In the Promised Land

The parallel has often been offered that the story of Israel in Egypt, moving through the desert, and into the Promised Land is the story of us: Slaves to sin, baptized, live life in the desert, and end up in heaven, the Promised Land. It's a fine parallel, isn't it? Except it doesn't quite work itself out. You see, when the children of Israel got to the Promised Land, they did not enter a land without weeping, a place of eternal bliss, "the happiest place on earth", like heaven is supposed to be. No, they went to war.

The Bible does indeed use the story as a parallel, but I would like to suggest that when we draw a connection between heaven and "the Promised Land", we miss the biblical point. I suspect it is due largely to our propensity for our love and demand of comfort. "If God is a good God, He will make things comfortable for us in this life." Well, it ain't necessarily so.

Let's take the story of Israel coming out of Egypt and see what real parallels there are. The Bible refers to slavery in Egypt as a parallel of slavery to sin. Good. Paul speaks of their passing through the Red Sea as "baptism" (1 Cor 10). That's okay. But we err when we think that living the Christian life is "the desert experience" while "the Promised Land" is heaven. So, what can we draw from those?

Well, first, let's recall Jesus's experience. In Matthew 3, Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist. What happened next? In Matthew 4, He was "led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil" (Matt 4:1). That was a genuine "desert experience". So let's go with that. What did Jesus face immediately after His baptism? He faced temptations. He faced, in fact, the temptation. Whom would He follow? Whom would He trust? And like Israel in the Sinai, His responses to these temptations decided the rest of His ministry. Their choices resulted in death; His resulted in salvation.

Is the desert the rotten experience that we tend to think? I suggest it is not. There are valuable lessons learned there. There is dependence. "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God." There is clarification. "You shall worship the Lord your God and Him alone." Jesus came out of the desert and started His ministry. Israel came out of the desert with the dead weight lost ready to do battle. The desert may not be pleasant, but it is also neither useless nor dispensable.

In Scripture, "faith" means "to be convinced" (not "to believe something when there is no reason to"). Israel's shared experiences beginning at the Red Sea and carrying on through God's sustaining of them in the desert built the reasons they needed to trust God when it came to doing battle in "the land of giants". Thus, the "desert experience" was the necessary and indispensable preparation to doing the tasks God had assigned. In Jesus's case, it was ministry and ultimately death. In Israel's case it was war and ultimately conquest of the Promised Land. And that is our parallel. The Promised Land is not heaven. It is Christian living. It is the course of the victorious Christian life. Learn in the "desert experiences" to rely on God and then enjoy victory in Christian experience. We'd like to skip that desert stuff, I know. Jesus didn't. Followers of Christ shouldn't expect it. But, oh, the sweet rewards of learning to trust in God. Christian life is a war (Eph 6:13ff). How often do you get to go to war when you can't lose?