Deuteronomy 3

The victories east of the Jordan River may have helped the Israelites in their faith. The Lord knows our weakness.

In Deuteronomy 2, Moses speaks to the people concerning the land of Sihon. We see human reasons why the events took place that led to Israel gaining his land. But the Lord will not allow His people to stop at horizontal explanations. Above all the affairs of nations, the Lord is God.

That story continues now with a second king, Og of Bashan. The Lord said to Moses, “Do not fear him, for I have given him and all his people and his land into your hand. And you shall do to him as you did to Sihon the king of the Amorites.” Each victory and gift from God should remind us of His power and faithfulness and spur us on to the next.

The conquest generation gained this taste of divine provision through battle even before they entered Canaan. The justice of God against the nations had begun. Our mission began in such a different way, with the power of suffering love and the death of the cross. Even today that worldwide mission of the church continues in the way that Jesus led. We do not go forth to kill, but to suffer and die for the Name. This could only be a victorious plan by the power of God, but the Lord is just as committed to win through the cross today as he was in a very different age to bring a much smaller victory through the conquest of Canaan. We are east of the Jordan, our entrance into heaven, yet the Lord is giving us the Land even now.

Reuben, Gad, and the half-tribe of Manasseh had already experienced the power of conquest and the victory of the Lord. The battle for Canaan itself was still to come for all the tribes, but the people of these two and a half tribes were finding peace in their inheritance.

We die daily. We offer up our bodies as living sacrifices in the Name of Christ, but we also rise again to newness of life in the joy of the Holy Spirit. We have our inheritance already, even on this side of the Jordan, for we are seated with Christ in heavenly realms.

These early experiences of conquest had a point that Moses pressed upon Joshua: “Your eyes have seen all that the Lord your God has done to these two kings. So will the Lord do to all the kingdoms into which you are crossing. You shall not fear them, for it is the Lord your God who fights for you.” This is still a good lesson for us. We battle not against flesh and blood, though we do want to mortify our own flesh, the sinful nature that insists that the cross and the resurrection is the wrong way for us. But this way of Christ is the way of true power. It is the way that our Redeemer leads His church.

Moses was eager for the later stages of true conquest in the land of Canaan. He wanted to stay below to be with Israel in victory, but the Lord would not listen to him. He did allow Moses to see the land from afar.

We live and die according to God's decree. When the time comes for our earthly labors to end, God takes us to higher ground, and we can view the story of the victory of the Lamb from a more beneficial vantage point. We can trust Him with the timing of our release, and with the future beyond our earthly days.