The Israelites were worn and weary, with the desert journey. For forty
years they had been wanderers, pilgrims, in a land of sand, rocks,
barren waste and mountains. God so blessed them that their garments
did not wear out, and He gave them water from the rocks and food from
Heaven and flesh from the far countries. But this was not enough.
They had been promised a land that flowed with milk and honey, a land
of rest, an inheritance. God had promised to Abraham that He would
give them the land of Canaan for a possession, and that it should be
inherited by all his children forever. While this promise had been
made centuries before their trials in the Wilderness, yet God had not
forgotten His pledge and His people had not forgotten His promises.
The great encouragement which Moses always brought forward that their
strength might be renewed, was that God had made them a promise of a
land of their own. With all their trials and disappointments, their
mistakes and their failures, their doubts and perplexities, God was
with them and the Land of Canaan was just beyond the Jordan.
It is well for us to keep in mind the journey of the Israelites,
between the Red Sea and the Jordan; between the land of slavery and the
land of liberty. For indeed we are making just such a journey now. We
are on the march to our Heavenly Canaan. It is called a rest. It is
called an inheritance. What blessed descriptions these are! We could
want no better.
This wilderness of sin is a land of weariness. The way is hard, the
mountains to climb are high. The rocks which cut our feet are many. The
loads which we carry cause so often fainting, almost death. There is
no rest here. We have temporary resting places where we may sleep and
refresh ourselves. But the day comes, and its work, its weariness. Even
in our religious lives and work, we experience the same fatigue, we are
exhorted not to grow weary in well doing, not to faint by the way, why?
Because we are in a land of weariness, of toil, of exhaustion!
“To him that overcometh, I will give a crown of life. To him that
overcometh, I will make a pillar in the temple of my God and they shall
go out no more.” Our abiding place there will be as permanent as the
pillars of the temple. We cannot be removed. Surely we will not want
to go out any more. We will be satisfied to dwell in the temple of God
forever. Then it is called an inheritance. Our children inherit our
possessions. There is no law to prevent them from coming into what has
belonged to us. It is their own when we leave it by every right of
human and Divine law.