Good weekend to you my “Walking with Jesus” friends,
We’ve all witnessed great moments when people are encouraged and motivated to attempt great things. It happens each spring at college commencement times when graduates step forward into the future they’ve prepared for! It happens at weddings when couples ride off into the sunset with great expectations of married life. It’s starting a new business or accepting a new job or finding a new purpose in life.
Yesterday I left you with Moses and nearly 1 million Israelites at Mount Sinai as they had recently been rescued by God from generations of slavery in Egypt. You’ll remember I showed you yesterday that in Genesis 15:13,14 God had predicted that His Covenant People would live 400 years in a land not their own and experience bitter slavery there! But God also predicted He would rescue His people and bring them out of slavery and into the Covenant Land again.
After God delivered the Israelites from slavery in Egypt, they spent several months at Mount Sinai with God, learning that God did not consider them slaves, rather God said this: “Now if you obey Me fully and keep My Covenant, then out of all the nations you will be My treasured possession. Although the whole earth is Mine, you will be for Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” (Ex. 19:5,6) These slaves had a newfound sense of identity and hope for the future!
They were gaining a growing confidence that God would lead them and accompany them into the future He had promised their ancestors Abraham, Isaac and Jacob centuries before. Finally, with the Tabernacle and Ark of Covenant and the 10 Commandments tables of the Covenant, they left Mount Sinai, following the cloud of God’s presence, heading for the Covenant Land. (Numbers 10)
You’ll recall Moses sent 12 Israelite leaders in to scout this land of Promise but upon their return to the people they gave such a fearful report that the people refused to trust God and follow God into the Covenant land. (Numbers 13,14) As a result God sent them back out into the desert to wander for 40 years, one year for each day those men had investigated the land of God’s promise. During those years that entire generation of Israelites, whom God had rescued from Egyptian slavery, died in the desert.
Finally, Moses, the man of God, who had led these people out of Egypt neared the end of his life, having fulfilled well the commission God had given him at that burning bush so many years before. God had selected and commissioned Joshua to lead the next generation of Israelites into this land of God’s Promise and the mantle of leadership was passed from Moses to Joshua. (Deut. 31-34)
A few days ago, in our “Walking with Jesus” journey, we looked closely at Joshua 1-5 and the remarkable story of Joshua leading this next generation of Israelites out of the desert and across the God dried riverbed of the flooded Jordan river. It was amazingly similar to how God had opened the Red Sea for their parents as God led them out of Egyptian slavery. So now let’s rejoin them, camped at Gilgal, spending their first few days in the land God had first promised their ancestors 500 years before. I hope we all now have a much better understanding of WHY Joshua and these Israelites have a very strong confidence that the entire land before them is the Covenant Land God had promised to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and their descendants.
But of course, when God first led Abraham to this land there were already other people living there and by the time Joshua and the Israelites crossed the Jordan, 500 years later, there are now millions of people living in this land and for many of them it had been their homeland for many, many generations! Do you see the problem? That is why I’ve taken the past several days to trace God’s Covenant of Land and People first with Abraham and then with Isaac and then Jacob and his sons the Israelites.
Before Joshua and the Israelites people took one step further into this new land, something very significant took place. Joshua 4:19 tells us the exact day Joshua and these Israelites had crossed over the Jordan river from the desert into this Promised Land: “On the tenth day of the first month the Israelites went up from the Jordan and camped at Gilgal on the eastern border of Jericho. And Joshua set up at Gilgal the 12 stones they had taken out of the Jordan river.” We remember those stones were to be a memorial for all generations to come, of the miracle God had performed that day as He stopped the flow of the flooded Jordan river so Joshua and God’s Covenant People could cross over into God’s Covenant Land.
We saw that the very next day, according to Joshua 5, all the Israelite men were circumcised! That was a strong declaration that they rejected the faithlessness of their parents and the rebellion of their parents who had refused to give their sons the Covenant mark. Now, after they have healed, let’s take special note of what happened next: “On the evening of the 14th day of the first month, while camped at Gilgal on the plains of Jericho, the Israelites celebrated the Passover.” (Joshua 5:10) I imagine this was a Passover celebration unlike any in their history! This generation was celebrating that YES, God had delivered them and their parents from Egyptian slavery, and YES God had brought them into the Covenant Land He had promised Abraham 500 years before; and YES, their men had renewed their commitment to being the Covenant People of God! Oh, my what a glorious Passover this must have been.
The next words of Joshua’s record are extremely significant: “The day after the Passover, they ate some of the produce of the land; unleavened bread and roasted grain. The manna stopped the day after they ate this food from the land; there was no longer any manna for the Israelites, but that year they ate the produce of Canaan!” (Joshua 5:11,12) For 40 years God had provided a daily bread delivery, falling from heaven, for the people to collect and cook for their daily meals. I cannot imagine eating the very same thing every day for a week or a month or a year or especially not for 40 years! How about you? But this was the price of rejecting God’s leading of the people and His provision of the land of Promise.
Now, however, a new generation is tasting the bounty of this new land God had promised and provided to them. There was no need for manna any longer. They had crossed into this land at harvest time, as another indication of God’s perfect timing and His provision for their needs.
Let’s pause right here my friends and consider what it was like for these Israelites the first day they awakened and there was NO manna on the ground, for the first time in 40 years! Yet all around them were the foods of this land in harvest season!
Would you take a moment to consider how God’s perfect timing and His sufficient provision have been your experience in your lifetime journey? Three weeks from now will be Thanksgiving weekend in America and much of the world.
Let’s follow Joshua’s example and begin our thanks to God right now… may I suggest we begin making a list which reflects God’s perfect Timing and His sufficient Provision in your life, as we worship with this song, and tomorrow we’ll see what Joshua and God did next:
Today’s Scripture is Joshua 5:10-12.
Choose below to read or listen.
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Bible images provided with attribution to www.LumoProject.com.
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Pastor Doug Anderson
“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, with our eyes fixed on Jesus…” (Heb. 12:1,2)
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