You know, God is full of promises; amazing promises, but so often it’s hard to see how those promises fit into the realities of our lives here and now.

Promises, Promises, Promises

Well, I am really excited because we’re starting a new series this week called, “It’s Time to Take the Promised Land”. What sort of a series title is that? “It’s Time to Take the Promised Land”.

Well, here’s my hunch. We live in a world that promises so much: A world of brands and products and experiences and travel and luxury – a world that promises so much. Marketers talk about the brand promise.

For example, here’s my favourite. On TV, the advertisements for margarine or breakfast cereal or low-fat milk. Right? Have you ever noticed them?

Here’s what they look like. Here’s the setting. It’s a kind of trendy, today kind of kitchen and the sun’s always streaming in through the windows. It’s never raining; it’s always sunny. Mum’s smiling as she prepares breakfast. She’s slim and happy and well-adjusted, and this well-adjusted teenager bounds in smiling and spreads margarine on their bread or pours the milk on their cereal or whatever, and then … Then this cool-looking forty-something dad strolls in, and he is good-looking, and then he grabs a piece of toast and kisses his wife before he reads the newspaper.

This is the sort of family and breakfast that most people would like to have, but the reality … Well, the reality’s a bit different to that ad. I mean, the reality is that there are millions of people watching that ad who don’t know where their next meal’s coming from. The reality is that a lot of the people watching that ad, their families and marriages are falling apart. The reality is, even if they aren’t, they’re bringing up teenagers and that’s tough and there’s dysfunction. The reality is, most people’s families and kitchens and lives look nothing like those glossy images on the ad.

Images selling margarine or cereal or milk, making a brand promise that if you buy this product … well … this is what your life will look like. You look at that in the cold, hard light of day, and it’s absolutely nuts. Right? I mean, it’s crazy to try to link a margarine to a well-adjusted family.

New car ads are the same. They’re always out on the open road; there’s only ever that one car on the road, and the brand promise is if you buy me, you’ll have the freedom to roam. Isn’t it funny how the car ads never have someone stuck in peak-hour traffic, ever?

See, there are so many things in this world that hold out a promise that they can’t deliver. On the one hand, we want to live out those images of success the marketers kind of dangle under our noses. On the other, we so often … well … we never do. We never quite get there. It never quite works the way that the advert says it will, and that’s the psychology of marketing.

You create an image that creates desire, and the person sees the gap between the image and their reality, and so they spend money to buy that thing to buy the brand promise, and they discover it doesn’t work, and so the marketers dish up the next image, and round and round and round we go, on this treadmill of broken promises. It makes our consumer economies go round, and here you and I are with this treadmill of broken promises, brands that never really deliver their brand promise, and God comes along with a promise.

God makes lots of promises. “I’ll be your God, and you will be My people, and I’ll walk among you. I’ll bless you and keep you and comfort you and guide you” … Jesus said, “I have come that you may have life in all of its abundance.”

It’s almost like God’s painting this picture of a promised land – a land that’s almost too good to be true – a land … a life … well, to you and me, it seems a bit like the kitchen and that family in the margarine ad. In the reality of our lives, the promises of God can be hard to swallow, especially when we’re still on that treadmill of broken promises, going round and round and round …

In this day and age, God’s promises are harder to accept than ever. Now … now we’re getting close to the heart of this new series, “It’s Time to Take the Promised Land”, because God is a God of promise, and brand Jesus is the one brand that actually delivers. God’s plan is to lead you and me into His promised land – a land flowing with milk and honey, a land of blessing, but (here’s the but) He involves us in that process and we have a part to play.

The first step that we’re going to talk about today in this whole thing of walking into God’s promised land is accepting His promise in the first place; letting Him write that promise on our hearts, and believing it with all that we are; believing it with every fibre of our beings, with our very lives. You see, we can’t have the promised land (we can’t go there, we can’t settle) unless first we believe it in our hearts. God is a God that calls us to faith, and faith means believing before we see it.

Now we’re going to talk about that very thing today because if we’re going to talk about accepting the promises of God, you can’t go there without talking about it: Faith. It’s when we place our faith in Him. When we place our faith in His promises, then … then He calls us on to cross over into that land, and to take the land.

Now that’s a shock and a surprise to me. We’re going to be looking at that a bit over the coming weeks. It’s really important that we understand the journey. God’s promised land isn’t like pizza delivery. You know, He doesn’t ring the doorbell and deliver the promised land; God actually calls us out of the front door, to take a step of faith, and it can be a tough journey with battles all along the way.

We’re going to be looking through the book of Joshua over the coming few weeks in the Old Testament, because the book of Joshua is about the time that Israel crossed over into the promised land. They’d been in slavery in Egypt and then on the exodus for forty years, and the book of Joshua begins right on the threshold of the promised land, and they have an upfront decision to make. Do I really want God’s promised land, really? And if I do, am I going to let Him write His promise on my heart, and carry it round with me through thick and thin – the bright sunny days, and the cold wet days?

Well, today’s programme is all about letting Him write His promise on our hearts, His plan for us to dwell in His promised land. As we’re going round and round and round on that treadmill of broken promises, where many people have this empty unfulfilled life, we have a decision today to make. We can decide that it’s time to step off that treadmill and to take the promised land.

One Man’s Promise

So where does this term, “The promised land” come from? Well, it all begins when God promises some land to Abraham. Now God first engages with His people, Israel ultimately, through Abraham – the father of Israel. Abraham was living very comfortably indeed. He was quite wealthy, in a place called Ur, which is near Babylon or around modern-day Bagdad, and God calls him out of that place. If you have a Bible, grab it, and open it up at Genesis chapter 12. God calls him out of this place. This is what happens:

Now the LORD said to Abram, ‘Go from your country and your family and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great so that you will be a blessing.

Incredible promise for Abram and Sarai, who were old. I mean, they were well into their seventies; they were childless, and there is a two-part blessing here, two-part promise: Land and children, but there in the comfort and the wealth, they believe God, so they step out. They up and leave all of that. They take their possessions and servants and animals, and they hit the road and head westward to a land called Canaan.

Now, what happened when they got there? Well, we read about that in Genesis 12:6-8:

When they had come to the land of Canaan, Abram passed through the land to the place at Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. At that time, the Canaanites were in the land. Then the LORD appeared to Abram and said, ‘To your offspring I will give this land.’ So Abram built an altar to the LORD who had appeared to him.

Now just think about God’s promise to this old man. Firstly, your descendants. The guy is seventy years old, and he and his wife have not been able to have children, but God promises him descendants. Not only descendants, but God says, “I will make you a great nation”. Really? And, “I will give this land to your descendants”.

Imagine Abram. “But God, I’m in my seventies. I don’t have any children. This land is occupied by the Canaanites”. It was a pretty impossible promise, but right here, right in the middle of all this impossibility, the promised land is born.

God promised it to Abram, yet Abram believed this promise with his life. How do we know that? Because he actually left his comfortable existence in Ur, and followed down the dusty trail of God’s promise, over hill and dale, and he gets to this land of God’s impossible promise – a land filled with Canaanites, who weren’t about to say, “Well, yeah, sure, Abram. Take our land! We don’t mind”, and the childless Abram … what does he do? He builds an altar to God. He honours God.

He bows down and says, “Well, God, you know, even though this doesn’t make a whole bunch of sense, I’m going to believe You”, and God knows what’s going on in Abram’s heart. He takes him up a hill and makes the promise again. You can read it. Flick over to Genesis 13:14:

The LORD said to Abram after Lot had separated from him, ‘Raise up your eyes now, and look from the place where you are: North and south and east and west, for all the land that you see I will give you, and to your offspring forever.

I will make your offspring like the dust of the earth so that if one can count the dust of the earth, your offspring also can be counted. Rise up! Walk the length and the breadth of this land, for I will give it to you.’ So Abram moved his tent and came and settled by the oaks of Mamre, which were at Hebron, and there he built an altar to the LORD.

I love how God lays out the land before Abram. Can you see that picture? They’re on-top of the hill and God is speaking to Abram, who’s thinking about this impossible promise, and little by little God is breathing this promised land into the man’s heart. “Go and walk through it, as far as your eyes can see, and let Me make an outrageous promise,” says God, “So many descendants you will have that they will be more than the grains of dust on the earth”, and Abram built another altar and honoured God.

See what’s going on here? God is taking him through a process, a huge leap. He’s an old man with no kids, and God is promising him a promised land full of his own descendants, and God’s leading Abram gently into a place where he can believe. Like you and me, this guy’s a man and he’s human. He’s struggling with it in his heart. We can read about it in Genesis chapter 15. Abram goes to God and says, ‘Look, I still don’t have a son. I mean, this other man will have to be my heir. How’s this promise ever going to happen?’ Look at what God says and does (Genesis 15:4). God says:

‘No, that man won’t be your heir. No one but your very own son shall be your heir.’ God took Abram outside and said, ‘Look towards the heavens and count the stars if you’re able.’ Then God said to him, ‘So shall your descendants be’, and Abram believed the LORD and the LORD reckoned it unto him as righteousness.”

What a beautiful picture! Abram is aching! He wants to believe in God’s promises. He wants to believe in the land and descendants and mighty nations, but it’s so hard. He just can’t see how God could possibly deliver on this promise, so God takes him out to the stars – the Milky Weigh; this unbelievable sight, without the city lights and the smog. There are so many stars there, and finally the word of God, the promise of God, God’s promised land drops into Abram’s heart.

Still he makes plenty of mistakes along the way. You can read about it in the next few chapters of Genesis, but the promised land is written on Abram’s heart. Ultimately he has a son, Isaac.

That’s the only part of the promise he ever sees, and Isaac has a son called Jacob and Jacob has twelve sons, who are the fathers of the twelve tribes of Israel. They ended up in slavery in Egypt and grew into a mighty nation and then Moses led them out through the Red Sea. And they experienced the desert, the exodus for forty years, and all of a sudden one day, this mighty nation of Israel was standing on the banks of the Jordan, ready to cross over into the promised land, but that took centuries to happen.

We’re going to look at that next week, but there on that night, under the stars alone with God, the promised land was written on Abram’s heart, and he believed.

God’s Promise to Us

I’m always so touched by the story of how God reaches out to Abraham. Sure; it’s a story about Abraham, but Abraham’s not Mr Perfecto Super-Christian. He’s human; he’s frail; he has struggles like you and me, and he struggles to believe in this outrageous promise from God. Then gently, and tenderly, the LORD leads him to believe in the promised land – this mighty nation. If you and I put ourselves in Abraham’s shoes just for a minute, this old man, wouldn’t we struggle too?

Next week we’re going to be starting in the book of Joshua and looking what it means to cross over into the promised land, and the battles involved in taking that promised land, and why God does it that way. I mean, this promised land was supposed to be flowing with milk and honey. Wouldn’t you think you’d just arrive? Wouldn’t it be like a summer resort with a swimming-pool and a bellhop to carry your bags up to your suite?

Well, that’s the next few weeks, but over the next few minutes, it’s time for you and me to consider this promised land and whether we’ll believe. Faith is the key to the promise. Faith is the gift from God, and the reason you and I are together today (no doubt) is that God wants to unlock the promise in your heart, as He breathes faith into you through His Word.

As Israel went from Egypt through the Red Sea, and then forty years in the desert, how many Israelites that crossed through the Red Sea at the beginning of the exodus crossed through the Jordan into the promised land forty years later? Do you know? How many? Out of hundreds of thousands and probably millions, how many? Just two: Joshua and Caleb, and Psalm 106 tells us exactly why:

They forgot the God who saved them, who had done great things in Egypt, miracles in the land of Ham and awesome deeds by the Red Sea. So God said He would destroy them, had not Moses His chosen one stood in the breach before Him to keep His wrath from destroying them. Then they despised the pleasant land; they did not believe His promise. They grumbled in their tents and did not obey the Law, so He swore to them with uplifted hand that He would make them fall in the desert.

That’s why today’s message is so important. You and I, like Abraham, we look at the circumstances of our lives and we look around, and it’s hard to believe sometimes in God’s promises. Maybe we even have a grumble about God and His promises … That’s going to keep us out of His promised land. People sometimes say, “Well, Berni, you talk about this promised land. It’s obvious what it meant to the Israelites back then, but what does it mean to you and me here and now?”

Well, we need to go from the Old Testament to the New Testament. There’s a transition from the physical land to the spiritual one – something that people struggled with when Jesus talked about the kingdom of God. They thought Jesus had come to kick the Roman occupiers out of the promised land, the physical land, but He was talking about something entirely different. There are so many passages we could go through in the New Testament, but a couple that really explain the promised land that God has given to us through Jesus His Son … Let’s have a look at them. Luke 17:20. Flick over to there:

Once, having been asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, Jesus replied, ‘The kingdom of God doesn’t come with your careful observation, nor will people say, “Here it is,” or “There it is”, because the kingdom of God is within you.’

The promised land isn’t something out there. It’s not a new house or a new car or all that stuff. The promised land is the kingdom of God; it’s God living and dwelling and ruling in our hearts. Again, Jesus explained it this way in Matthew 13:44:

The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy he went and sold all that he had and bought that field. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it.

The promised land is the treasure of God Himself in our hearts, our relationship with God through Jesus Christ. Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name; Your kingdom come. John 14:23. Jesus said:

If anyone loves Me, he will obey My teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to make our home with him.

There are plenty of people who believe in Jesus for their eternal life. Jesus died for my sin; therefore I’m forgiven; therefore I have eternal life. Then what they do is, they kind of put it in their filing cabinet and file it under insurance policy, and live a miserable life. Jesus promised a lot of things – a rich, abundant life, as well as trials and persecutions. He didn’t promise us it would be easy to follow Him; what He did promise is that our relationship with Him would fill us to overflowing with abundant joy and peace. That’s where the promised land is today – in our hearts; in our relationship with Jesus Christ; in that abundance of life that comes through that relationship.

Let me take you back to that starry night: Abram, and the LORD led him tenderly to the point where God wrote His promises on Abram’s heart – a promise that Abram believed against all odds; a promise that God delivered against all odds. You and I are each under our own patch of starry heaven today, and the LORD is whispering of His promised land in our hearts – a land purchased by Jesus on the cross, a land of blessing that goes on forever. The Spirit of God will write that on our hearts if we let Him. He will give us the faith to believe if we’ll ask Him. Is today that day when we open our hearts to God’s promised land?

Have you ever been standing on the threshold of something good – perhaps one of God’s promises – and all of a sudden, it’s as though everything starts to go wrong?

On the Threshold

Have you ever stood on the threshold of something good, I mean something really good, something fantastic? Maybe it’s the promise of a promotion, or the promise of a pay increase, or you’ve just fallen pregnant or your wife has and in the not too many months, there’s going to be this new life in your family, or a great holiday, or a new home, or peace where there was conflict and you stand there and you think, “This is going to be faaaannntastic. I just can’t wait”.

And then all of a sudden, it’s like all hell breaks loose. Everything and everyone kind of comes after you with a pickaxe; at work and at home, in your heart and in your head, there’s turmoil. And you think, “Hang on a minute. I’m about to step over into this Promised Land and well, it’s supposed to be fantastic. What is going on?”

We’ve all been there, right? So has God and today we are going to look at His specific Word that He wants to speak right into that. This week on the programme, we are going to look at this ‘Promised Land’ thing. And the Promised Land was born when God promised a land to Abraham, the father of Israel, and centuries later Israel crossed over into that Promised Land.

It started with this beautiful promise to Abraham that we looked at last week. If you have a Bible, grab it, open it up at Genesis chapter 13, beginning at verse 14. This is what it says:

The Lord said to Abraham, after Lot had separated from him, ‘Lift up your eyes now and look from the place where you are, to the north and the south and the east and the west, all the land that you see, I will give to you and your offspring forever. I will make your offspring like the dust of the earth, so that if anyone can count the dust of the earth, your offspring will also be able to be counted. Get up, walk the length and the breadth of this land for I will give it to you’. So Abraham moved his tent and came and settled by the oaks of Mamre, which is at Hebron and there he built an altar to the Lord.

What a stunning promise! What an incredible promise! What an impossible promise! See, Abraham was an old man and he and his wife Sarah hadn’t had any children and from that promise began a long and winding road for the nation of Israel.

Centuries later they travelled through the exodus, they went through this desert and they’d gone on this long journey. And Israel ultimately is about to cross over into the Promised Land and all of a sudden their leader Moses, whom God used to set them free out of slavery from Egypt; to go through the Red Sea; that amazing miracle, to guide them through the desert for forty years – all of a sudden Moses, their leader dies. And God comes along to his successor, Joshua, with some godly advice – more than advice, admonition.

Now we are going to have a look at that today. It’s in Joshua chapter 1, beginning at verse 1. This is what God said:

After the death of Moses, the servant of the Lord, the Lord said to Joshua, son of Nun, Moses’ assistant, ‘Moses, My servant is dead. Now then you and all these people, get ready to cross over the Jordan River into the land that I am about to give to them, the Israelites.

I have given you every place where you will set your foot, as I promised Moses. Your territory will extend from the desert to the Lebanon, from the great river, the Euphrates, all the Hittite country to the great sea on the west and no one, no one will be able to stand up against you all the days of your life. Just as I was with Moses, so I will be with you.

I will never leave you or forsake you. Be strong and courageous, because you will lead this people to inherit the land that I swore to their forefathers to give them. Be strong; very courageous. Be careful to obey all My law that the servant Moses gave you. Don’t turn from it to the right or to the left so that you may be successful wherever you go.

Do not let the Book of this Law depart from your mouth but meditate on it day and night so that you may be careful to do everything that’s written in it, then you will be prosperous and successful. Haven’t I commanded you, Be strong and courageous? Don’t be terrified; don’t be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.’

Just think about it. They have been on this long journey for forty years, the exodus in the desert and they are about to cross over into the Promised Land and Moses dies. Oh, fantastic! What lousy timing. They had this tried and proven leader and he is gone, and so the reins get handed over to Joshua, his assistant and God repeats the promise that He made to Abram and that He made to Moses; He repeats that promise to Joshua: “I have given you this land – I have promised this land to you and no one will be able to stand against you.”

Oh, that’s not good; that’s not good at all. If God has to promise you that no one is going to stand against you. All these different tribes and nations that are already in the land; they’re not going to invite Israel in to take their land. They are not going to say, “Oh, God said you could have it, well sure, go ahead, take all our land.” Not likely!

Israel is in for a bunch of battles and then God says: “I will never leave you or forsake you.” This is not looking good. God says: “Be strong and courageous,” and again, He says: ‘Be strong and very courageous.’ And a third time in that passage we just read, He says: “Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged.”

Now you are Joshua, you were there forty years ago, on the other side of the Red Sea. You saw the miracle when Moses lifted his staff and the Red Sea parted and Israel passed through and all of a sudden Pharaoh’s army tried to chase them and the sea came together again and Pharaoh’s army was drowned.

You were there. The euphoria of God’s amazing miracle. You’ve spent forty years in the desert and you think, “surely it must be over by now. We are just days away from crossing over into this Promised Land, from realising the promise that God made to Abram centuries before”. And now God’s setting you up; preparing you for a tough time. He talking about battles and wars and being strong and courageous. This is life and death stuff. Is that what you expected of the Promised Land after all this time?

That’s why I’ve called this series of programmes, “It Time to Take the Promised Land” because it doesn’t get delivered to your front door like a pizza. God’s promise of a land flowing with milk and honey is accompanied by God’s reality – battles along the way. You have to take the Promised Land.

And it’s the same today. You know what I’ve noticed? The rest of the world doesn’t want me to have God’s peace and joy. The rest of the world doesn’t want me to live in God’s promises. The devil wants to spoil God’s plan for my life and every time God is about to do something amazing in my life, all hell seems to break loose. The devil just doesn’t want me to have the Promised Land.

Now Joshua could have sat up on his side of the Jordan River, heard what God was saying about not getting discouraged and about the battles and thought, ‘No, I’m outa here’, but he didn’t. He believed in God‘s promise and he crossed over and he went about taking the Promised Land. He knew it was time to take the Promised Land.

Courage in the Promises

Well, here they are. They are standing on the threshold of the Promised Land after forty years in the desert and all the trials, after the nation being in slavery in Egypt. Centuries before, God had promised to Abraham this Promised Land and they are standing on the Jordan and they are looking over the Jordan and what they see is this so-called Promised Land but there are all these people and tribes and kings and fortified cities and armies.

On the one hand, they believe in God’s promise, but on the other hand, they’re looking at this reality. God calls us into His Promised Land here and now, today. There are promises all through the Bible about our relationship with God. Jesus said in John chapter 10, verse 10:

The thief comes only to steal, kill and destroy but I have come that you may have life in all its abundance.

That’s a promise! Jesus wants us to have an abundant life. He said:

The Kingdom of God is like a treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again and then in his joy, he went and sold all that he had and he bought that field.

Again Jesus said in Matthew chapter 13:

The Kingdom of heaven is like a merchant who is looking for fine pearls when he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and he bought it.

Do you get the picture? When we give our lives to Jesus, lock stock and barrel, He invites us into a land of promise and He is saying that this land of promise; the Kingdom of God, it’s like … it’s like a treasure – that’s what it is meant to be like. And the promises are so different to what the world promises. Not a physical land or physical wealth or all that other stuff but a Promised Land that is quite different.

In Luke chapter 17, verse 20, Jesus put it this way:

Once having been ask by the Pharisees when the Kingdom of God would come, Jesus said, ‘The Kingdom of God doesn’t come because of your careful observation nor will people say, ‘Here it is,’ or ‘There it is,’ because the Kingdom of God is within you.’

The Promised Land isn’t something out ‘there’ – it’s not a new house or a new car or all that stuff. The Promised Land; the Kingdom of God is in our hearts. And so often we feel like Joshua standing on the threshold, looking back and then looking forward, wanting to believe in the promises of God but … they are so hard to believe-in some days aren’t they?

I’m going to talk right now about taking courage in the promises of God. This is so important because we normally focus on the things that we can see – all the problems and the obstacles that are in front of us. But God calls us to set our eyes on the things that are above; to set our eyes on heavenly things.

Look again at what God said to Joshua about this Promised Land. Joshua, chapter 1, verse 3:

I have given to you every place where you will set your foot as I promised Moses. Your territory will extend from the desert to the Lebanon, from the great river, the Euphrates, through all the Hittite country to the great sea on the west. No one will be able to stand against you all the days of your life. Just as I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will never leave you or forsake you.

Isn’t it interesting, he uses the past tense; actually the Hebrew perfect tense. He says, “Every place where you will set your foot as I promised Moses, I have already given you.” It’s a done deal! As far as God was concerned, the Promised Land was absolutely a done deal. It was given and when God gives, who can block that?

That’s God’s perspective, even though our perspective is all about the things that we can see – the obstacles and the enemies and the fears and the broken relationships and the people who are bugging us who are never going to change.

I tell you, when I became a Christian twelve years ago, I had so much dysfunction in my life, I can’t begin to tell you. And through that passage in John chapter 10, verse 10, where Jesus said:

I have come that you may have life in all its abundance.

I just let Him write that on my heart.

Jesus wants you and me to have an abundant life. And if I looked at me and my life and the predicaments I was in, I had no right to believe that promise from Jesus! But the Holy Spirit takes His Word and He writes it on our hearts and He gifted me to lift my eyes to look at heavenly things.

I believed so imperfectly, going through some things, I was so afraid some days and so lonely some days. But at the end of the day, what Jesus did on the cross for you and me was to remove all sin, all of the reproach of the past, and open the door to an abundant, outrageous, wonderful relationship with God. It’s a done deal! It’s past. It’s completed. The abundant life has been purchased for you and me.

And it’s now time to walk in it. And the point of what God said to Joshua was there will be battles:

I have given you every place where you will set your foot as I promised Moses. No one will be able to stand against you all the days of your life. As I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will never leave you or forsake you.

See, the promise is a done deal. When people come against us, they won’t be able to stand against us and rob us of the promises of God. And God will never leave us or forsake us. It’s a completely different way of looking at things. Instead of looking at the problems, we look at the promises. It’s completely different.

And for me in my life, over these last twelve years, in every day, here and now, where I get my courage is in the promises of God, because when God promises something, nobody can take that away. And the focus of that promise; our relationship with Him, the Kingdom of God, the peace and the joy that flows from that, is where it’s all at.

All that other stuff – that will come and go – relationships and health and money – they’re all temporary. What will last forever is our relationship with God through Jesus Christ. Joshua literally means “God saves” and that’s the same name that Jesus had, (Joshua was His actual Hebrew name), to lead us into the Promised Land and it is an act of faith to take courage in the promises of God. And we can do that because they’re a done deal.

Prospering in God’s Word

Now, God is expecting some stiff opposition for Joshua and his people when they cross over the Jordan to take the Promised Land. Remember we looked at that passage, Joshua chapter 1, verse 1 and the following verses. And three times – there is Joshua with all that he has been through, standing on the banks of the Jordan ready to cross over into the Promised Land – and three times God says to him;

“Be strong and courageous”, “Be strong and very courageous”, “Be strong and courageous, do not be terrified, do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go”.

I always a worry a little bit when God tell us “not to be terrified”, you think, “Uh, oh, this is not going to be pleasant.” That’s often the way as we decide to lay hold of God’s promises in our hearts. Things so often get a whole bunch worse before they get better. Jesus said:

Peace, My peace I leave with you – My peace I give to you.

Yeah man, that’s what I want; that’s God’s peace; that’s God’s promise, I want that promise. Jesus promised that to His disciples just before He was about to be crucified at a dangerous and fearful time where there would be pain and loss and fear for their own lives. So He explains what He is on about. He says this:

My peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you. I don’t give it to you the way the world does. Don’t let your hearts be troubled and don’t let them be afraid. (John 14:27)

We often have to deal with obstacles and fear to lay hold of the promises of God in our lives, I do, you do, we all do. And it’s at those times that we grow, when we understand that that’s the reality and that the promises of God stand amidst all the obstacles, all the uncertainty, all the things we look at and think, “I can never get through those on my own.” That’s the whole purpose of God’s promises.

So what’s our part of this? Well, let’s see what God said to Joshua. He said:

Be careful to obey the law that My servant Moses gave you. Don’t turn from it to the right or the left, that you might be successful wherever you go. Do not let the Book of this Law depart from your mouth, instead meditate on it day and night so that you may be careful to do everything that is written in it, then you will be prosperous and successful.

See, God was saying to him, “You know where it’s at. Let My Word come to life in your heart. Don’t forget about it. Don’t let it depart from your mouth”. In other words, “don’t let it leave your mouth permanently; instead meditate on it day and night. Do what it says and then you will be prosperous and successful.”

Meditate so that it becomes part of you, so that you start living your life My way, says God, then you’ll be prosperous; then you’ll be successful. You know, I know so many Christians who own a Bible. “Well, it’s somewhere, I think. It’s up in the cupboard or maybe it’s at the bedside table or gathering dust somewhere.”

I want to tell you something about the Word of God. I would be a nervous wreck by now if I didn’t spend time in God‘s Word every day. I’m in the front line of ministry, my job is leading people into the Promised Land through what I am doing right now, through these programmes; helping people to take a hold of God’s promises and the devil is not happy about that. The world is not always happy about that, even other Christians sometimes, they don’t always understand.

And here we are, my wife and I and the team here at Christianityworks, in a ministry that’s building and growing. Three years ago I started recording our first radio programmes. I didn’t have a single radio station who had committed to airing them. Nothing. Just this call from God in my heart – a promise from Him written on my heart by His Holy Spirit. And today, just three years later, these programmes are being heard on seven hundred stations in eighty countries. There are millions of people listening.

Now you might think, “WOW, that’s fantastic; that’s great,” and it is. But do you have any idea how many trials, how many battles, how much opposition, the lack of funds, the uncertainty – any idea how hard that was along the way, and some days continues to be?

We all have to go through this stuff in our lives. Whatever story and plan God has written for our lives. Yours is going to be different to mine. But as we step out into the Promised Land, into what God has called us to do, we are going to go through some stuff.

And we will have a temptation to do it in our own strength or to give up or to compromise here and there. And the promise of God was, “Josh, get My Word into your heart. Meditate on it day and night; soak it in; let it never, ever depart from you and you will be prosperous and successful in what I’ve called you to do.”

In other words, do it God’s way and not our own way. See, in His Word God reminds us of His promises and the Holy Spirit comes and writes them into our hearts in a way that we never could.

What soldier would walk onto a battlefield without a weapon? The Apostle Paul, when he was talking about the armour of God in Ephesians chapter 6 says:

The sword of the Spirit is the Word of God.

So many Christians walk out onto that spiritual battlefield and they leave God’s Word, the sword of the Spirit, in the cupboard and wonder why they suffer defeat after defeat.

That’s nuts! God’s promises are a done deal. People will come against us and they won’t be able to stand against us. God said:

I will never leave you or forsake you.

And when we meditate on God’s Word, when we let it become part of us, when we live it out through faith, that’s when His success and His prosperity show up.

You know something? You and I can read about and listen to the promises of God until the cows come home but eventually, eventually the day comes when we have to cross over into the Promised Land. Eventually, the day comes for us to actually lay hold of God’s promises and live in them.

Sending Spies into the Land

We’ve been talking the last couple of weeks about taking hold of God’s wonderful and outrageous promises in our lives. It’s not easy sometimes; it seems that we face uphill battle after uphill battle. And we’re left wondering is this really what God’s promises are all about? But my hunch is that when God makes promises he means us to believe them and to press through those battles like we believe them.

A bit like Joshua: when he was about to lead the people of Israel into the Promised Land after centuries of slavery in Egypt and 40 years wondering through the desert, he was standing on the banks of the Jordan river, ready to cross over into that promised land.

As we’ve seen over the last couple of weeks, God told Joshua that there would be lots and lots of battles. But he also reminded Joshua that this was the Promised Land and then, then Joshua did something that’s bothered me for a long time. He sent some spies across the Jordan to check out this so called Promised Land.

And you see here’s the dilemma for me: on the one hand we’re supposed to trust God. Without faith it’s impossible to please God, right? And look at what God said to Joshua about the battles that they were going to face when they headed into the Promised Land. You can read this: grab a Bible and open it up, Joshua chapter 1, beginning of verse 5 this is what God says, he says:

No one will be able to stand against you all the days of your life. As I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will never leave you or forsake you so be strong and courageous because you will lead these people to inherit the land that I swore to their forefathers to give them. Be strong and courageous, don’t be terrified, don’t be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.

 Isn’t that just the most awesome promise from God? And when you get a promise from God like that, that’s serious stuff. God is calling Joshua into a difficult place but encouraging him with his promises. And Joshua had a decision to make: to step across the Jordan, to head down the path that God had called him to and encounter battles one after the other, trusting in God, battling his way through to keep going.

And it’s exactly the same for us. When we step forward into the promises of God we’re going to encounter battles. So Joshua gets this amazing promise from God but look at what he does. He hears the promises of God but before he heads off, before he crosses the Jordan to go into the Promised Land, he sends some spies across to check it all out. To go to the very first city that they were going to have a battle with which was the city of Jericho. Read it: in Joshua chapter 2, beginning of verse 1:

Then Joshua secretly sent two spies into the land telling them: go and look over the land, especially in Jericho. So they went and entered the house of a prostitute named Rahab and stayed there.

 Can I ask you a question? Is that really trusting God? God promises you the land, he promises you that he’s going to be with you, he promises you that no one will be able to stand against you. And then, it’s almost like Joshua doesn’t trust him: he sends out spies into the land and they go and stay with a prostitute.

Now the rest of the story is, we’re not going to read it now, is that they check out the land. The king finds out and comes to try and kill them and Rahab the prostitute helps them to flee and they promise to keep her and her family safe when they come against Jericho. And when they came back to Joshua on the other side of the Jordan this is what they said, “The Lord has surely given the whole land into our hands. All the people are melting in fear because of us.”

Now this has bothered me for a long time. Why did Joshua do that? Why didn’t he just trust in God and go and take what God had promised him? And why is it that God didn’t get upset with Joshua for sending the spies and checking it out for himself?

Well they’re all good questions and the answer came to me one day when I was reading a story centuries later in the New Testament. It was when the apostle Peter was in jail and the angel came and sprung him out of jail. The angel woke Peter up in the middle of the night and said, “Get up quickly”, and the chains fell off. And the angel said to him, “Fasten your belt, put on your sandals”, and Peter did. “Wrap your cloak around you’ said the angel, “and follow me.” And Peter did that and the gates swung open. You can read about it in Acts chapter 12, beginning over verse 6.

Do you notice something about that? The angel didn’t dress Peter because he could do that for himself. The angel didn’t put his sandals or his belt or his cloak on, the angel didn’t get him to stand up; Peter did those things for himself because he could. What the angel did were the miracles that Peter himself couldn’t do. The angel did the miracle of causing the chains to fall off him; the angel did the miracle of flinging the gates open.

Now for me, I’m a doer: I plan and execute and achieve. I’ve been like that all my life. I go and get it. I’m a Type A personality. And the struggle for me is when God comes along and promises me all these things that for my whole life have eluded me: relationships and peace and joy and a quiet, calm delight. The promised land of God.

I’ve a choice either to try and do this in my own strength, well that would never work, or I let God have the driver’s seat and let him be in control and follow after him in faith. It’s obviously the latter but you know something? We can say I’m not going to do anything and we become spiritual couch potatoes doing that. But God calls us to do our bit too.

Joshua receives the promises of God and then he sends spies ahead into the land. Why? Because any good military operation always does its forward reconnaissance to see what’s out there to plan ahead. And there’s an important principle here: Joshua receives the promises of God. He had to cross over into that land to do the things that he could do and should do to plan and to look ahead and to organise the people and the armies and to get them through and then rely on the miracles that God could only do.

Jericho was a fortified city, Jericho was impregnable but when they crossed over into the land God said to them march around for seven days blowing your horns and the walls will fall down. And sure enough, that’s what they did; that’s exactly what happened. God did the miracle.

The problem with us is we receive the promises of God and then we kind of expect it all to go smoothly. We expect God to put everything on autopilot and we never want to think ahead or do the forward reconnaissance to look at what’s likely to happen.

There are obstacles, there are battles and you know as we follow after the promises of God the enemy and the world are going to come against us. And we need to get our minds around those things, in a sense we need to think forward and look forward and plan to know what to expect. To use the brains that God has given us and then to rely on the miracles that he is going to do along the way to do the things that we can’t do to get us into that Promised Land.

My Way or the Highway

Now most of us like to be in control of our lives but at the same time we like to experience the promises of God. Problem is, those two don’t always go together. It turns out that there’s only one way into God’s Promised Land.

Joshua sent those spies and they came back with a good report. I want to have a look now at how Joshua led his people through the Jordan and crossed over into the Promised Land. See, we have to take the Promised Land just like Joshua and the Israelites. God doesn’t deliver it like a pizza; it’s there to be taken.

Now I have a confession to make: I used to be a very much my way or the high way kind of guy. And every now and then that attitude still raises its ugly head. So it was a major thing for me to hand my life over to God. Not just kind of to believe in Jesus from a distance but to live my life for him, to truly call him the Lord of my life.

There’s a big difference and what I’ve discovered is that on the one hand you have to give up some things if you want Jesus to be the Lord of your life but on the other I can do so much more because instead of having to do everything in my own strength. He shows up and does miracle and after miracle in every department of my life and I look back on that journey and think wow I could never have done those things. But our natural instinct is to do things our way, to be in charge and in control and that problem is that that job belongs to God. And anyway, it’s hard work. So what is it? What do we have to do to make Jesus the Lord of our lives?

We’ve been looking at these last few weeks at taking hold of the promises of God, taking the Promised Land. Joshua leading Israel into the Promised Land after centuries of slavery in Egypt and 40 years wondering through the desert on the exodus. And this book of Joshua recalls the history. You go back to the promises of God and God promises to Abraham that he would give the descendents of Abraham this Promised Land. And God comes to Joshua when he’s about to lead Abraham’s descendents into the Promised Land and he says, “Everywhere where your foot will tread, I have already given to you.”

So Joshua, as we saw before the break, sent some spies across to check it out. He did the normal military thing that you’d expect any commander to do. Now, now comes time to cross over the Jordan River. They’re going to have so many battles when they get there. Cities and nations who don’t want them to have the Promised Lands. So it was so easy for Joshua to say, “Well, I’m in charge here, it’s my way or this high way.”

But what Joshua did next, well there are some pretty amazing things that he did, four things in all. And it tells us who Joshua thought was really in charge. The first is he sent his officers through the camp to tell his people this, “When you see the arc of the covenant of the Lord your God being carried by the priests, then you shall set out from your place. Follow it so that you may know where you should go for you have not passed this way before.” You can read that in Joshua chapter 3, beginning of verse 3.

See, this whole nation of Israel was about to cross over into the Promised Land, who did Joshua put at the head of the nation? Was it Joshua? It was the arc of the covenant, the symbol of their relationship with God, the place where the presence of God rested. For Joshua God was at the head of the nation.

And then there was another thing they did. You can go to Joshua chapter 4, beginning of verse 4. So Joshua called together the 12 men he had appointed from the Israelites, one from each of the twelve tribes. And he said to them, ‘Go before the arc of the Lord your God into the middle of the Jordan. Each of you is to take up a stone on his shoulder according to the number of tribes of the Israelites. To serve as a sign among you. In the future when your children ask “What do these stones mean?” Tell them that the flow of the Jordan was cut off before the arc of the covenant of the Lord.

See, Joshua got them to pick up these stones and on the other side of the Jordan River they built a monument honouring God. And what that monument was all about was saying: he did this, God did this, God achieved this. This is about recognising God’s goodness for generations to come. It’s about honouring God first.

And then you think right, we must definitely be ready now to cross over into the Promised Land. Now this next bit is going to seem bizarre to us and even in their context it must have been a big call. Joshua decided to circumcise all the men in the nation because circumcision was a sign, an outward sign, of the covenant relationship between God and his people. Abraham did it to all his household and all Israelite males under the law of the Jews should be circumcised on the eighth day, it’s part of their law. It’s a symbol of the relationship between God and Israel and on the exodus in the desert between Egypt and the Promised Land for 40 years they hadn’t been doing that.

So it was time to set things right between God and his people. God said make flint knives and circumcise them. Makes me wince, my eyes water. They’re ready to go, they’re ready to cross over into the Promised Land. They must all have been there with such anticipation and Joshua says, “Woah, stop! Got a great idea! We’re going to have a circumcision. All the males”’ And not only did they circumcise all the males, they then had to wait there for several days for them all to heal. This was about getting the nation of Israel right before God in their relationship.

And fourthly, before they went. Can you imagine this huge logistical operation of crossing over into the Promised Land? It was the time of the Passover, the time when they remembered back 40 years to when God had taken them out of slavery in Egypt. To the time when the angel of death passed over and killed all of the first born in the land of Egypt except for the Israelites because they killed the lamb and put the blood on the top of their doors and the angel of death passed over them. It was time to celebrate the Passover, to remember how 40 years before God had taken them out of Egypt. To look back and remember God’s goodness.

And see the four things that Joshua did? He put God at the head of the procession. He built an alter, a monument to God that would be remembered for generations. He got the nation right before God by circumcising all the males and then he celebrated the Passover to honour God.

Sure, we want to cross over in the Promised Land just like the Israelites did but what this is saying to us is that God comes first. The arc goes first, we follow him, we take his lead. We put a marker here in faith to remember for generations to come what God’s done. We get right before God, we honour God for what he’s done. See here’s the crunch: there’s this huge promise ahead of them but they were going to take hold of that promise not in their own strength but honouring God first. It’s not my way or the high way, it’s God’s way. Whatever the circumstances, whatever the outcome, his way and it’s the same for us today.

So many people believe in Jesus and they want to lay hold of the promises of God for their lives but they want to do it their own way. Jesus is Lord, we sing. Really? Then let’s do it his way. No little compromises, no little shortcuts, no “I’ll forget about him and not pray today”, no “Oh well, I don’t have to read his word the Bible today.” Wake up! God’s promises only happen one way, his way and Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the life.” This radical, edgy saviour. Not into pampering himself; he was into going out there and following God.

The Promises of God

I truly believe that the promises of God are for each one of us. Now let me share a part of my story with you because I’m sharing this not from a textbook but from a changed life. Twelve years ago my life was an incredible mess, I can’t tell you the dysfunction and pain.

Now that stuff happens to us. I’m not some kind of loser; I was a competent, successful businessman with all the trappings of wealth and success but inside, inside I was an incredible mess. And when you’re in that place the promises of God seem to be, well, so difficult to accept. When God records in John chapter 10, verse 10 what Jesus said:

The thief comes only to steal, kill and destroy but I have come that you may have life and have it in all of its abundance.

 Literally superabundantly. Boy that can be hard to take when you feel down and out. When you think of Joshua there on the banks of Jordan, he really was on the threshold of a promise made to Abraham centuries before. And from Abraham the nation of Israel grew and they were in slavery and they were part of God’s miraculous escape plan as Moses led them through the red sea and then 40 years in the desert. And now, here they are and Moses has just died.

How impossible must it have seemed to Joshua when God spoke to him on the banks of the Jordan and said, “I have given you every place where you will set your foot as I promised Moses. Your territory will extend from the desert to the Lebanon and from the great river Euphrates through all the Hittites country to the great see of the west. No one will be able to stand up against you all the days of your life because as I was with Moses so I will be with you. I will never leave you or forsake you.”

You know what our problem is? Sometimes when we look at God’s promises and then we look at our circumstances, in our hearts we let our circumstances win every time. Because that’s what we can see and it’s the circumstances and the difficulties and the obstacles that fill our vision.

Today I just want to say that God wants to remind us of what Joshua did. It was a step of faith against impossible odds. Moses was dead, all those people and nations and kings and armies were in this so called Promised Land. Jericho was fortified and Joshua sent some spies in the land to check it out. And they came back with a rosy report despite the fortifications around Jericho and he mobilised his people and he crossed over. But not only his own strength but by honouring God, by putting God first.

You know something? I think it’s time for us to do the same. No matter what circumstances we face, no matter how big the obstacles, no matter how big the fortifications of our enemies or how powerful they appear, I believe with all that I am that Jesus died so that we could live in the Promised Land, the kingdom of God, in a dynamic and vital relationship with him.

And it’s time to count the cost, to look at what that means, to send a spine to that land in a sense by opening up God’s word and reading those promises for ourselves. Because there is a cost, we need to read about that cost. The things that we might have to give up, the sin in our lives that we have to lay down in order to realise the promises of God and then stepping out in faith.

Just start honouring God, even when it’s a mess, even when things aren’t going well, even when it all looks impossible. Just as Joshua and the nation of Israel did, to start honouring God. Put him first in everything, draw close to him in prayer, in Bible reading, in the way that we live our lives.

Come on, honouring him with all that we are and all that we have and with every hope and with every dream just laying that down before him. Just believing in faith that his kingdom will come and that as we simply walk in faith, putting him first, he’ll step into those battles for us and with us and win them for us.

And before we know it, before we know it, we’ll look back and say, “Wow, look at what God’s done, I really am in the Promised Land.” What do you think? Where are you in your life? What are the battles that lay before you? Is it time to take your eyes off the battles and set them firmly on God and believe his promises and honour him and step forward in faith into his Promised Land?

Sometimes we can be walking in the promises of God and things start getting tough, opposition, battles, hey what’s going on? Is it time to give up? What happened to all of Gods promises?

THE SPIRITUAL BATTLEFIELD

Well over these last weeks on the program we’ve been looking at the fact that it’s time to take the Promised Land. God makes so many promises of peace and of joy and His protection and forgiveness and eternal life, the list goes on and on and you know you and I can come up with so many excuses in our lives as to why those promises couldn’t possibly ever be for us. It’s true, we do. In a sense those excuses are completely natural and understandable.

There was a young woman who wrote recently in response to a program, I want to share with you what she wrote because it’s kind of a road we all travel sometimes, this is what she said:

For a while now I’ve been getting negative thoughts and saying negative things, I know the devil’s doing it and not God but it won’t stop. I want so much to do Gods will and to walk in His ways, am I going mad? Will this wreck my relationship with God? I so much want to do His will for His glory and not mine. I want to be a serving and faithful servant for Him.

I have all these problems; I say bad and negative things. I can say things without thinking, I tell lies and other unchristian things, what does it mean for me? Is it going to ruin my relationship with God?

See this young woman is struggling with the realities of life. She wants to live in that Promised Land but somehow she’s just, she just can’t see how it’s for her, she just can’t seem to get there. We all struggle with these things, we struggle with doubt, we struggle with our failings, will this wreck everything with God? We go over that over and over again. Listen to me, it is time to take the Promised land.

Over the last three weeks on the program we’ve been looking at Israel. God promised to Abraham, the father of Israel, this land of the Canaanites, the Promised Land. And centuries later, centuries, after Israel had grown into a large and mighty nation in slavery in Egypt God brought Moses and through a series of miracles he brought the nation of Israel, His chosen people, out of Egypt, through the Red Sea and they wandered in the desert for forty years as God purified them.

And then one day under the leadership of Joshua because Moses had just died, they’re standing on the banks of the Jordan River and finally ready to cross into the Promised Land. And what they discover is that there’s already a whole bunch of other people living there, the Canaanites and the Jebusites and the Amorites and all those other little vegemites were already there.

And even though this was Gods Promised Land it wasn’t going to be delivered to them on a platter like a pizza, they had to go out and take it, they were on a war footing. They had to fight battle after battle beginning with Jericho, they went through a lot of battles to take the Promised Land.

You know something, it’s the same with you and with me and with that young woman, we live on a spiritual battlefield. That is the reality of life. And the moment we step out and we believe in Jesus, the moment we step out and say, “Lord, I’m going to follow you in your promises”, we step onto that spiritual battlefield.

John Eldridge in his book Waking The Dead makes this powerful statement, he says:

Things are not what they seem, this is a world at war.

And then he goes on to explain what he means, he writes this:

The world in which we live is a combat zone. A violent clash of kingdoms, a bitter struggle unto the death. You were born into a world at war and you will live all your days in the midst of a great battle involving all the forces of heaven and hell and played out here on earth. Until we come to terms with that war as the context of our days, we simply will not understand life.

See this is why over the last few weeks we’ve been working our way through this series in the Book of Joshua called, “It’s Time To Take The Promised Land” because the context is war. The devil is not going to hand us God’s promises on a silver platter. In fact, he is going to try to rob us of Gods promises at every turn.

We’d like to think, particularly those of us who live in the affluent west that being a Christian means living in the blessings of God and having a comfortable life and having plenty of money and taking it easy. Well I don’t know if you’ve noticed but life is not like that especially when we step onto the spiritual battlefield by giving our lives to Jesus Christ. The moment we do that all the forces of hell are unleashed against us.

That’s the reality, we shouldn’t be surprised. I think that the surprise element is what makes it worse. We have these expectations of an easy and comfortable life and when satan unleashes all his devils against us, of temptation, of doubt, failure and opposition and trials and on and on and on, over and over and over, we start thinking ‘wow there must be something wrong with me’.

Au contraire! Inevitably when we decide to take hold of the promises of God in our lives there will be a battle involved. Don’t be surprised by this, it’s in the Bible. C S Lewis in his book Mere Christianity put it like this:

One of the things that surprised me when I first read the New Testament, seriously, was that it talked so much about a dark power in the universe. A mighty evil spirit who was held to be the power behind death and disease and sin. This universe (writes Lewis) is at war.

Wake up! The world is at war. The context of our lives following after Jesus Christ is a spiritual battlefield.

See Israel was promised this land through Abraham centuries before they even got there. Do you think when God made that beautiful promise to Abraham that he expected battles and wars and stuff? Listen again just briefly to this beautiful promise to an old man, this impossible promise in Genesis chapter 15.

The word of the Lord came to Abraham in a vision. He said ‘don’t be afraid, I’m your shield and your very great reward’. But Abraham said, ‘O Sovereign Lord, what can you give me since I remain childless and the one who will inherit my estate is Eliezer of Damascus.’ Abraham said, ‘you have given me no children so a servant in my household will become my heir.

And then the word of the Lord came to Abraham, ‘this man will not be your heir but a son who comes from your own body will be your heir’ and God took Abraham outside of the tent and said, ‘look up at the heavens and count the stars if indeed you can count them’ and then He said , ‘so shall your offspring be.

And Abraham believed the Lord and God credited it to him as righteousness. And God also said to him, ‘I am the Lord who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to take possession of it.’ But Abraham said, ‘O Sovereign Lord how can I know that I will gain possession of it?

So the Lord said to him, ‘bring me a heifer and a goat and a ram, each three years old along with a dove and a young pigeon’. Abraham did that he brought all of those things and cut them in two and arranged the halves opposite each other. The birds however he did not cut in half.

And then the birds of prey came down on the carcasses but Abraham drove them away and as the sun was setting Abraham fell into a deep sleep and a thick and dreadful darkness came over him and then the Lord said to him, ‘know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own and they will be enslaved and mistreated for four hundred years but I will punish the nation they serve as slaves and afterwards they will come out with great possessions.

You however will go to your father’s in peace and be buried at a good old age. In the fourth generation your descendants will come back here for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure.

And when the sun had set and the darkness had fallen, the smoking fire pot with a blazing torch appeared and passed between the pieces. On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abraham and said, “To your descendants I give this land. From the river of Egypt to the river of the Euphrates. The land of the Kenites and the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites, the Hittites, the Perizzites and the Rephaites and Amorites and Canaanites and the Girgashites and the Jebushites.

This was a serious promise, who would have ever had expected that is would involve battle after battle after battle after battle.

IT’S TIME

So let’s go from that promise of God to Abraham centuries before into the midst of the taking of the Promised Land. Israel, under the leadership of Joshua, crossed over, they fought battle after battle, they’d taken Jericho and city after city has fallen before them. Why?

Because that’s what God promised and we’re going to pick up the story in Joshua chapter 18, they’re not quite half way through taking this Promised Land. There are twelve tribes in Israel, five tribes have their land and seven are left to go, seven have yet to get their Promised Land.

It must have seemed like an eternity. You know when you face battle after battle, we’re tempted to pull over and stop, to take a breather that kind of turns into a lunch break that turns into a holiday that turns into long service leave and before you know it we haven’t got what it takes to keep going again.

I tell you, in my life in this ministry Christianityworks, I’ve been involved now for just on three years and the call on my heart as I took over to start producing radio programs again we weren’t on any stations three years ago and today we’re on over seven hundred stations in eighty countries around the world.

I have to tell you it was hard work, battle after battle after battle. Sometimes there were not enough funds and people said they’d help but then they realised how hard it was to do this work and they just didn’t deliver and they fell by the wayside. And people criticised and people didn’t understand, you know what I’m talking about and you get tired, you get exhausted.

It would have been so easy just to pull up, to slow down, to give up, what a temptation. And yet there was this promise of God in my heart that He’d called me to do this.

But we’re all tempted to give up half way. You know the only reason I haven’t is because along the way I’ve had some great teaching on this subject from a wonderful teacher called Joyce Meyer and there was just one message and God wrote this stuff on my heart, ‘to keep going’ and that’s my prayer for you today, just this one message that in these few moments we spend together that He will write His word on your heart to keep on pressing forward into the promises of God.

Whether we’re struggling with fear or sin or addiction or a tough relationship and we hear about Gods promises so we set out on that journey of faith but after a while, oh it’s hard work and there is opposition and there are battles and we want to give up, you know what I mean. In fact my hunch is you know exactly what I mean.

And it was the same with Israel, they were almost half way into taking the Promised Land, if you’ve got a Bible open it up, lets listen to Joshua chapter 18.

The whole assembly of the Israelites gathered at Shiloh and set up there the Tent of the Meeting. The country was subdued before them but there were still seven Israelite tribes who had not yet received their inheritance. So Joshua said to the Israelites, ‘how long will you wait before you begin to take possession of the land that the Lord, the God of your fathers has given you.

Appoint three men from each tribe, I will send them out to make a survey of the land to write a description of it according to the inheritance of each then you will return to me. You are to divide the land into seven parts. Judah is to remain in its territory on the south and the House of Joseph in it’s territory on the north.

After you have written the descriptions of the seven parts of the land bring them here to me and I will cast lots for you in the presence of the Lord. The Levites however do not get a portion among you because the priestly service of the Lord is their inheritance and Gad and Rueben and the half tribe of Manassah have already received their inheritance on the east side of the Jordan, Moses the servant of the Lord gave it to them.

As the men started on their way to map out the land Joshua instructed them, ‘go and make a survey of the land, write a description of it then return to me and I will cast lots for you here at Shiloh in the presence of the Lord’. So the men left, they went through the land, they wrote its description on a scroll, town by town, in seven parts and returned to Joshua in the camp of Shiloh.

Joshua then cast lots for them in Shiloh in the presence of the Lord and there he distributed the land to the Israelites according to their tribal divisions.

I love this passage because they’re almost half way through and it begins by saying, “the whole land, the whole country was subdued before them”. See so much of the work had already been done , God had done so many things, they were so far down the track and sometimes when we’re tired of the battle after battle we lose sight of how far we’ve come. We look back and then, then we see the mighty hand of God at work in the victories.

Isn’t it the same in our lives? You get tired and you think, “argh Lord this is too hard”. It’s time to just take a quick look back and see all the mighty things that God has done in our lives. I get such great courage from just looking back, even over these last three years in the ministry of Christianityworks and I think, “man, look at what God has done.”

And once they’ve looked back Joshua asks the sixty four million dollar question. Joshua said to the Israelites:

How long will you wait before you take possession of the land that the Lord, the God of your fathers has already given you?

How long will you wait? See you’re almost half way there. You take a breather, you pull over, you stop, you get set in your ways, you can’t go any further, you lose heart, what are you people doing, how long will you wait?

What came next? There was work to be done. They sent the men out, they looked forward, they divided up the land into seven portions. See God always, ALWAYS involves us in what’s going on, He never lets us become spiritual couch potatoes, He sent three men from each tribe out to survey the land, to record the land and to choose the seven divisions.

And next they came back to Joshua and in the presence of the Lord Joshua cast lots. Really what Joshua was saying there is, “we’re going to leave this up to God, we’ve got some work to do but God is in charge. We’re going to cast lots for this land between the seven tribes in front of God and we will let God choose through the lots who gets what land.”

See there’s a message for us here. If we’re a people thats pressing forward into the promises of God don’t stop, don’t pull over, don’t give up. If it’s a tough relationship that you’ve been praying over and the Lords has been leading you to do good things, to serve and to support, to humble yourself and you’re tired and you want to take a breather and you think, “augh, it’s just not going to happen” and get to thinking, “this isn’t working, it’s not going anywhere, it’s time to give up”.

Or God’s called you to something, a ministry or a job or whatever it is that somehow, as you look back you can see all the good things He’s done. But the promises seem like such a long way off. Whatever the situation, how long will you hang around here before you take the land that God has already given to you. Come on! Get up and do the things you know you have to do, do them under God and, and what?

Do you think God is going to fail you? Do you think God is just leading you up the garden path? Do you think that God has put you up the creek in a barbed wire canoe without a paddle? Are His promises faithful, are they worth following, are they worth it?

THE FAITHFULNESS OF GOD

Well are the promises of God real? In a sense in theory we can all answer, “sure, I mean if God is God and He makes a promise then it has to be real”. But you know something, the theory and the reality can be two different things. I shared a little before about the battles over the last three years that I’ve travelled through in taking this ministry from, I guess, pretty much nothing to reaching millions of people each week.

Now I don’t want any of that to seem remarkable because it’s nothing that we did, God opened door after door and performed miracle after miracle to do that and it’s what God’s called me to do, He’s called you to something different. So let’s not compare as I share my story, hear what God is saying to you today about your story.

Now I’m someone who knows the theory of God’s promises as well as anyone. I mean a big part of my job is to study God’s Word to put together these programs. So I’m “in the theory” if you like all the time but the reality has been that it’s been lots of hard work and there have been disappointments and setbacks.

And one of the hardest things has been often the people closest to us, people in our own Church, who haven’t understood what we do or supported us or encouraged us, there’s so many times the finances looked critical. It’s still something that happens now and I find myself thinking, “why is it that the people in our own Church don’t even support us?”

Or one station where we’ve had a huge audience for a number of years was talking about taking our program off air and we’ve had to pray and pray and pray and then finally see God’s victory. And sometimes I think, “God why can’t it be easier than this? God why does there have to be so many battles along the way?”

And you know what Gods answer has been to me, so that you my child would discover my faithfulness for yourself. See God wants us to experience his faithfulness, not in theory but in practice and you know something, I know so much more today about the faithfulness of God than ever have simply by travelling through battle after battle and seeing the victories that God has brought along the way.

And there is such an intense satisfaction as I look back on that and I can truly say, “yes Lord, it’s been hard work but all the glory goes to you and not to me because I could never have done this”.

The Book of Joshua that we’ve been travelling through these last weeks is about Israel’s battles on the journey of taking the Promised Land. And when finally all the land is taken and allocated to all the tribes have a listen to what God’s Word says, if you’ve got a Bible open it at Joshua chapter 21 beginning at verse 43.

So the Lord gave Israel all the land that He had sworn to give their forefathers and they took possession of it and settled there and the Lord gave them rest on every side just as He had sworn to their forefathers, not one of their enemies withstood them, the Lord handed all their enemies over to them, not one of all the Lord’s good promises to the House of Israel failed, every one was fulfilled.

WOW! Let’s just let that sink in for a minute.

Not one of all the Lords good promises to the House of Israel failed, every one was fulfilled.

When God makes a promise he never ever fails to deliver. When Jesus promised that He came that we would have life in all its abundance, that is a promise of God and it’s a promise He intends to keep in your life and in mine.

And as we travel through battle after battle and hang close to Him and just let those promises of God glow in our hearts and we hang on to them through this spiritual battlefield the devil comes after you with a meat cleaver and you fail some days and you stumble and you remember Jesus on that cross, you remember He purchased that life for you, we can know in our hearts that now, now it’s time to take the Promised Land.

And not one of all the Lord’s good promises to you or to me will fail; every one of them will be fulfilled. It is time to take the Promised Land.