On Mission with God

The hard question, from the previous post, was this, “If God promised them the land, why did they have to fight for it?”  The part of my answer that resonated with Mr. L was this:

God has promised to meet all of my needs, not necessarily all of my wants, but all of my needs. Does that mean I can go down to the beach, stretch out on a hammock in the shade with a cool drink and wait for it all to fall in my lap? Mr. L is an honest, hard working man. He understands the phrase “the fruit of my labors.”

God promises His provision, but that is in conjunction with our responsibility.   Now, a little more about God’s purposes in His actions.

When we studied the story of Creation, we saw Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. What did God want from them? He gave them only one prohibition. But, what did He want? He wanted Adam and Eve to believe His word and live accordingly. God wanted faith and obedience in the Garden.

When God made His covenant with Abraham, God explained that his descendants would be slaves in Egypt for about four hundred years. After that they would come out of Egypt and enter the land God had promised to Abraham and his descendants. Why four hundred years? The descendants of Abraham would spend four hundred years as slaves because the sins of the Amorites were not yet complete. See Genesis 15:12-21.

In the Ten Plagues on Egypt, at the time of the exodus, we catch another glimpse of God’s purpose in His actions. When we actually read the whole story of the Plagues in the Bible, we find some interesting things. Why did God send the Plagues upon Egypt? God showed His power through the Plagues for four reasons. So that Pharaoh, who was believed to be a god, would know that he was no god. So that the Egyptians would know that their gods were not gods. And so that Israel would know that their God alone is God. And, that God’s name would be known in all the earth. See Exodus 9:14-16.

Why did God’s people have to fight for the Promised Land?

God promised them the land, but wanted them to believe Him and live accordingly (faith and obedience), so they had to fight for it. God allowed the Amorites four hundred years to repent of their sins, but they did not, so their punishment would come through Israel. God shows His power and faithfulness so that His name will be known in all the earth – so that all the families of the earth can be blessed.

See, it really wasn’t that hard of a question.

Imagine that you were reading the Bible for the first time. You had never heard the Bible stories as an adult, though you may have heard a few here and there as a child. That is the reality of many of the people in our house churches.

We’ve been studying through many of the major stories in the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible. We’ve read about creation and the flood, about Abraham and the promises of God as they were renewed with his son and grandson, about the slavery of Israel and the exodus from Egypt, about God’s covenant and Israel’s idolatry. There is a lot of information in those stories. One thing that has really stood out is that God promised some land to Abraham and his descendants.

We’ve been across the desert with Israel. They camped out and sent twelve spies into the Promised Land. The report came back: ten against and two for. Majority ruled. The people proved themselves to be faithless once again.

Now, what’s the hard question in all of that?

For Mr. L, the hard question was this, “If God promised them the land, why did they have to fight for it?”

Of all the questions that could be asked about the story of the twelve spies, that one is not the one I expected. Nonetheless, it is the question I had to answer.

How would you answer that question for a lost person who was reading the stories for the first time? 

I’ll post my answer in a few days. If you would like, you can submit a comment with your answer. We’ll see if we answered it in the same way.