Buried by God; Our Idols--Deuteronomy 34:5-6a
I was watching a story yesterday on a cable channel on the staff of Moses. The show itself was poppycock and the main driver of the thing was a complete hack, but none the less, it made me reflect yesterday on the discussion lesson from Sunday school this past week.
We are finishing up the book of Daniel, using a Beth Moore study, and we are in the second half that deals with prophecy. Trying to decide which piece to pick up and discuss from such a big confusing mess was difficult, but I found myself focusing on the point of Moses' burial.
So Moses the servant of the Lord died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the Lord, and he buried him......
Deuteronomy 34:5-6a
Wait??? The God buried Moses? Is that right?
I cross checked Beth Moore and sure enough, there it was. It is amazing how something like that can escape us as significant. But I assure you it is and there is a lesson for us today, as I found out.
God buried Moses. Why?
Simple, think of the golden calf the people of Israel made when Moses was gone for a fairly short while. What were they going to do when Moses was gone forever? Possibly worship his corpse?
That sounds like a far stretch but that has happened often in this world, even today it goes on.
The thing to remember in the story of Exodus and Moses, was God did everything through Moses and the way he did things was to prevent Moses from receiving the credit. To this day people still credit Moses with the parting of the Sea of Reeds (or the Red Sea-depending on where you get your information). It was not Moses that parted the sea, it was God working through Moses. God parted the Sea.
Here we have God, himself, burring the body of Moses. Nobody to this day knows where. There is a general location, but nobody knows where the grave is. That was with purpose. God did not want the people of Israel to turn Moses and his body into an idol to be worshiped. Which, from the looks of that golden calf, they would have and poor Joshua would have had a difficult time indeed.
How does this relate to us today? Simple, idol worship is so real, especially in our modern world. We slip into idol worship so easily we rarely realize we are doing it. Lets look at some basic facts; they say how you spend your money and your time shows your priorities, your priorities can be a clean cut face of an idol:
How much money and time to you spend at the coffee house? Are you spending more money on coffee each week than tithing to your church or a charity?
How much time do you spend online everyday shopping or on social media? How does your time with God stack up to that time?
Do you sing praises about your kids all the time? Do you spend half as much time singing praises to God?
Do you spend a majority of your day comparing what your life looks like to others and allow bitterness to seep in? Do you spend half as much time praying to God as you do this?
I can go on, but you should see the point. When we spend more time on something and we are not doing it to honor God or in his name then we are falling into the trap of idol worship. It extends beyond the frivolous stuff above and leaks into bigger stuff like sex, money and drugs.
Regardless of what the idol is, the point is, and it is very clear from this action in Deuteronomy, we are to give things that are an idol or have the potential to be idols to God. We have to trust that he will burry it. We have to commit to not going out and hunting for it again and robbing the grave and setting up a shrine.
This does not mean you have to forgo your coffee, unless God convicts you to. This simply means we have to keep checking ourselves each and every day to make sure that something is not superior to God in our life. It is hard, but not to much about the practice of Christianity is easy. If someone told you otherwise then you had a bad recruiter.
We are finishing up the book of Daniel, using a Beth Moore study, and we are in the second half that deals with prophecy. Trying to decide which piece to pick up and discuss from such a big confusing mess was difficult, but I found myself focusing on the point of Moses' burial.
So Moses the servant of the Lord died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the Lord, and he buried him......
Deuteronomy 34:5-6a
Wait??? The God buried Moses? Is that right?
I cross checked Beth Moore and sure enough, there it was. It is amazing how something like that can escape us as significant. But I assure you it is and there is a lesson for us today, as I found out.
God buried Moses. Why?
Simple, think of the golden calf the people of Israel made when Moses was gone for a fairly short while. What were they going to do when Moses was gone forever? Possibly worship his corpse?
That sounds like a far stretch but that has happened often in this world, even today it goes on.
The thing to remember in the story of Exodus and Moses, was God did everything through Moses and the way he did things was to prevent Moses from receiving the credit. To this day people still credit Moses with the parting of the Sea of Reeds (or the Red Sea-depending on where you get your information). It was not Moses that parted the sea, it was God working through Moses. God parted the Sea.
Here we have God, himself, burring the body of Moses. Nobody to this day knows where. There is a general location, but nobody knows where the grave is. That was with purpose. God did not want the people of Israel to turn Moses and his body into an idol to be worshiped. Which, from the looks of that golden calf, they would have and poor Joshua would have had a difficult time indeed.
How does this relate to us today? Simple, idol worship is so real, especially in our modern world. We slip into idol worship so easily we rarely realize we are doing it. Lets look at some basic facts; they say how you spend your money and your time shows your priorities, your priorities can be a clean cut face of an idol:
How much money and time to you spend at the coffee house? Are you spending more money on coffee each week than tithing to your church or a charity?
How much time do you spend online everyday shopping or on social media? How does your time with God stack up to that time?
Do you sing praises about your kids all the time? Do you spend half as much time singing praises to God?
Do you spend a majority of your day comparing what your life looks like to others and allow bitterness to seep in? Do you spend half as much time praying to God as you do this?
I can go on, but you should see the point. When we spend more time on something and we are not doing it to honor God or in his name then we are falling into the trap of idol worship. It extends beyond the frivolous stuff above and leaks into bigger stuff like sex, money and drugs.
Regardless of what the idol is, the point is, and it is very clear from this action in Deuteronomy, we are to give things that are an idol or have the potential to be idols to God. We have to trust that he will burry it. We have to commit to not going out and hunting for it again and robbing the grave and setting up a shrine.
This does not mean you have to forgo your coffee, unless God convicts you to. This simply means we have to keep checking ourselves each and every day to make sure that something is not superior to God in our life. It is hard, but not to much about the practice of Christianity is easy. If someone told you otherwise then you had a bad recruiter.
Comments