"But stand thou still a while, that I may show thee the Word of God," (1 Samuel 9:27). "Now therefore stand still, that I may reason with you before the Lord of all the righteous acts of the Lord," (1 Samuel 12:7).
"Our Father, we commit our mind to Thee for the thinking, our ears for the listening, our tongue for the speaking, and our pen for the writing. Give us a sermon from heaven and bless every reader and may we completely commit our way to the Lord, trust also in Him that He may bring it to pass.
We dedicate and pray that Thou shall consecrate every word of this message for the glory of Christ and the blessing of the people. Prepare every heart for the reading and let these words fulfill the very purpose of God. In Jesus' Name, Amen." Today, I would like to share with you the last message of the greatest man of the Old Testament.
He was the meekest man on earth, yet he was the greatest leader, the greatest deliverer. He was born to die and yet he lived. He was hidden, haunted, hated, hunted and hungry. He literally lifted millions of Israelites out of a four hundred and thirty year bondage. In Deuteronomy, chapter 32, we have the last message or sermon that this unusual man delivered. He waited forty years in Midian, wandered forty years in the wilderness, and at the age of a hundred and twenty, he walked up a mountain to his own funeral. With God as his Undertaker and Uptaker, he died according to the Word of the Lord and his strength was not abated, neither was his eye dim. Listen to Moses as he gains the attention and arouses the interest of those that have traveled with him under the pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night.
"Give ear, O ye heavens, and I will speak; and hear, O earth, the words of my mouth." He wasn't ashamed for heaven to hear his final message and he knew the people of earth ought to listen to it. "My doctrine shall drop as the rain, my speech shall distil as the dew..." He's going to preach a moist message and a purifying sermon. Before we give the sermon, let me give the six characteristics of Moses that made him such a great man.
First, he refused to be called the Son of Pharoah's daughter.
Second, he chose the afflictions with the people of God rather than the pleasures of sin for a season.
Third, he esteemed the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt.
Fourth, he endured.
Fifth, he saw Him who was invisible.
Sixth, he had respect unto the recompence of the reward.
In this great chapter, he gives a hundred and twenty years of accumulated wisdom and his first statement is, "I will publish the Name of the Lord: ascribe ye greatness unto our God. He is the Rock, His work is perfect: for all his ways are judgment: a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is He." Amen! Think of it, my friend. After all of the experiences of opposition, misunderstanding and criticism, he stood at the end of life's runway to brag on the Rock and had reached the conclusion that He is "just right"! Then he bears the testimony of God's goodness and reminds all of us that we were found in a desert land, in a waste howling wilderness and like an eagle stirring up her nest, fluttering over her young, spreading abroad her wings, we've been taken and have been borne upon the wings of the Saviour.
We've been made to ride in the high places, eat the increase of the fields, suck honey out of the rock, and been in the heavenly oil business. We've eaten homemade butter and drunk the finest milk and pure grape juice. But sad to say, Moses had to remind the people that they had waxed fat and kicked, grown thick, had forsaken the God which made them, and lightly esteemed the Rock. They had become unmindful and even forgotten God who formed them and had lost faith in the Lord. Impossible, you say? After the tremendous experiences of crossing the Red Sea dry-shod, seeing Pharoah's chariots go down, the miraculous provisions of the wilderness for forty years?
And yet, I remind you, we have a repetition of the same thing in America. In 1620, the old Mayflower loaded with Pilgrims sailed a chartless sea and landed in this pioneer country. And on their knees they said, "By the grace of God and for the advancement of the Christian faith, we plant the first colony." The land's been cleared, railroads run, highways crossing the nation, we have airways and airplanes, schools, churches, cities, and thriving businesses with their skyscrapers.
But America has esteemed lightly the Rock of her salvation and has become unmindful of the Rock and forgotten the God who formed her. As we've said before, we're now sitting by the bedside of a dying nation, with all of its liquor traffic, its dope, immorality and homosexuality. Homes are broken, hopes are shattered, she is in the final stages of decay, and God has had to write malignant and terminal on her chart. Even as Moses preached, "To me belongeth vengeance, and recompense; their foot shall slide in due time: for the day of their calamity is at hand, and the things that shall come upon them make haste." (Deuteronomy 32:35).
When Moses finished this farewell sermon, he gave an invitation and said, "Set your hearts unto all the words which I testify among you this day, which ye shall command your children to observe to do, all the words of this law." Deuteronomy 32:46. Oh, at the warnings Moses gave as recorded in Deuteronomy 4:40, "Thou shalt keep therefore his statutes, and His commandments, which I command thee this day, that it may go well with thee, and with thy children after thee, and that thou mayest prolong thy days upon the earth, which the Lord thy God giveth thee, for ever."
"And these words which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes. And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates." (Deuteronomy 6:6-9).
Chapter 12, verse 28, "Observe and hear all these words which I command thee, that it may go well with thee, and with thy children after thee for ever, when thou doest that which is good and right in the sight of the Lord thy God." And now this old gray-haired general says, "For it is not a vain thing for you; because it is your life." Oh my soul, in this day when most Americans go to bed tired and wake up tired, go to sleep on sedatives and wake up on stimulants, when most people just exist and never live - listen to Jesus as He said, "I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly,"
John 10:10, "The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life," John 6:63. "Now ye are clean through the Word which I have spoken unto you." John 15:3. And as the greatest man who ever lived on earth brought his final message, as recorded in John 17:3 He said, "This is life eternal, that they might know Thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou has sent."
And verse 17, "Sanctify them through Thy truth: Thy Word is truth." "But these are written that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have LIFE through His Name." John 20:31, "Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God." Verse 4, "For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith."
1 John 5:1a,4, "He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life." 1 John 5:12, Even as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness and told the children of Israel that had been bitten by the serpent to look and live, and as Isaiah said, "Look unto Me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else;" Even so, there is still life in the look and that look is aimed at Jesus. God told the Hebrews, in Hebrews 12:2, "Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith." If you've never looked, you've never lived. Jesus said, "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." (Matthew 11:28). "It is not a vain thing for you; because it is your life." (Deuteronomy 32:47).
