Exodus 33:1-3 (NLT) The LORD said to Moses, “Get going, you and the people you brought up from the land of Egypt. Go up to the land I swore to give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. I told them, ‘I will give this land to your descendants.’ And I will send an angel before you to drive out the Canaanites, Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites. Go up to this land that flows with milk and honey. But I will not travel among you, for you are a stubborn and rebellious people. If I did, I would surely destroy you along the way.”
Forty years of wandering in the wilderness had brought Israel to stand upon a mountaintop overlooking the land of promise. Every Israelite over twenty years of age at the time they left Egypt under Moses’ leadership, was now dead, except Joshua and Caleb.
What caused those Israelites who left Egypt by God’s power to lose their privilege of setting foot upon the promised land? God always keeps His promises. He has the power to make them, and He has the power to fulfil them. Some doubt this fact.
During their forty years of desert wandering, the children of Israel used the name of God. When He showed them miracles, they humbled themselves. When the challenges of life in the desert became too difficult, they hardened their hearts in anger and resentment. They forgot His power and trembled in fear at the thought of facing the Canaanites. In so doing, they lost their privilege to enter the land of promise.
Joshua 1:3&5 (NLT) I promise you what I promised Moses: ‘Wherever you set foot, you will be on land I have given you . . . . No one will be able to stand against you as long as you live. For I will be with you as I was with Moses. I will not fail you or abandon you.
God confirms to Joshua that His promise of the Promise land hasn’t changed. The Promised land still belonged to God’s people. God said to Joshua: The promise I made to Moses now belongs to you. Wherever you step, that land belongs to you. No one will be able to stand against you as long as you live. I will be with you just like I was with Moses. I will not fail you. I won’t abandon you.
Whatever your God-given Promised Land is, know this: only you can keep you from reaching it! Not your present circumstances; not your past; not your background; not your family; not your education. Nothing, and no one, can keep you from your promise.
Whatever it may be, commit today to live a life free of fear, and don’t let anything come in the way of you receiving all that God has for you!
Numbers 32:11-12(KJV) Surely none of the men that came up out of Egypt, from twenty years old and upward, shall see the land which I sware unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob; because they have not wholly followed me: Save Caleb the son of Jephunneh the Kenezite, and Joshua the son of Nun: for they have wholly followed the LORD.”
Those who live by humble faith enter the fullness of God’s provisions of grace. We have access by faith to this grace in which we stand.