Moses, The Man Of God

This is the blessing with which Moses the man of God blessed the people of Israel before his death _Deuteronomy 33:1 The man of God! How much the name means! A man who comes from God, chosen and sent of Him. A man who walks with God lives in His fellowship and carries the mark of His presence. A man who lives for God and His will; whose whole being is pervaded and ruled by the glory of God; who involuntarily and unceasingly leads men to think of God. A man in whose heart and life God has taken the right place as the All in All, and who has only one desire, that He should have that place throughout the world.

Such men of God are what the world needs; such is what God seeks, that He may fill them with Himself, and send them into the world to help others know Him. Moses was so distinct that men naturally spoke of him thus- Moses, the man of God! Such a man every servant of God ought to aim at being- a living witness and proof of what God is to him in Heaven, and is to him on Earth, and what He claims to be in all.

In a previous chapter, we spoke of oneness with God as what man had been created for, as the privilege of daily life, as what was to be our first care in the morning watch. What was there had chiefly reference to our personnel need, and the power of a godly happy life influencing others. The name, Moses the man of God, and the thought of a man being so closely and manifestly linked to God that men as by instinct gave this as his chief characteristic- the man of God leads us further.

It brings us out into public life, it suggests the idea of the impression we make upon men, and the power we can have of carrying the sign of God’s holy presence with us that when men see us or think of us, the name shall at once suggest itself- THE MAN OF GOD! These are the men the world and God equally need. And why? Because the world, by sin, has fallen away from God. Because in Christ the world has been redeemed for God. And because God has no way of showing men what they ought to be, of awakening and calling and helping them, but through men of God, in whom His life, His Spirit, His power are working.

Man was created for God, that God might live, dwell, work, and show forth His glory in him and through him. God was to be His all in all. The indwelling of God was to be as natural and delightful as it is true, strange, and incomprehensible. When the redemption of Christ was completed in the descent of God; the Holy Spirit into the hearts of men, this indwelling was restored, and God regained possession of His home.

This is where a man gives himself up wholly to the presence of the Holy Spirit, not only as a power working in him but as God dwelling in him. (John 14:16, 14:20, 14:23; 1 John 4) He may become in the deepest meaning of the word, A MAN OF GOD! Paul tells us that it is through the power of Holy Scripture that “the man of God is complete.”

“All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.” This brings us to gain to the morning watch as the chief time for personal Bible study. It is as we yield heart and life to the Word, for God through its teaching, its reproof, its correction, its instruction to search and form our whole life, and we thus come under the direct operation of God, and into full oneness with Him, that the man of God will be complete- furnished to every good work.

Oh! For grace to be truly a man of God! A man that knows and proves these three things; God is all; God claims all; God works all. A man that has seen the place God has in His universe and in men- He is the All in All! A man who has understood that God asks and must have all, and who only lives to give God His due and His glory! A man who has discovered the great secret that God works all, and seeks, like the Son of God, to live in the unceasing blessed dependence that the Father in Him speaks the words and does the work.

Brother! Seek to be a man of God! Let God in the morning watch be all to you. Let God during the day be all to you. And let your life be devoted to one thing, to bring men to God, and God to men, so that in His Church, and in the world, God may have the place due to Him.

“If I am a man of God, let fire come down from heaven.” Thus answered Elijah when the captain called him to come down. The true God is the God who answers by fire and the true man of God is he who knows how to call down the fire, because he has power with the God of Heaven. Whether the fire be that of judgment or the Holy Spirit, the work of the man of God is to bring fire down to Earth. What the world needs is the man of God who knows God’s power, and his power with God.

Believe that it is in the secret prayer habit of daily life that we learn to know our God, and His fire, and our power with Him. Oh! To know what it is to be a man of God, and what it implies.

In Elijah as in Moses, we see how it just means separation from every other interest, an entire identification with the honor of God, no longer a man of the world, but a man of God. There is a secret feeling that all this brings more strain and sacrifice, difficulty and danger than we are ready for. This is only true as long as we have not seen how absolute God’s claim is, how unutterably blessed it is to yield to it, and how certain that God Himself will work it in us.

Turn back now and look at Moses; the man of prayer, Moses the man of the world, and see how out of these grew- Moses, the man of God. See the same in the life of Elijah-the harmony between our hearing God’s word and His hearing ours, and the way in which it becomes divinely possible to be and live- A MAN OF GOD. And then study the application.