OVERCOMING PROMISED-LAND TROUBLES
The biblical Word of God shows that God’s people have had to overcome trouble getting to the land he promised Abraham and his descendants (Genesis 13:15). The Son of God, Jesus Christ, said, “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).
The Bible shows the Lord has helped his people overcome promised-land troubles in the old and new testament.
OVERCOMING ENSLAVEMENT
OT. The Bible tells us the physical descendants of Abraham, people of Israel, went to Egypt for food because there was a famine in in the land of Israel. After they grew in number the Egyptian Pharaoh saw them as a threat, and he enslaved them. But God brought plagues upon the Egyptians, causing Pharaoh to free the people of Israel from bondage. Thus, God would take them back to the land he promised Abraham.
When the Egyptian army pursued after their free slaves, God empowered his chosen leader, Moses, to miraculously open the Red Sea, allowing the people of Israel to escape. Then closed the Sea, destroying the pursuing Egyptian army.
Moses told the people, “The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers—it is to him you shall listen” (Deuteronomy 18:15).
NT. Jesus said, “If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me” (John 5:46).
And he said: “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free” from the devil (Luke 4:18).
The Bible tells us, “our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms” (Ephesians 6:12). However, God anointed Jesus with the Holy Spirit and power, and “he went around doing good and healing all who were under the power of the devil” (Acts 10:38).
OVERCOMING SIN
OT. Death resulting from sins of the people of Israel caused God to establish a DAY OF ATONEMENT for sins (Leviticus 16:1).God told Moses to instruct the priest on how animals were to be sacrificed yearly to atone for the sins of the priest and the people (Leviticus 16:1)
“Aaron is to offer the bull for his own sin offering to make atonement for himself and his household. 7 Then he is to take the two goats and present them before the Lord at the entrance to the tent of meeting. 8 He is to cast lots for the two goats—one lot for the Lord and the other for the scapegoat.[b] 9 Aaron shall bring the goat whose lot falls to the Lord and sacrifice it for a sin offering. 10 But the goat chosen by lot as the scapegoat shall be presented alive before the Lord to be used for making atonement by sending it into the wilderness as a scapegoat.” (Leviticus !6:6-10).
NT. “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). “The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23). For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16).
“ For Christ did not enter a sanctuary made with human hands that was only a copy of the true one; he entered heaven itself, now to appear for us in God’s presence. 25 Nor did he enter heaven to offer himself again and again, the way the high priest enters the Most Holy Place every year with blood that is not his own” (Hebrews 9:24-25).
OVERCOMING UNBELIEF
OT. Some people overcame doubts others had about God’s power to get believers into the promised land.
God said to Moses,“Send some men to explore the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the Israelites. From each ancestral tribe send one of its leaders.” (Numbers 13:1-2).
Joshua son of Nun and Caleb son of Jephunneh, who were among those who had explored the land reported to the entire Israelite assembly: “The land we passed through and explored is exceedingly good. If the Lord is pleased with us, he will lead us into that land, a land flowing with milk and honey, and will give it to us” (Numbers14:6-8).
But the men who had gone up with them said, “We can’t attack those people; they are stronger than we are.” And they said: “All the people we saw there are of great size….We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them.” (Numbers 13:31-33)…
Moses prayed to God to forgive the complaints and distrust of the people. The Lord replied: “I have forgiven them, as you asked. Nevertheless, as surely as I live and as surely as the glory of the Lord fills the whole earth, not one of those who saw my glory and the signs I performed in Egypt and in the wilderness but who disobeyed me and tested me ten times—not one of them will ever see the land I promised on oath to their ancestors.But because my servant Caleb [and Joshua,v6] has a different spirit and follows me wholeheartedly, I will bring him into the land he went to, and his descendants will inherit it.” (Numbers 14:20-24; Joshua 3).
NT. Jesus did greater things than Moses or anyone else, still he said some people don’t believe he is the Son of God (John 15:24). He miraculously calm a stormy sea (Mark 4:35-41), healed all manner of sickness and oppressions of the devil (Acts 10:38, raised people from the dead (Mark 5:35-43; John 11:38-44), and he rose from the dead to die no more (Romans 6:9).
The Lord said, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6).
ASSURANCE OF ENTERING THE PROMISED-LAND
The Word of God assures those who believe in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior– despite our troubles–he is able to resurrect and present us faultless before his Father in the heavenly promise-land with great joy (Jude 1:24).
The Bible informs us in Hebrews 11 that many Old Testament believers in God longed for a “heavenly” land (v6). “These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised, since God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect” (vss39-40).
And “if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep.For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words” (1 Thessalonians 4:14-16)
