Training Faithful Men

February 18

Read: Numbers 27:15-23

The more you learn of Moses, the more you realize just what an extraordinary man of God he was. On this occasion, God told Moses to make his way to the mountain top and look out over the land of Canaan. Because of his disobedience at the waters of Meribah, Moses was not to be allowed to enter into the land. After he had seen the land, Moses was to die, as Aaron had died before him.

It’s not terribly difficult to put yourself in Moses’ thoughts at this point. After 120 years, he was going home. Yet there had to be a bittersweet element as well. Forty years he had led the people of Israel, out of Egypt and through the wilderness, with the promised land held out before them. Now, at the very end, with the land in sight, he was not to be allowed to enter. The nation must go on without him.

It is a testimony to the character of this amazing man of God that no hint of these things enters into the biblical narrative. Instead of lamenting his sentence and pleading with God for a second chance, Moses went in a completely different direction. In verse 16, Moses asks, “Let the Lord, the God of the spirits of all flesh, set a man over the congregation. Which may go out before them, and which may go in before them, and which may lead them out; and which may bring them in; that the congregation of the Lord be not as sheep which have no shepherd.”

Moses’ primary concern was for the people he had led all these years. He was burdened for the very people who provoked his anger at Meribah, who were indirectly the very reason he could not enter into the promised land. Moses wanted assurance from God that He would not leave them without a shepherd. “Oh, Lord, they need a man to lead them,” was Moses’ only request.

Every man or woman of God should share Moses’ burden. There is not one of us who does not have responsibilities within the kingdom, who is not a leader in one form or another. It may be at church, or at home, or where you work. You are God’s representative somewhere to somebody. Is it your heart that they should see God in your shepherding? Do you grieve at the thought of their being without a godly influence? Are you pleading with God to raise up faithful men and women who, when your time ends, will continue to represent the Lord? Are you doing your part to prepare those men and women?

Writing to apprentice Timothy, the apostle Paul instructed him in 2 Timothy 2:2, “And the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also.” Moses’ primary concern was that the work of God go forward and the people of God be guided. He committed much of his time to training his replacement.

Let us ensure that our ministry includes a thought for the future. Who will take our place? And how can we be used of God to prepare them?

Just a servant,

Bro. Tom