DEUTERONOMY 34

5 So [Moshe] the servant of Yahweh died there in the land of Moab [Eretz Moav], according to the word of Yahweh.

Depressing? Well life is like that! For men and women of faith the object of life must be the future, not the present. The present will witness a certain amount of success, but nothing permanent. Not even in the things of God. Even there we are bounded and limited by mortality. Therefore, a man of faith, a servant of God, must learn to look beyond the present to the glorious future.

When life is lived like that, and labour is viewed from that standpoint, man might esteem both as failures, but it is not so viewed by God. It is character more than work accomplished that counts.

...Ecclesias are the same. They are formed, established, develop and die. The record of history testifies to this. The lesson of history teaches that only as individuals develop in faith, and are moulded by circumstances without and the power of the Word within, is anything of permanent value accomplished.

Life is terminable and so are all the effects of man today - whether in the Truth or in the world. So Moses is taken to the top of Nebo.

The Christadelphian Expositor

"Miracles"

In scripture, the word is τερασ, teras, a wonder; and is used in sixteen texts in the New Testament, but always in connection with other words, as σημειον, s̄emeion, a sign; δυναμισ, dunamis, power; or μερισμοσ, μερισμοσ, distribution.

In Heb. 2:4, Paul introduces the four words, saying, that God bore witness to the apostolic testimony

"by signs and wonders, and various powers and distributions of holy spirit, according to his will."

Objectors to the manifestations of divine energy as "opposed to the laws of nature, and against human experience," group these indiscriminately under the word "miracles," which they regard as violations of nature's laws; so that their proposition amounts to this, namely,

"A sign, a wonder, power and distributions of holy spirit, are all contrary to the laws of nature, and against human experience!"

But in opposition to this, we venture to affirm, that these things are all in accordance with nature's laws, and in harmony with human experience in a multitude of instances. Thus,

"the lights in the firmament of the heaven are for signs"-Gen. 1:14.

The rainbow is a sign that the earth shall be no more submerged by a flood of waters-Gen. 9:2, 13. Isaiah and his sons were for signs and wonders in Israel-ch. 8:18. There is nothing in all this contrary to nature's laws or staggering to human experience; but perfectly reasonable in the bearings thereof.

But "wonders and signs" used often-times to go together. Thus, Moses was a subject of wonder in his own person. He put his hand into his bosom and when he drew it out, "it was leprous as snow;" and he put it in again, and withdrew it a second time, "and it was turned again as his other flesh;"

This was wonderful, but was it contrary to nature's laws, and human experience? Do men never have the leprosy and get cured? Yes, but not so suddenly. Truly; and the suddenness of the thing made it an especial wonder.

Its suddenness was not contrary to Moses' experience, for it happened to him; but then not as yet within the range of other people's experience; and as to human experience in general, we venture to say that it is not yet acquainted with all the wonders which are educible by the intensifying of laws already existing; many of which it is to be presumed, Human Experience, though very wise in its own conceit, has not yet discovered by its philosophisings and experiments!

Now the sudden infliction and cure of a disease (which on a larger scale was repeated in the case of Miriam, the sister of Moses) was not only a wonder, but a sign to be exhibited before Israel in Egypt, in confirmation of the truth that the God of Abraham had appeared to him, as he declared. This was what the wonder signified when performed in connexion with Moses' declaration, that the God of Abraham had appeared to him, and sent him to deliver them.

When the wonder was performed, it became an item of human experience; and apart from any declaration only signified to Moses and those who saw it, the presence of a supernatural power; the declaration of the angel at the bush, made the wonder a special sign; and every Jew that rejoices in Moses as their deliverer from Egypt, is a living witness that a sign and a wonder are reasonable, and possible things, and according to the experience of 600,000 men, who in consequence of this experience put themselves under him as their commander and prophet king.

...

"I am Yahweh (saith the Spirit) the powers (elohai) of all flesh;"-"by me they live and move and do exist"-"is there any thing too hard for me?"

Has he given laws to nature, and can he not work great wonders upon and through that nature; vastly greater than the natural mind has ever yet experienced or conceived?

Is nature subject to no other laws than are known to men? Are their knowledge and experience to be the measure of Omniscience? Can not the power that made man, raise him from the dead, give him sight, and heal him of whatever malady afflicts him, in an instant?

All these things he can do, and more than we can conceive; and upon principles it has not yet entered into the heart of man to divine.

Herald of the Kingdom and Age to Come, Feb 1859