It can be too easy to read our Bibles without carefully contemplating what we are actually reading. Take, for instance, the statement in Deuteronomy 34:7 which reads: “And Moses was an hundred and twenty years old when he died: his eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated.”
Imagine with me that today’s headline read, “MOSES DEAD AT 120.” That would mean that Moses was born in 1891! Before there were airplanes, cars, and computers Moses was born. He would have seen World War I and been old enough to serve. At the end of the Korean War he could have retired! And yet when God does end his life, he is not an old, crippled, nearly blind man; he is strong and healthy.
Perhaps we also forget the generations that had passed on during the time that Moses was alive. In my family tree it was my great great grandparents who were alive and well in the 1890’s. My great grandmothers on my mother’s side were both born in that decade. The generations of Moses’ time may have been a little longer, but there can be little doubt that easily three generations of Israelites were born and died from the year that Moses was born in Egypt until he passed away on the mountains of Moab across the Jordan River from the Promised Land. Wow!
And what happened to those generations, most of them died because of their unbelief and hardness of heart (Hebrews 3:7-12). How many of them were led by Moses, the servant of God, out of Egypt we cannot say. But literally millions of them left Egypt. It is recorded that there were 603,550 men above the age of 20 years old when a census was taken early in the book of Numbers not including the Levites. Less than forty years later all but two of those men had died. Assuming that these men died over a forty year period a little math shows that over 41 men died each day. Again, we are only guessing but if there were a similar number of women more than 80 people would have died and required burial each day that the Israelites wandered in the desert. Imagine, a trail of graves stretching through the desert marking the path the Israelites had taken. If they stayed in any place for a month, almost 2500 graves would mark their time! This was a constant reminder of their unbelief. The weight of all these people dying clearly weighed on them according to Numbers 17:12-13.
Moses had a front row seat to observe their gradual passing away. Among all the adults that Moses led out of Egypt, only Caleb and Joshua remained to watch the still strong Moses climb the hills of Moab to catch a glimpse of the Promised Land. All of his friends, all of the leaders of the tribes, the young men just starting their families, strong men when they came out of Egypt—all of them had died.
I have often wondered if there were not a few now older men among the Israelites as they approached Canaan. Because of their hardness of hearts and unbelief, whole generations—at least two generations—had been lost and now lay buried in the sands of the desert. But what if there were a few left, a handful of older men and women who had been adults and seen the crossing of the Red Sea. They remembered growing up in Egypt, perhaps even marrying and starting families there. They were above the age of twenty when God condemned an entire people to die in the wilderness for their unbelief.
Imagine with me a few of those men and women now in the mid-60’s. Perhaps they are strong and healthy. Remember their weakness: a heart of unbelief that is unafraid to challenge God’s promises (Psalm 78:17-19). These people may have been tempted to doubt God’s promise of death. Perhaps they even reached the plains of Moab and then outlasted Moses. They wondered if God had forgotten them. Perhaps a few even boasted that they had been in the mob that had refused to go into Canaan after the ten spies’ evil report.
Maybe they even smugly remarked to others, “We survived the plague of Kibroth-hattaavah. We watched Korah and his rebellious co-conspirators swallowed alive by the earth. We saw the snakes, we survived Balaam’s attempts to curse us, we avoided the plague at Shittim. We are the survivors of God’s wrath.”
But they would not enter the Promised Land. They too died before the Israelites crossed the Jordan. Entire generations of people died between the time that they exited Egypt and entered the Land of Promise.
Have you ever stopped to consider that it was Moses who presided over this company of death?
Let’s step away from all we know of God’s faithfulness and the history of the Israelites and consider Moses’ ministry.
Moses is born at a very unpromising time in Israel’s history. The Israelites are very fragmented in Egypt. Each tribe continues to consider itself separate from the others. Yes, they share a common ancestor in Jacob also called Israel; but for many they identify more as the tribe of Reuben or the tribe of Dan than they identify as Israelites (see Numbers 17).
This disunity exists despite their minority status in the land of Goshen. They are such a minority that the dominant ethnic group feels confident that they can keep the Israelites under control by killing the males that are born. And so a law is passed allowing Egyptians to kill male Israelites with impunity. It is not merely lawful to kill the males, it is a command that Egyptians kill the male babies. It is not clear how well this law was kept. After all, the Pharaoh’s own daughter defied his law; but nothing in recent history comes close to the genocidal attitude of the Egyptians towards the Israelites except the Holocaust of Europe in the previous century. These people were not only oppressed and ground down, their sons were slaughtered like unwanted animals.
It would not be surprising to learn that the Egyptians planned to forcibly take female Israelites into their own households and mix the blood of God’s people with heathen blood (Exodus 12:38; Leviticus 24:10). The end result of this two-pronged approach to the “Israelite problem” would have been the extinction of Israel as a separate people.
It was into this time of oppression, bondage, and hatred that Moses was born. The Israelites were crying out to God for deliverance (Exodus 3:7). Moses’ mother Jochebed (Exodus 6:20) was a woman of faith (Hebrews 11:23) and hid her son for three months. After three months of hiding her son and fearing for his safety she made an ark and hid him in the reeds along the river’s edge.
God gave her son back to her in an amazing way. The Pharaoh’s daughter found the basket with the child inside. She recognizes immediately that it is a Hebrew child, and yet she does not kill him. Instead she decides to take him into her own household as her son. Along comes Moses’ sister to offer a nurse. Soon Pharaoh’s daughter is giving Moses back to Jochebed to nurse. His mother used those few years she had with her son to inculcate in him that he was not an Egyptian but an Israelite; she taught him that despite their minority they are God’s chosen people.
Many of us have not been in a society where we are the inferior ethnic group and therefore cannot imagine the miracle that occurred. Moses grew up in the Pharaoh’s palace, among the elite, but considered himself (at least secretly) to be one of the inferior ethnic group for decades because he had faith in God (Hebrews 11:24-26). Never underestimate the influence of a godly mother in a young person’s life.
Forty years pass (compare Acts 7:30 with Deuteronomy 34:7), Moses has grown up in the palace, he is a learned and wise man of full age (Acts 7:22). He still considers himself to be an Israelite; and what is more, he has come to believe that God will use him to deliver his own people (Acts 7:25). After centuries of misery, misrule, and murder, Moses is confident that he will be the one to set his people, God’s people, the chosen people, free. Again, it is hard for us who have lived all our lives in an egalitarian society to have any idea what this would mean to Moses. Was his mother still alive? Could she be one whom Moses dreamed of leading out of Egypt? To finally be able to quit pretending that he was a son of Pharaoh’s daughter, to release his people from slavery, to free them from the fear of ethnic cleansing and forced assimilation, to live with his father and mother in the land of promise—this is what freedom meant for Moses.
One day, probably while traveling in his official capacity as son of Pharaoh’s daughter, he finally snapped. He observed an Egyptian mercilessly beating a Hebrew. To all the Hebrews such a beating was the way of life: the Hebrews were inferior and the Egyptians were their masters. Egyptians expected that Hebrews would need to be put in their place by physical cruelty. But Moses had seen enough, and in his anger he killed the Egyptian and buried the body.
He expected that the Hebrews would understand that he was to be their deliverer (Acts 7:25). Perhaps now they would rise up with him as their leader and throw off the bondage that had been their lot for centuries. They could escape the thralldom of Egypt and begin a new life in the land that God had promised to their forefathers. They could be free men.
But the next day when Moses tried to reconcile two Hebrews, one of them accused him of killing the Egyptian. The news was out—or was it? It did not matter to Moses. What hurt Moses more than the accusation of murder was that the two Hebrews did not view Moses as their natural leader. He had thought that they would choose him to be their chief and follow him out of the land of Egypt. Instead they still saw him as a foreigner—part of the Egyptian court.
Fearing Pharaoh’s wrath and realizing for the first time that the Israelites did not desire his leadership, he left the country determined never to return.
How do we know that Moses left never planning to return? There are three evidences. First, he married a non-Hebrew wife. It is true that the record points to her either being a worshipper of the true God or a convert to the worship of the true God. But she was not a Hebrew. Moses did not have plans to return to the Hebrews of Egypt and therefore married a worshipper of the true God who was not an Israelite.
Moses did not bother to circumcise his sons when they were born (Ex. 4:25). This is the most obvious evidence that Moses was not planning to return. Circumcision was a sign of God’s covenant relationship with the descendants of Abraham (Gen. 17:10) By neglecting to circumcise his sons, Moses was denying that covenant relationship with God (Gen. 17:14). It was not until Moses was on his way to Egypt and God met him on the road that his wife took a sharp stone and circumcised their son.
It would appear likely that Moses’ wife Zipporah was opposed to the rite of circumcision (Ex. 4:26). That may be the reason that Moses would give for not circumcising his sons. However, that is not the way that God viewed it. God saw Moses’ neglect to circumcise his sons as direct disobedience and a denial of the covenant. Knowing God’s character it seems probable that God had been dealing with Moses on this particular sin. When Moses refused to heed God’s warning and was traveling to be God’s representative, God confronted Moses. Knowing Moses and Zipporah would only make the obedient choice if forced to do so, God even threatened Moses’ life.
Even then, Moses failed to emphasize the importance of the rite of circumcision to the Israelites; for after the Israelites crossed the Jordan the men all required circumcision. The Israelites while in Egypt had observed God’s law, but they had failed to observe this very important symbol of their covenant relationship during their time in the wilderness. Whatever the reason, God required that the men of Israel all be circumcised before their began the conquest of the Promised Land. Failure of duty among leaders is often copied among followers.
There remains yet another reason to suspect that Moses never intended to return to Egypt. When God told Moses to return to Egypt Moses sought for every excuse to remain in Midian. If Moses had always intended to return to Egypt, one would expect that he would be eager to accept God’s plan. Instead Moses argued to the point of angering God and offered many excuses for not returning to Egypt. How odd for a man who once saw himself as the deliverer of God’s people to now argue that he was not the man that God needed? How strange it must have seemed to God to hear a man “learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians” and “mighty in words” (Acts 7:22) to claim that he could not speak?
This is very much the human response: we see ourselves as having certain gifts and bearing certain responsibilities. But when God takes those away those responsibilities and puts us in circumstances that diminish our gifts, we often experience a sense of failure and inadequacy. God intends for our failure and inadequacy to turn us to Himself. Instead we use those feelings as a reason to resist doing His will in the future.
God finally overcomes Moses’ refusals. Notice that though God could force our obedience He often chooses to reason with us (Isa. 1:18). He is patient. He offers Moses hope and help. He blesses Moses with the encouragement that His presence is promised, by revealing His name to Moses who is looking for reasons to disbelieve, and by granting the tools that he will need to stand convincingly before Pharaoh.
Despite all this, Moses claims that he cannot talk eloquently. This same Moses was raised in Pharaoh’s court and was “mighty in words” (Acts 7:22). Here is a man absolutely determined to resist returning to Egypt. His failure to deliver Israel on his own terms and the Israelites’ refusal to recognize his leadership still bothered him after forty years. A man raised in Pharaoh’s court as a prince now engaged in the lowliest of occupations (Gen. 46:34) and more than willing to decline God’s request to return to Egypt and lead out His people. Moses would have been happy to have God choose someone else.
Yet this is the man that God picks to be the chosen deliverer. This shows us that more than anything God needs men who are meek and humble (Num. 12:3). God could have left Moses and appointed Aaron or various other leaders from among the Hebrews. But God had designed Moses from the beginning for this job. For forty years, Moses had studied in Egypt as a son of Pharaoh. He knew their culture, he knew their pride, he knew their greatness, and yet he still chose to identify with the people of God.
After forty years of studying in Egypt, Moses believed that he was prepared. He was ready to rise up and lead the Israelites out. But God was not through preparing him. Before Moses could be a vessel that God could use he had to be humbled. Moses had to shed his sense that he was ordained to this job and therefore God must use him, the Israelites must follow him. He had to spend forty years in the wilderness as a shepherd, the lowest of jobs. He had to see himself as useless before God could use him. Even during those forty years of chasing sheep in the wilderness God was preparing him because God knew that Moses would be traveling over those same areas guiding God’s people to the Promised Land (Ex. 3:12). Another lesson to be learned: when we believe that God needs us we are not in much of a position to truly serve. But when we believe God no longer needs us, then He is ready to use us.
At this point in our story, Moses is finally the instrument ready to be used. He has his forty years of training in Egypt and his forty years of training in the desert. His brother Aaron has come to support him, and his son is finally circumcised. Do you think that Moses suspected that it would be another forty years in the desert before the Hebrews would see the Promised Land?
This brings us back to Israel’s history. They have been promised a land of their own. They have the bones of Joseph with them as an example of faith in God’s promise (Ex. 13:19). They have the leader that God has spent eighty years preparing. He knows the wilderness, he knows the Egyptians, he knows God (Ex. 3:13-15).
(As a complete aside, carrying out the bones of Joseph in Moses’ time would be similar chronologically to someone leaving the United States today with the bones of Richard Mather. Mr. Mather immigrated from England to the continent of America in 1635 and died before George Washington was even born!)
Moses and the Israelites expected a quick trip into the promised land (Nu. 16:14). It was a journey of only a couple of days for caravans. The first hint that this might not be a normal journey was when God chose to send them not along the quickest trade route but into the wilderness. God had a purpose in all this—we know that now; but imagine being an Israelite. They plan to go directly from the fleshpots of Egypt to the milk and honey of Canaan. Instead, they soon find themselves wandering through a wilderness, and their supplies of food and water are rapidly dwindling.
God often brings us difficult circumstances to reveal to us our character and its deficiencies. Those same situations give us an opportunity to work on those imperfections if we wish to please the Lord. You would think after the amazing miracles that the Israelites saw at the crossing of the Red Sea, at the waters of Marah, in the provision of manna, at Rephidim and the defeat of the Amalekites—you would think that the Israelites are learning to trust God, to turn to Him in their distress, and to expect that His hand will provide all their needs. But they do not.
At every turn, with every new trial, the Israelites complain and act as if God has abandoned them. They reach the point after the return of the twelve spies where they decide to choose new leaders and to return to the slavery of Egypt. Such as decision was utter folly disguised as the Israelites taking care of themselves.
This illustrates the depth of the Israelites’ rebellion against God. God is about to judge them for their attitude of complete defiance. It is not that the Israelites do not wish to enter the Promised Land; they do desire to enter the land of milk and honey. However, they do not want to exhibit the faith and exert the effort required to conquer Canaan.
Notice the distinction: as long as the Israelites thought that possessing the land would be an easy task, they had been willing to consider it. When the twelve spies came back with a report of the land’s difficulties the Israelites could have viewed them as obstacles or opportunities. Rather than see the difficulties of conquering the land as another opportunity for God to show His mighty power the Israelites feared for the lives of their wives and children (Nu. 14:3). They blatantly disregarded Joshua and Caleb’s exhortation to courage (Nu. 14:6-10).
Obedience when one is asked to do what one likes to do is not incovenient. If I enjoy preaching the Gospel in a large auditorium to an eager audience then it does not take an effort of the will to preach. But if God calls me to go into a third world village where the people are in bondage and darkness. If He calls me to go there to preach the Gospel, then it will require an effort of the will to obey. It is that effort of the will in obedience that strengthens our resolve to follow God and His plan wherever He leads. And it is the faith that we exhibit as we obediently seek God’s promises without concrete evidence that we will ever see those promises that pleases Him (Heb. 11:6).
Obedience and faith—that is what God required of the Israelites. He did not immediately take them to Canaan because He knew that they were not yet ready to face war (Ex. 13:17). Instead He led them along a path that would see the parting of the Red Sea, the provision of water and food, and the power of God in battle against the Amalekites. The purpose of these trials was to create a people who would by faith obey God.
But rather than learn obedience and faith, the Israelites squandered each opportunity in complaining and insubordination. The end result was that they lacked the faith to be obedient when the spies came back with a discouraging report of the people and defenses of Canaan. The spies themselves were leaders of the tribes (Nu. 13:3). Their attitude toward God’s land of promise was a reflection of the attitude prevalent among the Israelites. Moses could have picked any twelve men from among the twelve tribes of Israel and never found a majority who were prepared to charge into Canaan.
It was this lack of faith evidenced by their rebellion against God’s command to go into the land that God judged so severely. In effect God said, “If you all are not willing to go into the land, then you will die in the wilderness,” referring to the men over the age of twenty who were making decisions for themselves and their families. In their place their children would go into God’s promised land. The place where they accused God of leading their children to be slaughtered would be the very place where God would take those same children and give them the victory!
But in the process, several generations of the Israelite nation would be lost. Only those younger than twenty at the time of rebellion would be allowed in. Their fathers and mothers would all die before they had an opportunity to cross the Jordan. Their grandfathers and grandmothers would also be dead before their descendants set foot into the waters of the Jordan River. Even their great-grandfathers and great-grandmothers were also under this judgment.
However, the children—they would grow up in the desert seeing the hand of God daily providing manna, faithfully leading through a pillar of His presence, and often providing water. Some would be born in the desert. They would never know the fleshpots of Egypt, they would never see the hand of oppression, they would watch people dying and ask, “Why are people constantly dying?” Both the children born in Egypt and those born in the wilderness would observe their parents stubborn and disobedient spirit and would note the awful consequences. They would grow up in a different world than their parents and would be prepared to obey God by faith no matter what the circumstances. They were not perfect (Josh. 9:14) and neglected to emphasize to their descendants the works of the Lord. One consequence was that those amazing miracles were too quickly forgotten (Jud. 2:10). They themselves, though, had an incredible life.
The lost generations, the ones who could have lived in the land by faith and obedience—those are the ones that are often forgotten. It is no different in ministry. We watch these young Christians struggle and fail. Though they have at their disposal the ability to obey God and follow His will, to often they balk at His path and seek an easier way. Yes, there are Joshuas who say, “As for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.” There are Calebs who say, “Give me this mountain.” However, too many of them, a majority of them, stumble at the promises of God.
However, their children have an opportunity that these adults do not have: they grow up seeing the goodness of God and the consequences of sin. The clearly see the futility of fickle living and the fruit of faithful obedience. Their eyes are not on the fleshpots of Egypt but on the milk and honey of promise. Where their parents failed, they may succeed. Where their parents balked, they may walk. Where their parents were defeated, they may triumph.
This process started with small victories. The parents had been defeated by the Canaanites of the south because of their disobedience. Through the help of God the children conquered in the same place (Nu. 14:45; 21:1-3). The previous generations had developed no faith from observing God’s power in their hopeless situations, the next generation remembered God’s power. Purged of the faithlessness and obstinacy of the previous generations, a new Israelite nation conquered all who stood against them.
Let’s consider Moses one more time. He stands on Mount Abiram looking into the Promised Land. God gives him incredible eyesight to see the land of milk and honey. He thinks back over his long life: his first forty years in Egypt so sure that he would live with true mother in a land of freedom, his second forty years in the desert raising sheep so sure that he would never be used by God, and his final forty years in the wilderness leading a stubborn and rebellious people around in circles. Do you think he wondered why he could not enter the Promised Land? Moses brought the children of Israel to the very gates of the promise but could not enter those same gates.
So for all of you who are working with those who are seemingly the lost generations: don’t give up! You may not see many victories, you may watch a significant number of people fail, you may not reach the Promised Land, you may experience long years of seemingly wasted effort. But if you are on God’s side, don’t see all that time and energy and love as wasted resources. “For God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labour of love, which ye have shewed toward his name, in that ye have ministered to the saints, and do minister.” So says God in Hebrews 6:10. “And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.” We just don’t know when that “due season” will come.
The life story of Adoniram Judson is one of sacrifice. His son describes his labors this way, “The sacrifices of my father’s life were more fruitful than his labors. If you succeed without sacrifice, someone has sacrificed before you. If you sacrifice without success, someone will succeed after you.”
