Moreover, the change was beneficial. It was well that the first generation should die in the wilderness. The people who had been accustomed to servitude in Egypt had acquired the vices of slaves; and when they came out of the house of bondage they were fearful, fickle, the creatures of appetite, and the victims of panic, selfishness, and discontent. They had all the vices of subject races, and were alike destitute of manliness and self-control. They were soon cowed by fear and baffled by difficulty. They were easily persuaded, and as easily dissuaded. They were a people of whom nothing could be made. Even the divine tuition in which Moses and Aaron were engaged, and in which miracles, and types, and laws were employed, could not teach them anything so that they really knew it. To make a nation which could preserve the worship of the one God in the world, the generation which came out of Egypt must die out. The taint of slavery and idolatry must be lessened if it could not be quite removed. It was desirable that there should be a people trained in a better school, with a nobler spirit, fit to take possession of the promised land. The change was working rightly: the divine purpose was being fulfilled. May be, we do not think thus of the changes which are taking place in the communities to which we belong. We scarcely think that better men are coming on; we even fear that the coming race is weaker than the present: but then, we are not fair judges; for we are prejudiced in favor of our own generation. I do not doubt that God meaneth well to his own church, and that the accomplishment of his eternal purposes requires that men should come and go, and that thus the face of society should be changed. It is well that the age of man is not so protracted as in the days of Methuselah. A teacher influential for error dies and is forgotten; a sinner pestilential for vice passes away, and the air grows pure. Imagine a gambler with five hundred years of craft to guide him, or a libertine reeking with six hundred years of debauchery! Surely the present narrowed limits of human life are all too wide for the depraved! We need not wish for giants of iniquity such as centuries of life would produce. The incoming of new blood into the social frame is good in a thousand ways: it is well that we should make room for others who may serve our Master better. God grant they may! Our prayer is, “Let thy work appear unto thy servants, and thy glory unto their children.” We are content to take the work if our sons may behold the glory: we are glad to move off that they may rise on stepping stones of our ended lives to nobler things.
One other remark I cannot help making, and that is, that these changes are most instructive. If we are now serving God, let us do so with intense earnestness, since only for a little while shall we have the opportunity to do so among men. “Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest.” Live while you live. At the same time, lay plans for influencing the rising generation. Lay yourself out to work while it is called to-day. If anything should be done, it were well that it were done quickly. If we wish truth to conquer, and the gospel to prevail, let us fight the Lord’s battles now; and if we would see truth prevail after we are gone, let us seek out faithful young men, who will teach others also, that the testimony for the Lord God of Israel die not out of the land. We must soon quit the field. Let each man set his house in order, for he must soon leave it to be gazed upon by strangers’ eyes. Let us see that our life-work is rounded off and well-finished, so that in the survey of it by our successors they may say of us, “He being dead yet speaketh.” As we must soon be gone from among the living, let us bless them while we may. Arise, ye saints, and bestir yourselves; for the day is far spent, and the shadows of evening are falling. I pray that we may learn well this first lesson of our text. O Spirit of life, teach us life even by the doings of death!
II. Secondly, we have here before us THE PERPETUITY OF THE PEOPLE OF GOD. There was a change in the constituent elements of the Israelitish nation, but the nation was still there. Not one man was there who was counted thirty-eight years before, save Caleb and Joshua, and yet the nation was the same. Do you ask for Israel? There it is. Balaam can see the people from the top of the hill, and they are the same people whom Pharaoh pursued to the Red Sea. The nation is living, though a nation has died. It is the same chosen seed of Abraham with whom Jehovah is in covenant. God has a church in the world, and he will have a church in the world till time shall be no more. The gates of hell and the jaws of death shall not prevail against the church, though each one of its members must depart out of this world in his turn.
Mark well, that “the church in the wilderness” lives on. There are the same twelve tribes, the same standards heading the tribes, the same tabernacle in the midst of the host, and the same priesthood celebrating sacred service with solemn pomp. Everything has changed and yet nothing has altered. God has built his holy habitation upon foundations which can never be removed. Although the men who bear the ark of the covenant of the Lord wear other names, yet they fulfill the same office. The music of the sanctuary rises and falls, but the strain goes on. The hallelujah never ceases, nor is there a pause in the perpetual chorus, “His mercy endureth for ever.”
The gaps were filled up by appointed successors. As one warrior died another man stepped into his place, even as one wave dying on the shore is pursued by another. The men were not all swept away at once, but by perceptible degrees. Now and then there came an awful and sudden destruction, as when Korah, Dathan, and Abiram went down alive into the pit; but, as a rule, the people dropped off gradually, as ripe fruit falls from the trees, and they were succeeded by others as the fading leaves of autumn have the buds of spring just beneath them. In the church of God one dieth in the order of nature, but another is born into the kingdom by the power of grace. We miss some useful Christian woman, and we lament her; but before many days another sister is prepared of the Lord to serve in her stead. Baptism for the dead never ceases among us. An honored brother falls asleep, and we carry him to the grave; and possibly we fear no other can do his work, and fill the vacancy he leaves. Perhaps no one can do the same work; but yet, in some other way or form, the work is done; and still the vines are trimmed, the sheep are fed, and the lambs are cherished. No one dead man lies in the way to stop the march of the army, as did the corpse of Amasa, which lay gory in the road in David’s day. The chosen host still marches on. Even as the stars in their courses, we still move on. God buries his workmen, but his work lives.
“This article originally appeared here at Bible Bulletin Board.”