According to the New Testament, the Old Testament account of National Israel’s leaving Egypt and coming finally into the Promise Land is written as an example to us: “Now all these things happened unto them for examples: and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come” (1 Cor 10:11-13). A country, a land flowing with milk and honey, was the Promise made them as the children of Abraham.
With that Promise came a Provision, that is...
a provisional statement outlining not only God’s promise to eventually and ultimately clear the Land of its present inhabitants, but also the terms that Israel must keep to have it so. The Provision was a covenant, which covenant Israel within one generation broke: “And the anger of the LORD was hot against Israel; and he said, Because that this people hath transgressed my covenant which I commanded their fathers, and have not hearkened unto my voice; I also will not henceforth drive out any from before them of the nations which Joshua left when he died” (Judges 2:20-21).
Disobedience brought, as it always does, a Problem: Although God was bound by His personal integrity to eventually keep His promise, His attitude, His motive and His timetable for His own actions now changed. Rather than using the present inhabitants of the Land to aid in Israel’s possession of it (Ex 23:29-30), He would now use them to chasten His people, hoping to bring them back into obedience. He would keep His Promise, but it would be to a succeeding generation, and another, and another, until there would arise a people who would keep the provisions of the covenant. So it is today with Christianity, with the Christian home and the local Church, with the Holy Nation and with America, all, our Lands of Promise.
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