Deuteronomy 3:25

AN UNANSWERED PRAYER

‘I pray thee, let me go over, and see the good land that is beyond Jordan, that goodly mountain, and Lebanon.’

Deuteronomy 3:25

I. It was a land, a good land, which Moses looked upon; it was a land of promise which God had prepared.—Canaan was, in a sense, the heaven of Israel’s hope: the more heaven-like, perhaps, because it was so fair a feature of our world, because it was a land on which a foot could be firmly and joyfully planted—a home in which a man and family, a nation, could nobly dwell. St. Peter speaks of ‘a new heaven and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.’ St. Peter and St. John looked for a scene which should be familiar, however transfigured, a scene which should keep its home-like character, however transformed.

II. The images which are employed by the sacred writers as most expressive, when they are treating of heaven, are all borrowed from the higher forms of the development of man’s social and national life.—This means that the human interests and associations prolong themselves in their integrity through death, and constitute the highest sphere of interest and activity in the eternal world. A home, a city, a country, a kingdom—these are the images; on the working out of these ideas the writers of the Scriptures spend all their force.

III. That good land beyond Jordan had some heaven-like feature herein: it was to be the theatre of the highest and holiest human association, under conditions most favourable to the most perfect development, and in an atmosphere of life which God’s benediction should make an atmosphere of bliss.

Illustration

(1)‘ “Let it suffice thee; speak no more;

This Jordan thou shalt not pass o’er.”

And yet, upon the Mount, these three,

Moses, Elias, Christ, I see!

Two roads to Canaan Thou hast given,

One over Jordan, one from heaven.’

(2) ‘It looks so fair, across the Jordan! For so long a time I have been journeying to it, and now to be shut out! Ah, but who shuts me out? It is not God; it is my sin. Let me not blame God, but rather praise Him, that He is a God of justice, and not of weak yielding.’

(3) ‘There are limits beyond which the most favoured servants may not go. They may seek by prayer to reverse or change the Divine plan, but it may not be. We plead for others, and we win untold blessing. We plead for ourselves, and the Lord will not hear. There comes a time when He even bids us ask no more. The Apostle entreated that the thorn might be taken out, but it was left in. Moses prayed that he might enter Canaan, but he died on the outskirts. But if either of them had stood where they stand now, they would not have pressed their suit, because they would have known it was better not. Ah, my soul, thou hast many unanswered prayers treasured in thy thought, and concerning some thou feelest unable to pray longer; take that as probably indicating God’s gentle negative; but concerning such as thou feelest still able to offer, pray on, thy power to ask is the harbinger of the answer.’