"Looking Back and Looking Forward (Numbers 33-34)", Will DuVal | 6/15/25
Numbers 33-34 | 6/15/25 | Will DuVal
They say that “Those who don’t learn from history are doomed to REPEAT it.” And I think we could add: “Those who don’t plan for the future are bound to DEADBEAT it.” To DRIFT aimlessly and “neglect [their] responsibilities”.
Many of us are so busy living our lives in the present that we rarely take the time to slow down and reflect back on the past or plan ahead too much for the future. But God’s word invites us to “remember the former things of old” - Isaiah 46:9 - and it assures us that “the plans of the diligent lead to abundance”, Proverbs 21:5. In other words, we ought to regularly spend time looking back and looking forward.
Now, to be sure, it is ALSO possible to get STUCK in the past, or to FIXATE on the future. You’ve likely ALSO heard, “Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but TODAY is a GIFT; that’s why we call it the PRESENT.” So live in the PRESENT; carpe the diem. And there’s some biblical truth to that as well. In Isaiah 43:18, God declares, ““Remember NOT the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I am doing a new thing”. Don’t dwell on the past.
Similarly, James 4:14 warns us to hold our plans for the future LOOSELY, for “you do not know what tomorrow will bring”; “The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps” (Prov 16:9); GOD holds the future. So there’s a TENSION here, that we live within.
Nevertheless, as our sermon series in Numbers begins to draw to a close here in chs 33 & 34 (next week will actually be our LAST in Numbers, sadly), but here, God’s people, Israel, are on the cusp of entering into Canaan, the land God had promised to give them. But before they go in, God invites them into this dual process of REFLECTION and PREPARATION - reflecting back and preparing ahead.
And the question for YOU AND ME this morning is simply: “How might God be calling US to the SAME?” To look BACK on our past, so we can LEARN from it; to look FORWARD to where God is taking us, so we can plan intentionally FOR it; while still LIVING in the PRESENT, so we can make the MOST of it.
That’s where we’re headed; I invite you to STAND with me…(SCRIPTURE:) Numbers 33 & 34; we won’t read the entire passage, not only because it’s pretty LONG, but because it’s also a bit TEDIOUS - there are not one, not two, but THREE lists of names or PLACE-names here, and for that matter, you don’t wanna hear me butcher the Hebrew pronunciations either. But we’ll make sure to read at least an EXCERPT from each of the four different SECTIONS of the text. Hear the word of the Lord:
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“33:1 These are the stages of the people of Israel, when they went out of the land of Egypt by their companies under the leadership of Moses and Aaron. 2 Moses wrote down their starting places, stage by stage, by command of the Lord, and these are their stages according to their starting places. 3 They set out from Rameses in the first month, on the fifteenth day of the first month. On the day after the Passover, the people of Israel went out triumphantly in the sight of all the Egyptians, 4 while the Egyptians were burying all their firstborn, whom the Lord had struck down among them. On their gods also the Lord executed judgments.
5 So the people of Israel set out from Rameses and camped at Succoth. 6 And they set out from Succoth and camped at Etham, which is on the edge of the wilderness. 7 And they set out from Etham and turned back to Pi-hahiroth, which is east of Baal-zephon, and they camped before Migdol. 8 And they set out from before Hahiroth and passed through the midst of the sea into the wilderness, and they went a three days' journey in the wilderness of Etham and camped at Marah.
[And we’re gonna skip over 39 verses now and 36 campsites I can’t pronounce, down to v48…]
48 And they set out from the mountains of Abarim and camped in the plains of Moab by the Jordan at Jericho; 49 they camped by the Jordan from Beth-jeshimoth as far as Abel-shittim in the plains of Moab.
v50: And the Lord spoke to Moses in the plains of Moab by the Jordan at Jericho, saying, 51 “Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, When you pass over the Jordan into the land of Canaan, 52 then you shall drive out all the inhabitants of the land from before you and destroy all their figured stones and destroy all their metal images and demolish all their high places. 53 And you shall take possession of the land and settle in it, for I have given the land to you to possess it. 54 You shall inherit the land by lot according to your clans. To a large tribe you shall give a large inheritance, and to a small tribe you shall give a small inheritance. Wherever the lot falls for anyone, that shall be his. According to the tribes of your fathers you shall inherit. 55 But if you do not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you, then those of them whom you let remain shall be as barbs in your eyes and thorns in your sides, and they shall trouble you in the land where you dwell. 56 And I will do to you as I thought to do to them.”
ch34: The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 2 “Command the people of Israel, and say to them, When you enter the land of Canaan (this is the land that shall fall to you for an inheritance, the land of Canaan as defined by its borders), 3 your south side shall be from the wilderness of Zin alongside Edom, and your southern border shall run from the end of the Salt Sea on the east. 4 And your border shall turn south of the ascent of Akrabbim, and cross to Zin, and its limit shall be south of Kadesh-barnea.
[And we’re gonna skim over most of THIS now TOO… more hard-to-pronounce PLACE names, that define the BORDERS, the BOUNDARIES of the Promised Land…]
v6: “For the western border, you shall have the Great Sea and its[b] coast…
v7: “This shall be your northern border: from the Great Sea you shall draw a line to Mount Hor…
v10: “You shall draw a line for your eastern border from Hazar-enan to Shepham…
v13: Moses commanded the people of Israel, saying, “This is the land that you shall inherit by lot, which the Lord has commanded to give to the nine tribes and to the half-tribe. For the tribes of the people of Reuben… and Gad… and also the half-tribe of Manasseh… have received their inheritance beyond the Jordan east of Jericho.” [which we covered LAST week in ch32.]
v16: The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 17 “These are the names of the men who shall divide the land to you for inheritance: Eleazar the priest and Joshua the son of Nun. 18 You shall take one chief from every tribe to divide the land for inheritance. 19 These are the names of the men: Of the tribe of Judah, Caleb the son of Jephunneh. 20 Of the tribe of the people of Simeon, Shemuel the son of Ammihud.
[And again, we’ll skip over the remaining EIGHT tribes and chiefs whose names I ALSO can’t pronounce; just TEN tribes total because Reuben and Gad don’t get to help divide the land up because they won’t INHERIT it. But we END in v29…]
29 These are the men whom the Lord commanded to divide the inheritance for the people of Israel in the land of Canaan.”
This is the word of God… Seated…
Alright, God wants to teach us FOUR important lessons here, as we look BACK on the past, and look FORWARD to the future.
#1- And we BEGIN in ch33 by looking BACK, through which, as we’ve already noted, God wants us to learn from our past. (33:1-49) We look back to LEARN from our PAST. And specifically, we learn THREE things from Israel’s own example of recounting their journey thus far; there are 3 CATEGORIES of place-names we find in the list here, so these will be sub-points now under bullet #1: we see 1) Our FAILURES; we see 2) God’s FAITHFULNESS; and we see 3) Life’s frequent FLATNESS, its MUNDANENESS for much of the journey.
But before we examine each of them in turn, let’s first admit that the ENTIRE list is pretty mundane, pretty BORING to us, isn’t it? Even the EXCITING parts, where the ACTION happened - “Rameses [where] the people of Israel [EXODUSED] triumphantly… Rephidim, where there was no water for the people to drink [but God miraculously split a ROCK open to PROVIDE it]... Mount HOR,” where they fought the king of Arad; just hearing the NAMES of these places, even the ones accompanied by mini-descriptions, they don’t really do much for us, do they?
But imagine how an ancient ISRAELITE would have felt, listening to Moses recount these momentous stages of their journey. Each one would have evoked a FLOOD of memories. Like when I say, “I set out from JACKSON and camped at FURMAN. And we set out from FURMAN and camped at VANDERBILT. And we set out from VANDERBILT and camped at CULVER…” - that means NOTHING to y’all, but that list is FILLED with meaning for ME, and for POLLY, because it’s our STORY. And all I have to say is “Furman” or “Culver”, and a FLOOD of memories rushes back. So ONE lesson this teaches us, then, here’s a BONUS lesson: we need the selflessness and the empathy to be able to hear and honor and LEARN from OTHERS’ journeys as well, not JUST our own. And especially those journeys important enough to be recorded for us in sacred SCRIPTURE. Narcissists don’t have any interest in the Bible; they don’t have the PATIENCE for it. Cuz it’s not ABOUT them. It was written FOR us; 1 Corinthians 10 says that these stories about Israel’s wandering through the wilderness “were written down for our instruction” (v11). But the stories themselves aren’t ABOUT us, or even originally written TO us. Moses recounted the journey as a reminder to ISRAEL.
Similarly, narcissists have a really hard time in SMALL groups. Where you got 10 people, and 90% of the meeting time is spent on OTHER peoples’ testimonies, recounting God’s faithfulness is THEIR lives, sharing how God spoke this week through His word to THEM, how the group can be praying for THEM. Small groups test and GROW our SELFLESSNESS, don’t they? That’s just ONE of the reasons you need to be in one; stop by the Info Bar.
But let’s get to those 3 sub-lessons now; we learn 3 things from our past, and from ISRAEL’s past here:
First, we’re reminded of 1) Our FAILURES. For ISRAEL, that’s what hearing MANY of these campsites recalled would have brought back to mind: Marah was one of their FIRST stops, in Exodus 15:23-24, but they were already COMPLAINING about the water there being undrinkable, so God miraculously turned it into KOOL-Aid for them. Just four verses LATER in Exodus, in the Wilderness of Sin (Ex 16:1-2), they were grumbling AGAIN, this time about being HUNGRY, so God miraculously sent down manna - Krispy Kreme donuts - from heaven to feed them. Next chapter in Exodus, ch17, they came to Rephidim, and griped AGAIN, about being thirsty AGAIN, so God provided AGAIN…”; If we don’t learn from the past, we are doomed to REPEAT it. And they DID. At Kibroth-Hattaavah (Num 11:34), where they belly-ached again, so God sent QUAIL this time, cuz they wanted MEAT, specifically… at Kadesh (Num 20:1-3), where they moaned & groaned of THIRST again… I’m running out of synonyms for “complain”. And the repetitiveness of their failures would be FUNNY if it wasn’t so TRUE and so SAD, and so FAMILIAR to us.
Cuz let’s be honest: how often are WE guilty of repeating the same failures, the same instances of FAITHLESSNESS, of failing to trust in the Lord’s provision and care? I can only speak for myself, but I need only recount the place-names of the major stops in MY OWN journey to be reminded of my FAILURES of faith along the way; JACKSON: I bemoaned my parent’s divorce; “How could God bring ANYTHING good out of this?”; VANDERBILT: I blamed God for my unhappiness and unemployment; “God, where ARE you?!”; CULVER: I accused God of robbing me of my dream job; “God, how COULD you?!”
How about YOU? What failures are YOU reminded of, as YOU look back on YOUR past? Maybe it’s HARD for you to even “GO there”, because it’s just too PAINFUL or SHAMEFUL for you, how much you failed to trust God. If that’s you, I just want to offer you two notes of encouragement:
First, I think it’s TRUE what they say, that “we learn more from the LOSSES than we do from the WINS”. God wants to GROW you, and he wants to use even - maybe ESPECIALLY - your FAILURES to DO so. By suppressing or RE-pressing your past, your mistakes, you actually HINDER your ability to learn and grow from them.
But SECOND, and even more IMPORTANT- God promises that “There is now NO condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” NO more guilt, NO more shame; they are from THE ENEMY, the “accuser of the brethren”, Satan, who is ALSO the “father of LIES”, and that’s just what guilt and shame ARE for the Christian - they are LIES from the pit of Hell; “God could never really forgive THAT part of your past… Better not bring up THAT part of your story, or you won’t be loved and accepted by other respectable Christians…” - LIES!!
Here’s how commentator Iain Duguid (Numbers, 347) puts it (and I know I’ve quoted him a lot throughout this series, but his sermon on chapters 33 & 34 here was ESPECIALLY excellent, so I want to read for you a few longer excerpts from his commentary this morning; he points out that):
“Each of these names identifies a place where the Israelites turned their backs on the Lord. Yet strangely enough, if you didn’t already know Israel’s history of rebellion, you wouldn’t have known from this account that any of these negative things happened. Whereas the itinerary lists specific reminders of the acts of God’s faithfulness, it passes in complete and total silence over Israel’s UNfaithfulness… (isn’t that? INTERESTING? If I were recording this list, I probably would’ve reminded them of the details: that was the place where they followed Cora in rebellion… And that was the place where they grumbled and God had to send fiery snakes… But God doesn’t do that here does he? So Duguid notes:) This fact shows us that we need to be reminded of God’s FORGETFULNESS as well as his faithfulness… In the Lord’s inspired summary of Israel’s wilderness wanderings, he chose to pass over their sin in silence… Sometimes WE are afraid to look over our past for fear of being overwhelmed by the reality of our sin… Yet this list reminds us that when the LORD looks back over our lives, he passes over our sins. He doesn’t keep a record of our wrongs filed away, ready to use against us at an opportune moment. If that were the case, none of us would ever make it to the end of the journey… In Christ, our sin is done away with: it is nailed to the cross, buried in the tomb with Christ, and forgotten by God forever. As the psalmist put it, “As far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us” (Ps 103:12).”
Amen. Thank you, Jesus!
And that’s a good segue way to the SECOND thing we learn by looking back on our past: we are reminded of God’s FAITHFULNESS, with this SECOND grouping of pit stops along the way.
-We’re reminded at Rameses of God’s protection of Israel from His plagues of judgment on Egypt, and God’s LIBERATION of Israel, when they “went out triumphantly in the sight of all the Egyptians”.
-We’re reminded at Hahiroth of God’s deliverance of Israel, by way of His miraculous parting of the Red Sea.
-We’re reminded at Elim of God’s provision for Israel, in the form of “twelve springs of water and seventy palm trees” - a lush desert oasis.
-We’re reminded by the “King of Arad”, who came out to MEET and FIGHT Israel from “the Negeb in the land of Canaan”, of God’s victory on behalf of his people.
And the list goes on, for Israel, just as it does for ME, and for YOU: so many different places and events, all pointing back to God’s past FAITHFULNESS in our lives; his PROTECTION and DELIVERANCE, his PROVISION and VICTORY. So Duguid exhorts us (346-7): “Each of these places stood as eloquent testimony to God’s faithfulness to provide for his people… We too need to be reminded regularly of God’s faithfulness to US. We need to take time to reflect on all the ways in which that faithfulness has been evidenced in our lives… The goal is that our hearts are stirred afresh to thankfulness and faith as we revisit our own personal Rameses and Elims.”
And I would just add that we need to take time to SHARE these stories with OTHERS as well, with both BELIEVERS and ESPECIALLY with UN-believers. Your testimony is one of your greatest sources of ENCOURAGEMENT to fellow believers, and your greatest form of EVANGELISM, your best WITNESS to the LOST. “Listen to what GOD has done in MY life; just imagine what He wants to do in YOURS, if you’ll LET him…” We can even challenge unbelievers to consider all that God has ALREADY done in their life, perhaps without them even having REALIZED it, or having stopped to THANK Him for it. What a great CONVERSATION starter, a wonderful question to ask someone, without even NEEDING to know their faith status (you’ll find out pretty quick, though!): “How have you seen God’s faithfulness in your life?” Then buckle up.
I’ll give you just THREE quick, practical ideas for cultivating intentional remembrance of God’s past faithfulness (And I have to be honest; I haven’t done a particularly GREAT job of implementing ANY of these in my OWN life, so I am preaching to MYSELF as much as Y’ALL this morning, but):
The first idea is a PRAYER JOURNAL. Oftentimes even when we try to be more disciplined and structured with our prayer lives, we might keep a prayer list. But how often do we go BACK and actually record the ways in which God ANSWERED those prayers? Or to take it even a step further, you could have THREE columns in your prayer journal: one for the PETITION (the prayer request), a second column for God’s PROVISION (how He ANSWERED that request), and then a THIRD column to record your prayer of PRAISE in response to His provision). You might decide to revisit and fill in that THIRD column one year later, to the day: “What was I praying for this time LAST year? And how did God PROVIDE? And how can I think back and PRAISE Him for it, even today?” What a cool spiritual discipline that would be!
Or a SECOND idea for remembering God’s faithfulness: make an EBENEZER. In 1 Samuel 7, God supernaturally rescued Israel from the Philistines in battle, and to commemorate the divine victory, the prophet Samuel placed a STONE there, “and called its name Ebenezer; [which is Hebrew for “stone of help”] for he said, “Till now the Lord has helped us.”” (v12).
What are some visible, tangible reminders of God’s “HELP” that YOU could strategically place around the house, the office, as a memorial to God’s faithfulness?
When I used to baptize students, I would give them each this little glass cross pendant that I would fill with a few drops of their baptismal water… you could wear it as a necklace; pretty cool. This isn’t IDOLATRY; we’re not talking about WORSHIPING that object of remembrance. It’s merely a worship PROMPT, a reminder to worship the LORD.
I keep a framed picture in my office of one of my former students named Tommy Schadt. Small world: I just got a TEXT message from Justus Hansen, who’s in my life group and in Law school at WashU, but he’s doing an internship over the summer in DC, and he texted me just YESTERDAY to say, “Hey, I just ran into Tommy Schadt; he’s interning at the same Christian fellowship with me here in DC this summer and he said to tell you “HEY!””. Tommy was an atheist when I taught him at Culver. And we’d eat lunch together every few weeks and talk about religion and politics and girls, and I prayed for him for YEARS. And he gave his life to Christ shortly after Polly and I moved here, and the Culver magazine actually did a piece on his journey to faith, and they took a photo of Tommy praying in the pews of the chapel, and he mailed me a copy of the photo and the article with a note: “A few months ago, I became a Christian. Thank you for playing such a big part in my journey to faith.” I see that photo every day I walk into my office, because it reminds me why I do what I do. What are YOUR Ebenezers?
And then one last suggestion for remembering God’s faithfulness: turn it into a HOLIDAY! You know what’s even better than celebrating your EARTHLY father? (And keep in mind: this is coming from one… who doesn’t mind being celebrated…) But how about celebrating our HEAVENLY father?!
I’m so forgetful; I LIVE by my Google Calendar. What if we set reminders, anniversaries, for the big spiritual milestones in our lives: the day you got saved (if you can pinpoint a day)… the day you got baptized… the day you came to the END of yourself and finally stopped blaming God for that trial in your life, and started TRUSTING Him instead to see you THROUGH it, started THANKING Him for bringing you even closer to HIM through it. We should ALL have our own personal “D-Days” marked on our calendars: the day God DELIVERED me from my sin, the day I “DECIDED” to “let go and let God”…
By the way, do you realize that the Lord’s Supper is a weekly “Ebenezer”; it’s a tangible, EDIBLE reminder of God’s faithfulness that he proved most powerfully of all on the CROSS, where God offered us His own Son JESUS - His body, His BLOOD - as the once-for-all-time sacrifice for our sin. So we eat and drink regularly, weekly, “in remembrance of Him”.
And THIRDLY, still under “learning from our past” - we can EVEN learn from Life’s FLATNESS. MOST of the place-names listed here actually don’t have big important stories associated with them. In fact, EIGHTEEN of them are ONLY mentioned here in Numbers 33; nowhere else in the Bible. “Dophkah… Alush… Rithmah… Rimmon-perez… ” And I ESPECIALLY love what Duguid says about these seemingly insignificant pit stops (348-9); he writes:
“Even though at the time it seemed that nothing much was happening there, these places had their OWN part to play in the overall journey. Their inclusion in the list is a reminder that life is more than simply a collection of high points and low points: it is also what happens in BETWEEN… Much of our lives - perhaps even MOST of our lives - is made up neither of dramatic moments of deliverance nor of striking moments of moral failure, but of a whole succession of what we could call “Tuesdays.” These are the apparently insignificant days in which we simply do the ordinary things that make up the stuff of life: taking care of a child, doing the laundry, fixing the car, or filing routine paperwork at our job. [Some of us, like my own WIFE, may feel like EVERY day is a “Tuesday”! But Duguid notes:] We are tempted to ignore these days as we look back, as if they didn’t really count; yet each of them has its own part to play in God’s grand scheme of redemption. God’s faithfulness is shown to us in the little things of life and in the ordinary days just as much as it is in the defining moments.” [And Duguid uses an illustration of driving home and almost getting RUN OVER by a drunk driver, and he asks us to imagine how GRATEFUL we’d be for God’s PROTECTION. But then he points out that God’s hand is no less involved in protecting us every OTHER day on that SAME road home. We’re just less AWARE of it, less APPRECIATIVE FOR it. And he concludes…] “We should rightly give thanks daily, even on the unexciting days, that because of the Lord’s faithfulness we are one day closer to Heaven and to his promise of eternal life.”
Amen? Praise GOD for His FAITHFULNESS in the GOOD times, in the HARD times, and even in the FLAT, boring stuff of life.
That was all looking BACK; we’re gonna move MUCH faster now through the 3 lessons looking FORWARD.
First: (#2) We must strive to eliminate sin. (33:50-56)
God’s command, that upon entering the Promised Land, Israel must “drive out all the inhabitants of [Canaan]... and destroy all their [IDOLS]”, is nothing NEW. He had voiced similar warnings back in Exodus 23 (vv20-33) and 34 (vv10-17) - “When [I] bring you to… the Canaanites… you shall utterly OVERTHROW them and break their pillars in pieces… They shall not dwell in your land, lest they make you sin against me” - and Moses will LATER REPEAT God’s warning AGAIN in both Deuteronomy ch7 (vv1-4) AND chapter 12 (vv1-3) - “When the Lord your God brings you into the land… and gives [the Canaanites] over to you… then you must devote them to complete destruction… for they would turn [you] away from following me, to serve other gods”.
And that’s reason #1, WHY God commanded their destruction: because otherwise the Canaanites “would turn [Israel] AWAY”, “make you sin AGAINST me”, Numbers 33:55- “be as barbs in your eyes and thorns in your sides”. God wanted to PROTECT his PEOPLE. A good father HATES - wants to DESTROY - anything that threatens, HARMS his children. Speaking of eyes, my daughter Ellery has a STY in hers right now - I HATE it; I want to KILL that thing, cuz it’s hurting my child.
The SECOND reason for God’s command was so He could GIVE the land to ISRAEL. V53: “You shall take possession of the land… for I have given the land to you”. If I found some random kid sleeping in my child’s bed, refusing to LEAVE, at SOME point I’d have to forcibly remove them, so my kid had a place to sleep, NAMELY, the bed that I GAVE them to sleep in.
THIRD, God commands it to PUNISH the Canaanites. God’s been PATIENT with them, for over 400 YEARS now; He promised Abram way back in Genesis 15: “your offspring will be sojourners… and slaves [in EGYPT]... for four hundred years… But they shall come back here [to the Promised Land] in the fourth generation, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete” (vv13-16). God gave these Amorites and Canaanites every possible opportunity to REPENT and worship HIM instead. But even GOD’S perfect mercy must eventually give way to His perfect JUSTICE. Sin MUST be punished.
And that is the fourth and final but FOREMOST reason for God’s command here: YES, the Canaanites were an actual, historical people, and YES, God called Israel to literally wage a “holy war” against them. But they are also a SYMBOL, a METAPHOR, as well, of SIN. Remember, “these things happened to them as an example” to US (1 Cor 10:11). And God is calling us to read OURSELVES INTO their story here by waging our OWN “holy war” on our SIN. We must “drive it out COMPLETELY”, lest it be as “barbs in our eyes and thorns in our sides”. 1 Corinthians 5 warns, “a little leaven leavens the whole lump” (v6); a little sin SPREADS. So Colossians 3: “Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness… anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk.” (vv5-8) Romans 8 exhorts us: “if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the flesh, you will live.” (v13) Translation: “Be killing sin, or it will be killing YOU” (Owens).
Sadly, Israel learned this the HARD way. Despite God’s REPEATED warnings, they did NOT “drive out” the Canaanites completely, and they would INDEED prove to be “barbs” and “thorns” in their eyes and sides, for centuries to come. And the same is true of US, when it comes to our SIN. Moses hit the nail on the head LAST week in ch32: “if… you have sinned against the Lord, [you can] be sure that your sin will find you out” (v23). Sin ALWAYS comes back to BITE us. So we must strive to ELIMINATE it; put it to DEATH.
Related, and perhaps CONVERSELY, #3- We must live within God’s boundaries. (34:1-15)
Now I say “conversely” because when you hear a pastor exhort you to “live within God’s boundaries”, you’re probably thinking, “He’s about to tell us what NOT to do; which SINS, specifically, to AVOID.” But I actually think the biggest takeaway, as we turn to ch34 now, where God lists the “defined borders” of the land of Canaan, is just the CONVERSE: He’s not reigning Israel in, to make sure they don’t OVERSTRETCH or PUSH his boundaries; RATHER, God is stretching THEM, pushing ISRAEL to go in and FILL the land. “Don’t stop SHORT of possessing ALL that I want to give you!”
Reuben and Gad and ½ of Manasseh STOPPED SHORT last week, in ch32. They DIDN’T go in and possess the land; they SETTLED. Now God is enjoining the REST of Israel, AGAIN: “Don’t SETTLE, for LESS than the FULL BLESSING I want to bestow upon you.”
Scholars estimate that the land God outlined for them to occupy here would have encompassed roughly 300,000 sq. miles. But at the HEIGHT of Israel’s kingdom, under the rule of David and Solomon, guess how much of that land they actually occupied…?
We believe about 30,000 sq. miles; just one-TENTH of all that God wanted to give them. So the question for you and ME once AGAIN this morning is: “Are we SETTLING?” WHERE are we settling, for less than God’s full promised blessing? Jesus said, “I came that you might have LIFE to the FULLEST!” How often do we settle for 10% of the “fullest”?
Lastly, to even MAKE it to the land of promise, #4) We must follow God’s appointed LEADER. (34:16-29)
God CONCLUDES ch34 now with a list of the tribal chiefs, plus Eleazar the priest and Joshua the commander, Moses’ replacement… these 12 men who will LEAD Israel into the land and then “divide the inheritance FOR them”.
And friends, we too need to know, as WE “look forward” and “plan ahead” toward OUR glorious future “Promised Land” - HEAVEN! - that the ONLY way we’re making it in, is by following God’s appointed Leader. Our JOSHUA, Yehoshua: JESUS.
*WHY does God “forget” our past failures? Because Jesus was the “Lamb of God” who took AWAY the sins of the world (Jn 1:29).
*HOW does God PROVE his faithfulness, as we look back? “God showed his love (his FAITHFUL love) for us in THIS: that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. ” (Rom 5:8)
*How do we ELIMINATE our SIN? We CAN’T! But JESUS can; “ he appeared once for all… to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself” (Heb 9:26).
*How do we ENJOY life to the FULLEST? How do we MAKE it THROUGH this present wilderness and INTO the land of God’s promise? Jesus said, “I am the WAY… and the LIFE. NO one comes to the Father except through ME” (Jn 14:6).
Don’t you want ALL your failures FORGIVEN, all your sin ERASED? Don’t you want God WITH you, faithfully, every step of your journey? Don’t you want to experience the FULLNESS of God’s blessing, “life to the FULLEST” with Him?
Then put your TRUST in God’s appointed Leader, His SON, Jesus Christ. And you will be saved.
Let’s pray…