Deuteronomy 1:1-8 These be the words which Moses spoke to all Israel on this side Jordan in the wilderness, in the plain over against the Red sea… I. TO GIVE A SPIRITUAL DESCRIPTION OF THE LAND WHICH JEHOVAH HATH PROPOSED AS THE END OF OUR PILGRIMAGE, AND OF WHICH WE ALL PROFESS TO BE IN SEARCH. 1. It is a land to whose delightfulness, beauty, and fertility Jehovah Himself had borne the most ample and undoubted testimony. 2. But the land of Canaan was not merely a country known by description, however magnificent and encouraging, as well as unchangeably true, the testimony of God might be concerning it. The spies who had been sent, in whatever guilty unbelief their mission originated, had searched it out, from Dan even to Beersheba; and they had brought with them of the grapes, and pomegranates, and figs, that the people might see, and taste, and judge for themselves. And what was this except a type of Christ, the true Vine, some clusters of which the searching eye of faith may see? 3. It is, moreover, a land of promise; and here is the leading feature of its peculiar preciousness. Jehovah saith not that Canaan is a country which His people might inhabit, if they could win it in their own strength; for then, where were the weapons of their successful warfare, and where the might in which to overcome their enemies? But it is a land which, in the exercise of His free and sovereign grace, He made over to them — not giving it to them because they were a great nation, for they were the fewest of all people, but because He loved them. II. THE INJUNCTION GIVEN BY JEHOVAH TO HIS PEOPLE — "Go in, and possess the land"; and, as it is added in the twenty-third verse, where the command and promise are repeated, "Fear not, neither be discouraged." The kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force. Never imagine that the Canaan which you profess to seek will be your own without a warfare. Fight valiantly, pray fervently, trust implicitly, and you will be made more than conquerors. Neither doubt nor distrust the sure promise and inviolable covenant of an unchangeable God. Oh, how keenly should this Scripture rebuke all loiterers in the holy war! We profess to love and follow Jesus, but when He cries "Go up and possess the land," we willingly linger in the desert of our own coldness and worldly love. (R. P. Buddicom.) Parallel Verses KJV: These be the words which Moses spake unto all Israel on this side Jordan in the wilderness, in the plain over against the Red sea, between Paran, and Tophel, and Laban, and Hazeroth, and Dizahab. |
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