God's Promises For The Promised Land - Part 3 -

God’s Promises For The Promised Land – Part 3

God’s promises for the Promised Land are central to the covenant relationship that God wanted for His chosen people. God’s promises for the Promised Land are not only for people in the Old Testament. They are relevant for people in the New Testament, as well as for us today.

God’s promises to Abraham and his descendants are not just about land. They are about God blessing God’s chosen people to become a great nation. And to be God’s special chosen people and have a covenant relationship with Him. And ultimately the greatest part of God’s promises is how God would send the Messiah, the Savior of the world, through the nation of Israel.

God first made the promise to Abraham, assuring him that his descendants would inherit a land “flowing with milk and honey”. This land, later known as Canaan, symbolized God’s faithfulness, provision, and covenant with His people. Despite periods of wandering, exile, and conquest, the promise of the land remained a sign of hope and divine blessing. Reflecting God’s enduring commitment to His people and their future.

God’s Promises For The Promised Land

Faith Is Vital In Order To Walk Closely With God & Receive His Blessings

Here is part of a devotion by Dr. Charles Stanley that perfectly describes the type of faith people have.

1. Faith says “I believe God can do it”

2. Stong Faith says “I believe God can do it, and He will do it”

3. Perfect Faith says “Whatever God says or promises “It is Already Done” !

In order to walk closely with God and to receive all the many blessings and promises He has for us, we need to have the perfect kind of faith. The faith that says and believes that whatever God says or promises, He will definitely do. And whatever God says or promises, it is already done.

Numbers 23:19 “God is not man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his mind. Has he said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it?

Isaiah 46:11 “What I have said, that I will bring about; what I have planned, that I will do.”

We need to learn and know God personally well enough to know that God is perfectly faithful. You can read about God’s faithfulness in the Bible. But it is far better to experience His perfect faithfulness in the ups and downs of your life.

In order to have intimacy with God and the closest possible fellowship with Him, we need to learn and know without a doubt that God if perfectly faithful. And that God always does what He says and promises. God’s Promises are Guarantees.

God’s Promises For The Promised Land

Only Those That Had Faith Entered The Promised Land

After 40 years in the wilderness, the generation of people that did not believe in God and rebelled against Him died off. Only Caleb and Joshua and their families, and those who were under 20 at the time God’s people rebelled after the 12 spies visited the Promised Land were allowed to enter it.

Because Moses had disobeyed God’s specific order about saying to a rock to produce water, he was not allowed to enter into the Promised Land. Moses had struck the rock, which was not unusual to do in that area in order to get water that was flowing under that type of brittle type of rock formation. God wanted to display His almighty power, just as He had by parting the Red Sea and producing manna from heaven.

So God chose Joshua to lead His chosen people into the promised Land. Approximately 470 years after God promised to Abraham his descendants finally entered the promised Land.

Joshua 1:1-5 “After the death of Moses the servant of the Lord, the Lord said to Joshua son of Nun, Moses’ aid “Moses my servant is dead. Now then, you and all these people, get ready to cross the Jordan River into the land I am about to give to them—to the Israelites. I will give you every place where you set your foot* as I promised Moses. Your territory* will extend from the desert to Lebanon, and from the great river, the Euphrates—all the Hittite country—to the Mediterranean Sea in the west. No one will be able to stand against you all the days of your life*. As I was with Moses, so I will be with you; I will never leave you nor forsake you*. Be strong and courageous, because you will lead these people to inherit the land I swore to their ancestors to give them.

God’s Promises For The Promised Land

Lessons From God’s Promises for The Promised Land

The Big Lesson – We need faith to have a right relationship and close fellowship with God. And we need to have faith in order to please God (Hebrews 11:6). We need to seek God and to know God well enough personally to know that God always does what He says and promises.

Besides this lesson, how else does the promise of the Promised Land and the coming Savior Jesus apply to us today?

Literally our Promised Land is heaven. Where we will spend eternity worshipping and enjoying God’s love and presence. So do we just live our lives waiting for our time to go to heaven. And having fellowship with Jesus and going to church until then?

God’s Promises For The Promised Land

We Ought To Try To Bring As Many People As We Can With Us To Heaven

God’s words to Joshua in Joshua 1 remind me of something else. Something that we have been commanded and called by Jesus to do.

Joshua 1 reminds me of what it is like to Be On Mission with God. We are not saved by God to just be waiting around for heaven

“We were not saved from our sin simply so that we would qualify for heaven. God delivered us so we would have a relationship with Him through which He could carry out His mission to redeem a lost world. – Henry Blackaby

“The Spirit of Christ is the Spirit of Missions. The nearer we get to Jesus, the more intensely missionary we become.” – Henry Martyn (missionary to India in 1800’s)

God’s Promises For The Promised Land

We Are All Called And Commanded To Accomplish God’s Mission

We are all called and commanded by Jesus to be on mission with God. To GO and share the Gospel with lost people. And to then help them grow spiritually and make disciples/

1 Timothy 2:4 “God wants all men to be saved.”

God loves all people in the world. And He has a strong desire and a passion to save them and have a reconciled personal relationship with them. He wants this so much that He sent His only Son Jesus to suffer and die a horribly painful death on the cross to accomplish this.

Before Jesus died on the cross He called and command his followers:

Matthew 4:19 “Follow me I will make you fishers of men”

Acts 1:8 “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

Mark 16:15 “And he said to them, “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation.”

Acts 8:1,4 “On that day a great persecution broke out against the church in Jerusalem, and all except the apostles were scattered n throughout Judea and Samaria… Those who had been scattered preached the word (the Gospel) wherever they went.”

In the early church in Acts, every person went out and shared the Gospel everywhere they went. Even though they lived in difficult and dangerous times for a Christian.

Research today shows that a meager 1-2% of Christians in US evangelical churches regularly share the Gospel with others. There is something seriously wrong with this. Jesus commanded all of us to go and spread the Gospel, in our Jerusalem (our community), our Judea and Samaria (our region and nation), and to the ends of the earth.

There is something seriously wrong in the hearts of today’s modern Christians. Instead of being driven by Jesus’ love and passion for the lost like the early church was, we are content with how things are. And even apathetic to the fact that there are over 7 billion lost people in the world today.

Let me repeat that. There are over 7 billion lost people in the world today. And at the same time the church in the US is sending out less and less people to be on mission around the world. I am not talking about just sending a little money to missions. Or praying once in awhile for mission. I am talking about Going and doing all we can to reach as many lost people as we can.

Next week in Part 4 we will finish this series of studies on God’s promises for the Promised Land.

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