The Promise Land

This is my 40th blog and it’s fitting to talk about the promise land. When people talk about the promise land, they look to the Old Testament as they believe that this is the only place this subject is talked about. Well it’s not. There is another place in the scriptures that talks about the promise land. We will look at this but first we will look at the Old Testament to understand what the promise land is for today.

The land was promised by God to Abram (who God changed his name to Abraham) Genesis 15:¹² Now when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram; and behold, horror and great darkness fell upon him. ¹³ Then He said to Abram: “Know certainly that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, and will serve them, and they will AFFLICT them four hundred years. ¹⁴ And also the nation whom they serve I will judge; afterward they shall come out with great possessions. ¹⁵ Now as for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you shall be buried at a good old age. ¹⁶ But in the fourth generation they shall return here, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.” ¹⁷ And it came to pass, when the sun went down and it was dark, that behold, there appeared a smoking oven and a burning torch that passed between those pieces. ¹⁸ On the same day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying: “To your descendants I have given this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the River Euphrates— ¹⁹ the Kenites, the Kenezzites, the Kadmonites, ²⁰ the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, ²¹ the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites, and the Jebusites.” Everything has a purpose including the building up of the house of Israel. Abraham had Isaac and Isaac had Jacob (God changed Jacob’s name to Israel). During a famine, Israel came to Egypt for food as his son Joseph was second in command in Egypt. Once the four hundred years were over, the people of Israel are ready for the promise land. When God appeared to Moses He said Exodus 3:¹⁶ Go and gather the elders of Israel together, and say to them, ‘The Lord God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, appeared to me, saying, “I have surely visited you and seen what is done to you in Egypt; ¹⁷ and I have said I will bring you up out of the affliction of Egypt to the land of the Canaanites and the Hittites and the Amorites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites, to a land flowing with milk and honey.” The people of Israel got to see first hand, God in action, as He set them free from Egypt.

Now it came to pass that when the people of Israel came to the promise land, they didn’t believe that they could conquer the land which God has given them. Numbers 13:²⁶ Now they departed and came back to Moses and Aaron and all the congregation of the children of Israel in the Wilderness of Paran, at Kadesh; they brought back word to them and to all the congregation, and showed them the fruit of the land. ²⁷ Then they told him, and said: “We went to the land where you sent us. It truly flows with milk and honey, and this is its fruit. ²⁸ Nevertheless the people who dwell in the land are strong; the cities are fortified and very large; moreover we saw the descendants of Anak there. ²⁹ The Amalekites dwell in the land of the South; the Hittites, the Jebusites, and the Amorites dwell in the mountains; and the Canaanites dwell by the sea and along the banks of the Jordan.” ³⁰ Then Caleb quieted the people before Moses, and said, “Let us go up at once and take possession, for we are well able to overcome it.” ³¹ But the men who had gone up with him said, “We are not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we.” ³² And they gave the children of Israel a bad report of the land which they had spied out, saying, “The land through which we have gone as spies is a land that devours its inhabitants, and all the people whom we saw in it are men of great stature. ³³ There we saw the giants (the descendants of Anak came from the giants); and we were like grasshoppers in our own sight, and so we were in their sight.” So God sent them back into the wilderness as they didn’t believe God. Even though the people of Israel saw what the lord had done in Egypt. They never did take all of the promise land. Judges 3:1 Now these are the nations which the Lord left, that He might test Israel by them, that is, all who had not known any of the wars in Canaan ² (this was only so that the generations of the children of Israel might be taught to know war, at least those who had not formerly known it), ³ namely, five lords of the Philistines, all the Canaanites, the Sidonians, and the Hivites who dwelt in Mount Lebanon, from Mount Baal Hermon to the entrance of Hamath. ⁴ And they were left, that He might test Israel by them, to know whether they would obey the commandments of the Lord, which He had commanded their fathers by the hand of Moses.⁵ Thus the children of Israel dwelt among the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. ⁶ And they took their daughters to be their wives, and gave their daughters to their sons; and they served their gods.

As the people of Israel didn’t conquer all of the promise land, another promise land was given to His people. This promise land was given through His Son Jesus. It’s not like their fathers who squandered their inheritance away with fleshly desires. Like it says in the faith chapter, Moses would rather suffer affliction than the passing pleasure of sin (flesh). Hebrews 11:²⁴ By faith Moses, when he became of age, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, ²⁵ choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin. This promise land in which Father freely gives you is the Kingdom of God. Luke 12:³² Do not fear, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. This Kingdom in which He gives you is of the Spirit as God is Spirit. Also this Kingdom is not a place in which you are waiting to go but instead it’s within you. Now like our forefathers, we have to fight for this Kingdom to keep it once you have it. There are many tactics in which the enemy uses to try to get us out of the Kingdom and battle him in this world. This short 2 minute video best explains this.

This Kingdom in which He gives you is Righteousness. Once you accept this you are the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. 2 Corinthians 5:²¹ For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. Hebrews 1:⁸ But to the Son He says: “Your throne, O God, is forever and ever; A scepter of righteousness is the scepter of Your kingdom. ⁹ You have loved righteousness and hated lawlessness; Therefore God, Your God, has anointed You With the oil of gladness more than Your companions.”

Isaiah 61:1 “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me,
Because the Lord has anointed Me
To preach good tidings to the poor;
He has sent Me toheal the brokenhearted,
To proclaim liberty to the captives,
And the opening of the prison to those who are bound;
² To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord,
And the day of vengeance of our God;
To comfort all who mourn,
³ To console those who mourn in Zion,
To give them beauty for ashes,
The oil of joy for mourning,
The garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness;
That they may be called trees of righteousness,
The planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified.”