#DailyDevotion The Lord Jesus Will Bring Us Into The Promised Land

Pentecost Sunday

Read Num 21:10–35

Num 21:34-35  But the LORD said to Moses, “Do not fear him, for I have given him into your hand, and all his people, and his land. And you shall do to him as you did to Sihon king of the Amorites, who lived at Heshbon.”  (35)  So they defeated him and his sons and all his people, until he had no survivor left. And they possessed his land.

 

Now the Lord had given a couple of quick victories over the other Amorite cities but I guess Og must have been considered a great fighter, so the Lord reassures them that they will defeat him just as they had the Amorites.

 

Now one might be thinking, why would a God of love have the Israelites defeat all these territories and kill all these people?  Well the Lord God is also a God of righteousness and justice. He had sent Abraham, Isaac and Jacob preach to them over the course of a hundred years or so. Yet, these people did not repent. They had 450 years after Israel ceased to preach to turn from their ways but they did not.

 

Their destruction is also for us a picture of the Last Day. The Last Day is a day of judgment and destruction. The Israelites were the hand of God in those days. On the Last Day, the Lord Jesus will send forth his angels to uproot all who have rejected him from the earth.

 

The Lord also promised this land to Abraham and his descendents. Now the Lord has given the Amorites into the hands of Israel. They need not fear them. Indeed, the Lord goes before the Israelites and fights for them. He has delivered Israel’s enemies into their hands. Now it is also true, the Israelites did give the Amorites a chance. They did ask for peaceful passage. But the Amorites refused. Because of this, they were set for utter destruction.

 

The same Lord, our Lord Jesus Christ, has also gone before us. We need not fear sin, death or the power of the devil. He has fought the battle for us. He defeated them on the cross and proclaimed the victory through the resurrection. He is leading us into the promised New Heavens and New Earth. Unlike the Israelites, we need not lift a finger. His holy angels will remove the wicked people of the earth, i.e. those who reject Jesus as their Savior. Then we will take possession of it as our inheritance and will dwell with the Lord forever.

 

Heavenly Father, even as you have delivered the Israelites and brought them into the Promised Land, deliver us from the hands of the world and bring us into the New Heavens and New Earth on the day of your Son, Jesus Christ, on the day of his revelation. In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.