35: The Promises to Israel - Entering the Promised Land

“And about the time of forty years suffered He their manners in the wilderness.” Acts 13.18. In these few words the Apostle Paul in his discourse in the synagogue at Antioch disposed of the forty years’ wandering of the Israelites in the wilderness; and for the purpose of our present study we may pass it by nearly as hastily. Their manners were such that God literally “suffered” them. The record is one of murmurings and rebellion. “They believed not in God, and trusted not in His salvation.” Psalm 78.22. “How oft did they provoke Him in the wilderness, and grieve Him in the desert! Yea, they turned back and tempted God, and limited the Holy One of Israel. They remembered not His hand, nor the day when He delivered them from the enemy; how He had wrought His signs in Egypt, and His wonders in the field of Zoan.” Verses 40-43. Although for forty years they daily saw the works of God, they did not learn His ways; wherefore, says the Lord, “I was grieved with that generation, and said, They do alway err in their heart; and they have not known My ways. So I swore in My wrath, they shall not enter into My rest.” Hebrews 3.10, 11

An Inheritance of Faith

“So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief.” What does that teach us as to the nature of the inheritance to which God was leading His people? —Simply this, that it was an inheritance that could be possessed only by those who had faith—that faith alone could win it. Worldly, temporal possessions may be, and are, gained and held by men who disbelieve, and who even despise and blaspheme God. Indeed, unbelieving men have the most of this world’s goods. Many besides the writer of the seventy-third Psalm have been envious at the prosperity of the wicked; but such feeling of envy arises only when one looks at the things that are temporal, instead of at the things that are eternal. “The prosperity of fools shall destroy them.” God has chosen the poor of this world, “rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom which He hath promised to them that love Him.” James 2.5. That kingdom is “not of this world” (John 18.36), but is “a better country, that is, an heavenly,” for which the patriarchs looked. It was to this country that God promised to lead His people when He delivered them from Egypt. But only those who are “rich in faith can possess it

The time had come when God could carry out His purpose with His people. The faithless ones who had said that their little ones would die in the desert had perished, and now those same children, grown to manhood, and trusting the Lord, were about to enter the Promised Land. After the death of Moses, God said to Joshua: “Arise, go over this Jordan, thou, and all this people, unto the land which I do give to them, even to the children of Israel. Every place that the sole of your foot shall tread upon, that have I given unto you, as I said unto Moses.” Joshua 1.2, 3