“For the children of Israel walked forty years in the wilderness, till all the people that were men of war, which came out of Egypt, were consumed, because they obeyed not the voice of the Lord: unto whom the Lord sware that he would not shew them the land, which the Lord sware unto their fathers that he would give us, a land that floweth with milk and honey,” Joshua 5:6.

The children of Israel wandered for forty years in the wilderness, waiting to come to the Promised Land that they were to be given.

We know that countless times, that the Israelites had complained about the food that they were eating, even though it came to them from the heavens above.

Every morning the manna was available to them and even meat was sent to them in the form of a quail.

Even though the people continued to complain and were rebellious, still God showed His mercy towards them.

We also know that Moses wasn’t allowed to enter Canaan, but Joshua led the people forward into the land that they were promised.

The patriarch Abraham was promised that his descendants would be given the land of Canaan and that the nations would be blessed through him.

Joshua and Caleb came back with a report that the land was a true paradise but the people who lived there were the Anakites who were descendants of a race of the giants, (Numbers 13:27-33).

And now thousands of years later, we as a body of Christ are still in a sense wandering in our own wilderness, as we await the return of Christ.

Our Canaan still stretches out before us and many still haven’t entered into it, because of the giants in our own lives.

We are still overcome and hindered by the outside and interior influences of those who have barred our entrance into the Promised Land.

Each of us has been given promises of a future that we will enter into, and yet there are “promised lands” that even now, we can be entering into.

Many of those promises that have been freely given to us through the Father haven’t been received yet.

Unlike Moses, we can enter into the land of those promises now.

Our land of Canaan is even right here in front of us.

The giants may well be around us and even some are ‘within us,’ but they can be vanquished.

I realize more and more as we travel physically down the road every week or so to a new destination, that those places that we come to have their own form of a Promised Land for us.

And we all have roads to follow and take to the next destination in our own spiritual travels on this earth.

There is spiritual manna every day that is given to us through the bread of the Son.

We can partake of that living bread and be sustained no matter what wilderness we are in now.

Eventually those places along the roads that we travel will cause us ultimately to enter into our final Promised Land that lies over the distant hills and valleys.

But may we find that Gilgal even now as we cross the river into the plains of Jericho.

There thousands of years ago twelve memorial stones had been erected in the Jordan River, and then moved to Shiloh where the tabernacle was built, (Joshua 4:19-20).

Now the very power of the Ark of the Covenant resides within us through the power of the Holy Spirit.

As that Covenant Ark was carried across the Jordan River, the water receded, allowing the people to cross with each step of the priests.

Now, may our feet cross that river with the same assurance and power that they once had.

 

Selah,
~ Stephen Hanson

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Stephen Hanson of In His Truth Ministries came to the LORD is a special way in 1975 and has prophesied regularly since. In these end-time birthing pangs we are reminded that judgment must first begin with the household of God. Will we be prepared and ready?

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