“Moses my servant is dead; now therefore arise, go over this Jordan, thou, and all this people, unto the land which I do give to them, even to the children of Israel.” (Joshua 1:2)
I happened to see an advertisement from a pharmaceutical company a few days ago offering a potion, a chemical concoction if you will, that has been shown to offer people with a certain malady a longer life. At the bottom of the screen in very small print, the average length of that extended life was approximately sixty days. My servant Moses is dead came into my mind, and the way that the Almighty looks at death, specifically the death of those who are His servants. “Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of his saints.” (Psalm 116:15)
One more day, one more hour, just one more minute, this is how those who do not know Jesus Christ as Lord think, it is not how we are to think when we ponder our demise.
The elite, as they are called today, are using much of their financial wherewithal to try to find a way to extend life, to keep the flesh from deteriorating, even to the point of placing what they consider their consciousness into some form of digital-mechanical device, a robot if you will. There is no greater fear among the lost than the end of their existence here. “We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord.” (2 Cor. 5:8)
I bring this subject up again because I have always met people who fear death, I have met very few of those who profess Jesus Christ as Lord that do not. And not just the manner of the way that they may die, but of the lack of assurance of what they purport to believe each Sunday morning, that to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. The excuses vary of course, “I’m in no hurry,” “I’m still needed here,” (a foolish statement,) “I have work to do for the Lord yet.” God does not depend on us to do the work; He needs none of us.
What you need to contemplate is the emotional context of those words from the Most High, “Moses my servant is dead.” Were they said in sorrow, or as a matter of fact?
I offer you this to contemplate, let us say it is three hundred years into the Millennial period, and you have an acquaintance with someone who is in the flesh, who is serving the Most High during that time with all their heart. If they die suddenly from say an accident, are you simply going to go to heaven and continue the conversation you were having with them at the moment they died?
Nothing changed for the Lord when Moses died, the people mourned, but why would God, Moses is simply in a different location. This is how we as born-again believers are to look at death. “And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.” (John 14:3) Immediately, no stops on the way, no soul sleep, you will close your eyes here and open them a few moments later there.
Far too many who claim Jesus Christ as Lord spend far too much energy avoiding the subject of death., they would take the pill offering them those extra two months, they will pay the physician whatever sum they ask for that extra time, they will do all that can possibly be done for just one more minute of life, while speaking of the eternal life that awaits them.
They profess one thing with their lips, but their hearts do not agree with the words that come from their lips.
No ambassador sent to another kingdom or nation attempts to take up permanent residency in that foreign land, their hearts yearn to be home, their thoughts are on the place of their citizenship, where their King resides. It would have been just as easy, and as equally truthful, for the Lord God to say. “My servant Moses has come home.” “For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” (Matt. 6:21)
Where is your heart?
