a whole lotta chewing goin' on

My spiritual taste buds were yearning for a meaty sermon this morning. What a thrill to find out that Dr. Eldon Wilson was our guest speaker. He is in town for a series of meetings, and was in the front row, spit-shined and ready to leap up to the pulpit with his straight-from-the-hip, no-nonsense, wit-rich and steeped-in-experience wisdom from the Word.
Dr. Wilson stated his text as beginning in Genesis chapter 37 - the epic tale of Joseph. As for me, I tucked my study-napkin under my chin and settled down for a banquet fit for a king (or queen, I suppose). Time to sit under the glory-spout, as they used to say "back in the olden days". The good doctor held us spell-bound for over an hour, and as usual it felt more like twenty minutes.
There's no use attempting to distill the message, you'll just have to get the tape. I only wish to expound briefly on a tidbit he dropped in his introduction. It explained something that had been niggling at me for awhile. You see, in February (when I had time to ponder such things), I wrote this in my blog:
"I am pondering the fact that Moses led his people out of slavery in Egypt, but God forbade him to enter with them into the Promised Land."
For no extra charge, Dr. Wilson solved my quandary. Why did God forbid Moses to step foot into the Promised Land? The day Moses died, he scaled a mountain to gaze longingly over the plains toward the very land he purposed to inhabit. (Deut. 34: 1-5) But God put His heavenly foot down and would not be persuaded by Moses' pleas. The skinny? Moses was not to enter the Promised Land. Not no-way; not no-how. I thought this extremely unfair, considering what a great guy Moses was, not to mention his accomplishments. Ten Commandments and all, you know.
Galatians 3:24 states "Therefore the Law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ, that we may be justified by faith". Today I was reminded by Dr. Wilson that Moses represents the Law, and the Law is our tutor, our schoolmaster, our guide to Christ. If the Law alone could bring us into salvation, then the work of Christ on the cross would be totally unnecessary! Instead, the Law (as modeled by Moses) can only lead us to the edge of the Promised Land. Come to think of it, the Law had to climb a mountain to view the promise of salvation from afar!
I'm sure Moses didn't have the full understanding of this God-prescribed limitation. Most likely, he viewed it as a punishment. Yet a few thousand years later, I stand speechless at the towering wisdom of an eternal God. Methinks it was Eldon Wilson that taught us that the whole Old Testament is about Jesus, anyway.
Y'all can get the tape. I'll be chewing on the introduction for awhile.