Numbers 33 MOSES WROTE THEIR GOING-OUT A written record of the journey of the children of Israel was a good way for them to keep track of all the blessings of God they had received on their travels from Egypt to Canaan. Lessons learned on the way through life may be forgotten if we have no account of them. To measure our spiritual growth in the ways of God, and keep a journal of His dealings with us, hopefully will keep us from making the same mistakes over again and having to relearn what should have been learned the first time we encountered the issue. The Lord led the children of Israel all the way during their 40 year journey. He was with them in the more than 40 stopping places on the way. He knew what they needed and heard all their complaints. He provided for them and never abandoned them in spite of their failings.
The number 40, often signifies a time of testing as the 40 days of the Lord Jesus Christ in the wilderness. 40 years was spent by Moses learning what was wrong about Egypt and right about faith in God. 40 years was considered the length of time of a generation and occasionally a number of favor as in the cases of David and Solomon. 40 was the weight of a load for a camel; shekels and measurement were used in terms of 40. The 40 years of Israel in the wilderness is a reminder to us that God allows both good things and bad things to happen to us in this life. In our life in the world, He is with us so we can cast our cares upon Him and He will sustain us. The experiences we go through are ways and times of spiritual growth in the things of the Lord so we can measure ourselves. The Lord knows what is ahead of us in this wilderness and He is there in every incident that befalls us. In danger and need; in despair and discouragement He is there. In the glorious times when we are consciously walking by faith and in times of victory He is there. In times of revival and restoration He is there. He is fully aware of every circumstance in every place. "He knows the way that I take." He knows the goal and the best way to reach it.
The names of the places where Israel stopped are kept as testimonies to God's power and man's weakness on the Israelites journey to the promised land. In our lives we can often identify special places and times that were more than just physical stopping places. At those times our spiritual life and effectiveness was tested and we were challenged to make necessary changes for godly living and service. It may have been a time and place where we were able to evaluate the past, and look ahead to what was our obligation in the kingdom of God. At those times we looked ahead with eyes anointed by heavenly eye-salve and saw more clearly why we are here, where we are going and what we are to be doing. In those times with the people of God today, the same as with the people of God in the past, God demonstrates His love, mercy, justice and grace to His self-willed people.
God gave to His people Israel as a gift, the land He had promised Abraham many generations before. Now they had to possess that gift and make it their own. The idols and idolatrous people had to be dispossessed before the land could be possessed. The Canaanite ways of life and worship were completely incompatible in every way with what expected of His chosen people. The wickedness of lifestyle including the evil of their worship of idols, made coexistence between the children of Israel and the Canaanites impossible. The very ungodly society of the people of Canaan, the immoral and sinful practices that were common among them would spread like an infectious disease among God's people so there could be no mixing possible. Such a contagious spiritual disease would lead Israelites to the rejection of the holy God and acceptance of the immoral lifestyle that would lead then to the divine judgment of God upon sinful people.
We have to get rid of the old manner of life we once practiced and move ahead in our new life deliberately by faith and obedience to God. We cannot allow the wickedness the world practices, coexist with our new life in Christ that God has given us. Like the people of God in the past, the pagan practices and unbelief of those in the world around us have to be removed completely from our lives in order for us to flourish.
Corruption and compromise have to be dispossessed from our lives before we can be free from the tension of the world and be able to be "unspotted by the world."
It is not easy to remove sin completely from our lives because often sin seems harmless and we are attracted to it. It may be we are afraid to act against those things we know are unacceptable because we fear disapproval from the people we associate with who are not believers. A habit from the past life that we continue in will cause us serious problems the farther on we go in life. If an evil habit or favorite sin has been dealt with in a half-hearted fashion, the next time it comes up it will be much harder to deal with. The actions God expected from His people in the past was to totally clear the promised land of idols, idolatry and those who worshipped them. Otherwise, after they had possessed the land and distributed it by lot, the ungodly who were still there would influence them to do evil. If that happened , then God would reverse the process and do to Israel what He wanted done to the ungodly inhabitants of the land of Canaan.
There is really no way light and darkness can coexist. All you would have is a dim twilight. There is no way for right and wrong to coexist. All that can be done would be ineffective compromise. The power of Satan cannot coexist with the power of God because one is completely evil and the other is the epitome of goodness, righteousness and holiness. For those who are the people of God, we cannot serve two masters. Those who try will fail no matter who they are or what they try. We must commit ourselves to righteousness and godliness, even though those around us may criticize, compromise, complain about us and charge us with being unreasonable for not allowing sin to have even a little slack.