ENTERING, POSSESSING AND ABIDING IN THE PROMISE LAND

Waiting in the Wilderness
For people who are waiting for the promises of God and know that it is soon coming, the message of Deuteronomy 11 is of great significance. It is a message that gives the keys on how to enter in to the promises of God and how to keep them. It also gives us timeless warnings and reminders on the pitfalls we must avoid. Deuteronomy 11 also brings us back to the heart of the matter.

First and foremost we need to understand the context of Deuteronomy 11. This is a chapter in Scripture that Moses wrote to the Israelites as they waited to enter in the Promise Land. They heard this message on their 40th year in the wilderness. Finally, after four decades, God was going to cause them to enter into their destiny. Often, God causes His people to wait for His promise in a wilderness experience. They are difficult, faith-stretching, and confusing times. However, challenging as the wilderness is, it is the very place where we are being positioned to receive God’s good Word over our lives. It is in hardships that we are refined and tested and our characters are formed. It is there that we qualify to receive God’s best for us. Our God reserves His best for those who have been proven faithful. Let us therefore embrace our wilderness today!

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Love and Obedience
This was one of the last messages of Moses to the Israelites before he passed away. They say that a man’s last words are the most important. Therefore, this must have weighed much in the heart of Moses. Deuteronomy 11 begins with these words:

Deuteronomy 11:1
“Therefore you shall love the Lord your God, and keep His charge, His statutes, His judgments, and His commandments always."

The essence of life can be summed up in this thought - loving God and obeying Him. To the extent that we do shall also be the measure of our eternal rewards.

Promises are for Those Who Know Him

Deuteronomy 11:2
Know today that I do not speak with your children, who have not known and who have not seen the chastening of the Lord your God, His greatness and His mighty hand and His outstretched arm—

God specifies who He was speaking with. He said He was not speaking with children. He was not speaking with a generation that have yet to know Him. This tells us that those God qualifies to enter into His inheritance are not babes. They are those who have known and experienced God.

Remembering Times Past

Deuteronomy 11:3-7
His signs and His acts which He did in the midst of Egypt, to Pharaoh king of Egypt, and to all his land; what He did to the army of Egypt, to their horses and their chariots: how He made the waters of the Red Sea overflow them as they pursued you, and how the Lord has destroyed them to this day; what He did for you in the wilderness until you came to this place; and what He did to Dathan and Abiram the sons of Eliab, the son of Reuben: how the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up, their households, their tents, and all the substance that was in their possession, in the midst of all Israel— but your eyes have seen every great act of the Lord which He did.

The Lord specifies what exactly they know and have seen. God says they are those who have known His chastening, greatness, mighty hand, and outstretched arm. God includes chastening as we are told in Hebrews 12 that those who are His sons must know His chastening. How important it is that we yield to the discipline of the Lord in order for us to mature. God also cites specific instances that they have seen:

1. The signs and wonders God did to Pharaoh and the whole of Egypt. Egypt speaks of the world and our lives when we still did not know Christ. God was reminding the Israelites of how God delivered them from the stronghold of the enemy and how He did this by demonstrating His power over the forces of nature. Have you experienced God’s mighty deliverance in your life as well? Has He set you free from the stranglehold of the enemy? Or do you need His deliverance today?

The encounter with Pharaoh also speaks of what God can do over those who continually choose to harden their hearts toward Him. Pharaoh had the greatest empire of his time but his worldly strength bowed down to the God of heaven. Those who continuously reject God will find themselves losing in the end.

2. The wilderness journey of the Israelites was certainly not a walk in the park. There they faced drought, hunger, dangers, and the like. Yet, for those 40 years, God faithfully saw them through, providing for them, and keeping them by miraculous means. He was their cloud by day and pillar of fire by night. He provided them manna and quail for food. He gave them water from the rock and sweet water from a bitter source. He brought healing upon them when they were plagued with serpents. He also did not allow their garments to wear out in the wilderness. He won battles for them as well. All these God performed for a whole nation for 40 years. His greatness and mighty hand are what sustained the Israelites even when they journeyed through the wilderness which was not ideal for living.

Truly, there is nothing too hard for the Lord. Are you facing impossibilities in your own wilderness journey today? In the wilderness, it was not their own labor that enabled the Israelites to survive. It was the faithfulness of God. Thus, in your own wilderness, be at rest. Seek not to strive because human effort will take you nowhere near the perfect will of God. Let God fight your battles for you.

3. God also reminded the Israelites of what He did to Dathan and Abiram who rebelled against God and His appointed leaders. Dathan and Abiram, together with Korah, protested against the priesthood of Aaron. They rejected God’s decision to keep the priesthood exclusively to the line of Aaron. Thus, they challenged the leadership of Moses and Aaron. God is not pleased with those who cannot submit to and obey His chosen authorities. These men were leaders of their people. Yet, even being in such position of authority, they still manifested a wicked heart of rebellion. They questioned God’s choices and refused to submit to God’s anointed ones. They failed to realize that when a man goes against leadership, he is essentially going against God because no leader is ever put in place without God choosing him. In God’s anger, the Lord broke open the ground and they were swallowed up.

I believe the Lord cited these three circumstances to speak a message to the Israelites and to us. God is reminding us that He is the God who is able to deliver us from any great enemy. He is also the God who is able to see us through difficulties and hardships. And He is also a just God who will chasten those who disobey and rebel against Him. The Israelites needed to bear this in mind as they entered the Promise land. When they face the challenges of the Promise land, they needed to remember that God is almighty, faithful, and just. We are called to remember the same. We need to have His character engraved in our hearts and minds. The Lord told the Israelites that since they have known and seen God and His works, they ought to obey Him.

Enter, Possess, and Abide

Deuteronomy 11:8-9
“Therefore you shall keep every commandment which I command you today, that you may be strong, and go in and possess the land which you cross over to possess, and that you may prolong your days in the land which the Lord swore to give your fathers, to them and their descendants, ‘a land flowing with milk and honey.’"

It is this obedience that will cause them to enter in the Promise Land, and possess and abide in it. This is an important thought to consider. When God gives us an inheritance or a promise, it does not simply fall on our lap. The promises of God are not for the passive and lazy. We need to take steps of faith and obedience to enter into His promises.

We also need to fight our battles to dispossess the enemies that will seek to keep us from our destinies. We are to wage a good warfare, which means we have battles to win and enemies to defeat. The enemy will not simply give us a free hand over God’s promises. He will not take it sitting down. The enemy seeks to deflect us from God’s perfect will. He will wage war against us because the last thing he wants is to see victorious Christians who will follow the footsteps of Jesus and be able to declare in the end “I have done the will of the Father.”

Further, God does not only desire for us to enter into our inheritance and possess it. He seeks for us to abide in it. It is not enough to attain God’s promises for our lives. We ought to stay in it and bear eternal fruits. If God says that “you may prolong your days in the land” that means there is a possibility that the inheritance can be lost. The Lord is clear that promises can be lost if we disobey God. Therefore we must seek to endure to the end!

What is in Store
The Lord then goes on to describe the Promise Land. He says this land is flowing with milk and honey. Milk symbolizes the Word of God that is for babes. While honey speaks of the deeper revelations of God. The inheritance that God has for us is not simply a place of material or worldly wealth. It is more importantly a place where we will be rich in our experiential knowledge of God and His truth.

Deuteronomy 11:10-12
For the land which you go to possess is not like the land of Egypt from which you have come, where you sowed your seed and watered it by foot, as a vegetable garden; but the land which you cross over to possess is a land of hills and valleys, which drinks water from the rain of heaven, a land for which the Lord your God cares; the eyes of the Lord your God are always on it, from the beginning of the year to the very end of the year.

Further, the Israelites were told that the Promise Land is unlike Egypt, which was likened to a vegetable garden where one had to sow seeds and water. Instead, the inheritance, God says, is a place of valleys and hills that receives it water from the rain of heaven. Egypt here can represent trying to be fruitful or abundant by human effort. However, the Promise Land cannot be sustained by human effort. People cannot water valleys and hills. The same goes with our inheritance with God. Human striving will not suffice. The word says the land is watered by rain. Therefore the fruitfulness of our inheritance relies on the power of the Holy Spirit who is the rain. WE NEED THE RAIN. And God promises that this inheritance is highly favored by the Lord. God cares for it and His eyes are upon it from beginning to the end of the year. Therefore, whether it is summer, fall, winter, or spring, the land will be well cared for. The same can be said when one is in his inheritance in God. Regardless of the season, God will meet every need and see that person through.

COMMAND

Deuteronomy 11:13
‘And it shall be that if you earnestly obey My commandments which I command you today, to love the Lord your God and serve Him with all your heart and with all your soul'

God then gives a command. The command is to love God, serve Him with one’s heart and soul, walk in all His ways, and hold fast to Him. When we look at all the commands God gave to keep the inheritance, they all pertained to God. This strongly emphasizes to us this truth that entering into our inheritance is ultimately for God and through God. The bottom line is more than the geographic, ministerial, and earthly inheritances, our greatest portion, promise, and inheritance is God. Everything has to start and end with Him. He is the ultimate goal and standard of every decision we are making. Will this thing please God? Is this in obedience to what God has said?

He first commands us to love Him. This is a call to an increasingly intimate union and communion with God. Are we giving God the time, affection, and devotion He deserves? How is our worship, prayer, and Bible reading?

God also commands us to serve Him with our hearts and minds. When our work is driven by a desire to serve God and we give God our best, there is no limit to what we can do for God. When a person is doing ministry, one of the things he will manifest is initiative. Leaders will not have to convince or remind you to help, you will gladly take initiative.

Another manifestation of serving God with our hearts and minds is commitment. You do not only serve when you are available, you make yourself available to serve. It is sad to see how at times people can be very committed in their workplaces but are very halfhearted about God’s work. This was the rebuke of the Lord through Malachi. God rebuked the people for giving Him blemished offerings. Serving God will ultimately call for sacrifice. It will call for our time, effort and strength. We ought to give our best sacrifice to the Lord. Serving God with our hearts and minds mean taking on whatever assignment God gives us regardless of how mundane or great the assignment is. We are told we are to serve God with our hearts. This means serving Him out of love. We are also told to serve Him with our minds. This can speak of serving Him willingly and not out of compulsion.

God also commands us to walk in His ways. We are called to live lives that are righteous and holy before Him. We must be walking in obedience to His laws.

Then we are told to hold fast to Him. This reminds us of our need to fully trust in Him to enter, possess and remain in our inheritance.

GOD WILL SEND THE RAIN

Deuteronomy 11:14-15
'then I will give you the rain for your land in its season, the early rain and the latter rain, that you may gather in your grain, your new wine, and your oil. And I will send grass in your fields for your livestock, that you may eat and be filled.’

The Lord then says that this is what will bring forth the rain. As I said, the land cannot be watered by any other way but through rain. Thus, its sustenance depends on rain. And the rain or the power of the Holy Spirit can only come if we love God, serve Him, walk in His ways and hold fast to Him. He promises to give both the early rain and the latter rain. The early rain is the light autumn rain that softened the soil and prepared it for the seeds that will be sown. The latter rain is the heavy outpouring during springtime that prepared the crops for harvest. This speaks to us of a number of things. For one, it means that if we obey the command of God, from start to finish, from the autumn rain to spring rain, He will give everything that we will need to be abundant in His inheritance for us. It also speaks to us of how we need two outpourings to be fruitful. We will need the anointing that prepares the opportunities God is opening up for us as well as the anointing that helps ripen these opportunities. The early and latter rain also speaks to us of the upcoming revival where we will see the greatest harvest of the Kingdom.

We have been promised rain. I believe the time for rain is fast approaching. But we are to keep His commands for rain to come. God promises that when rain comes, it will usher in the harvest, new wine and oil and grass for the livestock. The harvest may represent the souls that will be won for the Lord. The wine speaks of a fresh joy from God. The oil speaks of a new outpouring of His anointing. Lastly, the grass for the livestock speaks of the natural provision of God.

WARNING

Deuteronomy 11:16-17
“Take heed to yourselves, lest your heart be deceived, and you turn aside and serve other gods and worship them, lest the Lord’s anger be aroused against you, and He shut up the heavens so that there be no rain, and the land yield no produce, and you perish quickly from the good land which the Lord is giving you."

God then offers a warning against disobeying His commands. He says that we must take heed that we are not deceived, turn aside, serve other gods and worship them. It is truly possible that even after a person enters into his inheritance, he could still fall away. Thus, the Lord offered Israel the warning even before they entered into the Promise Land.

There is a sequence to this warning. It starts out with not getting deceived. Getting off the path of God starts with being deceived. The enemy lures a person to thinking that there is something better outside the will of God. When the Israelites entered the Promise Land and saw the enemies, they were deceived into thinking that they can co-exist with the enemies even when God already told them they should not. They were also deceived into thinking that the lifestyles of the enemies are better even though they were immoral and wicked in God’s sight. C. S. Lewis once said that God cannot give peace and happiness apart from Himself for there is no such thing. There truly is no true and lasting peace and happiness without God yet the world and the enemy seek to deceive us into thinking there is.

What then can keep us from getting deceived? We must certainly know and love the truth. People get deceived because of a lack of understanding as well as a heart that is seeking after wrong things. Deception is not only an issue of the mind but of the heart. People get deceived because lies appeal to the desires of their hearts. Thus we need to be lovers of the truth even when the truth goes against our very desires, reasoning, cultures, and conveniences. The Scripture tells us you will know true doctrine if you are seeking to do the will of God. If our hearts are bent on following God, if that is the desire of our hearts, God will reveal and cause us to understand the truth.

However, when a person is bent on doing his will and following his affections, deception will convince him and he will turn aside from the path of righteousness. The Israelites chose the lie over truth and turned aside to follow after the gods of pagan nations in the promise land. As they served these gods by fulfilling the desires of the flesh, they were eventually taken over by these idols and eventually they worshiped them and replaced the true God.

God warns that the result of this is that He will shut up the heavens and withhold rain which will shorten their stay in the Promise Land.

KEEP THE COMMANDMENT

Deuteronomy 11:18-21
“Therefore you shall lay up these words of mine in your heart and in your soul, and bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall teach them to your children, speaking of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. And you shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates, that your days and the days of your children may be multiplied in the land of which the Lord swore to your fathers to give them, like the days of the heavens above the earth."

Thus, He tells them to engrave this command in their lives, in their children, and in their household. Loving God must be the hallmark of our lives. God seeks to see His commandment fulfilled in our personal lives as well as in the lives of our children. He desires that this be our heritage. Our inheritance is in our seed. We must therefore make sure that those who are coming after us will obey God’s command to love, serve, and hold fast to Him and walk in His ways.

Deuteronomy 11:22-25
“For if you carefully keep all these commandments which I command you to do—to love the Lord your God, to walk in all His ways, and to hold fast to Him— then the Lord will drive out all these nations from before you, and you will dispossess greater and mightier nations than yourselves. Every place on which the sole of your foot treads shall be yours: from the wilderness and Lebanon, from the river, the River Euphrates, even to the Western Sea, shall be your territory. No man shall be able to stand against you; the Lord your God will put the dread of you and the fear of you upon all the land where you tread, just as He has said to you."

God promises that if we shall obey this command, we shall conquer every enemy in the Promise Land. Every place that our feet will tread upon shall be ours.

This was a message God addressed to a whole nation. Today, it is also speaking to us corporately. All of us are commanded by God to love Him that He may fulfill His good word on us as a body of Christ.