Live To be Missed!

Most of us are too busy to take a walk around a cemetery but it can be worth the experience!

Here are a number of rather grave inscriptions…

English Cemetery:
Sir John Strange
Here lies an honest lawyer,
and that is strange.

or
Georgia Cemetery:
‘I told you l was sick!’

or
Nova Scotia Cemetery:
Here lies
Ezekiel Aikle
age 102
‘Only the good die young.’

The last chapter of Moses’ life in the book of Deuteronomy tells us many things about him, principally that he was a Godly man.

“Then Moses climbed Mount Nebo from the plains of Moab to the top of Pisgah, across from Jericho. There the LORD showed him the whole land….” Deuteronomy 34:1

Firstly - here was Moses nearly a century and two decades old and he is climbing a mile high mountain ‘his eyes were not dim, nor his strength gone’, he’d kept in great shape right to the end of his life - a challenge to us all! Some people l know have got old before they are old! One of our members ninety years young, in a nursing home, keeps a computer next to her bed!!

Secondly - when he gets to the top of the mountain God gets him to take an around the compass look at the promise land – Moses must have thought WOW! As Christians we must recognise that death for the Christian opens up a fantastic view of more than just a piece of prime real estate!

“However, as it is written: "No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him" but God has revealed it to us by his Spirit...” 1 Corinthians 2:9-10

“Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you.” John 14:1-2

Many people struggle with the idea of life beyond death, but l always think that if you could ask a baby in its mothers womb if it could believe in ‘life after the womb’ it might, from that warm and safe vantage point, also struggle to believe in another form of life! Yet Jesus' kind and hopeful word to Lazarus’ sister gives us strength.

Jesus said to her, "Your brother will rise again." Martha answered, "I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day." Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?" John 11: 23-25

Thirdly - you notice as Moses viewed the promise land he wasn’t alone. His Lord was with him. As that rugged shepherd of God’s flock stumbled his way up his last mountain he wasn’t alone God was with him and in a unique way he was to realise the comforting truth that another leader of this self same people was to pen,

Psalm 23: 1
The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not be in want...
Even though I walk
through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil,
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
they comfort me.

Fourthly – Moses, this great leader, would be missed! Sometimes you could wonder if the complaining people of Israel could have ever loved him – but this final chapter tells us that the people ‘... grieved for him... for thirty days.’

“Since then, no prophet has risen in Israel like Moses, whom the LORD knew face to face, who did all those miraculous signs and wonders the LORD sent him to do in Egypt -to Pharaoh and to all his officials and to his whole land. For no one has ever shown the mighty power or performed the awesome deeds that Moses did in the sight of all Israel.” Deuteronomy 34: 10-12

His impact had been colossal. We are told that here was a man of God, in the service of God, who didn’t simply retire or fizzle out. He was on fire right to the end.
His epitaph would take care of itself!