Deuteronomy 3 PRESS AHEAD After forty years of learning who they were and their limitations, and learning who God is and His infinite power and authority, the children of Israel now began to move toward their goal with events happening to them in rapid succession. Now as they pressed ahead, they saw the power of God at work in them and through them. In God's own way, He empowered the Israelites to do what naturally they could not do. Sihon, king of the Amorites was miraculously defeated and all that he and his people had was now theirs. The giant, Og, king of Bashan and his forces came against them and God gave to His people the power to utterly destroy them. What had belonged to those of Bashan now belonged to them. When God's people are in fellowship with Him, things we think are impossible to accomplish are able to be done. Obstacles we thought were so great are overcome. Barriers we thought were insurmountable are crossed when the sovereign God works on our behalf.
One of the best ways God teaches us is to place things in front of us that are beyond our ability to deal with by ourselves. It is in those times we earnestly seek the Lord and beseech Him with true faith, to do what we know we cannot do. If we do not "trust Him and be not afraid," we will find ourselves in a state of worry and discouragement that we are not able to overcome. Our doubts and fears claim our mind and our time because we are focusing on ourselves and our weakness, instead of on God and His strength. When we are in a state of despair, we need to consider the promises of God and trust Him who is faithful to fulfill them. The problems we face in life are often allowed by our Gracious Father to keep us looking beyond our failed attempts at solving a problem, to His grace that does "exceedingly abundantly, above all that we ask or think."
By divine power, Israel won a victory over Og, the king of Bashan, and all his forces. Now the land on the east side of the Jordan River belonged to the Israelites. The tribes of Reuben and Gad, and half of Manasseh found that the high land there was a good place for their cattle and herds, and were granted that land. The victories over those who came against them before they got to the promised land would encourage all of the nation by assuring them of the presence and power of God with them. They could press forward with confidence in God and have nothing to fear. "If God be for us, who can be against us." There is often a problem that arises among God's people after some significant victory is won. We start to think we did it. We won the victory. It is imperative for us, when a soul is saved through the efforts we have put forth, to reach that person, to give God all the glory. When a miraculous recovery from illness takes place, we must give God all the glory, and thank those doctors and nurses who God used. If a wandering son or daughter returns in humility to the family, we must not claim the magnetism of our home life to be the reason
- we must give God all the glory for answering our prayers.
It is very encouraging to us when the persistent pressures of evil against us are defeated by divine intervention. Such times help us to press ahead in faith to the next objective in our Christian life. Victories are not reasons for us to slow down or stop venturing forward with the divine commission. The attractions of the world will always be with us and against us in this life. The deceitfulness of our flesh will not abandon on- going attempts to bring us down into failure. The god of this world, the devil, will not stop his attempts to discredit the child of God and get that believer to surrender to his enticements. Enemies will be against the people of God until our Lord Jesus Christ reigns. But we need to press ahead, resisting the temptations and fears that beset us; trusting in our faithful God to do for us what we cannot do. Hope and trust placed in our unfailing God who has promised to "never leave [us] nor forsake [us]," is confidence placed in the right Person. "Vain is man who trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm."
Not all the things we hope for will happen to us or for us in this life. Our expectations are usually based on our limited vision of what we or others have experienced, rather than on what the Lord's intention is for us. Much of what we had hoped to accomplish we will not see done. We have only a finite view of things and are in danger of taking credit for victories ourselves. In the work of God among an assembly of believers, there is a variety of gifts being used by God to benefit the whole body. Some things God uses in certain people will never be known by anyone else except that faithful servant and his Master. Other more public uses of gifts may be a very small part of a whole united effort when we are doing a work for God. Each one has a particular segment of work that should be used heartily to press ahead the work at hand. Whatever is my responsibility in any activity or service for God, I should continually press ahead in having confidence in God. By faith I do what is set before me and trust the outcome will be a victory of some kind that will glorify Him.
The Lord God made clear to Moses the fact that Joshua was to be the new leader He had chosen. Moses' responsibility before he died was to make that known publicly to the nation of Israel. In that way there would be no leadership vacuum when God took Moses. The on-going leadership of God's people should be done by men who have been prepared in advance to function in roles suited to them until they become proficient in that work. When a leader passes away or steps down for some reason from the work he has been doing, the training he had received over the previous years should enable those raised up by the Holy Spirit to press ahead in confidence. They should by now have learned to trust in God and act in faith as they guide the Lord's people forward in the work of testimony for the Lord.
Preparation to do a work takes longer than the time it takes to deal with a situation that arises. Much of the training process is general in that principles need to be taught that will be acted upon appropriately, even though a matter arises that has not been encountered before. Moses had known Joshua for a long time and had him share in the work in many ways before Joshua was called upon by God to lead the nation. To be able to function in a leadership role takes time and is not accomplished without making mistakes. Paul wrote Timothy about this and said, "The things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men who shall be able to teach others also."
As Moses reviewed the contract God had made with the people of Israel, both the failures and victories were rehearsed. His leadership, and now the transfer of leadership to Joshua was addressed. Moses wasn't allowed to lead them into the promised land but was allowed to see it from a mountain and envision the day when the people dwelt in peace where God intended them to be. We may never see the results of our labor in the service of God because of our own failures in the work or for some other reason. But by God's grace, we can see by faith the result of labor done for God. Because of that assurance and hope, we must press ahead with what we are called to do, and do it "with our might as unto the Lord, and not unto men."