The Lord your God, who goes before you, He will fight for you, according to all He did for you in Egypt before your eyes, and in the wilderness where you saw how the Lord your God carried you, as a man caries his son, in all the way that you went until you came to this place. Yet, for all that, you did not believe the Lord your God, who went in the way before you to search out a place for you to pitch your tents, to show you the way you should go, in the fire by night and in the cloud by day. Deuteronomy 1:30-33
The failure to take the land by the Israelites at the beginning of their journey in the wilderness was explained here in this text. Israel did not take the Lord at His Word and, therefore, did not obey His command. The Israelites lack of obedience and unbelief led to thier wandering and prevented their trusting the Lord who told them He went before them. The cloud by day and the fire by night were the means of God’s direction for Israel in the wilderness. And the same God who went before them and had already searched out a place for them in the Land. His promise was to never leave them nor forsake them.
Jesus made a similiar promise in the NT Book of John, “Let not your hearts be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many mansions; (literally dwelling places)—if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also. And where I go you know, and the way you know.” (John 14:1-4) His departure was to go (before us) and prepare a heavenly home for us, and His promise was to return for us to take us back with Him, to be with our Lord and Savior forever.
Dear Christian friend, Our God of the Old Testament is the same God in the New Testament. He still goes before us. And His promises to us are always, yes, and amen. But our response must be in faith, and to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, that we may be saved. Let us not be like the Israelites of old, whose lack of belief caused the wandering of countless families not be able to cross over into the promised land.
May the Lord bless your walk!
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