15. My Speech Shall Distill As the Dew

My Speech Shall Distill As the Dew

These were among the final words of Moses, the man of God, and are recorded for us in Deuteronomy 32:2. Moses had been such a wonderful servant of God! He was one with whom God could speak face to face.

He had come to learn his own heart, the heart of the people, and more importantly, God’s heart. How often he pleaded with God for His people. Now, at the end of his life, he composed (led by the Spirit of God) a song for God’s people. The song they sang on the banks of the Red Sea seems to have been largely forgotten. Now they were about to go into the Promised Land and Moses was about to leave them. Strong warnings were in order for the murmuring and disobedient company. What could be the best way to present these warnings? He composed the song! But he did not begin with the warnings: he began with an invitation to heaven and earth to hear the words of his mouth! The words that he used were not ordinary words — they were pure words of instruction (doctrine) that would fall as rain (maybe heavy at times), but they were also gentle words. His speech would

"distill as the dew and as the small rain upon the tender herb and as showers upon the grass because he would publish the name of the Lord, and ascribe greatness unto our God."

He would teach the people to sing that

"He is the Rock, His word is perfect: for all His ways are judgment: a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is He." The people had been following Moses, but Joshua would be their new leader. Leaders could fail. Moses had. His failure had painful consequences. He had once spoken badly and called God’s people "rebels" (Numbers 22:10). He had not set apart God before the eyes of the people, and he had been denied the privilege of bringing God’s people into the Promised Land. Even the meekest man in all the earth (Numbers 12:3) had used hard words, but now at the end of his life his speech could distill as the dew. What might this mean? The distillation process normally takes place in a closed environment where the product to be distilled is put into a container and heated to evaporate it. Above the boiling liquid will be a cool condenser to catch the fumes and turn them back to liquid. This distillate is then channelled into a clean container. The impurities are left behind in the boiling container. Usually the evaporated liquid is invisible and only becomes visible again after condensation. This process requires being in the heat and cold with energy given and taken away. Moses had experienced this both physically and spiritually as he led sheep and then God’s people.

These experiences made Moses a wiser and more useful leader. Twice Moses had been forty days alone with God at Mount Sinai. He had been out of the sight of the people. Now he was old and would soon be gone. But he had learned to publish the name of the Lord and to ascribe greatness to his God. He could recount God’s ways with His people, reminding them of His blessings. He could then challenge them. This was done with a song they would learn. It then could be rehearsed in their minds and sung by their lips. No longer could they see his shining face, but the distilled pure words would linger on — and they still do today! Are not God’s ways with us much like His ways with Moses? Few of us would have desired Moses’ difficult job of leading God’s people. Moses’ forty years of learning in the best schools in Egypt were followed by forty years of special training, leading sheep and raising his family. At eighty he was called to contend with Pharaoh for the deliverance of the children of Israel. Then there were all the experiences of the wilderness where Moses had been in the "heat" and in the "cold."

Sometimes we feel like we have been in similar circumstances. Often we feel like "water spilt on the ground, which cannot be gathered up again" (2 Samuel 14:14). Man cannot gather the water up again, but God can and does. He does it by evaporation! He may choose to "evaporate us," making us invisible as He works in our lives, so He can "condense us" in His time, way and place. While that "process" may not be a comfortable one, it may well be His way of richest blessing for us. Let’s be willing to be in His hands! Let’s allow Him to apply the heat and the cold in His own way for our good. This is often His way to purify us, and what seems so painful to us is His way of removing us from what would defile us. The psalmist in Psalms 119:1-176 found this to be so in his life. He said:

"Before I was afflicted, I went astray: but now I have kept Thy word (v. 67). It was good for me that I have been afflicted; that I might learn Thy statutes (v. 71). I know, O Lord, that Thy judgments are right, and that Thou in faithfulness hast afflicted me (v. 75). I am afflicted very much; quicken me, O Lord according to Thy word (v. 107)."

These afflictions deliver us from our own ways to prepare us for true unity.