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The Daily Word of Righteousness
A Time To Be Born and a Time To Die, #4
Then Abraham gave up the ghost, and died in a good old age, an old man, and full of years; and was gathered to his people. (Genesis 25:8)
"Was gathered to his people."
There are several instances recorded in the Scriptures in which a saint was advised of the time of his death. Except for Hezekiah, the men of God who were notified did not mournfully beg God to change His mind. The Word speaks of their being gathered to their people; not of their perishing but of being gathered to their relatives and friends who had gone on before.
Jesus himself spoke, not of dying but of going to His Father. We understand, therefore, that physical death is a reestablishing of relationships.
Notice the dignity and strength in the death of the godly Jacob:
And when Jacob had made an end of commanding his sons, he gathered up his feet into the bed, and yielded up the ghost, and was gathered unto his people. (Genesis 49:33)
We see here that Jacob's time had come, his work was finished. Jacob yielded up his spirit. This reminds us of the Lord Jesus. No person was able to take Christ's life from Him. He laid it down and He took it up again (John 10:18).
The deaths of Aaron and Moses are outstanding examples of victory over the grief and fear that ordinarily accompany physical death—and these examples of victory took place under the old covenant! God commanded them to die. He took their spirits.
Aaron and Moses died in obedience to the Lord while in the full vigor of their physical lives. No weaknesses claimed their bodies. Perhaps their continued exposure to the Glory of God had rendered them somewhat immune to disease. They marched obediently into the midst of their deceased loved ones, laying down their flesh along the way.
And Aaron the priest went up into mount Hor at the commandment of the Lord, and died there, in the fortieth year after the children of Israel were come out of the land of Egypt, in the first day of the fifth month. (Numbers 33:38)
Wasn't that marvelous? Can you imagine anything more glorious than that? Aaron's work was finished. For Aaron to have remained past his appointed hour would have blemished the perfection of the Lord's work among the Israelites. Aaron's generation was required to die in the wilderness in the forty-year period, and this was the "fortieth year." Of course, Aaron's calendar had been established before he was born (Psalms 139:16).
How triumphantly Aaron was called home!
It was time for Aaron to be reunited with his people who had gone on before, including Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as well as his many relatives and friends who had perished in the wilderness.
Aaron climbed Mount Hor, as God told him to do, and passed into the spirit realm—there to await the Day of the Lord along with his relatives and acquaintances. (He is still waiting, for he cannot be made perfect apart from us.)
To be continued.