It is easy to pass from that great day of deliverance to great days in our spiritual experience that ought not to be forgotten. Here is the value of the observance of days in the Christian year. And there is one great act of love and mercy those of us who are free in spirit ought never to forget and an act of worship that ought not to be omitted.
“THIS DO IN REMEMBRANCE OF ME”
Thus said Jesus on the eve of His death. And he broke bread and gave it to the disciples. Then He went out and on the cross gave His life for the sins of men. I am not now thinking of any theory of the atonement, or of any special way of observing the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. I am only saying that there was an expression of Divine love, a Divine act of deliverance that ought not to be forgotten. And I know how soon and how eagerly we forget. Though I am little of an ecclesiastic and nothing of a ritualist, I am sure that we cannot, as Christians, afford to forget that “Jesus Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures.” I need the reminder there is in the Communion Service that “He loves me, and gave Himself for me.” To remember the day is to be sure of His love and to acknowledge our debt.
Now to come to more personal experience, all of us who are Christians in any real sense have behind us a day, a special signal, which stands out above all other days. It is the day which, in a simple song, we hail as the “happy day when Jesus washed my sins away.” The day when one greater than Moses led us out of a bondage greater than that of Egypt. The day when we were “translated out of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of God’s love.” Some of us can fix the date on the calendar, others cannot. But if we cannot fix a precise date, we are sure of the personal experience. Though we cannot put our hand on the moment we are in no doubt of the fact. The power and love of the Lord broke the power of canceled sin and set us free, our chains fell off, our hearts were free, and we went forth and followed our Lord.
Perhaps there are people who speak too much of the past and have too much in it. Maybe we get a bit tired of hearing those who are continually telling us of their confessions. I am convinced that many of us are on the other side. We allow time to blur what used to be so distinct and to trivialize what used to be so precious. We ought always to remember and sometimes to tell what the Lord hath done for our souls. It would remind and assure us of God’s wonderful love, it would recall the glow of our faith and renew our love. We are all inclined to forget and as we grow older the danger is of our losing our heart—our heart for loving and serving. Remember the day you came out of Egypt and you will set your face with a fresh zeal to the promised land.
12. This is a translation from a German hymn, “Nun Danket Alle Gott,” by Martin Rinkart, written in 1636.
“MOUNT PISGAH—THE HILL OF VISION”—Deuteronomy 34.1–4
(Preached at Bishop Street 3/7/1948)
Deuteronomy 34.1–4 “And Moses went up from the plains of Moab unto the mountain of Nebo to the top of Pisgah . . . and the LORD shewed unto him all the land . . . and the LORD said unto him . . . I have caused thee to see it with thine eyes, but thou shalt not go over thither.”
There are some pictures which, once seen, are never forgotten. By their beauty or awfulness they lay hold of the imagination and forever retain their place in the memory. You can recall, here and there, great pictures from the Bible Gallery. David waiting for tidings of his rebellious but loved son Absalom. Daniel kneeling at his open window. Judas kissing his master in the garden. Paul before Agrippa. Jesus praying in the garden of Gethsemane.
The text set before us is one of the most beautiful pictures in the Old Testament Gallery—Moses on Mount Nebo. He is looking down on the land, not far away, that he has been trying to reach and which his feet are never to tread. The land which for forty years he has looked forward prayerfully to gain and which is not to be his home: the promised land, which for him is never to be the Possessed Land. God made it clear to him that he would not enter it. Moses might have used the poetic lines of one of our poets: “There’s the life lying, and I see all of it, once I’m dying.”13
It is a great picture, and small wonder that poets have made it the theme of their poems and artists have reproduced on canvas the picture of this lonely man viewing the longed for land and knowing that his feet would never cross the river. One would linger over that, wondering what was pouring through the brain behind that face. Was there angry resentment, the feeling that it was not fair that after forty years of traveling and leading, another should cross the Jordan ahead of the people into the land God gave to their fathers? Was he looking back and painfully regretting and repeating the pride and disobedience which had brought about the calamity and thinking the consequences out? Or, was he quietly and calmly accepting God’s will, knowing that it was best, and content that another man was fitted for finalizing the work he had begun? We do not know and it is idle to speculate. What we can do and benefit from is to—
SEE IN THE PICTURE A PARABLE OF LIFE
Even if the reality is not always so dramatic or pathetic, life has many similar pictures. Here and there you find a man whose purposes are accomplished and who is complacent over his achievements. I do not want to be unfair, but often that means that such men sought lesser things to do and their cheap satisfaction is over no great decision completed. Most of us feel that our lives are of an unfinished character. We seldom attain all we strive for. Abraham left home to seek a country and found only a grave in it. David projected a temple he never built. Livingstone died with the source of the Nile undiscovered. “So much to do, so little done,” sighed a great man.
In our own little ways, we are often unfinished and frustrated with our incompleteness. We set our hearts on things that evade us. Our dreams do not become deeds. Our futures are broken off. Sometimes the best is dangled before our eyes, within our grasp, and we reach for it and it changes to the second best or what seems the very worst. We see our promised land and it is shown before us, and then it is as if we are told “thou shalt see it with thine eyes, but thou shalt not enter it.” That is all very pathetic, and very true, but it does not help much. What is there to say in view of these unrealized dreams, frustrated hopes, and incomplete lives?
First of all, that unfinished work and incomplete lives are neither fruitless nor wasted. They seem so to us, but not to God who is working this tapestry. He is weaving our lives into His great design. He cannot accomplish the whole through any one of us. He allocates one for this work and causes that work to be through other hands. You can almost hear Moses saying, “I have come myself and brought my people to the very border of Canaan and now the work of my life comes to naught.” If you are reverent you will hear God say, “You have not failed, you have brought my people in sight of the land. That was your task and it is finished.”
My friends, there is no failure if you have attested and accomplished the work God gave you to do. That life is not wasted which realized what God brought it into the world to do. Then “well done” is over the work that seems unfinished but that is what He asked. And remember this—the work you have done reaches onto the work others will do. Joshua was properly fitted for the work ahead, but he could never have done it but for what Moses had done before him. A little while ago, passing through Darlington, I saw one of the first of Stephenson’s railway engines. It looked a truly little, insignificant thing. But it has made possible the mighty engines that can take us from London to Newcastle in a few hours. Your bit of work, faithfully done, though it seems incomplete, is preparing the way for others who will carry it forward and nearer God’s ideal.
Now let us learn that divine judgment is of the heart. The world judges outward results, giving its flatteries and its favor to men who have succeeded. It thinks of “making good” use in terms of material conquests, it gives no credit for earnest effort that ends in apparent failure. But at God’s judgment bar, the verdict is not given that way. “Man looketh on the outward appearance,