p. 24Ladies and Gentlemen,—
The case of Moses engaged our attention last month. There is much more in his case than can be displayed in these fifteen minutes’ speeches. I ask you to consider some features of the journey in the wilderness, that go to support the conclusion yielded by the opening incidents of the Exodus—viz.: that the story cannot be otherwise than true.
After a three days’ march, water failed the congregation. How large the congregation was, you may not be prepared to concede. But you must allow it must have been a considerable assembly. Forty years afterwards, they made a conquest of Canaan; and however you may look upon that conquest, it could not be done by a handful of people. The statement of Moses is that they numbered 600,000 fighting men, besides women and children—that would mean two millions. That is not tremendously large for a nation. But suppose you say you cannot swallow so big a number on the travel—suppose you p. 25 reduce the number by nineteen-twentieths (mind you, I don’t admit the need: I suggest it merely to meet you—suppose you reduce the number to nineteen-twentieths), you would then have 100,000 people on the march. The march was in a sterile country. It is there for you to go and see. Professor Palmer went over the ground at the time of the British conquest of Arabi, and found it as represented. A small company, if they did not take supplies with them, would soon be in straits. How must it have been with a vast congregation? The congregation at the end of three days were without water, and without food. It is written so. It must have been so. The point is, the thing that is represented as having happened under the circumstances. “The people murmured against Moses, and against Aaron: saying, Ye have brought us forth into this wilderness, to kill this whole assembly with hunger.”
Ladies and Gentlemen,—Here you have a problem well worth considering. Were the Israelitish people in this fix? Did they murmur? Did they survive the stress, and years afterwards enter the land under Moses? Careful consideration will shew you that the facts compel a “Yes” to each question. A large body of people could not leave Egypt by the Red Sea, without getting into difficulty for want of supplies, as soon as they found themselves on the barren route that leads to Sinai. That an unenlightened people, such as the Israelites were (Ezek. xx. 1-8) should murmur against their leaders under such circumstances, is according to nature as we find it. That it should be written in their national records that they murmured, is proof that they did, for on no other rational principle could we account for such a record being made. Consider, then, that forty years p. 26 afterwards we find them emerging from the wilderness as a thoroughly organized and belligerent host in the successful invasion of Canaan. The problem to be solved is this: By what means did a large assembly of people subsist so long in such a region, where no harvests could be raised, and no food or water could be procured? By what means did they subsist even for a week under such circumstances? Moses tells us how it was done; and Christ confirms his words as true (John v. 46, 47). Moses says, that the Lord said to him, “I will rain bread from heaven for you: and the people shall go out and gather a certain rate every day. . . . I have heard the murmurings of the children of Israel: speak unto them, saying, At even ye shall eat flesh, and in the morning ye shall be filled with bread; and ye shall know that I am the Lord, your God.”
Moses further informs us that the thing promised was done. “It came to pass, that at even the quails came up, and covered the camp; and in the morning the dew lay round about the host. And when the dew that lay was gone up, behold, upon the face of the wilderness there lay a small round thing, as small as the hoar-frost on the ground. And when the children of Israel saw it, they said one to another, What is this? . . . . And Moses said unto them, This is the bread which the Lord hath given you to eat. . . . This is the thing that the Lord commandeth. Fill an omer of it, to be kept for your generations: that they may see the bread wherewith I have fed you in the wilderness, when I brought you forth from the land of Egypt. And the children of Israel did eat manna forty years, until they came to a land inhabited. . . . until they came unto the borders of the land of Canaan.” p. 27 Now, if this is what happened, we can understand how an immense congregation of people were able to live for a number of years in a region destitute of the means of subsistence. In that case, it was God that brought Israel out of the land of Egypt, and not any merely human leadership, for no human leadership could work such a miracle. In that case, the Bible is true throughout, for establish one part, and you establish all. God, in that case, spoke by Moses, by the prophets, and last of all by Christ and the apostles, as Paul declares in Heb. i. and ii. 2-4. If you say this is not what happened, then, Ladies and Gentlemen, you have two impossibilities on hand. You have to account for the preservation of a nation in a desert without miracle; and you have to maintain—either that Moses did not write these things, or that Moses wrote lies, and that in either case, Christ was the victim of error in accepting the writing as that of Moses; or second, in accepting as true the record of the miracle of the manna.
Fairly confront these difficulties, and you will find them insuperable. You cannot deny Israel’s exodus from Egypt. You cannot deny their presence in the wilderness, during their transition from Egypt to Canaan. You cannot deny their advent on the frontiers of Moab at the end of forty years, as a strong and Moses-believing nation. You cannot explain their sustenance during that time on natural principles.
Some of you may think you can get over these difficulties. If you do so, it is because you accept a so-called “learned” tradition on the subject, and not because you have faced the facts through for yourselves. The dictum of the “learned” world is by no means the weighty thing that it is usually p. 28 taken for. You should read Mr. Gladstone’s articles in Good Words on this point. He shews that the critics both change and contradict one another. His opinion may weigh with you, where a little common sense may seem a poor article.
But whatever you may do with this impossibility of accounting on natural principles for Israel’s sustenance during their sojourn in the wilderness, you will find yourselves helpless in any attempt to maintain the falsity of the testimony of Moses. The authenticity of his testimony rests on the consent of a hundred generations. The probity of his testimony is proved by its inherent character and complexion. And both its authenticity, probity, and authority are confirmed by Christ, whose title to speak is—first, His character: second, His miracles: third, His resurrection.
Lastly, Ladies and Gentlemen, there is no reason why the testimony should be refused, except the opinion that such things as Moses testifies could not happen. Are you prepared to take up such a position as this? Do you think it reasonable that mere opinion should be set up against demonstrated truth? Is not “opinion” in such a case the merest prejudice, and nothing else? I implore you to open your minds to the power of evidence, and to receive the most blessed fact of human history, that God has taken part in human affairs, with a view to a purpose, which opens up a future of hope and glory.