Moses

by J. Miller | Category: Voices From The Past - Extracted From Jottings | Dec 1981

When God chose a leader for the people of Israel He chose a gentleman in the true meaning of this word, for "the man Moses was very meek, above all the men which were upon the face of the earth".

Moses' character was quite the reverse of Jehu's. There was nothing of gentleness in Jehu. When the watchman upon the tower of Jezreel saw him approach, he spoke of his driving as being "like the driving of Jehu the son of Nimshi; for he driveth furiously".

Jehu was suited for the work for which he was chosen - to execute God's vengeance upon the house of Ahab, but though he swept away Ahab's vile house it did not bring him one bit nearer God; for "Jehu took no heed to walk in the law of the Lord, the God of Israel, with all his heart: he departed not from the sins of Jeroboam, wherewith he made Israel to sin" (2 Kin. 10:31).

Moses, accustomed to follow the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, was of a meek, gentle disposition, and he would have been content to have lived out his life in quietness in such pastoral scenes (Exod. 2:21) but God had chosen him to lead a greater flock (Psa. 77:20; Isa. 63:11). Moses was gentle towards men, not easily offended, and bore patiently as a nursing father the murmurings and ill-behaviour of the people of Israel, but he was unyielding and unbending when it was a question of obedience to the Word of God - "Moses indeed was faithful in all His (God's) house as a servant" (Heb. 3:5). Jehu was quite the reverse of Moses towards men he showed no gentleness, and towards God no faithfulness, for, as we have seen, he took no heed to walk in the law of the Lord.

As we write thus we think of that perfectly meek and gentle Man, our blessed Lord, who said: "I am meek and lowly in heart", who at the end of His lowly life was led as a gentle lamb to the slaughter. When He was reviled, He reviled not again, and when He suffered, threatened not. He committed His cause to God, and though condemned by men could say in the words through Isaiah - "He is near that justifieth Me" (Isa. 50:8). If we but followed more closely in His ways how much of sorrow we would save both ourselves and others! If the coals of fire, of which Paul writes in Romans 12:20, were more often used we would, no doubt, all be a great deal warmer.

J. Miller | Dec 1981
Voices From The Past - Extracted From Jottings