gilead then to the far north? the northern border of Israel, which is

Dan by the way Dan River and so that Danville was named by surveyors from North Carolina marking the far northern boundary of North Carolina and Naming it after the northern boundary of Israel Dan.

That's where Danville gets his name He sees here Moses sees as far as the Mediterranean Sea The the

Negev Desert in the south he gets a sight of the full sight of the promised land He's partly in it already, but to be fully in it.

He's going to have to wait As he's looking at this site the

Lord says in verse 4 This is the land See you can see it you don't have to wait for all this is the land that I swore to Abraham to Isaac and to Jacob I will give it to your offspring

The Lord reminds Moses of the covenant that he made with Israel that they had that they will be given this land

They are on the verge of seeing God fulfill that covenant, you know after over 400 years of waiting

It's right in sight The wait is almost over And here the covenant was made all the way back with Abraham beginning in Genesis 15 now the first 11 chapters think of the big picture of the

Bible the first 11 chapters of Genesis are about the Creation and there's the fall of the sin or the spiraling downward things get worse and worse.

There's the flood judgment There's the Tower of Babel and then immediately after all that Nations disperse immediately

God calls Abraham and promises him land Offspring and to be a blessing to the nations and God makes a covenant with him and he tells him

To cut some animals in half just part of the covenant cutting ceremony in their day in their culture

Which two men two men wanted to make to bind themselves and we'll make a covenant when to bind themselves with an agreement

They would cut some animals in half and then walk between the pieces and say hey what happened to these animals

We're walking through what happened to these animals happen to me if I break this covenant So it's a way of making a contract really more important than the contract like a covenant in Genesis chapter 15

God Does that with Abraham? He tells Abraham to make the covenant release put the pieces together get ready for the covenant cutting ceremony.

But then Now normally both parties would go through the animals as they're covenanting with each other.

But in Genesis 15 God puts Abraham into a strange kind of what's called sleep kind of a quotation marks.

Not really a sleep It's kind of a catatonic state because Abraham can see He knows what's going on But he can't move

And it says they are a flaming torch and a smoking pot symbolizing God they go through the pieces of the animals

But Abraham cannot he can't do it. He can't do his part. He's incapable

He's been immobilized this that shows that the covenant depends entirely on God God is saying

From Genesis 15 may what happened to these animals happen to me? And of course that's impossible, right?

God's not gonna be broke cut in half not gonna die if May what happened to these animals happen to me if I break this covenant, so, you know

You're reading the Bible for the first time you had no idea what it said You would know that whatever happens in the rest of the

Bible God will keep this covenant Well, that's the beginning of the

Pentateuch Genesis now at the very end The Lord reminds

Moses of that covenant the covenant promised this land It's a place for people

God's people To live in to dwell in in peace and safety with God's presence there.

It also promised offspring Many stars of the sky and to be a blessing to the nation's now that Moses sees that God will soon fulfill that land

Part of the covenant he can be assured and we can be assured that he will fulfill it all

That there will be an offspring Who will be a blessing to all kinds of people you can be assured of that.

You can say just you wait and see but for now He has to wait

Well, we're partly in the promised land. Everything is not Not yet We can see the rest of the promised land right across the river and with the

Lord's help we get an overview of it all All of it is beyond our comprehension

We can't see all the details, but we can see the big picture laid out before us We can see it and for attaining it to attain it to have it

Well, we'll have to wait We are right now waiting and seeing

We're waiting and seeing with his servants from verses 5 to 8 We hear of Moses the servant of the

Lord and his death and we see two things about that The servant of the Lord and his death first the

Lord has servants whom were to follow and second they die

Now first the Lord has servants in verse 5 and we might think well we're all servants of God Well, hopefully that's true for us here but here in the

Old Testament that title servant of the Lord is reserved for a few great leaders like Abraham here

Moses next Joshua David and then someone mysteriously called my servant in Isaiah 42 53 behold my servant whom

I uphold my chosen and whom my soul delights My servant

Shall act wisely. He shall be high and lifted up shall be exalted

He was despised and rejected by men a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief

These are the Lord's servants the great men Whom he has made covenants with whom he is used to save his people now this is a debate in history among historians between Kinds of history how to study history it's what one kind called great man history in which history is told is basically the story of One great man after another of great men

Maybe some women who made the difference who decisively changed the course of history, you know people like Caesar Constantine Charlemagne in China Emperor Qin Shi Huang Washington Lincoln Churchill men like that history is the story of one great man after another that at least that's one school of thought

The other is a social history It's like in Marxism in which history is like a clash of of classes

You have the workers versus the property owners the proletariat versus the bourgeoisie and now some are trying to make it a clash of races and the leaders are just shaped by the

Environment of their society that they just kind of represent whatever predominant

Class is in power at the time that is dominant at the time The Bible is definitely

I believe is definitely a great man history But the men are aren't the ones ultimately changing things like in social history

These men these leaders are being carried along By forces outside their control, but it's not by society

It's not by their environment They're being carried along by God Abraham was carried along by God to the land to be given a covenant with God Moses here is

God's great man to lead them out of Egypt without Moses. There's no Exodus, but without God There's no

Moses and with God It's impossible that they're not be a

Moses The same for David and of course that servant of the Lord Isaiah saw who fulfills all the promises to the other great men

The Lord has a servant He will use to save his people in second

They die That's kind of important because our temptation is to put so much of our faith our trust in the great man

But then they die and what happens to our faith when they die The Lord's servants die. That's important to keep in mind in verse 5.

So Because of what just happened because the Lord gave Moses a look at the promised land

He told him that he could see it Moses gets to see it, but he couldn't go into it yet because now that's done

Moses now has had as much of Now as the

Lord will give give him and then After that the only thing left for him to do is wait and he will wait in death so Because of he's he's seen the land

Moses the servant of the Lord. He's the Lord's servant died There on that mountain at that Vista after getting to see that the

Lord will keep his covenant What did he die of Well, you might think well, he's 120 years old.

Obviously he died of old age But verse 7 says that his eye was undamned in his vigor unabated He was a good shape.

In other words, he didn't die of old age He died at the end of verse 5 according to the

Word of the Lord. The Lord told him to die and He obeyed So Moses dies on the mountain after getting to see that God is fulfilling

His covenant and then in verse 6 he it's a Lord buried him

Moses he buried Moses in the valley and the land of Moab opposite Beth Peor But no one knows the place of his burial to this day.

So God himself buries Moses his body and even in death Moses is outside the promised land

He's gonna have to wait How did the Lord bury

Moses This passage doesn't say but Jude verse 9

Jude 9 says something strange Unusual verse the Archangel Michael contending with the devil was disputing with the body of Moses That's that's kind of spurs your imagination.

What in the world is going on there? Apparently Michael the Archangel, maybe I'm reading a little bit into this But it seems to apply at least then

Michael the Archangel was God's agent Dispense just sent by God to bury

Moses his body and yet the devil wanted it So there was a conflict there between Michael and the devil now

We have I think why in the world of the devil what Moses his body? What was the devil want to do with the body of Moses?

What an odd thing just bizarre idea a strange verse in Jude 9 whose point is by the way that we're not to be speaking

To demons we're not to be cursing them to principalities and powers That's not our place because not even

Michael did that but why do you think the devil would want the body of Moses? What you gonna do with it?

Probably to get Israel to do the very thing that the Lord avoided by having him buried in a secret grave

Why did the Lord want Moses buried secretly? Now if you come from a culture of ancestor veneration the answer to that is probably obvious It's just you say yeah, of course

We know why? Moses was such a monumental leader if he had died like most people leaving a body behind They would have built a shrine to it

Some people would have over time made sacrifices to it claimed it had supernatural powers that if you burn incense

At the shrine of Moses grave site you'll get whatever you ask in prayer or something like that a cult would have developed around it

Veneration of the dead is one of the most common instincts in fallen people

Because part of the reason why well people are attached to the one who has died But she is this great man and also no one wants to be the one who who says that respecting

That dead person's grave is meaningless that you're not doing anything the person can't hear you

No one wants to be the one who says that You sound cruel and heartless Like when one of Mary's aunts cajoled her after her grandmother died and she would not join in on the ancestor veneration

Don't you love your grandmother? You know what's wrong with you that you disrespect your dead relative and most people think okay,

I'll go along. What do I have to lose? Now how much more here a great prophet now,

I know someone in Danville who every day is according to his own admission Every day he goes to his mother's grave site.

He keeps it very nicely With lights that illuminated at night. He's turned it into a shrine

He often leaves flowers and he takes a picture of the grave and posted on Facebook with a caption like visiting my family

Now here's someone who is not raising the culture of ancestor veneration where it's normal, but he's doing it

Anyway, if he was in Singapore, he'd be in a temple every day with his jaw sticks bringing some food

And he would be considered very filial here he does it every day does the equivalent and He thinks he's a

Christian if Israel had been left the body of Moses. They would have turned it into It turned his grave into a shrine and become idolatrous because of it

That's how by the way in history. That's how I con veneration and praying to Saints Got into the church that was at least one of the ways it got in the door because it began with relics began with the body of great martyrs

Like polycarp when polycarp is a disciple of John who's the leader of the church in Smyrna when he was martyred

He's burned the stake by a Roman governor in the year 155 the Christians wanted of course to honor him

He was their great leader. He was their great man And so they wanted to honor him by honoring his remains and his remains are called called relics

And so you show their thinking is you show respect for them the man and you respect this man and you deserve respect

You show but the thinking is you show respect for the man by respecting his body. You give it a special burial maybe you speak special visits to it, maybe a particular times like the anniversary of his death and soon one thing leads to another and You have a shrine and a cult that builds around the memory of this great person

To stop that from even starting in Israel The Lord buries

Moses in secret Remember, we always make idols out of good things

Jesus didn't tell us Whoever loves drunkenness more than me is not worthy of me. He didn't say that did he?

He didn't say whoever loves sexual immorality more than me is not worthy of me Now that's true, of course, but we already know that Everybody already knows that it's the good things

The good things were tempted to make idols out of the loving grandmother or the spiritual leader

You know who the one who? Showed us the way of life the celebrity pastor or the mother or spouse or child

It's people like that There were tempted to make idols out of like here Don't even start

You can respect and love the departed like they did here for Moses more and they mourn losing him for 30 days

They have a whole month they go through a process of grieving You you respect the dead particularly those who are deserve respect like Moses, but you don't make shrines to them

Don't burn incense to them. You don't bow to them You don't kiss their pictures as if you're kissing them. You don't do anything like that.

Don't even allow that kind of veneration to start Remember all

God's servants die So don't venerate them except for the one

Who has risen from the dead that last servant? Who turns out to be the

Lord himself As for the others even Moses even the one who led you out of slavery

Even your favorite preacher your relative who shared the gospel with you Don't build shrines even in your heart to them

Wait and see for a succession In verse 9 the baton is passed

To Joshua he succeeds Moses the leader is dead long live the leader God's work is always bigger than the best of his workmen.

So when it's God at work He supplies other workmen to replace the one he took

Here is Joshua Joshua the son of Nun says was full of the spirit of wisdom

Moses himself put his laid his hands on him prayed for him conferred on him his authority

He is now the successor and that spirit of wisdom means he had a heart that went the right way

That feared the Lord and so and so sought to follow the Lord. He'll be the one

Joshua will be at his death as his final words Who will challenge

Israel to decide? No To follow the Lord who to follow is for me in my house.

He says we will serve the Lord that's that spirit of wisdom

He will finish What Moses started? like to for God to complete his coveted his promise he needs both he used anyway both

Moses and Joshua here Moses can't bring the people into the promised land

We need he needed Or he called I should say I guess he could have done any way you wanted to say God needed he called

Joshua to do that to finish what he started. He needs he calls a successor

Moses needed a successor Both Moses and Joshua portray parts of the parts of the ministry of Jesus together

That's the way we are to but none of us is in our entirety The successor to Jesus, right we reach parts of the body here

Moses and Joshua are parts of the ministry of Jesus Moses is here the dying

Jesus He delivers his people out of slavery Slavery to Egypt slavery to sin and He dies in the process

We saw that all God's servants died and that includes that wounded for our transgressions Servant that Isaiah foresaw

Moses here shows us the dying Jesus Who leaves no body behind?

To make a shrine to because we don't worship the dead Joshua to portrays

Jesus Yeshua portrays Yeshua Joshua portrays the risen Jesus who delivers

God's people into their inheritance Got it.

Moses is the dying Jesus delivering his people from sin Joshua is the risen

Jesus delivering his people into salvation into what they've been waiting for What are you waiting for wait and see

Wait and see for the summary verses 10 to 12 are the summary of Moses's life just three verses

Moses entire life 120 years is the great man in Israel is summed up in Three verses at the end of this chapter

It says there's not a reason a prophet like Moses not yet. Anyway the time this is written

Implied in that is that one day there will be one Like what Moses himself described earlier in this book in Deuteronomy chapter 18 verse 15

The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet Moses saying a prophet like me Among you from among you it's to him you shall listen

But for now Deuteronomy says he's not arisen yet.

We're still waiting For now Moses says you have to wait Moses was special in the

Old Testament Now others would hear from God other prophets like Isaiah and Jeremiah They would hear from God and visions and dreams get words, but Moses knew the

Lord says face to face the prophet who's like Moses Here the one they're waiting on would also know the father face to face

Indeed, he would be the only begotten God Other prophets might do occasional miracles like Elijah and Elisha Stopping the rain causing a poor woman to be able to have enough food even with just a little bit of flour

Even raising the dead but most old told Old Testament prophets didn't do signs and wonders Most of them didn't do miracles, you know, maybe a few occasion do a sign here and there but that's about it

Moses did miracles of mighty power. It says great deeds of of terror that is of all that induce odds amazement when you when you see them think of the the hail falling from the sky that The Sun blotted out all the ten plagues are literally the word is blows against Egypt and finally dividing the

Red Sea Causing the it collapse again on the pursuing Egyptian army This is all summarizing

Moses's career his life and this these last three verses is how Deuteronomy summarizes

Moses's life while they wait for another prophet like him our lives

Will be summarized Maybe on a gravestone or an obituary or in a short eulogy at a funeral, but your life will be boiled down to just a few words

I saw one gravestone that said She was a good Baptist. I Think I prefer

Christian now some might have only their their birth and their death dates or maybe that they

Served in the military and their rank in some war or maybe beloved mother or something like that Some obituaries might list all your relatives your church membership

Are for those who aren't members anywhere that they are quote of the Baptist faith Although you have to wonder how much of the

Baptist faith they're in if they're not members, but something like that eulogies are often bland flattery right

But but your life will be reduced To a summary and there will be like for Moses here a divine a true

Summary that lasts beyond all our flattery What would it be?

I'll wait and see If you don't spend your life waiting waiting for the not yet Waiting for what you can't see if you live refusing to wait as if everything is now

Now you must get more money. Now. You must seize every pleasure every scent

Everything is now nothing is worth waiting for Certainly not waiting certainly not waiting your whole life for if that's how you live the summary of your life

Will not be good Not the true summary Moses was

God's servant and he had to wait the way this whole life Now sure he had some promises fulfilled now, but even in death

He's outside the the not yet promised land But waiting is

Not forever Hebrews 3 says that Moses was it was a fateful servant in God's house

Testifying to things that were to come later here in Deuteronomy telling us that there's a another

Prophet like him who is coming that other prophet who is coming he knows

This is the servant in God's house that other prophet will be the Sun over God's house and Moses met that Sun on The Mount of Transfiguration and Luke chapter 9 verse 30 along with Elijah He was finally in Moses was finally in the promised land

Speaking with a prophet like him greater than him and they spoke about it. It literally says there in Luke chapter 9.

They spoke about the Exodus The Exodus which

Jesus the Son was about to accomplish Moses led the Exodus out of slavery

Jesus led the Exodus out of sin and death We don't have to wait for that prophet anymore.

We don't have to wait for that Exodus We can see it. We have to wait for less now

But yet still There are things for which we have to wait We have to wait for our own

Exodus out of death to life now sure. We have part of it already and We can see the rest but still

We must wait for it all But just you wait and see It will come

So now are you waiting for him?