he Israelites continued on their journey and
finally came to the banks of the Jordan River, the border of the Promised Land of Canaan. It was about 400 years since Israel had crossed this river and traveled to Egypt with his eleven sons to join Joseph. There were just seventy persons then, and now two million were camped on the border of the land which was their inheritance. For us living in the twenty
first century, Israel’s journey can be understood as an analogy of the human condition and journey towards death and eternity. All of us enter into our Egypt of slavery when we enter into sin through disobeying God’s laws in one way or other. God provides emancipation from that sin, an opportunity for freedom.
We have to offer the Lamb of God as a sacrifice for cleansing, and then walk the journey to the Promised Land, believing that God is with us. Then, we can cross that river into eternal life, into the Promised Land of eternity in paradise.
For the Jews, this wasn’t an analogy, but the reality of life. Moses chose twelve men and sent them into Canaan on a mission to spy out the land and bring back a report. They were to check on the condition of the cities. Were they fortified and diffi- cult to conquer, or unguarded and ill prepared for attack? They were to check on the military capabilities of the inhabitants, and they were to see what the land itself was like. Was it dry and unyielding like much of Egypt, or fertile and bounteous? The spies spent forty days exploring the land and returned with evidence that it was indeed very fertile. However, they also reported that the cities were large and well fortified and therefore difficult, if not impossible, to conquer. But what they were most afraid of was the inhabitants of Canaan. They reported that many of Canaan’s people were of great size physically; they were descendants of the Nephilim. Their advice was that there was simply no way that the Israelites could conquer these people. Ten of the spies filled the people with a sense of hopelessness and fear. Hopelessness because behind them was the nation of Egypt, and in front a nation of oversized, part demon creatures determined to annihilate them, and fear because in between these two choices was little other than sand and rocks, the Sinai Peninsula.
Two of the spies contradicted this advice. Their names were Joshua and Caleb. They encouraged the people saying that if God had given this land to them, then the inhabitants were already conquered. If the Lord was on their side how could they lose? Had the people already forgotten the battle against the Amalekites which they had won with the Lord’s help? These giants were not invincible. But the people were too afraid. They wanted to stone Joshua, Caleb, Moses and Aaron and choose new leaders. None of this pleased God, indeed one could say that His patience with these rebellious and unbelieving people was running out. The glorious light of God suddenly appeared before the entire community of Israel, and He said to Moses, “How long will these people treat me with contempt? How long will they refuse to believe in me, in spite of all of the miraculous signs I have performed among them? I will strike them down with a plague and destroy them…”1
Now Moses was never one to walk away from a challenge and indeed he was even willing to challenge the Lord Himself. Moses challenged God about what the Egyptians would say about Him. He reminded the Lord that the nations such as Egypt and Canaan had already seen the power of God, and that He protects Israel by day and night with His visible presence. He told God that if He put all of these people to death at one time, then His enemies would say He was unable to bring them into the land He promised them so He slaughtered them in the desert. Moses then appealed to the Lord to display His strength and character. He reminded God that He is slow to anger (Moses was counting on that), abounding in love, and forgiving sin and rebellion. Moses pleaded with the Lord to forgive these people, just as He had been forgiving them since they left the land of Egypt.
And the Lord did forgive them as Moses asked, however, He swore than none of those who had seen the miracles He had performed for them, and disobeyed would ever enter the Promised Land. God swore an oath that no person who treats Him with contempt will ever enter His Promised Land. God swore that every person twenty years old and over were responsible for their unbelief. All would live in the desert until they died, none of them would enter Canaan. Only Joshua and Caleb would inherit the land God promised to Israel, simply because they were the only two who believed that God would give what He promised.
In this famous story in the life of the nation of Israel there are many issues which we are wise to take notice of. In the New Testament book written to the Hebrews it states that, “without faith it is impossible to please God.”2The Israelites were condemned solely on the grounds of their unbelief, their lack of faith. God had promised them the land. He had given them everything they had asked for and more. They had seen the miracles in Egypt, they had marched through the sea and then witnessed the destruction of Egypt’s elite army, and they had been fed manna in the mornings and quail in the evenings. They had witnessed the winning of the battle against the Amalekite army, so they knew that these ‘people’ could be conquered. They had all of these things as proofs that God keeps His word. They had every reason to believe that God keeps His promises and He had promised them victory. They didn’t know the final outcome, but they refused to believe Him, to trust Him, to obey Him.
Faith is simply believing what God has promised and acting in obedience to what He commands. Unbelief is the ultimate sin because it suggests that God is unworthy to be trusted, it defames His character, and it calls Him a liar. The Jews were offered life in the Promised Land if they would simply believe God’s words and trust Him. The world is offered eternal life in the Promised Land if they will simply believe God’s Son and trust in Him. Sadly, many commit the ultimate sin, and like the Jews, God swears that they will never enter the Promised Land, they will never see paradise.