The Last Mountain

The Last Mountain

Did you ever wish that leaders were held accountable? Today it seems so many leaders in every field of human endeavor politics, business, sports and even religious leaders get away with their offences and sometimes end up pretty well off. Is there some day of reckoning for them?

Do we also try to get away with things we know we should pay a penalty for? Do we seem to want to eat our cake and have it too? We tend to want more than one can handle or deserve, or to try to have two incompatible things. We want forgiveness but still want to sin a little.

I want to continue to look at the Mountains and Valleys of life that so many people of the bible had come to know. These mountains and valleys represent for us some of the same conflicts and conquests that we encounter in our lives today.

We hope to learn from these people and apply it to our lives.

Last Sunday we looked at Abraham and Isaac and the “Summit of Sacrifice” on Mount Moriah which we also learned was part of Golgotha where Jesus sacrificed himself for us. It is an important mountain that has great spiritual significance for us in our own time.

We discovered that God wants us to look at His word as our promise rather than to looking at any physical sign or representation of that promise.

Abraham may have looked upon his son Isaac as the promise but in reality God’s word is what Abraham needed to focus on.

God drove home the point by challenging Abraham to sacrifice that which he felt was most precious to him, Isaac the son of laughter.

The place of testing and sacrifice for Abraham and Isaac became known as “God will provide” which translated is Moriha. Today we see the Moslem temple “The Dome of the Rock” sitting on the site.

God tested Abraham’s obedience and Abraham passed the test.

In the Old Testament living under the law was a hard way to please God. In fact it was the only way that then existed. The law was almost as hard as the rocks that made the mountains. The law could and would crush you by its weight or cut you by its sharp edges. You would think that the person who first received those same laws would have realized these facts.

Moving forward we come to Moses and Mount Nebo. Here we have a man that God has refined through trial and affliction through divine protection and who was pursued by enemies and lived in the wild untamed elements of the desert wilderness. With all these hard lessons and through all these difficult challenges of life he would not enjoy the satisfaction of touching the very thing he had worked for all his life, the “promised land”.

In Abraham, God would choose a promised people. In Moses God would provide for this people a promised land. Step by step and generation by generation God works out His great plan to redeem mankind.

For those of us who need a little refresher as to why Moses was denied entry into the “promised land” we need to refer to his great error. It was a simple thing that held great consequences.

Numbers 20 NIV

Water From the Rock

1 In the first month the whole Israelite community arrived at the Desert of Zin, and they stayed at Kadesh. There Miriam died and was buried.

2 Now there was no water for the community, and the people gathered in opposition to Moses and Aaron. 3 They quarreled with Moses and said, "If only we had died when our brothers fell dead before the LORD! 4 Why did you bring the LORD’s community into this desert, that we and our livestock should die here? 5 Why did you bring us up out of Egypt to this terrible place? It has no grain or figs, grapevines or pomegranates. And there is no water to drink!"

6 Moses and Aaron went from the assembly to the entrance to the Tent of Meeting and fell facedown, and the glory of the LORD appeared to them. 7 The LORD said to Moses, 8 "Take the staff, and you and your brother Aaron gather the assembly together. Speak to that rock before their eyes and it will pour out its water. You will bring water out of the rock for the community so they and their livestock can drink."

9 So Moses took the staff from the LORD’s presence, just as he commanded him. 10 He and Aaron gathered the assembly together in front of the rock and Moses said to them, "Listen, you rebels, must we bring you water out of this rock?" 11 Then Moses raised his arm and struck the rock twice with his staff. Water gushed out, and the community and their livestock drank.