THE EXCEEDING GOOD LAND
‘If the Lord delight in us, then He will bring us into this land, and give it us.’
Let us notice in reference to the heavenly Canaan:—
I. Who they are in whom the Lord delights.—(1) He delights not in the unpardoned sinner. How should He? The carnal mind is enmity against God. The unconverted man is God’s enemy by his wicked works. And how can two walk together except they be agreed? Instead of delighting in the wicked, we are told God is angry with the wicked every day. He is ever whetting His glittering sword; and were it not for the great Intercessor crying out, ‘Spare him this year also,’ He would say, ‘Ah, I will ease Me of My adversaries. That rebellious sinner I have sworn shall never enter into My rest.’ It is the very nature of God to loathe and abhor that which is sinful. ‘Thou art not a God,’ says David, ‘that delighteth in wickedness.’ ‘Surely Thou wilt slay the wicked.’ It matters not whether we profess to be the Lord’s people or not. If our sins are unpardoned, and our hearts unchanged, God delights not in us. These 603,550 Israelites were God’s professed people, but they never saw the promised land. It is impossible for God to view unpardoned sinners with delight. He has long patience towards them, hoping that His long-suffering will lead them to repentance, but after a time His patience is exhausted, and He at length cries, ‘Bind them hand and foot, and cast them into outer darkness.’
Do you ask then, In whom does the Lord delight? (2) He delights in the justified believer. ‘The Lord’s delight is in them that fear Him, and that put their trust in His mercy.’ He delights in those who are sprinkled with the blood of Jesus. ‘Christ hath loved us,’ says St. Paul, ‘and hath given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savour.’ God delights in the justified believer, who depends upon the death of Christ. He smelt a sweet savour in the sacrifice Noah offered after the Flood. So is He pleased with the atoning blood offered in sacrifice for the believer’s iniquities. When He passed through the land of Egypt on that memorable night of Israel’s deliverance He delighted in sparing those houses on which He saw the blood. So does He delight to spare all those whose hearts are sprinkled with the precious blood of Jesus. When He sees you a poor sinner, broken under a deep sense of sin, reviewing your past life, and grieving over your numberless iniquities, and looking with the eye of faith upon your crucified Lord, what does His eye then see? Why, He sees the precious blood of Jesus sprinkled upon your soul, and in you He is infinitely delighted. He sees you dipped, as it were, in the blood of the Redeemer. He looks upon you as having suffered all that Christ suffered.
And how will He manifest His delight in you? This is my next subject. I have described who they are in whom the Lord delights. Now let us consider:
II. Their sure prospect of heaven.—You see the argument of Caleb and Joshua. ‘If the Lord delight in us,’ then we are safe, then we may depend upon His promise,’ then will He bring us into this land and give it us, a land which floweth with milk and honey.’ You say there are many difficulties in the way. And was it not so with Israel? The cities were walled and very great. The inhabitants were gigantic and strong, and they were but as grasshoppers before them; and yet all these difficulties gave way under the guidance and power of their God. And so shall it be with yourselves. ‘God will bring you into this land.’ Who shall interfere to prevent?
The land is ‘an exceeding good land.’ It is a land that floweth, indeed, with milk and honey. ‘There everlasting spring abides, and never-withering flowers.’ Moses said to the Israelites, ‘For the land whither thou goest in to possess it is not as the land of Egypt, from whence ye came out; but the land whither ye go to possess it is a land which the Lord thy God careth for; the eyes of the Lord are always upon it, from the beginning of the year to the end of the year.’ How much rather may we use that language concerning our better Canaan! The land is, indeed, a ‘land which God careth for.’ It is His own residence and pavilion. ‘His eyes are ever upon it,’ because He dwells there. How exceeding good then must be that inheritance!
—Canon Clayton.
Illustration
‘Every one of the twelve saw fertile fields and vineyards; every one of them saw battlements and towers. Yet though they saw the same things, how differently did they see them! What a diverse note there was in the two reports! How different was everything in the eyes of Caleb and Joshua, from what it was in the eyes of the other ten! And the point we can never dwell upon too seriously is, that this sharp contrast in the vision of the land, sprang, not from any difference of eyesight, but from the presence and the lack of faith. It was a laud of possession to Caleb and to Joshua, because they trusted in Jehovah and delighted in Him. It was a land of fearfulness to the other ten, because their faith in the living God was feeble. Both parties had the same facts to report upon, yet how strangely divergent was their tale, and the divergence was the measure of belief. We must learn that priceless lesson when we are young. It is our heart that gives the meaning to all we see. We are all of us spies, and the reports we bring depend not on what we see, but on what we are. That is why we are never too young to pray, “Create in me a clean heart, O, God;” that is why, even in our earliest years, we must learn to walk by faith and not by sight; for a clean heart and an unclean heart (like the twelve spies) look out on the same faces and the same world, yet to the one the presence of God is everywhere, and to the other there is nothing glorious nor great.’