“and I have come down to deliver them out of the
hands of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land
to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey.”
Exodus 3:8a

We’ve started a bible plan at church, so now I’m in two! Just seven months ago or so we started Exodus, yet I’m amazed at what I missed the first several times I’ve read this book. The idea of “a land flowing with milk and honey” is quite familiar to us, but it’s really starting to sink home how much the story of Moses is to what you and I are experiencing right now. This isn’t just an event that happened some 3,300 years ago. This is unfolding today, right before our eyes.

You see, the exodus of Israelites from Egypt is a precursor or shadow of the things to come. God came to bring his chosen people to the land of Canaan way back then, and he’s bringing his church to himself today. Yes, it might indeed happen today, but it is certainly a process that we are experiencing right now. Are we seeing it as such?

Let’s think about all this a minute. Back then, God identified his people as those descendants from Abraham, right? God has identified his church, today, as those who are born-again, those who are spiritual descendants of Abraham. At the same time, both then and now, there were lots, if not most, who identify as chosen who indeed are not. They don’t act like it and will not enter the promised land.

Numbers 14:26-32 And the Lord spoke to Moses and to Aaron, saying, “How long shall this wicked congregation grumble against me? I have heard the grumblings of the people of Israel, which they grumble against me. Say to them, ‘As I live, declares the Lord, what you have said in my hearing I will do to you: your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness, and of all your number, listed in the census from twenty years old and upward, who have grumbled against me, no one shall come into the land where I swore that I would make you dwell, except Caleb the son of Jephunneh and Joshua the son of Nun. But your little ones, who you said would become a prey, I will bring in, and they shall know the land that you have rejected. But as for you, your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness.

John 10:1-6 “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door but climbs in another way, that man is a thief and a robber. But he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. To him the gatekeeper opens. The sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice. A stranger they will not follow, but they will flee from him, for they do not know the voice of strangers.” This figure of speech Jesus used with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them.

The way I see it, most people and groups who call themselves “Christian” really are thieves and robbers. Why? Because they do not follow him. They do not know his voice.

What is the lesson for today? Be like Caleb and Joshua and focus on the destination, not the obstacles in the way.

Numbers 13:30 But Caleb quieted the people before Moses and said, “Let us go up at once and occupy it, for we are well able to overcome it.”

Matthew 7:13-14 “Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.

We have our teachings:

Hebrews 11:13-16 These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city.

John 17:24 Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.

Keep your eyes on the prize!

Philippians 3:12-14 Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: 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.

Father, thank you for the depth of this book. It keeps renewing itself every time I read it! Amen.

Copyright © 2019 Scott Powers