“What’s the Deal with the Promised Land?”

As we continue getting ready for the book of Hebrews, we come today to the question, “What’s the deal with the Promised Land?” While there are several answers to that question, we’re getting close to one answer when we answer this – What do you need at the end of a 12 hour workday?

[Pray]

When God called Abraham (Abram back then) out of Ur, He promised him three things; offspring, blessing and land. The Promised Land was the territory of Canaan and throughout Genesis, we heard the promise of it repeated to Isaac and Jacob, even all of Israel when Joseph (at the end of Genesis) said on his deathbed, “…God will visit you and bring you up out of this land to the land that he swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.” The promise of the Land was the promise of a home; the promise of a place to live with their God in peace; even the promise of a place to fulfill their purpose as lights to the nations – calling all people into a relationship with Yahweh who was at work redeeming and restoring the world His people had broken. And the promise of the Land captured the heart of the people of ancient Israel. But you and I live in the United States at the beginning of the 21st century; the significance of the Promised Land has been shrouded by modern wars, territorial disputes as well as incomplete theology. So, understanding what the Land promise means is a little more difficult for us.

So think about what the Promised Land might mean to an Israelite walking out of slavery in Egypt. There was a need in them that Yahweh was meeting in this promise of a Land. He was meeting their need for rest.

They needed rest because after Israel went down to Egypt and was enslaved, they were a homeless people who were forced into bitter work – living and dying only to build cities and work in the fields for the Pharaohs who oppressed them. Think of the weariness of body and soul a person would feel when their first memory may have been helping Dad make bricks for Pharaoh. And they knew death would likely find them in a field they’d just plowed for the king of Egypt.

They were homeless. They were oppressed. They were refugee-slaves. They were tired body and soul. In Exodus 2:23, “the people of Israel groaned because of their slavery,” (literally, they “groaned because of their work as slaves”). Their lives to that point had been typified by painful, fruitless work for a king who did not care whether they lived or died, only that his kingdom advanced. What Israel needed was rest from their fruitless work and the renewal of their whole selves; rest for their bodies and rest for their souls.

Maybe you know what it means to be tired. To come to the end of a long day and feel the need for “home” – a place to warm your bones by the fire; a place to eat fried chicken and black-eyed peas in peace with those you love; a place to lay down and sleep unafraid of the night. Like Israel long ago, we all need a place of rest for our bodies.

But you might also know what it means to be soul-tired. You and I live in a world where we can (and should) work to end human trafficking (a huge ring was just busted in Savannah, GA) but are still be tens of thousands of little girls who will endure life as the objects of a traveling businessman’s fantasy. You and I can (and should) work hard against the ways we ourselves run away from God but we will still find the sin in our hearts to be a powerful enemy. And in the moments when we realize that things aren’t supposed to be this way our souls feel tired. My sin makes me so tired. For some of us, we’ve worked hard to make up for our sins against our God but found that we can’t. So, God remains in our minds as a frowning and terrible Judge who can never be satisfied. For some of us, we’ve run away from God into sex and comfort food and comfortable things; to easy, superficial relationships and working to have “perfect families” – all trying to find rest and refreshment for our weary souls. But we’ve found (at best) only a fleeting rest and when it goes away the weariness is only greater.

The Scriptures tell us the reason for this weariness, this tiredness of body and soul that we experience in this life. We need rest because we, like Israel in Egypt, were born as slaves in the kingdom of darkness; we, too, were born as slaves of a ruler who doesn’t care whether we live or die, only that his kingdom advances in opposition to God’s good kingdom. We were born as slaves to sin and it has left us tired. The crazy thing is that you and I have submitted willingly to sin as our master – simultaneously hating and loving it – and sin gives no one rest.

But for the people of Israel then and for us now, God did what we could not do. He led Israel out of bondage and into the Land of physical and spiritual rest. And He leads us out of slavery to sin and into rest in Jesus, promising rest for our bodies and rest for our souls. In Jesus, God promises rest to us because Jesus is the king who worked on behalf of his people; finishing his work and bringing us into his rest.

When God heard the grief-filled-groaning of His people in slavery, the book of Exodus tells us he “remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob.” That doesn’t mean He’d forgotten them, but rather that this was the time in which He acted in line with that covenant relationship He’d established long ago. So God called Moses and sent him to Egypt to lead Israel out of slavery.

But when Moses got there, things didn’t go like he or Israel thought they would. As soon as Moses told Pharaoh God’s message – “Let my people go.” – Pharaoh simply called them idle workers and sent them back to making bricks, only he added to their burden by refusing to give them the straw they needed. Not only would they have to gather the straw for themselves to make the bricks now, they also had to make the same number of bricks. So, instead of gaining relief and rest from their work as slaves, the people just groaned all the more and turned on Moses, accusing him of putting a sword in the hand of Pharaoh that would kill them all. And Moses turned to the LORD to complain saying, “O LORD, why have you done evil to this people? Why did you ever send me? …(Y)ou have not delivered your people at all.” (Exodus 5, passim)

But then Yahweh answered Moses… [read Exodus 6:1-9]

It is at the same time completely ridiculous and perfectly normal that Israel couldn’t hear the rest Yahweh was promising to them. It says that they didn’t listen to Moses “because of their broken spirit” (that’s their soul-tiredness) “and harsh slavery” (their physical weariness from their work as slaves). When you’re tired – body and soul – it’s hard to believe that things can be different. But belief in the promises of God is exactly what those who are tired need. Still, even though Israel couldn’t hear it, God was rescuing them!

And listen to what he emphasizes He is doing. In vv. 6-8, Yahweh tells His people that He’s going to redeem them from their slavery and take them as His own people and give Himself to them as their God. And He’s going to “bring them to the land that (He) swore” to their family. The Land is going to be the place where they experience rest from their weariness of body and soul and that rest will come as they live in intimacy with their God.

God tells them He Himself will lead them to the Promised Land and when Israel sets out from Egypt, out of slavery and into redemption, they walk following their God who goes before them in a pillar of smoke and fire on their way to the home they’ve never seen; to the rest they’ve never experienced.

On the way, they hear more about this Land that God is giving them. It’s “a land flowing with milk and honey” (Exodus 3:17). Milk was a staple in their diet (right behind bread) so the image of flowing milk means that their basic needs will be more than provided for. But adding honey into the image means the Land is abundantly fruitful, so much so that the best luxuries of rich food will be enjoyed by Israel. The Land itself will be used by God to give rest to His people who have labored so long in slavery.

But also on the way, Yahweh tells them about the rest He is providing for their souls. You might remember the fourth commandment from Exodus 20. Yahweh tells His people, “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy….” He gives them His law to teach them how to live with Him and with each other in the Land to which He was leading them. But then He goes on in Exodus 31:12-17 to assure them that what He promises He will surely give to them. He tells them the Sabbath is a sign that He will give them the rest they need.

[Read Exodus 31:12-17]

Yahweh said the Sabbath was a sign for God’s people, for them to “…know that I, Yahweh, sanctify you.” As the people of God keep the Sabbath, one day in six to rest from the things they normally do to survive, it becomes a sign to them that it isn’t their work that sustains them or sets them apart to the LORD. It isn’t what they do that creates their relationship with Yahweh. Yahweh has already redeemed them. He has already set them apart as a people in this covenant – a covenant that He Himself initiated and kept even though no one in the history of their family deserved it. All the forgiveness they need, all their holiness, all of their righteousness will come to them by the grace of God in the covenant. He rescued them from slavery; He gave them the sacrifices to atone for their sin; He gave them Himself. That is good news for them and that’s the reason why the Sabbath was, more than anything, a delight for the people of God and a day of festivals and feasts, celebrating what God had done for them. And as they embrace Yahweh by faith and demonstrate their faith by resting on the Sabbath, they will live in the Land in the rest of body and soul God meant for them because then their confidence in Yahweh will surpass any confidence they put in what they do.

That rest – knowing that their standing before God was secure because of His grace – that rest was meant to refresh their souls, just as surely as God Himself rested and was refreshed on His Sabbath after creation. God was offering to His people the opportunity to enter into His very own rest – the deep, soul-satisfying rest that we humans born in sin have needed since the beginning.

But God’s rest is what they refused in Numbers 14 when they stood on the edge of the Land not believing Yahweh would deliver on His promise. They heard about fortified cities and huge warriors who stood between them and the rest God promised. And even though they’d seen the mighty works of Yahweh, even though they’d seen the plagues and the Passover and the parting of the Red Sea, unbelief took their hearts and they said they would rather die in the wilderness than walk into the Land. So, God gave them what they wanted. He said that first generation would die without entering into the Land of rest. Though he pardoned their sin, their tired bodies would fall in the wilderness they had preferred over the Promised Land of rest. That is the danger of unbelief. God may give you want you want.

But the promises of God didn’t fail. The children of that first generation – though they suffered for their parents’ faithlessness for forty years in the wilderness – they would go into the Land, for a time enjoying the rest of God…until unbelief took their hearts, too.

Even in the Land, however, even as the people of God enjoyed the place of rest for their bodies and souls, there was an understanding that the rest that was theirs in the Land was not the fullness of rest they needed.

In Psalm 95, the writer worships Yahweh as Creator and Redeemer, looking back to the Exodus when God took Israel as His own people, His very own flock. In v. 7 he urges his listeners saying, “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts…” and connects their need for belief “today” to this story of rejected rest in Numbers 14, when Yahweh swore in His wrath, “They shall not enter my rest.”

Essentially, the Psalmist was saying that even in his day, even as Israel lived in the Land, there was a need to continue believing in Yahweh and embracing His covenant promises by faith. Because if they didn’t believe “today,” they (like their fathers before them) could not enter into Yahweh’s rest.

The Psalmist understood that the rest Yahweh promised was always about more than the physical geography of Canaan. They were already in the Land but he sings of another rest for the people of God – a deeper, complete rest for their body and soul; And he knew it would come in the same way it came to Israel in the Exodus – by believing Yahweh and walking by faith in His promises.

That deeper, complete rest is what the Gospel says has come (and will come more fully still) in Jesus. In him, Yahweh has renewed His promise of rest for His people. Like Israel, you don’t have to work to get it. Like Israel, it doesn’t depend on you. It depends on Jesus, Yahweh in the flesh, whose work on your behalf has freed you from slavery to sin and brought you into the Kingdom of God. You have only to come believing in him and taking him at his word!

That’s what Jesus himself says in Matthew 11. After he pronounces woes on the towns that have not believed him or the mighty works he did in them (just as Israel did not believe Yahweh even though they’d seen His mighty works), he thanks God for revealing the truth to the weak and simple – to “little children” he says – because it pleases God to have mercy on those who can’t help themselves. Then he holds out to anyone who could hear the hope of rest. He says,

“Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28-30)

Jesus said that to people whose souls were weary. They’d worked so long, slaving under the legalistic requirements for salvation that the religious elite had set on their shoulders. They were told that obedience to God comes before redemption. They were told they had to earn their rest from Yahweh.

But Jesus says he embodies that promised rest. Jesus says he is what the Land couldn’t be. And the rest that is offered to us by faith in Jesus is the rest our bodies and souls need.

He gives rest to your soul now saying, “It is finished!” All the righteous works you failed to do, Jesus did on your behalf. All the sin, both original and actual, he atoned for in his death on the cross. And the forgiveness and righteousness of God belongs to you the same way it belonged to Israel long ago – simply by faith. Be at peace, believer, resting in Jesus as the one who sanctifies you and makes you acceptable to Yahweh. God demands nothing more from you for your salvation! All you are called to do is continue believing and live giving thanks to God for what He has done in Christ (and when you don’t, to repent and go back to believing because He who promised is faithful).

And He promises an age is on the horizon that will mean rest for our bodies, too, because in Jesus is the guarantee of the resurrection and the promise of a new heavens and new earth where the weariness we experience here will be no more. It will be the dawn of a permanent Sabbath festival, when your labors have ended and the holiday has begun. It will be the beginning of the wedding feast that will reach into eternity as we sing the praises of the one who has given rest to our bodies and souls.

The promise of rest in Jesus is a promise for the future, but it is still a promise for now. So, how would “rest” from God change your life?

Have you been taught a legalistic gospel that really is no good news at all? If so, Jesus offers you rest for your soul as you simply believe him. If you think Christianity is about following the rules or being at church on Sundays or just plain old “being a good person,” then hear now that it isn’t and living that way is really the essence of unbelief. That way has always been a danger to those who live in it. To rest in what you can do for God is to reject the rest He would give to you in Christ.

Maybe you are tempted to settle for things that are echoes of rest but are not the true rest that only Jesus is. If I look for rest in fitting in here or being comfortable here, then that, too, is a form of unbelief. We are pilgrims here. While we can and should enjoy the good things of this life as God gives them, we must hold on to them loosely and not confuse them with the substance of eternity. Because even though we have rest for our souls now and a sure, promised rest coming, there is still something to do or some suffering to endure in this life. But even in the work that remains for you, you have the promise of the Comforter, the Holy Spirit, who will lead you now just as certainly as the pillar of smoke and fire led Israel through the wilderness.

So, you don’t have to worry when you hear of war or rumors of war in Israel today. The time of that place being the Promised Land has ended because Jesus, our true rest, came to all of us who are weary of sin, body and soul. Because of him, the whole earth will be filled with the glory of God as the waters cover the seas and it will become, when he returns, the new heavens and new earth. Then God will live with his people again in an unending Sabbath rest where all the tiredness of body and soul you experience now will pass away. On this Lord’s Day, our Sabbath, as we remember the finished work of Jesus that earns our rest, let’s use this day to encourage one another to continue believing this Gospel, resting in the sure hope that is ours in Christ.