Thoughts on Deuteronomy 34 & Luke 13

Today’s reading: Deuteronomy 34; Luke 13

I know this is kind of a blunt question, but how ready are you to die?

Deuteronomy 34 is a very melancholy passage of Scripture. Moses is led up a mountain and God gives him a vision of all the land that is to be Israel’s inheritance, and then there, Moses dies before the Lord. The man we have followed through Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and now Deuteronomy sees the work he has been striving for for 40 years and then steps out of this life.

After I read that chapter I was just sitting and thinking about it for a bit. It’s such a short chapter, and so little happens in it, and yet what does happen has a real weight to it. But as much as it has weight, it’s not really sad. And while I was thinking about that I started reading Luke 13 and Jesus’ words helped clarify my thoughts on Moses’s death.

And he said to them, “Strive to enter through the narrow door. For many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able. When once the master of the house has risen and shut the door, and you begin to stand outside and to knock at the door, saying, ‘Lord, open to us,’ then he will answer you, ‘I do not know where you come from.’ Then you will begin to say, ‘We ate and drank in your presence, and you taught in our streets.’ But he will say, ‘I tell you, I do not know where you come from. Depart from me, all you workers of evil!’ In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God but you yourselves cast out. And people will come from east and west, and from north and south, and recline at table in the kingdom of God. And behold, some are last who will be first, and some are first who will be last.”

Jesus warns His hearers, not just to strive to enter by the narrow door, but to do so while the door is open. He says that there will be a time at which the door is closed and those who are still outside will decide that they want to have entered, but it will be too late once the door is already shut; they will have made their choice not to enter while it was still open. And while there will be a day, the last day, in which the Lord will return and the door will be shut to all who have not yet entered, before that day, the door shuts for each of us at the moment of our death, and we cannot know when that will be. Whether it is an expected death at the end of a long life, or whether it is a sudden and unexpected death in our prime, we cannot know when the door will be shut.

So the question is, are you ready, this moment, if the master of the house rises and shuts the door?

I think this is what makes Deuteronomy 34 melancholy but not particularly sad; Moses was ready for the door to shut. Moses knew the Lord, he had lived faithfully for Him, and he was ready to die with full assurance that his own future was secure with God. His death was a loss to Israel, but it was also full of hope in the resurrection to new life with his creator.

And this is the same hope we can have in Christ. Jesus Himself is the narrow door. Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life, and no one gets to the Father except through Him. It is by faith in Him that we enter the narrow door, and every person whose faith is in Him when the door closes has the assurance of stepping into eternal life as children of our Heavenly Father. 

We have an incredible future waiting for us in eternity, but it will be too late for you to decide you want it after the door has closed. Don’t put off deciding whether you want to enter by the narrow door. If you are unsure because you haven’t considered it, then take the time to consider it. If you are unsure because you don’t know if it’s true, then look into the evidence for yourself. If you are unsure because you don’t want your life to have to change if you give it to Him, I would beg you to consider what it is you are so afraid of losing in order to gain eternity…

I so badly want every one of my family members, every one of my friends, and every one who reads these blog posts, to be there with me in eternity, but I cannot make that choice for anybody other than myself. If you’re still on the other side, don’t hesitate to answer when He calls you to step through the door before it closes.