Notes on the Book of Deuteronomy, Volume IIMackintosh, Charles Henry
Religion
Notes on the Book of Deuteronomy, Volume II
Mackintosh, Charles Henry
Bible. Deuteronomy -- Commentaries
And then, as to those great facts of which Moses so continually
reminds the people, could they ever lose their moral weight, power, or
preciousness? Surely not. Israel might forget and fail to appreciate
those facts, but the facts remained the same. The terrible plagues of
Egypt, the night of the passover, their deliverance from the land of
darkness, bondage, and degradation, their marvelous passage through
the Red Sea, the descent of that mysterious food from heaven morning
by morning, the refreshing stream gushing forth from the flinty
rock,--how could such facts as these ever lose their power over a
heart possessing a spark of genuine love to God? and why should we
wonder to find Moses again and again appealing to them and using them
as a most powerful lever wherewith to move the hearts of the people?
Moses felt the mighty moral influence of these things himself, and he
would fain lead others to feel it also. To him, they were precious
beyond expression, and he longed to make his brethren feel their
preciousness as well as himself. It was his one object to set before
them, in every possible way, the powerful claims of Jehovah upon their
hearty and unreserved obedience.
This, reader, will account for what might, to an unspiritual,
unintelligent, cursory reader, seem the too frequent recurrence to the
scenes of the past in those wonderful discourses of Moses. We are
reminded, as we read them, of the lovely words of Peter, in his second
epistle,--"Wherefore I will not be negligent to put you _always in
remembrance of these things_, though ye know them, and be established
in the present truth. Yea, I think it meet, as long as I am in this
tabernacle, _to stir you up, by putting you in remembrance_; knowing
that shortly I must put off this my tabernacle, even as our Lord Jesus
Christ hath showed me. Moreover, I will endeavor that ye may be able,
after my decease, to have _these things always in remembrance_."
(Chap. i. 12-15.)
How striking the unity of spirit and purpose in these two beloved and
venerable servants of God! Both the one and the other felt the
tendency of the poor human heart to forget the things of God, of
heaven, and of eternity, and they felt the supreme importance and
infinite value of the things of which they spoke; hence their earnest
desire to keep them continually before the hearts and abidingly in
the remembrance of the Lord's beloved people. Unbelieving, restless
nature might say to Moses, or to Peter, Have you nothing new to tell
us? Why are you perpetually dwelling on the same old themes? We know
all you have got to say; we have heard it again and again. Why not
strike out into some new field of thought? Would it not be well to try
and keep abreast of the science of the day? If we keep perpetually
moping over those antiquated themes, we shall be left stranded on the
bank, while the stream of civilization rushes on. Pray give us
something new.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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