Sermon Tone Analysis

Our Scripture lesson this morning is from Deuteronomy 3:23-29.

Israel has just defeated the two Transjordan kings, Sihon of Heshbon and Og of Bashan, and now Joshua was ready to lead Israel across the Jordan to conquer the Promised Land.

It is at this point in Moses’ sermon, that he pauses his narrative, and shares with Israel a private prayer he offered up to God.

In sharing his private prayer with Israel, Moses is sharing with us the deepest longings of his heart.

Moses understood what Mount Pisgah meant.

It would not only be the place from which we would see the Promised Land, it would be the place upon which he would die.

If Deuteronomy is Moses’ last will and testament to Israel, this prayer is the last cry of his heart!

In this prayer, we are taken as it were, with Moses to the heights of Mount Pisgah and there we see what he sees; and what do we see?

The first thing we see is the beauty of the Lord.

Seeing the Beauty of the Lord

The opening words of Moses’ prayer reveal the deepest longing of his heart.

It is telling that after seeing God face to face in the Tabernacle, hearing His voice on Mt.

Sinai and witnessing all the great miracles of the Exodus, Moses would say, “you have only begun to show your servant your greatness and your mighty hand”.

It was as if everything he had witnessed up to the point was but an appetizer.

Moses was longing for the “main course”!

The longing to see the beauty of the Lord is expressed by the saints throughout Old Testament.

For example in Psalm 27, we read:

At this point, we need to consider that we stand upon a higher observation point than the Mt.

Pisgah that Moses stood upon.

Our Mt.

Pisgah is the completed revelation of Scripture.

In the New Testament we learn that Jesus is the revelation of the Father’s glory.

John writes:

To see God and His glory is the goal of all Scripture.

It is called by theologians, the Beatific Vision, or “Beautiful Vision” in common English.

In the Beatitudes, Jesus promises that the “pure in heart” will “see God” (Mt.

5:8).

John writes that when Christ appears, “we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:2).

Even now, Paul writes that believers are being transformed into Christ’s image because by the illumination of the Holy Spirit we are “beholding the glory of the Lord” (2 Cor 3:18).

Finally, in the book of Revelation, we find this promise:

Moses included this private prayer that reveals the deepest desire of his heart, to challenge Israel to make beholding the glory of God their greatest desire as well.

More importantly, the Holy Spirit inspired Moses to include this prayer, because this is what God wants from every generations of believers.

Is beholding the glory of God the deepest desire of your heart?

If it is not, it is because of sin; and this brings us to the deepest grief of Moses’ heart—the ugliness of sin.

Seeing the Ugliness of Sin

Moses explains why he was not allowed to enter the Promised Land:

Many have suggested that these are the words of a bitter old man, who is denying his responsibility in the rebellion that took placed at Meribah.

However, upon a closer look at Scripture we see this is not the case at all.

In other places within the Pentateuch, Moses clearly demonstrated that he understood that he was fully responsible for his actions.

So, why does Moses twice say, in Deut 1:37 and in the text before us, that “the Lord was angry with me because of you”?

Here is the reason: The rebellion at Meribah (Numbers 20), would never had happened if it were not for the rebellion at Kadesh-barnea (Numbers 14)!

If the Exodus generation had obeyed God and conquered the Promised Land, they would not have found themselves running out of water at a place called Meribah.

Last Sunday, I said that there is no private sin.

What may appear to us as a private or a very small sin can easily become the proverbial pebble that starts an avalanche!

Consider the rebellion at the Garden of Eden, such a small sin to eat of a forbidden fruit.

(Most of us have eaten a cookie from the cookie jar!) Yet from that one sin has come all other sins; including the greatest of all sins, the crucifixion of God own Son!

As Moses stood upon the summit of Mt.

Pisgah, I can imagine him taking a deep sigh as his mind went back to that day in the desert of Zin, at a place called Meribah.

There in his anger at Israel’s rebellion, Moses forgot that the Lord stood before the Rock (Ex 17:6), and rather than speaking to it as he was commanded, he stuck it twice; and thus dishonoring God before the whole congregation.

Sin has the power to make us betray our greatest desire.

Moses’ greatest desire was to see the glory of God, but in a fit of anger he dishonored God and hid God’s glory from the people.

This morning, do you see the ugliness of sin?

If you do, do not despair, it is at this point God speaks:

There upon the heights of Mount Pisgah, we see the hope of salvation.

Seeing the Hope of Salivation

What a comfort it must have been for Moses to see the land and to see Joshua.

We imagine our hopes and desires die with us, but not so if those hopes and dreams are in God’s promises.

Sin prevented Moses from reaching his full potential in his lifetime.

Sin has done the same thing to all of us.

Scripture says that sin did the same in Joshua’s life as well.

In the book of Hebrews we read these words:

Joshua led Israel into the Promised Land, but he did not lead them into God’s Promised Rest.

The promise of rest, or Sabbath, is the most important promise of the Bible.

It is not just a promise of having one day in seven in which you do not labor, it is the promise of eternally resting in the presence and blessing of God.

It brings us back to that great desire that Moses had to behold the beauty of the Lord.

Many modern readers are puzzled by why God gets so upset about violations of the Fourth Commandment.

We tend to view the Sabbath in term of a calendar, when in fact we should view it in terms of a person.

That person being God!

The Old Covenant Sabbath Day pointed to something greater than itself—it pointed points to our eternal Sabbath with God.

Joshua’s name means “savior” in Hebrew.

The translation of Joshua into Greek, the language the New Testament is written in, is Jesus!

The angel said this to Joseph:

Those ugly sins!

Those sins that keep Moses out of the Promised Land and that keep all of us out of God’s Promised Rest.

Those sins, Jesus saves us from!

This is why Jesus cries out to all of us, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Mt 11:28).

This morning, we have climbed to the heights of Mt.

Pisgah.

We have seen:

The Beauty of the Lord

The Ugliness of Sin

The Hope of Salvation

If you have not come to Jesus Christ, you will not enter into neither God’s Promised Land or His Promised Rest.

Make today the day you begin your journey to the Promised Land!