April—2 The Poor Man’s Evening Portion

I pray thee let me go over, and see the good land that is beyond Jordan, that goodly mountain, and Lebanon.—Deut. 3:25.

What a very lovely and interesting view doth this sweet scripture afford of Moses, the man of God! Look at him, my soul, as the Holy Ghost hath here represented him, and pray for grace to gather some of those blessed instructions which this part of his history particularly affords. And what was it made Moses so anxious to go over and see the good land? It was but a type of heaven, even in its highest glory; and surely the type or representation of any thing cannot be equal to the thing itself; and Moses knew, that if he had not the type, he should have the substance: if debarred Canaan, he should be in heaven. There must have been some other cause, which made Moses long for the sight of it. I venture to think, (we may at least conjecture,) and this scripture, I confess, leads me to the idea: “Let me see” (said Moses) “that goodly mountain, and Lebanon.” This was the one hallowed spot Moses longed to see, and to feast his eyes upon. He that had conversed with Jesus at the bush, wanted to behold, and with sacred meditation, by faith, converse with him, on the very spot on which, in after ages, he knew that Jesus would be crucified. He that by faith walked with Jesus, while in Egypt, so as “to esteem the reproach of Christ greater riches than all its treasures,” would there, by faith, have realized the presence of his Lord in sweet communion: and if, through faith, he kept the passover, and the sprinkling of blood, in the ordinance of the paschal lamb, what may we not suppose the man of God would have felt, as he traversed over the sacred goodly mountain and Lebanon? “Here,” he would have said, as he beheld, by faith, the day of Christ afar off, like the patriarch Abraham, “here is the memorable ground, the holy mountain, on which Jesus, my dweller in the bush, will one day make his soul an offering for sin! Here will go up before God the Father that one sacrifice to which all under the law shadowed and ministered, and by which the Lord Jesus will for ever perfect them that are sanctified! Here the Son of God will for ever do away sin by the sacrifice of himself.” O Lebanon! that goodly mountain! for ever sacred to the soul’s meditation of all the redeemed of the Lord Jesus! though, like Moses, I have not trodden thine hallowed ground, yet, by faith, I have seen Jesus in his agonies and passion there; and bless and praise God and the Lamb, for the wonders of redemption. Lord, bring me to the everlasting enjoyment of thy person, work, and righteousness, in glory, for this will be indeed the good land that is beyond Jordan; the goodly mountain, and Lebanon; that “when I awake after thy likeness, I may be satisfied with it.”^[1]

 

^[1] Hawker, R. (1845). The Poor Man’s Evening Portion (A New Edition, p. 97). Philadelphia: Thomas Wardle.