Kingdom Rising
Numbers 34:16-17
The LORD spoke to Moses, saying, “These are the names of the men who shall divide the land to you for inheritance: Eleazar the priest and Joshua the son of Nun.”
Way back in Genesis 12, hundreds of years before Numbers 34 takes place, God called a man named Abram and made a special vow: “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation.” So Abram went, as the LORD commanded. Later on down the road, when Abram settled in the land of Canaan, God came again to him in Genesis 13, saying, “Lift up your eyes and look from the place where you are, northward and southward and eastward and westward, for all the land that you see I will give to you and your offspring forever.” So Abram looked up with childlike eyes and believed. Still, later, God spoke again in Genesis 15, reiterating those former vows while adding to them: “I am the LORD Who brought you out from Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to possess.” And after cementing that promise and assuaging Abram’s honest doubts with a sacrificial covenant, God sealed the promise in verse 18: “To your offspring I will give this land, from the river Euphrates, to the land of the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, the Amorites, and Canaanites, the Girgashites and the Jebusites.”
Fast forward now to Numbers 34 and marvel at the budding of those old vows beginning to sprout from the earth. This multitude doesn’t quite outnumber the stars just yet. In fact, this generation will have to fight faithfully for their inheritance if they desire to attain it—and they may still fall short. But while the Kingdom may not be towering over the world in Christlike glory, giving rest to all the weary, look how much it’s grown since the days of Abram! Don’t miss the progress of redemption, friend! What started out as “I’ll show you a land” has become “divide the land” in a matter of a few generations.
Just think, friend: even today, in our far more advanced stage of God’s promise-keeping enterprise, we haven’t seen the half of that promised Kingdom in all its fullness.