FIRST PLACE Collegiate Ministry of Walnut Street

Before there were conferences filled with weeping men, bumper stickers, and promise keeping mottos and pledges, there was the God of promise. God has always been faithful to his people.

After endless nights on heartbreak, I had to wait on God to send me the wife of his choosing. I hit endless walls of disappointment, speed bumps of dissatisfaction, and fell into pits of depression. God knew what he had in store for me when he promised that if I were patient, he would fulfill his great promise to me.

It has been nearly three weeks and I still do not know how to describe it. Over the Christmas break, on Christmas day, I became an engaged man. I will tell you the story so you will not bother asking me anymore. It was on Christmas night, which I might add was a white Christmas this year. Under the mistletoe, we opened presents on her couch at her home. The last present she gave me was a sweet scrapbook documenting the history of our relationship. The last present I gave her was a box with a black Superman purse in it (those who know me find this hilarious), and in the purse was the ring. I got down on one knee, butchered up part of Proverbs 31, and with us both weeping tears of joy, asked her to marry me. God kept his promises.

God kept his promises to the Israelites as well. The book of Joshua is the culmination of those promises. The Pentateuch, in some way or another, acts as a long preamble before God’s fulfillment of the gift of the Promised Land in the book of Joshua. God was with Joshua, as he was with Moses, and he carried out his promises to his people.

Some five-hundred years or so before Joshua, God had promised Abraham that he would make a “great nation” and a “great name” from his lineage (Gen 12:2). God assured Abraham that although his descendants would endure suffering in slavery (Gen 15:13), they would see prosperity and the judgment of Egypt (Gen 15:14). Abraham knew that the Lord’s words would be fulfilled when he said, “To your descendants I have given this land, from the river of Egypt as far as the great river, the river Euphrates” (Gen 15:18).

Nearly four-hundred years later, God began the process to usher in his promise. Moses, who had fled from Egypt where the Israelites were enslaved, was living as a shepherd in Midian when God came to him in the burning bush. The God of the seemingly absurd promised the slow-tongued shepherd-fugitive that he would lead the entire nation of Israel out of the toils of slave labor into a land abundant with milk and honey. The notion of these low-rung slaves owning all of the land and having the food of kings and queens must have sounded ridiculous to the stunned Moses, who stood hovering over a flaming bush that talked. Yet God showed himself faithful, and promised Moses, “I will definitely be with you. I AM who AM… Tell the sons of Israel that ‘I AM’, the eternal, always-existing One, sent you” (Ex 3:12, 14).

God kept his promises. He got the people that he claimed for himself out of Egypt. With a series of mind-numbing plagues and afflictions, God crushed the enemies of Israel in Egypt. Finally, even the hardened Pharaoh had to surrender to the might of our Sovereign. Under the Raamses’ command, Moses and the Israelites were at last leaving Egypt and headed for the land of God’s promise. Ultimately, God would crush Pharaoh and his army under the very sea of reeds he parted for Israel to cross.

Even though Israel had seen all the wonders of God, they still refused to believe in his might. They began to grumble, “What will we drink?” and “What will we eat?” They constantly nagged about the leadership of Moses and on more than one occasion, plotted to rebel. When spies sent into the land of the Amalakites reported that the land couldn’t possibly be taken, even though God promised it would be, the Israelites sunk from the promise. At the end of the day, the Israelites who fled Egypt would never see the Promised Land because of their disbelief (Numbers 13-15). Only two men over twenty, the two spies who believed that with God’s help they could take the land, would ever see the promised land.

The Israelites spent 40 years wandering aimlessly in the wilderness in what would only be a several week journey had they been obedient and listened to God’s commands. Even their leader, Moses, fell to disobedience that kept him from entering the land. At the end of Deuteronomy, Moses, at age 120, goes up on top of the mountain for a dramatic glimpse into the Promised Land that he would never set foot on. On Mount Nebo, Moses got a glimpse of the promise he never lived to see fulfilled (Deut 34).

“…be careful to do according to all the law which Moses My servant commanded you; do not turn from it to the right or to the left, so that you may have success wherever you go. This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it; for then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have success.”

God promised to be with Joshua, just as he was with Moses. The way to success, as it was for Moses, came with obedience to God’s instructions. The way to failure was blatant disobedience. Four times did God command Joshua in chapter one, “Be strong and Courageous.”

We too, are waiting for a Promised Land. The hope of the Promised Land says that we will no longer be bound to the suffering of this world. We no longer will be under the curse of sin. We will no longer experience the longings of the flesh. Sexual temptation will be over. Sickness and anxiety will be over. The evil that continually exists in the world will be gone.

Consider the weeks events: a Tsunami in Asia kills over 160,000 people. Look at these images of suffering from Time magazine.

We are a world in need of redemption, and a world in need of a Savior. God has promised that he will redeem this world, and we know that he will keep his promises. He is STILL with us, and he never leaves us. He provides us the strength to get by from day to day. And he has given us the ultimate command to keep us in the blessed life: acceptance of his beloved Son, Jesus. Christ came that all sin may be put to death in him. He suffered the ultimate suffering as the only Innocent that ever lived so that you and I would have a promised land. He crossed the Jordan for us.

The first Joshua took armies to defeat Canaan. The second Joshua (translated “Yahweh Saves” in Greek= Jesus) took the cross to forever defeat sin’s curse. We’re on our way home. We are waiting on the Promised Land ourselves.

Waiting on his own personal Promised Land of freedom, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. faced the same question of how long during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s:

                        I know that you are asking today, “How long will it take?” I come to say to you this afternoon, however difficult the moment, however frustrating the hour, it will not be long, because truth pressed to the earth will rise again.
                         How long? Not long, because no lie can live forever.
                        How long? Not long, because you still reap what you sow.
                        How long? Not long, because the arm of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.
                        How long? Not long, ‘cause mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord, trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored. He has loosed the fateful lightning of his terrible swift sword. His truth is marching on.
                        He has sounded forth the trumpets that shall never call retreat. He is lifting up the hearts of man before His judgment seat. Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer him. Be jubilant, my feet. Our God is marching on.

On the night before his assassination, Dr. King alluded to Moses’ climb on Mount Nebo in Deuteronomy 34. He would never live in the Promised Land of civil rights, but could see it from the mountain top.

Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over, and I’ve seen the promised land. I may not get there with you, but I want you to know tonight that we as a people will get to the promised land. So I’m happy tonight. I’m not worried about anything. I’m not fearing any man. “Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.”

The glory of the coming of the Lord is soon. We’re on our way to the Promised Land. We’re on our way home.

[1]Phillip Yancey, Soul Survivor: How Thirteen Unlikely Mentors Helped My Faith Survive the Church (New York: Galilee, 2001), 30.

[2]Ibid., 40.