Today and Tomorrow
Deuteronomy 34:1-12
by Jim Westmoreland
Have you ever heard the expression, "Tomorrow is not given" or
"Tomorrow is not promised." Both of these expressions are a kind of shorthand
reminder that life is limited. It does not go on forever. It comes to an end. The Psalmist
wrote in Ps 90:6, "So teach us to count our days that we may gain a wise heart."
If ever there was an abrupt reminder about the uncertainty of life and that "tomorrow
is not promised," it came to us during the last two weeks while a sniper shot and
killed both men and women who were of different ages, races and backgrounds. No one
planned to get up and get shot. But, for us, life could end abruptly from a car
accident--someone else could lose control and hit us head-on. My favorite professor in
seminary who preached my ordination service sermon was driving home from church with his
family when their car was hit head-on by a car that was drag-racing and lost control. He
was killed instantly.
We don't know the day or the hour when our time on earth will be over, but we can live
each day in such a way that we make a difference. Moses' life was like that, and our text
today gives us some of God's perspective on Today and Tomorrow. Moses became the most
significant person in the Old Testament, and the thirty-fourth chapter of Deuteronomy
briefly reflects on his life, his vision and his preparation for the future of Israel.
Moses, or Moshe as the Hebrew is pronounced in English, was born under a death sentence.
His first "todays" were days of danger because a pharaoh who did not know Joseph
came to the throne. Many believe this pharaoh was Rameses II of the 13th
century BC, the greatest builder in Egyptian history. Rameses had decided that the
children of Israel had become too numerous and strong. They had settled during the time of
Joseph in the land of Goshen, which was in the NE corner of the Nile delta. Rameses first
made slaves out of Israel and put them to work making bricks for the construction of two
treasure cities, Pithom and Rameses. When this did not reduce their numbers, Pharaoh
ordered the Hebrew midwives to kill every male infant at birth by throwing them into the
Nile River to drown them.
Moses' mother hid him for three months before putting him in the river. Then, she covered
the bottom of a reed basket with tar so that it would float and had Moses' older sister
Miriam, put it in the water at the place where Pharaoh's daughter came to bathe and then
watch to see what happened. Pharaoh's daughter found Moses, and her heart was moved by
this innocent baby. Miriam appeared and volunteered to "find" a Hebrew nurse to
nurse it. So, Moses first years were at home with his family.
When he got older Pharaoh's daughter adopted him and gave him the name Moses, saying,
"Because I drew him out of the water." Moses grew up at the royal court but
remained aware of his Hebrew origin.
We remember Jesus quoting the saying, "He that has eyes to see, let him see."
Too often we don't see because we become self-absorbed in just doing the everyday routines
of our lives. It is easier "not to see" the needs of people around us. We become
lazy with little awareness beyond my family. It takes a "will" to see beyond the
boundaries of my immediate concerns.
Moses soo saw some things that affected him deeply. The next phase of Moses' life
began when he went out to where the Hebrew people were working to see what life was like.
It wasn't good. After he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew slave worker, he reacted in
anger and killed the Egyptian and buried him in the sand. When he found out he had been
discovered, he fled to the desert of Midian.
When Moses was born, his "today" was a death sentence, but God was involved in
his life, just as He is involved in our lives, and God provided an unexpected
"tomorrow." After that, Moses' "today" was a life of luxury and
privilege in the court of Pharaoh, receiving the best education available in the land, but
"tomorrow" became a life on the run, living in the wilderness of Midian. Now,
learning to live in the wilderness between Egypt and the future "land of
promise," had become Moses' "today." What would "tomorrow" bring?
One day, out shepherding the flocks, Moses came upon a burning bush that was not consumed
by the fire. There, he has a personal encounter with God. Out of that experience with God,
Moses receives a sense of "call" and a vision for "tomorrow." Now, his
"today" experiences are involved with wrestling with the responsibility that God
has given him. He had to deal with thoughts like, Why me, I'm not a young man anymore? Or,
everybody back home in Pharaoh's court knows me and they won't take me seriously. Or, God,
you know I can't talk very good. Can't you get someone else more qualified than I am?
Let me pause for a moment to ask, Does any of this sound familiar? Does any of this sound
like the way we talk to God and to one another? I think the parallels are unmistakably
clear. What we see in Moses is also true of us. Whenever God calls us from
"today" to "tomorrow," there is tension and resistance. But, this
tension is creative and positive, and God helps us to work through it, if we let Him.
Something has happened that has dramatically changed Moses. He comes to the court of
Pharaoh and speaks, not out of his own insecurity and self-doubt, but out of the strength
and confidence he now has in his calling, in his vision for God's people, and in the
confidence he has in God. Each day, he stands before Pharaoh and confronts the evils of
the regime of this Pharaoh, and each day, he warns of plagues and judgment to come. There
is a crescendo building stronger and stronger that becomes a thunderous
"tomorrow" when, now the first-born of Pharaoh and the Egyptians are killed as
the death-angel passes over. Finally, Pharaoh cannot resist the power of God any longer,
and he tells Moses to take his people and leave at once. A new "tomorrow" has
become the "today" where the people must find faith, trust and meaning out in
the wilderness, away from the familiarity of Eqypt.
Their new "today" was a time of adventure. They were excited at first about
doing a new thing. They were thrilled and exhilarated that their God had showed Pharaoh a
thing or two. God was providing food and water for them in the middle of the wilderness.
He was leading them by a cloud by day and a pillar of fire at night. Truly, their God was
a powerful and awesome God, but they began to grumble and to long for the familiarity of
"Yesterday."
There is nothing wrong with Yesterday, except that you can't live there! Like Israel, we,
too, face the temptation to try to live in Yesterday. If we do, we'll find that it
distracts us from what we are to do Today, and it will thwart us, like it did Israel, from
being ready to experience what God has prepared for our Tomorrow.
Moses led the people to the edge of Canaan, the promised land in a little over a year's
time. Then, they chose spies from among the family tribes to go in and bring back a
report. All but Joshua and Caleb came back saying that there were giants in the land, that
they were no match for them, and that they would be better off to return to Egypt. The
scriptures tell us that because of the rebellion and lack of trust in what God was doing
for them that they had to wander in the wilderness for forty years, until that generation
had died.
Moses had experienced many Todays and Tomorrows following God. He is now an old man, 120
years old, and God takes him "up from the plains of Moab to Mt. Nebo, to the top of
Pisgah, which is on the other side of the Jordan from Jericho. And God showed him all the
land ... and said to him, "This is the land which I swore to Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob, saying, 'I will give it to your descendants.' I have let you see it with your eyes,
but you shall not go over there." After that Moses died and was buried in the land of
Moab, and the scripture tells us something interesting--no one knows where his grave is.
If we were writing this story, we'd like a happy ending with Moses leading the people over
the Jordan into the promised land. Moses had lived his life, and he had lived each day and
each tomorrow as the Lord provided. Though his burial place was not known Moses became the
most important person in Israel's history. God's redemptive work in freeing the children
of Israel from Egyptian bondage and the whole story of the Exodus were the formative
events for the shaping of the identity of the people of Israel on their way to the
promised land. God used Moses as his central character in that story. Judaism has no
special feast for Abram leaving the land of Ur, but they faithfully remember the Exodus
events each year through the celebration of Passover.
Moses is remembered because he was faithful to the vision that God had given him. Though
he did not go into the promised land, Israel did. Moses' vision was not about Moses, but
it was about God's work and God's people. That should be our vision about the church
today.
Notice the evidence of Moses' anticipation of and preparation for the Tomorrow for Israel.
In v. 9 "Now Joshua the son of Nun was filled with the spirit of wisdom, for Moses
had laid his hands on him; and the sons of Israel listened to him and did as the Lord had
commanded Moses."
As we see that Moses did not make it to the promised land, we can relate from our own
experience that much of life is unfulfilled. We are given a vision of what God wants for
us and what He wants to do through us. We are given a vision of Tomorrow while we live in
Today. We have dreams for ourselves, our families, our church and of God's ultimate
preparation for us in heaven. Like Moses, we don't get to see everything finished in our
lifetimes, but, in God's Today and Tomorrow, we are called to be faithful, and we
are given a vision to pass on.