MOUNTAINS IN MOSES’ HISTORY
G. A. Brown
I have just been thinking, beloved brethren, of the way that mountains come into Moses’ history. This is the last one, of course, but there were many. I suppose we would all agree that a mountain is a landmark. Just as we take physical journeys, so we have to take a spiritual journey, and just as these mountains that we can see around us indicate to us where we are going and where we have been, so I think our spiritual life is not to be featureless. It should have these landmarks, these features, about it. It is easy to drop into a mere routine of meeting-going (and, of course, there is much to be said for consistency in being together), but spiritually, I think, the Lord would look to us to have certain experiences which can be named—not that you necessarily have to name them to others, but in your own soul you would know what they were. I suppose we all remember our conversion, and I think many of us would be able to say we can remember when we received the Spirit. Many things enter into our lives that have this character.
Moses was born in Egypt, a land which is not noted for mountains or the rain they produce, in fact, I suppose, the reverse is true because it is irrigated from its river. The land of God’s purpose is “a land of water-brooks, of springs, and of deep waters, that gush forth in the valleys and hills” (Deuteronomy 8: 7) and “out of whose mountains thou wilt dig copper” (verse 9). The land is full of these great features, and I believe the Lord would have us to acquaint ourselves with them.
Moses really received his first touch of, shall we say, mountain experience when he got out of Egypt. He came, it says, “to the mountain of God—to Horeb”, Exodus 3: 1. No doubt God had been dealing with Moses before, but this was a tremendous experience in his life because here he was arrested by the great sight which he saw. He was arrested, and I would like to raise a challenge with every one of us, younger persons particularly. When I say young I mean young persons in their teens and twenties. Have we really been arrested by a divine intervention in our lives? It is one thing to know your sins forgiven and to come to the meetings and to go on consistently; that is very commendable; but I sometimes feel, and I say it of myself as much as of any, how easy it is to slip into a commonplace routine which really can be quite featureless.
It was a “great sight” that Moses saw; he was sufficiently interested to turn aside, and it changed the course of his life. You cannot help but think of Mr. Darby’s words when he spoke of the call. It was not the first time he had heard the Lord’s voice, but he says—‘Yes! then ‘twas faith—Thy word—but now Thyself my soul draw’st nigh’.
It was a call that came from ‘th’unseen world’ and it changed his life, not taking him exactly from the ways of folly and sin in this world—that had already happened—but it was a great happening in his life that committed him to serving God and His people. May we, beloved, every one of us, both younger and older, have something of this kind of experience at the mountain of God, at Horeb. Moses saw that great sight, and what an impression he received!
He learned there the wonderful fact that God was prepared to be in the midst of His people, even in conditions such as we are in at the present time. There is much about us that relates to the thorn-bush, but God is prepared to be there and we are not consumed. Is that not wonderful?
At another time in one of Moses’ mountain experiences it says, “And they saw the God of Israel ... And on the nobles of the children of Israel he laid not his hand: they saw God, and ate and drank”, Exodus 24: 9–11. How wonderful that we can be in relationship with God and He is not going to consume us in judgment! No doubt Moses would learn as his history proceeded and he had to instruct the people as to the paschal lamb why it was that God could be thus amongst His people—because blood had been shed. The blood of Christ has been shed, and God is prepared to go on with us in spite of all our perversity. God goes on with us and we are not consumed. How wonderful! Moses learned that lesson at Horeb. He also
learned there the value of a brother. He met Aaron his brother, you remember, on the mountain of God and kissed him (Exodus 4: 27).
Then there was another time when Moses went up the hill, when Amalek fought with Israel in Rephidim. Moses is seen there as a supplicator (Exodus 17: 8–12). It is true that he was not able to maintain it, but still the battle was won; the fight against Amalek was won through this feature of supplication in Moses as supported by Aaron and Hur. These are things that we are to learn, and when learned in this way they become great landmarks in our soul history which we shall never forget.
There is also Sinai. You might say that is the same as Horeb, but it is not exactly the same.
As far as I understand from the teaching, Horeb is a wider thought. It refers geographically to the range of mountains of which Sinai is the principal one, and Sinai we connect with the giving of the law. Much happened in Moses’ experience on that mountain. What comes out of it is this—that man after the flesh cannot please God. There is no way it can be done.
Moses rises here to a great type of Christ, but I am thinking of him more at the moment as a man who has committed himself to serving God and serving His people. He has to do with God at this great mountain, and we know well what happened when he came down with the tables in his hand—they were shattered, showing that man can never please God in this way.
On the principle of law, man is incapable of pleasing God. What a lesson that is for us to learn, beloved. May it be rooted in our souls, something that, once founded, we shall never go back on or make the same mistake again, to attempt to please God on the principle of law. If that were possible then flesh would be able to glory, to boast in His presence, and God says it is not to be.
But when Moses came down the second time, with the tables in his hand, things were different. I love that passage in Deuteronomy 10 where Moses tells us of his experience then, and he says that he made an ark of wood and into that ark he put the tables of stone. The first time Moses came down with the stone tables there was nowhere to put them; there were no hands capable of taking them and holding them. The whole camp was engaged in idolatry.
Failure was everywhere. What a lesson that is to learn! But then the glory of the new covenant is that there are hands, the hands of Christ, into which God has committed everything. I think it would be true to say that Christ was enshrined, typically at least, in Moses’ heart. Think of him putting these stone tables into the ark which his own hands had made. There is no word of Bezaleel in that setting. He says, “the ark which I had made”— he made it. God told him to make it, an ark of wood. That is to say, in the holy, precious manhood of Christ there were hands capable of sustaining everything for God. So Moses comes down and little wonder that the skin of his face shone! Typically, no doubt, it is the glory of the new covenant—that is to say, that God is going to be with His people now on another principle, depending not on us, but founded upon the worth and worthiness of Christ alone.
Well, Moses is found at the end of his days on another mountain, mount Pisgah, and what a sight he saw—he saw the whole land inhabited. He saw, “the whole land, Gilead to Dan, and all Naphtali, and the land of Ephraim, and Manasseh, and all the land of Judah, unto the hindmost sea, and the south …”, Deuteronomy 34: 2. What a sight it must have been for the eyes of a man whose life had been devoted
to serving God and His people and to getting these people from Egypt to the land. He saw it, though he did not set foot in it. He saw it full of people. What a sight, beloved! Let us find out what it is to view God’s people like this! It is not imagination. You might say there was nobody but Canaanites there, but he saw it, Gilead to Dan. How rich are these suggestions: Ephraim, and Manasseh, double fruitfulness, toil forgotten, and then Judah—the praise of God established. Think of the hindmost sea! I believe his heart would fill and expand, perhaps an evangelical touch this, suggesting the glad tidings going out to the nations. What a view it was! Beloved, we can get these things if we are prepared to climb. They are not obtained easily, but once obtained they remain founded in the soul, as it says in another place, “Unto the bounds of the everlasting hills”, Genesis 49: 26. These things, built into the soul of the believer, are immovable, everlasting.
Now you might have said, ‘Well, that is the last mountain that Moses will see’; but it was not. There is another, and he appears in this wonderful setting in the New Testament. This is not the only reference to it of course. Peter himself gives us a remarkable account of it when he speaks about “the holy mountain” and “the excellent glory”, 2 Peter 1: 17, 18. What an environment to be in! Here is Moses again—this is, I think, the consummation.
‘The heart is satisfied, can ask no more’
Here is this man of God, and he is with Christ.
I read the account in Matthew rather than the others because of the reference to the face of Jesus. Moses, in the context of one of his previous mountain experiences, desired to see Jehovah’s glory, and Jehovah said, “Thou canst not see my face; for Man shall not see me and live”, Exodus 33: 20. He hid him in the cleft of the rock, you will remember, and His glory passed by. Here it says that “He was transfigured before them. And his face shone as the sun”. It is “the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ”, 2 Corinthians 4: 6. Is there anything more wonderful to contemplate?
But it is possible, because Peter, a man like ourselves, with his failures, says, “This voice we heard”. Peter was there and others were there in that place with Christ. I believe that we can touch something of it on the occasion that we have every Lord’s day morning. These occasions ought to remain with us and dominate the week as we go through it. In one sense every week is a journey. Let us see that it is studded with these mountain peaks of experience with God, as we move from glory to glory!
Word in meeting for ministry, Edinburgh
1 November 1977