Going Forward

The Israelites spent forty years wandering around in the wilderness before going into the Promised Land. But what this God’s intention? No. His intention was to take them into the Promised Land almost immediately after leaving Egypt, with a stop at Mt. Sinai, where God gave His law to Moses, along the way.
So what happened? Why did they wander out in the wilderness for so long? According to Numbers 13, when Israel was at the borders of Canaan, and God was telling them to enter the land, conquer their enemies, and possess the land, Moses sent some spies into the land. After forty days of spying out the land, they returned, and all but two of them said, “We cannot do it. those people are giants. They would crush us. This is impossible.”
The people chose to listen to the spies and to their fears, rather than listening to God, and they chose not to go into the land. Consequently, God effectively said, “Fine. If you’re not going to listen to Me, trust My promise, and obey Me, then you can just go ahead and wander around out here in the wilderness for a while. In fact, you spent forty days spying out the land. So you can spend forty years in the wilderness.” Forty years later, they entered the Promised Land.
My point is this: God did what He had promised to do. Way back in Genesis 15 (several hundred years before the time of the Exodus), God had told Abraham that his descendents would be enslaved for four hundred years, but also that God would deliver them from slavery and bring them into the land of Canaan. God fulfilled His promise. But the complete fulfillment was delayed by the Israelites’ lack of faith.
Contrast this with the crossing of the Red Sea, which we studied this past Sunday. As the Israelites were stuck between a rock and a hard place, God told Moses, “Tell the people of Israel to go forward. Lift up your staff, and stretch out your hand over the sea and divide it, that the people of Israel may go through the sea on dry ground” (Ex. 14:15b-16).
What happened next? The people believed God, obeyed God, and experienced a great deliverance.
Here we see the difference between what happened at the Red Sea and what happened on the borders of Canaan. In one instance, they trusted God, obeyed Him, and experienced immediate deliverance. In the other, they gave into their fears, disobeyed God, and had to wait forty years for the fulfillment of the promise.
The lesson to be learned is that God does always intervene. He always fulfills His promises. But, while we do affirm the sovereignty of God, there are times when His intervention is delayed by our lack of faith.
How can we tell when we are experiencing a lack of faith? It is when we refuse to do what God wants us to do, just as the Israelites had a lack of faith when they refused to go into the Promised Land. For faith is not saying, “I believe God can intervene in this situation,” and then sitting back to watch and see what God does. Faith is expressed when we obey God and then see what God does in response to our obedience.
Now, just the opposite of obedience is disobedience, the opposite of faith is fear. When the Israelites refused to enter the Promised Land, it was because they were afraid of the Canaanites who were bigger and stronger than they were. Likewise, when we fail to go forward in our relationship with God, it is because we are afraid.
In his sermon, Pastor Wil talked about fear of the past, fear of the future, and fear of the unknown. With respect to fear of the past, we can be afraid that something which has happened in the past will happen again. Or we can be afraid that our past sins will catch up with us—that those skeletons we’ve buried away, will find their way out of the closet, and all hell will break loose.
Fear of the future and fear of the unknown, I think, are closely tied to one another, because the future is unknown to us. Consider a man who has had a heart attack and may die. His wife is afraid of him dying. She is both afraid of the future and afraid of the unknown, because she doesn’t know what her future without him will be like, and she doesn’t know how she’ll cope with suddenly living alone, without him.
The best way to overcome fear is through building our faith. And as Romans 10:17 says, “Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” Hence, when faced with certain fears, we need to read passages of the Bible that address those fears. When we are afraid of the past, we should turn to such verses as Philippians 3:13-14, where we read, “Forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” When afraid of the future, we ought to read passages that remind us of the promises of God for the future and the great hope we have in those promises.


QUESTIONS FOR STUDY AND APPLICATION

1. How often do you read the Bible, reminding yourself of God’s promises and building your faith?

2. In what areas of your life had God been calling you to go forward? In what areas have you not been going forward? Why?

3. Which are you most afraid of; the past, the future, or simply the unknown? Give an example.

4. Read Jeremiah 29:11. What comfort and assurance does this verse give you, particularly in those things discussed in questions 2 and 3?