Great Encouragement in Christ JESUS our LORD

"So Moses the servant of the LORD died." -Deuteronomy 34:5 [KJV]

My soul! close the month, in contemplating the death of this highly-favoured servant of the Lord: and mark in him the sure event of all flesh: "Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return." What a blessed account hath the Holy Ghost give of this man. "There arose not a prophet (we are told) like unto Moses, whom Jehovah knew face to face."  

But, as if to draw an everlasting line of distinction between him and his Master; between the highest prophet, and the Lord God of the prophets; the Holy Ghost was pleased, by the ministry of His servant the apostle, to state the vast distinction: "Moses verily was faithful (saith he) in all his house, as a servant, for a testimony of those things which were to be spoken after: but Christ as a Son over His own house, whose house are we;" Hebrews 3:5, 6. Indeed all the great and distinguishing events in the life of Moses became more or less brilliant, as they set forth, in their typical representations, the person, work, or offices of the Lord Jesus Christ.  

Was Moses the Lord's minister to bring the people out of Egypt? And what was this but a representation of the Lord Jesus, bringing His people out of the Egypt of sin, death, and hell? If Moses led the people through the Red Sea, and opened a path through the mighty waters; what was this, but a type of the ever blessed Jesus, bringing His redeemed through the red sea of His blood, and opening a new and living way into the presence of God? If Moses kept the passover, and the sprinkling of blood through faith, what was the great object of his faith looked at, but Christ, our passover, and the blood of his sacrifice? Did he bring the people through the wilderness; and is not Jesus bringing all His people through? Did he feed them with manna, and give them water from the rock; and what did the manna prefigure, but Jesus, the bread of life; and what was the rock, but Christ, the water of life, in all ages of the church, to His people?  

In short, every thing momentous in the church's history, wherein Moses ministered to the people, pointed, both in law and sacrifice, to Jesus, the Lamb of God, and His one all-sufficient sacrifice for the salvation of His redeemed. And even the death of Moses, the servant of the Lord, over and above the event of death, common to all, had this peculiar signification annexed to it, that, as the great lawgiver to the people, it set forth the inefficacy of the law to bring into Canaan: this could only be accomplished by Christ, who "is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth, to the Jew first, and also to the Gentile." Farewell, Moses! thou servant of the Lord! Thou, when thou had served thy generation, wast gathered to thy fathers, and, like all the patriarchs, didst see corruption: but Jesus saw no corruption; He ever liveth, and is the same "yesterday, and to-day, and for ever."  

Hail, Thou glorious Mediator of "a better covenant, established upon better promises!" Be Thou the Alpha and Omega of Thy word, Thine ordinances, Thy sanctuary, Thy servants! To Thee all ministered; from Thee all come; in Thee all centered; and to Thine everlasting praise all terminate, in bringing glory to Jehovah, Father, Son, and Spirit, through Jesus Christ. Amen. 

-Robert Hawker (1753-1827 A.D.)