The Possibilities of Life
By Ellet Joseph Waggoner
Moses did not commit suicide, neither did God kill him; yet he died in the full strength of manhood, with no trace of disease upon him. At the command of the Lord, because he had been unfaithful in a single instance, he laid his life down, just as he would compose himself to sleep. A single failure to acknowledge and honor God before the people, on the part of a man in the position of Moses, meant much more than a failure in duty would on the part of an ordinary person; and for that reason Moses could not be the complete type of Christ, by taking the children of Israel into the promised land. But God’s refusal to allow him to do this, and his command to Moses to die, was not an arbitrary punishment; it grew out of the very nature of the case. Moses had broken the connection,—had turned aside the stream of life from its proper channel,—and having denied it once, he was obliged to lay it down. It was but a temporary break; but the people had to learn that it is not a light thing to be out of harmony with God. But let us from the case of Moses consider a little more closely some of the possibilities of life. God is no respecter of persons, and what he did for Moses we may be sure he will do for any who will use life as faithfully as Moses did. By using it faithfully I do not mean merely what is called “improving the time,” but recognizing God’s ways, and learning how he lives, so as to know how to conform to the laws of life. God “made known his ways unto Moses” (Ps. 103:7); and the same psalm that tells us this, tells us to bless his holy name, “and forget not all his benefits: who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases; who redeemeth thy life from destruction; who crowneth thee with loving-kindness and tender mercies; who satisfieth thy mouth with good things; so that thy youth is renewed like the eagle’s.” Note that it is when our mouth is satisfied with good things that our youth is renewed like the eagle’s. Thus it was with Moses. Others complained of the simple food that God gave them,—bread from heaven,—but Moses did not. How can people be so blind to the influence of diet upon their life, when they know full well that they live by eating? God told the Israelites in the beginning of their sojourning in the wilderness: “Ye shall serve the Lord your God, and he shall bless thy bread, and thy water; and I will take sickness away from the midst of thee.” Ex. 23:25. In Moses this was fulfilled, and so it might have been in all the rest.13 Do not misunderstand. The idea is not that the fountain of eternal youth is in eating and drinking. Far from it. But the truth intended to be conveyed is that God, “the fountain of living waters,” with whom is “the fountain of life,” is for that very reason the fountain of eternal youth, and that by learning his way of living, and adopting it,—living by perfect and intelligent faith in him, we can preserve in ourselves the youthfulness of the ancient days. Our food and drink come from God, and are the visible means of the communication of God’s life to us, but not the only means. By eating and drinking, as well as doing all other things, to the glory of God, we not only get fresh life from him, but we put no obstruction in the way of his life, and so by faith we get the “more abundant” life that is greater than all the visible things in the universe. To know God’s ways, should be the one study of mankind.